Building “Charisma on Command” to 10M+ Subscribers — Charlie Houpert

1. 0:00 – 3:51

   Start

   1. CHCharlie Houpert0:00

      I have private coaching with Jay Abraham, and he asks me, "Who's the person you most want to take your course?" I say, "Tim Ferriss or Tony Robbins." And he says, "If Tim Ferriss found your course and took it right now, how would you feel?" I went, "I don't want him to." [laughs]

   2. TFTim Ferriss0:14

      [laughs]

   3. CHCharlie Houpert0:15

      And so he said, "That's a problem." I said, "Well, it's not good enough." He said, "Make it good enough."

   4. TFTim Ferriss0:19

      Charlie, welcome to the show. Nice to be spending some time together.

   5. CHCharlie Houpert0:22

      Yeah.

   6. TFTim Ferriss0:23

      And I thought we would start, as you suggested, since I do not have much memory of this.

   7. CHCharlie Houpert0:28

      [laughs]

   8. TFTim Ferriss0:29

      And that is not to say that I am too big for my britches. I think it was quite a while ago, but how did we first meet in person?

   9. CHCharlie Houpert0:38

      Yeah.

   10. TFTim Ferriss0:38

       'Cause this is not our first time meeting.

   11. CHCharlie Houpert0:40

       No. It was a much larger moment in my life than in yours, I think. [laughs] This is 2011, 2012. I'm working as a management consultant in Washington, DC.

   12. TFTim Ferriss0:50

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CHCharlie Houpert0:51

       And I have been a 4-Hour Workweek acolyte for probably six months. Like, evangelical. "Everyone needs to read this book. We're all entrepreneurs."

   14. TFTim Ferriss0:58

       [laughs]

   15. CHCharlie Houpert0:58

       "I've sold nothing at this point. I've got no product, but everybody has to do this."

   16. TFTim Ferriss1:01

       [laughs]

   17. CHCharlie Houpert1:02

       And [laughs] I'm out to dinner with my company. We've just completed this contract. And sitting there facing the door, and Tim Ferriss walks in.

   18. TFTim Ferriss1:11

       [laughs]

   19. CHCharlie Houpert1:11

       And the blood drains from my [laughs] from my body. I, I go cold. I'm normally... Like, I'm working on being more gregarious. My boss sees. He goes, "What's wrong?" I s- s- "It's Tim Ferriss. Tim Ferriss is here." [laughs]

   20. TFTim Ferriss1:26

       [laughs]

   21. CHCharlie Houpert1:26

       Like the boogeyman walked in.

   22. TFTim Ferriss1:27

       [laughs]

   23. CHCharlie Houpert1:28

       And I've told him, and he goes, "The four hour guy?" I was like, "It's him. Yeah, it's him, the real..."

   24. TFTim Ferriss1:32

       [laughs]

   25. CHCharlie Houpert1:33

       So I excuse myself to go to the bathroom. I walked over to your table. This is on H Street in DC. And I didn't know what to... I just said, you know, "Hey, Tim. Mr. Tim, I don't..." [laughs]

   26. TFTim Ferriss1:45

       [laughs]

   27. CHCharlie Houpert1:45

       "I read your book, and it's changed my life." This is even before it really changed my life.

   28. TFTim Ferriss1:49

       Mm-hmm.

   29. CHCharlie Houpert1:49

       "And I love your blog, and it's just..." It was so great.

   30. TFTim Ferriss1:53

       Mm-hmm.
2. 3:51 – 7:07

   Why defaulting to management consulting after college felt like daily self-betrayal.

   1. TFTim Ferriss3:51

      All right. So let's double click on the management consulting-

   2. CHCharlie Houpert3:55

      Mm

   3. TFTim Ferriss3:55

      ... and then how you became an ex-management consultant.

   4. CHCharlie Houpert3:58

      Sure.

   5. TFTim Ferriss3:59

      Or just the path itself, because I have seen interviews with you, and you, you talk about, of course, various different things, Charisma on Command, Charisma University. You have the, this topic area expertise.

   6. CHCharlie Houpert4:14

      Mm.

   7. TFTim Ferriss4:15

      And we'll probably touch on some of that, but for a lot of my audience and for my own personal curiosity, I wanna hear about your journey-

   8. CHCharlie Houpert4:24

      Mm

   9. TFTim Ferriss4:24

      ... right, your personal journey, not necessarily focusing on the content that you're best at showcasing. And I, I suspect we'll probably get to some of that, but looking back at the, the early chronology is always fun for me because I remember, for instance, and I wanna not make this the Tim Ferriss retrospective show, but that exact experience that you had with me, I have had many times with other people-

   10. CHCharlie Houpert4:58

       Mm

   11. TFTim Ferriss4:58

       ... where [laughs] you know, I'll just, like, fumble out some accidental pig Latin-

   12. CHCharlie Houpert5:02

       Yeah. [laughs]

   13. TFTim Ferriss5:02

       ... and then I go to the bathroom just like, "You idiot."

   14. CHCharlie Houpert5:04

       [laughs]

   15. TFTim Ferriss5:05

       "That could have been the sentence that changed your life, and you fucked it up."

   16. CHCharlie Houpert5:10

       Yeah. [laughs]

   17. TFTim Ferriss5:11

       Not to say that's what you said to yourself.

   18. CHCharlie Houpert5:13

       [laughs]

   19. TFTim Ferriss5:13

       But certainly I have had those types of experiences. So let's go, let's go back to management consulting. What was that experience like? Just paint a picture.

   20. CHCharlie Houpert5:22

       Yeah.

   21. TFTim Ferriss5:23

       And then I know this might seem like a lazy question, but just, like, take us forward from there.

   22. CHCharlie Houpert5:29

       Oh, every day it felt like a self-betrayal. So I read The 4-Hour Workweek when I was in grad school.

   23. TFTim Ferriss5:34

       Mm-hmm.

   24. CHCharlie Houpert5:34

       And I was in grad school 'cause I was a philosophy major as an undergrad and graduated in 2009, where not only were they not hiring philosophy majors, they weren't hiring anybody.

   25. TFTim Ferriss5:43

       Yeah.

   26. CHCharlie Houpert5:44

       So hit out business school for a year, wound up as a consultant because, eh, that's what you do when you don't know what you're supposed to do with your life.

   27. TFTim Ferriss5:50

       Mm.

   28. CHCharlie Houpert5:51

       And every day, putting on that suit felt like a betrayal of myself, especially having read The 4-Hour Workweek at that point.

   29. TFTim Ferriss5:58

       [laughs]

   30. CHCharlie Houpert5:59

       And so there were these minor- ... rebellions that I would stage. Like, I had a faux hawk, and I wouldn't cut it.
3. 7:07 – 9:29

   Leaping into parkour training via DVD as a first business attempt.

   1. CHCharlie Houpert7:07

      And so had that job. Wasn't right. Had our fruitful encounter, which t- [laughs] you know, didn't wind up selling anything. And at the time I was... My first business was a parkour training DVD.

   2. TFTim Ferriss7:18

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CHCharlie Houpert7:18

      I think I even used a service that you'd listed in The 4-Hour Workweek to try to do it, and was trying to get that off the ground, you know, selling it through Google AdWords. Very, like, step-by-step 4-Hour Workweek. Like, it could've-

   4. TFTim Ferriss7:31

      Mm-hmm

   5. CHCharlie Houpert7:31

      ... been a chapter had it worked. And it was starting to go-

   6. TFTim Ferriss7:34

      [laughs]

   7. CHCharlie Houpert7:34

      ... but it wasn't something I loved, and I was struggling with it 'cause my, my co-founder and best friend was in New York, I was in Washington, DC.

   8. TFTim Ferriss7:40

      How did you choose parkour at the time? How did you decide on that, and were there any other candidates where it's like, "Okay, here are the top four. We're gonna strike these out. We're going with parkour"?

   9. CHCharlie Houpert7:51

      There was. I did the little Venn diagram of what do I want that other people might be interested in. I just wrote all of my interests.

   10. TFTim Ferriss7:58

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CHCharlie Houpert7:59

       I hadn't done parkour, but I liked Casino Royale.

   12. TFTim Ferriss8:01

       Yeah.

   13. CHCharlie Houpert8:01

       That was my level of exposure to parkour.

   14. TFTim Ferriss8:03

       One of the best intro sequences-

   15. CHCharlie Houpert8:04

       [laughs] Yeah

   16. TFTim Ferriss8:05

       ... of any James Bond.

   17. CHCharlie Houpert8:06

       Yes. The idea was, "Oh wow, there's no parkour gyms. If there are, they're expensive. Maybe people would wanna learn this. I would wanna take a class." And so went out, hired a guy that had done it, that never shot anything before. I mean, there's so many funny little stories. He chips his tooth the day before the shoot, so he's got-

   18. TFTim Ferriss8:24

       [laughs]

   19. CHCharlie Houpert8:24

       ... this, like, lisp before the shoot, and he can't remember more than a line.

   20. TFTim Ferriss8:28

       [laughs]

   21. CHCharlie Houpert8:28

       So we're, we're, we're saying lines to him as he's trying to teach parkour. [laughs]

   22. TFTim Ferriss8:33

       [laughs]

   23. CHCharlie Houpert8:33

       Chopped this footage up into 35 or 40 minutes of, like, how to do a wall run, how to do a kong, how to do all these things, and made a DVD out of it from TripStar. So the other things, I mean, I can't remember what was on there, but it was very much I was a little bit outside of myself and thinking what do other people want. I hadn't gotten to the scratch-your-own-itch experience.

   24. TFTim Ferriss8:53

       Mm-hmm.

   25. CHCharlie Houpert8:54

       And what I experienced was that, "Oh wow, we're actually selling enough DVDs to break even on AdWords and even a little bit of profit, which means if we did a follow-up, we'd be totally in the black."

   26. TFTim Ferriss9:03

       Follow-up meaning you're selling to preexisting customers?

   27. CHCharlie Houpert9:06

       Correct. If we'd made the advanced course.

   28. TFTim Ferriss9:08

       Yeah.

   29. CHCharlie Houpert9:08

       Or do you want personal coaching or something. And I was completely deflated. I was like, "I can't do this other thing in addition to my job that I don't love in order to get free of the job." So there was this recursive 4-Hour Workweek mentality, which is like stop doing the thing that you don't want to do in order to get to the place that you want to be.

   30. TFTim Ferriss9:27

       Mm-hmm.
4. 9:29 – 10:39

   Moonlighting vs. burning-ships entrepreneurship.

   1. TFTim Ferriss9:29

      Although, at the same time, just to, just to play with that for a second.

   2. CHCharlie Houpert9:32

      Yeah, yeah.

   3. TFTim Ferriss9:33

      The approach of moonlighting just to dip your toe in the water or get a taste of [laughs] the blood, whatever metaphor you wanna use, I think is actually pretty helpful-

   4. CHCharlie Houpert9:43

      Mm

   5. TFTim Ferriss9:43

      ... in the sense that you don't have to act out of desperation. You still have a safety net of some type, but then you can make an informed decision about whether or not you wanna burn the ships, so to speak.

   6. CHCharlie Houpert9:55

      Hmm.

   7. TFTim Ferriss9:56

      Just my two cents, but not to interrupt.

   8. CHCharlie Houpert9:58

      It was an integral step. I very much agree with you. I needed the experience of disliking consulting and then the experience of disliking my side gig to go, "Okay, the next side gig-

   9. TFTim Ferriss10:06

      [laughs]

   10. CHCharlie Houpert10:07

       ... has to be something that I would do for free or am paying to do."

   11. TFTim Ferriss10:11

       Mm-hmm.

   12. CHCharlie Houpert10:11

       And so then it was, "Okay, what am I spending money on?" It's like, well, I go out to these bars, and not to drink, to, like, talk to women and try to get them to like me and to make friends, and I, I put way more time, effort, attention into studying how our interaction went. I can't tell you how many times I chatted with my best friend about like, "What if I said this? What if..." [laughs]

   13. TFTim Ferriss10:31

       [laughs]

   14. CHCharlie Houpert10:32

       We were putting far too much energy relative to others into understanding people and how to connect better.

5. 10:39 – 15:18

   Negotiating remote work with a 90% raise.

   1. TFTim Ferriss10:39

      Mm-hmm.

   2. CHCharlie Houpert10:39

      So there was a transition of my best friend and co-founder was in New York. He was an investment banker. I was in DC. I was a consultant. We would talk every day after work for an hour about the interactions we had, and I was just aching. Like, I didn't have other friends in DC.

   3. TFTim Ferriss10:55

      Mm-hmm.

   4. CHCharlie Houpert10:55

      So I went to this president who I had been close to, and there was this moment where I was, you know, trying to get the side gig and trying to get a job in New York, and I c- it was... I went to Skillshare, and they didn't wanna hire me. And I went to all these companies. They wouldn't hire me. I was taking weekend trips. And eventually my friend was like, "Why don't you just quit and go to New York and figure it out there?" So having settled with that and done the fear-setting exercise and what's the worst thing that can happen-

   5. TFTim Ferriss11:21

      Mm-hmm

   6. CHCharlie Houpert11:22

      ... I came in and I made a pitch to my president, which was, I mean, a lot of 4-Hour Workweek things, which is once it's already done, people get out of your way. So I was internally, I was like, "This is done."

   7. TFTim Ferriss11:32

      Mm.

   8. CHCharlie Houpert11:32

      "We're not talking about if I'm going to New York." So I sat down. I said, "Hey, you guys have been really good to me. I appreciate it. I just cannot be in DC any longer. I feel socially like I'm missing something. I wanna be with my friends in New York, but I wanna transition in a way that is really good for you to repay the kindness that you guys have showed me," which was true.

   9. TFTim Ferriss11:51

      Mm-hmm.

   10. CHCharlie Houpert11:52

       And we sat there, and he's like, "You know what? Let's work something out." So he winds up saying, "Instead of being an analyst, let's make you a contractor."

   11. TFTim Ferriss12:02

       Hmm.

   12. CHCharlie Houpert12:03

       "Except if you're a contractor-" The base rate that we pay contractors is twice as much as we pay analysts.

   13. TFTim Ferriss12:09

       [laughs]

   14. CHCharlie Houpert12:10

       So we'd have to give you basically, like, a 90% raise, inc- [laughs] in order to do it.

   15. TFTim Ferriss12:17

       Hmm.

   16. CHCharlie Houpert12:17

       But you'd have no job security and no healthcare. Like-

   17. TFTim Ferriss12:20

       Mm-hmm

   18. CHCharlie Houpert12:20

       ... month to month you could get fired. So I'm like, "Wait a second, I get to go to New York, double my pay [laughs] and no healthcare. This is, this is incredible." So it worked out really well, and I wound up keeping that job, working remotely from New York-

   19. TFTim Ferriss12:34

       Mm-hmm

   20. CHCharlie Houpert12:34

       ... and making one trip every two weeks for a few months as I did this.

