The Peter Attia Drive - #241 ‒ Living intentionally, valuing time, prioritizing relationships, and more keys to a rich life

00:00:00.000 Hey everyone, welcome to the drive podcast. I'm your host, Peter Atiyah. This podcast,

00:00:15.500 my website and my weekly newsletter all focus on the goal of translating the science of longevity

00:00:19.840 into something accessible for everyone. Our goal is to provide the best content in health and

00:00:24.780 wellness full stop. And we've assembled a great team of analysts to make this happen.

00:00:28.920 If you enjoy this podcast, we've created a membership program that brings you far more

00:00:33.320 in-depth content. If you want to take your knowledge of the space to the next level at

00:00:37.340 the end of this episode, I'll explain what those benefits are. Or if you want to learn more now,

00:00:41.740 head over to peteratiyahmd.com forward slash subscribe. Now, without further delay, here's

00:00:48.100 today's episode. My guest this week is Rick Elias. You may remember Rick as we released a podcast with

00:00:54.920 Rick back in November of 2019. I think it was episode 79. We spoke at great length about his

00:01:02.180 experience on flight 1549, also known as the miracle on the Hudson, in which his plane went down and was

00:01:08.760 miraculously saved by Sully, the pilot in the Hudson River. If you haven't yet listened to that

00:01:15.060 interview, I recommend going back and doing so prior to this conversation, because in this conversation,

00:01:19.180 we don't really repeat any of that amazing story. And I think that that story alone is worth the

00:01:24.660 price of admission. In this episode, we talk about a bunch of things. We talk about what's been new in

00:01:29.680 Rick's life since the last interview, which has been over three years. We talk about raising kids

00:01:33.680 and how we should think about our relationship with them as they grow older. Talk about the importance

00:01:37.520 of looking forward and not looking backward and how that ties into aging. In fact, there's a line

00:01:43.120 that I use in the epilogue of my book that came directly from a discussion about this with Rick.

00:01:50.040 Talk about the importance of true intentionality in how we live our lives and how we often don't

00:01:55.900 really value our time if we think about it in relation to that. Talk about Rick's view on

00:02:00.100 relationships and the impact that you can have on others, the importance of staying true to yourself

00:02:03.580 and the importance of struggles and more. This conversation is a great follow-up to the recent

00:02:08.860 podcast with Bill Perkins. Both Bill and Rick have a lot of insights to share.

00:02:12.400 Rick, great to have you back.

00:02:42.400 Great to be spending time with you. Obviously, we had dinner last night, which was wonderful.

00:02:46.720 Thanks for coming to Austin.

00:02:48.600 That was such a treat last night, getting to see you in full dad mode and beautiful family and

00:02:54.880 great meal and lots of protein.

00:02:57.640 Indeed, lots of protein. Although we're in touch constantly from the standpoint of the listeners,

00:03:03.220 the last time they got to interact with you was probably almost exactly three years ago,

00:03:07.420 2019. Sometimes when I have folks back on, especially if it's a technical podcast, I kind

00:03:13.000 of want to talk about, okay, well, what's new information since that time? Well, this obviously

00:03:16.480 isn't very technical. Hopefully, folks remember a lot of the story that we talked about. But

00:03:21.600 nevertheless, what do you think of as the highs and lows for you of the last three years? Because

00:03:26.240 I know there have been both. Gosh, Peter, go back to that time. And we had a specific conversation

00:03:32.320 about leadership. And we were talking about leaders are only leaders in a time of crisis.

00:03:37.840 And we had talked about how the last decade had been super benign and how do we show up in crisis?

00:03:43.680 And then 60 days later, 90 days later, boom, COVID hits. So a lot changed if you think about it.

00:03:51.460 The last three years have been the most tumultuous three years, no matter where you are in the world,

00:03:56.440 not in any one country. And then you layer that with lots and lots of changes. My kids have gone

00:04:02.300 to college. My mother, which we talked a lot about in the podcast and my father-in-law and my aunt,

00:04:08.720 which was like a second mom, all passed in that window. Our business went aggressively into offense

00:04:15.140 when the market changed because we saw some opportunities. We bought some very meaningful businesses

00:04:20.160 and then everything kind of further imploded in one way. And then, you know, now we're living in

00:04:26.180 the middle of a war, in the middle of uncertainty and all of that. So the world like always keeps

00:04:31.160 changing and surprising us. We tend to project kind of today's reality into the future, but it's always

00:04:36.360 changing. And how much of your even keel around all of these events, personal and professional,

00:04:42.840 do you attribute to what happened in January of 2009 in terms of perspective? I mean,

00:04:48.440 a lot. I really, I don't have a lot of lows and I don't have a lot of high highs. I just,

00:04:54.620 to me, as this understanding that this too shall pass and doing what you can in the moment when

00:05:00.240 you can, it's all that you really can do. And if you don't tie yourself up to the outcome as much,

00:05:05.620 and you're just really trying to stay in the process, I'm able to navigate this in great part

00:05:10.420 because of that experience. One of the things we spoke about in the first podcast that you always

00:05:15.060 have these moments of podcasts that sort of stick with you. And that's probably true for a listener.

00:05:19.020 It's certainly true for the person doing the interview. There were a handful of moments.

00:05:22.240 One of them was this image of raising children is playing a game of tug of war that you eventually

00:05:29.360 lose. Now you can't lose it immediately. You can't just say, ready, go, let go of the rope.

00:05:35.060 But, but the time they're off to college, they've pulled you over the line metaphorically. At the

00:05:42.320 time we had that discussion, you were still engaged in that tug of war that your kids were not yet in

00:05:46.660 college. Now they are. I'm in the middle of that game, but I think about that constantly. Maybe start

00:05:53.760 by retelling a little bit of that and explaining kind of if at all your thinking has evolved or what

00:05:59.780 you've learned about that game in the last few years. So that was probably the last meaningful

00:06:05.340 lesson I got from my mom. She had onset of Alzheimer's and we would have moments of that.

00:06:12.100 And I came and I was having coffee with her and I asked her some advice about our daughter who was

00:06:16.740 playing teenagerhood. So she looked at me and said, my son raising teenagers is a tug of war. And then

00:06:23.460 there was this silence. And then she says that you ultimately must lose. And it is like you said,

00:06:29.920 such an insightful, all encompassing statement about parenting. And it's really the transition

00:06:35.740 from really being, they'll always be your kid, but you will not always be their parent.

00:06:41.900 And it's that transition from no longer being their parent and maybe being more of a coach,

00:06:46.440 maybe be more of an advisor, a friend, all of that. You will always treat them like your kid. So

00:06:51.080 in our example, we're on the other side of this. I don't think of myself anymore as the parent. I

00:06:58.620 will always be dad, but I'm not the parent. So the conversations are very different and I love it.

00:07:02.900 There've been times where both of our kids have looked at us and said, I really appreciate your

00:07:07.420 opinion, but this is what I'm choosing to do. And to me, that's a sign of really good kind of sense of

00:07:16.260 your own decisions. And we disagree with them, but it is good to see them in their journey of,

00:07:21.080 adulting now on their own.

00:07:23.120 Yeah. I don't know why I'm not looking forward to it, but it's one of those things that you know

00:07:26.360 is healthy, good, important, but...

00:07:28.320 You know, but have you noticed a difference in teenagerhood and how they start pushing away?

00:07:32.400 Oh yeah.

00:07:32.800 And I've always believed that the reason why teenagers are such a pain is so that you don't

00:07:37.660 miss them when they leave. And I tell you, we love our kids and we're lucky that our kids love us

00:07:42.240 back, but we high-fived each other when we dropped them off. We did not cry. We were like,

00:07:47.660 you know what? They're ready. We're ready. And empty nesting, it's a beautiful thing. You know,

00:07:52.280 you still talk to them all the time and you still see them and all that. Then the funny part is that

00:07:56.840 they're doing the same things that drove you crazy. You just don't see it. So it doesn't feel as intense.

00:08:03.620 So let's talk a little bit about, well, I want to bring up something that happened kind of

00:08:08.380 recently over the summer that I thought was spectacular. So early summer, you called me and

00:08:12.280 said, Hey, I'm having a get together in July, a couple of days, and I'm inviting. You gave me a

00:08:19.080 bunch of details, none of which meant anything to me, right? What I took away from it was you wanted

00:08:23.120 me to come out for a couple of days to your home. And there was going to be a bunch of other guys

00:08:27.260 there, at least one of whom I knew, but most of whom I did not. And you prefaced it by saying,

00:08:33.000 look, I know it's a big ask. I know how much you hate to travel. I know I had just come back from

00:08:37.100 travel and I was just leaving the next day. I would have to fly back and then hop right on a

00:08:40.920 plane, but you really urged me to come. And interestingly, I thought it was a birthday

00:08:46.920 and I sort of committed that I would think about it and then talked about it with my wife and said,

00:08:53.540 you know, I think this is special to Rick. I'm going to go because I have a feeling it's one of

00:08:57.360 those things where I'll spend the entire flight there kicking myself for going. But if I don't

00:09:02.880 go, I suspect months later I'll kick myself for not going. So there's an asymmetry and

00:09:07.460 regret. So I ended up going and it had nothing to do with your birthday, which I think was like

00:09:12.320 five months earlier. So I don't know where I got that from. Tell us about what was the motivation

00:09:17.780 for that and why do you think that ended up being a really special time for, were there 40 of us there

00:09:23.940 or something? About 30, yeah. 30, okay. When you go back through your year and you go back and ask

00:09:29.700 yourself what was truly memorable of the year, at least in my case, there may be eight or 10

00:09:36.320 things that you will remember well into the future. And what is universal about those things is they're

00:09:44.700 usually experiences and they're experiences with people that you have a deep connection with.

00:09:50.100 So I have become very, very focused on creating experiences with people that I love as a way to

00:09:57.240 create memorable moments of the year. Because I think that really is what we grow old with is the

00:10:03.140 memories. But the memories alone are not enough. It's the memories with people and the more that

00:10:08.780 kind of the richer. So I wanted to experiment with the concept of let's create a friend summit. Let's

00:10:14.720 bring 30 super interesting friends. The uniqueness of it is everybody's been curated by me. Everybody

00:10:20.840 there was a friend. So I think immediately everybody showed up with like, okay, if they're Rick's

00:10:26.140 friends, I'm going to be open-minded. I'm not there kind of doing like, what do you do? Who do you are?

