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Oct. 25, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:02:52

How to Start a Business!

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	But Baldur's Gate is a fine game.
	Milo is a character.
	Be careful I buy it.
	It's really well done.
	Very clever. It has the exact relationships with female characters that you would expect Dungeons& Dragons programmers to have.
	So that's interesting.
	That's interesting.
	So how you guys doing tonight?
	Mostly switched to 4X games?
	I don't know what that means.
	Triple X I've heard of. 4X. What is that?
	Triple X plus traps?
	I don't know. Yeah, real-time strategy is great.
	My daughter and I delved a little bit into Diablo, but it's just a bit of a grind and button masher, but this one is more sort of pause and strategic.
	It's really good. Pause, set up your spells, figure out your battles, and it's very well done.
	Sounds like a game that would be better playing with others.
	Yeah, you can join up.
	It's not easy, but you can join up.
	I love PC gaming, except that it takes 10 minutes for your hardware to be obsolete.
	It really feels like anything other than ultra-high quality is just punching yourself in the manhood, isn't it?
	It's just, it's horrible.
	It's horrible. I can't grow a mustache and I can't do ultra-high settings.
	I am not strong enough to kill the party in the ruins.
	Eat Indian food, turn around, grab your shoelaces, let rip, man.
	The blazing cone of fire is the way to go.
	Alright. How are you guys doing tonight?
	I enjoy PC gaming, but going against console players with aim assist is tough.
	Yeah. Speaking of hardware issues, I can't connect my brand new Bluetooth speaker.
	Oh, gosh. Has it been a while since I've had a truly intergalactic, orgasmic tech rant?
	It feels like it's been a while.
	Rantus Interruptus has been the name of the game.
	Do you need a rant? Because I had one.
	Last time was your printer? Oh no, this was not my printer.
	Yes, you can connect your phone to your car.
	Except when you really need to when you're driving.
	Then, absolutely not.
	All right. So, I have a very fine fellow who's helping me with the audiobook.
	So, I have... The Audiobook of Peaceful Parenting.
	I have a really great mic set up.
	And it's a beautiful, sensitive, deep mic, except it hears your ancestors and the movement of your fluid around your spine.
	And it hears a hiccup that you had six years ago in another life.
	So there is that. Plus, if somebody is playing, I don't know, a Marlon Brando movie anywhere within a 12-block radius, all you hear is...
	What have I done to offend you?
	So it's very sensitive is what I'm saying.
	It's so sensitive it makes me look like The Rock and not even the character, just like a literal piece of granite.
	Anyway, so who here?
	Quick question. Hit me with a Y if you love my mouth noises.
	Hit me with an F if you would like my mouth noises to fudge off to another dimension.
	Do you enjoy... Do you enjoy the mouth noises?
	Yeah, there's a lot of Fs with the mouth noises.
	Come on, who doesn't want to feel like my gum line?
	Come on, who doesn't want to feel like I'm slowly chewing through their soul and innards and ancestors?
	Come on! Don't you want to be the grass to my lawnmower?
	Don't you want to be the sandwich to my chompers?
	Everybody loves... I mean, don't you want to feel like Jonah being swallowed by a whale, pretty much masticating yourself down to the bowel pits of my innards?
	Come on! It's beautiful.
	It's beautiful. You want to feel like I'm deep-throating your soul, don't you, as a whole?
	I don't mind it, but growing up chewing food with your mouth open could get you smack.
	Yeah, I mean, I love mouth sounds.
	You know, I mean, didn't you ever play Pac-Man?
	Mouth sounds are just beautiful.
	Anyway, so I've got a very fine fellow.
	He's helping me out with my mouth sounds.
	So what he's doing is he's able to amplify them and also set it up so that even when you try and turn them off, they still play in your brain for three and a half days.
	Or... Or until you donate, whichever comes first.
	So you can pay me to take away mouth noises from endlessly chewing through the top of your spine.
	I'd like to know if you're hydrated.
	I don't. Oh, yeah, that's right.
	Yeah, you like to know if I'm...
	And also, you know, every now and then, don't you want to just, in the middle of an audio work, hear this?
	Or as my father used to say, don't slub your tea.
	Don't slub your tea! I'm on you.
	This is not better. I'm sorry.
	Next, I'll just be chewing gum.
	Chewing gum and peanut brittle at the same time while jogging in place.
	So, anyway, I got a guy.
	I got a guy, man.
	I got a friend. I got a buddy. And what he does is I send him the raw WAV file and he sends me back...
	A cleaned up file.
	He's just really great, and I really, really appreciate it.
	And it's, you know, with no mouth noises, or at least fewer mouth noises, so that it doesn't sound like JAWS 3 on Fast Forward.
	Anyway, so...
	So, chapter four is unedited.
	Really? I suppose that's an error.
	I thought he edited it. Sorry, I'll check on that.
	So, anyway, he sent me a file.
	Now, there are these things on the internet.
	You may have heard them called link-sharing files.
	And what's supposed to happen is you're supposed to get a link, and then you're supposed to be able to click on it and download it.
	Have you ever heard of these phantasms?
	Have you ever heard of these lies called file-sharing?
	So file sharing is interesting.
	What it is is a mirage that draws you out in the desert to die of thirst.
	That is just... Yeah, WeTransfer.
	There's... What else have we got?
	Dropbox. There's a Microsoft one.
	I can't remember what it's called. Anyway, so...
	He sent me a link, and I'm like, I click on the link, and it says DNS error resolving something, something, something, right?
	I'm like, oh, just, you know, probably sent me the wrong link.
	So I sent it back to him, and he's like, no, link works.
	I'm like, okay.
	So I try it on a couple of different browsers.
	I try it on two different computers.
	Can't get the link to work. DNS error.
	He says, oh, the link works for me.
	So I'm like, okay, well, great.
	Domain name service.
	Let's just go into the very bowels of the naming of the internet because I'm sure that's going to be a journey that's going to be really freaking productive.
	When you start seeing DNS errors, what you need to do is open up your command window using administrative privileges and then do a DLS flush.
	Like the DNS flushed this entire system down the toilet!
	But... So I do DNS flush.
	And you look up these things, right?
	You look up these things.
	Why? You look up these things because you have no memory whatsoever of all the times that you've said, it's a tech thing.
	I get a kind of obscure error.
	I'll just look it up. And there'll be a simple, easy-peasy fix.
	You know, there'll be some guy with a bizarre Eastern European accent and nine subscribers who will have solved this problem 12 years ago.
	And miraculously, it just worked for me.
	Just me now. Anyway, so...
	I check it on a tablet.
	Perhaps a VPN would help.
	Yeah, no question.
	If things aren't working, add another layer.
	That's absolutely, you know, if you can't understand a language, get somebody else who doesn't understand that language to translate for you.
	Also, if that person doesn't understand your language, that's even better.
	And that way you can end up with the kind of language that casts a spell in Madagascar 300 years ago.
	Yes, absolutely.
	Let's throw in a VPN variable.
	That's going to make things so much better.
	Oh, the help that's coming my way is not coming my way.
	Anyway, so I check it on a tablet.
	It was an iPad. So the iPad is able to see the file.
	So I'm like, oh, okay.
	iPad can see it.
	Three different browsers on three different computers can't see it, but the iPad can see it.
	So stuff sent through a Windows thing can't be seen on a Windows computer, obviously, but don't worry.
	Because Steve Jobs' resurrected ghost is able to put out its claw hands, fruitopia, cancer, death, grip, and get the file.
	Have you tried resetting your network cable?
	I could try looping the network cable around someone I work with and, you know, just seeing how strong it actually is.
	But, you know, that might get me reported to HR. Oh, wait, I am HR. Oh, that should be fine.
	That should be fine. And VPN would most likely use a different DNS server.
	It would probably help. Except that I got it on a different operating system.
	So then I'm like, okay.
	What should I do? So then I try share, then the link again still doesn't work.
	So iPad can see it, share it to Windows, doesn't work.
	Then I say, okay, fine, fine.
	I hate downloading things and re-uploading things.
	That's just the whole point of a file-sharing service is you get the file, not you download it to a tablet, then upload it somewhere else, and then maybe download it again.
	On principle, I hate that level of inefficiency.
	Let's buy a Mac! Yeah, that's right.
	Because then I get the ultimate efficiency of never having really used one before and learning how to do everything all over again.
	I shouldn't have to.
	I shouldn't have to.
	Anyway, so what happened was I finally downloaded it to the iPad.
	And then I'm like, no, on principle, I will not upload it from the iPad to something else.
	I just won't do it on principle.
	Because it's just wrong. Shouldn't have to.
	So I'm like, okay, I'll just get the file off the iPad.
	Now, let me just ask you something out of curiosity.
	Have you ever in your life tried to get a file that's not a photo or a video?
	Have you ever tried to get a file off an iPad?
	I'm just curious.
	Have you ever tried that?
	Well, let me tell you something.
	If you had the choice between, say, resurrecting Tutankhamun and teaching him how to do the moonwalk, or getting a file off an iPad that's not a photo or a video, I would choose the Tutankhamun route absolutely every time.
	It's just insane.
	But don't worry, you can buy a third-party tool that I'm sure is going to be completely virus-free that promises to be able to extract everything from your iPad, including your DNA, which has mysteriously ended up in there because one time you used the fingerprint sensor.
	So what you have to do is you have to boot up iTunes and then you have to plug in your iPad and then you have to share the file using iTunes.
	It's just insanely convoluted and complicated and literally hell itself.
	I would rather, and this is the thing, right?
	I would rather...
	Okay, hit me with a Y. No, no.
	Give me a minus 10 to a plus 10.
	How bad or good at you at these little hellscapes called escape rooms?
	Have you ever tried that?
	Minus 10 to plus 10.
	How bad or good are you at these little hellscapes called escape rooms?
	Have you ever tried those?
	Yeah, well, let me tell you.
	Escape rooms, you know, I feel somewhat smart at various points in my life.
	I get into an escape room and I'm like, oh, damn.
	This is what most people feel about everything.
	You know, if you've ever played a ten-year-old who themselves have learned chess from the ground up from the age of three onwards, you're like, damn, this is my moment of empathy.
	I get it now.
	Escape rooms make me feel like most people feel about simple statements of moral philosophy.
	I am not good.
	Honestly, it's like, get out of this room or give me a kidney.
	I'm like, you know what? Give me a spoon.
	I'll just take this kidney out. I'm going to hand it to you.
	Because I'm not even going to try.
	I'm not even going to bother. And the good news is that nobody in my gene pool is good at escape rooms.
	It's not even a thing. This is how I feel about improv today.
	Yeah, improv can be a challenge.
	Improv really works. Or it doesn't.
	So, have you ever done the escape room where you get, like, an escape room is you get into a room, there's a bunch of clues, physical objects, and you kind of have to solve the puzzle.
	And you get, I got three calls, and the first two calls were for clues, and the third call was to put out some sort of violent criminal activity on the people who designed the escape room because they were not UPB compliant, let's put it. I felt the escape room actually violated UPB in terms of frustration.
	No, the only escape room that I was really, really interested in was my mother's womb.
	I solved that one 57-plus years ago.
	After that, it's just annoying.
	So anyway, I just plug in the iPad, boot up iTunes, and it's like...
	You love it when Windows sees the iPad...
	But iTunes doesn't.
	You know why that's particularly special?
	Because Windows is not an Apple product, but iTunes is.
	What that means is that Windows can see the iPad and I can get the files I don't need, which is the videos and the photos, but the actual application written by Apple can't see the freaking iPad at all.
