Quit a 9-5 for a Life of Meaning & Lessons From a 103 year old: William Rossy | Ep.110 - Gent's Talk

[00:00:00] On the third day I walk in, I say good morning to everybody and no one answers. It's the third day I just got here, why is no one answering? And for many reasons, French team and I was an Anglophone, I speak French but I say good

[00:00:16] morning and no one answers. And I sit down and I just kind of look around and I'm like, is this what I worked so hard for? Is this what I'm selling my soul for?

[00:00:27] To be surrounded by a bunch of people who won't even say good morning to me? So you didn't have breakfast today? Is that a general thing, like you fast in the morning? Sometimes.

[00:00:59] I don't consistently do it but I don't have my home, my fridge, my typical foods and honestly I don't know where to go in Toronto to get a breakfast but we woke up late, it's been a crazy weekend so. Yeah, well you got it yesterday, was it?

[00:01:14] Yeah, yesterday. Yesterday at 7 am. Montreal. Yeah, very cool. William, welcome to Gents Talk. Thank you. Do you prefer William or Will? The more you say William, the more I feel like I'm in trouble. I was asking as soon as I said it and I was like.

[00:01:29] You said I'm here with William and I'm like, dad? Did I do something wrong? Will is good. Will's good. Okay, well welcome to Gents Talk. Thank you, happy to be here. I'm excited to have this conversation. You do a lot of really cool things.

[00:01:44] You interview basically, I think just recently you said you interviewed someone who was about 103 years old. I'm going to ask you about that a little later but you've built a platform where you interview people to talk about the things they've learned across the scope of their life and

[00:02:03] you come out with these incredible, incredible lessons, these life lessons that it feels like as I'm watching these videos and if you haven't seen them yet please check them out. It feels like I'm just sitting there listening to a grandparent talk about something that

[00:02:16] they've learned in life and there's so much value and insight in that. This is what you're doing now and you're doing extremely well at it but before all of that you were in finance and you hated it. What happened there? Let's start there.

[00:02:36] I'd love to also just say, did we both consciously decide to wear black today? Do you always wear black? I generally wear black, yeah. It's my, it's the easiest thing. I've tried to simplify my dress code.

[00:02:48] I used to always wear these elaborate shirts on this podcast and then I just thought to myself, you know what? I've got one of these shirts in black, this one, and then I have one in like a nice blue and I just rotate between the two.

[00:02:58] I wash them but I rotate between the two. Because with all the black in here I'm like how serious are we going to get here but we can do it. We can get pretty serious. It all depends on how comfortable you are. Totally. Let's dive in.

[00:03:10] So what happened? Yeah. My life right now looks like I make it videos online. I run my own brand, self-improvement, Times Square billboard. I do what I want when I want, how I want. I live my dream life. That's what my life looks like right now.

[00:03:28] Four or five years ago worked in a bank, financial analyst trading fixed income, currencies, commodities at two of the bigger banks in Canada. Yeah. So my life right now looks great. I do what I want when I want, how I want. Make videos, run my own brand.

[00:03:43] I'm really doing what I think I should be doing if that makes sense. I feel like I'm doing my highest calling, the work that I'm performing and the life I'm living. Yeah, very passionate. Professional.

[00:03:55] Five years ago I worked in a bank, two banks, two big banks in Canada, fixed income, currencies, and commodities as a financial analyst on the trading floor. I went to school at McGill in Montreal, a finance major.

[00:04:10] When I went into school at McGill, I thought that I wanted to be an entrepreneur because it'd just come from a family of people who do their thing. My role models are people who live essentially a form of the life I live today.

[00:04:24] So when I went to school, I thought let me do finance as a major because it's the most general. I don't know. I didn't know. It's the most general. I got into school, two things.

[00:04:37] One, being in finance, they really, at least in McGill, push you to be an investment banker or a consultant by the time you graduate. So it's like fast track to a six figure respectable career. And then the people you meet.

[00:04:53] For me in my life, I've always been someone that I want to be the best. I want to be the coolest. I want to be the best and not out of validation but just more out of work, like ethic and everything.

[00:05:06] So I went to school first few weeks and I asked around who are the coolest people in the school? I want to meet them. I want to be like them. I want to be their friend. And usually for my whole life, the coolest people are nice people.

[00:05:21] They give back very community oriented high achievers, et cetera, et cetera. In the business school, those who were the cool kids were working, had jobs lined up at Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Corvina million dollars in the US investment banking consulting.

[00:05:40] So if you wanted to be cool, the definition of cool was having a high paying job. So that's what I thought was the right thing to do even though that wasn't my passion.

[00:05:53] So I did the whole thing, high achiever got a job at a bank worked there for over a year and it's internships. After a year, I get a full time job offer. Boss slides the contract on the desk. I'd like to say it was like that.

[00:06:07] It didn't happen. It just he emailed it but I like to portray it that way because it's cooler. But imagine you get an email from your boss and he goes, we loved having you here. He slid into your inbox. He slid in my, yes my inbox.

[00:06:23] And he says, listen, we'd love to have you back here full time. We want you to be part of the company and job offer is equivalent to about six figures for the whole year. And at this time I'm 21, 21 years old. Great offer. It's a great offer.

[00:06:38] So you know beyond the money, you get the respect. You get social respect, peer, your family, everyone says good for you. And when you go out, you have money, you have stability of comfort. You become the commodity. Yeah, man. You do.

[00:06:56] And so that's my, I get to that point and I go, okay, I have two choices. I know I hate this job because that whole year that I spent, I hated it. I know I hate it but this offer can get me all the respect in the world.

