The 1% DO THIS To Achieve Anything They Want! (START DOING THIS) | Patrick Bet David

If you don't ask the questions of what you want to do next, the world is going to put you in the box of what you [music] have to do next because they're determining who you need to be. And you are rising up to their expectations cuz you're not asking the questions yourself. So, clarity to me is stemmed from you being able to sit down and ask those tough questions [music] that piss you off, that irritate you, that make you emotional, [music] that you cry over, that you reflect, that makes you want to do research, that makes you follow up, that makes you sit down and say, I don't really know. [music] I've never thought about this before. And that goes deeper and deeper and deeper. Everybody indirectly [music] will impose their belief system into you. And it's never going to stop. You know this whole thing about people say, "Oh my gosh, I can't wait till when to shut up all my haters." Reality check, it ain't never happening, okay? It ain't never happening because every time you come up, it's just more of them, right? And they're always The great thing about haters is haters highlight your weaknesses. Everybody, welcome to Impact Theory. Our goal with this show and company is to introduce you to the people and ideas that will help you actually execute on your dreams. All right, today's guest is the founder and CEO of PHP, one of the top insurance firms in America. Starting from scratch, he built PHP into one of the fastest growing companies in the financial marketplace that now employs 8,200 agents across 84 offices in 49 states. Taking himself from massively in debt to a personal net worth of roughly 150 million dollars. Pretty extraordinary for somebody who fled Iran at the age of 10, spent 2 years in a refugee camp in Germany, got fired from Burger King, and left the military in his 20s with no money and few monetizable skills. He summed up his secret to success in his video The Life of an Entrepreneur in 90 seconds, which went viral, ultimately gaining well over 30 million views, and helping to blow up his personal brand. Now, he's also the founder of the YouTube juggernaut Valuetainment, which has nearly 1.2 million subscribers and a ton of valuable content if you're looking to succeed at the highest levels. As a part of his mission to spread the power of entrepreneurship, he's interviewed some of the world's most extraordinary people, including NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson, billionaire Mark Cuban, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, making their wisdom accessible to anyone willing to learn. So, please, help me in welcoming the man who wrote The 25 Laws to Doing the Impossible, the ferocious Patrick Bet-David. Oh, man. How are you? Good, dude. Well, thank you. Thanks for having me. Absolutely my pleasure. I'm super excited to have you here. It's great to be here. And I want to start maybe somewhere a little unusual, but I want to talk about bodybuilding. Let's do it. What What was it that drew you to that? And maybe more importantly, what did you learn from what I'll call one of the most intense disciplines in the world? So, when I was uh 14 years old, I was 6'1, uh 135, and my name wasn't Tyra Banks. So, that's that's that's what I got into bodybuilding. And there was a commercial, maybe you'll remember this, there was a commercial that said uh you know, I used to be skinny, you know, rejected by girls, and now I drink milk, and you know, I I I don't know if you remember that commercial, the milk commercial. So, for me, I said, "Man, I need some muscles cuz I I I need a date, I need girls, I need to go out, I need to protect myself." And I started hitting the weights at 14 years old. I would go to the gym uh with three sweaters on, and there was a guy in there named uh Fred, uh who took a liking into me. He was like 5 years older than me and uh, I was benching the bar. You know, the bar is 45 lb. And when you don't have a lot of strength, when you you know, bench the bar, the bar is shaking, right? So, he pulled [snorts] me and says, "Come here, kid. Don't look at anybody. You're going to have a 2 and 1/2 lb rule on what you're going to do. Every week, we're going to increase your bench by 2 and 1/2 lb. And that's all you need to do." And then from there, that whole 2 and 1/2 lb idea, I applied in business and everywhere else in work because uh, that led me to, you know, I was in the army. I had and my room was all, you know, posters of Arnold, of Ronnie Coleman, of Aaron Baker, of Chris Cormier, of Lee Haney, all of [snorts] these guys. And I said, "I'm going to run for I'm going to go be a Mr. Olympia one day." What did Arnold represent to you? Uh, Arnold represented to me uh, the story of an immigrant with a fire to prove a point uh, that he wanted to control the narrative. You know, when I say controlling the narrative to me is he's uh, written the story for his life. You know, Winston Churchill said said many years ago, "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." Mhm. I think Arnold wrote his history. This is what I'm going to be doing. You know, I'm going to come here. I'm going to compete. I'm going to win. I'm going to go into Hollywood. I have an accent. With or without it, I'm still going to go into Hollywood. I'm going to marry a Kennedy. I'm going to go and be a governor. And I'm going to do what I want to do in my life. He was an example of this is possible. So, the thing that I find interesting about bodybuilding cuz I started lifting in my mid-20s-ish. And for me, it was very different. I grew up in a morbidly obese family. So, I was somewhat trying to escape that. But quite frankly, I wanted to look like Hugh Jackman. So, that was my obsession. Um, that was right at the heyday of