The Unmistakable Creative Podcast

From Maximizing Income to Maximizing Impact with Nick Reese

Like many young people, Nick Reese was wildly ambitious. While that ambition became the driving force of his entrepreneurial efforts, matters of the heart interfered. What started was a radical shift from maximizing income to maximizing impact.

Starting a t-shirt company from a college dorm room
Learning to recover from the failure of a business
Having the audacity to go for what you really want
Why Nick tied his self worth to making money
A pivotal moment that caused Nick to change his path
Looking at a difficult parental relationship with a father
Handling significant amounts of adversity in order to grow
The 30 day cold shower challenge
The importance of being able to tolerate uncomfortable situations
Developing a confident internal narrative to go after what you want
How to improve your map of the world my modeling great ones
Why reading non-business books is incredibly useful
Creating the awareness necessary to know you're in an identity crisis
Why relationships matter more than anything in the world
An incredible story of love, heart problems, and what matters in life
Battling with credbility vampires

Nick Reese is on a mission to help people learn the skills to live an uncommonly good life. You can learn more about his work at NicholasReese.com and Broadbandnow.com

Resources and People Mentioned

The Pillars of the Earth

The Neursocience of Flow with Steven Kotler

The Making of Super Size me with Alex Jamieson

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Duration:: 1h 10m
Broadcast on:: 05 Mar 2014
Audio Format:: other

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Hydro is the state-of-the-art at-home rower that engages 86% of your muscles, delivering the ultimate full-body workout in just 20 minutes. From advanced to beginner, Hydro has over 500 classes, shot worldwide and taught by Olympians and world-class athletes. For a 30-day risk-free trial, go to hydro.com and use code ROW450 to save $450 on a hydro-pro rower. That's H-Y-D-R-O-W.com code ROW450. Nick, welcome to the unmistakable creative. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Yeah. It's my pleasure. I mean, you and I sat down a few years ago for the very first time, and I remember thinking, "Damn it, that guy gave me some tough love," and I was really pissed off, but you also saved me a lot of headaches and time. It's interesting to be able to have this conversation with you now, having gone through everything you have. Tell us a bit about your story, your background, and how that has brought you to doing the work that you're doing today. How far back do you want me to go? I can go all the way back to starting and failing my first business, or we can start a little bit closer. What do you think is best? Go back, because what I want to know is I want to see all the things that have molded you into who you are today. That's what I want to hear about, and I'm pretty sure that's what our listeners want to hear about. Rockin' Rockin'. We'll go all the way back to when I was 17. My parents were on the verge of divorce. My dad had been laid off for a really long time, like years. He's a really brilliant programmer, and for some reason, he was overqualified for pretty much every job, and so I decided I was going to go out and get a job. I remember just being frustrated and bringing my resumes to places and not really knowing what direction to go, and I ended up getting hired in real estate, and I thought that was really interesting, and I enjoyed real estate, and I was just hired as a secretary, because this was in the middle of the boom in 2005, I think it was 2005, yeah, 2005 timeframe in Florida. It was the middle of the real estate boom, and I ended up sitting right across a mortgage broker, and I remember him telling me, "These people can't afford to get this house, but we're going to sign the loan anyways." I remember that was like, "I was like, "Okay, so maybe I want to be like this guy. He makes a lot of money. He drives a fancy car. Maybe I want to be this." I remember setting goals back then that were something like, "I want to make a billion dollars in my lifetime," and I remember getting really serious. I need to run my own business. I need to get serious about this, and that was the summer right before college, and I decided I was going to launch a t-shirt company, because the college I was going to was the University of Central Florida, and they didn't have any really solid t-shirts. At the time, they were the UCF Golden Knights, and so I found a company in Michigan that had a logo that looks like a golden knight, but it was actually not a knight. It was some other guy in armor, and it was pretty impressive looking, and I licensed that logo from them in order to use it on some t-shirts, and I made a whole bunch of t-shirts, and they were selling really well at college. By the time I got there, I created a site on Cafe Press, and I remember bringing a whole box of them to the dorm rooms, and I was selling them for like $20 a pop, and I mean, they were flying. I couldn't keep them in stock. So I started college, and as college went, I'm like, "How can I scale this business? How can I scale this business?" And as that semester went on, and I joined Fraternity, and I was doing all sorts of popular things, like really playing the popularity game, and trying to build this business, and it was way easier to build that t-shirt business than I thought it was going to be, like selling t-shirts at that time, I guess, I think most college students today have ideas of starting a t-shirt company, but for some reason, mine was doing pretty well. And then I got this random letter in the mail that was a cease and desist from the college I was attending. It was like the University of Central Florida represented by the Collegiate Apparel Corporation, which basically licenses all their logos in order to sell apparel, and they were changing their name from the UCF Golden Knights to the UCF Knights. And all my shirts said knights, or UCF Knights, and basically I was doing this under the idea of ultimate college fun is what UCF stood for, and it sat down in the back of the shirts. So I remember taking this letter and walking into student legal services and being like, "Okay, what does this mean?" And basically, it got escalated so quickly that I was either shut down my company or kind of like suggested that I find a different college. And it was interesting, I decided to shut down the company and then I was like, "All right, what am I going to do now?" And from there, it