#27 - Jay Yang: How to Achieve the Life You Want (Without Waiting for Permission)

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 00:00

⁓ what is

a permissionless approach itself.

Jay Yang (: 00:06

A permissionless approach is about this idea that you don't need permission to do things. You don't need permission to start. You don't need permission to ask. And it's this idea that we have to uncondition ourselves from this idea that we need other people's approval or...

permission to do the things that we want in our lives and in our career.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 00:40

You in my mind are like the poster child for this. Like, dude, I've, as you know, like I've literally done workshops on like permissionless approaches to things. And you're like, you are the case example I always give. And like, I always tell people I want to be more like you when I grew up, even though I'm like almost twice your age, like I'm 36 right now. You're like, what 19? Yeah. Yeah. Cause like, dude, you've already done so much.

Jay Yang (: 01:03

Yeah, 19.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 01:09

And you had done so much before you even fucking graduated high school. So like my thing with, with, with books, you know, like you can just do things is mo yeah, of course, a hundred percent. I like how I couldn't wait to fuck and pick this book up. My thing though is like most books aren't written by people who have done the work and earned the right to write that book.

Jay Yang (: 01:19

yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 01:37

Right? So many books are just like they're, they're theoretical or, and they're interesting. They've got really fun stories and all this other shit, but they're not really written by people who have done the fucking work. This book is that exception. Like you have done the work. Right? So with this permissionless approach, how did you come up with the philosophy behind it?

Jay Yang (: 02:06

I don't think it's necessarily that I came up with it. I think I've definitely taken inspiration from those who have come before me, which I talk about in the book, Reverse Engineering the Greats. This idea has been percolating in my mind forever. And honestly, I wrote the book just so I could stop thinking about it in my head all the time. It was driving me crazy because that's all I could think about. was like, people just need to realize that they can do things and that they don't need permission to do the things that they want.

I think I first heard of this idea of this permissionless concept from Jack Butcher, ⁓ his permissionless apprentice course. I took that when I was just starting out. It was like a dollar and it changed my life. It made me realize that you can, the power of doing the work upfront, right? Because when we reach out to people, the number one mistake I see people make is they have this sense of entitlement that, just because I reached out, I deserve a response. They just have to respond.

that's putting the burden on the other person. It makes them have to figure out who are you and how can you help me, what skills do you have? That's a lot of burden to put on someone who, if you're reaching out to them, they're typically busy or doing things. And so that approach of doing the work upfront, instead of how can I help or I'll work for free, it's I did the work already and showing them here's how I can help you. And so...

That's where that first idea came about. also was obsessed with that concept when I was listening to a podcast from Jeremy Mary, who runs a YouTube agency right now, but he had a podcast called Backstage Careers, where he would interview the people working behind the scenes with some of the top entrepreneurs and top creators we know, just showcasing their stories of like, okay, how did you reach out and how did you get the job and how did you stand out within the job? That idea of like,

Compressing the timeline by apprenticing or by working with these entrepreneurs really fascinated me. And then just by the fact that I've been applying these methods to my own career, it just like built further proof, further evidence that, my gosh, this actually works.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 04:21

I love that. So same thing. Like I had come across Jack Butcher's, ⁓ permits permissionless apprenticeship stuff. It's just the whole idea of like, you don't have to wait for somebody's permission to learn from them, right? Like if you want to learn investing from Warren Buffett, you don't have to actually try to officially apprentice under him. You can just read all of all of his, his, his writing. You can watch all the podcasts and shit he's done, all the Berkshire Hathaway stuff, and you can learn all of that without ever actually asking permission.

but reversing that and taking a permissionless approach to teaching others what you already know or showcasing the expertise you already have. That's the thing very, very few people ever actually do. Right. So, you know, we're talking about like cold outreach and shit, right? Most people, they just pitch. They're like, Hey, if you hire me, I will, I would love to do this. Or the thing I fucking hate is like, Hey man, I did this thing.

Is it okay if I send it over?

Dude, just fucking send it. Like send it with your, your initial message. Like don't do this back and forth thing. Right. And like, cause, cause you are waiting for permission. And I understand it's like an old school, like sort of sales tactic of like get that initial buy-in, get them to agree to something. that, you know, it's, but it's kind of sleazy and you're adding unnecessary friction. But beyond that, you're not actually showcasing your expertise, right? Most people only ever send a pitch.

they don't send like a portfolio. They don't share like, Hey, this is what I've already done. You can make the decision as to whether or not I'm the person you're looking for. Right. And so like, like with, with the Noah Kagan thing, right. Walk me through, like for, for people listening, aren't familiar, walk us through how did you actually end up working for Noah Kagan before you even graduated high school?

Jay Yang (: 06:21

Yeah, so actually the story starts when I reached out to Jeremy from, you because I listened to his podcast. His podcast inspired me to cold email Tyler Denk at Beehive and I entered there. And so I DMed him on Twitter and I was like, hey, like don't want anything, don't need anything. I just want to say, I appreciate you. Your podcast inspired me to cold email Tyler. And I talk about that in the book. It's like, reach out to the people that inspired you. Reach out to the people who like say you like someone's book.

Send that note of appreciation. And that small act of kindness or act of appreciation can go super far. And it did. I started talking with Jeremy. At the time, he was Noah Kagan's head of YouTube. And he mentioned that Noah was looking for someone to grow his newsletter. And I was like, hey, I just worked at a newsletter company. And I've just been obsessed with newsletters. And so that idea is like, OK, ⁓ I think there's something here.

And so I dropped everything and for the next 50 hours, I ⁓ time putting together a 19 slide pitch deck, detailing, deconstructing all of Noah's emails and socials, ⁓ figuring out what was he doing ⁓ that was good, what was bad, what could he be doing better, what was his competition doing, what would it look like if I worked with him. And then I attached nine ready to be published pieces of content to that slide deck. All he had to do was click send.

And I said, hey Noah, if you love this, let's work together. If not, no harm, no foul. And by doing that upfront, showed Noah that number one, it showed him that I could think in that way. And it showed also that I've done the work, ⁓ because I also talked about my work with Beehive.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 08:06

That and like, even if you hadn't necessarily. So, so the B hub is definitely some social proof and shit, right? But even if you hadn't just purely saying, Hey, here is my entire strategy that I think would really work for you all. Here it is. I'm not trying to like gatekeep, but I'm not trying to say you will get this. If you hire me here, it is along with some like, like turnkey shit you can go ahead and use on your own. And if it works great, he can immediately tell how good you are.

right out the gate. There's no debate, right? There's no like mental like, well, you know, is this kid like, okay, well, do we want to like set up a phone call? Do we want like maybe this, maybe like they can just know right out the fucking gate if you're the person for them or not. And that is, is something that so few people think about. So many people think that like they have the super secret methodology or this like whatever that they can't share with people. Right. And it's like, um, you know, I've heard

You know, back in the money Twitter days, ⁓ JK Molina would, would talk about, know, give away the recipe cause people will hire you to cook for them. Right. And it's just this whole idea of like, if you demonstrate your expertise freely for everybody to see, that is how you, you attract these opportunities. That is how you get this buy-in. Right. But I think so many people are too precious about their ideas that they don't want them to be stolen or they feel like people.

you know, have to pay them for every little thing. It's like that, that is completely backward because then nobody knows how fucking good you are.

Jay Yang (: 09:45

Yeah, it's that idea that people don't pay for information, they pay for implementation. And so I like to tell people, if you want to work for your favorite entrepreneur or your favorite company, you have to show them two things. You have to show them that number one, you want the job, and number two, that you can do the job. And the best way to do that is to do the work up front, to show your thinking, to give away the recipe, as you said.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 10:09

Well, and like, so when we talk about like, like college and share, right? So like, I went to college for 12 plus years, got the doctorate, did all that. Because in my original line of work, that actually was required to like practice therapy. So like you have to do that to have a license and shit. But like so many people graduate without the competency that is supposed to come with a diploma. Because so many people think that they need the piece of paper.

Cause that gives them permission to go out and do the thing. And unless you are in like, you're going for like a very specific industry that actually does require that most of the time you can self educate and you, you know, you're honestly better off most of the time, especially in business taking two to three to five years and just running experiments, doing shit, stacking skills rather than chasing a degree.

But I'm curious about your thoughts because you've, you've kind of like, you've started college. What are your thoughts now after being in college for what, like a year?