   21. TFTim Ferriss12:38

       That's a pretty sweet bridge. Yeah. At least for a while. [laughs]

   22. CHCharlie Houpert12:42

       Oh, it was magical. And, and it was this showing up with, "Hey, I love you, but here's what I have to do. And then, and I'm open to something that works for both of us," was really powerful.

   23. TFTim Ferriss12:51

       So let me ask you this, for people who are listening and they might be thinking to themselves like, "Hmm, that's a really interesting bridge," or just improvement in quality of life.

   24. CHCharlie Houpert13:00

       Mm-hmm.

   25. TFTim Ferriss13:00

       Also, you got the income increase. How did you plan for that meeting?

   26. CHCharlie Houpert13:05

       Hmm.

   27. TFTim Ferriss13:05

       Basically, the pitch/delivery that ended up in a remote work agreement.

   28. CHCharlie Houpert13:13

       Step one was to get clear that it was happening, and I wasn't there to make him do anything.

   29. TFTim Ferriss13:20

       Mm-hmm.

   30. CHCharlie Houpert13:20

       I wasn't trying to convince him to force it. So I was able to really come in with the mentality of, "I wanna show love to you. Like, I wanna-"
6. 15:18 – 16:13

   Charlie moves to New York and kicks off KickAss Academy.

   1. CHCharlie Houpert15:18

      [laughs]

   2. TFTim Ferriss15:19

      So then what happens? You move to New York?

   3. CHCharlie Houpert15:21

      So I go to New York, and I am splitting time now between what is this new business, which is called Kickass Academy, and this is my brilliant idea. I think we're gonna do... It's an academy, an online academy, where you learn how to live a kickass life.

   4. TFTim Ferriss15:35

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CHCharlie Houpert15:35

      And it's about going out, and it's heavily game influenced at this point.

   6. TFTim Ferriss15:39

      Yeah.

   7. CHCharlie Houpert15:39

      I've read Neil Strauss' The Game.

   8. TFTim Ferriss15:40

      By Neil Strauss, yeah.

   9. CHCharlie Houpert15:42

      Yes.

   10. TFTim Ferriss15:42

       Great book. I mean, controversial on a number of levels-

   11. CHCharlie Houpert15:45

       Sure

   12. TFTim Ferriss15:46

       ... but a really compelling... It's a compelling underdog, sort of [laughs] hero's journey story.

   13. CHCharlie Houpert15:52

       Yeah.

   14. TFTim Ferriss15:52

       And it's, it's well-written.

   15. CHCharlie Houpert15:53

       And to a 23-year-old guy who has been socially restrained, and I won the award for most likely to break out of a shell in college, which is like, "You're the shyest boy in our 500-person class. Congratulations," to learn that there was something that I could say or do that would change the receptivity that I got from people was, that was so powerful to

7. 16:13 – 17:28

   Airbnb survival tactics while living in a 396 sq. ft. apartment.

   1. CHCharlie Houpert16:13

      see in The Game. So those two books, 4-Hour Workweek, Game, are, like, really deeply influencing me.

   2. TFTim Ferriss16:17

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CHCharlie Houpert16:17

      I start sharing some of these blog posts. Well, actually, first what happens is the government shuts down, and that sweet contractor gig that I have disappears overnight. [laughs]

   4. TFTim Ferriss16:26

      [laughs] Yeah.

   5. CHCharlie Houpert16:28

      So I had, I had, like, four-ish months of, like, gravy, and where I've been saving twice as much, and then that happens.

   6. TFTim Ferriss16:35

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CHCharlie Houpert16:35

      So I'm in a 396 sq. ft. apartment, two bedroom, in the Lower East Side. You know, bathroom door hits the toilet when you open. [laughs]

   8. TFTim Ferriss16:45

      Yeah, I was gonna say-

   9. CHCharlie Houpert16:45

      [laughs]

   10. TFTim Ferriss16:45

       ... if we do the math on that square footage, it's not a lot, whole lot of space.

   11. CHCharlie Houpert16:50

       No. No. I'm sleeping literally on a blow-up mattress to save money. I'm eating Chipotle and learning how to persuade them to give me more scoops in order to save money.

   12. TFTim Ferriss16:58

       [laughs]

   13. CHCharlie Houpert16:58

       I'm frugal beyond frugal at this point in my life. Start Airbnb-ing my own bedroom and then sleeping in, like, literally, my, God bless him, my co-founder shares his queen size beds with me so that I can take some nights and make 100 bucks a night-

   14. TFTim Ferriss17:11

       Sure

   15. CHCharlie Houpert17:11

       ... you know, Airbnb-ing my bedroom. And in the meantime, the beautiful thing is that everything that was taken from me pushes me to the next level of putting myself out there. So I'd had all of these writings that I'd been doing in DC about what I believed and what I thought-

   16. TFTim Ferriss17:23

       Yeah

   17. CHCharlie Houpert17:23

       ... and what I was learning about speaking with women and people, but I was too afraid to really share them.

8. 17:28 – 20:16

   Using the fear-setting exercise and other disaster-mitigation strategies.

   1. TFTim Ferriss17:28

      Were any of those coping strategies that you ended up using, were any of those initially in the fear-setting exercise?

   2. CHCharlie Houpert17:37

      Oh, yeah.

   3. TFTim Ferriss17:38

      Yeah. [laughs]

   4. CHCharlie Houpert17:38

      Oh, yeah. Those and others. I mean, I had play guitar and ask for dollars.

   5. TFTim Ferriss17:42

      [laughs]

   6. CHCharlie Houpert17:42

      That was farther down the list. It was learn how to make a basic drink and bartend.

   7. TFTim Ferriss17:46

      Yeah.

   8. CHCharlie Houpert17:47

      Airbnb the bedroom. These were all... [laughs] I had a list of things.

   9. TFTim Ferriss17:51

      S- so for people who have no context on this, just to set the table a little bit.

   10. CHCharlie Houpert17:55

       Hmm.

   11. TFTim Ferriss17:56

       Fear-setting, it's named that because it's a play on goal-setting. But it's an exercise. You, you can find it at tim.blog/ted. I also did a TED Talk on it, so you don't have to buy anything. You can find it. But the basic gist is that you have something you're considering doing, right? Quitting your job, moving to New York. Getting married, getting divorced, whatever it is.

   12. CHCharlie Houpert18:18

       Mm.

   13. TFTim Ferriss18:19

       Then you write down all of your fears in as much detail as possible, right? Because the more detailed, the more actionable and preventable, and it's sort of the nebulous, misty fears that we never put on paper or define that tend to be the most problematic. So you make this list in excruciating detail of the worst things that could happen. Then there's another column, the next column, you write down ways that you could try to prevent those things from happening, and then in the sort of damage control/mitigation column, which is yet another column, you ask yourself, "If each of these things happened, what could I do to limit the damage or get back on my feet, even if it takes me a while?" And there's more to the exercise. There are other things, but in the mitigation/damage control column, you would have something like, "Airbnb my own bed," [laughs] right?

   14. CHCharlie Houpert19:09

       Yeah.

   15. TFTim Ferriss19:10

       Yeah.

   16. CHCharlie Houpert19:10

       Airbnb my own bed. Sign up for a ton of credit cards to get the credit card miles, and then convert to cash.

   17. TFTim Ferriss19:16

       [laughs]

   18. CHCharlie Houpert19:17

       I did a lot of things for 50, 60 bucks.

   19. TFTim Ferriss19:19

       [laughs]

   20. CHCharlie Houpert19:21

       And [laughs] get a job at Chipotle so that you can eat the food that you're there, and that takes care of food and money, you know?

   21. TFTim Ferriss19:28

       [laughs] Yeah.

   22. CHCharlie Houpert19:29

       There was... So I had a, I had a lot of these, and I ran through quite a few. Zeroed out my 401 [k] and IRA and took the penalty at one point a little bit later down the line. So-

   23. TFTim Ferriss19:37

       Yeah

   24. CHCharlie Houpert19:37

       ... was doing all of that, but as things got more and more dire, and I'm going through my fear-setting mitigation strategies, I am confronted with the fears that I have not written down, which is, "Okay, it's time to put your writing out there."

   25. TFTim Ferriss19:50

       Yeah.

   26. CHCharlie Houpert19:51

       So, okay. God, it's so funny. One of the big mistakes that I've make with the people that I love is I've tried to prevent and hide from them and support them and not having to confront those horrible, harrowing entrepreneurial moments of, "Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. This isn't working."

   27. TFTim Ferriss20:05

       Mm-hmm.

   28. CHCharlie Houpert20:06

       Because it is in those moments of tension and pressure that something pops, and you go, "Fine. I'll be honest and share what's on my heart," because up until then, you're not gonna do it, or I wasn't gonna do

9. 20:16 – 22:34

   Charlie’s first blog post and crossing the publishing Rubicon.

   1. CHCharlie Houpert20:16

      it.

   2. TFTim Ferriss20:16

      So what was the first kinda prototype version of post-parkour entrepreneurship? What was the V1?

   3. CHCharlie Houpert20:24

      It's KickAssAcademy.com, and we are here to live a kickass life and no one can stop us, and [laughs] you know?

   4. TFTim Ferriss20:31

      [laughs]

   5. CHCharlie Houpert20:31

      Like, we will not be average. It's a, it's a 23-year-old manifesto about how all the people don't know how to do it, and I do. [laughs]

   6. TFTim Ferriss20:38

      [laughs]

   7. CHCharlie Houpert20:39

      Right? And I know the way to do it. It's a regurgitated four-hour workweek plus my own iteration of the game thing.

   8. TFTim Ferriss20:45

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CHCharlie Houpert20:45

      So I write my blog post, and I haven't shared any posts, and I remember being in this tiny apartment with my hand hovering over Publish, and I'm, "Ah," and I publish it on this blog post, and I have to run out of the apartment and go down the street and, you know, just get away from the computer that s- I don't know, houses the blog post [laughs] now that it's on the internet.

   10. TFTim Ferriss21:07

       [laughs]

   11. CHCharlie Houpert21:07

       And, of course, I come back and nobody's read it, and-

   12. TFTim Ferriss21:12

       [laughs]

   13. CHCharlie Houpert21:12

       ... a month later, nobody's read it. [laughs]

   14. TFTim Ferriss21:14

       What was the first blog post?

   15. CHCharlie Houpert21:15

       Oh, gosh. I wish I knew.

   16. TFTim Ferriss21:17

       Do you recall?

   17. CHCharlie Houpert21:18

       I do not recall. I shoulda checked before this.

   18. TFTim Ferriss21:20

       No, that's all right. But it's some kind of-

   19. CHCharlie Houpert21:21

       Yeah

   20. TFTim Ferriss21:22

       ... how, how-to thing? It's like seven rules for et cetera, or?

   21. CHCharlie Houpert21:26

       Yeah, it might have been a how to. It might have been a declaration of one of my feelings when I was q- quitting the job and like-

   22. TFTim Ferriss21:31

       Yeah

   23. CHCharlie Houpert21:31

       ... this isn't what I want. It was not profound, but it was personal and tender to me, so it was very tough to ha- receive criticism.

   24. TFTim Ferriss21:39

       And I guess it is maybe, I mean, we'll get there, maybe not in terms of readership, but in terms of crossing the Rubicon-

   25. CHCharlie Houpert21:48

       Mm-hmm

   26. TFTim Ferriss21:49

       ... from not publishing to publishing.

   27. CHCharlie Houpert21:52

       Yeah.

   28. TFTim Ferriss21:53

       Right? Hitting that button is a big deal.

   29. CHCharlie Houpert21:56

       Oh, my gosh.

   30. TFTim Ferriss21:56

       Right? Psychologically.
10. 22:34 – 27:31

    How Charlie’s first in-person class prompted an accidental business model.

    1. CHCharlie Houpert22:34

       But the next stage was posting, posting. I wrote a little short pamphlet book, but the real thing that actually started, I think, early... You might even kn- I think you probably know him. I hired Neville Medhora-

    2. TFTim Ferriss22:47

       Mm-hmm

    3. CHCharlie Houpert22:48

       ... for, like, a day of copywriting-

    4. TFTim Ferriss22:49

       Yeah

    5. CHCharlie Houpert22:49

       ... to help me design the website, and wound up with the first actionable, real thing that I did was, "Okay, I've got people that read my blog. There's like, you know, 30 recurring viewers, and I want to host an in-person class that will talk about how to talk to a woman in the park in New York City," which is something that I'm doing with my friend, going out, and we're breaking it down, and how did it go, and all that kinda stuff.

    6. TFTim Ferriss23:13

       Mm.

    7. CHCharlie Houpert23:14

       So we rent out a room in one of these office buildings for like 60 bucks for an hour, an hour and a half or something like that. I go to the New York City subreddit. I give away five tickets. They are sold. People like... Sold. People accept them, [laughs] right?

    8. TFTim Ferriss23:31

       [laughs]

    9. CHCharlie Houpert23:31

       They accept the five free seats. [laughs]

    10. TFTim Ferriss23:34

        [laughs]

    11. CHCharlie Houpert23:34

        And then I sell the remaining five seats for five or 10 bucks. I think I might've-

    12. TFTim Ferriss23:38

        Mm

    13. CHCharlie Houpert23:38

        ... sold them for 10 bucks each. And like an hour before the class, we sold the last one. So we had 10 people in this class, made 50, lost 60, plus cab fare, down 15 bucks, whatever.

    14. TFTim Ferriss23:49

        Yeah.

    15. CHCharlie Houpert23:49

        Go in and give a hour-and-a-half presentation with a PowerPoint on, you know, "This is what to wear. Say, do, stand. Here's how to deal with the fear that's gonna come up. If she rejects you, here's how to address that feeling," all of that sorta stuff. And had... It was just thrilling to do it, but afterwards, like, four of the 10 people stayed after and were like, "Do you do coaching? Do you guys do this?" And the answer was, "Uh, now we do." [laughs] Right? Like-

    16. TFTim Ferriss24:14

        [laughs] Funny you should ask.

    17. CHCharlie Houpert24:15

        Yeah, funny you should ask. [laughs]

    18. TFTim Ferriss24:17

        Um-

    19. CHCharlie Houpert24:17

        So really had no intention of... You know, there was not a business ... idea of there to be an upsell, but there was enough asking. So then it evolved into, oh, now we're doing traditional, what was around at the time, dating coaching in New York City, and we're finding our rates as we did that. And that was tough. That's, that's a gig where, like, you're going out with a dude who's having the most fearful experience of his life, and he's paid you to encourage him and support him in facing that fear, which is, "I'm going to go speak to that woman that I'm attracted to at the bar, in the park, wherever."

    20. TFTim Ferriss24:53

        Mm.

    21. CHCharlie Houpert24:54

        And it's not fun to, like, push someone to do something [laughs] that they're really... Like, they say they wanna do, but they're, they're really grappling with. And then, you know, you go out and you show them, "It could look like this. It could look like that." Um, so we did that for a while, and we're charging, I don't know, 100 bucks an hour as we did. But again, something else that crept in, same thing with the parkour, was this wasn't the dream. When I'd sat down and I'd done the fear setting, there's, there's another piece of it, which is you write the 10 out of 10 upside.