was like, "Okay, I need my next big idea, I need my next big idea." And I ended up setting up a basic LLC with a friend and we were going to start a menu service to deliver food from restaurants. You could basically order online and be like one of the first online order services in the area and we got through all the paperwork, hired attorneys, everything, ended up deciding not to launch it after a few thousand dollars in legal fees. So I had taken all the money that I had made from the first business, poured it in the second business and it failed. And at this time, my parents finally got divorced. And so here I am at college with no financial support and I had spent all my savings and I was like, "What am I going to do?" And so that really sets up the tone for the future and the rest of the stories. But basically that summer, in the summer after freshman year, I once again went back to work at a real estate firm and I was working at a branch of Sotheby's at this time and I was hired because when you're hiring someone, you can't ask them how old they are. And they thought that I had graduated college at this point and I was just interested in a summer job and they basically hired me right after what I heard was two people had quit at the same time that were in charge of my position. And so I walked into this mess, this mess of a company like 60 agents and more marketing collateral coming in than anyone knew what to do with and I was like, "Okay, I'm going to take these skills that I've learned in these first two businesses and I'm going to put them to work here and who knows what I'm going to do. I'm going to go back to college and I'm going to party and I'm graduating at a job and forget these big goals or big money." And just so funny looking back and I ended up working at that job and systematizing their entire system, their marketing system so that they didn't need two people and within like four weeks, I had created like Excel documents and like cut out all the checks and balances. So basically in order for a piece of collateral to go out, there would be like multiple times an agent would have to sign off on it. And I did basically streamline it so that you wouldn't have to, you wouldn't have to, you have one sign off period and everything else would be essentially on, I was on my own to create it. But there was one part of the system that I couldn't optimize and that was email marketing. And at the time I didn't know it but I know now and my marketing director was good friends with the person that was doing the email marketing and it was just the most inefficient process. And I remember at the time I'm like, "I've systematized everything else. This is super fun and this is super exciting except I can't systematize this part." And so she decided to let me go, like take it home and work on it. So I took it home and work on it, worked on it and came up with a way that we cut out her friend and I didn't realize it was her friend at the time. And so I come back and I have this amazing proposal of what we should do as a company. I worked on it on all my time and I was building like $10 an hour or something and like looking back, this was like, I don't know, like if I was an outside company, I would have charged like 10 grand to do it today. And it was just so funny, I presented it to her and she's like, "Nope, we're not doing it. We're going to keep doing it the way we've always done it." And so I went home, continued to work on it, continued to work on it was like, "There's an idea here. There's an idea here." And I was like, "I got to make this money. I got to figure out how to make money." I'm like, "I can't be this broke guy anymore." And I finally took it back in again and she's like, "Nick, I told you we're going to do it the way we've done it. We are the way we've always done it." This time I'm like, "I can't work at a job where my ideas aren't going to be capitalized on this secret idea." And so after talking with my family, I went home and I created a PowerPoint presentation and decided I was going to ambush the president of the company with an impromptu meeting and pitch him my idea. And looking back, I can't believe I had so much guts, but I did it. And I showed up at the office at 7 a.m. and everyone got there at 9. And I knew he got there around 7.30 and I was waiting outside and I just told him, "I got dropped off early, but hey, I have something to show you." And I walked him through it and he on the spot hired me and I told him, "Oh yeah, but wait one second." I kind of went over my boss's head, "You're going to have to hire me as an independent contractor when I return back to college." And he kind of smiled and he's like, "Okay, let me think about it, but make sure you create a budget because being an independent contractor isn't as easy as it sounds." And so I created a budget in my next meeting with him. He's like, "Dude, you're not going to be charging me enough." And I'm like, "What?" Originally, the company that was servicing his company at the time was charging him like $100 in eBlast, which is when you send out a, it's basically a mass email to realtors. And I wanted to do it for 15. And he's like, "You should charge a little bit more." So he convinced me to charge him more and at that point, I had my first mentor. And I ended up, to make a long story short, I ended up scaling that business through college like when I returned back to college, I was living under a bunk bed in a fraternity house with two other guys in like 120 square foot room. And I went from being this like, this popular guy that ran a t-shirt company and everyone knew to like this guy that only worked on his like freelancing business. And it was, there's all sorts of like crazy stories of like people going out and getting like absolutely wasted, which is what I wanted to do, but I knew I was like paying it forward. And I just, I just focused on building this freelancing business. So throughout college, I, that's all I did pretty much. I went to school, I wasn't focused on school, school is always easy for me. And I ended up scaling that business to six figures by the time I had graduated. And in the meantime, I had gotten into affiliate marketing because I had a friend that was making like $10 a day off some ringtones website. And that's where things started to get interesting because at this point, my business was, my freelancing business was making about $60,000 a year. And I was working on it about two hours a day when I was, by the time I was a junior in college. And like, it grew super fast. My marketing was brilliant and I've always been pretty