SPEAKER_01: 0:02

Once you focus on one thing and one thing only and you figure it out, you realize man, I could be stacking a brick on top of a brick to create this one house, or I could put different bricks on top of different bricks in different houses, and you'll see you'll never get to the top. If you minimize your focus and you focus on one thing, you can get really good at it. And then people will give you the rewards that you deserve for being good at one thing, and then maybe you can get better at another thing. Failures podcast. Today we're talking about mental masturbation. No, no, not that masturbation. Information entertainment, the trap of infotainment, and why smart men who consume so much content stay stuck. This one is for the watchpreneur, not the entrepreneur, the guy who watches other entrepreneurs do entrepreneurial things and never start their own business. You watched all the videos, you bought all the courses, and you're asking yourself, why am I still stuck? Why haven't I made progress? Well, the truth is you're stuck because you're trying to learn how to cook by reading cookbooks. You're trying to learn how to surf by watching surf videos. You're trying to learn how to start a campfire by listening to a podcast about fires and how they started. It comes a point where you have to actually take action. This episode is for the guy with 47 browser tabs open, screenshots of all the things he wants to do that other people have done, quotes, group chats with big dreams. Rich, me and you have been there, and you watched all the podcasts, you watched all the documentaries, but you still have nothing to show that you've actually done any work. Nothing has changed. Your bank account is at zero, your dating life is still dry as fuck, and your biceps look exactly the way they looked last week. Very, very little. You cannot do the perfect push-up without actually doing a fucking push-up. At some point, research turns into mental masturbation. And Rich and I are gonna unpack the nuance there because we're not against people doing their homework. We're not against anybody doing their due diligence. It's not your fault. There's unlimited information and content. And if you want, you could be on that wheel forever. And no one gets greater one day. Not even Timothy Chalamet. I have a good story that I'm gonna share later about how he has perfected his craft. And a lot of you young guys look up to him. Rich, what's your advice to anyone that's stuck in this rat wheel of mental masturbation and information entertainment? Who is crafting the perfect body without taking action? Have you ever experienced this? Do you sympathize with this guy we're talking to?

SPEAKER_02: 3:03

I do, bro. And I'm I'm a little triggered because I feel like you're talking about me for a second.

SPEAKER_00: 3:08

But I gathered that from your reactions when I was doing the intro.

SPEAKER_02: 3:13

No, but listen, if we're being honest, if you're watching this, I encourage you to try this because I tried this and it felt like a gut punch to the face. Go on ChatGPT and prompt it out of everything I've ever shared with you. What can you determine about me as a person and watch what it gives you in return? Bro, Chat GPT was basically like you're very smart, highly intelligent, but you don't finish anything. And I was like, what the fuck? Like, fuck this computer, right? And it gave me a list of things, and I want to share that list with you, Just. It gave me a list of projects that I like was prompting it that I never finished. One of them was cryptoswag.ai. I wanted to create an AI-generated crypto type of shirt or mugs that companies can go and get their merch. I had this idea for a website called million dollar baby.shop, where you can purchase like lifestyle clothing. And it was a play on the million dollar baby song that was on the radio at the time.

SPEAKER_01: 4:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 4:15

I had another idea for IT consultancy firm called IT volume. So I had all these ideas, and ChatGPT was like, hey, by the way, do you know you've never finished any of these projects? And I was just like, damn, I'm not a closer, bro. I'm a starter, but I can't close things. So I felt personally attacked. Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 4:34

So this episode is about you two years ago.

SPEAKER_02: 4:37

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it wasn't until I got intentional about things and chose a very specific path that things became clearer for me. And that noise of just being overstimulated, over-consuming content, you know, just got a lot less of a burden for me.

SPEAKER_01: 4:55

Yeah, Rich. I mean, I'm gonna I'm gonna spit out a few common phrases that came from our research for this episode. And it was the perfect plan, the optimized plan, the failure-proof plan, the plan that will get me there quickest. These are phrases that came up a lot. What do you think those phrases mean to you? And how can you translate that as somebody who has also experienced this and has suffered from decision action paralysis?

SPEAKER_02: 5:26

Yeah, listen, I mean, it's not bad to want to educate yourself. It's not bad to do your research. It's not bad to gather information to make the best decision possible. The problem is when you're overconsuming that content, when you're watching too many productivity videos, when you're letting the algorithm overfeed you information, it gets to a point where you start to ask yourself, am I ever going to take action? Because mentally you're confusing the consumption of this content with productivity. Just because you're consuming productivity content does not mean you're being productive. And that's sort of what we're here to unpack.

SPEAKER_01: 6:08

Yeah, I mean, listen, you I think you nailed it. This episode is dedicated to the information gatherer, the person who hoards content, the person who hoards screenshots, screen recordings, Twitter threads, all these things that you've hoarded and you plan on going back to to become excellent at, and you never actually get around to. There is a business, I don't know if it's going to be a successful business, but I've seen it, that essentially you allow an app to comb through all your screenshotted photos, and it takes all these recipes that you screenshotted and you were going to make, and it creates a PDF for you that packages it all into one thing because you spent the last four years screenshotting all these dessert and baking recipes that you were gonna allegedly gonna make for your boyfriend or your family or your girlfriend, and you didn't do any of it. And there's apps out there now that have identified a multi-million dollar market of people that's it's you said you were gonna do these things, you archived all this content. Well, let me organize that for you because you obviously forgot about it. The fact that there's a multi-billion dollar industry dedicated to that alone lets me know that this person listening to this episode is not alone. You're not alone. I have this problem too. If you look through my apartment, I have notes everywhere of things that I'm supposed to be doing. And if you ask me what I actually did, it's the opposite. I get around to two things per day. But it's typically the thing that's most important to me that I get around to. And I think that's where we want to drive this episode towards is we want to help you alleviate the stress and the pressure of having a million things on your mind that you want to get done and help you focus on one or two things that are most important that are gonna give you the biggest bang for your buck, gonna give you the biggest return on your time and energy. And I think that's the fear, Rich, is everyone is looking for a shortcut, but not everybody's looking for action. And sometimes in the action is where you find the shortcut because you get so much more information back.