    22. TFTim Ferriss25:23

        Yeah. You assess the upside. If it works-

    23. CHCharlie Houpert25:26

        If it works

    24. TFTim Ferriss25:27

        ... what's the 1 to 10 impact-

    25. CHCharlie Houpert25:29

        Mm-hmm

    26. TFTim Ferriss25:30

        ... positively? If it fails, what's the sort of transient, most likely not permanent impact, right?

    27. CHCharlie Houpert25:37

        Yes. And so as we'd sat there and written in detail the 10 out of 10 upside, it was never, "You have a dating coaching business that is stressful in New York City." It was, "You get to live on the beach with your friends-"

    28. TFTim Ferriss25:51

        Yep

    29. CHCharlie Houpert25:51

        ... "do work that you like when you like." There was this idea, which was silly, don't ever... Like, that you would have a laptop as you sat on the beach. That's ridiculous. It doesn't [laughs] it's, it's like a photo op-

    30. TFTim Ferriss26:00

        Yeah
11. 27:31 – 30:30

    10 go-getters make an ambitious move to Brazil.

    1. TFTim Ferriss27:31

       So you decide that the one-on-one coaching in person, this is, this is not the 10 out of 10 that you'd hoped for.

    2. CHCharlie Houpert27:39

       Mm-hmm. Yes, and I think, uh, you know the experience. It's not a great model. It's really challenging, high intensity. It doesn't create the level of transformation with reliability that you might hope, and i- people walk away feeling sometimes very stressed about it. And so it was, "Okay, I don't know what it is," but I said Brazil with my friends, et cetera. So again, I'm evangelical. I'm telling everybody I meet, "Have you read the gospel of Tim?"

    3. TFTim Ferriss28:01

       [laughs]

    4. CHCharlie Houpert28:02

       "There's, there's a book, The 4-Hour Workweek. You need to do it. Everyone's an entrepreneur." That ha- that was a mistake in learning it's not for everybody.

    5. TFTim Ferriss28:08

       No. Yeah.

    6. CHCharlie Houpert28:09

       I got that in time. I'm telling everybody, and what happens is one of the guys that g- attended that first class becomes a friend. Like, it's probably the most magnetic period of my life, where I'm just talking about this ambition, and what happens is not just my co-founder and I, but six people, s- many of whom I'd met in the last two months, quit their jobs, quit their schools, and agree they were gonna move to Brazil in August of 2013.

    7. TFTim Ferriss28:33

       How did Brazil specifically become the dream?

    8. CHCharlie Houpert28:36

       There was... One, it's got great PR.

    9. TFTim Ferriss28:38

       Yeah.

    10. CHCharlie Houpert28:38

        Right?

    11. TFTim Ferriss28:39

        Yeah.

    12. CHCharlie Houpert28:39

        Had never been, and there's just this sense that Rio is this romantic, beautiful beach city vibe. And I had, when my company let me go from that contractor role, I immediately-

    13. TFTim Ferriss28:51

        Mm-hmm

    14. CHCharlie Houpert28:51

        ... said, "Okay, what's the upside of this?" So I booked a flight to Brazil and met a friend who was traveling, and I spent five weeks in Floripa-

    15. TFTim Ferriss28:59

        Mm-hmm

    16. CHCharlie Houpert28:59

        ... and one week in Rio. And in that week in Rio, my friend had gone home. I was alone, and it was these experiences of being alone in a hostel, not knowing anybody, that's... That uncomfortable feeling of like, "I wanna go home. I want my friends. I want my this," whatever. But I stepped outside of myself, went to a co-working space, met a guy. He invited me to stay with him, and I wa- had one of those travel magical adventures that-

    17. TFTim Ferriss29:24

        Yeah

    18. CHCharlie Houpert29:24

        ... you know, culminated in meeting a beautiful Brazilian girl and having this, this, this fling that lasted a few days-

    19. TFTim Ferriss29:30

        [laughs]

    20. CHCharlie Houpert29:30

        ... and then she came and visited, and-

    21. TFTim Ferriss29:32

        I knew that had to figure in somehow.

    22. CHCharlie Houpert29:33

        [laughs]

    23. TFTim Ferriss29:34

        Yeah. All right. [laughs]

    24. CHCharlie Houpert29:36

        Had that romantic experience of I showed up feeling empty, and then I walked away with abundance and feeling wonderful.

    25. TFTim Ferriss29:44

        Just a whirlwind transformation of a trip.

    26. CHCharlie Houpert29:46

        Yes. So it's like, "That's where I wanna be."

    27. TFTim Ferriss29:49

        Okay. So six other people quit all their stuff, school, job, whatever it might be. Okay.

    28. CHCharlie Houpert29:55

        Well, there's 10 total, six who lived together and then four who lived in other places.

    29. TFTim Ferriss30:00

        All right.

    30. CHCharlie Houpert30:00

        In the same city.
12. 30:30 – 31:22

    The daily growth whiteboard system.

    1. CHCharlie Houpert30:30

       going to the beach, throwing the American football, making friends. We've got a whiteboard. Every day, there's four questions. You know, did you do the social stretch that you wanted to do, whether that's make a friend, speak to a woman you're attracted to, just say, "Be kinder to the guy who serves you," acai. Whatever it is, there was a social stretch.

    2. TFTim Ferriss30:47

       Mm-hmm.

    3. CHCharlie Houpert30:48

       Did you do your business stretch? Did you do your health stretch? And there was one more thing, which is, like, did you do your own personal thing? For some people, it was reach out to a family member. For some people, it was learn the guitar. So it was, like, four things. We had this running whiteboard of who had done their, their growth thing that they need to do.

    4. TFTim Ferriss31:04

       That's cool. I like that.

    5. CHCharlie Houpert31:06

       And it was a really encouraging growth. Everyone... It was like, if you tried and failed, it was high fives all around for that year. Was just amazing. She didn't want to talk to you, so cool. [laughs] Like, welcome, welcome back into the fold. You are, you are welcome here. [laughs]

13. 31:22 – 38:12

    How a harsh Tucker Max consultation galvanized the rebranding to Charisma on Command.

    1. CHCharlie Houpert31:22

       We're doing that, and from a business perspective, so now all my income is gone because it was all-

    2. TFTim Ferriss31:28

       In-person coaching

    3. CHCharlie Houpert31:28

       ... the thing, and then it was in-person coaching.

    4. TFTim Ferriss31:31

       Mm-hmm.

    5. CHCharlie Houpert31:31

       One or two people agree to switch to online coaching, but it's not enough. And so for a period, the blog becomes online coaching, which is actually nicer because now instead of just going to a bar and speaking about, did you, you know, talk to the girl and what to say, it's people that are calling in with questions about workplace scenarios. And so I'm, you know, I'm speaking to guys older than me using Tony Robbins principles essentially to answer questions about experiences that I've only barely had, but it's helpful-

    6. TFTim Ferriss32:00

       Mm

    7. CHCharlie Houpert32:00

       ... because it's, there's this Tony Robbins transformation process that I'm helping with and using.

    8. TFTim Ferriss32:05

       Mm-hmm.

    9. CHCharlie Houpert32:06

       So that becomes a thing, and after months of doing in-person coaching, and, you know, there's a whole learning the sales process and being able to ask for money. There, these are all intermediate steps that had to happen. I'll tell you a story about Tucker Max in here as well, but I'll tell it now.

    10. TFTim Ferriss32:21

        Almost never boring.

    11. CHCharlie Houpert32:22

        No time like the present. [laughs]

    12. TFTim Ferriss32:23

        Yeah, never boring.

    13. CHCharlie Houpert32:25

        Yeah. So at the time, there's this program, I think it was called Clarity or something, whereas you could pay people per minute for advice, and they would get on the phone with you. And I don't know what Tucker was, uh, 15 or 22 per minute or something like that. I don't remember exactly. Said I had no money. I was like, "Okay, 200 bucks. Let's get this done in, whatever, eight minutes, 12 minutes." So call him up, say, "Hey, can you help? We're having trouble getting customers. Can you take a look at our business? What do you recommend?" And he goes and he goes onto our homepage. It's called KickAssAcademy.com. It's me and my co-founder. He's got hair down to his shoulders, and he's wearing, like, a pink tank top, and I've got a neon green pink top and, you know, frizzy hair. And he says, "You guys look like douchebags. No one wants to [laughs] like no one, no one over the age of 26 is gonna want to associate with this."

    14. TFTim Ferriss33:09

        [laughs]

    15. CHCharlie Houpert33:09

        And it was so true. It wasn't packaged in a very digestible way.

    16. TFTim Ferriss33:14

        [laughs]

    17. CHCharlie Houpert33:15

        But [laughs] in time as I started to, you know, get other points of feedback, I was able to integrate that, and there was a transition from, oh, wow. What I realized is all the guys who had come with me, they were like... One of them was the captain of the Princeton football team when he was at Princeton. Like, these were successful, cool dudes, but they all had this thing was like they didn't really want it to be public that they were learning-

    18. TFTim Ferriss33:37

        Sure

    19. CHCharlie Houpert33:37

        ... this kind of a thing.

    20. TFTim Ferriss33:38

        Mm-hmm.

    21. CHCharlie Houpert33:39

        And so we talked to them. We're like, "Well, you like us, but you don't want anyone to know that you like... Like, what's going on?" And we learned that, of, "Yeah, you know, I do wanna get better in my relationships and learn how to talk to women, but I don't wanna broadcast it that way essentially. And I also care about work, and I also care about friendships." And so we did a bunch of interviews, and I started tracking like what word are you comfortable with.

    22. TFTim Ferriss34:00

        Mm.

    23. CHCharlie Houpert34:00

        Like, what's the 10 out of 10 word that you're down for? And I had a long list. It was lifestyle design, confidence, and charisma came back as like a nine or a 9.5 out of 10.

    24. TFTim Ferriss34:10

        Mm.

    25. CHCharlie Houpert34:11

        And so I'm going through this marketing course, Eben Pagan's Marketing Step By Step, oldie but a greatie, excellent.

    26. TFTim Ferriss34:16

        Yeah. Eben's a smart fella, for a long time has been a smart fella.

    27. CHCharlie Houpert34:20

        Oh, yeah. And he's got this line that the name of your company is the most important marketing decision you will ever make. And I realized that when I say Kick Ass Academy to people, they think it's a dojo where you're gonna learn how to fight. [laughs] And so through this process, Eben also says you want an alliteration that sticks in the head.

    28. TFTim Ferriss34:41

        He loves alliteration.

    29. CHCharlie Houpert34:42

        Yeah. [laughs]

    30. TFTim Ferriss34:43

        David DeAngelo, Double Your Dating.
14. 38:12 – 44:38

    From financial downturn to pre-selling a course for $12,500.

    1. TFTim Ferriss38:12

       Yeah. Okay. So you change the positioning and the branding, Charisma on Command, and everything improves, right?

    2. CHCharlie Houpert38:20

       Mm-hmm.

    3. TFTim Ferriss38:20

       All the metrics of the website improve.

    4. CHCharlie Houpert38:21

       Yeah.

    5. TFTim Ferriss38:22

       And in the meantime, though, you're still in the servant's quarters-

    6. CHCharlie Houpert38:26

       Yeah

    7. TFTim Ferriss38:27

       ... in Brazil.

    8. CHCharlie Houpert38:28

       I'm in the servant's quarters.

    9. TFTim Ferriss38:29

       Okay.

    10. CHCharlie Houpert38:30

        I am... At this point, I take out, I contact the HR lady at my old company, I go, "Hey, we had a 401 [k] , right?" She's like, "Yeah." I was like, "Can you drain that for me?" [laughs] She's like, "That's gonna come with a penalty." I was like, "Don't worry, I have no income, [laughs] so like, my taxes, my taxes won't be too much. I'll just pay the penalty." So I've, I hit zero, and then I get a little infusion of cash, and I'm about to hit zero again. Like, I'm, I'm going to broke. I am Airbnb-ing my bedroom, sleeping on this, a horrible couch. I am teaching SAT tutoring to Brazilian high schoolers. Like, I'm, I'm still doing the mitigation strategies in order to make things work.

    11. TFTim Ferriss39:07

        And in your mind at that time, if you remember, like, what is your goal?

    12. CHCharlie Houpert39:11

        I have it.

    13. TFTim Ferriss39:11

        Okay.

    14. CHCharlie Houpert39:12

        I'm living it. This is, this is the beautiful thing, as I've, I was reflecting, it was really wonderful. Thank you for having me.

    15. TFTim Ferriss39:17

        Yeah.

    16. CHCharlie Houpert39:17

        It was such a cool opportunity to reflect on this, and I was like, "I had it." It was it. That was it. I was broke, and I was living it. And I, I got a tattoo right before this. I don't, it's a, it's a paraphrase, it's right here. It's, I don't need to flash the audience, [laughs] but-

    17. TFTim Ferriss39:32

        Yeah

    18. CHCharlie Houpert39:33

        ... it's a paraphrase of Thucydides that is, "The secret to freedom is courage."

    19. TFTim Ferriss39:37

        Hmm.

    20. CHCharlie Houpert39:37

        And he also says, "The secret to happiness is freedom." It's a paraphrase, essentially, of, I think, a quote in the Peloponnesian War. And I was so happy so broke-

    21. TFTim Ferriss39:45

        [laughs]

    22. CHCharlie Houpert39:46

        ... so unable to feed myself, and I have tried to remind myself of that is the secret. It's just like when you step into it and you're living it, nothing more needed to happen. I would have liked the business to do well, and it eventually did, but I, I was there.

    23. TFTim Ferriss40:00

        Yeah.

    24. CHCharlie Houpert40:01

        So at this time, I'm getting everything that I want in a degree, but also I'm running out of money, and I'm planning airline points to get back home. What happens is we get this course, it's from Clay Collins, and it's about pre-selling an online course.

    25. TFTim Ferriss40:14

        Mm.

    26. CHCharlie Houpert40:14

        And at the point, I've done so much coaching that I'm actually getting tired of saying the same types of things over and over again now. Now it's just happening via Skype at the time.

    27. TFTim Ferriss40:23

        At the same time, you got to workshop-

    28. CHCharlie Houpert40:25

        Mm-hmm

    29. TFTim Ferriss40:26

        ... your material.

    30. CHCharlie Houpert40:27

        Yes, and I started to dial... So each stage is important. Like, so I'm dialing it in until I get bored of, "Okay, this is what works. This is what creates transformation," but now my role is just robotic at this point. It's not as dynamic as I'd like it to be.
15. 44:38 – 45:55

    Finally making enough money to chase summer in six-to-eight-month increments.

    1. TFTim Ferriss44:38

       even at that rate, right?

