Hello my friends, welcome back to another episode of the CNS podcast.
Our guest today is Dean Doe.
He is a real estate investor, ex-VP of sales, and a sales execution manager at Autodesk.
Today we will discuss how Dean got into real estate, why his dad made him read a book every
single day, his advice for getting started in real estate.
How he thinks about networking for career growth.
How he grew his salary quickly by playing chess with his coworkers.
His advice for young people starting their careers.
Why no one will ever be satisfied by accomplishing their goals.
And much more.
So up until now these episodes have been a bit inconsistent on the posting schedule.
So I'm committing to releasing an episode every other week on Monday.
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I hope you enjoy the episode.
Welcome on Dean.
You can give us a small introduction for yourself.
Who are you?
Pleasure to be here.
Who am I?
Dean Doe.
Yeah, that name gets me in exactly as much trouble as you can imagine, but it is my real
name.
Been in Denver for seven years.
I'm one of a hundred black guys here.
I work in tech because obviously.
And yeah, I guess do real estate as my dumb expensive hobby and that's a little bit about
me.
Do a lot of real estate.
How did you get into that?
How did I get into real estate?
Well, I actually started my career in finance in New York.
And so I knew a lot about cap rates already.
I didn't want to look at numbers all day and move to the middle of the country here in
Denver, Colorado, where I still ironically look at numbers all day.
But I played college football many pounds ago and Calif Raymond, who was the returner
for the Broncos for a while, I figured I wanted to be near a friendly face and I could find
Denver on a map when I started at Oracle and tech as opposed to Minneapolis, where I just
knew that was going to be cold and black people in the cold go together like oil and water.
So pick Denver and noticed the appreciation in this area was uniquely different than everywhere
else in the nation in terms of available homes, right?
And ones that would actually cashflow because you have world famous mountains, you can't
move, which keeps real estate pretty strong and a blossoming tech industry, which gets
bigger and bigger and bigger as the weeks go by because all of these self-inflated CEOs
and tech moguls love to have a view from their $16 million Vale or Breckenridge mansion.
Disgusting millions of dollars for the view and they're empty and they sit empty most
of the year.
It's nuts.
It's bananas and now you're trying to get a piece of that.
Now I got eight, eight homes, 20 something doors.
Yeah.
Oh, how many doors is that?
Eight homes and some like 23, 24 doors.
Dang.
Yeah.
A lot of doors.
What are people doing wrong when they try to get into real estate?
I feel like there's a whole push towards like online influencers like being like, oh, invest
in real estate, invest in stocks, make your money, whatever.
It's like all this whole like thing going on and it's like, it's not really that simple,
right?
You can't just like go and be like, oh, I'm going to get a loan and then it's going to
appreciate to $2 million and I'll be rich.
Exactly.
That's one of the dumb things people do is they bank on the appreciation.
If your shit, pardon my French, doesn't cashflow from a 30 year conventional fixed mortgage
at the time you get it, then don't fucking buy it, right?
Don't just say, hey, I'll be able to charge more in the future in fucking theory until
theory is blown out of the fucking water because somebody-
Yeah, the markets crash or some shit goes wrong.
Yeah.
Markets crash.
The Fed decides not to fucking lower the rate like they say they've been going to for the
last year and a half.
And now you're like, ah, shit.
Oh, it's coming up on two years and I thought I was going to refinance and the bank are
like, nope, hold that seven, six, buddy.
That's tough.
Yeah.
So what do you think is kind of the way into the real estate market if you're looking to
invest?
If you're looking to invest, the first thing you should do is like yourself, get your most
advantageous time buying is your first time, right?
You can put three and a half percent down on a conventional.
You could even go FHA and put three and a half percent down that way.
But get a loan for what you can afford and make sure it has multiple units if you can
in an area that is still coming up and hasn't hit the peak of its appreciation.
For example, the appreciation in Aurora and now most of my properties are in Aurora.
I mean, it outpaces Cherry Creek's, for example, or Cherry Hills by a full 8.2% because when
you're already a 13 million dollars in a house, how much can you go up people who can afford
a 13 million dollar house is it's not a pool.
It's a fucking red solo, right?
It's like 100 people in Colorado.
Exactly.
So it's like, of course that's going to appreciate less than a 450 K house here in Aurora.
That's got six bedrooms and two baths and is 2400 square feet.
That's going to be 500 K in 14 months in 16 months.
Yeah.
So the main thing you're looking at is where can you actually have market growth?
Where do you have market growth?
Most importantly, where does it cash flow?
If it cash flows at 800 bucks, yeah, your cash flow is eventually going to go down.
Because your property taxes rise, but you're going to have more years of that property
and figuring out what you want to do with it or selling it 1031 exchanging it, which
we can get into later in buying a bigger property or an apartment complex or whatever the hell
you want to buy.
You're going to have an easier time doing that with this kind of property than going
after the most expensive dream home you can buy at first.
That's the dumbest mistake everybody does.
Or they try to turn it into an influencer house.
Buy a condo in a big city.
Classic story.
Guys, stop buying fucking condos.
Listen, HOAs, you cannot write off your taxes.
And they only go up and they do fucking nothing.
So why would you ever buy a condo?
No, they'll give you trash service.
Oh, shiver me timbers.
You know who's the trash?
Most of your neighbors that are that fucking close to you because you brought a fucking
condo idiot.
It's like just it's just owning an apartment when people are just like, oh, there's always
hobos outside my place or it's too busy.
So quiet.
You know when you should have thought about that before you bought the shit, right?
Because it's just another it's just an apartment you own and have to pay more and more and
more and more for every fucking year and doesn't appreciate as quickly as a standalone structure
in the HOA can do whatever they want to literally anything that actually happened to my sister.
Like a month ago because she bought a property and she was doing some renovations on it.
And then they came in this year and they're like, oh, we did some stuff with the water
for the entire complex.
So you have to pay up $6,000.
What do you mean $6,000?
Like we just spent all this money on renovations.
They're like, pay it or leave.
Pay it or leave.
Or like get kicked out.
And she was like, all right.
She paid it and she's like, I'm selling this place.
Like I hate the HOA.
Exactly.
And you know what?
She could have avoided all of that by not buying a fucking condo in the first place,
you know, because nobody can tell me what to do with any of my properties.
And you know, I can paint, I can paint the place black and then paint white dicks all
over it.
My neighbors can complain.
Sure.
But the county can't make me fucking sell.
So that's, that's what it's like to own a piece of this earth, right?
That's what we want.
It's a nice feeling, dude.
It's a great feeling.
I finally experienced it.
Yeah.
I'm on a power trip.
Amazing.
I'm just high all the time without being high.
It's crazy.
I can do whatever I want.
Literally anything, anything you're like, I can just tear down a wall if I wanted to
and nothing would happen.
Nothing.
There's no repercussions for anything.
Like between these walls here, you're Jesus.
You can, you can turn water to tequila if you want.
Well, I mean, it is Friday and guys don't tell me with a good time.
If I want to dress up my sippy cup, right?
Then be prepared for a sippy cup conversation.
The 38 year olds will not approach you, not smelling what's on you, which it's Paco Rabanne
1 million guys.
That's the, that's the same.
You buy a lot of cologne.
Not that much.
You're not supposed to drown yourself in cologne.
Once on the wrist, a little on the neck and then you just, you know, stripe down.
That's all you need.
If you have more than that, it's the fucking ax and middle school.
You smell disgusting.
It's like you walk into a room and they can smell you from like 10 feet away.
Overpowering.
It doesn't matter how good it is.
It's just like, I don't want to smell fucking Dior Sauvage or whatever.
Everyone has a Dior Sauvage.
The dumb fucking.
I have one cologne and it's like, I don't even know what it is.
Dude, my grandma brought it from Mexico like a year ago and I've just been using it and
it's kind of, it kind of smells fire.
It's fire.
I don't know what brand it is.
I don't know where it's from.