[00:07:10] Everybody will love me. No one will question me but I will hate myself for it. Why? Because I hated the job. Why would I do something that I hate? 21. What is it about the job you hated? Like a freedom, I would say. First thing that comes to mind.

[00:07:26] You know my friends that didn't work in the banks, I would ask to go for lunch with them sometimes. Wasn't allowed a lunch break by the way. But I would do it anyway because I, you know, a certain point, enough is enough. I need to be outside.

[00:07:40] It's a beautiful day. I need to go outside. My friends would come in, they'd meet me at the door of the office and I'd come out like this. Like, you know, head in my hands wearing the suit. It's hot outside.

[00:07:53] No smile on my face and my friends come in on their bikes, shorts, sleeveless, smiles and I'm like whoa. That's freedom and I do not have that. So when I'm 21 years old, do I want to allow myself to accept this job and trade my happiness

[00:08:11] for social acceptance or do I say no? I don't know what I want to do but I will promise myself whatever I do will be more purposeful than that and I'll try to help people not be like me.

[00:08:25] And it was easy because I hated the job so I said no, I'm not doing this. Can we swear on this? Yeah. Okay. Just in case it comes up. No, not because you can say whatever you want. Okay. I was basically like fuck that. I'm not doing this.

[00:08:40] I'm going to do my own thing. I don't know what that is but I'm going to do my own thing and then when I quit all my friends like in the financial world, everyone cares about how much you're making.

[00:08:51] So my friends would be like oh what job did you get and how much and this and that and I'm like I declined my job. I quit. I'm not doing this anymore. And everyone was freaking out and I realized out of everyone that I knew in the financial

[00:09:05] world who hated their jobs like I did, I'm the only one who said no. Everybody else said yes. We traded their happiness at a young age for acceptance, stability, power to a certain extent, status and I didn't.

[00:09:23] And because of that I burned a lot of bridges not on purpose but that's what it was. People don't want to associate themselves with you if you're not better than them, if you're not going to make them look better. And I went down my own journey.

[00:09:36] So you don't fit the box of how they define success. You can't be in that circle for them. And what I learned later on is that there are a lot of boxes. There are a lot of boxes.

[00:09:50] And I can just say thing that comes to my head right now is I was in Japan last year and the Japanese have a very high suicide rate because they, I mean this is not the

[00:10:00] only reason but one of the reasons is they place a lot of emphasis on their work, their career equals their life, their career equals their value. If they get fired and they're no longer part of the firm, of the community, they feel they have nothing to live for.

[00:10:18] And that's overpowering to the point where they would rather just take their life. What a sad way of living. It's terrible. So someone hearing this sitting there thinking I'm in a job I hate might go so you went

[00:10:36] from being a 21 year old being offered a six figure salary you turned it down to make videos online is sort of how they would sum it up. I guess so, yeah. But these videos have reached billions of people. So firstly congratulations on that.

[00:10:58] Like I'm not even, I'm not embellishing that number. Those are real figures. Yeah. But that process is not an overnight process either. So once you decided to quit fast forward to your making the videos, how long between quitting and when you started seeing actual tangible results success?

[00:11:20] Three and a half years maybe. Three and a half years. By the way I was super introverted when I started making videos. Yeah. So I initially thought I would do a blog because I was a writer. And I didn't like the feel of that.

[00:11:36] Didn't feel like I could connect with people. Then I started a podcast but not like what we're doing right now. It was me basically reading out my blog posts. Very lonely in my basement in COVID. Very depressing. I'm like this is not going anywhere. I'm not doing this.

[00:11:51] And then one of my friends is like why don't you make YouTube videos? Whoa, like you want to put my face out there and my voice and make a video. I don't know how to make videos. I know how to value a stock.

[00:12:04] Not too well but I know how to value a stock. But a video, I don't have a camera. I'm an introvert. So the process of getting to I guess traction, two things. One had no idea what I was doing for a while.

[00:12:17] So a lot of learning, a big learning curve there. Two it was kind of a different period. We have short form videos now. I would say I neglected short form videos for about a year and a half. Which probably maybe.

[00:12:32] Could have gotten me to where I want it to be faster. But I'm very happy the way everything went. So it took about three and a half years. A lot of figuring life out and a lot of figuring out how to make videos, who to make videos for.

[00:12:43] Right. I'm curious if I want to go back a second. The thought just occurred to me. If I was a fly on the wall when you were working that job you hated and I saw you in your office what would I have seen?

[00:13:01] I probably would have seen me on travel websites on my computer for the majority of the time I worked there. Not to say I didn't do anything but the anticipation of leaving, of being somewhere else. Yeah I don't know.

[00:13:22] I think fly on the wall that's what you would have seen from a physical standpoint. Inside you would have seen or you would have felt someone who's not himself. And it's a shame.

[00:13:33] It's honestly a shame to be surrounded by people who don't share the same dream as you. So yeah if you were a fly on the wall you wouldn't have known me enough to know that

[00:13:42] but I wouldn't have, I would have been a very very different version of who I actually am. What triggered you to decide to walk away? You said that they provided you the contract but you'd already been ideating on this for a while.

[00:13:58] It sounds like was there one particular moment that you can think back to that was, this was it I finally like I'm done. Honestly the day I got there I felt, I just felt like it wasn't for me.

[00:14:12] Three days in I would go to my desk so imagine a big trading floor windows on one side kind of a glass panel separating a series of traders on the other side I'm in that glass area facing the wall that has no windows.