    2. CHCharlie Houpert44:39

       Yeah. So my $450 a month rent becomes affordable, [laughs] right? I don't have to Airbnb my bed. And at this point, we pop back, we go to Las Vegas. We're flipping. When summer hits the Northern Hemisphere, we go home. When it hits Brazil, we go back to Brazil. And so we're just chasing summer basically in six to eight-month increments. Vegas, Brazil, Vancouver, Brazil, Colombia.

    3. TFTim Ferriss45:02

       Where are you from originally?

    4. CHCharlie Houpert45:03

       Pennsylvania.

    5. TFTim Ferriss45:03

       Pennsylvania.

    6. CHCharlie Houpert45:04

       Didn't go back there. [laughs]

    7. TFTim Ferriss45:04

       Okay, so how did you choose Vegas? How was Vegas chosen?

    8. CHCharlie Houpert45:08

       We exit Brazil the first time right before the World Cup. Great opportunity to Airbnb the last month of rent and get some money [laughs] coming in.

    9. TFTim Ferriss45:14

       Oh, for sure.

    10. CHCharlie Houpert45:15

        It was great.

    11. TFTim Ferriss45:16

        Yeah.

    12. CHCharlie Houpert45:16

        Go back to Pennsylvania 'cause I need a car, that's where I've left my car, and plan to drive out to Los Angeles. Drive across the country in three days, spend one night in Vegas. Like, that was a lot of fun. [laughs] Avicii played at XS. Let's try it again. Stay two nights, stay three nights. Stay there for 10 months. I don't know, a year. It was [laughs] good food. It was really fun. We were at the time really enjoying going out. We were able to meet and talk-

    13. TFTim Ferriss45:40

        Mm-hmm

    14. CHCharlie Houpert45:40

        ... to people and do the whole song and dance. And so we wound up getting off-campus student housing, [laughs] which is the only place that had, like, four cheap bedrooms in Vegas for a year, outside of UNLV, and were in Vegas for that period, so it just stayed.

    15. TFTim Ferriss45:54

        [laughs]

16. 45:55 – 48:04

    Enjoying the sustainable benefits of creating timeless content.

    1. TFTim Ferriss45:55

       Amazing. I'm curious, what was the durability of that first course or the learnings in that first course?

    2. CHCharlie Houpert46:03

       Yeah.

    3. TFTim Ferriss46:04

       In other words, how much of a, an annuity has that been, whether it's, or was it, in revenue or just in terms of kind of core pieces of curriculum?

    4. CHCharlie Houpert46:14

       Numbers, over 10 million, for sure.

    5. TFTim Ferriss46:16

       Yeah.

    6. CHCharlie Houpert46:17

       I've re-recorded it, and I've gotten a little bit better background and, you know, they fixed the sound, and one time I was traveling and so there was a new place every time. But so I've re-recorded it four times.

    7. TFTim Ferriss46:26

       Mm-hmm.

    8. CHCharlie Houpert46:26

       And I've tried to change pieces that I didn't like. But that structure remains. The sales page remains with minor tweaks. It's not great, but it has been almost 10 years, if not 10 years at this point.

    9. TFTim Ferriss46:39

       That's incredible. Yeah. Amazing.

    10. CHCharlie Houpert46:41

        And it's because the problems are very similar. Yeah, people have questions about Zoom or texting, but it was built off of core human problems that are-

    11. TFTim Ferriss46:50

        Yeah

    12. CHCharlie Houpert46:50

        ... durable and addressable. And interestingly, the refund rate has not changed over the time.

    13. TFTim Ferriss46:57

        Hmm.

    14. CHCharlie Houpert46:57

        It doesn't seem to be working less for the people who buy it and apply it.

    15. TFTim Ferriss47:01

        Hmm.

    16. CHCharlie Houpert47:01

        There's still a sizable refund rate because it's a go-at-your-own-pace online course, and we have a very flexible refund policy, but it hasn't increased. So I'd like to re-record it again.

    17. TFTim Ferriss47:10

        Yeah. That's amazing.

    18. CHCharlie Houpert47:11

        Yeah. I'd love to do one more re-recording, but same thing, keep it going is, is how I feel.

    19. TFTim Ferriss47:15

        Mm-hmm. This might seem like a small detail, but I'm sure folks will be interested. What platform or software do you use to serve the course?

    20. CHCharlie Houpert47:24

        Yeah.

    21. TFTim Ferriss47:25

        What's the back end, or maybe it's very explicitly through some type of platform that provides this?

    22. CHCharlie Houpert47:32

        At the time, I'm sure there's better options now, but we've kinda got on, and so w- there's inertia. It's just a WordPress with some plug-ins.

    23. TFTim Ferriss47:39

        Yeah.

    24. CHCharlie Houpert47:39

        There was a wishlist member plug-in which was hot at the time, and is, you know, since sort of been depreciated [laughs] and so-

    25. TFTim Ferriss47:45

        Yeah

    26. CHCharlie Houpert47:45

        ... we're, we're rolling off of that. SamCart is the cart. It was one of the only carts at the time that let you do payment plans. Now it's like everybody will let you do a payment plan.

    27. TFTim Ferriss47:55

        Mm-hmm.

    28. CHCharlie Houpert47:56

        But for our needs, those were the two. So it was a SamCart cart to a WordPress site with a gated content thing that hooked into SamCart.

    29. TFTim Ferriss48:03

        Got it.

17. 48:04 – 49:41

    How Bill Clinton seduced 7,000 people into following Charlie on YouTube.

    1. TFTim Ferriss48:04

       Makes sense.

    2. CHCharlie Houpert48:04

       Yeah.

    3. TFTim Ferriss48:05

       So the course starts working-

    4. CHCharlie Houpert48:07

       Mm-hmm

    5. TFTim Ferriss48:07

       ... right? Well, at least to the extent that you just described it, which was selling one a day or every other day. You then get to Las Vegas. When do things really start to ramp, or when do things, when do things start to change?

    6. CHCharlie Houpert48:25

       I can afford not main city US rent at this point. I can live in Vegas. I can't live in New York. I can't live in LA. That's where we're at.

    7. TFTim Ferriss48:31

       Hmm.

    8. CHCharlie Houpert48:32

       At one point, I think it's when I'm in Colombia, I had a list of like, "Try LinkedIn, try Twitter," and the third was, "Try YouTube," and I have that piece of paper somewhere. It has a question mark.

    9. TFTim Ferriss48:41

       [laughs]

    10. CHCharlie Houpert48:41

        YouTube, question mark?

    11. TFTim Ferriss48:42

        Oh, man. People would love to see that.

    12. CHCharlie Houpert48:44

        Yeah.

    13. TFTim Ferriss48:44

        Given the size of your YouTube-

    14. CHCharlie Houpert48:46

        Yeah

    15. TFTim Ferriss48:47

        ... presence. [laughs] YouTube question mark?

    16. CHCharlie Houpert48:50

        I had no idea.

    17. TFTim Ferriss48:50

        [laughs]

    18. CHCharlie Houpert48:50

        So I post on LinkedIn, I post on Twitter, and I put a video on YouTube. Now, to be fair, I put several videos on one YouTube channel that was me on the beach in Rio with the wind whipping past the lapel mic, and just that didn't get any views. But I do one video on YouTube that is me analyzing a Bill Clinton debate, and it was one of those community debates where he approaches an audience member, and I talked about the power of his eye contact in that video. And I didn't look at it for six months. One day, I found that piece of paper. I was like, "I should review to see how these things did." And I go to LinkedIn and I've got, nobody's followed me, and I go to Twitter, nobody cares. And on YouTube, there's 100,000 views and I have 7,000 subscribers or 3,000, something like on this YouTube channel.

    19. TFTim Ferriss49:30

        Yeah.

    20. CHCharlie Houpert49:30

        And I haven't even looked at it.

    21. TFTim Ferriss49:32

        Huh.

    22. CHCharlie Houpert49:32

        That was mind-bending. And I had no call to action, so I, it had no way to hit me [laughs] other than I had to-

    23. TFTim Ferriss49:37

        Yeah

    24. CHCharlie Houpert49:37

        ... like log into the YouTube platform, which I hadn't done.

18. 49:41 – 52:28

    How Greg McKeown’s Essentialism helped solve Charlie’s “Herbie” problem.

    1. CHCharlie Houpert49:41

       So I think it was 2016, I st- did a few videos at the end of 2015, but by 2016 I made the commitment that once a week every week I would release one YouTube video. And the first ones, this was, I'd read Essentialism, and it was like, "Just do the thing."

    2. TFTim Ferriss49:56

       Great book.

    3. CHCharlie Houpert49:56

       Amazing.

    4. TFTim Ferriss49:57

       Greg McKeown.

    5. CHCharlie Houpert49:58

       So good. Read it. Read it four times. Need to read it again. [laughs] Like-

    6. TFTim Ferriss50:02

       Yeah. I have a piece of artwork downstairs in this house that Greg McKeown recommended to me called The Listener.

    7. CHCharlie Houpert50:08

       Mm.

    8. TFTim Ferriss50:08

       People can check it out.

    9. CHCharlie Houpert50:10

       Mm.

    10. TFTim Ferriss50:10

        It's, it's a great reminder. But not to interrupt, so you read Essentialism. Excellent book. I recommend it as well.

    11. CHCharlie Houpert50:15

        It's so good.

    12. TFTim Ferriss50:16

        Mm-hmm.

    13. CHCharlie Houpert50:17

        And I'll give a couple just key things. He's got one story about Herbie which stuck with me so long. I'm setting up to do these YouTube videos once a week, and they're tedious and I don't like doing them and I don't want to, and I read, reading Essentialism, and he tells a story about a Boy Scout troop that was taking a hike, and they're trying to get to their destination, but they've got one little bit of a pudgy guy named Herbie, and he's having a hard time with his pack and they're falling behind schedule. So they don't know what to do.

    14. TFTim Ferriss50:43

        Herbie's slow. He's holding up the whole line.

    15. CHCharlie Houpert50:45

        He's slow, and so nobody can go. So they realize that if they take Herbie's pack and they redistribute it amongst some of the adults and the kids that can handle it, the whole troop is able to go double time and get to where they need to do and get back on time. So the question is, is there one friction point in your process that makes the thing un-fun or miserable, and can you spend whatever money or do whatever you need to do to stop this? So the breakthrough was I hated setting up the camera, and so I didn't do it immediately, but the next place that we got, I said, "It must have an extra bedroom. I don't care. I will pay for the extra bedroom. I need to be able to leave this camera up."

    16. TFTim Ferriss51:22

        Set up, yeah.

    17. CHCharlie Houpert51:23

        And oh, my God, that changed it. [laughs] It was like being able to walk in, press play, and do it versus 15 minutes of focus. Oh, my God, it was, it was terrible.

    18. TFTim Ferriss51:32

        Yeah.

    19. CHCharlie Houpert51:33

        So that was a, that was a breakthrough.

    20. TFTim Ferriss51:35

        The Herbie parable, I believe, originated in manufacturing.

    21. CHCharlie Houpert51:42

        Mm.

    22. TFTim Ferriss51:42

        Specifically when you have a serial or a linear production process where if there's a machine in the middle or a lack of inventory at point X-

    23. CHCharlie Houpert51:54

        Mm

    24. TFTim Ferriss51:54

        ... that causes that type of slowdown, you need to figure it out, AKA Herbie. But it can be applied to so many different things, right?

    25. CHCharlie Houpert52:02

        Mm.

    26. TFTim Ferriss52:02

        And in your case, video production.

    27. CHCharlie Houpert52:04

        I love watching your work 'cause you so often remind me that there's emotional Herbies of like, "I don't enjoy this, so I don't wanna do it."

    28. TFTim Ferriss52:12

        Mm-hmm.

    29. CHCharlie Houpert52:12

        And so the question of what if this were 10 times enjoyable? What if I had to have fun-

    30. TFTim Ferriss52:16

        Mm-hmm
19. 52:28 – 57:50

    Evolving funnel flow and fame-jacking.

    1. CHCharlie Houpert52:28

       we start making these YouTube videos. I do a big one at the beginning that is in January of maybe 2016, I do a video that says, "I think Donald Trump's gonna be the president. Here's why." You know, I'm watching his debates. Scott Adams is before me on this.

    2. TFTim Ferriss52:42

       Mm-hmm.

    3. CHCharlie Houpert52:43

       But I'm watching debates. I see the same thing. That starts to pick up. Other videos are going. I'm analyzing Conor McGregor, and I re- think it was from, it was January or February or March of that year, the business tripled.

    4. TFTim Ferriss52:55

       Hmm.

    5. CHCharlie Houpert52:55

       And then I think it tripled again within, like, two months.

    6. TFTim Ferriss52:58

       And is that due to the success of that video?

    7. CHCharlie Houpert53:01

       Of the videos.

    8. TFTim Ferriss53:02

       I got it, the cumulative videos.

    9. CHCharlie Houpert53:04

       Yes. So I'm doing Donald Trump, Conor McGregor, taking Game of Thrones characters. We can talk about fame jacking if you want.

    10. TFTim Ferriss53:11

        Yeah, let's talk about it.

    11. CHCharlie Houpert53:12

        Sure.

    12. TFTim Ferriss53:13

        Let me ask you intermediate question, just to interrupt-

    13. CHCharlie Houpert53:16

        Yeah

    14. TFTim Ferriss53:16

        ... my own [laughs] train of questioning.

    15. CHCharlie Houpert53:19

        Mm-hmm.

    16. TFTim Ferriss53:19

        Which is how did your call to action or flow change? Like, did the funnel change now that people are finding you on YouTube?

    17. CHCharlie Houpert53:27

        Yes.

    18. TFTim Ferriss53:28

        Was it just a link in a description, or-

    19. CHCharlie Houpert53:30

        Mm

    20. TFTim Ferriss53:30

        ... how did the actual business funnel function?

    21. CHCharlie Houpert53:36

        It's evolved, and I'm gonna take you up to present day to answer the question. So at first it was, "Hey guys, if you like this, leave a comment, subscribe." I wasn't thinking-

    22. TFTim Ferriss53:44

        Yeah

    23. CHCharlie Houpert53:44

        ... about it. [laughs]

    24. TFTim Ferriss53:45

        Yeah.

    25. CHCharlie Houpert53:45

        So subscribers, which was okay, fine. Then it was, okay, you need a tripwire, and the idea in online marketing is that there's this low-cost product that you wanna get people onto your email list, give them a taste of something, and then they can buy your low-cost product, and then they'll buy your larger product.

    26. TFTim Ferriss54:02

        Mm-hmm.

    27. CHCharlie Houpert54:03

        So we set up this online funnel that was, "By the way, if you like that video and you wanna know how to make a great first impression, here's a free piece of content that's like four minutes long on the basics of how to do it." And you get that content, it's four minutes of how to do it, and then it's one minute of, "Hey, do you want help implementing this? Buy a section of this larger Charisma University course." And then when you're in that, at the end of that, "Okay, so now you know how to make a great first impression. Do you wanna know all this other stuff?"

    28. TFTim Ferriss54:29

        Mm-hmm.