SPEAKER_02: 8:14

Yeah. And you know, some of these folks might also feel like the more you consume and delay that action, the more you're preventing that life ass whooping that life is gonna give you from taking that action.

SPEAKER_01: 8:28

So do you think that's the core of the problem? Like, what do you think is the core of the hesitation to take action?

SPEAKER_02: 8:33

Yes, bro. If I take action and I fail, I'm going to feel terrible. I'm going to feel like a failure. I'm going to feel like I didn't do enough research. I'm going to feel like I'm inadequate. I'm not good enough, right? So that fear of failing is paralyzing. So you confuse yourself mentally by thinking, well, as long as I consume all this information and never take action, I still feel like I'm moving forward. But you're not. That's crazy. That's true. You're just delaying the ass whooping that life is going to give you, you know, by just doing the thing.

SPEAKER_01: 9:09

Yeah, there's a phrase called ugly execution. And uh, I forgot, I got it from an athlete, but it's what you're saying. It's like freeing yourself of the burden and the shame of not being good when you start something or when you take that first step, and you give yourself the freedom of ugly execution. You know it's not gonna be great, but I have to start somewhere. And the ugly execution eventually leads to a better execution. Not the best, but decent. The best way I could put it is imagine yourself trying to draw a perfect circle, but every time you draw it is a little squiggly. But eventually you get good at drawing that clean circle. But if you were to track from the first time you tried to draw the circle to the thousandth time you tried to draw the circle, you'll see you'll get better at hugging that corner and completing that circle. But the first time you do it is just not going to be perfect. And I think ugly execution is a good analogy for that because you're giving yourself the freedom to make the mistake just so you get used to the rhythm of doing this thing. And when we talk about mental masturbation, though a crass term, it does make sense. Rather than doing the thing, which is what we all want as men, which is to get the girl and have sex with the girl, you're just in your room practicing with yourself. And you're not actually going out and doing it. That's where the phrasing comes from mental masturbation. You're just denying yourself the experience of going out and trying and failing. Yeah. Versus, you know, sitting in your room and just doing it all day and hoping that people give you credit for it. You're not going to get credit for preparation. You will get credit for doing. You will get credit for action. Yeah, I love that. And you will get feedback. I think the feedback is most important. The feedback you get is what helps you get better.

SPEAKER_02: 10:54

Yeah. Listen, it's okay to try something and suck, right? It's okay to get started on something and iterate and become better. In the business world, there's a very famous term that's called MVP, most viable product. The premises of that concept is whatever it is you want to build, you ship it. No matter how ugly, no matter what it's like, as long as it's a beta V1, you go out and you ship it, put it out in the marketplace. The world will give you feedback. Customers, consumers will give you feedback. And then you go little by little and you iterate and you make it better. The very first version of YouTube was not very pretty. The very first version of Facebook was not a very pretty landing page, but over time, they iterated, got better, and you have the product that you have today. So it's okay to start small, it's okay to suck, iterate, and become better over time.

SPEAKER_01: 11:50

Yeah, it's the best way to learn. And it's funny that we are having this episode as a topic because I'm on the West Coast. So before I come into my studio to do the episode, I'll usually have breakfast with my girl. It's earlier in the day. And she asked me, you know, what's the episode about today? And I think I gave her like a seven-minute explanation of what we were trying to accomplish. And she said, Oh, failures. Isn't that what you named your company?

SPEAKER_02: 12:16

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 12:17

Yeah. It's the premise of our whole brand, it's built around this idea. It was funny to me that I've been so far removed from what we named the company that I laughed. I was like, you're right. I didn't look at it that way. But why did we name it failures, Rich?

SPEAKER_02: 12:32

Yeah, because listen, we're trying to highlight all the things that are a contributing factor into why you're failing. You share your experiences on your failures. I share my experiences on my failures. We come together, and within that failure, there's a teachable lesson. There's a moment, there's a piece of information that you can extract that can hopefully be uh advantageous for the viewers and listeners of failures podcast. And I feel like there's no greater lesson than lived experience, the ass whooping that life gives you when you go out and try something. You come back, you're battered and bruised, you got scratches all over your face. But guess what? You're smarter now, you're wittier, you know not to turn that corner or go down that road because you're gonna enter some unforeseen challenges that um you weren't anticipating. So failures is the perfect name for this show.

SPEAKER_01: 13:29

And I'm glad you used the word perfect because the word perfect came up a lot in our research and just kind of combing through the comments in different communities, which was people are looking for a shortcut to perfection. They're trying to save time and they're trying to make it perfect. And I think that is the biggest misconception that we are dealing with here. And I just wanted to unpack something that I was able to see in the community notes and in the research. I think this idea that you keep being sold online, this idea that you can get to your goal quicker with less pain, is a formula that people that sell things know when they sell you product, when they sell you content. It's like, how do I get from point A to point B as quickly as possible with as little pain and shame as possible? And to me, that's a trapdoor because the beauty of finding out who you are and what you want to do and what makes you unique comes in the reps. It doesn't come in avoiding the friction. The friction is what's gonna help you understand what's at the end. So the greatest way I could put it when it comes to like fear of failure is research doesn't count. The reps and what you learn from the reps is what counts. So you're kind of denying yourself the beauty of figuring this thing out that's gonna allow you to be whatever it is that you wanna be at the end of the day. So that was one bucket. The other two buckets that I want to attack and really unpack with you, Rich, is the paradox of choice. And this is the part when I think about like empathy towards the guy watching this or listening to this. I do have empathy for this guy because there are too many options out there. We discussed this in our episode about dating in your 30s. We discussed this in uh red flag's episode in dating, green flags an episode in dating. Any piece of content that we've brought up about dating and how young men are suffering in the dating market, and women have way too many choices, so they don't settle for anything that's below a seven, that goes back to the same problem that we have here. The reason why you're you're a watrepreneur and you keep watching entrepreneur content is because you're looking for more information, but you have way too much information. And truly, if you wanted to research a subject forever, you can. There's that much content online. So the paradox of choice proves that options lead to less satisfaction. And I think that is uh something that we should discuss here. Outside of the fear of failure, there is way too many options out there.

