went in one direction and maybe there's a there needs to be a correction in a way where Our idea of what ambition even means is doesn't necessarily have to be that thing of oh so-and-so made a company and sold it or is successful in a newspaper or on magazine and And that's kind of maybe about a question which is what should ambition actually be in the first place right like maybe without Idea of that is so skewed in one direction Because we're just we're starting from that broken premise

Yeah, I mean, you know Victor Frankle probably did some of my favorite work I think in answering this question right and Victor Frankle was a Holocaust survivor. He was a neurologist And he also was the author of a book called man search for meaning which is I mean I go back to that book at least once a year

I've read it to a

great book. It's it's amazing. I mean, you know, I think I think in terms of just story plus insight plus research You can't combine things in a better way than he did What one of the things that I think that he really sort of talked about near the end of his career Was a look back on everything that he learned and what he was basically saying is that if you look at prior generations even you know two three generations Behind us what you often find was sort of this this push-pull between money and meaning right Which mattered more when it came to ambition was it money or meaning? And I think the premise two three generations ago was that if you if you made enough money in your life You would be able to create meaning right you can you can use money to create meaning and ultimately that was the formula What Frankle was starting to argue is that that was changing and as he was surveying young people like Johns Hopkins He did a study research research study with with them And it was like thousands and thousands of college students who were right about to graduate and they were asking What is the most important thing for you? They found that it shifted from from money to meaning now being the top priority and I would argue that that shift has continued to occur right like through our generation through Gen Z now I think into my kids generation meaning is more important than money now There's there's you know, there's thresholds to all this right? It doesn't mean that like money is unimportant right? But to your point like once you get to a point of I can feed myself I can shelter myself There's a diminishing return on that and what starts to matter a lot more is a sense of meaning right? For me, it really comes back to the formula of essence plus expression Dharma equals essence plus expression You have something like I believe that every single one of us has a gift and I know you do too Right and that's reason you have this podcast because you're interviewing people who have I think in some way been able to tap into that gift And they've been able to express it in a way that was that that amounted to you know impact to results, right? and I Think that's ultimately the definition which is like when you are in that essence when you are doing something that really matters to you And you're able to express that in a productive way. You are you have you have satisfied ambition The reason it's important I think for me to think about it that way is because you might actually Have a billion dollar business right that you do not care about and I have met people who feel that way, right? They found a market. They found an opportunity They made a lot of money doing it But it wasn't something that actually really mattered to them right and now sure they are in their 40s and they're like I'm miserable. I'm rich, but I'm miserable right and that's like It's it's very hard to feel sorry for somebody like that But at the same time it doesn't mean there's psychological like suffering is like, you know, it's it's real right Yeah, for sure feels like they've wasted they've wasted their life, right? My my view on it is this if you work on something that doesn't matter to you and it doesn't work Which by the way, I think there's a higher likelihood of something scaling when you don't care deeply about it you lost twice Right, yeah, let's work down something. It didn't matter to you and it didn't work But if you work on something that really really truly matters to you And it doesn't work. Well, I think you win either way, right? Like it it did something You did something that you felt was important to you You did something that you felt like was experiential for you like for me with rise And the reason that company worked is because it was a one-on-one coaching service, right? We did nutrition coaching right right over your mobile phone It was started in 2013 right before sort of like the the major wave of like health apps came to be right? so we were one of the first ones to kind of get out there and You know the reason that it worked wasn't because we didn't have the same setbacks as my companies that failed We had all those setbacks But the reason that I kept going is because I really cared about this one right like my father I watched my father really suffer with his health. He had a he had an emergency bypass surgery when he was in his forties we knew lost him you know and I watched him with the help of the health coach really begin to turn his life around right? I saw the power of that as a kid He's the reason that he's alive even today and for me like that was the thing right even when the numbers even when I looked at like the dashboards and the numbers were Like upsetting to me right things weren't working even when experiments were failing even when team members Were leaving because they were like hey this thing isn't working I kept going because I really really cared about it right and I always had this belief that maybe you do as well Though I was like if I was working on something that really mattered and of course I didn't want to fail right failure is failure Is not like it's not sexy. It's a great teacher, but I didn't want to fail But I always felt like hey listen its distinct fails I'm not gonna look back on it and and like regret it like because Again, it was something that made me come alive in the first place

