 Alright, welcome, welcome, welcome back to the podcast. I'm here with AJ and I'm Johnny and today AJ and I had stumbled upon an interesting article a friend had sent me and it was called Brutal Truths and it got us talking and we had a lot of fun talking about what would be brutal truths that we had learned through our lives so we figured we would discuss it with you guys today. And after the mental models and frameworks episode we got a lot of outpouring from fans asking us for some recommended reading resources on that subject and we linked a few in the podcast notes for that episode on mental models and frameworks and out of that we started thinking about what are some brutal truths that we've learned along the way that have had a huge impact on our life and I think really the first one here is one of those ones that for most people is a little shocking especially in today's social media world where we feel like everyone cares about us but in reality nobody cares. Yes, number one nobody cares and that's a hard one to learn. It's almost once you've figured it out it can be, it can be upsetting, it can be depressing. It's depressing, yeah. To think that here you're doing all these things because you want other people's attention, approval and acceptance as we talked about in value and to realize that guess what everyone else is also operating in that same mode so they're only concerned with what's in front of their own nose and their own perspective not yours. I guess a lot of this has to do with that thought experiment of building a movie around yourself right and then all the other characters that are in your movie are secondary characters and even your friends they're like comedy relieved or the other people in the movie but they're filming their own movies. Absolutely. And so they can't really be concerned what's going on with your plot and what's going on in your story because they have their own story to continue to create and you're lucky to have them to at least come through, be a part of it, hang out with you but they got to go on they got to make their movie as well. And when it comes down to our own personal suffering right sometimes it's hard for us to realize that other people are suffering too. Other people's problems outweigh your problems. It may be difficult for you to hear because the suffering is immediate and in the moment for you but people don't care about your suffering. People don't want to hear you whining and complaining about your first world problems. The interesting thing about this list is I think a lot of these up front will sound upsetting, will sound depressing, however if you embrace these like number one here if you embrace the idea that no one cares, well now all of a sudden it's not we've moved beyond depressing it's now freeing. Right, it's liberating. We don't have to worry about other people's opinions and views because we could just assume they don't care if they don't care then why are we paying any attention to what they're saying or talking about us or doing on social media etc. The other point here is pain is not special to you and no matter if the pain is subtle or great everyone feels pain the same. So their perspective of the pain that they're suffering is going to always be greater than yours. So trying to out-pain out-suffer out-victim someone else is a losing battle. It's always a losing battle and I think there's something in men's DNA that when you're growing older one of the first sort of ways you learn to roll through the neighborhood as a young kid is the bigger and batter right if let's just say though okay well I can out-muscle my neighbor so and I can out-muscle this guy and I'm faster on my bike than this kid and now you're and so you have a couple block radius where you're the king right and maybe that you roll into the next neighborhood and there's another kid who's a little bit bigger a little bit batter you know and then of course you rolled to another neighborhood because as you're getting a little bit older you're venturing farther out and you learn well there's another kid in this other neighborhood king of that block king of that block and all of a sudden you're you realize that there's always somebody bigger there's always somebody batter there's always somebody faster there's always somebody smarter so it's a it's about being able to create your your own your own thing going on and allowing those people to do theirs but finding your own special niche. Well I know we talked a lot about our upbringing and our dads yeah and it's funny because our dads had that same view of stop your whining. Did you imagine growing up whining around dad about something that happened in school or in sports? Well I'm not sure if I mentioned it on that podcast but for my for myself if I was to whine about anything usually the first thing out of my dad's mouth was listen if you want to talk like that talk like that around your mother right I just spent 10 hours bending glass on a furnace of a factory I don't I don't want to hear it right what the kid down the street made fun of you. Buck up. Buck up that's not only is that going to continue to happen that's going to that's going to happen the rest of your life. And what happened we put out a podcast people made fun of our hair. People are always going to be making fun of you if you live your life worried about what other people think and ready to whine because they don't like you well you're gonna have a really rough time. I think one of the fun experiments that you can do is just just roll around through social media and go to some of your your heroes pages or their YouTube or whatever and you will see people talking shit on your hero on your crush anyone that you look up to there's some flaw something wrong that someone wants to bash them for it's a part of the game it's a part of being alive and in the world so understanding that nobody cares so stop your whining and