	You just can't see it.
	So then it's like, well, I should install iTunes on another computer.
	And I'm like, no! I shouldn't have to do any of this.
	So I took a deep breath.
	I took another deep breath.
	I exploded. Neighbors used spoons and spatulas to sort of assemble me back together in my indifferent way.
	And then what happened was, do you have this with tech?
	You're just like, okay, I know how to do it.
	It's ridiculous. It's inefficient.
	It should never have to go this way.
	Forget it. I'm going to do it.
	Forget it. I'm going to do it. I know it's stupid.
	I know it's retarded. I know it's inefficient.
	Tech wins, I lose, common sense, sanity, reality, any smidgen of reason and efficiency, completely and totally, and I just uploaded it.
	I downloaded it to the iPad, uploaded it to a file-sharing service.
	Now, of course, did I have any luck uploading it for the first couple of times?
	No, because apparently a file service is a blank screen on an iPad with a little swirly that goes on until...
	About eight minutes past the end of time.
	So that is just reality.
	That is just reality.
	Oh, my God. Bill O'Reilly, if it will do it live!
	Yeah. Now, here's the thing.
	Like, I've been working with computers since I was 11 years old.
	That's a depressing number of decades ago, frankly.
	I've been working with computers. So I can find, I can almost find a way.
	Almost always I can find a way, right?
	I did have a printing issue, but it turned out that my wife had turned off the router that the printer was connected to.
	She didn't mean to. She was just cleaning, you know, helping, being efficient, as she sometimes does.
	When you worked in tech with software this bad...
	What has caused software to go bad?
	Yes. Software...
	Well, software wasn't too bad.
	I do remember there was supposed to be file sharing between notebooks and, like, over-the-air file sharing or even cable-to-cable file sharing.
	That never worked. But no, stuff worked in the past.
	Stuff worked in the past.
	Yeah, I mean, things have gotten more complex and people have just gotten...
	The programmers and the managers are just less intelligent.
	Yeah, before internet updates, you had to have stuff working before you shipped.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Gotta love it, too. You know, just a little tip for the Windows developers.
	Let's say that the computer is currently connected to the internet, and people get radiation burns walking between the router and the computer because it's downloading or uploading something so ferociously.
	Like, you put your hand in between the router and the computer and you can see your bones and the bones of your ancestors because it's uploading or downloading that much.
	If it's in the middle of a really, really important upload and download, maximum bandwidth consumption, maybe don't reboot.
	You know, it's just a thought.
	Like, you know how you don't change the engine of an airplane when it's currently in flight?
	Maybe don't reboot the computer when there's massive upload or download activity.
	I mean, it's just basic empathy, isn't it?
	It's just basic, hey, I wonder if I would ever appreciate not having a massively important upload that I was leaving run overnight.
	So, yeah, I miss typewriters because at least they worked.
	Yeah, it's crazy.
	Honestly, I think of the stuff that I was programming like 30 years ago, and I was very proud of it.
	I think I did some fantastic stuff.
	That's what you get for using Windows.
	Is it true that all the Apple people are this annoying?
	I mean, that's a thing, right?
	Like Apple fanboys, there's this mugging.
	I don't believe you use Windows.
	It is, right?
	In the insufferable personality competition, what have you got?
	You've got... People who ride bikes with spandex shorts, they're pretty high up there.
	Some of the Bitcoin maximalists can be pretty high up there.
	The Apple fanboys are, you know, eminently punchable.
	Again, I'm getting more and more asterisks to UPB as I kind of get older.
	You ride your bike in your Speedos?
	That's right, the banana hammock.
	Linux people?
	Sorry, I mean, they're not insufferable because they're too busy trying to install driver updates without turning their computers into radioactive glowing piles of things visible from space.
	Yeah, there are a number of people that just kind of come up and you're like, oh, brace yourself, man.
	The annoyance factor is going to go through the roof.
	So, all right.
	I know we've done, I've done 20 minutes of tech rants, but that was 10 years ago.
	Now Linux is pretty user-friendly.
	I get it. What's your thoughts on Ryan Holiday, the daily stoic guy?
	I don't know. Steph, swimmer wife taught me to swim a few years ago and I love it.
	Which stroke event were you number seven in Ontario?
	Well, it was freestyle, which basically means front crawl.
	So yes, I was number seven in Ontario back in the day.
	Oh man, I was swimming twice a day.
	I was on water polo team, swim team and all that.
	I was Mr. Swim.
	I was halfway to getting gills.
	I enjoyed figuring out DOS commands when I was a kid.
	Me too, actually. I had a little business which was helping people with their computer issues.
	And it's so funny.
	I went in to sell my services to one guy.
	He couldn't get Windows to boot, so I figured out the.ini file, took out what wasn't working, got it to boot, and got the contract right away.
	All right. Shall we get into it?
	Shall we get into it? I have lots of stuff to talk about.
	Mostly what you guys want to talk about, of course.
	I have a lot of interesting things, I think, going on that are well worth discussing.
	But, you know, I'm here for you.
	And it is your show, baby.
	Your show. All right.
	Why... Why?
	Why? Oh my gosh.
	Sorry, Windows is just being exciting.
	As it tends to be.
	Loading this. Oh, you need a newer version.
	We don't support this one anymore.
	Oh, excellent. Oh, just delightful.
	How about you take out the old stuff?
	It's just a thought.
	Just a thought. There we go.
	All right. Oh my gosh.
	Just crazy. All right.
	Let me get to your comments.
	All right. So I did get a comment.
	Why the suit, Steph?
	The question is not why the suit.
	The question is why never the suit?
	Why not the suit? Did you talk about the Israel situation?
	I did not talk about the Israel situation.
	I'm not particularly following it.
	All right. Just being honest.
	It's fun to see you struggle with Windows after mocking me for suggesting Linux.
	Hey, listen, I have no problem with you suggesting Linux.
	That's not the issue. The issue is, you know, and this is kind of half tongue-in-cheek, right?
	The issue is when somebody is struggling in maximum frustration, suggesting it's their own fault and they should just do something else, which is also going to be maximum frustration, is just kind of a douche move.
	It's just a bit of a douche move.
	If somebody can only afford, let's say they can only afford a used bike and they have problems with their chains, you say, oh, you should just bought a new bike.
	While they're struggling with their chain, it's just a little bit of a douche move when somebody is struggling.
	There may be time for it.
	There may be a time for it, but it's just a tiny bit of a douche move.
	Because here's the thing, like, so go to Linux.
	Yeah, the just lose weight conversation.
	This just use Linux thing is like, you understand, if you are someone who says just use Linux, you're not a busy person because you have time to learn Linux, which I think is great and it's wonderful.
	And I loved back in the day when I had time, I mean, I installed OS2, operating system 2 from IBM back in the day.
	I loved learning new stuff.
	And so if you say, hey, Steph, I mean, you're running a philosophy show, you're parenting, you've got a social life that involves your kids and other friends, and, you know, you're writing a book and you're recording a book, but you know what you should do is just learn, download, install, and get a computer and learn an entirely new operating system.
	It's just a bit of a douche move, if you don't mind me saying so.
	So, yeah.
	Yeah. And enjoying someone's discomfiture and then feeling superior because, well, you should just use Linux.
	It's just... It's mildly punchable.
	That's all. I'm a Palm Pilot.
	Nice. You know, all the pilots who use joysticks are our Palm Pilots when you think about it.
	All right.
	You know, it's like the guy coughed, hey, you ever think of quitting smoking?
	Maybe you shouldn't have started to begin with.
	No. It's just a bit of a douche move, if you don't mind me saying so.
	I could be wrong. I could be wrong, but that's sort of how I experience it.
	So, yeah, one simply does not have time for that.
	Yeah, and honestly, I mean, I don't have too many tech frustrations, mostly because I've just given up on anything complicated.
	So I don't really have too many tech frustrations every now and then, like something like that.
	It's like those couch potatoes saying what the multimillionaire quarterback should do.
	And also, who's to know that it wouldn't have been a problem under Linux, right?
	And who's to know that, I mean, Linux does have its own hiccups and problems and challenges and all that stuff.
	You invest time now to save time later, but I don't want to nag.
	Are you telling me, as an enormously successful entrepreneur of many decades, that sometimes it's worth investing time now to save time later?
	Is that your massive contribution to the conversation?
	You know, Steph, sometimes it's good to invest time now because you know it can save time later.
	Oh my gosh!
	Is this what passes for wisdom in your social circles?
	You might want to up your social circles a little bit.
	I'm sorry. Oh my gosh.
	Hey, hey, Steph!
	If you didn't want to get cancelled, maybe you shouldn't have talked about controversial things.
	Really. That's really, really important to know these things.
	Peace.
	Thank you.
	Oh my gosh. Yeah, so you know, when I do call-in shows, all I do is just mock people for not doing sensible things.
	You know, when you hear a call-in show, it's me just saying, well, maybe you shouldn't have done that.
	Why did you do that?
	Your girlfriend should have just run on Linux.
	I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you, honestly.
	It's just kind of funny.
	To me, when people just state the blindingly obvious as if it's adding value.
	Oh, you know, if you're having trouble in business, you know...
	I mean, business can be a challenge, but as a business expert who charges $1,000 an hour, might I suggest raising income and cutting costs?
	May I suggest that?
	Like, just try and make more money and lower your expenses.
	And that is...
	And try also at the same time, it can be very helpful to get more customers.
	And if you get more customers without raising your expenses, you will end up higher P to E ratios.
	EBITDA. See, anybody who has never thought, this is the thing with that kind of advice, and I say this in good humor and with positivity, If you say to people, you know, maybe you should invest time now to save time later, anybody who's never thought of that is too dumb to talk to.
	So there's no audience that is suitable for that.
	So let's say somebody's been relatively successful at the age of 57, just theoretically, and they've never thought that sometimes it's worth investing time now to save time later.
	Well, they've never been successful.
	They don't even know how to get out of bed, and they just lie there.
	Because every time they're trying to get out of bed, they hit the wall, and they're like, oh, I'm trapped.
	I'm in solitary confinement.
	Yeah, you really have to catch yourself from trying to state the blindingly obvious to people and thinking that it's some massive value add.
	I... It's going to drive good people away from you.
	Like, it really is going to drive good people away from you because it's like, why are you saying blindingly obvious things to me?
	Do you think I'm a complete idiot?
	Anyway, it's just kind of funny, right?
	So... I mean, you guys know how productive I am.
	I mean, I just did a whole show on productivity.
	I mean, does anybody here not know how incredibly productive I am that I do these shows?
	I'm still doing call-ins.
	I'm writing a whole book.
	I am doing the audio book.
	I'm running the business.
	You've got to keep track of the accounting and the taxes.
	I have people I'm working with now who need time and resources and so on.
	And I'm parenting.
	I think I'm incredibly efficient.
	I think I'm incredibly efficient and I really try to get as much done with the productive time that I have.
	And So then when people say, here's a completely obvious thing on how to be more productive.
	I'm sorry. You need to know how you look from the outside.
	And I'm not trying to be humiliating and I'm not trying to be mean.
	I'm just saying it's really, really important to know how you look from fairly competent and efficient people.
	All right. Enough of that.
	How about...
	Are you guys at all interested?
	Are you at all interested in how to start a business?
	Is that something that would be a value to you?
	Would it be a value to you to know the first steps in starting a business?
	If you would find it helpful If you could give me a tip, I would really appreciate it.
	We do actually have a new thing here, zinc.tips.freedomain.
	Z-I-N-K. You can, of course, do it here, freedomain.locals.
