Emmy Sobieski on How to Build MegaWealth Without Sacrificing Your Health
In entrepreneurship and investment, finding success often requires a unique blend of vision, resilience, and strategic insight. In a recent podcast episode with Emmy Sobieski, a seasoned entrepreneur and investment strategist, she shared her insights and experiences navigating the complex terrain of startup culture, personal development, and wealth creation.
In this article, we'll summarize the highlights of this conversation, uncovering valuable lessons and actionable strategies for aspiring entrepreneurs, investors, and those who desire to build MegaWealth. You can watch the episode below or read the full transcripts at the bottom of the page.
Watch This Episode
Embracing the Startup Mindset: Strategic Hustle, Open-Mindedness, and Self-Improvement
Sobieski's journey into the world of startups began with a relentless pursuit of innovation and a willingness to embrace unconventional approaches to problem-solving. As she recounts in her conversation, the key to success lies in cultivating a mindset of strategic hustle, open-mindedness, and continuous self-improvement. Sobieski shares anecdotes of entrepreneurs who embody these qualities, from a colleague donning eccentric costumes to attract attention at conferences to her own experiences learning from seasoned professionals in various industries.
Defining Your Values and Bridging the Gap: A Pathway to Personal Growth
Central to Sobieski's philosophy is defining one's core values and leveraging them as a compass for personal and professional growth. In her discussion, Sobieski emphasizes the significance of introspection and self-assessment in identifying areas for improvement and bridging the gap between one's current state and desired future. By aligning one's actions with one's values and proactively addressing areas of weakness, individuals can cultivate the resilience and self-confidence needed to thrive in the competitive landscape of entrepreneurship.
Balancing Fitness and Professional Pursuits: Sobieski's Multifaceted Approach
Beyond her achievements in entrepreneurship and investment, Sobieski is also a dedicated fitness enthusiast with a rigorous training regimen that includes running, bodybuilding, and horseback riding. In her conversation, Sobieski offers insights into her fitness routine, highlighting the importance of balance and discipline in achieving holistic well-being. By integrating physical fitness into her daily routine and prioritizing self-care, Sobieski exemplifies the value of maintaining a healthy lifestyle amidst the demands of a fast-paced professional career.
Unveiling "Mega Wealth Investing": A Roadmap to Financial Prosperity
As the conversation progresses, Sobieski provides a sneak peek into her forthcoming book, Mega Wealth Investing, which offers readers a comprehensive guide to navigating the complexities of investment management within the private markets. Drawing from her own experiences and insights, Sobieski explores the intricacies of systematic investing, the importance of disciplined decision-making, and the pitfalls of emotional investing.
Through personal anecdotes, empirical research, and practical strategies, Sobieski empowers readers to take control of their financial future and unlock the potential for long-term wealth creation.
Conclusion: Empowering Individuals to Forge Their Path to Success
In conclusion, Emmy Sobieski's interview offers many insights and inspiration for aspiring entrepreneurs and investors. From embracing the startup mindset to prioritizing personal growth and well-being, Sobieski's journey is a testament to the power of resilience, determination, and strategic foresight in achieving success. As individuals embark on their own entrepreneurial and investment journeys, let Sobieski's words serve as a guiding light to creating MegaWealth and, more importantly, fulfillment.
Connect with Emmy Sobieski
Website — https://mega-wealth.com/
Linkedin — https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmysobieski/
Transcript
Emmy Sobieski
(0:00) You create your list of values of who am I, who do I want to be going forward, then you look at those qualities and you ask yourself, do I have them and are there any gaps? (0:10) What do I need to improve? (0:12) And when you start with those two things, it's almost like any competition.
(0:18) You stop worrying. (0:20) You stop worrying that you're not good enough because you don't have time. (0:23) You're just worrying about improving yourself and becoming the person you need to become to accomplish what you're going to accomplish.
(0:30) And so that all of a sudden, you don't have a confidence problem because you don't have the time to think about it, right? (0:35) You're just working on yourself.
Julian Hayes II
(0:41) Welcome everyone to another episode of Executive Health and Life. (0:44) I'm your host, Julian Hayes II, back at it again with another fascinating guest, as I always like to say. (0:48) And today we are talking about mega wealth.
(0:50) And when it comes to wealth, there are 25,000 self-made households in the US that are worth more than a hundred million. (0:56) And my guest today aims to guide the next thousand hardworking professionals to build their 100 million careers. (1:01) Instead of wasting precious energy, precious time, you know, following these traditional paths that a lot of us have been told, or going in the wrong direction, my guest helps people find the most direct path to building this leverage, the satisfying and lucrative career.
(1:16) The core mission of her work is to also demystify the 100 career path. (1:21) How to have a 100 million career path should not be a secret of just the Wall Street or the Silicon Valley elite. (1:29) So I'm speaking with Emmy Sobieski. (1:30) She is the chief operating officer at Competitive Storytelling. (1:35) She's also the author of some fantastic books and has run her own coaching business called 100 Million Career. (1:41) She's a former number one fund manager, has worked for five billionaires for over a decade, mentored multiple students to build millions by age 30, has several friends who have also hit that 100 million mark by age 50.
(1:53) And last but not least, and something I thought was really cool, is a world-class athlete in multiple disciplines. (1:58) Without further ado, Emmy, how's it going today?
Emmy Sobieski
(2:01) Great, great. (2:02) Thank you so much for having me on the show, Julian. (2:04) I really appreciate it.
Julian Hayes II
(2:05) Yeah, I'm really excited to talk about this because I love your message of not only just building wealth, but also without sacrificing your health, which is a lot of times people think you have to have either or. (2:16) But before we even dive into that, when I was researching, I saw you just recently went to a place that is near and dear to my heart, is on my bucket list as well. (2:25) I was thinking about doing a marathon or ultra marathon there, and it's Patagonia.
(2:29) And I saw that it took you over 20 years to put off one of your biggest dreams. (2:34) So I'm wondering what finally led you to actually finally go do it?
Emmy Sobieski
(2:38) Well, one of the issues for me was that it's far to go there. (2:44) And so when I go there, I wanted to make sure that I went to all the places I wanted to go to, which was going to make it a three to four week trip. (2:54) And a lot of parts of Patagonia, there's limited internet.
(2:57) So when would I have three to four weeks where I could literally just unplug completely? (3:04) And that's why it took me 20 years, is because every summer I would think, this could be the year. (3:12) And then by the time the fall had come along, I joined another startup, or I was advising a hedge fund, or I was starting up a hedge fund, or something stopped me from doing it.
(3:22) And this year just looked like I had more flexibility. (3:25) I just completed writing my book. (3:27) And so I planned that, and then I was able to unplug for the month.
(3:35) So I think that looking back, it wasn't as hard to get there. (3:39) So I'm glad I did it the way I did it, because I saw everything I wanted to see. (3:43) But I also could have split the trip into, I could have gone down multiple times.
(3:48) Looking back and thinking, wow, that was 20 whole years I put that off. (3:52) I could have 20 years ago, just gone down for a week, and then maybe 15 years ago, go down for another week. (3:58) So it's a little bit my all or nothing personality.
Julian Hayes II
(4:03) Yeah. (4:03) I'm thinking the same thing, that I want to go do the run and everything. (4:07) But do I want to take multiple weeks?
(4:09) Because it is kind of far away. (4:11) I'm in Tennessee. (4:12) But so it's a couple of extra hours from, I think, here in the Miami area.
(4:17) But still, like you said, you can just split it up. (4:20) You don't have to do everything all at once. (4:21) Because I also want to go to the north of Chile to learn how to snowboard and ski, or do something like that as well.
(4:28) So speaking of that, what was one of the most fascinating things that you kind of just enjoyed about Patagonia?