the X-Men franchise. I can see Hugh Jackman right now. Oh, man. I was I was just about it. And I really did hate it. I hated every minute of being in the gym. But there was something to that the the discipline, the 2 and 1/2 lb rule, you know, if every time that I cycle through a body part, I've got to be a little bit stronger, a little bit stronger, a little bit stronger. And my partners and I used to talk a lot about what's super weird is here we are, we're these three entrepreneurs, we're using discipline in lifting in the exact same way that we would use it in business, the ability to push through something hard, the demand that you grow and get better. And we were looking at other people, and Arnold became fascinating to us because he was the only one that could apply it to every area of his life. Like what made him great in bodybuilding, and I think my favorite Schwarzenegger quote is somebody said to him, "I don't want to look like you." And he said, "Don't worry, you won't." And like the the truth and the sort of wonderful arrogance of that quote, of how hard it is that it's never going to happen by accident, but it's always fascinated me how few bodybuilders are able to translate that discipline. How were you able to take that and apply it to business and other things? I got to tell you, I'm surprised you're asking this question because no one asked this question, but everything that I've done post bodybuilding goes back to bodybuilding. It's amazing. When I tell you everything, uh in bodybuilding, you learn areas you miss out on, which is what? Most people don't do legs. You know, Arnold at the beginning stages of his career, he would take pictures in the water because, you know, he didn't want to show his calves. He would always do thighs because he had the thighs, but he didn't have the calves. So, I'm doing a pose with the uh uh minimizing the calves. Then he started doing the donkey raises with Franco Columbu on his back, and he really got focused about the calves, and he had these massive calves. In business, it could be the same thing. You could be all good on front end, you know, marketing, but your operations sucks. And for me, I was so front end, I was so sales that I wasn't good in operations. And I didn't pay attention to the systems. I didn't pay attention to We don't need technology. We don't need to look at automation. We don't look at this. We need more marketing. We need to do this. And finally, the conversation got deeper and deeper and deeper to the point where we have to pay attention to them. My wife pulled me in and she brought the board in, she brought everybody and everybody sat there and says, we need to invest in technology. And when we did that, I could scale because now you have a knob. And whenever you have a knob to control and you you increase it a little bit when flows coming in, that's what really helped us grow the business to a different level. So, yeah, when I look at bodybuilding and what that did to my life business-wise, everything went back to small little growth, right? Beating your prior best and then shocking your business because that's like a new campaign, new initiative. So, same thing with business. So, I would say a lot of it applied from that into business for me. I loved the um the life of an entrepreneur in 90 seconds. It's basically that. It's how to build yourself brick by brick. You're talking about how you see the flash, you see the cars, the money, the house, but you don't see the times they were freaking out, stressed, anxiety, things were going wrong and they had to just get better every day. And by doing that day after day after day, they're able to really turn themselves into a beast. And one of my favorite stories about what you're talking about with Arnold and his calves is so he goes through the phase where at first he's standing in the water and he doesn't let himself be photographed. And then he flips it and he makes a sweatsuit where the only part that's visible are his calves so that he could never distract himself with something that looked good and he [cough and clears throat] would walk around the gym with his worst body part exposed so that he'd make sure that he'd put in the work. And I found that like incredibly interesting. What do you think about this notion of made not born? Like how much of it do you think people like Arnold has terrible calves, but he can really build them. How malleable are we? Um made not born. So, for me, I have three kids, okay? Now, we just had a great conversation about kids, but I have three kids myself. So, I look at my kids from the day they're born, they are who they are. So, we do parents tend to take a lot of credit for their kids. Like, hey, you know, they look at my kid, that's my son. Well, you know, I know how to raise him and I know how to do this." And in a way, it's fine because it's pride because that's my kid. That's my blood. That's my this. But, I don't know if parents can take as much credit or as much blame for the kids. I know some people may disagree with this and say, "Well, what are you saying here?" I'm not saying there isn't, but it isn't 80%. I think it's 20%. I think the other 80% is when you're born, there are some elements to you of how you are. My oldest, he's very quiet. Every picture you see him taken, he's looking at you like he's looking through your soul. Like, he's trying to figure out what you're thinking. This kid has been like this since day one. The middle one, charmer. Everybody loves this kid. Everybody's like fascinated by this kid because he's so friendly. He'll run around here. He'll talk to Ricky over there from Boston and he'll go around making friends with everybody. That's Dylan. That's how Dylan is. And the small one has got a temper, but she's going to get what she wants and she's