    29. CHCharlie Houpert54:29

        So it's standard online marketing, give them a piece, offer them more, give them another piece, offer them more, solve a problem, offer them help with the next problem.

    30. TFTim Ferriss54:38

        And for those astute listeners, you may remember that how to make a first impression was straight from the interviews and then the SurveyMonkey rankings.
20. 57:50 – 1:05:09

    YouTube algorithm changes, short-form content, and maintaining audience trust for the long term.

    1. CHCharlie Houpert57:50

       tremendous amount of growth.

    2. TFTim Ferriss57:51

       You said it's changed. Is that an algorithmic change?

    3. CHCharlie Houpert57:55

       Mm.

    4. TFTim Ferriss57:55

       Because I see that playbook being used a fair amount still-

    5. CHCharlie Houpert57:59

       Mm-hmm

    6. TFTim Ferriss58:00

       ... right, on YouTube. But how has the game changed?

    7. CHCharlie Houpert58:03

       What I see is that in short-form content there isn't the decision to click, there is only what captures attention. And so there's many things that capture attention. One is Robert Downey Jr., a guy who you know, but another is, can you walk up these sticky stairs on MrBeast thing, or like what it looks like to run with $10,000. So-

    8. TFTim Ferriss58:22

       [laughs]

    9. CHCharlie Houpert58:22

       ... you actually don't have to sell the click on the short-form content in the same way. And just the meta people have realized, I think this is what's beautiful about YouTube. There's these incredible titles that are like, "I went to every state's Airbnb," or, "I sat in a circle for 36 hours," or, "I gave a homeless man 10K." At the time in YouTube, it was still kind of, there was this sacred cow belief that it had to look like what you titled a blog article.

    10. TFTim Ferriss58:49

        Yeah.

    11. CHCharlie Houpert58:49

        How to do something in seven steps. Like, you know-

    12. TFTim Ferriss58:51

        Mm-hmm

    13. CHCharlie Houpert58:51

        ... six things, listicle blog titles, and I think YouTube has started to really find its own formatting identity, which is not what had traditionally worked with blogs, and maybe blogs will start picking it up from YouTube. But I see that you don't need to do fame-jacking in order to succeed in the same way. There's many other avenues-

    14. TFTim Ferriss59:09

        Yeah

    15. CHCharlie Houpert59:09

        ... in order to do it.

    16. TFTim Ferriss59:10

        I want to touch on maybe a few expansions of that, just briefly for folks. So you might recall back in the day, this is let's just say maybe even pre-Evan Pagan and so on, if you were to look at different types of online marketing, a standard operating procedure was long sales letters with lots of yellow highlights, right? And that was how you did it, period.

    17. CHCharlie Houpert59:39

        Yeah.

    18. TFTim Ferriss59:40

        That [laughs] was the scripture of online marketing. But lo and behold, that isn't the only way to do things.

    19. CHCharlie Houpert59:45

        Yeah.

    20. TFTim Ferriss59:46

        And in fact, you can approach it completely differently. Now, if you go through almost any website now that sells software as a service, you'll see [laughs] somewhere on the product comparison or on the checkout portion when you're selecting features or plans, they'll have three options. The middle will say most popular.

    21. CHCharlie Houpert1:00:08

        Yeah. [laughs]

    22. TFTim Ferriss1:00:08

        Right? There's a very cheap one with half the features you need. There's a super expensive one that only 2% are ever gonna consider, and then there's most popular in the middle. And while the presentation changes, I would say there are a few takeaways. Number one is you can always experiment and break the rules.

    23. CHCharlie Houpert1:00:27

        Mm-hmm.

    24. TFTim Ferriss1:00:28

        Number two is there are certain things that don't tend to change that much. So you can still look at Caples on advertising for copy editing. You can look at old print advertisements from Ogilvy. You can read, for instance, Influence. So there are certain things you can study. Like if drawing is learning how to see, sure, you might have a crayon, a pencil, a paintbrush, piece of charcoal, but those are tools that can be adapted based on certain base principles, right?

    25. CHCharlie Houpert1:01:03

        Mm.

    26. TFTim Ferriss1:01:04

        And then you can feel free, once you have an understanding of some of these core fundamental concepts- Then you can experiment to your heart's content, right? And you can start to break stuff.

    27. CHCharlie Houpert1:01:14

        Yeah.

    28. TFTim Ferriss1:01:15

        I don't know. I mean, a lot of it, because platforms have so much value capture and are so powerful now, I mean, if they do decide they want to promote X, Y, or Z and they have a template for making you conform to that, then I would imagine there's a decent amount of pressure [laughs] -

    29. CHCharlie Houpert1:01:31

        Mm-hmm

    30. TFTim Ferriss1:01:31

        ... to be pushed in that direction, lest your videos or tweets, whatever tweet is called on X, or whatever it might be, doesn't get the distribution that you would like.
21. 1:05:09 – 1:14:10

    Why I still create this podcast.

    1. CHCharlie Houpert1:05:09

       agree. I'm so curious for you, what do you want from the podcast these days? 'Cause it seems to me, and I'm sure you've had this many times, you're like, "Look, I've done it. I'm safe. I can survive with the money that I have." What is, what is success for you at this point?

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:05:22

       Well, the podcast, you know, I've thought, especially with the 10-year anniversary not too long ago and hitting some major milestones in terms of total downloads and listens and so on, I thought, "Well, if I were gonna pack up my tent and move on, this would be a decent time to do it." [laughs] However, I suppose for myself, I just realized even if I weren't recording conversations, I would still be having these conversations.

    3. CHCharlie Houpert1:05:50

       Mm-hmm.

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:05:51

       And therefore, for, [laughs] for the cost of a microphone and using an online service to record a podcast with some basic, I mean, it's not fancy lighting as anyone can tell if they're watching me right now.

    5. CHCharlie Houpert1:06:07

       Mm-hmm.

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:06:08

       But for the minimal cost of production, especially when you consider that a lot of these conversations I would be having would be via Zoom-

    7. CHCharlie Houpert1:06:16

       Hmm

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:06:16

       ... or FaceTime video, I might be walking around outside having this conversation, but I could also have a headset on where I'm recording.

    9. CHCharlie Houpert1:06:23

       Yeah.

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:06:24

        The lifestyle inconvenience to me of recording the conversations I would have otherwise is close to zero.

    11. CHCharlie Houpert1:06:31

        Yeah.

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:06:32

        And I would say success is having thought-provoking conversations. Ideally, I learn something or feel something from those conversations, maybe both, and then I get to share them.

    13. CHCharlie Houpert1:06:47

        Yeah.

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:06:47

        Because the origin of the podcast, I mean, it's easy for me to forget, but I mean, there are a lot of factors that contributed to it in 2014, but one of them was I was living in the Bay Area in San Francisco at the time, and I was having the most incredible conversations with brilliant people. Uh, at least people I thought were brilliant. The density of intelligence there is so high. I mean, there are a lot of issues as well, but- It just seemed like such a shame, not that... not too dissimilar. I mean, it's, it's slightly different, but it's closer than people might realize, where it's like you're doing the one-on-one coaching. It's like, yeah, it's good to help one person, but then if I wanna convey this to a second person, let alone, like, 200 people, I have to repeat it. And for me, these conversations were like sand through the fingers, right? That I could not in any way convey to someone else. And I was like, "Well, let me just try to record some of these," which is why the first 10 to 15 were with friends of mine also, to make the lift as light as possible. And I feel like I probably... it's not a probable, I would definitely miss recording, because let's just say I quit the podcast today. Next week, I would have an amazing conversation with someone-

    15. CHCharlie Houpert1:08:04

        [laughs]

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:08:04

        ... and I'd be like, "Goddammit."

    17. CHCharlie Houpert1:08:05

        [laughs]

    18. TFTim Ferriss1:08:05

        I'd be like, you know, it's so selfish of me not to just click record on an iPhone with a half-decent headset to record this thing.

    19. CHCharlie Houpert1:08:15

        Hmm.

    20. TFTim Ferriss1:08:16

        Because, fuck, you know? It's a real privilege to have access to the network that I have access to. And which doesn't mean, by the way, that, I mean, everyone's gonna know every person I talk to. I would prefer strongly if they don't. But success to me right now is, is, it's honestly scratching my own itch. So for instance, I mean, I'm thinking of potentially compiling a whole lot of four-hour workweek related case studies.

    21. CHCharlie Houpert1:08:48

        Mm-hmm.

    22. TFTim Ferriss1:08:48

        Because very early, very early in my entrepreneurial journey, and I'm not recommending people go buy this book, I think it's out of print anyway, but Entrepreneur Magazine had this book called Young Millionaires, and it was, like, two to three pages, profile of each young millionaire, which meant somewhere between 20 and 35, I suppose. And it was like, how much it cost to start the business, like $200. You know, how much-

    23. CHCharlie Houpert1:09:15

        Mm

    24. TFTim Ferriss1:09:15

        ... they made last year in revenue, next year estimated revenue, type of business, and it ranged from, like, pest control to crime scene cleanup-

    25. CHCharlie Houpert1:09:26

        Oh, God. [laughs]

    26. TFTim Ferriss1:09:27

        Yeah, pretty gnarly, to cosmetics to forestry. It was like the range and scope was so inspiring to me. The magic of that and the impact that it had on my psyche, I didn't take it and apply it right away. I was too young. But seeing that it was possible has made me think about assembling, you know, effectively a book that would be like the [censored] .

    27. CHCharlie Houpert1:09:53

        Wow. Oh, I love that.

    28. TFTim Ferriss1:09:54

        Right?

    29. CHCharlie Houpert1:09:54

        I love that.

    30. TFTim Ferriss1:09:56

        Yeah.
22. 1:14:10 – 1:16:28

    The dangers of succumbing entirely to audience expectation over authenticity.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:14:10

       when you start to put on a mask, adopting practices that are not of your own invention but because you're complying with incentives-

    2. CHCharlie Houpert1:14:19

       Mm-hmm

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:14:19

       ... the concern is not that it just ends up hollowing you out inside, because that can happen. The risk is that you actually become the mask you're wearing, and that those behaviors change how you think and change your own beliefs.

    4. CHCharlie Houpert1:14:36

       Yeah.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:14:38

       Which I think is inevitable on some level. So in any case, that's probably more than either of us bargained for. But-

    6. CHCharlie Houpert1:14:45

       Oh, goodness. I've wrestled with this endlessly, and I absolutely hit a period where I felt like to a degree I allowed that audience... So at first it was I wanted to make this video. I think what Bill Clinton does with his eyes is so fascinating. I think it's so interesting that Donald Trump is probably gonna be president, and like, I love Game of Thrones. And then it was, "Well, you guys want m- more Game of Thrones videos? Let me do another Game of Thrones char..." You know. Well, you guys really liked that one. And what you're describing to me is not just a business struggle, it is a legitimate emotional, spiritual struggle to be like, "Do I choose myself in the face of the world offering me all of this temptation to be something else?"

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:15:25

       Mm-hmm.

    8. CHCharlie Houpert1:15:25

       And there were periods where the answer to that is I, I compromised. And it's like, you know, I didn't kill anyone or do any- but I made the video that I didn't really wanna make, and it did really well. And then, okay, well, g- gotta make another one.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:15:39

       Yeah.

    10. CHCharlie Houpert1:15:39

        And I burned out. I had to step away for years and didn't make videos for years because I believed that I hated making videos, and what I learned [laughs] was that no, I hated, I hated losing my creative well as I chased approval and views and more.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:15:59

        Let's talk about the timeline on that. You are, let's see. Let me see if, if these are lining up. So you're in Vegas.

    12. CHCharlie Houpert1:16:07

        Mm.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:16:08

        You begin to make these videos which you enjoyed making about Bill Clinton.

    14. CHCharlie Houpert1:16:12

        Mm-hmm.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:16:12

        I suppose Bill Clinton came maybe even prior to that. But using [laughs] to use your term fame-jacking.

    16. CHCharlie Houpert1:16:18

        Mm-hmm.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:16:19

        So Jon Snow, real characters or otherwise, Keanu Reeves, right?

    18. CHCharlie Houpert1:16:25

        Mm-hmm.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:16:26

        Maybe Keanu Reeves came later. But in any case,

23. 1:16:28 – 1:25:24

    The catalysts that led to time off, an ayahuasca retreat, and a seven-year transformation process.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:16:28

       those videos start to do very well. You realize that you can offer the higher priced products upfront-

    2. CHCharlie Houpert1:16:37

       Mm-hmm

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:16:38

       ... or reasonably soon with testimonials, and you get conversion. You don't have to lead someone through a 12-step process.

    4. CHCharlie Houpert1:16:44

       Mm-hmm.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:16:44

       And I suppose what I'm wondering is what does the trajectory look like from there, and how long was it before you decided, "I just can't do this. I need to take a break"?

    6. CHCharlie Houpert1:16:54

       It's so funny. You know this. There's two lines. There's the line of when you've created the value, which is like I created the value sleeping on the couch in Brazil. And then there's-

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:17:03

       Mm-hmm

    8. CHCharlie Houpert1:17:03

       ... the line of when the, the money starts coming in.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:17:05

       Yeah.

    10. CHCharlie Houpert1:17:06

        And so there's a delay, right? So you're creating the value, and then the money comes in later. But there's also a delay on the backside [laughs] which is you stop creating the value, but the money keeps going up, and this is every cash cow business, you know, that starts cannibalizing itself and not treating customers well but is still... When Marvel makes the next sequel to Marvel movie and it does well and they don't realize that they're, they're eating their own future.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:17:29

        Mm.

    12. CHCharlie Houpert1:17:30

        Around, I would say the flip for me was 2018 to when it shifted from, "I personally wanna make these videos and I'm excited and I'm learning something in every video," to, "Oh, I've learned what makes them clap, and now I want more claps."

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:17:44

        Mm-hmm.

    14. CHCharlie Houpert1:17:45

        "I want more clapping." The money was secondary, but it's like, "Oh, they like it. They love me." [laughs] Right? Every video bigger.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:17:51

        So that was a few years after starting the channel at that point?

    16. CHCharlie Houpert1:17:54

        Yes-

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:17:54

        Mm-hmm

    18. CHCharlie Houpert1:17:54

        ... and I'd been doing it weekly. And there was an authentic drive to do it weekly that's then slowly shifted, and it became, "I don't wanna do this," and then it was, "I definitely can't do this." And I, at the time, so many other things were going on in my life. We can go into it or not, but there was a moment probably in 2018 where I needed to have a conversation with my co-founder that said, "Hey, I think we're no longer in alignment with this business. I've been driving the growth with these videos. Your projects have not succeeded in the same way. Not for the sake of money, but for the sake of honesty, we have to have a talk about our 50/50 split."

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:18:30

        Mm-hmm.

    20. CHCharlie Houpert1:18:30

        But money was never the drive. The drive was always be with my friends in Brazil. And so I didn't care, but there was a, as my own inability to have sincere, authentic conflict crept into the business, it cascaded downwards. So I'm avoiding having a difficult conversation with my co-founder. We hire somebody else to cover that up.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:18:52

        Mm-hmm.