	If you're listening to this later, you can, of course, go to freedomain.com.
	But zinc.tips.freedomain.
	Z-I-N-K.tips.freedomain.
	Zinc.tips.freedomain.
	I'll put it here in the chat as well.
	So... Post link.
	Oh, I'm sorry. Is that too much typing for you?
	No, I'm kidding. I want to make it as easy as possible.
	All right. So it does sound of value.
	I've been watching stuff for years.
	YouTube, documentaries, novels, philosophy.
	I've concluded there are actually two of them.
	Is it a twin or a clone?
	Yeah, all the mean stuff comes from...
	There's Wikipedia stuff, and then there's nice stuff.
	All right. Step one, be profitable.
	Step two, come up with ideas.
	We'll tip you within the week.
	Good, sir. Thank you. I appreciate that.
	Alright. So here's a question, and I want to of course make sure that I'm doing things of value to you.
	So let me ask you this.
	Would this question be good for me to answer?
	So this is a common thing as a whole.
	How do you first price yourself?
	Do you have that question?
	Okay, I have a skill.
	How do I first price myself?
	Is that valuable for you?
	How do you first price yourself?
	You don't want to underprice.
	You don't want to overprice. Would you like to know?
	And I'm not trying to be Mr.
	Big T's here. I mean, would you like to know how you can monetize your work and know that you're charging the right amount?
	Okay, so here's a question.
	This is an update from someone and he says, I'm now making montage videos and shorts for clients.
	How do I price my work?
	How do I ask for more?
	How do I know when I'm overpricing?
	How do I price my work?
	How do I ask for more?
	How do I know when I'm overpricing?
	Is that a helpful thing to learn?
	I'll just put the question in here because it's a really important question.
	All right. Should we go and dig in?
	This is going to blow your mind, and this is going to change your life.
	I'm telling you straight up, if you're all entrepreneurial, this is going to blow your mind, and it's going to change your life.
	Are you ready? Are you ready to know how you price yourself?
	Okay. So let's take...
	Thank you for the tips, my friends.
	I appreciate that. Let's dig straight, lightly set to change mode.
	This is going to change your life so much that you're going to need to go back in time and change your diaper.
	It's that fantastic.
	I would worry more about underpricing if you aren't sure.
	Well, here's how you don't worry about any of it.
	Okay. Is it okay?
	Just hit me with the why. Is it okay if I use this guy's example of videos?
	It could be anything, but...
	Is it okay if I do that?
	Yeah, okay. All right.
	Okay, so here's how you do it.
	So the first thing you do is you do it for free.
	Right? First thing you do is you do it for free.
	You find someone who needs it and you say, I'll do it for free.
	Now, what you do when you do it for free is you say, I'll do it for free, but I'm going to need to know how successful it is.
	Right? I'm going to need to know how successful it is.
	So, some of it you may know if you put a video for someone out there in the public, you can track the views and so on.
	So say, okay, how did your last video do?
	Oh, it did 10,000 views.
	Okay. So I'm going to build you a video and let's say that the video does 40,000 views because you just did a great job with the video.
	So they're getting four times the traffic that they got when they were doing it in-house.
	When you do it, you 4x the views.
	Are you with me so far?
	I want to make sure this is as clear as humanly possible, right?
	So you do it for free, and in return, you track the metrics.
	Again, some of those metrics might be public.
	Maybe it's a private email or something, and you say, hey, I'll give it to you for free, but I need the metrics.
	In return, you just have to give me the metrics.
	You can scrub it. I just need to know the numbers, right?
	So let's say you help someone with a newsletter, and you say, okay, normally I get 5% open or 20% open or something, so I'm going to help you with the newsletter, the graphics, the text, the language, whatever.
	And I need to know how much things have improved based on what I do.
	Right now, do you know why you do free work in return for metrics?
	Why do you do free work in return for metrics?
	Testis.
	Testes? Balls? I don't know.
	To let you know if you're any good at it?
	No, yeah.
	So you're making a business case for your services, right?
	So if you say, I've done this.
	Well, you don't have to tell potential clients.
	And then you will say to people, let's say you take someone's video views from 10,000 to 40,000.
	You'd say, okay, what's that worth on average, right?
	Because let's say that they get a 5% conversion rate from every extra 10,000, right?
	So every 10,000 gives them 500 new people and maybe if those 10% or 50 buy something or something like that.
	So what you're doing is you're building a business case.
	This guy made $500 on his video before I came along.
	Afterwards, I 4X'd his views so he made $2,000.
	Going forward, right? So then maybe you say, okay, so I made him $1,500 extra by doing his video.
	It took me five hours to do his video.
	He made $1,500 extra.
	He paid me $100 an hour.
	I charged $500, but he made $1,000.
	Does that make sense?
	You're making a business case For what it is that you're doing.
	So if you're a website, hit me with a Y. Do you build websites?
	Are you an HTML guy or a CSS guy or a Java guy or whatever the heck they're using these days?
	WordPress a lot. Okay.
	So what you do is you say, what was the traffic for the last six months?
	And then you offer a free upgrade.
	And then you say, what was the traffic afterwards?
	And how much is that traffic worth for you?
	So let's say you double the traffic, double the income, and that's in perpetuity, unlike a sort of one-shot thing like maybe a video or a newsletter, a website upgrade.
	So you say, okay, I've doubled your, you know, it works better on mobile, I've doubled your conversion rates, I've doubled your visits, and you include that.
	You obviously scrub it anonymous, and you show, here's when I built the website.
	Boom, look at that. Double the income.
	Double the websites translates to double the income.
	They made an extra three grand a month in perpetuity.
	I only charged them five grand, so it paid for itself in a month and three weeks.
	So tell me if this, you do stuff for free in return for the metrics that give you the business case.
	So that you can tell people, listen, nobody wants to pay you, right?
	And you don't want to pay anyone.
	Nobody wants to pay you.
	What do they want from you?
	They don't want to pay you. They don't want to give you money.
	What do they want? What are you bringing to the table as an entrepreneur?
	What do they want from you?
	They want you to give them money.
	You understand? You don't give money to your investment guy because you want him to buy a new car, right?
	They want You to give them money, right?
	So they give you $500 and you give them back $2,000, right?
	They want you to give them money.
	Now, if you're thinking in terms of income, you're thinking entirely the wrong way as an entrepreneur.
	The purpose of you as an entrepreneur is not to make money for yourself, but to make money for who?
	Who are you making money for?
	Who are you in the business of giving money to?
	Right. So the reason why people have a tough time asking for more is because they haven't quantified the value they're providing.
	Does this make sense?
	You feel like you're asking more, and that is a subtraction from the client.
	Oh, it used to be $500, now it's $750, so you have to give me $250 more?
	And it's like, nope. That's not how to think of it.
	You're not taking a 250 bucks extra.
	You are providing a thousand dollars worth of value extra and you're only keeping a quarter of that.
	Because we're not used to being consumers, right?
	We're used to being victims, right?
	We can grow up in school and they set the curricula and they set the time and the schedule no matter what you're concentrating.
	Stupid bell and you're going to go somewhere else.
	So we're just not used to living in a situation where Other people are providing value to that, right?
	How do you provide that with writing and publishing?
	I don't understand.
	I don't understand the question.
	I'm talking about the value.
	You do work for free in return for metrics that allow you to price what you're doing with a strong business case.
	I don't know why that would be different with writing and publishing.
	Help me understand why this principle would not apply to writing and publishing.
	I'm certainly happy to hear, but I don't understand why this general principle wouldn't rack.
	Somebody says, I do run into exactly that problem when I have to value my engineering services.
	Objective metrics are not as transparent, but the same business principles apply.
	What about for big ticket items?
	How do you think you would handle it?
	Let them try the product. If they don't like it, they can return it.
	No. No, because it's not about them liking the product.
	Now, what you can do is you can say, listen, I'll upgrade your website and you pay me $5,000 to upgrade your website.
	if I don't double your traffic within three months I'll give you your money
	back. Right? So if and I say this you see this right you see this do you see me do
	Sometimes I'll say, if I can prove this case, will you donate?
	And people say yes, and then they donate, usually, right?
	Somebody says, I've been told the value of an employee is 50% of what they bring in value or saving costs as wages.
	So does that apply as a service provider?
	What is the difference between an employee and a service provider?
	I don't understand what the difference is.
	Does an employee not provide services to his boss or the company?
	Yeah, lawyers advertise all the time that they don't charge unless they win you a case.
	Yeah, fees on settlement, right?
	Would you like an analogy that makes this blindingly clear?
	you Here's an analogy that will make this blindingly clear.
	How do I know this?
	I know this because I was an actor.
	How do you price yourself as an actor?
	How do you price yourself as an actor?
	Some actors make ridiculous amounts of money.
	They make $20 million a movie, right?
	How do you price yourself as an actor?
	Well, what does every actor do at the beginning, right?
	What does every actor do when they're starting out?
	Every actor, every comedian, every musician, what do they do?
	They work for free, absolutely.
	They absolutely, yeah, and they do auditions even before you get to auditions.
	Actors, musicians, artists, philosophers, we work for free, right?
	We work for free.
	And you gauge the value you have to the audience.
	Now, you also get reviews.
	Even when you're doing, you know, amateur stuff, local stuff or whatever, right?
	You work for free.
	And you're building a business case.
	You're building a business case as to why people should pay you.
	I mean, I worked in this show for like a year or two before I took any donations.
	I worked for free. I took donations which helped me to gauge how valuable what it is I was doing.
	So actors work for free.
	And then you try to get some...
	I worked as an actor for free.
	I mean, all the way from high school onwards.
	I studied acting and paid for it.
	And I also worked as an extra in movies.
	Now, as an extra in movies, you get paid a little bit.
	And there was actually a movie.
	I've never really looked for it.
	It was about Tecumseh, who was an indigenous leader in Canada.
	Oh, no, there were two! I was in the movie Cain and Abel, and they zoomed in on my face in the crowd because I was doing something that was really cool.
	I guess I was really cheering and really going for it.
	So they zoomed in on me in the crowd, and I was in a music video.
	I was the first guy carrying the singer in.
	I've never been able to find that one again because I can't remember the name of the band.
	So I did that stuff and then I worked as an extra and I just got paid very little.
	But you're seeing, are people interested in what you're doing and so on, right?
	So then at some point you get a line and Brad Pitt was real pushy.
	You don't have to be in the union actor or whatever it is.
	You don't have to be in the actor's union if you don't have any lines, which is why extras are just faces in the crowd.
	And he was supposed to be a waiter just bringing something and then he spoke a line and the director said, do that again and you're fired, right?
	Because he just wanted to speak a line, right?
	Yeah, the movie was...
	I guess the movie in the 80s called Cain and Abel.
	I think it was a made-for-TV movie.
	And I was in a mob and they zoomed in on my face because I was doing some hacking, don't you know?
	So then what happens is you figure out what kind of demand there is for you.
	And you try to build a reputation so that people will come to see you.
	So if Brad Pitt is in a movie...
	There's a guaranteed audience.
	You know that, right? I remember talking to a music producer who was telling me about...
	Ringo Starr put out a new album, right?
	And I'm like, Ringo Starr?
	The Beatles drummer guy?
	And he's like, yeah, but you wouldn't believe it.
	I think he said here in Canada, if I remember the numbers right, he said, you will always sell at least 10,000 Ringo Starr albums.
	Right? Guaranteed. And listen, hit me up.
	Hit me up. Who is an actor, if they're in a movie, you're in.
	They come out with a movie, and you're in.
	It's Kane and Abel. It's K-A-N-E, I think it was.
