# Common Traits of Legends with Ndamukong Suh

Channel: Greg Isenberg
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1qjB4p18BY
Duration: 58 min
Language: English
Words: 11163
Transcript page: https://viewrankai.com/tools/youtube-transcript/v1qjB4p18BY

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[0:05] what's up man how you doing wow look at that hair holy [ __ ] that is you look amazing i heard we uh i heard we have a big guess coming on later like a tall so i figured i can use a couple extra inches yeah i mean that's like you must be six nine with that hair right now that is good tall hair it's like it's got a little bit of like a jimmy neutron johnny bravo vibe to it someone on my team actually was saying how in in remote culture because you don't know how tall everyone is everyone's constantly thinking about like how tall is everybody

[0:44] have you had the incident yet i've had this several times in the remote world where like you meet someone and they're dramatically different height than you expected like the the little difference is you don't notice that much but the ones where like someone you assumed was kind of short ends up being super tall or the other way it's really it actually throws you off in your first in your first in-person interaction with them yeah i actually think that's like a fun blog to create like people who sound tall but in reality are really short and vice versa it's kind of me like there's something kind of underlying me like there's a

[1:19] there's this friend of ours who i think you might know sieva um who i think sean poorie originally introduced me to he's amazing he's like an amazing investor business builder great great guy and we had zoomed and um you know we like vibed i really liked him a lot and then we planned to meet up and we met up like a few days later in person and the dude's like six seven or something like six six and i felt like it changed the entire power dynamic of our relationship not that i felt like i was like the dominant one or anything over the zoom but it

[1:48] definitely like i saw him and it was like he bear hugged me and i was like this tiny little human and i'm like 6'2 or something and i was like this little mini human um in his arms when he hugged me and i was just like this was so far and he says he constantly gets it but it was so far off what i had expected that it was pretty hilarious well it sounds like a humbling experience definitely one that i uh that i wasn't expecting um dude we have a lot to cover today um and we have an amazing guest who i'm really excited to have on it's taken

[2:21] a while to get him on in large part because he was playing in the super bowl uh so i'm looking forward to having that discussion we have in damakong sioux coming on to chat everything from you know life lessons learned from sports to reinvention to web 3 and and solana which i've seen him write a whole bunch about so pretty excited to dive into that we've got him coming on in a little bit but there was something in the news over the last couple days that i wanted to talk about with you um because i just thought it was a it was a really interesting um

[2:55] really interesting kind of like story and and web 3 case that was happening so maybe we can start there and then i know you've got a couple other things as well cool let's let's go 93 of your life is spent indoors but so many of our best moments are outdoors that's why i'm so excited to share with you outer outer makes the world's most beautiful comfortable and durable outdoor furniture when i moved to new york last year and got a new place one of my priorities was finding an outdoor workspace outer's products have provided me with that game changing experience i now have outdoor furniture that's

[3:32] durable that has modular designs it has lifeproof material that withstands the weather and the fluctuations that new york often brings they have a patented built-in outer shell cover to keep your furniture dry from rain and dew it's the how did no one think of this before product for me on the outdoor furniture front i've absolutely loved it and i know you will too see the difference at liveouter.com room and now through may 1st you'll get 300 off plus free shipping again that's live outer o u t e r dot com slash room and get 300 off plus free shipping only available to our podcast listeners you're going to absolutely love it

[4:19] interested in investing in commercial real estate but not sure where to start me too well lex has created a new way for you to invest in real estate lex turns individual buildings into public stocks via ipo so you can invest trade and manage your own portfolio of high quality commercial real estate any u.s investor can open alex account browse opportunities in various asset classes such as multi-family and office buildings and buy shares of these individual buildings lex opens up direct and tax advantage ownership in an asset class that has previously been inaccessible to most investors get started today and explore lex's live assets in new york city and an upcoming

[5:01] ipo in seattle sign up for free at lex dash markets dot com slash room and get a 50 bonus when you deposit at least 500 so did you see this um luna terra uh bet that just happened the other day i did see it but for the listeners maybe explain what the craziness that that occurred okay so you know just to set the stage on it um tara is a stable coin ust is the ticker luna is the token that that backs it um you know when people talk about currency like crypto currencies it's a little bit of a misnomer because no one really uses bitcoin or ethereum

[5:47] as a as a currency today maybe in the future they will but right now both because of how tax authorities treat it and because of the volatility you wouldn't really want to pay for things in it you know you have the situation like the pizza uh the bitcoin pizza story of the guy that used bitcoin to buy a pizza now that would be worth you know whatever 100 million some absurdity so people don't really use um a lot of cryptocurrencies as currency stable coins are kind of the solution to that ust tara is one of the biggest stable coins one of the most widely used in a lot of like in korea i know a lot

[6:20] of ecommerce stores actually accept it as payment because it's a lower fee than what their credit card transactions cost um the feature here is that one ust can be swapped for one dollar worth of luna and that's kind of the swap mechanism between the two which as a feature maintains the stability of ust which should be sitting right at a dollar because if it drops below a dollar someone is going to come in and buy it as a way to get arbitrage they'll buy it at 98 cents and swap it for a dollar worth of luna and when that happens it buoys the demand on ust and

