Ep. 104 - Khe Hy: leaving a $2.3m Wall Street salary at 35 & finding peace

there's this building in New York on 13th and a it's called the a building and it's one of the few buildings in New York city that has a pool on its roof and so the first apartment that I bought was a 55 square foot just like out Coast studio in that building and I was like I'm a 28-year-old who owns an apartment in New York and there is a pool on the roof I'm going to invite all these women over and be like come to come see the pool on my roof like I'm a baller blah blah blah and guess what happened I met the woman who would become my wife like three weeks later so she was the only woman that saw the pool and she thought it was like the biggest deback scene of all time she's like I hate your pool it's so lame it's a bunch of Wall Street losers I know you do this to people on your podcast how do you introduce yourself like if you at a dinner party oh um I say first and foremost so my name is kah I live in LA and I'm a dad and a husband uh and that is really kind of the top of pyramid for me in terms of what matters why I do what I do what brings me joy and so once we kind of go one level deeper I would say that I'm a writer coach and creative internet creative um so I love love love creating on the internet I love telling stories I love interacting with people I just I love the I've loved the internet since I was in high school and so um I love the human connection that comes from digital digital connection um and at the same time I work predominantly with what I call post- achievement professionals so these are kind of high Achievers that have hit a a level of achievement that you know a lot of society would look at them and be say you're in the top 0.1% so hedge fund cios exited Founders and I help them kind of a lot of times they come to me being very successful but very deeply unsatisfied with their life as a complete unit and so I help I help them you know I help help them overcome scarcity thinking I help them find what they really want to do I help them think about how they could heal their kind of core wounding um and ultimately help them ReDiscover aliveness and do you put yourself in that category as would I be my own client like are you this post achievement yeah that you're describing I would describe I think so post- achievement is a term that I kind of played around with and and the internet would say that it's attributed to me um I would I have a very kind of sneaky definition of post achievement so post people hear post- achievement they're like oh you became a partner at a law firm you must be post achievement oh you sold a company you must be post- achievement and those are absolutely the profiles of post- achievement it's actually very different in my mind to me someone who is post achievement is someone who comes to the realization that no additional achievement will meaningfully shift their BAS line level of Life satisfaction so my friend was telling me that he works in a he owns a small Manufacturing Company there's a 23-year-old gentleman there who makes $17 an hour and has five kids and he's the happiest person on Earth according to my his boss that guy's post- achievement most of us wouldn't look at his career um I don't know about your audience but I know my audience wouldn't look at his career and say that's that that's post achievement but I think post achievement that's kind of why there's a little juice in the term is kind of everyone's got to find figure it out for themselves so I think that I think some people would look at me and say look you're a managing director at a top you know Wall Street firm you made you know had multiple seven figure paydays that qualifies post achievement when I look at my peer group though I'm one of the lower Achievers because I stepped off um and so in that regards I you know I I do I feel like I've achieved a lot but I stopped kind of chasing achievement in my mid-30s and like I'm 45 now um however I had that Reckoning that internal realization that nothing I do achievement wise is going to meaningfully change my level of satisfaction with myself and with my life that was probably about a year ago so I think I according to my own definition I became B achievement about a year ago amazing yeah I love that because I think about it it's it's like fulfillment not achievement it's like then you're chasing fulfillment which you can pursue in every single day like it's not like there's some mystical end point I take it go I'm sorry I interrupted you no no no go on I I I take it um I you use the word fulfillment I take it even one layer deeper is peace and I know that has kind of like rual woo woo connotations but I just want to be at peace every waking moment and you can't be at peace if you're envious of someone you can't be at peace if you have a if you're too attached to the outcome of your relationship you can't be at peace if you worry about what happens to your well-being if the stock market goes down 15% you can't be at peace if you compare yourself you know so there's all these like I feel like peace is the umbrella term and there's all this kind of texture of human desire emotion and feeling that gets kind of wrapped into that one word amazing and at what point did you feel cuz in your introduction I noticed you didn't mention Wall Street at all like at what point did you release the need to be like I used to work at Black Rock and I was the youngest MD and I was making all this money and now I'm in this phas but it was like important for that to be part of your identity St um I would I'd be lying if I said if I if I said that I didn't think it was important to say I think it's kind of context specific I can see you know if there if I'm in a room with a lot of very traditionally successful people I might try to let that slip or say it outright to give myself credibility in their eyes right um but in kind of the internet land of things like it's an it's a very important part of the story uh but I don't lead as much with it also because people on the internet don't care as much interesting okay well I guess I care and I'm revealing that that yeah but that's also my okay yeah because Paul your friend Paul who I just who you had on your podcast and then I found out your friends he posted like do you something about post achievement do you feel feel like you're there and I was straight away like yeah it's so obvious