#847: Steve Young, from Super Bowl MVP to Managing Billions – Hall of Fame 49ers Quarterback on High Performance, Reinvention, Faith, and How to Blend Dreams and Plans

Steve Young (@steveyoung https://www.instagram.com/steveyoung/) is a Hall of Fame NFL quarterback who played more than 15 seasons, primarily with the San Francisco 49ers. Steve co-founded HGGC https://www.hggc.com/team/j-steven-young, which manages more than $6.9B in capital commitments. He’s also the founder and current chair of the Forever Young Foundation https://foreveryoung.org/, which supports children’s charities globally. He is the author of QB: My Life Behind the Spiral https://www.amazon.com/QB-My-Life-Behind-Spiral/dp/1328745724/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20 and The Law of Love https://www.amazon.com/Law-Love-Steve-Young/dp/1639930310/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20. This episode is brought to you by: Cresset https://cressetcapital.com/tim family office services for CEOs, founders, and entrepreneurs: CressetCapital.com/Tim https://cressetcapital.com/tim AG1 https://drinkag1.com/tim all-in-one nutritional supplement: DrinkAG1.com/Tim https://drinkag1.com/tim Wealthfront http://wealthfront.com/Tim high-yield cash account: Wealthfront.com/Tim https://wealthfront.com/Tim New clients get 3.30% base APY from program banks + additional 0.75% boost for 3 months on your uninvested cash (max $150k balance). Terms and conditions apply. The Cash Account offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC (“WFB”) member FINRA/SIPC, not a bank. The base APY as of 1/30/26 is representative, can change, and requires no minimum. Tim Ferriss, a non-client, receives compensation from WFB for advertising and holds a non-controlling equity interest in the corporate parent of WFB, which creates a conflict of interest. Individual experiences and outcomes will differ. Instant withdrawals may be limited by your receiving firm and other factors. Investment advisory services provided by Wealthfront Advisers LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. Securities investments: not bank deposits, not bank-guaranteed or FDIC-insured, and may lose value. TIMESTAMPS: [00:00:00] Start.[00:02:34] The full circle of Josh Waitzkin.[00:05:47] The Stephen Covey plane ride that changed everything.[00:11:38] Overcoming victimization: The hole you dig, then jump into.[00:14:16] How taking ownership led Steve from rock bottom to NFL MVP in one season.[00:21:50] Interceptions and the truest truth about accountability.[00:26:09] What separates good from great quarterbacks: Adrenaline alchemy.[00:31:21] Alex Honnold and the genetics of not panicking.[00:32:14] Learning to actually throw a football at BYU.[00:35:01] Recovering from the offensive coordinator who wouldn’t coach southpaws.[00:37:00] The vulnerability prerequisite.[00:42:45] Separation anxiety: Thriving by day, terrified by night.[00:48:29] Tears in the Candlestick Park training room.[00:52:37] The diagnosis that made the puzzle pieces fit.[00:58:32] Dad’s philosophy: Dream (1%) and Plan (80%).[01:01:14] Law school between Super Bowl parades.[01:02:33] Trading locker room access for venture capital deals.[01:08:45] Mourning old identities and heeding Roger Staubach’s transition advice: “Run.”[01:11:49] Rich Lawson walks out of Morgan Stanley: “I’ll be the CEO.”[01:19:05] 30 years of partnership: Yin, yang, and existential crises.[01:23:01] HGGC: The name nobody can pronounce (and why).[01:25:19] Faith evolution: From Boy Scout theology to something deeper.[01:29:41] The Law of Love: Bill Walsh’s secret weapon.[01:32:53] Divine humanity and the irony of losing self-interest.[01:43:52] Parting thoughts.* For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show https://tim.blog/podcast, please visit tim.blog/podcast https://tim.blog/podcast/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcast-description. For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show https://tim.blog/podcast, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsors https://tim.blog/podcast-sponsors Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-1/. For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts https://tim.blog/transcripts. Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books https://tim.blog/books. Follow Tim: Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss https://twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferriss https://instagram.com/timferriss/ YouTube: youtube.com/timferriss https://www.youtube.com/timferriss Facebook: facebook.com/timferriss https://www.facebook.com/TimFerriss/ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferriss http://linkedin.com/in/timferriss See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers, to try to break down how they have done, what they've done, what you can copy and paste and test in your own lives. And it can take many different forms. This interview has been probably two years in the making. I was so happy to finally have it happen. Steve Young, also very timely, right about now at the time of recording. Steve Young is a Hall of Fame NFL quarterback who played more than 15 seasons, primarily with the San Francisco 49ers. He was Super Bowl XXIX MVP, earning Sports Illustrated and Sporting News Player of the

• 0:40Tim Ferriss?

  Year honors from 1992 to 94, and won the NFL MVP award in both 92 and 94. When he retired, he held the all-time record for highest quarterback rating and remains the only quarterback to win four consecutive NFL passing titles. What makes him also very interesting to me is that he's a multi-hyphenate. So the story did not end there. He didn't fade into obscurity. After football, Young became an ESPN analyst and a private equity executive. He co-founded HGGC, which manages roughly $9 billion in capital commitments. And there have been some amazing, amazing profiles of him, which initially piqued my interest, because he seems to have been so good at reinvention and also high performance,

• 1:23Tim Ferriss?

  not only over decades, but in different disciplines entirely. He's also the founder and current chair of the Forever Young Foundation, which supports children's charities globally. He is the author of QB: My Life Behind the Spiral and The Law of Love. You can find him on Instagram @steveyoung. And without further ado, please enjoy a very wide-ranging, very in-depth conversation with Steve. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention one thing he requested that I include in the intro, which is that he and I seem to be journeying on parallel paths. And certainly, both during the interview but after recording, that seems to be the case. Not at all comparing myself to Steve. He is so many levels above me in so many ways.

• 2:06Tim Ferriss?

  But nonetheless, he asked me to include that, so I am doing that here. Please enjoy.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Can I ask you a personal question?

• 2:18Speaker 01

  Now would be an appropriate time.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 2:34Tim Ferriss?

  Steve, thank you so much for making the time. Bet, Tim. It is so nice to see you. It's an honor, man. Hopefully I can add something to the amazing stuff that you've done for a long time. Oh. We'll see. It's yet to, yet to be determined. I'm sure that'll be the case. We'll first point out the pink elephant in the room. I'm welcome to my temple of Tim. I love it. I love it. I bow to the greatness. And also, this has been for me two or three years in the making, sort of a slow build because a friend of mine sent me a Bloomberg article about you that talked about Oh, right. the many chapters of Steve Young. And at that time, as is true now, I've been incredibly interested

• 3:16Tim Ferriss?

  in people who successfully navigate these phase shifts. And I do not follow football. I have a lot of respect for football. God knows, every time I see one of the car crashes, AKA collisions, I think that one hit and I would be done, right? I don't know how you guys do it. It's insane. Even now, as I watch now, I'm like, did I actually do that? It's just remarkable how durable players are. I have no idea how you guys do it. But what I've been hoping to dig into is psycho, emotional, spiritual, mental side of things. Right. And That's football. Weirdly. That's football. Yeah, it's crazy. I can, we can go, we'll go on for that for a little bit, too. We'll definitely get into that. And I thought we would start, actually, I'll start with a wave hello.

• 4:00Tim Ferriss?

  I don't think you guys know each other. You might have had a connection decades ago. A friend of mine who's a bit of a recluse named Josh Waitzkin, he was the basis, he would hate me to introduce him this way, but he was the basis for Searching for Bobby Fischer, the book and then the movie. No way. Yes. And Yes. Yeah. Yes. And he was, most recently, he got kind of doxed. He didn't really want to be public about it for working with the Celtics in the last few years. Really? With their coach. And he is a huge fan. I mentioned, he's like, hey, you have five minutes on the phone. He texted me this morning and I said, I can't do it. I'm preparing for a podcast with this legend. And I sent him a link and he goes, oh, I studied his game. I used to study and study and study. He's not a football guy. But I thought you were bringing it up because that's my favorite movie.

• 4:45Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I have no idea.

• 4:46Speaker 03

  Oh, absolutely. I thought that's why you were saying it's like,

• 4:49Tim Ferriss?

  No, I had no idea.

• 4:50Speaker 03

  Like, how do they know? They must have said, because I've said it many times. I was like, oh, that's why.

• 4:55Tim Ferriss?

  Wow, I had no idea.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  I love that. That's a movie everyone needs to watch. It's a compelling story.

• 5:02Tim Ferriss?

  Super compelling and what, what doesn't get put into the movie, because it couldn't have been put into the movie, given the timeframe, is that Josh, at his peak, effectively retired from chess because of all the attention that ended up landing on him after the success of the book and the movie. And he has navigated three or four very, very, very successful phase shifts.

• 5:27Speaker 03

  That's awesome.

• 5:27Tim Ferriss?

  And so Game recognizes Game. He's like, oh, I know Steve Young. I've studied Steve Young.

• 5:32Speaker 03

  That is weird. That's like a full circle for me.

• 5:35Tim Ferriss?

  Very small.

• 5:36Speaker 03

  Growing up when I was in, when I was a kid, the movie in high school, and people probably never heard, probably don't know it.

• 5:42Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's older.

• 5:43Speaker 03

  I'm glad you're, let, let's shout it out. Go see that. It's, it's worth it.

• 5:47Tim Ferriss?

  It's amazing. And, and the book is very good. It's, it's a fun subject slash sore subject to chat with Joshua. But I'm going to invoke a name that was very meaningful for me in terms of writing way back in the day. And that is Stephen Covey. So could you describe

• 6:04Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 6:05Tim Ferriss?

  meeting Stephen Covey and who Stephen Covey is?

• 6:10Speaker 03

  So in the, you know, eighties, nineties, even the aughts, I guess you'd call them, he was writing books, Seven Habits books. And really, I'd known his kids, but I'd never met him.

• 6:23Tim Ferriss?

  You had known his kids through the, through the church?

• 6:25Speaker 03

  School, yeah. No, at school, at BYU. Like, I'd met them and they played football and so, but I'd never really met him. Got to have a good little background here. So I'm, I'm playing for the 49ers, Joe Montana. We were on the same team and I, we both wanted to play and he was the king and I was this kid that wanted to, I didn't want to just sit there, you know? And I finally got my chance to play in 1991 and it didn't go great. And I always joke about walking around town and how I describe it is telling people, no, I think he did throw an incomplete pass once. You know, I mean, I think he did lose a game. In fact, I think he's thrown an interception or two, like, because the memory of someone who's great is only great. And here's this kid trying to live up to all

• 7:09Speaker 03

  of that. And I was pouring myself into it. I was over indexed on trying to figure out how to, all I could look around was everyone who wasn't and how everything was my fault and everything, no matter what happened, I went anywhere. It's like, well, yeah, Steve Young sucks, you know, it's Steve Young's problems. I found myself, middle of the season, middling around, and I noticed that I was like depressed, I was miserable. I felt like I was like at the bottom of a hole. We lost a game against the Raiders in front of 100,000 people at the LA Coliseum. Jerry Rice is open in the end zone to win the game and I never, he's literally waving, like, you know, and I didn't see him. And it was just like the

• 7:51Speaker 03

  epitome of like, everything that could go bad. And so I was miserable. I need to give you that backstory because you have to know my state of mind. I was miserable. And I got on a plane because Tuesday is day off in the NFL. So Monday night, I got on a plane, went to Salt Lake City to see my brother because he was in University of Utah Med School. I was like, man, maybe he can, I don't know, help me get out of this funk. I mean, this is just terrible. I'm not sleeping well. It's just miserable. And I walk around the town with him. He's like, Steve, I got two kids and broke in medical school. Like, your life looks sweet to me. So he didn't help very much. I had told him I didn't know how I was going to get to Christmas. So I get on the plane to come back, sit down, and Steve Covey is sitting there, and he says hello. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, it's

• 8:34Speaker 03

  been, you know, I've always wanted to meet you. And he goes, he asks a simple question, how are you doing? And I'm in a state of mind where I was pretty vulnerable. I just told him, kind of recited everything I just said to you, and how I'm kind of miserable I was. I got done with it. You know, 25, 30 minutes later, and he goes, huh, wow, man, I can feel that. Like, I can feel all of that, the expectations, how tough it is to not get the help that you think that you need and things that are working against you. And, man, can I ask you a couple

• 9:13Speaker 03

  of questions? I go, yeah. He goes, your owner, Eddie Di Bartolo, tell me about him. Oh, my gosh, he's the only owner in football that ever saw players as partners. I mean, he's amazing. And I went on about that. And then he said, what about your coach, Bill Walsh? He's like, yeah, he's like, a guy that talks about hydration and nutrition and sleep and mental health. And you talk about partnership, he's, he's like, no one's doing what he's doing. His West Coast offense, that guy is amazing. He goes, yeah, I'd heard that. I'd love to meet them both, you know, because let me ask you one last question. Is Joe Montana on the team? I'm like, yeah, he's hurt. And that's kind of the problem. And he's like,

• 9:53Speaker 03

  well, if you had to ask him for mentorship, go ask him questions to help your game, could you do it? I'm like, yeah, I could. And he goes, all right, well, I want you to know what I do. I travel the world looking for platforms, companies, organizations that create the ability for the humans on the platform to see how good they can get and iterate and find out because that's, that's what life should be about. And so I, as I travel the world, I'm always looking for it. And I'd love to talk to those guys about their platform. But I got to step back, Steve, and tell you that, from my perspective,

• 10:35Speaker 03

  the platform that you're on, the place that you are, I think might be the greatest one that I've ever seen.