[6:57] brings it back to a dollar so it creates this kind of price stability mechanism but there's been this ongoing debate about luna uh and about tara that it's a ponzi scheme um basically that it's like this massive rug pull waiting to happen um and it's in large part around this whole like yield protocol and the overall supply and demand function within it so you have this thing called anchor where basically they're offering 20 plus percent yields on your luna you can put it into the protocol and generate this amazing yield that leads to a lot of people that are scrambling to put money into this and lock it up

[7:32] and it's a little bit unclear where the yield is actually coming from and so bears out in the market have consistently been saying that tara is this massive rug poll waiting to happen um luna and tara both and that it's like uh the bit connect of this crypto bull run bit connect was like this famous rug poll from back in 2017 which i actually got rug pulled in and lost uh ten thousand dollars i think uh thanks to a friend who got me into that so uh i've been paying attention to this because i think it's interesting to follow um but maybe you can explain too what you saw

[8:07] with this bet that just went down uh and we can chat about it in that context yeah i mean well so a couple things you want to clarify so why people use so terra is the blockchain um and then ust and luna are essentially the coins the reason why people use it is uh as many of you know processors you know visa will take two to three percent um tara takes one percent so that's the the big you know value add and the other big value at as you mentioned is the whole stablecoin sort of sort of thing yeah and there are real people using it

[8:47] um like i had read you know a bunch of ecommerce stores in korea which i mentioned actually accept ust because of the fee being different um people you know around the world are using it for transactions like there's actually a real life real world and crypto world use case uh for the for the tokens and there's a ton of uh there's a ton of people in the crypto community just very excited about luna our friend sean poury writes about it a lot on his on his email the milk road i first basically heard about it when my friend phil toronto um sent me a video in the morning on a

[9:25] saturday morning and he wrote greg i think you should get into luna you should buy some luna this is financial advice and i was like what is he talking about um and he sent me this whole deck about why luna is so is so captivating and i think that's kind of the vibe that you get from a lot of people in the crypto community is um you know this is the future so yeah so maybe you want to pull up the tweets uh yeah back and forth yeah yeah so it's like this raging debate though um to your point there's a lot of people that are super excited about it

[10:02] including some like big silicon valley venture firms that have backed um that have backed tara and luna and that have you know put funds into the company to kind of um continue to grow it as they continue to create real world use cases and then on the bear side there's these people that are saying it's one of the biggest rug pulls of all time and that it's a total ponzi scheme waiting to collapse um so what i saw was that in the last couple days there was a really funny back and forth that got created on twitter an account called al god trading sensei al god

[10:31] tweeted luna is the bit connect of this bull run printing 20 apy out their asses once apy drops and demand goes down luna will also spiral having to bail out billions of ust um and then he upped the ante basically saying i will be willing to bet a million a million dollars to anyone who is willing to take the bet with me that luna is going to be worth less a year from now than it is today um and this sparked something really interesting where one of the founders of uh tara uh dokwan who's stable quan on twitter came in and said basically okay i'm in uh he

[11:09] said cool i'm in and then he said that he actually would rather bet 90 percent of uh sensei al god's net worth rather than a million dollars but that he was willing to accept the million dollar bet so they actually made the bet um each one of them sent a million dollars to uh kobe who's a big uh big twitter crypto influencers wallet um and basically created a you know two million dollar escrow that is going to pay out uh one year from now depending on where the price is i think it's if it's below or above uh 89 right around where it's currently trading um someone

[11:44] else another anonymous crypto account actually got in on the action and came in with a 10 million dollar bet and said he wanted to make the same bet uh as sensei al god but with 10 million dollars and duquan met that bet as well and so then another 20 million dollars got sent into the same uh into the same account as uh as the first one so now there's 22 million dollars of of uh cash riding on the price of luna uh so what did you think about all this greg and where's your head on it well so you know i hope i'm pronouncing this right duquan

[12:17] it was a reminder to me how legendary of a founder like he's putting his money where his mouth is and he's got this reputation of really being a baller like that i don't know if you saw him you know maybe it was five or six months ago he was on cnbc or something and it was around the right did you see that video where he was on i haven't seen it now he was basically like um they were like so there's like a bunch of like us regulations that are you know potentially gonna outlaw like your business like how do you feel about that and he like looked at them and like we

[12:52] can put the video in the show notes but yeah he looked at them and he was like yeah i don't really care i i like i don't really care about the us basically was that was the like paraphrasing he was like it's just not not that interesting like the world is more than just the us like for this to work like i don't need it to work in the u.s and then there was this like awkward silence between the interviewer like and she was like uh so i mean the fact that he's putting his money where his mouth is was really cool that was one kind of takeaway the

[13:27] second takeaway is like i don't know is this a sign of like the top even though we're kind of like going down right like where people are betting 20 mil 20 plus million dollars with strangers on the internet seems wild yeah i have so many thoughts on this so first off i need to look up that video because it sounds hilarious and i love awkward interview stuff where like an interviewer gets caught off guard by someone's someone's response but my couple of thoughts on it number one you know as an investor it's funny because people get really offended uh investors get really offended when someone wants