    22. CHCharlie Houpert1:18:52

        Turns out years later that we hire somebody who fabricated a bunch of stuff and stole money from the business, and all of it was just from this core pattern of not wanting to face the problem and just wanting to squint at it and say, "Everything's good," you know? Every, like, the money's coming in, people like it, et cetera. And so what happened was, and again, I was, I was so happy, broke in Brazil, sleeping on the ground, unable to afford food, and then I had the experience, the cliched one of, "I've made more money than I've ever made." Everybody wants more. They think it's all great, and I feel like shit. [laughs] I feel awful.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:19:29

        Yeah.

    24. CHCharlie Houpert1:19:29

        And then I have a breakup right before my 30th birthday, and I'm gonna collapse some things. We can go into anything. I am invited to an ayahuasca retreat.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:19:40

        Mm-hmm.

    26. CHCharlie Houpert1:19:40

        I [laughs] have been, you know, having these issues that have not surfaced. I don't smoke weed. I don't drink. I have... I'm a straight edge. Fuck it, I'll give it a try. [laughs] I go headfirst into this ayahuasca experience with no idea what's coming. [laughs] And that starts what has now been a seven-year process of completely turning my life upside down and having to face everything that I hadn't looked at-

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:20:03

        Hmm

    28. CHCharlie Houpert1:20:04

        ... which was, of course, these things in the business, but even more importantly, the patterns of avoidance and people-pleasing and seeking that had been birthed in my childhood.

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:20:14

        Mm-hmm.

    30. CHCharlie Houpert1:20:14

        And so, hey, happy to touch on all of that. I know it's, it's a broad spanning-
24. 1:25:24 – 1:30:20

    Making the transition from 50/50 partner to sole owner.

    1. CHCharlie Houpert1:25:24

       doesn't work for me. So we just paused literally making videos on the channel for one year. Business starts to nosedive, right?

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:25:30

       Mm-hmm.

    3. CHCharlie Houpert1:25:30

       Like, not immediately, but the videos don't get views forever. Business falls off 20%, 30%, 50%. And it was, again, a question of, like, which... It wasn't a game. It was, I just don't feel good about that. And so through that process, we were talking about the future of the business.

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:25:49

       Mm-hmm.

    5. CHCharlie Houpert1:25:49

       And would I buy, would he sell? We couldn't find an agreement on d- who would do what. And I can talk about the negotiation if you want, but we finally settled on, "I'm gonna buy the business all out. I'll pay you for the piece, and you'll have no restrictions. You can make any sort of content that you want on any other channel, but this is gonna go... I'm gonna take this. I'm gonna give you cash." And honestly, it was... It's what both of us wanted. I think the thing that we didn't acknowledge is that we had fundamentally different drives, whereas mine was more creative expression and his was more financial security.

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:26:23

       Mm-hmm.

    7. CHCharlie Houpert1:26:24

       And that split, it's very tough. You know, it just doesn't align well, especially what you said. I did not feel, he has a different opinion, that we were equally contributing to the financial success of the business.

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:26:37

       Hmm.

    9. CHCharlie Houpert1:26:38

       So yeah, it was harrowing. More importantly than the business split was that he was my best friend, and we're not that anymore. And so it was... It was going through the wringer. It was dark night of the soul type challenges. So grateful for it, and it was painful as hell to experience.

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:26:53

        Yeah, I'm sorry you guys experienced that. I would say that [laughs] in theory, uh, sometimes in practice, if everything's going perfectly, 50/50 informally agreed upon sounds great.

    11. CHCharlie Houpert1:27:09

        Mm-hmm.

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:27:09

        Right? But in practice, it can be very challenging. And if you were to do this again, if you were to partner with someone else, let's just say that it actually made sense. Someone came to you with a channel with an equal number of subscribers. They're like, "Hey, let's join forces. I think we can 3X." And let's just say that conformed with your-

    13. CHCharlie Houpert1:27:30

        My belief, yeah

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:27:31

        ... your artistic expression and what you want to do.

    15. CHCharlie Houpert1:27:34

        Okay.

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:27:35

        I would imagine you would have some type of partnership agreement that can function as a prenup in the sense that-

    17. CHCharlie Houpert1:27:43

        [laughs]

    18. TFTim Ferriss1:27:43

        ... you would have a termination clause, right?

    19. CHCharlie Houpert1:27:45

        Yeah.

    20. TFTim Ferriss1:27:45

        Where it spells out what happens in the case of a split.

    21. CHCharlie Houpert1:27:50

        Mm.

    22. TFTim Ferriss1:27:51

        Which is an area where also conflict-avoidant folks get themselves into long-term trouble. Not saying you, but, like, in general.

    23. CHCharlie Houpert1:27:58

        100% me. [laughs] 100% me.

    24. TFTim Ferriss1:28:01

        I've made this mistake, right? They get themselves into long-term trouble because they want to avoid the short-term discomfort of h- of talking about the ingredients that would go into such an agreement.

    25. CHCharlie Houpert1:28:12

        Mm-hmm.

    26. TFTim Ferriss1:28:12

        And man, oh, man, yeah, it can get really, really, really messy.

    27. CHCharlie Houpert1:28:17

        Mm.

    28. TFTim Ferriss1:28:17

        A prenup is always cleaner than a postnup- [laughs]

    29. CHCharlie Houpert1:28:20

        Yeah. [laughs]

    30. TFTim Ferriss1:28:20

        ... in business and in life. Where do things stand now with, with the business?
25. 1:30:20 – 1:32:44

    Recommended reading: Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:30:20

       buy some time, though.

    2. CHCharlie Houpert1:30:20

       Sure.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:30:21

       Do you still recommend... I've actually never read this book, but Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden.

    4. CHCharlie Houpert1:30:28

       Amazing.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:30:28

       Okay.

    6. CHCharlie Houpert1:30:29

       So good. I haven't read it in maybe seven or eight years.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:30:33

       Mm-hmm.

    8. CHCharlie Houpert1:30:33

       Maybe longer, but if you do read it and you're crunched for time, you can skip to the chapters on the pillars. He's got some preparation on what self-esteem is and the history of it.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:30:43

       Mm-hmm.

    10. CHCharlie Houpert1:30:43

        But if you haven't worked on your self-esteem at all, it's the first stop to go to. If you have more experience, you might be more familiar with it.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:30:52

        What should people expect to gain from this? How did you find this book in the first place?

    12. CHCharlie Houpert1:30:57

        Goodness.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:30:58

        Do you remember?

    14. CHCharlie Houpert1:30:59

        That Tucker Max message board was a lot of the books. That was where I found the game, and it might have been Six Pillars-

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:31:04

        [laughs]

    16. CHCharlie Houpert1:31:04

        ... of Self-Esteem as well.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:31:06

        Yeah.

    18. CHCharlie Houpert1:31:06

        I think it was through something like that. Yeah, and I got into... You know, it's like a 1970s psychology personal development book, but it's, it's perennial. What people can expect, there's these exercises that people are discovering the power of, which is sentence completions exercise.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:31:22

        Hmm.

    20. CHCharlie Houpert1:31:22

        So it'll run you through each chapter and talk about how personal responsibility is a critical element of self-esteem or whatever, but then it has, at the end, it's got These sentence stems. If I took 5% more responsibility for myself today, blank.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:31:35

        Hm.

    22. CHCharlie Houpert1:31:36

        And the idea is that you can write or speak just free, like, if I took 5% more responsibility for myself today, I would eat healthy. If I took 5% more responsibility for myself today, I would call my parents and tell them that I love them. Like, whatever, whatever it is that is honest for you in that thing. And if you go through these, usually, like, the fifth, sixth one, you're just like, "Oh, damn."

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:31:56

        Yeah.

    24. CHCharlie Houpert1:31:57

        And so some of them were, "I would've talked to that girl at Whole Foods," and it was, "Ah, crap." [laughs]

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:32:02

        [laughs]

    26. CHCharlie Houpert1:32:02

        And so there was one, there was a woman who I dated who I had seen her, and then I went back, and then I did my pillars of self-esteem, and I went, "Oh, crap," and I walked back to Whole Foods [laughs] and I said, "I had to talk to you. I went home and wrote my sentences," and [laughs] it was-

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:32:17

        [laughs]

    28. CHCharlie Houpert1:32:18

        ... if I had more courage, if I had 5% more courage, I would've asked you on a date. And, you know, that became a, a relationship.

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:32:24

        [laughs] That's amazing.

    30. CHCharlie Houpert1:32:26

        Yeah. It's that sort of stuff.
26. 1:32:44 – 1:36:56

    The influence of The Last Psychiatrist blog.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:32:44

       This is one I was curious about. What was The Last Psychiatrist blog?

    2. CHCharlie Houpert1:32:49

       Oh, my gosh. You don't know this?

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:32:50

       No. Never heard of it.

    4. CHCharlie Houpert1:32:52

       To me, he is the secret godfather of bloggers on the internet.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:32:56

       Huh.

    6. CHCharlie Houpert1:32:57

       A lot of the people that you might've liked from crack.com or whatever, he wrote. It was a pseudonym. People think they know who he is. He's likely a psychologist or psychiatrist, and he has incredibly thought-provoking stuff. Now, if you read it, you're gonna go, "Well, that doesn't make sense," and that's kind of a leap, but it is very thought-provoking-

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:33:19

       Mm-hmm

    8. CHCharlie Houpert1:33:19

       ... in reading it. And at the time, he stopped writing in, like, 2013 or something.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:33:23

       But the old posts are still up?

    10. CHCharlie Houpert1:33:24

        Somebody's cataloged them, 'cause there's a, there's an internet fandom around it. But if I could give you some basic things, I'll give you one story that I remember.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:33:33

        [laughs] I think the maintenance of certification exam is fetish.

    12. CHCharlie Houpert1:33:36

        Yeah.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:33:37

        10 extra seconds would've saved True Detective's finale. Okay, he's got all sorts of random stuff.

    14. CHCharlie Houpert1:33:42

        Oh, he's all over the place.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:33:43

        Yeah, 2014 looks like the last post.

    16. CHCharlie Houpert1:33:46

        He discusses how advertising doesn't just condition you what you want, it conditions how you learn what to want. So as an example, people will watch a Lexus commercial-

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:33:59

        Mm-hmm

    18. CHCharlie Houpert1:33:59

        ... and they'll think, "I didn't fall for that. I don't wanna buy a Lexus." And his point is, yeah, but you think that that's what a pretty woman looks like, the woman who moves towards the Lexus.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:34:09

        Mm-hmm.

    20. CHCharlie Houpert1:34:10

        He's got a couple of maxims which are interesting, which is if you see it, it's for you, meaning, like, if you're consuming a piece of advertising and you think it's not impacting you, it's been split tested [laughs] to make it to your eyeballs.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:34:23

        Mm-hmm.

    22. CHCharlie Houpert1:34:23

        And yes, technically there's a chance that you're resisting, but it is teaching you how that a watch is a status symbol, and maybe you don't think you need a Patek Philippe, but you learned that this is what money looks like because the background has a bookshelf, and now you think that books are what [laughs] make people want things.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:34:38

        Mm-hmm.

    24. CHCharlie Houpert1:34:38

        So he talks about how two things have happened. We've, one, lost the ability to self-reference internally our desires, which is exactly in line with what we were talking about. It's all mimetic desire. What do you want that you want that you want that I can't find my own wanting in it?

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:34:54

        Mm-hmm.

    26. CHCharlie Houpert1:34:55

        And he talks about how we have become deeply narcissistic, just collectively as a society. We see our own reflection and image everywhere, and many people do not have the capacity to genuinely love and encounter another. It's just what my wife says about me, what my kids say about me, that sort of a thing.

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:35:16

        All right, so that is just thelastpsychiatrist.com. All right. Let's come back to critical decisions or-

    28. CHCharlie Houpert1:35:24

        Mm

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:35:24

        ... they don't have to be critical, important decisions. If you were basically teaching a class about your entrepreneurial journey, a seminar, and you were highlighting some of the things that actually really made a difference, maybe they looked small at the time, maybe they looked really big at the time, anything else come to mind that we have not yet discussed?

    30. CHCharlie Houpert1:35:45

        So a lot of them we have, so if y- allow me to, to run through the ones, 'cause maybe I'll find something new. So if I really go to critical decisions, there were all of the early ones about this isn't my 10 out of 10 and I'm willing to let it go.
27. 1:36:56 – 1:39:03

    Jay Abraham coaching: “Make it good enough for Tim Ferriss.”

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:36:56

       There was the rebranding.

    2. CHCharlie Houpert1:36:58

       The rebranding early.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:36:59

       Of course.

    4. CHCharlie Houpert1:36:59

       Yeah, the building the course.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:37:01

       Mm-hmm.

    6. CHCharlie Houpert1:37:01

       Here's one. There was between V3 and V4, I went to Jay Abraham. He had a private coaching thing. He's one of these old school business coaches.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:37:10

       He's super old school. He has a great book on joint ventures. I haven't read it in more than a decade.

    8. CHCharlie Houpert1:37:15

       Mm.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:37:15

       But all the myriad forms that joint partnerships and joint ventures can, can take.

    10. CHCharlie Houpert1:37:23

        Yeah.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:37:23

        Pretty wild. [laughs]

    12. CHCharlie Houpert1:37:24

        Yeah.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:37:25

        Some of the negotiating gambits, kinda guerrilla marketing and partnership approaches.

    14. CHCharlie Houpert1:37:29

        Mm.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:37:29

        Yeah, Jay Abraham.

    16. CHCharlie Houpert1:37:30

        So I have private coaching with Jay Abraham, and he asks me, "Who's the person you most wanna take your course?" I say, "Tim Ferriss or Tony Robbins." And he says, "If Tim Ferriss found your course and took it right now, how would you feel?" I went, "I don't want him to." [laughs]

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:37:44

        [laughs]

    18. CHCharlie Houpert1:37:45

        And so he said, "That's a problem." I said, "Well, it's not good enough." He said, "Make it good enough."

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:37:49

        That's a cool exercise.

    20. CHCharlie Houpert1:37:50

        Yeah. So I went back and filmed it, and I still, you know, have insecurities and this and that, but I did my best effort to make it okay for Tim, [laughs] for you. [laughs] And when it was done, the next video that I made, I spoke about it and I said, at the end of the video, I said, "This is the best I can do. This is the greatest thing that I can possibly make for you guys on this topic." And conversions exploded.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:38:16

        Mm.

    22. CHCharlie Houpert1:38:16

        And every ad read after that had a significantly higher, like 2X or more, lift in conversions, and we started getting more testimonials, and it was this, if you don't believe in it fully, you're gonna sell it with hesitancy.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:38:31

        Mm-hmm.

    24. CHCharlie Houpert1:38:31

        [laughs] Right? So being able to tell the truth, and the truth was not, "This is the greatest thing in the world," it's, "This is my absolute best."

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:38:39

        Mm-hmm.