Yeah, I love that man for sure. No that that's beautifully put and nice to hear that your dad's doing better now too because Yeah, like you said that is one of the The craziest things to witness is just a deterioration of a parent or loved one And even yourself like I've gone through a similar thing in the last year where I've really changed so many things about myself And in a positive way Yeah, specifically with my health and that has been literally the number one priority for me and That is another Big part of this right like when I look back at when I was down or when I was feeling depressed or not feeling That fire in myself a lot of it was probably just because I wasn't looking after myself, right? Sleeping four to five hours a night. I was eating out all the time. I was going out all the time I was just not living a very healthy life And that is just there's a physiological thing there too of just how you feel every day and a lot of that comes back to that Idea of like how do you manage your energy? Are you doing the things that are giving you that balance that rest time as well is really important even for someone like me Who's a an extra for like I've now appreciated with my girlfriend being a massive introvert Like I need that recharge time as much as anyone as well Yeah, I want to go into those I those tools to actually find some of your you know The calling the Dharma that we've talked about but just one comment on the suffering was another idea to bring up is I think the word suffering obviously sounds like such a negative word and it is in most cases but there's There's a guy David Goggins. You've probably seen him on the circuit as well. He's a yeah He's a he's a fun funny dude But I don't agree with lots of things he says But one of the things that he does say which I as I've kind of internalized when it comes to health Specifically when it comes to working out like when I'm in the gym I'll listen to some of this stuff sometimes if you're music in the background because that is the best example of where suffering actually Is a positive thing right you're literally breaking down your muscles. You're feeling pain or not actual pain But you're feeling that strain and you kind of earn that feeling you spend an hour lifting weights You know doing whatever sort of workout and by the end you get a sustained 4 to 6 hours worth of great feeling or maybe the whole day that mood boost is there and that came from in air quote suffering And and so I think I've as someone who's probably taken the easy path too many times with physical pursuits That has been like a nice flip for me whereas Sometimes the suffering is actually needed because it puts that kind of callus in the mind as he would describe And it kind of builds that character as well. So but yeah, I just wanted to mention that and I don't know I think it's a really

good metaphor as well because I think yeah, it's like you know stress and and pressure Is not is not always unhealthy in fact, it can actually be a really good thing right and striving can actually be a really good thing Right and I think it's what we do in our best workouts is we're striving to hit a higher limit Right one of the things I love about sort of the workout metaphor is that what do you do after you work out? you You recover right and you're recovering It's your if you're in a if you're in a good workout pattern Which I've been in points in my life where I've been terrible workout patterns and then type of that life I've been like in great workout patterns when I was in great workout patterns Recovery was a really important part of that But critically like recovery wasn't a reward for when I had just done Recovery was a preparation for what I was going to do next. Yeah, right and and I think that's a really subtle But but important shift for I think for me And I think for all of us to consider which is that are you rewarding yourself with these rests and recoveries meaning? Are you are you seeing that as something that you have to deserve? Because you because you've gritted out right or can you flip that to say hey actually? I'm gonna recover right now because I know that if I recover right now It's gonna make me in the next meeting or the next pitch or whatever it is far more creative far more For power collaborative right far more energetic right in the same way that we recover so that we can go into our next workout and Strive for even higher things.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I think the metaphor for exercise is really helpful because it is the perfect balance of putting in work putting an energy but then getting both the benefits and even just a muscle example of You break down your muscle for it to become stronger Right and like you then need to refuel you need to your muscle builds at night really when you're sleeping you're resting covering There's actually an idea you talk about in the book about the running world's 85% raw since we're talking about this Which is about creating balance because you explained a little bit about that and maybe this is within the area of Well, I'll just let you explain what that is and how it relates to what we're speaking about