complaining you're not winning anyone over to your side you're not convincing people that your problem is bigger or greater than theirs and they should pay more attention to you than their own issues victim Olympics the victim Olympics no gold medals everyone loses in the victim Olympics the second one is do not waste your talent and I think that one is a little surprising in that a lot of us don't realize that talent is something that not very many people have in these areas so if you can find your talent the one thing that you're good at celebrate that own that even if it's not accepted by others even if that talent is Street Fighter mm-hmm right we had an alumni come through the program world champion in Street Fighter and he owned it right most you'll be like I don't want to talk about being good in video games I don't want to talk about loving comic books I don't want to talk about how much I obsessed over anime well I want to dive into that story a little bit because I'm sure a lot of people listening this can identify with that so having this this talent in this video game was his thing and because he loved this game so much he was always afraid to open his mouth and share about himself because what if it slips out what if somebody hears about finds out about this and he's gonna get crucified and so he was extremely shy and stayed very reserved in any of that and it was you know through his program was about a few days in and for myself and AJ we we tend to bust everyone's balls of up front in the program just trying to get everyone to loosen up and to relax a bit and he was being extremely reserved very tight and I remember it was about three quarters in and we were doing a at this time we were doing a storytelling portion of class and I could tell he was getting a little nervous because this the whole point of it was to talk about something he cared about and he went up gave some bullshit story he didn't put any emotion into it and I remember the rest of the guys and myself were getting a little bit fed up because he wasn't putting out and and he gave some bullshit stories like well that's it and went to sit down and the guys were all looking at him like that's not it that's not good enough we're all we're all giving here and we're all putting it out there and you're gonna have to and I told him like you're gonna give us something you're gonna give us something now and get back up there until and you're gonna stay up there until till this happens yeah and I remember him looking down and looking basically defeated like he was in a corner and he had nowhere to go and if he was to get out of this he's gonna have to give us the story so he's a he just was fine fine you guys want a story I'll give you a story so he goes on to talk about being that this I can't remember the event Eva was the event and it's in Vegas and he's competing in Street Fighter and it's all the Street Fighter top players around the world around the world are here at this event and it just turned out and of course my question is how do you even get involved in this because I'm not a gamer I would even know and especially such a niche 90s video game but he had been a foreign exchange student in Japan and that was a huge ordeal and it was a big subculture and and so he had grown up competing in this so he's at EVO well there's one other thing yeah one little detail that I love about the story and he finally got vulnerable enough to admit it yeah he chose his college his undergraduate college based on the fact that the arcade in town had the version of Street Fighter that he was best at there you go that's how much level of dedication to Street Fighter we're talking about now this is a that is a love and just yeah all about it and so he's telling the story he's competing in it it's it's like a rocky vs. Drago type story because he is the only white cat and it does this game convention right all the top players in the world are actions yeah and he's this and he's a little bit on the taller side oh yeah so he stands out he stands out and so of course everyone is booing him and he just starts kicking ass and he is mowing people over and he's going through the ranks and slowly gaining that are the adulation of the crowd and the respect of these other of the other players and now he finds himself fighting for the championship for that year and he has half the crowd on his side and they're fighting it out and he gets the guy to like a sliver of a life and the guy had pulls out this move that's like I don't know one in a thousand combinations that he pulled out and just he gets obliterated in that final nanosecond where he could have won and he is now celebrated because of where he taken the champion to to the his limits and and was widely accepted in the disculture that that he looked up upon and wanted to be a part of and it was in that moment that he looked around the room and saw that all of us were sitting at the edge of the our couches think going yeah finally and and then what happened like we're so engrossed that he realizes for the first time that this thing that he's been hiding his whole entire life was something that actually is quite because he shared his passion for we all now have taken notice and now are interested and we want to know more and this thing that he has felt so reserved about him so scared of it ever would come out is now sharing it is now being accepted and so for the rest of the program we couldn't get him to shut up right he's now free of this thing that he's been and that's so scared about we often let other people's criticism of us hold us back and shy away from our talents the things that we are good at and guess what talent is fleeting talent is hard to find if you are talented at something don't let a stranger a friend an acquaintance a relative's thoughts or feelings hinder you from throwing yourself at that and I would argue one of the biggest regrets that you