[14:03] to take the other side of the trade uh but by definition in order for there to be alpha like in order for there to be significant upside to a bet there has to be someone that is betting the other direction on it like for every startup we go and invest in um you know at a 20 million dollar seed valuation there has to be people that think that that is going nowhere things that think that it's a bad idea by definition in order for there to be upside and so like i personally just think at every point in time there should be a balance trade otherwise it would just go

[14:33] perpetually up and it would only go up to the right and the price would go through the roof and there would be no returns to be had in that investment so on the surface level i don't really worry about this kind of thing like when people are really bullish on luna and they see this you have to believe that there are people on the other side of the trade that's actually why you're going to generate you know if you think there's a 10x return in luna that's actually the reason why because there's still people that don't believe and they're being told it's it's off the other side of me

[14:57] says it kind of does look like a ponzi scheme like if you're looking at it from the outside outside in i could see the case where you would think uh this looks you know suspect because basically there's this massive way above regular market apy getting printed and the yield being generated is significant there's this swap mechanism where if suddenly that yield starts to drop or if they're not able to maintain it if people start selling rather than buying luna and if you have a bunch of people swapping uh it does create this market spiral right like there is a real risk of something like that happening um and

[15:35] so while i don't think it's like you know a ponzi scheme in the context of like a bernie madoff where you actually had someone that never went in with a desire to build something i can see why people would worry about that kind of downward spiral that could happen if if you start to have kind of significant downward momentum it is you know the if you're luna and if you're tara if you're dokland your bullish case is that you're going to keep building real world use cases of this and if people keep needing the stablecoin and keep buying the stablecoin to use on real-world use cases not just on anchor

[16:09] where they can generate yield that creates significant demand right to go from here to where it's a widely used currency in the future that's a massive surge of demand and you basically never have to worry about it so his bullishness i imagine is driven by that idea that they can continue to drive real real world use cases um that will lead to you know significant long-term demand momentum yeah i think um so so have you looked at olympus dow no olympus dow was was very popular maybe four to six months ago because it gave 1100 apy um and then there was also a fork of olympus dow which was called climadow

[16:53] which i believe was backed i think by uh in large part by adam newman um formerly of rework and that's a basically olympus down version which is supposed to like uh you know remove carbon or buy carbon credits and that had like 40 000 api um and recently these the you know both olympus um and cli oh i know olympus for sure has gone down because i bought some has gone down like 80 or so percent maybe more um and generally i generally uh think of these things as like if it seems too good to be true it probably is um and like the whole money from nothing

[17:40] thing i actually think is what gives a lot of people the heebie-jeebies about the crypto and web3 world is that you're like what do you mean forty thousand percent or two thousand percent or whatever when like my savings account is generating you know point zero one percent um it like something doesn't compute and even for me intellectually i'm just like from where it's just is it just coming from new demand because that's the definition of a ponzi scheme like new money that's coming in is paying me my return that's what bitconnect was doing um from what i understand and that's how i lost money on it and so now i feel like because of

[18:12] that instance for me personally i'm like ultra on guard for these feels too good to be true mechanisms around uh around crypto stuff i think uh you know if you're listening to this and you're trying to figure out hey is this olympus dow or is this tara thing legit or not the way to think about it is um it's okay to actually incentivize an early stage of a network so it's you know if you think of paypal like you know we often forget but paypal started off like sign up to this there's like five or ten or fifteen dollars in your account like it was incentivized

[18:44] great analog on top of that they created real real value um so i think you know fast forward to today the question with tara the tara blockchain and luna is are these you know short-term incentives gonna bootstrap the network aka get a lot of people into into this um ecosystem but is there actual real value in the ecosystem like ie are there real like web 3 applications crypto applications that are being built on top of uh on top of terra such that they can basically wean themselves off of the incentives and it could be a self you know self-fulfilling flywheel that's the question with olympus dow like it was

[19:29] like a straight up like hey like give us money and we're gonna get you know and this none of this is financial advice but it was it was basically like give us money and we're going to give you this huge apy but there wasn't a huge ecosystem built around it versus the interesting thing with luna and tara is there is real world applications as you're saying yeah that's a brilliant analog actually you know the one you drew around paypal and i think you could apply that to any web 2 company that's been built in the last 10 years right like uber at the very beginning was offering kind of

[20:01] teaser rates doordash you were basically buying things for under the price of what it cost the restaurants to make because they were incentivizing early usage and you knew that it was eventually going to go away but those companies were doing it in order to create a bunch of demand acquire a bunch of customers who then get hooked on whatever it is and so to your point i think for all of these companies that are doing it in some way shape or form in the crypto world is there a real world application being built um that is going to sustain and that is going to be you know have a network effect to it

[20:29] where it actually creates meaningful long-term value expansion over time i think that's a great way to think about it actually you put it put it very well there i remember i remember taking an uber from santa monica in la to venice in la which is like three miles or four miles or five miles and it was a three dollar and fifty cent uber ride and it was like in a mercedes and i was like there's no way that this makes sense for the driver and it was just the vcs subsidizing yeah 100 100 and in this case it's interesting because there it was the vc subsidizing it here it's not

[21:09] clear who's subsidizing it like is it early users subsidizing these returns and then you're like they're benefiting from it in the appreciation of the luna price from new users that are coming in it's like a much more circular mechanism which is what at least for me intellectually it's where i get a little more challenged with it but i think coming back to is there real real world application being built um that can create real meaningful value for all new users that are coming in um is the right way to think about it it's the same with the plato and games which we've talked about in the past you know a lot of them look

