The surprising product that built Italy's richest family

i gotta bleep it this out but then he's extremely multi billionaire extremely multi billionaire extremely i feel like i could rule the world to know i could be what i want to from at all in it like a days off on a road less travel never sam i have here in front of me a letter that i need to read for you so i i open the mail and i see a invitation like this to a graduation and i think but not my cousin this that's not my nephew who is this dear sean my name is quentin wood i've been listening to m m for since twenty twenty one over the last five years you and sam's podcast has made a huge impact on my life shaping how i see the world investing in stocks my goals my life your podcast robbie me a lot of joy and help me through long runs and study sessions you and sam have directed my life for the better so thank you i'm a high school senior this year because of the profound impact you've made in my life i wanna invite you to my graduation and graduation party he live you lives in colorado thank you for thank you for taking the time to read this and everything you do keep making more episodes sincerely qui would high school senior ball is amazing baller congrats quentin take a bad quentin how good is that man i love this kid if you're under the age of twenty four you should do some of these things that might sound insulting like we said that's end enduring or i would never say that's cute but like you feel like that emotion you should one hundred percent embrace doing those things because you can only get away with this at a varies for the very small time and it's totally appropriate and totally awesome it's like poop in your pants you can only do it for so long then when you could do it like later in life but like you like this type of stuff one hundred percent is awesome and by the way it lot okay a bunch of people have written letters but just inviting to the high school graduation i'm so end enduring i just thought i was like oh that's so like so wonderful diego was like so we're gonna go i was like well no hell no we're definitely not going but but i i will play him the song and and give them the clap this is great okay i wanna tell you about this this business story that that this to me this is this billy of the week so this is a a a billionaire family that i i found really fascinating i've been into these like family dynasties last last week i think we were talking about car and this one is wait i wanna try guess these i like trying to guess let me give you a couple of clues so you know which direction you're going the richest man in italy sunglasses are chocolate chocolate okay do you know who it is yeah i'd roche roche is it called roche something for for yeah so okay well you got that pretty quick lot less fun when you just know the answer if i was a teacher i just find teach yourself then one i love nice dude this family story is amazing so i love for a roche crochet the chocolate i don't know if you've like if you're a fan we do you have one go here so if for those who don't know i have some here got this from from the grocery store this morning because i was so inspired by these guys i was like i'm gonna go support their small business yeah he's bought local he's worth thirty two billion dollars so the these chocolates are kind of amazing there the packaging is amazing if you ever had one of these you really feel like you're eating something special and that gotta be kinda interested and like what's the backstory of this turns out this family invented nutella they invented tic tac they invented like a whole bunch of kinder the kinder bars and kinder eggs they invented like several of these like really big things and now they own a whole bunch of other businesses so wanna tell you that the story of this this company that's it's one of the most secretive family owned businesses in the world they do like twenty billion dollars a year in revenue the founder is the the the main guy that the the air he runs the company and is the richest man in italy and the way they did it it's really fascinating so back in the day this was post right after world war two italy which was like you know not in great shape post world war two it was trying to kinda of bounce back and so this guy the grandfather of of of this guy he decides i'm gonna start making chocolate chocolate was really expensive it was like this luxury item it wasn't like a little common thing you found at every store not everybody was eating it and so he starts when he he the he had the form factor wrong he was trying to make a a bar like a a spread so it's like butter it would be like this kinda hard chocolate like butter stick essentially and his idea was like people will put this on toast and you'll have like a chocolate toast and i think at the time like chocolate was like something like it it was like the equivalent of caviar like if you went to like a fancy dinner party you would see it and if i remember correctly i don't even take it tasted nearly like it taste now it wasn't like a they've just added butter and sugar over the years to the mix it's like because if you have like a cocoa cow bean or cook powder it's like bitter it's like very bitter right so so you you really have to like butter and sugar up so he he tries the bar people don't like it they're complaining they're like too hard doesn't spread easily so he's like okay gotta solve the spread problem and he comes up with a jar with like a creamy chocolate like a a jam basically and it's like a precursor to nutella it wasn't quite nutella yet but the idea was like make it was super spread put it in a jar and he was called super cram and so he starts trying to sell super cram and it's doing okay it's him he's like the chef and he's just trying to make like delicious pastries basically and he's got the brother who's the business side and they're they're doing alright not great but over time the sun takes over and the sun is a bit more of an innovator so first i think the government like bans the use of cr in the so he's got rebranded it anyways he decides to call it nutella and it was because hazelnut nuts are a big ingredient for the thing and he makes it he tweaks the recipe makes it better and the sun starts innovating he gets in the lab and he basically creates he notices that breath