Jay Yang (: 11:20

Yeah, almost a year now. I know we talked about it when I visited you down in Austin and I was debating like, is college the right move? I ended up deciding to go for two reasons. Number one, you can't knock it if you don't try it. I was hearing arguments on both sides of college is useless, so college, need to go to college. And I think if you ask enough people, all the advice cancels out to zero and then it just ends up being your decision at the end of the day.

So I wanted to try it and say, know what, if it doesn't work out, if I don't like it, chalk it up to the game. It was an experiment and now you do your own thing versus not going ever and kind of regretting. Like, I don't know what it means to be a college student. don't know what that, I don't even know what that is. And so I ended up deciding to go. And if I had to summarize this past year, I would say very fun. I think I've learned a lot outside of class. think I've met some incredible people, some lifelong friends.

And now that I've experienced what it is to be a college student, I am dropping out of this semester to work with Alex and Laila Hermosy at acquisition.com.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 12:30

I am so legitimately fucking excited for you and everything you've already done, but also like just how limitless what is in front of you. I'm like every single like literally every single time I see you like share a win or like we talk about some shit. I'm like, I'm just so fucking happy for you dude. Cause like you are the embodiment of this permissionless approach and of what can happen if you, if you just do things, like if you just quit waiting for permission and you just, do the fucking thing, right?

But the thing with college is I mean, not that my opinion fucking matters, but I do think that what you did was right for you in that regret minimization, right? Like you want to make sure that you got the experience, whatever. For me, the biggest skills I got from college, I didn't get from a college classroom. like, ⁓ so undergrad, I actually had like a fairly low GPA once I graduated. I actually graduated with two D's.

Jay Yang (: 13:21

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 13:29

And the only reason I did, you weren't supposed to be able to graduate with two D's with, with anything lower than a C. but they were like, like chemistry and math. just straight, like I legitimately just never went to fuck class and I ended up getting these, but, but there's a technicality. So I was actually able to graduate even though I got below the minimum. ⁓ and then when I got to, ⁓ my master's program and I was going into therapy, I remember sitting there, ⁓

And I was getting into the clinical program, which was super competitive. They only led to like five or so people at a time. And I'm sitting here in this like a little waiting room with all these other students and all like everyone else had like super, super high GPAs, like straight A's. They had been working different fancy sounding jobs for years. They were super professional. They were older, whatever. And I'm like, I'm straight up not going to get in this program. And the way it worked was you had two interviews. ⁓ each of them were half hours.

And each of mine, the first 25 minutes, we just were just bullshitting. Like we were talking about like just the most random things. And then at the very end, the last five minutes, they're like, so why do you want to be in this program? So I left and I was like, these motherfuckers don't want me because they, they, they didn't actually interview me. Like we just hung out. Clearly they just were, were killing time. And then the next day, ⁓ I got a call. They're like, Hey, you got the program. I'm like, that's awesome.

Jay Yang (: 14:44

Mm-mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 14:54

but fucking how they were like, everybody in that room was clearly smart enough to get into the program. We wanted to see if you could hold a conversation with somebody like, can you build rapport? Can you create a sense of psychological safety when you're talking to somebody? And I was like, well, motherfucker, you could have asked me that. Like I spent four years running my fraternity. All I did was hang out with people and build rapport and like recruit like

Jay Yang (: 15:04

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 15:20

People skills. Like that's all I did. I skipped classes to go do fraternity shit. And it's like, that is something I could have only gotten in college. Right? Is that that socialization aspect, that building rapport kind of thing? Because again, I'm older nowadays. I think it is easier for you to have to cultivate similar environments without necessarily having to go to college.

especially in places like like Austin where I'm at or some other places that have more like creator entrepreneurial like hubs where so many people are kind of like that. ⁓ so for you now that you're, you're leaving college, how do you plan to continue to have that? Cause you talk about being a super connector, right? How do you plan to continue to have that level of social engagement now that you're, you're off campus?

Jay Yang (: 16:16

That is an incredible question.

I definitely think my social aspect will take a hit as I'm in Vegas. And I think that's intentional, especially for this season of my life. I foresee these next few months to be a deep season of sprint ⁓ in specifically the work category. But at the same time, I think what I am trying to do is bring online relationships into IRL. And so...

I have lot of friends who are all over the place and just whenever they fly into Vegas or whenever they're visiting Chicago, it's like being intentional about, can we grab dinner? Hey, let's hang out. Let's catch up. And at the same time, I think it's less trying to establish new relationships at this point and more trying to strengthen current relationships. I found I am absolutely terrible at keeping up with old friends.

And so now that I'm gonna be halfway across the country, I think it's more about reminding myself, hey, you gotta check in, because relationships do tend to wither if you don't speak for over six months.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 17:36

love that that intentionality of I am going to be the one who texts somebody or reaches out or checks in on them. And

being in places like Vegas, similar to Austin, a lot of people come through there. So even if, so a lot of people live there, but even if people, even people who don't live there tend to come through there for conferences, for travel, for all these other things, right? So it gives you access in person to people you ordinarily, it would be much more cumbersome to be able to hang out with, right? In addition to like obviously go to conferences and shit that are like more like, you know, business creator focused.

One thing that I am really curious like about how you think about it. So you are young. You're not even 20. You have already accomplished so much and you have so much more to accomplish and you've already like you did. You've run a fuck ton of experiments and like some things have worked out. Some things have just been learning opportunities and like the current iteration of all the things you're doing right now will look completely different six months from now.

And six years from now, right? And everybody says, you know, your twenties are for, for grinding and for doing this and learning and doing everything else.

How do you reconcile ambition and achievement with acceptance and enjoyment? Because it's really easy to grind so hard a decade goes by and you look back and you're like, fuck, I never lived.

Jay Yang (: 19:27

For me, it's never felt like a grind because it's what I've wanted to do. And so a lot of people will talk about either you grind in your 20s or you live it up in your 20s. Either way, there has to be a trade off. But for me, I've always just loved the work that I've done so much that doing the work was the joy. And I know that sounds cliche, but now that I'm in college and I'm not physically near my parents, we have a family group chat.

And I swear I text him like five to seven times a day, just like little things. my gosh, this happened. my god, just this morning, the head coach of the University of Texas ⁓ shared one of my posts and followed me back. And I just thought that was super cool. And I texted him that. I just think...

I definitely sway more towards the grind and then the ambition part, but I wouldn't want to have it any other way. And maybe that's just how I'm wired.

But I think everyone has a different definition of fun and enjoyment. And I think if you only think of fun as partying and drinking, that's like saying food is bland if you don't have hot sauce on it. Like everyone enjoys their food in a different way. ⁓ And so my enjoyment is working. My enjoyment is falling down curiosity rabbit holes on the internet. It's reading books, it's writing books, it's doing podcasts like these and having incredible conversations with curious people.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 21:02

So is it that you have learned to love hard work or is it that you have gravitated toward work you naturally love doing?

Jay Yang (: 21:16

think a little bit of both.

So, you know, sometimes I'd be like, I'd rather go out and do something instead of sit in my room and type away at the computer. But I think in the macro.

the work has pulled me toward it. It's not something, it's something I can't not do. ⁓

And so yeah, it's not fun all the time, but I think in the big picture, would I rather be laying on the beach somewhere or would I rather be working? Big picture, I think I'd get bored on the beach and so I'd rather be leveling up in the video game of my career.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 22:06

So there's this concept called you, you, I don't know if you've heard of it or not. Um, so you, you can kind of think about it like self actualization or fulfillment. Um, so, so you've, you've probably heard of like the hedonic treadmill. Hedonia means pleasure seeking. So like in the clinical psychology world,

and hedonia or if somebody is an hedonic, it's actually one of the symptoms of depression. It just means you don't enjoy things you used to enjoy a lack of pleasure and hedonia. You dimonia is, kind of like a level higher than hedonia in that hedonia is something that you do because it feels good in the moment. It is hedonic, right? Hedonism. You dimonia is something that it doesn't necessarily always feel good in the moment.

