66 Noah Kagan: Genius Marketer on Why He Got Fired by Facebook and Made Millions Anyways

Imagine being dumped from a position worth hundreds of millions of dollars... It's enough to crush a person's spirit. Noah Kagan was able to bounce back. In this interview he tells his amazing story of losing it all multiple times and building it all back again. Stay tuned to the end for an opportunity to participate in a give away. Visit www.lewishowes.com/66 for your chance to win, get the show notes and join the tribe. Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 66 with Noah Kagan.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Hey, hey, it's a beautiful day today and thanks so much for tuning in, greats. I really appreciate you for listening, you for subscribing, for sharing these episodes. It means the world to me and we continue to grow. We just hit 1.5 million downloads last week. So congratulations to all of you for making that happen and for sharing all of these awesome interviews that I've got with some amazing guests. And speaking of amazing guests, I've got a special friend of mine on today. His name is Noah Kagan and he is the founder of appsumo.com. For anyone who's ever heard of appsumo.com, it's a pretty cool website that gives special deals and offers for softwares and trainings and things like that.

• 1:17Lewis Howes?

  And he's a pretty brilliant guy. In this interview, we cover a lot of different things, some things he's never shared before on other interviews. And he was, he was one of the first 30 employees at Facebook, actually. So he's got a very interesting story about how he got hired on to Facebook and then how he got fired to Facebook and basically how he lost $100 million in the process because of this. We actually dive into a lot of interesting topics today. We cover a lot of things about his experiences for these, these major obstacles he's faced. He's a very introspective guy and very wise beyond his years. He likes to ask, ask a lot of questions when you meet him in person.

• 1:58Lewis Howes?

  He's constantly asking questions and just listening really well and he cares deeply about people for as nerdy as a guy that he, he seems to be on the outside, but a super amazing guy, lots of fun. And I think you're going to really enjoy this episode, but just so you guys know a little bit more about Noah, he

• 2:21Lewis Howes?

  On his site, okdork.com, he talks about how he started a two multimillion dollar businesses and grew close to a million person email list. And that's what he's really well known for is how to generate lots of leads and build a multimillion dollar businesses. So really interesting, smart guy, funny. I think you're gonna like this episode. So let's go ahead and dive in with the one and only Noah Kagan.

• 3:09Lewis Howes?

  Thanks everyone for tuning into the School of Greatness. And I've got a special friend on today. His name is Mr. Noah Kagan. What's up Noah?

• 3:17Speaker 01

  What up dog? Uh, just want some coffee.

• 3:22Lewis Howes?

  Now, the last time we hung out, I believe we hung out in New York City was the last time, but the first time we met was a pretty special and fun occasion. I don't know if you remember this occasion.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Um, kinda, I remember the New York one because it was like five in the morning. We met at a cafe.

• 3:36Lewis Howes?

  It was a bar, the West Village, I think.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:39Lewis Howes?

  With a group of interesting entrepreneurs, fun group. But the first time we met.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  Oh, I do remember this one. Yep.

• 3:45Lewis Howes?

  We, we met, I believe at a taco joint. And then you, we rode on your scooter in Austin. I don't even remember that. And I took a video of us. I should find this video and post it.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  I remember that photo. Yeah. And you're a big dude. You're not a little guy.

• 4:00Lewis Howes?

  It was like, it was so interesting because Noah's like five, what are you about five, seven, five, eight, five, nine?

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Oh, come on. I'm like five, 10.

• 4:09Lewis Howes?

  Anyone under six feet is a lot shorter to me. Uh, but we meet up in, in Austin and I don't even know how we originally got connected, but uh, maybe we met before then at Summit Series or something. I can't even remember, but we met there as one of our first meetings and we had a good conversation. And then we just like rode around Austin on your scooter and I thought I was gonna die in the backseat. But um, it was definitely a fun first bromance of the last few years. And uh, since then you've created some incredible things and uh, I want to get into that, but I want to talk about your journey because you started out after college, going into the corporate world for a minute and you, you, you pretty much hated it, right?

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, I um, you know, I had I had two options. Um, you know, the the real story, I don't actually think I've ever shared this on on recorded, is I had a job offer from Google. Um, and everyone, I went to Berkeley, and everyone from Berkeley was, you know, doing the traditional route, you know, kind of being a sheep, as my brother likes to call him. And, uh, you know, he was consulting, accounting, auditing, you know, working in, you know, General Electric or GM. And, uh, you know, I just never knew that. I knew that wasn't kind of the path I was gonna take. But I didn't know how the hell to get to that, you know, running my own business or being involved in technology kind of play, because everybody else was doing the the more traditional route. Uh, so what ended up happening, though, was I got a job offer from Google. And that was like pre-IPO two thousand and three.

• 5:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  And, uh, and so I honestly, man, I was just like, oh, my God, I fucking made it. I'm gonna be so rich. I'm gonna be at the coolest company. I'm gonna have free lunches all day. I'm gonna be a fatty. And, um, you know, like, uh, a week before it's I was supposed to go there, not a week before, maybe like a month before I was supposed to start, uh, they took back the job offer.

• 5:54Lewis Howes?

  Wow, how do they take something back?

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Uh, I don't know. It was a verbal thing where like, hey, you got the job. We're gonna send you the letter. Everything's good.

• 6:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  And then a week or two later, it was like, actually, yeah, you're not gonna be a good fit for this. And I, you know, wasn't really, and I was like, what what happened there? I thought everything, you know, I do well in the interviews. It was for their associate product marketing manager, which I have no idea what you even do for that role.

• 6:15Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  Um, but I had that anyway. So like with that job offer taken back, you know, it's kind of these things where, um, sometimes I think when we get challenged, it's like, all right, that's a good experience. So it's like, all right, well, what can I learn from this? How do I control my own destiny? Uh, and I ended up working at Intel. I had a job offer from Intel and, uh, Google, uh, Intel and, uh, Wells Fargo. So I'm kind of like back at my mom's house, working at, uh, at Intel, just living the the Dilbert lifestyle.

• 6:42Lewis Howes?

  Were you in San Jose or where were you at this time?

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was in their main headquarters in Santa Clara. And you know, anyone who, you know, I think that hires you and gives you money and helps pay for your living like you do appreciate them. Uh, but I just knew, you know, it's like, once you kind of experience that and sometimes we have to experience things to really understand like, holy shit, this really sucks. Like I always, uh, when I was interviewing at Intel, uh, there's this guy Terry, he asked me, he's like, hey, man, so, um, where do you see yourself in five years? And you know, my answer was, I said, well, not at Intel. And he just, he busts up laughing because he's like, yeah, me neither. You know, and it was kind of a, it was kind of like, oh shit. All right. Yeah. This is a, I like you, but it's interesting that this is the kind of culture of people. Um, that were at the company.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  And so, uh, yeah, I ended up just kind of sweating away and sleeping in my cubicle for the next about a year and a half.

• 7:33Lewis Howes?

  So where did you see yourself in five years?

• 7:36Speaker 01

  I, I don't actually look that far ahead. I know some people have, there's like my friend Andrew Chen, and if your readers want to check out his blog, it's andrewchen.co. It's really great stuff on viral marketing. He is like five, 10 years out there. And I think what, where I've done well is I look like six months to 12 months ahead.

• 7:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I'm the same way.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  You know, and so I, I kind of, you know, I was doing Intel and, and one tip, um, that I would always give people and I always encourage people is that as you are doing, if you're, someone else is paying your bills, that's, it's nice. There's some really great benefits. You don't have to worry about the business as much. Uh, but take advantage of that. So if you, you know, have them pay, basically be your investors for anything you want to start. Like a friend of mine is interested in starting a co-cooking class. Uh, I was like, well, why don't you have your company, you know, they're paying your, your day job. So at night you can start teaching cooking classes.

• 8:20Lewis Howes?

  Right, exactly.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  And then eventually you open up a studio or anything like that.

• 8:24Lewis Howes?