definitely yeah So Carl Lewis famous Olympic sprinter, you know one many many medals One of the things they were trying to figure out about Carl Lewis is he had this very unusual sort of way where he would actually start In the back of the pack but find his way to the front of the pack and it was defying a lot of conventional wisdom because For most for most runners and for most races if you weren't in the front of the pack by the halfway mark You lost the race right but Carl Lewis would always start in the back of the pack and just subtly advances the way to the front in one of the things that you know a coach started to observe when they really carefully studied how he was running Is that unlike other sprinters? He wasn't starting out the gate at 100% He was starting out at 85% But he was maintaining that 85% all the way through so other other sprinters would like start out the gate as fast as they could And typically they would start to get a little bit gassed by the end Carl Lewis was 85% all the way through and he was sort of almost like this really always beautiful way almost whisked by I start to whisk by his his opponents It became he became one of the most winningest, you know racers and in Olympic history for that reason and You know the 85% rule is something you may have actually heard have been talked about Tim Ferriss has talked about this I heard you Jackman the actor talking about this as well as it it started to make its way out of the sports world into business It started to make it its way into you know Investing and acting is this idea of like When we're at like when we're at this hundred percent mark when it's all out all the time We get gassed right you bought out But is there this 85% sort of smooth relaxed but intentional energy right because Kind of getting back to what we're talking about below like sometimes we confuse Relaxation with unamvision right a lack of ambition But these two things can coexist then we see it all the time right we see it We see it especially amongst athletes and musicians and and people who are performers who are doing their best work They're not coming out on stage like gritty and tight they're coming out on stage like loose right and relaxed We see this in race car driving by the way race car driving is a great example Which is like one of the one of the hardest things drivers have to learn how to do is ease their grip on the steering wheel right because if they grip too tight they miss a lot of the direction of the road and They end up crashing into you know They crashing the object but you have to serve to almost tune in in order to tune in you have to relax your grip So instead of like a nine out of ten you're gripping it like more like a five or six out of ten Same thing is true. I think in our dairy lives Which is we kind of feel that in order to get to hard things We have to like grip at a ten out of ten what the 85% rule is basically saying no You can dial that back right and if you dial that back to about an eight and a half out of ten What that allows you to do is free up some of the creative energy Right some of the sense of flow that we know that is actually like highly correlated to not just success But like sometimes the highest peak performance.

Yeah, no, that's a really nice way to put it I think them the Avogav had kind of talk about this maybe without describing as eighty five percent There's a guy called for us the hobby. He's a MMA trainer He was on Joe Rogan many years ago is one of my favorite episode favorite podcast because he's you know a high level elite Coach like physical coach. He trains a lot of the top athletes But also he was a very philosophical guy. I find it quite a really cool mix And that kind of changed my mind around training specifically because you know if we put David Goggins out who I mentioned before in the ten out of ten 100 out of ten intensity running 100 milers 17 weeks in a row crazy level Which is obviously not what most people should be doing what anyone should be doing But his approach was not every day I want to train you to eight or nine out of ten so that you've got like let's say you're lifting weights You should be able to still lift one or two reps He said because that means the next day you can still come to the gym again And that's an idea of like just Long jevy is more important and being consistent is obviously more important They're just going once going crazy and then never going again Right and that is something I've found like I've struggled with because I'm an all-or-nothing sort of person naturally and Finding balance has been you know a Challenge but also kind of a nice like I found more of an equilibrium with it now I know we we're almost you know and close to an hour in and we're now going to get to the meat of Actually the tools that you can use to try to tap into this for yourself So I know in the book you've actually got real tangible Kind of tools or techniques that you can Try to figure some of this out for yourself. So what are some of those?