• 10:43Speaker 03

  And I was like, didn't you hear me? Like, bro, this is miserable. Things are terrible. These are terrible. But it stung me. It like went through my heart. It was like, oh, my gosh. My first thought was, I think I might have screwed this whole thing up. Like, oh, because to have him say that truth to me, he goes, let me ask you a question. Because it's scary. He goes, I always wonder if people are willing to take the chance to find out how good they are. You know, and I'm like, I'm reflexive about it. Yeah, of course. I'm absolutely up for that. And then he took a minute and he's like, he looked kind of like, he was little and bald and long. I was like, a little Yoda-ish, you know what I mean?

• 11:28Speaker 03

  I remember the about the author photo. Yeah. And so, and so he took his finger and he kind of looked at me and said, then be about it. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I realized right there that the hole I was in, that I thought so many people had dug, that I had dug it. I had no idea that I dug the hole. And I had thought that everyone pushed me in. And I didn't realize that I had jumped in. And so it was that, we can talk about victimization for a long time. This is such an important thing to ferret out in your own life, over and over again, like never stop. It was the realization that I had played the victim and had jumped in a hole,

• 12:11Speaker 03

  dug it and jumped in, and I am the author of it. Like, that's what the shock was. Like, I authored this. And I remember getting off the plane as if I was transformed. I don't want to say it lightly. It was as if I now knew if I was going to do anything, I was going to be about this. And I remember not sleeping well that night, but for a different reason. I thought, oh, my gosh, I think I've screwed this up enough that on Wednesday mornings, when you get fired in the NFL. And I'm like, I'd heard rumors about maybe getting benched. And I'm like, oh, crap. Don't tell me that I have screwed this up so bad that I don't get a chance to go fix it.

• 12:52Speaker 03

  And I screamed down at practice the next day as energized as ever, like I've got, just please don't, please give me another. And I didn't get benched and I did play and I was about it. And it was fun because it's like something that's true, like truly true, universally true. When it's that way, it doesn't waver. You don't have iterations of it. Like it's just true.

• 13:13Tim Ferriss?

  You're not second guessing.

• 13:13Speaker 03

  I don't have to worry about like, and he said, people are really afraid. Like it's hard to find out how good you are because you might find out you're not very nearly as good as you thought you were. But that's, you gotta make that okay. And that now I'm going to be iterating, find out how good I can get. It's really about fear. And if you can lose that fear, and that's basically what you're dealing with is a fear based. You've been fear based. And I was like, oh my gosh. And you just wanted to excise it. Now it doesn't happen overnight, but I remember soon after that season ended and the whole off season and, and so the next year, we're playing the Cowboys, they're the best team in the league, right? And I think to myself, this is where you find out, right?

• 13:55Speaker 03

  And I remember running up to Troy Aikman, we're warming up and he's a friend and he's a quarterback for, for the Cowboys. And I'm like, Troy, it's so great that you're here, man, because I'm on this quest to see how good I can get. And I can only find out against the best. And so I'm so glad that you're here. And I remember Troy looking at me like, fricking weirdo, what's, what's wrong with you? But that's what I was about. And to finish the story, I think I have to finish it kind of honestly and authentically. I was MVP of the NFL that year. And you think back to being in the bottom of a hole, running to my brother to see if like, I could get out of this depression. And it's just amazing to me, the perspective, a truthful, universally authentic fact

• 14:38Speaker 03

  can make that kind of difference in somebody's life. I owe him the greatest debt, right? Because you think about angels in your life or people that show up. It was almost like it's a wonderful life moment, right? You know what I mean? Like, you almost think, was he really there or was I imagining like this guy that's sitting next to me? So that's the, that's the Steve Covie story.

• 14:58Tim Ferriss?

  What a wild sliding doors moment, right? Just the happenstance of that interaction and how it changed things. It's so remarkable to reflect on.

• 15:08Speaker 03

  And it really never ended because it's true. I now seek out that victimization in my life, watch it for other people, try to help because it's such a nefarious, common state of being and totally rationalized to, I always talk about the entropic world that we live in, it's like, super transactional, eat what you kill, sweating your brow, like, it's all the conditions of the world. Like, victimization feels almost rational, but it's kind of death. That feeds to accountability, it feeds to who authors all this? You think that someone else is authoring it, but you continue to author it and don't take it, that's what I was missing, right?

• 15:51Speaker 03

  And so that's why the perspective was so powerful. To this day, it gives me a little chills, like, I'm so grateful, because I was about to walk down a path that was gonna be miserable. And I would have said, "It wasn't fair, this is not right, I need another chance, I want a better shot, I want people who will support me more," or, you know, you come up with all kinds of stuff, and that's what would have happened. And who knows where we'd be, I may be, but- Would have been a different life. Great Stephen Covey, man.

• 16:23Tim Ferriss?

  Just a quick thanks to our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. Listeners have heard me talk about making before you manage for years. All that means to me is that when I wake up, I block out three to four hours to do the most important things that are generative, creative, podcasting, writing, et cetera, before I get to the email and the admin stuff and the reactive stuff and everyone else's agenda for my time. For me, I need to find people who are great at managing, and that is where Cresset Family Office comes in. You spell it C-R-E-S-S-E-T, Cresset Family Office. I was introduced to them by one of the top CPG investors in the world. Cresset is a prestigious family office for CEOs, founders, and entrepreneurs.

• 17:04Tim Ferriss?

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• 17:47Tim Ferriss?

  your financial plans and grow your wealth. That's cressetcapital.com/tim. And disclosure, I am a client of Cresset. There are no material conflicts other than this paid testimonial. And of course, all investing involves risk, including loss of principal. So do your due diligence. Many of you know how deeply I love Japan and its culture of unwavering dedication to craft, refinement, commitment to continuous improvement. But why do I bring this all up? Well, the same focus on improving one thing over the span of years is found in today's sponsor, AG1. They are now unveiling AG1 Next Gen, the same single scoop, once a day product that I use myself, but now with more vitamins, more minerals, and five new clinically

• 18:31Tim Ferriss?

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• 19:12Tim Ferriss?

  So after that realization, and it makes me also think about, there's a book called Extreme Ownership, written by Jaco Willink, former Navy SEAL commander, which is really also underscores this ownership, being all about it. I love that. As you put it. And I'm curious to know, after that realization, after the questions about seeking out mentorship or otherwise on the plane, what were some of the next steps? What were some of the most important changes that you made that allowed you then, a year later, to be where you were?

• 19:50Speaker 03

  It's like a boat that leaves the harbor. It changed the direction that you left every morning. Like, there's an intent. There was an aha, right? It was like, oh my, I can't believe that I almost walked down this treacherous path. And that's why I knew it was true is because every morning I wake up and say, you didn't have to doubt it. It was like, don't play the victim. Start owning and look forward to the possibility of what you can... Like, my theology is about, we're here as humans to learn and grow. It can be tough and miserable. It can be all kinds of things, but that's the underpinning of what we're trying to do is learn and grow. Be about it again. Like, don't be afraid.

• 20:35Speaker 03

  It changed how I went to practice. Like, you might not have a great practice, but own it. You might not be as strong as you thought you were. Well, frickin' own it. Like, stop dancing around the authenticity of what you're trying to do. And that, once I open myself to all that, it brings you to the moment. Like, it brings you to the present. Like, what can I do right now? Not what if, or what possibly. It was a quest that was intentional every day to go find out. Like, it's okay if you're not as good as you thought you were. In fact, let's just know. I don't need to read the paper to have somebody tell me how I'm doing. I don't need to wait in line at the grocery store, at the checkout, you know, paying,

• 21:16Speaker 03

  as they talk about the 49ers, waiting for the inevitable, well, what do you think about Steve Young? And then waiting for the answer, as if it was gonna define me. That's where I was. That's before it was like, oh, he sucks. I'm like, oh, yeah, I suck. You know, it's like, you've allowed, thinking that you're doing it to me, I'm allowing them to do it to me, because I'm not defining it right. So, I just... And that has stuck with me even to today, where it's a vulnerability, it's a... Authenticity about accountability, like where is it, where does it lie? I'm using football to describe a lot of stuff that are very important concepts, but it's like when you throw an interception. And for people who don't know football, what does that mean?

• 21:59Speaker 03

  So I have the ball, I'm the quarterback, I drop back to pass to win the game. The last minute, the last seconds, the crowd is screaming with anticipation. Eighty thousand people, you can feel the emotion of it, like it's happening. We're gonna, we're winning this game. And then I throw it and the other team, the defense that's on the field, they intercept it, they take it. And there's this moment where eighty thousand people with all this anticipation is like, oh, like, whoa. And sports is that cool because that's, it's hard to get those moments where they're like binary moments where it's like, and then the emotional swing, like to get that kind of a swing with eighty thousand people.

• 22:43Speaker 03

  It's kind of crazy cool. I can't believe I'm saying that because it wasn't that cool at the moment, but it was cra- it's crazy to feel that. And I spent a long time with my teammates at that moment when they would look at me and say, hey, we watched you do this and it felt like you threw it right to them.

• 23:03Speaker 03

  Like there's an underpinning of it, like, we know you didn't do it on purpose, but it kind of looks like you did. And so as a human behavior emotion, I'm like, oh, I gotta show them that this was a mess. Like you turned the wrong way, or you didn't block your guy, or something else happened. Mitigation. Right, that's. Mitigation. That's the instinct. I, I, I take the banner of mitigation and say, look at all this truth. I'm not telling you lies, I'm telling you truth, this is how it happened. Facts. Own the facts. But I didn't realize that.

• 23:38Speaker 03

  There's a truth to the mitigation, but it's not actually useful until I turn to them and say, "The ball was in my hands, and now it's in their hands." That is the truest truth. If you live in mitigation, which is kind of the Stephen Covey, it's like where I was living in all this truth, people saying things, people doing, "Well, how I felt, it's all this," but it was mitigating and it wasn't authoring. And so when I started to breathe that back into the system, "Look, I screwed it up. No matter what happened, don't worry about mitigation right now. I screwed it up. Let's go fix it." And everyone was like, "Ah, yeah, let's go do that. And I'm sorry that I turned the wrong way."

• 24:23Speaker 03

  And so all of a sudden-

• 24:24Tim Ferriss?

  It's like calm is contagious in the military, ownership is contagious.

• 24:28Speaker 03

  And so I have to, when I talk about Stephen Covey, I have to talk about my authorship, vulnerability, and accountability for me, the quest is really to be honest with yourself. And that's what I wasn't doing. And so that's, when you say, "What did you do? What were the aspects of it? You know, if someone here heard this and go, "I want to be about that too. How do I do it?" To me, it's a state of being, it's not a list of things to do.

• 24:52Tim Ferriss?

  Right. Well, it also sounds like you were, if I'm hearing you correctly, basically out of the gate each morning, it sounds like you were reminding yourself of that underpinning truth as you went out into practice.