  And kind of see if you like it, you know, do it for six months, see if there's potential, see if you can make some money. And if not, then maybe you do something else or you stick with the job.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Exactly. I mean, so I'm, I'm not a risk taker, right? I'm not someone who's going to jump off and hopefully that thing will work out. What I encourage people though, let's say you want to start like a website, consulting, a restaurant, anything like that. Do it at, you know, let's say a restaurant, for example, have people over for dinners. That's what we did last year for a friend of mine who was starting a restaurant. We would do these pop-up dinners at different people's houses and sell tickets through Eventbrite. And through that, we were like, oh shit, people will want this kind of restaurant. And so now she's actually opening a taco store in San Antonio. And you can do that with, you know, do that while other people are paying for it. And you know, but what I encourage people to do is how do you not spend a lot of money and time? And we'll, we'll get into the whole starting business thing. But at Intel, I, you know, in six to 12 months, coming back to the original point. Um, I just basically was like, well, shit, I'm going to start my own business.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Once my, um, medical insurance is, uh, once I get my money for my medical insurance, because I pay you every year. I was like, well, I'm going to quit, get eye surgery. Um, LASIK, get LASIK and then I'll go start my own business. I didn't really have as much of a plan. I just knew.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  The other thing that I was doing, man, and I, and this is, I'm going to, I'm going to be repetitive. But at Intel, I kept starting my own businesses at night. So at night and, and I think, I don't know if it's an age thing where I was a lot hungrier when I was younger.

• 9:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Um, or I just really wanted to have, you know, I think I, I knew more of like, I just want to be working. And I think there's something there when you know what you want. And I knew I didn't want to be working at Intel. I knew that. Um, and I think it's a lot easier when you know what you want to get it.

• 9:56Lewis Howes?

  So when did you decide that you were quitting?

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Um, so in October 2005, I was like, all right, by the end of this year, it's over. And I'm going to start, you know, I'm, if my businesses are going forward, good. If not, then, um, I'm just going to quit anyways. And so, yeah, at that point, I basically was like, all right, I made that mental decision that that was going to happen. And one thing I'll be, I've actually never shared this, but this is something I did. I don't know where the hell I got it from, but it's one of the things that's actually been insanely helpful for the past 10 years. I took a piece of paper and I wrote 30, 60, 90, uh, one year, three year, 10 year. And I just listed five things in each, each time period. So 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, one year, five year, 10 year that I wanted.

• 10:40Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  And.

• 10:41Lewis Howes?

  I like that.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've never shared that and it worked out really well. I'll tell you, like, one of the things, not, I haven't gotten all of it, but at least I knew what that kind of future looked like. So I said in tears, I want to be a millionaire. I want to have a house, I want to have a wife and kids.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  I think I wanted, I think that was definitely like the big things I wanted. Did I, you know, and I did become a millionaire. I'm not married. I don't have the kids yet. I do.

• 11:06Lewis Howes?

  That you know of.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, don't, don't, don't say that, don't say that recorded. Make sure you edit that part out. No, I mean, if I had kids, I'm looking forward to that one day, just finding the right person. Um, but yeah, it was basically, and that really helped me get a picture of, it's not necessarily something I, actually, I did look at it every day. I taped it to my mirror. So as I walked by my mirror every morning, I was like, oh, those are things I keep wanting, keep seeing. I think women do this really well. They make, they call them vision boards.

• 11:32Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm. Yeah, that's interesting you say this because I haven't told too many people about this either, but when I was in, in high school and college, I would put up my goals that I would want to achieve for that year and frame it on a little note card with the date that I was going to achieve it by, kind of like as a certificate of achievement that I'd already achieved it. And I was just waiting for the date to happen. And almost every time on or around that date, I would get what I want. And it was always like big goals that I didn't think I could achieve at that time, like six or 12 months before, but it would always come around and either happen or really close to it. So something in that.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Dude, totally. So I would say, you know, I do that on a weekly basis and I think sometimes it's, it's too micro at that point. So you have to really step back.

• 12:17Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  And we have, you know, we have this product, sumome.com, which is a, it's a free tool for marketing for any website to, for people to, to grow their website. And we have this big goal of a billion people this year to use it, uh, to, to, to see it. Like, so let's say your site has a hundred thousand visitors. That's a hundred thousand people this, for, to add to it. So it's like, it's a lot of people that we're trying to reach.

• 12:36Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:37Speaker 01

  Uh, and I think right now we're at about 16 or 17 million.

• 12:40Lewis Howes?

  That's pretty good. You just launched it.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  We launched about two months ago.

• 12:43Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  But here's the challenge, man. It's like, I'm like, we're at 16, so that's like 1% towards a billion. It's a, you know, one of the guys on the team was like, man, we're doing really shitty. Uh, and it's kind of discouraging because you're like, man, I want to get married. I want a million dollars. I want to quit my job and it just seems so much further off. And so what we are doing, we actually talked about at lunch today as a team is, you know, I think two things you have to really do. You have to face it. So I know that days when we don't make a good profit, like on app, at appsumo.com, like when, you know, our free newsletter, like when we are not making profit, I actually go and look at it. Or the days where I know I ate a lot of shitty food, Louis, I'll go and stand on my scale. And or yesterday, we I was a little. Yeah, last I was a little hungover. My buddy's like, you want ibuprofen?

• 13:28Speaker 01

  I was like, nope, I don't want that ibuprofen. Like, I want to experience like what, you know, what is going on now? And then what can I do about that? And I don't think enough people actually, you know, face things that are sucky. And then think, all right, well, what do we need to do? And so as a team today, we said, all right, well, one thing is we need to have a daily goal. Instead of this one billion thing, how do we break it down so on a daily, weekly basis, we can understand, are we actually on the right destination? Are we on the right path? And, you know, knowing that it's like, all right, well, we're only about 10,000 or 50,000 or 100,000 people a day away from our goal. And it makes it much more attainable. It's like, all right, well, what do we need to do this week to get 50,000 more people a day? And so I think the takeaway for your listeners is like, all right, take a reasonable goal within a year that you really want to accomplish.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Break it into a day or a week or monthly target. And then give yourself limited time periods for making change. And what I mean by that is, let's say we're doing, you know, I think about 200,000 people a day on Sumo Me. Instead of saying, how do we get to a million people next month? It's like, all right, well, how do we double it in a week? And when you just you use that kind of framework for certain decisions. It really helps you say, all right, well, shit, like, like, let's say for your downloads, you're like, well, I'm getting 30,000 downloads on my podcast this week. If I had to double it by next Friday, what would I do? And I, you know, and what I would say most people will realize is that you'll remove a lot of things you would you would be doing. Right? And you'll focus on your ones. You're like, well, I actually think these are really going to be my biggest wins. And it just really helps you prioritize your decisions.

• 14:53Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. I like that. I feel like you've been doing a lot of work on yourself lately.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  It's been, you know, it's one of these things I think never ends. It just never ends. I think one thing I'm like wondering, I'm like, man, am I, is it as I'm getting older, I'm getting more wussy? And I'm not as hungry.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Where younger, I think, and I think it's kind of like efficiency versus effectiveness where. I think when I was younger, I was just like working my ass off, just whatever it was, I would just like like a bulldog, just go attack. And now I'm trying to be. This little more strategic and say, instead of just spending all the hours, like, how do I spend less hours, but they're more productive and more effective? And yeah, in 2012, it was a really self reflective year where it was just, most of your sucked. The year sucked. The whole, most of the whole year sucked. Yeah, I mean, it was one of the best years money wise for the business for AppSumo, but it was just as a personal level. And so I, I spent the whole year and first quarter of 2013 working on myself. Wow. Yeah, I mean, it was a, and just, I can share some of the stuff I did.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  If you think it'd be interesting. Yeah, what'd you do? Also, I mean, I, I just felt bad about myself personally. I didn't really have, you know, certain relationships were, were good. My work, you know, as we talked about, I was up to 18 people at AppSumo. You know, me and my partner Chad were running, you know, a good business that a lot of people, you know, I'd get emails like, you're killing it. You're crushing it. Um, you guys look like you're doing so well on Alexa. And, um, and I think what, what people have to really keep evaluating is, is taking a minute, either therapy or friend or writing, and really keep asking themselves in those three categories, which is yourself, your relationships and your work, you know, what do you really want out of those three, right? Kind of like a triangle of your life. And with my, with myself, I wasn't really healthy. Um, I kind of dressed like shit.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  Um, wasn't, you know, I wasn't exercising or eating well. And the relationships, I was dating a girl who was kind of toxic. Uh, just kind of negative. I was always just like feeling insecure about myself because she was really hot. And I was like, oh, well, how, I'm not worthy of her. Like, I can't believe she'll have sex with me. Um, and then professionally, it was just, you know, we're running this big business, you know, eating people, doing, I think, a little over five million bucks. And, you know, bootstrapped, all that stuff. And I guess I kind of just like, I don't really like the way the business is running. I don't like what AppSumo, we send out, you know, for the people who don't know, we send out free tool, like it's a free newsletter and we send out tools for entrepreneurs. So we get good prices on tools and, and content. Like, we've actually promoted some of Lewis's products. Yep. And, um, I saw one of the products we were promoting. I'm like, holy shit, that sucks.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  It was like, this is a horrible thing about how to start a mobile app. And, uh, and I realized that like, wow, that, that's basically saying that I'm crap. And even our, our friend Ramit, uh, Ramit was joking, we were, we were walking down the street in New York one day. He's like, hey Noah, you, uh, your business, he said in passing, but it really stuck. He was like, your business reminds me of Ross. You know, Ross Clothing Store? Right. And I was like, fuck you, man. Like, they're only good for like getting coffee makers and, uh, random kitchen supplies.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  And so, uh, so I kinda just started breaking down and there wasn't, you know, it's funny, there wasn't one epiphany of this is the magical thing that really changed it all for me. Um, it was just a series of different things to figure out, you know, what makes my life better. So some of the, the higher level things that I can tell you and actionable things is one of them was I did things that my buddy Adam from mybodytutor.com, I did a thing called Gebby. Where every morning I would eat my Gebby and Gebby basically stands for gratitude, exercise, breakfast and you. Where every morning I'd say, all right, well, what am I grateful for? And, and the whole point of all this is that we, we came up these four because we realized like, all right, this is helping me understand what a good day will look like. And then how do I engineer that good day? So how do I create a day of like, these are things that'll do to make today awesome? So gratitude was like, all right, well, what am I happy for this morning?