good at marketing. But I was like, this affiliate marketing thing, there's something to it, this whole passive and income thing, it sounds cool. And just before that, the four hour work or just around that time, the four hour work we came out and I remember reading it and it was, it wasn't like popular or anything. Like I can't, I don't remember how I discovered it. It was still like a first edition of it. And I remember there's some good ideas in this, but I feel like this guy is just selling his like basically selling an idea. And I realized that there was like another path I could take instead of just running a business but also like take something that had more automated income. And then I ended up just leaning full force into affiliate marketing and like really started to like almost resent my email marketing businesses at this time because it wasn't making enough money. Or it didn't have the opportunity to have passive income. And I was like addicted to this idea of passive income and fast forward a little bit. And I had, I discovered affiliate marketing and in 2000, I don't know what year it was. I'm like, I'm not going to get tripped up on that, but basically I had figured out affiliate marketing and I had within my first month, I had like an affiliate site that was making like $300, $300 a month and I'm like, this is what I'm going to devote my life to. And I started like just, I almost dropped out of college at that time because I thought there was just so much opportunity. And I kind of basically focused the rest of my efforts on affiliate marketing. And by 2010, when I graduated, I graduated in 2009, I had moved to Austin in 2010. And I remember I had set all these huge goals for like big savings accounts and like all this stuff. And I was never really like a big spender. I didn't want like more toys and I wasn't interested in travel at that time. And I don't know what I was going to do with all the money, but for some reason, I felt like my self worth came from making money. And I know that that's like, I'm an only child and I was brought up if like, like when I saw my dad not making money, like, and him and my mom fighting, I thought that the reason they were fighting was because he couldn't make money. And so like a lot of my like self worth came from like making money. And at this point, like I was about in 2010, it was when I finally like got the worst. I remember it was like all of that, all those emotions kind of hit. And I realized that I wasn't like money wasn't going to make me fulfilled in a way that, I don't know, I was like, I was 24 and I remember I was 23 at the time and I was sitting on my couch and it was a day in March. And my accountant called and I don't know what I was, I don't remember the specifics. I think it was a Friday, it was Friday night and it was, I was supposed to be out with some friends, but instead I decided to stay in and play video games and focus on like the affiliate business stuff, focus on it. Right. It wasn't taking any time. And I remember just playing video games got a call from the accountant and she's like, Nick, you, you broke your reach goal, like you broke your stretch goal for the year. And it's March. And I remember like at that moment, I was like, I got to call you back. And I just like broke down in tears. And I was like, and it wasn't tears of happiness. Like you'd expect it to be like really exciting time. And instead I was like, I'm sitting on my couch, like pretty much alone, like I don't care about anything besides money. And I've just reached this monetary goal and it's not going to improve my life at all. And then the crazy thing is my accountant was my mom at the time. And she called to celebrate it with me and I was more interested in the video game that I was playing than any of the relationships or like anything around me. And I realized that if I kept on this path that I would become more of a like, I could just see myself becoming a monster. And I remember looking around the apartment that I was in and like seeing all like the empty beer bottles because I started drinking at that time and being like, wow, like my apartment is just a reflection of how much of a mess I am inside. And that was like the start of a completely different journey. And so I don't know, it's kind of interesting if I had to give you like a quick summary of the first 23 years of my life, it would be like so focused on money, finally achieves it and then realizes that there's hopefully there's more to life than that. And so I think, I think I used a lot of words to say that, but that's kind of the foundation that kind of brought me to where the direction I'm heading now, even four years later. So. Awesome. Okay. So there's a ton of stuff here that obviously, I mean, if you've heard anything I've done, we're going to tear it all apart and dig back into all of it. So you know, I want to go back to the very beginning. It's interesting because I feel like there was a lesson here that slipped very, very early in your life and I'm very curious about sort of, you know, looking back when you look at something like that. You know, the idea that somebody who you're working for tells you, by the way, none of these people can afford to buy houses, but we're going to get them to sign loans anyways and look at the, you know, it's funny because the impact of that has been gargantuan on our society as a whole. I mean, it's been a very, very detrimental impact and I'm curious if, you know, that, you know, I mean, that thread shaped and influenced anything throughout this entire journey of yours. I mean, we'll get to where you're headed now, but I'm very curious about sort of, you know, in that moment, did you feel it? Did you cringe? I mean, you know, what was going through your mind? Well, the thing that he said is he's like, they can't afford it, but I'll get like $1,500 for closing this loan. And I remember he was driving like a Porsche, I don't know, was it was some turbo, like I knew it was expensive. Like it was a $300,000 car or something like that. I'd guessed in my head at the time and I was like, I want to be like this guy. He's successful. He's not like my dad is actually what I thought. And sorry, dad, if you're listening, but that's, that's the truth. And it's like, I want to, I want to do this because the thing that, that's even before this is me and my dad didn't really have a healthy relationship growing up. When I was like 16, it was probably the worst of it. Like we got enough, it wasn't even a fistfight. He came in and basically I came home from school and every single day I would say, what's up old