very assertive, right? Okay. So, I can sit here and say, "Yeah, that's you know, that's me and because of my parenting stuff." So, I think one is the way we're born. That's our DNA. That's one. Two is things that happens in your life. For instance, for me, uh if I watch a whis- if I see a movie scene with a whistling sound, I'm going to straight back to Iran. Instant. Right? But, if you hear a whistle, too, you're going back to a park. I'm not going to a park. I'm going to Iran. I'm going to Iran going over a bridge and a bomb drops 50 yd behind us and my dad says, "Don't look back." I'm in a white Renault. My sister's sitting next to me. My mom is over here. My dad's over here. We're going to a city called Karaj, which is the Palm Springs to LA. We're trying to get away from the war and I look behind me, the bridge is coming down. I mean, that stays with me till the day I die because of the whistling sound. That's not parents. That's life experiences that causes that. A heartbreak, a breakup, parents getting a divorce, a fight, getting bullied, being knocked out publicly in front of your peers, humiliated, a girl breaks up with you in front of your peers, leaves you for your friend. All of these things then make you because of those experiences. Now, when that happens, uh it's like a formula. You are going to do one of three things. You You know the whole flight, freeze, or fight? You're either going to freeze, and you're going to suppress and keep it internally, and eventually you're going to implode, and when you implode, you're going to hurt a lot of people. Or you're going to flight, and you'll avoid that person every time you're running around them. Oh my gosh, you see I'm going to go in this room. I'm going to avoid her. I'm going to avoid her. I'm going to avoid her. Or you're going to fight, right? Now, you know what freeze happens? Nothing happens. Flight, nothing's happened. But fight, that part is born during those moments. And uh you know, so you figure that part of what the person's made up of. You can't teach that part to somebody. You can't say somebody could encourage you, and somebody could say, "Hey Patrick, stand up for yourself." Yeah, but you could say that to me when people are around, but what if no one's around? Most of the time, no one is around. You have to learn to stand up for yourself. So, when you ask the question, born versus made, I I don't think it's a one-dimensional answer. I think it's such a multi-dimensional answer that if we get deeper to it, you'll be able to figure people out and say, "No wonder this guy became who he is today." Because these three different things combined. Wow, this makes a lot of sense to me. So, I don't know if that answered your question for you or not, but for me, that's kind of how I process it. but but I really want to push. [clears throat] So, I'm talking to a guy that does Valuetainment, who is creating content, which is definitely telling you how to live. You wrote a book, The Laws of Doing the Impossible. Um your video that popped off and went viral was all about how you can learn, and it it I'm going to use my words now. It doesn't matter who you are today, it matters who you want to become, and the price you're willing to pay to get there. Um so, help me, and and maybe there's just another part of this. Help me square the your sort of the totality of your DNA and your experiences, and then you completely end up shifting your life. You said the best thing that ever happened to you was hitting rock bottom, because it forced you to reevaluate your thinking. So, what I want to know is right now there are people watching us and they are panicking that you're saying that who they are today is just it's a product of, you know, their the culmination of their DNA and their experience and it's a trap, basically, and they are who they are. But, I don't think you believe that. think that's what I'm saying though. So, how what is that next level of malleability? How much can we change? So, what I'm saying is a part of it is your DNA. We have to understand it. There's a part of it that is your DNA, but And you'll never be able to break free from that or you just have to understand it so that you know how to change? No, for example, you know, if you know, if you are somebody that personality I can't change your personality to be like XYZ. You know, this whole concept about modeling, you know, you got to model somebody. Too much modeling leads to imitation because you're not being you, right? So, speaking, some people say, "Well, Pat, I don't see a lot of people speak like you. You speak differently." I don't know any other way to speak, but I used to try to speak like a somebody else that I was trying to model and I said, "No, no, this is how I speak. This is me. This is my method of delivering my message to you. Make sense? Great. If it doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense." But, the part about the other side for me is I also believe firmly that events, conversations, certain individuals can completely say something that can change your life forever. So, what are some of the tools that you use? I know that you've talked about clarity is super important, carrots. Talk to us about those two things which I think are both pretty powerful. Yeah, Tom, I I would say questions. You know, like right now, I I I'm more curious about people that I can't even help myself. I'm asking you questions. Like, "Hey, you know, how come you don't have any kids? We don't have any kids. Why don't you have any kids?" Well, because, you know, we decided 6 years ago we're not going to have any kids. But, how did how did you know that? Well, we got married 17 years ago. We think you had it for 20 years. And my wife is so was it a decision an emotional decision or a logical decision. I think