• 25:05Speaker 03

  It was almost like you have to excise the victimization. Look, I don't know a ton about brain, I'm not a scientist, but what I, little I know is that the brain's here to keep me safe. And so many times, your brain's working against you because it's playing the victim for you. And you have to retrain kind of how you think about it. So like, that's why I say every day, you have to keep training a new thought pattern, a new way to, and it was so clear to me, it was easy. And when it's not clear and muddy, it's harder. You're like, "I can't, what was the point? I can't remember." And here comes the life. But for me, it was so clear and obvious that I was playing the victim that I think for me, it was just a state of being every morning, "I might suck."

• 25:51Speaker 03

  But it has to be okay. It has to be whatever it is. So that I don't look anywhere else. It's just, you can author it. You can get better at it. But quit living in the muck of mitigation, I guess is how I would say it.

• 26:09Tim Ferriss?

  We are going to come back to some related.

• 26:11Speaker 03

  I'm sorry to riff like that.

• 26:12Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I love riffing. This is why it's long form. And as a muggle, right? Someone who's looking at football and I don't understand all of the technicality behind it and the strategy. But I respect the athleticism. I look at a quarterback and I wonder if you were to try to explain it to someone like me, who's a layperson per se. What separates good from great quarterbacks? Are there any particular elements that you see consistently in great quarterbacks? That are absent, not paid as much attention to or otherwise? I mean, they could be physical, but I'm wondering if anything comes to mind.

• 26:51Speaker 03

  There's not a long enough form for this.

• 26:54Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 26:54Speaker 03

  Because, I mean, people have been searching. Because think about it, how many very, very smart people have been looking into college? To predict who can be great in the NFL? And there's no worse results.

• 27:08Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 27:10Speaker 03

  Than trying to predict.

• 27:12Tim Ferriss?

  Trying to do that.

• 27:13Speaker 03

  And that's why, why is college not a great predictor? You know, I mean, what's happening?

• 27:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 27:19Speaker 03

  In the NFL?

• 27:20Tim Ferriss?

  What do you, what do you think? Is it something internal, like their ability to learn in a certain way?

• 27:24Speaker 03

  I've been trying to melt it down to something that people can just grab. Like this is the truth. One thing's for sure. Human behavior, I don't know what the right way to think about it, but when there's adrenaline? And focus and pressure, opposition. I mean, how many games are, someone's paid to actually screw you up? Like physically, like I'm paid to grab you and throw you to the ground and hurt you. Like, you know, I mean, that's my, I paid millions of dollars. So it's all in that moment, in that kind of dynamic? That you now have to. Ferret through, and I, Tim, I wish everybody who loves football could stand with a helmet on

• 28:07Speaker 03

  and at six, four, six, three, or whatever, six, two, whatever, like Russell Wilson, six, five, 10, stand there and ferret through bodies in motion, the fastest, most athletic humans on earth on both sides. And that's why when you talk about the difference in the NFL, it's the speed, it's the athleticism. A lot of times people's brain can't process that fast. Right. They were processing fine in college. They're processing great in high school, but it's just an elevation. Gladly for me, there's not a super pro, like I would have topped out, you know, but it's, I think more than anything, the quality, because there's fundamental things. You gotta be able to throw the ball.

• 28:50Speaker 03

  You gotta be able to, but it's the, it's the process of figuring out the speed and then because no one's, in my mind, college, everybody's, every receiver's open and the pros, nobody's open. Like that's the change. You have to now figure out how to deliver it so that it's not open at the time you throw it, but by the time it gets there, it's open. And I think that's the best way to explain how, and then do it over like every 30 seconds. Yeah. And how many times you throw it right at the, and then just as it leaves your hand, you get just pounded into the ground. You don't even see it. I mean, how many times you bottom of a pile and you're like,

• 29:33Speaker 03

  how did it go? Like, you don't know. And you just listen for the crowd, right? Cause you're like, if it's home and they're cheering, you're like, it worked, you know? And otherwise, you know, if they're booing you, then it's bad. So I think it's the processing and it's a guile. It's a street smart. It's not necessarily IQ for taking a calculus test. Right. There's memorization. But it's, there's a, you just get it.

• 29:56Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 29:56Speaker 03

  You get it and

• 29:57Tim Ferriss?

  I think there is a speed also associated with that, even with street smarts that I see in some of my friends in business, a certain EQ savvy, they're very fast. Like their clock speed is high.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  And I think that's, they'd be great quarterbacks, right? That's where, that's the thing. And I think you just described it very well in other fields. I see it too. But again, even when I see it in other people, I think, I don't know, at that speed, if that, you know, cause you just don't, you don't know until you know.

• 30:24Tim Ferriss?

  There's also the pressure of imminent bodily harm.

• 30:27Speaker 03

  Well, that's what I mean is, I think most humans, when things get more intense, the adrenaline runs. And when adrenaline runs, the brain focuses, right? It gets smaller and it gets more focused, but yet you're not as aware. And so that physiology doesn't work because in quarterbacking, you have to

• 30:50Tim Ferriss?

  You have to have the peripheral awareness.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  The more present you are, like if you're in your backyard, not 80,000 people watching, but, and if like this was all happening in my backyard, how would I take this in? So I've noticed that the best quarterbacks have a genetic, I think it's genetic predisposition to when adrenaline runs, it doesn't do the normal things that, for most humans. And that's why the quality is like, I wish I was a test for that, cause I could promise you, I could tell you who's going to be great.

• 31:21Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. I wonder if it's something, just thinking out loud, I interviewed someone named Alex Honnold on the podcast before he did his big run, which turned into a documentary called Free Solo. But he climbed

• 31:33Speaker 03

  Oh my.

• 31:34Tim Ferriss?

  I think, I think it was El Cap, I can't remember the exact face.

• 31:36Speaker 03

  And it's like, it's insane.

• 31:38Tim Ferriss?

  And so I interviewed him.

• 31:39Speaker 03

  I can't watch it.

• 31:40Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's too

• 31:41Speaker 03

  I can't.

• 31:41Tim Ferriss?

  I mean, my hands are sweating just talking about it.

• 31:43Speaker 03

  I can't, I literally can't watch it. I want to watch it. I can't watch life and death like that.

• 31:50Tim Ferriss?

  And his, his brain responds differently to

• 31:53Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 31:54Tim Ferriss?

  The circumstances.

• 31:55Speaker 03

  Hundred percent. And that's the only way, because all of us watch it go, oh no.

• 31:59Tim Ferriss?

  Panic and fall.

• 31:59Speaker 03

  No way.

• 32:00Tim Ferriss?

  That's, that's what happens.

• 32:01Speaker 03

  Not every, every grip has to be life or death. Like no way. Like people think about quarterbacking in the NFL is like, whoa, you know, how do you do? I was like, look, talk about what you just said. This is be knuckle to

• 32:14Tim Ferriss?

  Might be like neurologically or genetically related. Is there anything that? When you look at your trajectory that was learnable or coachable that you absorbed by watching other people, like what did you improve most at? So there's a lot out of the box, right? I mean, you were really successful as a younger athlete and read some great quotes from your dad about this, but you were successful as a younger athlete. You seem to have some hardwiring out of the box that was very helpful, but you didn't just hit the ground running in NFL and you were top of the game. There was something that improved. I'm wondering more many things.

• 32:52Speaker 03

  So one fundamental thing had to happen, which was how to throw the football. It's not intuitive, kind of like golf. Great golf swings, when you grab a club as an adult, you're not going to do it right. And as a kid, I grabbed a football and because I didn't want to be embarrassed, I wanted to spin perfectly. I would spin it out of my hand and that's how I did it. But you can't get behind to throw it hard. And you know, this is not something that was like a deep dark secret. Some people grab it and grab a golf club, grab a football and just like, oh yeah, that's how you must do it. That's not how I did it. And so I got to college, I'd faked my way into playing college quarterbacking without really understanding it. And Jim McMahon was the quarterback at the time at BYU.

• 33:35Speaker 03

  Incredible, second in the Heisman, like he was amazing, but he was righty and I was lefty and I was like, how's, he's throwing it different. And then I realized that you have to, instead of spinning it out, like to spin it, you actually go the other direction using the tension inside your arm as you hold it and then just go in.

• 33:53Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, wow.

• 33:54Speaker 03

  You spin it, it comes out and spins, but now you can throw it like with all your power.

• 33:59Tim Ferriss?

  Right, right.

• 34:00Speaker 03

  And that was, you're talking about what I, I had to have that.

• 34:04Tim Ferriss?

  I mean, those are, those seem, you know, I've played a bunch of sports certainly at a very JV level.

• 34:09Speaker 03

  It seemed like that'd be table stakes, right?

• 34:10Tim Ferriss?

  Well, no, it's, but it seems like rebuilding your swing in golf or something.

• 34:13Speaker 03

  A little bit, but it was such an unlock.

• 34:15Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 34:16Speaker 03

  Once you felt it, golf's maybe more complicated because you got a stick and you got, it's like.

• 34:21Tim Ferriss?

  You're a little divorced from feedback.

• 34:22Speaker 03

  Right, right. But the fact that it was in my hand, once you felt it. You're like, oh my gosh. And then what I realized is I can now throw it as hard as I want right there. Like, it was like this gift I had that was gonna go undiscovered. Yeah. And all of a sudden, it just, it came out. Did you realize that at BYU? Yes, right there. It was my freshman year. I wish I would have written down the day. It was like November 10th, you know? Okay, it was like discovering fire. Fire. Exactly. We, we live. And I, all I did from that point on is throw the ball. Like, I just wanted to throw it, throw it everywhere, throw it. And what's ironic is that the coach,

• 35:05Speaker 03

  who was the offensive coordinator at the time, soon after, because no one knew, this is all happening. I was eighth string. I was no one. I was nobody, but I had figured it out. It had clocked in. It was clocking, right? And so I think for me, he pulled me aside later in the year. He goes, by the way, I don't, I don't coach lefties. He said it to me. I don't coach lefties. And so I was moved to defense

• 35:31Speaker 03

  at the end of that season because Lavelle Edwards, the coach, said, look, you're super fast, super athletic. We have 10 quarterbacks. We want you on the field. And so I started in the winter, practices, winter, as a safety in a defense. Holy position, I couldn't stand. I hated every second of it. Soon as practice ended, the quarterbacks would throw after practice. I'd go throw. And in the interim, that coach who told me he wouldn't coach lefties, took a head coaching job at San Diego State. Another coach, Ted Tonner, came in, and I'm throwing with the quarterbacks after practice. And he goes, Steve, I thought you played quarterback. I go, I do, but they told me I'm lefty. So I have to play defense.

• 36:13Speaker 03

  And he goes, that's ridiculous. That's stupid. I go, I know. It's insane. And then I screamed out, but I, I didn't learn how to throw too. Like, so I have this thing that, you know, and he's like, let me go see if I can fix it. So he goes in and changes it. And that spring, spring ball was a month, you know, 30 days of practice. He got two weeks. For me to practice before I, you know, they made a decision and by the end of the two weeks, because of this new gift, that was it. That was it. And what that changed, everything because I was fast, I could run, I could throw it hard, I could, I could process. The game wasn't too fast for me. I kind of all made sense to me. I just didn't unlock

• 36:56Speaker 03

  that one fundamental piece of throwing the ball.

• 37:00Tim Ferriss?

  You know, it's so fun having this conversation. I've been looking forward to it for so long. And before I forget, I just wanted to say again, on a very reduced junior varsity level, but I wrestled my whole life, basically.

• 37:10Speaker 03

  Oh, I have total respect.

• 37:12Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 37:12Speaker 03

  I wrestled in ninth grade.

• 37:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's a tough sport.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  I will never wrestle again.

• 37:16Tim Ferriss?

  It is, it is tough sport.

• 37:17Speaker 03

  It is brutal. There is no good news.

• 37:19Tim Ferriss?

  There's no good news.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  You, you work like, I remember the first wrestling, I go to this, just to break in your story, three, one minute or three minute, I can't remember.

• 37:28Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:29Speaker 03

  And so by the first, the first one was over, I was done.

• 37:32Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 37:32Speaker 03

  The best, the people are in the best shape, the greatest athletes. When I see wrestlers, I tip my cap. I walk away, man. I'm like.

• 37:41Tim Ferriss?

  It is a suffer fest.