mint are great but there's all these problems they come in these like big pins hard to carry around right this like big giant rectangle to open it up you had to like kinda find the seam and pop it open and then you know if you wanted to like share it with somebody they had to like dig through touch all of them and so he creates the tic tac form factor so way easier to open than smaller box smaller phone factor and the ads were all like one person's hand out and then putting a tic tac in and it was basically like a tic tiktok was almost like a social gift it was a social ice break or something you want from somebody else so carrying it was almost like a a thing of power these old tic tac ads are so good if you google vintage tic tac italian ads the old ads are like pretty awesome a lot of the ads would have a question mark which you would not normally do you wouldn't say tic tac question mark but the whole thing is basically it's an offer to somebody else and it's just a way to be smooth well wait it's a it's it's small talk for the math was tic tac the original name hey i wanna tell you about something pretty cool we have a database of all of the business ideas that have been discussed on this podcast so hundreds of episodes the team at hubspot went through they pulled out all the simple relatable interesting profitable ideas that we have brainstorm streamlined and they're all available for download for free just click the link in the description below thank you to our friends at hubspot for sponsored this podcast and putting together this free resource for you guys back to the show yeah so so tic tiktok was you know a a brilliant name also and it starts getting used in movies because the name is just like fun to say and and then he he's like you know we've talked about touch soap this this this woman who who sold this company for i think eight hundred million dollars or something recently and what she does is she took pure like hand sanitizer this utilitarian ugly product and she made it look like women's perfume and it it came in different sense and it was all hand sanitizer but you know there's something small you'd wanna carry in your in your purse that looked cool smelled great and didn't have like you know change it just competed into different dimension than hand sanitizer i'm not trying to kill germs per second but say your hands aren't gonna smell like ethanol at the end of this right so so then then you have the the fe like packaging where it's like this this you know these golden nuggets these like special things that are that are put into this and so just brilliant all around in terms of like how they how they did the marketing genius behind some of these things and so the brand takes off it's doing really really well he's an innovator and now they're super secretive i think for like up until four or five years ago they had never done an interview they had never let anyone into the factory it was like on some real willy won shit they you it was like the one journalist who got in was like this is actually less like willy won it's more like area fifty one there was armed guards they because they build their own machinery to produce the the chocolate so they didn't want anyone to know the engineering behind their machinery the recipes behind nutella they didn't wanna know anything and they weren't really even using it for marketing purposes like the the grandfather it all the photos of him you'll see he's wearing dark sunglasses he just never wanted to be seen never wanted to be known and so only very recently that they start doing anything and so then you have the grants on the third gen and so so gen one was kind of like the pioneer in trying to make it happen was what kinda like you know pioneers or whatever what the settlers gets pioneers get slaughtered then the settlers do whatever than the towns people build the empire was kinda of that same thing so you know he didn't really make it but the sun had the breakthrough innovations and then that that guy's son took on a totally different strategy he went more and buffett he was basically like alright inventing these products really hard really expensive really low low hit rate what if we went and found value brands that we could turn around and so he went and bought butter fingers and baby ruth and crunch and like all these brands acquired them tried to revitalize the brand and then bring them back and so he's built this portfolio of other brands now and he took like an m and a approach and i just thought what's the italian word for private equity because that's what these guys this is some beautiful private equity that i've been seeing in play here for the last that is so eighty years i bought a i bought a butter finger last night i i freaking love butter finger i feel old but i'd like i did i i bought me myself and sam having a butter finger or what i went to the cvs and i got the the movie style you know how they like put like like movies style candy like in the box with like mini butter fingers i totally had a whole box of myself last night so i'm on board with this guy i don't like butter finger love crunch baby ruth by the way not named after babe ruth it's not no it's named after ruth cleveland the daughter of president grover of cleveland oh is babe ruth the baseball player named after her that i don't think so dude you can't have too babe i mean that's like there's not like i don't know how they gotta gotta away with that this is this is pretty awesome why are you fascinated by this this topic because it's a clearly a trend well i have all these like themes so one is like huge businesses hidden in plain sight is always something that's interesting to me like you i've eating this but i never took the time to think who made this what's the story of this why does this packaging look so different than any other product that in the entire store and why don't more people do this why isn't like like how can you apply this marketing principle to another category i you can believe people aren't doing that so that immediately my brain starts firing and i start fan about these products i'm gonna create before i remember i'm already rich i don't want work and had this way too much work to do any of but if somebody ever did it you know like you know kudos to them rory sutherland who we had on he talked about