Theo. Only thing you can do is do your best work. And the way you do your best work is not doing it for anybody else. You do it for yourself because humans connecting commonality, they connect on shared interests. And by the way, what do you care what humans think? Perhaps your legacy is to plants and trees.

That is this week's guest. Take entrepreneur, investor, philosopher and bibliophile Naval Rava Count I don't quite know what to say about this episode. This was an absolute dream come true. When I started this podcast, I wrote a list on a piece of paper. Got it here in my room of people that I really would love to talk to in my wildest dreams. I have got Oprah on there. I've got Russell Brand. I've got Tim Ferriss and novel Traficant. And this week the first of those four came true. I sat down with Deval for an hour and we spoke about truth and we spoke about creating wealth and a meaningful life and inner pace. The quick synopsis on the Vaal is that he waas, born in India and he emigrated to America when he was nine years old, and he was brought up mainly by his single mother, and she worked evenings so he would go to the library after school and he would spend his evenings reading,

and he gobbled up everything in the library, became a huge reader when he was older, he went on to co found Angel List and a handful of other take Cos He's also a really active and be Easter, So he invested early and companies like uber and yammer and Twitter. He hadn't done an interview in a year or so since being re shows like To Verus and Joe Rogan. So I'm very lucky to have him on the show. And I want to give a big thank you and shout out to the good people at even Hillary Fellowship as well as a big thank you to my interviewee from last episode. Meth. You Monaghan, whose novels Good friend. Thank you, Matthew, and also that's a really good episode, so full of you listening. If you liked this episode, go back and listen to Matthews because it is full off value.

I hope you enjoy. The soup is owned, and if you want to support May or If you want me to keep getting on incredible guests, then I would be so grateful. If you would review and comment in your podcast app. Let me know how I'm going. I will read all of the Commons. That's not from May. I hope you enjoy this episode with Deval Rafic. Out. Do it! Welcome to the show novel. It is such a pleasure to have you here. First of all, you haven't done an interview for over a year now and you've said no to literally hundreds of other podcasters. And so you're doing this One is a special favor. Is that right?

Yeah, I feel really bad doing this. To be honest, what I've done is I've retreated much more into my own media. I'm working on my own podcast at nab dot ale. I'm working on my twitter and frankly, I'm working on my life. So I just got tired of being in the podcast circuit and it's very hard to say no to people individually, as has been adjusted a blanket, think out of do podcasts. But this is special because I want to help you Zealand as part of the fellowship, I haven't each Edmund Hillary fellow. I'm grateful to New Zealand for the opportunities is providing and was I want to help the New Zealand start up ecosystem. So I'll do things for New Zealand because New Zealand needs that right now, much more than the State Classic Silicon Valley podcaster. Plus, I think with podcasts.

Frankly, people don't really care who I talked to be with. No offense but the people that I want to talk to, they know where to find me. They're not coming to me because I'm a podcaster x y z's podcasts. They're coming because they want to hear what I have to say, which is fine. But that means that I can help out new and upcoming podcasters like yourself. Uh, rather than just doing the circuit was kind of the existing large set. Now, of course, that opens me up to a 1,000,000,000 small broadcasters. You may say Please, please. And I'm gonna say, Sorry, I'm going back

in hibernation. Thank you. I'm so grateful. This is a huge win for the podcasting underdog

today. I'm sorry to be Braddy about it. So if I If I sound self important, I'm trying not to. It's just uh, it's the nature of the situation where there is more demand and supply.

Totally. There is actually one way I can add value to you. Nivel I think I heard on the Joe Rogan show. You said that your fan base is mostly made up off men aged 18 to 35 year old geeks, and they're also not, um, But today in a vow, today we open that up to gorgeous woman 18 to 35 in New Zealand. So you've got a bunch of New Zealanders now who

love you. Oh, that's great. Welcome. Look aboard

new Southern Nevada. One of the things that I love about the work you put out into the world as you bridge these two worlds that I also am in. Which is the startup a Silicon Valley, Um envy, Stir saying as well as the spiritually and in one sentence you give advice about it might be investing entrepreneurship, and you infuse it with spirituality and philosophy.

Although I will tell you that I recently grown to dislike the word spirituality because I think there's too much magic and holiness associated with it. Where it's what I'm trying to do is just be practical to me. Wisdom is just understanding long term consequences of your actions, whether that's in sports or medicine or life or love or investing or technology or business. So if you understand the long term consequence of your actions and you behave for a good, long out the long term outcome, then you will naturally appear wise because you're just before it looking. So I don't have spirituality. Nestle has to enter into it. We could weaken, try using the word, But I think it means it means so many weird things to so many people that it's better just to be practical and say, Does this make me a better investor? Does this make me a better husband or wife? Does this make me a happier person? Does this answer some deep questions that I had about what's going on? But this help me undercover any truth that helps guide me to a more effective outcome rather than you know,

kind of stumbling around, wondering why things don't work. And it's just all about luck and not just not understanding. I think at a core level what I like to do, and this is just the way I'm built. It's not mislead, good or bad, but just I like to understand things and like to understand them from the ground up on what some people call first principles. But I like to be able to figure everything out for myself, and I would rather admit that I don't know something, then rely upon authorities. But if I'm relying upon authorities and it has to be on solid ground, it has to be scientific. It has to be logical. It has to be backed up by 10 different ways and ideally, I have to have some direct experience to corroborated as well.