[21:42] on the surface when you apply an analog mindset to them they look like a ponzi scheme because you have that same dynamic but is there an actual game being built in a game experience in a world being built that is creating real value for the users because if you go create an ecosystem like a fortnight where people just love playing whether or not they're making money from it that's a meaningful long-term value appreciation so i think that is a good frame of reference it's a great framework great mental model for thinking about these in future more broadly than just this one um so to close a loop on ontara luna um

[22:17] where are you on it which side of the bet would you take and that none of this is financial advice to your point but which side of the bet would you take i mean it's hard to bet just you know we were going back and forth on twitter today where i tweeted about how facebook groups um you know is kind of an unsung hero and they've got almost 2 million active users and and i'm kind of bullish at these prices of facebook and you responded do you remember you responded about zuck yeah i said zuck is a wartime general and i wouldn't bet against him and

[22:52] that's kind of my take with duke quad like he's a wartime general hard to bet against him so i'm uh i'm on the on the luna side yeah i am a small holder of luna um and i guess i would take that side too i i think i do think they're building at least from the diligence i've done on it personally i do feel like they're building something real i also one of their major investors is someone i'm very close with um who i think extremely highly of the crypto fund that invested and um i've had conversations with them and i just i believe in the long-term vision

[23:25] of what they're trying to build do i think they're going to be bumps along the road though and that it's going to be you know rocky along the way absolutely um so i actually don't know where i would land on the bet for one year from now but 10 years from now i like uh i like the duquan side of it i wish i wish they didn't do 12 months and yeah they did 10 years because i think you know and we've talked about this in the past where like we look at investing in crypto as like angel investments like seed stage series a angel investments where we don't see our

[23:56] return in seven to ten years and that's how you kind of have to think about this yeah well let's um let's bring our guest in and um and transition a little bit here because i know he's in the waiting room um and i don't want to keep him waiting because i'm nervous about what would happen if i did so uh let's go ahead and bring uh bringing domikongsu into into the chat interested in investing in commercial real estate but not sure where to start me too well lex has created a new way for you to invest in real estate lex turns individual buildings into public stocks via ipo so you can invest

[24:32] trade and manage your own portfolio of high quality commercial real estate any u.s investor can open a lex account browse opportunities in various asset classes such as multi-family and office buildings and buy shares of these individual buildings lex opens up direct and tax advantage ownership in an asset class that has previously been inaccessible to most investors get started today and explore lex's live assets in new york city and an upcoming ipo in seattle sign up for free at lex dash markets dot com slash room and get a fifty dollar bonus when you deposit at least five hundred dollars ninety three percent of your life is spent indoors but so many of our best

[25:14] moments are outdoors that's why i'm so excited to share with you outer outer makes the world's most beautiful comfortable and durable outdoor furniture when i moved to new york last year and got a new place one of my priorities was finding an outdoor workspace outer's products have provided me with that game changing experience i now have outdoor furniture that's durable that has modular designs it has lifeproof material that withstands the weather and the fluctuations that new york often brings they have a patented built-in outer shell cover to keep your furniture dry from rain and dew it's the how did no one think of this before product for me on the outdoor

[25:56] furniture front i've absolutely loved it and i know you will too see the difference at liveouter.com room and now through may 1st you'll get 300 off plus free shipping again that's live outer o-u-t-e-r dot com slash room and get 300 off plus free shipping only available to our podcast listeners you're going to absolutely love it welcome to the show we are so happy to have you and so grateful for your time um let's just dive right into it man i mean you're a pretty remarkable person um you you are um a savant i suppose in a number of areas now um and you know i think the the two of us greg

[26:44] and i have gotten to know you through twitter over the last year but most people have known you for a long time due to your exploits on the football field so we'd love to just kick off with a little bit of like your lessons learned from your experience competing at such a high level as an athlete what has that taught you what are the lessons you've brought from that that are now playing out in your life as a businessman as an investor as a father yeah i would say well first and foremost it's great to talk to you guys uh it's it's been always something i know we've

[27:15] been trying to set up for a long time and finally getting to it so my apologies there especially during the season but overall for myself in the correlation between sports and business has really been quite similar i came into the sport of football pretty pretty green uh and found a passion in it and i was bigger and stronger than most the kids when i was younger so i had that that going for me but just having the curiosity and the want to to learn the game understand the game and really find a way to change it to where my particular play is now seen as something that is uh

[27:54] of greatness and for me that's just a lot of hard work uh determination finding the right team which is a little bit of luck or a lot of luck i got an amazing performance director got amazing physical therapists and naturopaths and people that have helped me along the way and i think that's where it's been able to be in the same way for me in the business side of the world i'm super curious i always loved real estate my dad and my both my mom and dad were into real estate as a young kid and my main job was to cut lawns and make sure i cleaned up all the trash around it but

[28:28] as i got to understand all the different nuances that went into kind of creating these different opportunities for us to go play um soccer travel soccer travel basketball all these different pieces that's where my supplemental income came from because my mom was just a teacher and my dad was self-employed so those were the different pieces that allowed me to say all right it's okay to be curious and it's okay to push yourself and not just be coined as just an athlete and that's something i pride myself on all the time i never want to be just an athlete and i really want to be more successful off