Jay Yang (: 22:38

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 22:59

but you still believe it is worthwhile over the long term. So an example I always gravitate toward is Justin Wren. He's a former MMA fighter, philanthropist, a bunch of other things. His nickname was the big pygmy because he's just giant ass white dude. But he goes, he's very passionate about going to like the Congo and helping the pygmy population get access to like clean drinking water. And I guess there's some like

modern day slavery practices. He helps them like free themselves from all that kind of shit. He's got a foundation, everything. The issue is, is apparently even though you get, ⁓ like the malaria vaccine, you can still get malaria. So yeah. So he's gotten malaria, like over three times. Last time I checked was three plus times. He even gave a Ted talk at one point, like a model he had to like shorten the length cause he actively was recovering from malaria during his fucking Ted talk.

But the whole thing was like, if you were to ask Justin on a day he has malaria and like malaria is super painful. If you say, Justin, do you feel good today? Are you happy? He would be like, no, I'm, I'm in tons of pain. I have fucking malaria. But if you said, Hey Justin, is this worth it is, is going and helping these people, even though you feel like complete shit today, is this mission still worthwhile? And he would say yes every day.

And I think so many people get caught up in, in chasing hedonic stuff, hedonia, pleasure seeking things that feel good today superficially that they sacrifice more you demonic eudaimonia type activities because it isn't like, does this feel good today? It's is this worth it in the long run? Do I have conviction that this sacrifice is worthwhile that this work ethic, that this obsession I have

Jay Yang (: 24:27

Hmm

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 24:57

Is it worthwhile over the long term? Because one of the things I see so many people that that causes so many people to give up is after the two to three week shining objects, you know, period ends, they're like, fuck, this is boring or all fuck. This is hard or all I'm not getting the traction I thought I was supposed to. So they're chasing that superficial aspect, that day to day pleasure.

And they don't ever think about one, what is actually worth doing longterm, but then they never actually do work that is worth it longterm. They never consider, uh, you, dimonia. What are your thoughts on that? Cause like, dude, like you're at the age where like you are the outlier of outliers as far as like doing longterm shit and, and, and, and building laying brick by brick of, of this empire you're building.

Jay Yang (: 25:39

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 25:54

Most people at your age, myself included when I was 18, 19 through mid twenties, you might have some longterm goals, but it is much more short term focused day to day.

Jay Yang (: 26:10

I think you absolutely nailed it. ⁓ The two people I had in mind that did work that probably didn't feel very good in the moment, but ultimately was worth it in the end, I talk about in the book, Arnold Schwarzenegger. He did two a days, two workouts every single day, one in the morning, one at night, every single day for over two decades. I can guarantee you while he was on that 11th rep of the third set, he probably wasn't feeling very happy or very

fulfilled or wasn't feeling super a lot of pleasure, but If you if you extend that timeline if you lengthen that timeline ⁓ Receiving the awards and and feeling good about himself and having his body as proof of The work that he put in I can guarantee he felt a ton of fulfillment Same thing with Kobe Bryant when you wake up at 4 a.m. To lift and shoot shots I don't think that's something that many people will find joy in but when you

hit the game winning shot, you win your fifth championship, when you're known as the greatest of all time, I think that gives you a lot of fulfillment. So it's the question you have to ask yourself is, would I rather embrace the suffering or the hard now for the results in the future, or would I rather embrace the short term pleasures now and then have to deal with the consequences in the future? And so that's the question I always ask myself when I make decisions is like,

Will this help me get me closer to my North Star?

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 27:43

that. ⁓ one of the, the other things I think about is a quote that Jerry Seinfeld shared on the Howard Stern show. And it was something to the effect of your blessing in life is when you find the torture you're comfortable with. Because in the, in the, the, interview, Howard Stern is talking about how, you know, he's talking to Jerry about his, his method and like how he's always Jerry's like always on, he's always thinking about a joke. He's like, Jerry's like, I'm never fully present in anywhere in my life. I'm never fully present.

Cause there's always something going on in the back of my brain. I'm like, how can I turn this into a joke into a bit something? And he was like, I'm never present. I'm never fully present with my wife, my kids. I'm not even fully present right here with you right now. And Howard Snowden was like, that sounds like torture and Jerry's like it is, but it's my torture. And I think about that daily ever since I heard it, because it's like for me, the best people,

The people who are the best at what they do and actually enjoy their fucking life have found or developed an obsession, a torture that they love. And the fact that they can, you know, quote unquote, more effectively suffer through that because they, they're, find both sometimes day to day enjoyment out of it, but longterm fulfillment from it. It's like you said, it's, can't not do this. That I think is the single differentiator.

for people who go on and build legacies and achieve self-actualization, whatever you want to call it, because they have found the thing that they can't not do and they have devoted themselves to doing that.

Jay Yang (: 29:28

Yeah, in the book I talk about, I mean there's an entire chapter on obsession about this idea that, you know, interested, as Tim Grover would say, interested people watch, obsessed people change the world. And so in the book I talk about three tests or methods you can use to identify your obsession because, you know, it's hard, it's difficult. The first test is the P test. What do you find yourself doing that you get so engaged in that you lose track of time that you forget to...

drink water, you forget to pee, you forget to eat food. And I've definitely found myself deep in writing a YouTube script and forgetting to eat lunch. I'm like, shoot, I thought it was just 10 a.m., it's three o'clock. ⁓ The second test would be the midnight test. What do you find yourself doing where you stay up past midnight, not because there's a deadline or because someone told you to, but because you can't stop working?

And the third test is the boredom test. What do you find so engaging that other people find boring? The example I like to use is every week I write a weekly newsletter, The Spark comes out every Sunday and my twin brother, he does not understand it at all. He's like, why would you give yourself a weekly homework assignment? That makes no sense. But to me, it doesn't feel like an assignment. It feels like joy. I get to...

I get to express my learnings, articulate my thoughts, discover new things, and I get to connect with people that share the same interests. And so if you can go through those three tests and maybe you won't find it right away, but I think it's important to reflect on, what actually do I find interesting? Because what you'll find is when you find something interesting, you naturally want to do it more. And when you naturally want to do it more, you get better at it. And when you get better at it, you start to like it a little bit more. And it just becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy, this loop.

that keeps going on.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 31:24

What do you think holds so many people back from finding or creating that thing?

Jay Yang (: 31:33

would say two things. Number one, it would be not experimenting enough. The work that I'm doing now is not the first thing I've started. I started a YouTube music promotion channel. I started several Instagram theme pages. I even tried to start a clothing brand. Each of those were experiments, and ultimately I stopped doing them because I didn't enjoy them. But they taught me, each one of them taught an important lesson that led me to the work that I'm doing now.

And so think not enough people are willing to embrace that failure to identify what they enjoy. And then I'd say the second thing is...

fear of what other people will think or fear of judgment. Liking writing at age 19 is not really a popular hobby. It's not something like most people are proud of. It's kind of weird. I collect questions. I collect sentences. That's very weird. ⁓ And so I think what holds people back is maybe they do have an inkling of what they like, but they're kind of afraid to lean into it because it's not popular. It's not cool.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 32:42

So going back to the first piece then, how do you decide when to persevere versus when to pivot? Cause you've, you've run multiple experiments and like sort of like sub businesses. How do you decide when to stick with it and when to quit?

Jay Yang (: 33:04

That's a great question. ⁓ To me, it's does this align with the ultimate North Star goal? And I think for the projects that I started and ended up quitting, I realized that they didn't align with where I wanted to go. For the music promotion channel, I realized I actually wasn't that passionate about music. And so I realized I wasn't going to be able to do this for the long term. And so...

I think actually instead of, I didn't quit that, I think I pivoted into the next venture. I think the only true failure is quitting everything and stopping everything and giving up on your North Star dream. Otherwise, I don't actually think it's quitting, I think it's pivoting. Everything is a series of pivots unless you stop doing things entirely.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 33:59

another thing that Jack butcher is kind of for us is sort of graphic about an inflection point, right? Of like, like this is pointless. So it's like these, you know, basically it's like a, like a, like a bar chart or whatever. So there's like nothing, nothing, nothing. And then you say, this is pointless. And then right after that point, you hit that inflection moment and all of sudden you're getting all these results. The issue with that, cause that, that is effectively communicating the importance of

persevering through the early stages when it seems like you're getting no traction, when nobody's watching, nobody's buying, nothing is working because you're so early. You're not getting any real feedback to even fucking know what's working. What isn't the issue with that though is when you are pre inflection, how do you know if you are actually going in the direction of

an inflection point or the thing you're working on never had potential to begin with.