So I don't take anything socially or second hand, and that helps me stay within the bounds of what is true. And that allows me to reason for myself and make decisions for myself and hopefully have better outcomes in life. Spirituality is entirely unnecessary if you're healthy and you're happy and you're wealthy and you have good relationships and you combine the good body that it's effective, that it's working and if it's working, it's really it's not working and it's not make new, happier, healthier, calmer or having better relationships from wealthier, then What good is it that it's useless? You've been just stooping to safely discarded. That's not helpful to you in this life.

Talking about happy, healthy, wealthy and figuring out how to get those. It seems like you're somebody who's gone from being very poor growing up in India, and now you're very well off.

I grew a poor, fat, miserable. Yeah, Now I'm rich. I'm relatively rich. I'm very, very happy. And one of the happiest people I know, the happiest person I know, Um, and I'm not, You know, I'm not as Lena's I want to be, but I'm actually a lot healthier than I used to be in my teens and twenties. So, yes,

I've kind of got what I wanted, But I'm also fully aware that can't hang on to any of this that you know any of these things to me snatched for me of any moment. So what matters much more is internal happiness and peace than any external material attachments. But to the extent that I have them, well, I'm grateful for them. I enjoy them. I embrace them.

You have gone from being miserable to very happy, and that has taken work and that's the work that we're here toe talk about. Well,

I think the first thing to do then is that throughout this idea of work, because if you get too attached, this idea that I have to work, work, work to make myself happier, then you'll just end up kind of beating yourself up. At some level, self improvement is very easy for self improvement, to degenerate himself, conflict itself, conferences, self misery. That's you beating yourself up. I think it's even happiness. It's a bad word. It's like love. It's overloaded,

means too many different things to different peoples. I don't like using the word, but I have to because it gets the point across very, very quickly. One of things I used to think about was like, If I'm so smart, how come I'm not happy? Like I'd like to think I'm smart and I'm capable, and I could do anything. Well, why can't I cannot be happy these other people to see you happier than me and, uh, you know, the obvious first answer was, Well, it's because I don't have So it's so so I went and got so and so you know,

I got a beautiful wife and I got the big money and I got the fame and I got the success and I got the kids and I got the You know, I think I ate all the foods that you could possibly want to eat, And I traveled to all the place to get possibly want to travel to and I did all the things that you could possibly want to do And then you always kind of return back to where you are and that's just your normal mood. So, Michael, why can't I be happier? And so the first step, you know, for me was just basically acknowledging that I had a problem then, acknowledging that no solution was going to come from outside, it had to be internal. And they're not being a victim about it. Not saying Oh, well, that's just the way I built or is because I'm smart, that I'm unhappy.

Oh, I've I've met an ever read people who seem smart and positive, not ballistic and happy. So it is hackable. It is doable. Um, you know, somebody out there has to be smart and happy. Why not me? Why can't I be that person. So I just started investigating it enough and spent enough time on it that I became happier and absolutely making money factors into it and getting the Earth X factors into it because it's one less thing to worry about. But in a weird way, it doesn't because nothing you, anything you get, human beings are built to return to the baseline of where this started. That's over.

Does I were designed to crave something to suffer until we get it, and then we get it. We have a moment of release and relief and ecstasy. We might get a little dopamine spikes and other people acknowledge it. But then very quickly it sinks into paranoia, even more craving. It's like someone who's an alcoholic saying, Well, one more drink will make me happy. Well, yes, it will make you happy briefly, but then you'll need more drinks. I had to learn what that cycle looks like and how to break it, but I challenged this notion of work. It's not work.

You're not going to get anywhere on these kinds of matters unless you truly, genuinely want it. You enjoy it, and you do it because it's your passion. And if it's your passion that it's not work, it's not gonna feel like work for an instant to you. Um, and it's and there's no timeline on it on purely internal processes. If you make a decision and you change your mind on your mind has changed that instant. If it's a genuine realization that changes your mind, Um, where's another person can struggle with that realization for a decade just because they don't want it? They're not ready for it, so it doesn't have to be working. It's probably better to not think of it as work, because then it becomes just another thing like your daily,

you know, work out of your daily meditation practice or your daily breakfast or your daily reading or whatever it is, it just becomes another chore. It becomes another box of check, and you're never going to make any progress, so it's important to get to the end point. You don't want to spend 90% of your life trying to figure out how to be happy than 10%. Be happy. You want to be happy right now, and if you can't be happy right now, what's wrong with you. But is it that you're missing that you believe that you will get that will make you permanently happy? Or what victimhood have you adopted where you have decided that is the lack of something or something pressing on you from the outside that is making you unhappy or whatever. Other excuse, reusing the chemistry is a great excuse with modernize it. Sure,

maybe some people truly do have a chemical imbalance. But for the vast majority of people, having a chemical imbalance is just how your brain works. Your brain is just a series of chemical imbalances, and that's what Dr signals across the brain. So within the context of whatever your brain chemistry is, figure it out. You know, maximize the level of happiness available to you within your genetic mean. And if you think that that's a very low mean, Are you sure? Look around all your brothers, uncles, cousins, aunts, grandfather's sisters, Wevers and see who was the happiest of that. Not Why can't you be more like that person?