what's the name of the soda that has the piece of foil on top you know the italian also italian actually pell green no you're close pal something it's such a the pee and it's like a lemonade type face like a lemon flavored italian soda is it san pell green okay i thought san pell green was also water but this is like san pell green like soda yeah and he was explaining how the tin over it he's like that's a really small thing but they did it to be like this can is extra clean and special it's never been when like yes pop the seal he was explaining the importance of something fairly insignificant in the grand scheme and how and he was explaining the psychology behind it and that really got me thinking and you're you're describing the exact same thing with the with the candy it's wrapped in like a goal tin and i i was thinking about that a lot and i guess it's another italian company pulling it off yeah so i i love the marketing mind that's always a fascinating thing i love businesses hidden plain sight i'm always a sucker you know the rich man in italy and i'm like sure don't you tell me like if this this gonna be an interesting story and then i am also interested in these kind of family dynasty businesses because i i i think it's the businesses that really like withstand the test of time they have to do like several miracles and one of the great miracles is that it has to get passed down to somebody who doesn't screw it up and what i thought was kinda cool there was a story about one of the one of the generations i don't know if it's the current one by the way i'm opening one of these up i know if it's the current one or it's the the middle son but he said something like he didn't even realize they were rich until he was like fifteen years old he's like i had no idea they kept that from me it's like the four house keepers didn't tip you off so i don't know exactly how that was possible but yeah that apparently there was something in the upbringing where i think they were they just spent so much time actually working in the like factory and and on the product that it wasn't clear like it there was more about the work in the craft than it was about the the prizes that's awesome i would love to i listened to the reason i know very little about it i know some about it is because founders the founders podcast he did an episode on the family and it's a pretty old one so i to it a while ago but it would be curious i would be curious to see like would you ever like to listen to founders without the research m we're here for you but while you're stuffing your face with food which is like the that sounds great on the mic let hear you chew there's nine am chocolate is hitting the spot dude it's week tart for breakfast so fascinating name but you intermittently eat a fair roche wow you're fast i would i wanna know like the family dynamics i'm so curious i think that like the stories of succession the the movie or the tv show and like the drama i don't think that is actually the common thing i think that like there is a way where you could like harmonious and loving and also like good at this whole business thing and i it's just less interesting to write or read about that or make a movie or tv show already yeah yeah but it would be really exciting to like read a book on how they do it effectively another family that done that that did it effectively is the roth child family do you know about those guys i mean i just know the name i don't know what they did in the family like there's a crazy story where the like the the original clan so they're known now is like illuminati es where it's like mysterious but the original story is i believe they were in germany in the eighteen hundreds and the dad was into business in banking and he had five sons and he seemed very loving and respectful with them and he purposely asked them to move when they became adults to different countries and do the banking trade that he was doing and teaching them and that is how they became this like amazingly successful european family but the kids were like no he was seem he was a really loving guy he like he taught us good values and and we like doing this with him and and so like i've been reading a little bit about the that family as well yeah i it's i i mean don't know if i'm ever gonna do that but did have a random idea recently that i it's kind of like fascinated me so i was listening to some interview with the chef from carb and he said something like the interview actually was a little bit boring but he said one thing that i thought was was pretty interesting he goes oh i was always obsessed with food i was twelve years old and i was i was i was an absolute foodie i was always watching cooking shows i knew about every restaurant i knew i wanted to be a chef and you yeah one of the greatest gifts that nobody really talks about right you you want your kid to be you know really good school are really good at sports it's really whatever i mean really one of the best things you can do is figure out what you actually love to do in life the earlier you figure that out that's actually the big advantage and i think that was warren buffett advantage it's warren buffett it's everyone if you read these guys they you know jim mister beast is like yeah twelve i just said eleven years old i decided i was gonna die a youtuber like i just wanna be youtube youtuber that's all i wanted to do and so from a he's like yeah i'm whatever he is now twenty eight he's like get was i'm doing this for twenty years so it's you know what it's like i'm doing this seventeen years now and so he's literally just spent more time on this than anyone else warren buffett bought for stock at seven and basically was thinking about businesses money and stocks since he was very young and and had time during that a golden window and and when i interviewed mu b he was was asking about these books on the wall you had this whole section on like science and a neuroscience and psychology and i go what's something you really took away from reading a bunch of these and he goes we have a certain hard wiring that's kinda baked by the time you're six or seven like your your core nature your dna you kinda know who that person is but he goes and there's a golden window and i think the golden window was something like you know six to sixteen years old