• 37:42Speaker 03

  It is brutal.

• 37:43Tim Ferriss?

  No matter what. And I was, just a brief digression here, but I spent a year abroad in Japan in high school, which was my first time really outside of the United States from Long Island to Tokyo, which changed my whole life. But I competed in judo while I was there. Then I came back for my final year of wrestling in high school and I was doing really, really well. But I hit a wall and the reason I'm bringing this up is not at all to compare apples to apples.

• 38:10Speaker 03

  No, no, no, but I get it. Respect.

• 38:11Tim Ferriss?

  But I somehow found a book called Mental Toughness Training for Sports by a guy named James Loehr, spelled L O E H R, who Josh Waitzkin actually also knows. And I read that book and the key piece of that, it talked about different approaches to mental toughness, but it had an assessment and it asked you to give this assessment to close friends, coaches, teammates, and it just made all of your strengths and weaknesses, had them rate you on all of these different aspects of toughness, performance, resilience, et cetera, psychology. And once I had those report cards from all of these people and I was able to see and accept strengths and weaknesses.

• 38:56Tim Ferriss?

  And I don't think this is unique to me. There really was a before and after, right? Like, the next practice was different, and that's when everything hockey-sticked and ended up having just an incredible season. But to people who are listening and haven't experienced what, say, Steve experienced on that plane ride, or what I've experienced with that book, there really can be that flash boil before and after.

• 39:20Speaker 03

  Like, that's kind of what self-help stuff does and tries to get you. And the problem is, it doesn't all-time land, because I get the idea, right? And so I read the book. Oh, I'll go read the book. And read the book, go, oh, okay. But the flashpoint is really, to me, the vulnerability. That that's the hard part. The hard part is to open up and take the risk, truly, internally. And I was living this life where it's like, I want to be great, I want to be great, I want to be great. And anyone who tells me I'm not, I don't know what to do about it, and it feels like I can't overcome it. And it's like, you have to become vulnerable. That's how you take it in. And so people are like, what do I do?

• 40:02Speaker 03

  I was like, in relationships with your mom, with your siblings, the most intimate ones, can you start to recognize the complexity of that relationship, which it always is? And however you've defined it, it's probably been not a great, authentic, vulnerable place. Can you start by opening up to your accountability, to your...

• 40:24Tim Ferriss?

  Your part in it.

• 40:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:26Tim Ferriss?

  And your contribution.

• 40:26Speaker 03

  And like, how can you, if you want to have an aha moment, or you want to have a, read a book and change, you know, kind of inflection point, it comes from, you were open for it, you were ready for it. And I was so desperate with Stephen Covey, but it wasn't necessarily I was looking for it. It was because it was, it resonated so truthfully. Like, I'm screwing this up. I am royally screwing this up. And I cannot keep screwing it up. And I think a lot of people, at that moment, go, I'm going to keep screwing it up, because I don't want to face... The other side of that. That's what Stephen Covey, remember when he said, a lot of people don't want to know how good they are. It makes sense to my brain.

• 41:07Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 41:07Speaker 03

  That unless you get to that space, you really can't change.

• 41:11Tim Ferriss?

  Well, the vulnerability also seems to me fundamentally, accepting the possibility, almost the certainty, that you're making mistakes and part of accepting how good you are is not necessarily accepting how excellent you inevitably are, but accepting the possibility that you might be falling short in certain places.

• 41:31Speaker 03

  And then also that the grace in it, right? Where, what's the point? Is the point to be regarded by people? Why it resonates with me is because my own theology was like, we're here to learn and grow. Let's, let's do it. And part of learning growing is I suck right now, but I'm not going to suck tomorrow. And once you can start to get into that mode of like, that's what I'm about. That's what happens. There's a clarity that comes like, because now everything gets fed through that truth. And now it comes in more authentically, like it doesn't, doesn't hit the same way. And you can go in front of 80,000 people and find a piece about it. 80,000 people could boo you mercilessly.

• 42:12Speaker 03

  It is hard to what I'm talking about, but you can be authentically say, look, I'd boo me too. In fact, I might just boo with you. Like, it's okay. And you get into that place. But you're not going to boo me. I'm going to try not to get booed tomorrow. But that might be, and like this, but as long as your brain is saying, the whole point is to learn and grow, then Stephen Covey, be about it. And I think that really freed me up.

• 42:41Tim Ferriss?

  Seems like such an important tectonic plate underneath everything else. I want to ask you about one of those quotes from your dad that I was alluding to earlier. So this is from the Bloomberg piece and the URL has in it, Steve Young is an athlete who's actually good at finance, which I just, he's part of my love.

• 42:59Speaker 03

  It's a backhanded compliment.

• 43:01Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, love. I just love that. So your dad is bewildered by how.

• 43:07Speaker 03

  By that fact.

• 43:07Tim Ferriss?

  Well, he was bewildered by how well you did at football at different levels. And then this last line is the one I wanted to ask you about. It says, honestly, Steve's personality is probably a better fit for law or business. As compared to professional athlete, why would he say that, do you think?

• 43:25Speaker 03

  He's referring to, and I, look, we should talk about it. So when I was a kid, growing up, you know, first grade, second grade, third grade, I was a kid that when the first day of school, I would turn to my mom or dad and say, look, I'm not going. And they're like, why? It's super fun. And I'm like, my brain was processing it in fear and a new place, new people, and that seemed super scary. And that's, I think clinically would be called separation anxiety. And I think people listening, I'm sure they know somebody probably that had that as a kid. And so that didn't really show up in my life because I realized very

• 44:07Speaker 03

  young that I was not going to be like going on vacation with my friends and I was going to be home.

• 44:12Tim Ferriss?

  Sleepovers, not so much?

• 44:13Speaker 03

  Not so much. But during the daytime, I was killing it, only for context, like all stayed in three sports, captain, straight A's, like not because I was just like, you know, tiger parents or tiger person, like I just, the day was awesome. I can't wait. It's gonna be great. And at night it's like, I'm home. And I didn't realize that how much I had of this is when I went to college and had to go through a process of geography change that was like existential. And it's hard to explain to people because they're like, going to college is awesome, man. What the, what's your problem? And why you didn't unpack your bags the whole semester? And you kept telling you're just miserable? Like,

• 44:57Speaker 03

  how's that possible? Well, it's how my brain worked, function. I can't really say much about it. That's about it. And I remember when I came back for Christmas, I finally got to come home. And I remember walking through the door and going, oh, wow. I kinda wanna go back to school. And I realized that that was a huge shift for me. You know, you live in your own private Idaho, like all the things that you're feeling, all the things you don't really share, you don't really, you know, it's like some of it, you're afraid to even share. And it's like, all of a sudden, I realized it's gonna be all right, cuz now I have two homes. And that was a shift that I needed. What my dad's describing is generally,

• 45:37Speaker 03

  when I had to go play, there was a pattern of focus that was like, you know, he would call hyper-focus and not fun, you know? And so he's like, he's built for something else. I think that's what he's referring to. But I think it comes from the roots of that, what I would call clinical part of my life, another little internal battle. Cuz now I like, I see the world, and I'm like, oh, can't wait to discover it. At some point, it just flipped. The thing that was so constrictive and difficult and threatening, my parents left for a couple days when I was really little at my aunt's house, and I can still smell it. I can still

• 46:19Speaker 03

  feel it. I can still like, the terror of them walking out. And I just like, I look back and like, that's an insane react. I remember, I can still hear my brothers and sisters outside laughing and with all the, my cousins. But that was me. Part of the authenticity has come to a place where we can look at the eye too, you know? I think that explains my dad's comment. That part of me, but what he doesn't realize is that part of me drove the intensity and the focus. So it's like, it's not all bad. Yeah, there's a flip side. There's a flip side. And so I would say to my dad, well, the way you're looking at it, I can see why you'd say that. But the way I'm looking at it, it's like, I think it was an, I had to have it. Yeah.

• 47:05Tim Ferriss?

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• 47:47Tim Ferriss?

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• 48:29Tim Ferriss?

  Was there a point where, I mean, this is going to be a strong way of putting it, but you know, I've experienced this in my own life and have talked about struggles. Some of it, I think, is hereditary with generalized anxiety, had depressive episodes, which I've seen throughout my family. And appreciate how open you've been about discussing some of this. And I'm curious at what point you realized you didn't need that kind of monkey on your back. And specifically, I'm thinking about, in the course of doing research for this, reading a New York Times piece, and it mentions Dr. James Clint and Reggie, I guess. And approach you approaching Reggie at one point, I think it was after what, three sleepless nights, something like that.

• 49:13Tim Ferriss?

  And I guess I'm wondering what was happening, right? For people who don't know what the context is.

• 49:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:19Tim Ferriss?

  And then what happened afterwards that helped?

• 49:24Speaker 03

  It's kind of a bookend, actually tight bookends between the Stephen Covey story and the Jim Clint story. Because just before that, and maybe that's what leads to the vulnerability in the depth of what I just described, and where I was in a hole and fixed my eyes and there was a game that I just, starting like Thursday night, the good news about all of that anxiousness around playing, I always slept. So it was like, you could deal with it. And all of a sudden, I wasn't. And so it was a game where people that I was near were like, you're a mess. You gotta talk to them. Like, you gotta, you can't play. And I'm like, oh, no. That's not an option. Like, we're playing. And I remember telling them, as I left for

• 50:06Speaker 03

  the game, in such a state, I just probably never been quite like that. So I promised them, I said, look, if we win, I'll talk to the team doctor, just tell him like, I'm not, something's going on, you know? But if we lose, I can't, there's no place to be able to, like, you can't. An excuse. Yeah. That's just the way that my brain was working. So, we won. I played pretty well. I was like, I don't suggest, by the way, that that's how you prepare. But after the game, I'm sitting in the training room, towel, ice pack, and I see Reggie. You know, he's been around, he'd been around all the Super Bowls. He was somebody that, I promised

• 50:46Speaker 03

  my friends that I would do this, but I didn't want to. And we won. So like, we're good for a little while, right? But I did. I pulled him aside, and I remember, back in the corner, the old Candlestick Park, it was, like, stuff was dripping down. It's dank, it's old school, right? And we're in the back corner, and I get, kind of move away from everybody, and I'm kind of almost nose to nose. And I'm like, Reggie, I'm going through this thing, I don't know what's wrong. And I kind of explained it all. And as I'm explaining it, I see a big ball of a tear, like, a big ball, come out of his eye, and then drop, and then another one. And he hasn't changed his face, he hasn't changed anything. And I'm like,

• 51:29Speaker 03

  Reggie, are you crying? And he's trying not to, like, break, right? He's like, I dealt with so much clinical anxiety, I could hardly get through medical school. Hmm. That's what he said. That's what he said. This is what he, I mean, as he answered with a straight, like, he hadn't changed his face at all. I had dealt with, and I, watching you, instinctively felt that there was something going on. And I, I feel like I've, like malpractice, that this is what's had to come to it.

• 52:08Speaker 03

  Like, he felt this incredible pain as the team physician that would have, and qualified to maybe watch for this kind of stuff. And I'm like, hey, like, I was relieved. Yeah. Cause I didn't know what was gonna happen. I was like, explaining something that was total, like, total vulnerability, total, like, weakness, it felt like, right? And he's like, responding like, oh, I blew it. And I'm like, Reggie, don't worry about it, bro. But he said, we're gonna get to the bottom of it. And it wasn't, maybe, two days later, he sent me up to a child psychologist, psychiatrists, I'm not sure, and they gave me a test of 10 questions. It would describe things that happened in your life, and that would be, if you answer yes to eight of them, then you're a kind of

• 52:52Speaker 03

  undiagnosed childhood separation anxiety as an adult. And so I was nine of them, right? Like, so, and he said, most people, Steve, who have this going on in their life, they're like self-medicating, right? They're in the basement. They're like, you know, but you're the MVP of the NFL, so I think we're just gonna let you keep rolling, you know what I mean? And find your way through it. And I, I did find solace in the knowledge. Cause I, until that point, I had subconsciously always known that I didn't like being in other people's houses when I was a kid, or, you know, in other places. But my life was so full and amazing that I just, kind of, we just made our way.

• 53:33Speaker 03

  And so this was a point where, now book ended with Stephen Covey, maybe three weeks later. These are pretty vital, big changes that happened that I think allowed me the place to kind of find

• 53:48Speaker 03

  Peace about it all.