I was like, yeah,
it's the best one because old people like understand like the value of cologne because
one it can stretch for like a year.
You know, if you have a good size bottle of it and you don't need to like, because you're
not like spraying it everywhere.
It's like a couple sprays a day and it's not something you need to interchange.
I have like two colognes of which I only use one everywhere all the time, regardless, whether
it be weddings, work, what have you.
So guys stop buying $200 worth of drinks to strike out at the bar and go buy some good
cologne, change your fucking clothes and wash your hair and learn how to hold a conversation.
You'll be all right.
Oh, that's by a fucking house.
You're setting the bar too high.
I guess the bar is too high.
Like have a full conversation.
That's asking a lot, man.
All right.
Shower once a day.
That's all you need to do.
With buying real estate, we can go back to that.
Like one of the big things is like prices are kind of shooting up and everyone's like,
I can't afford to buy anything.
And like I'm lucky enough to have at least cashflow from a job where I can go ahead and
throw that into a house.
Yep.
Like what are we looking at if like I'm trying to get houses, I'm trying to invest, I'm trying
to basically build my financial backing.
What do I even do?
Well if you already have one, sit on the equity, get it to cashflow as much as possible and
then skip to buy your next if possible in a year.
Yeah.
Well, I mean more like someone who can't afford to buy their first.
Somebody who can't afford to buy their first should, I mean quite frankly, start wholesaling.
So wholesaling is essentially a practice where big time flippers, burst strategy people,
Airbnb people, what have you, they buy properties to fix them up to look a certain way for their
own commercial ends.
Now identifying those properties takes the most time.
So if you just devote yourself to doing some research, finding where things are appreciating,
where things are going up in the market, where a lot of flips are occurring and seeing one
of those houses, build a list and essentially get in touch with some of those flippers,
some of those developers, what have you and just say, hey, is this the list you're looking
for?
I don't have time right now and should you go under contract?
You give me a little bit on the backend.
So let's say there's a 350K house in Barnum.
The after repair value is like 450K, only needs about 30K in renovations.
And let's say if I identify an ideal property for you that you'll go ahead and go under
contract for, give me 10K, give me 12K, give me 15K.
Keep doing that and then after two or three of those, you'll have enough for a down payment
for probably something you can't afford with your day job on your own.
Like you'll be able to put enough down to where your monthly payment is actually maintainable.
It's actually maintainable.
Exactly.
Because the difference, remember between like a, at least here in this local market, between
a 390K house and a 560K house for a 5% conventional down payment is like four grand.
It goes from 29K to 33 and change K. Yeah.
So that's all you need.
That's what you need to get started.
What are your thoughts on going in like 20% just to make it cashflow?
That's dumb because you tie up too much capital and you're going to remove your chances of
acquiring properties more quickly on the offset, which is what you're trying to do until you
reach sort of your limit.
And yeah, it's not worth tying up, for example, that same 30K just about, it's not worth tying
up a hundred K whereas the median home price is like 505ish around there.
It's not worth tying up an extra 70K that you may or may not have or going to have to
wait a certain amount of years to amass for what is essentially a difference of $185 a
month in your monthly payment.
That's really the only difference from a 5% conventional to a 20%.
Is it really that small?
It's that small.
A lot of people don't realize that.
Our parents had told us, hey, save up till put down 20%, you're not going to have private
mortgage interest.
I was like, okay, well, the private mortgage interest one really isn't that much.
And once you reach 20% organically anyway from having the house for six or so years,
that drops off, which just adds to your cashflow.
So you're not paying PMI forever just until you actually reach 20%.
And another thing is on a 30 year conventional, if you make one extra payment of your monthly
payments every year, you can spread that out, but just apply to the principal, you're actually
going to be done paying that loan in 18 years.
So how does that work?
I mean, you're just paying towards the principal.
Because you're not paying any interest on that payment.
And the interest, yeah, because there's interest rolled into your monthly payment.
Sure, the monthly payment stays the same for virtually the life of the loan and 30 year
fixed besides property taxes and insurance.
But the principal itself is just going to be going down and down and down.
It's just a matter of how much is applied to the principal.
The bank wants its money back first, which is why, let's say your monthly payment is
$2,400.
Yeah.
Right?
So the interest is like two grand of the $2,400 to start out.
You're paying 400 bucks on principal.
On principal, yeah, which is why it's not going down.
$4,800 a year.
Exactly.
So imagine now you're paying the full $2,400, an extra $2,400 in one payment that has no
interest in it, which is essentially six months of paying down the interest.
I mean, paying down the principal of your loan.
Right?
And doing that consistently, yeah, you'll be done with a loan in about 18 years.
Okay.
Is there any reason not to do that?
And are you doing it?
Yeah, I do it pretty regularly.
The reason not to do it would be if and make sure this run over through the numbers with
your lender because some places, especially institutions, if you don't have a mortgage
broker, which you should have an independent mortgage broker, they can shop better rates
for you.
But they have an early repayment penalty because they want to make sure that you are strung
out and paying as much interest as possible essentially throughout those 30 years.
So yeah.
So if you get a predatory loan, essentially.
If you get a predatory, yeah, exactly.
If you get an institutionalized early predatory loan, then yeah, they're going to make sure
that you have a repayment penalty.
But you could just as easily not get one of those.
Just get a mortgage broker.
And you won't have that to deal with.
You can advertise three point mortgage broker.
And great mortgage broker.
And one of my best friends, three point mortgage.
They're responsible for all of my loans and houses and my $3 million in leverage debt.
That's why you can't get a credit card.
And that's why AMX, you little shits, you won't give me a credit card.
Though you keep fucking sending me these ads my way.
God, I just want to fucking go to the Centurion Lounge.
God forbid and DIA, you know I'm good for it, you fucking pussies.
But you basically have done, you've cash flowed so much that you could theoretically just
not have a job and live off of it.
Theoretically, yeah, for sure.
Which is like, oh, big dream.
Like, oh, get enough money to passive income and cash flow.
Like why are you getting a job now if that's like.
Because it's easier when you have W2 income to go ahead and buy a house.
Especially when the bank can look at your statements, look at their own debt coverage
ratios, know that you're going to be good for the loan and approve you so that you can
close in 15 days, in 30 days.
That just to make it easier is why.
Because otherwise, they're going to have you pay 20%.
Which you may not have the capital to do.
Yeah, but it's 20%.
Uh-huh.
It's tough.
You know what to do with 100K?
I would sooner buy like 20,000 McChickens than fucking pay.
What are you going to do with 20,000 McChickens?
I'm going to eat them.
I didn't get the size by not eating.
20,000 is wild.
Bring back the regular McChicken, not the spicy McChicken McDonald's.
That shit's kind of spicy.
Or the McRib.
Didn't they bring it back?
They always bring back the McRib.
Yeah.
I still love it.
I mean, I always post it on my story and I get a diabolical response.
For good reason, but everybody that responds has never tried it.
Try the McRib, then let me know.
When it comes to at least building out that initial cash flow, one of the best things
to do is probably get a job that pays you well.
Yes.
And that's probably hard to do, at least right now.
It seems like job prospects are kind of hard, especially for people coming out of graduating
and they're trying to get jobs, trying to figure that stuff out.
Just like your advice for somebody like that who's either trying to get a job or has a
job that maybe isn't paying them that well and is trying to move up in that world, in
their career, so that they can go ahead and invest.
I'd say think very deeply about your mobility in the company.
You should be realistically, just about every two years, be making a consistent at least
10% more.
If whatever you're doing doesn't allow for that, I would say look into something else
or try and supplement your income with a certificate or something else of that nature.
Maybe learn to code or something else that can pay you higher because-
The CS grads won't like that, dude.
The CS market is not doing well right now.
Oh no.
Yeah.
I think people are getting fired left and right or laid off and trying to get jobs.
Damn, that's tough.
Why are they getting laid off?
Well, there was just a huge influx of computer science, software-
Beyond the demand.
People coming in, yeah.
Okay.