like chasing these things cuz then you get there whatever it is if it's like a certain amount of money or like this promotion or like get a million views on Tik Tok it's all like a gold medal and then it's like what it's like then your life continues for like decades so it's like what are you going you know and then that just continues forever so I feel like I had a mini version of your thing of me Investment Banking and then but then like crashed out in a bad way like I'm GL yours was like a smooth transition which we can hear about maybe well it seems like it was smooth on the outside okay okay I'm excited to hear but yeah and then it yeah and then but for me sorry it's still like oh it's important that people know I'm a serious person and like that I have worked at hedge funds and done these things yeah but then let me ask you this um why why is it important like what happens if someone thinks that you're not serious um yeah then I guess it's like I'm not I'm not valid which means I'm not I only have a right to exist based on me achieving things so yeah I guess it's a part of me still feels like I'm not worthy of Love or belonging without XYZ said yeah yeah well I commend you for getting there so quick seeing it so quickly I think a lot of people don't even could not describe the describe their relationship to um to success and being seen in with the clarity that that you did so um yeah it's it's it's it's interesting I mean I'm turning the tables on you briefly because I this is the kind of work that I that I do with others I'm like who you know who this this need to belong it's like who I always ask people like who who are the people that you need to belong to like belong to right is it your parents is it your neighbors your spouse your kids the person at the you know the Barista is it the person at the country club right it's like who is the actual who are the people that you want to belong to or you want them to you know belonging in love can be used love like not romantic love human love can be used interchangeably in in some regards so anyway this is your podcast not mine but that's a that's a that's that's a way that I would I would encourage because I I know what you just said many people many many many many people feel yeah but I guess if you know it's the Strate yeah if you know it's the strategy of like oh this helps people come to your podcast if you have the headlines of like 2.3 million in one year and like left it all or whatever and you know that that's just a game you're playing and you're choosing to play but it doesn't validate you yeah well look I I hate this but like if I make a YouTube video or Tik Tok video and it has $2.3 million it does like 10 times better every single time like every single time I should just put 2.3 million and it's like oh like how a person who has $2.3 million who made $2.3 million serves as coffee like that would get a lot of views and like and it's an interesting there's a delicate balance to be played there because there's something about saying that that it it puts out a powerful bat signal especially for the types of conversations that I want to be having not because I want to only talk to people who have a lot of money but because there's something in the wiring if you're attracted to that then you are no you we probably have some things to talk about right but it can quickly become so tired and and dirty you know it's like this is what a you know 2.3 million a day looks like right it's just like God enough of that and I think it really as in as someone who makes a living on the internet you have to really take a hard look on look at themel at yourself and say you know how much of this is necessary how much of this is helpful how much of this is clout chasing how much of this is view chasing right these aren't easy questions to answer without a high degree of self-awareness yeah but I mean I guess it pro yeah it's like for this it's like huh what what will the title be like how can I like tell people this is like a really cool story and it's like yeah that's the thing that that it's like this guy was listened to how much money he was making and then he left it oh it's almost like Mom and Dad leave me alone I can do this to I don't know so but yeah it's like obviously there's so much more to the person beyond that and which is what we're going to learn about about you and how you grow up yes where where should I begin wherever you want ideally I know a little bit about about it so your parents are from Cambodia right mhm they were escaping at the genocide there yeah they they had left before but um maybe I could give you the traditional story but you know since you said you want to hear a different story I'll I'll actually walk you through um a coaching session that I had yesterday um that they can tie it all together so yesterday I was doing it's kind of it's I think it's like ifs but basically it it is a type of meditation guided meditation live with a coach where you recreate your childhood in your head and so it's called an ideal parent meditation uh and it kind of the purpose of it is to not EV every single person did not get all of their needs Satisfied by their parents as a child some had you know 90% of them 99 some had zero negative um and everything in between and so I'm in this ideal par parent meditation and basically the coach uh asks me to picture myself as a child and to think about what my ideal parents look like and they're like how do they interact with you how do they look at you how do they make you feel where are you what are they wearing so you're creating this scene in your head and you're just describing it back to the then she says like is there any stress in your body right now okay and again I I you heard it on some of the different podcasts I carry most of my stress in like my upper chest above my heart on the left left side of my body and so yes there's this tightness in my body and the coach says um did that kid ever feel that tightness in his body and I was like immediately I knew right away I was like yes and she's like tell me about the situation so that kid felt that tightness um basically every day at the end of school CU I had to walk home from school by myself I lived in Thon town in the 80s and '90s which was just not it wasn't a bad neighbor we were middle class but it could be it could be a little dicey it's not like New York City today and it was not