SPEAKER_02: 16:00

Yeah, there's way too many options. And, you know, when you're searching for something and the algorithm takes over and it continues to feed you content in that world, and you fall into the media content consumption matrix, bro, you never leave. And you're getting that dopamine hit video after video after video, and it makes you feel good, video after video. But part of that feeling good is that you're in a trance, bro. You're you're like hypnotized, like you love what you're watching, but you're forgoing the ability of taking action on any of the information that you're watching. So it's sort of a double-edged sword. It's good to feel good about consuming content, especially about something that you like or something you want to take action on, but it's bad when you fall into the matrix and that's all you're doing is consuming that content, and there's no action taken on the other side. And that's what makes you become a watchpreneur. You're just you're just watching how to be an entrepreneur and never becoming an entrepreneur yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 17:05

It's funny you said that I'm on episode 18 of season eight of how to chop down a tree. You know, I can't wait until I chop down a tree. It's like, man, I don't think you need to watch 50 episodes of that to know that the only way you're gonna learn and how to chop down a tree is by going somewhere where the trees are at, getting yourself an axe or a saw, whatever your weapon of choice is, and going out and doing. We have a phrase in our community, Rich. You have to hop off the porch. You have to get off the porch. That phrase means you can learn, but only so much inside of your house, with your grandmother and your mother comforting you, feeding you food, and keeping you under a very well-lit, strong Wi-Fi, warm conditions, blankets, your favorite, everything. At some point you gotta hop off the porch and you got to get into the wild and figure it out. And I love that you brought up the watch-repreneur thing because I think that's such a fun and a funny phrase in this world that I was able to find, which is like, oh, that does make sense. I do that myself, Rich. I find myself listening to way too much content on something I should be doing, which makes me a watchrepreneur. I should just start the business. Why do I have to watch the fifth video on how to do an LLC in less than 10 minutes? If I would have executed that video, I wouldn't have spent another three hours watching a video on how to do something in 10 minutes. So when you talk about productivity, porn, and mental masturbation, these are formal terms within this community. Those words weren't invented by people who are trying to tease you, the person watching this. Those terms were invented by people that can see that there's parts of your brain that equally get lit up when you're watching the thing that you want to do versus actually doing the thing that you know you have to do. It's equivalent to porn and masturbation because your brain is lighting up as if you're doing it, but you're not doing it. And the worst part, Rich, your life doesn't change. Researching is not doing it. Optimizing is not doing it. Going in the comment section and criticizing someone who's done it, their theory on doing it is not doing it. Doing it is doing it. And that is the crux of this whole episode. If you feel trapped by information overload, stop listening to information content. Matter of fact, you can make this the last piece of content you ever see on self-help and information. And I promise you, we're not gonna miss you because we're proud of you. You went out into the world and you started doing the thing. Good for you. Good for you. You took action.

SPEAKER_02: 19:45

Bro, and you know what I feel like you need to have if you're someone out there and you feel like you're facing this problem, you need to have a little bit of self-control. So, one of the things that I do is, bro, I love consuming like business type content and shows, right? So I love the show Severance, I love the show Shark Tank, right? But after a while, I consume those shows and that content for a quick dopamine hit, right? Watching one episode is enough for me. And then I go out and try to take some action.

SPEAKER_01: 20:14

Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 20:15

When I sit over the weekend and watch a UFC fight, right? An entire card, I'm amped. If I haven't gone to the gym in the last four days, prior to that moment of watching the UFC fight, bro, I'm beating myself up. I'm like, bro, look at all these prime elite athletes getting after it. And I'm over here on the couch, like, we gotta go to the gym tonight, tomorrow, like we got do something. So I take those dopamine hits selectively, right? I don't just continue to receive the dopamine hit, dopamine hit, and never take action. Have some self-control. Take the dopamine hits in doses and then go out and propel yourself and take action shortly after that. So I think self-control is highly, highly underrated.

SPEAKER_01: 21:00

Rich, I love that you kind of snuck in some actionable advice there. And I want to piggyback on what you're saying because I'm speaking from personal experience. One of the biggest issues I have when it comes to me attacking a goal and getting lost in analysis, paralysis, doing too much research, trying to put together the perfect plan. I want everything to be efficient because I don't have a lot of time to waste. One of the things that I always do that reminds me that I might be wasting my time is this 10 to 1 rule that I created. That one action to one piece of information is 10 to one. So the research counts as one, but the action counts as 10. So hypothetically, I need a hundred action points to get to my goal. I know taking 10 actions 10 days in a row is gonna get me way closer to my goal than a hundred pieces of research. Because there's so much more you can learn in action. So that's a little rule. I give myself. If I'm overconsuming, kind of like you said, or inspired by someone, I bucket that it's still productive. It still adds to the overall goal. Okay, that's cool. I I read a book. I read a Twitter threads. I prompted Gemini and ChatGPT a 50 times about this one thing I was curious about. But after this, I want to get my 10 points, not my one point. I'm gonna go take action on it. I'm gonna go try to do something and see what is real and what is not real. And it allows me to create this balance, which I think a lot of our guys are off balance. Everything is learned in the arena. You cannot learn how to dodge an axe or dodge a punch in an MMA cage unless you're in an actual MMA cage and you're sparring. Hell, that's probably why MMA guys spar so much and they simulate real fights because there's so much more to be learned in the nuance of a real fight versus just watching videos or reading about fighters.