So now you have a very large pool of entry-level junior, maybe mid-level developers and companies
are like, we don't want these guys, we want the seniors.
They're just like laying off these people.
They just want to hire immediately senior engineers.
That's fair.
Well then, I'd say if you're in that same boat, there tends to be a typical, you're
a charismatic guy.
Most people that are in CS are not.
So you just so happen to have the soft skills to be successful and go far.
I would say develop those soft skills and go into project management because you understand
the technical of the technical people that you have to actually go ahead from a Gantt
chart format and manage in terms of asking for updates, seeing where any disasters or
corrective and preventative actions need to be taken.
And then speak English and non-tech speak to those that are simpler on the actual delivery
team side because they're not the technical people.
In terms of software implementations, which typically just go wrong for a million reasons,
a very good project manager can curb that.
So I would say pivot and use the technical knowledge you already have with your newfound
charisma for good and you'll be paid a lot, a lot, and then you can buy a house for sure
in a year.
And even if you're a bad project manager, you might still get a job.
You're probably still going to get a job because the certification is really easy to be a project
manager because they're going to hire you because you have the technical experience.
Every engineer will hate you.
Oh yeah.
If you're a bad one.
For sure.
If you're a bad one, oh, every engineer is going to, they're going to try and revolt
on some dragon shit.
It's a classic story.
Like, oh yeah, we have these requirements and then project manager comes in and they're
like, yeah, here are your business requirements.
You're like, this tells me nothing.
You're very helpful.
Like you left, not cleared up any issues for me and now I have to figure it out.
Facts, facts.
It's horrible.
So that's where the bar is though.
Most of the time.
So if you can do better than that.
Slightly better than that.
You're golden.
You'll make it.
You're golden.
What was your career progression like when you came in to tech?
To tech, I started as a BDR at Oracle.
It is a business development rep, essentially dialing for dollars outside of college.
And my salary was like 50K with an additional 25K possible based on performance, which I
always hit because I'm him, him at the Jones, him in neutron, him, he Turner, and I could
talk on the phones.
So I was naturally curious, learned a little bit more about the tech that I was selling
was ERP at the time stands for enterprise resource planning.
For those of you who don't know, that's essentially the financial spine of a company.
Very, very big system.
The ERP system is the largest system in a company typically.
And yeah, from there, I got promoted early into directly into mid market, which was previously
reserved for external hires.
That's something I prided myself in just trying to make more, sell more deals, earn more.
I wasn't even thinking about buying houses at the time.
I was buying stupid shit like this.
And I got promoted again.
So I got promoted twice while I was at Oracle, which was the big thing for me because I started
to realize from a macro scale that they were still paying me as an internal hire, though
all of the external hires just base salary wise, we're making way, way, way more, like
literally two to three X as much.
And I was like, OK, I should jump ship.
Did that, paid off well.
And then I moved into accounts payable automation for the real estate industry.
Given that it was easy because I already had a finance background and ERP is essentially
just financial software.
Moving into a sub segment of that, which is accounts payable automation, it was this company,
small company, good company called Nexus that they later on went to get acquired.
And so when I joined on with Nexus, whereas my base had only jumped 5K even after two
promotions, my base jumped 35K.
So I went from a 55K base and I'm 23, 24ish to a 90K base.
In like one move.
And so I was like, OK, then savor this experience because this is the wave.
This is the future and this is how things have to be.
And then did well there, went into it was a great opportunity.
And once you can sell software, you can sell software anywhere.
It's more about teasing out the needs for people and actually solutioning for the need
than selling on product, which a lot of reps do poorly because executives don't give a
fuck what the product actually does.
They just want to know that it's going to work and that implementation is not going
to fail so that they can get all of the people they manage who are smarter and more technical
than they are typically off their fucking back.
That's why.
OK, we found the budget.
We're going to get the software you guys are all asking for.
You're saying it does the thing we need.
Exactly.
And it does the thing you need.
Are you sure?
Are you fucking positive?
And they will grill you.
That's the hardest thing about at least the large enterprise deals.
I'm like, I swear, if you fuck me on this, I will burn you guys alive.
I'm like, yep.
And they're like, OK, deal.
Oh, yeah.
The whole thing with software is you can really sell anything, but then it actually has to
do it.
It actually has to do the thing.
Yeah.
It's like selling software theoretically is really easy if you actually have the product
that can actually do the thing.
Like you just tell them, oh, yeah, you have that need.
I'll solve it.
My software does this.
And then they get the software.
It doesn't do that.
And then you're like, ah, already sold you.
Because the reason most software contracts go three years plus is because the IRS says
it needs to be at least a three-year contract or more for you to actually capitalize it.
So they will get stuff back on their taxes as opposed to just a two-year contract or
a one-year contract where you would expense it at a lower tax return rate because it's
just an expense software.
It's like you, if you were, I guess, working from home and your company allowed you to
expense certain living expenses and get that back, it's like you expensing Netflix as
opposed to you expensing, I don't know, furniture or something that's going to last longer than
three years that you will continually use if you got a really nice chandelier or some
shit.
Yeah.
Well, then you get a higher price tag.
Yeah.
And you also get to continually rewrite it off.
Exactly.
It's like putting in work on a house.
Then you get that depreciation over the 27 and a half years.
Yeah.
Yep.
Exactly.
How did you get good at selling?
How did I get good at selling?
Well, I've always been able to talk people into things.
That sounds bad.
No.
I've always been able to identify with people's needs and solution well.
But I'd say I got good at selling by honestly watching better sellers around me because
many people are siloed in their cubicles, literal cubicles in the DTC when they're like,
okay, I got to make this amount of calls, this amount of emails, right?
And they do not get better at their craft because they're not absorbing what successful
people around them are saying, doing, and how they move.
And I mean, it was just being a sponge.
That's how I honestly got better because you can talk the talk, but the way you instill
confidence in a buyer is wildly different from your style, from their style.
You're going to end up being a chimera of a person with the best traits of yours naturally
and then those more experienced and doing better in the field around you.
So I just listened.
I listened and listened and listened and experimented and tried this way and tried that way.
And then all of a sudden I was hit in quota.
And did you have anyone in particular that mentored you or did anything like that?
A bunch of mentors.
And I was networking.
I did a lot of networking, especially a 180,000 person company.
It's pretty easy to get washed out of the frame.
But I would say I learned a lot from Roman and this guy, Chris Warfield.
There were two VPs as well as Michael Stays, Charlie Pasenante, people that were in the
BDR classes before me that I was just seeing Will Decora become reps and the challenges
that they went through and then how they overcame them.
It sort of gave me like a cheat sheet.
Just walking around talking with them, talking with people that weren't even on the direct
sale side, but also on the account management side to see, okay, what happens after a deal
is actually sold?
Getting a picture of the full life cycle.
How do you actually fulfill it?
Exactly.
Because you speaking about the fulfillment of that goes way further than you talking
about product to an executive or anybody with buying power.
So they want to know what it looks like after they buy.
Yeah, exactly.
They're like, okay, well, I want to see a successful implementation.
I want to speak to one of your customers.
And having those go-to customers on hand, they're just like, oh, I've used them as a
customer reference before for X, Y, and Z. They love me.
I can get you talking to them like this.
I can bypass the whole requisition process to put in a ticket to get them to speak to.
I was like, no, I can just have you speak to the people that I want you to speak to.
They're going to instill you with the confidence before that.
And I'm going to tell you, hey, a lot of implementations fail.
Executives already know that.
They've been in this for 30 years.
Here's how we're going to make yours not an insurer success.
And they're like, okay, that's what I want to fucking talk about.
Yeah, because that's probably the more risky part for the business is the implementation
part.
Absolutely.
If that part doesn't work, then.
40% of implementations fail.
Even if the product is good, but you can't implement it into whatever they're trying
to do.
Yeah.
Then it's cooked.
Then it's shit.
It's hundreds of thousands of thousands of millions of dollars that they wasted with
the extra implementation fee on the front end.