[00:14:30] So and it's nice outside it's like the summer in Canada it's nice so the contrast is huge. On the third day I walk in I say good morning to everybody and no one answers. It was the third day I just got here why is no one answering?

[00:14:47] And you know for many reasons French team and I was an anglophone I speak French but I say good morning and no one answers and I sit down and I just kind of look around and I'm like

[00:14:57] is this what I worked so hard for? Is this what I'm selling my soul for to be surrounded by a bunch of people who won't even say good morning to me? Now I don't know what happened there

[00:15:08] but it did happen a lot that summer where just the the good mornings were not to actually to the point where I just didn't even say it sometimes or I just leave

[00:15:19] like at the end of my day I wouldn't say have a good day everyone. So I think that was the initial moment but I would say main thing is journaling self-reflection was going through a bad breakup

[00:15:31] at that time and actually no that was a different summer but I had just come out of a bad breakup and I was super introspective about my life so I had started journaling the year before

[00:15:44] and I asked myself a question of what do you want to be remembered for or how do you want to be remembered? And the thought that came up to my mind is how did people remember my grandfather,

[00:15:56] my grandmother, my dad, my mom? How do people talk about them and what do they say about them? I'm like if I work in this job and go through this whole career path will they get to the

[00:16:07] point where they say that about me and I just didn't think that was true because I'm not really helping anybody here. I'm just making money, I'm sitting in a cubicle like

[00:16:18] I'm a great guy I have a lot to offer and by being here I will be able I will not be able to show any of that right so I think that was the big one. So if someone's listening

[00:16:29] to this watching this here's you talk about this and they go it's nice that you felt that you were empowered enough to leave a six-figure job many of us in this space don't have that kind

[00:16:41] of a luxury. What do you say to that? Is that true? I don't know. I mean walking away from six figures, walking away from a high five-figure job is hard for a lot of people. I mean a lot

[00:16:56] of people don't have the the flexibility to take time off work or to go pursue a passion project of theirs but that passion of theirs exists and they're looking for some blueprint, some pathway to pursuing the thing that brings them joy fulfillment the passion that you were

[00:17:13] talking about earlier. What advice could you give those people? The guy who gets the advice and the lessons from all the other people what advice would you give for sure? Well so listen

[00:17:23] I'm working at the job in that cubicle the person next to me is also an intern he just moved from Algeria like about a year or two before with his mom single mother the two of them moved

[00:17:37] he's hustling to get this full-time offer because he says if I get this I can change our lives my mom's working three jobs we live in a different part of the city I can make that much money and

[00:17:50] it would change our lives and I was like do it you know even if this is not his most his highest calling he needs to do that I was fortunate enough that I have the choice to decide how I would

[00:18:03] like to make my income so and again I'm young so maybe 21 it's a lot more flexibility yeah it's no it's no consequences you know I can do what I want support a family um that being said there's

[00:18:17] a lot of people that are let's say older and I would advise to them you don't have to take the jump cold feet like I did you know it took me a lot of time to figure out what I wanted and

[00:18:29] to get to a point financially where I could sustain myself and that's a whole conversation in itself but just try to start figuring out what you want start journaling start asking yourself who am I

[00:18:43] what do I want how do I get what I want what's the path that would give me the ability to live out a perfect day in my life I like thinking about that as an exercise yeah what's a perfect day

[00:18:55] in my life from start to finish and if we can create that perfect day we can turn it into our reality and go through it consecutively consistently we create our perfect life so ask yourself

[00:19:09] what it is you actually want that's that's my my initial point of advice and the other thing is you don't have to take the leap if you don't have the ability to stay afloat on your own right

[00:19:22] you know it's I think it's important for people to just ease into it develop the mindset develop the skills build the foundations and then when you feel like you've got momentum and you're confident

[00:19:34] I think it would be different their attitude would be different they wouldn't be listening to what I'm saying and being like oh no you're 21 I can't do this like well okay that was my life

[00:19:43] in my circumstances I had that flexibility if you feel you don't have that flexibility try to create it try to create a little bit and over time that will expand yeah piece by piece yeah it can it

[00:19:55] it could be if you have no consequences or you're willing to take a risk you could jump into it but at the same time you'd have a lot of worries you wouldn't be worrying about the craft

[00:20:06] you'd be worrying about the money so if we can get to a point where you're not worrying about the money and focusing more on the craft you have more success with the journey so walk me through how

[00:20:18] you've built this social platform of yours this business because you've talked about becoming the entrepreneur that you'd always wanted to be and now you're living the life that you've envisioned

[00:20:31] for yourself and people will see that and they go wow this looks incredible but behind it all is a shit ton of work a lot of long hours a lot of failed projects a lot of effort what is building

[00:20:48] a business like yours look like and maybe so that I do it justice properly I'll turn it to you to explain exactly what your business looks like sure so it is as great as it looks

[00:21:02] I don't want to I don't want to say uh oh it's not all glamour and glitz and glamour it's not but I'm still living my dream life so the process is great yeah we it's a self-improvement

[00:21:16] business we we do a few things but basically we teach people how to live a more fulfilling life how we do that specifically we have a community online we teach people how to do the transformation

[00:21:26] that I did to go from your nine to five you're not happy with and be able to learn how to create content figure out your ideal lifestyle and create a business based on that that

[00:21:35] satisfies that ideal lifestyle and then create content just to to be able to make it happen that's what we do we for a nutshell but on social media we do a lot of street interviews

[00:21:47] how did it get there well it was a long journey like I said two two and a half years since I went full-time on on the business until the first video blew up