man? Did you find a job yet? And it was kind of me like pushing his buttons, but finally one day he snapped and came at me and was like choking me in the bathroom. And I had to like punch him in the face to get him off of me. And I think that really shaped, like I didn't want to be my dad at that time. And like years later, like two, three years after that, I ended up like, I basically had like a hard to heart moment with him where after my parents had gotten divorced and I went back and was like, dad, let's, let's burn our old bridges and build new ones. I only like cried for a couple of days and now we're pretty close friends and I was best man at his wedding. But I think the fact that I could found, I found someone I could model that wasn't my dad and I could be someone, I could be successful by following this other guy's worldview, the way that like screw everyone else, this is like the world's mind to take. And I very much modeled that guy for a really long time. I think I think it was probably I probably modeled him until I found another mentor. And it's interesting. It's interesting how you can build like a mental model of what's someone, like someone that you're modeling, for instance, you can build a mental model of them and say, like, what decision would they make here? And like I would totally, I made tons of decisions based off this random guy. And I can't even remember his name, I'm blanking on it right now. But this mortgage broker that I sat across from for a summer, you know, I think it's interesting. You know, I'm listening to you say this. I mean, I realize like all this entire journey of for all of us, I think, whether we're building something, whether we're making art, I think it really, it's about shaping who, you know, we are and shaping our identity and who we were meant to become. And I think that, you know, to me, one of the things I see often is is people who have like really, really, you know, success beyond normal standards at a very young age have a very, very similar story to this. Yeah, I mean, typically, like the kind of the, I've done a lot of personal work or like self work. And I really think for a long time, I was trying to like fill up a hole within, a hole within me with money to like make it okay. And it's just, it's amazing what, what happens when instead of money being yourself focused, you kind of shift it to the people that are around you and like realize that like the most important thing in life isn't a thing. And it's like, I know that that's crazy, but it's something that is, is amazingly powerful for me to remember. So. Well, what's this? You know, so it's interesting. I mean, one of the things I feel like was a real molding moment for you is, you know, your t-shirt company gets set down and your parents divorce all in the span of a very short time period. And you know, it's interesting. I mean, I can't tell you the number of people I have had here who have events like this. I mean, something that really is a significant emotional experience in their life that really, it really molds them and it changes them into who they are and it makes them see the world in such a different light. And you know, I'm curious, you know, looking back now, kind of, you know, what, what that has done for your ability to tolerate, you know, uncertainty, to tolerate failure. And the other question, and I've asked this question to a lot of people, is that, you know, some of us, honestly, we don't experience those significant emotional experiences. They just don't happen to us. And yet they're often the catalyst for people who go out and do amazing things. So two questions. One is how you build a tolerance to navigate that, how you pick yourself back up in that situation, regardless of what it is that we're going through. And then of course, the other thing is how do you bring about the change without the significant emotional experience? Is it is it even possible? Yeah, so awesome questions. So first, let me say I wouldn't change my significant emotional experiences. I wouldn't trade them for anything. There's a bunch I left out. There's a couple more in college that were pretty traumatic, so to speak. But I really think that I wouldn't be who I am without those. And so what was the first question again? I'm an ADD. Okay. So first question was how you pick yourself back up in a situation like that. I mean, having your business fail, you know, realizing and your parents divorce all in a short time period. That's a lot for, you know, an 18 year old or 17 year old kid to take on all at once. Yeah. That's heavy. Yeah. Yeah. So it was super difficult. And to be honest, I really didn't know what to do. Like, after we decided not to go through the second business, I got really into World of Warcraft. And there's a whole nother conversation, but I think World of Warcraft is an amazing support group. I think that's the reason it's so addictive. It's not that the game is that great. I mean, sure, they have great game mechanics. But when you like, when there's something about like plugging in your headphones and getting on a game and like talking with people and they almost become your support group. And like World of Warcraft was my support group. But basically, how do you recover from it? When I was that young, I wasn't very good at it. But as far as can you can you develop the skills to handle it, I believe you can. And I'm a firm believer that the size of your life is directly correlated with the number of uncomfortable experiences and situations you can readily tolerate. And so something that I'm a big fan of is cold showers because I think cold showers are one of the best metaphors for life because they represent something that you know you should be doing, but you have a resistance to because it's going to be uncomfortable. And so I actually have like a 30 day cold shower challenge that I've challenged tons and tons and tons of people to over the years and entrepreneurs routinely, I think it's an amazing experience for entrepreneurs because they're able to see like how they act when like, oh, I need to make this difficult phone call, but I don't know how like I know it's going to be uncomfortable. Like, oh no, I'm going to procrastinate all day and I'll end up with my to do list two weeks from now. And so you start seeing that like when every single morning you wake up and you're like, I'm willing to be uncomfortable in order to live the life I want. And when that's represented by something that you're going to do daily, if you're like hygienic, it's pretty awesome. So I do think if you practice being uncomfortable and like