00:10:31.460 It's more around how do you know Rick? And then what is interesting about each other? You know, we had a

00:10:35.900 lot of the same participants speak that we curated that we didn't over-orchestrated, but we curated the

00:10:41.800 agenda. And then we had all sorts of things around food and magician and all this other stuff.

00:10:46.800 And the greatest thing happened, which is one of the things that I love most, is when my good

00:10:52.260 friends become great friends. And I know for a fact, because I was with Rick Hendrick a week ago

00:10:58.500 and we spent 15 minutes talking about you, about Matt Walker, about other people, that you guys all have

00:11:04.320 become friends. And what greater currency in life than spreading love through friendship. And it was a huge

00:11:11.520 home run because everybody there, even those who came as a gift to me, I think left with the gift of new

00:11:17.380 friends. And at our age, it's not easy to make good new friends. And it is something that we can

00:11:23.640 do by leveraging our own friendships. And you've been good to me in this regard. I asked you when I

00:11:28.480 heard your interview with Matt, I said, hey, would you introduce me? And we've become dear, dear friends.

00:11:33.940 Like I talk to him all the time. So I don't know, it's all around this currency that friendships really

00:11:39.380 matter in life, memories, memorable moments really matter. And how do you bring all that together?

00:11:43.820 I was surprised by the number of guys I walked away from that meeting with who I couldn't wait to see

00:11:51.280 again. And, you know, it's like, hey, when I'm in LA, I'll give you a call. When you're in Austin, you give

00:11:55.760 me a call. What did you learn during that summit? Because there was some structure to it as well, where

00:12:02.100 there were folks that, you know, it was kind of like a bunch of fireside chats, effectively. Did anything

00:12:06.460 surprise you? Did you learn anything?

00:12:08.180 I learned don't schedule something like that right after a vacation because I spent my whole vacation

00:12:13.660 thinking about, in essence, kind of interview most people, including you. So that was a lesson,

00:12:19.740 which is create some gap between something in your relaxing time. I learned that, you know,

00:12:26.600 I think all of us, no matter what, neat moments like that, where no matter who you are to the

00:12:32.360 outside world, you know, you're the one and the same in that group. So, you know, there were

00:12:36.120 professional athletes, there were governors, there were CEOs, there were true people like our

00:12:41.640 exception in their field, like you, but everybody there was the same. I think that this knows this

00:12:46.460 essence of the guard can be down from everybody. And after me, I got to like hang out with 30 of my

00:12:52.140 best friends and give lots of hugs and catch up and have moments and create memories. And, you know,

00:12:57.600 relationships take a lot of effort. And that was a really efficient way to like make huge deposits

00:13:03.780 into a bunch of important accounts.

00:13:05.740 I'm blanking on his name. He was the older gentleman on the very last day that spoke.

00:13:12.020 Walter Green.

00:13:12.900 No, no, no, not Walter. I remember Walter.

00:13:14.540 Marshall Rausch.

00:13:15.680 No, Walter was amazing in his own right. And actually, Walter is someone I want to have on

00:13:19.120 the podcast.

00:13:20.220 You should.

00:13:20.860 You know, it's really funny. We used to be neighbors in San Diego and didn't even know it.

00:13:25.440 Oh my goodness.

00:13:26.140 Lived in the same neighborhood, like lived a mile from each other.

00:13:28.700 I love Walter Green. You know, Walter mentors a hundred people like us and we're all better because of it.

00:13:34.460 So that's someone on our hit list for podcast guest. So Marshall, who's, I don't know,

00:13:40.760 the guy's 200 years old.

00:13:42.420 99 actually.

00:13:44.080 And I think from Marshall came one of the most interesting lessons that you drew out. And it's

00:13:50.260 a lesson about looking forward versus looking backward and how that ties to age. Do you want

00:13:55.080 to recount that story?

00:13:56.460 Yeah. So I've known Marshall about 20 years. I've had, I don't know, a hundred lunches with Marshall.

00:14:02.580 So when I met him, he was probably 81, 82, and he was still driving and he'll come in. And

00:14:08.820 there was something about Marshall. There is something about Marshall that is incredibly

00:14:13.060 appealing and attractive. It is that every time you see him once a month, every other month,

00:14:19.280 he has a list of things that he has learned that he wants to talk about. He has ideas about things he

00:14:25.440 wants to do. He's constantly evolving and thinking. And what I've learned from Marshall is that your age,

00:14:32.220 really can be told by what you think about aging of our spirit, not of our bodies, not of our mind,

00:14:40.900 but of our spirit. It's really about which mirror you're using. Are you using the rear view mirror

00:14:47.140 or the windshield?

00:14:48.460 I told a story there, right? Where he's like completely worried about one of his kids and

00:14:53.080 really thinking about giving them a tough lesson because it is time. And he's asking for my opinion.

00:14:59.240 I said, Marshall, how old is your son? And he goes, 72. So it was a point of, he never stopped

00:15:05.400 thinking and doing that. And that's how he leaves. He turns a hundred in February and we're going to

00:15:09.160 do something super special. I hope. The other story I like about him was I think when he was 96,

00:15:14.180 he came to you with a pretty serious business idea and it was really predicated on trends over the next

00:15:21.140 10 years. Correct. And it was like, look, today, this isn't necessarily an enormous opportunity,

00:15:26.820 but here's all the data for why 10 years from now, this is a home run. We need to act now and make

00:15:33.640 sure we build this business. And you're sort of thinking you're 96 years old. Why are you thinking

00:15:39.220 about a business opportunity that's going to mushroom in the next 10 years?

00:15:43.480 And he was a Senator for North Carolina for 26 years. There's a highway name after him.

00:15:49.320 He's uniqueness. He's a Jewish, but he made all his money selling Christmas ornaments,

00:15:53.540 like all the things that are so unique about him. And he's incredibly close to his kids and his

00:15:59.740 grandkids. And he sees the world so clearly, even when you talk about current events and politics today,

00:16:05.520 he has a wisdom about, he literally played basketball at Duke in 1939, I believe.

00:16:12.120 You know, he went to World War II, this guy and all of that, you know, and he has had tremendous

00:16:18.540 hardships. He lost his wife, he's lost some kids and the dignity by which he handles it is just

00:16:24.620 distilled in the wisdom of life that I find super attractive.

00:16:28.700 I really think, and again, this is one of those, there's like the soft science and there's the hard

00:16:33.760 science. I spend most of my life thinking about the hard science of living longer, the things that we

00:16:38.160 can measure, the metrics we can measure, the biomarkers we can measure, how we can predicate

00:16:43.400 our assumptions of risk based on X, Y, and Z. But there's simply no question that there are these

00:16:49.120 soft metrics that we can't quantify, but they must matter. And I look at my dad as an example of this.

00:16:55.320 So my dad, who is 85 years old, not the healthiest guy in the world, but he has outlived everybody in

00:17:01.660 his completely unhealthy family by more than two decades. This is a guy who came from a family

00:17:07.060 where there were, you know, nine kids, one died as a child, the other seven have all died. Again,

00:17:13.580 nobody came close to his longevity. And to be clear, he's not remotely a beacon of health.

00:17:19.400 Even as your dad, huh?

00:17:20.640 No, no, no. Wouldn't listen to a thing I've said if my life depended on it, nevermind the fact that

00:17:26.840 his life depends on it. And look, he probably doesn't have that many years left on this planet.

00:17:32.040 But I deep down believe that his relatively modest longevity, again, relative to what I think his

00:17:38.620 genetic capacity comes down to exactly this phenomenon, is he never is looking back. He is

00:17:45.780 planning. He is planning. He's got an idea. I mean, when he should have been retiring, he bought

00:17:52.100 quarries. He bought swaths of undeveloped limestone land, you know, in his sixties with the idea that

00:17:59.960 this is going to be, you know, there will be a demand for high quality limestone, dolomite and

00:18:04.760 granite in the next 30 years. And he's out there in a quarry every day, barely able to walk because

00:18:11.220 his knees are so messed up. And I'm convinced to my greatest sadness that one day he's going to fall

00:18:18.180 on these rocks and smash his head or something. But the idea of just sitting around couldn't

00:18:24.180 possibly occur to him, let alone relaxing. Now, again, we could talk about whether I think there's

00:18:29.260 some, maybe one should enjoy life a little bit more, but for him, I think enjoyment is building,

00:18:33.920 is thinking about opportunity. Like there's this niche for this market of limestone that nobody has

00:18:39.080 really appreciated the value of, and that's where he's going to pour himself into. And it reminded me

00:18:44.660 of that story with Marshall. I've studied a lot of people that are finishing life well,

00:18:50.840 seventies and eighties. I think we're all pretty predictable. We just got to find patterns that we

00:18:57.060 relate to that relate to us. And I have lots of friends like, you know, Henry Kravis is a very,

00:19:02.900 very good friend. Henry's in his mid to late seventies. And you know what? He is a complete stud.

00:19:09.100 And I'm sure he's changed and evolved a lot as one of the great leaders in wall street,

00:19:14.280 but you sit down with him and he has more energy and more passion. And he's thinking more about the

00:19:20.080 future. And I think there's something to be said by staying in the arena. Even if you downshift,

00:19:25.280 I think there's something to be said to your brain stays connected. You stay relevant. You don't feel

00:19:30.820 all because you don't feel irrelevant. Have you read Arthur Brooks's book from strength to strength?

00:19:36.400 I've read excerpts. I listened to your podcast. I talked to him. I don't know him as well as you

00:19:41.500 do, but we know each other. I think a lot of what he says, it's around this and this crystallized

00:19:46.280 intelligence that he talks about. I think it's interesting because I lack about 30 points of IQ

00:19:50.920 vis-a-vis the two of you. Like literally I listened to the podcast and I'm like, all right,

00:19:54.940 I had to pause and go look at some stuff in the dictionary. But to me, the crystallized intelligence is

00:20:00.660 more to me of the evolution of our brains and the aging of our brain, but that way that we

00:20:06.380 stay productive for the tribe, for the society, more than a elevation of, it is an evolutionary

00:20:13.160 of. Notwithstanding, I thought your podcast with him was tremendous.

