The Exchanges

Q know what to do. There's a link in the description. Just go ahead and click it, and you'll see the guide that I made. So it's the seven books that had a massive change in my life this year so far, and then also how I'm able to read so much. So check it out below. What's an example of, uh, of not being desperate and also of being desperate?

A Yeah, I'd say, okay, so, you know, desperate people, they front load the pitch too much, and they ask, right? Like, if you really want to pitch somebody, you want to play the long game, don't even make an ask. You know, just be like, man, I'm working on this really great project. It's fantastic. Then at the end of it, don't even ask for anything. Don't even say, well, ask him. Hopefully if you've, if you've pitched it well, subtly, he's going to ask you right now, how much better is it when he says like, well, so you guys taking money for investments? Like, yeah, we are, but you know, we're in round one. It's not that we're, we're fine. Like we got money, but like, you know, hey, listen, we're always open to listen to people. So now you've flipped it on them.

AI assessment note: “desperate people, they front load the pitch too much, and they ask”

Q You, you mentioned at the beginning, you said, I went to a course or a seminar about emotional intelligence, and, um, that's not what I expected you to say. That sounds like, you know, I don't know. I thought you would talk about poker, and math, and stats, and all that stuff. That's pretty fascinating. Why did you go, and what did you get out of that?

A Yeah, it was in Vegas. I did it in 2013. Um, my manager, Brian, who's a, like, just a, you know, Super healthy, perfect wife, three great kids, like, lawyer guy, you know, all buttoned up. He did it, right? And we were playing golf, and he said, you know, you should try this thing. And I thought to myself, okay, well, I trust him, right? So he thinks it might have some value. I'll say, oh, I'll go. You know, what's the, I'm always looking to learn and do different things. It was nothing like I expected it to be. This was no business seminar, if you will. This was a deep dive into what makes you tick, where you decided certain things about yourself, um, You know, what works about you? What doesn't work about you? And it was a life changing experience in a lot of ways for me.

AI assessment note: “my manager, Brian... said, you know, you should try this thing”

Q life or what age were you? Were you like, okay, I have a base. I have my fortress of solitude. Things feel good. Um, how late into life were you or how early into life were you before you felt some security? Because it sounds like your line of work, it's a lot of ups and downs. Was there ever like a, okay, I've, I'm at a place of safety.

A The first time it happened, I was very wrong. So I'll go there and then I'll tell you about when it actually happened. 1999. I had a good year. I, uh, you know, I won the U.S. Poker Championship to end the year. I had like, you know, 405 100,000. I thought, okay, well, You know, we're set, you know, we're good. We're never going to go broke again. Then in the year, 2000, I got complacent. I was living the Vegas life. We're going to strip joints. We're going to dinners. I go play poker gambling, you know, not taking it as serious as I should. And oh, wow. By the end of the year, 2000, the money gone.

AI assessment note: “1999. I had a good year. I, uh, you know, I won the U.S. Poker Championship”

Q Can we actually invert that? So let's just say that I, I think, you know, you've been involved in, uh, owning, uh, and investing in a handful of companies. If I was trying to get you to invest in my company and I wanted to successfully lie to you, what would the checklist be that I would follow?

A I think certainty for sure. You know, being so, but again, this is the thing, the best con artists are also the best liars, right? So they can, they'll fool you, right? Like, um, I'd say an over exuberance of confidence though is problematic. Like if you're just too like, oh my God, this is the greatest thing. If you actually acknowledge, um, Both good and bad. Right. So you're like, listen, we're, we're in great shape. However, you know, we got, we really got to work on this. So sort of admitting some being humble almost like, is that shows some honesty? Like, wow. Okay. Well, this guy, why would he tell me this bad thing? You know, if the other part's not true. So if you were gonna lie to me about a, tell me the truth about B. That's doesn't look good for you. And now a is far more believable.

AI assessment note: “if you were gonna lie to me about a, tell me the truth about B.”

Q and now you're here. So you go ahead and you do it and you kind of have this like, Moment of enlightenment. That really only happened because you were actually immersed in it. You actually did a thing versus just listening to, like, an idea, and, you know, intellectually, but you didn't get to actually feel it. Did they do anything? Was there an exercise that stood out to you?

A There's tons. So, yeah, the one that I did is called Choice Center, and there are plenty of people. There's a lot of crossover between Anthony Robbins himself and people that have done both, and they're, you know, there's a lot of similarities and sounds like in what, you know, what you were doing. But as far as, uh, you know, one specific one, I think, Uh, sort of the root of that whole victim responsible idea. The concept is that I remember, you know, there was a girl when I was, she was young and she was partying or whatever, and we, you know, we were together. I was, I loved her or whatever, but like we broke up. Okay. And I had a story about how I was the victim, you know, about how she did this, she did this, she was bad and all these types of things. So one of the exercises we did was we tell the story as a victim.

AI assessment note: “one of the exercises we did was we tell the story as a victim.”

Q So what motivates you then? Because you're, you know, you're playing a game that's literally for money. It's the chips on the table. The goal is to get the chips from the other guy into your little pot. And so, um, you know, why do you do it? You've made plenty of money, and, you know, you don't have to keep playing. So what is it for you?

A Well, that's the hook, really. That's the trick. I think the most, the majority of, or a large percentage of successful people became successful doing what they're doing because they love what they're doing, right? Most, if you don't love what you're doing and you don't, your chances of being successful are very slim. So if you just say, I want to be rich and famous. Okay. But do you want to do the work? Do you like, what do you like to do that gets you there? And if you're doing something because you think it's going to get you money, but you don't enjoy it, You don't have that passion for it. I always did. I love, I love competing. I would have loved to be an athlete, but I'm like five, nine and like a buck six. I'm just, there's no, I'm too tall to be a jockey and too short to be a basketball player.

AI assessment note: “I always did. I love, I love competing.”