And it's going to keep fucking them for at least the next two years.
Yeah, because they have to keep it because they have to capitalize it.
And yeah, rip it out and reimplement it.
And business stops while they do that.
You know, imagine what happens if a company can't take fucking orders.
It dies quickly.
It's very risky.
Exactly.
You've lost my business then.
Now you still got the fish.
How are you networking in a large company?
Like you have 180,000 employees and you probably work with maybe like 10 to 20 people.
How are you really tackling that networking aspect in a company like that?
When you're more junior in a role, walk around and see the names on the offices.
Write down those names, you probably have Microsoft Teams or Slack or something for
inter channel inter company communication.
There's an org chart function inside there.
Click on the org chart function and say, okay, I should know my boss, my boss's boss and
my boss's boss's boss.
And chances are your boss's boss's boss has somebody else in that office.
That is another stem on their org chart rolling up to them.
Know those other people as well.
And don't just try and distinguish yourself with the sales you make or your go getter
attitude, but try and take on different projects that will get you seen by said people.
That way, when you have a vote of confidence or a letter of recommendation like I did from
a VP, somebody who is over the person that I was interviewing with to join their team,
if they're hearing from their boss, hey, I've known this guy for years.
He does a good job.
You're hiring him.
That's how it goes.
There is no question.
There's no question.
Okay.
And how are you, what are you doing when you're reaching out to these people getting to know
them?
I mean, I didn't drink coffee, so I wasn't, I wasn't asking for coffee.
But what I would do is essentially these company happy hours, act interested, just sort of
see what's going on in their regular life.
I talk about shows a lot because people bond over shows.
And honestly, in the case with Roman, I had this mini chess board and I would just sit
and play chess with people literally and happy hours at happy hours.
Well, the ones inside the office, right?
Because like, okay, there's all this compulsory mingling where it's just like, I don't really
care about, I want to appear sociable for my personal brand.
But it's like, I mean, it might be a little quirky, but it's like, okay, if they see somebody
with a chess board, they're like, this is a nice change of pace, right?
And then somebody's doing something interesting.
Exactly.
Somebody's doing something interesting besides this whole thing that we do every week.
It's always awkward.
It's like a little bit like, Oh, how's your day going?
Exactly.
Your classic happy hour.
Exactly.
Co-workers that you probably never see very often.
Never see.
They come in the office finally and they're just like, Oh, how are the kids that I've
never asked about?
Because I don't really care.
I'm just assuming you have kids.
Exactly.
Instead of running into that, you're like, Oh, you must've been the other office looking
guy with the software bro jacket that I must've mistaken since you all have the same swag.
And I was like, okay, no, this, it was like, I'm just going to be me.
I'm going to play some chess.
And we ended up playing chess like every quarter.
And so that's how he got to know me more and I mean, even in a different, even about while
I was already working for a different company and I'd been removed from Oracle for years,
he was the SVP of sales bigger title at this different company, which he wants to Stanford.
He's a genius.
Could retire twice, right?
One of those guys.
But he's just like, Hey, I'm starting a new team.
I want to hire you.
That just reached out out of the blue on LinkedIn and that's the importance of connections.
That's why you always have to continue to network and continue to foster those.
And it doesn't have to be something that takes a lot of effort.
It could be that quarterly mind you chess game.
And that'll get you a job position.
That'll get you a job years later.
So pro tip is bring a chess board with you at all times.
Exactly.
And learn how to play.
I'm pretty shit at chess, dude.
Oh, I phone names.
I message games.
It's pretty easy to get better than your friends because like your average person, but anyone
who actually knows how to play, I get cooked.
Yeah.
Mitch is pretty good.
Mitch Mitch is really good.
Actually don't want to get to your fucking head.
Anyways, have you always been kind of like very social, very gregarious, very outgoing
or were you maybe different and you kind of move towards this way because it was maybe
more useful or more helpful for what you were trying to do?
I definitely moved this way because it was more useful.
Typically like my perfect day is eating something I cook and staying at home and watching anime.
That's what I like.
Do I more deal with people?
I seem like an extrovert.
I'm actually extroverted introvert.
But my social battery is stronger than most.
So I have an appetite for it, but I don't seek it out.
And especially as a kid, I was just mostly introverted.
This was definitely my dad's fault because he made me read a book a day until I was in
sixth grade.
So I had no friends.
A book a day?
A book a day.
It was-
From when to when?
This must have been like between third and sixth grade.
That's crazy.
It's nuts.
900, over a thousand books.
Yeah.
It was gross.
We would just go pretty much, I would go to school, church and the library.
And that was your day.
And that was it.
And he'd just bring me there and I'm like, this is hell.
But I got to pick one comic book in each stack of books for that week.
So I would always pick manga, which is how I was already into Dragon Ball Z, but it definitely
propelled that because that was my release.
In hindsight, it gave me a more advanced vocabulary than most, but I had to figure out how to
be social or even understand what cool was or what popular trends were through sports.
Because I played in college, but I started my freshman year.
My brother was a senior at the time.
I was terrible because I had just started.
Then I got way better my sophomore year and I was on varsity and then the rest is history.
But that adaptation was not natural.
It took a lot of work, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of work.
The more plays you make on the field, and especially on defense when your name is actually
called out whenever you make a tackle or something like that, the more people that are at these
games start to learn your name and then you can spark up conversations in high school.
Otherwise, other than that, it was weird because I had a high school musical moment.
Well, I was the Virginia State soloist my sophomore year.
I was the best soloist in the state of Virginia.
I got a little trophy and everything.
My varsity head coach was like, yeah, you either pick football or singing.
I was like, what?
I want to go my own way.
You had your angsty song singing in the locker room.
Literally.
He was just like, throw the fuck up.
I was like, all right, I picked football and then it ended up panning out.
But yeah, that's...
But you learned how to get into the social realm through sports, essentially.
Exactly.
That was my back door into it for sure.
What was that like?
Like trying to...
Because you set up until sixth grade, you were maybe a social recluse.
Yeah.
Oh, it was terrible.
What was that?
The first time I got invited to a girl's house.
Her name is Shannon.
And there were other people who I knew were popular but didn't know them.
Like the first time, oh, I'm getting invited to somebody's house.
Not like a sleepover situation, but we're definitely coming back late.
My dad sends me there in a full fucking suit.
A suit.
And I'm just like, I show up, nobody's in a suit.
I'm like, oh, I'm cooked.
Wallahi, I'm finished.
I'm so finished.
Bro.
And it was like we were playing spin the bottle.
And yeah, no, needless to say, I did not get invited back there, but it was a good learning
experience just sort of like, okay, so this is like what people do.
And then, yeah, from then on, didn't show up in fucking suits.
That was so heinous.
What the fuck was he thinking?
I'm like, you got to have some awareness.
And again, he's 78 right now.
He's been old.
He had me at 50.
He's been old my entire life.
So it's just like he was born in 1946.
He's as old as Nancy Pelosi, like World War II shit, when he was born, essentially.
So it's just like sending somebody there.
And it could be the African thing as well.
It's mostly the African thing.
But he's like, okay, I think it's normal for my son to show up at somebody else's house
with a full suit.
For fucking what?
Because I didn't have normal clothes.
Because we'd go to Ross and just buy belts for him to shit back to his African friends.
Why belts?
Because he wore belts a fucking ton.
And he's an old man.
And he's the epitome of the color brown.
So just like old people, like belts and sweaters and cardigans.
Like he wears scarves inside the house.
I bet his style kind of goes crazy.
It used to.
His style actually did go crazy.
Yeah.
Oh no, he used to floss.
Just imagine the guy wearing a scarf inside.
That dude's either like really weird or he's like cracked at fashion.
That's what I'm saying.
Like in the late 70s, his shit probably went crazy.
Yeah.
Like that's why.
His style was probably unmatched.
But then you pull up to 2010s, 2000s.
Yeah, you pull up to 20.
And you give them to your kid and you're like, yo, wear this.