[00:21:58] so to be able to build a business like that I think two and a half years between until the first video blew up yeah so that part there is so important yeah I think a lot of people

[00:22:09] will post and then expect that they're going to become viral sensations overnight it can happen but it's rare yeah it can happen I think I think if you learn from people who've

[00:22:21] who've kind of navigated that journey I think it can happen faster than two and a half years I don't think it would take that long I think honestly people could do it within a few months

[00:22:30] but they really have to get clear on who they're making videos for and what kind of videos they want to make and bringing value to the world which most people don't do so if you can figure that out I

[00:22:41] think you can navigate it my problem was I didn't know how to make a video I didn't know how to tell a story I didn't know how to film how to edit and I also didn't really know what

[00:22:52] the dream outcome I had what that looked like from a technical standpoint so a lot of experimentation think fitness challenges that didn't get views so then starting to do travel videos traveling across Canada traveling around the world making more what to see what to do this and

[00:23:11] that because I thought oh the SEO will will get me the views and it did honestly but it did it didn't build the audience I was looking for wasn't the same mission I came out of that

[00:23:23] started throwing events for people one guy throwing events for 30 people is crazy it just doesn't work long term so it's a lot of work it's a lot of work for a video like at 600 views also

[00:23:35] like it's just you know thousand dollars for the event and 30 people and a week of planning and it's not worth it at this at that point and then around that time I was thinking about my biggest

[00:23:49] fears and I was like you know I have a hard time speaking to people I don't know my biggest fear very shy very introverted I just I feel like if I could get over that my life could look a lot better

[00:24:03] so I decided trying to leverage speaking to strangers not the way that I do it in an interview format but take like a vlog camera GoPro on my chest and I went to LA for six weeks

[00:24:16] and I said I'm gonna sit here in LA for six weeks alone I don't know anybody here I'm alone I don't know anybody very hard city to be alone and by the way and I'm just gonna talk to as many

[00:24:25] people as I can so that when I get out of this period hopefully the fear is gone and it I was successful with that and that kind of triggered this whoa maybe maybe speak to strangers

[00:24:41] and it wasn't a mindless decision of like oh this could get views it was when I was younger my friends would tell me you're gonna be a motivational speaker one day that's what we see for you so I'm

[00:24:52] like whoa hold on this skill this vision and then what I wanted out of sprout these kind of make sense what if I just start talking to people and ask them questions about life in a way

[00:25:05] that I would like to understand so for me because I was making a lot of videos for algorithm yeah for views I said hold on two and a half years videos no views kind of burnt out right now you know

[00:25:18] posted one every week for two and a half years hmm went to a conference also where Mr. Bees and all these big youtubers were there and just kind of sucked in the information and they're

[00:25:28] like post post short form videos try it see what it's like and I met a friend who was doing interview content and I'm like interesting I don't like what he does but I love how he does it

[00:25:40] so I kind of took all that I'm like okay let's try something new I don't care about the views anymore I don't care how it does I want to do something for me and I want to do something that

[00:25:49] I could learn from so I go out on the street I buy a microphone and buy yeah like I'm like two piece microphone I go out with a friend and he's like what are you gonna talk about

[00:26:01] I'm like uh money you know I know that's a topic that does well and whatever he goes do you really want to talk about that like no he's like what do you want to talk about yeah I'm like I want to

[00:26:11] talk to people and ask them how old are you and what does it feel like to be your age there are so many people walking around the street that will never be on social media and will never share

[00:26:20] their advice with us I would love to know what they have to say about life he goes cool try first the first one I did it's like a minute and a half conversation with a 67 year old man

[00:26:34] and I did a few that day I go back I start editing them I edit the first one in sequential order not like I picked the best one I edit it I only put what the interview is minute and a

[00:26:45] half I took maybe 40 seconds of it I post it on tiktok and an hour I go eat downstairs like with my dad and everything my parents an hour later I come back up I go 10 000 views

[00:27:01] whoa dad like this this this video is 10 000 10 000 that's a lot of views yeah um and I refresh and it just keeps going keeps going a couple hours later I'm like 100 000 views

[00:27:15] my dad and I are like freaking out and the next day hits a million views and all the comments it's not only comments it saves and shares and when I see saves and shares I'm like

[00:27:27] it's resonating with people it's resonating yeah there's some value there you know people are taking something away from that and that that moment that was my first video that ever got like that

[00:27:37] everyone viral and it was it's cool because it was at the moment where I just have least resistance sort of you know I stopped caring about the views I stopped caring about

[00:27:47] just all the little nitty gritty details and I said let me make something that I think would make the world a better place that I also want to learn from and it worked so is it the

[00:27:59] moment of least resistance as you described it where you just stopped caring so much about what others are how others are going to react to the project you're putting out there

[00:28:10] and just putting it out there based on how you would consume it if that makes sense maybe for most people but one thing I did well that I think you're saying how did you get how did you build the

[00:28:23] business you want to go back to that question one thing I did that I haven't seen anyone else do from the start is I knew what I was working for so I said if I could just get the audience

[00:28:33] then I can actually do what I want to do which is what the online education platform basically I want to change the way people are educated right I think we don't learn in school

[00:28:43] who am I what do I want how do I get what I want I want to be able to teach people what they didn't learn in school I knew that from the start but who you who do you say it to how do you

[00:28:53] how do you communicate it that's like a three-year journey of trying to build an audience of people who would resonate with that message yeah most people I think build a business because

[00:29:02] they think building a business is a good idea oh entrepreneurship it's so sexy I can work for myself I can do my own hours yeah there's like it's really not that glamorous a lot of times