Emmy Sobieski
(4:38) Well, I was super lucky with the weather. (4:42) Most of the places we went to, the two really great places were Fitz Roy, which is a very famous mountain that the toughest and most skilled mountain climbers want to go do that solo. (4:57) And it's one of the toughest mountains in the world.
(5:00) And only 10% of the time can you even see the top, because it's always covered in clouds, and we saw it. (5:05) So that was really exciting. (5:08) And then the Torres del Paine is the one that's very famous that everybody sees. (5:13) And the thing that struck me about that was that it was so moving, that it was like physically moving, that you sit there under this and there's such incredible majesty in nature, that I could feel it in my chest. (5:32) And there was a combination of being so moved that I felt pressure in my chest, but at the same time, I felt lifted up by it and inspired by that greatness. (5:43) And also just grateful that I had my fitness after all these years, because I was the only one in my entire group that did the hike up to the base of Torres del Paine. (5:55) It's about 12 miles round trip, and the middle two miles, so mile 5 to mile 7, because it's out and back. (6:05) So when you're going mile 5 to 6, and then 6 to 7 is on the way back, you're basically scrambling over boulders. (6:14) And I fell once on the way down, but recovered really easily.
(6:19) So anyway, nobody else in our trip did the hike at all. (6:24) And they don't even include it in the tour. (6:27) They just say, you can opt out of the tour for the day and go on this hike, but it's too hard, basically, for the tour.
(6:35) So I was super grateful that I kept my fitness up, that that was no problem for me. (6:41) I ran half of it on the way in and the way out to kind of speed myself up, and then went horseback riding in the afternoon.
Julian Hayes II
(6:49) Oh, man, that sounds exciting. (6:50) I think you're selling me on that part as well. (6:52) That sounds really fun.
(6:54) Yeah, I'm going to have to add that. (6:56) Speaking of fitness, I believe all after age 39, you started to get into bodybuilding, sprinting, and then dressage. (7:04) What was the inspiration to kind of tackle multiple disciplines?
Emmy Sobieski
(7:09) Just a general curiosity, which I think has helped me in business as an investor and in life. (7:17) And so I had always ridden horses. (7:20) But for the horse situation, which is dressage, I'd always ridden horses.
(7:27) But then all of a sudden, working at a hedge fund in New York, I had the money to buy a really nice horse or two. (7:33) And so then all of a sudden, I could compete at the highest levels because you don't have the horse. (7:40) You're not going anywhere.
(7:42) So that was really then all of my accolades started piling up. (7:47) I was a gold medalist as a junior. (7:51) So I think I was 20 or 19 when I was a gold medalist in the Junior Olympics in dressage.
(7:57) But then I just kind of always kept it going through my career. (8:01) I was always riding a little bit. (8:03) I was always working out at the gym so that I never got so out of shape that I couldn't recover later.
(8:09) And I would have these phases where my career was just sometimes you just have to put in the time. (8:16) And then sometimes you're really pushing to learn and to move up to the next level. (8:21) So when I'm putting in the time, then I would ride horses more and get lessons and go to horse shows.
(8:27) And then when I'm moving up the next level, I would put the horses on the back burner and do the minimum amount to the horses and focus on the job. (8:34) And so I always had these two paths going, which has worked out really well. (8:40) Some of my friends rode horses in college and high school, and then they didn't ride horses and had kids, had a career.
(8:49) And then at age 50 or 45, they got back into horseback riding. (8:54) And that's been a real rough path for them. (8:57) A lot of injuries.
(8:59) And it's the same thing. (9:00) You get back into any kind of working out after taking 15, 20 years off, and you're going to have all kinds of weird injuries because you just don't have the muscle to support your skeleton effectively. (9:14) And then your bones have gotten more brittle.
(9:17) And so you just experience a lot of things that I'm knock on wood, blessed not to experience yet.
Julian Hayes II
(9:24) Yes, I absolutely agree with that. (9:26) That's one why I don't really play basketball anymore, just because I mostly run now and lift and box a little bit. (9:33) But the movements in basketball are so different and explosive that I would probably go out there thinking that I'm 22 and could do some of the same moves without any repercussions and probably be in for a surprise on day one.
(9:46) So I totally get that there. (9:48) Now, let's go ahead and start diving into creating mega wealth. (9:52) And I want to start with kind of your story.
(9:55) And you mentioned that you failed to moonshot kind of your career goals. (9:59) And someone hears that and they're like, what do you mean by that? (10:02) And how did you do that?
Emmy Sobieski
(10:06) So one of the things, and if you look at my career from the outside, it's like I ran the number one fund in the world, worked for the best hedge fund manager, worked for five billionaires. (10:18) And you think, wow, you know, I mean, hopefully you think, wow, that's, you know, had a lot of success. (10:24) And, you know, I'm super happy with that, super blessed.
(10:29) But there were so many times in my career, for instance, when I met Ross Perot, I was running the number one fund in the world, but I wasn't really getting paid to run it. (10:39) I wasn't getting paid well at all. (10:40) I was getting paid.
(10:41) I've shared this. (10:42) I was getting paid 135,000 a year. (10:46) And I made my boss at the time, 24 million in that same year.
(10:50) And when I asked for a raise to 150, they said, no, we are paying you too much. (10:55) Other people have to catch up. (10:56) So we're only going to give you $145,000.
(11:00) And so I left and joined a hedge fund where I was paid better. (11:04) But during that time, when I was there, Ross Perot came in and he was IPO-ing Perot Systems. (11:11) And he said, and so I asked him a bunch of questions.
(11:14) I was the analyst on the, that was supposed to decide whether we bought the IPO or not. (11:20) And I asked him a bunch of questions. (11:21) At the end of the hour, he, you know, he said, who's in charge here?
(11:27) And I said, well, this is Nicholas Applegate, so that would be Art Nicholas. (11:32) And he said, where is he? (11:34) Yes, I know, he's in the corner office.
(11:36) Ross gets up from the meeting room that we're in and walks over to that corner office, knocks on the door, walks into the CEO's office, shuts the door, but you can hear him. (11:48) And he is just like, you're not valuing your very smartest analyst. (11:53) This is ridiculous.
(11:54) And he's just going on and on. (11:57) And he comes out. (11:58) I said, oh, yeah, thanks, Ross.
(11:59) You know, that was super cool. (12:01) And over the next week, because he was flying all over the world, these IPO roadshows, you're in and out of a plane and you're going all over the world meeting with investors. (12:09) He called me personally.
(12:12) But what he did is he called the receptionist for all of Nicholas Applegate. (12:17) He called the receptionist. (12:19) And then he said, no, I don't want to speak to Emmy.
(12:22) Put me on the loudspeaker. (12:24) And then he would say, this is Ross Perot calling for Emmy Sobieski. (12:30) And he did that twice a day for two weeks to basically to up my brand where I was working.
(12:38) And it didn't, you know, like it didn't really help where I was. (12:44) But if I were thinking about what I always thought in my career in terms of moonshotting your career, like moonshotting your careers, you've got to set higher goals. (12:53) Because I basically five years out of I was a horse trainer before went to graduate school, five years out of grad school, I'm running the number one fund in the world.
(13:03) And the next year, I'm working for the like the smartest hedge fund manager ever. (13:09) And so clearly, I should have set higher goals, right? (13:12) If I could do that in five years.
(13:14) If I had had higher goals, I would have thought I want to run. (13:21) I want to run the personal fortune of Ross Perot. (13:25) Right.
(13:25) I want to run his family office. (13:28) I want to start being a mover and shaker. (13:30) And he is a mover and shaker.
(13:31) And here's this man who is a billionaire who's flying around meeting all these investors taking two times a day to call up and make the make the receptionist put him on the loudspeaker of Nicholas Applegate. (13:44) So he was clearly signaling to me that he would love me to come work for him. (13:49) And so that's the kind of thing if I had a bigger goal, if I had bigger goals than what I did, which my goal was to run a top fund and work at a top hedge fund, that was kind of my goal.