and during that ten year window if you found something that's that you can ob over and you can you get free reign to actually ob access over during that window you will hyper specialized when the brain is in this certain period and you'll become world class like you're you're the rest of your life happens and if you really don't and so he he talks about this with investing he's like i don't invest in companies where the ceo doesn't have an evidence of the lemonade stand when they were ten or eleven because if you really if you're an entrepreneur you were an entrepreneur at early he said i don't hundred percent believe this but i did think it's interesting and you do see this pattern a lot did heat have that did man have that yes so he i asked him that and he was like he's like yes and he goes it wasn't for entrepreneurship it was basically for like his dad had a jewelry business our gold business or something like that and he's said basically my nba was every day my dad would come home and the business was failing and me and my brother had to figure out something we could try to get this business to not fail to have enough cash to be like in business next month and so in doing that he's like i got my nba when i was eight years old every day helping my dad with his jewelry business working in the store coming home hearing the problems hearing the inventory struggles the cash flow management problem if we have all these sales why don't we have any money oh because there's a difference between revenue and profit between profit and cash flow and you know he's like learning these things without knowing the names of them like they're sort of intuitive gut learning that's happening during that phase and for the record you don't need that to be pretty successful i do think pretty put to be world class yes i think that that's the advantage that the best of the best of the best half and usually see like oh in the world a world cup right now it's like mall and it's like you what how come the us doesn't produce players like this and it's like well because at age seven he went and moved in to the soccer academy and he was there from seven to seventeen and guess what he's amazing now at eighteen or you like which which maybe your kid would have been too had they left the house and moved in you know to the soccer academy at age six or seven and that's like really all they trained and focused on for a long period of time are you willing to do that the book outliers by malcolm glad talked a little bit about this like you know at a young age bill bill gates and paul allen the founders of microsoft their school was the first one of the only schools in the country to have a computer so he got to mess around with the computer for free had free access to it after school for like a very long period of time you know fe my i old c founder he would tell me like yeah his dad worked at a computer company so when he was five years old like his earliest memory wasn't like playing catch with my dad it was like building a printer from scratch it's like yeah no no no joke that now he can like build anything because during that golden window he did that anyways it's a long way of saying i've thought about how he could be somewhat intentional about this meaning if my kid shows an interest in something i think i'm gonna lean in way harder than most people would during the golden window and i've thought about taking like a sa symbolic year where i'm just like gonna pluck them out of school for you know in fifth or sixth grade and just be like hey we're gonna travel the world in like we're i'm just gonna develop you i'm gonna shape you now not like when i'm sixty five and retired and i have more time because you're gonna be the cookies already crispy by that know what i mean like i gotta do it when the dough is raw and so i'm thinking about that does that sound crazy does that no it's so it's so funny a friend for my birthday a friend gifted me the andre ag he book that i i haven't started it yet but i was asking him what he learned have you ever read that andre ag his biography is considered considered one of the best biographies and i'm not a tenant and my friend and i neither of us are tennis guys but he's like it's it's so good and i said what's the big takeaway and he was like the crazy thing is andre didn't even seem like he loved tennis and he he frankly didn't seem like he had superstar energy like he kind of beg did it but he was pretty good and i was well how did he become like one of the greats of all time and he said his dad his dad was man his dad like his dad saw that andre showed a little bit of interest and he just pushed him and and just went all in on it and i was joking and i was like okay so maybe he maybe he did or didn't have a good relationship with his father i'm not sure but i think that like these guys like serena williams dad andre ag dad like some park fathers i'm like they get a lot of shit but like it seems pretty worth it like to have this like tiger dad this tiger mom energy hey let's take a quick break you know that feeling when strategy is done the brief is written everyone's aligned and you realize someone still has to sit down and actually create all the content that someone is usually you and it's due tomorrow well the breeze assistant from hubspot can help it works right inside hubspot you can draft campaign copy blog posts emails all in your brand voice all using your actual customer data so you don't create just content you create content that converts check out hubspot dot com the agent customer platform for growing businesses i was watching nada vidal documentary on netflix did you see that one i've seen a little bit of it yeah haven't i love the doll i love doll his dad was the same way his father was so hardcore about it and he pushed him and pushed him and push him and was his coach and then there's this other guy named sebastian c who's a famous runner so you know not not that many people are gonna know who he is but he's he had the world record for the mile and his dad peter was the same way where they would run and his father would be in the car with a stopwatch tiny every interval behind every great man is a great woman it's like and an abusive father yeah and i do think that there's a way that you can do this where you can like balance like being a good