00:20:17.940 I really enjoyed speaking with Arthur. I enjoyed his book. I read it twice. And I really,

00:20:22.660 it hit home a lot because even though I'm not yet 50, there's simply no question. I don't have

00:20:30.800 the horsepower I had when I was 20 or 25, like where I feel like I was really at my cerebral peak.

00:20:37.980 And I think as he talked about and wrote about the transition from fluid to crystallized intelligence,

00:20:43.880 it really gave me some comfort in accepting this transition so that to your point and why I brought

00:20:51.420 this up is, yeah, I think it is important to stay on the field, but I also think it's important to

00:20:56.660 understand that it's okay to move to a different position. Well said. I think that replacing this

00:21:02.260 notion of like, I don't have the horsepower is redefining what that horsepower is that gives us

00:21:08.240 continued feeling of growth. I think the importance of life is really not necessarily the looking forward

00:21:14.400 is constantly growing. I think the day that you stop growing is the day you age.

00:21:19.460 I agree with that completely. And this kind of brings it back to what we talked about a minute

00:21:25.140 ago, which is, I mean, I am sad when I think about my kids not being little and I'm not sure what

00:21:32.180 that's about, but you know, we talked about it very briefly at dinner yesterday because you got to see

00:21:36.540 both my boys in complete action, which we're not shy about. We don't make any apology for the fact

00:21:42.980 that they are high energy. We totally love it. You were so physical. I really was so

00:21:49.060 reminded me of my relationship, but I also felt your joy and love.

00:21:54.020 What Jill and I often say to each other, you have to say this in the bad times. So yesterday they were

00:21:57.880 well behaved, but there's equal number of times when, I mean, you'd think that they're psychotic.

00:22:04.220 You can't believe how poorly they behave, you know, like literally Jill will kill me for even

00:22:10.140 telling this publicly. Like the other day she walked by the youngest one and I don't know where

00:22:14.360 he just took his pencil and stabbed her in the butt. Unprovoked. It's not like she said, go to

00:22:19.820 your room. But in those moments I say, I know it can be really hard. If I could freeze time, I would,

00:22:26.180 which is a totally irrational thing to say. Why do you think that is? Did you feel that way when you

00:22:31.480 and your kids were at this stage, which is you are their world. You're still daddy, not dad.

00:22:36.980 And I think this is an amazing stage and I feel fortunate to be going through it

00:22:41.660 a little later in life when I think I can appreciate it. I think had I been presented

00:22:46.460 with this 20 years earlier, I wouldn't have had the maturity to embrace it as much. Maybe.

00:22:53.300 I think that's right. You may not have the same energy you would have had, but you have plenty.

00:22:57.200 And especially, you know, and I think that's straight off that we have when we have kids younger

00:23:01.620 or older. The great thing about having kids is we get to kind of almost relive life. And I think

00:23:07.040 there's something very subconscious about rediscovering things or seeing things through

00:23:11.760 their eyes that brings the child back in us. You know, I think that child is a safe place in all of

00:23:18.280 our personas. I also think that there's this notion of this is how we are relevant in the world. This is

00:23:25.860 how we are going to stay here when we're no longer here is through them because a lot of us will live

00:23:31.740 through them. And that's why we are so committed to it. And it's such a powerful job to have and

00:23:38.820 responsibility that is heightened in every sense and the good and the bad. And the reality is that

00:23:43.400 all the things that they're doing are just normally growth moments of their own brain development and

00:23:49.600 all that good stuff. And we talked a lot about it the last time in the podcast, but I think we were

00:23:54.300 parents. Harry, the youngest, is obsessed with math right now. You know, he's five. He's starting

00:23:59.780 to learn how to add. And the other day we were sitting there. He's sitting with me on the couch.

00:24:04.280 Reese, three years older, is sitting at his desk doing some coloring. And he goes, you know, when I'm

00:24:10.200 a hundred, Reese is going to be a hundred and three. And then he looks at me and he goes, how old are you

00:24:16.380 going to be? Wait, 70? And I go, no, I wish, buddy. I'm going to be long dead when you're a hundred.

00:24:22.960 But if I were alive, I'd be, you know, 140, whatever. First of all, that's an amazing thought

00:24:28.580 to me because I do think that kids today will quite easily be a hundred years old. You know,

00:24:32.440 today to make it to a hundred right now is a pretty remarkable feat. You know, centenarians

00:24:38.200 are exceedingly rare, about 0.004% of the population. I tend to think that kids that are born now will

00:24:45.480 reach that level at a far greater frequency. And so it was a bit of a sobering thought. It's like,

00:24:51.680 I'm looking at this little chubby, cute kid that I can't stop wanting to squeeze and hug and kiss

00:24:57.720 and realizing he's going to be a hundred year old man one day and I'll be probably long gone.

00:25:02.780 All of that stuff is sobering. I guess it brings me to the idea of how do you, I mean,

00:25:07.820 you strike me as a person for whom a lot of purpose came from your kids. And so as your kids are older,

00:25:13.260 do you feel less of that? And has that caused you to put more of your sense of purpose into

00:25:17.380 something we'll talk about later, like philanthropy, which is also very important to you?

00:25:21.680 I'm very challenged by this notion of how do I help evolve our relationship into more of a

00:25:28.960 coaching relationship in a way that I can be still their father, but also be a sounding board

00:25:35.560 amongst many others. And this morning I had a conversation with my son, a lot around something

00:25:41.320 he's dealing with. And I said, I'm going to talk to you as if you were a mentee of mine. And I gave him

00:25:46.880 what I thought as an advice and said, you got to do whatever you want, but I want you to know that

00:25:51.860 I am a resource for you. You're not alone in solving these problems. And just like you have

00:25:56.680 other people. And I really enjoy kind of this morphing of the relationship. It's early for us,

00:26:01.020 but by the way, I think that's why people enjoy grandkids so much. It's not that I can give him

00:26:06.360 back when all that, yeah, yeah, that kind of really matters. It's a chance to almost do it again,

00:26:10.840 do it again with lower expectations of like, oh, is it reflecting on me as a parent or is it all

00:26:16.760 this stuff is just, we have this innate desire to perpetuate ourselves. And we do that through our

00:26:23.680 kids. Yeah. You've probably heard me talk about the centenarian decathlon. And for me, one of the

00:26:29.140 greatest motivations personally, and I do find that for many of my patients, because we talk about this

00:26:35.260 in such detail, I think it's true for them also is what they want to be able to do with offspring and

00:26:42.780 more importantly, the children of their offspring. And you've probably seen me do this, but we do an

00:26:48.760 exercise where you kind of build a timeline, you know, you put your age down and these are your kids.

00:26:54.180 And then you start to estimate, you know, or bracket. My kids will likely have kids when they are this

00:26:59.500 age, this age, this age, I will therefore be this age. And you don't need to spend too long doing this

00:27:04.780 to come to the realization that the things that you want to be able to enjoy doing with your

00:27:10.500 grandkids will range from the really extravagant, like I want to take them on the greatest vacation.

00:27:17.300 We're going to go to Egypt and we're going to scale the great pyramids and go down the Nile. Okay,

00:27:21.800 well, that's great. Alternatively, it's going to be the really mundane, like I want to be able to play

00:27:25.300 catch. I wanted to share with you a story that I haven't shared yet, which is after the plane crash,

00:27:30.960 a couple of weeks later, I was watching my daughter perform in kindergarten. It was a really

00:27:34.300 important moment of the realization of like, for now, this is my most important purpose,

00:27:39.800 which is to really help my kids become adults. And it came full circle without me knowing it.

00:27:46.220 I was at her graduation from high school. She's a sophomore now in college and they're coming down

00:27:53.260 and it was outside because of COVID and they're coming down this kind of hallway in the same emotion

00:27:59.540 that had not happened for, I don't know, 11 years happened. I started bawling uncontrollably as I

00:28:06.960 saw her. I didn't expect it. It came out of nowhere. I'm not a crier. I'm not afraid to cry,

00:28:12.620 but I'm not walking around. And it was a realization that I had lived to the moment where she had become

00:28:18.760 her own person. And the graduation from high school was a lot more meaningful than just the

00:28:24.300 graduation, at least in my experience, it was a realization that she can fly on her own now.

00:28:29.300 It was a moment. It was a moment for me in that realization, but then also realizing that, okay,

00:28:34.600 I now have more capacity to broaden purpose, right? I think we're all seeking purpose. So it's not like

00:28:39.460 you finish it. It's just you evolve it. I was very grateful to have had that experience because

00:28:45.200 seldomly in life do you get to see the end of the circle come back. It's usually a line that goes

00:28:51.640 somewhere or nowhere. When we last spoke, I think you talked a little bit about

00:28:57.200 any follow-up or interactions you've had with either the crew from that flight or Captain

00:29:02.120 Sullenberger himself. What's the latest on that? I imagine that, I don't remember how many people

00:29:07.560 were on that flight, 100 and- 154 plus the crew, 158 total.

00:29:11.600 There's 158 of you that I'm sure some people have passed away due to natural causes since, but

00:29:16.060 that's a very tight-knit group, I'm guessing. Do you all collectively celebrate that anniversary

00:29:20.380 together? There's always something and there's Facebook groups and all that stuff. I've been

00:29:25.320 more on the fringe. I've participated in a couple of things. It's just time. I got a lot of what I

00:29:30.420 needed, especially at the time from my closest friends and family. But you asked me at the last

00:29:36.040 podcast, because we were presenting him that award at the Point Sky event, have I seen him enough and

00:29:40.820 why not? And I told you that I was planning to do something well. It is happening. I don't know if

00:29:46.200 you know this, but the plane itself, which it's worth seeing because it is banged up like a plane

00:29:53.920 will be banged up if it hit a wall at 150 some miles an hour. So it really is not the plane,

00:30:00.080 it's a shell of the plane. It sits in Charlotte. And for a bunch of different reasons, the old

00:30:06.140 hangar and museum, we lost all the facilities. So the airport, they were going to move the plane to

00:30:12.000 Dallas. Wait, it ended up in Charlotte because that's where US Air was based on it. So just by

00:30:17.380 total coincidence in your backyard. Yeah. And then there was a lot of risk that we were going to

00:30:20.860 lose. And there's a bunch of other planes there, but that's the anchor plane. So a number of us

00:30:25.120 rally in the community. Is that normal, by the way, after a plane wreck that I would have guessed

00:30:29.660 that they normally scrap planes? I think this one because of the historic value, right? And so a group of

00:30:35.560 people in Charlotte rallying, I made a donation with asking for the naming rights. So the thing that

00:30:41.720 I'm going to do to honor Sully and the crew and perpetuate this notion, I was doing my job,

00:30:46.900 remember that statement, is we're going to name the museum after him.