(14:03) So I weigh over, you know, I hit those. (14:05) And then you stagnate. (14:07) And you can see this time and time again, I give the example of this dressage rider, which is an English horse riding, Anky van Grunsven. (14:16) And she was from Holland. (14:18) And the Dutch had never won a team gold in dressage. (14:22) It's always the Germans.
(14:24) And so she set her goal to win an individual gold medal. (14:30) So she had her first horse bonfire and she won two in two Olympics in a row. (14:35) And I met her the week after she won her second individual gold.
(14:42) And she was sitting in this dark room above the stable, completely depressed. (14:48) Because what now? (14:51) So now she's got to like find her new energy.
(14:54) She said, I don't know what I want to do. (14:56) I don't even know if I want to ride anymore. (14:58) But she's like 30.
(15:00) So she doesn't, you know, she has a lot of life ahead of her, but then she feels like she's accomplished everything. (15:06) And she went on to get a different horse, and win two more Olympic golds in two more Olympics, which is just incredible. (15:15) But it takes so much energy to kind of get get up and running again with new goals.
(15:23) And so that's where I say, moonshot, your goals have so much higher goals than you think, because we all underestimate the impact positive impact of compounding on our own careers, have your goals be really, really big, and then have milestones that you can celebrate along the way. (15:42) So you don't get depressed that each day you're not hitting your goals. (15:45) So that's, that's what I recommend and why.
Julian Hayes II
(15:49) Yeah, so it sounds like mindset is kind of the first step in terms of creating this in terms of creating wealth. (15:55) And, and so I'm wondering, like, when you're talking to individuals, how do you kind of encourage them to think bigger? (16:01) Because I'm sure a lot of these people come from families that are not necessarily elite already, or are filled with wealth already.
(16:09) So it's, it's expanding their entire paradigm.
Emmy Sobieski
(16:14) Yeah, yeah. (16:15) And it's something like 90% of families run out of the wealth that they had by the third generation. (16:23) So, you know, it's always changing in terms of, you know, there's always an opportunity to become one of those wealthiest families, because, because the heirs and the heirs of the heirs normally squander it all away.
(16:34) So that's the good news. (16:36) So most of my most of my clients are are not coming from a position of wealth to start. (16:43) They come from the military, and then they get into big tech.
(16:48) And then from big tech, they get a little bit stuck, because they're making quite a bit of money. (16:53) But they're doing what I was doing, which is trading their time for their money. (16:57) And when you move into the startup world, you can earn multiples on your time, as well as multiples on your investment.
(17:07) So, so it is, I mean, that mindset, I think you're tapping into it. (17:11) The change in mindset is the most difficult thing that my clients have to go through. (17:16) Because because these are not these are not people that are struggling, per se, they are already in big tech, they're making half a million, three quarters of a million, they're making good money.
(17:29) But that's kind of a golden handcuff. (17:32) And so I actually one of one of the guys who is the is a great guy, Jonathan Cronstedt. (17:38) He's the founder, or one of the one of the co founders, one of the early guys in Kajabi.
(17:44) And so he's, he's had his mega wealth moment. (17:48) And I'm sure he'll have more. (17:50) But he basically said, Emmy, you serve the broke upper class.
(17:55) And if you think about it, it's it's the person that maybe they have a vacation home, they definitely have a great home, they've got two cars, they, you know, they're working in big tech, they're making the 750,000 or the 500,000 in sales or senior engineering. (18:10) But that's not going to get them to 100 million. (18:13) They need to have they need to have big exits.
(18:16) But that moment where you have to move from big tech and the safety of, you know, getting more Amazon or Google stock every year, right? (18:25) And the safety of a big salary to moving to a startup where you have to, is that the right startup? (18:32) 90% of them fail in the first five years, you know, and you're going to earn less salary, and you're going to have equity?
(18:39) Well, is that equity going to be worth it? (18:41) Because the startup world is full of salespeople and engineers that are just remain underpaid for years to decades, because they didn't pick the right company to work for. (18:52) So that's the that's a big challenge is making that transition.
Julian Hayes II
(18:57) So let's, let's dive into that transition a little bit. (19:01) So when someone's making that transition, how would you recommend there? (19:04) Is there certain careers that they should look into, such as you mentioned one right there as a startup founder?
(19:11) Like, is there other ones that you would advise and how would you advise that in terms of, say, someone's in? (19:19) Do you go by just their expertise?
Emmy Sobieski
(19:21) To some extent, to some extent. (19:24) But here's what I'll say. (19:26) When I, when I started out as a tech analyst, I didn't know anything about technology.
(19:30) And I had people teach me. (19:32) But that was 1996. (19:36) And in 2020, so 24 years later, I finally took a coding boot camp and learned how to code.
(19:47) And I really should have learned how to code back in 96 or 97. (19:51) I mean, it's ridiculous. (19:52) I spent my entire lifetime in in tech.
(19:55) And so I don't say, well, here client, this is all you know, so you're limited, right? (20:02) Like, if you need to add that or learn, like, I really encourage people to learn to code. (20:08) Because it's going to get easier and easier.
(20:11) And with AI, everybody should everybody who's in the middle of their career, should learn to code because it's going to be a big differentiator. (20:20) And so but typically, I work with people that are in big tech. (20:24) And so then they move into the startup universe.
(20:27) And they work in in tech. (20:30) And then what I want them to work in is an industry within tech that is, excuse me, that is growing, that has good moats, like the it's like the Porter's five forces or Warren Buffett's moats, high barriers to entry, low barriers to exit, that kind of thing, right? (20:50) No, no power of suppliers, no power of buyers.
(20:54) So you know, it's, it's a healthy, good margin industry. (20:57) And then the third, so it's growing, it's a healthy, healthy industry. (21:01) And the third piece is that there's a dynamic venture and private company community.
(21:06) Because if you're going to go into privates and make money in privates, you don't want to say, go into automobiles, where, yes, Tesla survived, we'll see if Rivian does. (21:18) But there's not a lot, there's not enough dynamic, there's not enough dynamic new companies being formed. (21:24) So that, when I just (21:26) finished writing my book, mega wealth investing, that is the whole process that I have people go (21:32) through, which is first, you figure out what industry and the two that I think are the most (21:37) attractive are software and semiconductors, and semiconductors, specifically, because you're (21:43) seeing a, a renaissance right now around AI, because the way that things are being processed (21:50) is changing. (21:51) And that only happens once every 20 or 30 years, Intel took advantage of the previous one.
(21:57) And yes, Nvidia has has a definite lead here. (22:02) But there's there's an opportunity because Nvidia really started with graphic process units. (22:08) And then they turned out to be better than central processing units for, for processing AI, but they weren't ever designed specifically for AI.
(22:18) So, so there's opportunities in semiconductors, in AI and quantum, I think there's a lot of different opportunities in semiconductors. (22:27) And then software, I think is the most exciting space to be in. (22:31) And so that's where that's where we think about, like in terms of an industry.
(22:35) And then within the industry, I call this the Silicon Valley secret. (22:41) And it really shouldn't be a secret. (22:42) When you when you go to Silicon Valley, and you talk to people, and they're in tech, what are they doing, they are building at a startup, they probably are coding on their own at home doing some side project, and they're advising to other startups, and they're a limited partner in a in their friends venture capital fund.
(23:01) And they're investing in a couple of their friends companies, right. (23:05) And this is even if they're in their 20s. (23:07) And, and then, you know, you talk to somebody, or you listen to somebody like Sam Altman, and he ran Y Combinator, which is effectively like invest, right.
(23:17) So my money flywheel that I want all my clients to build is build, invest, advise. (23:24) And they and then when you do that, you, your surface area of opportunity goes up by huge amounts. (23:32) Because when you're building, you're going to meet the venture capitalists that are backing your firm.