SPEAKER_02: 22:56

Yeah, I love that. And, you know, Jess, I always like to take a step back. So if we take a step back, part of what I feel contributes to decision paralysis is aside from the overconsumption, it's just you haven't identified what it is that you want to work on. There's so much shit out there to improve as a male human being. You could focus on your career, you could focus on mental health, you could focus on your physical fitness, your mental. Where do I start? Where do I start? Yeah. Yeah, where do I start? It's like I need to redesign my entire self to self-improve, right? Self-help and become this elite human. And you get paralyzed because you don't know where to start. You're consuming all these different pieces of information, and they're giving different signals to your brain. And it's so much information that you're like, you become paralyzed. You just don't know where to start.

SPEAKER_01: 23:53

That's a great point, Reg. Did that resonate for you? Yeah. I mean, I think you have always done a great job on this show of jumping back into the mindset of a 15-year-old, a 20-year-old, a 23-year-old. I'm 39, you're 37. It takes a lot to go back into that place that you were at when the world is unknown. You're a young person looking out into the world, and the world is a whole bunch of question marks. Every single thing that you touch and look at and experience, you're experiencing for the first time. So that empathy that you shared is important. And I think you nailed something that made me reconsider what I wanted to say, which was, man, you just got to go out there and do it. But part of the fear and the paralyzing is there's just too many options. What do I do? Where should I start? Where do I start? Where do you think they should start when they're at that age and they feel like maybe identify the thing that's bothering you the most? I feel like that feels like a good starting point. What's your greatest pain? Attack that first and then you move forward.

SPEAKER_02: 24:59

We said this on an earlier episode, but the ability to learn, learn how to learn is by far the umbrella that's going to advance everything else. Because once you learn how to learn, that's how you're able to craft things to take action. Some people are audio listeners and they prefer to listen to Failures podcasts on the audio format. Some are visual. If you're a visual learner, you can watch our YouTube, right? Some people just need to be in the trenches and just go to the gym and just not know how to use any of the equipment, but just figure it out on the fly. So there's a lot of different ways to learn, but by far, just the number one rule I would suggest to any 15 or 16-year-old is learn how to learn. And that's gonna pave the way for everything else that you want to teach yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 25:52

I want to add an addendum to what you just said because I feel like if someone cut the episode off right here, they're gonna say, All right, Rich said it. I just gotta keep learning. Let me keep learning, let me keep taking, let me let me keep archiving these Twitter threads. Let me keep, let me keep taking screenshots, let me keep watching, let me keep learning. Rich, that was great advice. You're right. But while you're learning, learn how to learn, but learn how to fail. Learn how to get okay with the idea of failing, and learn how to gain a gem or or extract information from something that's not perfect. I love that we're talking about this subject, Rich, because six days of the week, you and I are going back and forth trying to understand how to improve our business. Those six days, we're just looking at the information that we put out into the world, whether it was a content piece we uploaded, an episode we did, a thumbnail that we worked on, a video edited we cut down. And we are not embarrassed by how janky some of the shit looks because we're like, you know what? We're getting information back. So we're learning how to learn, but we're also learning how to fail and gather information with every rep. And I think that is a piece of information that we have to put together for this particular person who is stuck in the paradox of too many choices or information paralysis where they're frozen and they don't understand why they haven't moved forward yet. Yeah, you read the map, good shit. You studied the map, good shit. You know, this lake goes that way and this trail goes that way, but nothing's gonna teach you more than getting on the trail. And you'll get more information as you continue to walk forward. I promise you, Rich, this is embarrassing, and I wanted to get to a story. My older cousin was two years older than me when I was 11. He was 13. And this dude, in kid years, two years older than is like 20 years to be hanging around a 13-year-old at 11. My cousin broke down him hanging out with a girl in the park and how they both kissed each other, and then he got to like touch her body, and then he told me he unhooked her bra. And I never shared this story with anybody. In my 11-year-old mind, I was sitting around thinking, bro, how do you unhook a bra? Wow, damn, I should do some research on that. Like, that felt like overwhelming to me. Like, how does he know how to do that? Like, where did he learn that? I don't, I'm embarrassed to ask him. And this is pre-AI, pre-like, we had basic search tools. And I remember like building up the courage, being like, yo, he said the whole story. We celebrated for him. I was a little jealous because he was older than me. He was hooking up with girls. And then I asked him, he was like, bro, it's just one of those things that you get used to when you've done it enough times. And I was like, damn, I ain't never did one. I was bummed out, Rich. And you know what happened? This is gonna sound kind of weird. One of my older relatives had done laundry and left the bra strap out. You better believe when everybody left, I was trying. I was trying, I was trying to learn how to do this thing because I was scared that the time would come and I wouldn't know how to do it. Needless to say, that was just like a moment in my life where I was freaking out because I was excited about maybe meeting a girl one day. But if I could go in a time machine and give myself advice, I would be like, yo, don't worry about that. Just worry about getting a girl with your little chubby ass. Like, you, you know, you're overweight, you barely got any talent. Go out there and be charismatic, go meet a girl, go hang out with a girl, and maybe just maybe she'll let you kiss her. And then you'll get there when you get there. And by the time you get there, it's not gonna be a problem, I promise you. And I know that's a weird story to tell, but it is a story that I thought of because I remember being paralyzed at the idea of not knowing how to do a thing that was at stage eight when I didn't even get off the porch. I was still on the porch.

SPEAKER_02: 29:43

Yeah, but listen, you took some action, right? You you found a bra in the laundry room. You tried to figure it out.

SPEAKER_00: 29:49

Is that creepy? I was worried. I was worried when I was telling the story. Like, is this gonna sound like some sick, weird shit?

SPEAKER_02: 29:55

I mean, listen, at 11 years old, bro, anything goes. You don't know shit about the world.