00:30:50.960 And the museum will be in Charlotte?

00:30:52.140 In Charlotte. So it will be the Sullenberger Aviation Museum of the Carolinas or something

00:30:56.580 like that. But it will be his name. And I called him to ask for his permission. And he was

00:31:01.460 interesting, hesitant at first. And then he called me back and I said, okay, let's do it. And the naming

00:31:06.880 and all of that will happen in January. So it'll be a big event.

00:31:09.400 14th anniversary.

00:31:10.160 Yeah. And it'll be a beautiful day. But I wanted to find something that will outlast both of us

00:31:15.580 as a way to honor his commitment to doing his craft and to saving our lives.

00:31:20.780 By this point in the podcast, I think most people, if they haven't familiarized themselves

00:31:24.720 with this story, should probably go back and listen to that section of our podcast is the way I think

00:31:28.420 you tell that story. This is probably the longest version you've told of it because obviously you

00:31:32.400 have a TED talk where you go through it in some detail, which is really moving. But I think also just

00:31:37.260 the, you know, I'm still, so remember how I said from our first meeting, there are a couple of

00:31:42.100 things that stand out. The other thing that really stands out from our first podcast, which is

00:31:45.960 something you sort of said in almost passing. Do you know what I'm about to say?

00:31:50.020 No.

00:31:50.340 I've shared this with you, but it's when the plane is coming down and you're going through,

00:31:57.520 once you realize there's about 10 seconds until you're going to die, you said a couple of things.

00:32:01.700 One, it's very calm. You weren't scared. You were sad. You're very sad. And you put your hand

00:32:10.180 on your leg or on your other hand, on your arm and said, I love you. That's the last thing you said

00:32:16.180 yourself before you would have died. Close my eyes. And I just couldn't believe that. I was like,

00:32:19.980 that's the last thing I'd ever think to say. What would you have said?

00:32:22.720 I probably would have said nothing. I probably would have just been very sad. And yeah, I don't

00:32:28.860 think there would have been any gratitude or anything like that in me. Have you actually asked

00:32:34.140 any of the other people on the flight what they did, said, thought in the last 10 seconds?

00:32:39.780 No, I haven't. And I will, because I think it would be interesting.

00:32:43.020 I would, there's a whole book there.

00:32:45.400 Yeah, for sure. And remember that we had no suffering. I imagine if you're dying,

00:32:51.460 you know, in some level of distress, you know, your mind is in a very different place,

00:32:55.840 coping.

00:32:56.200 But that's what makes this such an interesting, quote unquote, control experiment is,

00:32:59.900 yeah, you weren't on fire.

00:33:01.040 And it's 90 seconds. You know, a lot of people have near death experience that lasts a second or

00:33:04.920 two seconds. I've reflected a lot, Peter, on the TED Talk was a moment in time and it was all around,

00:33:11.460 okay, here's kind of the three regrets I felt as the plane was coming down. And we talked a lot

00:33:17.300 about them in the other podcast.

00:33:18.780 We should revisit them, by the way, just so that folks can see it all in one place.

00:33:22.640 So it was this notion that everything changes in an instant. So time really, really matters.

00:33:29.260 It was this notion that relationships are at the core of the richness of life,

00:33:34.240 but yet we spent a lot of time with our ego kind of leading the charge. And then this notion with

00:33:40.620 around my kids, which is I wasn't living true to what I discovered was my true purpose at the time

00:33:46.760 or my main, main purpose, which is seeing my kids. And it was the regret that I felt at the time of my

00:33:52.520 look like death, to have missed it, to have not been clear that that really was the, I don't know,

00:34:00.900 the map, you know, the key to living, you know, a better life. You know, as I reflect on all of that,

00:34:07.040 what's interesting is nothing has really changed, but it's not around regrets.

00:34:12.200 Say more.

00:34:12.480 You know, for example, instead of it being around everything changes in an instant, so

00:34:19.640 living the moment, it is that, but it's wrapped around a notion of having true intentionality

00:34:25.400 about how we live our life. And true intentionality about how we live our life is a really

00:34:31.580 big, deep bucket that I've spent lots and lots of time thinking about. It has a lot to do with

00:34:38.280 time. And the reality with time, and I've heard this and I love it, is like the problem with time

00:34:43.760 is the same problem that we have most things that are free. We don't value it. If we like had to get up

00:34:50.540 and like really spend real money on time, I bet you we will behave differently. And the problem with

00:34:56.880 time is, as we have learned about sleep, is you have to do a lot of things to extend your time. Some so that

00:35:02.060 you're more productive the next day, like sleep, and some like nutrition and exercise so that you have

00:35:06.700 more time, right? So a lot of what you are really trying to do is convince people that there are

00:35:11.360 things they can do to have more quality and meaningful time. But it is a lot more than

00:35:17.400 that. To me, to live with intentionality is around kind of combining a lot of things into where we spend

00:35:26.460 our energy and what the things that we stop doing and how do we kind of reverse things that we don't

00:35:32.020 want to do. So I really think that this notion of having complete intention is really at the core

00:35:38.960 of living a more rich life. So I feel my life to be very rich because, for example, I have 242 weeks

00:35:46.500 left until I turn 60. You know, I have all these little exercises where I'll say, okay, what are my

00:35:52.260 big intentions this week? Because, you know, at 60, I'm in a different energy level. I'm probably paying

00:35:57.700 a bunch of physical debts back. There's a lot that will come back. And I live in chunks of my life with

00:36:04.460 just great intention. It is because of that. Because I realize that everything really is fleeting, but

00:36:11.460 it's not just around time and time only. And that manifests itself. In the second one, when you talked

00:36:16.860 about relationships, what I realized is that, you know, a little bit of the event that we were talking

00:36:22.440 about, I want to continue to meet new people that I can learn from. I am addicted to learning and

00:36:27.820 growth. And the best way to do that is through other people. So the amount of energy I put into

00:36:33.880 friendships, because it's not relationships. You know, the good news is when you're in business,

00:36:38.260 you have a lot of deal friends. The key is how do you convert them into real friends? Who do you want

00:36:43.040 to convert into real friends? And to be a real friend, talk about a skill to be learned. Talk about it

00:36:49.880 being a never-ending journey. Now, how do you approach that? So I'm really, really, I have an

00:36:54.760 enormous amount of great friends, more than most, because I spent the bulk of my time on that.

00:37:00.540 Now, if you go back to time, there's only three things you can do with it. You can waste it, which

00:37:05.440 a lot of teenagers do. You can use it in things that are value, and then you can invest it. There's

00:37:11.720 nothing else you can do with time. So the ratio of what you do with those three components has a lot to

00:37:17.400 do with it. So guys like you and I, at least, we don't waste a lot of time. The question is,

00:37:23.000 how much are you using it for things that gives you pleasure or things that you want to do,

00:37:26.880 and how much are you investing? And that will ultimately continue to pay dividends in life.

00:37:31.120 So if you look at your time, you'll know how much of that it is. And if you're using too much in

00:37:36.240 something, at some point it becomes wasteful, if you may. So relationships are super rich. And then

00:37:41.060 the last thing is, you know, this notion of purpose is how do you expand that? So I spent a lot of

00:37:45.480 time trying to continue to evolve the gift and not look at it as a moment in time, but as some level

00:37:51.440 of a map into the future and as I continue to age. What do you think the next decade holds for you in

00:37:58.820 terms of Red Ventures? So maybe give us a bit of an update on, well, maybe again, remind people what

00:38:04.700 Red Ventures is. It's not an easy thing to explain. It's not like we make a widget.

00:38:10.000 It's funny because I explained it in the last podcast three years ago differently than I'm going to explain

00:38:14.260 it now. It really is a, basically a private equity platform of companies that we control.

00:38:20.380 So instead of investing as a passive investor, we control a bunch of companies. And we have about

00:38:25.000 17 companies. Those companies, the fact is we don't own a hundred percent of them, but we control all of

00:38:30.680 them. And they're all over the place. They're in Europe, in Brazil, we're starting the first bank in

00:38:35.560 Puerto Rico in 26 years. And then we own a bunch of brands in the US, mostly digital brands. We own

00:38:41.160 services companies. So it's just really a platform of tech and data and digital and really, really strong

00:38:46.620 culture and a purposeful place to work. How many employees do you have now?

00:38:50.620 We are up to 4,500 employees.

00:38:53.640 When I came out to visit you for a business review circa 2014, 2015, how big were you then?

00:39:02.580 1,200.

00:39:02.900 1,200. Beautiful campus. Is it still the same?

00:39:06.760 It's still beautiful. It's just people are not going in as often. The world has really changed.

00:39:12.440 Our relationship with work has really changed.

00:39:15.140 For better?