it was a logical decision because it was finally a way to get in, you know, fulfillment. What you and your wife did is what very few people do. And the whole purpose is sitting down and asking the questions. What if I get asked a question that I don't have the answer to? One of the scariest things about life is a question. The The scary question can shake a soul up. Cuz no one's asked that question from you. So, for me the transition for somebody to want to change it and get clarity is actually asking questions. If you don't ask the questions of what you want to do next, the world is going to put you in the box on what you have to do next because they're determining who you need to be. And you are rising up to their expectations cuz you're not asking the questions yourself. So, clarity to me is stemmed from you being able to sit down and ask those tough questions that piss you off, that irritate you, that make you emotional, that you cry over, that you reflect, that makes you want to do research, that makes you follow up, that makes you sit down and say, "I don't really know. I've never thought about this before." And that goes deeper and deeper and deeper. So, clarity is stemmed based on like the way you answered the question to me, Tom. It was amazing. So, do you have any kids? No, we made a decision a long time ago we didn't want to have kids. The way you said it was like very nonchalant. Really? It was so like, "Yeah, that's what we did." Then I said, "So, tell me how you processed it." It's very obvious that was a very comfortable, certain decision with a lot of time put into it. Very few people do that. And then you got clarity and clarity gives confidence. So, somebody looks at your eyes when you give the answer, there is no, you know, looking away or uncomfortable or anything. You're like, "This is who we are. This is the decision we made." But that clarity came from all the conversations you and your wife had together. I don't think enough people do that together. Yeah, no question. One thing in your book that you talked about that I thought was really interesting was you asked the question, to your point about questions, "When was the last time you thought about your identity? And you just brought that up. What's that process for people? How do you be like how what is the identity which I think most people give stats? Like what do you mean by that and how can people begin to shape their identity? So Tom, who were you in high school? What was my identity? Yeah, so if I was in high school with you, who were you? You were comedian? 1000% Okay, comedian. When did it change? Uh as soon as I went to college. I consciously decided I wanted to become the artist which was not necessarily the right decision, but that was yeah, when I changed. And then what happened from artist to Quest? Poverty. Got it. And so I so I start um want to be the funny guy because I need attention in high school. I By the end of high school, I'm very good at making people laugh in a little sort of living room funny way. I do countless hours of practice of stand-up comedy and when I go to college, I'm like my only style of humor is self-deprecating. So I'm always making fun of myself which actually makes me think a little bit less of myself. So I very much had an inferiority complex in high school. I cheated my way to being in the top 10 of my graduating class. I did terribly on my SATs and I come into film school and I'm like this is what I want to do with the rest of my life. Like I actually want to be good at this and that's one sort of realization I'm grateful for was I realized at some point you're in the big bad world and you're either good or you're not. And so you better stop cheating, really pay attention and get good. And so I thought I need to take myself more seriously, stop making fun of myself. So I didn't tell anybody that I was you know, a a comedic person or anything. I didn't make jokes, nothing. And so I began to adopt the identity of the artist. I have some artistic failures which creates this identity crisis. I'm very much in the grips of poverty now cuz I've graduated, my parents aren't helping me anymore. I'm selling insurance door to door. Uh so is this? What This is this would have been '99. Wow. So 20 years ago. Yeah. So and and I'm just like in this I'm sliding towards depression. I've no sense of how I can make things come true. This is all pre-internet. So like there's just there's no hope for me. Like there's I the idea to make a $100,000 film which back then there was no YouTube, there was no video cameras you can make movies on. I mean it just wasn't a thing. So it was like $100,000 film might as well have been a $100 million film. So I'm stuck. What am I going to do? And that's when I meet these two entrepreneurs who were like, "Look, you're coming to the world with your hand out. And if you want to control the art, you have to control the resources." And so that began a very long journey of identity for me. Of figuring out who am I? How do I define myself now? And how is that useful? Wow. Like understanding that it is completely malleable. I can decide right now that I'm somebody else. That my identity is something new and something different. Like I remember the day I told people I was going to start lifting. And I just said, "Right now today I'm lifting." And I told people I'm going to put on muscle. I'm going to look like Hugh Jackman. And everybody's like, "Yeah, yeah, right." And I just went beast mode. And I just started working out all the time. And I realized, "Whoa, like it's a demarcation line in the sand. Yesterday at this time I did not have the sense that I'm going to become like Hugh Jackman, that I am a lifter. I am somebody who sticks through with what they say." And now today I'm just going to decide that is