(23:37) And they may want you to advise them or they may introduce you to other VCs. (23:42) And you may invest in one of those venture capital funds. (23:47) And then you're advising on say, two other companies that are a little bit behind your companies.
(23:53) And the other advisors, there's board of advisors, when I'm on an advisory for I'm on, I'm an advisor for journey, journey ID.com is one of the ones that I'm an advisor for. (24:06) And so then I meet the other advisors. (24:08) Now they may know about another investment that would be interesting to me or another build role.
(24:14) And then when I'm then when I'm either an LP at a venture capital fund, now I get to go to the venture capital days, and I meet a whole bunch of interesting people that are working in privates. (24:26) And so what I do advise is that when you're doing your build, invest, advise that you do it all at the same vintage of company. (24:35) So let's say you really love early stage startups, then all of your build roles, you're investing and you're advising should be series A to series C.
(24:46) Or if you want to be in the growth companies a little later on, put them all in that same space so that when you are networking and interacting with people in your various roles, they're all that they're always going to find things that are relevant for your goals and for your expertise.
Julian Hayes II
(25:04) So I definitely see why when I was looking at your career pyramid, that you mentioned, it's not at the very bottom, but it's the next thing. (25:12) And it was the CRM and relationships and networking in general, because here it's not going to say it sounds like it is really who you know, to a certain standpoint to really get those good opportunities. (25:24) And that's like you said earlier, with a compound interest, your relationships are going to also compound as well.
(25:30) And you're going to get better and better and more and more opportunities as you stay throughout the course of the process. (25:35) Does that sound about right?
Emmy Sobieski
(25:37) Absolutely, absolutely. (25:38) And it's really fun and funny to see when my clients make the move and they've moved over to privates and they start going and they start building, they start their job and then they get a few inbounds about, hey, will you advise this company, advise that and they're so excited about, you know, having some advising to do. (25:58) And then they, you know, make a few investments.
(26:01) And so they have their flywheel going. (26:04) And every time, six months in, they're texting me like, Oh, my God, what do I do? (26:10) I have so many opportunities.
(26:11) They keep sending me like these VCs want me to do this. (26:14) And I have all these investments I could make. (26:17) And then these headhunters are contacting me.
(26:19) And it is it's because you have your network starts to really kick into gear. (26:25) And, and so it almost becomes overwhelming. (26:28) And the thing that I continue to say to my clients is, you know, you've got to say no, and you've got to raise your bar about what is worth your time.
(26:37) It's got to be a high quality VC firm that you're going to advise, you know, like the moment that you get a little bit of experience, you got to raise your bar really fast, because a ton of opportunities come your way. (26:49) And so yes, it's about the networking, but you'll be amazed how fast that networking works.
Julian Hayes II
(26:55) So someone might be hearing this, and they understand this conceptually and everything. (26:59) But how would you say if someone's like at ground zero right now, and they're going about this to get these do they advertise that this is do they let it be known maybe through like their LinkedIn profile? (27:09) These are my skill sets or anything?
Emmy Sobieski
(27:11) Or do you just not so much though, that's kind of a so it's it's typically even people that let's say they're not in private markets, I would call that I wouldn't call ground zero. (27:23) I mean, there's two ground zeros, there's a ground zero of I've graduated college, and I want to plan. (27:30) Right.
(27:31) And so then I would recommend to get my book and also just go on my website, emmysobieski.com. (27:38) And there's a 30 page workbook where you can go through and figure out what industry you can target, and you know, kind of what your path is going to be. (27:46) And you can build your own plan, you know, for free, just just by reading the book, and then the book takes you through it.
(27:53) And the workbook is pretty self explanatory. (27:55) So and then if you're in college, also learn to code, just like that, that should be just table stakes. (28:05) The second ground zero is, is the clients that I tend to work with, which is that they are in a big tech company, they don't have a network in private markets, they've been investing in ETFs or something like that, because they've been busy.
(28:19) So they just like index their, their investments, their investments in their and their career are separate, separate entities, which I advise you change that and combine them. (28:30) And so when they're at ground zero, like that, it is overwhelming, because you think, wow, I don't know anybody in the space, like, how am I ever? (28:38) How is anyone going to know to contact me or to hire me?
(28:42) Right? (28:42) That's, that's really the thing. (28:44) And are the people that contact you to hire you in the private markets going to be the right, the right fit is that, you know, it's much better to take control of that situation.
(28:55) And so I advise those people to go through the same similar process, analyze the various industries in the private markets that you think would be growing really well, have good competitive dynamics, and have a healthy private market. (29:12) And software is such a thing. (29:15) It's like, well, what kind of software one of my clients is doing AI software in space, right?
(29:22) Air traffic, literally air, like, using AI to do air traffic control in space. (29:28) And this, this software is being sold that, you know, like they're, they're signing contracts, it's a real, it's real business. (29:37) So, so anyway, so, so figure out what, what, you know, what you are really good at, I don't believe in just like, if you're passionate, if I just did what I was passionate about, I'd be riding horses every day.
(29:50) But, which I do. (29:51) But, but I'm also really passionate about changing people's lives. (29:55) And I'm also very good at that.
(29:57) And so focus on where you have special skills, and figure out which sub industries within software or semiconductors, or, you know, software, even include internet platforms, and to two way marketplaces, like Uber, Airbnb, there's a lot of opportunities. (30:16) So figure out where you might want to where you might want to play, and then figure out what their industry conferences are. (30:25) Right?
(30:26) Where do the people that work at those companies, where do they go to sell their wares or to interact? (30:32) And so you just go online and just keep googling or chat GPT, anything like that. (30:36) And you figure out where they meet live.
(30:40) And, and then, and then you, you go, and you meet people, and you start building a network. (30:46) And you can also, you may decide, okay, the type of people I want to meet, for instance, one of my mentees was super interested in crypto. (30:57) And so she started going to meetups that had these common themes are interesting things that they were talking about.
(31:04) And she built an entire incredible career in crypto. (31:08) So, you know, so maybe the industry that you pick, maybe they use meetups, maybe they don't, maybe they use large enterprise conferences, you know, you have to figure out what what it is. (31:21) But then I would just go live and just start meeting people and built that built that CRM.
(31:26) And it is one of these things, it's like, slow, and then all of a sudden, so pretty at the beginning. (31:32) At the beginning, when I moved into corporate, I basically took any job I could get. (31:37) And then all of a sudden, I could take any job I wanted.
(31:39) Right. (31:40) And so it's, you know, it's, it's an exciting transition. (31:43) But, but it's, it's literally you're sitting there, your bar is very low.
(31:48) Try not to work for criminal criminal enterprises, but your bar is very low. (31:52) And then all of a sudden, once you're in and you have experience, then you got to raise that bar really fast. (31:56) Otherwise, you know, you won't take the right opportunities.
Julian Hayes II
(32:00) Yeah, I'm curious, have you are some of your clientele that you've worked with in the past? (32:04) Are some of those more along the lines of the bootstrapping entrepreneurs? (32:07) Or has it been ones that are mostly seeking funding in terms of entrepreneurs?
(32:13) And I asked that, because would their paths be different in terms of the process of going about this?
Emmy Sobieski
(32:18) Yeah, so my clients for coaching. (32:21) So I've worked with bootstrapping entrepreneurs, as well as funded entrepreneurs looking for fundraising. (32:27) But I've worked with both of those in terms of, I've invested in the companies, or I've advised, I've, you know, I'm an advisor to a bunch of those different, small startups, things like that.
(32:40) But I haven't coached them. (32:41) I only coach people that are moving from a big tech employment situation into startups. (32:49) Because there, then there's a lot, there's like, how do we want to design your career path?