like a nurture and also push i one thing i'm not saying i'm gonna like hyper train them for greatness on like you know hey get up we're running sprints every morning like you know whatever up the hills what i meant was really i'm gonna give them exposure because i think most people the problem isn't that you found what you love and then you didn't keep doing it because when you really love something i a great amount of pull you just do it anyways i think what most people don't do is they don't really get to walk around costco and sample the things and i think that's actually the more interesting thing is like how do you get somebody exposure because i would say the vast majority of people never even find out if they really love something because by the time you like school is such a regiment track right you're spending eight hours a day doing this same exact things as every other kid did you happen to love photosynthesis did you happen to love tri like probably not and so by and and it's all just funneling you to get into a college when you get into a college and about getting a job by the time you have a job now you're working and you're trying to like pay for life and by the time you third you're like well i didn't really get that one that that opportunity to go figure out that actually it was podcasting that i really had an affinity i actually really love that or it was you know whatever it is like baking it was this it was that it doesn't it's harder to even know and i think most people will never even know and so the thing i wanna make sure i do for my case is get you to at least feel and see what different what the world is what what's even on the menu of options that you have some exposure in life because i don't think the world by default does a good job of giving you exposure you and i have a great friend ramon so ramon van van mere and he ramon had a difficult situation where he became a single dad when his son was only two years old and i met victor when he was i think three now he's actually a sophomore or junior in college and he ramon was crazy partly he did us out a necessity partly because he's a really amazing dad and he would bring victor starting at the age of maybe seven to these really big business meetings i remember he sold one company when victor was something like ten years old he sold it for close to ten million dollars and i remember he would go to la from san francisco and he would take victor out of school and bring them and victor would just sit like next to him and victor wouldn't talk but he would pay attention to the meeting and afterwards ramon would be like victor what's your opinion what should we do and then another time victor has actually been to china i think a couple times because ramon has a company now athena where they have manufacturers in china and he'll bring him to china and he'll just sit quietly and be like afterwards victor or ramon would be like hey okay so what do you think you think this guy's legit should we go with him should we do this and i remember seeing that and before i had kids i thought it was awesome and then after i had kids i thought it was like a blessing a treasure i like it changed from like this is cool to admiration right to like you have gone from being a good dad to a deity to me like you are like i can't believe how special and how lucky victor is to have you and i remember seeing that and i'm like that is the way to have a kid i i agree a hundred percent saying the same thing he ron is an amazing dad and it's not just i i think because i've watched that and in the moment you're just kinda like well they're the you a kid is there they didn't say anything or maybe even after that what'd you think it was good was cool they're not gonna give you some satisfying of course dad like you know dad i really learned the like the of hard work today actually what i saw was nathan that they're gonna tell you the thing but like you just have to trust the process and be like it's all soaking somewhere somewhere in the mind this experience was imprint somewhere in the brain in a positive direction and that if they you know if i didn't give them this experience i would've have in in a way rob them of of some of that exposure so yeah i'm i'm a big believer in that my kids are really little right now but i i do similar things that's awesome okay let me tell you another story about someone you and i we get invited to some stuff that occasionally is interesting most of the time we both say no but i decided to go to one of these dinners and it was in a beautiful apartment and clearly some guys there were like total colors but i sit next to this one guy and he's very una assuming and i start talking to him and he's very nice he's kinda like da shah the the one of the founders of hubspot like very low key and he's like how are you using ai and i'm like well i made a chrome plugin that helps you select like which jeans fit you if you go to a store if you like jeans john look at my ass right now yeah tell me to see these fit like yeah fit like they were fitted by ag three cities don't have water right now because these pants fit so well and i was like how about you what are you doing and he like starts explaining some stuff and it's kind of blowing my mind and i'm like wait who are you and he says his name but he doesn't really say what he does and the guy runs maybe one of the most if not like the top three like financial services business in the world and he's extremely multi billionaire and he's the founder of dream won't take a look extremely like he's so extreme and i thought i after he i start talking to him like i recognize you you have articles written about you it's where it's like this mysterious billionaire there say his name and then we'll believe it okay so he's the founder of yes okay so one of the most like sophisticated financial services business arguably you it it potentially is the one of the most profitable in its field making like tens of billions of process that's almost an intimidating person to meet it's almost like have you ever you know i used have this old dell laptop that when it really when you when you opened up a few too many windows the fan would kick on and it would start heating up i feel like that dude's brain must just be like that is was there just eat exhaust coming off of them