SPEAKER_01: 30:00

And the world is new. I I love that you brought up that point. I think about your son. Like, everything is new, everything you've experienced a thousand times, he's probably experienced once or twice. So you're you're being harsh on him because you have that knowledge already. And he doesn't have it. So I love that you brought up that point, Rich.

SPEAKER_02: 30:18

Yeah, and you know, to bring the conversation full circle, I feel like if you are going out there and getting information and watching content, I'm gonna assume that you're smart. I'm gonna assume that you want to educate yourself about whatever it is that you're trying to improve in your life, right? I think what we're saying is that doing that too much can also paralyze you to the point where you don't take any action and then you don't know how to move forward. All you know is how to consume content and say you know about things, say you know about topics, but never actually do it yourself. Yeah. Right. So I sort of say that to sort of level set with these young guys because we're not accusing you of not being smart. You're being smart, you're going out there, you're trying to gather information to improve yourself and improve your life. But we're also saying is don't paralyze yourself by over-consuming content and then not taking action afterwards.

SPEAKER_01: 31:20

Yeah. Oh, Rich, one person that came to mind that I've been watching a lot of content on him and trying to learn a little bit more about him because I find him to be extraordinary at most of the things he does is um Timothy Chalamet. I watched Marty Supreme, I've seen the Bob Dylan movie. He's a big Knicks fan, you know. I love the Knicks. And I just got curious about this guy because he did a speech and we'll show it in the YouTube edit. In his speech, he credited wanting to be one of the best, and he identified minimizing distractions young in order to master his craft as an actor, which has now allowed him to be a public figure. But he would have gotten here if he didn't dedicate, you know, 18 years of his young life to only one goal. He only had one goal, and that was to be an actor. And he got into LaGuardia School for acting. And I didn't know anything about him until I went back and watched interviews. He did a really good interview on 60 Minutes about how he turned into the Bob Dylan character for the role he played in Bob Dylan. And it occurred to me a lot of younger people, younger men watch content, but they're seeing the finished product of a lot of people that are already masters of their craft. And very rarely do they go back and try to understand how much a person like Timothy Chalamet, who was very successful and very popular, sacrificed a lot of his life in order to be an expert at one thing and one thing only. So to me, Timothy Chalamet is a great person to learn from because, from my research and the interviews I watched, this dude was he was a bit of a recluse when it came to mastering his craft. He has a very strong policy whenever he plays an actor in a movie that he won't take the role unless he has five years to learn the character and develop the character. And he shuts down all his cell phone access and people, friends and family that could visit him on set in order to become the person that he's going to play in this movie. And I think that's impressive because he's a young man and I know a lot of people idolize him. But this dude will not let any friends and family on set, doesn't touch his cell phone for a few years until he perfects the craft and becomes the person that he wants to be in a role. And that kind of sacrifice and dedication to one thing and one thing only is the opposite of what a lot of these young men are suffering from, which is you have way too many side hustles, way too many engagements, way too many events you got to go to, way too many commitments. If Timothy Chalamet could have learned how to play every instrument that Bob Dylan played in seven years of training, that means seven years ago he got the script, and it took him seven years to learn how to play every instrument that Bob Dylan played when he played the character. If you watch the movie, he's playing the guitar in like one scene, he's playing the accordion in maybe two scenes. It doesn't matter. He committed to the character, he committed to his craft, and that's why the performance in that role was so outstanding. But outside of that, it's the self-esteem and the knowledge that you have. Once you focus on one thing and one thing only and you figure it out, you realize, man, I could be stacking a brick on top of a brick to create this one house, or I could split my day into 12 different phases and put different bricks on top of different bricks in different houses, and you'll see you'll never get to the top. If you minimize your focus and you focus on one thing, you can get really good at it. And then people will give you the rewards that you deserve for being good at one thing, and then maybe you can get better at another thing. So, younger guy, somebody that I learned from and I wanted to share with our community is that if you admire Timothy Chalamet now, you have to admire him back then because he mastered his craft and he avoided distractions and focused on one thing and one thing only. So, not my story, but a story from somebody that I thought was very impressive. And he's actually a really good actor.

SPEAKER_02: 35:24

Yeah, I love that story. And listen, too many decisions are paralyzing at the end of the day. I love that point you made. You have to choose one thing to become a master at. If you're on the pursuit of this numerical number that we've seen in a lot of self-help books, which is 10,000 hours, if you're on pursuit of that, they say the analogy is that after 10,000 hours of doing anything, you become either a master or you're entering mastery in that particular domain. You're never going to get to those 10,000 hours if you're indecisive about what lane you're choosing to be in, right? Or like you said, you have 25 side hustles. Those 25 side hustles, you're never going to get 10,000 hours each on those things because you're too spread thin. So I love that, Jess. Limiting your decisions to one lane, going down that path, starting out sucking, right? Feeling like you're not good, but iterating over time to the point where you become good is such a cheat code, bro. And I know that's something you know we're doing today with this platform.

SPEAKER_01: 36:30

Yeah, listen, 10,000 hours is a great framework. But like we said, 10,000 iterations, 10,000 reps, 10,000 times you fall off the bike. Think about the ratio that I shared earlier, that one to 10. For one piece of research, that's one point towards your dream. There's 10 points that go towards your dream for every time you take action. So when you're getting those 10,000 hours, make sure you get 10,000 reps as well. So you're learning a lot more. You're more familiar with this thing that you're trying to accomplish. You're not gonna know how to unhook a bra on day one. But if you put yourself in a situation where you're meeting young women and you're learning them, and that moment is gonna be less scary in real time because you'll already have familiarity with this thing that you're trying to get good at. And led me to another thought, Rich, what you just said. And I love that you brought up, I think it's Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours. Another thing that you should add to that, and I think this becomes more clear when you get older. Someone like that's in your scenario, Rich, we usually list all the things that you have to do as a grown-ass man and how you still find time to get around to this hustle. But if I had to ask you, Rich, at 37 years old, with two kids, a family, a business, and a full-time job, and you shovel the front of your house whenever it snows, I'm willing to bet time and the level of attention, like deep, deep attention you would give something are two resources that are very precious to you. And whenever you squander them, I'm sure you get upset because you're like, man, I could have been using that time and attention on things that are more valuable. So it's an older perspective, but I love that I could share it at 39. It's like, man, be careful where you put your attention into. Because if you're bullshitting with your friends and you're talking about things that are never gonna happen, that's a time waste. Attention waste is watching the same video about the same thing that you haven't taken action on. Attention is the new gold in the digital era and the social media era. Be careful where you put your attention. But Rich, I wanted to frame it in your situation because you are someone that has a lot of commitments. How precious is time and attention to you?