Yeah.
And I'm just like, bro, the high school like, yo, this is wool.
I'm wearing wool to high school.
What are you fucking thinking, bro?
Like yeah.
So he had no fucking clue.
And then I was trying to find other shit.
And it's like, I tried to go in the exact opposite direction to see if I would land
in a medium.
So just essentially they came here and I talked to them.
And we were like, oh, dude, I tried hard.
Because how many times do you look at yourself in the mirror?
Man.
I gave them to his uncle.
And I see them hanging out.
I'm like valve on hold.
Like we survived.
I did a couple of shows with friend to friend.
Ifectively confused.
And they started their goddamn financing.
And like, he was like, every time I wanted to issue a message, I like to get it for each
of the people that are involved in the cure.
Just pants, but they weren't fitted at all couldn't even roll them. The shits were heinous or nuts
So yeah, it took a lot of figuring out. Were you raised by both your mom and your dad? Yep
They end up
Meeting each other and then come in here dumbest Disney movie fashion
So my dad was visiting a friend of his in Cameroon
My mom was captain of the women's national basketball team of Cameroon for 10 years
So she's an Olympian which is why I look like this. It's not my dad. It's your mom
Yeah, shout out Angeline
Yeah, she was recovering in the same hospital and he just walked into the wrong hospital room and thought he'd stay and strike up a
conversation like a fucking cornball in his sweater and all actually back in the day he
What did he rock? He'd rock? He's none of his suits ever fucking fit. He's built like a rail, but he had this
he had this
everybody hates Chris ass afro and
like the long lapel
like
Sport coat with like a wild shirt like they did in the 70s
like imagine like now you would look at that same outfit and be like, okay, you look like chlamydia
But it back back then was hot that Lionel Richie shit
Yeah, he was rocking that shit and then he I guess rinsed up my mom and
Yeah, so I mean my brother came about
Then you guys grew up in Ghana
And well essentially so I was born in New York
Yeah, no. Yeah, so I was born born in New York went to Ghana
Don't remember shit about it like and for anybody who's ever been to Ghana. It's like
Not much to fucking remember in the first place
Like it's a little bit more westernized than other places and that there are malls and you can buy fucking Pringles
But Pringles is good Pringles is good Pringles is good, especially when you're starved for Pringles in Africa
Yeah, so like
everything that is common here becomes a delicacy because of the
Sarah McLaughlin commercial esque state of things
so
When you don't have paved roads
Pringles are pretty fucking paved the roads with Pringles exactly
At least making that you know heaven in your head. Yeah, but
yeah, going there and
meeting family that I probably
will never see again
unless somebody important dies, yep, and
Yeah, coming back was very unique experience because I would have much rather have
gone to home
like Cameroon
Like Cameroon
My mom's side of the family
goes like
Like Joel and B. That's my cousin. That was interesting to find out
like
What else?
just
My dad
Definitely changed to be more soft-hearted when he was older, but when I was a
Kid I feel like he was always
Anxious about keeping things going
And it was palpable and I didn't really realize
Where that stemmed from until
Many many years later
But we'll get to that after we come back to the we know say more about that
They're more about that. Okay. Well like so he works for the IMF for like 41 years, which is IMF's
International Monetary Fund is like a second World Bank essentially
but
He was only promoted twice. He has a PhD. He's a senior economist
but
It was still he's he's 79 right now
It was still an agent which those plenty of rampant racism. He was never promoted as quickly as his peers
Even though he researched and published more than they did. It was never enough and I
Had the audacity the childlike audacity to always ask why he was never smiling when he came back home from work
And I finally as a child would and he's a child would yeah and um, then I found out and I
Thought to myself like wow, that was
very
Short-sighted of me as all children are
but
It makes sense why he didn't really want to talk about it. Mm-hmm. Yeah
And so after he retired and that
Gorilla was off his back
It became more apparent when things came to light
You know how he was treated the things he thought the things he thought
he was treated the things he thought the things he endured and I
just from there sort of vowed to
Hopefully never be in a
Consistent state
Like that. Yeah, you know, it's where I'd have to hide something from my child and by something
I mean how I really feel about things or how life really is to me in general because of a
work situation or any other situation where I couldn't just be completely honest or
in his case, maybe if he was completely honest the
Air would go out of the balloon. He just collapsed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah
That's that's what I thought at least. Yeah
Yeah, that's crazy. That's nuts. Yeah, it is nuts. I mean that explains a lot of the
The the relationship you had with your dad when you were younger. Yeah, just like super hard on you
Yeah, didn't know where was coming from
Make you read a book a day day a day like show up to parties
No friends and yeah, like even not knowing anything about kids these days because he's like three generations from
Yeah, he's all right like
A suit you're gonna go to somebody else that you're gonna send your kid
To another kid's like little get-together in a suit. Yep
Look around what's the last kid you seen wearing a suit?
Like none none they all have lunchly in prime these days, dude
That's all it is Paul brother you've done very fucking well for yourself haven't you
Prime jeez it would happen that way. They were they're sold everywhere now
And I mean have you tried prime? Yeah as much as I hate logan
She was fire like the flavor you can't hop on the train flavor is actually like great
They did a lot of flavors that the flavors
I'm disowning you it is gas gas. What was your experience like going from?
From young dean who had your dad?
breathing over your shoulder
With all all his things that he had about how he wanted to raise you and then being dean now
How do you go from that to that? Well?
How exactly would I reconcile that it was a lot of rebellion but rebellion
Rebellion in terms of how I acted and what I did. Yeah
Um as opposed to like directly rebellion against him or talking back
Who I wanted to be was so
Unclear for a long time because of that
extreme discrepancy of not knowing
What the ideal was
Knowing what his ideal was
But also not knowing exactly how far away from his ideal. I wanted to go
Yeah, right because at the end of the day
His ideal was prim and proper
suit wearing and
Put together generally has their life together. Yeah
My ideal also had my life together, right? So it's like that part
Didn't differ and so then I was forced to think about how many other similarities
There are between our ideals in terms of respect how you comport yourself
The investments you make is a lot of money
And so I think that's the whole point of
The investments you make in people time
energy money emotions relationships
like
it's
It's a journey that I think is finally coming to a conclusion
But
I almost never really be
Sure because
Just as people are dynamic
That vision of what I had for myself continues to change as the world around me changes. Yeah, because
Industries aren't the same as they were
Getting to know people is entirely different like the social dystopia caused by dating apps. Yep
Um
I'm in
the ideas of
The activities that one would do to find themselves
Like going on vacations going across the world seeing other cultures other people and deciding
Okay, how much of this do I want to bring with me to build this ideal? It's a tough thing given that I'd only seen
Well until I started going out on my own into the world itself and taking these vacations, uh, africa
Um the united states and
My aunts and uncles that made it here to the united states, which those are just other african households
Yeah, haven't changed in the united states. So it's like there wasn't
I understood that I had a pretty two-dimensional view
And then I had to I had to do something
But now it's like
Have I done enough?
Yeah, is it is it good to stop right here?
Do you think you've done it? I feel like i've done enough
But do you feel like internally do you feel like you've done enough like no internally? I hope i've done enough
like there's the some sense of
trying to do more to get away from
Yeah, this sense of i'm not there yet. I haven't made it yet. I haven't
Correct accomplished everything I need to accomplish
Which is it's ironic that I do feel that because not only have I not accomplished everything I need to accomplish
But one would argue as far as my contemporaries i'm doing great. So haven't I truly accomplished that and then I tell people to
You know go at their own pace. Meanwhile, i'm
accelerating
Out of fucking control. Yeah, what exactly like like this should be enough. Yeah, this should be fine
Yeah in theory like if you told most people this amount of success you've had
Yeah, they'd be like, oh I wish to have that that would be my finish line. Correct. And it's like
I'm not even 30
yet, you know like it's
It's it's part of the reason why I don't
Tend to share this thing. Like i'm not trying to make them
self-conscious
And it's not something that I like
And because of the anxiety that it brings it's not something I ever a path I ever want them to go down
But they also want that for themselves. So then I asked the question. Okay. Well
While I was doing all this what the hell were they doing in their 20s? Yeah
Yeah, yeah, and then nobody special. Yeah, like it was a kid from gana just a kid from gana like
I don't know. It's
It's an interesting thing
To reference to reconcile because I should be able to breathe
I tell people to breathe all the time and I don't I feel the same way. Yeah, I feel like it
I always have this
Ethos of like oh you should be able to like have fun work hard
Enjoy your friends family relationships. Yeah, but then in my own time
Do I actually do that or do I just castigate myself into this forever workhorse?