[29:00] the field than i was on the field how did you end up at nebraska i've been wanting to ask you this for a while because i i realized you grew up in oregon right and it's a long way from home and it's a very different climate very different environment obviously a phenomenal football program um but i'm just curious like what led to you making that jump going far away from family from friends you know out of the comfort of your of your hometown yeah truthfully it was just kind of being curious and taking that leap of faith and understanding art one everybody in portland and went to my

[29:34] high school they either went to oregon oregon state and i really wanted to go to oregon state but i said to myself man do i really want to just see half my classmates that i just left high school with and then meet some new people that decided to come to oregon state and i was like no not really and then my sister um who's older than me went to mississippi state she decided to go all the way to the south and so a coach at the time was her boyfriend's at the time um defensive line coach and he my sister was like you should recruit my little brother i think he's going to

[30:03] be good and he started to recruit me and he ended up leaving mississippi state and going to nebraska and i'd have always heard of nebraska and oklahoma that big thanksgiving game and all this different stuff and then being able to say all right bill callahan got a great coach got a good relationship can play football earlier play play early and it's a major organization and really conference in school that i could play in and play early and so that was really my excitement uh on the football side of things and i can also knock out my engineering degree which they were a top five program when

[30:36] i was there i think they're still probably top 10 in the engineering side of things of construction management so it was a win-win situation and it was probably one of the best decisions i've ever made in my life and it led to a lot of interesting things in your life that probably were a little bit unexpected as well i mean the football side of things i've talked to greg about this greg's not as much of a football fan as i probably was but i've talked to him about your your performance in the championship game back in college which i i still regard i think is the best defensive performance

[31:06] i've ever seen um that was more expected i would say the unexpected and the interesting thing is something i've read recently which is your relationship that was kind of sparked out of your time at nebraska with um a very famous investor warren buffett uh and i'd love to just hear more about that i mean it's an example to both of us of like this engineered serendipity idea we recently had matt mullenweg the founder of wordpress on and greg and he were telling and exchanging stories of that concept of like manufacturing luck um you made this jump to nebraska you were there omaha is obviously where you know

[31:43] buffett's kind of hometown and what he's built and you ended up sparking a relationship through that with him that has played out through your life can you talk a little bit about that relationship and what you've learned there yeah it's been an amazing relationship and one that i had never at a young age fathom i will be able to earn and really have and so it started back in my senior year and he and mr buffett came to my senior my last game he was our honorary captain and so i met him in the locker room and they they uh the front of the front office guys were

[32:18] like hey do you want to meet warren buffett and do you even know who he was and i was like of course i knew who he is and i mean i'd love to meet him i'm getting ready to go beat up on oklahoma but why not so uh we we met briefly and then later on that spring i was preparing to to go off and train for the combine and a friend of mine said man you should really reach out to warren buff to see if he would be a mentor of yours or just even just get a meeting and so i reached out to tom

[32:48] osborne who was our ad at the time and i knew they were super close and that's why he came down and was honorary captain and he said i'm happy to to make him put in the call but trust me i can't promise you if whether or not he'll meet with you and i said no problem i totally understand i can't imagine he's super super busy all the time so he did it and then uh all of a sudden i got a call back in an email and say he'd love to meet with me and i went and sat up probably about three hours before our meeting in his office just waiting

[33:18] and i wanted to be on time want to be more than ahead of on time and and really sat down and had an amazing conversation we we talked for at least two three hours and it was like talking to my dad which was amazing ever since then our relationship has continued to blossom and usually try and get get a hold of him or talk to him on a quarterly basis and obviously participate and go to different events that he has and that that i'm invited to especially around berkshire weekend go ahead i have a question around meeting your heroes and pinch me moments you know i'm sure you've

[34:01] well it's you know you've been in a lot of you know situations where you meet your hero and you have this opportunity to spend two three four hours with that person um could you share a little bit about how that feels yeah um i would probably say obviously warren is somebody i've always looked up to and have known about and seen a success uh another person that i would definitely put in that category were two people um one is michael jordan uh and then two is barack obama and barack obama was probably the most like eye-opening of saying i've kind of made it and i've never looked at myself

[34:45] that i've ever made it and think that i'm some sort of celebrity but when he gets off of air force one and i'm sitting in portland oregon because i'm i was a buddy of mine as a federal agent and he said hey potentially you could meet obama he's coming to portland i'm doing some of the security detail and we can have friends and family come in and sometimes he stops sometimes he doesn't and he stops and i'm right at the front of the rail and he's like in dom concert like what are you doing in portland oregon and i was like man aren't you supposed to be training somewhere right now and i

[35:16] was like man i'm from here uh and born and raised and we just had two three minute conversation just talking about a bunch of different things and he was like man uh we definitely have to stay connected i wanna uh i love the things that you've been doing and seeing that you've been working on especially uh on my philanthropic endeavors and so he was he was that was probably one of the most eye-opening and surprising pieces that i've seen like meeting uh a heroistic heroistic person that's such an amazing story salad i actually have eaten at the restaurant carpone which is like an italian restaurant and