immediately tackle situations that are uncomfortable, you can really build up that tolerance to them. Well, I love that because it's actually incredibly simple, right? It's not, you know, I think that when we think of, you know, building a tolerance for discomfort, we think of it in terms of grandiosity, right, like, hey, sell everything you own and, you know, bail out. And, you know, and that's, to me, that's not building a tolerance for discomfort. That's doing something that's probably somewhat stupid if you're not prepared for it. Right. And the way I always frame it towards people is, is like all of your best stories in life. And I believe a life is measured by the number of great stories that they can tell. All of your best stories come from really uncomfortable experiences and like, or even horrible experiences, but your best, most interesting stories, the most human stories come from uncomfortable experiences, whether they're funny or whether they're dramatic or whatever. Yeah. I mean, the thing that I've realized is that like there's no progress that occurs inside of your comfort zone. Like all progress happens outside of it, even if it's like the slightest step out. And what I, you know, I was writing something the other day, I said, you know, as a surfer, you know, you get in the water and, you know, some days it's like three feet and then other days you get out and it's like six foot. But I realized what happens is every small wave that you go for prepares you to go for bigger ones. And I think that's, that's like an absolutely like profound metaphor for what it is that we experience in every element of our life. Definitely. And I think metaphors are the best teachers because it's like a daily reflection that you can think about or it's something that occurs in your life that gives you insight. It's kind of like a mirror that will show you a part of you that you haven't seen before. So what's the metaphor? What's this? Let's talk a little bit about mentors. I mean, I think that the, there's two things that come from this whole idea of mentors and then the story. I mean, that you told me about finding your first mentor. I think that one of the, the things that I saw is a lot of bravado and a lot of confidence in, you know, the internal narrative to say, hey, you know, somebody told me that I can't do this and I'm going to basically walk around this person and still go and do it. And I think that a lot of people are very hesitant to do that in any form. I mean, in your case, it happens to be in the career, but I think that there's a much deeper message here. And I'm really curious, you know, one, I mean, you've talked about tolerance for discomfort, but how do we develop that sort of internal narrative so that it's self-serving as opposed to sabotaging? I don't know. Like for me, back then in that example, it was because I was frustrated. I'd found like a really cool idea and something I wanted to pursue. And then like I had a gatekeeper and I was like, well, you're not really the boss. You have a boss. He's got to tell me now. And she wouldn't let me meet with him. So I decided, you know what, like I've got like a few weeks left in this job, a month of max, like what do I have to lose? Like I'll have a good story of nothing else. So I mean, that's what was going through my mind then. You know what's interesting to me here is how much of the narrative we make up even though it's not true. I mean, everything. I mean, there's so many rules and scripts. And I think we live by an invisible set of behaviors that dictate our life. And I say, you know, they're like the matrix. They create a prison that we can't feel or taste or touch that actually dictate our behavior. Definitely. And they're all made up. Like they're not even real. Yeah. It's like, it's just like, so I've done some like NLP training and I've gone through a ton of personal development stuff. Like the perfect thing that they always say is like the map is not the real thing. You know what I mean? Your map of the world is not the real thing. And that's like, I think so many people are imprisoned by what they think is going to happen if they do something versus just taking one step and seeing what's after that step. And I think if you generally have a direction that you're heading, you might have to zigzag a lot in order to get to where you're going. But if like you're never going to have enough information at the get go. And so if you just keep putting one foot after another, you're in a solid position to make decisions at each step is the way I look at it. And I think, I mean, being an only child, I think has a lot to do with kind of my ability to the reason why I kind of was comfortable jumping over someone's head. Like if mom says no, then talk to dad or if dad says no, then talk to mom like there's always like a another gatekeeper, so to speak, or someone else they could stop you. And I really just, I don't know why I jumped it then. Spark something uncommon this holiday with just the right gift from uncommon goods. The busy holiday season is here. And uncommon goods makes it less stressful with incredible hand pick gifts for everyone on your list on one spot. Gift of spark joy, wonder delight and that it's exactly what I wanted feeling. He scoured the globe for original handmade, absolutely remarkable things. Last year, I found the perfect gift for my nephew periodic table building blocks. 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What I'm looking for is this idea that circumstances and identity become intertwined to create reality. If the map of the world isn't real, how do you develop a map that serves you and really empowers you and gives you that ability to keep putting one foot in front of the other? We've got to model it off other people. At least in my opinion, I can't tell you the number of books I've listened to on Audible when I was commuting all the time in my first business. I was, oh my goodness, Audible changed my life. The ability to, just like this podcast, it's like you have to surround yourself with other people who have better maps than you. I'm a fan of business books to some extent, but memoirs and biographies are where you really get people's maps of the world. It's just amazing, Oprah's biography is amazing. Steve Jobs' biography, if you haven't read it, it's great. There's so many good ones that it's like Dale Carnegie's and Andrew Carnegie's, like just such different perspectives in the same family, and I think if you want to improve your map of the world, you've got to start looking and figuring out how other people have built theirs. Yeah, I