SPEAKER_02: 38:50

Bro, your time and your energy are two things that you have to absolutely preserve. Man, this lifestyle just is not for the faint-hearted. I have a full-time job, I have two children, I have a home, I have a wife, I have the white picket fence, I have a dog, like I have a lot of responsibilities. And on top of that, we're also building this platform together. So time is of the essence. You could see me texting and replying one of our editors while I'm cooking dinner. Like I'm doing everything in parallels. It's because it's the only time I have to get things done. So when I do sit down and I'm watching TV and I'm like zoom scrolling or I'm just watching something that's not contributing to the mission, bro, I feel absolutely terrible. I feel like I'm wasting my time. I feel like I'm not getting things done. And I'm what we're telling you not to do, essentially. Yeah, we're telling you to take action, right?

SPEAKER_01: 39:47

No, I I don't agree with I don't agree with you, Rich. I actually think at 37, you have to commit yourself to some things in order to move your life forward. You've committed yourself to something that's gonna provide money for you and your family. So you're not doing 15 jobs, you're doing one job that pays a lot of your bills and helps you invest into other things that you enjoy doing, like spending time with your family, your daughter, your son. You have a relationship, but you spent your whole life trying to figure out who would be that person you want to triple down on versus being on 50 dates all the time. I know guys like that. I used to be a guy like that. Life gets simpler when you pick one and the rest of the options go away. So now you can triple down on that selection. And something that, you know, we we set off air, and I feel comfortable saying here is uh failures as a platform and as a business and as a community that we're trying to build. You have a weird way of showing when you're having a good time. Usually look miserable, Rich usually looks more miserable when he's having a good time. But I can tell he's enjoying this. I can tell you're enjoying this process. My concern is with the young guy that's doing a million things because he doesn't even know if he likes it or not. He's just trying to get money quickly, he's just trying to do things quickly. It's like you can't hack your way to your ultimate destiny. You have to pick something and invest time into one or two things. It's the trying to do 50 things at once that's really destroying a lot of people's confidence and progress. So I'm sorry, you're not, you're actually the prime example of what to do. You're just a 37-year-old version of it.

SPEAKER_02: 41:24

Yeah. No, I appreciate that. And listen, there's levels to this, Jess. So at some place in your life, trying those 50 things is actually a good thing.

SPEAKER_01: 41:33

Yeah, you have to, you have to, yeah. Rich had mentioned off there, Just, this guy is me. We have to be empathetic. You said that before we got on. We have to understand that we don't want to coach this guy out of doing his research because that's not a bad thing. But it's not a bad thing, but and please fill in the butt, but why it's not a bad thing. So this person doesn't feel like an idiot listening to this episode for doing their homework and research.

SPEAKER_02: 41:58

Yeah, listen, life comes in waves. Everything is a chapter in your life. And there is an appropriate chapter where you're just trying shit. You're going out to the world, you're doing 50 different things, but that trying shit has to be intentional. You're trying many different things for the sake of getting to that one or two things that you either feel you're really good at or you're really passionate about. Once you get that out of the way, you're in the chapter that we're talking about today, which is action paralysis, decision paralysis. We're saying don't fucking fall into the mental masturbation loop matrix where you're just thinking over and over again. And you're just in this loop of thoughts and over-researching to the point where you become paralyzed and then you take no action on the two things that you've refined that you do want to take action on. So I just want to be clear like that's the pain point here for these young guys is you've narrowed down the thing that you want to do, and now you're not taking action because you're just over-researching and overthinking, essentially.

SPEAKER_01: 43:05

You know, that reminded me of a fucked up situation I had with my pops. And if you want to watch the Father Wound episode, Rich and I unpack our relationships with our fathers. But this is actually a nice moment I have with my dad, but it was him teaching me this lesson that you just shared, Rich. When we would go shopping for clothes when I was like in grammar school when I when I lived with my dad, he would say, Let me tell you something, pop. In this world, you can have any one thing you want, but you can't have everything. So pick the one thing you want above everything else. And he was saying that when we were looking at Jordans, and I wanted all of them, he could only afford one. But I think he was teaching me a valuable lesson about life. In this life, you can have any one thing you want, but you can't have everything. There's just not enough time. And personal attention that you could put towards everything. So, my advice to add to yours, Rich, is that thing that's pulling you forward, that desire that is stronger than any other desire you have, the one thing that when you talk about it, it just gets you excited, but also a little embarrassed because you haven't perfected it. That's the thing. Nothing is gonna tell you more than your body what is the desire that is the number one thing that I want more than anything. You can have any one thing. You just can't have everything. So try and identify what that thing is that you have to do in the next two weeks, three weeks, two months, six months, a year, then you know you can apply singular focus. Yeah, you gotta sleep. Yeah, you gotta hang out with your friends, yeah, you gotta fucking go to school. That's fine. But what are you gonna do with those eight hours that you have free? Be very mindful of that. And I find that the carrot that makes most people work when they don't want to work or get embarrassed even though they feel like shit after they get embarrassed, is that the reward has to be so, so desirable to you that the outcome, you can't even sleep thinking about it. Because you're like, man, when I get this thing that I want, I'm gonna be so happy. But you can't do that for everything. You can only do it for one thing. So be very mindful and intentional. You you use that word, be intentional about what you want, be intentional. But there's I've I do feel bad. There's so many options out here for young people. I didn't have all these options growing up. And it must be hell to open your phone and be like, nah, maybe I do want to be a live stream. Yeah, maybe I do want to be a YouTuber. Yeah, maybe no, but my basketball shit is going well. But I go, low key, I can also be a stand-up comedian. It's endless, Rich. My heart bleeds for this generation for sure, because there is a tax that you have to pay every time you switch up your course.