(32:56) If you're in a startup, and you're either bootstrapped, or you're in a funded startup, your set of problems are very different, right? (33:04) You just need to get your startup to an exit. (33:08) Right.
(33:09) And so, so building, building a career plan, and everything like that, at that point, it's like, look, you need an exit. (33:16) And then I've talked to people, like I was mentioning, that the early guy at Kajabi. (33:24) And, you know, he's already had an exit.
(33:27) And so it's a different problem. (33:28) It's like, okay, I've had, I've made a bunch of money, I don't want to work that hard anymore. (33:33) And now I want balance, I want happiness.
(33:35) And so those that type of client would contact me and say, you've worked with 5 billionaires, how did they balance this out? (33:43) How did they balance out family? (33:45) And, you know, which ones were happy?
(33:47) And how did that happen? (33:49) And in my mind, that's, those are super interesting questions. (33:53) But they're not as much a hair on fire problem, as I've got to get out of these golden handcuffs from, from working in big tech and, and make this transition into startups.
(34:04) So I just in terms of coaching, I just focus on that transition and that path.
Julian Hayes II
(34:10) Yeah. (34:10) And so I like to also go and talk about your pyramid. (34:14) And you mentioned that you had at the very bottom is health.
(34:17) And in your books, you went into great detail about health. (34:20) And a lot of times we live in this world of hustle culture, that you got to hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle. (34:25) So is that something that you have to kind of rid some of your clients out of that mentality of just hustling at all costs, and kind of unintentionally sometimes putting their health to the side?
Emmy Sobieski
(34:35) Yeah, absolutely. (34:37) First of all, I don't believe in hustle. (34:40) I believe in hard work.
(34:41) And at the beginning of my mega wealth careers book, it says if you want a life of a picket fence and balance and 40 hour weeks, you should put this book down and hand it off to a friend of yours that wants to work more hours. (34:55) And that's nothing against people that only want to work 40 weeks, but you need to work more than that. (35:00) But the hustle culture, to me, is proving that you're killing yourself every day.
(35:07) And there's no point to me when I was raising money, and we needed to do it quickly and, you know, and get that, get that closed. (35:15) So we weren't signaling any kind of weakness to the market. (35:19) Then I was working massive hours.
(35:21) Once the money's raised, I could I could pull back a little bit, refocus my COO role and duties on other things, but I didn't need to be 24 seven, you know, I didn't need to be working all the time. (35:36) And so that's so that's one thing about the hustle culture. (35:40) I really believe in finding the innate leverage within your job, not doing unnecessary things, and doing the things that have the greatest impact first.
(35:51) So I'm a huge believer in kind of finding that positive leverage everywhere you go. (35:57) And in terms of the health, what I argue, because a lot of people you'll, you'll see this, you'll see this online quite a bit, people say, well, you know, look at any of the founders, look at look at Jeff Bezos, look, look at Zuckerberg, right? (36:16) And now they're fit, right?
(36:18) But their companies made it. (36:21) But they weren't on the way. (36:23) They weren't.
(36:24) And so people kind of use that as an excuse to not take care of themselves along the way. (36:29) And my point is, yeah, you may not be going on a two hour bike ride every day, if you're in a startup, but just do a little move a little every day. (36:40) And that trains your brain that tomorrow, you're going to need to move again, and it trains your body, you're going to just do some kind of movement, some kind of weightlifting, some kind of, and then when you when you reach that point, that, that you can slow down a little bit with your work, you aren't your body's not gone.
(37:00) And the second thing is, you need a certain amount of stamina. (37:04) I was reading recently about Taylor Swift, and these, you know, really long concerts that she holds, right, three hour concerts. (37:12) And she stepped back and said, I am not fit enough.
(37:16) I don't have the stamina I need to deliver the product I want to deliver. (37:22) And so she went back and focused on her fitness and focused on her health so that she could deliver the three hour concert that was her dream to deliver that very few other artists ever give you that many songs in a concert, right? (37:34) So she sets herself apart.
(37:36) So this is the same concept of always having a base of fitness and a base of health. (37:44) And if you eat better every day, like it doesn't take you any longer to eat better. (37:49) But when you eat better, you have better energy and then you can bring that energy and stamina to your startup.
(37:56) So it's really not an either or to me that that is the base that will make you more competitive.
Julian Hayes II
(38:03) Yeah, I, I love that point there. (38:05) And because a lot of times people will look at this, kind of like you mentioned earlier, that it's all or nothing. (38:12) And so we both know this, there's different tiers of fitness, you know, someone that is competition stage ready is different than someone who's still in very good shape.
(38:21) There's so many different tiers, and in terms of your athletic abilities and fitness and everything.
Emmy Sobieski
(38:27) And there's, yeah, there's so much you can do. (38:30) For instance, when I was working in on Wall Street, at that hedge fund, I was working 80 to 100 hour weeks, and the 100 hour weeks would be during earnings. (38:39) So it'd be two to three weeks that I would work, literally, for 20 hour days, Monday, Tuesday, I would go to sleep at 230 or three, and you have three hours of sleep and then back at the office.
(38:52) So I was at the office for 20 hours of sleep for one for three hours, and then the commute back and forth plus going to sleep and waking up was the additional hour. (39:03) And I ate everything at work, like all my meals were at work, but we had a gym at work. (39:08) And so but I couldn't, I didn't have the time with 20 hours of work, I did not have the time during earnings to go do a workout at the gym.
(39:19) So what I would do is I would take recordings of the earnings calls into the gym with my notebook, I would play the recording, and go on the treadmill for a little bit. (39:29) And then I would play the recording and go do several weights and take notes. (39:33) So I would say, you know, do some lift, and then listen to the recording while I'm doing say 12, 12 shoulder presses.
(39:43) And then the moment that I'm resting between sets, I would write down the notes of what I just heard. (39:49) And then I would do another set of shoulder presses. (39:51) And so I didn't lose any time at work, maybe I lost a tiny bit, but very little.
(39:56) And I would get say, Oh, I had a 12 minute workout that I used to have, I used to actually have a public app with the same workout in it for people to use. (40:05) But But I had effectively a 12 minute full body workout that you could do either with body weights or with real weights. (40:13) And then I would be 15 minutes on the treadmill.
(40:15) And sometimes I would do longer if I had a long earnings call that I decided to do. (40:20) But if every day, you do 12 minutes of walking or running on the treadmill and 12 or 15 minutes of lifting, as you say, you know, you can and you eat well, it really doesn't cost you that much time. (40:35) And I would argue it actually buys you time because you work so much more efficiently because you've got great energy.
Julian Hayes II
(40:41) I agree. (40:42) I agree. (40:43) People probably people a lot of times miss put billionaires as these mythical figures.
(40:48) And I'm curious, and you're probably asked this a lot. (40:51) What is what is maybe one or two misconceptions that probably the general public has about billionaires?
Emmy Sobieski
(40:58) All right, here is the biggest here is the biggest one, which is that they are looking for investments. (41:08) I get so many people that say, Hey, you know, they call me up, I haven't talked to you in a while. (41:13) It's so great to chat.
(41:15) How are you doing? (41:16) You know, and oh, I'm doing this new thing. (41:18) What are you doing?
(41:19) And blah, blah, blah, right. (41:21) And then it's like, Hey, would you mind asking, you know, x, like one of your one of your ex bosses, if they would be interested in investing. (41:33) And this idea is like, that they just have all this money floating around.
(41:38) And they just put put it in random and that that that money is seeking some home, right. (41:46) And the reality is, they didn't become billionaires by putting money in random things of people they don't know. (41:54) Like that is a fast way to lose your money.
(41:57) And, and, and when they do when they do decide to put their money in something new, and someone new, even someone with a great reputation, fantastic performance, a great track record, they'll put like 150,000 in. (42:14) And then they'll see how it goes for a year or two. (42:18) And then they'll put 500 in.