• 18:41Speaker 01

  And one of my favorite moments was like, I was happy for hot water. It's like, it's like such a stupid thing, man, but I was just like, man, this water feels really good. I'm really grateful that they have water heaters. Um, you know what, and some of those things are, yeah, even you, you're smiling. I put a little smile on my face and, and honestly, I was, and here's the thing, like now I'm happier and I'm in a better place, position. But I was still like, and I would write this and I'd be like, Adam, this is stupid. But it was just like, I kept doing it and kept doing it. And a lot of times it's like, you just gotta keep going forward, right? Like make your patience and persistence your competitive advantage.

• 19:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's interesting you say that because I'm a huge proponent of gratitude. I don't know if you've ever called me and left a message, but on my voicemail, I, my request is you can't leave me a message until you say what you're grateful for, for the day. And it just sets people up in a different mood and a different attitude, like moving forward in their day of a lot of chaos happening and all this noise when really it's good to be present and think about what we're most grateful for in that moment. And, uh, there was a, some research study online, I'm gonna butcher the stats, but basically they did a, a test where they had people. That they were coming into like some lab, they didn't know uh what they were doing and they asked them to

• 19:59Lewis Howes?

  write a letter to the person that they love the most and tell them how grateful in this letter, write down all the things that they're grateful about them. And then after the end of them writing it, they had them call them on like film and read this letter to them. And they said that like the amount of happiness level that goes up when you express your gratitude for other people as well. Is like one of the highest forms of creating happiness, like the biggest level of happiness or something by expressing your gratitude towards people. So uh there's definitely something in that and it's cool to hear that you've been doing that on a daily basis because I can see why it's been working for you.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, it was that um you know, it's funny because gratitude sometimes seems like and it's hard when things aren't you're like, hey, I don't have the money. And it's, you know, a lot of it is like I I was actually just at a penthouse. I was at this really rich guy's penthouse in Austin. And you know, I know he did some stuff that I would actually I would never do and I think is questionable to make that money. And it kind of really made me reflect on it's like, all right, you want all this money or you want all these things materially or whatever it is. What happens when you finally get there? Right? Like what happens when you have all the money to, you know, to live and travel and do that stuff?

• 21:07Lewis Howes?

  Then what?

• 21:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're still gonna probably be unhappy with yourself and it's not something I can't say I'm perfect or I can really tell people on a guru about. I'm just telling you like I'm still exploring and trying to, you know, go through that where I want every day to be great regardless of the money and material things I have. So, you know, we did Gebby, which was gratitude exercise. So like, what's one thing to get your blood pumping? And I know you work out a fair amount. We were talking about this earlier.

• 21:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  And I've never felt worse. I've never felt I never felt worse leaving a gym. I've never felt worse after a run. I felt sucky, right? I'm like tired, obviously. But there's there's so many days, man, where like and and I think if people see you as an entrepreneur or myself uh running businesses and be like, man, every day must be awesome. And they just like swim in money and you know, have sex with all these beautiful women. Uh, but I'll tell you, there's days where, you know, like today I told you earlier, it's kind of a lower day. There's not many like fireworks going off and maybe a little too, too much of a weekend. But I'm actually gonna, you know, after this podcast, I'm gonna go hit the gym. So even for someone who's not, you know, a gym rat or doesn't do, you know, kickboxing or handball. It's like, just go for a walk or do five pushups. And I know a lot of people listening are like, okay, fine, we'll keep the podcast on and stand up, sit down. Do that five times.

• 22:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  We'll wait.

• 22:17Lewis Howes?

  It's true. Yeah.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  Uh, and the other two things were breakfast, cause I, I love my breakfasts, man. It's like, I, I like look forward to sleep sometime just so I can eat breakfast. I just think it's super exciting because there's so many, and I, I just almost get like, you know, one of my favorite books of all time is A Paradox of Choice. And there's only too many options for my breakfasts, man. Um, and, and I eat, I basically have like five or 10 things. I just look forward to them so much.

• 22:40Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  And, uh, and then you, so this is something that, that, uh, I think anyone can do, which is like, all right, what is one thing that I'm gonna do for myself today? Right? So it, it could be anything, right? It's like, I wanna watch a movie. I wanna read a book. I wanna do drugs. I wanna, not that we wanna encourage drugs. Uh, I'm gonna go, you know, call one friend, right? Whatever that is. Right? So like today, what is mine today? I think I'm going out, uh, I'm gonna go to the gym. Oh, I bake, I'm baking some food that I was really excited to bake. Like I wanted to bake these sweet potato chips with cinnamon, so I cut them up and I put them in the oven. And when I'm at the gym and the oven's gonna turn on, so I'm, I'm looking forward to that. It makes me excited to come home.

• 23:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. You're talking about all these things because a lot of, uh, my friends that I've, you know, been hanging out with a lot lately. They have been, uh, doing everything for everyone else. And it's almost like, what are you doing for yourself? What, you know, some people, I'm like, when's the last time you had a massage? They're like, I can't even tell you, maybe a year ago, and, and they're like so worn out, they're so beat up, so emotionally. They've lost all their energy. I'm like, go do something for yourself. And I think with that little system you have, I think it's a great little system, just doing even one thing for yourself for 10, 20, 30 minutes a day. Even just meditating for 20 minutes is something you can do for yourself to really get grounded and just show yourself how much you love yourself.

• 24:00Lewis Howes?

  And how grateful for you are for what you've been up to. And I think that's great you're doing that.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, one thing that, you know, I would even encourage people to do is like, how can you make it automatic? Right? And so what I, the way I do that is I put in once a week on massage. It's funny you say massage. So, and not every week do I do, go do it. I'm not gonna fake it. Like, not every week it happens, but almost every other week I'm going and getting a massage and I have it in my calendar and repeat. So that it just makes it easier in my brain. Like, oh, cool. I have something to look forward to.

• 24:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Like, oh, this Saturday I get a massage. Every Friday morning, me and my good buddy Anton from Abcuma, we bike and we go get breakfast tacos. Like, and it's just like our Friday routine that I know I'm gonna look forward to. I'm knowing I have fun. So it's like during your weeks and your day, like, how do you create these activities that you know are gonna be happy? Like this week, actually, this is the first time we've talked about it. For on a podcast, it's like, we're doing it at Abcuma. Like, last week I'm working inside at Abcuma, man. And honestly, it was a Monday. It was 75 degrees out in Austin and I wanted to be playing disc golf.

• 24:56Lewis Howes?