I think that you getting to the point when you admit you've got a problem is the bit that is actually the hardest,

you know, suffering helps a lot. Suffering is great because when you suffer, you're forced to see the truth for what it is. You can no longer put her off. We're all masters of evading what's really going on to make ourselves feel better. And it goes back to the school yard where somebody called you ugly or someone called your smelly or someone called you stupid. And then in your mind, you created kind of this voice this narrative saying, Well, I've got distance I've got You know, I'm smart at this and I'm good looking about this. And you know, people tell me that I'm very reliable. People tell me that a very punctual and here's what's good about me. So we get into this mindset of kind of creating this false self image inside ourselves on its trying to live up to that savage that creates a lot of the pain. And one of most powerful things to realize is that you can change your own self image and whatever your new self image becomes,

that you will follow, and I can tell you kind of how I tried to do it. But what worked for me is not going to work for you because everyone is carved differently. And if I just tell you, then you're gonna check the box you can absorb. You know that that sentence, but then you're not mean, so you can't do it that way. But just realize that you have this self image of yourself, how you see yourself in your mind's eye when you think of yourself, honest or dependable or track they were capable or or, you know, quiet or funny or whatever it is you have. A certain self image is a very intricately carved self image, and that's when you try and live up to. That's also what allows society to hold you hostage in times because if you're not living up to your self image,

that's a leash you put around your own neck. So you're gonna make sure that you change your being able to conform to that self image and a lot of that south image, probably the vast majority is painted upon you by society. It is a reaction to what happened when you were younger, and so that's self image was what helped you survive egotistic Lee and physically when you were younger So you want to live up to that? But these self images were out. If you had the same self image for 234 decades, it is often time to revisit. The ideal would be to not even have once. It could be pretty fluid and dynamic in the current environment, as opposed to having your tastes and your, uh, your fears and your desires mapped over when you were nine or 10 years old. But most of all, carrying mostly carry very obsolete south images that no longer correspond to the actual environment that we're in on. And so if you acknowledge,

if you're in pain, if you're in suffering, then you no longer enjoy that current image that you have. Then you might be with the change it. Then you might see how that demons is colliding with reality. But while things were good, what things are comfortable, why change? It's only pain that can make you change.

You said that you couldn't tell us how you were able to change itself image or see the truth, but I do think that there is one equation that you have mentioned briefly that would work for everyone, which is You can't hate your way in tow. Love, You can't self improve your way into a life you love because that self improvement is saying I there's something wrong with me. I'm not enough.

Yeah. And you know that statement right there? You can't self improve your way into a life you love is very good. But boy that flies in the face of everything. Right, everyone, Right now, is that the South Improvement, Including me. So I won't say that I don't do it, but you have to love it while you do it. You have to be gentle with yourself about it. It's sort of like when you're trying to get to a healthy diet, you know, there's all these different diets that work for different people and all these diets that don't And I think the most important thing is not which exact. When you follow, whether you're Tito or Paleo are vegan,

whatever, which is the one that you love, which is the one that is naturally an extension of new, which one feels right to you. Which one do you find easier to follow? You know, that's probably the one that's gonna work for you. So the best health food is the one that it's a health food that you actually find tasty. Some people hate broccoli. Some people love it. But if there's anything in the health food category that you like, those are probably the thing that should focus on without feeling guilty. It's better that you're eating at least out of the class of healthy foods and out of the class of junk foods. Similarly, people debate about shouldn't be lifting. Should I be running?

Should I be doing yoga? Should I be sprinting Shelby playing sports, whichever one you enjoy, because that's the one you're actually going to do, And it's not gonna feel like work. People say I should be reading. What should I be reading? Whichever books you enjoy. Eventually, if you read enough, you make your way the things that maybe you have more useful best to you. But the most important thing is this habit of reading, which means enjoying it. And the truth is, as humans we're always trying to do. What we enjoy were pleasure seeking.

Machines were always optimizing in our environment for what we like to do, and even when we were doing things that we think are pain and suffering. It's because they have a longer term enjoyment and hook associated with them. And so there's a struggle between like, Oh, I don't enjoy this right now But I fantasize about what it's gonna result of the future, and that is a cause of a lot of, you know, are self inflicted pain. But I think overall to the weather extent you can choose, you know, just find the thing that you enjoy that is good for you and then just go all in on that. I mean, the ideal life would be one where you had a hobby that is a byproduct. Major money. You had a hobby that is a by product that kept you healthy.

You had a hobby that is a by product may just smarter, more creative. So, for example, if you love to write poetry and you know you enjoy trading stocks and you love to play tennis like that, that's good enough. You can. You can ride those three a long ways, but it could be any different. Three of those. But the key is that they have to be hobbies. They can't feel like work work is industrial workers miserable, and work is no way to live a life, especially if you're first world citizen with options.

You know, I'd love to add a nuance. I think that you also have to be doing it out of love for yourself. If you're doing any kind of new habit or any kind of new at a new sport to try and get fit, because you think that by getting fit, you're going to receive more love or more. Whatever you feel is missing in your life, it still becomes your prison.

