Stephen Bartlett
speaker
413 appearances
7 recordings
5 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard 12 Jun
Stephen Bartlett’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 5 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 2.
Appearances
It's like, I have so much on this. So one is right when I sat down, you were telling me about the episode that we ran that was like akin to a shark tank, but new version that we had on our channel. And you saw me like kind of like groan and be like, It was 56 minutes on video, but it was so much work to produce that one thing. But no one sees all the work behind it. That's the 99%.
So that's thing one. The next thing is, think about the, if you're a founder who's plagued with competition and being upset about it, I was one too, and I want to tell you how I got over it. So number one is think about the alternative, which is that no one copies you because no one cares about what you're doing. Well, then it would be a requisite for success that people copy you.
So as long as you are successful, this is just a part of business. The second piece is by definition, if someone copies you, they are second, right? period. And so if you want to lead, you can't look at anyone else. You have to consistently be deriving the next step, the step six that's unseen from your first five steps to innovate rather than I'm just going to parrot the next thing.
And as soon as you find yourself copying, you have admitted defeat. You've admitted that you were no longer the leader and that you were just following in someone else's footsteps and you're giving them the baton and saying, you be the champion. I'm happy with second, third, fifth place. And in a winner-take-all world, like attention is, all the fruits go to the first place anyways. Amen.
So I will answer with how I derived my kind of life thesis, which was after we, so when we went to, so we had taken about $40 million in distributions from Jim Launch personally throughout the years that we ran the company. And then in the year of the sale, for those of you who've never sold a company before, you typically don't want to change a lot of things.
You kind of want the company to just be like, be stable, keep working, everything's fine. And so it's one of the most harrowing experiences to go through because you can't really change anything. And if you're the founder, you're always trying to innovate. So you can't do what you're normally doing. And you also can't start the next. So you can't change current and you can't start new.
Because if the deal doesn't go through, then you don't want to start two businesses, remember? Because, you know, cardinal rule number one, we're not chasing women in the red dress. And so you basically have to sit idly by and just like let things operate. And so in that year, it was one of the most miserable years of my life because I basically had nothing to do.
And when I looked back on my life, this sounds like, you know, I looked back on my life as though it's been so long. I looked at the days that I enjoyed the most. And on those days, I had worked out and I had produced something and I had done both of those with people I liked. And almost all of those days, I'd worked many, many hours
And when I realized that the idea of working hard so that I can, insert blank, the so that actually makes it still destination-driven. So that was when I derived what I called hard work is the goal. It's just to work hard. That is my goal. And then die?
Mm-hmm.
On things worth doing. And I... Those are the days that I love. And I get a tremendous amount of pushback for saying this. And it bothers a lot of people. And to them, I say, live your life whatever you want. This is, again, my life is not a sermon. It's a documentary. This is just how I do it. You can do whatever you want. And for the people who are dissatisfied, try it. And if not, no worries.
I really enjoy working. Like the best days are like when I write those books, it's the happiest I am. And it's not happy in the moment because it's really hard. But the amount of challenge is about proportional to my level of skill. And every book I think is better than the last. And the third book that's coming out is going to be fucking awesome. I'm very excited about it.
But there's nothing that I enjoy more. But in the moment, I'm like, how do I break this down? And I'm just rubbing my forehead and I'm like... And then I create two, three different frameworks. I'm like, nope, that doesn't work here and that doesn't work here, which means some kid in Afghanistan is going to get stuck on this step because it doesn't work.
I have to figure out how to get it so that it works everywhere. And I keep driving. But the moment it clicks, I'm like, that's it. Fight me. That's the framework. That is what I strive for. And for me, the love, the happiness, and work have all, because of the nature of my life, been one.
Now, some people have lived their lives where their love life and their happiness and their work are all separate. For me, it has just been life. And I like it that way. And for the people who are upset by that, I'm not upset about how you live your life. I just choose to live it this way. And if in the future... I change my mind, I'll change my life.
If I get to a point where I'm like, this is no longer a priority for me, something else is, then I will. But when I look at the centenarians and I look at the people who, I look at Warren Buffett as somebody, and Charlie Munger as two of my heroes, Charlie worked until the day he died. And to be clear, I don't work on a seven-day calendar. I don't work a certain hour.
I work as much as I can until I feel like my rate of output drops precipitously because of fatigue, and then I sleep. And then if I feel like on a longer time horizon of like I've worked nine days, I've worked 20 days, I've worked 30 days in a row, and I'm like, all right, I feel like I don't have any gas today. then I'll take the whole day off.
And whether that's a Tuesday or a Sunday or a Saturday, I take the day off. And that just is what it is. And I've just, I have learned to work that way and I am okay with it.
Because that always moves.
And so Jesse Itzler has this, and maybe I'll be able to steal it from him someday. But he told, I saw him show a picture of his kid finishing a race and putting a zero up. And what that signified was nothing left in the tank, that he'd spent everything he had on the field.
Showing 341–360 of 413 · page 18 of 21
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