Cause like, you know, both this book, you can just do things. and you know, like I know in Laura, comps just came out with tiny experiments. So like in my mind, these are complimentary books in that it's, it's about like, you can explore, you can experiment, you can just do the thing and see what happens. You've you effectively have nothing to lose by just trying the thing out because regret is stronger than anything else. It is, it is.

you can better handle a failure than regretting not even try. Right. But the issue is so many people, they try things, but they don't either have like their own internal success metrics to know how long do I persevere with this before I pivoted versus how long do I just keep, you know, shots on goal sort of a deal? How do I know when to stop or when to continue? Because I am pre inflection point. How do I know?

what is actually moving me toward the inflection.

Jay Yang (: 36:17

The example I have in my head is of MrBeast. He put out a thousand videos before he ever really achieved any sort of external metric success. So I think to your point, you have to bring that inward. You have to find an internal metric that you can get excited about because you'll never know if things are actually the right, if that's actually the right path or if it'll actually work out. No one can predict the future. And anyone telling you,

that they can bring the future is either lying to you or trying to sell you something. And so what I would suggest is thinking about instead of, you know what? I've put out a thousand videos and none of them have broken a thousand views. I'm a failure. I should quit. It's like, did I get better within each upload? Is my thousandth video better than my first video? Yes. And like, and understanding that

those internal games you play, that's how you determine if, like, let's say you're not getting better between one and a thousand, and you still feel discouraged, like, chances are you have to do something different. But if video one and video a thousand, video a thousand is infinitely better than video one, I think then it's just about, okay, let's stay in the game, and let's map this out. If I keep improving, eventually something will happen. But if you're not improving and you're still discouraged, either you have to change your action,

or you have to change your expectation.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 37:49

I like that. And that coupled with the North star thing, right? So, you know, I do a lot of values work. So all, you know, I'm a huge fan of how do you build a life in business aligned with your core value or values? If you have a couple, I'm a fan of a core value though. And for me, every goal idea or opportunity has the potential to get you one step closer to, or one step further away from a life aligned.

with your core value, with your North star in your words, right? I think that right out the gate is sort of like the, the thing you need to figure out, right? Obviously try to figure out your North star, right? But it's okay if it's kind of vague, as long as you can, you can see the direction you need to be going, right? After that, once you have that general, you know, thing of the, on the horizon, then it's like, okay.

of all the ideas, all the shiny objects, all the experiments, all the potential lives I daydream about potentially living and making a reality one day, which of these actually moved me closer to that? Cause I think especially not, not even when you're young, like when you are new to entrepreneurship, I'll put it that way, there is so much advice out there and there are so many bros Hawken bullshit about here's how, here's how to make your first

$: 1000

versus if I was like, well, I Googled it. I looked, I talked to Claude about how to run a ghost writing agency and create a course on it. Well, here's how, like it would be complete bullshit, right? Cause I'm not a ghost writer, but like it's this idea of people don't have a filtering mechanism to prioritize and clarify what ideas are worth pursuing because if you don't have conviction in what you're doing,

It is going to be incredibly hard for you to persevere through the early days pre-inflection point, because if you are only chasing external metrics, accolades, whatever, when those don't come and they typically don't come early on, you have no drive to continue doing it. You have no belief that it is worth doing. You're just chasing low hanging fruit that you think is guaranteed that you heard some fucking Twitter bro tell you.

It's an easy 10 K in, six weeks with this, you know, $10,000 course I sell like it's some shit like that. Right. How do you have somebody who is, who is ambitious and already has a ton of achievements? How do you filter ideas, opportunities, goals as somebody who is probably drowning in them?

Jay Yang (: 41:03

So I'll chunk that question down to like, let's say you're a beginner and there's all these experts and gurus preaching and telling you the best way to do things. I think level one is like, do they have the business or are they living the life that you want? If they're not, then you can eliminate most of what they say. Level two would be, not only are they living the life you want or do they have the business you want, have they created other success stories?

just like theirs. Because anyone can do something once, but as we know, being a player and then becoming a coach is two different games, and oftentimes a lot of players aren't great coaches. And so just because someone did something doesn't necessarily mean they'll be a great teacher or course mentor or anything like that. In terms of filtering opportunities right now,

I like to think of this in four steps, and I'll just go through all four of them. We kind of touched upon a few of them, but step one is what do I want? What is my North Star? What do I want out of my life, my career, my business? Do I want to work indoors? Do want to work outdoors? Do I want to work at my desk? Do I want to be moving? Do I want work with many people? Do I want work by myself? Do I want to work on my laptop? Do I want to work with my hands? All these questions that I think more people should reflect on.

It's insane to me that people spend more time planning their weekends than they do planning their careers when your career plays a disproportionate amount of impact on your life. So why would you not spend a disproportionate amount of time reflecting on that and being intentional about what you want and don't want? So that's step number one. Step number two is, okay, now that you have a general sense of what you want, what do you need to learn in order to get there? What are the skills?

What are the beliefs? What are the character traits you need to adopt in order to become the person deserving of achieving your North Star? Step number three would be, now that you know your North Star, now that you know what you need to learn, who do you need to connect with in order to learn those skills in order to get what you want? And so for my example, if I know that I want to be this author, entrepreneur type person, I knew that I needed to learn the skills of writing, I needed to learn how to build a business, I needed to learn

all the micro skills that go into those things. And so I was like, okay, who are people who are living the life that I want to live? Or have the business that I want to have, or have the skills, traits, character, skills, beliefs, or character traits that I want to adopt. so Noah Kagan was one of them, Tyler Denk was one of them, Alex Hermosy, Layla Hermosy, those are people who have played a essential role at consuming their content. And so I want to get as close to them as possible so that I can...

I can understand, actually, maybe is this the life that I want? Maybe I don't want their life. so the goal is to get as close as you can so you can take a peer into their life to see if that's what you want. And then step four would be, how do I make this a no-brainer? How do I reach out to them in a way that reduces the friction? How do I maybe do the work up front? How do I maybe send a cold or a public DM instead of a cold DM? How do I...

showcase my thinking instead of telling them. And so if you can do those four things, I believe you can have a pretty successful career at a young age. You can compress your timeline for accomplishment simply by knowing what you want, knowing what it takes to get there, knowing who you need to connect with, and knowing how you can make it a no-brainer for those people.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 44:44

I love that. So that an added layer, because some people

would be like, okay, you Jay, this, this, sounds all well and good in theory. You did it, but you were in high school and now you're 19. I am middle-aged with a family, a mortgage, this, that, whatever. How was somebody like that supposed to apply this approach?

Jay Yang (: 45:20

I think it's the exact same thing. It's realizing that maybe you aren't living the life that you've wanted, and maybe it's about reflecting, okay, what do I actually want? Not what I grew up and what my parents told me to want, not what my teachers wanted, not what society told me to want. What do I want right now? And then it's about taking tiny action, just like in Atomic Habits, taking baby steps towards what you actually want. It's not gonna happen overnight, but if you can make tiny decisions, maybe instead of watching Netflix, you...

Instead of watching Netflix with your family, you spend that time working. Or maybe it's instead of getting bogged down by the kids waking you up for breakfast, it's like, can you wake up two hours early, knock out some deep work before that happens? Obviously, I'm not 35 with kids. I don't exactly know what that situation would be like. But I think far too many people underestimate what they can accomplish with tiny actions compounded over time.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 46:21

I agree. And I think that a big piece to that is acknowledging your limitations and then finding ways to thrive within those limitations, right? Like what, what additional constraints can you apply that can progressively help you kind of escape your current situation and move closer to your ideal one? Right? So let's say you're stuck in, in, that, and this isn't just necessarily like a nine to five person who hates their fucking job.

but they have so much job security, they feel like they can't leave. It can also be like an entrepreneur who's, who's built up like, you know, golden handcuffs situation, right? I I've, I've seen plenty of entrepreneurs who own paper are very successful, but actually are miserable in real life, right? ⁓ Or like, you know, creators like YouTubers who have built, you know, huge audiences in a specific niche, but they're like,

en King and he's like, right.: 2000

Can you write literally a single fucking paragraph every day? Right? Like, you know, the Jerry Seinfeld thing of like, you just, you know, don't, don't break the chain, right? Like every day, just make sure like you cross out, Hey, I did my thing today. I, I upheld my commitment to myself today. I did the thing today. And then over time, eventually that is how you make that progress. That is how you achieve the thing. Right? Can you write a page a day? Can you write a hundred words a day?

whatever that is, right? ⁓ you know, again, back to fraternity. like one of things we had to do in my fraternity was, you had to learn the Greek alphabet, which is pretty simple, but all the time pledges would be like, I don't have enough time to learn the Greek alphabet. And my response every time was like, how long does it take you to take a shit more or less than 30 seconds? Okay. You have 30 seconds at least once a day.

that you could be fucking studying the Greek alphabet. Like it's really crude, but it's like you honestly, you know, Ryan Holiday talks about a lifetime versus dead time. You have much more time within your day than you probably recognize. How can you maybe just reallocate a little bit of that for yourself that progressively moves you closer to this life you actually want to achieve? Right.