  I love disc golf.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  Dude, it's fun. It's fun. Or really, yeah, like, I wanna go scootering to disc golf. And I was actually thinking in my head, like, man, I gotta do more scooter meetings. But I wanted to go disc golf and I'm like, oh, I'm fucking inside, sitting on this laptop, banging away. And the whole point of me creating my business was so I could have the lifestyle I wanted. And I wanted that balance where I can work when I wanna work and I can, you know, play when I wanna play. At my own times. And some, you know, and it just made me a little depressed. And so I talked with the team and I said, hey, guys. Let's do reverse work this week. And I've never, I've never seen anyone else do this and I'm kinda curious how it's gonna work out for us. And basically. You work at night and play during the day. So we're trying that out for five days and no one on the team is required to do it.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  But it's like, hey, guys, when it's really nice out right now, go the hell outside, go enjoy the sun. Like you, and I'm trying to, I didn't wanna force them not to work. I just said, please don't be in the office if you can. Like, we checked in today, but then every other day this week, I'm not gonna go to the office if I can. And I'm gonna go outside, disc golf, and we'll probably do a little rock climbing. We're doing a rock climbing meetup Wednesday where we're bringing wifi to the rock climbing gym. And work out, we're gonna work out and then rock climb. And then do a little work. And so just, you know, figuring out, all right, well, what's the right environment that I'll be productive and really enjoying my life?

• 26:11Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  So that's kind of one of the little things that we're setting up for this week. And I guess ultimately, when, as you're talking about gratitude, Lewis, and as you're interviewing all these people about greatness and there's no right, like, this is the way of life, right? Noah Kagan has his schedule this way, I need to copy it, or whoever else you're interviewing, as well as yourself. But it's testing things. Like, I tried meditation out for forty-one days. And after forty-one days, I was like, oh, man, I don't, I used, I was like, I didn't want to get out of bed because I had to do this meditation.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Right? And I'm like, the whole point of the meditation is to make the day better. And, right, if I keep doing it, and, you know, I didn't just do it for a day and give up. I tried it and I committed to do at least thirty days and, and beyond. And then after that point, I was just like, it's not serving me.

• 26:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  And so I just encourage people to, you know, try out something new for a little bit. See how it serves you if it's better or worse, and then, you know, continue it or remove it.

• 26:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I like that. I just started doing this meditation a week ago. I've been doing it every day for the last seven days now, and it's, for me, I have a, it's only twelve minutes long. And so I listen to it right when I wake up, and then right when I'm going to bed, it actually puts me to sleep. And for me, I feel like it just gives me calm and peace. And it's one that I did almost ten years ago, or I guess twelve, twelve years ago now, when I was in college. And I remember I had like the best three months of my college, you know, career or whatever, in sports and school and everything, when I was using, listening to this, and I was like, why haven't I done this since? So it's been fun for me to pick it back up, but yeah, definitely, you know, test whatever works for you.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  You know what's funny, man? Oh, pardon me.

• 27:40Lewis Howes?

  Go ahead.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  No, dude, it's so interesting, because we have, we have this course, monthlyonek.com. And, and it's really interesting that what you just said, you're like, hey, back in college, this used to work for me. And we've been able to, I've been working with people over the past year, and what's really fascinating to me, man, is that people do habits and things that got them successful. And then they stop doing those.

• 28:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  And then they wonder, and that actually my buddy Adam from my body theory I was talking about earlier. He's the one who kind of reminds me that he's like, dude, you've been working out and doing these things to get to this point. That's what got you to the point. You kind of have to go back to, you know, a lot of people start businesses doing, you know, we always used to do these meetups. And that's how we got our customers. And then you ask them, they're like, yeah, business is slow. I'm like, well, have you done any meetups lately? Oh, no, we haven't. And so I, and this is when I think about for myself, you know, if you're trying to start a business for any of your listeners or when I started my businesses, it's that, all right, what have I done in the past that people have responded to? And I really enjoyed.

• 28:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Right. Cause a lot of, a lot of people, oh, I don't have any ideas, but it's like in that, in, you know, doing meditation, whatever it is, look back on things that people have responded well to you, or just have made you happy in the past and figure out, all right, how can I recreate those moments now?

• 28:48Lewis Howes?

  Sure. Yeah. I think it's interesting, we, we talked about this a little bit before where

• 28:54Lewis Howes?

  especially in my, you know, circles that I'm in with entrepreneurs, successful entrepreneurs, they, some of them, they generate all this, you know, wealth and success from being good at one thing. And then they start to veer off and do all these other things. And we kind of talked about this with, you know, Subo and stuff like that, but you know, it's like, stick with what works sometimes and, you know, not trying to complicate things and try a little bit of everything afterwards, but really stick with what works. And I'm going back to like the basics with a lot of stuff in my business and just going to what I know works and outsourcing everything else.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  What, what, did you change something that you had to go back to now?

• 29:31Lewis Howes?

  Um, I mean, you know, I used to sell this thousand dollar course that just like people loved. And it was just selling like crazy and we're getting a lot of value. People were getting a lot of value from it. They were getting huge results. And then I was just like, oh, let's try selling these other courses and this thing and this thing. And just wanted to do it all because I thought that's what the next step was supposed to be or something. And it worked, but it, it definitely stressed me out and I kind of got burnt out. And so now I'm just kind of going back to the basics and just.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  How did you, how did you recognize you wanted to go back to the basics? Like what happened or what, what was that like?

• 30:06Lewis Howes?

  I think for me, I realized like things weren't serving me. It wasn't working for me and I really took an evaluation in my, in my life and what I wanted as well. And I constantly, I constantly check in with myself, like when I'm feeling, if I'm feeling up or down or whatever, so I'm constantly checking in and then I evaluate what is it that's not working for me? What's not serving me? Is it a relationship? Is it something that I haven't cleared in a relationship that I need to clear with someone? Or is it, uh, you know, my business that I'm working too much or less or is my body? So I'm just constantly checking in and evaluating what's, what's working, what's not working and, um, and just kind of making a decision from there.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  You know, it's really interesting, Louis. So do you, that's actually, I think I'm actually kind of curious for myself. Do you do this on a monthly basis or is that something you would encourage people to be like, yo, every month, like add it? So on the first of every month in my calendar, I have a thing that says, do your personal finances. And because it's on the first of every month, when I get that notification, I'm like, all right. And I open my Google spreadsheet and I update my finances. Do you have anything like that where you remind yourself?

• 31:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I mean, just my team. I don't, uh, I'm not as, you're like the most data organized analytical guy it seems like there is. Um, so I, I don't, that's not how it works, works for me, but I, I, it's more like a based on a feeling. Like how am I feeling at every moment? And then I'll just check in. I'm usually having a conversation with someone and I'm just like, oh, this is like, been kind of bugging me out or stressing me. And then that's when I started talking about something that's not working for me to other people. Then I'm just like, wait a minute, why am I doing it still? Why don't I shift out of it? Even if it's making me a lot of money, like I'll still shift out of it and be like, okay, that's not worth it for me if it's gonna like bring me down.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Dude, I feel that. One thing, uh, I'm, I'm curious your take on it as well is that a lot of the people, we had a meetup for our customers on Friday. And one thing that kind of shocked me is that there are a lot of people that are, you know, you're, you're from the Midwest, right? You grew up in.

• 31:54Lewis Howes?

  Ohio.

• 31:54Speaker 01

  In Ohio. So there's people in Ohio and Kansas, Missouri states, I probably can't even spell the full name. And, um, what I wonder though is like, how do you surround yourself with people? Cause you said you check in with your team. And like I check in like with, and this is one of the things that helped me feel better from last year is that I removed a lot of people.

• 32:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  And then I added people. I'm like, man, I always feel good when I hang out with you. You always make me feel good about myself, always. And so I'm wondering is that, um, you know, how do people go about that? And how did you go about surrounding yourself with, you know, people and teammates that did that?

• 32:25Lewis Howes?

  Well, I mean, I think it's a. Again, constantly evaluating like the relationships that are working for you and that aren't working for you. And that means people that you hire, people that are in your, in your life. It could be family members, it could be friends. I'm in a lot of different masterminds and I have different coaches that I hire or mentors that work with me. And I'm constantly, you know, just surrounding myself with people that inspire me. You're one of them and whenever we get a chance to talk, it's always inspiring for me. But sometimes there's like friends I've had for a while that it just feels like every time I hang out with them, they wear me down. And so I really get to evaluate those and if people aren't, you know, shifting and I think uplifting you, if they're taking energy from you, then you don't wanna.