can have in life is not scratching that itch not trying to take yourself to your limits of your talent well how many guys have we seen who come through who realized that they have given up something that they love so much only to put their career on hold for a while to dive into it I'm thinking specifically of one of our guys who is from Iceland who always wanted to be an actor yeah and to add to that our buddy Justin who was always wanted to give comedy a 100% try and so people giving up their careers to realize I need to scratch a stitch because if I get any older and realize that I haven't given a shot I'm gonna be upset with myself and I personally know from my own experiences of leaving home and going to North Carolina and given music my all and being able to entrench myself and be on the road and give it 100% allowed me to experience other things I couldn't even imagine what life would be about if I didn't have that opportunity to go all in and that's it if you do not go all in that is the life of regret yes that we want to avoid obviously no one wants to be on their deathbed saying oh I wish I had explored that I wish I'd taken that a little bit further yeah and we've had countless instances of that in our lives I know science for me music for you and then you could argue the art of charm oh people criticizing having something to say about what we're trying to do what we're about family members friends doubting us I could easily paint that picture I mean you had called and said hey listen we'd like to do this were you interested in moving to New York and creating this company and I remember thinking well let me see two guys that I don't know want me to move to a city I never lived in before we're gonna start a company we don't even know what it's going to be I'm in I'm in and and the reason being was I was like I know that these sorts of opportunities don't present themselves every day and from myself I always believed that luck was having opportunities but being brave enough to take them and I there was no way I wanted to look back and go what if what ifs are the words and if you look at any sort of data of people who are on their deathbed it's always about the working thought it's families and what ifs and this truth reminds me of the show America's Got Talent yeah you watch that show and you see just such a wide array and I they have it in every country it's not just America not to put AOC America first but the idea that listen if your talent is riding a unicycle and juggling have at it give it your all don't let that drop to the wayside because of other people's thoughts and feelings and criticisms because the critics will be out there no matter what you are not going to please everyone the third truth we have here on our wonderful list stay responsible what do we mean by that Johnny well I think the minute responsibility the word pops up a lot of people have a lot of very surface level ideas of what that means like oh I wake up on time I get to work on time I made my bed this morning and sure that's being responsible but there's a there's a lot of deeper meaning to it when it comes to your actions your cognitive processes emotions your emotions thoughts everything else all compacted the entirety of you you're able to take responsibility for well I think when we hear responsibility we think adult like things right yeah I'm an adult I have a job I have my own place I got my own car my parents aren't paying my phone bill I'm responsible I'm responsible but these same people are the ones who indulge have no self-control don't have habits aren't working on their discipline and willpower mm-hmm so responsibility is taking ownership of your life and that involves not only your successes but your failures stop pushing the responsibility on other people stop making excuses and blaming others for your lot in life I I keep seeing this reoccurring theme on social media where people talk about adulting yeah and I cannot stand the term oh I have to have to be an adult today the reason that your life is a complete disaster and you're unhappy with every aspect of it is because you think responsibility is adulting it's but you think it's selling out when in fact taking responsibility gives you free time it allows you to put processes together allows you to see victories and help in your progress and anything that you're doing I mean these are all things that allow you to know you're moving in the right direction towards everyone's goal which is to be happy and enjoy their day to your point responsibility is movement right when you refuse to take responsibility you've stalled you're not moving you're not growing you're letting things fester and you're letting other people dictate your results in your lot in life which is not where you want to be that's not a winning hand I remember getting into self-development and learning about some new ways for myself to be able to take responsibility and how just getting up at a certain time in a regular time or working out like how it just changes everything it's like well okay if I took responsibility over these couple things in my life has completely changed what if I just take responsibility over every aspect and this is why people I why I love listening to Jocko willing I mean his whole thing about discipline equals freedom and I can't argue with that in fact the more responsibility I take in every aspect the better my life becomes I gotta say you're getting up earlier Johnny you're dressing nicer I like the new responsible Johnny they were responsible thumbs up from AJ number four death is final and for a lot of us myself included you know this truth comes up through loss mm-hmm I lost my dad and that really put this concept to the forefront for me do you have unfinished business are you leaving something on the table are you not following through you only get one life you only get one opportunity at this I I know we might have