Another thing you've kind of touched on is, ⁓ societal and cultural pressures. Okay. Obviously I am mostly white, so this has not been my personal lived experience, but something I consistently hear from a lot of my friends who are either, you know, first generation or, know, maybe even second, especially from Asian households is growing up. I was told you are allowed to be a doctor lawyer.

engineer, accountant, or disappointment. so like for a lot of my friends who are from that kind of background, they're like, so when I wanted to be a creator and entrepreneur, whatever, my family didn't know how to deal with that. Cause it wasn't in their script of a career path I could have. Cause that doesn't have job security. It may not have the prestige that culturally people easily understand.

How has that or has it played out for you in your life or other people you know?

Jay Yang (: 50:20

I have to say I have the most supportive and caring parents that anyone could ever ask for. I know everyone says that, but it's true for me. And so my parents definitely had expectations, like, do well in school, obviously, why would you not? And they had high expectations for me. I don't think they've ever had this idea, like, you have to do this, which I'm very grateful for. But I do understand it. I have a lot of Asian friends, and there's definitely that expectation that you just mentioned.

If you want to do something different, the method I like to tell people is don't tell your parents why you should be doing something different, like why you should be an entrepreneur. Show them evidence. And I think a lot of people try and convince their parents before they ever take a single piece of action. And it's like, if I was your parents, would not want you to be an entrepreneur. You haven't proven to me, you haven't shown anything to me. And so, ⁓ a lot of people have been asking me...

How do your parents feel that you're dropping out of college to work at acquisition.com? And my answer to that is, obviously they want me to stay in school. It's a set, safe career path. But this isn't the first conversation we've had about something like this. Straight out of high school, I had three full-time job offers that I was seriously considering. And so I had these deep conversations with my parents about, what would it look like if I didn't go to college?

It's that idea that small stacks of evidence eventually will change their mind. And even if it doesn't, you've still done the work.

The greatest response to any hate or any doubt is, when I play basketball, the greatest response is you point up to the scoreboard. You're living the life, you have the business that you want. And if you don't, stop trying to spend your time telling people why they're wrong or disproving them. Just do the work and start the business and be an entrepreneur, be a creator first. And I think by showing them that, because all your parents really want is

your safety and your security. They don't hate you, they're not against you, but in their minds, it'll be more secure and safe for you to take the traditional path. And so if you want a non-traditional path, you have to do the work that shows them why the non-traditional path is the right move for you.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 52:54

So basically you're saying most people are waiting for the parents permission to take a non-traditional path. But the better solution most of the time is to take a permissionless approach, get that evidence and be like, this is what I am doing. Here is evidence that supports the fact that I can be successful at it. Cause fundamentally I know what you want is for me to be happy to have safety security.

financial, you know, whatever this is providing that. And in a way that I don't absolutely hate what I do eight to 10 hours a day.

Jay Yang (: 53:35

100%.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 53:39

Cause I just, I'm always curious with that. Cause like my parents, so I grew up on like public housing, food stamps. Like I grew up super, super poor. Like neither of my parents worked, ⁓ after like elementary school for me, cause for both physical medical reasons, they both, became disabled. ⁓ so like I was never a latchkey kid. My parents were always home. Like they're divorced. So like, you know, they live separately, but like mom and dad were always at home.

I never had to think about that. And I, so like my mom's got like a two year degree. My dad says he barely graduated high school because he had like a 30 extra days of detention left and he wasn't sure they were going to like let him graduate because he just would fight all the time and shit. But like I, you know, with a four year degree, I was the most traditional educated person in my family, let alone masters, a doctor and everything else. But growing up, uh, my dad, he would always tell me, he's like, look, son, don't use your body. Use your brain.

Like that is how you will sort of escape this, this whole kind of thing. Cause like my dad, used his body for a lot. And then one day when his body got super fucked up, he was like, I can't work anymore. So my parents and like from, from an early age, like I was a weird kid. Like my mom likes to tell people all the time that like I kept a dictionary in the bathroom. like when I was taking a shit, I would just be reading fucking words and things like just learning random definitions and like,

to this day and I took Latin in high school. like to this day, I love like etymology and shit of words. It's a really weird niche interest I have, but I was always trying to learn and my parents weren't overly educated, but they were incredibly supportive. They were like, whatever you need to learn more, to study more. Cool. Great. We can't necessarily provide you financially, but emotionally, morally, whatever we will support you in any way that we can. So,

I never had that pressure of, you need to do this. Hey, you need to go to this college. You need to have this major. Cause like my parents like straight up didn't fucking understand any of it. Like they, they had no conceptualization really of, like a four year degree of how to navigate college and shit. I never experienced that pressure. But then like, as I got older and I met almost everybody else, I was like, shit. Like other people grow up with like some real pressure to like,

conform and like do this specific thing. It's like, well, fuck. It was like a blessing for me that my parents were like, as long as you're happy, we don't care what you do. Like I never had that pressure, but that pressure seems so prevalent for so many other people. And I, I deeply believe that that contributes heavily to why so many people don't experiment and explore non-traditional paths because they have their own insecurities.

but then they also have family pressure, cultural pressure, everything else. And that's really, really hard, I think, for people to navigate, which is why I was really curious about your perspective, both currently to young people, but also how older people can maybe filter your message and apply it to their own life.

Jay Yang (: 56:54

Alex has this idea of, you his dad wanted him to get his MBA and higher degree and Alex wanted to start his business. And he was so afraid of his dad's opinion that he drove from, I believe, I forgot where it was, somewhere in the Midwest, all the way to California. And he didn't tell his dad until he was in California, several states away. He was that afraid of his dad's opinion. But he said, ultimately,

I had to make a decision. Either my dreams die and my dad's lives, or my dad's dreams for me die and mine lives. And you just have to make that decision. It's hard and it's not easy, but that's ultimately the decision you have to make.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 57:45

I really like that. Yeah, because I think.

A lot of people live the life they think they're supposed to rather than living the life they actually know is right for them. Like, and you talked about earlier, like, know, what do you want, dude? I have literally spent six plus months with like coaching clients, asking them that one question every single week. Okay. But what do you want? Because it's like either people legitimately don't know what they want or more often than not, they're afraid to admit what they.

Because by admitting what you want, you're also admitting what you currently have isn't what you want and you have to make a change. And people are terrified of uncertainty.

So like, what do you want a layer deeper than that is what are you afraid to want? What are you afraid to admit you want?

Jay Yang (: 58:40

A lot of people, growing up, that's that idea. Don't be a try-hard. And it's because people are afraid to admit what they want. And they're also afraid to fully go after it. They're afraid to commit. And there's this mantra that I have right now, no half measures. If you're going to do something, go all in. And it's scary because when you go all in and you fail or you don't get what you want, it's like you have to own up. It's like, yeah, I didn't do good enough.