(42:20) And so you know, you think, Oh, wow, you know, once I land this billionaire, they're going to put a ton of money in, but the people that put a ton of money in these things are more the I don't know, the the multimillionaire middle class. (42:37) So there's a there's a company that that got their name. (42:41) And they called it the ignored middle class of the multimillionaires.
(42:47) And basically, basically, their argument is if you have more than 100 million, you can you can have a family office and you can really get some attention and you can spend time on your money. (43:01) And if you have less than, you know, less than 30 million, you're still you're still building or you're running it on your own. (43:10) If you're between 30 and 100 million, it's like, it's all the money you need, but you can't afford to hire, like a CEO for your family office and have a family office.
(43:21) And so they're like the, the ignored middle class of the multi, you know, the 100 millionaires basically that and those people, the people in the 50 million, 40 million that are trying to still make it big, they will put far more into some kind of a private investment than the billionaires.
Julian Hayes II
(43:44) So it sounds like the risk tolerance goes down a little bit for the billionaires.
Emmy Sobieski
(43:48) It well, it does. (43:49) And it's also that, you know, they they have, they have their managers, they have a they have a CEO of their foundation, they have their system, right? (43:59) They're not, they're not still trying to move up the wealth ladder.
(44:04) They like to increase their wealth still, but don't don't get me wrong, they like to make money. (44:09) That's how they got to be billionaires. (44:11) But I think that is, for me, the biggest misconception is that so many people just say, hey, if you'd make an intro, like she's gonna end, you know, she or he will invest.
(44:21) And it's like, you have no idea, you know, and like one of my one of my other, one of my other billionaire bosses, he, you know, he, he's run his own money forever. (44:33) He's not gonna hire someone to run his own money, you know? (44:36) So it's, it's, it's almost, yeah, anyway, it's just, it's interesting to see.
(44:42) And there's, but there's a perception that they really spend a lot, but that but because they have so many people coming at him all the time with that assumption, that, you know, they're going to write a huge first check, they're going to spend all this money on this, they're going to spend all that, that they actually do the reverse, right? (45:00) They're very, they're much more conservative, especially at the outset of a new introduction.
Julian Hayes II
(45:07) Yeah, I would actually, I would, I mean, that makes sense to me, I would think that they would usually be probably more guarded in that sense, probably the higher up someone goes, just because there's more and more people that are going to do like you said, and if not directly through them, through people that are close to them, they're going to try to get in somehow. (45:23) So that makes a ton of sense to me. (45:28) When you talked about 100 million, was that one of the reasons because generally at the 100 million mark, that's when a family office is formed?
Emmy Sobieski
(45:36) Um, no, you know what, what it was, was, I was just thinking about, you know, and mega wealth can mean something different, it can be in 50 million. (45:47) I was just thinking, well, for one thing, that's the way the banks kind of create tiers. (45:55) And so then when you do research online, in terms of how many people, you can find out that 25,000 households in the US are worth more than 100 million.
(46:05) If you did that at 80 million, or 120 million, it's kind of between the tiers. (46:11) And so you might not get as many, you know, as robust of research. (46:15) So that was one reason.
(46:17) Another was that, that I had made that amount, actually a little more than that amount for one of my bosses, I had two close friends that made that amount by age 50. (46:28) And so it was something that I could really point to a tangible number that to people growing up should seem like a lot of money, right. (46:43) But it's also doable.
(46:46) And I think when you get to like billionaire status, and there's only 720 people that have made it, it's a lot, it's a lot tougher to think you could make it and you still can. (46:58) I mean, people do, right? (46:59) I mean, people that are in the billionaires now, I mean, Taylor Swift wasn't a billionaire two years ago, Elon Musk wasn't a billionaire a couple years ago, right?
(47:08) I mean, so, you know, so everybody, Bill Gates, when I was growing up, wasn't a billionaire. (47:14) So, you know, that you have to get there. (47:17) But it just seemed to me to be very aspirational.
(47:21) 100 million is very aspirational, and yet it's doable.
Julian Hayes II
(47:28) That's kind of the impression I had when I was when I was thinking about like, what's a good number? (47:32) What's a good moonshot? (47:33) And, and, because I've, I've met people and discussed with people at the hundred million mark, or there's $100 million company and some extra stuff.
(47:43) And so that seemed more within reach, like you have a higher likelihood than like you said, the billionaire, the billionaire just seems so far off, even the number, right? (47:53) It just seems so out there. (47:54) So I tend to agree with that assertion there.
(47:58) But, you know, speaking of wealth, what does wealth mean to you?
Emmy Sobieski
(48:02) Wealth means time freedom to me, and, and choice. (48:06) So to be able to, to be able to spend my time the way I want, and to be able to choose to work with who I want. (48:13) So to me, that that is wealth.
(48:15) And also wealth is, you know, wealth is money, right? (48:19) It's having, it's having so much money that you don't, that then you can have, you can make all those choices, I think they go hand in hand. (48:26) One can say, oh, I, you know, I'm my own independent person, and I make my choices.
(48:31) But to some extent, if you if your income goes low enough, you start losing choices.
Julian Hayes II
(48:38) It's very true. (48:39) It's very true. (48:41) So I was listening to one of your older interviews, and they asked you what makes a happy billionaire, and you said control the three C's, you set your calendar, your capital and your confidence.
(48:50) And the last one I'm particularly curious about, because I imagine confidence is something that you probably have to speak about, and you could probably throw in belief in there as well with with your clients. (49:03) So what advice do you offer to people who need help controlling their confidence or managing their confidence?
Emmy Sobieski
(49:10) It, it really starts, it starts actually, to understand the ideas behind anxiety and depression, and that anxiety is worrying about the future and depression is regretting the past. (49:26) I mean, and that's a way over simplification, right? (49:29) I'm not a, I'm not a therapist or anything like that.
(49:31) But it starts with understanding, where does your insecurity come from? (49:37) Does it come from past regrets? (49:38) Or does it come from future worries?
(49:41) Right? (49:42) And, and why do you feel that you need to compare yourself? (49:47) And so the things that my clients and I start with, which is the number one thing that they say, this is a waste of my time.
(49:55) And this is not what I hired you for. (49:59) Which is values work. (50:01) Like, and we start off by saying, and it's not like, I mean, if you or I, if you say, well, what, what are your values?
(50:08) Right? (50:08) And I say, well, it's like, independence and health and vibrant and yeah, not being tied down, whatever. (50:17) And you don't really get to the bottom of it.
(50:20) So I like to ask questions like, what, who was your favorite pet and why? (50:25) Like, what are the characteristics of the pet? (50:27) Who was your favorite relative?
(50:28) Favorite best friend as a kid, all those kinds of things. (50:32) And then we can look into a, what were the qualities of that pet? (50:36) What were the qualities of that relative?
(50:38) And so you make a very long list, 50, 60 words, and you'll start to see some words repeat themselves. (50:46) And then I kind of get a top 20 list. (50:49) And then you, you order it.
(50:52) And then you look at that list again at those values and say, which ones of those did I inherit from my parents? (50:59) And do I want to take those forward or not? (51:01) Like, do I still want them?
(51:04) Like now I can take a look at them, face them and say, yep, I wanted, these are going to help me get where I want to go, or they're not going to help me get where I want to go. (51:13) So that's number one is doing an entire values audit and then coming up at the end with your top five and top 10. (51:23) And the top five, I recommend people print out and put it on their computer.
(51:28) So they're staring at it every day. (51:29) And then every time you make a decision, you make a decision in alignment with those values, or you change the values, but you shouldn't be changing the values every day based on the decisions, right? (51:40) And so that's, that's one piece.
(51:43) And then the second piece is making sure that you are the person that you need to be to operate in private companies. (51:53) So you need to be resilient. (51:55) You need to be energetic, right?