uncommon for a 12-year-old boy to get mugged by a 14-year-old boy they would take your backpack or take your hat off your head take your Walkman whatever so every day especially I remember when it was uh before daylight savings when it get dark at like 4:00 um it's pitch black too um and so I would get this tightness this boy would get this tightness and so the coach then asked me she's like well did you ever tell your parents about this um I'm sorry she said how would you tell your ideal parents about this and I hadn't I think I told my parents here and there that I didn't feel comfortable walking home and they were just like sorry we both work end of conversation we can't afford Child Care end of conversation and so so in the meditation she said well how would you approach your ideal parents about this fear and I started talking through it and I said you know I I right now I don't even want to tell them because I don't want to burden them my my fake parents with my struggles and as I'm saying this tears just start streaming down my face and I'm not a crier I probably cry like once a I mean I don't cry much Tears start streaming down my face as I'm saying this I don't want to burden them this is like this fake parent in my head it's 10 o'clock on a Monday morning and then she's like yeah but remember this is the coach remember these are your ideal parents so they are there to support you emotionally in any way you need them to so they know that you don't feel comfortable sharing this they see it in you so then what happens um and then we kind of play out the scenario and I'm like sobbing and I say that because it kind of like it kind of like quickly encapsulates my story like we were middle class we were Outsiders we felt like Outsiders in New York City in the 80s and 90s uh I had every opportunity you know classic immigrant story where my parents basically lived for lived and worked for their two kids and gave us all the opportunity in the world and I translated that opportunity into going y working on Wall Street now doing you know semi-retiring doing this this thing and at the same time those tears that that kid was carrying have been impacting me in pretty much every decision I've made in my life up until today and so I think it provides like a very kind of neat frame of like there's the Practical the rational side it's like you know don't be scared just go to school and come home and then when you come home do your homework and when you do your homework go to Y and when you do this do this and when you make money you'll be happy there's that part and there's this other part that just didn't just didn't know how to feel how to feel safe how to feel seen like a lot of the things that you said and they were just kind of coexisting and throughout my life the rational skills based part just like you give me a game to play I'm going to crush it uh just that's how I'm wired uh um you asked me about how I'm feeling I'm not going to be able to answer that question and in fact if there's anything that feels uncomfortable I'm going to like run away from it with alcohol with work with music whatever I'm just GNA hide from it but I'm not going to feel it and that kind of that dichotomy kind of governed my life for I'm turning 45 this summer Mo most of my life and what do you feel has shifted now after that session um after that session um there's like a burden that has lifted that it's like it is actually okay to share your burdens with other people there's just like it's almost like they have these commercials here where it's about like having c c cpob or something where you have you get older you have trouble breathing and there's like an older person laying on a couch and there's an elephant sitting on their chest like that's kind of what my whole life has felt like as it comes to these burdens like there's just like an elephant sitting on my chest and I can't breathe and just like oh like you know exhausted and defensive and and so on and it felt like for the first time like someone like lifted up that elephant off hoisted it off my chest and I was like oh this is what it's like to this is what it feels like to bre we amazing that's so great okay so were you the oldest child I was yeah so years younger uhhuh this is interesting because you mention every time I've heard you talk about growing up you always mention the muggings and I guess what and then I'm wondering if it relates to that you mentioned somewhere else like feeling so small or like you know you had to get really strong is it I don't know was it some kind of your parents were sacrificing everything for you and you took on that pressure but you were alone like felt the pressure but also felt like you couldn't take on these outside threats yeah I it's taken me a while to realize like how unsafe I felt as a kid physically um and again it's like it's all relative right I mean anyone listening to this knows Styers tell like this is like where all the investment bankers live like first year investment bankers live and NYU kids and and all that it was different I I I tell you like if kids who grew up in the 80s in New York most men have been mugged at least once it's pretty common like in that like it didn't matter how much money you had it just that was what New York City was like um so the safety thing I think and this is something that I need to figure out is like I don't think my parents felt safe you know my parents are pretty small like physically small they're Asian um you know culturally they're from a what would be considered a more passive type of culture they don't fight back they get small when there's confrontation they don't lean into confrontation um there's a lot of probably a lot of Shame this is my words it's not theirs probably a lot of shame in like not feeling like you can physically defend yourself so I think I've always had safety issues and I'm sure they have probably and some of them are were not you could argue that they were not real in a sense that like I we didn't live in poverty right like the risk of me being killed or you know like physically hurt was probably pretty low but you know when a group of kids who are three years older than you surround you and claim they have a box cutter in their sweatshirt and ask you for your Walkman you're going to feel pretty unsafe like like there there's not like a the yeah so I think safety was a big one for me and and I think