me. And so I began telling people it which gave all this pressure that I had to live up to it. And I began to realize like, "Whoa, this is a lever that you can pull and it drives behavior." That's amazing. I mean that pretty much explains the whole thing about identity, right? So uh I think the first identity we have is whatever identity we're trying to get attention for. I mean you know, when when you come out you're saying your your family extremely obese I think you said. So I don't know was it a mom and dad stay together? Was it a healthy family? Was it loving? Was it Was it a crazy environment? Was it a lot of pressure? No, like it was pretty good. But my parents end up So I I have this recurring nightmare as a kid and I can't explain it. I'm in a loveless marriage. So imagine me at 14, I've never had a relationship but I I have this recurring nightmare about being in a loveless marriage. Not realizing of course my parents were in a loveless marriage and I just didn't know. Wow. And so on some subconscious level I was obviously picking up on that. Mad respect to my parents who stayed together until 3 weeks after I left for college and then they split. Get out of here. No, and I actually respect it. Like that I would never do that. I would never repay that because that's so crazy to me to live a life that's less than it could be for your kids, which is why I don't have children. makes sense. So but that they did that I'm very grateful. Wow. Going back to the identity part. Uh you know, you had a moment that you had to make a decision and you asked some questions and you met a couple people that eventually inspired you to want to make change and then you went after what you wanted to do and that day when you said I'm going to start looking like Hugh Jackman the next day and one day the decision not that serious the next day, here's how I'm going to end up being. When I listen to your story it's all why to. And we don't spend enough time with why to. Why to is linked to identity. How to is systems, learning. It's a skill. It's a skill set. Anybody can pick that up. So identity is you asking the questions until eventually you get to a point that you get to the deeper part of who do you want to be? What life do you want to live? And why do you want to live this stuff? Why is it important to you? Why is it worth you putting through all these hours? Why would you want to do that? That's transition when you go through it. And then the pressure part when you said here's who I'm going to be, where you declare your intentions to the world. This is what I'm going to be doing. A lot of times we keep things to secret. And so there's a debate. Some say you should never declare your intentions to the world because that pressure could create anxiety. You should never do it. You know, like Babe Ruth pointed a finger and I'm going to hit a home run. What if you don't hit it? What if you fail? You know, what if you say Michael Jordan says the Bulls never win in losing game seven. You should never say that because it's too much pressure on the players. Or then the other side say, "Well, you should put the pressure on yourself because your teammates play better cuz it's not on them, it's on you." And the leader does that. To me, um I think declaring intention serves a purpose. I think when you go out there and you say, "This is what I'm going to be doing. This is where I'm going to be at." You officially have the world holding you accountable. That pressure could be good pressure to put into your life. We we we hear the phrase peer pressure and we always get the negative connotation with peer pressure, right? It's like, "Hey, uh don't do drugs because of peer pressure, you know, say no to drugs, peer pressure, go to school, peer pressure, peer pressure." Where I mean, it all depends what a peer is that's giving you pressure because if you get the right peer giving you right kind of pressure, you can do some big things in your life. So, I think that additional kind of peer pressure you put into yourself, you're in the right circles, right environments, those two guys that, you know, put some kind of a peer pressure or direction into you can really be a spark to change someone's life where all of a sudden the identity goes from being a regular person to the next day no one recognizes them. In the world of social media of influencers, there's some that will say things like, "Listen, you have a lot of time. Take your time. You're okay. You're going to be all right. You're going to be fine. You have a lot of time." And that's fine. That can work for some audiences. And sometimes you wonder if it's almost like a strategy so other people don't catch up to you because they think they're like honestly, you sit there and say, "Is this guy really that dark that he's trying to get everybody else to slow down so he kind of, you know, works his ass off while hey, everybody else, you slow down, it's okay." Where for me on the other side is, "Listen, this never lies. This lies." When I look at my hand this way, I'm 25 years old. When I look at my hand this way, I'm 40 years old. We look at our hands too often this way. I like to look at my hands like this. This doesn't lie. This is a 40-year-old wrinkles. This is 40, okay? I can't lie about that. That's 40 years old. Now, I can look at this and say, "No, I'm a lot younger. I got a lot of time." We don't. So, for me, I would sit there, one of my biggest drivers was, you're at your dad's funeral. This This sounds crazy to some people, but I have visualized This is going to be the first time my dad's ever going to hear this cuz I've never said this to him cuz, you know, I just don't want to tell him this kind of stuff. Cuz I don't want him to think about it like I don't want him to say, "Hey, can't believe you said this." I have