It's yeah, it's part of your image, especially if you care what other people think at the same time. You know, vanity is kind of a neat trait because even though you will suffer because your vanity, when your body never we start deteriorating, it'll also keep you fitter like. But you know, the day you say my external appearance doesn't matter, I give up. It's a sad day, um, so that he can be a good thing, too. I mean, look, these things aren't good or evil,

right or wrong. I don't think even love is any more admirable or better than you know any other trade you can name? It's just what's effective, what is effective for you. If if what it means is like, you have to love yourself, that's great. I mean, to me, Doesn't never even been a question. I've always been my own Number one fan. I always like myself, and I always think everything I'm doing is right. And if something else conflicts and that thing must be wrong, that's how I'm naturally built. And because I'm naturally built that way.

Self love isn't even. My equation is not even a vocabulary. It's It's the air that I breathe in the water that I swim in. Eso. To me. It's never been issue, but I think you know I have the opposite problem. I have the problem of empathy and loving Others tend to be very cold and distant at times, and that's just the way I'm built. But I don't think it's the thing to be fixed. It's just what I am. And so for somebody else, you know, self acceptance is actually really important. Accepting who you are, including the part of you that wants to be better and wants to be different,

including the part of you that is self critical. Even that part is fine. The main thing is just what's effective. Is it effective to be critical of yourself all the time, to the point where you feel miserable? That's not effective. It's effective to the point where it gets you toe eat right and go work out and to work in your business. But it's not effective. It's the point. What's keeping you unhappy and anxiety or terror alerts. So, uh, and you never want to do anything that's false? You want to stick to the truth because of its cost. You really won't believe it. If you're fighting with yourself and you know you can't trick yourself right on some deep level,

you always know. Um, so the problem is, these things are hard to talk about, right? The important thing is just to examine these questions.

I asked you a question before this interview. Noble, I asked you if people remember you for one thing, what do you hope it'll bay and you said that the truth is that no one is going to remember me on any time scale that Metas and I don't much care for the opinions now, and I don't care it'll after I'm gone. The only opinion of me that I care for is my own. And the only time frame is now so given, uh, given that you will not be remembered on any time scale, nobody

will. Nobody happening, right? Like, yeah, legacy is what people that I don't what strangers think about me after I'm dead and gone and will care like that's the legacy is it's a complete nonsense concept. You're not gonna be around. There's no possible way you would know or care on these air strangers that people you're never gonna meet or know and these strangers themselves will die. And you can have no concept of what your legacy is like in your life, because all the greats or many of the grades are only become famous post human sleep. So if you're famous in this life, it's almost a negative indicator. So the only thing you can do is do your best work, and the way you do your best work is not by doing it for anybody else. You do it for yourself because humans connecting commonality, they connect on shared interests and by the way. What do you care what humans think?

Perhaps your legacy is to plants and trees. May be your legacy is still like the random group of bacteria that happened to eat your body. It's impossible to say, saying trying to leave a legacy is again one of those delusions, like trying to imprint a singer, meaning in your life or your universe. If there's a single meaning to your life, then that's that. Those air shackles that means that you have to be a slave to that, meaning anything you do that's not Congress with that meeting is a mistake, and you no longer have freedom. Ah, and the environment is always changing. The future is always changing. Our ability to predict the future is so bad, Like trying like you didn't know what your life was going to be like 10 years ago,

you had no idea none. And so you have no idea what you're that's gonna be like 10 years from now. So how people will perceive you after you're dead? It's complete fiction. I just have no concept. You have no way of knowing you can't do anything for legacy. It's just a it's a society or in trap. If society convinces you that what you did matters after you're dead, then society can control you. And you know that their their so called good control where you know you don't want leave a legacy as a killer because that side he will remember you as a killer. But we overdo it like so to prevent you from doing that, we forced you to not live your actual free life. And instead you're living in slavery to a legacy. The shortest way to not get a legacy is to care about it. This, like the shortest way to not create art, is to try and create art.

I think a lot of people stay up at night wondering what to do with your life. What is my purpose given we have got this amount of time and it doesn't really matter. How on earth do we decide what to do with ourselves?

Okay, there's I don't think there's a hard and fast decision to be made. I think it's what you find yourself doing effortlessly. That is a thing that you're probably going to be meant to do now. The easy retorted as like I like watching Netflix, right? That's what I find myself doing. Or I find myself playing video games. I'm not talking about Skinner boxes and dopamine traps. Yeah, if you fell down a hole somewhere and became a drug addict or if you're playing video games, that's not what I'm talking about. But I'm saying the larger question of like, Do I enjoy being outdoors or indoors? Do enjoy being around. People are not around people. Do I enjoy work with animals or don't I work with computers?

Do I like to work on things that help people? Ah, physically, you know, there with health? Or do I like to just make a whole pile of money? And I'll figure out what do with the later right? Whatever it is, you just have to be honest with yourself. The only problem is going to arise from dishonesty, where you you want to do one thing. Let's say you want to go make money, but all your friends are pressuring you to save the world from climate change. Do you want to see the good person? So you pretend like you're in a, you know,

to save the world from climate change when the reality is. What you should probably do is go all in on making the money. And then once you have a bunch of donate a whole bunch to your friends and they can go fight, change, right so there are. It's very important to be honest with yourself so you can actually succeed without hurting yourself without being in self confident all the time without being ineffective. Because, in fact, if you're effective and you just get what you want in treated for other things

something that I think about a fear but is the two parallels which you have just mentioned, which is the helping the planet or the making the money? That's something that really, ah annoys may really, because I really want to see people doing more purpose driven work that they love. So they're not slaves to the 95 they really doing their work that they feel is meaningful. And there's the social trope that if you do the work that you find meaningful, that helps the planet, you're not going to get any money or you're not allowed to make any money because then you're bad.