that the question of like like alone I I was very lonely as a kid um and I had low self-esteem and I didn't do well I had zero basically zero experience dating um and I just thought I was like God like I'm going to be alone and I'm we I'm alone and I'm weak and this is what my the rest of my life's going to be like and so I think that you know once I started to develop a sense of agency for my myself I'm like well there are actually ways you can change all these things and they usually surround involve like a lot of hard work and then in service of like accumulating money basically um I think that there's another thread to pull at with with the safety thing that I haven't gone down yet which is you know my my dad my mom less so because my mom's mixed she's half French half Cambodian but my dad is lost to the majority of his family in the in the K Rouge uh genocide and so it's not something we really talk about it's not something that we've ever and so it's not something we've ever kind of processed as a family um and that whole community and when I say that like kind of commun Cambodian IM genocide I don't I think it would be safe to say that much of that Community hasn't processed what happened emotionally and you know some of the some of the survivors are in their 70s and 80s now so the that that generation's um you know moving on to to to to the to the their next destination uh but the kids are you know the kids are American but they grew up with that kind of dark cloud over them um so I I think there's a lot for me to explore there that that's probably once I go down the ifs therapy route the the next route I'll go down is kind of what is called intergenerational trauma I don't even like that phrase because I think it I can I I view it there's a part of me that views it a little bit like a copout where it's like oh I'm like blaming another generation for my problems and I've come to really change that view because I'm not blaming anyone and I'm not asking for any excuses I just want to understand yeah that can come up in ifs like yeah strong visualiz and it's just you know you don't the mind is bringing you images or feelings or and it's not like making excuses or it's just seeing for for what it is or feeling it in the body and listening to the messages yeah and that's where peace comes peace comes from like listening to it in the body seeing it's there finding a way that you interact with it right I think that is that's people often ask me they're like why do you keep like don't you run out of things to talk about I'm like no like I'm a human uh and there's always going to like something's always going to be happening and I just want to better understand myself so that I can better understand what's happening and so so did your parents meet in Cambodia they met in uh in France in Paris so they were my dad the reason why my dad is alive is that he got a scholarship to go to Paris before the war Civil War started obviously he didn't know um that it was going to happen so he was just out of the country when all the stuff started to go down and my mom who's mixed was already there for school University wow and then they moved to New York they met they got married uh they finished their studies my dad got offered a job at the United Nations in New York which is why you know we were firmly middle class uh we had no savings when he started working but you know he he had a very solid career one job um and that's why we moved to New York so they moved to New York in 73 I was born in 79 and I think the peak of the kind of I'm embarrassed I should know the exact dates I think the peak of the C Rouge was around 79 yeah so this is basically Paul par who studed in Paris as well murdering all the intellectuals yeah and then s of starvation the the intellectuals and then the Royals and then just the the horrific uh starv starvation from the camps the working camps wow so do so did your do your parents live with guilt do you think I am sure I've never asked them it's not really a topic that comes up often um I think my dad tends to shut it down when it comes up or maybe he no he doesn't shut it my dad's a very he try he like deflects on it a bit and um but I think it's more there was like a message that that I got and and I know many of my Cambodian peers my age have gotten they were like we just don't like there's this like kind of unspoken rule as like this is something that we don't talk about so I definitely feel I feel that huh and then what was it that your parents wanted for you I think you could distill it down to a better life than they had um but I think ultimately they wanted us to be self-sufficient secure happy family people I think that's ultimately what they wanted and their the way that they thought that would achieve that and they weren't wrong was through academics and hard work and you know both both my sister and I we executed on that plan got it and was that kind of coming from the expectation that that's what you have to do or did you really enjoy school as well like I said up until like 18 I don't think I really enjoyed anything except you know skateboarding and playing video games and making money I knew how to make money from a relatively young age and so I actually really like making money but I think it wasn't like I objectively liked making money I think I liked making money because I knew that it gave me options to do other things so um but sorry I forgot your your original question on that phase of my life about academic yeah oh I I like I mean I was good at school so I think people like things that they're good at um I definitely like I'm I like things that involve intellectual rigor so I didn't mind school at all if any but again it's hard to tell it's like did I like it because I was good at it or did I like it objectively I think you know I think it's you know it's a bit of the two but I'm still to this day I'm a ridiculously intellectually curious person and so I think that that trait has been very gerine um within me um so so yeah I I I liked school but I think there was a big part of it that was like this is how I can rewrite my story got it from okay so it's like a way to get p power I don't think power was exactly the way I thought about it until later and I don't really I think it was more a way to be seen got it and maybe there was like I never power in it in it of itself is never you know there's like four Idols money