(51:59) You need to, you have some optimism, but more it's like this, never give up it. (52:06) And it's not the hustle for the sake of hustle, but it's, but it's really like just deciding that you're going to do whatever it takes. (52:14) And I'll give you an example.
(52:16) One of the companies I advise the CEO is in his sixties and he's going to the most important conference of the year for the company. (52:26) And, and, and his, he, and he decides that he needs to catch some attention on LinkedIn. (52:33) So he does a video on a motorized skateboard talking about privacy.
(52:41) I mean, this guy is in all kinds, you know, he's on all kinds of public company boards. (52:45) I mean, he is just, you know, he said your typical 60 year old male or 60 something year old male, but there he is on a skateboard one day, then he's on these weird, like mechanized stilts on a boat dock, like flying along on running on these stilts on a boat dock with, with his iPhone videoing something else. (53:08) And then the next day he's on a unicycle and the next day he's juggling.
(53:13) And then he, and then he calls me up and says, Hey, you know, you know, a lot more about the social media stuff. (53:18) When should I release these videos? (53:20) What should the timing be?
(53:21) This and this like, talk about hustle, right? (53:25) Because he's running a startup. (53:27) And so many people came up to him at the conference.
(53:30) Oh, I saw your videos. (53:31) That was amazing. (53:32) And it's so much of an easier way to start like a conversation with a potential client because they're coming to him.
(53:40) And so, so that is, that's an example of the kind of hustle and the kind of open-mindedness that you'd need to go into startup. (53:48) So you create your list of values of who am I, who do I want to be going forward? (53:53) Then you look at those qualities and you ask yourself, do I have them?
(53:58) And are there any gaps? (53:59) What do I need to improve? (54:01) And when you start with those two things, it's almost like any competition.
(54:07) You stop worrying, you stop worrying that you're not good enough because you don't have time. (54:12) You're just worrying about improving yourself and becoming the person you need to become to accomplish what you're going to accomplish. (54:20) And so that all of a sudden you don't have a confidence problem because you don't have the time to think about it, right?
(54:24) You're just working on yourself. (54:26) And it's similar. (54:27) Like when I was asking this guy, I was just learning to jump, jump over fences with my horse.
(54:33) And, and I was asking this guy that's going to the world cup. (54:37) And I just got lucky that he was sitting at our table. (54:39) And I said, what, you know, what would you advise about nerds?
(54:42) And he said, Oh, he goes, the last world equestrian games I was at, he said, I sat down and started watching other people jump. (54:49) And I got super nervous because he's comparing himself. (54:52) And he said, and I got up and I realized I have my job.
(54:56) I have a whole bunch of things that I need to get accomplished in that arena. (55:00) And I need to focus on the work and focus on the system. (55:03) And it's very similar with my clients.
(55:05) It's like, okay, are your values where they need to be? (55:08) Are you acting in alignment with your values? (55:10) Are the qualities that you are as a human being, are they what you need to be to be in startups?
(55:15) And if they aren't, you need to work on all that. (55:17) And if all of that is in place and you need to network. (55:20) And so it's like focus on the process and not on comparing yourself to others.
Julian Hayes II
(55:28) Wow. (55:28) I'm going to listen to that again. (55:29) I really liked that exercise because in my head, I think I have my values, but I want to actually go through that and see, do they actually match up?
(55:38) So that's really awesome to hear. (55:40) And I hope listeners and everything are going to really do what you just said right there. (55:47) One of the last things here is, what's your fitness routine like?
(55:51) Any events coming up that you're prepping for? (55:54) What's kind of your typical go-to routine these days?
Emmy Sobieski
(55:58) Yeah. (55:58) So I ran, I think my latest was I ran like 15 marathons and five ultras. (56:04) And then I shifted over to bodybuilding.
(56:08) And so now my fitness routine is, so basically if you're running really long distance, it's hard to build muscle. (56:17) It's hard to build the kind of muscle that you build when you're bodybuilding, right? (56:20) They're almost like opposites.
(56:21) One is lean and long, and one is a little more rounded. (56:26) And so I've kind of tailored, I've kind of cut back my running. (56:30) So I run 30 minutes a day, and then I do two and a half hours in the gym.
(56:36) And I usually do about an hour and a half of the actual, I have three leg days and three upper body days. (56:44) So I'll do an hour and a half of leg or an hour and a half of upper body. (56:48) But if it goes to an hour, 40 minutes or something, if I take more rest in between sets, it's no problem, right?
(56:54) And then on my upper body days, I then also do 20 to 25 minutes of abs. (57:01) And then all of the days I will do about 16 minutes of stretching. (57:07) And I have a specific stretching routine that really works well for me.
(57:12) And I actually time it. (57:13) So each stretch is 50 seconds, except for two of them that are 35. (57:18) So that takes me about 16 minutes.
(57:21) And so the whole thing, if I don't want to rush in and rush out, it's comfortably kind of two hours sometimes, but then it'll be two hours and 10. (57:29) So I just give myself two and a half hours, so I'm not rushing off to anything else. (57:33) And then I go ride horses, and I usually ride one to four horses a day.
(57:38) And so I finish all that up. (57:40) I start, I get up around 4.30 or something like that. (57:44) And then I finish at the gym by 8.30. I'm on my first horse at 9.30. So I come home and get a protein shake. (57:53) And I usually get kind of the Starbucks egg white egg bites on the way to the gym. (57:58) So I have a little protein on the way, and then I have a protein shake right after the gym. (58:03) And then I just kind of get ready and then drive 10 minutes to the barn.
(58:07) And I ride from 9.30 to noon, I ride horses. (58:11) And then my afternoon is just work. (58:15) And then I go to yoga sometimes in the evening, but it's not necessary with the 16 minutes stretch routine I have now.
(58:24) I don't need to go to yoga. (58:25) I just do it for fun if I feel like it.
Julian Hayes II
(58:28) That sounds like a fun day.
Emmy Sobieski
(58:30) It is. (58:30) It's great.
Julian Hayes II
(58:31) It's great.
Emmy Sobieski
(58:32) Yeah, it's about five hours, five to six hours of working out. (58:36) And then, and then once a year, I go to Jackson Hole in August. (58:41) And then, and it's really nice kind of a fitness reset.
(58:45) And so I run up the back, it's called snow king, and it's 1800 vertical feet, and you're starting at 4000 something in Jackson Hole. (58:54) And, and so I run up the 1800 vertical in the morning, and then I run back down it. (59:00) And then I go to the gym for two and a half hours.
(59:02) And then I hike with friends in the afternoon. (59:04) So it's a really nice to run at altitude and to like, do that, do that big vertical every day. (59:11) And I do that for every single day.
(59:13) I don't even take days off during that. (59:15) But unless my knees tell me I need a day off or something. (59:19) And so I do that for four to four to five weeks every year.
(59:23) And that's a really nice way to make sure that I'm staying in shape as I as I get older.
Julian Hayes II
(59:29) That sounds fun as well. (59:30) You're giving me training ideas. (59:31) So because Jackson Hole is on my list as well.
(59:34) But I didn't even know that thing was up there to even do that.
Emmy Sobieski
(59:38) So In fact, last year, they sold out in like the new marketing guy that that runs snow king. (59:45) So snow king is the smaller ski hill, and it's right in town and Jackson Hole. (59:51) So it's great because like my Airbnb is in town, but it's two blocks to the for me to run to that.
(59:56) And yet I can go into town for yoga or food or whatever, right? (1:00:00) Because it's like very central. (1:00:01) So it's the smaller hill.
(1:00:03) So they're, they're always kind of the ignored hill versus the big Jackson Hole that everybody goes to ski on. (1:00:11) And so this guy, but the new head of marketing is brilliant. (1:00:14) So last year, he came up with this concept that you could effectively climb Everest, you climb the equivalent of Everest by going up and down snow king 14 times.