• 33:09Lewis Howes?

  I don't know. It's not something, it's not healthy for you. So either have, so either have a conversation with that person and say, listen, I really love our friendship and I wanted to continue to grow. But right now you've just been so negative and you haven't been able to get out of it over a year. It's time to shift. Otherwise I want to spend less time with you because I just feel like you're bringing me down every time we hang out. So I think it's just again, evaluating how I'm feeling after each interaction. And it's more like an intuitive thing. It's not like I sit there and like, how do I feel after I just talked to this person?

• 33:39Speaker 01

  So. Maybe that's a new business for someone. It's like note cards, like my emotions after meeting you. Or like maybe you give them out like, hey, did you like me? Here's a card.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  You know what's funny? Like even talking to you now, like I was kind of mopey most of the day. Like I've been kind of just blah. And just talking to you now about like things that you're working on, I'm interested in and thinking about it's just like making me feel better. And you like a few things that I can share with your listeners. Cause like, I think if you're in Ohio or you're in these places, it is harder to meet people that are, you know, hustling and not just like doing the same old jobs and kind of complaining about all this, all this stuff. So what I've done for myself, here's just a few things that have really helped me. Like when I first came in, so this is what I encourage, I'll encourage your people to do. Become a hub for people that you want to meet. Right? And so what that means is when I came to Austin, I created a Facebook group called Austin Startups. I went to the cheapest bar in town and I found out their happy hour was a buck of beer.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  And I told everyone I knew to invite everyone they know and I'll pay for all the drinks for the next two hours and invite everyone. And I think about a hundred people ended up coming out. I invited them all to the Austin Startups Facebook group. And that's actually how, you know, three, four years later, it's like 3,000 or 4,000 people now. It's like the hub of Austin.

• 34:49Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  And so as you begin, and then you can start on a smaller basis.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Or as well, like if you wanna do, so become a hub with either events, you can become a hub with interviewing people. So if you're in a local place, go meet the owners of restaurants you love eating at. My favorite place in Austin is Taco Deli. I'm a kind of annoying, but I email and text the owner, I'm like, yo, can I take you out for lunch? Hey, here, I'm gonna, can I buy lunch from your place for an event I'm doing?

• 35:13Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  Or interview them. So like either set up meetings with them to bring them together with other people they'll wanna meet. Or interview them for like, cause of course those people wanna get the word out about themselves. Three other ways that I would, that I've used is referrals. So like, good people generally don't hang out with shitty people.

• 35:31Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  So if you have any of your friends that are really good, or people that are doing businesses that are good and you like, ask them, man, like, who do you go to for advice? And I did that with my buddy Lloyd from Own Local. And he put me in touch with the guy who started 1-800-CONTACTS. He put me in touch with a guy who sold a like, design agency. And so it's like, good people generally know other good people, and that's a good way to find others.

• 35:52Lewis Howes?

  And you know what I like about You Know It is that, that I think everyone listening can get something from is that you're extremely successful. You, we haven't even gotten to that you worked at, you were one of the first 30 employees at Facebook, and there's a whole interesting story there. And you've had this amazing success with AppSumo.com and, you know, millions and millions and you know everyone, et cetera, et cetera. The thing that I think a lot of people can learn from you is that no matter how successful you are and how much you know, you ask a lot of questions from everyone you meet. And you're constantly open to, to learning from people.

• 36:30Lewis Howes?

  Doesn't matter if they, you know, are looking for a job, if they're a wannabe entrepreneur, if they're a billionaire, if they don't have any money. I feel like you're so open to learning and not necessarily like, okay, I'm gonna listen to, I'm gonna do everything that this person says. Like every answer they give me is, is truth, but that you're just like receptive to like hearing what everyone has to say. And I think that's a great quality that you have.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  Thanks, man.

• 36:57Lewis Howes?

  And I don't know if that's something that you naturally do or that you you do naturally or that you intentionally like I'm gonna ask a lot of questions, but I I I I recognize it because it's something you did with, you know, you always do with me. I know a friend that I introduced you to was like, man, he asked a lot of great questions. And I was like, yeah, he does. And I know you do that with everyone. Whenever we're out, you're always asking everyone else questions and learning and listening. And why why is you why do you do that?

• 37:25Speaker 01

  Um, you know, it's funny, it's something that like the past year, a lot more people have said that to me. And it's something I've really noticed. Um, I guess a few different things. So one, my mom is a Jewish mother, and basically like my life has been an interrogation. And she's an amazing mother, but I, you know, it's funny when someone said this to me a little bit ago, not too long ago, and they're like, yeah, you asked a lot of questions. And I was like, where the hell did that come from? And, uh, and I realized it's because like when I came home after school, my mom was great. She's like, what'd you do at school? What'd you do in that test? And like, she would write things down like, you had a test three weeks ago. How'd that go? I was like, man, if I call her now, like she would ask probably a good three to four hours of questions.

• 38:05Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  And, uh, but so that's number one. Number two is that like, and you know, it's actually funny, we talked about feedback with friends and I can mention a quick story about that afterwards, but, uh, you learn, it's just like, I already know my own stories, right? I already know all the things I've already done. It's not something like something new comes out of me telling it. Uh, but I don't know anything about yours. Right? And so I I guess in general, I try to stay humble and not too arrogant because you don't know where you're gonna learn things from. Right? As much as sometimes I I do, I am, I do get arrogant, I do get cocky, and I try to get humbled at times, like not intentionally, but it does happen. And when it happens, it's like, well, what can I learn from that? And so you're gonna grow so much and it's so much more, frankly, to me, interesting hearing other people's stories.

• 38:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  Um, I mean, some of the books I'll recommend to you is like, I mean, obviously, a lot of people know Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends. Uh, actually, I used that book this weekend, not used it, but I, one of the things I learned from it was like, don't correct people if they say something wrong, if it doesn't really matter.

• 38:58Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Right? And so this guy spelled something wrong. And it's like, I was like, most people were like, oh, you're stupid. That's wrong. And I was like, not stupid. They're like, hey, here's how to spell it. But I was like, that doesn't matter. And so I actually told him that, hey, and he's like, oh, yeah, that's a pretty interesting point. Um, another good book, Never Eat Alone. I'm guessing you probably read that by Keith Farazzi. And I met a guy who worked for Keith Farazzi and he said this thing to me, I was one of the, I think, and he said it while we're just like walking around New York. I guess walking around New York is like the, the new therapy. And he just said, you know, like all feedback and hearing from others is good. It's always great. It's a gift. It's a gift to get feedback. It's a gift to be, you know, to me, listening. Whether, what you want to do with it then is up to your intelligence and what you want to do.

• 39:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  And that was like, that's really profound and that's kind of stuck with me. Um, so those kinds of books have really brought me to like, I grow a lot more and I, I find myself more interested and engaged when, um, you know, other people are sharing their stories.

• 39:52Lewis Howes?

  Now, you talked about, you know, humility and, and also how younger you were just like really hustling. Do you feel like you had something to prove when you were younger? Um, and kind of why you're hustling and do you feel like you don't have as much to prove now?

• 40:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. You know, it's funny. I think a lot of people that might be quote unquote, successful externally. Um, you have to define what your success is internally. And I think, you know, I got fired from Facebook and I can share maybe some stories, um, about that. And, uh, yeah, I definitely put a big chip on my shoulder and it's still there where, you know, I'm really resentful. Um, I've gone over it. I've gone to therapy. I went to like a life coach and I've worked on myself where, all right, well, how can I create the lifestyle that I really want right now? And, uh, and I think it's like, fuck, well, I'm, I'm pretty happy how my lifestyle is, man. Like, I've been able to create the health I want. I have a business that I get to work, people I love. Doing a service that I love to do. And, uh, and sometimes that, it actually becomes challenging because you're like, well, now you have everything you want. What do you do then?

• 40:49Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. And just to, just to take a step back, that, the, the whole Facebook thing. You would have made like a hundred million dollars or something, right? With the IPO, based on your stock options or?

• 41:03Speaker 01

  Well, so, yeah, I mean, it doesn't, I owned point one percent of the company with the amount of shares when I got the job.

• 41:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  So I think companies worth like a hundred fifty billion now. So point one percent of that is a hundred fifty million.

• 41:14Lewis Howes?

  Right. So I could see how you would need therapy on that.

