The Exchanges

Q really like that. You also said this, uh, this quote that I loved, um, which was, Every single thing you do today is something that your 90 year old self will wish they could go back and do. The good old days are happening right now. I was wondering for you, since most people never think about time, you think about it a lot. When did that flip and why?

A In 2021, I had a single conversation that changed my life. I was out for a drink with an old friend, and we were just catching up, and he was asking how I was doing, and I had spent the last seven years of my life rising through the ranks in the finance world. I was working 80 to a hundred hours a week. I was making more and more money, and thinking that that was how I was going to reach the land of success and happiness, and a lot of other areas of my life had started to suffer, namely I was living very far away from my parents, 3000 miles away, and they were getting older. And so my friend asked how I was doing in this moment, and I said that it had started to get tough being so far away from my parents. They had started to show chinks in their armor, if you will. They were mortal. And he asked how old they were, and I said mid-sixties. And he said, how often do you see them? And I said, maybe once a year. And he looked me in the face and just said, Ok, so you're going to see your parents 15 more times before they die. And I remember feeling like I had been punched in the gut. I mean, the idea that the amount of time you have left with the people that you love most in this world is so finite, so countable, that you can put it onto a few hands, shook me to my core. And in that moment, I recognized that Something had to change that if we didn't make a change, I was going to wak…

AI assessment note: “In 2021, I had a single conversation that changed my life.”

Q And then I realized this is the thing about you, like, you sort of have this ability, I think, to get really big, powerful people to quote unquote mentor you without being annoying, right? And I think a lot of people today are like, I want a big mentor, or how could I get somebody like Tim Cook to care about me? How did that relationship start? Tell that story.

A Uh, yeah, so I met Tim for the first time, um, In 2014, when I first started working, I just graduated from Stanford, and I took a job working in private equity. I was going to work 80 to hundred hour weeks, and that was the job. That's what it was going to be. And so I knew if I wanted to work out, I was going to have to go early in the morning. And that meant getting to the Equinox in Palo Alto at four 45 in the morning every single day. And that meant I had to get up at 3:45 and like wake myself up and be at the gym at four 45. It turns out that There aren't that many people that are willing to get to the gym at four 45. So there was a group of like eight of us that would show up every single day at that time, like waiting for them to open the door. And you would talk to those people cause you were with them every single day. So six months go by and I'm like talking to all these people early in the morning. And I was having a conversation with one guy and I walk away and someone comes up to me and is like, do you know who that is? That guy you were just talking to? And I was like, I don't know. That's the guy, like one of the guys that's here. And he goes, that's Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple. And I was like, oh shit. Cause I've probably been saying the dumbest stuff to this guy for the last six months. And look, I wasn't in tech, so it wasn't close to the space. I didn't know …

AI assessment note: “I met Tim for the first time, um, In 2014”

Q talk really quickly about some of the frameworks I've stolen from you to make my life better, easier, simpler, a little richer and wealthier. Um, you kind of popularized this idea for me around razors, like a rule of thumb that simplifies decision-making, but you have quite a few of them. Can you explain what it is and what are some of your favorites and how do you use them?

A Yeah. Um, so the idea of a razor comes from philosophy originally. It's, it's, Something that allows you to shave away, uh, possible explanations and get to the heart of something. So the best way to say it is what you said. It's a rule of thumb that simplifies decision making. The most famous razor, which is probably my favorite one, uh, is Occam's razor, which is the idea that the simplest possible explanation is often the best one. So this is for all the conspiracy theorists out there. I'm sorry. Uh, but Occam's razor typically will say that Uh, if there is some, you know, crazy thing happening, and we want to say that the government is doing some whole, like, crazy back-end, you know, crazy thing, the simplest explanation is like, uh, no, it's just the obvious thing that is happening. Uh, the government is not particularly competent. If you have ever flown, uh, you have seen the government in action with the TSA, or if you have ever gone to try to get a new license, uh, you have seen it at the DMV. That's the government. Uh, but, uh, all jokes aside on that, Occam's razor is amazing because it's all about the idea that simple is beautiful. And so, uh, whenever you have a simple explanation for something or a very complex one that will require a lot of assumptions to be true, usually the simple one is correct. Another one of my favorites for the world of the internet is Hanl…

AI assessment note: “The most famous razor, which is probably my favorite one, uh, is Occam's razor”

Q know what they are, if they don't understand them, and if they can't touch them, see them, see them and feel them. So, so when it comes to parenting, just to stick on this for one more minute, when it comes to parenting, what habits or rituals do you have with your son in order for you to have real quality time, even though you are traveling all the time?