	Who is your go-to actor?
	Daniel Day-Lewis? Well, he's retired, right?
	Yeah, okay. But if somebody says, let's watch a Daniel Day-Lewis movie, I mean, obviously, if it's Room of the View, you're in.
	If not, who cares, right?
	So Daniel Day-Lewis, Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Tom Cruise, right?
	Sean Connery.
	I'm a simple woman.
	I see Benedict Cumberbatch and I go...
	Nice.
	Denzel Washington, great presence.
	Harrison Ford, yeah.
	He's very funny.
	If you see him in...
	Oh gosh, who's that gay British guy who does the talk show?
	Him and Ryan Gosling doing promo for the Blade Runner 2.
	Graham Norton. It's just hilarious because, I mean...
	Harrison Ford is pretending to forget Ryan Gosling's name the whole time.
	Idris Elba, I don't know him.
	Is that a black actor? I don't remember him.
	Clint Eastwood, yeah. Robert De Niro.
	Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic was great.
	That was one of the most depressing movies ever made.
	Why are women like that?
	All right, I did get married to a guy and have multi-generational children and an extended family, but this homeless guy who banged me and died, I'm going to dream about him for the rest of my life.
	John Cleese, Edward Norton, yeah, but it's been a long time since he made anything that I remember.
	I watched a few minutes of him playing some stuttering crime guy, and it was just like, oh, terrible.
	Yeah, Edward Norton in his prime was fantastic.
	Absolutely. Quite tough to work with, I hear, though.
	Um... Okay, so you've got that, and everybody has these things.
	And some people, there's more sort of side things that people do.
	That guy who played Joker, Heath Ledger?
	Well, of course, so many people have played Joker, right?
	And Joaquin Phoenix?
	Yeah, I mean, he's coming out with Napoleon, right?
	He's coming out as Napoleon, so that's going to be interesting, I'm sure.
	He's River's brother, right?
	The guy who died at the Viper Club.
	So, okay, so there's actors who you will go and see for sure.
	So, the two...
	Do you know what? The two...
	The two great values that an actor who's got an audience, an actor who's got fans, what are the two values that they bring?
	Number one is they will bring asses in the seats, right?
	That's number one. Do you know what the other one is that they bring to the table?
	Other than obviously their skill and blah blah blah.
	What is it the actual business case that they bring to the table?
	They choose good movies to work with, yeah, for sure.
	Investor interest, that certainly helps, but I'm talking about after the movie is made.
	Yeah, I mean, everybody's going to talk to them, right?
	No, not box office sales.
	Everyone's going to, so they get free advertising.
	So this is why when you hire on to do a movie, you will also hire on to do a press tour, right?
	Because word of mouth isn't going to sell a big movie.
	So what you need to do, if you're Brad Pitt or Matt Damon or whatever, you say, okay, I'm going to spend three months doing interviews.
	And through those interviews, you gain visibility for the movie.
	Because standing out in a crowd of the movie scene is really, really tough, right?
	So there's a quality filter because they have a brand to protect.
	There is free marketing.
	Marketing is really key. Like, you often will spend as much marketing a movie as you will making a movie.
	And actors have baked in because everybody wants to see them and talk to them.
	And when Once Upon a Time in Hollywood came out and Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio, I mean, who's not going to want to interview those guys?
	And there's so many fan people who want to watch those guys that you automatically hear about the movie, right?
	Does this sort of make sense? So how much can they charge for a movie?
	Well, they started working for free, they built up their credibility over time, they built up the business case, and their agents in general will make the business case.
	As to why, like, do you know the number one guy for return on investment for movies?
	Do you know the actor who has the highest return for his salary for movies?
	This has actually been, at least it was a couple of years ago, it may have changed.
	No, it's not The Rock, it's not Tom Cruise.
	Because he does fairly trashy stuff like Jack Reacher.
	Arnold Travolta? No.
	I was a bit surprised too, but it's actually...
	Right, right? RDJ? I don't know who that is.
	Brad Pitt? No, it's Matt Damon.
	Matt Damon is the biggest return on investment for an actor that you can make.
	And so, no, not Robert Downey Jr., for sure.
	But yeah, here's the biggest.
	You found Stephen Cain and Abel.
	Oh, you found me? One hour, 2440 at the end of part three.
	Wow. Good for you.
	Good for you. Would it be wrong to say that marketing and advertising is the best way to get a higher price or more sales for art?
	No. No.
	No. The best way to sell your stuff at a higher price is to make a business case.
	It's to make a business case.
	Yes, but Matt Damon is a good actor, but Matt Damon is a complete flaming trash heap of an amoral human being because he went after Kavanaugh real hard on those rape allegations.
	You know, he did a whole, oh, it's so funny, Kavanaugh with my creepy calendars, like some SNL crap.
	I mean, he is just a flaming trash heap of an amoral human being.
	So, yeah, we'll post the link and I'll put it in.
	So, yeah, actors are slaves to the machinery, right?
	Hollywood is mostly woke, and you have to be really, really, really good at bringing in an audience in order to not be a slave to the woke mob, the woke hive mind.
	And it's so funny because Matt Damon, you know, a lot of times plays guys who fight evildoers with their strength, courage, and resolution, and then he just ends up doing all of this kind of trash and garbage and all of that, right? Steph stumped Vosch asking why Pitt makes multiple times what the sound guy in the movie makes.
	Yeah, post-socialism should make the same.
	Same labor. I mean, did you hit me with a Y if you ever saw the Michael Keaton Batman with Jack Nicholson as the Joker?
	Did you ever see that?
	So, yeah, Jack Nicholson got paid $5 million for a couple of days' work.
	And it was similar to when the Superman, the original Superman, the really good Superman with Christopher Reeves and Gene Hackman came out.
	Christopher Reeves, they wanted...
	Marlon Brando to play Jor-El.
	I can't believe I still remember that name.
	And he was paid like a million dollars and he had like eight minutes of screen time.
	This of course was post The Godfather and all of that.
	And I remember, of course, I didn't appreciate Brando as an actor when I was younger because I loved the movie Superman, and I just found him kind of dull and boring, not particularly interesting.
	And I even remember watching On the Waterfront because everyone told me what a great film acting it was.
	I didn't get it until later on in life, just what a great actor he was, although, again, pretty much a monster of a human being.
	He married a woman so drunk so bad, and Christian Brando, his son, was...
	She tried to kill herself.
	He found the body. She was relentlessly drunk.
	She actually tried to hurt Marlon Brando by paying a bunch of hippies to kidnap him and drive him deep into the wastelands of Mexico.
	Oh, it's just a mess.
	Just a mess. I'm going to actually have a quick look at this, you know, because I'll probably forget about it otherwise.
	But somebody found me.
	I've been found. Our life has been found.
	Yeah, there I am.
	Look at that. Look at that acting.
	Cain and Abel. Look at that.
	Did anyone find me? No.
	Yeah, so there it is.
	Boy, what a fresh-faced young fellow I was.
	Back in the day. Did anyone know what year that was?
	Always liked Paul Newman.
	I hope he was an okay human.
	Yeah, seems to be. Seems to be.
	1985. Okay, yeah, so I was 19 at that point.
	And I met a guy.
	I became friends with a guy I met that day who was so much in debt that you had to phone him.
	And there was a whole complicated thing he made you memorize.
	He was so in debt that you had to phone him, let it ring twice, call back, let it ring three times, then call him back and he would pick up after the fourth ring.
	Like it was something like some really complicated thing so he could avoid his creditors.
	That's pretty funny. We went around picking up girls back in the day.
	So, that's funny.
	Yeah, and I remember they zoomed in on me, and I thought, I'm going to be a star.
	Look at that. I'm facing a crowd, and they find me.
	Oh, it looked pretty damn fine, too.
	I'm just telling you. It looked pretty damn fine.
	Well, thank you for finding that. I have no idea.
	Tell me, what voodoo did you use to find me that quickly?
	That's insane. How on earth did you find me?
	Like, I put the call out, and you, like, AI scan for, like, just a little cheekbone young stuff.
	My gosh. You are a star, just not of the Hollywood variety.
	Well, boy, you know, you listen to Mel Gibson talk about Hollywood and it's like, I thank my lucky stars and the beatific Zeus above that I did not gain any success in that world.
	Holy crap. That's a slavery on steroids and the worst kind of slavery.
	I don't know how people live with themselves.
	Just scrubbed through it looking for a crowd scene.
	Well, aren't you OCD productive?
	Beautiful! Beautiful.
	Yeah, Gibson is a great actor.
	Yes, he absolutely is. All the way from Chicken Run to Hamlet, man.
	That's quite a spread. That's quite a spread.
	And a brave guy in many ways.
	So actors, how do you pay Brad Pitt $20 million?
	Because you say, look, guaranteed audience, guaranteed return, guaranteed advertising, free marketing.
	So you can either pay Brad Pitt $20 million or you can pay some other actor $1 million and spend $30 million trying to get the word out and people are going to be indifferent.
	Oh, and also if you don't hire Brad Pitt...
	Somebody else is going to hire him, the movie's going to come out at the same time, and you'll be competing with Brad Pitt.
	So, yeah, I mean, this is how you figure it out.
	So, you're not asking for money.
	You're offering money.
	I mean, if you go up and down the street, and you say to people, here's 20 bucks, and people are like, whoa, don't try and rip me off.
	Whoa, that's, no, I don't want that 20 bucks.
	You understand, would you be offended if you offered someone 20 bucks and they said no and they recoiled?
	Does that make sense? Like, would you be...
	If you're trying to give people money and they get upset, are you offended?
	Or do you like, okay, well, I guess you don't want free money.
	All right, I'll move on, right?
	Does that make sense? Like with this show, right?
	So I'm getting some tips here and you know how valuable this stuff is, right?
	This is going to change your life. You're not trying to get paid.
	You're trying to give people money.
	You're trying to give people money.
	I'm trying to give you happiness.
	I'm trying to give you stuff.
	Brad Pitt isn't taking $20 million.
	He's not charging $20 million.
	He's offering $50 million worth of value for only $20 million.
	Do you follow? You have to be confident in the value you're providing.
	And then you're not asking for money.
	You're offering money. You have to be confident.
	How do you become confident in the value that you provide?
	Well, you work for free and you get the metrics.
	Do you follow? You're not asking for salary.
	You're offering value.
	Every place I joined, I doubled or more the revenue.
	I'm not talking out of my armpit here.
	Like, this is real-world stuff.
	I've been an entrepreneur since I was in my 20s.
	I have 30 years of doing this.
	Every company I joined, I at least doubled the revenue.
	That's why they could never decide whether to put me in technology, where I would double the revenue by putting out great products, or in marketing, where I would double the revenue by making a great business case.
	Like one place I joined, they were having trouble getting to larger corporations.
	And so what I did was I wrote a whole program that pulled publicly – well, it wasn't publicly.
	You had to pay for the data. Pulled their profits and their costs, and our product had metrics about how it was going to improve their profits.
	And so we said – it was like 500 letters were generated telling people exactly how much they were going to save by using our product.
	I want to give you money.
	I want to give you free money.
	Somebody says, hey, Steph, just donated for that fantastic live call-in show recently.
	Oh, thanks. I appreciate that.
	I appreciate that. Thank you.
	That's very kind. Now, of course, offering somebody a benefit...
	Sorry, what are the key points in making a business case for something like a painting or jewelry?
	All right. Hit me with a why if you would like the key points in making a business case for something like painting or jewelry.
	Yeah? Because you would say, well, gosh, you know, it's not like you necessarily going to make money from that.