Fame power and pleasure like money was has always been my big Idol and then when that went way Fame and not in like the you know Kim Kardashian way but more in like being known for something and I think I'm still in that phase uh I care less I think when I said a year ago I kind of let go of that that was when I was like why am I chasing this kind of thought leader Fame I'm like I just do what I do and if if I if people recognize it great and if they don't like they don't um but I've never chased power per se and then pleasure pleasure is an interesting one I think I've I if you believe in that framework I think for me pleasure I view more as like satisfaction like um and so like I love surfing I love you know I love exercising I love hanging out with my friends I don't I don't you know I mean I party I've done drugs like I have that but I'm not like I don't like I don't get I go get excited to go to Vegas for the food not for the clubs and the Gam so I don't think I chase pleasure in that regard but like I surf every day for a couple hours so that I find that very pleasurable but I don't think that's what's meant by the pleasure Idol I think it's a little bit more heathenistic and and I don't think I'm a heeden in that regards huh ah I haven't heard that framework before yeah I guess I was thinking more like as if you were feeling powerless and small and then you want to cling on to things that could like yeah but again I think it more to feel seen than to than to fight back like I never wanted to have a lot of power to be like okay you hurt me that some point like you're GNA pay for it I don't have that level of vindictiveness in me it's more just like hey pay attention to me I'm here I'm here like I matter like that's more the thing that motivates me like don't pay don't IGN me like it's almost like this like this little boy that's like hey like I'm still here guys like you think I'm cool versus like this guy I'm gonna obliterate him like I I that it's never really that's never been the motivation got it huh interesting okay and then what was the um the thing about making money giving you options at what point did you have that realization and what were the options for you I think that so I had I was I had this insane knack for making money so I think that like I learn I taught myself how to make web pages in in when I was like 14 or 15 so that would have be like 1995 this is before this is when we had 288 modem like dial in modems so I Tau taught myself how to make web pages and then I would go around selling to like all my parents friends I'm like hey I think you need a web page there's this thing called the worldwide web I was charging 50 bucks an hour so this is 1995 so this is probably like 40 bucks an hour in today's dollars and under the table and I was doing it like 105 hours a week so I think I graduated college like 15 thou graduated high school with $15,000 again which is probably like 30 today um and then I invested it on the stock and I taught myself investing and I invested all in the S&P 500 so I was I just had this knack for um for making money and I thought that the money so you asked what options I think the I think the money it would it would what options I think the money could then buy me status that was kind of the thinking then so it's like oh you know back then status symbols in you know 1997 were like rth Lauren polo shirts right and like a lot of people including myself or fake ones because the real ones were you know $40 $50 back then no way my parents could afford it but at some point I could buy it for myself and so then I own a rough low end shirt like I owned a starac phone like and so I was accumulating these status symbols because I made my own money cool and so but I in hindsite it felt really good in the moment but the thing about status symbols is is you recognize the holess you're like oh this person likes me because I have a starac phone you know like you may not be able to verbalize it the way I just did but you know something's fishy yeah but I think it's great figure that out sorry takes a while to figure out and I mean I just I'll give you another example we there's this building in New York on 13th and a that is uh it's called the a building and it's one of the few buildings in a New York city that has a pool on its roof and so when I the first apartment that I bought was a 5005 square foot just like Alo studio in that building and I was like I'm a 28y old who owns an apartment in New York and there is a pool on the roof I'm going to invite all these women over and be like come to come see the pool on my roof like I'm a baller blah blah blah and guess what happened I met the woman who would become my wife like three weeks later so she was the only woman that saw that saw the pool and she thought it was like the biggest deback scene of all time she's like I hate your pool it's so lame it's a bunch of Wall Street losers uh so anyway that was the thinking and then that's funny it's like how it played out we never went to the pool so did so at what point did you realize like okay this is all that I'm chasing I don't think that you there there's I wish there was like this binary moment but I just it doesn't work that way I think the best description that I can give is like if you think about like alcohol right and so the first time I got drunk I puked I think I had like three Zas and like your audience might be too young but it was basically like white claw it was like cheap white claw um and we drank it cuz we we just didn't like the taste of beer at you know 19 or whatever so first time I got drunk it took me three Zas during covid I could probably well that might not be a good time but like maybe in my late 30s in my late 20s we probably would drink like 25 drinks in one night when we would go clubbing um not to mention other stuff um and I felt like it was more fun being drunk off those three Zas then every Friday Saturday drinking 25 drinks like that and so I think that something similar happened with like when I bought my first polo shirt like off my own cash I'm like I am the man like this is so cool when I bought a apartment in New York like it felt good for a day think about the relative cost the apartment was $77,000 the polo shirt was 40 the polo shirt felt way better right and so I think what happened is like I was like wait a minute I just bought an apartment and I feel great and I know this can