yeah i'm i'm closer to a homeless guy in terms of like accomplishments and brain power than i am to this guy and it was so awesome that this guy walked into this room he was one of the most quiet guys he probably talked the least before you describe his cab and stuff what did he say about ai you said he's blowing your mind a little bit what did he say i have to be somewhat vague he was saying he was just explaining like how they do it for like trading and like making financial decisions but frankly he was using he he clearly was trying to talk my level but it was so hard without using like the jargon that he had to use but like at one point i was like so was your company cool why is it cool he's like well i think we have a good culture we pay really well and the office is nice and i look up how much they pay and it's like the highest paying thing in the world yeah in the world i think we have the most profit per employee or something hey that's like crazy crazy numbers like that did say anything with ai that surprised you meaning like oh i just i didn't realize that was possible or i would have never thought to do that as give me a little more if you can if you can break off one more piece well what what he was he well he was explaining he was like you know we actually had been doing this before like it became popular we are doing it in this particular way and then all this new breakthrough technology came out but it wasn't like a surprise to us because we've been tinkering with the stuff right and basically he was like it helps us make decisions like within fractions and fractions and fractions of seconds like he was using these time measurements that i didn't i i didn't even know what that word meant and he was like he was like explaining like how they make decisions and how they use ai to make decisions and he was like yeah like we've had data centers we've had all of this stuff before now it's more accessible and it's easier because we but he's like we built all this stuff before it was just like crazy that someone that is so epic and so world class at what they do they made me feel he made me feel better than him in a weird way so he's a great actor too then yeah wow triple threat well that's why they wanna be insulting i don't think he was acting guy i think that he like he made me feel good well he he had true true charisma then and that he was genuinely interested in other people not based off of like you know some weird power rankings and when you're interested in people that makes them feel great and that's a gift that's a that's an amazing gift i think it sounds so simple and very few people know how to do that and i've noticed that with a bunch of really successful people the ones that i truly like they are so curious they are curious to the point where they will think about silly ideas very seriously and take them seriously yeah i had a embarrassing like reduction the other day where i was like describing we went to an event are we hosting an event and was like oh there's all these different people i like this person i really like this guy that oh she was really cool and then i realized oh what's the common factor is just like i think i like people who like me and i was so embarrassed by that being true but it was really like the cup i have a very hard time liking people who i don't feel like me so the opposite is more true than the than the first part meaning like i don't love everybody who likes me but i can't really like anybody if i feel like they don't like me and i was i was like what kind of junior high bullshit mindset is this and i didn't know what to do it but i definitely had that awareness at least and i was like i think i should not have that be the kind of the heaviest weight you know a factor in in this stuff so do you do you ever do that i so sounds stupid as i said loud no i mean i i don't think that's so stupid i i think that dale carnegie how to win friends and influence people he says the root of everything that you read for me is basically people wanna feel important and if you understand that then like life cream cheese like life's good and if you make people feel important then then that is how you win friends and influence people and what's funny is this guy and i we left the the the event together and we mistakenly took like a service elevator and so we get lost in this building for like twenty five minutes like trying to get out because we took the wrong and we couldn't figure out the signs and i'm like were like come on genius get shit here i was like how many billionaires does the take to find the exit and the superman turn on the laser and and then at the end i was like i i know that like no one can find photos of you on the internet i know that you purposely stay off the grid but you know like wanna come on my first million and it'd be like she even dignified it with a i'll consider it there wasn't even like a like are you would say no i i won't do this and i just think that like to all the up and governor up come listening like quentin be humble and be nice and make people feel important it that is like kind of a key to life but we we should tweak that right because of the make people feel important sounds of manipulative what's the real what's the way to do that that's actually real i would say be curious if you're genuinely curious or interested in in people curiosity is like one of these you know like those like grandma remedies where it's like oh i have pneumonia it's like put some whiskey in the pancakes and that'll do it it's like that doesn't make any sense and then it like works it's curiosity kinda like that we're almost all these unrelated problems can be solved with curiosity i'll give you an example one is what one is what we're talking about here which is when you're when you're actually curious about somebody you will appear interested in them because you are interested in them and then they feel interesting and they feel like you took you because you're taking interested in them they feel an affinity towards it great that's one you this works with yourself too so a lot of times i i'll talk to my my trainer my coach and let's say i'm feeling bad about something what most people try to do is they say don't feel bad feel good it's okay and like don't feel bad is pretty poor advice when you're feeling bad about