love that. I love that you brought up memoirs as opposed to business books because I think that, you know, we live in sort of this incestuous ecosystem where we're all reading the same stuff. We're all, you know, reading the same types of books, you know, reading the same blogs. And one of the things I'll never forget, and I may have mentioned this on your show before, when I asked Julian Smith, I said, you know, what makes you such a compelling writer? And he said, well, I don't read blogs. And I said, do you have one of the most popular blogs on the web? How's that possible? But I can tell you, ever since I really took that advice to heart and spent more of my time reading books, I mean, most of you guys know, at this point, I have a ritual every morning, I sit down in a room where there's absolutely no technology, I literally, I set it up the night before, there's a notebook, a pen, and a few good books. And that's my entire, like, that's, that's fundamental to my creative process. And I just, I really, I think that when you start to expose yourself to different art forms and different thought processes, I mean, it really expands your view. And I think that, I think, you know, effectively what it does is it makes the map richer. It makes it much easier to create a much richer ecosystem than, than, you know, you would be if you keep living in this incestuous circle. I totally agree. And there's, I haven't read blogs actively since like 2007. I killed my feed reader in 2007 when I was like into affiliate marketing because I realized that I wasn't going to ever take action because there's this endless stream of new ideas that I could implement, which is imagining implementing them was way more fun than actually implementing them. And, and so I, I decided when I realized that I was like, all right, this thing's got to go. And I haven't actively read blogs since then. And instead I did replace them with books because my person, someone said, finally said to me, where else can you pay $10 to $30 for something that someone spent 12 months or more of their life fretting over every small detail? Like it's such a good perspective and I, I've never really been a fiction person, but recently I've gotten a lot more out of fiction than I have actually business books. So it's pretty fantastic. And I, and I think there's this, so, so there's a book called the Pillars of the Earth. And that book actually kind of like unlocked something for me that really changed the way that I started thinking about business because I've kind of been on this journey since, since that, since I kind of where the story stopped, I've been on this journey of like giving back and realizing how lives are so intertwined. And so, basically the book, the Pillars of the Earth talks about it like leads you through the lives of multiple generations and how like one, like it's a historical fiction book, but it's like, it'll show you how the consequences of like one father will impact another family down the line. And I started getting obsessed with that idea and how like my actions today, like, are going to profoundly impact the people in front of me in a way that I can't even fathom. And so I, after my big identity crisis in 2010, I really focused on like, it was about a year and a half for me to like fully pull out of like, who am I? You know what I mean? And that's when we met in a, in a bar in New York City. And, and then since then, like I saw one of the Pillars of the Earth and that really unlocked like, hey, like, there's something more than you, like, once you know how to solve the money problem, I think solving it over and over and over is fairly easy, like, like, it's not always straightforward, but it's, it's, it's simple. It's like, make more money than you spend, like, right? But I, I really think solving the impact equation is much more difficult. And, and that's something that I'm like devoting my life to essentially right now. And I find it much, much more fulfilling and it all is all, I can trace it all back to reading fiction book, which is not a business book, which is pretty crazy. Well, listen to this, I want to go back to the identity crisis because we really haven't talked about that in a lot of depth. You know, I'm not going to let you out of here, Nick, without doing that. I told you that before we hit record, uh, you know, I, I honestly think that to some degree life as a whole is one gigantic identity crisis that we're trying to overcome. Totally. I totally agree. It's, it's one of those things. Like, I look at it and I say, you know, but by the time you reach adult life, your real identity is basically buried under layers of social programming, expectations, the things that have happened to you, uh, and, you know, one, I think that, and there are two things that come from this. I mean, I think that, you know, in a lot of ways, you almost have to bring about your own identity crisis if it doesn't happen. And you know, sometimes it happens early, sometimes it happens late. Um, I think maybe, you know, the question for me is, it's very likely that you could have gotten to that point and just kept going down the path that you are at. So, uh, and I think that that happens to many, many people. And so what I'm really curious about is how you, how you basically develop the awareness that, hey, maybe there is an identity crisis going on here. And then we'll get really into the transformation because I think that, you know, one of the things that you said to me before you hit record here is that you, you know, you've never really, you know, allowed yourself to be vulnerable because I mean, we all kind of know you as this guy who has, has done a lot. I mean, truth be told, I remember walking away from that, you know, meeting at a bar thinking, I'm really pissed off. That was one of the most intimidating conversations I've ever had in my life, um, not to make you uncomfortable. But, uh, by point being like, how do you develop the awareness that, you know what, there is an identity crisis going on here? So typically, uh, well, for me, I just know for me and I can, I can talk about me. And that's, um, I, I do the same thing every single time I'm not addressing a problem that needs to be addressed. I turned to video games and I was like seventh prestige and Call of Duty at that time, which means I'd spent like days and days and days of my life playing a video game. And I was like, Nick, if you want to change your life, just spend the time that you're spending on video games doing something else. And I remember like being like, ah, I should, I should fly like, I want to like meet