• 53:49Tim Ferriss?

  And so was the the diagnosis in itself, the treatment in the respect that you finally had a label to apply, a way to

• 54:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:00Tim Ferriss?

  think about it so that it wasn't this nebulous set of worries or what allowed you, I guess,

• 54:08Speaker 03

  So it was

• 54:08Tim Ferriss?

  go back to sleeping.

• 54:09Speaker 03

  It was actually super cool because I didn't think about it as a stigma. Like, I thought about it as like, oh, that makes sense.

• 54:17Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 54:18Speaker 03

  You know? And then, as I told my parents and told my my, then we found out that like in my mom's side of the family, this is a thing.

• 54:26Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 54:27Speaker 03

  And explained all kinds of craziness that was going on that now I'm go, oh.

• 54:32Tim Ferriss?

  Now the pieces back.

• 54:33Speaker 03

  So now I can pay it forward, you know what I mean? So in its own way, that was the knowledge was the key. And then because I was so functioning through it, like, it was helpful. Didn't make playing in front of 80,000 people and trying to be a great player. It didn't make it simple. But I think it was a piece to the puzzle for me to recognize that what I experienced as a kid, then you could kind of put into context and that knowledge is power, right?

• 55:00Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I remember maybe it was two years ago. I wanted to do this experimental treatment. It's actually not so far from where we're sitting, right? We're sitting here in Palo Alto and they're in Sunnyvale. But I was doing something called accelerated TMS. I won't bore you with all the details, but it's this medical treatment and they had to put me through all these assessments beforehand.

• 55:20Speaker 03

  Is it red light?

• 55:21Tim Ferriss?

  It's called Acacia Clinic and they apply a magnetic coil, basically to your brain or to your skull. And the long and short of it is it produces a type of stimulation that is remarkably effective for generalized anxiety, in some cases, depression, OCD. And part of them checking the boxes for me to be able to pursue this, not just for myself, but to interview scientists about this on the podcast and hopefully present more tools to people who might be suffering. They took me through all these different tests. And at one point, after an hour or two, they took this big pause and they said, you know, Tim,

• 56:03Tim Ferriss?

  Based on all of this, you seem to qualify for moderate to severe OCD. And then he paused and the doctor was kind of nervous and he's like, I know this is a lot to take in. If we need to take a break and come back tomorrow. And I was like, are you kidding me? I was like, it makes perfect sense. Like, none of my friends would be surprised.

• 56:19Speaker 03

  Down the middle here.

• 56:20Tim Ferriss?

  It was just like, in retrospect, yeah, it makes a lot of things click together.

• 56:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:23Tim Ferriss?

  Even one of my friends later, he's like, oh, man, now knowing that you got diagnosed makes it so much easier to put up with your OCD. And I was like, okay. And it was really, uh, I think there's a risk that maybe you over define yourself by the label. But in my case, I was just like, oh, okay, that's great. Now I have a shorthand way to piece these things.

• 56:41Speaker 03

  That's exactly how it felt. It was like, I got a job to do. I'm about it. I didn't realize how victimized I had become and how inauthentic I'd become and how all that part of it. But at least it all kind of like, like you said, my friends like, oh, yeah, I can see that. You know, my parents like, my dad's like, I keep telling you just go have fun and you're not having any fun. Oh, now I get it. So that way it was, it was useful in that way. I feel like, again, what are we here to do? Learn and grow. Like, that's okay. Let's go, let's go through it, right? And, and I still to this day, find myself, the anxious parts have all kind of abated. But the pattern as a kid, I'm realizing now, how you achieve, how you accomplish,

• 57:26Speaker 03

  what's the root of how you try to do it? And I was doing it in a fear-based way. Like, in other words, if I worry about something that's important to me enough, I can make it happen. It's magical thinking in a way, right? Like, if I worry and work and spread and something good will happen, like in my life. And if you think about all the good in your life, did it come because you worried about it? Probably that's the wrong dynamic. But it takes, again, this vulnerability and authenticity to kind of say, over my life, I've now realized watching good things happen and like, I didn't even worry about it. Something good happened and I didn't have to author it. And so it's like, life is so.

• 58:10Speaker 03

  Crazy amazing, you know, in that way where the onion unfolded, like unraveling, like you just, learning is so powerful to your life. And, and again, you can't get there unless you're willing to say, it's okay. It could sting. It could hurt. It could hurt for a while, but at least it's what is.

• 58:29Tim Ferriss?

  Real.

• 58:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:31Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Steve, I have to ask you about the following. This is the law degree. Over the course of seven off seasons, he pursued a law degree at BYU.

• 58:42Tim Ferriss?

  Side note, this is from the Bloomberg piece, his great, great, great grandfather was Brigham Young himself. That's wild. I mean, I've spent a lot of time in Utah. That's maybe a whole separate chapter for another time. But why the law degree? Why did you pursue that?

• 58:59Speaker 03

  My dad, when I was growing up, because I had a picture of Roger Staubach, who was a famous quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys on my wall. He'd tell me what he wanted to be when you grow up. And I'd be like, I want to be a quarterback, like Roger Staubach. You know, and he'd go, well, that's a great dream, son. That's a great dream. And dreams are less than 1% chance, you know, but dreams are important. Like have a dream. Like I love it. Have it. But that's very unlikely. I need you to make a plan that's 80% chance. And so I would tell him, ah, 80% chance, I'll fake it and tell you that I'll go to college and then I'll go to law school. Like you, Dad. And I'll be, I'll be a lawyer.

• 59:39Tim Ferriss?

  Okay. So your dad was a lawyer?

• 59:40Speaker 03

  My dad's a lawyer. You know, he described law and I was like, I think I could do that. So then I would tell him that. He goes, you know, I think there's an 80% chance that you can do that. So that'll be the plan. That's the plan. And now we have a dream and a plan. He was always about that. Even he turned 90 in February and I recently asked him like, so what's the dream, Dad? You know, because he always, he'd be like, 110, you know, like he has it in his mind. Like, that's the dream. So then I had a dream and a plan. So then I go to college and I end up going pro and the dream comes true, right? I'm like, Dad, so much for 1%, bro. It's 100% now, you know? And, uh, and then he would always say, well, the average career is three years. And then I played for six years. And he's like, well, what are you going to do the rest of your,

• 1:00:23Speaker 03

  you know, you're retired at 35 and then what? You know, the half of your life, what are you going to do? So he just kept kind of putting my head.

• 1:00:30Tim Ferriss?

  Dog with a bone.

• 1:00:31Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, it wasn't, I didn't bother him because I knew it was pretty true, what he was saying. Like, what are you going to do with the rest of your life? And so I got, I don't know how it got in my head. I look back on that as like, Tim, that's, that's just stupid to try to go to law school while you play. Like, that's just, like, this is dumb. But I, I figured it out with the ABA with the law school because they're, the first semester in law school is in the fall nationwide. The first year curriculum is sequential. You can't cheat it. And they worked it out where I could audit the second semester, one winter. If I passed the classes cold, then that would qualify me to come back and

• 1:01:11Speaker 03

  take the second semester, blah, blah, blah, blah. So over seven years, six for credit semesters, I went back and what was funny now, but wasn't funny at the time is we went to three Super Bowls in that time. And the Super Bowl is in February, you know, end of January, February, school starts right after the new year. So I'm showing up a month late and no one in law school cares. You still got to do the work. So I remember going to parade down Market Street in San Francisco and jumping on a plane, the Delta plane back to Salt Lake City at like evening. And then the next morning in class and every class, the five first, you know, whatever class I usually five

• 1:01:53Speaker 03

  or six classes, every class is Socratic method. They walk in and they say, Ms. Jones, can you please brief us on blah, blah. The whole day was Mr. Young, could you please brief us on? And so I'm just scrambling trying. But I think I loved that in a weird way. But I look back as like, what are you doing, man? What are you doing? But my dad was right. I'm now 25 years in private equity. And the only way I was able to cut the line, being late to the party, was because I had an advanced degree. That's how I did it. And so he was right.

• 1:02:30Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it served its purpose.

• 1:02:31Speaker 03

  Dream and plan.

• 1:02:33Tim Ferriss?

  All right. So you're doing, you know, these seven off seasons, flying back. Parade, get on a plane, fly back next morning. Mr. Young, right? So you're doing that. How do you make the hop to finance? How does that?

• 1:02:47Speaker 03

  So, yeah, no, I, okay, so you gotta remember the 49ers, 1988, were given land in Santa Clara by the city of Santa Clara, because there's nothing going on down there, to build a training facility and try to attract more business. And it's funny now because Silicon Valley, you know, you know, Santa Clara is the middle of it. It's like, it is the epicenter of Silicon Valley. And so that's where I worked all the years. And so as we worked and watched the explosion of Silicon Valley and technology, we're sitting in the locker room and there's five or six of us, the lunch group, that we would figure out, okay, look, how do we get in on all this venture investing

• 1:03:29Speaker 03

  and all this stuff that's going on, these businesses? Guys were leaving Stanford Business School, literally in the middle of class, would get a text or something, and they would take the CEO job of a new startup and walk out. You know what I mean? And so how do we get in the middle of it? So we started trading access to the locker room from these guys on Sand Hill Road for venture investing. So we started to get everything they did. We give them $50,000 of what they were doing. We'd split it up.

• 1:03:53Tim Ferriss?

  How did that relationship happen?

• 1:03:55Speaker 03

  We would, we, well,

• 1:03:56Tim Ferriss?

  It doesn't seem like the Venn diagrams were totally overlap.

• 1:03:58Speaker 03

  Well, no, because like Doug Leone was a great guy, a great friend.

• 1:04:02Tim Ferriss?

  He's one of the greats.

• 1:04:03Speaker 03

  He was one that said, look, we didn't make a trade. It wasn't a transaction. It was more like, hey, we'd love a relationship. Come in the locker room, be a part of our life, and let us be a part of your life, essentially. And he was somebody that I think really appreciated the complexity of what we were doing and the high function that we were doing. And then we obviously appreciated the high function and complexity of what he was doing. And so we shared in that. And I think that that was, that started a process. I was asked by Brian Maxwell, who's now passed away, but he started Power Bar. That was a meal replacement for marathoners, right?

• 1:04:39Tim Ferriss?

  I remember back in the day.

• 1:04:39Speaker 03

  But for a single guy, that was my, it was meal replacement, like not for marathon, for like day to day. And so it kind of got famous around the Bay Area that I was, you know, he, the power boy, he asked me to be on the board. And I was like, well, I never done that before. I'll try that. First board meeting, Larry Sancini, one of the

• 1:04:57Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:57Speaker 03

  Like icons of Silicon Valley lawyers.

• 1:05:00Tim Ferriss?

  Sancini. So when I first moved, just for people who don't recognize, so back in the day, Wilson Sancini were kind of the connective tissue behind the scenes for Silicon Valley. They were one of the big.

• 1:05:11Speaker 03

  It was the backbone of

• 1:05:12Tim Ferriss?

  That was the backbone.

• 1:05:13Speaker 03

  Legal background.

• 1:05:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yep.

• 1:05:14Speaker 03

  And then Warren Hellman of Hellman and Free, like Warren Hellman is like icon of investing in the late 90s and really his whole life. He's, he is the icon. So there's two of them and I'm sitting in the board.

• 1:05:27Tim Ferriss?

  I mean, your list is pretty insane.

• 1:05:29Speaker 03

  Pretty insane.

• 1:05:30Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:30Speaker 03

  How does this happen? And so I had a guy that I, I'm glad this is long form. I had a friend in college who was messing around with the URLs before the internet was shut down by the government. You could go in and he had an algorithm where he'd put a geographic boundary around an internet search. And if you're old enough to know in the 90s, the internet was a mess.

• 1:05:50Tim Ferriss?

  It was a mess.

• 1:05:50Speaker 03

  If you put in, you know, Palo Alto Hammer.

• 1:05:54Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:55Speaker 03

  You'd get like a USSR sickle.

• 1:05:57Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:57Speaker 03

  Like you'd get like, nothing made sense. But with this enablement, you could put in Palo Alto Hammer and get the local Ace Hardware Store.