[00:29:13] it's not I mean it's it's better than in my opinion just because I prefer it it's better than working in a corporate job sure maybe that's not the same for for a lot of people and

[00:29:22] that's fine but it's very very hard I think it's much much harder to be an entrepreneur than it is to be a corporate employee and people think it's easy and it's all about what you see on

[00:29:33] Instagram this and that you know and I never did it to like be glamorous I did it because I wanted my freedom but I think most people don't think about that they're like oh I can make a lot of money

[00:29:45] and I can you know buy go on a yacht and have champagne and you know everyone will want me and maybe for some people but the reality is it takes a lot of work

[00:29:56] and there's so many sleepless nights of editing videos I remember going on a double date my girlfriend and and another couple got back at 11 30 11 30 p.m she goes okay you know let's go to bed I go I

[00:30:10] got a video to post tomorrow I don't know about you she's like did you start editing it I'm like no so she's sleeping in the room I'm on the desk I'm at the desk 11 30 p.m to 8 a.m editing

[00:30:23] falling asleep waking up falling asleep waking up post the video 200 views every weekend every time that happened there's so many sleepless nights and if and along the way there's so many people who wanted the glamour of being a youtuber of being a creator of being a business person

[00:30:41] and they they dropped they dropped off because they learned over time it's very hard to build a good business yeah so what kept you going in the moments where you would do all of that

[00:30:53] you'd pull the all nighter 200 views yeah like that's like when you talk about like an emotional dejection after a long sleepless night to then wake up and then see that and you go what the

[00:31:05] fuck was all that for yeah like all that just like really pulls away from your energy your motivation how did you keep yourself disciplined to keep going yeah I do I called it like the Friday grind to Saturday depression just on a weekly recurring basis and Sunday you're

[00:31:21] like well we got to do this again how did I keep going and again I think most people don't do this my everyone has an ego and that's fine I think everyone should to a certain extent but what I do

[00:31:35] is not for me I benefit from it because it's my business and I designed it that way but what I do is not for me what I do like I was saying earlier the impact my grandfather grandmother

[00:31:47] father like those the words people had to say and my grandfather's funeral about him the way people talk about my grandfather if I run into someone who knew him they talk about him to me

[00:31:57] now how do I get people to talk about me that way and I realized after every video that flopped it's like cool if I give up and I go back to working some job I'm not happy with and I

[00:32:12] I quit if I quit what about the millions or thousands and hundreds of people who when I start getting views are gonna be inspired and are going to be able to learn something and

[00:32:26] take something away how do I inspire millions of people if I give up so every video that you post it gets 200 views and you go should I stop like is this it and then the next thought is well

[00:32:40] what about them these people are waiting to be inspired if you give up your podcast what about everyone listening when when's and there's no more episodes what are they gonna do what value are

[00:32:51] they gonna take away yeah you are you are not allowing people to be inspired you are not giving them the opportunity to change their life or see life differently so that was what I

[00:33:02] told myself the whole time if we stop now what about when they start watching you know that's a very good point we can't yeah we can't let people go through this and so for me my mission

[00:33:14] outlives me it outlives there's a great purpose yeah when you were talking about the what people would say at your funeral Robin Sharma was a previous guest on the podcast he's got he's

[00:33:30] the author of the 5am club great book amazing I just finished the audio version of it nice he talked about one thing he said to me is like what would people say at your funeral Samir

[00:33:42] and he talks about this idea of as as doom and gloom as it sounds to think about your own funeral it really puts into perspective how you're going to be remembered and what kind of lasting impact

[00:33:54] you want to leave on people and that's not just strangers we're talking about your family your friends like how much have you cultivated the relationships you currently have and it made me reflect on my existing relationships and truthfully how I show up in the world

[00:34:10] two strangers as well right what kind of image am I presenting forward I'm curious though to ask you the people who listen and watch your videos and the mission of helping people fulfill their

[00:34:28] their passions and follow that journey of theirs for the ones who are in the corporate world but are comfortable not in a bad way because you know complacency is a bad thing but they're comfortable and they're happy they're motivated they find fulfillment in their corporate jobs

[00:34:47] but they want to excel a little further so they're not looking to leave the nine to five and there isn't again to be fair nothing wrong with the nine to five if it's right for you

[00:34:56] mm what would you say to them yeah let's preface and say when I quit my job I was anti nine to five anti banking you know if you work in this you're an idiot you're a slave like this and that yeah

[00:35:10] over time you you settle down and you realize it's not for everybody but it is for some people so it's okay you know it's not a bad thing to want to do that I don't want to glamorize

[00:35:22] like entrepreneurship and say corporate sucks it's just pick what you want to do for me at this point I just want to make sure everyone is doing what they want to be doing if you're happy to work in

[00:35:34] banking it's all good do it but to what you just said maybe I'm I'm not interpreting it the way you ask however I have a lot of friends like this where they say I like my job job is good

[00:35:48] my life is not bad it's actually pretty good but it's not great and this job is not going to make it great and that's the hardest position to be in life when I quit my job I hated it sucked so

[00:36:04] when no matter how much you throw at me or how much you try to pressure me into going down that path it sucks I don't want to do it but some people for some people they

[00:36:15] paid well life's good it's not great even good yeah we got benefits so what advice can you give the people who want to make their life great outside of their job because their job gives them everything

[00:36:27] they need to sustain themselves and then enjoy themselves but they don't quite know how to take their life to that next level yeah well on average statistically we work about a third of