some more people in the internet space. Like I'm going to fly around and like meet people and interview them, like under the guys that I'm going to interview them, and I remember I bought a video camera and my business partner, I thought I was crazy at the time and I flew to LA, stayed in LA for a few weeks and just like, I knew like two people there stayed with one and I ran into you on the, on the Venice boardwalk when you let that, but that was actually a couple of years later. But yeah, it is super crazy. And I, I ended up just interviewing people and I ended up interviewing like, uh, Hollywood producers and like everything just started unfolding. And I was like, well, I guess this is kind of the path I'm supposed to go down. And, uh, this whole time, like trying to figure out who I am down that and being able to be like surrounded by like some of my closest friends, like I, I mean, that's where I met like Jonathan Fields. And I really got like deep with Derek Halpern and like just like, just like some of my like longest term friends came during that time where I was in like the darkest spot. But I knew that I couldn't sit still like continue playing video games. And the way I had it is I, I, I decided since money's not my focus, like let's not go out and blow a ton of money, but let's also like, let's like find out what else is important in life. And I remember there was like this moment, um, where like Derek and I were in New York City and we, we were like drinking and it was like the first time I realized that like we weren't like drinking a lot of drinks, but like I remember we had like a beer and we had actually had like a heart to heart conversation. And I was like, wow, this is the first time I've been real with someone in a real, like in years, not under the guide of like guys of like, Oh, I'm more successful or blah, blah, blah, blah, or any of that stuff. And that's before Derek Halpern started social triggers or any of that stuff. And I remember like this is, there's something here, like relationships are important. And yeah, I think that was the start of the thread that like I'm still on today, which is like, you know, relationships matter the most out of anything. Like you can take away all the money in the world, take away everything I have, but as long as I have like my core relationships, I'm going to be fine. Well, you know, it's funny to say that because I, you know, I always said, you know, hey, maybe this show won't be here forever. Maybe the stuff I've done online won't be here forever. But the thing that will always remain as a byproduct is all the people that I've met over the last five years. Definitely. Definitely. Let's do this. Let's shift gears a little bit. Let's start talking about the sort of narrative around, you know, the thread that takes us into where we're at today and kind of what, you know, you and I had talked about via email. I mean, what, you know, after sort of the identity crisis, after our, you know, meeting in the bar, a lot has happened since then and it's really kind of changed the way you've kind of approached this. I mean, you and I talked about this idea that, you know, you really have made a significant shift from maximizing income to maximizing impact. And I think that, you know, this impact equation is one of those things that, you know, I realize that once you can get your head around that, it's really weird. It's almost sort of new age and spiritual and a lot of people, you know, hate that. But I've seen something dramatic in my life when it became, you know, much more about what I can put back into the world and, you know, what impact I can have on somebody, you know, somebody emailed me the other day. And said, you know, I'm really liking what you're doing with the show. And I said, you know, the, the one of the toughest questions to answer for me has always been how do you choose your guests and, you know, the only sort of thing I could come up with was I said, well, at the end of the day, I need, if a listener's life has changed or something is moved inside of them or there's some sort of impact on them, then, then, you know, then we, then, then the guest becomes a potential. Beyond that, it's always hard to say if there's anything concrete. And so I loved it to have you kind of expand on this whole idea of impact and kind of what, you know, what else has happened that has led to all of this and this whole sort of new way of seeing of the world? Because I can tell you, you're not the guy I talked to in the bar three years ago. Definitely not. Definitely not. So in between that time, there was a lot of travel, a lot of like personal discovery. In June 2012, I went with my friend Peter Schaller to Spain on like a random trip and ended up meeting the girl of my dreams. I walked into a leather store and like fell head over, head over heroes in love and have been, been with her ever since. And there's, basically, because I know we're short on time, I want to tell this story because I've been avoiding telling it in public. So we're going to kind of fast forward a little bit past that, but I think it's important that the readers know, or that the listeners know that I've, I met this girl, amazing girl, her name's Yardena. And we, we basically traveled to, I think we've been to 18 or 19 countries since we've met. And most of that's for visa reasons. Most of that's just like playing geography. Like we're trying to set up like a new home base every three months because I can only spend X amount of days in Europe and she can only spend X amount of days in the US. And so because of that, we went to Asia. And after like, globe trotting and like, I mean, I'm not making near the money I was making back in the day, but like it's still like, it's still enough to like travel and be like location independent and I'll do whatever needed to protect that. And so we went to Asia and we had a great time in Thailand and we were there for like just under 30 days and we were meeting some friends in Vietnam. And at this time, I've always had this calling to really focus on helping entrepreneurs realize that there's something greater than, or helping just like average people that don't have an entrepreneurial drive, realize that like there's something other than their nine to five job. And I'm not saying like the entrepreneurial path is for everyone, but I believe that you can transition. There's going to be a big transition even statistics are showing it. The people are going to move more from their nine to five job into freelancing. And then ultimately, I think once you freelance a little while, you can you should