• 41:19Speaker 01

  Well, I need to get money to pay for therapy first, man. But yeah, it was, uh, it's been hard. And you know, I'm actually putting together a book of

• 41:28Speaker 01

  my adventure through losing, I guess you could say losing, but a hundred and fifty million dollars.

• 41:32Lewis Howes?

  It's basically, it's basically like you had, you won, you had a lottery ticket for a hundred and fifty million dollars in your hands. And then someone ripped it out of your hands and you couldn't get it back.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, those kind of companies like Facebook and Google, those companies literally happen once every decade.

• 41:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  So to be able to be a part of those was, it was an amazing experience to be a part of Facebook. Um, but it was also very painful to, you know, basically you, you found the love of your life. And then she's like, hey, you know what? Actually, you're not really good enough for me. I'm losing on.

• 42:02Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that is very painful.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, even saying it to you now, like.

• 42:05Lewis Howes?

  That sounds horrible.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  I know, right?

• 42:08Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  You know, the thing, and I don't really have like a positive like spin, but I, I, I think what you, you know, what I went through and I'll share maybe some of the stories.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  You know, like the first day I walk into the office, uh, you know, I meet Zuck and he's like, hey, you know that boss that hired you? Yeah, I just fired him today.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  And he's like, don't ever try to sell my company. Welcome to Facebook.

• 42:31Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Oh, my gosh.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  I was like, uh, anything else I shouldn't do? And you know, and I got a laptop in a corner of a desk and you know, I never worked in a formal, you know, I never, it wasn't formal, but I never worked in a startup. I never was formally trained on how to build websites. I just kind of always made stuff on the side.

• 42:47Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  And, um, it was interesting because I think at times when we're around smarter people, like at Facebook, I was around mostly Harvard and Stanford people, you know, and I'm a Berkeley kid, which I think, you know, it says like, all right, maybe I'm, I don't feel as good as them. I felt a little challenged. I felt self-conscious a lot of the time where we'd be in meetings and these guys are really, really smart. And it, it's one of these things in retrospect, though, it's like, man, I grew a lot and I learned so much just being around them. At that time, it was, it was tough. Um, like we'd be in a meeting and I would suggest like, oh, why don't the website do this? And then they would show me like five ways why that doesn't make sense for this button to be that color or for the button to be in that location.

• 43:27Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  And that, that's really humbling.

• 43:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  Or, you know, I'd spend, I remember one of the stories was.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  It was a Chris Putnam. He's a, he was like a nineteen year old kid. He actually hacked Facebook. He was from Georgia, like college. I don't even know if he went to college. But he hacked Facebook with, uh, so you could put colors on your back, on your profile page.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  And, uh, he ended up getting a job there at Facebook because he hacked it. So it was kind of an interesting way, a creative way of getting a job. Wow, yeah. And so, you know, Chris worked on a product for two weeks or three weeks. And finally, when you put anything on Facebook back then, you know, Zuck has to go and review it. And I really respect that. Whenever I meet founders or people starting businesses who are like, oh, I need a marketer to finally get people to hear about it. Or I need a product person to finally figure out what to build. And I was like, that's pretty essential. Like, if you don't know what you're really building, you know, if you don't know how it really looks like, you probably shouldn't be doing it. And if you don't really know how you should, you're even gonna get one or two customers. Like, you probably need to focus on that first before doing anything else. And Zuck was really great about that in terms of, you know, I know what I want this to look like.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  I'm in charge and anything that's gonna happen with the core of it goes through me. And, you know, Chris finally launched a feature. I'm not, I'm, I forget which one exactly, three weeks. And Zuck comes up to the screen. We're all kind of like standing around. This is like the, it's like God looking at his first child. And, uh, he looks at the screen and he's like, this is shit. And he takes his water, throws it at the screen. It's like redo it and walks away. It's like, you know, and we're all young. We're all like twenty-four, twenty-five year olds. And so it's kind of like a temper tantrum, man. Right. And, uh, you know, I'll tell you, it was definitely, it's one of these things where tough love is hard. Because at that moment, you know, Chris felt like shit. We're all like, holy fuck, that sucks. You know, you spent three weeks building something and you get told it's crap. Wow.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  But what it really does is raise the bar. And it sets that level of expectations. Right? And you hear stories and cliches like, oh, well, if you leave early, everyone else will think it's okay to leave early. But when you actually set the example and you set, you know, one of my favorite books is, um, The Score Will Take Care Of Itself by Bill Walsh. And he does the same thing, like in the locker room of the forty-niners. You said, hey, your locker is always clean. I don't wanna see any mess, ever. And you take that attention to detail there, you're gonna take that attention to detail on the field.

• 45:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, how you do anything is how you do everything.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  And you know, it's one of the things you probably have to experience it to really understand it. And so him kind of being such a detail oriented, like he had very specific things that he wanted. And I think him having that really set the bar for all of us to push even harder. And really impress him and really raise our own level of work.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Um, yeah.

• 46:09Lewis Howes?

  It's because you you made a little mistake that you thought, you know, was a you didn't know it was gonna be bad, or you you wasn't like you leaked something like a day early or something like that.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  There's a few things that happen, man. And so, yeah, I have a if they go to okedork.com, it's my free website. It's where I talk about marketing. If they sign up for the newsletter when the book comes out, I'll email everyone. Um, and so some of these stories and more are gonna be in there. But I haven't actually shared this this part of the stuff. Uh, I've shared, yeah, I actually haven't shared this part of the stuff. And it always is a little hard to talk about because it's embarrassing, man. It's like, uh, it's like getting dumped, right? And you have to tell your friends like, oh, my God, that girl dumped me.

• 46:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  And, uh, yeah, you don't want to feel like a failure.

• 46:49Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  Uh, so, yeah, so you see I'm like rambling about, I'm like, uh.

• 46:55Lewis Howes?

  You're like going around.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  All right. So I'll just tell you. So I got fired for a few different reasons. Number one, I was at Coachella. And I was a little drunk or something like that. And we were launching a feature where professionals could finally join Facebook with their like dot with their corporate email address. And I wanted to get press for it. I wanted people to know that we launched it versus just kind of giving it out to our our members or users and then hoping people found out. And so I was talking to TechCrunch, and this is two thousand five or six when no one was reading TechCrunch, right? And Facebook was still less than 10 million people. And I was like, hey, this is launching tomorrow. I'd really like for you to write about it when it goes live. And Michael Arrington put out that article that night and I found out about it. And so I emailed the E-Team,

• 47:39Speaker 01

  uh, the executive team and I said, and I took responsibility. I said, hey, I let him know about this for, you know, feature launching in the morning. And I distinctly remember like laying on the ground and like, you know, like a snow angel. And I was like, I wish it was a joke, it's not, but I remember like after I emailed the E team taking responsibility, I didn't, and I was like, I just felt so empty and I, you know, my heart was kind of just like, almost it was like slow mo, just looking at the stars. And actually, you know, ironically, went to Coachella with a bunch of Facebook people like Dustin Moskovitz, who's now a multi billionaire and a bunch of other guys who are super rich. And I just felt very empty.

• 48:16Lewis Howes?

  What did you feel empty about?

• 48:18Speaker 01

  I guess I was curious like what's next. I think with Facebook, I, I think they were outgrowing me and I kind of knew it. Maybe I think that's one of the things in life where, when you kind of know something's not right anymore, or as you said about friends that didn't really serve you. And I, I kind of knew maybe that was the point that I needed to move forward with something, but it was maybe even ultimately like I made the wrong decision with what I did. But I don't even really regret sharing that information because it was like, hey, in the morning, I think you should do about this. And if no one's going to do it, like, sometimes you get caught when you break the rules. Not everyone speeding gets caught. Uh, and I thought that was something I was using my judgment to make a, you know, good decision, I thought was for the business. Um, so that was one thing, the reason I got fired and I just remember, yeah, just even saying it makes me get a little chills. Um, two other things I haven't shared. One,

• 49:03Speaker 01

  you know, we had this product, I think we were restructuring a bunch of code, or as they say, developers refactoring. If you ever want to sound cool to a developer, like, hey, you guys refactoring anything? And this just means are you like reorganizing the code to be more efficient? And, uh, you know, Ezra Callahan, who now is building a hotel in Palm Springs. And oh, it was a quick side thought, I've never been back to Coachella ever since and I never will go again. I'm just resentful. Uh, because my friends are in Coachella this week. Uh, but Ezra now is building a hotel near Coachella. And so Ezra and I were both working on products and there's a big refactoring project and what I realized is that he was very good at getting it organized and I wasn't. And, um, I remember I presented it and it was just kind of shitty and his was just like really clean. And I, and I think what I was recognizing was like at that part, you know, I couldn't grow to, in the beginning, they just need the stuff done.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  And then, you know, it's kind of like efficiency versus effectiveness. I was very efficient, but when they wanted to be more effective, you know, Ezra was going to be better at doing that than someone else who's already been a project and product manager.