some Buddhists and religious people disagreeing with me and listening to this but if you act as if you have multiple lives and if you act as if it doesn't matter in this one then you're gonna end up with subpar results so taking ownership of your actions that responsibility also leads to you realizing that I only have this opportunity in front of me and am I gonna sit there and complain about what's given to me or am I gonna do the best with what I have mm-hmm I remember making a choice and I think this is one of those things that allow me to embrace the idea of self-development was the idea that life is there's a finite amount of time and I can spend it in any way what why wouldn't I want to spend it being the best that I could possibly be like I bet I couldn't rationalize any other way of of living my life so then it's like okay well once I made that commitment it's I want to educate myself I want to get I want to learn about responsibility I want to take on all these things I want to learn things I want to put myself in a position to to fail so I can get better at things it just changes the whole idea well we were talking to John our show producer about some coach he's getting from Jesse Itzler and the the interesting thing about what John was saying earlier is when you start to quantify how many opportunities you're gonna have at something in your life right you realize that death is final mm-hmm you don't get more opportunities then you start to take a step back and think about well how many summers will I have how many opportunities will I have to spend with my dad how many times will I be able to go to a baseball game right when you start to realize that there's a lot fewer of those opportunities than you think and they become fewer every day exactly it's not infinite it doesn't stretch on forever when you realize that there is a finality to your life are you doing the most to maximize those opportunities and sometimes we get so sucked up into technology and social media that we forget about our relationships we forget about our friends we forget about those intimate moments that are fleeting and obviously social media technology is working against us it's fighting for our attention it's trying to suck us away from our friends and family and we've talked about it in the value of a sense they have the most brilliant incredible people working on getting more of that attention by by the hundreds and and they're doing a hell of a job very successful it's an arms race for our attention I brilliant it's an arms race for our attention absolutely and with that right so celebrating the time you have with loved ones and thinking about that digital detox right are you turning off your phone are you creating space for the people in your life that matter or are you attached to it and I know we fall victim to this all the time yeah well we just had the Miami mastermind and you had made mention that you wanted to give the guys make sure that you were present for more of this than getting sucked into whatever dumb things on Facebook and I was like yes that sounds like a wonderful idea and it was funny when I finally got back home I realized how much dumb stuff that I missed and I was like is does any of this stuff matter right right like one of the major things that popped up in my feed over the weekend was Danielle Bregoli little Tay and woe vicki got an older case this is like top trending Facebook's do I this is my lost me exactly and and I'm ashamed that I even know this does my life get any better by knowing this or does it get in doors that get worse by knowing this and I can tell you that just knowing that made me worse so did you unfollow TMZ on social media absolutely in fact it's just it's just another reason why and why I need to do less and less social media and I'm doing and I think I feel good about making steps closer to less social media every day yeah I don't remember where I heard the quote but I was definitely laughing it's like our brain was not equipped to handle what a beautiful Australian girl is having for lunch right now yeah I don't need to know what her grain bowl I don't need to know how great her life is in Australia I need to be present in my own and I need to be enjoying these minutes and moments that I have another thing about that I was just listening to the Sam Harris on Joe Rogan this week when he was on with Majid Nawaz and what did Sam do oh Sam torpedoed his family vacation because he had gotten upset over someone lobbying something on Twitter it's on Twitter now and here's the thing if Sam Harris can get distracted and and caught up and torpedo his family vacation over this right meditate Sam's mindful Sam gets it somebody who I look up to look up to and just here if he can get so well then what chance do I have so it's just like I'm done we don't have no technology it is consuming us the only option we have and that's exactly what we did to your point in Miami yeah we collected everyone's cell phones and you know what and I and I enjoyed that that weekend so much more and and I can look back on it and and just understand the happiness of without it and it's certainly not adding anything and what am I gonna get we're gonna have a conversation because I saw that Daniel broke Bragoli got into a little take we're done it's not adding to anything number five embrace your emotions this one can be difficult too when we start thinking about how much our emotions come and go and waves and how strong they could feel in the moment and sometimes especially as men right we go the opposite direction we're not embracing anything you're not embracing our emotions we're running from our emotions and I think the one in particular that obviously we harp a lot on is fear embracing that emotion instead of running from it instead of allowing it to dictate your life owning it and looking for those moments to push back on that fear is this really real is this