Sep 8, 2026 · 54m · bigdeal
5 Habits Constantly Draining Your Energy | Yung Pueblo
0:00 / 0:00
▶ Watch on YouTube →
gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this in-depth conversation, author Diego Perez (Yung Pueblo) and Codie Sanchez explore how disciplined daily meditation, emotional self-regulation, and intentional boundary-setting counteract chronic burnout and relational friction. By redefining ambition and cultivating a spacious mind, Perez delivers practical frameworks for high achievers to break reactive behavioral patterns and achieve sustainable inner peace.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Codie holds 27.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Codie as informed peer 3.3 Guest teaching 4.3 Guest disagreement 1.4 Codie pushing back 1.7
speaking balance: gold is Codie, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 12:48 Dismantling the concept of 'the work'
Diego forcefully pushes back against the pervasive cultural phrase 'doing the work,' rejecting its obscurity and refusing to let it be universalized.
Hardest push from Codie ▶ 14:26 Contrasting slowness with aggressive momentumCodie directly highlights the apparent paradox between Diego's meditative slowness teachings and his quote that waiting gets you nowhere.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 21:31 Exposing the illusion of shortcut livingDiego educates the audience on how modern app-driven convenience has distorted expectations for personal relationships and inner growth.
Codie holds their own ▶ 43:43 Citing institutional discipline via Dave RamseyCodie demonstrates sharp real-world business expertise by illustrating how Dave Ramsey strictly enforces zero gossip and zero credit to instill cultural integrity.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Codie as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Codie pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Repetitive Practice of Letting Go | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Codie asks open-ended questions about Diego's most viral lines and personal healing practices. Diego takes the lead explaining Vipassana retreats and repetitive mental conditioning. | |
| Focus and Adaptability vs. Unhealthy Obsession | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 | Codie challenges the founder narrative around obsession, prompting Diego to gently reframe obsession as rigid and replace it with focus and adaptability. | |
| Managing Negative Tendencies and Breaking Bad Patterns | 3 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Codie inquires about breaking toxic mental patterns in relationships. Diego breaks down the mechanics of the first defensive impulse versus skillful pausing. | |
| Overcoming Relationship Blame Through Self-Awareness | 3 | 5 | 3 | 2 | Codie probes marriage disputes and personal temperaments. Diego directly rejects the popular cultural trope of 'doing the work' as vague and overly prescriptive. | |
| Building Momentum and Rejecting Perfectionism | 4 | 4 | 1 | 3 | Codie flags the apparent tension between Diego's advice to slow down and his insistence that waiting gets you nowhere. Diego bridges the two by citing his venture capital and writing routines. | |
| Honoring Past Chapters and Overcoming the Fear of Releasing Work | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Codie asks Diego about releasing creative work and dealing with past cringe. Diego shares practical lessons from his editor regarding the 80% completion rule. | |
| Grounding in Simplicity and Finding Life's Purpose | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Codie remarks on wealthy people who are unhappy and questions how to discover purpose. Diego grounds happiness in basics like fresh well water and defines purpose as the intersection of talent and intuition. | |
| Deconstructing Instant Gratification and True Letting Go | 4 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Codie asks how to let go and change an unhappy life while striving for self-improvement. Diego dismantles society's demand for five-step shortcuts and introduces the concept of a spacious mind. | |
| Attachment, Daily Meditation Discipline, and Compounding Inner Growth | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Codie asks what blocks mental spaciousness. Diego outlines the hazards of attachment and details his strict regimen of two hours of daily Vipassana meditation. | |
| Why Consistent Meditation Surpasses Psychedelics and External Shortcuts | 2 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Codie asks if Diego relies on psychedelics like mushrooms or ayahuasca. Diego firmly declines external substances, arguing that breath and bodily awareness suffice for ultimate wisdom. | |
| Clarity, Impermanence, and Transcending Ego Reactions | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Codie asks about enlightenment and admits fear surrounding ego dissolution. Diego deconstructs identity, explaining that the self is an impermanent mental and physical construct. | |
| Scarcity Trauma, Discerning Intuition from Ego, and Not Grabbing | 4 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Codie and Diego discuss how past scarcity trauma drives overcommitment. Diego explains distinguishing between frantic mental ego and calm, somatic intuition. | |
| Choosing Inner Peace Over Fleeting Happiness and Reframing Internal Dialogue | 4 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Codie shares her personal motto 'choose your hard' and asks about internal self-talk. Diego reframes chasing high-arousal happiness into cultivating sustainable inner resilience. | |
| Protecting Peace Against Negative Company, Gossip, and Machine-Like Pacing | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Codie contributes domain knowledge about Dave Ramsey's strict corporate policies against workplace gossip and credit cards. Diego affirms this approach as a guardrail against machine-like burnout. | |
| Preserving Humanity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Codie introduces viral internet concepts around AI mediation. Diego forecasts a long-term premium on live, in-person human connection and authentic creative writing. |
Statements from this episode (20)
Perez: Letting go of emotional pain requires repeated practice
“The act of letting go is healing, but it doesn't mean it's a one-time event. You may have to let that same thing go over and over again because the mind is malleable, but it requires practice.”