Yeah, for me, the first thing is, I would say, Don't worry about other people's and models. Just do your own thing. Just absolutely ignore them. And in fact, if you need to be very careful, sometimes the voices talking in your head that you think is you is actually social programming. So whenever you feel guilt right, guilt, it's just societies voice speaking in your head. So you have to be very careful to remove that. Secondly, I think I don't think you can hope for other people to work a certain way or not. The only person you can control is yourself,

and when you find yourself trying to control how other people going to think or behave, that's a formal violence and you know doesn't deserve to be physical violence. But some of it could even be mental violence, where you're like trying to control how they think and you're judging them or chastising them or putting them down. Now, if someone is actually going to physically hurt somebody else, then by all means stop them. But otherwise your only power in life is to inspire other people, and the only way you could inspire them is by living the most genuine unauthentic life to yourself possible and somebody else will say Wow, well, if she can live that life that I can live the life that I want to live and you know perhaps will be inspired by how you live your life and what you're doing and say, Well, Samantha's trying to save the planet. So I want to say they plan to or they'll just be like, No, Samantha doesn't seem to give enough what anybody else thinks,

and she's doing what she wants. She seems really happy, and I'll do that, too. And but just the seven things I'm gonna do it's really different. Um, again, I'm not talking about run out and murder people, but I'm just saying in general, because that's ineffective, right? I don't even need to moralize about it. You kill somebody, you're not gonna get rich doing it. You know, you would make a small amount of money if you're robbing somebody and you end up in jail and you'll be miserable and you'll always be on the run.

You always live in fear, so those things are relatively self correcting. Uh, it's only people do stupid things when they're ignorant. Right thing sin doesn't come from them being evil or even being poorly educated or chastised by society. It just comes from ignorance is from not knowing the long term consequences of those actions.

All right, money. Let's talk about what it's rollers within a happy life.

Well, im is not my original saying Certainly take credit from I read it somewhere like I read almost everything but like to synthesize, and it basically said that money is not going to solve all your problems. But it's going to solve all your money problems, and I think that's very well put. What are the problems you have in life? You basically have the faith. Four important things. One is all the material problems. Then there's love. Then there's physical health. And then there's kind of internal mental health that would pacify kind of those for another way, is like money, relationships, happiness, slash peace of mind and just physical health. Right?

So the money one is the one where you solve it once and you solve all of your material needs. So in that sense, it is actually very useful, and then it allows you to focus on the others. You don't get the others for free. A mess you happened to have won the genetic lottery or you happen to work on one of those when you're younger, you know, the Holy Grill would be to get all of them in months. So again, it's kind of the health, wealth and happiness, although I also kind of through relationships in there. Although relationships are a little tricky, like you get to give love, you don't have the right to expect love the moment you expect love out of somebody else than both. You are in bondage.

You are trapped into whatever that person thinks of new. You've given up your freedom to them to some extent, and then also you're just trying to control other people, which is an impossibility. So, really, what you're aiming for is making sure that you yourself are capable of giving love. You haven't internal and calm and peaceful, which eventually becomes happy mine that you have money to kind of solve your material real world problems. There's nothing wrong with that. Ethical wealth creation is absolutely possible in a positive sum game on, and then finally you have a relatively healthy body, so you're not sick or in fear that your body is going to fail you. But I think money is a great foundation. The hard part is getting it because everybody wants it. But it's not a zero sum game.

We're not all sitting around trying to divide up the first dear that we ever killed, nor we figure out who owns the patent on fire. The human beings are incredible cooperators. We're tool using monkeys or storytellers, and we knew stories and tools to create institutions and machines, which then in cooperation and specialization, make us all richer. And that's been the miracle of capitalism, where it's brought so many people out of poverty and gets a bad rap. But, you know, it's the best system that's been tried because all the others are awful on humans. Air naturally meant for free exchange. You know, we like to create things we like to share, then we like to trade them.

It's kind of just how we're built back to, you know, monkeys trading fruits with each other. So, um, I would say, Embrace that, you know, positive ethical wealth creation, solving society's problems that's absolutely possible. You can actually even do it while cleaning up the environment there. Because people want a clean environment, people will pay for a clean environment, especially locally. You know, people may not pay for in the abstraction of,

like, less carbon in the atmosphere, but they will certainly pay for clean rivers and clean water and clean food. And that's kind of where it starts with the byproducts. What it takes to get those do reduce things like the carbon footprint. There is a way to have your cake and eat it, too. Of course, if you just wanted to make money and you would probably make more money purely up Miley for the money, Not always true, but, you know, generally common sensibly. True. But what kind of life is that? You just wouldn't You may not enjoy the process.

You're not gonna make many friends. Um, you're gonna have a lot of conflict and struggle in your life. And you know, when you're sitting there isolated in your mansion like Scrooge McDuck, someday you'll wish you had a few friends. So it's possible to get it all. Uh, but you know, it's it's not easy. It's not free. It takes work. But then we go back to should work.