a true fear or is this just something that my mind is doing to play a little trick on me to screw around with me well I one of the things that I think makes life so much better as I've gotten older and for us doing this for this company for 11 years had we been people who ran from fear we certainly wouldn't be in the position of we're in and it it takes a while to be able to embrace it but until you're able to fully embrace it I think challenging yourself with it and having some fun with it we can go a long way in getting you to the point where you can embrace it yeah and I flirting with it so to speak fear comes in in various ways I was invited I was about six or seven months ago now I've been working on my golf game I was invited by a buddy to go play around at a country club it's my first time playing in a country club so I was all in my head all nervous and I was afraid that I was going to be the worst one out of the group and sure enough on the front nine I was awful I was second-guessing everything I was freaking out about how this was gonna play balls are going left and right I think I hit the free way God's of the turn and just said for a second why am I so fearful of the next result right why am I so concerned about what the next thing is let me just focus on the shot that I'm on and I started to calm down a little bit and I think fear you know when people hear fear they hear like fear of heights fear of this fear of that but there are small fears that creep up every day that we don't embrace that we run from I don't think they're conscious of them right and understanding that these are the moments that the growth happens that the real you shines through your ability to handle the fear to face the fear not you running from the fear you know it I think that also goes back to the last podcast we did where a lot of people who are procrastinators like to wrap it up and that I'm a perfectionist yeah right because they don't want to deal with it or what we see a lot of the people who bury themselves in work who say I'm a workaholic because they're afraid to go out and socialize it's not that they're workaholics they probably go these are also people who say that they're working who are on social media just surfing the net I'm working yeah when they're worried about everyone's vanity metrics and likes and everything else it's easy to become a workaholic yeah I think the the second point where we're looking to make here with with these emotions is that we're flawed and these emotions are chemical reactions okay these emotions do not define you they are not making or breaking you and they come in waves we've been happy we've been sad sometimes for no explanation at all well and I think there there's a book called the happiness trap and and I think the culture that we grow up in that everyone's so focused on having these perfect lives and being happy all the time and that's the goal that's just not reality and without without having flows you'd be a robot you'd be programmed but to your point what's happening right the walls are closing in on us we go on social media and everyone we see is happy frolicking in the sun living their best life climbing on a private jet shooting off somewhere in the world making millions of dollars driving fancy cars so I can't possibly fail I can't possibly show that I'm flawed or that things are not working out for me well that's it when you have any other emotion than what you that seems that everyone else is if everyone else is happy and I'm the one who's not feeling it well then obviously I must be broken and then you start going down this road where it's a circle because now you're gonna beat my I'm gonna beat myself up because I'm feeling this way and it just it's a continuous and that that trap leads you into depression how can it right it's a one-way street into depression and the comparing that goes along with it I mean I I remember when Amy and I first started dating and she and her friends were checking out my Instagram yeah and she came out to visit L.A. and and she made a comment like what is up with your Instagram I was like what do you mean I don't know I just take photos that I like and things I'm going on and just you know whatever hops to mine she's like you're not presenting yourself right why would you take a photo of these french fries this doesn't look just like and it was like the first time in my life that I realized oh I'm supposed to be presenting the best version of myself on social media to everyone I'm not supposed to just in the moment be like oh this was cool oh this was funny oh look at this thing I saw on the street in Barcelona I also part of that's generational how for myself gen X view social media compared to how a millennial use it compared to what generation Z is going to do with it which supposedly they're supposed to be checking out of it yeah I think they're not using the apps at all yeah which in my mind is the direction that I'd rather go yeah and we often talk that one of the main reasons we're on Facebook in general is to interact with the alumni of the program yes and be part of that private Facebook group that everyone is accessing and outside of that I have news news I have news feed eradicator I try not to engage in it and I realize that I'm missing a few people's birthdays I'm missing out on a few celebrations online I'm also missing out on a lot of complaining about Trump this and so and so that and this person screw me and oh apparently I missed out on some pseudo celebrities getting into an argument over the weekend yeah I could tell you all about that the crazy thing about this and this is sort of the one of the aha moments that happens during bootcamp for our guys is when you start to embrace and own your emotions the good and the bad you start to open up this vulnerability that lets connection happen yes when you start speaking about your emotions listening to other people's emotions