(upbeat music) - So you talked about family. I think that there are very few people in the world who would say one of my big goals is to do anything measured in billions, right? You mentioned $10 billion of real estate. Most of the people I know that really, really prioritize crazy, audacious business goals don't often talk also about prioritizing being a good partner and being a good parent and having listened to you talk a lot.

It's something you do more than most. How do you find that balance? - I mean, so first of all, yeah, I got into real estate. I got into financial freedom, the pursuit of financial independence. And I know it's kind of a buzzword, right? But all I'm talking about is when I say financial independence, the ability to do what you want, where you want, when you want, how you want with whoever you want, whomever you want, I don't know.

It's just that freedom, right? That comes with having money. It's not, it was never about getting rich, never about being a billionaire or anything like that, right? I wanted to pursue financial independence for one, two reasons, two reasons. And I think both of these will resonate with you, right?

Number one, when I was growing up, like my dad worked really hard, but he wasn't there much 'cause he worked all the time. And so I rarely saw him. And I said, when I am a father someday, I want to be there for every ball game, every ballet recital, every field trip.

I want to be there with my kids. I want to like be the best father I can possibly be. And I can't work 40, 50, 60 hours a week and have commuting to be able to do that. So I started with that. And that was the one thing. The second thing I said, I heard a quote once that said the world is a book and those who don't travel read just a page.

Like the world is so amazing, right? So big. And there's so many things to see out there. And I wanted to see as much of it as I can while we're here on this earth. And I knew that again, being broke and working 40, 50 hours a week and getting my two weeks paid vacation every year, that wasn't gonna cut it.

So combining those two things, that's why I pursued real estate and business and wealth in general. Now, fast forward a few years and I find myself sometimes just like, I mean, I've achieved it. I could retire right now and just sit on a beach and do nothing, but I'd be bored out of my mind, right?

I can only play Barbies and GI Joes for so many hours a day. So there's this balance that you have to have. And there is no, to quote Gary Keller in "The One Thing", there is no such thing as work-life balance. It's work-life balancing. It's a constant influx of flow that you sometimes have to go farther one way and sometimes you have to go farther the other.

And therefore I am constantly re-evaluating where I am on that spectrum of too much work and maybe too much family, right? 'Cause as an entrepreneur too, we get paid in the future for the work we do today. We don't get paid today for the work we do today, right?

So we have to do the work now to get paid five years from now. We got to plant the seeds today in order to harvest then. But I also need to make sure that my kids are being brought up right and that they're connected with me and that we have that solid relationship.

So I guess that's why I talk about it a lot because I'm very scared, is that the wrong word? Maybe I'm very concerned that at the end of my life, I will look back and say, why did I work so much? Like, why didn't I do the things that are most important in life?

And the only way to know that is to continually evaluate it and to have the conversation with people. So I love when this topic comes up because it forces me to introspectively look at my life and say, how am I doing right now? Like, can I do better? Can I get more balance?

What about you? - So it's interesting. I used to be someone, well, I still am someone who really loves productivity, like inbox zero, kind of everything. But one thing that I recently picked up, so we have two daughters, two and three months. So still, you know, the day- - You're in it.

You're in it. - I always wanted to like get to inbox zero, but I've lately still prioritized, right? When I'm working, I'm working in the most efficient manner. But when I get to the end of the day, and it's actually nice that sometimes kids just force this, right? Like we have an au pair, she's done at 5.30.

Like there's no real option. Like you gotta be there at 5.30. I just kind of like let it drop. And I think I've spent so much time in my life feeling like, gosh, everything I do today is for the future. I need to get it all done. I need to get all done.

And then the next morning, I'm like, that didn't really matter that I got everything done before I went to bed. Now, there are times, you know, Tuesday night, this show comes out on Wednesday mornings, or maybe this bonus episode on a Friday. Like there are times where it's like, no, I do have to stay up 'cause this thing comes out this time.

But for the most part, there are a lot of things that you feel a lot of pressure to do. And I found that the more I've built the muscle of getting comfortable with not doing some things, whether it's a task at hand, or it's just saying no to a meeting, the more you get comfortable with it, the more, one, it's easier.

And two, you realize it doesn't matter. So I remember I got this email from a guy named James Bechara, who has a podcast called Below the Line. And I said, we'd connected in the past, and it'd been a few years. I reached back out to him and he said, you know what, I don't really wanna do meetings 'cause I'm trying to prioritize other things in my life, but I'm really down with asynchronous communication.