probably sounded like super privileged and patronizing and so I recognize that um but know that this was like the world that I had opted into where you know 28 year olds get $500,000 bonuses so like buying a $700,000 apartment when you get a $500,000 bonus is it's kind of like it's just what you do um so and the industry is like that but I think I just started to realize I'm like wow this is this is all it's nice don't get me wrong it's really nice but it's all it's like I guess what you would say is like I just saw the diminishing returns of money I'm like this and I I I was interviewing someone for one of my coaching programs and he's a he's a director managing director at a bank and he's like he's like hey you're catching me on this really unique day and so for those who don't know it's like your bonus which could be like 80 90% of your salary it basically hits your bank account somewhere between like January 15th and March 15 and so you just wake up you know this like you wake up this one day and there's this ungodly amount of money in your checking account and like you move it to you know you go buy some S&P you move it out you're like you know you're like yes it's actually mine like they can't like claw it back they can claw back but um so this gentleman says to me in his early 30s he's like K I got 90% of my annual income in my bank account today if I had to guess it was probably after taxes probably around like five or 600,000 and he's like and I felt nothing and I think I don't think I ever felt nothing but the thing I felt was smaller and smaller and smaller but even then I was working harder harder harder cuz like like the Z to 25 like you just needed more and more and more it wasn't enough to get to buy an apartment you needed to buy a second home I I mean I don't own my homes but you know you needed the second home you needed a this I think of this story there's um uh Thomas Lee so you were in banking so Thomas Lee who's who is one of the icons of private equity which is one of the most lucrative Industries in the world if you know how to do private equity and and start your own company so Thomas Le was like the first person that really like cracked the code on private equity and then all these people came after him like Leon black from Apollo and Steve schwarzman from Blackstone and so Thomas Lee has like two billion dollar of net worth and Steve schwarzman has like a hundred billion uh at 74 years old I think or 76 um Thomas Lee blew his brains out with a shotgun in the bathroom of his office called Thomas Lee partners and again I don't have any inside information just what I read in the news The Wall Street Journal basically had this story that he like he felt like he felt it was so unfair that he started the industry and he had two billion and all these people who trailed on his coiles and Blaze Trails because of his own doings had 50 times more than him he had2 billion and again I don't know the story this is just what's reported in the public but there's probably some truth to that if it's if it's reported and so I was just starting to see that like oh this is how this this game never ends and I'm like I don't even like this stuff like I know what I want I want to be a great dad I want to surf I want to do cool on the internet what do I need to do to do those three things wow okay and then you left and walked away from it yeah at 35 yeah so what yeah as you were talking I was just thinking of Morgan howel's book and the great examples he has of like the you know the insid of trading because it's like not enough to be a millionaire that's a great example yeah who then ends up going to prison because it's like I need to win the billionaire club or the Jo who what's the Joseph how story Jose and um uh who's the other guy two American authors Kurt Von yeah yeah and it's like I have something he'll never have enough yeah and I think I still don't think I'm most days I'm like I have enough but you know like my friends are still in the business like one of two of my closest friends have these houses second homes next to each other on a ski in ski out Resort jealous like that like if you have young kids and you're trying to get them to ski nothing beats ski and ski out nothing beats owning your house on a ski and ski out in a resort that's that's like basically semi-private but I'd have to work 80 to 100 hours a week for that and I don't like I could still go skiing I just can't have that right so I still feel it but most days I'm like you know what I have a test you is and my test is if if someone gave me a billion dollars last night like if they just like secretly wired a billion dollars into my bank account what would my day today look like so you know like you wake up you're like I have a billion dollars in my bank account and my test is I want as many of those days to be like I would do exactly what I did today and if not I'm doing something wrong because I have enough money to figure out what to do and guess what it's that simple I'm like I want to wake up without an alarm I want to surve for a couple hours I want to live by the beach we rent we can't afford to buy the house that we rent in so like you make sacrifices um I want to take my kids to school I want to talk to some interesting people on the internet I want to be creative um I want to cook dinner uh watch a Netflix show and then um meditate before bed and read a little like pretty much like every day and so like I would say that days pass the billion dollar test like 90 90 98% of the time like if if I had a billion dollar I would still be super excited to have this conversation like I wouldn't I wouldn't cancel the meeting I'm like oh I have a billion dollars now like I don't need to go on this podcast amazing I love that okay I want that's the Benchmark for every guest it's like only turn up if you want the connection and not chasing something okay cool okay this is what when you're saying that I'm thinking about this is why I love manifesting because when you feel it's like oh that person has something I want it then you like Channel it and then you manif you're like oh okay I want to bring that into my life like an experience for my kids to be like skiing and like we wake up and we're skiing ski out and blah blah blah and then it will just somehow happen cuz it's probably not that you're like I want to move to the mountain you know it's like like so I'll give you an