00:39:16.100 For both. Like anything in life. Everything has pros and cons. I think COVID did a lot of good

00:39:20.900 for society. I think COVID realized that this fixed way that we thought about our relationship with

00:39:26.800 work didn't have to be. And that those rules got established way early in the industrial age for

00:39:33.180 control. And control is a false premise in every regard. But at the same time, I'll tell you my

00:39:39.360 reflection on this and what I worry about a little bit and a little bit of a different topic. But

00:39:43.340 I think that one of the unique things about the US, and you don't see this in a lot of other

00:39:50.240 countries, having studied a lot of Latin American countries, is that the decade between 20 and 30

00:39:56.740 is a decade of true apprenticeship. And that all these companies and corporations and hospital

00:40:02.760 systems, they're really training people into their second third of life. So you spend the first

00:40:08.700 decade of your life. Hopefully, if you're lucky, you have good enough parents where you learn a lot,

00:40:12.760 then school becomes a place you work. And then whatever your profession is, that third decade of

00:40:17.120 life is incredibly important. And that's where you really build a lot of depth and learn on someone

00:40:23.280 else's nickel and all this stuff. And I worry that we're going to look back in 10 years and the US

00:40:28.620 will have lost a sense of competitiveness because a lot of these people coming into the workforce are

00:40:34.640 getting a fraction of the tutoring and coaching and experiences and intuition that they would have

00:40:41.100 had. And 30, 40 years from now, we will have lost a lot of our edge because we stopped investing in

00:40:46.820 the people and their creativity and their skill. Meaning that's a downside of not being in an

00:40:52.580 immersive culture. At least for that segment or that age of the population. Now, I would argue that

00:40:57.460 I think what we learned in COVID is flexibility is king and we should celebrate and look for

00:41:02.220 flexibility. And we shouldn't be able to sacrifice raising kids if you're a working mother or working

00:41:08.100 father, or we don't have to travel crazy like we were traveling. So a lot of that is baked into

00:41:15.000 changes in the rules of engagement. But this is all a moment in time. If we go into a recession,

00:41:20.680 some of these habits may return. I hope we never lose the flexibility we gain. I don't love going

00:41:26.220 to work every day at the same time and leaving at the end of the day. I love having a lot more

00:41:30.340 freedom. And I think most people do. Do we know if, I mean, presumably there are certain jobs that

00:41:37.360 work really well remotely versus not. And there are presumably certain types of people who work really

00:41:42.860 well remotely versus not. I don't and haven't spent much time looking at any of this, but I imagine given

00:41:48.200 the size of your company and the footprint of Red Ventures, do you have any insights into that?

00:41:53.400 You know, I think there's two components to that. One is productivity, which is,

00:41:56.580 at least in some functions, fairly easy measured. So we have lots of editors that write real content.

00:42:01.620 They are as productive or more. They don't have to commute and do lots and lots of things that are

00:42:06.740 distracting in the office. There are some places in engineering where that is also true.

00:42:13.000 Maybe some of the places in the backend engineering where you're not doing a lot of collaboration.

00:42:17.160 And those people, net-net, you would argue that remote, not hybrid, very different things.

00:42:23.000 Net-net may be more positive. Now, the second side of that equation, I think being alone or being in

00:42:29.080 your home every day has a real tax on mental health. We're designed to be with others. And I don't think

00:42:36.600 we know the real value or tax on that. Now, a lot of the other jobs, hybrid in my opinion,

00:42:42.880 where you're collaborating with people, where you're learning experientially,

00:42:46.440 where you're building intuition, it's a healthier way to gain expertise on something.

00:42:52.020 Do you mean hybrid like you come in sometimes and you work remote sometimes?

00:42:55.560 There's a lot of things we do during the week that you don't need to be in a place. My hope is that

00:43:01.480 ultimately work evolves into what are the things that require people to be together versus what are

00:43:07.240 not. And then depending on where you are in your career and your proficiency, you have even more

00:43:12.020 flexibility. How long do you think you'll be doing Red Ventures as your quote-unquote day job versus

00:43:20.480 working on some of the many things that seemingly are of just as much interest to you but are more

00:43:26.720 on the non-profit side? I feel super healthy in great part thanks to you. Literally, I feel like I've

00:43:32.360 at least slowed down a lot of the aging and I'm really grateful. So as long as I feel healthy, I love

00:43:38.800 this perch. I don't, back to the Marshall conversation, I don't intend to, I never want

00:43:43.520 to replace happy with happier in anything in life and I'm happy as can be. You know, would it continue

00:43:48.740 to evolve? Yes. Would it continue to change? And one of the big ahas in COVID, you know, COVID to me was

00:43:55.380 unique in so many ways. One, I got to do something for a second time, which we usually don't do in

00:44:00.780 life. When something kind of goes away, goes away. The fact that we got our kids home for like a year

00:44:05.820 and a half, it was wonderful. But for me, Red Ventures will continue to evolve but what will

00:44:11.240 happen is a lot of our companies will gain independence. So instead of Red Ventures being

00:44:15.800 one thing, we will find the right outcomes and marriages of a lot of our businesses with the

00:44:21.440 right partners and allow those people to become CEOs of their own businesses and will create

00:44:26.080 monetization and return for our investors. But our ability to stay private and stay independent and

00:44:31.800 stay away from all the other stuff that public companies have to deal with, it's non-negotiable.

00:44:37.100 So I see Red Ventures in a bizarre way returning to its roots in the next 25 years to a much simpler

00:44:43.000 thing where most of our businesses will evolve out. We'll continue to buy businesses in the next 10

00:44:48.620 years. But my guess is when I turn 80, I'll have 15 people and we will be hoping to give all our money

00:44:54.260 away. Speaking of giving money away, you've recently signed the giving pledge?

00:44:59.340 Yeah, about a year and a half ago. Tell us a bit about that. I mean, I think people have heard of

00:45:03.420 the giving pledge, but what does it mean and what type of people can sign it and what are the

00:45:07.780 implications of it? It was not something that we did without a lot of trepidation. It's something

00:45:12.840 that really Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett started and it was around creating consciousness

00:45:18.020 of the people that have had more luck than others and creating real wealth to create a commitment

00:45:22.900 and responsibility that you will give at least 50% of that wealth back. That's what the pledge is about.

00:45:28.020 That's during your lifetime as well, correct?

00:45:30.000 Yeah, or when you die. It doesn't matter. But you are committing, that's the pledge you sign and

00:45:34.560 there's hundreds of people that have signed it all over the world, right? So it's a bit of a

00:45:38.440 community too where you learn how to give it in ways that reflect what you want to do and all of that.

00:45:43.780 So there's real value to being part of the community. When we first met, we had the privilege of having

00:45:49.360 dinner in Omaha with Warren Buffett and they were trying to convince people at the time,

00:45:53.960 our kids were still in high school and we didn't want this burden because it does create negative

00:45:59.160 energy around it. And it gives a lot of people-

00:46:01.500 Meaning because it makes public the amount of wealth that you have?

00:46:05.160 It's a threshold, which at the time we were private companies, so no one had known. But when

00:46:09.160 the New York Times wrote an article and all this stuff, it kind of became public what it was.

00:46:12.580 But it's just more, I wanted to shelter them from anything that negative that may come out of that.

00:46:18.200 They were too young. So we waited until they went to college. So when they went to college,

00:46:22.520 they called back and said, Hey, you said when your kids were going to college, you'd do it. And

00:46:25.860 when we did, and we're grateful we did, but we were planning to do this anyway. And we do it more

00:46:31.360 as a pledge that hopefully others realize that this only works if it works for everybody. It doesn't

00:46:37.020 work if it works only for a few and putting it back into the system and the core, that's what you're

00:46:42.620 hoping to do. Did you ever hear the podcast I did with John Arnold? I did not. Okay. So definitely

00:46:47.720 one you'll want to listen to. So John and Laura Arnold, who've also signed the Giving Pledge,

00:46:51.640 are probably two of the most deliberate philanthropists I've ever met. John was,

00:46:58.100 I think you could say hands down, the most successful energy trader in the history of

00:47:02.400 energy trading. He was a trader at Enron right out of college and became their most successful

00:47:08.580 trader. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, I think his personal book of business was generating a billion

00:47:14.160 dollars a year for Enron, just his own personal trades. When Enron imploded, he was handed a

00:47:20.140 severance check of something like $5 million. And he took every penny of it, put it into his fund

00:47:26.520 and went on a 10-year tear of unparalleled returns, something like 30% per month.

00:47:33.140 Okay. So, you know, at the time that John shut his fund down, which I think was 2011 or 2012,

00:47:40.440 before the age of 40, he basically completely turned himself to what he's been doing for the

00:47:47.860 last 10 years, which is just philanthropy, but doing it with a level of rigor and analytics.

00:47:53.260 In other words, he's done something that I think is really interesting and highlights something really

00:47:58.360 hard, which is it's actually not that easy to give away billions of dollars. I mean, if you want to do it

00:48:04.560 intelligently, I mean, you can obviously give money to entities that build buildings, build a

00:48:10.260 hospital. Those things are great. But, you know, when you look at the sort of projects that John is

00:48:14.400 interested in, it takes time. And I think John and his wife correctly came to the realization that they

00:48:21.520 can't wait until they're 65 to start doing this. They will run out of time because they have too much

00:48:27.920 money. How do you think about that balance? Because I know there are things that you are really

00:48:33.440 committed to. Maybe we can talk about some of those things. The two that jumped to mind, of course,

00:48:38.260 are the children. I forget the exact name for undocumented kids who are not born here, but

00:48:44.180 brought here, young, educated here, and then can't work. And then, of course, a lot of disaster relief

00:48:50.200 in Puerto Rico, but also just infrastructure and building up there. So let's talk a bit about these

00:48:54.200 things. So first, I really think that only governments have the muscle to really solve problems. And I think

00:49:00.420 even people with the wealth of Bill and Melinda Gates have come to a lot of that conclusion.

00:49:05.240 You can attack singular problems and maybe eradicate a disease or something like that if

00:49:09.960 you have billions and billions of dollars. But through systemic issues, I think the role of any

00:49:14.020 nonprofit is to gain momentum, to create a roadmap, to create the case for governments to really put

00:49:20.160 real funding behind things or create the systemic changes to changes. I don't think that the illusion of

00:49:25.940 we're going to fix a real issue. To me, this is more around-

00:49:29.340 But there is something you, or when I say you, I don't just mean you personally,

00:49:32.940 but I mean, there is something that the philanthropist can do that the government

00:49:35.800 won't do, which is you can take a risk financially that a government can't do.

00:49:41.400 You can demonstrate a proof of principle that, as you said, then becomes a template or roadmap

00:49:46.120 for a policymaker to say, well, here's a pilot study that was done that demonstrated X, Y,

00:49:51.560 and Z. This was very high risk. We never would have done it, but oh my God, look what we learned.

00:49:56.040 This is now something that could be replicated at scale. And you bring in, in other words,

00:50:00.700 the philanthropist can effectively function as the angel investor or the early stage VC,

00:50:05.640 and the government comes in as the PE investor.