So if you want, you could go and use a tool like Loom, and you could record a conversation you wanna have part of it, and then I'd be glad to get back to you. And I was like, oh, wow. So one, it really raised the bar. Like, I'm not gonna go record a video to talk to him to just shoot the breeze.

So like, he's basically filtering for, if you just wanna have a BS conversation and talk, that's gone. And at the time, I wanted to catch up with him 'cause I was trying to start a podcast, but I didn't really have my questions formulated. And it actually forced me to wait and ask when the time was right.

And then I started using that, and boy, it makes everything so much more efficient. And it's just helped me prioritize. So someone says, hey, you've started companies, can you help me figure out how to start a company in the space that you did? I say, great. If you wanna go to Loom and you wanna record some specific questions or write them out in an email, I'm happy to answer those questions.

And if it eventually makes sense for us to chat, I'm happy to, but there's a lot going on right now, and I just have to let some things drop, and it's nothing personal. And learning to do that and getting comfortable doing that has made it so much more comfortable to go and say, you know what?

Like this week, our au pair is out of town. She's in Boston, New York, Chicago, having a blast. And that means there's no childcare and two kids is a lot. And so other than this interview, I basically have no meetings all week, and I'm okay with that. And I'm letting things drop because I've gotten comfortable with that skill.

That's been the biggest thing for me is that comfort with doing something that in your grindy kind of 20s, early 30s time of life just felt unfathomable. It's like, I gotta get it done. Letting it go is very cathartic. - You know, that reminds me, and I love that you say like, you know, as soon as you gotta drop some stuff, right?

In the book, "The One Thing," I'll bring it up again, Gary Keller, Jay Papasan, they have the book, "The One Thing," and they tell the story or the metaphor in there that says that life is like juggling a bunch of balls, right? You're juggling family, health, your work, your career, your financial life, you're balancing all those things.

And he says, some of those balls are rubber and some of them are glass, right? When you drop something at work, it'll bounce right back. Like typically nothing's really that bad, but there are glass balls in our life, right? Our relationship with our spouse or significant other is a glass ball.

And you can only drop that so many times before it shatters. And so there's this constant, yeah. I'm always thinking a lot of my life is going to get dropped. A lot of things are gonna get dropped. Let's make sure we drop the right things. And that, I think in my life, like that would be a great reputation to have and a great dying thought is I drop the right balls throughout my life.

- And it's funny 'cause I respected the email I got from James so much. You think you have this email that's like, I've had a handful of people that I would put in the category of important people. Their emails are like, hey, I'm not checking email this summer. And I'm like, damn, that person's like, they've got it figured out.

I didn't write back and be like, that person's an asshole. My reaction was like, this person is prioritizing their life in many cases, better than me. And so I would just encourage people to realize that most of people's reaction to your dropping the ball in a polite way might actually be kind of jealousy and envy more than frustration.

- And I would even, to push it to another level, if I could real quick, like another reason to do that by adding these bounds in your life, like things like, for example, like people might be surprised to hear this, but like, I mean, I'm building a billion dollar brand.

I have a billion dollars of real estate. We'll buy 10 billion. That should make my company about a billion in profit over the next five to 10 years. Like that's, it's a legit like billion dollar profit business. And I work at most five hours a week. Like that's it.

Like I don't work a lot of hours at this. I'm gonna launch a new business next year that I think is gonna be awesome. And I'm from day one, I have the requirement. I do not work more than five hours a week at this. And the cool thing is, is by having those boundaries, I am forced to build a business that I am not within.

Like I am building it from the outside looking in. I'm not building it from the inside up. I'm not doing every single role. I'm saying, no, that's the rules of this business, of this game. I'm gonna play within the rules. And so many people don't realize that you get to make whatever rules you want.

This is your game. Like your business is your game. Make it however you want. So established rules, like I only work this much. I don't work Fridays. I take Wednesday and Thursday and Friday off. Like who cares, right? And then you will find a way to be successful. 'Cause if you're listening to this podcast an hour in or whatever we're in, like you're a legit person.

You're going to find a way to be massively successful within the bounds of, within the rules that you establish. So establish them. Don't just play what's given to you. Define what you want to do, what sounds amazing. And then just go after that. If you haven't read the book from Strength to Strength from Arthur Brooks, I think you should.

I think you'd enjoy it. I had him on the podcast and it's about finding a new form of happiness as you transition from a style of intelligence and work in your early life that isn't as compatible in the second half of life. And second half is not like seventies.

It's like, you know, late thirties, forties kind of age. We were like, I'm finding a new way to work that is more compatible with long-term happiness.