visualized my dad's funeral 50,000 times. And when I visualize I'm like, "Okay, you're speaking. What are you saying? You know? You're the closing speaker. What are you going to say? You okay with it? Are you okay with who's going to be there? You know? Are you okay if he dies at this age? Your kids never met him. They don't have a relationship with grandpa like you don't. For you it matters because of the David last name, you're the only person I can continue this David last name. All the other guys didn't have kids. You have to continue this generation. There's a legacy. Assyrian community is a small community. We're an endangered species. It's not like there's millions of us. It's a very small community of Assyria. We lost our country. So, I go there and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, that's not how it's going to be. Here's how it's going to be. He's going to live this. This is what's going to take place." So, when that day comes, I'm not going to have any regrets cuz I want to be good. That visualization of going there creates so much urgency for me that makes me move. Too often this whole gift that we have like we're not putting that gift of imagination and visualization in place. And so, either we waste it and we just go into la-la land. Oh my gosh, what if I have a big house? What if my, you know, zip code is Beverly Hills? What if I have this big house? And what if I could put the big part is what if I date these hot girls? What if I date the best looking guy? What if I have this? What if I have that? That's fine, but that's not deep enough. You got to go really deep. Really deep with purpose and really deep with if you don't move what could take place. So, again, going back to it for me is for people to sit there and realize if you really want to move yourself, ask the questions, go deeper on what life could happen both good and bad. Don't just say, "Oh, all good or all bad." Tap into both of them and hopefully that creates urgency for you to start taking the next necessary steps to grow your business. But, uh the gift of imagination and visualization is rarely used properly. It's interesting that you say that. So, the 19-year-old version of myself has actually asked, um "What's your ideal woman?" And I described her just like you were talking about, height. Um I said, "She's going to um speak a foreign language, but she needs to speak English perfectly to get my humor." Um she But, I find accents so sexy, and I think it's so cool when somebody can speak a second language, which was always a fantasy of mine. Said she'll be short. She'll either be able to draw or sing. Um and she's going to be like ethnic somehow. Cuz growing up in Tacoma, dude, it was white people 24/7. And so, it was like just finding somebody that was like a little bit different was very intoxicating. So, of course, I end up marrying a Greek girl. But, she grew up in England, so she speaks Greek, but English perfectly, and she can draw. She's a world-class artist. So, I was like, "Wow, this is so crazy." When you really have clarity about what you want, and it comes across your path, and you're paying attention, then it's like all of a sudden, "Hey, I'm gravitating towards this. This is, you know, something that's interesting to me." But, one thing that I think really became powerful for Lisa and I is something that you talk a lot about, which is you've got to shut out the noise of what other people think, and you've got to be willing to really be yourself, know what you're thinking about. Um why is that powerful? Why do we need to, excluding some of the right people, why do we need to stop caring about what other people think? Because uh life goes by wasted when you do that. You know, I remember when my parents got a divorce. Um so, my mother's side, they're Armenian. And my dad's side, they're Assyrian. Okay, so if I go to the Armenian side, and I would hang out with them, they were on their way to getting a divorce. The Armenian side would say, "He's a bad David. He's Assyrian." And they would pin me against them. And if I went on the Assyrian side, they would say, "Oh, he's Armenian. Look at him. He's bad Adamantee." Which bad Adamantee means uh terrible Armenian. Is what it meant. I mean, these things that they had Armenians and Assyrians, they have a big debate on who's the first Christian, Armenians or Assyrians. Why was that an important situation for me as a kid? Because everybody indirectly will impose their belief system into you. And it's never going to stop. You know this whole thing about people say, "Oh my gosh, I can't wait to win to shut up all my haters." Reality check. It ain't never happening, okay? It ain't never happening because every time you come up, it's just more of them, right? And they're always The great thing about haters is I always talk about the fact that my best consultants are my haters. Best. Because it's it's almost makes no sense to be a hater. Let me explain to you why. Because haters highlight your weaknesses. And if you're smart, you're like, "He makes a good point. I do have bad calves. I better start working on my calves. Thank you for that feedback. Now I kick your ass because you pointed out my weakness. What a great consulting firm. We don't need a consulting firm. We just need to hire new haters. Looking for haters, right? Come on, more haters. Please send me some more hate so I can see my flaws, my weaknesses." But the whole idea about that is, "Hey, one day I'm going to make so much money, I'm going to shut everybody up." That doesn't work. That's not going to take place. The more you move up, the most hated man in the world today is the president of the United States. And prior to him, the most hated man in the world was the president of the United States prior to him, which was Barack