• 49:58Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  Uh, third was we.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  We were launching that professional network, you know, Microsoft.com and Dell.com and any company, corporate company. And I think the way, you know, obviously, you know, obviously, the way people think is representative of, you know, how they do things. And so they asked me to get a list of which companies should we launch with? And I just, I don't think I spent like thirty minutes or an hour really sitting down to think about it. I just started trying to figure it out really quickly.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  Cause everything did work, you know, everything moved very quickly at that company. And I would just was like, all right, well, I'll call it info USA. Let me search Google for a list of top hundred companies. And what I ended up doing was all that kind of bullshit and put together some crappy spreadsheet. And I gave it to Dustin, he was like, this is really bad.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  And, uh, and so what I ended up, what he ended up doing was just looking at the database to see which people have already registered corporate companies and just aggregating that. And, um, that was a smarter way of doing it. And so what, what that taught me was one, try to use data that you already have available. Right? So try to create a framework and I've, I still use this to this day. How do you create a simple framework for making decisions? So I just need to know what companies to use. So what's really the simplest way to prioritize that? And even in like this podcast, I didn't do a good job with this, and I do apologize, but let's say I wanted to make this the most popular podcast you've ever done.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Right? I would go and I didn't do this, I'm not perfect, but I would go and dissect your top five podcasts, listen to them, look at the comments and try to understand what elements are there so that I can recreate that anew better. Sure. And so with this corporate email thing, it's like, all right, well, shit, we already have this data. Let's just aggregate it, prioritize that, and then just let those people in, because we already have those companies available to us. And then we had, you know, honestly, man, it's like, in retrospect, it's like, oh, of course I would say with the money, but we had, we went from meetings of like, I would walk over to Zuck's desk to, and like, hey, what do you think about this? He's like, all right, cool, go do it. To, I would have to go walk to Zuck's secretary and I'm like, Zuck, I can see you, bro. But it's like, I've talked to Zuck's secretary who talks to him. To, we'd have meetings that were like thirty people and there was, you know, extra, this older marketing woman and I'm like,

• 52:09Speaker 01

  you are useless. Like, there is no point for you being in these decisions or helping us here. Like, you don't add to it. You need to leave because it slows down time for everyone with your stupid questions. And maybe that's what everyone was thinking of me too, who knows?

• 52:23Speaker 01

  Point being was, um, The company was growing to like, that's how it was necessary where everyone needed to be informed. And it just wasn't suitable to where I was at that time. And obviously I've grown a lot in the past, you know, in ten years. And, you know, you can justify rationalize in either way. I think I've been able to create a life that I've been happy with. I can't go back. And just keep going forward and, you know, as my, as I told you earlier, like I could live in that big penthouse, but still be unhappy with who I am.

• 52:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, let's say you did have that hundred fifty million. What would you be doing differently?

• 52:56Speaker 01

  What would I be doing differently?

• 53:01Speaker 01

  I don't know. I love living in Austin, Texas. So I don't think I would live anywhere else. I've traveled the world. Not, I'm not trying to be arrogant or show off. I just, I've done a fair amount of traveling. And I don't know, I'd probably be just be focusing on writing more on okdork.com. And I think with Abcimo, I'd let the people who want to be working on it, work on it more. And I would be engaged a little less with that. Um, but not much, right? I get to work with guys I love. I get to exercise. I get to go travel and do activities I want. Maybe I'd have a bigger apartment. Um, but I actually like the view I have. I like, I don't, I don't live in the penthouse. I just get a really great view of it. And, uh, you know, with that penthouse, it's a big ass space you're gonna be all alone in. So, uh, no, I'm pretty content with actually how most things are right now with my life. I don't think there's anything materially.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  And one thing I, you know, my mom was really good and I'd encourage any of your listeners to do is that you feel really good when you lose weight, right? If, you know, assuming you want to, but most of the time, anytime you lose weight, you feel better. You're like, oh, I'm looking good. Um, and so a lot of times what I do in my place is like, what items am I not using? And so maybe about once a month, I'll throw away one thing or donate it to Goodwill. And so I've just found that makes me a lot happier and it de-qualifies my place and just makes me feel lighter. And my mom used to do, I forgot, she used to do it, make me do that once a month. No, it's cleaning time. I'm like, mom, all I got is underwear and white t-shirts. I got nothing left to give. And, uh, and it was just a really good experience where like, you know, try to remove the things because those things ultimately can't be buried with you. All you have is the experiences and the memories.

• 54:28Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 54:29Speaker 01

  And so really, where do you get those from? It's from doing unique things. Like we went out to a bar Saturday night. My friend wore a bear costume. And, you know, that doesn't happen too often when you go with a bear at a bar. Uh, but, you know, no amount of money. I don't need that, you know, tons of amount of money to, to do that. And the other thing I'd say about, about having a lot of money, Lewis, is I do have some money. So I'm not, you know, I am fortunate. I don't have to worry about where my money comes in each month.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  But I'll tell you from my own experience, like, yeah, I could afford more nicer things externally from what other people may think I should be buying. But I've actually found that I'm enjoying, I get to, when I do buy those kind of things, or I do go to Vegas for a night and spend like, we all spend like 5K a person, I enjoy that more than doing that every weekend, or doing that all the time. And maybe then my bar would just keep getting raised, like more and more and more and more. But I found that like, living a life that I'm really happy with, and then once in a while splurging, just actually satisfies me and serves me at a higher purpose, or higher fulfillment than just doing that all the time.

• 55:24Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, yeah, because then it becomes like boring if you do it the same, you know, same thing over and over. Doesn't matter what level it's at, it's like, okay, let's go to the next level.

• 55:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, you know, think about it, if you do, let's say you, you love ice cream, and you, every day you're eating that ice cream, every day you're eating ice cream. Eventually you're like, man, I'm, I'm, I'm, and I try to do that with my own things, like in smaller levels, right? Like, okay, like today, I really, um, I wanted to eat a rice cake with almond butter on it.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  I really wanted to, I know, I know, I eat boring, healthy food.

• 55:55Lewis Howes?

  I like that, that sounds good.

• 55:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I'm all about it, like, I love myfitnesspal.com, I was telling you about that, where I track all I eat. Um, and I have this Facebook group where we all post photos of us working out. But anyways, so I really wanted this rice cake. And I said, all right, man, well, you gotta clean up the counter, you gotta get dinner, start cooking, then you could have it. And I think, I, I just find that delaying gratification, like, I really find more power in myself and more strength or in doing those activities. I feel good, or even not drinking, I've been trying that out. And, uh, you know, the weekdays when I'm not drinking, like, I go out and people are all drinking, adding calories, acting stupid. And then frankly, the next day I don't feel as clear. Um, I feel stronger not doing it. So delaying that gratification so it's more memorable. Like on a Saturday when we want to go out, you know, with a bear costume, you know, it's a really fun experience.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  So I think that kind of all ties back to, um, I don't think my life would be that much different.

• 56:46Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, so there you go.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  And I think that's, and that's what I would encourage everyone to do, right? A lot of people go work at corporate jobs so they can do something else. And obviously you can't go do something else immediately, but start thinking, all right, tonight, right now, this podcast, pause it. All right, what small thing can I do? What 15 minutes can I do to move to the life I actually want to be living? And I met my, this guy, Brian from videofruit.com, he said something really powerful and it really affected a lot of people this weekend. He was one of the members of our monthly 1k.com program. And he's now making, I don't know, five, 10K a month. And he's like, man, you really want to get ahead? Wake up at 5am and get to work. No amount of excuses can stop you. He said, he said, fear of failure is still asleep at 5am. He said, fear is still asleep at 5am.