• 1:06:04Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:04Speaker 03

  So that made it useful. And so we had that enablement. My buddy was doing it. He was like, can you help me? I'm like, so I take it to the board meeting. And I'm like, hey, this, what do you think about this? And they're like, that works. You need to start a business that retailers are panicked right now because their brick and mortar stores are going to be usurped by Amazon.

• 1:06:27Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:06:27Speaker 03

  And late 90s, like it's 10 years before the time, but people are thinking about it. Take this enablement to them. They can query their inventory real time.

• 1:06:35Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 1:06:35Speaker 03

  And they can drop ship it that day and someone can pick it up. They could use, you know, it's like, it becomes your distribution point. And I'm like, ah, so we went and did that. And my longtime partner, 30 years together, left his banking job at Morgan Stanley to be the CEO of this business called found.com.

• 1:06:52Tim Ferriss?

  What's your partner's name?

• 1:06:53Speaker 03

  Rich Lawson.

• 1:06:54Tim Ferriss?

  How did you meet this? I just love these stories. And I want to just take a quick sidebar for folks because

• 1:07:04Tim Ferriss?

  This is a great example of going to where the action is. In this sense, I just had a conversation with Bill Gurley, legendary venture capitalist.

• 1:07:13Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:07:13Tim Ferriss?

  He's got a book that might be out by the time this is published, but it's coming out soon, called Running Down a Dream. And in it, he has a chapter on going to where the action is. Bob Dylan going from Minnesota to New York City. And you can kind of go down the list. And in this case, it's like you, you happen to be in the epicenter.

• 1:07:33Speaker 03

  Again, I wish I was Bob Dylan and had the smarts to go from Minneapolis to the action in Silicon Valley, but I actually luckily

• 1:07:41Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:42Speaker 03

  was already here, like just sitting here. I actually watched the traffic get worse and worse. Like, where's all this traffic coming from? Like, I used to get to work in 10 minutes. Now I get to work in 30. And so it's like, we made fun of the athletic brain. It's like, took a little while to kind of get it going. But in the end, we were in the middle of it and I found myself. So to finish that story, we started a business. Rich is the CEO, I'm the chairman, backed by Excel, KKR and Bain. And it was all of that. And so that's when Warren and Larry Sensini, Larry became a very close friend of mine and mentor, still is. I mean, really is, still is. I mean, he's just an amazing guy. He's like, Steve, I'm a lawyer. You need to go do this. That's how it switched.

• 1:08:26Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I see. He said, I'm a lawyer and he is saying that referring to?

• 1:08:30Speaker 03

  He just said, look, your EQ and the way you look at the world. And I had graduated in finance, so it was like, I knew enough to be, not even dangerous, but knew enough to what it was about. He said, you need to go help people build businesses. That's kind of how it switched.

• 1:08:45Tim Ferriss?

  And I'm looking right over your shoulder at, looks like maybe a tweet from Rich Lawson, your partner, says, very proud to break into the top 20 of 500 plus private equity firms globally in just over the decade. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. Okay. So, I mean, you've had these multiple chapters. How did you connect with Rich Lawson? That's actually, you can see Rich Lawson right there. So, perfect timing. How did you manage to?

• 1:09:13Speaker 03

  Well, let's, let's back up because what you're alluding to, I think, is that what we've been talking about really for the whole time is transition.

• 1:09:20Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:21Speaker 03

  And the difficulties. Because I love football and I was very successful at it. I run into a lot of people who played in high school and loved it. The dream. Like they would give their arm to be able to, or leg to be able to play in college and keep the dream going. And I always think about how when I left the game, it wasn't necessarily forced, but you do age out, like it just sooner or later. Even Tom Brady aged out at forty-five. Like it's still as a, it's a young man's game. And I remember the day I retired, I was known for this thing that I had been able to do worldwide even. The next day, I remember waking up and now that that's gone.

• 1:10:00Speaker 03

  Now what? Yeah. Yeah. And what I've learned about transition that leads to Rich Lawson, how I describe it, that everyone, and even the high schooler, the last day they play and it has to be put away, needs to recognize and treat it like a death. To mourn it and go through all the steps of mourning it and burying it and actually having it as a place that you can keep referring to as a, almost like a gravesite. Because otherwise, you carry it around. Hmm. You never transition. Transitioning is about actually moving from to, right? And so I'm really grateful, Roger Staubach poster on my wall, I got to know him. We became friends. Like it's insane. Yeah. How cool is that?

• 1:10:45Speaker 03

  And he famously transitioned, probably the most successful transition in history of the NFL. What did he transition to? The Staubach Company was a real estate business that he was usually successful. And I remember asking him towards the end of my career, Roger, what do I, give me some tips? He goes, run. I'm like, run? Run where? He goes, just run away. That was his tip. Because he said, you know, the game will never leave you, but you need to leave it. You need to move on. And I thought that was just simple, but really important. And I tell people today, and I really want to write a book about transition, because everybody is constantly transitioning, whether they like it or not. Most of it forced. If there's

• 1:11:26Speaker 03

  an authentic, vulnerable way to transition and bury and mourn, you can wake up the next day, realize I was great at something, and now I'm not even good at anything else. But you know what? I'm gonna. Learn and grow. We're gonna learn and grow.

• 1:11:43Speaker 03

  I'm slow, but I'm getting there.

• 1:11:46Tim Ferriss?

  I'm only twice as dumb as that.

• 1:11:47Speaker 03

  Useful.

• 1:11:49Tim Ferriss?

  What did mourning football look like to you? What did running from it look like? And what did mourning?

• 1:11:55Speaker 03

  Funny, so you lead to Rich. So as we built this business and I was still playing, I was getting ready to run and I was already running away from it even before it was over. I think there was a fear based, which is not necessarily the best way to do this, that if I didn't run really fast, that it would somehow keep me from getting really clear of it all. And so I just started, you know, we had that business. We were just running. And so he was a banker at Morgan Stanley. We took this idea that Warren and Larry had said, great. My buddy Jim Herman, and he said, as we went to go get financing for this business, we ran into Rich, who was a very successful banker at Morgan Stanley, but young,

• 1:12:38Speaker 03

  recognizing everything that's going on, I says, you need a CEO. And I'm like, yeah, you're right, we do. You gotta be in the late 90s in technology. He's like, I'm walking out of Morgan Stanley, I'm going to be the CEO. And so we've been together ever since then. And so the transition you're talking about as far as, I think because of that energy around great mentors, I mean, I'm very, very lucky. I didn't have to do it raw. I didn't have to do it alone. That would be super difficult. I had all this mentorship, all this modeling, all this example from Roger, from everybody. So to me, it was just, can you just go enact what is obvious to go do? And I really appreciate it because the game never does leave you.

• 1:13:22Speaker 03

  I traffic in memorabilia for our golf tournaments for for every young foundation. And so we need constant signatures from jerseys from players and hockey players and or Hollywood. Or, and so I, to this day, you can't imagine how many signatures that I do that as part of the memorabilia company and they pay me in stuff so we can use it for the tournaments. You know what I mean? And I'm still, if you'd have told me in 2025, I'd still be signing my name on Steve Young jerseys or helmets. It blows the mind, but we're still trafficking in it because it funds the foundation and we have great golf tournaments and we make a lot of good things happen. So it's like a virtuous cycle that we got going.

• 1:14:05Tim Ferriss?

  It seems also really fortunate, we were chatting briefly and we won't get into the details of that, but about some of the former military kind of tier one operators, a friend's mind, who run into a very similar challenge, right? They're the best of the best.

• 1:14:18Speaker 03

  It is brutal.

• 1:14:19Tim Ferriss?

  They've been hugely invested in, not that dissimilar in some ways from top level professional athletes. And then they go from being the best at what they do to question mark, or feeling they're not good at anything. And that happens to gold medalists, or I should say just Olympians broadly.

• 1:14:35Speaker 03

  It happens to the high schooler who never leaves football.

• 1:14:38Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that's a great point.

• 1:14:40Speaker 03

  You're talking about, there's dramatic moments that are clear, like the SEAL team, who's the elite member that resonates with everybody, like, oh my gosh, that would be hard.

• 1:14:48Tim Ferriss?

  You're right, though. It happens in so many other ways.

• 1:14:50Speaker 03

  But the transition pattern is so common.

• 1:14:53Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, and I was, I was thinking, how incredibly fortunate it seems to me that you happen to be here, because startups are a full contact sport, right? Like, that is full commit, right? It is not, that is not a nine to five, check in, check out, going six out of 10. This startups is in a way, it just seems like a, a good fit, in a sense, for someone who's been in sixth gear for so long.

• 1:15:19Speaker 03

  You know, I think there's a little bit of drug in it, right? Where the action, I talk about this with other quarterbacks that played a long time, what do you miss? And you miss the opportunity to pour yourself into something. Like, I always say, there's physical athleticism that's part of it, there's emotional athleticism that's part of it, there's psychological, like, it's, every part of you is necessary to be poured in to be even good at this, if not great. And so, that rigor, even business can't provide that. It's nothing like it, in front of 80,000 people with a score, you know, and officials

• 1:15:57Speaker 03

  and a clock, and like, that's just, it's a really crazy cool environment, because there's, there's truth in it. Always like

• 1:16:08Tim Ferriss?

  There's a purity to it.

• 1:16:09Speaker 03

  So purity to it. But even in the purity of it, going back to the truest truth of accountability, you can still try to fake that it wasn't you.

• 1:16:19Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:16:20Speaker 03

  Even in the most true, clear witnessed, 80,000 witnesses just watched it. And you can listen to quarterbacks after the game, especially, you know, losing quarterbacks when they ask them what happened, try to spin what 80,000 people just witnessed, bro. Like, come on. And so in that way, it just tells me about human nature that if you try to spin what just happened on a football field, what are you going to try to spin in business? Or in your personal life? Or in your family? Like, and that's what I say when people say, look, I really want to change. I really want to transition to something better. I want to learn and grow authentically, truly. You got to be about it, you know, it has to be

• 1:17:01Tim Ferriss?

  Core.

• 1:17:02Speaker 03

  Core, because otherwise you'll humans in entropy with gravity and our bodies are rotting like things are gonna like, it's just truth. We'll go along with that rationale. And that is a transactional path that yeah, you're right. It's a rotten path and people, we live it all the time.

• 1:17:22Tim Ferriss?

  I were definitely going to talk about transactional and we're going to get into, get into one of your books. But I'm so curious, right? So you've got this Morgan Stanley banker named Rich Lawson, and he's like, you're going to need a CEO. Furthermore, I'm the guy. Why, why say yes, right? What was the, what was the pitch? I mean, I love

• 1:17:43Speaker 03

  Tim, honestly, well, I mean, think about it. This is the, I don't know how I try to explain stuff. It's always my dad goes like, or my wife is like, Steve, get to the point, but industrial revolution, 100 years. Technology revolution, 20 years, right? Right? Like, like, so like, it was happening.

• 1:18:00Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:01Speaker 03

  Right in front, like, right with us.

• 1:18:02Tim Ferriss?

  You could

• 1:18:03Speaker 03

  So it was like, businesses were literally going from nothing to public in months.

• 1:18:10Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:10Speaker 03

  That were now being valued at a billion, like, it was insane time. So you have to put yourself in there. So why would Rich turn and see this? I, because

• 1:18:20Tim Ferriss?

  I understand why he would do it. It's more the question of why you guys would agree to it.

• 1:18:25Speaker 03

  Because we just had an idea.

• 1:18:26Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I see, I see. You needed an

• 1:18:28Speaker 03

  We had

• 1:18:29Tim Ferriss?

  And he seemed like an operator.

• 1:18:30Speaker 03

  And really, the guys that formed this and the guys that did the algorithm and the I'm the facilitator, right? Like, I want to be in business. I'm energized by the human complex calculus in business. And so I was drawn to it. I still have imposter syndrome a little bit, right? Like, but back then, I definitely felt like I'm kind of faking my way through it. And here's a guy that was classically trained at Harvard, went in business, you know, went to consulting, and then now is a big banker. And like, to me, he's like

• 1:19:01Tim Ferriss?

  He's got all the pedigree.

• 1:19:02Speaker 03

  He's expert, right? It's fun. The yin and yang of it all.

• 1:19:05Tim Ferriss?