something and instead he just says like don't about just get curious and he's like just get lean into it like get curious about it what is that why do you feel that way you know has that ever happened for before and as soon as you start getting curious it's almost like the cloud moves away the sun starts to peer through and because your brain literally shifts state into a into a more child like curious state of mind and it takes the edge off it takes the guilt or the shame or the the the self loa off of whatever it is you're doing it's so weird you wouldn't expect curiosity to be a cure for for some some of these moments so these moods but it is it tends to be and so just getting curious about something i i would say is like it's kind of like a catch all you know cure for for for things and what's funny is like i was a pretty awkward teenager i would say i'm still a pretty awkward guy and i like went and like red books on like good questions to ask people to like have a conversation and i even follow these guys on instagram how to do it but the best people i found was that show on the spectrum the dating show with autistic kids and i stole so many questions that i asked people so if i'm like like a dinner party or i'm talking to people i will always say what are your hobbies yeah like it sounds like such a childish thing you get the best answers and then i also say what are your parents like of of what you've done where i ask a lot about their parents and like they start opening up but like i had to like learn how to like have small talk yeah i really needs to i think okay i like that that's a cool that's a cool story thanks podcast is brought to you by 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member's fdic alright i could talk to you let me talk you about something it it's gonna sound sad and it is sad but i think it's like really interesting and i i had permission to talk about this but i think it's cool so you and i had a producer named ben wilson ben wilson was our producer for my first million for a long time and he now has a podcast called how to take over the world he's got four kids under the age of five years old crazy and six weeks ago he found out that he has stage four lung cancer where the odds are not in his favor but he's got like the best doctors in the world so like some crazy things might happen he's very optimistic i went and met with him yesterday he he's in new york to see a doctor and i wanted to talk about my experience getting to like like talk to him because this like a very like interesting predicament that he's in think about the six weeks ago he found this out so in the six weeks he moved his house he sold his home and got a new home closer to the doctor that he's going he did like a four hundred thousand dollar fundraiser which was amazing he like got his will and all of his estate stuff together and he's gone to like all these like doctor's appointments like so many of them and i remember like talking to him yesterday and i was like dude you've gone through so much like this is so heavy and and he was telling me a little bit about it and i my initial reaction when i heard all of this i felt like extreme sadness partially because ben's a mormon so ben has lung cancer and it's in his spine in his brain but started as lung cancer and he has never smoke he has never drank he has really never done anything bad in his life and i felt like i felt like like we have an agreement with the universe where we put good in and we should get good out and i was like this agreement has been broken and i felt like pretty like pissed about it yeah i felt very angry but then like i started like seeing how he was reacting to all this stuff and like i would put myself in that shoes i'm like alright six weeks ago in june i find out that i have this illness like how do i react and i was like i would be i would go insane i i would be so sad i'd be so depressed it was just like crazy how calm he was and what's interesting is that ben has a podcast called how to take over the world which is about like how great leaders become great and i was thinking about that and he had this journal with him and it was on the title of this journal was zero to three hundred and sixty five and i was like what's this he was like i have a journal where i'm gonna document every single day and my goal is to fill this whole thing out it may not happen but i'm gonna work my hardest to fill this out and make it three hundred sixty five days and i pray that there's a sequel to this journal so my kids can like read this but if i can't do it and i meet my maker sooner than i intend to or i want to i'm gonna be really excited about it and i remember like thinking like i listened to his podcast podcasts all the time like how to be great and i listened to all these podcasts on how to be great we just did one on like how to be great and i was thinking i was like what's crazy is how much dignity and integrity and bravery this guy is facing this and i was like me are you hopefully and everyone listening the odds are that none of us will face like a tragedy like this but i was thinking i was like in my day to day life like i react to things sometimes in such a horrible way like so negatively and so like not being positive or i'm letting little things bother me a little things distract me from what's important what i was like i really should change that because i hope i never faced anything like he's facing but what i've noticed knowing ben for a few years is he's always been like a pretty stoic brave person and i'm like these little things that i face every single day they can prepare me for something horrible and i hope that horrible thing never happens and if it doesn't at least i will have like responded to like my day to day life in a way that a great man would because what's interesting is like seeing him like journal about this and he was like show me a little of the journal in my head i was like i'm seeing like a great man be great in real time and respond to like the worst thing on earth in the most dignified wise and like the best way i've ever seen and it inspired me so much and i was like what good can i take from this how can i be great even if i don't face like a tragedy or like if i just live a boring life like how can be great on a day to day basis wow yeah it's a great