00:50:08.880 And in that regard, I think bringing an entrepreneurial spirit and putting real

00:50:13.120 business savviness behind it is really important. I think it was Jeff Bezos a long time ago. He said

00:50:18.740 something around in philanthropy, you're not really necessarily looking for the perfect

00:50:24.340 business plan. If you're helping somebody, you're doing good. And that's a little of my approach,

00:50:29.160 like do things that are good for the world. And it's good for one person, then you're doing

00:50:33.760 something and trying to do it in scale and with purpose and all of that. As it relates to what

00:50:38.400 we're doing, Peter, it keeps evolving. We're really focused on this 16 to 24. That's our concentration

00:50:45.860 on people that are under-resourced. And it is more than undocumented kids, although we just

00:50:50.360 closed our applications again. And these kids are still in limbo, meaning there's no path to

00:50:55.600 anything. They just have this basically permit that gets renewed, but no one can get the permit

00:51:01.000 anymore. So every year, about 80,000 kids are graduating high school that have no ability to

00:51:06.340 get a work permit. It's just insane.

00:51:08.680 So just so people understand, these are kids that came here undocumented. So they're born in another

00:51:12.780 country. They've come here. They've grown up here though. They've gone to high school here.

00:51:17.840 They could go to college, but they wouldn't get financial aid because of course they're not

00:51:21.600 residents. Tell me what actually happens. How many of them say, I have to go back to the country I was

00:51:26.580 born in versus I'm going to get in college and somehow take a bunch of debt without any financial

00:51:31.660 aid? My guess is that 95% of them end up taking minimum wage jobs or jobs that are underground and

00:51:39.780 stuff like that. There was a process there where you can get a DACA permit. There's 650,000 of these

00:51:45.540 kids that have DACA permits, so you can work. Unfortunately, in the last administration, DACA got

00:51:51.040 rescinded. So there's no new DACA. So if you're a high school student and you're 17, you can't get

00:51:57.220 a work permit. So at that point, you grew up here. Your family's now here. Going back to your original

00:52:03.320 country of origin may happen, but it's really, really hard. You have no roots there. You have no

00:52:07.640 resources. You may not even know the language for that matter. That's the craziness of this.

00:52:12.500 We have invested- What's the distribution of where these kids are from? Do we have a sense of-

00:52:15.900 Probably 90% Latin America, probably two-thirds of those Mexico just because of how they come in

00:52:21.700 illegally. But you see them a lot from Southeast Asia and other places. Our yearly scholarship grant,

00:52:27.720 we just got 1,200 applicants. It was literally close last week. I believe over 300 of them have

00:52:34.080 close to a 4.0. Unweighted GPA. You're providing scholarships for these kids to go to college

00:52:39.360 because they don't need to be residents to go to college. They just need the funding.

00:52:42.900 The funding. Yeah. So you don't get federal financial aid and about half the states don't

00:52:46.240 give you in-state tuition. So it's almost like you would have to go to school as a, you know,

00:52:50.440 to a private school and pay 60, 70 grand a year.

00:52:53.240 And is the investment you're making, Rick, that if these kids crush it in college,

00:52:58.600 they're going to get an H-1B visa on the back end, or they're going to land in some legitimate

00:53:03.080 dual intent visa with a path to citizenship based on their education?

00:53:07.660 Well, until three years ago, because they were all DACA, they had a path to getting jobs. And

00:53:12.780 there's many now that have jobs. We have 520 kids in the program. About half of them are graduating,

00:53:17.540 but we keep thinking this is the last year. This is the last year because Congress just needs to

00:53:23.040 pass a law. There's plenty of reasons why it hasn't happened. But now the kids that are going

00:53:27.680 to start graduating next year, they're literally in limbo because they can't get a work permit.

00:53:32.980 So the H-1B visa and all of that can't do it. You can figure out a way to marry and then take that

00:53:37.960 route. You can look for asylum, but those are all really, really hard paths.

00:53:42.040 I didn't realize that. So you're telling me that if a kid goes through a scholarship,

00:53:47.540 oh, because they're not doing it on an F-1.

00:53:51.120 They're not DACA. That expired. That's the argument now is like,

00:53:55.520 not only do you have the DACA kids in limbo, but now you're like 80,000 kids every year that

00:54:00.600 were... And the crazy thing is we invest in them in primary school and secondary school. We don't

00:54:05.000 ask the question when they go to our school systems, but then we invest all that money.

00:54:09.800 Why don't we make them taxpayers? We have an issue. There's like this massive decline of kids

00:54:15.320 applying to college. We have all this college infrastructure with not enough students.

00:54:19.700 We're not educating them and make them pay taxes and give them a path, whatever that is,

00:54:24.720 to citizenship. To me, this is one of those things that makes absolutely no sense. But

00:54:29.180 what we did is we expanded that to, after the George Floyd event, we as a company kind of rally

00:54:34.780 around. We have to find opportunities into our inner cities and have used a lot of the same platform

00:54:40.020 to broaden it. It's called Road to Hire where Golden Door Scholars is a part of it. But here's

00:54:45.240 something really cool. We start teaching coding in North Carolina, mostly black and brown students,

00:54:51.540 mostly from Title I schools. We go into the high schools and start teaching there. And then we do

00:54:56.440 an apprenticeship program and then we partner up with all the corporations in Charlotte.

00:55:00.240 We are graduating more black and brown kids with computer science expertise than the whole North

00:55:07.080 Carolina system is now. This year, we have over 220 of these kids graduating. And they all have jobs

00:55:14.320 on the other end. So we give them an apprenticeship. And then we have a whole different-

00:55:17.980 Sorry, these are high school or college?

00:55:19.600 They're not going to college. These are kids that are 22, 23, 24, mostly black and brown kids that

00:55:24.240 we're teaching them how to code. We pay them to teach.

00:55:26.600 So they're high school grads that didn't go to college.

00:55:28.520 We give them a two-year apprenticeship where we're paying them on behalf of all this corporation.

00:55:32.600 And it's working tremendously. Here's the crazy thing. This 21-year-old kid who was driving,

00:55:36.820 moving over after two years of the apprenticeship, they are as competent in technology as someone

00:55:41.700 who graduated from NC State.

00:55:44.200 How do you think that can be scaled? What do you think is the magic in that? This is a great

00:55:49.180 example of what we said earlier. You can't solve that problem across the country, but can you

00:55:54.120 provide a roadmap for that?

00:55:55.860 You start with the jobs. And at the end of the day, there's hundreds of thousands of jobs that are

00:56:00.280 unfilled because they don't have the skills. So pick this. By the way, it's the same thing with

00:56:03.880 high school teachers today. There's a shortage of, I believe is 350,000 teaching vacancies that

00:56:11.360 is projected to be, but we get, we pay 42,000 in most states and it's crazy, right? But keep on

00:56:17.420 technology where there's a big gap. The reason our model works in Charlotte and North Carolina is

00:56:22.800 because it rides on the rails of the system. It literally partners with the county and with the

00:56:28.660 city. It partners with the schools, with the high school systems, all Title I. It connects to the

00:56:34.720 public schools. So like there's a lot here. And then the corporations all basically offer a job

00:56:39.380 on the other end. The key to this is to start with the job and then train into the job versus start

00:56:45.160 with education and hope to get a job. So go fill the job that is not getting filled. And by the way,

00:56:51.080 solve the diversity challenge that all these corporations have. Solve a lot of the other issues,

00:56:55.560 but don't show up into the nonprofit arm of a corporation. Solve a problem that they really

00:57:00.800 have. And that's the connection. So I think it will have to happen more at the city level.

00:57:05.220 So there's a big initiative called 110 that a number of high profile CEOs have built to try to do this.

00:57:11.780 It just takes a long, long time. And my concern is when the economy turns, these are the kinds of

00:57:16.900 things that get scrapped. These are the kinds of things that people stop giving that job for or

00:57:22.340 investing in. Yet we go back to this negative spiral that we tend to have.

00:57:29.040 Obviously, you and I both are kind of cut from the same cloth, which is that of immigrants. And

00:57:33.740 I think with that comes a little bit of disbelief as to why the US would not as a country want to

00:57:40.300 embrace an amazing asset. Do you see this changing? Do you see this as just being a season?

00:57:45.640 I do. I'm super optimistic on our country. For as flawed as we are, I would rather be nowhere else.

00:57:52.840 Yeah, I agree with that.

00:57:54.000 And there's just things, unfortunately, take time. I'm reading a book called Brothers about the

00:58:00.860 Kennedys. And you realize that there were real serious issues there around the mob and all these

00:58:07.720 things that we don't hear about today. So I do believe that the trend line is up. It's just not

00:58:12.980 linear and it's not fast enough.

00:58:15.640 And I think we just have more information, much of which, if not all of, most of which is noise

00:58:21.200 that distracts us a little bit. I think back in the 60s, there's no question it was a more

00:58:27.480 tumultuous era. I mean, there were political assassinations on US soil. We don't have anything

00:58:32.800 like that today.

00:58:34.060 Knock on wood.

00:58:34.980 But the noise today is unbearable.

00:58:37.920 Yeah, it's unbearable.

00:58:38.440 The never-ending cycle of nonsense, news, cable, social media, I think makes it feel

00:58:45.800 more dramatic. But that could also be the undoing.

00:58:50.040 You know, and these are pendulums. I think we're at a pendulum right now where the country's

00:58:54.220 super divided. I believe that there will be a series of leaders in our future that will bring

00:58:58.960 us back together. We need a common enemy. Maybe it is this risk of China that becomes our

00:59:05.500 galvanizing thing. I find it super interesting when there's a real crisis in our country, 9-11,

00:59:11.640 or even COVID at the beginning. We all behave like Americans. And then, you know, we need something

00:59:18.320 that brings us back to being Americans and not Republicans or Democrats or Black or white and all

00:59:22.520 that stuff. And a common enemy tends to do that. And I think these peaceful times allow for a lot

00:59:27.240 of room for us to subdivide.

00:59:28.500 So let's pivot a little bit to talk about health, which is you're a very health-conscious guy.

00:59:34.580 But there's also been some changes, I think, in your life over the past – I think I've known you

00:59:39.500 now for nine years. Basketball used to be kind of the only thing you did for exercise, which was great

00:59:46.120 because it kept you running around a court. But you can be prone to injuries and things like that.

00:59:49.940 But how would you describe overall kind of your mentality towards your health, your longevity?

00:59:57.200 What changes have you made? One of my favorites, which I'm sure you'll get to, is your approach

01:00:01.420 to your body weight, which cracks me up.

01:00:03.320 I realized that I want to be here for as long as I can, and I want to be here in as active of a way

01:00:09.240 as I can. I'm committed to that. You know, it's this notion of time, but it's time on the other way.