That just continues to work until I've done
That's what I do. That's like I'm like, when will I die when will like will I feel the regret?
of having made this my
Status quo. Yeah for so long and eschewing
And literally everything that I tell people about relaxation and taking their breaks while not doing so it makes me
What's weird is that I don't feel?
Hypocritical by saying that yeah, even though I recognize it is yeah, I don't feel hypocritical about it
so
It's like, you know that you need to work hard and do something but it's like
I tend not to make excuses for the the powers that be
Or feel sorry for myself
But like
I mean in their eyes or what they want their
Quality of life to be and how they're moving towards that or just where they're at right now
these people that are around like
They are lamenting why the price of things just has gone up in general
Visibly over the last few years and shows no signs of stopping
And I'm like you could lament about that
But even if you did so what would be the point? Yeah, you know, it's driving us towards
mass nihilism
but at the same time like
It is what it is yeah
There's like this this dichotomy between
thinking about
All the things in the system that are wrong that we should fix. Oh, yeah
The employer employee relationship has deteriorated wages haven't kept up with inflation
People are hopeless at their jobs
Like all those things are true and they suck and we should probably do something about them
But at an individual level
like
It kind of just is what it is and the only option you really do have is to figure out how to operate within those constraints
correct
Boss up. Yeah by any means you have to
You have to
accelerate and outpace
The rate at which things are getting shitty
On your own you have to figure out whatever that lane is and do it or else
You think you're depressed now. You'll be really fucking depressed later. Yeah, right and it would
Honestly have been your fault and then they they you want to say
Why should I have to do this? Right? Like why can't things just be normal? Why can't inflation just?
Stay flat. Why why why when it's just like
You can ask that question as many times as you want
But not only are you never going to be able to do that
You can ask that question as many times as you want, but not only are you never going to get a straight answer
It's not going to change your circumstances. Yeah. Yeah
The only one who can so it's like focus more work think about getting that promotion
Um by house
What are the property tax on that house going to look like do I want to stay here?
Do I want to do I want to go somewhere else?
It's what we're doing
every action
one
engages in
Should be a means to an end and the end should be happiness
But not only do people not understand typically for themselves what that looks like because they've been asking
Why for so long and only getting momentary glimpses?
but
it's like
if you want to secure this thing this ethereal thing called happiness like
What do I have to do?
Nobody knows nobody that's that's the big question
It's the billion dollar question what I would if you knew someone would pay you a billion dollars to know
It's correct. If you knew if you knew how to go about
Creating a how-to book to find happiness if you're the richest person in the world
Yeah, because the richest people in the world aren't happy the people below them that are also still rich aren't happy
But they're typically a little bit happier than the richest
Yeah, because they have a little less to worry about and they've streamlined their life, but it's like
the monks
The monks themselves also aren't happy the nuns in the monastery also aren't fucking happy the
subsidized religious groups
Are happy at their tax breaks, but they're not fucking happy the people who the marketers the people who sell money in the
Kardashianism of life are also not happy
All right, so it's like you try and find a person
That can emulate what happiness is to you
And then the error that we all make is we try and copy it and then we find out that we were fucking wrong
and even in the
And that's even if we succeed in doing in putting ourselves in the same situation
That they were they weren't fucking happy. I'm sure that
Kobe is content or was content at
How prolific a scorer he became yeah by copying?
Almost all of jordan's game. Yeah, right and winning that many championships
But was he happy?
No, because he wasn't jordan. Yeah, right
But even if he was jordan would he be happy? No, jordan's not fucking happy. He's gonna sell the fucking hornets
Yeah, like you can you can have
The things you thought would make you happy, but the flaw of the human condition is that the heart
will never be content and
It's like how do you?
Find things to keep up with
The rate of happiness and beat the rate of monotony and the ensuing depression
that's
That's what it is if people could find happiness if happiness was in the afterlife
There'd be mass suicide. This would be bird box. That's that's what it would be. We would all do it
We would all do it everybody would do it. You can't find one person who would not because ultimately they want
The world to be
So tailored to their own
like
Circumstantial happiness and knowing that they can never achieve that they are
tires tirelessly in the
pursuit of
Substitutes yeah
It'll just be happy for now
And then once that stops giving you the same feeling of happiness
And then once that stops giving you the same joy and it will
You gotta find something else the god knows what it's going to be
That's you just start that cycle over and over then you feel like you're in an episode of black mirror
Walls are caving in around. Yeah, because proverbially they are but that's obviously in a dramatized way to say that
Yeah, well, there might be something to be said about
Finding value in just the own the pursuit of the thing
Finding or finding happiness in that finding happiness in the pursuit of perfection is the
I mean, that's the premise of science
Like we we say I want to achieve that thing, but the actual thing we want to do is to just have small
incremental improvements for the rest of our lives want small successes and improvements and just keep winning
And continue to be happy at getting closer and closer and never making it but being okay with that. Yes
Because none of us are ever gonna get to the finish line. No
And hell most of us are never okay with that. Yeah, and also can't figure out why yeah when something like I said earlier
Should be enough. Yeah
Should be fine like
You should be able to quote what you're doing and go do something else and
You know not have your life
Ruled
By by this thing. Yeah, whether it be your job your parents your idea your idea of yourself
Your body goals your partner
Like it's like once I have this job or once I have this
Relationship or once I have then i'll be happy. Yeah once I just have that thing
and I I forget who said the quote, but it's like
You've achieved goals
That you said would make you happy
Verde done it. Yeah, so what do you think's gonna happen now?
So what do you think's gonna happen next when you say it again? Yep. Yeah, if you give a mouse cookie
Everybody is a mice everybody's a mouse everybody regardless
Of whether they think this is okay or they bought a farm to fuck off
in montana
They are still a mouse
There is still something
that
They seek
and
they probably
given that level of I mean if you really just sequester yourself from people given that level of asceticism if you are
You're you're probably resenting yourself for still seeking something when you're like this is
Is my absolute most jeddly's and there will ever be and I am and I still want more and I still want more
Like well you finished your food
Was really good
You tried that recipe and it came out great
But then you ate it all
Now you're full now you're full for a little bit. Yeah, except
between that
And getting some ice cream for dessert you wanted one more soup dumpling
What are you looking at at doing now?
Realizing that the cookie keeps coming you get the cookie and you want another cookie order
Will you accrue more financial success more accolades
Well that can't really stop can it because
I mean we are in a death spiral that we don't know where it's headed
At least in the case of the properties
I'm definitely going to sell a few of the properties in this next year because i'm i'm studying for my realtors exam right now
one
Because it's not that hard if you see every other realtor is just a fucking ex bottle girl
so
Yeah, sure enough. It's not that hard and two one
I wanted to get that
Distinction
To be able to do that and then i'll probably honestly just use the profits to buy more properties and like
Say the same thing. Yeah and do the same thing in in cheaper areas with better upside
that aren't quite as ipa
but
Oh, man after that
It might be the
As corny as it sounds the journey of self-discovery moment. Yeah, it might be that time it might be the
you know
Go to japan for a few months, you know buy a place out there
Figure out what my zen is momentarily
Stop being a hoe maybe not though maybe not why would I do that? I'm great putting up great hoe numbers my numbers are crazy
Um, do you want to stop being a hoe
I'd like to say yeah, I do I really do
you know
I'm going out on a date which I used to not date at all. So i'm going out on a date tonight
So that process has started
But then it's always like you still have
The background nihilism because I always gave great relationship advice to my friends
But you never followed it and I never followed it. Why because
Coaches don't play. Yeah, those those those who can't coach coach. Yep
And it's like could I follow the same advice? Sure would something go wrong? Yes exactly what went wrong
with
My other guinea pigs I gave advice that I said things would go wrong. Yeah, so it's like I have the
I don't have a good angel and a bad angel on my shoulders. I just have one
really really pragmatic me
That is like sitting on my head and it's just like
the king of I told you so's
and
That's what had been holding me back for the longest, but I feel like
I'm 29 now
And I have earned the right to say fuck it
Yeah
I'm wrong. I'm wrong. Well
How we talked about earlier where
We know you get a cookie and you want another one anyways, correct
Correct. Does it does it even matter if it doesn't work out realistically?