i mean i'm i that's a great way of putting it couple of things that came up the first is you know if if haven't listened already go listen to his podcast where he announced it i mean i i listened to that i probably listen about two or three times i listened the first time myself i listened to second time when my mom was in the car because i wanted her to hear because i just thought his entire attitude towards the situation towards what is you know a very devastating sort of piece of news is it is you have every right to be sad you have every right to be bad you very every right to feel you know any of the fields you wanna feel and he kinda had such a different perspective it maybe thinking a couple things the first was man you know i haven't been a religious person in my life and i think it's because the way my you know just my biological brain is sort of like well i don't know there's no evidence you know like it's like literally like the definition of like you know faith is kind of like believing without evidence and i've always respected religion but i've never felt it but when i saw his response and the way he was like you know i'm excited to meet my maker and if you know if god's calling me then that's you know he the way it was serving him i was like wow this is the this is the the these are the rewards for living with like so strong faith is that even when the worst news hits even when and when anybody else would feel you know sorry for themselves yeah he he took it very very differently and it was like such a foundational thing for himself he said i excited he told me and i think he sent up pilot he goes i'm he goes i can be excited about this and i thought that was like yeah that's unbelievable so i thought that was the first thing was like really highlighted like the virtue and the value of like being a person of faith and how like you know i've my own life not i've had the luxury of not having to have that life goes pretty well without it for me like without having to to have faith in in certain things so i thought that was that really stood out the second was i think you nailed it the difference you know his podcast is about napoleon and caesar and is complicated men who achieve who conquered i think you know it's how to take over the world it's about conqueror it's about the know the world shape and there's a big difference between achieving greatness and being great what ben is doing right now is greatness but it's being great not achieving something and i think is a huge difference and i think for myself and most people that we don't really split those out and it it's very easy to set goals and you know i remember being young and gonna be like i wanna be forbes thirty under thirty it was before it became like you know the fbi watch list but i i remember thinking like i would be a great achievement i wanna have a million dollars on my bank i wanna have this i wanna have that one when i was nineteen twenty years old and it's like it was all about achieving and the two people we've talked about ramon and ben they're great examples of being great living day to day in a great way he's really showing his greatness yeah see in the hardest time which is when when it when it when it matters when it counts when it's real and then yeah like you know i just hope that there's something you know in the maybe the age of ai maybe there's some some way that you know with the best doctors with the tech with the belief with everything that you know he goes alright so yeah and he's he's he's he he like the brian johnson's and andrew humans of the world like they like opened up the ro and they put him in touch all these people and he's doing all this like the traditional stuff and some experimental experiential stuff and yesterday he was like i feel really good i feel better than i have in a long time yeah so it's looking good but i the reason why i wanted to bring this up on my first million because i don't think we say this it this explicitly enough but we have said it before which is we talk about like being rich here and we try to say a rich life and we try hard to like let people know that this isn't just about money it's just that it's it's about defining what life is worth living and how it how it can be rich for you and i just wanna reiterate that like the million in my first million doesn't necessarily mean dollars but it means like the first like unit of richness that you can have in your life and so that's sort of my public service announcement but also like some of the things that i've learned in talking with him mh well i'm i'm glad to share that ben we're rooting for you man yeah he's part of the he's part of the nfl family was well he's our producer for what like a a year or two or something like that yeah he had his podcast and we met we met through you you've put me on his podcast you were like dude i've been listening to this thing it's amazing that i remember going to the airport and i was listening to his edison episode and it's a three part and i drove to the airport listen to part one drove back listen to part two and then i just went for an extra drive to listen to part three and i was like wow this is amazing and i called him and i was like dude who are you what's your story and then we brought him in he became our producer which helped him pay the bills while he was getting his podcast kind of like more and more off the ground than it was time for him to kind of like focus on his pod we wish him well and you know still wishing him well so ben jake get well man we yeah we're all rooting for you yes it was a very the i hope listener i hope you don't take this as sad and i'm sure ben gonna hear this but it was the i i i i wanna leave on a on a on a inspirational note not not sadness so i hope you guys doug it and we'll in there that's it that's the pot i feel like i could rude the world i know i could be what i want to from at all in it like a day's off on a road less travel never looking back alright let's take a quick break i wanna tell you about marketing school it is a podcast that is part of the hubspot podcast network and it is run by neil patel and eric sue and these guys are both marketers who are running businesses and so if you want real world tactics from practitioners who are actually 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