01:00:14.120 So for the first time ever in the last, you know, especially in the last four years, I've gone into

01:00:19.380 the gym. And I have a trainer, and we go through it. I don't do the crazy stuff you do, but I would

01:00:25.440 argue that I am so much stronger from grip to balance to all the things. And, you know, I try my

01:00:31.360 version of it. I don't consider myself to be an elite athlete in that regard, but I feel so much

01:00:37.000 better. I transitioned from basketball, so I played my last official pickup game about three months ago

01:00:42.740 and I had a bunch of pros come. And it was great because it's been such a great language for me.

01:00:47.780 And so many relationships came through basketball, so much self-learning and self-awareness. And

01:00:52.940 I now picked up tennis and, you know.

01:00:55.720 Now, why did you do that? Why did you completely stop playing your favorite sport?

01:01:00.740 Because I watch a lot of people my age just blowing Achilles and a knee and all of that. And

01:01:06.100 those are all signals that we should listen to. I didn't want to get to that place. And now the more I

01:01:10.760 play, the more my knees were sore. And, you know, my body's talking to me. It actually talks to us

01:01:15.760 all the time. And I wanted to leave on my terms. And I wanted to leave knowing that it served its

01:01:21.900 purpose. It doesn't control me. I picked up tennis in the pandemic and it's something that we're doing

01:01:27.160 more as a family, but love the apprenticeship, the struggle. So I have a coach. I go twice a week.

01:01:32.580 It's a great workout. I get my heart rate to 130. I get into zone two. I stay there for an hour. So I

01:01:36.840 get a lot of multiple values and I'm really not good. Footwork is different. Everything is

01:01:42.340 different. And I love the grinding of things. And it's a reminder of humility. Everything that we

01:01:48.040 now take for granted that we think we're so good at at some point was really, really hard. So

01:01:52.140 I have now a list of things. It's embarrassing. I'm Puerto Rican. I don't know how to dance salsa.

01:01:58.340 I can't die as the only Puerto Rican who can't dance salsa. So when last night you were grilling and

01:02:03.640 I'm like, I used to grill a lot more. And so I have this notion now that I want to keep learning

01:02:07.640 things. I have a list of about eight or nine things. And eventually if we end up living part

01:02:11.920 of the years in another country, that language I want to try to engage in. And it's just this notion

01:02:17.080 I don't want to get old, not by my age, but I don't want to get old by stuff.

01:02:21.580 I want to talk about that last game of pickup basketball. How sad was that?

01:02:25.340 Zero. Really? No, I'm grateful for what I had, not because it ended. It's life. The biggest

01:02:31.760 self-growth I've had since the plane was in that middle bucket of like relationships. And what I

01:02:39.480 realized, Peter, is that the most important relationship we have, the most important friend

01:02:45.380 we have is ourselves. And that unless we get that right, everything else will have a lot of friction.

01:02:54.980 Everything else will be a worse version of what it can be. And what I've realized as I study this is that

01:03:01.160 we in society, and it's almost every religion, I say almost all because I don't know, but most

01:03:06.400 religions that I know are anchored in some level of guilt and guilt as a way of teaching us or as

01:03:13.660 keeping us connected to something. And I've realized that guilt is the most useless emotion one can have.

01:03:21.820 And I have spent the last five years just basically getting rid of guilt to the point that I joked that

01:03:27.200 it's a complex I no longer suffer from. I still have others, but I feel no guilt. And when you feel

01:03:33.240 no guilt, what you realize is that you can change the dialogue that you have with yourself.

01:03:39.360 I am super kind to myself. I constantly make mistakes. I constantly do things and I'm like,

01:03:45.000 oh gosh, that wasn't right. Or I don't show up the way I need to show up. But I have nothing but love

01:03:50.020 for myself. I will say, thanks. Yeah, that wasn't your best. Okay. Next one it is.

01:03:54.340 Help me understand that. So it's hard for me to imagine you showing up as poorly as I can,

01:03:59.160 but let's say you're in sort of a pissy mood. You come home, you had asked your wife to do

01:04:04.440 something earlier. It's not done. Instead of saying, hey, sweetie, did you have a chance to

01:04:08.440 do that thing I asked you to do before? You sort of snippet her. I don't know if you've ever done that.

01:04:11.920 It happens. Yes.

01:04:12.620 Okay. How do you, I think it's really easy to feel bad and feel shame for snapping at her. And then

01:04:20.040 that actually impairs your next interaction. But how do you break that cycle?

01:04:25.700 I own it because it just takes a little bit of time. It's like, I'm sorry. I just took out

01:04:29.300 something on you that it was not on you. That was unfair. I hope you forgive me.

01:04:33.580 How long does it take you to man up to that?

01:04:36.520 It's not long. 20 minutes, 30 minutes. You're very self-aware. And you can read body language.

01:04:41.940 You can see that what you just said kind of cut through in a way. And then you're like, huh,

01:04:46.280 what did I do? But more importantly is I don't feel bad. I don't carry this notion of, oh my

01:04:52.360 goodness, I just did this. Even if I do something that I didn't want to do, I just said, okay,

01:04:57.060 it's part of being human. It's part of growing up. It's part of learning. It's part of your humanity.

01:05:01.740 But do you think that that can only happen because you're able to immediately make amends?

01:05:06.740 I think it's a habit. We walk around.

01:05:10.700 So how do you break that habit then? Guilt is a pretty strong habit for a number of people,

01:05:15.720 I'm sure. Yeah. It's like any habit. It may be worse than smoking. Smoking is hard. I never

01:05:20.380 smoke, but it's a really habit. But if you want to break it, you break it. 98% of your thoughts

01:05:24.560 are with yourself. So first of all, you got to be very aware of all your thoughts and you got to be

01:05:30.420 able to objectivize what you're hearing. And you have to be able to evaluate and say, you know what,

01:05:35.120 is this productive? Is this helping me? Or am I doing this because I've always done it? Or because

01:05:40.520 this is how my parents kind of related to it? And I think the more we move away from the emotion of

01:05:47.600 guilt and it becomes self-love. It becomes, you know, a notion like the safest place for us to be

01:05:53.280 is with ourselves. And the kindest place to be is in our own heads. And there's no judgment. There's

01:05:58.320 no anything. Like life becomes so much simpler. And then that that you give yourself, you can give to

01:06:04.220 others. You know, when we talk about purpose, we're very lucky that we can impact people through

01:06:09.300 your platform. You're impacting lots of us. And, you know, I'm lucky that in my platform,

01:06:12.920 I can impact people. But you impact people every day with little things. How you show up to the

01:06:18.360 coffee shop in the morning, the type of connection that you make, the taking time, like all of that

01:06:24.460 is making an impact. And the more that you feel a peace inside, the more you want to give it.

01:06:29.340 So, I am now addicted really to like good energy. And that doesn't mean it's maybe 95% of the time,

01:06:36.960 but oh, I love that place. And I give it freely. And I give it with expecting nothing in return.

01:06:42.340 And to me, this is like the happy place. I live in a happy place.

01:06:46.360 What do you think is the relationship between happiness and wealth? Do you think they're

01:06:51.300 uncoupled? Do you think they're correlated positively? Do you think they're correlated negatively?

01:06:55.600 I think we decide what they are. Some of the happiest people in the world have no wealth.

01:07:00.540 So, they cannot be coupled. Now, wealth can give you a set of conveniences that allows you to

01:07:08.040 solve for whatever your priorities are that may heighten your ability to do that. And therefore,

01:07:13.760 it gives you more happiness. Or like in many people, you pursue wealth your whole life because

01:07:19.340 that's what our society wants. And when you get there, you just feel so empty. And then you feel so

01:07:24.660 guilty for all you sacrifice for it. And you're in the worst place, which is you got what you

01:07:29.620 wanted. And it was a mirage and it meant nothing. And there are so many people out there that feel

01:07:34.820 like, oh my goodness, I was running the wrong race. You know, we talk a lot in life, Peter, around

01:07:40.580 the best way to run a race. No one steps back and ask, am I running the right race? And I think really

01:07:48.240 focusing on reevaluating the race you're running. So, when you ask me questions about, you know,

01:07:53.840 Red Ventures in 10, 20 years, I made it very clear after my plane event that I was going to run a

01:08:00.280 different race than everybody else. I wasn't looking for being public. I wasn't looking for

01:08:06.100 being the wealthiest. I wasn't looking for, my race was to enjoy the race. And to enjoy the race,

01:08:11.240 I am crazy. So, I love growing. I love being challenged. I love competing. I give no power to

01:08:16.140 anybody. And I try really hard not to take power away from anybody.

01:08:19.500 What do you think are the ways that people even inadvertently take power away from people?

01:08:26.140 You know, we as leaders can overlead and not let other peoples have, let them be celebrated and not

01:08:33.280 take all the credit for things. Or on the contrary, take responsibility for things that may not have

01:08:38.560 been truly your responsibility. So, I think leaders have an ability to really manage the power equation

01:08:45.060 with intentionality. I think how you treat somebody. We talked about this in the last

01:08:49.820 conversation, but I think the best way we can parent is by showing our kids how to treat strangers

01:08:56.580 and how we give people respect no matter who they are or what they're doing. And how do we not give

01:09:02.820 anybody too much respect just because society made them be something? Everybody puts their pants on the

01:09:09.120 same way. Everybody has insecurities. Everybody has issues. When you look at people as like, you know,

01:09:15.080 we all are in this imperfect journey with imperfections. It just makes it really level

01:09:20.320 field and simpler.

01:09:22.280 One of the really enjoyable, I mean, there were so many, but certainly one of the enjoyable highlights

01:09:26.840 of the Friends Summit was when Simon Sinek got up and talked about Finite vs. Infinite Games,

01:09:32.980 which of course is the name of the book. Maybe for folks that aren't familiar with that,

01:09:36.600 I know it's a book that you love as well. How do you implement that ethos into both your business

01:09:43.660 and your life?