	All right. So, we spend money all the time for happiness, for beauty.
	I mean, women obviously spend money to make themselves beautiful.
	Men will get heels to make themselves a little taller.
	And they will get face scrubs and cleans and lotions.
	And we put deodorant on to make ourselves more attractive.
	So we're spending all money for beauty because beauty can bring attraction.
	Attraction can bring love.
	Love can bring happiness. And that pep and step that you have when you feel attractive is worth its weight in gold.
	So what are jewelry and paintings about?
	They're about beauty.
	But if you can combine just beauty with profit or at least maintaining your value, so much the better.
	So jewelry, are people always going to have a need for jewelry?
	Yes. We know from the most primitive tribes to the most sophisticated people, debutantes in the world, people love their jewelry.
	I mean, those African tribes with the hoop necks and so on.
	Everybody loves jewelry. And so jewelry is always going to have its value.
	So not only does it bring you beauty, Which is our soul's thirst and what we basically live for.
	It brings you beauty, it also retains its value.
	And you really can't do much better than that in life, than having something that elevates your soul by bringing beauty to your life and maintains or increases its value Over time, because there's always going to be a demand for it.
	It's the same thing with a painting.
	A beautiful painting can soothe you, it can calm you, it can actually have great health benefits because it soothes and calms you, lowers your blood pressure, lowers your stress levels, lowers your cortisol, makes you happy.
	It's a window into something wonderful that you can look at.
	You don't have to wait for the curtains to be open or for the right light to hit the trees.
	You can just look at this thing and it's beautiful.
	It elevates your soul, it elevates your spirit, it calms your body, it helps keep you healthy, and it's a great store of value.
	So if you look at a woman's makeup, what does she do?
	She buys a lipstick, she uses it for beauty, and it vanishes, right?
	She just whittles it down, rubbing it on her lips, and it goes.
	So that brings beauty and vanishes.
	But jewelry and paintings bring beauty, stay, and usually increase in value, or at the very least maintain their value, particularly relative to inflation.
	Like you wouldn't want to buy a painting that was a watercolor and hang it outside in the rain because the rain would hit it and it would all just kind of wash down.
	And whatever you buy is going to, like if you just have the money straight, it's going to sit under your Mattress, and it's just going to lose value.
	5%, 10% a year, it's just going to vanish.
	It's evaporating. It's an evaporating asset.
	So even if all that the jewelry and the painting does is keep its value relative to inflation, it's doing better than your cash by 5% to 10% a year or more.
	So you absolutely...
	We need to look into these things because our souls thirst for beauty.
	We love beauty, but this is one of the few assets that you can buy that not only brings beauty to your soul, but protects your money over time in a way that almost nothing else will.
	I mean, you know, here's a funny thing.
	We look at art from hundreds of thousands of years ago.
	It's still worth a lot, even though it may have faded.
	Think of how much somebody would pay for Tutankhamun's necklaces or bracelets.
	You understand these are virtually priceless at this point, which means that over thousands and thousands of years, they've gained massively in value.
	Now, if you go back to ancient Egypt and you say, well, what coins were they using, right?
	Or what if, heaven forbid, somebody was using paper notes, right?
	The continental paper notes or the assignats from France.
	Go back hundreds of years or even decades if you look at Zimbabwe and their sort of billion dollar note.
	Look at what's happened to all the paper, which is your currency, your money.
	All that paper, all that currency is worthless now, again, unless it's like jewelry, unless it's gold, unless it's a collector's item.
	All that money has vanished and faded.
	All the lipstick, all of the face paint, all of the hair dyes, all of that has gone, vanished into nothing.
	But what has maintained its value and grown enormously is their art and their jewelry.
	Thousands of years, everything that they had of value is gone.
	Citizenship, value, gone.
	Makeup, gone.
	Books, gone to dust.
	What has maintained its value?
	Their art and their jewelry.
	When you really can't do better than that, than having Great beauty and maintenance or increase in value.
	Tell me a better place to put your money.
	I'd love to hear it. This is obviously just off the top of my head, but does that make sense?
	A lot of modern art, though, some say Pollock made millions selling paints, splatters, and stripes.
	Yeah, statues, too, for sure.
	But the modern art is...
	First of all, it serves the revolution by decaying our sense of beauty.
	But secondly, you know that how modern art works is it's largely a tax dodge, right?
	You don't want it to be hard to do because it's a tax dodge.
	It's a way of money laundering and reducing your taxes and all of that, right?
	So what happens is some piece of crap art gets – somebody evaluates it for half a million dollars.
	You buy it cheap. Somebody evaluates it for half a million dollars.
	And then you donate it to a charity and you say it's worth half a million dollars.
	You get a half a million dollar tax write-off.
	It's just a way of spending $5,000 for a quarter of a million dollar tax break.
	So, yeah, tax reduction and money laundering is a very sort of big thing.
	Thank you, Steph. You changed my life and I keep improving as I keep listening to you.
	I am absolutely thrilled.
	Thank you so much. Let me give you something else that I thought was interesting.
	Oh, yeah. You've got to go somewhere else for that.
	Here we go. Oh yes, that's right.
	Let me get this because I think this is an important thing.
	Would you like sort of...
	First of all, let me just double check on this.
	Hit me with a 1 to 10 on how valuable this is in terms of helping you to price yourself.
	Because this isn't just about entrepreneurship, right?
	This isn't about entrepreneurship. This is about any time you're in an economic exchange with people, right?
	So if you're going, you want a raise at work, how do you get a raise at work?
	Well, you don't get a raise at work.
	You offer your boss money, right?
	You offer your boss money. You absolutely offer your boss money.
	And through the process of offering your boss money, what do you tell him?
	You tell him, hey, bro, or hey, sis, I absolutely understand what business is.
	I understand how business operates.
	I'm a responsible employee who doesn't want to raise, but wants to remind you of the value I'm providing.
	And you want me to keep providing that value.
	You want me to increase providing that value.
	And so you're showing your boss how much you understand business and value and that you're not asking for a raise.
	You're not asking for a raise.
	You're offering him money.
	Now, would you like to hear the last step in determining your value?
	This is the last step in determining your value.
	How do you do your best to ensure that you're asking out the most attractive girl or boy
	to the dance?
	How do you ensure that you have the greatest chance of asking out the most attractive boy or girl to the dance?
	So, yeah, you guys are on the right.
	Yeah, be the most attractive partner, dress shop and get clean.
	No, what you do is you have a lot of women who will say yes.
	A lot of girls who will say yes.
	A lot of boys who will say yes.
	Does this make sense? If you're selling a house, right?
	If you're selling a house, how do you get the highest offer?
	You get the highest offer if you have the most bids.
	That's how you are virtually guaranteed to get the highest offer is you have the most bids.
	So the way that you get the most from your clients is you absolutely have to Get more work than you can handle.
	Does this make sense?
	You have to get more work than you can handle.
	Okay, how many people, as a whole, how many people would love to have Brad Pitt or Tom
	Cruise in their movie?
	There's nobody who's got any brains who would not like a famous actor to be in their movie.
	Bye.
	that make sense everybody wants those people in their movie
	So because everybody wants Brad Pitt and so on, Everybody wants Brad Pitt in their movie.
	Brad Pitt can raise his price until only a few people are left who can pay, and then he chooses what he likes in terms of the project the most.
	Does that sort of make sense?
	That does make sense, right?
	That makes sense? Yes, supply and demand.
	You have to raise demand for your services so that you can bid up people to what you're worth.
	So you start working for free, you gather the metrics, you make the business case.
	Once you have made the business case, you stimulate the demand to the point where you can raise prices until people stop paying.
	I mean, just think of, again, think of musicians.
	Think of, you know, when the guitarist, Jimmy Page, the guitarist for Led Zeppelin, was a session musician for years before he came across Robert Plant and started the sort of blues-rock fusion band that shredded Robert Plant's vocal cords over the 70s, late 60s and 70s.
	So he was a session musician, not paid that much.
	In fact, he couldn't even read music.
	And when someone came in with a bunch of sheet music, he's like, I don't know how to do this.
	And they're like, okay, well, just do rhythm guitar.
	But for heaven's sakes, learn how to read music.
	it's kind of important right so he was not much in demand as a session musician
	But once he was on stage with John Paul Jones and the crazy drummer, John Bonham was it, and Robert Plant, suddenly, you know, I mean, they were sort of legendary for their, like, endless shows and, you know, duffel bags full of cash backstage that I'm sure everyone just grabbed all of that, so...
	So then he was in high demand.
	He was in high demand.
	Because he was in high demand, he could charge more and more.
	You just have to up the demand.
	How do you up the demand? You go where your strongest business case is, you relentlessly get customers until you have more calls than you can handle.
	And you can then just stop upping the price until people start dropping off.
	And then you get it to the top couple of people who are willing to pay your price, and then you choose that which is most personally satisfying to you.
	Does that make sense? I mean, how confident do you feel going in to ask for a raise if you already have a 50% increased salary offer?
	I'm lost. What are you lost about?
	Let's say you make $75,000 a year and somebody's offering you $125,000 and you've got a really good business case for your boss about how much money you've made the company and you go and you say, I'm not asking.
	I'm giving. I'm not asking.
	I'm giving. If you're asking, you're in a situation of weakness.
	If you're asking, you're in a situation of begging.
	If you're asking, you're in a situation of of kind of gross invitation to rejection.
	Oh, please go to the dance with me.
	nobody else will. Right?
	Don't ask for things.
	Offer value.
	Do not ask for things.
	Asking is for dogs under the table And toddlers whining about candy.
	Do not ask for things, my friends.
	Don't do it.
	Don't ask. Ask is what slaves do.
	Don't tell. That's what tyrants do.
	Don't order. That's what tyrants do.
	Show value and reject those who don't see your value.
	Again, if you offer somebody 20 bucks and they run away from you, it's like, well, I'm
	sorry that they had such a tough life that even a little benefit is stressful for them,
	right?
	So I'm going to paste something in here.
	Let me just see here. Union shop.
	Clients and employees lowball.
	I have seen contracts lost for a nickel an hour increase to stay out of the service industry.
	You never want to work with people who take value personally.
	It's not personal.
	It's not personal.
	Some people see the value that I provide and are honorable and support what I do.
	Some people see the value that I provide and are honorable and support the work that I do.
	And I hope you guys know how hard I work for this show.
	I mean, it's not like some slavery and I'm not a victim, but it's a lot of work.
	All right? The people who see the value of what I do and support what I do Are the people I'm doing the show for?
	The others, the free riders, maybe they'll learn over time.
	But it's not personal. Some people don't see the value that I do.
	Some people have a historical relationship with generosity that's really painful.
	And they feel begrudging towards supporting me because other people have exploited them or other people...
	Have been mean about this kind of stuff or humiliated them or they've been bullied to support or whatever it is, right?
	Or maybe they were threatened with hell if they don't support.
	Or maybe they were threatened with ostracism if they don't support.
	Or maybe they were guilted or bullied and they supported where they didn't want to.
	They're taking it personally and I don't take it personally.
	I put out my request for donations because I want to be responsible for what it is that I do.
	And I know that I provide great value.
	I mean, this should all be stuff that you're learning in school, but how are you going to learn about the market from government teachers?
	I mean, God almighty, right?
	So it's not personal.
	So if you go to your boss and you ask for a raise and you've got a really, really good business case and your boss is like, oh, you know, there's no money in the budget, blah, blah, blah.
	And I'm like, so would you like to know some of the responses that you can provide if you have a good business case to the inevitable things that bosses will say?