example so I everyone has this like dream thing that that like makes them super cool right so like for me like for some people it's like being a YouTuber or um or being really good at skateboarding or being a great artist or some something and for me the one that I've always had is um learning how to make uh hip-hop beats it's just I I think that beat makers are some of the coolest people in the world and so I've always been curious about it and I'm like well why don't you try it and so I committed to myself that I'm going to hire a beat making teacher it's probably going to be like 50 bucks an hour uh and I'm gonna have them give me homework and teach me I don't want to like watch YouTube videos like I want someone to teach me and I want someone to like check my homework and and it's probably going to be like some 17-year-old kid somewhere like teaching this 45-year-old old man like how to make hip-hop beats and but here's the thing so many people have this idea like oh I want to ski and ski out you're like you didn't even go skiing last year like and I was like I I think it would be so cool like K you're 45 years old you've been talking about making beats for for 40 years and so what I think is g to happen is I'm GNA hire this person and he's going to teach me and I'm going to do a bunch of lessons and I'm be like this is so hard that I don't want to do this anymore I think that's I would give it an 80 or 90% chance that that's what's going to happen there's probably a 10% chance it's like this is so hard but there's something that happens to me when I do it and I look forward to doing the homework and I'm G to keep doing it and there's like this actually happened on my run this morning there's a 0.1 chance that like some indie artist like picks up my beat I'm like okay like you didn't even take the first class and you're already think of course I didn't have the huus to be like yeah like you know Drake picked up my beat or whatever I'm like no but like still like some indie artist like picks up my beat and so I'm like I haven't even started the thing and I'm already thinking that I have the balls the audacity to think that some artist is gonna want a madeup beat that has never existed in the world and so like it's one thing to motivate you to be like that would be cool and it's another thing to be like if that doesn't happen like I'm going to be upset so anyway I say that because I bet what's your thing like that like you have a thing where you hold it to this ideal of like making you cool or or accepted in a certain way but you've never done it I think I've kind of struggled that with that for a bit with the podcast but then I'm kind of doing I don't know it just like constantly evolves so and that's kind of Shifting now that I'm like what does it mean to be I think because when I started this I was genuinely like I'm going to be the next Joe Rogan like this is going to be the big I started my podcast thinking that too we you probably have to have that delusion otherwise like why would you stop so I changed it um I did I I used to and the minute I started having fun with it it actually got way better and it started to achieve you know I don't need it to achieve business goals but like there are some business goals that if it achieves them they're very good for me um and it started to magically start to solve some of my bu business problems amazing yeah no well that's for me it's more like so many opportunities come to me which I was kind of like I don't even know how this is working but people just make introductions that's how I got my job at a hedge fund was through a hedge fund billionaire who I asked him to come on so it's like genuine opportunities because I'm not it is meant to be a commercial a just a non-commercial thing like just about connection so then yeah yeah but then you said something um about how you connect people like one of your things is if two if you think two people should meet you make the introduction and like that's it you don't need any follow-ups I'm like oh my God that's keeps happening to me and that makes sense because there are people who genuinely just want to like connect people for positive outcomes and totally it's not not everything is so transactional but I think people you know we're locked into this thing of measuring stuff it's like oh the number how many listens how many this like do you make money from it otherwise it's like oh what's the point of doing anything if you can't see the immediate you know and I think that that goes back to the thing that we've started at the very very beginning which is what's the kind of what's the the the wound or the unmet need that this thing is trying to fill right and if you're trying to feel seen by starting a podcast that has Joe Rogan like success it's probably a path to disappointment and you know there's Many religious Traditions that would say like don't even worry about being seen because you know God sees you or or you know everyone is seen you know in through the spirit or the universe whatever um but there there is there's so many there's so many other ways to be seen than to have Joe Rogan like success on a podcast and I would actually argue that probably Joe Rogan to some extent doesn't like how seen he is at this point because like I always think of people like him that are you know huge and you know somewhat controversial I don't find him that controversial but I think some people do um is like what about their kids it's like like at some point someone's going to be able to point and be like that's Joe Rogan's kid and the kid didn't ask for any of that obviously the kid gets a lot of the benefits of having you know $500 million but the kid didn't ask for that and there's definitely I'm pretty sure that there's some kids that don't want some stranger on the street to just point to you be like that's Joe Rogan's kid I mean there would be a safety risk first of all um because of his audience and and his controversies um but anyway I always I always wonder about that I'm like wow Morgan H has this thing is like rich and Anonymous interesting yeah well that's I mean slightly different but that's what I was thinking when you said the houses I'm like it's so much admin having extra houses like they're not live like they require so much maintenance it's so much you have people problems like you have to hire people to help manage things that can go wrong that takes