  What is made? I mean, I have quite a few friends. I mean, a lot of friends in the investing world are at large, but I have quite a few in the private equity world as well. And I mean, how long have you guys been partners now?

• 1:19:17Speaker 03

  That was 1997.

• 1:19:19Tim Ferriss?

  All right, it's been a minute.

• 1:19:20Speaker 03

  Almost 30.

• 1:19:21Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, 30 years. Why has it worked? Right? Because a lot don't.

• 1:19:25Speaker 03

  None do.

• 1:19:26Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, right. There we go.

• 1:19:27Speaker 03

  First of all, I think that there was a clarity early on that the things that he's really good at, I really am not good at. And the things that I was really good at wasn't his strongest suit, you know, so there's a yin and yang kind of feel to it. And then there's a trust that gets built that just works, like it either does or doesn't. And it gets tested. I mean, the times that in 30 years, or you got to be kidding me. I remember sitting in the corner, there was a time, there are existential moments when it felt like, well, that was fun, you know? See you later.

• 1:20:02Tim Ferriss?

  What types, if you're able to talk about, like, what types of

• 1:20:05Speaker 03

  Well, they're just

• 1:20:06Tim Ferriss?

  How do those precipitate?

• 1:20:08Speaker 03

  Private equity, if you think about it, is a it's really unique business because you go globally to find investors to believe that you can go now deploy capital in businesses to return, you know, significantly more over a period of time than the public equities or other bonds or anything else. And so private equity has got this fuse of capital that has to be great. And you have to be great in kind of 10-year increments. So that as you go out and you raise the money and you go do it, every few years, you're going to have another referendum on whether you're in business or not.

• 1:20:48Tim Ferriss?

  Based on your report card.

• 1:20:49Speaker 03

  Truly, and you could be out of business. And so it's a crazy world to now try to build continuity from fund to fund. And a business that reflects the values that you want in the middle of the truth of it is like, there's a referendum every few years and it might go away. When you're getting started, like any startup, there are existential moments that feel, I look back and it probably wasn't truly existential, but it felt it. And that builds trust or scar tissue that, I mean, to me, the most interesting people in the world have lots of scars, right? And have found the bounty in it, the good in it.

• 1:21:32Speaker 03

  And so that's why I think that's how it's worked. And like we had our holiday party yesterday, last night, and there we are sitting together, chopping it up like, amazing what's happened, but yet what we can do, you know? So it's just Henry Kravitz and George Roberts, both I've had the pleasure and the honor of knowing and knowing them. And that's one of the great partnerships of all time. Two cousins that have just, and they're still humble, gentlemen, sincere. I mean, I just, I'm inspired by both of them. And so in that way, I'm now getting old enough where we can talk about these generational relationships that are super cool. We all had the same office. We never had separate offices.

• 1:22:17Speaker 03

  He's like, I'm Oscar, he's Felix, like, you know, the old dog couple.

• 1:22:22Speaker 03

  That's, you look at the, around the room and all the helmets hanging up, that's COVID. All the stuff I remember I told you about, memorabilia that I traffic in, they were in the corner, a big pile, like it was just a pile of crap that just keeps getting cycled through. And during COVID, he couldn't take it. He like, I gotta clean this place up.

• 1:22:38Tim Ferriss?

  That's me. So that would be me.

• 1:22:39Speaker 03

  So we hung, I walk in after a couple of weeks, man, I'm like, what have you done? You hung up helmets around that? That looks stupid, you know? Cause to me, as a ex pro athlete, like that's just dumb.

• 1:22:52Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:52Speaker 03

  But to him, it's like, that's clean, you know? And so we have helmets.

• 1:22:56Tim Ferriss?

  Looks pretty cool as a background with the camera facing this way.

• 1:23:01Tim Ferriss?

  So HGGC, handsome good guy company, what does that stand for?

• 1:23:04Speaker 03

  Historically, it was Huntsman Gay Global Capital. At the time, back in 2008, 07, Rich and I were the younger partners, founders, and the two older partners, John Huntsman and Bob Gay with Greg Benson. And John wanted his name on it, and Bob didn't want his name on it. So but then John won, so it's Huntsman Gay Global Capital. But then John was selling his Huntsman Chemical business. But in the 2008 credit crisis, you can read the story, it's amazing story, where Leon Black at Apollo had bought it, signed it, but then didn't fund it. Because everything had gone crazy. And then what ended up happening is the transaction did not get funded.

• 1:23:48Speaker 03

  They broke it, there was a huge lawsuit and billion dollar settlement. But in net of it was, John Huntsman never was able to come over. So here we are, raising money at Huntsman Gay Global, and we don't have John. And then Bob left for full time church service three years later. And so then we go to fund two, and it's like, we're Huntsman Gay Global Capital. No John Huntsman, no Bob Gay. But yeah, Rich Lawson, Steve Young, what do you think? Let's go.

• 1:24:14Tim Ferriss?

  That's so glad I asked. That's such better, so much better than I would have.

• 1:24:19Speaker 03

  So then we have the decision to make in 2012. What do we name ourselves, you know? Because we can't stay with that name. And there's a little panic, like, again, existential crisis.

• 1:24:30Tim Ferriss?

  Can we even raise?

• 1:24:31Speaker 03

  Can we raise a fund? Let's melt it down, so at least it's a reflection of something that was existing. And I honestly, and everyone around the firm knows this, I can't stand our name. Because HGGC is hard to say. So you stand up in a very formal setting, and you're trying to express the values and this incredible partnership culture that you've built off of the back of my previous life in football, and how you have to come together. And Perry Pursue, we can lock arms, strategic vision, we can go. And, you know, everyone here at HGGC, you know, it's a lot of syllables. Yeah, like, so my great idea is to call it, I used to play at Candlestick Park Show, it's Candlestick Ventures or Candlestick Partners. But we've said, we branded it, it's worldwide, it's everything. So now we're HGGC.

• 1:25:16Speaker 03

  Just because, and it's fine. It's fun. It's fun.

• 1:25:18Tim Ferriss?

  You mentioned something that actually might be a nice segue to where I was planning on going next. Anyway, you said left for full-time church service. And I was gonna ask about faith.

• 1:25:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:25:31Tim Ferriss?

  The role that faith.

• 1:25:32Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:25:33Tim Ferriss?

  Not only plays in your life now, but has played. Has it changed form over time? I don't know if it has or not.

• 1:25:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know. It always does.

• 1:25:40Tim Ferriss?

  But.

• 1:25:41Speaker 03

  It should.

• 1:25:42Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:42Speaker 03

  Learn and grow, right? I mean, that's just, as a young kid, you know, like, it was formative, right? Like, it gave you a sense that God's with you, cheering you on. I always, as a kid, I always felt like, you know, even in the hardest times, like, no, God's cheering you on. Like, I never felt this wrathful, like, when I read the Old Testament, like, eh, not really. That doesn't make sense.

• 1:26:07Tim Ferriss?

  Leviticus doesn't have a big smile on it.

• 1:26:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it doesn't, it actually, and I was able, as a young kid, to kind of ferret through the things that resonated and the stuff that didn't. And so my theology is really wrapped into what I would call, you know, being LDS is like, complex because it was a, you know, we claim this kind of restoration, so it was a restart. And in the restart, there's, I mean, you look back at the history in the last 200 years, it's pretty chaotic. And so for me, I don't have to carry all that.

• 1:26:38Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:26:38Speaker 03

  But the things that resonate, the things that are beautiful, are really rooted in that event. So it's like, to me, it's always resonated. It's always been something that, and I don't have to carry

• 1:26:51Speaker 03

  what I see as kind of the chaotic parts of, of a young organization. So in that way, I'm, I tell my wife, you know, she, she got me started on, you know, really questioning and challenging the culture as a cultural experience because.

• 1:27:09Speaker 03

  True faith can't be cultural, right? It has to be rooted in, in something actionable that is beyond you, you know? And so I find myself more energized than ever around faith and around the potential of organized religion and its beauty, yet recognizing how devastatingly painful and difficult and all the other parts of it. So ferreting through all that, I find myself more energized than ever at how I feel around faith and connection and relationship. I learned somewhere in there that if you're not careful, you go back to what we talked

• 1:27:54Speaker 03

  about around entropy and rotting and transaction and like, if you're not careful, religion becomes what I call Boy Scout theology, kind of go get a merit badge, do the work. It's good work. It's not bad work. Go get a merit badge, put it on your sash and then wear it around town so that everyone knows what amazing Boy Scout you are. Right. You know what I mean? Does that make sense? It does make sense. So that theology is productive. It's like performative. There's good things that come out of it, but the relationship can't last because it's transactional. It is self-interested at its core and it can't make it.

• 1:28:32Speaker 03

  So I'm super energized by the roots that really kind of like, I don't know, I find myself every day enjoying as I chew on the ideals of my faith, like how it keeps resonating in a way that is, you know what I mean, learning, growing, right? Like I find myself always refining and spiritually kind of that light that I feel, that I want to be around and it doesn't necessarily, it comes from everywhere. I find my organized religions, it's not hobbled, it's not insular, it's not, like it makes me more curious. Like I can't wait to hear, when you tell me about something that you're doing, I'm

• 1:29:16Speaker 03

  like, tell me more about that, man, because that's informative to where, kind of where I'm sitting. And that's when I know it works is when you get away from.

• 1:29:26Speaker 03

  Transactional, insular, hoveling, self-righteous judgment. Like, those are all transactional words. You asked me a question, I'm sorry to go start riffing on it, but it's a really, I think, energizing place to be for me right now.

• 1:29:41Tim Ferriss?

  No need to apologize. I mean, this is an exploration, and I wanted to ask for a number of different reasons. One of them, I mean, this is a reflection of sort of the antithesis of insular also in my reading of The Law of Love, your book, which was sent to me by Greg McKeown, who wrote Essentialism.

• 1:29:58Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 1:29:59Tim Ferriss?

  And ended up listening to it.

• 1:30:01Speaker 03

  See, it's a...

• 1:30:01Tim Ferriss?

  And I listened to it.

• 1:30:04Speaker 03

  I apologize for that.

• 1:30:05Tim Ferriss?

  Well, no need to apologize.

• 1:30:06Speaker 03

  Well, no, it's written for my LDS brothers and sisters, like, we're in a place where our roots are incredibly non-transactional, and yet have allowed for the rational, I shouldn't say infection, but allowing for the transactional to actually lead in places, that it needs to be kind of excised. And so that's the book is about, is that there's a law governing the universe, universal law for all humans, that says to see the full measure of something, you have to lose the self-interest. And I was brought here by my, by Bill Walsh, my coach in the 49ers, who used to talk about, every year he'd stand in front of the team and say, "I don't care what play we call,

• 1:30:49Speaker 03

  I don't care what defense we run, we're gonna win because we have shared, common experiences amongst each other, an element of love for each other." And I was like, "That's how we're gonna win football games?" And it was actually true, all the way to, you know, just all elements of my marriage, my family, my relationships, it was all, as I sought the higher ground, I guess you would call it, it just started to resonate, and I wanted to write about it. It was my journey, led by my wife, who I just think, like, I'm so much better... Rubbing up against her every day, you know, shoulder to shoulder, like I just, I've, she's, I always say she gets the barnacles off my boat, you know what I mean? Like, I love her for that.

• 1:31:32Speaker 03

  And so that's, I don't even know what the question you were, I've kind of lost myself in it, but.

• 1:31:36Tim Ferriss?

  I'll pick up where you just left off with respect to keeping this, it's not the loss of self-interest, it's also this love of the collective that might not be the best way to phrase it, but self-transcendence maybe would be one way to put it. How do you, how do your wife, how do you guys, your family, keep it at the forefront? Maybe it's a question for you, like, how has that become more important? How do you keep it like you did the accountability after that plane ride?

• 1:32:04Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:32:05Tim Ferriss?

  Something that you have as a lens on a daily or weekly basis?

• 1:32:11Speaker 03

  I think that's where the theology really is important, is how you see, how you define the crazy world that we have, you know? I mean, I just noticed a fiery orb that came through the sky again today. Amazing, how it just comes in and makes Palo Alto, you know, sixty-seven degrees and perfect. You know what I mean? Like, the things that are going on, the miracles that happen, I mean, I can't, you know, I had breakfast, but I don't digest my food, I don't know vitamins and minerals that body needs. Like, there's this, this intelligence that's out there that is universal. And, um, dang, I forgot your question.