	Would you like to hear that?
	I would physically feel bad if I didn't subscribe.
	It would feel like stealing or dishonorable.
	Well, again, if you can afford it, right, and all of that.
	So if your boss says there's no money in the budget and you've got a good business case and you say, well, look, man, I've contributed 30% of this budget.
	Who are you giving the money to, if not to me?
	Are you giving the money to people who aren't contributing to the budget?
	If I've taken the company from $1 million a year to $1.3 million a year, then I've contributed $300,000, and here's my metrics.
	I've contributed $300,000 worth of value to this company.
	Who are you giving that additional money to?
	If you're keeping it for yourself, that's not a great idea.
	If you're giving it to people who haven't provided that much value, then you're not being objective, right?
	You're not being objective.
	Maybe it's a squeaky wheel, like the person who complains the most or the person, whatever it is.
	But if there's somebody who's providing more value to the company than I am, I would like to know how you came to that.
	You don't have to give me the name, but I'd like to know how you came to that metric.
	Because if I've added $300,000 worth of value to the company, I expect to see some of that.
	Of course I do. I expect to see some of that money coming back.
	And if you say there's no money in the budget, then you've spent that $300,000 on something else.
	I'd like to know what it is.
	I'd like to know what you're spending the money on.
	That's fair, right? I will make a habit of tipping on Fridays, probably.
	Right. If somebody says we don't have the business, it's the same kind of thing.
	I'm adding to the value of the company, I need to see some of that money, just as you would, just as everybody would, right?
	And like when you sell to a customer, you're trying to give them their own money back, right?
	You're adding value to their business and you're trying to give them their own money back.
	Well, I'm adding value to the business and I'm trying to get the money that I'm adding some portion of it back, right?
	I work in R&D in a regulated industry where products can take one, two or more years to show fruits.
	What are your thoughts on angle to take in this case?
	Well, that's a longer-term time horizon, but you need to have – if you're working in R&D, you need to have a history of what you've contributed, right?
	I assume by the time you're working in R&D with one to two years, you've got a lot of experience because they're not going to give that to a noob who's unproven.
	So you go back over your – and you can do this retrospectively, right?
	You go back over – Your business history, your work history, and everybody says, oh, I did this, and here were my responsibilities, and I did that, and here were my responsibilities.
	I never cared about any of that stuff.
	I never cared. When I was hiring, I've interviewed like 1,000 people.
	I've hired like 100 people, mostly very successfully.
	What am I looking for?
	What am I looking for? I'm looking for I provided this much value.
	I inherited a sales department that was doing this.
	I added this much value.
	That's what I'm looking for. I don't care how much it is.
	I was even hustling when I had a paper route.
	So I started with a paper route.
	It had 30 people. By the time I left, it had 70 people.
	And it only took me 25% longer to do the route.
	So 25% longer, I got two and a half times the income.
	25% more time investment got me two and a half times the income.
	Do you see what I'm saying?
	When I was a waiter, I had regulars, people who would come in and ask for me.
	So when I was going to ask for a raise or a better section, I'm saying, look, man, I got these and these and these customers that come in, they ask for me.
	Like, I'm a really popular waiter.
	People come for me.
	All right, the one person in my department transferred out, and the other person went on family medical leave to avoid
	the headache.
	The replacement quit before starting.
	Now my boss wants me to cover for two people.
	I'm not looking forward to a job search.
	Well... Do you want to know how to deal with that with your boss?
	Hit me with a why, if that would be a valuable thing.
	Because, you know, bosses will often try and pile more work onto people, right?
	Would you know how to say that to your boss, how to get him to understand what he's doing and to make more money from that?
	So I had this situation once where a boss gave me somebody else's work.
	I was in tech and I was also doing some marketing, right?
	And what I did was I said, I went into my boss and I said, hey man, I've managed to sell the product for half price.
	You know, we normally charge this, but I got the client to take it for half price.
	And he's like, what are you talking about?
	We lose money on half price.
	You can't sell it for half price.
	And I'm like, right. And if you're asking me to do the jobs of two people, you're paying me half price.
	And I'm losing money doing the jobs of two people.
	You see how upset you got when I said I'd sold the product at half price?
	When you give me the job of two people without paying me more is getting me at half price.
	So I feel the same as you.
	We're one. We both want to succeed.
	You get paid half, you get upset.
	I get paid half, I get upset.
	We can work this out.
	Do you see what I'm saying? Sometimes people just need a little kick or something emphatic in order to...
	And this is what negotiation is.
	You're just trying to get the other person to sort of...
	Understand where you're coming from.
	And now, if he's like, well, I don't care, it's like, okay, well, then he's got no empathy and you've got to look for a job, right?
	But you've got to at least give it as much as possible, right?
	Let's see here. If a boss is constantly coming into my office and messing up what I have scheduled for production, how should I respond?
	Suck it up? Or say, get in line?
	So yes, a lot of bosses come in to chat, right?
	You ever have this? A lot of people come in, they chat with you, they want to just...
	All this kind of stuff, right?
	So have you ever worked for a boss in a bad relationship?
	Have you ever worked for a boss maybe going through a divorce or having lots of trouble at home and so on, right?
	So a lot of people will take their bad relationships and attempt to find some sort of social engagement at work.
	And that's very unprofessional, right?
	That's very unprofessional.
	And I generally don't like to work with people who are going through significant relationship issues.
	Because it's just all-consuming and they tend to be like drowning people just grabbing at everyone.
	And it's pretty rough.
	I mean, I remember once, I have a friend of many years, and he worked in an office, and the woman was just always working late and always harassing everyone to work late and work weekends, because she had no life.
	And then she got into a relationship with a guy, and she, like, relaxed, and she's like, everyone, it's five o'clock, you all should go home, because she wanted to go and hang out with her boyfriend and this, that, and the other.
	And everybody was, like...
	Really working to keep this relationship going, you know, like trying to give her advice.
	And anyway, the guy ended up breaking up with her and then they went right back nose to the grindstone, right?
	Which is like, oh God, I'm back to working all night.
	And he just left that, right?
	Yeah, bosses with no relationship.
	They will try to turn you into their friends and family, right?
	You the employee. And it's a really, really bad thing to do.
	It's a really, really bad thing to do.
	You cannot. Because it's a power imbalance.
	You really can't fairly do that with your employees.
	Because what are they going to do? Like, you ever have this boss?
	Man, I had a boss like this.
	Just kept telling the same stories over and over again.
	And what are you going to do? What do you say?
	And I would say. I already told me this.
	All right. So somebody says, When I improve the development processes in a company which makes all the workers more efficient and increases the product quality, how can I measure the value I provide?
	You can't manage what you can't measure.
	If you don't measure things, you can't make any case for anything.
	Then it's just like, oh, does it feel like I'm adding value?
	Okay, I guess I'll feel like I should ask for more money.
	No, don't do it.
	So how do you know you've made all the workers more efficient?
	How do you know that it's you that has made the workers more efficient?
	Because everyone's going to claim they made the workers more efficient.
	How do you know that it's you?
	Okay, let me ask you this.
	Do you get involved...
	Do you get involved in projects with no measurement of success?
	You just work away at stuff, and you cross your fingers, and just out it goes, and you never really know whether it's plus or minus, good or bad, right or wrong, whether it was the most efficient and best use of your time and resources.
	Do you? What did you do as a waiter that set you apart?
	I mean, come on.
	You know, everybody knows what you do as a waiter to set you apart.
	You make the boyfriend look great.
	Right? I mean, that's brother to brother, right?
	You make the boyfriend look great.
	Don't you? You joke with him and you show him respect and you defer to him and you elevate his status and all of that and you give him a compliment or two.
	Yeah, whoever's paying the bill, you just make them look great.
	I mean, if anyone can bring the food, I mean, you've got a catapult that can throw the food over.
	Like, what do you do? You make them...
	You make the boyfriend look good.
	Oh, excellent choice of wine.
	Yeah, you know your wines.
	And you just make him look good. Right?
	I mean, you get him late.
	I'm sorry, I don't mean to be coarse, but you know, I was young.
	Yeah, you try to get him late.
	You try to make him look great.
	You try and make his evening success, you know.
	So, yeah, I mean, that's how you do it.
	That's what you do. And you have to be deferential without being obsequious, right?
	Without being all of that, right?
	So, I haven't been a Western waiter for like 10 years.
	Yeah, yeah. Let's see here.
	Quick admin question. I've noticed that recently the live stream hasn't been converted to audio and uploaded as podcast.
	This is my preferred way of listening to live streams.
	Yeah, it's coming. We've just got a lot of backlog.
	We've got a lot of the backlog, and we're getting a whole new process of getting these things out.
	I'm offloading it, so we'll get there.
	Also, donors, I generally try to put the audio up first.
	Yeah, don't get involved in projects without a measurement.
	When I would be offered a project, it's like, okay, how do I know if I succeed?
	And how do I know if I succeed in this more than anything else I could do?
	How do I know? How do I know if I'm succeeding?
	How do I know if I'm succeeding?
	My metrics here, I don't tend to look at podcast downloads too much.
	I tend to look at donations and engagement and those various numbers, right?
	How... Do I measure what I'm doing?
	Well, donations and engagement and, you know, maybe some...
	I look at the subscription numbers and so on, right?
	How do I know? I'm not paid by volume of listeners.
	I'm paid by subscriptions and donations, right?
	So I have to keep track on that.
	If you use donations, comments, likes, eh, not so much comments, because there's lots of people who comment who are never going to pay.
	Like, you just have to accept that there's just some people, for whatever resentful, and I think it's generally an immature reason, but there's a lot of people who will just consume, consume, consume, and they really, really resent being asked to pay.
	I don't know exactly why.
	I don't quite understand it.
	I try to support the people that I like, but there are some people who just, it's hard, man.
	They just resent it.
	They just, like, I'm not going to pay.
	You know, they just, I wouldn't say it's a stingy mentality, but they just really, really resent.
	Steph, you weren't raised with a father.
	Please don't talk down on my statement or breeze by like what I said can be misconstrued to fit your point.
	I said that I haven't been to a restaurant with a waiter in like 10 years.
	Not that I haven't been a waiter.
	Please, respect is mutual.
	What the hell? I haven't been restaurant with waiter in like 10 years.
	I haven't been restaurant with waiter in like...
	So you typed it badly.
	I mean, I haven't been restaurant with waiter.
	I thought you meant you weren't a waiter in a restaurant in like 10 years.
	What you meant to say was I haven't been to a restaurant with a waiter in 10 years.
	You said I haven't been restaurant with waiter in like 10 years.
	So you're really upset and offended when you mistyped your message.
	Is that right?
	And that's, you know, that's a very strong response to you mistyping a message.
	I mean, I don't mean to make you feel bad or anything like that, but that's, you know, if I'm ripping past something and, you know, that's...
	You weren't raised with a father because you mistyped a message?
	I'm sorry, that's a what-the-hell moment.
	I don't really know how to handle that.
	That's a very strange thing to see.
	Please, respect is mutual.
	It's like, I didn't disrespect you.
	You wrote something that, you know, could be interpreted once or both ways.
	I read past it. You could have actually read what I said also, but yes, it goes both ways, I suppose.
	No, I did. Okay, this is a waste of time.
	Somebody's not going to listen to that.
	That's fine. So...
	I'm going to share something with you that I think was really, really interesting.
	And we'll make this the last comment of the day.
	I had an unbelievably early morning yesterday for reasons I'll get into in this or another life at some point.
	And it just messes up my sleep schedule for a day or two.
	All right. So...