SPEAKER_02: 45:57

Yeah, bro. And there's this weird thing I feel in society now where I think everyone's almost expected to perform perfect, like perfectionism, right? And I think that's where a lot of pressure to over-research things partly comes from. Is like whenever you do research something, you need to be a one at it, you need to be great at it out the gate. You need to be, it needs to be perfect, right? I've been a victim of this where I just research things over and over and over again, or I'll prompt Chat GPT over and over again.

SPEAKER_01: 46:30

That was me this morning trying to figure out the right intro to this video. I have 30 drafts of this intro. Yeah. You want to be perfect. Why? What is that?

SPEAKER_02: 46:39

We're all trying to be perfect, we're all in the pursuit of perfectionism. But at the end of the day, at some point, you have to put the pen down, you have to put the keyboard down and say, this version is good enough because you'll never be perfect. No one's perfect, right? And that's that's part of the paralysis that happens is you're in this loop of perfectionism and you're iterating and you're researching and you're thinking, you're in this matrix that you can never get out of because you want things to be perfect.

SPEAKER_01: 47:09

Man, I was just looking it up. Maybe you could help me. What was the episode we did about was it dream killers? Like uh uh like people that just sit on the sidelines and just criticize you for trying. Remember, I feel like we both got triggered at the idea of the guy that was the kid from recess with the red hair that's always judging everybody in recess.

SPEAKER_02: 47:30

Yeah, Randall Weams.

unknown: 47:31

Yeah, right. You remember this name.

SPEAKER_02: 47:33

That's just burned in my brain.

SPEAKER_01: 47:35

I love that you remember this name. Yeah, fucking Randall Weams. Our advice to the young version of ourselves is don't let hating ass, judgy ass in the comment section as losers with avatars with no photos. Don't let that person stop you from being the best version of yourself. Don't let that person stop you from failing and learning from a rep. It's usually that person that stops the 17, 16-year-old version of Justin that was curious about trying something, but was too embarrassed to try it because people that sit on the sidelines love to judge people that are on the court. But there's a reason why you're on the court and you're out there trying, shooting, missing, learning as you go along. It's very convenient to sit in the crowd and criticize. And I've never seen someone who built their own business or someone who has tried to achieve their dream hate on someone who is also trying. I've never done it. If I see somebody going for the gold in their life mission, I can't find myself being like, yo, you need to stop doing that, bro. You're gonna embarrass yourself. That is where the hesitation comes from, Rich, is this idea that you're gonna get judged. But typically the people who judge are the people who've never accomplished dick. So you don't worry about that. Just roll with the winners, man. And most people who are successful will tell you, keep going, but just don't do a million things. Start narrowing it down as you move along. I think that's so important. It's so fucking important. And one other thing before we go, Rich, I did want to mention a little cheat code that I've learned in my life. And I'm sharing advice because I still deal with this problem of just being overwhelmed with all the options. They're called negative triggers. And this cheat code of negative triggers that I've identified in my life is a part of a list that I like to call the no list. Anytime someone brings chocolate, cake, creases, uh, Oreos around me, it's part of the no list. And that's just a part of the no list for my dieting. I have that no list for a lot of things in my life because I'm very conscious of my triggers and what steals a lot of time and good energy away from me. And if I had the goal of getting more fit and taking care of my health going into my 40s, I have to understand that the best way for me not to do something is to remove it from my life or to say no the minute somebody brings up that option in my life. So, example, we have incredible neighbors in this beautiful two-story townhouse that my girl and I live in. And there was a celebration that we had, and they brought us a beautiful double chocolate French vanilla icing cake for a celebration. And they left it at our door with like a congratulations note on it. Rich, when I tell you I saw that fucking cake and all the fat kid tendencies that I had in my body jumped out of me. I was like, man, I'm gonna fuck that whole cake up. And instantly my no list hit me. It's a trigger. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And my girl was like, what do you mean? You can't throw it out. Like, this is a gift. I was like, look, we're gonna cut a little piece because I want to fuck that whole thing up. We're gonna cut a little piece. And when you go to the shower, I'm throwing this shit in the garbage. If my neighbors are watching this, I threw 75% of your cake in the garbage. But I had to do it, Rich, because I had to put it on the no list. Because it's a negative trigger that leads to other negative triggers, and it starts this snowball that moves in the opposite direction. And a part of my no list is blocking content. Now you can go on your content. If you see something that is distracting, you can go to the top right, put not interested. It literally gives you a menu. Why are you not interested? The old you loves this video. You love beautiful women that have nice bodies. Why do you want it today? You're like, I'm trying to focus on myself. Or part of your note list to train your algorithm is to create a Finsta account where you just follow things that you know are more healthy for your brain. I could go on with this list, but I just wanted to share those because this is something that I do today, Rich. I try to curate my life in a way that doesn't have these negative triggers that get me moving in the wrong direction.

SPEAKER_02: 51:57

I love that piece of advice. Man, if if I had to summarize one piece of advice, it would be to not put so much pressure on yourself, bro. I think part of the paralysis that comes from taking action on anything that you're researching is that you're, like you said earlier, you're worried about failing. You're smart, right? You're motivated. So people naturally think that, hey, this person is smart, he's gonna figure it out. But you're you're dealing with that pressure that comes from family, comes from friends, comes from a mentor, right? Everyone sees you as a smart guy. So you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself to deliver, and that pressure creates research. I need to overthink, I need to over-research, I need to be prepared, right? But you can only be prepared for so long before you actually have to go out to the basketball court and shoot a shot.