• 1:32:44Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, that's okay. No, I was just asking the, the law of love, how you keep that.

• 1:32:48Speaker 03

  Oh, in the forefront.

• 1:32:49Tim Ferriss?

  In the forefront.

• 1:32:50Speaker 03

  Yeah. Typical of me, I was gonna go around about.

• 1:32:53Tim Ferriss?

  You can, you can take the roundabout.

• 1:32:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I, but I think what, what I was trying to say is that, again, it's an intent, and it's really about recognizing and defining kind of the conditions of our life that I think God authored. Like, the whole, you know, it's a body, there's agency, choices to make, there's opposition everywhere, and so with that kind of as an ingredient, that's our laboratory. It goes back to learning and growing, that's the laboratory. So in that laboratory, as we define each other, what are, how are we related? And so my theology is that God, Mother and Father, we are durable spirits inside of us that are not from this place. We take a body for learning and growing, but then when we die,

• 1:33:38Speaker 03

  there's this physical entity of spirit that's durable and that it's divine. Like, so that every human. Is divine. So in that way, as you start to define things that are every day, how you relate with them, it's in the definition is how you actually act. And so if I see everyone as divine and like more eternal, like it's like it's not just like you see someone on the street and you say, oh, they're in a bad spot. I mean, that's terrible. They chose their way. What a bad life. What about? And he's like, no, let's back out and recognize that there's a broad, big spectrum of experience and let's see and have the curiosity for how to help

• 1:34:23Speaker 03

  those around us learn and grow as well, like, and because we're, we really are related. We were all together. We all chose to take a body. And so in that theology, there's this universality. And so if you talk about the law of love, it's really just a fulfillment of the relationship that's already true. So it's not like I have to go through all kinds of mental machinations to make myself see others as literal family. Like it's in the roots, it's in the dirt. You and I are related in that way. You're divine. We're both divine. So let's be about it. And so in that way, the intent of the law of love is says the full measure

• 1:35:04Speaker 03

  of what I can get out of this life cannot be a transaction. God cannot be Santa Claus. As much as Santa Claus is a cool idea and that like if I'm super good, I get a gift. At its root, it's self-interested and it can't last. If there are durable spirits inside of us that are more in perpetual, the law that leads us cannot be self-interested because it will rot. It will rot like everything around us is decay. I look in the mirror today, Tim, it's not going good, bro. Like it's going the wrong direction. So in that way, the law of love is really about saying there is a law that is decreed from like the origins of the universe

• 1:35:46Speaker 03

  that says if I can lose the transaction, if I can lose myself. And be curious about you and be curious about where you've been. There's an element that's pure in that that you take in in a different way. If you and I have a transactional relationship, it's going to feel that way. And there's a lot of bounty in it, a lot of profit. There's a lot of money running around the world. There's a lot of fame. There's a lot of everything. There's a lot of goodness in many ways, but in the end, if it's purely transactional, if my marriage is purely transactional, at some point it's going to break. It has to in self-interest. And so if you ask me the intent or how do you live it? To me, the definition's important, right? Because otherwise you'd be like, screw that.

• 1:36:28Speaker 03

  I'm, I've been curious about people and I've been hurt and I'm done with that. And I'm tired of being left behind. And then the victimization shows up. We have themes, right? We got, and all of a sudden it's like the world's against me. And now I'm going to, you know, and I'll take my part. So I'm going to take my part, right? And as soon as you do that, yeah, there's a mitigating truth to it. Like it's like, it all makes sense in my brain.

• 1:36:52Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it makes sense. Like there, there's just because you can identify truths in a scene or situation. It doesn't mean that by focusing on those particular truths or those mitigating factors that you produce any type of durable good for yourself or others.

• 1:37:11Speaker 03

  The idea is that the full bounty of a relationship, put a religion aside again. Just put it all aside. The full bounty of a relationship is actually ironic. In an unfeigned love, care, concern, even a fare thee well hello, you know, just something that says, I am about your well-being. You're, hope you have a great day, you know? In that simple statement, that's not, I'm not looking for anything. Just I truly hope you have a great day. In that element, I believe is unlocks an irony of how you actually receive a great day. If that makes sense. And so you can't say, I hope you have a great day because then you can help me have a great.

• 1:37:55Speaker 03

  Like you can't make it about something, then it all of a sudden devolves. Even kids, kids feel pure love from a parent. Do you want to raise your kids in a transactional way? It works for a while, but to really love them in a way that they feel, they feel it. I'm loved and I'm a screw up. I'm a make that bad decision. I'm, I don't know, but I know. There's a, I'm loved and that, that changes people because it hits in a different place. And so the book is really around what I believe is the universal truth that is true for my LDS community, particularly because that's what I'm very focused on, but it's true, true everywhere.

• 1:38:39Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it can be applied.

• 1:38:41Speaker 03

  But it's the irony of it because we all who are trying to accomplish, that's what we see in front of us, the better the life is, the more accomplishments, right? That's how you show a great life. It's irrational to the world that we live in today. It's irrational, yet I think it's the unlock.

• 1:38:59Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:59Speaker 03

  That's what I would put it because people could tell me, screw you, Steve. That's, that's just ethereal, weird, crazy stuff. I know what I need to do to be happy and it's, I'm getting it right now. That's fine. What I'm describing is irrational to all of that and I'm chewing on it.

• 1:39:15Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:15Speaker 03

  Tim, I am not an expert. I've been brought to it because of a quest, another Steve Covey quest.

• 1:39:21Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:21Speaker 03

  And I'm just chewing on it and I'm learning about it and yeah, that's it.

• 1:39:27Tim Ferriss?

  I'm so deeply curious about this. I did not grow up religious. I went to an Episcopal boarding school for a period of time, but I mean, that was non-denominational. So yeah, we sat in a chapel and they gave announcements.

• 1:39:36Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:39:37Tim Ferriss?

  But besides that, it wasn't terribly religious and I don't identify as religious in the sense of having an organized religion I adhere to, but there are also so many things that our current, let's say breadth of science can explain. And there are also a lot of questions that are really important and there are things that we can feel like love that are very hard to put under a microscope and provide spreadsheets for.

• 1:40:01Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:40:02Tim Ferriss?

  You can try and there are ways to sort of torture some of these things into conforming to numbers, but at the end of the day, there's a lot we don't know. There are certain questions we can't answer and I, for a long time was, I would say,

• 1:40:17Tim Ferriss?

  A pessimist disguised as a realist, if that makes any sense.

• 1:40:21Speaker 03

  Sure, of course it does.

• 1:40:22Tim Ferriss?

  So, so.

• 1:40:22Speaker 03

  Totally rational.

• 1:40:23Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, being grown up, being raised around a lot of the glass is half empty type of thinking that was justified and reasoned and it made sense to me. I look out at the world, look at the cover of the newspaper, like, yep, things are bad. People are bad.

• 1:40:39Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:40:39Tim Ferriss?

  And therefore A, B, and C.

• 1:40:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:40:41Tim Ferriss?

  However, as I've gotten older, I've realized that, for instance, if you have a base assumption, let's just say a belief that humans are divine, there's some aspect of every human that is divine. And divine is a word that'll make some people squirm who are listening.

• 1:41:00Speaker 03

  That's fine, too.

• 1:41:01Tim Ferriss?

  Which is fine.

• 1:41:01Speaker 03

  Totally, like, I'm, again, I'm curious, like, I have no, my dogma is very about the human interaction, right?

• 1:41:09Tim Ferriss?

  Right, so it's like, if you have that belief and it's like, okay, people might say, well, it can't be falsified, Carl, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the point of it is, does it make things better or does it make things worse? And that, I'm not saying that everybody should adopt every fairy tale that they want, but at the same time, there is some latitude in how you choose to view things. And if you start to entertain something that is ever-present, intangible, you could call it divine, you could call it something else sublime, you could call it wonder, you could call it awe, I mean, there are different ways to put it.

• 1:41:45Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:41:45Tim Ferriss?

  I'm not saying those are all equivalent, but you begin to get more curious and you begin to see, like you said, the fact that plants eat sunlight to produce energy.

• 1:41:56Speaker 03

  It's insane.

• 1:41:56Tim Ferriss?

  It's completely nuts.

• 1:41:57Speaker 03

  It's insane.

• 1:41:57Tim Ferriss?

  Right, and when you start to really refamiliarize yourself with beginner's eyes looking at how incredibly improbable it is that you and I are sitting here experiencing more or less the same reality.

• 1:42:11Speaker 03

  It is, it is irrational.

• 1:42:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's wild.

• 1:42:13Speaker 03

  Don't you think it's irrational? It's incredibly crazy.

• 1:42:16Tim Ferriss?

  It's nuts.

• 1:42:17Speaker 03

  And so I, look, to me, take the, anyone that's uncomfortable talking about religion or theology, and put it aside for a second. Let's just think about. Take the universal truth that I believe is universal because it's universal. Forget about all of that. Just take it as a lived experience. The rational, transactional life that is in front of us and the results of it. Watch as you watch it politically. You watch what happens is over time you have to separate, right? Because and the transactional path is more fundamental. So what is happening politically today? More and more fundamental, both ways, because there's no, nobody is looking for. The law of love is not part of the calculus. No one's curious. No one's open.

• 1:43:01Speaker 03

  So it's like, forget about religion for a second. Just politically, I've never seen a more divisive transactional time led by the most divisive transactional people. It's not that complex.

• 1:43:14Tim Ferriss?

  You can also look at, I mean, even, you know, we're sitting here in Silicon Valley, right? A lot of very wealthy people. And if the hope is that the list of successful transactions, and we're going to land the plane in just a couple of minutes.

• 1:43:27Speaker 03

  It's a super long form.

• 1:43:29Tim Ferriss?

  If you look at, if you look at the, if people hope the list of transactions will ultimately redeem the time that they spend on this planet in life, I've never seen it work out, right? I've never seen that work.

• 1:43:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:43:41Tim Ferriss?

  It's just.

• 1:43:43Speaker 03

  It's testable, right? I've experienced that.

• 1:43:45Tim Ferriss?

  The greyhound never catches the rabbit. And so this self-transcendence, this discussion, I just more and more feel like it's so critical. Steve, I, I know you've been very generous with your time. I really enjoy this. Is there anything else that you'd like to share or talk about before we wind to a close?

• 1:44:02Speaker 03

  I will tell you, Tim, that you're really good at this because I don't know that I've ever had a conversation like this. I leave with that unsettling feeling like I've really shared, you know, like, I'm like, you know, overshared possibly. And I'm like, oh, man. But I'm at a place in my life where I just, I'm curious about, you know, about that. It's like, I'm not worried about it. I was just like, but thank you for a chance to put into words. And like, I wish, I already feel like, oh, I wish I could have said that differently or I could have, you know, because it was so raw in some ways. So I'm gonna, I'll get better at that, but I really appreciate that for me.

• 1:44:44Speaker 03

  The depths of how you took me to places that I really appreciate. I will not listen to it because it's just too much, too much, but I'll get, I'll get responses from people. But thank you for the, for the gift of vulnerability and the gift of expressing kind of my, my story. I appreciate it.

• 1:45:03Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, thank you. I've really, really enjoyed it. Folks can find you on Instagram at Steve Young, on X at, at Steve Young QB. You've got the hggc.com website, of course. Also, people should check out for every Young Foundation. And we'll link to many other things in the show notes for everybody at tim.blog/podcast. And until next time, as I always say, folks, be just a bit kinder than is necessary to others, but also to yourself. And thanks for tuning in. Thank you, Steve. Hey, guys. This is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe

• 1:45:47Tim Ferriss?

  to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered, or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums, perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field, and then I test them, and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you

• 1:46:29Tim Ferriss?

  head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog/friday, type that into your browser, tim.blog/friday, drop in your email, and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. Many of you know how deeply I love Japan and its culture of unwavering dedication to craft, refinement, commitment to continuous improvement, but why do I bring this all up? Well, the same focus on improving one thing over the span of years is found in today's sponsor, AG1. They are now unveiling AG1 Next Gen, the same single scoop, once a day product that I use myself, but now with more vitamins, more minerals, and five new clinically

• 1:47:09Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:47:52Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:48:34Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:49:18Tim Ferriss?

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