	No, it wasn't Toronto traffic.
	So this is what somebody wrote to me underneath one of my videos, and I thought it was really interesting.
	I thought it was really interesting, so we'll get into this.
	He wrote, Begging for donations is for Steffi's survival.
	Pathetic, unmanly, undignified, untrustworthy.
	Isn't that interesting?
	I find this... Juicy, deep, wonderful, and fascinating.
	Begging for donations is for Steffi's survival.
	Pathetic, unmanly, undignified, untrustworthy.
	So that's interesting.
	What power dynamic do you think this person has experienced where asking for what you want for the mutual exchange of value is begging?
	Is begging.
	What kind of power dynamics have you been in We're asking for what you want and what you feel and what you can make a case that you deserve.
	How is that begging?
	No, it's not a girlfriend refusing sex because you would only choose a girlfriend based upon something prior.
	Yeah, brutal toddlerhood.
	Asking for what you want.
	So this is really the definition of triggered.
	And I say this because, you know, we're all going to experience this kind of nonsense.
	I guess I did a little bit with this guy who hadn't been to a restaurant with a waiter.
	I like the Steffi word to identify myself.
	No, the Steffi is a diminutive, right?
	It's a way of diminishing.
	Like there was a Donna Lipchuk used to write many years ago for a sort of free newspaper called...
	I, in Toronto, and she would say, you know, the theatre people are always like, how is that little play of yours coming along?
	How is that little career of yours?
	They have to say that little, right?
	That little. What is it that somebody would say, why would they get so triggered when I ask for donations?
	Why would they get so triggered?
	I mean, I'm just asking for what I want.
	And my asking for what I want is much less than ads.
	Like if you watch TV or if you don't have some upgraded video thing, it's like, you know, 10% ads, 20% ads, 30% ads or whatever it is, right?
	And why is it that asking for what you want and have a reasonable case for what you deserve, why would asking for what you want bring this kind of rage?
	Because it has nothing to do with me.
	I mean, I'm just asking for what I want.
	I mean, honestly, this doesn't even bounce off me.
	Like, it just whooshes past me, and it's like, that's really fascinating.
	So why does me asking for what I want and what I reasonably can expect to deserve...
	I mean, my first podcast wasn't a half hour of me asking for donations.
	I didn't even ask for donations until a year or two into the show.
	Begging for donation is for Steffi's survival.
	Survival is an odd thing, too, because I survive whether or not, you know, people give me money or not to donate money, right?
	Pathetic, unmanned, the undignified, untrustworthy, right?
	Begging, begging, begging. Now, I'm going to keep asking for what I want.
	It doesn't affect me, but think how tough it is for this person.
	This is why you really have to be careful who you attack, right?
	Because what he's done is he's now categorized, this has to be a he, right?
	Asking for what you want is now pathetic, unmanly, undignified, and untrustworthy.
	Does that affect me? Nope.
	I mean, I've been a pretty good entrepreneur for like 30 plus years, right?
	So what it means though is that for him to ask what he wants now puts himself in these categories, which means he is now barred in life from asking for what he wants.
	Or asking for a fair exchange of value, right?
	Asking is begging.
	Now that's got to come from a family structure where need equals punishment.
	So I grew up with somebody who, you know, when you're a kid you have needs, right?
	You have needs. You need your parents to buy you stuff.
	You need your parents to do stuff. You need your parents to spend attention.
	You need your parents to sign permission slips.
	And so He's in a situation where when he had a need, someone mocked, humiliated, attacked, and diminished him.
	So now when I... So when he was a child, he had needs, he asked for things, and he was in a helpless position, as we all are when we're children.
	So when he asked for things and his parent attacked, mocked, humiliated him, when I asked for things, he now flips to the parental alter ego, And attacks me to protect me from his parent.
	See, you think it's an insult.
	No, he's trying to protect me.
	Do you follow? Because when he asked for things, he got attacked, like physically, violently.
	He got attacked.
	So he's like, I'm like the new guy in the prison block, and every time you ask this guy for something, he beats you, right?
	And he's like, don't ask. It's pathetic.
	Stop it. He's so desperate to have me not ask for something because when he asked for things, he was beaten.
	Yeah, please, sir. Can I have some more, right?
	Does this follow? So a lot of people will experience this as hostility.
	I experience this as a twisted act of love.
	I mean, twisted, absolutely.
	But it's a twisted act of love.
	And a lot of people really misinterpret this.
	And they say, oh, this guy hates me.
	It's like, no, he cares enough about me that he doesn't want me to get half beaten to death by asking for what I want.
	Like... If you hate the new guy in the cell block, you're just going to let him go up and ask the guard for stuff and get beaten and thrown into solitary, right?
	right? But if you care about him, you'll be desperate for him to not do that which is
	going to get him beaten. Does that make sense?
	So a lot of people experience this as hostility.
	I experience this as he really cares.
	Did you talk to this guy? No, I haven't.
	I mean, if he wants to call in, I'm certainly happy to if he ever hears this free domain.
	Sorry, call in at freedomain.com.
	But it is a...
	When he says Steffi's survival, he's trying to have me survive the violence that comes from asking for things.
	Did you follow? I'm sorry.
	I hate saying, do you follow, like you're all idiots.
	It's not because you're idiots.
	It's because I'm not confident how well I'm explaining it.
	It's not on you.
	It's on me. It's my deficiencies that I'm trying to...
	Am I being clear?
	Am I being clear is probably a better way.
	To put it, right? So when people are trying to desperately get you to stop doing something, it's because they're trying to save you from the violence they experience is imminent.
	Does this make sense? I'm an idiot.
	I think you're giving him too much credit.
	What do you mean? I don't understand.
	I think you're giving him too much credit.
	Did I give the impression that I think this is conscious on his part?
	Did I give the impression that he's full of self-knowledge and he's aware of all of this?
	I'm not sure what you mean when you say I'm giving him too much credit and I'm genuinely curious.
	I'm not sure what that means.
	And again, I'm happy to be instructed or corrected on this for sure.
	for watching.
	Bye for now.
	you And I know it's a long thing to type, so I'm happy to give you the time to do that.
	Sure. When people are screaming abuse at you, in their own twisted way, they're trying to save you from something.
	This is a learning moment or experience to hear your reaction to this person.
	My mother was trying to save me From whatever half killed her in the war that my behavior was similar to.
	Does that make sense? Like my mother was not trying to hurt me, my mother was trying to save me.
	Because I was behaving in a way that would get me killed when she was a child, or could get me killed.
	Maybe he feels guilty for not donating.
	I see his comment is more malignant than you.
	Of course, I completely understand it's a malignant comment, for sure.
	But the question is, where does it come from?
	He's not enslaving me because I'll continue to ask for donations because it's the right thing to do.
	So he's not changing my behavior.
	Obviously, he's enslaving himself, not me.
	Like everyone thinks that they're putting a net on other people.
	I just walk away and then you end up...
	Like this kind of person ends up tangled in their own nets, right?
	Sorry to be annoying, Steph.
	I hope I didn't bifurcate the direction of the show with my criticism.
	I felt offended like it was done on purpose in a way in regards to the restaurant statement.
	So, the fact that you felt offended, do you consider this to be a statement of fact or a statement of experience?
	I felt upset is a feeling.
	You did something wrong is a moral judgment.
	I felt upset is a subjective experience.
	You did something wrong is an objective moral judgment.
	Do you understand the difference between the two?
	I don't mean to be...
	I don't mean to sound annoying.
	I'm just... So the fact that you felt upset does not mean I did anything wrong.
	You seem to have a straight line like physics.
	I'm upset, therefore someone did something wrong.
	Someone did something wrong in no way follows from you being upset.
	It doesn't follow.
	It's not a logical consequence.
	So you may have these dominoes in your mind.
	Because I'm upset, Steph did something wrong.
	It does not follow at all.
	Like this guy is upset by me asking for support for my show.
	He's enraged.
	Pathetic, unmanly, undignified, untrustworthy.
	He's enraged. He's enraged at what I'm doing.
	He thinks it's absolutely terrible what I'm doing.
	Does that follow?
	That me asking for what I want is the cause of his rage?
	If you do something physical, right, like if someone comes and pushes you to the ground, then everyone's going to experience that as a physical thing, right?
	Because that's a physical thing, right?
	But if I'm saying things and people interpret it very differently, I've had emails and messages, more than I could really count over the years, of people saying, I'm so glad you were persistent asking for donations.
	I feel so much better now that I've donated.
	I really appreciate it.
	I'm sorry it took me so long.
	So some people, when I ask for donations, some people are grateful at my persistence.
	This guy sees it once and is enraged.
	So how is it possible that there's something objective occurring when some people are thankful and some people are enraged at exactly the same stimuli?
	Do you understand? If I paint something red, it's objectively red.
	That's cause and effect. And even if you're colorblind, you get a wavelength, right?
	It's the same, right?
	So if people experience the same thing, completely opposite,
	then there's subjective things involved.
	Emotional dominoes are the exact opposite of RTR.
	Well, it's sophistry.
	You're making a knowledge claim that you don't have, that is not true, which is, I'm upset because Steph did something wrong.
	That I grew up without a dad and I'm not showing you mutual respect or whatever it is, right?
	Of course, I don't know what respect you've shown me and you're certainly not showing me it.
	And the funny thing is that you're saying, Steph, you're not showing me the respect that I'm showing you.
	You guy raised without a father who's treating me terribly, right?
	So you're not showing me any respect.
	In fact, you're kind of insulting me and saying that I'm a bad guy for showing you disrespect while at the same time claiming that...
	That you're showing me all the disrespect, right?
	You're kind of saying that I'm a bad guy for no reason, because you mistyped something, and I read it quickly.
	Then you saying, Steph, I want you to treat me with as much respect as I'm treating you.
	I'm actually treating you with a lot more respect than you're treating me, right?
	That's just a fact, right?
	So if I make the same statement, which is you can support me at freedomain.com slash donate or whatever it is, I make that statement.
	Some people are indifferent. Some people support.
	Some people get upset.
	Some people thank me for it.
	So lots of people are having different experiences of what I'm saying, which means that there's an interpretive element to their experience.
	Whereas if I go up and slap someone hard across the face, everyone's going to experience the shock and pain of a slap across the face, like everyone.
	Now, maybe there's some masochist who likes it.
	I don't know. But that physical thing is a very real and objective thing.
	It could be measured. If it's on camera, I've clearly assaulted someone.
	There could be legal consequences.
	So that's an objective thing.
	However, me saying things, not to anyone in particular, where people have a wide variety of different responses.
	Some people think I'm the best guy around.
	Some people think I'm one of the worst guys around.
	So there's obviously a subjective element, but nobody thinks I have a full head of hair.
	Nobody thinks that I have a full head of hair.
	That's more objective. Somebody...
	Oh, the same guy says, I'm too mired in my own stuff to focus on that kind of abstraction.
	That's more personal to you.
	My neighbors are pricks.
	Sorry, the internet is probably just a softer target.
	I withdraw my judgment of you.
	Well, I'm sorry about your neighbors. That is very tough.
	Tough neighbors is very, very tough.
	Very, very difficult. Sorry, that's a bit of a...
	People that say I'm showing respect are really showing respect, yeah.
	Right. Let me just see here.
	You have a full head of air, we just can't see it.
	I'm not sure what the difference would be between having it that nobody could see or detect it anyway and not having it at all, right?
	Saying something like, you could give me tips or go play in traffic is an attack, not respectfully asking for support.
	Yeah, I mean, people seem kind of hung up on this word respect.