Obama. Once a Democrat, once a Republican. It's irrelevant. That's That part's not going away. So, the voice is never going to be less. So, you have a choice. Either you can say, "I don't want to deal with the voice. Live a small life. No problem. It's okay. As long as you're happy with it, you're content, you're aligned with your values and principles. More power to you. But if you can't live a small life and you have to live a big life, you have to understand that there's going to be push. And you have to figure out a way to silence everybody. Every time somebody gets married for the first time, and if they ask the question, I never impose, but if they ask the question, say, "So, what feedback would you give us? I would just getting married." First of all, everyone's going to tell you when you guys going to have kids. It's number one. When you going to get pregnant? I said, "My suggestion to you is tell everybody up front you don't have any plans of having kids for 10 years." Okay? But if you do, you do. But if you tell them you're going to have kids, everyone's going to tell you what? "How come you're not pregnant yet? Does this thing not work? Does your thing not work? What is going on? I bet she's sick. I always knew she had that limp. Maybe it's because of the way he walks. I It's the list. I knew what was going to happen with his family." And then you're overthinking, right? Shut everybody up right up front. Tell everybody to manage expectation. Anticipation is game. The day before I got married, I sat my parents down. They hadn't been in the same room for 20 years. 20 years hadn't been in the same room. And if they were in the same room together, a German would have been resurrected to start World War III. I mean, they could not be in the same room together. But I I brought them to my house. They said, "Oh, we're coming to your wedding." I said, "No, you're not." "Of course we're coming to your wedding." I said, "Who told you you're coming to your wedding? Did I send you an invitation? I didn't send you an invite. You are invited to my house, both of you together." "We're not coming to your house." "Oh, you're not coming to the wedding." They said, "What is wrong with you? You're We're your parents." So, I said, "Listen, I'm just telling you, it's very simple. You come to my house, that is your ticket to the wedding cuz you are not going to create this escapade at my wedding the first time you see each other after 20 years, you run all this other stuff." So, they came to my house. And they sat. It was so uncomfortable, it was entertaining. I wish I would have recorded this setting, right? So, they're sitting, I'm looking at them. I can't take the smile off my face because I'm having too much fun with this. So, I say, "Hey, Mom, Dad, I'm going to step out. You guys got to talk. And you guys got to hash it out because you guys can't have any politics at the wedding." So, I step out. I am literally out for 20 seconds. They tell me, "We're ready. We're ready. Come back." And so, I come back and I say, "What happened?" "We're good." I said, "No problems?" "No." I said, "Okay. You guys are invited. Here's the invitation. Here's the invitation." They came to the wedding. But I told my mom that they said, "Mom, you have to realize in a Middle Eastern culture a lot of times um moms are put number one before wives. I want you to know the day I get married, the following day you go from number one to number two. And it's very simple. And I don't want to hear about it. She is my number one. You are my number two. I love you, but you're not number one. She's number You're You're number two. It's very hard for her. But it was clear. So, you can't come in between me and my wife. If me and my wife going to argue, we're going to argue. It's none of your business. This is our business. We're fighting. We didn't ask you for your advice. We're fighting. Leave us alone. We have our own issues we have to deal with. But we don't say those things. So, everybody creates noise. So, the more you tell the world how to manage expectations dealing with you and what to anticipate, you actually minimize a lot of the noise. And most of the noise that's the most irritating are from the people closest to you, not strangers. Cuz who cares what a stranger says about you? You care what your family says about you. And that can be controlled if you do it properly. Yeah, the The world will treat you exactly the way you let them treat you, which I think is super powerful. And as you were talking, I was like it's so important to do to lay down the ground rules, to tell people like what's okay, what's not okay. And so many people are terrified to do that. They're afraid to upset their mom. Um I had a similar conversation with my mom. Um What I find interesting is your concept of of family values. And it's not what people think. And walk us through our traditions, excuse me, family traditions. Walk us through this notion of family traditions and how people just take that stuff on without ever questioning it. Yeah, you have to question everything. First of all, it's not just family traditions for me. You got to question everything. You got to question if you grew up a Republican, are you a Republican and why? If you grew up in a family where everybody was a military, you know, general, army, whatever, and because of that you were a Republican, why are you? If you're a Democrat, why are you a Democrat? Because what? Because you're Latino? Because you're black? Because you're Middle Eastern? You're you're Republican because of Are you a Christian for what? Are you a Christian because you're a Christian? Because your parents are Christians? Are you an atheist because of you or your parents? Are you a Scientologist because of you or your parents? What are your belief system, right? What