Realistically really doesn't may as well try you might as well like
You know that you're always gonna want another cookie
You're always gonna want to feel like the man x y and z but it's like at some point it really won't
Fucking matter at all. So why not have that be sooner than later? Yeah, and if it falls apart
It falls apart falls apart. All right
So long as I don't do anything to have caused it falling apart
You should be fine with yourself not gonna tryston thompson anybody but like
So again
He's had an interesting career, yeah the most prolific cheater maybe in a while since tiger was um
but yeah, like
She
Makes me feel like I can be at equilibrium or get me out of my own head
And box checked and I don't think it
everybody trying to
Just like meet somebody with preconceived notions like it's build a bitch workshop will naturally fucking run into failure
Every time because something is going to be off and they're going to always be pointing the finger like you're not this
You're not this you're not this you're not this
And then lose whatever sense of introspection they started with like you're not all that yourself. Yeah
Did you look at your own checklist? Yeah, like
What are you checking? What are you checking off? Like now? What are you bringing to the table? What are you checking off?
Yeah, like it would just be like oh, it's like I make a ton of money
Of course, you'd want to be with me. Like will you look like you're fucking melting?
You look like dog shit
It's like yeah, yeah, you don't think at some point she's thought the same
Yeah, when you're like, huh? I'm getting a little husky and then she doesn't say anything. Yeah. Well fuck you think she's thinking
Oh, yeah, you're not the same person. I met. Yeah, like why cuz you're 50 pounds more
Yep, and then that's the same dig a guy would make on a girl. Yep, right?
He's just like oh god, you can't know this way. He's like well
She got promoted
Twice she's managing more people in the world
She's managing more people now
you
Don't cook she still does all of that and she just orders out more because she doesn't have the time
You've acquired no new skills during this relationship at all or made her life easier in any fucking way. Yep, right? So
where are you to point the fucking finger at all when
your hobby instead of
Asking her how her day is even like as a chachki here
Let me feign to show some concern right now
instead of doing that you're just
Losing parlay's with the boys every fucking Friday and Saturday and wondering god. She's a real bitch about me not being there
Okay, I wonder why like it's this shit is the shit was really not that hard
but
I like what you said about the the if she makes me just
Feel get out of my own head boxes check. Yeah, I think everyone just looks for
Their partner to fulfill every single part of their life
As opposed to just be their partner and do like that function correctly
Like your partner is not supposed to be your therapist and your best friend and your like she's got a job
Yeah, she's got she's got her own life. She can't just fill every function for you
That's what you have other friends for that. So you have your therapist for that
You have your therapist for that's what you have your family for you
They fill those functions and this I think the smaller you make the partner function
The easier it is for it to function
way
way easier like
people
Like shout out to the people that say they're low maintenance
And actually are yeah
Like that is all it is like if you don't hear from me
for
Two days
And you have my location, you know, i'm at fucking home and I just text you occasionally
I'm at home watching anime 90 percent of the time. I am at home watching anime
so
Not problematic
Not doing anything illegal not doing anything crazy like it if you are cool with that
That god bless you, you know, like that we're we're gonna go far
We're gonna go miles. You're gonna get that ring a lot sooner than you fucking think. Yep, like that's
Because that's sort of
If the if that if the if a relationship was a human body that's sort of homeostasis that that resting balance
If that is good
That's all you need
Like you don't need more than that. Yeah, don't
Need to be
Trying to be your
The couple that you emulate
Which is like your friend's couple because every girl has the mean girlfriend with a perfect life
Yep, who's gonna get engaged to some rich dude. They're gonna have rich kids and they're gonna like all of that
you
not only don't want that because
They're not well adjusted people
but that's going to come with its own host of issues that are
Going to sort themselves out in the most malevolent ways
Like and then they're gonna be divorced and it'll be like, okay. Well
Oh, you guys looked so instagramable together. It was like well, that was the irony
Yeah, right the more instagram the couple is correlated
Inversely with how well their relationship is doing. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. They're doing terrible
Yep, if they're doing a fall photo shoot in flannels on a mountain
Oh, they're cooked their relationship is in the dumps. Oh
It's not on life support. Yeah, it's cooked like literally one more of those and
he is
Either killing himself, which he's already fucking tried
Or like
They are in the rockiest patch of all time and it's only a matter of time before one of them does something drastic
because like
You know he just wants some wings and to be home watching football
You know
That you want to outdo your friends with this photo shoot?
And this is setting a precedent of having to do a bigger and better one
every autumn for what
Like for for whom? Yeah, like if you're if you are
in a good place
With your partner
What that means is that as far as outside of your like support network in close friends and family?
You don't need anything else. Yeah, what's anybody else's approval to your partners?
Doesn't mean anything
Unless they're not married to them as though their relationship as an issue
They're like I need to get approval from from there to just like okay you but that's when you have to have the balls to broach
The subject. Hey, do you think this is working from the outside looking in? Well, this is how I've seen them treat you
How does that make you feel how often does this occur? Yep
Okay, and then get to a roundabout point where it's just like well, these are the questions you've answered and this is what?
Fundamentally constructs the basis of a good relationship how mismatched are those?
Feel they're mismatched and you should probably have a conversation about that if they're not mismatched
They're going better than ever and think like okay. Is this going scarily? Well, well then
Great. Yeah, great. Don't change anything. Fuck it up
Because that's the so many people are just like it shouldn't be going this well
It shouldn't be going this well. It's like couples need to fight. I was like
Here's the thing
while couples do fight fighting
Manifests in different ways
Something might not necessarily be a fight at all
Disagreement was like no there's got to be some schism. There's got to be struggling relationship
It doesn't it shows the passion or some weird idea of like weird idea of what passion is supposed to be
This is 50 shades of gray. Yep
Like that's that's not what a relationship the couple that has been cool with themselves
Since high school for 40 fucking years
They didn't change anything
They might have gone to some new places
They didn't fucking change who they were
Yep, they were the same people then and they grew together beautifully as the same people now
Low maintenance without changing fucking anything. You know, they always said the the perfect couple was it was a
What was it? Oh, yeah blind woman and a deaf man
I think that's that's always like the the metaphor that they make and I was like
Okay, if you
Not tolerate
but
Find a better synonym for tolerate but honestly relish the imperfections of your partner like oh, that's always been them
like your relationship is going to be a whole lot better than
The ones that came in with expectations try their best to match each other's expectations
Let the rift between them grow larger and then ultimately end up
Splitting when they knew way too late when they knew the relationship was over years prior
They already know years prior and when you know, you know
Like people that always say they're like, oh I kind of knew when it was over
I was like it's funny how I always hear that and then you don't fucking do anything about it. Well, why?