And maybe people make fun of you because you tried so hard and you didn't get the outcome that you wanted. But wouldn't you rather have tried and not gotten what you wanted than have never tried at all? And so the mental model I have in my mind is like, which path makes for the better story? Would I rather sit here on my ass and do nothing? Or would I rather go out on an adventure, try, fail, maybe come back, but now with earned wisdom and experience that I can talk about or that I can then apply to the next adventure.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 59:43

really liked that because I will also use that sort of retroactively or in the moment sometimes of like, how can I turn this into a story? Or like, you know, there've been times where like I've, you know, had, you know, been in a real, not dark place, but like really like a place of struggle in my life or my business, especially, know, early on in things. And even sometimes, you know, random shit just kind of happens. And I think about

that the reframe that always, always helps me get out is one day, this will be a chapter or a section in my autobiography. What can I take from this in this moment that will inspire somebody in the future? Because it's like this whole idea, you know, content creators will say like everything is content, right? And like writers, writers are awful about it. Cause it's like anytime like a tragedy happens, the writers like, this is going to be a scene one day. How can I turn this into a thing? And it's like,

It, I mean, it is helpful in that it helps you like gain a different perspective to like see it from a little bit above where you're at, but just this idea of like, no matter what I go through, I can choose what, like I can choose to pull a story out of this, a lesson, a piece of wisdom that can then go on and inspire other people. Right. And just the idea of like, you can't change what happens, but you can change how you respond to that.

but you can also change the story you tell yourself about what happened. Not in a delusional way and like pretending shit didn't happen, but saying, I'm going to choose how I relate to this experience. And that for me has been transformed. So it's like, you know, when it's like, Hey, you know, one month I've made a shit ton of money and then, you know, something happened and like something broke and then two months went by and I made no money.

Or like, Hey, bills are due or Hey, you know, there've been times where it's like, you know, credit cards maxed. How do you, and then the next payment is, due. How are you going to do that? I'm like, Alex, we're Mosie in a hundred million dollar offers, whatever. He, he opens with the whole idea of like, he had X amount of money in his account, but all that had to go to payroll. Right. And, I, and I sat, I sat there like when that happened to me I was like, this is going to make a fucking awesome opener one day, or this is going to make an incredible.

screenshot one, like, and it's just like, just that idea of no matter what you go through, that can inspire somebody else someday. And that, think that is a huge way to

to get through things sometimes, to choose how you deal with that experience. But I also really like your take on it of if you're at a fork in the road, which would make for a better story.

Jay Yang (: 1:02:43

Yeah, one of my favorite quotes from, I guess we'll just start quoting Hormozi and everything, ⁓ one of my favorite quotes is, the bigger the dragon, the more epic the story, and by consequence, the greater the hero.

And so like no one tells the story of the hero where everything works out the first time. And so by it being difficult, it's a blessing, you know? It's that idea of like, again, Hormozi says, if you had to create a human, what would you put through them to make them tough? Probably wouldn't be a really chill life. If you wanted to make them patient, you would throw them a bunch of obstacles and make them earn that patience. If you wanted to make them a wise person,

you would have them go through lot of failures and mistakes so that they have to earn that wisdom. And so it's like we want these things, these character traits, these outcomes, but by consequence, there's also a price. We can't want the price and not be willing to pay the price.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:03:43

One version I had heard is like, don't ask for a lighter load, ask for broader shoulders. And I like, and like that's, that's it for me, right? It's like, it's not about trying to, to have an easy life. It's about having a life worth living. And that naturally includes sacrifice. That naturally includes adversity. That naturally includes hardship, all these other things. Cause it's like,

One, if you look at any story ever that inspires you, it was because some fucked up shit happened, but that person was able to come out the other side.

all the critter shit in like: 2020

all the, the screenshots of the Stripe notifications and like all that shit. And it's like, when all you see is everybody else is winning all their wins and all their external celebrations, but all you know of yourself as your internal struggles, you constantly feel inadequate, inferior, not enough. And the thing I tell people all the time is like,

Nobody shares their struggles online. Not when they're happening. They either share performative struggles, right? So like, you know, a while ago, the, the, was like a CEO on LinkedIn got fucking railed because he was like, he posted a picture of him crying like, I just fired somebody. like, buddy, you're not the victim here. Nobody has sympathy for you. It's performative, right? Or, or people share retroactive retroactive struggles of

Jay Yang (: 1:05:37

Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:05:52

Five years ago, I was living out of my car, but look at me now. And it's like, nobody shares a struggle when they're having it typically, because that doesn't inspire anybody. People don't want to read a trauma dump and the individual doesn't want to, be vulnerable like that online. That is why it's critical for you to have real friends to talk to about the real struggles you're going through while you're going through them. Like,

One of my friends, Mel's a fellow psychologist, Mel Varghese. ⁓ he's a fellow psychologist and, and, and creator, entrepreneur, shit. And Mel and I have like a standing call every month. And it's like a call cause Mel's a fucking boomer. He's not a boomer, but like it's a literal and like, dude, like my skin crawls with like literal phone calls. Cause like, I just, can't do anything, but I love Mel. So we do them.

And it's like, we have very candid conversations like this worked. This didn't launch, you know, this launch was awful or like, Hey, I don't know how I'm going to make payroll or whatever. Right. Or like this really great thing happened, but just to have a small circle of people to actually have those conversations with, I think is critical because if you don't ever see other people's struggles, real struggles, you can feel alone in this because all you ever see

or everybody else's wins. You never see their internal state. You never see their real struggles.

Jay Yang (: 1:07:22

100%. And I've definitely been there. I've been on the other side, starting on money Twitter and seeing all these people making magical internet money. How the heck are they doing that? Is this real? Like, how do I do that? And then now being on the other side of that, it's realizing that even the people who we thought were like super successful and winning every time and just win after win after win, we put them on pedestals. They're all just human. And for most of the majority of their days, it's actually not as glamorous.

It's actually hard.

To your point, I have ⁓ several internet friends that now have turned into real person friends. And we do have a monthly call, not a monthly, a quarterly call. And just having those people who are there for you, who you can share your wins and also share your losses, who can hold you accountable to the commitments you said you'd make, I think that's invaluable. And I know Mr. B said that with his, when he was just starting out, he put together a group of

YouTubers who had 10,000 subscribers and then they all reached over million subscribers just having the those buddies You know, there's the I call it the golden circle of relationships You want to have a mentor you want to have your peers and then you want to have someone? One or two steps behind you that you can teach and bring along

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:08:44

agreed. And I think that, you know, one of the guys are so two guys really early on for me, again, when I started my own business, who really helped me where Dan Co and, ⁓ Nick Wignall, who's a, another fellow psychologist. ⁓ I, I kind of met, I knew of Nick, ⁓ cause he was big on medium. He had like a couple hundred thousand on medium. This is back when medium was a big thing, but he had like,

a couple thousand Twitter followers. So it's like, Oh, he's going to be way easier to hit up on Twitter. Uh, and then, you know, we kind of became friends and Dan was, was a similar thing. Um, Dan was actually the very first person I coached cause I hit him up and I was like, man, I'm starting my own coaching business. This is who I am and what I do. You know, I've been writing for a while. Would love to just offer you just like a straight up free session. And, and if you like it, give me a shout, shout out, whatever. And like,

So we did it. then later, you know, Dan started modern mastery and all the shit he's done since, ⁓ Dan's incredible too. And like, Dan was like, Hey man, I've got this copywriting course. Here you go. Hey, I've got this. Hey, I've got that. Hey, come in and do this, you know, for, for this community. And I think that people like that. And you are a similar kind of person of you're always so generous. You're always giving, you're always connecting. You're always

in a good way saying yes to things, right? Not that you, you spread yourself too thin or say yes to things that aren't aligned, but you're so gracious. And I think that especially coupled with like your discipline and shit for sure. But I think just the, the, the sheer level of generosity and authenticity that you, that you just have, whether it is cultivated or natural, it just, is now.

I think that is a huge thing that is really important early on, but is even more important later on in your career. And as you grow and things, how do you think, and you touch on like being like a super connector in your book, how do you think about being a super connector and cultivating relationships like that and mentoring other people as well?

Jay Yang (: 1:11:06

First off, I appreciate those kind words.

I think it goes back to like, if I know what my North Star is, what are the actions I can take today that will make that future outcome have a higher probability of becoming true. ⁓ And so I remember when I was 16 and Dan Coe gave me free access to Modern Mastery. that gave me so much, that just opened my eyes to like the possibilities on the internet. And now...