are you doing? And do you subscribe to the same mindset? Do you subscribe to the same mindset of what rich people are? You know, I grew up in a family where my mother didn't like rich people. So, for me it was kind of like rich people are terrible people. They're greedy. All they care about is money. I can't stand rich people. They're selfish. They put everybody else to work and they live in these big homes and they do nothing and they party and they go to the nice restaurants and buy thousand-dollar bottle of wine and I'm freaking having a two-dollar beer here. Screw these rich people, right? I can't stand these rich people. He drinks a Bordeaux and I'm drinking a Budweiser. That cold-hearted rich guy, right? And so, to me it was that. So, I was coming up I'm like, you know, these rich people are greedy. Then, I started questioning everything. Every single thing. And when I started questioning everything, my philosophies in life became clear. You see, for me, one of the reasons why I like a book by Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, or why I like Ray Dalio's book, uh uh Principles, is because it's Here's my principles. Here's my values. And a lot of times, we don't take the time to say, What are the values and principles that I'm willing to build my life on? What are they? And what it really are they? What What are What are you willing to really stand up for? You know, what is your core belief system? You know, are you a certain belief because you live in a certain city and you have to be? Are you thinking about money in a way because your parents look at money that way? Maybe your parents don't like money because they didn't want to work for money. Maybe they're out and you know, their escape was they had a nephew or a niece or a brother or sibling or somebody that did better than them. So, for them to prove to you that they still did their part, right? Is to belittle that person. Listen, our parents are still human beings, you know, we look at parents as they know everything. They're the almighty parents make mistakes. Parents don't have everything figured out. They're trying to figure it out for themselves. So, I think the solution for you to become free is you got to question every single thing. Even the one that is so core to you that you're kind of like you want me to even question this? Yes, all of it. Here's why. Because here's what happens. The idea isn't to question and change. Like the idea isn't to say, I question it and they're wrong. So, I change everything. No. If you question it, your argument and belief system in that value or principle could actually go a layer deeper than you currently are. And [snorts] if it goes a layer deeper than you currently are, then it becomes a conviction. And you give me anybody that leads an army, give me anybody that leads a country, give me anybody that does anything that impacts the world, their convictions are at a higher level than yours. Everybody has convictions that they live with. It's incredible. I love that. We won't have time to go deep on these, but just really fast, I would be remiss not to ask, what are some core beliefs that you'd be willing to stand up for? Um you know, don't be afraid of the truth. My dad told me that from day one. Once you're clear on what you stand for, don't be afraid of the truth. Um for me, it's keeping your word. It's very critical. When you say you're going to do something, you do it. Like cashing your word. Like I want your word to have a lot of value. For me, if I tell you we're going to do something, I mean, it has to be end of the world for not to happen. Uh I'm going to go out of my way to make sure my word keeps that value because it's it's more for me than it is for you. It's more for me to trust the words that are coming out of my mouth than anybody else. But, you know, I would say those things and then alignment for me is all the way at the top. Alignment is it's so critical to me. The way you live and whatever you believe, if they're aligned, you're living a happy life. Alignment's all the way at the top for me. Mhm. It's incredible. Where can these guys find you online? Um you know, if you go on YouTube, you type in Patrick Bet-David, you'll find me there. If you go on Instagram, same thing. Uh Patrick Bet-David, you'll find me and I'll typically respond back on Instagram more than any other platform. Nice. All right, my last question. What's the impact that you want to have on the world? So, it's phases. First 20 years was to make sure, you you know, I live and I figure out a little bit of life by seeing everybody. The next 20 years was business, which is purely uh understanding the ins and outs of running a company, running a business, kind of like really building a company from scratch, founder, how do you do this, how do you do that, raising money, a human nature study and that for 20 years. The next 20 years is controlling the narrative, media. And then last 20 years is going to have to do with Iran, Syrian community, you know, um whole slew of other plans that I have, but that'll be from 60 on. 40 to 60 is going to be media. We have a very similar 40 to 60. Very cool. I like the sound of that. Patrick, thank you so much for coming on the show, man. That was really incredible. Really incredible. Guys, if you haven't already dive into his world, it's absolutely extraordinary. And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Jesus, dude. If you enjoyed that interview with Patrick, you're going to love the one that I did with Gary V. So, be sure to click that link there and check it out. Enjoy and I'll see you there. So many people are keyboard activists, right? Everybody's good at sending a tweet about how the world should be and nobody's doing anything about it. And that just that is just very much human nature.