You don't don't use the work would weigh Samaki, which is which is another word for it. But so here's the equation. I think about a little bit it very profitable. Businesses have always bean built on the biggest problems that people have got solving big problems. And some of these planetary issues are going to become some of the biggest problems that humans have got. Surely, even if you just are interested in making money, surely it is incredible opportunities for social entrepreneurs to both make money and help the planet

challenge that a little bit. Just a few is, I think, this notion notion of help the planet. It's very specific to different individuals, right? So there's kind of some common thing you might say. We're gonna help the plant by doing X. But somebody else might say, Actually, I want to help plant by doing why, like the classic thing is, you might say I want to help the planet by cutting down on carbon emissions, and therefore I want to promote, you know, I want to fight fossil fuels, and I might say,

Well, I want to help the planet by saving, starving Children in India, and I want to bring them out of poverty. And so the way to do that is to raise the standard of living and the easiest way to raise the standard of living this to get all the farmers tractors so they aren't telling the fuels by hand. It might just turn out that gasoline tractors a lot cheaper right now, so we might run into, like when you say, save the planet. Are you talking about poor people? Are you talking about like the atmosphere? Or it might even conflict on the water in my conflict with species side. So I think the problem is these these grand goals of save the planet, they just leave. They just let the violence they need to gangsterism. They lied to people kind of teaming up.

You know, build your own garden, tend your own long, clean your own mind, attend to your own household and make sure your household is a paragon before you go out and try and fix the world. I think everybody is trying to save the world. Really. Believe it or not, everyone thinks they're a good person. Everyone's doing it for somebody else. Everyone's fighting for somebody else. Everyone's fighting for a cause or religion or a person or ah, family member or a legacy or a loved one or something. You know, it's like Isis. They're blowing it up because they feel like their fellow Muslims are being oppressed,

right? One men's terrorists, Another one man's freedom fighters. So everyone's doing it for what they think are good reasons. It's all white knights fighting each other. But the problem is the violence it starts with the fighting started the violence that started the saying, You know, you have to see my view of the world that is a correct you. It's very easy to fall in the trap of say, but of course mine is the good one. They're the ones we're deluded, but just realize everybody's saying that. So I really go back to this idea that if you want to save the world, you know, save your little corner of the world, the part that is truly,

completely under your control and then perhaps others can be inspired. You can't save the world around environmental issues if three or four billion Indians and Chinese don't care and you're not gonna convince them of your issues by harassing them right by yelling at them by screaming at them. But by telling them how daring you they're not even listen to that. They're just trying to figure out where to eat. They just trying to figure out if they can get, like, a little bit of shelter. So I think the only way out of these traps it is to try to be the model citizen, that there's enough of us. Then people will aspire to be that the whole world looks up to the West, right? It looks like they watch our movies. They, you know, the consumer technology. They copy our fashions and so on,

but still largely true. Not as true as it used to be. But that kind of imperative, ultimately the moral imperative. Like I am who I am because I was inspired by a small set of people that I saw throughout history. And I was like, Well, if that monkey can do it, so can I. I think that that's really the way people change.

What I just heard was all violent starts with self conflict.

Yeah, I mean, there's different kinds. Okay? So there's conflict where I want to force somebody else to behave a certain way that might be physical or that might be judgmental or that might be verbal. But there's also a form of violence internally where if you call me a name, for example, if you call me stupid, it's gonna bounce right off of me. Why? Because I know I'm not stupid. Like there's no chance I'm stupid. Okay, that I know that I'm very confident of that. So there's no truth to it. But if you were to needle me by saying, Ah,

you got a little bit of a punch, a little bit of a belly, they're getting fat, right? That would bother me. Why? Because there's some truth to it that I'm trying to hide from. So I have to like for external conflict. Toe actually hurt me. It has to turn first internal conflict, and it has to be a part of me that, you know, doesn't want to be acknowledged that is suddenly being acknowledge or a thing about myself that I don't want to talk about that I internally have to talk about, um, you know the extreme example that someone who doesn't care, can't be,

can't be hurt outside of physically, right in. So you can sit there and call a tree insults all day long. And even if it could hear you, it wouldn't care. Because it's a tree, it has no basis. You have no basis for insulting. It has no basis for Take your opinion seriously. I think at some level for something toe hurt you for something to affect you. You have to let it. And if you're letting it, that means it's a part of you that believes it that agrees with it. So there's two parts of you not fighting a part of me that doesn't want technology and a part of me that does. Which is why if you are completely honest with yourself, which is so difficult, but if I'm completely honest, they can't touch you.

The common truth seeker.

It's tricky because you you can't say I'm going to go seek the truth because I heard that some of the podcast are, uh, it's the best one can hope for is like it resonates with you at some level and again you realize that it's affected. You realize that Oh, actually if I'd seek out the truth in these matters and I acknowledge the truth, Hard is it might be. Then my life just becomes easier. So it Zaveri practical thing if you become a truth seeker Prince old sake. That sounds like some highfalutin thing that, you know, you read in the book and you do it because it sounds good. But unless your hearts really in it, you're not gonna follow you. That said, I think most people deep down our truth seekers, they just don't necessarily acknowledge it or realize it because your whole the whole process of your life is testing to see what works and whatever works becomes your truth. But there are deeper truths.