[35:53] i went with my family one and uh you know at the table next to us was michael jordan and yes i might not be a huge sports fan but i'm a big enough sportsman to recognize greatness and and to recognize what you know the person is so i've got the utmost respect for mj and i just remember i was eating this spicy rigatoni and he was eating spicy rigatoni and the pinch me moment for me was here next to me is the greatest you know one of the greatest people in history and he is eating the same noodles i am eating and the unlock for me was

[36:38] you know i always kind of put these people on a pedestal but in fact they have the same that you know they're very similar and especially when you get to know a lot of these people they have insecurities they they don't have you know they're not super 100 super human in a lot of senses do you agree with that do you disagree with that no 100 i agree with that and i think jordan and being around him as much as i had been around him and being able to spend time with him he appreciates when you talk to him as a normal person and you don't put him on this huge

[37:14] pedestal he just wants to have interactions with you as a normal human being versus like oh my god this this and this and and making it really awkward and i think that's where like at any at any particular point in time when you come around somebody who has some sort of celebrity and is well known it's when you treat them no different than you would treat your best friend and talking to them and that's what they really appreciate versus it kind of being something else uh outside of the box and obviously you want to respect their space and time especially when they're eating and then with their

[37:45] families and whatnot but just keeping a cordial in in kind of like that high and by and or just like normal conversation like i really appreciate what you've done in the past and so forth and so on like that's where i've had my best interaction with people and i know i'm a little bit jaded because people don't always kind of look at me as a everyday person but that's how i look at it it is a great point that you're both making of you know these people are people that you put on these pedestals that are the most successful people in whatever field right we're talking about

[38:18] athletics in the context of you or michael jordan or um you know others in politics with barack obama and business with elon musk or jeff bezos a lot of these people are actually common people that have uncommon focus uncommon drive uncommon resolve determination there's like something that is uncommon about them but at the end of the day they're just people and it is a big unlock for young folks you know greg it sounds like you had you know a moment of feeling like oh wow you know there's someone sitting here that is they're just like me and i can go and accomplish great things because if i

[38:53] have you know and develop that same level of uncommon focus or resolve whatever it might be maybe i can go accomplish great things too there might not be something that is uniquely different about those people that i've put on this pedestal my whole life so i do think it's quite a liberating um liberating feeling when you when you realize that yeah and and the one thing i would add to that is just saying it's like the biggest thing for me to to take away from it is just saying all right i really just look at them as an everyday person and i want to learn from you and the

[39:28] best things about athletes and why they've been able to reach such great heights and really even people uh like you said they think differently and have different abilities to focus differently it's the ability to compensate that's what really makes people the elite they're able to compensate at different levels and higher levels that not the everyday person may be able to do that which allows them to reach other heights what do you mean by compensate there so compensating like for example you somebody may have like there's a professional athlete that i know that has like some of the worst eyes i've ever seen uh in like testing and

[40:11] the ability to compensate for that is what makes him elite and he's he's able to focus in on on these other areas and be more in tune to other parts of his body and that allows him to reach those different heights so that's what i'm saying that over compensation and that's what makes athletes and people that are that we see as special they're able to compensate in other areas to take them past their their inabilities because most people that's a fascinating yeah most people i love that who couldn't compensate they usually all right they just see it as a barrier and that's what it is and then i just kind of go on with

[40:49] my life no most folks are like all right this is in it this is something i struggle with but let me find a way to get over that hurdle and over compensate somewhere else so i can get ahead yeah said another way it's like these people have figured out what their actual unique advantage and edge is and they relentlessly exploit that and rather than like worrying about the things that they're deficient at that they're not as good at you know the challenges they have etc they sort of leave those and they just go and relentlessly and ruthlessly exploit their unique edge and whether that applies to business and people who have

[41:25] figured that out in business or athletics wherever it is you can go do that but you have to be you have to be strategic in figuring out what your edge is and then you have to be strategic and kind of setting the table so that you can go and and exploit that in in a you know in a deliberate manner on the field or whatever your field is as it were um i'm a boston guy so i have to ask you about this i you know grew up in boston and cheering for the patriots and tom brady um just recently announced his own retirement i guess he got sick

[41:56] of um of nfts and everything he was doing uh on that front maybe he's still doing it on this side but he's uh he's coming back to play another year you know you're someone now you know we've heard warren buffett you have a relationship with um you know you've been around michael jordan around um around barack obama around tom brady obviously over the last couple of seasons um what did you learn about about tom brady about how he goes about his business on a daily basis and how does that play through as a leader i i tom is a very methodical and very detail-oriented and and i have a lot of

[42:33] respect for that because i'm wired that same way uh he's found what's been able to work for him and uh seeing the guys that he has around him that helps him reach his heights he obviously tr has a tremendous amount of trust in them but also he's not afraid to put in that work each and every single day and so those are the different pieces that i see that influences a team and allows them to infiltrate quality locker rooms quality habits and being one of the first guys in one of the last guys out that is something that you you force upon other people especially if they want to win and

[43:12] obviously you weed out the folks that don't want to be uh in that particular space and going the extra mile and i think for me being able to see that at his particular age and where he could easily say like and i've been successful all my all my career and they've done this like i can kind of take a back seat and let you guys do the work he's probably one of the most hard working people and competitive people that i've been around i mean we still compete and have competed on on the practice field and i mean i enjoyed playing against him but i i'd much rather have him be on my team