[00:36:38] our life so let's just break that down into a day eight hours of a day let's say eight of 24 hours we're working let's say eight out of 24 we're sleeping that leaves you with eight hours every day

[00:36:50] to do I don't know what do you do with that life what do you do with those hours you need to really understand how to maximize the hours that you have in order to I think goes back to what I said

[00:37:03] before live a perfect day if you're happy with your job and your job fits your perfect day let's say or your ideal life or your future vision of your life good you sleep cool we got eight hours left

[00:37:18] what are things that make you happy have you thought about that have you realized that like you said before you're not spending enough time with your community with your friends with your family are

[00:37:29] the relationships you want to build are their hobbies you want to take on I think a lot of us put emphasis on our work as the work being our life like what I said with the Japanese but

[00:37:41] not to the same extent you are more than your job it's crazy if you think about a networking event or just any event I meet you I say you know who are you and you don't say I'm Samir I'm

[00:37:56] you know I'm Lebanese I'm living Toronto you say I have a podcast you say I'm an accountant you say I'm a banker it's the first thing who are you and you say I'm this this is what I do

[00:38:08] for a living but what you do for a living and who you are not the same and I think we forget that so who are you people need to understand that who are you what do you like what do

[00:38:18] you not like what are your hobbies what are your interests what makes you happy why are you not doing them you are more than your job so to those people I would say cool good job

[00:38:30] actually I'm proud of those people because they found something that they enjoy that doesn't piss them off yeah so that's great that being said what else can we do to make our life a little

[00:38:42] more well-rounded more fulfilling more whole and I think the simplest things is you know go back to what you like but making a list of that literally write it on a piece of paper things I love doing

[00:38:55] bullet point bullet point bullet point bullet point and then and then maybe next next column am I doing them yes or no and you find most of them is things I like doing no no no no no no

[00:39:08] okay well let's start adding them in yeah I'm fascinated by this idea of entrepreneurship because ever since I've been on that path it was like someone threw cold water on my face when I

[00:39:22] realized just how much work is involved in it how it's not as glamorous as it's made out to be on social media I'm also very weary of those we'll call them with quotation marks financial gurus and

[00:39:36] all those entrepreneurship gurus that you see on social media who you know they come on very aggressively and tell you that if you're not you know living on a yacht basically you've somehow failed as a human don't ever listen to those people but entrepreneurship is not

[00:39:54] the glamour that it's made out to be it can be extremely rewarding you have you can choose what you do that day but it requires so much discipline because what you choose to do that

[00:40:08] day will that's will decide what happens to you the day after the month after the year after the what's the biggest lesson you've learned since becoming an entrepreneur and what's the biggest

[00:40:21] pitfall to avoid I mean how much like just based on what you said right it's it's hard and it's uncertain and every day is a new challenge how fun is it to be on this journey besides the

[00:40:36] fact that it's hard what is the point of life if we are not doing hard things I love this quote it's a I actually don't know who it's by it might be an anonymous one but easy life hard choices hard

[00:40:51] life easy choices so if we take the easy way out all the time seems easy but life will be very hard because you have a lot of things you know the the pressure of dealing with the dissatisfaction

[00:41:07] that you didn't go for the thing you wanted or you didn't do it or whatever versus the flip side what if we did more hard things to the point where eventually life could look super easy like I

[00:41:18] when I talk to my friends about what my life looks like and what I do and how I operate they freak out like how do you do these things you're just gonna fly to Arizona for 11 hours

[00:41:29] interview someone and then fly back at midnight and get got to Toronto at 7 a.m. barely sleep all day then do a podcast yeah yeah I'm gonna do that because it's fun you know I don't

[00:41:42] know if it's gonna work out I don't know if the podcast can be good I don't know if the interview is gonna be good but that's the beautiful thing about the journey I have chosen

[00:41:51] to do it's hard and uncertain and scary but what's the point of life if we just sit in the comfort zone we sit on our on our little chair and with our little Netflix and whatever and we just

[00:42:03] chill I think my lesson from entrepreneurship is that doing the hard thing is the most fulfilling thing even though it's scary and you have nerves that's the point of life the point of life is

[00:42:15] two things one to just push yourself and test your limits but two to understand that I just want to bring this up because I was thinking about it in the sauna today but like impermanence you know nothing is forever and nothing is guaranteed and entrepreneurship is really a

[00:42:33] microcosm of life you don't know if your business you what can happen to your business I mean anything can happen it could be some crazy thing outside onto the street anything can happen but it's the beautiful thing of knowing that knowing that actually knowing that anything can

[00:42:50] happen and just deciding to push forward I find that very freeing I think we grasp for some security in the chaos that is around us the uncertainty of life the fact that at any moment someone you

[00:43:04] can drop dead and that's it it's done I remember the very first time I started considering entrepreneurship and when I say it like that it makes it sound like it's just a I'm ordering

[00:43:15] something off the menu right it does and I don't mean it that way I mean it from the lens of when I started to put some serious thought into whether a nine to five was for me or not anymore was the

[00:43:26] first day I walked into my government job similar to you walking into your banking job cubicles everywhere it's where people's souls went to die and everyone just looked miserable and I just

[00:43:39] kept thinking to myself like is this it is this all there is to it and a couple of weeks later a person who was near retirement passed away I didn't really know them so I was asking like you

[00:43:53] know can you tell me more about the person you know I just started and I had found out that this individual had accumulated what was several months worth of vacation time and sick days and all

[00:44:06] those things that they had been saving up to use basically at the end of their career and it made me realize that they didn't live long enough to actually enjoy any of that