• 57:31Speaker 01

  And I just love that. And it's like, you know, if you really want something, like you really want your own business, you really want to get going. And I know you might have kids, and I have a wife, she may have a shitty job. Get up at 5am and do it. And that's really what's going to separate the people, you know, like, like Brian and others who are going to get what they want versus people who are going to kind of just be always consuming and listening to other people having it.

• 57:51Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. I love it. Well, I know we, we went over our time, and I think you're, you're late to your gym session already, but I was just enamored by your storytelling and your voice is so soothing that I just like, loving it. This actually went differently than I expected, but I, it actually turned out for me better. And

• 58:09Speaker 01

  What do you mean?

• 58:10Lewis Howes?

  Well, just, we got to talk about life. And I was going to talk to you more about business, but I'm grateful we, we talked more about life in business. So I'm, I'm very, I'm very pleased. And I, for me, I feel like this is one of the top episodes I have because of all the unique stories that you've shared. And I think you have a, a wise stance on everything. And I'm just grateful to know you and to know what you've been up to in the last few years and the work you've done on yourself. And, you know, like you said, you've got this, you can have ego at some times, but you really have a lot of humility. You check yourself all the time, which I think is valuable and important for everyone to listen to and hear about. Cause you know, we all have ego from time

• 58:54Lewis Howes?

  to time and we get to check ourselves and check in and see what's, what's serving us and what's not. So, uh, final question then. What's your definition of greatness?

• 59:06Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 59:09Speaker 01

  What is my definition of greatness? You know, I'll just tell it with another story.

• 59:14Lewis Howes?

  Perfect.

• 59:15Speaker 01

  I'll do a brief story about why, what greatness looks like. I think greatness is defined by yourself. And we, when we write up, you know, at appsuma.com, we write newsletters. And we send out an email promoting products like yours and products like LinkedIn and Mailchimp and other, you know, cool tools for entrepreneurs. And we spend probably between 24 and 72 hours writing one email. Most people spend about five minutes writing an email. And so I asked Anton, I was like, why the fuck do we spend so much time writing this email?

• 59:46Speaker 01

  And, and I really was thinking about that, like, why do we care so much about this email? And it, and I, and then we were talking about it and we're like, well, it represents us. So when people get that email and they think, wow, that was a great email or wow, I can't believe that story that they shared. It represents who we are and how we want to be represented externally. And I think my greatness is defined by like, am I living the life I want to live? And am I doing it my way? And I think that's what everyone should be asking themselves, like, look at other people. As we talked about, you know, feedback, look at how other people are doing it. But ultimately, don't let the external things, you know, decide how you want to be great. Just look at them for how they're doing it and see internally, what does your greatness look like?

• 1:00:24Lewis Howes?

  And yeah, make sure to sign up on appsuma.com because those emails are some of the best emails that I've ever read.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  Thanks, bro.

• 1:00:31Lewis Howes?

  Coming from a, you know, a business marketing standpoint, so definitely check those out. And also check out okdork.com. You can see Noah's big smile, pink shirt and a green background. And check him out there as well. And I love your, I'm looking at your Facebook profile right now. Something I love about you, just two things represented on your Facebook profile that other people won't be able to see by the time of this comes out is one, your profile picture is turned to the side. So you can't see your, it's not like a normal picture. It's like tilted, which tells me something about you. And then your last post that came from Instagram says, best fortune ever. And the fortune, the fortune cookie says, don't worry about the world coming to an end.

• 1:01:16Lewis Howes?

  It's already tomorrow in Australia. So.

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  Can I, can I add one more thing, Lewis?

• 1:01:22Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:01:23Speaker 01

  Or two more things. So I don't know how you wrap up normally your things, but I'll give you actually the inside. Do you know why my photo is sideways besides I thought it was a little different?

• 1:01:30Lewis Howes?

  No, why?

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  So when I worked at Facebook, I uploaded that photo, right? Because it was very early on, not as many were on it. I think I'm user number 120359 or some shit like that. And um, once I got fired, I've never changed that profile photo.

• 1:01:46Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:01:47Speaker 01

  That's where it came from.

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  So that is, as much as like, yeah, it's kind of unique. And a lot of times I'm like, oh, yeah, add me on the face sideways. Um, I don't, I'll never change it.

• 1:01:57Lewis Howes?

  Wow, so it was sideways when you were at Facebook as well?

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  It was when I got there. So I guess that photo is from 2006. I think it's at my brother's graduation and um, it's been that way ever since. I guess I still look moderately similar. Um, and then the second thing, so that's an inside secret for your people, not the, it's not like a Da Vinci Code secret, but it's pretty decent. Uh, and the second thing is one of my favorite book. And so I want to, I want to encourage your people to get active with your site. Um, so I want to, can I give away 10 books to 10 people who commented one of my favorite books recently? Is that cool?

• 1:02:26Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:02:27Speaker 01

  So I want your people to say like, what is the greatest thing? Or what's something great that they're doing for themselves today? And then 10 people who comment, uh, so the book is called Small Giants by Bo Burlingham. I don't know if you've checked that out yet.

• 1:02:40Lewis Howes?

  I haven't.

• 1:02:41Speaker 01

  Dude, well, I'm going to send you that. So 11 books, so one for, one for you and then 10 for the people who comment. So do something great for yourself today. Tell us what you're going to do or tell us what you did even better. And so Small Giants, man, it's like, it's not about necessarily, you can be a big ass company like Facebook or you could be a one person freelance studio in Ohio or in Arkansas. But it's just about doing something great for yourself. And so instead of just trying to be growing and scaling and making more money and being big, which is not bad things. Just be true to yourself and be great. And it goes through companies like Cliff Bar and Danny Myers Group, the restaurant group in New York and just really interesting stories. And yeah, it was definitely like, I definitely felt that book. So I want to share that with your audience.

• 1:03:17Lewis Howes?

  I love it. All right. So how are you going to choose people?

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm there.

• 1:03:22Lewis Howes?

  How are you going to send the first 10? Is it the 10 most interesting things?

• 1:03:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the 10 most interesting, like I would prefer stuff that people are doing. Like, hey, here's something great I've already done today versus something that they're going to be doing. Um, but I'm open either way. So I'll just choose the 10 most interesting within seven days of when you publish the podcast.

• 1:03:40Lewis Howes?

  Sweet. Awesome. I appreciate it.

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a 10 comments. I'm just writing it down. See, I'm putting in the calendar. When's the podcast coming out?

• 1:03:49Lewis Howes?

  I'll let, sometime this month. So I'll, I'll let you know and I'll email you before it comes live.

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  All right, but I'm going to go hit the gym. Thank you very much for the time.

• 1:03:56Lewis Howes?

  Thanks so much, man. Appreciate it, man.

• 1:04:05Lewis Howes?

  And I hope you guys enjoyed this episode great. Thanks so much for listening. Noah is an awesome guy, a genius, really smart, and I hope you enjoyed this. If you did enjoy it, please leave a comment over on the blog at the show notes at lewishouse.com/66. So go on, head over there, leave a comment. I'm gonna ask you a question towards the end of the show notes there, so leave a comment based on that question. And go ahead and share this with your friends over on Twitter and Facebook, and tag a picture on Instagram where you are listening to this in the world right now. I love seeing all of your updates with images on Instagram. And go ahead and tag Noah as well on Instagram. You should be able to find him if you search for Noah Kagan.

• 1:04:48Lewis Howes?

  Um, yeah, subscribe on iTunes. Please keep subscribing. Leave a review on iTunes, on SoundCloud, on Stitcher. Those really help get the show out there. Again, I mentioned in the beginning, we just hit 1.5 million downloads and it's all because of you. So, thank you so much. I'm so grateful for your support, for spreading the word. And if you have yet to subscribe, just go ahead and click the subscribe button on iTunes, on your podcasting app if you've got an iPhone, or subscribe on Stitcher. And that's just gonna support the show even more and get it up in the rankings so that more people can see this. So, with that, guys, thanks so much for checking this out today. Again, go ahead and check out lewishouse.com/66 to get all the show notes that we talked about in today's interview.

• 1:05:33Lewis Howes?

  And thank you for listening. You guys know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.

• 1:05:58Speaker 02

  Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving. "A great man shows his greatness," said Carlisle, "by the way he treats little men."

• 1:06:19Speaker 03

  Too far away Can we get back yesterday? But we young right now We got it right now So get up right now Cause all we got is right now We're all the way too far away Can we get back yesterday? But we young right now We got it right now So get up right now Cause all we got is right now