SPEAKER_01: 52:54

Man, you brought that up in our pre-show meeting, and I thought that was a very, very underrated point. Because it's the identity that you create within yourself that puts pressure on you that no one's putting on you. It's the ego that you've created of yourself, this idea. Like, we could go off the top if we're gonna be very vulnerable and honest with our audience. I would say, and I want you to answer it, if my ego gave me a protection and it's something I think of that I want people to think of when they meet me, what would it be? For me, it would be like, oh, that's Justin. He's very witty, he's always in a good mood. He's somebody that always has something fun or funny to say. That little cage that I put myself in, whenever I'm not in a good mood where I'm not feeling funny, and I'm in my own head and I'm having dark thoughts and I feel very negative about the world, even though I have a platform that is more positive, I'm a human. I go through these experiences. My ego would never allow me to run into somebody in the streets and carry forward that idea of myself. So I would make believe that I'm in a good mood just to have a nice conversation with somebody. But that's ego protection. That's that's this identity that I created. And I'm curious to know what's yours, Rich, because I think that is what makes us have decision paralysis because we want to represent a version of ourselves that we've created, I don't know, some weird relationship with.

SPEAKER_02: 54:20

Yeah, for me, it's um, oh, that's Rich. He's poised, he's smart, he's disciplined. So whenever I'm not any of those things, whenever I don't know something and I'm not smart, I'm just like, damn, like I'm not living up to the expectations of knowing it all or knowing about something. And that makes me feel insecure. Or whenever I'm not disciplined and I'm eating a fat, greasy burger and I'm not in the gym, I feel like, damn, I'm not living up to this personality, this ego, this you know, facade, so to speak, that I've created for myself. And that's part of what adds friction to the paralysis, right?

SPEAKER_01: 54:58

So if we could frame that in any way, it would be like just be careful of the identity you give yourself. Because most of the time we give it to ourselves. One person gives us a compliment, like, oh wow, this guy dresses good. When you're young, that's you now. You've officially transformed into a fashionista because you bought one pair of fucking collaboration crocs or birkin stocks. You're like, am I a fashion guy? I think I'm a fashion guy now. Like, now you're going out to your mom and you're like, yo, I'm a fashion guy. Like, I gotta make sure I gotta. One girl gave you a compliment, and now that's your identity. So be careful of these identities you give yourself for sure. Rich, before we close out, I wanted to give us both a minute and and try something new that we were working on, which is a segment that is a little bit more intimate and more vulnerable and more empathetic to our listeners. Because we've gotten feedback that sometimes Rich and I's friendship is so obvious on this show that we forget that we're talking to people. And we've been criticized for that. And by the way, I think that makes good product. I'm not mad at it. We've always had each other to lean on when we have these conversations. So excuse us if we've been sidetracked and we stopped speaking to the listener. But we're hoping that in our conversations you can gather something from the natural conversations that essentially were the original theme of the show, Rich, right? It was like, yo, our phone calls are magic. Why don't we just record those? And that's kind of how we got here to failures. But this segment is going to be called Big Bro for a Minute. And it's just us saying, hey, if I could have your attention for one minute, and if I was in your shoes, here's what I would do about mental masturbation and the paradox of choice. And then you kind of go into what your advice would be in a minute. I do want to try something, Rich, and I feel like you'd be very unhappy with this experiment, but we're gonna do it anyway. I want to hold up a timer while you give your advice, just so you can see the minute that you have to give this advice. All right, Rich. Big bro for a minute. We got the timer going. One minute to give advice to our community on this subject we're discussing today. What would be your if I was you, this is what I would do. Big bro advice for a minute. Timer is set. You have one minute.

SPEAKER_02: 57:21

All right, listen, if I were you, I'd stop trying to fix your entire life and pick one thing that actually moves you forward. Too many choices, too many decisions are gonna equal paralysis. There are things like focusing on your career, your mental health, your physical fitness, mental toughness. Pick one thing to fix and propel yourself in that one avenue to become a better person. I tried to be a music producer, I've tried to be a real estate agent, I tried a bunch of things, but life didn't become clear until I chose one thing and I stopped overthinking, I stopped over planning, and I chose one thing to move forward with. So that's my advice. Damn, crushed it.

SPEAKER_00: 58:04

18 seconds left. Oh shit.

SPEAKER_02: 58:06

I could have said a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00: 58:07

Bam.

SPEAKER_01: 58:08

See, this is the biggest difference between me and you might need three hours. All right, go. Big bro for a minute. If I were you, here's what I would do. I would really think about analysis, paralysis, and mental masturbation of doing too much research as some sort of a boogeyman that's stopping you from being great. If you spend 80% of your time procrastinating, that means you only spend 20% of your time doing the thing. I get it. You want to be the best at what you do, but it's hard to do that if you don't take action. Analysis paralysis is going to stop you from being great. You have to understand that the information is not going to get you to your goal. The actions and the failed reps is what's going to get you to your goal. So stop overthinking shit and just take action. There's so much more to be learned when you take action. Stop procrastinating, stop fucking listening to audiobooks and just do what you gotta do. Damn.

SPEAKER_02: 59:12

Yeah. So there you have it, just mental masturbation, action paralysis, decision paralysis. We're just telling you, man, get out of that overthinking matrix and start to take some action and move forward.

SPEAKER_01: 59:26

Yeah, you know where to find us, man. Rich has set up so many call-to-action movie traps in all of our bios that you know where to find us. So uh failures podcast. I'll be back next week.

SPEAKER_02: 59:37

Yes, sir, at Failures Media on YouTube. Peace out.