[00:44:19] they didn't live long enough to enjoy the pension that they were going to get that they worked so hard for and it's less a reflection on the government the job the organization replaced with anybody

[00:44:30] but more a reflection on instead of waiting to live your life go out and find those moments go live your go go travel go experience things live for the moments the relationships the

[00:44:45] I have these conversations and I'm sure you do too where people tell you you know one of my biggest regrets was that I wasn't ever really present when my kids were growing up or I wasn't present

[00:44:54] when this big thing happened in my life and I was so excited about it but I was right back at work doing something else or doing something I didn't enjoy and to your point what what's it worth

[00:45:04] right like is by the time you're on your deathbed was anything you know what are you gonna tell people oh I was an accountant for 35 years or I stood and looked up at the Sistine Chapel and was in awe of

[00:45:17] it or I'm thinking about Italy right now I had a Nespresso or an espresso sorry sorry an espresso one coffee thinking about Italy I had an espresso sitting in front of the Coliseum like just

[00:45:32] those experiences those moments are what you're going to remember and take with you not you know that upset moment or that email that pissed you off or you know what I mean like there's

[00:45:46] it's just about trying to recalibrate the framework and that's where I truly started to think about entrepreneurship but more so the freedom aspect of it because I think that's what it really represents

[00:45:58] because you can you know we typically associate entrepreneurship with you have to make a ton of money you gotta make a lot of money to be a successful entrepreneur but a successful entrepreneur

[00:46:08] means you have the time to choose and do what you want with who you want and when you want regardless of how many how much money you're bringing in you can be making 60 grand a year as an entrepreneur but if that somehow gives you the flexibility and

[00:46:21] the freedom to do everything you want aren't you still a successful entrepreneur you should clip this whole monologue that you just had and show it to everyone that you know

[00:46:31] like there's so much power in that story and what followed it yeah I want that I want I'm just gonna clip that and just like replay it in my head over and over again but yes I think one of the

[00:46:43] most successful people I've ever interviewed like total strangers this couple I was in Singapore these two French people that moved to Singapore and they have their own jobs there and everything but

[00:46:57] my point of making that video I went to Singapore because I love it but also because it's very money driven as a society and they place your worth a lot of your your worth is dependent on the amount

[00:47:10] amount of money you're making so if you're making more you know your cooler type of thing so when I went there I wanted to just try to understand at what point should we stop chasing

[00:47:22] money that was the point of my good question yeah at what point should we stop chasing money and these people they understood they basically made this whole diagram this whole table of trying

[00:47:35] to figure out what the numerical value of the amount of the money they needed to live their dream life and sustain it was I never met anyone in my life who's done that they actually defined

[00:47:46] how much money it would take for them to be truly free they actually did it and what they learned was it was a fraction of what they thought it would be hmm so I encourage everyone to ask

[00:48:00] that and I need to ask myself that at what point should we stop chasing money it's very common for us to want more and chase more because that's the society we live in especially if you're ambitious

[00:48:13] but you and me can say confidently right now we do what we want when we want how we want that's what freedom is to me that's what freedom is to you that so that being said

[00:48:28] we should be happy we should be completely happy yet we have ambition to have more and seek more and because of that that stress it overpowers sometimes right and we're not present

[00:48:40] 100% it's like you quit your government job that you hated and you built this life that you dreamed of yet you're still left wanting more so what's what's the strategy there it's a constant balancing act

[00:48:58] one day you're like this was the best decision I've ever made the next day you're like am I an idiot did I just screw up royally and I have this in here I've never had that thought

[00:49:07] really since quitting yeah never well maybe not quitting but choosing this particular path good for you so how do you why do you why do you have that thought well it's more so from

[00:49:19] the lens of on the days where things don't go well and you go you know what sometimes it'd be nice just to be able to take a break and know that even if I'm I mean we would it though

[00:49:30] no yeah I know that but you know it's those negative it's that negative self-talk that I'm constantly trying to fight against and it's just this constant like battle right but at the end of

[00:49:42] the day yeah I always tell my team and when things are going wrong go that's it we're all going to Deloitte we're all going to work at Deloitte that's it hey I know a lot of great people at Deloitte

[00:49:53] listen to this podcast Deloitte just I see them everywhere so it's my first thought okay yeah but there's it's like it definitely is a balancing act at the end of the day right particularly on the entrepreneurship side but I want to ask you because we've flown through our

[00:50:12] time here but I want to ask you you did an interview with no one's mad about that are they anyone mad here I don't think so no yeah so it's okay but that interview that you did in Arizona

[00:50:25] with 103 year old yeah tell me about that what did you learn yeah uh like you think when you interview someone who's 103 years old who's born on November 30th 1920 oh Jesus can you process that

[00:50:40] in November 30th 1920 so let's say that person has seen the Great Depression multiple world wars I and that's just between before the 50s yeah just before the 50s presidents getting assassinated yeah or shot at recently yeah or shot out recently the whole world changing millions of times

[00:51:04] technology TVs phones walkmans camcorders so she knew vividly where she was on d-day wow yeah can you say you know someone who can answer that question no no I don't where were you

[00:51:23] on d-day I was having a picnic with my friends and we ate the best food and it was great and everyone was so joyful and people thought the world was gonna be great again

[00:51:33] so what a feeling that must have been imagine imagine at that time yeah like you have no come like you there's no comfort it's a world war yeah what do you what do you do so I learned

[00:51:45] a lot I mean I learned a lot but some of the things I learned was first about the world I think a lot of people right now think the world is in shambles but it you could