embracing emotions and not running from emotions that window that you open up to other people allows for that connection to happen and a lot of times we get caught up in oh well you know let's connect on commonalities common interests right back that can happen it's trap because a lot of us tie connection to commonalities and common interests yep the reason that connections happening is the emotion that that commonality evokes you are sharing that emotion with you if you take a step back and realize that it's not the commonality it's the universal of the emotions then I can relate to Johnny when he's been happy on stage of course just like the moment of happiness I felt shooting my best round of golf breaking 90 I wasn't on stage I don't play guitar but that moment of elation that moment of celebration and victory that's what we can relate on and the anything I've been through life you've experienced the full range of emotions so there is no reason that you're unable to at least give an attempt to connect with other people the other side of that is just because you have now embraced your emotions doesn't mean that everyone else has right so that takes you being patient I think the most important thing there is to understand that we're human beings and we're going to feel the full range of emotions and if you're not feeling great that's okay and also to understand okay maybe I don't feel so good okay well what can I do to maybe fix this or what can I do tomorrow at least help me feel a little bit better and emotions are fleeting days can go by and you won't remember the anger that you had at TMZ for giving you such bad news about your heroes you won't remember the conflict months from now years from now but in the moment I get it emotionally it's charged you feel it and sometimes it can be difficult to wrap your head around those things yes number six in our brutal truth list you can't make everyone your friend and this is a realization that I think I started to have late 20s yeah I I really did want everyone to be my friend and a lot of the people pleasing came from my dad and the behaviors that I picked up from him growing up and really when we put ourselves out there and the platform that we have grew and we start getting really unfiltered negative feedback yeah you start to realize that wow I thought I had a great impression I thought yeah I thought that guy loved me and he's like AJ's an asshole and then you start going well what the heck did I do wrong I don't you can't wrap your head around what you did wrong having the realization that sometimes you're serving pizza and they're looking for Chinese food I think for myself learning this it was early 20s as well and I remember it was I was performing it was one of my first gigs and it must have been I don't know four people who came up to see us that evening and so it's like from when that happens like I want to make all four of these people our biggest fan right and so you're giving your your everything and you see this person go man and they leave you see this person like yeah they shrug your shoulders it's like I've given houses how are you not our biggest fan I'm giving you the full show and it's and that's when it was a small crowd and then I remember getting so frustrated and so angry and then I started beating myself up and then of course I wanted to yell at them will you people just don't know good music when you hear it you don't know pure their fault it's their fault and I remember somebody older was like listen just celebrate the people who are into it right don't play to the crowd just do your thing and and find the people who are going to be interested in what you do don't try to entertain them and of course once I adopted that it was a leave it was alleviated all this necessity of having the win over each of these people now we're just going to give our best performance and those who were there who do like us will are going to get the greatest show ever rather than trying to make each one of these people separately like you because the minute you give them that extra attention you've alienated the other people and you're trying to win them over a lot of times the critics are just the loudest of course the people who are enjoying it the people who are loving the show they're just smiling they're not sitting there with their bullhorn yelling at you get off stage what the heck's wrong with you so it's easy to get caught up in the people that don't like you it's easy to get caught up in the negative feedback when you can have the realization that not everyone's gonna like you you can change that behavior where you're chasing other people's value you can change that behavior where you're holding back on actions that you care about because you're trying to win everyone over sure when you try to win everyone over you're not being authentic you're not being yourself and people sense that I always as a thought experiment I always ask our clients or just anybody like what is your thought process that you go through before you post something on social media and realize how you're looking at different factions of your life and and who will get upset and who won't who will cheer you on and well this person and then start to think okay I have X number of Facebook friends friends I put that in their quotes right how many of those people let's just say out of a hundred how many of those people you think actually really like you how many of those I bet you there's a percentage maybe small I about would think unless you're a complete asshole I like you yeah I grew that that I'm just thinking you're you're a jerk right like oh what's AJ posting today look at this guy yeah there are a contingent of people that love to watch the car crash that are waiting for you to fail there's a contingent of people that are cheering you on silently yeah that are just enjoying they're not hitting the like and one of the things that