time that takes energy like it's not there's not these like magical things when some yeah Naval says that of like yeah if you're jealous of Someone Like You have to take their entire life like their whole personal life everything yeah and you probably don't want that okay I have to ask you the last three questions yes um is there book that's had the biggest impact on your life H it's such a hard question because it it like different books find you at different points of your life so [Music] um I there is a book that I think about often called the soul of money by Lynn twist and it kind of shifts this thinking of like money as a this transactional thing that there you know I win you lose to like money is this enabler like it's kind of source of energy that kind of brings you Al so that that would probably be one but to be honest I don't I don't read a lot of non nonfiction I read mostly fiction and and sacred texts oh what's your favorite sacred text I would say the one that's been most impactful to me is probably uh the tati Ching by Lau um the one that I'm still working through it would probably be the B bagita um where like the concepts are still res are like starting to like crack me open but I still feel like I'm I'm like missing a lot of like I'm missing the the big point but uh that one is one where I just kind of like slowly you know read you know a chapter every month and then kind of revisit it the great thing about spiritual text I never read them like like cover to cover I just kind of pick them up I'm like I feel like reading this for a little while cool I would also actually I would add I've never read the book but I've I've decently familiar with the ideas I would say die with zero by Bill Perkins is a very powerful idea that I had never thought about and that has really shifted the way I think about money and Legacy and it's actually brought a lot of freedom and peace for me cool yeah because money can only go through you it's just like flowing rather than accumulating and then you die if you don't take it with you anyway um okay how do you stay grounded grounded well my wife keeps me grounded because she can see through a lot of my um and so really kind of listening to her and taking what she says about me to heart that would be one um in my work I I do I have a very kind of high-end coaching program but I do a decent amount of pro bono coaching usually around like first generation um kids graduating college like entering Wall Street um so that would be uh another and then um yeah like not taking myself Ser too seriously which I have like a very conflicted relationship because I kind of love myself a lot of the time and then other times I'm like you're just a just you're You're Just a Nobody Like and not in a bad way like we're just all nobodies right we're just kind of specks of dust in the universe so I'm like why you know so I think I would say that that I would probably say that there's a lot of the spiritual Traditions particularly the nulos ones where there is this kind of like letting go of the ego and so I would say some of my spiritual practices work on it through that angle and also just like being being with my kids they're just like ah dad you're going bald like ah like you're my daughter's like you're she she's like you're not old dad you're ancient so you know like they're they will like quickly humble you love that what what does your tattoo mean I have two but I think you're asking about this one so these are all when I left Black Rock we did the classic kind of family Eat Pray Love trip where we got on a plane we went to Bali and all that and we're there for about four months not in Bali southeast Asia and I love typography and so I have another tattoo that's also typography they're Cambodian letters um of my name um but this one was so these are all the flight numbers like the Long Haul flights from that four Monon trip but the so a I wanted to remember that trip because that was like a really kind of bold point of my life to to do that I remember and honor that that decision um but B back in this nine years ago you know tattoos on Wall Street were still kind of taboo like especially if they were on visible parts of your body like obviously like a face tattoo but even like like sleeves from your elbow down like anything that can be hidden by a polo shirt uh I think that's changed now you would probably know better than me I know lot like a handful of people have like sleeves um but they never like roll their sleeves up their shirt sleeves up um but it was kind of like a a reminder to myself which is like this kind of was like it what it felt like is like you can't go back to the industry because you've kind of like contaminated yourself uh with this like like you've kind of like broken the one of the rules of the industry and I was like okay well two things happen if I need to go back to the industry I have some options like I can always wear a long sleeve shirt and if you're not watching the video it's a very small tattoo but it's visible um or you and like if you don't want to hire me because of this these like nine numbers I have on my forearm I don't want to work at your stupid company and so like I have a mix between those two it turns out that I don't think it matters anymore but that was the the thinking of like to me and and you work in finance you've worked in finance like visible tattoos are like there's a large layer of judgment for that for better for worse yeah definitely okay last question what three words describe the best version of K ooh playful light-hearted and loving nice that was so quick okay and then I uh I meditate to those words often because it's like the part of me that I want to keep like uh pulling out that's great okay where where do where can people find you or what do you want awesome well thank you so much for for this opportunity thank you for everyone who made it to the deep end um so r.co is kind of the main homepage and definitely sign up to newsletter I write twice a week that's kind of the main thing um I have the examine Life podcast which is on YouTube uh and Spotify my most active social media is Twitter I will engage with anyone Under the Sun I have a Twitter problem but I'm pretty active on Tik Tok um and less active on LinkedIn and Instagram and if you basically just search KH space Hy and then the platform name you'll find my handles amazing thanks so much thank you deia