	What does that mean?
	I mean, I respect the fact that you're here.
	I respect the fact that you're listening to philosophy.
	I'm not sure what it would mean.
	Like, disrespect seems to be quite important.
	The word respect often seems to be dictatorial.
	In other words, I have to do things a certain way or somebody can label me as disrespectful.
	And I don't follow that way.
	I don't follow that way. I don't accept that you can determine something as subjective as respect and use it as a tool to attack me or not on.
	In other words, if you feel respected, whatever that means, then I'm okay.
	If you feel disrespected, then you can attack me, right?
	No. I mean, if I swear at you, if I call you names, these are objective things, right?
	But if I pass by a comment that you mistyped, and you get really upset, and then you suddenly like, well, I'm upset, therefore he's treating me disrespectfully, you're just giving yourself slutty emotional license.
	S-E-L. Slutty emotional license.
	And listen, we all do it.
	We all can talk ourselves into, you know, like some guy zooms past you in the car, cuts you off.
	You're like, ah, that guy's a total jerk and blah, right?
	You don't know. Maybe his wife's in the back and she's about to give birth.
	Maybe he's about to crap his pants and he's got to get to a restaurant, to a bathroom because he's on the way to a big business.
	We don't know. We don't know.
	Maybe he's being chased by an unjust cop.
	I don't know, right? So I'm concerned when people give themselves license to be very aggressive based on a subjective interpretation of what somebody else is doing, because that's just making up rules that benefit your pettiest and most aggressive self.
	I mean, the whole point of morality is to have some objective standards.
	Now, I can get angry if somebody threatens me or something's really, you know, dramatic or dangerous and all of that, right?
	But... Don't make up standards that are subjective that allow you to be a jerk.
	Don't make up subjective standards that just, well, I'm feeling disrespected so I can just be a jerk.
	Can I go back in time to have a dad as patient as Steph?
	I plan to be this patient with my kids.
	Maybe he has to rush home to catch Steph's live stream.
	Well, yeah, I guess so, right?
	It's unreasonable, particularly in a live stream with an active chat, especially if the comment you type is unclear.
	Well, I mean, so if somebody says, I haven't been to a restaurant with a waiter in 10 years, and I read it as I haven't been a waiter in 10 years, I don't know how that's disrespectful.
	That's just an error. The idea that an error with an unclear comment read in passing is disrespectful, you're just making up this term called disrespectful that allows you to be aggressive.
	And disrespectful yourself.
	It's kind of ironic, right?
	You make up this term called disrespectful that allows you to be disrespectful.
	You know, obviously I meant no disrespect, right?
	You're just making up a term.
	Like, parents make up these terms all the time.
	Give me parental terms that allow parents to escalate.
	Give me the terms, you're being selfish, you're back-talking, you're being disrespectful, you're not listening, right?
	Parents make up these terms all the time that just allow them to poke themselves into.
	Ungrateful, yeah.
	Righteous, God told me.
	You're being self-righteous, right?
	So people make up these terms that just allow them to be assholes.
	Sorry to be blunt.
	And look, we all have them.
	I'm not immune from this, right?
	It's inappropriate. It's inappropriate.
	You're lazy, stupid.
	Well, those are more insults.
	Those are after they've escalated, right?
	You just don't listen.
	You treat this place like a hotel.
	Like just these things go up, right?
	My father would say, respect me, which just meant do what I say.
	Yeah. Turns out respecting is just doing what he says, right?
	Ungrateful triggers me.
	Yeah. How dare you be ungrateful at a parent who uses the term ungrateful to attack you?
	Why won't you listen?
	You never listen. Never and always tend to be these escalating words.
	You never listen. You never do what I say.
	You never do your chores.
	You never, you never, you always, you always, you always, you never, you never, right?
	Can't you see people that just wind themselves up with this language?
	You're causing a ruckus?
	A little bit, yeah, maybe.
	Why are you so loud?
	You're always picking on your brother.
	People just crank.
	You can use these terms, and they're very big terms.
	And this can start relatively innocently, and it can end up in a very, very dark place.
	The unvaccinated are unclean disease spreaders.
	We have to have their rights taken away.
	People can just, you're making me sick.
	I'm literally shaking is another one.
	I feel sick.
	I heard this and I felt physically sick.
	It's an escalation term.
	It's an escalation term.
	And those escalation terms go all the way from relatively mild to halfway to genocide.
	Like the Hutsus and the Tutsis from Rwanda, the cockroaches, they're unclean, they're just, right?
	Does this, again, am I being relatively clear again?
	We're kind of roughing past this, right?
	You watch this language.
	Language is often used to raise our ire to the point where we lower our standards.
	You've got to watch the language that you use.
	So this guy, begging for donations for staffy, survival, pathetic, unmanly, undignified, untrustworthy, again, I get that he's trying to help me.
	I get that he's trying to save me from whatever hell his parents put him through.
	Horn honking in response to the freedom stolen scares me.
	Yeah.
	I had my parents almost throw me into the street for saying I'm sick.
	Honestly. Honestly.
	What, you said you were sick and they almost threw you into the street?
	Well, that's not good. That's not good.
	Yeah, so you always have to look for this language.
	And we all hear this in ourself.
	The language that gives us the moral high horse to lower our standards and become that which we attack.
	To become that which we criticize.
	Watch that language that spirals you up so that you can do whatever the hell you want.
	And feel justified in it.
	Steph's treating me, I feel disrespected by Steph, so I can just, right?
	You're pissing me off, right?
	Yeah, that can happen for sure.
	If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, right?
	I mean, we could go on all day with these kinds of things, right?
	Stop the shenanigans?
	Yeah, yeah. You said you invite criticism.
	Oh, you're still going with this kind of thing.
	So now I'm a hypocrite?
	Now I'm a hypocrite. Because when you say you incite criticism, you invite criticism, but then when I say that you're showing me no respect because you were raised without a father, that's kind of abusive, right?
	That's kind of mean and kind of aggressive.
	And I certainly didn't do that with you.
	I just misinterpreted something that you mistyped.
	So you brought the aggression to the table, my friend, not me.
	You brought the insults to the table, not me.
	And then now you're saying I'm a hypocrite as well?
	Yeah, well, this is, you know, you're just convincing yourself about this escalation.
	And listen, I'm sorry. I'm really genuinely and deeply sorry for, like, how you were treated as a child, that this is your approach to things.
	And you call in at freedomain.com.
	I'm more than happy to chat about it because, yeah, this is not the way to get what you want in life, not from any quality people, right?
	Steph, you are a lightning rod for other individuals' insecurities and untreated trauma.
	Well... Steph is so patient.
	I'm crying. It's so real.
	I'm a lightning rod.
	So, I guess we could end with this.
	Do you know why that is?
	Why am I a lightning rod for other people's insecurities and untreated trauma?
	Because I speak the truth.
	That's a great point, but it's probably not as detailed as it could be.
	I mean, if I say two and two is four, I'm speaking the truth, but it doesn't.
	Provoking inappearance. Because you're the most reasonable person in the room, it proves you can heal.
	I think these are all excellent comments.
	You guys are just giving me like a face tan from the brilliance of these comments.
	I don't attack the inappearance.
	No, all I did was...
	No. So I think the reason...
	And obviously I could be wrong.
	You guys could be right about everything here.
	But I think the reason why I end up with this kind of lightning rod scenario...
	It's because I don't modify my behavior based on other people's upset.
	Because that would be to surrender to their abusers and give their abusers power in their minds.
	I don't change my behavior based upon other people's upset.
	Because that would be to enslave them even further to their abusive alter egos.
	Does that make sense? Because if this guy attacks me in this way, begging for donations, blah, blah, blah, and if I'm like, oh, I guess I shouldn't really beg for donations or whatever, I've just empowered his inner bullies and thus enslaved him further.
	You don't want to appease the aggressive because that makes them more likely to use aggression in the future.
	Does that make sense? So I won't modify.
	Like when I was a kid, I had to modify my behavior because of aggressive and abusive and disrespectful people.
	I had to modify my behavior just to survive.
	Guess what? For the last 42 years, since I was 15 years old, I haven't had to do that.
	Okay, maybe a little bit in school and this, that, and the other, right?
	So I respect people too much to let them bully me because that's just going to make them more likely to bully other people, more likely that bullying works for them, more likely that their inner bullies are going to win and enslave them forever.
	So if this guy who's screaming at me in this hysterical way for asking for donations, if I change my behavior because of him, then screaming, like that would be really hating people.
	It would be really hating people to support and empower the worst aspects of themselves.
	I'll call in, no harsh feelings, Stefan.
	Are you now telling me what I should or shouldn't feel?
	I mean, it's really going to be an interesting call.
	I'm allowed to have harsh feelings if I want.
	Don't tell me what I should or shouldn't feel.
	Maybe you're saying you have no harsh feelings.
	I doubt that. Well, I don't have any trust that you know what you feel because you didn't...
	I mean, like literally 10 seconds ago, you were defending what you did.
	Steph is going to hike 10 miles during that call-in.
	Yeah, maybe. That's very funny.
	I agree. You're one of the most consistent people I know of.
	I mean, I have my moments, but I sort of try and hang in there as best I can.
	All right. So, yeah, I look forward to the call-in.
	I think that'll be very, very interesting.
	Any last tips, comments, support?
	First five-hour call-in.
	No, he wouldn't. I don't think he'd last that long.
	Maybe I wouldn't either. I think the longest column was three and a half hours.
	I did one today with a woman, two and a quarter hours, so it was kind of long, but not super long.
	That was a very, very interesting one as well.
	I'm sure that'll go out at some point.
	All right. What did you want luck with from last stream?
	I can't really talk about that at the moment, but I really...
	You look great in that suit.
	Will you share what the purpose was?
	I will at some point, but not right now.
	Steph, you're awesome when I'm at the gym, stealing my gains.
	Oh, it's just different kinds of gains.
	And how Steph will change your life.
	Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, sorry. I mean, some things I just have to keep to myself for now.
	Anyway, it's all very exciting stuff.
	I'm a subscriber. I wish I had more.
	Once I get money from the crypto bull market, you will be getting your money can to the face.
	I appreciate that. Steph, I would love a solo show on vetting as a high-quality woman.
	Was disappointed that the first caller didn't go through with that.
	Loved the 15-minute solo on Wisdom 2.
	That was great. I just did a show recently on vetting as a high-quality woman.
	I did, didn't I? It was a couple of days ago.
	I think it was on Sunday.
	I did, right? Yeah, the stream will be coming out.
	It's honestly went in deep with a high-quality woman.
	Wanted to send this yesterday. Couldn't figure it out.
	Oh, you just gave me that Chuck 99, didn't you?
	Oh, man. My belly actually looked like the side of that ice cream afterwards.
	Oh, so good. So good.
	All right. All right. Well, thanks, everyone, so much for a really fun and, I hope, useful conversation and chat this evening.
	It's just wonderful to spend this time with you.
	I view it as a great honor, and I hope that I always do you proud with everything that I do.
	And if there's anything I can do better, you can always let me know.
	I know, and I always appreciate getting that kind of feedback.
	Freedomain.locals.com, please check it out.
	You get the Peaceful Parenting audiobook feed, which I'm adding to.
	I'm up to part four.
	You get StephBotAI, which you can ask me questions based on millions of words of mine.
	And you get the History of Philosopher series, which is some of my best work, frankly.
	And so I hope that you will check that out.
	And lots of love from up here.
	I appreciate you guys coming by tonight.
	I thank you for your continued interest and support in philosophy.
	I love you guys to death.

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