(1:00:26) That event sold out in five minutes. (1:00:30) That came from all over the country to run up and down this hill 14 times and say they'd have done the equivalent of summiting Everest. (1:00:39) Now you don't have the same issue with being at high altitude at the end of Everest, but literally that sold out in five minutes.
(1:00:47) So it you know, snow king is really fun because they're trying to think of, think of new ways to get people to come there.
Julian Hayes II
(1:00:56) That's a very, that's a very good tagline though. (1:00:58) It's a very good tagline. (1:01:00) And so one of the last questions here is someone pretend someone comes up to you in a coffee shop and they asked you, what are the three things that I can do today to start creating true wealth and ultimately succeed against all odds?
(1:01:12) What would you tell them?
Emmy Sobieski
(1:01:13) Number one, you've got to combine your investing and your career strategy. (1:01:20) So look at every single company that you go work for as a single biggest investment you're making in your life because you'll never get back your time. (1:01:29) So number one, combine your career and investing strategy.
(1:01:33) Number two, the best way to make money combining your investing and career strategy is go work and invest in private markets. (1:01:42) So learn how to do that. (1:01:44) And number three, do not practice non-promotable skills.
(1:01:50) We all only have so much time. (1:01:52) Go look for leverage in everything that you're doing and start asking which of the things am I doing that are non-promotable skills and minimize those.
Julian Hayes II
(1:02:02) I like that last point, non-promotable skills. (1:02:06) I'm sure we're all guilty of doing a lot of those. (1:02:09) So this has been a very fascinating conversation.
(1:02:12) Where can listeners and then obviously viewers also, where can they keep up with you, Ed?
Emmy Sobieski
(1:02:18) The best place to reach me is on LinkedIn. (1:02:21) It's Emmy Sobieski. (1:02:22) It's pretty easy to find.
(1:02:24) And I reply personally to all of the messages. (1:02:28) So that's the best place to reach me. (1:02:30) And then if you want any resources, anything that I've talked about, I have a pretty rich website, which is emmysobieski.com. (1:02:40) And you can also type in mega-wealth.com. (1:02:44) So you can do either way.
Julian Hayes II
(1:02:45) All right. (1:02:46) Awesome. (1:02:46) And we were talking off screen, your third book, right?
Emmy Sobieski
(1:02:51) Yeah.
Julian Hayes II
(1:02:51) Yeah. (1:02:51) So how's that going?
Emmy Sobieski
(1:02:54) Fantastic. (1:02:55) I actually just finished the first draft and I'm super excited about it. (1:03:00) It's longer than my original two and very, very dense.
(1:03:05) So the idea is that I have my overall thesis that I just talked about in terms of combining your career and investing strategies and think about your career like an investor and only work for great companies you would invest in, and get equity in that process. (1:03:25) That whole strategy of the way that I think will lead to the most wealth and how to go and attack that is mega-wealth. (1:03:38) And that really talks about building your money flywheel.
(1:03:41) What happens though is my clients will say, yeah, but how do I break in? (1:03:48) What kind of jobs should they be? (1:03:50) Should I go for an advisory role?
(1:03:52) Or what kind of jobs can I get in investing? (1:03:55) Or how can I get a job in a startup? (1:03:58) And what about being a board of director or people that are 55 will say to me, Hey, I mean, now I'm thinking about going on a board.
(1:04:04) And I'll say, you know, you don't have the career, you don't have the background that a board would want. (1:04:11) You need to start thinking about building that background when you're in your twenties and thirties, not when you're 50. (1:04:17) And so that's mega-wealth colon careers talks about, you know, how to build your, how do you, how to build all of your careers and what the career options are to maximize your money flywheel.
(1:04:32) The book that I just finished writing is called mega-wealth investing because, and I should have really figured this out earlier, but if my client, if my clients are, and it's, it's, it's a funny, the book is really comes from a funny perspective too, but my clients are typically salespeople or engineers and big tech. (1:04:54) They don't have 25 years of institutional investing experience behind them. (1:04:59) So how am I supposed to expect them to pick the right companies and put on their investor hat when they don't have that kind of experience?
(1:05:07) And most investing books talk about investing in the pop stock market, or, you know, maybe private market investing or something like that, but they don't talk about how to put your investing hat on for build, invest, and advise for this specific thing. (1:05:22) And so I wrote, I wrote that book to tell you, you know, to basically share how to do it within my framework, if you like my framework. (1:05:33) And, but the funny thing is, if you think about all the investing books, and this is what I did at the beginning, when I was thinking about, well, how am I going to write this house?
(1:05:41) It's going to be different. (1:05:43) Most investing books are written by great investors because otherwise who would buy the book, right? (1:05:48) Right.
(1:05:49) And so what are they going to talk about? (1:05:50) They're going to talk about the biggest wins, right? (1:05:52) George Soros with the British pound.
(1:05:55) I mean, you know, Buffett with Geico, Buffett doesn't even have his own book. (1:05:59) Other people write about Buffett, but you know, you're going to talk about your biggest wins, but what do we all learn the most from? (1:06:05) We learn the most from failures.
(1:06:07) So I have an entire chapter dedicated to all of my failures, all of the stocks that I missed, the ones that I was like short and forgot to go long. (1:06:17) And I dive into like, why did I fail? (1:06:20) And then I have another chapter dedicated to the market's failures, all the biggest frauds, FTX, Enron, Lehman, just on and on.
(1:06:30) And I frame this where, have you heard of the seven deadly sins? (1:06:38) So I call this the seven deadly sins of investing. (1:06:42) Because if you look at my failures, if you look at the biggest frauds, they were all due to those seven deadly sins, some combination of laziness of not like FTX, nobody required a board seat, they didn't even get financials before investing.
(1:06:57) Like that's laziness, that there are some FOMO in there, there's greed, there's pride, right? (1:07:03) So it's so I just talk about instead of just saying, don't be an emotional investor. (1:07:08) It's like, which of the seven deadly sins were at play here.
(1:07:14) And this is why we all need a system. (1:07:17) Because the most emotional times in the market are the highs and the lows. (1:07:21) And that's when you need to have your head on straight, and not be emotional about it.
(1:07:25) And then that'll save you a fortune. (1:07:28) And so that's kind of the investing slant of my book. (1:07:32) That's the way that I approach it.
(1:07:34) And then I go into the basics of technical investing, fundamental investing, financial statement analysis. (1:07:41) And then I say, but again, you know, it's not that simple. (1:07:46) And so then I have an advanced portion that talks, because a lot of times people will say, yeah, but the stock is valued like this, it should just go up, or why is it so high?
(1:07:56) It doesn't make sense. (1:07:57) And I'm saying, actually, it does make sense. (1:08:00) Because there's things called a wall of worry, there is reflexivity, there's and so I have a little advanced portion in there, so that you don't come out thinking, oh, it's just so simple.
(1:08:10) I go step by step. (1:08:12) And then at the end, I show you how to pick an industry and I go through side by side with you in terms of like, go doing all the filters, and then picking a public company to invest in today. (1:08:26) And so I selected one in the book, and, and I selected it real time.
(1:08:31) So we'll see how it works out. (1:08:33) And then, and then how to apply those lessons to your own like to to your career and to private market investing. (1:08:42) And that's, that's the book that I just finished, which is called mega wealth investing.
Julian Hayes II
(1:08:48) Well, that sounds like another hit that's on the way. (1:08:50) Definitely, I could probably could dedicate the whole episode just talking about that. (1:08:54) But nevertheless, we'll have to perhaps even have a part two just to talk about a lot of stuff in that book.
(1:09:02) But in the meantime, listeners out there, stay awesome, be limitless. (1:09:06) And as always, go be the CEO of your health and your life. (1:09:09) Peace