I'm in a similar position of Dan, like can help people who are just starting out. And I think it's fulfilling for that. And I also think there's this idea that, I think Tim Ferriss calls it pre-VIPs. Noah Kagan calls them pre-fluencers, whatever you want to call them. It's like you can spot people who have ambition, who have discipline, who have drive and a ton of energy. They just don't know where to point that. And so if you can help steer that drive to a productive vehicle.

and then they do end up becoming successful or whatever. Not only is that fulfilling, but it could also benefit down the road. And so I see it more as like planting seeds. Every generous act I do is like, can I plant seeds with the people that I want to be around in the future? And maybe it'll help me out in the future. Maybe it won't, and that's okay. I think it's still like the right thing to do. Maybe that's just how I was raised with Asian parents, but I'm always trying to give more than I...

receive? Can I leave every environment better than I found it? And that includes people as well.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:12:44

like, so a key piece to this though is it's non transactional, right? I think a lot of people, when they think about like networking or building relationships, they come at it from a transactional mindset right out the gate of like, how can we benefit each other implied? How can you benefit me more than I benefit you? And I think that, you know, people like you, like Dan, you know, like,

Honestly, at this point, a lot of people I know, it never feels transactional. is always value forward. It is always genuine and authentic. And I think that that is the piece so many people miss when it comes to, you know, ⁓ quote unquote networking, when it comes to like building your, your social network. I think that piece is what fucks people up. Is it they, they, they approach it as a transactional relationship rather than a genuine relationship.

Cause like, like with us, man, like you said, like, you know, we went, we had coffee when you were down here in Austin. ⁓ we had talked online for a minute. You had inspired me early on cause I'm like, this motherfucker hasn't even graduated high school yet. He's doing so much super cool shit. And, and you just, you were again, just right at the gate, like so fucking genuine and shit. I'm like, I have to meet this dude. So we did. And you know, we've continued to talk since then. And honestly, dude, like,

Not a week goes by, I would say that I don't bring your name up at least once in a conversation I have either one on one with somebody or if I'm doing a workshop or if I'm doing something else, like so often your name comes up and like most of them, like literally the way I phrase it is I want to be like Jay when I grew up, even though he's like half my age, like because, and you've never asked me for anything transactional, like I'm always down to help you and you're always down to help me. And like I've definitely, you know, I've of my own volition, like

giving you shout outs and articles and newsletter issues and other things. And I will like a hundred percent like, you know, rep this book all day, every day. I'll share it everywhere. You never asked me to do it. And even if you would have, I would be like, fucking, of course I will. Like that's not transactional. That's a friend asking another friend like, Hey, are you down to support this? Of course I will. But like I've had other people who have approached me and it's like, Hey, this is transactional. Like, Hey, I will.

I'm not going to name names, but I reached out to somebody else and I was like, Hey, I would like, I'd love to have you on podcast. Here's what it is. Here's what we'll do. And they were like, I need you to buy at least four books before I appear on your podcast. And I'm like, four is an arbitrary number. No, that's just fucking weird. It was immediately transactional. And I was like, that's, don't like that. But it's like, you never asked me to buy a book. I'm like a motherfucker. I can't not buy this book. Right. And it's like, it's, that kind of thing. It's like, are you building genuine relationships with people?

or are they transactional? How do you think about

Jay Yang (: 1:15:45

think it's as simple as do you want friends or do you want a network? Like I don't want a network, I just want friends. So like why would I not treat people like my friends?

think it's as simple as that.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:15:58

How do you,

how do you see that play out at higher levels of entrepreneurship? Cause you know, people like, like Noah, like Alex, like tons of other people, does that stay true at higher levels or no.

Jay Yang (: 1:16:15

So I think it's slightly different. It would be slightly different only because when you're at that level, you have just so much demand for your time. Everyone wants a minute of your time. And so you have to, you do have to sometimes do the like, hey, if you want me to speak at your event, buy 100 copies of my book. You have to do a little bit of that to show that, you actually serious? Is this just like a ask or are you actually serious? Do you actually want me? So there are some tests that you have to do when you're at that level.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:16:15

Because some people would say that that's okay.

Jay Yang (: 1:16:43

But no, 100%, the higher up you go, the more you realize people aren't competing at the top, they're collaborating.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:16:50

Agreed. And the speaker thing, that's a really good point. Cause like, ⁓ cause again, like when I had that interaction, I was like a speaking engagement makes sense because you would typically be paid anyway. What most authors do is in lieu of paying me directly my speaker fee just by effectively the equivalent in book copies, right? That's the expectation. But I agree with you, man. Like people at the top, the way they succeed is through collaborating.

Jay Yang (: 1:17:08

Right.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:17:18

It isn't through actual competition. And I think that that's the thing. A lot of people really mess up mentally is they see everybody as their competition. They see everything as competition. So then they isolate. And it's like, you've made no friends. You've built no relationships. You have no collaborators because you're so afraid everybody, you had the scarcity mindset. And when I,

stopped having that. When I started seeing everybody as a potential friend or an actual friend, when somebody else shared a win, I never, stopped thinking, ⁓ that somehow negatively affects me. I'm like, cool, a friend won. One, I'm super happy for them, but two, this proves it's possible to win in that way.

So then you're inspired by everybody around you rather than seeing everybody as a potential competitor or enemy of some sort.

Jay Yang (: 1:18:22

Yeah, it's that idea of positive sum versus zero sum. Just because someone else is winning doesn't take away from your journey. I think too many people try and think, if someone else is winning, it cuts into my pie. Let's just grow the pie. Let's all win. That thing in 2020, though, we're all going to make it. Let's all do it together.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:18:44

another thing that you, you would, you have brought up. ⁓ cause you, when the book came out, you, you announced it in your newsletter and things. And you said, honestly, I wasn't sure I'd ever finish it. I told myself it was too early, too much going on. Who am I to write a book?

Imposter syndrome fundamentally is the belief that you don't belong in the room, whatever that room is. How have you navigated imposter syndrome?

Jay Yang (: 1:19:18

The sound bite that I like to go on to give on podcasts is like, I'm not the guru, I'm the guide. I'm not the preacher lecturing to the class. I'm the kid in the back of the class sharing his notes with everyone else. ⁓ But truthfully, I've definitely suffered with imposter sharing, but I think I still do.

It may be my age, it may be that I grew up from an Asian background, but I always constantly feel like I have to prove myself that ⁓ why would anyone listen to me? I still have so much to do. And I think it's that, I saw it real on Instagram the other day. was like, ⁓ you see this 10 out of 10 girl, but you don't reach out to her because you're not who you want to be yet. And I think that same idea plays to my career as well as like...

Everyone sees the success, I am not yet where I want to be. And so that feeling of like, know where I want to go, but I'm not there yet. That discrepancy, I think, ⁓ causes a lot of that imposter syndrome. Like, why would you listen to me? Because I'm not where I want to be yet. And so ⁓ without realizing that, what is obvious to you is amazing to others. And I think that frame has helped me the most.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:20:32

⁓ Ali, Abdul, ⁓ he's put out videos before about imposter syndrome and I've talked with Ali cause like I actually, I ended up working with Ali. ended up coaching her for like six months because of a permissionless approach. Like literally like one day he put out this YouTube video about here, like the eight struggles I'm having in life and business. And this is like when I was early in entrepreneurship and I was like, these are the exact things that I help people with. So I dropped it. was like his video was like 40 minutes.

I dropped everything I had that day and just wrote a full article of like, if you were my client, here's how I would help you with each of these things. And it's like a 20 minute read, like a super raw article. didn't fucking edit it. And it was just, it was just boom, done. And I shared it online, gave everything away, gave the recipe away. And I was like, Hey everybody, this, had like 500 Twitter followers or some shit. Maybe I was like, Hey everybody, I don't know Ali. So if you all could like share this, maybe he would, he would eventually see it.

He saw it, loved it. We worked together for a while. ⁓ and we've, we've been friends ever since Ali, like I said, he's talked about imposter syndrome and we've talked about it. And I was like, dude, how do you have imposter syndrome? You are the reason other people have imposter syndrome. Like how does that work? And, and he was like, look, most of the people I know have a level of imposter syndrome, no matter how successful they become. And, and for me,

I I've spent a lot of time thinking about it. ⁓ so very quick story. When I was in grad school, ⁓ with this like homeless outreach event that like, you know, schools of psychology, nursing, medicine, we all like came together to like provide services for people experiencing homelessness in December, super cold. And so they could come in and get like medical checkup prescriptions, clothing, whatever. And I'm like, I'm supposed to sit here and like,

teach these people how to do like deep breathing or like do some smoking cessation shit. Like if you need a cigarette, have a fucking cigarette. Like you're fighting for your life under a bridge in sub freezing temperatures. You do not need diaphragmatic or progressive muscle relaxation shit. And I went up to Sue and my supervisors who between them had like 50 years of experience. And I was like, Hey, when is this feeling? Like, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. Go away. And they're like, we'll let you know. Meaning even they at the top of their field,

Jay Yang (: 1:22:41

Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:22:57

still felt like they didn't fully know what they were doing. Okay. From that day, I've never had imposter syndrome. Not that I don't experience insecurity or that like heart palpitation shit of like entering a new room, but I never think of it as imposter syndrome. At this point, I really look at it almost as the term I've been playing with is liminal tension.

