My First Million
00:26:15 · Bill Perkins
[00:26:15] S0: I really, you know, it wasn't like I sat down and like I cracked through and sat down with the Dalai Lama and meditated, but I realized like, hey, what I wanted at the time, was gonna go for it, and then I realized that a lot of the things that I thought I wanted had just been great marketing, either by society or the movies, and I had been inculcated with it. And so, you know, I realized like, holy shit, the foods I like, the things I do were really just programming. Right? I don't eat fried crickets because I didn't grow up in Asia. You know? If I grew up in China, I'd be like, when can we get some fried crickets, man? Things are really good. Right? To me, it's repulsive. But the only reason why it's repulsive is I didn't grow up eating fried crickets. Right? And so almost all the things that I like were programming, not innate. Right? And so I I realized that it was gonna take a lot, and it's not that all programming is bad. Like some of them was like, I like it, copy paste repeat, but a lot of the programming did not work for me. It was that conflict of what I really wanted, and it was going to take some thinking and discovery to actually come to what what kind I of life I wanted, you know, what what what how do these conflict with my values, are my values, the right values, yada yada yada, and that was going to happen over time. It wasn't something that was going happen, like, right away. I was going to erase twenty something years of programming in a day, right?
00:27:38 · Shaan Puri, Bill Perkins, Sam Parr
[00:27:38] S1: Give us a couple of bullet points. What did you... What are... What were some of the principles or tenets that that you did end up replacing that actually you do live by now or you do chase now? [00:27:47] S0: Oh, there's a lot. I mean, how I react to people when they trespass against you, how I show up with kindness. Like, you're in Jersey City. Right? You're going to a club, somebody steps on your sneakers, somebody might die. Right? Like, that's a cultural programming. [00:28:00] S2: What did you decide that you're gonna do? [00:28:01] S0: I'm not gonna be punching people in the face because they stepped on my sneakers in a crowded... [00:28:05] S2: So you said, okay, so rule rule number one, I'm not gonna be reactive. I'm gonna I'm not gonna be high.
00:28:05 · Sam Parr, Bill Perkins
[00:28:05] S2: So you said, okay, so rule rule number one, I'm not gonna be reactive. I'm gonna I'm not gonna be high. [00:28:10] S0: Yeah. Like, how how... Well, I'm reactive, but what are my response cries to certain stimulus? Right? Like, there's everybody has certain stimulus, like somebody dies, somebody cheats you, somebody does this, somebody does x, y, and z, this happens, that happens, and then you have your responses, right, out of your toolkit. And, you know, I started to look at, out out of all the infinite ways you can respond to a stimuli, why was I choosing these ways, right? And the judgment was, does it work or not work for my goals? So there's no judge... You know what I mean? Like, it wasn't like a a a judgment in terms of, like, this is the right way, this is wrong way. It's like, does this work or not work for my goals? What are my goals? So there's a lot of thinking and going on there about everything. Like, if, you know, you you you see certain things in the news or people like, oh, this bad thing happened, and they did this. And you're like, okay, why why did they behave that way? Somebody insults you. You... What did you say? How did you react? You know? And, you know, people write tons of books on this stuff, like, you know, controlling yourself or whatever. But it ultimately is like you have lots of stimuli and lots of responses, and which ones work for you and which ones don't. And with the ones that work, you know, you rip them out and replace them with something else.
00:29:25 · Sam Parr, Bill Perkins, Shaan Puri
[00:29:25] S2: That's been, you know, people ask us, we've done almost a thousand of these episodes, people like, what are some of the commonalities of people who win? And I always say, well, the first thing is like, there's like, for every rule that you read about in business, like I can point to many examples of people who have broken that rules and are equally successful, and success is defined as, you know, they are where they want to be. But the other thing is that there's this like internal locus control amongst winners, which is like basically I can only control me, how I feel, how I react to this situation. It's all up to me. Those are probably one of the only two things that are true that we've noticed amongst successful people. But that attitude that you just described is one of the common ones. [00:30:05] S0: Yeah. Essentially, it's maximum accountability. Right? It's just like you are ultimately accountable. [00:30:13] S1: Do you you know... You're a poker guy. You know Daniel Negreanu? [00:30:16] S2: Yes. [00:30:17] S1: So Daniel came on the podcast and obviously I wanted to nerd out about poker, but we asked him one other question. We're like, what was an important turning point in your life? I thought he'd say some tournament win. And he was like, dude, I went to this self help seminar. [00:30:31] S0: You went to Choice? Yeah. I went before him. [00:30:34] S1: Oh, were? Okay. Maybe you were the guy you told me. [00:30:35] S0: Was like five or six classes after me.
00:30:35 · Bill Perkins, Shaan Puri
[00:30:35] S0: Was like five or six classes after me. [00:30:38] S1: He was like, Someone I really respect had done it. So I said, All right, fine. I'll go do it. He talked about this maximum accountability principle where you had to write a story of your life for something that went wrong, in some way you were wronged or something that went wrong in your life. And then rewrite the story instead of in the victim mindset, but with a 100% ownership of your part of that whole thing. And he goes, it was the most freeing moment of my life. And I... And it really stood out to me. I think of a... I think a lot of people would benefit if they just rewrote one story in their life with... From the point of view of maximum accountability. Did you do that same exercise? [00:31:10] S0: Yeah. I've done that and many more in terms of accountability and not being in a victim mindset. And it's a natural thing. I mean, we've taught it. It's in the culture. Your ego doesn't want it to be wrong, So, know, getting the maximum accountability aspect going is a constant practice, right? Like you never get to perfection. You just, you constantly have to practice that.
00:31:10 · Bill Perkins, Sam Parr
[00:31:10] S0: Yeah. I've done that and many more in terms of accountability and not being in a victim mindset. And it's a natural thing. I mean, we've taught it. It's in the culture. Your ego doesn't want it to be wrong, So, know, getting the maximum accountability aspect going is a constant practice, right? Like you never get to perfection. You just, you constantly have to practice that. [00:31:35] S2: Can I ask about living this life with a family? Because you guys, you were talking about like the white picket fence and stuff. And what's funny is I never wanted any of that. Then I had kids and I actually had to like retrain where I'm like, I actually do like being home at five and not going out at night. And I don't particularly love traveling that that much because I wanna be with my family. Like, wanted a more of a a boring life. And I actually think a lot of, like, young men in America probably need a little bit of... Where it's like, it's kinda nice to work forty hours a week and also have a family that you're with all the time versus partying and and going out. How do you live this pretty dope life when you have young kids? I think your kids are more grown now. But what were you doing when your kids were in school and trying to like live this life? Were you trying to be fulfilled?