Sex was great
Grow up grow the fuck up. Are you kidding me? Like it's it's your job to verbalize
Yeah, yeah a hundred percent and if you can't verbalize it then you don't get to say anything
You don't get to say anything if you've never had brought up issues that you have
And then you're mad that those issues have never been resolved
You have no
Anything to stand on nothing to stand on you if you can't
What it's i'll say it
Till the day I die and everybody says this and it sounds so
fucking like
It's so played out
But it is based on communication. There's verbal and non-verbal communication. That's the basis of every relationship and if you don't feel like you can communicate
with your partner who is
supposed to be
The person you can feel most vulnerable with yep
Then it it's your fault. Yep. It's you're in the wrong. You're wrong
And if it's because of your childhood trauma figure that out go to a therapist go to a therapist figure out a way to communicate
There's many there's many different ways
And if you haven't figured out one
That works for the both of you
You're not mature enough to be in a relationship
Period point blank. Oh, I think i'm ready. I was like
Really?
On what grounds are you ready?
On the last one end
Did you meet them the exact same way
Ah, that's crazy friends of friends
Friends, okay. Let's talk about this readiness
Are you ready or are you older?
And you're scared of getting older let's be real because you're very scared of getting older and that's a rational fear
Yeah, because we have a biological clock and everyone is scared of getting older
Yep, so it's like oh more of relationship type of person. It's like well if your relationships always famously implode
Why do you think that is?
All right. Have you ever once tried to work on your relationship muscle?
Flex those muscles, right instead of you know paying orange theory another
2,500 dollars a year to tell you something you already fucking know. Yep. No. Yeah, ultimately I think
whenever
I hear anyone say that a certain relationship should play out a certain way
I I just see it as immaturity. I think yeah
because
Nobody ever says that about friendships. Yeah, like no one ever says
Oh
This friend doesn't treat me like the friend in the movies did like no one ever
No one ever says that because there's this not this weird idea that we have to live up to in our friendships
And for some reason everyone got the idea in their heads
That oh we have to live up to whatever hollywood is saying or whatever this magazine is saying
You're not the correct way to do it. You're not jennifer aniston one. You don't look like jennifer aniston
Like
That's that there's a reason
It's not real life. It's meant literally
everything
You see
That is a show that is ideal that made you think about love in its most ideal form whether it be
bridgerton
you
fucking
All of these hollywood movies
That have a hero heroine
Whatever that is
Anything ever created like that is still ultimately a simulation of real life because it was a real life. It would just be
you following around
guys and girls
Going to bars
Seeing their friends
Maybe working out occasionally once in a while in their respective work environments dealing with basic stresses
Insulating those stresses or rather the negative effects of those stresses from their partners while sharing them
feeling at home
ordering peaks rolls watching a movie staying in
Socially shutting down being with each other being more vulnerable meeting each other's parents
Uh wondering if things were going to work out
Uh dealing with the throws of being in a relationship and how one particular instance didn't like
Didn't make somebody feel
Good and then sharing that and then it being mundane and it being so mundane thing
Mundane I didn't like the way you looked at me then yeah. Oh that show
You wouldn't last two episodes. Yeah
Who wouldn't last one episode be like, oh, where's the passion?
Where's the excitement because everyone wants to see a hero's journey in their relationships
But it's like if you just want a relationship that works stop trying to pursue that
Correct. That's never what it's going to be your idea of passion is going to change
And that's going to be ultimately the one that turned out to be better for you that you could only figure out
By fostering a good relationship which a show can never do for you
Yeah, because you're not them. Yeah, you don't have their backgrounds you
Barely know who you are, right? So how can you expect a show to perfectly play out?
Some scenario that is your perfection grow up
Like and I say barely because relationships only work
When people know who they are ultimately or they can change for the better to suit each other in a symbiotic way
And it was always on the path of what they were going to be
That's when relationships work like
All of the people who've written these lists about what their ideal person should be
Kill yourself. Where's your list? Where's where's the okay?
I just created this question for my ideal girl. Let's
Social experiment this shit. This is my avatar of my ideal girl
Now if you had her locked down, what would she say about you?
You give him that any thought no, they never
Fucking do can't treat humans as checklist. It just doesn't work because humans are not checklist
Yeah, I used to love ketchup as a fucking kid. I ate ketchup and rice
Now I fucking hate ketchup
Because I ate too much goddamn ketchup growing
Ketchup and rice is disgusting. It's crazy work. I couldn't cook back then
I didn't know I knew how to use a rice cooker but like now I was it was ketchup and rice was crazy work
Ketchup and rice was like some hot dog shot up in it on my african niggas
You know exactly what i'm fucking talking about
People will take something like that and say it's an ick
When it's like what if that person was perfect apart from that thing like they were good for you. Yeah, and
Nope, they'll banish to the ick corner
The amount of good guys and good girls that have been banished to the ick corner by
people that were around them is
in
the millions
It's in the multiple millions because they never they never give these people a shot and they're always
Blame them for being judgmental which is ironic
Because of the the need for
The need of social acceptance and adhering to convention. Yeah. Yeah, it's the that's why they make memes man
I want a six-figure guys like well your bed is on the floor
So
Your roaches are throwing up gang signs in your kitchen
If you were 20 years old again finishing up or your school starting your career again
Yeah in the current environment. What advice would you give to young dean?
Hold on to the 1.2 bitcoin you had
That's one that's a
You should I was 20 years old
Continue to hone the skill of networking and speaking
And take the concept of kaisen continuous improvement to heart
Well, no when I was 20, I was still in college. So you mean like 22. Yeah, there's 22
I would say
My house as quickly as possible instead of all this dumb ass jewelry
Called
Your friends from college to see how they are doing
The girl that
You thought
You didn't love and later found out you did love
Call her too
And do whatever you can to make that work
Um
I
I'm
Talk to your parents more
Be content with being boring
Being boring is good
You already have natural charisma. You don't need enough of it. You don't need any more ego
Be boring
the boring person
Is the safe person and the safe person is always better than the
Dynamic person who?
draws crowds in rooms
because
They are closer
To truly knowing who they are
Than that other person
And drink more water eat those fucking vegetables
Say no more
in general
and in life
Whether it be in work
or in life
Know when you're overloaded
Take your breaks
Learn constantly
Learn more read more
Keep working out
Consistency is key
Consistency is always key
With everything in life
Protect your peace
That is aided by saying no more
The only people you need to impress are yourself
Your mom and dad
That's it
Play your game as best as you can
And do be
Be kind to yourself
For your failures regardless of how frequently or infrequently they occur
Practice what you're good at the practice which are not harder
To be a better person and a better person
Continue to focus on the positives
Try and get more rest we're going to be clamoring for it later
And
No matter what let the people in your life
Know that you're thinking about them
That's it
Yeah, I read a little letter to to young dean
Probably appreciate it
A little dickhead will probably roll it up and smoke
Yeah, probably
Whenever I think about giving advice to my younger self, i'm like he wouldn't listen to me. He wouldn't yeah
I know he wouldn't yeah, I know he wouldn't he wouldn't at all. But yeah, let's bring it in
We have a tradition on the podcast where we ask the guests to participate in a carrots and sticks challenge
Carrots and sticks. What's that? So a carrot is a two-week challenge
Oh, but you do that's achievable
Easy to measure. Okay, and pushes you to live courageously. That's the value
And the stick is your self-chosen punishment for not completing
That's pretty good
What is it? Okay, geez
Carrot
No matter what
I have got to
For the next you said two weeks. Yeah
So much inconsistency in my life
I have got to work out
I have got to work out Tuesday
Wednesday and some other day of the week
At some point religiously at a gym not at home at a gym. Yep
Yes
I have to find a way to get that done. Yeah three workouts
For each week three workouts at least three workouts for each week. Okay
Okay. Yeah
What's your self-chosen punishment?
Self-chosen punishment is fuck it. How about I run that 10k?
I'm like I want you to fail this challenge
I know you do I just want to see you run
I would actually fucking kill myself. You would know I would never get to that like starting line
I do not want to run a 10k. Oh good motivation. You won't have to if you do do your workouts
I will I will do those six those six workouts cool. Well, I'll drag somebody
Into it with me to do it at some point. It'll happen. It's gotta happen. All right, cool. Well, thanks for coming on dean. This is great
Always pleasure for the world the pleasure is all mine