    26. CHCharlie Houpert1:38:39

        If you like this blog, this is the best I can offer you. And at this point, the truth is, it's no longer true. I feel like I can do something better now, so I need to go back, do it again, and then be able to honestly say, "This is the best I can do." And I'm sure that that will have the same impact, because I subtly shy away from selling, from offering the thing that I don't fully believe in.

28. 1:39:03 – 1:39:42

    How testimonials added a 4x conversion lift.

    1. CHCharlie Houpert1:39:03

       So that was a big one. It's tough. I don't know how to parse it out, but this plus adding testimonials was a 4X conversion lift when we started adding those at the end. So we used to have our call to action, it was a 10-minute video, and then like, "Hey, if you wanna buy Charisma University, it does this, it does this, it does this, it's, you know, it's got all this. Here's what's in it." And then it became, "Hey, do you wanna buy Charisma University? Here's what somebody said about it. 'This helped me get a promotion, it did this.' Here's what somebody else said about it, 'I got a girlfriend.' Here's what somebody else said about it." And they were just literally photo'd comments that people had left in the comments section or emails that they sent in, and that combined with the I care about this more, was a 4X total conversion lift,

29. 1:39:42 – 1:42:34

    Coming to an agreement with the co-founder.

    1. CHCharlie Houpert1:39:42

       which was huge. There was the avoidance was something that I had to pay for on the back end. The avoidance [laughs] of conflict and not, I think this is one, I didn't know how to just a- allow people to know that I was disappointed or upset or hurt or angry. I had to fix everything very, very quickly. A lot of people-pleasy tendencies. Those compounding over time created a lot of issues. There was, yeah, not firing the person who wound up stealing. I knew that I needed to. There was a lot of, like, not firings that were huge. And then there was the walking away and the returning, which was really, really important, and they were both honest. One was like, "I'd rather not have this thing send me money than post videos that I don't feel aligned with," which made me like, oh my God. When you do stuff that isn't aligned for money, it signals such a lack of self-belief and self-love. And this is in the Six Pillars of Self-Esteem book. Like, when you start trading your beliefs for cash or approval, you're just sending a signal that I can't be relied on to be myself and be safe and earn. But when you do things that are detrimental to income, like not offering a discount, like saying, "I don't want these videos to go up," not to punish anyone, but just because it doesn't feel aligned, I have felt every time where I've dropped into that, this power arises in me. And so that was like, oh, holy shit, I felt like a beggar in a weird way. I'm making all this money, but I'm feeling unsafe, that I need to beg for more and ride the coattails of this thing that I built that I can no longer do. And as soon as I said, "I don't want this," I felt a surge of like, oh, fuck, I have more to say. I have more to contribute. So that was huge. And then in the negotiation, the big moment was two things. We'd been at deadlock for like two years. I made him an offer, it was nowhere near what he wanted. We were just not able to meet. There were two things that happened. One was we're starting to get into these circular spirals of things aren't working, and I paused and I said, "Hey, it sounds like you're really scared." And we just talked about our feelings and the fallout of the friendship and the fears that we both had. And acknowledging the emotional intensity of this, that was essential. Pretending that this was a business transaction that we're... Like, that's a lie. That's not what was [laughs] going on here. We were both really-

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:42:01

       Yeah

    3. CHCharlie Houpert1:42:01

       ... afraid. And speaking to that and bringing it to light moved things tremendously. And then the second one was honestly going to him and saying, "I am willing to sell the business. I'm willing to sell it, but I need one thing, which is I need a no non-compete. I need the ability to go and make anything that I want anywhere." And that moved us from I'm trying to buy from him, he wants more money, I don't wanna give him the money, to, "Okay, make me an offer." He made me an offer then for that, and I said, "I'll give you 20% more than that," and it was done deal, over.

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:42:31

       Huh. Amazing.

    5. CHCharlie Houpert1:42:32

       Yeah.

30. 1:42:34 – 1:47:14

    Joe Hudson and the Art of Accomplishment.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:42:34

       Was there anything in particular that led to those two, call them breakthroughs? I don't think they're-

    2. CHCharlie Houpert1:42:41

       Yeah

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:42:41

       ... after a two-year impasse, I think that wording is appropriate.

    4. CHCharlie Houpert1:42:45

       Oh, totally.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:42:46

       What contributed to those two things?

    6. CHCharlie Houpert1:42:48

       Joe Hudson, I have to give a huge shout-out. Have you spoken to Joe?

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:42:52

       I have spoken to Joe. Joe, I actually just featured a tweet storm of his about emotional intelligence that Sam Altman had retweeted at one point.

    8. CHCharlie Houpert1:43:04

       Mm.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:43:04

       Just shared that in my newsletter I think one week ago, maybe two weeks ago. Yeah, so Joe Hudson. You should explain, though-

    10. CHCharlie Houpert1:43:10

        Yeah

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:43:10

        ... to folks who don't know the name who he is.

    12. CHCharlie Houpert1:43:12

        Joe's awesome. You know, [laughs] it's funny, I gotta, I have to admit this. It was Father's Day last Sunday, and I was making the joke, I'm like, "I'm meeting all my dads in one week. It's my dad, and Tim Ferriss, and Joe Hudson-

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:43:22

        [laughs]

    14. CHCharlie Houpert1:43:22

        ... is gonna be here in two days." [laughs]

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:43:26

        [laughs]

    16. CHCharlie Houpert1:43:26

        And for me it's a significant thing, 'cause the truth is, and I told you, I had a ton of projections onto you. You know, like-

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:43:30

        Mm

    18. CHCharlie Houpert1:43:31

        ... if Tim helps me, it'll save me. And I had the same thing with Joe, 'cause Joe's work was also deeply important to me. And so it's just really cool to like, you know, drop some of the projections and meet the people. So all my dads. Joe Hudson's my third dad. [laughs] He's, he's great. He has a thing called Art of Accomplishment, and he acknowledges the emotional aspect of business, and not only acknowledges it, but points to the fact that if you ignore it, you will either not do as well as you could or you will do exceedingly well and feel that empty, burnt-out thing that awaits everybody who trades the inner asset for the external one. So his work was extremely helpful. I'd gone through his courses, and he offered me, because we'd been in contact, a private coaching session because I'd helped him with some YouTube stuff. And on that, he literally suggested, he said, "Offer to sell." Like, "Are you willing to sell?" And he was like, "Then make the offer. Do a shotgun deal where you guys both write a piece of pa- like, write a number on a piece of paper, and the person who is willing to spend more will take it."

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:44:27

        Mm.

    20. CHCharlie Houpert1:44:28

        So just knowing that I had that, I brought that to my co-founder and said, "Look, I'm willing to make a binding agreement about this where I am genuinely willing to buy or sell." It was that shift of when I needed to buy, he was like, "Well, give me more." And when it's like, "Look, I don't need to buy, but let's get our way out of this thing," his number came down essentially is what happened. And there was one final thing that was I, based on loving advice from people who were supporting me, had wanted to buy the business out of net revenue, which is to say with safety valves on, "If it doesn't perform, I don't have to pay you."

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:45:00

        Mm-hmm.

    22. CHCharlie Houpert1:45:01

        And that we couldn't find a number for. It just didn't feel good. And I had a number come through, a literal number that, like, came to me, and I was like, "That's way more than I've been offering him," and he said no. And the next follow-up was, "Yeah, 'cause you're gonna take all the risk." And I felt a surge of fear and then that self-belief energy come back and like, "Oh my God, yes, I want the risk. I don't want this if it works. I want this through rain or shine, good or bad. Like, let me pay the price for not succeeding," and I'll take you back to one. It was the burning the boats that finally made the business work at every stage. It was taking the steps that got me to not have the contracting job, to move to Brazil. I'm committed. I care about this enough to suffer and hurt if [laughs] this doesn't work out, right?

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:45:47

        Mm-hmm.

    24. CHCharlie Houpert1:45:48

        And so that, that was also huge in that, and it was huge at the beginning of the business.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:45:54

        Yeah, what a story. I'm consistently amazed. It happens to me all the time in my own life too, but how a single conversation or a dream or-

    26. CHCharlie Houpert1:46:08

        Mm.

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:46:09

        I mean, literally this has happened to me when I've had a fever and I've just been sick in bed, where you're looking at something and then suddenly, say, a Joe Hudson's like, "Well, why don't you just do the opposite of what you're-"

    28. CHCharlie Houpert1:46:19

        Yeah

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:46:20

        ... considering?

    30. CHCharlie Houpert1:46:20

        [laughs]
31. 1:47:14 – 1:50:31

    Why I stand by The 4-Hour Workweek without further revision, warts and all.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:47:14

       of that.

    2. CHCharlie Houpert1:47:14

       And by the way, I have to say, if you are here watching this, I can't imagine you have it, but if you haven't read The 4-Hour Workweek, that's the entire thing. It's that energy, and I actually think what people are buying from me is that energy in the social realm.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:47:27

       Yeah.

    4. CHCharlie Houpert1:47:27

       There's a third option, which is connect.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:47:30

       Yeah.

    6. CHCharlie Houpert1:47:30

       The magic is available, and I think f- 4-Hour Workweek is like magic is available in your career.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:47:35

       Yeah, totally. I've been asked so many times, as you would imagine, by publishers to go back and kind of fine-tune, rewrite that book, and I don't wanna touch it mostly.

    8. CHCharlie Houpert1:47:49

       It's too good.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:47:50

       I mean, I appreciate you saying that. It somehow captured lightning in a bottle and I'm like, look, I'm 47 right now. I wrote that when I was 29.

    10. CHCharlie Houpert1:48:02

        Mm-hmm.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:48:02

        And sure, if I read it now, there's a little bit of chest puffing and there's shit in it where I'm like, "Oh my God," it makes me facepalm-

    12. CHCharlie Houpert1:48:10

        [laughs]

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:48:10

        ... a little bit. But for whatever reason, that book has just stood the test of time, at least over 20 years or close to it, and resonated with people from so many different age brackets-

    14. CHCharlie Houpert1:48:26

        Mm

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:48:26

        ... going from 15 all the way up to retiree. I don't wanna touch it.

    16. CHCharlie Houpert1:48:30

        Yeah.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:48:31

        And to your point though, fundamentally, it's about calling into question all the basic assumptions of career, retirement-

    18. CHCharlie Houpert1:48:39

        Mm

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:48:39

        ... slave, save, retire, right? The deferred life plan, and looking for alternatives that you can effectively prove are, if not realistic, at least possible vis-a-vis these case studies that are already in the book, right? Which, and the vast majority of those case studies predated the publication of the book.

    20. CHCharlie Houpert1:48:59

        Yeah.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:49:00

        So I do myself also, I mean, I think that's a byproduct of enjoying books that do that on some level, right? Let My People Go Surfing I think is the title of the book by Yvon Chouinard. I remember reading books by Carlos Slimler and Branson, right? Losing My Virginity-

    22. CHCharlie Houpert1:49:19

        Mm

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:49:19

        ... where it's like, okay, everyone says an airline is suicide. He workshopped it [laughs] in a sense because a flight got canceled, he walked around with like a, a sign at an airport offering charters. And then once he had people booked for a charter, [laughs] he chartered a flight somewhere and then figured out how to work with, I think it was a Boeing at the time To effectively cap his downside so that his losses were contained, but the upside was attractive.

    24. CHCharlie Houpert1:49:55

        Mm-hmm.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:49:56

        And you look at how he structured some of these deals, and it's like, oh, yeah. Like, it wouldn't have occurred to me that that was possible, but of course, when you have someone like that who's scrappy and also had the life experience of having to pick himself up by his bootstraps and work with next to no money, it's like, oh, wow, you just had to ask, and you had to know the right way to ask, and these apparent miracles can happen. It's just wild. So we'll see. Maybe I'll put together that book of case studies. I think it'd be fun. [laughs]

32. 1:50:31 – 1:54:43

    Exercising gratitude even when receiving praise is difficult.

    1. CHCharlie Houpert1:50:31

       Can I ask a question about that?

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:50:33

       Yeah.

    3. CHCharlie Houpert1:50:33

       So I ask because I have a conflicting relationship with my earlier work. Like, this course is 10 years old.

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:50:39

       Yeah.

    5. CHCharlie Houpert1:50:39

       I look at it, I... Ah, that g- that's exactly what you said, that f- that braggadocios ass, you know?

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:50:44

       [laughs]

    7. CHCharlie Houpert1:50:44

       He's, he's not caveating it enough. There's a boldness that you can only have in your 20s of this is how the world works, right?

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:50:50

       Yeah, totally.

    9. CHCharlie Houpert1:50:51

       You haven't been smashed before. But there's something beautiful about that as well that, like, only a 29-year-old can write this book with this much punch-

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:50:58

        Yeah

    11. CHCharlie Houpert1:50:58

        ... and pizzazz and clarity. So I'm curious what your relationship is with that version of yourself, and I'm also curious, what is it like to receive gratitude for that? Do you feel that it's able to land? Does it, does it hit? Does it matter? I s- I struggle with some of this as well.

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:51:14

        I have never been particularly skilled or natural at receiving praise or compliments or anything like that. And who knows all the reasons? I mean, there are probably many I'm not even aware of. But I think in part, there were certain things that I adopted really early on as core beliefs. Like, look, the good stuff takes care of itself. You just have to fix what's-

    13. CHCharlie Houpert1:51:42

        Mm

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:51:42

        ... not working. Which by the way, is not true in a lot of cases.

    15. CHCharlie Houpert1:51:46

        [laughs]

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:51:47

        It can be true in a limited sense for certain things, but it's a, it's a very Faustian bargain of a philosophy to live with. But I believed that for a long time. So if, i- in sports, right, if Coach wanted to give me a pat on the back, I would be like, "Yeah, that's great, but, like, that's already working, so help me fix the stuff that's not working."

    17. CHCharlie Houpert1:52:05

        Mm.

    18. TFTim Ferriss1:52:06

        Which is not to say that I never responded to positive reinforcement, right? But, like, little Scooby Snacks, tiny bits of positive reinforcement in, say, language learning was very important. But I often got that reinforcement through the process itself, not from anyone else.

    19. CHCharlie Houpert1:52:24

        Yeah.

    20. TFTim Ferriss1:52:24

        That being receiving praise. So I would say I'm very grateful. I do practice gratitude, and I journal a lot on things I am grateful for. And I basically have run through some type of gratitude list and also asking myself, you know, "Is this a good day to die?" when I take off in planes. Take off and land in planes.

    21. CHCharlie Houpert1:52:46

        Huh.

    22. TFTim Ferriss1:52:47

        Just as an exercise. I'm kinda like, "Okay, if this is the last rodeo as far as travel goes, like, how do I feel about what I'm doing right now?" And then assuming that it's positive, then, and even if not, running through some level of gratitude. So I would like to think of myself as a very grateful person, but I still, I still struggle with receiving compliments and praise.

    23. CHCharlie Houpert1:53:15

        Yeah. What about other people grateful for you?