[43:47] beyond like hardworking ambitious how important is you know meditation mindfulness to people like yourself the bradys the michael jordans and i asked because i had a session a meditation session with someone named kenji summers this week kenji told me that he learned all his zen practice from the person who taught michael jor you know was michael jordan and kobe's guy zen guy and it got me thinking that i bet a lot more professional athletes and just like elite people in general have like a zen coach than they talk about have you heard a lot of of athletes doing this sort of thing yeah there's no doubt about that and

[44:42] i've actually had a sports psychologist that i've worked with in the past and i think it's an amazing thing for somebody to do not only to just talk about the different things that you're going through not only in the locker room on the day-to-day basis of playing working through in your games and finding ways to ultimately create a routine that allows you to perform at the highest and i think that's the biggest thing that i took from the time that i worked with my guy and then obviously where i'm at now where i don't necessarily need him but i've been able to keep those same principles and

[45:16] work through those different pieces as i'm older and i can kind of self monitor my things and see how i want to work through those it's kind of the simple case of a db saying all right you got to figure forget about that last pass that was just thrown on you and move on to the next one but let's revisit it when we get on the sideline and understand what mistakes we've made and i think additionally for me like one of the things i love being able to do is saying all right i'm i go into the season i understand where our schedule is i understand where

[45:47] our breaks are and where we have different pieces and where i can find times to find additional gains and then also mapping out how i'll prepare for a monday night game a thursday night game a sunday night game a one o'clock game or a four o'clock game there's so many different tools and setups that i have getting ready for each and every single different nuance as i'm going to season and that's where i think being sharp in your mental state and being prepared when something's thrown at you that's you can't you're not expecting whether it's in game or out of game or throughout the week it allows

[46:22] you to stay that much more sharper because your mental focus was already dialed in so when something else got thrown into your way it's easy to navigate through that particular piece i had a founder describe it to me recently like the power of meditation for founders for business people as um reducing the amplitude like meditational as you reduce the amplitude and he was talking about it you know in the context of a wave like you have you know a big amplitude it's like these wild swings from high to low and you have these high high moments and then these super low lows and that meditation has allowed him

[46:56] to reduce the amplitude so that he never gets too high he never gets too low around things he's able to keep that even keel so important for athletes i mean i remember it from back in my baseball days like you give up a home run you have to forget about it and get the next guy out because otherwise you're [ __ ] out of luck you're going to be dead i think it's a really really powerful concept and a great takeaway that a lot of athletes are doing that um talk a little bit about competitiveness and what it what it means to you and what it's meant to you during your

[47:23] career i mean you're you're somebody who for a lot a lot of your career um you know you were known as like a mean guy on the field and now having gotten to know you personally and seeing the way that you write how eloquently you share and educate on twitter um it just strikes me that like my perception of you from what i knew on the field 10 years ago is very different from the person you know i think you really are um you know off the field so talk a little bit about competitiveness competing and and what that's meant to you during your career yeah for me and my career being

[47:56] super competitive at everything i do whether it's playing spike ball in the off season with my my training mates or going and playing tag all these different pieces are playing on the football field like i want to win at all times and i think people fail to realize that for me to be successful at my job it's to piss you off if you're a fan of that offense so you being a boston fan and a patriot fan like i'm supposed to make you upset because i keep hitting your quarterback i keep knocking down your running back i'm in the backfield all the time and i'm not supposed to be a well-liked

[48:34] guy and i i embrace that i actually enjoy playing on the road and hear people booing and saying like man we like we hate you like going to raider stadium back in the day and then throwing stuff and doing all this stuff that riled me up like let's go like i'm gonna get after your quarterback and we're gonna uh go have some fun and you're gonna have to say i'm oh i'm sorry like yeah we lost we can't talk we can't talk anymore trash so i think people fail to unders to really realize those different pieces and like that's where my mindset is most of the time when i'm on the football

[49:09] field but when i'm off the football field like i'm normally an introvert keep to myself hang with my close family and friends and obviously i've grown out of that to a lot of respects to get to know people and being curious and understanding the world and obviously the platform of the nfl has opened up a ton of doors so but i'm not the same person that i'm on the football field when i'm off the field yeah it's like this idea um that i think you've taught me of like if i'm competing against you you're actually not supposed to like me yeah you're gonna hate your life during that

[49:43] day when i'm competing against you i thought it was so funny this past year i think it was in the nfc championship game uh when you guys were playing the rams and um early in the game you know matthew stafford who was previously your teammate i'm sure loved you know playing with you because you know he had you on his side uh attacking the other team you had kind of an interaction with him at the beginning of the game and it was like this fiery interaction and moment it was that exact example of like you might have liked me when we were teammates now we're competing against

[50:12] each other you're going to have a tough day you're not going to like playing against me today um i love that i mean like it really fired me up watching it um but it was a very specific example of that exact thing like i'm gonna i'm out here to compete i'm not out here to make friends yeah there's there's no doubt about that i mean between the white lines unless you're wearing the same color jersey as me we are not friends and i've had plenty of friends that are quarterbacks as well as uh running backs that i've had to hit and have enjoyed hitting them and taking them down like