A Yeah, I really try to understand and very clearly, um, establish an awareness of the difference between time and energy. And this is a really important mindset shift for all areas of life, but definitely for your relationships. And the, the difference here is I can spend an hour with you, but if I'm sitting there on my phone, worried about emails, responding to texts, looking at Instagram, you are not going to feel my presence in any way. And we are not going to feel connected in any way. It's similar to what we were saying earlier about having the phone on the table. Kids are the exact same way. They're no different. If you have your phone out in front of them while you're supposedly spending time with them, that hour They are not going to feel any connection. But 10 minutes of truly present energy, when they are the only person in the world to you, can last for hours and hours in their mind. And so that is really what I try to focus on. It is, I may not, I may be in a season of my life where I am unbalanced, where I am like all hands on deck, charging, focused. Right now, I am in one of those, trying to go out and spread the message of this book, which is very important to me. But when I'm there, I am going to be tuned off of everything else, and it's going to be there. Like, I mean, my favorite thing in the world with my two-and-a-half-year-old boy is, like, roughhousing. I …

AI assessment note: “my favorite thing in the world with my two-and-a-half-year-old boy is, like, roughhousing.”

Q So good. Um, I want to end with two questions, but I love this quote from your grandfather. You're very close to your family. I am too. That said the worst decisions in life are made when you allow your head to talk you into something when your gut already said no. Is that something that you live by today?

A I try to, uh, I don't always. And a lot of the things I write, post, talk about videos are sort of reminders to self at times where I will post something on Twitter when I have experienced a time when I have not lived by it and, and reminding myself. And I realize if I'm reminding myself, there's millions of people out there that need that same reminder as I do. Um, my grandfather was an extraordinarily wise man. Um, and I feel so much love for him, because When my, my, my mom is Indian. My father is white from the Bronx, New York. And when my dad wanted to marry my mom, uh, his father was not accepting of it and told him he had to choose between my mom and his family. And my dad walked out the door and never saw his family again. And to this day, I never met my dad's parents. Um, he has three siblings I never met. I have first cousins out there somewhere that I never met. Um, he truly Rejected the common convention and walked his own path with everything in him, and I imagine it was one of the hardest decisions he's ever made, or maybe the easiest, because he knew that this amazing, now they've been married 42 years, they have a incredible loving relationship, I cannot imagine, my parents not together. But the thing that instilled this love in me for my grandfather was when my mom brought my dad to meet her family, They were initially not super excited about their daughter mar…

AI assessment note: “I try to, uh, I don't always.”

Q Do you think young Sahil, young finance bro Sahil would struggle with talking about love? Did you talk about love back then too?

A Talk about love when I was young finance bro. I, um, I viewed a lot of things as a distraction to the important thing, which was making money. Um, I was so narrowly focused on external affirmations Uh, you know, and I have this thing in the book, this thing that I call the status test, the bot status test, where, uh, you ask yourself when you're about to buy something, would I buy this if I couldn't tell anyone that I had it? If I couldn't post it on Instagram, if I couldn't show anyone, like, would I buy this watch? Would I buy this car if no one knew about it except me? Usually the answer's no. And what you realize when you start to think about that question is you are living a lot of your life for the benefit and pleasure of other people. Which is kind of a crazy thing to think about. Like how much of my, of my life am I actually living for other people rather than for myself? Uh, and so I think that a lot of my life, my whole mental model for life was like, I am going to wake up one day when I have X million dollars and feel happy. Uh, and every time I would get to that number, and it would have disappeared, and it would be some other number. And we have studies to say this. Michael Norton, this Harvard Business School professor, went and interviewed high net worth individuals, people worth anywhere from a million on through a hundred million plus. And he asked them, how ha…

AI assessment note: “I viewed a lot of things as a distraction to the important thing, which was making money.”