    24. TFTim Ferriss1:53:18

        I can be really deeply appreciative, but I think there's also a deep-rooted fear of becoming self-absorbed or arrogant or over-weighting my importance in the large-scale cosmic order of things, which is, yeah, effectively zero, right? I would like to remind myself. Which I don't think is a real risk, but nonetheless, that fear is there, so I think that's also maybe a by-product. The allowing it to glance off of me but maybe not fully land is, I think, a consequence of that as well.

    25. CHCharlie Houpert1:53:58

        I relate.

    26. TFTim Ferriss1:53:59

        Yeah.

    27. CHCharlie Houpert1:53:59

        Yeah.

    28. TFTim Ferriss1:54:00

        It's like, God, you, you don't have to go very far. Like, open your laptop and go anywhere online, and, like, 99% of people out there, this is... I don't think it's that much of an exaggeration, but are just saying things with the utmost confidence and self-importance, and it doesn't seem to help them, and it doesn't seem to help anyone else ultimately, right? It kinda tends to end in tears. So I love to say I don't know, particularly, and that would be another reason why I like having these conversations, because there's, there's a lot more that I don't know than what I know. And then, that was a long riff on the, on the gratitude piece.

33. 1:54:43 – 1:57:46

    Relationship with earlier work: video vs. writing.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:54:43

       In terms of relating to my earlier self, I think it's probably harder for you with video.

    2. CHCharlie Houpert1:54:51

       [laughs] Yeah.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:54:54

       You know what I mean?

    4. CHCharlie Houpert1:54:55

       I know what you mean.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:54:56

       I think it's probably a lot harder for you in video.

    6. CHCharlie Houpert1:54:59

       Yeah.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:54:59

       Video is incredibly unforgiving, and video also has so many different components that feed into the end product, right? You've got camera, you've got framing, you've got lighting, you've got editing, you've got-

    8. CHCharlie Houpert1:55:15

       Mm

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:55:15

       ... your stage presence, so to speak, and performance. You have body language. There's so many different elements. On top of the scripting or not scripting, but the actual delivery of whatever the, the content happens to be. Set design, depending on what you're doing. I mean, there's so much that goes into it. Whereas with print on a page, I would say I still feel very proud of the writing in The 4-Hour Workweek. I mean, I killed myself over that book-

    10. CHCharlie Houpert1:55:47

        Mm

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:55:48

        ... and took the writing itself very, very, very seriously. I mean, I f- I, I hate to say this, but it may even be crisper and tighter than my writing now.

    12. CHCharlie Houpert1:55:57

        Mm.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:55:57

        So I feel good about the writing and the presentation, the teaching of the concepts, which was based largely on many, many, many, many guest lectures at Princeton when I was invited back by one of my professors to speak to an entrepreneurship class. So that's how I workshopped that particular book. There are small pieces where I'm just like, "Oh, God," you know? Just the, the kind of chest-beating confidence and-

    14. CHCharlie Houpert1:56:26

        [laughs]

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:56:27

        ... flamboyance maybe of some of the examples. And at the same time, I think that some of that irrational, maybe exuberance is really effectively infectious-

    16. CHCharlie Houpert1:56:45

        Yeah

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:56:45

        ... within the context of that book.

    18. CHCharlie Houpert1:56:47

        I think so.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:56:47

        Right? And for me, at that time, keep in mind, that was however many years, not that many, really. I mean, we're talking five or six years after, for my purposes in lifestyle design, cracking the code or at least figuring out elimination and automation and all these various things, to an extent that seemed very unusual at the time. I was still really high on that experience.

    20. CHCharlie Houpert1:57:14

        Yeah.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:57:15

        And you can't be a lukewarm evangelist or a lukewarm teacher. I don't- I didn't really view myself as an evangelist, but if the harder the subject is, the more enthusiastic you better be.

    22. CHCharlie Houpert1:57:29

        Mm-hmm.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:57:29

        Or at least enthusiastic and effective as a teacher, right? If the subject matter takes care of itself, then there are lots of ways that you can perhaps compromise or, or not be up to snuff. But entrepreneurship is a full-contact sport, as you know, and,

34. 1:57:46 – 1:59:41

    Don’t miss “Filling the Void.”

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:57:47

       you know, the chapter that, that I think gets the least attention, if I were to expand something, that I would expand is the Filling the Void chapter at the end.

    2. CHCharlie Houpert1:57:56

       Mm.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:57:57

       People miss that, and it's so important. It's like, look, if you just create a lot of empty space in terms of time, humans are not really designed just to be idle. Go spend some time with any reasonably intact kind of hunter-gatherer society that might have some plantains and cassava or something like that, and you'll see, yes, they do rest quite a bit, but they're also by and large very active. Might be just household stuff, might be chores, might be any number of duties, church, et cetera, especially these days. But idle hands are the devil's workshop applies to the mind as well. So for mental health, I think that that chapter is, is particularly important and maybe, maybe could've been positioned a little bit differently to underscore it.

    4. CHCharlie Houpert1:58:47

       Mm.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:58:48

       But that's the type of chapter also that, number one, most readers don't assume they're gonna have to deal with because they're like, "Well, that's like once you've won the race. I'll worry about that once I've won the race." Unfortunately, if you build a business and a machine to serve lifestyle, but then it becomes inverted, it's not exactly straightforward or it's, it's certainly not pain-free to fix it at the 11th hour after the fact. So I relate to the book well. It is funny to me when I look back at some of the tech recommendations and I'm like, oh my God.

    6. CHCharlie Houpert1:59:22

       [laughs]

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:59:22

       This is just like going to the Natural History Museum and seeing dinosaur bones.

    8. CHCharlie Houpert1:59:26

       Yeah.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:59:26

       I mean, these [laughs] most of these are completely extinct.

    10. CHCharlie Houpert1:59:30

        Yeah. I'm wrestling with that. It's an ability to look back at myself, have all the thoughts that you said, which is ugh, ugh, but also love that part. It, you know? Like holy shit, that guy brought me here.

35. 1:59:41 – 2:02:25

    More recommended reading.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:59:41

       On the entrepreneurial journey, are there any other books that you would recommend to, like, the, the mini Charlie or someone out there who is... Doesn't have to be YouTube specific.

    2. CHCharlie Houpert1:59:53

       Mm-hmm.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:59:54

       But if you could only recommend a handful of books, they don't need to be business books per se, but they can be.

    4. CHCharlie Houpert1:59:59

       Okay.

    5. TFTim Ferriss2:00:00

       Are there any other books that stick out to you?

    6. CHCharlie Houpert2:00:05

       Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet is excellent. Excellent.

    7. TFTim Ferriss2:00:08

       Yeah, I have that downstairs. That is a easy to read. You can read it in small segments.

    8. CHCharlie Houpert2:00:13

       Yeah.

    9. TFTim Ferriss2:00:14

       Why that, why that book for you?

    10. CHCharlie Houpert2:00:15

        You know, it's been a minute since I've read it, but I'm in that zone of what moved me. I was like, oh, that book brought me to tears many, many times. There are just deep truths about life. Increasingly, I'm into that archetypal, mythic, pseudo-religious stuff, not because of any doctrine, but because of the way that it moves me.

    11. TFTim Ferriss2:00:35

        Mm-hmm.

    12. CHCharlie Houpert2:00:35

        So that's just an example of, like, a 20th century classic, a tome. Not even a tome, it's a pamphlet, essentially. [laughs] It's not that long.

    13. TFTim Ferriss2:00:42

        Yeah, it's like 100 pages maybe.

    14. CHCharlie Houpert2:00:43

        Yeah.

    15. TFTim Ferriss2:00:43

        Hundred and 20 at most.

    16. CHCharlie Houpert2:00:45

        Running Lean helped a lot with the interviews. It's not, like, the most fun read, but it helped me set up those interviews that I did that-

    17. TFTim Ferriss2:00:51

        Hmm

    18. CHCharlie Houpert2:00:52

        ... identified the, the stuff in the business.

    19. TFTim Ferriss2:00:54

        Running Lean.

    20. CHCharlie Houpert2:00:55

        Running Lean. You could probably find many books on the topic, but it's a lean startup thing, and it just has two sections. Here's the big takeaway. There's two interviews that you do. You do one interview that is about the customer and one interview that is about your product. So the first interview is not, "Do you like this? Do you want this?" It's, "What are you bothered by? What are you trying to make happen? What isn't working for you? Where are you hanging out?" You know, like, and then the second one is, "Hey, I've got this idea for you. Does that solve the problems that you identified?" And it helps you run through those.

    21. TFTim Ferriss2:01:22

        Mm-hmm.

    22. CHCharlie Houpert2:01:22

        That was really important back in the day. What were the other ones? Back in the day, Influence by Cialdini was, was huge.

    23. TFTim Ferriss2:01:29

        Outstanding book, still.

    24. CHCharlie Houpert2:01:30

        Classic. Still Dale Carnegie, still, you know, classic.

    25. TFTim Ferriss2:01:34

        Which Dale Carnegie?

    26. CHCharlie Houpert2:01:36

        For me, it was How to Win Friends & Influence People was the one.

    27. TFTim Ferriss2:01:38

        Mm-hmm.

    28. CHCharlie Houpert2:01:39

        There's ways in which I go to it. I've got poetry by Ha- by Hafiz, which-

    29. TFTim Ferriss2:01:42

        Mm

    30. CHCharlie Houpert2:01:42

        ... that hits the part of me that is becoming more active today. I love Martha Beck. I saw your interview with her. She's got several books. Her interview with you is honestly great, though. I think it does a lot of the work that you might wanna take from some of her books, so I'd recommend that.
36. 2:02:25 – 2:03:45

    Improv & Dragons.

    1. TFTim Ferriss2:02:25

       really long way. Well, Charlie, we have covered a hell of a lot of ground here.

    2. CHCharlie Houpert2:02:28

       We did it, yeah.

    3. TFTim Ferriss2:02:29

       Is there anything else that you would like to mention or point people to? Where can people find all things Charlie online?

    4. CHCharlie Houpert2:02:41

       Charisma on Command YouTube channel. If you're interested in the course, it's Charisma University. You should be able to just type it in and it'll take you to our sales page.

    5. TFTim Ferriss2:02:48

       Mm-hmm.

    6. CHCharlie Houpert2:02:48

       And I know it didn't hit, but I spent a lot of time and money. I made a D&D show on YouTube, which was a D&D-

    7. TFTim Ferriss2:02:54

       [laughs]

    8. CHCharlie Houpert2:02:55

       I dressed up. I wore a cape. I got my friend who does a Trump impression to be a character that, he's named Tumpy. He's great.

    9. TFTim Ferriss2:03:02

       [laughs]

    10. CHCharlie Houpert2:03:03

        [laughs] It's called Improv & Dragons. Don't expect it to explode, but if that's your thing and-

    11. TFTim Ferriss2:03:07

        [laughs]

    12. CHCharlie Houpert2:03:07

        ... you wanna have a quick laugh, you can check that out as well.

    13. TFTim Ferriss2:03:10

        What is your character?

    14. CHCharlie Houpert2:03:11

        So my character, I called him Sigmund, but, 'cause I was doing a riff on Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung.

    15. TFTim Ferriss2:03:15

        Mm-hmm.

    16. CHCharlie Houpert2:03:16

        So H- Sigmund and brother Carl. He was a druid. Was he an elf? I, I forget exactly what his race was. Oh, no, he was a kalashtar, which is a, he's, like, one of those weird, weird ones.

    17. TFTim Ferriss2:03:27

        Kalashtar, that must be a new one.

    18. CHCharlie Houpert2:03:29

        Yeah. They have these dream lives, and so for me, I was having dreams, and I was like, "Okay, I wanna just infuse this with psychoanalysis, and I'm gonna give him a German accent, and I'm gonna [laughs] I'm gonna lean into this."

    19. TFTim Ferriss2:03:39

        [laughs]

    20. CHCharlie Houpert2:03:40

        We had a good time with that. And one day, I hope to actually get people to watch it. [laughs]

37. 2:03:45 – 2:04:36

    Charlie’s billboard: “Don’t think, feel.”

    1. TFTim Ferriss2:03:45

       [laughs] Amazing. All right, man, well, I think we can begin to wind to a close here. Any last comments or remarks, recommendations, anything at all you'd like to share with my audience?

    2. CHCharlie Houpert2:03:55

       Anything else? If I had a billboard, I have to answer my Tim Ferriss question.

    3. TFTim Ferriss2:03:59

       Yeah, let's do it.

    4. CHCharlie Houpert2:04:00

       I thought about this. I was like, "In the moment I'll find it. What is it?" Don't think, feel, would be my... And I know that's counterintuitive to a lot of people, but lately that's been-

    5. TFTim Ferriss2:04:08

       [laughs]

    6. CHCharlie Houpert2:04:08

       ... my guiding principle, is feel my heart, feel my gut, you know, think from my mind, and, and try to find some union of the three to, to move forward.

    7. TFTim Ferriss2:04:17

       I dig it. I'm sure Joe would like that.

    8. CHCharlie Houpert2:04:19

       Yeah.

    9. TFTim Ferriss2:04:19

       And I'll give a shameless plug. Diana Chapman interview on-

    10. CHCharlie Houpert2:04:24

        Mm

    11. TFTim Ferriss2:04:24

        ... The Tim Ferriss Show for people-

    12. CHCharlie Houpert2:04:26

        Oh, check it out

    13. TFTim Ferriss2:04:26

        ... who want maybe a framework or two to try to calibrate, [laughs] to learn how to do that.

    14. CHCharlie Houpert2:04:32

        Mm.

    15. TFTim Ferriss2:04:33

        She's, she's a very good teacher.

38. 2:04:36 – 2:05:14

    Parting thoughts.

    1. TFTim Ferriss2:04:36

       And I suppose we'll, we'll cap it there, man.

    2. CHCharlie Houpert2:04:38

       Beautiful.

    3. TFTim Ferriss2:04:39

       Thanks so much for taking the time.

    4. CHCharlie Houpert2:04:40

       Thank you.

    5. TFTim Ferriss2:04:40

       Really had a lot of fun.

    6. CHCharlie Houpert2:04:41

       Yeah.

    7. TFTim Ferriss2:04:42

       And for everybody listening, as always, we'll link to everything in the show notes at tim.blog/podcast. Not too many Charlies on-

    8. CHCharlie Houpert2:04:52

       [laughs]

    9. TFTim Ferriss2:04:52

       ... the podcast, so if you just search Charlie.

    10. CHCharlie Houpert2:04:54

        Charlie Hoehn.

    11. TFTim Ferriss2:04:55

        Yeah, [laughs] Charlie Hoehn.

    12. CHCharlie Houpert2:04:57

        Yeah.

    13. TFTim Ferriss2:04:57

        Charlie Hoehn might pop up on the blog, but otherwise, [laughs] Char- Charlie Houpert will be the one and only. And until next time, as always, be just a bit kinder than necessary, not just to others, but to yourself, and thanks for doing it.

Episode duration: 2:05:25