Jay Yang (: 1:23:12

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:23:23

So anytime you enter a liminal space, when you're going from one space to another, there is a tension there because this is a new thing. You are doing new things. You are pushing your growth edges. So for me, it's, it's not that I don't belong in that room. It's this is a new room. So this tension is a natural part of this evolution of me crossing this threshold and going into this new space. This is supposed to be here. I'm supposed to experience this.

Jay Yang (: 1:23:33

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:23:53

because experiencing this means I am growing and pushing myself. That's the thing. And I think that most people feel that and they see it as a sign to back off. But it's like, this is actually a sign to move forward because it proves you're pushing yourself.

Jay Yang (: 1:24:11

I love that. You're not bad. You're just new. It's like that growing pains

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:24:19

And that's a natural process because it's like, you know, before you wrote this book, imposter syndrome could kick in. Cause like, I've never written a book. Who am I to write this book? Now you've written a book. Now you're an author.

It's no longer like writing your first book is no longer new territory. Now maybe promoting a book is now maybe we're writing the second book is right. But before this came out, it was new territory. You were growing in order to create it. You had to grow in order to create it, but creating it itself forced you to grow.

Jay Yang (: 1:25:04

The work works on you more than you work on it. That's a mantra I have in my head. Every time I feel like it's hard, like writing a book is, it's not easy. It's like, rewrote it 17 different times. There's tons of time I was struggling for the right word or I had to revisit this story. Reading a thousand page biography is not inherently exciting, but I realized like writing this book, it's actually working on me more than I'm working on the book. I have now become someone who...

I can say I'm an author. I've become someone who has this experience now, this earned experience that I can talk about. ⁓ And I think it's shaped a lot of how I think and who I am now. I mean, just me eight months ago is completely different than me today.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:25:50

Exactly. And then I have a couple more questions because I know we got to wrap up. ⁓ I've talked before about like the four horsemen of fear, right? The most common limiting beliefs that tend to hold people back failure, ridicule, uncertainty, and success. And you yourself have, have said that you've been, you've kind of benefited from that framework specifically around fear of success. I still have a, cause it's one of like my testimonials and so much shit you said,

the, the four horseman of your framework, specifically fear of success, completely transformed the way you operate in your life and your business. How has fear of six, like how have you navigated fear of success to this point?

Jay Yang (: 1:26:35

So to me, this idea of fear of success comes from the higher you go, the higher the fall. And so it's that fear that everything can be kind of taken away from me. even if I do get to that pinnacle of where I actually wanted to go, maybe I don't feel like I'm enough still. And maybe it's like I'm afraid of realizing maybe that actually wasn't what I wanted.

The way I've navigated it is similar to the way I've navigated college, which is I'd rather try than not try. I'd rather go after success and maybe not achieve it or maybe do achieve it and realize that's not what I wanted. I'd rather experience it and know that it isn't what I want or it is what I want than not ever really trying. And so when I go back and forth between like...

Is this really what I want to do? It's like, I'd rather try than not try.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:27:34

One thing that I've kind of talked with people about is around this exact fear of like, what if everything goes to zero? One, is it possible? Yes. But how probable is it? Right? You can logic your way through it a bit. But the other thing is like, you actually can't start at zero anymore. Meaning you could lose all your money. You could lose your, your, your LLC or some shit, but you can't lose your skills.

or your friends, your network, right? And your reputation, hypothetically, unless you do like some super fucked up shit, you lose your reputation, okay. But in general, you could start at zero financially tomorrow and probably be fine the day after tomorrow because of all the skills you've accumulated, because of all the people you've cultivated relationships with, and because of the reputation you've built.

Right. People get so caught up around like personal branding and building a personal brand. If you just substitute the word, the term personal brand for reputation, that'll clarify so much. Like what reputation am I trying to build? Does this align with my reputation? Does this hurt or harm my reputation? Like the, the, the person I am trying to be that I'm trying to let people know that I am, how does this serve that, that mission? Right. So I think even for you, if everything went to zero,

Like actually like what what would happen right like what would you actually do if everything went to zero today? What would tomorrow look like?

Jay Yang (: 1:29:13

Yeah, it's that idea of if everything got taken away from me. It's like when you see those super rich people, those multimillionaires lose everything or they go bankrupt and then they're rich again in a week. It's because they've become someone. I think Dickie Bush wrote about this. You don't want financial security, you want financial confidence. Realizing that if everything was taken away from you, you can just build it right back up again. ⁓

And so yeah, I think that that frame of mind has definitely helped me. It's like, even if all my followers or all my, everything goes to zero and I'm back in my parents' basement, I still am the person capable of doing those things. I still know how to build a following. I still know how to go through it for founders. I still know how to write a book. I still know how to use the permissionless approach to reach out to people and create opportunities for myself. And so that I think has been the greatest shield for that fear of success or fear of everything being taken away from me.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:30:14

On Instagram a bit ago, you did like an AMA. Somebody asked you what makes you keep going. And you said, superiority, superiority complex plus crippling anxiety plus love of the game.

How does this equation work for you?

Jay Yang (: 1:30:36

So that equation has been something that's been in my mind for a long time.

It's the superior superiority complex. That aspect comes from this idea that I believe I'm better than most people. And so that gives me the courage to like write online or to shoot my shot or to write a book. It's because I truly believe that I have built skills sets, character traits and beliefs that will, that other people can be impacted and inspired from. The crippling insecurity part is that idea of like what we just talked about, seeing other people winning more and being

feeling like I'm not enough yet. ⁓ The story I like to say is I played basketball growing up. I started in fourth grade. A lot of my peers started in first and second grade. And so right off the bat, I was behind and I was terrible. And I hated that feeling. I absolutely hated feeling like I was worse than other people. And so I would wrap a basketball in a plastic grocery bag to make it more slippery. And I would dribble in the basement for hours.

hours at a time. I put up a YouTube video of like a six minute ball handling routine and I play that on loop and I do it over and over and over again. And I don't think that's a testament of discipline or hard work. I think that's a testament of like, just hated feeling inadequate. And I think that's driven a lot of what I do today is like, I don't feel like I'm enough and I want to feel that. And that's probably not super healthy long-term, but that's one of the things that drives me. And then the third part, lovely game is what we talked about at the beginning. Find the torture.

that you're worth suffering for.

Writing, reading, researching, building things online isn't always fun. It isn't always like the 30 second highlight reel that people see online. But I wouldn't want to have it any other way. I don't think I would be able to have the consistency that I've had for the last four years of my life, waking up early, staying up late, working every little hour I can get if I didn't actually like or love the things that I was doing, if I wasn't absolutely obsessed with it.

if it wasn't the thing that I couldn't not do.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:32:51

Last question.

What is a Jay Yang original quote or question you want to leave people with?

Jay Yang (: 1:33:16

I

It would be the title of my book, You Can Just Do Things. What would it look like if you tried the handle? The analogy I like to use is so many people walk past the door assuming that it's locked. So they never try the handle. And what separates the people often from the people who get what they want and the people who don't isn't superior talent or skill. It's courage. It's the courage to try the handle. And what you'll find is oftentimes the door is unlocked.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:33:50

Love that. Where can people find you?

Jay Yang (: 1:33:54

Find me at jyanginspires on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn. And then if you want to stay up to date with my most recent thoughts and work, it's jyanginspires.beehive.com or the spark.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:34:09

Yeah. I'll put all the links and show notes and shit. ⁓ but yeah, that way people listening or watching can also get it highly recommended. Can't recommend enough the book. You can just do things by Jay. ⁓ dude, I'm, I'm so fucking thankful you came on. I'd love to have you on again in the future after you've done even more awesome shit or just, just to hang out. ⁓ thank you so much for being here. I very much appreciate your time and I know people are going to love this episode. Take it easy, man.

Jay Yang (: 1:34:36

Thanks for having me on Corey.