You can see what will work for you in the long term. So this goes back to the beginning as we're talking about. It's really about figuring out wisdom is really about figure with long term consequence of your actions. So if you're always thinking of a 30 year time horizon, you usually end up with the right answer. Like, should I buy the stock will. But I hold it for 30 years. Should I start a business with this person? What if I'm still working in with them 30 years from now? How happy would I be? Should I continue dating? This manner will win, will if I have to spend the next 30 years of my life with them, you know? No.

Then I should probably break up right now and I can't see myself spend next 30 years. Then we're just prolonging the inevitable in wasting everybody's time digging ourselves in deeper. So taking the long term outlook on things could make your life will not easier. We live in an age of infinite possibility and leverage. You're no longer living in a village of 120 people. You're no longer in arrange marriage. You no longer have your well stood up in shells. And I mean, we have such grand lifestyles, even the even the average middle class person today. Let's better than a king might have been just a few 100 years ago with all the machines and the technology and the the medicines and the opportunities and everything from tinder toe space time. Ah, you know, House party to what have you So we have so many choices and options that it's really a good decision making. It's not necessarily even about how hard you work. So,

for example, where you choose to live crazy important, it determines who you're probably gonna spend time with the colleagues, lovers and friends. It determines probably the, you know, Are you going to spend more time earning it probably determines their health in terms of how good of the environment do you exercise and what people are. You have inspire you in terms. Apply that your food local food supply chain is based on, like are you course farms or you morning industrial urban environment. It determines their values. So where you choose to live is this insanely important decision that has huge repercussions and so many things in life. Yet sometimes we just did casually based on, Well, I got into school in that town. So therefore,

I'm gonna live in that town when I graduate. That's the city where I end up building my career. But that was such an important decision. Should have been made a little more deliberately. Similarly, who you meant, who you married incredibly important decision. But yet people will fall for fall into it based on short term factors this person attractive, or do we let go in the same cut parties? Well, you have been the parties for the whole life, but we don't factor that in. If you look at the long term, the 30 year consequence of the big decisions like what I do, who has spent time with and where I am then all the little details after that barely matter all the time spent in, like how hard you work Or,

you know, for example, in a romantic relationship. I know it's popular to say you have to work on your relationship. I disagree. I say find the relationship where you naturally being you makes the other person happy. And the other person actually being the other person, makes you happy And, of course, not be perfect but trying to light up on the big things, trying to line up with the values. And then you won't be struggling all the time because the bad relationships are all power struggle. This some level or another where neither one will be wants to give up, but something foreign topic. Their values are provisions, and so they're just battling each other. So anyway, long term long term solves a lot of things.

I love what you've just said and I want to take it into something about tangible. So let's say we've done a time machine or no, we haven't done time Machine of a Met wave a magic wand, Deval, you're now 28 years old and I have dropped you into an English speaking country where you don't know anybody and you haven't got anything. Where do you start with creating that 30 year plan on making decisions and creating wealth and deciding what to do with your time?

Yeah, Well, first, I would find the place where I wanted to be physically within that country. So where are the most dynamic, interesting, intelligent, forward thinking creative people? And I would go to that. Then I would find out What is the industry that most people right? So which is the most dynamic forward thinking creative industry? If I'm in Hollywood than obviously I'm going towards the movie industry, if I'm in New York and probably going to finance it towards the arts, if I'm in San Francisco, I'm going towards tech. But what is the industry that this place is known for once I'm in that industry. Then I would say What are the unique skill sets?

What is a specific knowledge that I have to offer? What is the thing that I could do? Excuse me? Almost effortlessly. It doesn't feel like work to me, but might feel like work to others that I could do all day long. Great. So I'm gonna go do that now. Who are the people that need help with That, too, are both who have a reputation for being ethical and honorable and open minded. And the kinds of people that I want to work with needs identify those people. And then I need to approach those people with an offer they can't refuse. I'd go to them and say something on lines of look years, but I have to offer I am offering to work for you for one month for bear substances. Pay enough for me to survive.

And I will treat your business for your endeavour as if it were you. I will be a shadow version of new. You will have another founder for free, basically free. And if at the end of that you aren't so blown away that you wouldn't make me at least in junior partner in your business that I will leave and I'm automatically fired 30 days later. So you don't have to worry about getting rid of me. I would start there.

There is a fantastic answer. Thank you so much. I've got one more question for you. I know I have to let you go soon. You're a really busy guy. I've heard you talk about how intentional you are with your time. And as we've talked about, you don't really care about other people's opinions. You're not here for the fame. But you have made the intentional decision to make a podcast and to get into the the circus arena. Maybe we'll call it why.

It's a really good question. And I regret it every other day. You know, at some level, like I am, I have a preacher. Jean and me like a talk. I'm hardwired to talk. It helps me think it helps me express. And it's some level. Obviously do like the fame, or I wouldn't be doing it. So there's some part of me that wants to express it, and I'm not gonna fight that part. Ah, In fact, the mistake would be fighting that part of saying I shouldn't want it.

It's just who I am, and so, given that it's a gift that I have, I am an animal that's evolved to get up and move around and do things. I can't just sit idle. I have do things. So I will do the things that come most naturally to be and that I enjoy. And sometimes that is talking. Sometimes that is converse ing and I get some value at every meet some great people. Um, I guess you know, I get my two seconds of fame, which kind of sometimes helps me on the investment side, but I'll do it until the day that the downsides outweigh it. So sometimes I get attacked on mine or I talkto or end up having to talk to people that are missing when I talked to a lot, or it brings me unwanted attention.