[50:39] one of the best ones is uh my boy stephen jackson when he was still playing in the league like i got interception and he tried to take me out and i was like yo i respect you for that because like we're yeah we're friends and we're super cool off the field but like it's a whole different ball game uh when between the white lines we're gonna have to find a clip of that we're gonna put in the show notes a clip of that and then also there's this iconic picture of you um arm wrestling warren buffett that i feel like i've seen a few times that we gotta throw

[51:10] into the show notes because it's amazing yeah that's so so good that was a while ago uh i think we were doing um a segment on cnbc with becky quick that we we had a little fun uh with arm wrestling he always he always challenges me and that i think that was like the third or fourth time that he challenged me to an arm wrestling challenge so always always fun times around him it's good that he keeps coming back for more after uh after every defeat relentless mindset i suppose for someone like that um i have a question for you related to competitiveness on the field

[51:48] business which is a form of uh is a game is a sport when people say business isn't personal do you agree with that or do you disagree with that i i agree to disagree um because i think you have personal relationships and you want to work with people and i always say i want to be on the same side of the table as my close friends and family and but if one happened to not be i'm going my mindset is to do what's best and i have the fiduciary responsibility to do that for not only myself and family but also the investors and people that i work with

[52:31] and so that's where i think it's not personal uh even though it may be we have to take kind of that context of saying artwork depending on what the situation is yes we have a friendship but i can't i can't give you the friends of family deal when it's it's not beneficial to the overall best of the company and so that's where i think it's when you can have that concept and it really just depends on every particular situation that you're getting into and what what the topic may be at hand yeah i feel like it would it the phrase itself came up as like a cop-out right

[53:05] greg is like you know people would say like oh it's not personal it's business man like i'm screw you over here but like hey it's not personal it's business like i feel like that's where the phrase came from i'm not about screwing people over it's yeah i know you're not yeah no there's no problem you're an integrity guy right like you i mean i i what i've come to know about you as i've spent more time with you and read all your work and we've interacted a lot obviously and we're working together on some things which is great um you're i mean you're of the utmost

[53:35] high integrity that that i've seen and i've come to really admire that about you in particular is just i feel like what you know what you see is what you get and you're going to you're going to kind of play everything above board and you're a competitor and you want to win which i love and so you're going to make decisions that you feel like put you in a position to win no but those are the kind of people you want to work with no and i definitely appreciate it i think that the simple way to put it is that you may not like me but you'll respect

[54:01] my decisions at the end of the day and you'll respect how i i my thought process it'll be very crystal clear i want to be super transparent about it at the same time just so you understand like where i'm coming from and why i'm making a particular decision if even though it may not be in favor for something that you want yeah you you might be friends with warren buffett but you're probably not going to let him win the arm wrestle [Laughter] it's not like you're going to like you know the people listening i'm kind of like really throwing you know the arm down you're not gonna like do it

[54:38] super hard it's like hey you i know we have a little bit of the age yeah we have a little bit of an age different in a little bit different size and biceps but i'll take it down slow yeah i mean but even he like he's a perfect example of this fact right because he's a very nice cordial warm-hearted person you've had this experience with him yeah but this past week he did a deal for allegheny and he structured the deal and he said i'm not paying bankers a dime in this deal and he cut the deal price by a certain amount because he said i am not

[55:12] paying goldman sachs a dime on this transaction so there you know there's a lesson in there too right like he's a businessman but he is ruthless when he needs to be to you know drive his fiduciary responsibility and and create value for his shareholders so um a lot of lessons to be taken from from that type of mentality on life before we lose you i know we're running up right against the end of time um i have to ask because i've seen now the photos of your um your two little twin guys um you're a recent father i'm about to be a first-time father i've got a little guy due in about a month

[55:48] any lessons or advice for uh for an expecting dad on what you've learned from the experience patience uh make sure you love your wife to death and all the things that she's going through like just be there as a supporting hand i think for my wife i've always seen it as a standpoint of me being really a center i got to control the traffic i got to be the protector i got to do all the different particular pieces for her and really just whatever and she needs at her beck and call and i mean our boys are going to be a year on saturday so uh it is a lot of patience

[56:26] and and really try and get on a routine as early as you can i think that's one of the best things and the kids love it because people say yes they control your schedule and it's true they definitely control your schedule especially early on until they start getting to a level where they go down for consistent naps and different things like that and but they also love that routine and it's a matter of like i know in the evenings like when it's five six o'clock and we haven't gotten them to get down for dinner and haven't started the bedtime routine like they start to let us know

[56:58] like hey it's time to to put me down like and if you don't do it i'm gonna i'm gonna do it myself and go yelling and screaming until you help me get it done i think i've got a lot to learn sometimes i think you can't figure these things out from reading a book you're getting advice from people you just got to get into it it's like like a lot of different things in life so um man thank you so much for taking the time with us i know your schedule is crazy with training and everything you're preparing good luck with all of the training and

[57:27] contracts and everything that's upcoming this off season and and happy birthday to your little guys as well um we'll be uh we'll be thinking of all of you this weekend no i appreciate that and and best of luck and obviously having a healthy baby come into this world that's most important thank you brother appreciate it thank you so much for the time and we uh look forward to having you back on again soon no question join our free community at trwia [Music]

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