I found so fascinating about that 60 minutes piece on social media was this idea that everyone is so concerned about that initial burst of likes and attention on social media and I found myself getting caught up in it where I'll post something and then you know I only get four likes no one's while I just delete it right just I don't want it up and so the software engineers have realized this and what they do is they actually group together the likes and the comments into these bursts so that you post something and it waits until it's 10 or 20 the critical number and then it says hey look 30 people like this yeah so you get an even bigger boost I gotta come back to the app and now see who's liking it so you start to realize that not only am I chasing the wrong things I'm chasing likes I'm chasing other people's approval on social you also realize that the technology is working against my psyche it is working against me right now it is pooling people's likes to get me sucked more in and all of a sudden I'm now so concerned with this digital life this digital representation of me that I'm missing real life what's going on right now in the moment well what's curious to me is is I and we've been talking about it and this has been mentioned in several episodes now obviously with all this new technology there are some things that are going hey why are wrong and there's also some things that are great right we're all connected information's flowing you can find your high school friends and they can complain about how successful you are in LA fantastic I am interested to see how it all shakes out because like you know you can equate this to the printing press being invented and the hysteria of well now everyone's going to get all this information and everyone's going to be not everyone can handle it they're not so it's likened to that and I am interested to see how because it's going to go far over and then retracted and it's and it's going to be a it's a balancing act like with any new technology it'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out because the way we're going right now and it's a mess well I'm I'm really interested to see and I I think that there's going to be a tipping point there may even be these services available already but instead of the services that remove all the negative stories about you and remove all the negative publicity online services that just delete everything of you online yeah make you a ghost go through and remove and scrub the internet of all those references of all those positive and negative so that people can't search you at all to get back your privacy right when you think about and we're we're interviewing and hiring right now so our first thought is go online okay let's look this person up let's figure out what's going on sure and you know you get to page four or five of Google and you realize man they posted this in 2002 I'm not sure they want me to be reading this do they even know I can read this you know it's like you you start to realize just how flippant we were in the beginning all this new service live journal let me just write all my thoughts and feelings yeah oh and trust me I've seen some friends live journals that had yeah it's totally it's it's hilarious and I know personally for myself like when we started this company I was I was learning how to write myself and then you know do you put an article together you think it's okay and then okay well let me publish this on the blog and you're not ready for that it's like when we already have a platform I just wrote something for the first time I think it's okay and then to stick it up there and then just getting destroyed because like what is this a third grade wrote it like well actually so that whole idea of you can't make everyone your friend obviously with social media you can make everyone your friend anyone could be your Facebook friend anyone could be your Instagram friend and that's sort of the problem here is we started to blur the line between friends and acquaintances and service connections and real people that have connection and care about us deeply and a lot of times because of this we've moved in this direction I just got to collect more Facebook friends yeah I just got to get more people following me more people paying attention to me how about you get more people invested in your life invested in your success invested in you and connected and you invested in their lives well once you get into the attention economy of people paying attention you just get in the habit of doing more and more outrageous stuff and I think we know a few guys like that yeah and how far is that going to go before you're so far off the deep end that you you can't even try to be normal you couldn't even do what happens all the time with YouTube stars right you look at some of the big ones where they're trying to push the envelope to get the extra views to get the extra people engaged and well it's funny I was just talking with somebody and that I was this was a few months ago when the Logan Paul yeah stuff went down and they were laughing they're like listen he doesn't even care because all of this is just more publicity I'm like but but psyche wise it's it's not good for him he like he's getting more followers he's getting more attention but he has to continually figure out other ways to push this where it just get more and more outrageous really what's interesting to be is people like Pewdie Pie who's already been around the block a few times where he just it seems to me I'm not a I don't watch show but it from what I can tell is he just continually just doing his thing and if you like him you like him if you're not you're not he's not going out of his way to find outrageous stuff he is going he's trying to be creative and be funny but it's not filming dead people and he's had some issues as well yeah I think maybe we'll table that discussion will be a future episode