Perez: Founder focus allows adaptability, whereas obsession restricts flexibility
“Part of being a founder is adaptability. You have to be able to adapt. You can have a clear goal, but if you need to shift things to actually, like, be able to make a return to your investors, to be able to actually, you know, hire more people or really produc…”
Perez: Online creators have barely half a second to provide value
“Because, especially if you're sharing something online, you have barely half a second with an individual to really give them something of value.”
Perez: Initial emotional impulses are childhood defense mechanisms, not authentic reactions
“That the first impulse is the real you, and it's not. The first impulse is your defensive mechanism that you learned probably when you were a child.”
Perez: Wisdom Ventures raised a $10M Fund I and $77M Fund II
“We started a venture capital company called Wisdom Ventures, and it's been successful. You know, we've we had a, our first fund was ten million, our second fund, seventy-seven million, and we've invested in great companies that are really trying to scale welln…”
Perez: Single social posts do not make or break creative careers
“So now when I put something out, I know that one piece, one post, is not going to make or break anything. Anything. It's a long game of stamina. Well, where it will accumulate into something bigger over time. So if one thing fails, it doesn't matter at all.”
Perez: Releasing essays at 80% completion tests audience resonance for books
“When I try to, especially if I'm releasing an essay, I try to get it to 80%. If it feels like it's 80% of the way there, it's good enough, and if it's good enough and people really resonate with it, then maybe that can become a chapter in a future book.”
Perez: Convenience apps create unrealistic expectations for frictionless relationships and lives
“If you look at your phone, every single app on your phone is trying to make your life easier. How can I get this food to you faster? How can I give you a ride from, you know, point X to point Z? How can I just make, simplify your life as much as possible? And …”
Sanchez: Entrepreneurs never truly 'make it' because challenges continually escalate
“There's no making it, you know, like, oh, you've made it. You're like, I don't know. I don't think that ever happens actually. It just keeps getting more and more difficult.”
Diego Perez has meditated for two hours every day since 2015
“So I meditate two hours a day every day. I've been doing that since Twenty-fifteen. Started meditating in twenty-twelve, but then twenty-fifteen when I, was when I started meditating daily, and.”
Perez has spent more than a cumulative year in silent retreats
“Actually, this year when I finished the 60 day retreat, I looked at my, the course, sort of all the courses that I've sat, and I've realized that I, if I take all the retreats that I've sat, I've spent more than a year of my life in silent retreats.”
Perez: Meditating daily is a better life investment than the S&P 500
“When people ask me, like, how can you put so much time into meditating? I'm like, it's a better investment than the S&P 500. Like, it's a, and it's an investment that gives massive returns.”
Perez: Sober meditation is preferable to psychedelics for observing true reality
“And I've tried psychedelics, I've tried a bunch of different things when I was younger, and it's great. I think, you know, for some people that gives them tons of value, for me, I'd rather observe reality as it is.”
Perez: Past trauma acts as the driving force behind many successful founders
“I think a lot of successful people are driven by their past trauma”
Perez: Ego manifests as mental clinging, while intuition provides calm physical signals
“Your ego is snappy, and it's loud, and it's more mental. It's like, you know, try, and you can feel that energy of clinging, like, It really wants something, whereas intuition, especially for me, feels much more bodily.”
Sanchez: Entrepreneurial culture fosters an unhealthy cult around hardship and unhappiness
“Often in entrepreneurship, at least, we obsess on not being happy, and like, there's also, like sort of a cult around it.”
Sanchez: Dave Ramsey's corporate headquarters operates entirely on debit cards
“But then I've been to his headquarters and he, like, for instance, they don't have credit cards. Zero credit. The entire place, nobody has a credit card in it. They have debit cards only.”
Perez: The saturation of AI creates a premium on in-person connection
“There's so much AI that it is, it makes the interaction of, like, actually coming together as a virtual community, it's, there's, you have to, like, jump over that to be able to actually interact with real human beings, that it's gonna create a new premium on …”
Perez: AI merely reorganizes past information, limiting its capacity for genuine innovation
“I think a lot of AI, it's just re-scrambling what's happened in the past, so it's hard to get innovation from that, whereas that's the beauty of the human mind.”
Perez: Writing is fundamentally clear thinking that creators must not outsource
“Writing is like, just, it's just so critical, because it's one of the ways that you practice clarifying your thoughts, like writing is like really clear thinking, so you can't like take that exercise away from yourself, especially as like a, you know, a creato…”