01:09:45.680 You know, when Simon sent me an early book and said, hey, what do you think? It was almost like

01:09:50.700 he was writing what it was in my brain. I just don't have an ability to write a book, but he wrote a

01:09:56.260 book. I'm like, he actually was rewriting a book by somebody that had come before. He had put it in

01:10:01.720 more modern terms. It became kind of codifying a language that I really believe in and that the

01:10:07.140 core of the infinite game is that there's a bunch of principles of the game and how you play the game

01:10:12.120 and all of that. But the core of the infinite game is that there's no winning, that the whole

01:10:16.880 objective of the game is to stay in the game. The reality is if you really read into it, the real,

01:10:23.960 real ultimate objective is not just to stay in the game, but to perpetuate the game.

01:10:27.980 So what you're doing through your podcast, through your book that's coming out, through

01:10:34.160 your kids, through everything else is you're perpetuating the game, the game that matters

01:10:38.940 to you. And that's living with purpose because you are now, you have a purpose of what you're

01:10:44.780 doing. I feel the same way. So when you give up the winning or losing, when you don't look

01:10:49.240 at things, you give away a lot of the jealousy. Like I don't feel jealousy. It's an emotion that

01:10:54.680 I'm like, just because you have, it doesn't mean I don't have it. You know, maybe a little

01:10:58.900 envious at times like, wow, I wish I had the knowledge that Peter has about this stuff,

01:11:02.600 but zero jealousy. So the infinite game, it makes it really, really simple not to get caught

01:11:08.520 up on winning or losing, just play the game. And therefore get away from back to this notion

01:11:15.240 of like, oh, I came in second, I came in third. And you and I have talked a lot about this

01:11:19.180 kind of stuff. It's like, and by the way, I don't think it affects the outcome at all.

01:11:23.400 Is that something that you have the luxury of playing because you run a private company,

01:11:28.840 but if Red Ventures were a public company, would you be able to live by that? Or would

01:11:34.140 quarterly earnings and other metrics that shareholders would be privy to and have an

01:11:40.700 interest in change that? In other words, do public markets demand winning?

01:11:45.060 I think by and large, yes. Now you could argue that Jeff Bezos at Amazon forever never made money,

01:11:51.380 even though the public markets were demanding that he did this. And he basically said, no,

01:11:57.320 I'm not, I'm going to continue to lose money. And you're either going to like my story or not.

01:12:01.840 You could argue that Elon Musk is playing the infinite game in many ways with the decisions he's

01:12:06.920 making. And even Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah.

01:12:08.760 Like with Meta, like he clearly has lost 75% of the value of the company. So I think you can do it.

01:12:16.160 You just have to have the temperament and the stomach to be unpopular. And you know what,

01:12:21.020 the best way to be, to not be unpopular is not to read. I don't read anything about us,

01:12:26.640 about me. It doesn't matter. The opinion of a stranger has zero value to me. Now, if you call me

01:12:32.620 and say, dude, I heard you say this or do this, and that feels like not you, I will listen. Because

01:12:37.840 I know that you know me and you care. I have no desire to be popular with people I don't know.

01:12:44.100 I want to be respected by people that I care about.

01:12:47.460 That's an amazing lesson. That to me is a very difficult feature of living in the world today.

01:12:54.180 It's, do you look at what people are saying about you on social media? Do you read comments?

01:12:58.880 Not very often, but a little bit. I would say I'm probably 95% compliant with the notion of

01:13:09.480 ignoring it. And when I do read it, I'm rarely perturbed by it, largely for the reasons that

01:13:15.060 you put forth, which is you understand that it's kind of irrelevant. But I can't imagine what it

01:13:20.160 would be like to be doing that from a real stage. Look, I'm kind of a nobody, but could you imagine

01:13:24.920 being Mark Zuckerberg, for example? You know, I think he doesn't care. I think it's

01:13:30.300 all irrelevant, Peter. There's no stage that is different or bigger than ours. There's just

01:13:34.820 different stages. Just because someone has a bigger platform than we do doesn't make their

01:13:39.420 stage more important than our platform. We're all the same. No, I think it just means that the

01:13:43.560 attacks are louder, potentially. But it doesn't matter if you don't read them. If you stay true to

01:13:47.720 yourself, it is all circular logic. Have you imparted a lesson like this on your kids? We've talked about

01:13:54.280 this a little bit in our first discussion. You made an interesting point that I've thought a lot

01:13:58.680 about, actually. I think I had historically thought of it as our kids have it so much easier than we

01:14:04.040 did because we came from little, they come from plenty, good reasons going on. I think you framed

01:14:10.540 it this way, but this is certainly how I think about it, is I feel like me from my parents, from their

01:14:17.100 parents, from their parents, there was an inevitable trend that the child would exceed the accomplishments

01:14:23.300 of the parents. That was just the nature of moving from the industrial revolution to now.

01:14:30.280 Maybe it's our kids that will be the first one for whom it's not just going to be falling off a log

01:14:36.180 to exceed the accomplishments of their parents in whatever metric we use to think about that.

01:14:41.860 You came at that from a real point of empathy, which is, I want to make sure my kids aren't under

01:14:46.520 some unnecessary, unrealistic pressure that they have to do something that their parents did.

01:14:51.920 Say more about that and how is your thinking sharpened?

01:14:55.680 It stems from the premise, I think our kids have a lot more comfort, they have a lot more

01:15:00.800 access, they have a lot more experiences, but that's different. If you're defining this about

01:15:08.360 feeling a level of satisfaction with life or a level of happiness back to what we've been talking about,

01:15:16.600 there's two separate things. They're divorced from one another. I think the fact that we're starting

01:15:20.740 with the premise that achieving more than your parents financially is the objective of life is

01:15:26.300 like a goofy starting point. I think what I will love my kids is to feel like they were able, given

01:15:33.860 the opportunity to really find their gift and to do it with, in a place of love and that they are

01:15:39.160 great parents. And then as a result, we as a family did good in the world. And none of these things kind

01:15:45.820 don't make any sense. When people are like, oh, you know, we're, I just think it's hard. It's hard

01:15:49.960 when you are Peter Atia's daughter or Peter Atia's sons. And we should be mindful of that because it's

01:15:56.680 a burden that is put on them by others that they don't know how to accept. You know, that's what I

01:16:00.980 really meant by that.

01:16:02.380 I saw a really interesting clip. I'm sure we'll be able to find it for the show notes. It was Arnold

01:16:08.260 Schwarzenegger, a very young Arnold Schwarzenegger. So I'm guessing he would have been

01:16:11.580 late seventies, early eighties. So had already accomplished a lot, but obviously had more to

01:16:17.180 accomplish, right? This is before he would have become the world's biggest movie star and go on

01:16:20.560 to become the governor. But he was being asked, and I think it was like Barbara Walters or it was

01:16:25.180 some highbrow interview. So it must've been the eighties by this point. What accounts for your

01:16:29.680 greatness? And he sort of said, look, to have this level, he's referring to his own level of drive.

01:16:36.680 It must come from a place of hardship. He more, much more eloquently than this described that

01:16:42.480 basically everything he has comes from a singular focus of escaping and being better than and

01:16:49.500 improving. And he said, look, the reality of it is kids who don't come for this. If your kids don't

01:16:54.580 come from this level of deprivation, they can't be great. They can be very well adjusted. And that's

01:17:01.100 really the best thing you can hope for them, but they can't be great. And I really thought about it a

01:17:05.000 lot. And I was like, that's really interesting. There's a lot to reflect on there because first

01:17:08.060 of all, there's nothing wrong with being well adjusted. It could be a perfectly reasonable

01:17:11.660 goal for kids who come from privilege, kids who are never to want anything to be perfectly well

01:17:17.960 adjusted, but he's arguing that's the best case scenario.

01:17:21.420 But great in what? Great at lifting weights, great at being a movie star.

01:17:26.920 Being exceptional.

01:17:27.560 So that's different because you can be a great human being. Being the elite 1% of something has a huge

01:17:33.780 amount of tax on other things.

01:17:35.340 Absolutely. And I don't think, look, I mean, that's the irony, I guess, of his life is he

01:17:39.180 couldn't see the crystal ball of the lows that would come with the highs.

01:17:43.220 To me, that's the problem with hyper successful people. They're trying to repeat what they did and

01:17:48.880 ends up being more self-destructive than not. And I would argue that most people can't handle

01:17:54.020 greatness because it is addictive. Greatness as it's reflected by being the best at something or the

01:18:00.300 very best for a period of time. And those who are able to accept the fact that none of that matters

01:18:05.860 and it will change and evolve, live better lives. What do you want for your kid? To be the greatest

01:18:10.280 at something for a moment in time and miserable? Or do you want him to be not self-adjusted? Because

01:18:15.660 that to me is like a consolation prize.

01:18:17.500 I think being well-adjusted is a fantastic objective, frankly, which actually, by the way,

01:18:24.220 kind of is just a very extreme version of the yin and the yang between fluid and crystallized

01:18:29.280 intelligence. The more extreme one is, the harder, you know, the more extreme your fluid intelligence

01:18:34.400 is, it might be harder to make that transition to crystallized intelligence. And that's true in

01:18:39.500 intelligence, but I think that's even more true in what is it like to be Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan?

01:18:43.880 That's why I think really, really great for all perfect students struggle to be super productive

01:18:51.660 in life because they never had to deal with adversity. They never had to be coached. They've

01:18:56.620 never had to be in a place where they're forced to be good at it. It is better to struggle so that

01:19:03.800 you learn to struggle than to be great at something because life is full of potential struggles.

01:19:09.180 Well, Rick, as always, awesome to sit down and catch up on life. Congratulations on all of your

01:19:15.440 successes in the past couple of years in particular. And I'm really excited to hear about this museum

01:19:20.620 in North Carolina. I think the next time I come out to visit you, I hope we can make the time to go

01:19:24.620 and see it because I would actually love to see that.

01:19:26.740 No, I would love that, Peter. And I can't say it enough to you. You've had an incredible impact on

01:19:32.200 my knowledge of myself and exercise and nutrition and how I'm going to live. And I know that the last

01:19:40.160 10 years of my life, I should name that to you because you've helped me a lot. And I love our

01:19:44.640 friendship and I love how we can be so honest with each other and raw. And I'm humbled you would

01:19:48.700 have me, especially a second time. So great fun.

01:19:51.100 Thanks, Rick. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of The Drive. If you're interested

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The Peter Attia Drive - February 06, 2023

#241 ‒ Living intentionally, valuing time, prioritizing relationships, and more keys to a rich life ｜ Ric Elias (Part 2)

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