Or it could even cause a physical security problem, right, cause you're just fans and stalkers. It's a very fine line for you to meet some of them, these kinds of things and some of the craziest. So overall I just it's just it's a decision that I make every time I talk. If I don't feel like talking, I won't talk. I disappear off the circuit for weeks or months. I do it the same way that on oil painter might make a painting or this the same reason that somebody else might go for a walk in the woods. I enjoy it at that moment, but the moment I don't enjoy it, I won't do it. There's no podcast you could put me on. There's no TV show you could offer me. There's,

you know, there's no book. You could say You're going to be in the cover if I don't feel like doing it. If I don't actually enjoy the price process, I won't do it. For example, right now I'm sitting outdoors and all wearing my airpods and the wind is like my face. But I'd rather record the podcast from year, then recording from inside, where it will be quiet and have a better Mike will be higher quality, but if I don't enjoy the process itself, I'm not going to do it. It's it's very pleasant. William City in a garden. It's actually really nice, and there's a nice breeze blowing and the sun is setting and the weather is perfect and their birds everywhere there roses moving.

And this is a little bit in paradise, A Garden of Eden. I wouldn't want to be here, so I'm not gonna sacrifice that. I stopped doing these finance shows. Always wanna invite you like someone. So companies going public and we want to hear what novel Rubicon has to say. We're here on Bloomberg TV Live. You know, those things are miserable. You're sitting in his tiny little studio with squawking Mike in your year and you're dressed up in a monkey suit. And it's way too early in the morning and you haven't slept enough and your doped up on coffee and then you're suddenly talking to ahead Miss Voice in front of a green screen or blue screen while sitting on a stool and you have a son, you know, really intelligent. We'll talk about the most boring topic on the planet, which is like how a particular price of AH company is trading based on buyers and sellers and want to make a few bucks so most boring thing in the world. So just don't do it I don't do it. I won't do it.

I like what you said about the oil painting. It's like, uh, what painted would do it. I mean, if if I was asked the same question, I would say very similar. And And also, if I don't think this just this little voice in my head that won't let me sleep until I just do create something. My Yeah,

if you if you're not enjoying it, you're not going to do with that much. You're not going to be the best in the world that it and the world really rewards people for being the best in the world. It's something these days, no matter of what it is. So you know, it could be a niche. But as long as your number one or number two and your authentic to yourself, you're irreplaceable. Yeah, I think one of minds are like is you know, you escaped competition through authenticity. And if you are authentic, if you're the Samantha Ryan podcast, nobody else is gonna have a better Samantha Ryan, Pride Class and Samantha, right?

Right. And the people who want Samantha Ryan will accept no substitutes. So if you're authentic could just be the best. Something you for the best something. You can make a living doing it because you can out compete everybody else. But the moment you're imitating your lost, because now your your best cases number to the reality of a lot worse because too many people imitate and I get why it's scary to go out on your own. It doesn't mean you have to be able take certain risks, which is why usually it's the outsiders. They're losers. The ones who have already lost have the best chance of winning. If you start from a position of mosque, then you have nothing to lose further, so you can just try new things. The worst case might be when you have something where you've got, you know,

not everything, but it's not nothing either, and then you don't want to risk it, especially when you're young. You know, that's kind of how you how you have to do it. It's like there's a visit with mountain climbing algorithm in computer science, right? There's a mountain, and you want to get to the top there many, many paths it could take. So which path do you take? and a lot of pads are dead ends. It's good if you find a path that just goes a little ways to a dead and then you come back down, you look again. Then you find the one to the top.

But the worst case is that he had found a path that got you 2/3 of the way there, cause then you climb 2/3 of the top of the mountain and you can see the top. But you have to go all the way back down to the beginning and look for the path that goes the top. So your worst cases, actually, when you're halfway or 2/3 of the way and the problem is and most endeavors in modern life that the peak is almost infinitely far. So you just have to pick. You have to be willing to go back down and start over on over and over again. You have to be willing to be a beginner. It's like the great albums and the great artists. They're always changing their technique because they're not afraid of being a beginner like a Madonna, or you too are an M and M. I don't have as many flops as they have hits because they're not. They're not afraid of completely starting over. They have beginner's mind. But to do that,

you have to really not care about what other people think. You have to be more into the art than to be to be worried about the failure. There is no failure because because the victory of success, the joy comes in practicing the art. It comes and genuinely learning new things. So, you know, I have act when I was younger, of being an entrepreneur, and then I had an act when I was older of being investor and now have an act of being a philosopher or what have you. 10 years from now, I might have a completely different act tomorrow. I may have a different act. That's the way to do it and just have to follow my own genuine intellectual curiosity. Whatever it means. It doesn't matter what anybody else wants or thinks or are most importantly, what I think, What doesn't It doesn't matter what I think I should do or or be. I'm just going to do what I'm just going to do, and it's up to me to accept that there's no point in fighting.

I think that is a very beautiful place to finish. Thank you very much involved. That was really, really wonderful.

Thank you, Cement. I hope I haven't embarrassed you too much.

No, not at all. Embarrassment would be me worried about other people, right? This, uh, always itself going to be into these things. And I was like, What have I just saying?