[00:51:57] kind of make that case all the time there's always a situation where the world is sort of in shambles and what she what I learned from her above everything is look for the light so this is

[00:52:12] her example I'm gonna just paraphrase but she's like if you're in a room of full of darkness and you've got imagine you've got a mental flashlight and you just kind of look around

[00:52:24] dark dark dark eventually you'll find something with a glimmer of light and if your mental flashlight hits that small glimmer of light the whole room lights up she's like most people default to the negative because it's easier they default to darkness but there's always something positive

[00:52:45] anytime something negative happens always it's about how you talk about it how you think about it there's always something to take away truthfully so if we just look for that light

[00:52:57] and we find it everything starts to look better and look brighter and that goes for the world that goes for yourself you know goes for the world you live in but also your own world internally

[00:53:08] so look for the light she's so positive like so upbeat super with it super with it she understood everything she was making jokes and she just it's just seemed like she was very content

[00:53:21] with life and it sucks because I interview a lot of people of all ages and the older that they get the happier they are because they they just gave up caring about a lot of things they gave up

[00:53:34] they're like it's almost done you know life's almost done I have no time to worry about these things and imagine we could just apply that logic to ourselves at the age we're at just yeah it's

[00:53:45] it's not that long life you know maybe 50 years left but it's not long it's not it's not a lot of time that you have left so you know if if you don't like your job if you don't like your life if

[00:53:56] there's something you want to improve if there's that trip you want to go on like find a way to make it happen because there's not that much life left you know I don't want to paint that as a

[00:54:05] very negative picture but it's true you gotta be real it's true you gotta be real you're only here once time will pass regardless so if you want to do things you don't like and you want to live

[00:54:17] the way you you want to live that doesn't make you happy do it but time will pass if you want to live the way you want to live time will pass it will pass regardless so you might as well try to do

[00:54:29] things that make you happy and try to live in a way that makes you happy and try to find the positive in every situation to push further that's a mix I brought me and her into that part of

[00:54:39] that is my love you know it's funny because as you were talking I started smiling because I was thinking to myself the moment I fully comprehended how finite life is is when I got a puppy and the

[00:54:52] reason behind that is because you know for all intents and purposes you're going to outlive that puppy their life is so finite and I kept thinking to myself even though I just got her

[00:55:09] what is it 15 16 years is the average life of a puppy of a dog I'm thinking to myself by in 16 years I'm only going to get so much time with her and so now every little moment with her becomes more

[00:55:22] precious and more valuable and then I started reflecting on that thinking if I could take that exact same thought and mentality and applying that to my relationships with family friends

[00:55:33] partners my work the things I enjoy and I go I don't know how much longer I'm going to get to do this or I don't know when the next time I'm going to see you is what do I have to do to be a lot

[00:55:45] more present in those moments and it's this constant little reminder of this is how I have to stay present grounded in everything I do and to live for the experiences live for the

[00:55:54] moments that bring that genuine joy and laughter not the moments of oh look she peed on the floor and being upset about that instead of like look how QG is running around you know what I

[00:56:05] mean like it's a small thing exactly but though it's just like they changed my mentality completely and I don't have kids and I don't know if this happens to parents when they have kids and they

[00:56:16] start to think about it this way but I mean you also typically assume and you hope that your kids will outlive you but when you get something that's so finite it really puts into perspective

[00:56:27] that you're only doing this for a small amount of time I've heard actors talk about stuff like that too where they're like we knew we were only doing this for two years and so we made the most of it

[00:56:36] because we knew it was only happening for a small window of time I've heard athletes say the same thing about tournaments or journeys that they're on so yeah that that was the biggest

[00:56:45] lesson I think for me on that part I mean just to dial that even like down down to simple things when I would film videos about what's that were travel related or had travel aspects

[00:56:55] into it you know I want to film this the sunset because it's going to be great you know it's going to be cinematic it's going to be wonderful so we go we bring the drone we bring the cameras

[00:57:05] film the sunset by the time we're done the sunset it's like hmm so I just worked the whole time that the sun was setting but I came to tell people how beautiful the sunset was but I

[00:57:19] didn't actually get to enjoy it and I find we need to just think about that I try to like anytime something cool happens I try to not be on my phone if you watch any sporting event or a

[00:57:32] concert or whatever something cool happens photo video photo and then they go oh yeah look at this photo video I had but did they actually enjoy the moment there's this really famous photo when

[00:57:44] Messi comes on the pitch for the first time with Miami and everyone's filming but David Beckham David Beckham's like this he's just chilling like this and it's such a beautiful photo because

[00:57:57] he's the only guy in the moment so I think I think we need to commit make a commitment to ourselves let's try to enjoy everything more me you and me can do another podcast we can hang

[00:58:08] out we can have another set of experiences but we'll never be here at this time on this day in this circumstance at this age again that's it this is only one July 15th 2024 there's only one

[00:58:23] so let's try to enjoy that and I think the more we do the happier we will be and notice how nothing we just spoke about has anything to do with money agreed you know there's there's there's wasn't part of the conversation you know I think you

[00:58:39] need money to a certain extent to hit a baseline of comfort it's nice to have in the bank for safety for stability but how much how much let's think about that and then once we have that

[00:58:53] I mean just try to enjoy life a little more well I appreciate you thank you so much for coming through thank you for having this conversation with me I'm inspired by your journey I love

[00:59:03] your videos please keep doing what you're doing spreading those kinds of messages we need more of them in the world today and let's reconnect as your journey grows further and further I'd love to do this again I'd love to as well thank you thank you so much everybody