Yeah, yeah, you know what what are the the ways that I sort of changed the way that I looked at purpose calling Dharma right like is that I often sort of felt like I needed to go out and find it right and you'd like you know Read a ton of books listen to a ton of podcasts. I needed to travel I needed to do all those things and these things are great by the way I love doing all of that but what I realized is that This essence that we're really talking about is something that's already inside of you like I Already inside of you. It likely has already been inside you for a very long time And in fact one of the healthiest conversations we can have Sometimes is with people who knew us when we were kids To kind of go back to those memories and say like what was I like, you know, what do I enjoy? You know because sometimes we forget those things and the really the basis of the book is kind of like um It's kind of like Michelangelo would look at a sculpture Or like if he would look at a block of marble and he would say there's already a sculpture inside Right all I have to do is sort of peel back the layers that are in its way And I think Dharma is very much the same you have this thing It's been inside of you always it has never left your side, but it's been buried It's buried it's buried in I think goals. It's buried in expectations. It's buried in judgments It's buried in other people's priorities And oftentimes what we just need to do is we need to chisel back the layers and in the book I offer some ways to do that right and I'm constantly working through these myself Just to kind of figure out what are new chisels that we can use One that I really like is sort of a flip on the question that sometimes we ask which is like if success were imminent Like if you if you if success were guaranteed, what would you go do? Right. I actually like to flip that question right and I asked if failure was guaranteed

What would you go do? Right and

I know it sounds like kind of a bit of a strange question because who wants to fail But the thing is if there's something out there that you would do Whether or not you ended up in ended up winning right and you would do it anyway That is almost a sure fire way to know that that thing really deeply matters to you Right and chances are there's actually not much of that out there right like you like if there's something that you feel like like for you Well, I don't know when you started this podcast whether you felt like it was gonna come as big as widely listened to as it was Right and my guess at least is because there are so many podcasts out there like that was a big unknown for you but The fact is that you did it anyway Like you did it anyway and my guess is even though you may not have asked yourself that question It was kind of like maybe it mattered to you in a different in a different way than you success,

right? No, I think that just to answer that specifically. I think that's a lens I still have is everything I do. I basically say for zero people listened would it still be something? I want to do so that is to me like other even when I got connected to I said Oh, would I want to meet this guy for coffee or go for dinner with him and have a good conversation? Yes, 100% it seems very interesting So that already to me is we get to meet so if zero people listen and we already both gained awfully from it Hopefully some people listen and check out your book too, but you know That's kind of how I think about

it and I love that man. I love that and yeah If people check out the book great, but you know, I've loved our conversation as well And I think that like it's hard man It's hard to live this way in the world that we're in right now because so much of it so much of it about Sort of sharing, you know our accomplishments, right? It's about bolstering our profiles. It's about it's about adding things to our grid, right? In the end of the day like character is who you are when nobody's watching Right, and I think that that's the side of us that we're that we are you know at the risk of Increasingly of ignoring right is this inner character because we want this outer sort of expression this outer personality to sort of be the thing right? What I have found is that coming back to this character coming back to come back to who you are right and starting to do things Not for the benefit of how it will look to others but doing it for the benefit of how you feel yourself, right? What I have found is that there are two types of rewards to that number one is like you just start to work on like Really cool stuff like stuff that really matters to you just like this podcast matters to you, right? But the other thing is like when I started to look at life that way Would I do it even if it would fail I started to succeed Right, there's like no other way to put it like I started to actually produce great work And it's it's a little bit weird because when I was in the mindset of I have to succeed and failure is not an option I was more likely to fail So and and by the way like I find this to be the case with a lot of people right like I what I do today is I study entrepreneurs for a living right like I'm hosting this documentary series where I'm flying around the world and I'm And I'm meeting people who are who started things like that have had real impact and in What I realized is that most of them Also have failures underneath their belt and the thing that ultimately pulled them over the edge the thing that really ended up having Impact was when they tapped inside and they figured out All right, I would do this no matter what because I care so deeply about it That's when things started to work

Yeah, I love that and so that was a really great question.