start your own business if you see some opportunities. So anyways, I've known that I needed to have that calling, but I needed some space to write. And so when I was in Thailand, I basically spent 30 days writing and at the end of it, I got really sick and we went to Vietnam. And I remember flying into Vietnam and like we were leaving Singapore because that was where our stopover was and we didn't have a visa and we scrambled to get our visa last minute and our flight took off in two hours. And they're like, there's no way you're getting a visa. And at this point, I had that morning, before we flew to Singapore, I woke up with like basically Montezuma's revenge or whatever you want to say. I was like food was coming out every which way. And I was like in trouble, I was in the most pain in my life. I thought I was like going to die or something like that. It was unusual how much, how much I was like vomiting and whatnot. And so like the whole day was like framed around, are we going to get this visa? And I'm like really sick. And so ended up finding a friend who knew someone who could get a visa for us and we ended up getting it just a few seconds. And I'm telling this story way faster because I know we're short on time. But we get into Vietnam and we don't have enough money to in order to pay the the entry fee to get into Vietnam. And so at this point, I'm like, wow, are we making a mistake? We're in like a communist country. I don't know what to expect. I don't speak the language. And like I've traveled a lot of places and I'm not scared, but I was intimidated then. And I don't know if it was like being sick or what. And so the ATM is not working. And they say you have to pay this and there's no return flights to anywhere because we're on the last flight into Vietnam. And like you have to pay this and they took my passport and basically wrote me a handwritten note in Vietnamese that said go find it ATM and like they would let me back into the airport. So all I have is my wallet and your Dana who was not my fiance at the time. But she was she was my girlfriend and I had in the bag she was holding when I went out to go venture for to get money to to let us into the country was like an engagement ring hidden. And that's like I was like you got to protect these bags like it was it was important as like kind of like an ongoing thing like how long can I hide this engagement ring. And we I finally went and got the money we got we got into the country, but it was like that set up the whole tone for our entire experience in Vietnam. So the first couple days were there to meet with a few people that I know through like the tropical NBA circle or dynamite circle. And we we ended up meeting up with a couple of them. And then one morning we woke up to go get pastries at like a French bakery place. And we got in the cab and my heart was just it wasn't beating. I would try to it was like fluttering in my chest like it was like trying to escape my chest. It felt like a butterfly was like trying to jump out of my chest. And I would put my my hand to take my pulse and there was no pulse in my throat. And I remember being like, oh my gosh, am I dying? And at this point, I like we'd just been dropped off by a cab and I just sat down on the steps at our apartment. And I was like, you know what I mean? Can you grab that? Can you get that other cab? And like I like hobble over to it going in and out of like darkness basically. And it was like we got to get to the hospital and she's like screaming hospital hospital hospital like banging our chest. And the Vietnamese guy has no idea what's going on. And so I finally get into the cab after like 20 seconds of like crawling over there and I'm like just shocked. I'm like still like with it. And I hand her my phone and I say Google it. And I don't remember anything else. And then we wake up in a hospital in Vietnam. It ends up it was the best hospital, best cardiac hospital in all of Vietnam. So thank goodness for Google. And it was like the top result I guess. And I wake up being poked with a needle having like blood taken on my arm and I look around and there's nothing that's in English. I was taken to a Vietnamese, Vietnamese hospital, not like an expat hospital. And I end up spending three days there. And I guess when you're in a, at least when you're in Vietnam, you basically become property of the hospital when you owe them money. And so they wouldn't let me leave or let me and we didn't have internet service. We didn't have any way of contacting anyone besides like our one cell phone that kept dying. And I remember laying on that hospital bed in the ER and like realizing still hidden is that, is that engagement ring. And I wanted to ask the girl, my dream is to marry me and I didn't know if I was going to get a chance to do it. And I don't know like something there like clicked. It's like how long is it going to take you to realize that like relationships are what matter. And like impact is what matters. Like how long is it going to take you? And then how long is it going to take you to actually follow your heart and actually know that like, you know, money isn't everything and like impact is like wake up, you're meant to do this. And I don't know. That's like, I don't know what else to say. Like that was like the, the wake up call and yeah, amazing. And this is why I wanted to have you on the show, truly, truly mind blowing. So a couple more questions and then we'll close things up here. You know, I think that once you make that shift, I think that I think everybody, you know, to some degree understands that that is really where, you know, your life starts to change. What I guess for me, you know, how does that play out in terms of, you know, what are the expressions of that calling for you? And then, you know, when we figure out that, hey, you know, we're here to make some sort of a difference in the world, you know, how, you know, what is the expression of that calling going to end up being for us? I mean, how do we figure that out? I think most of us know deep down inside, like at some point, what they're meant to do. And I think it just takes a little while for it to wake up or have the guts to face that uncomfortable situation and conversations that might arise out of that. And for me, even that hospital trip to Vietnam wasn't the end of it because I basically after that trip, I was like, Nick, you can't keep writing about this stuff. Apparently, that's the problem with your heart. That's what caused it all. And so at this point, I had written like probably, I was like 85 pages into a book and like all about kind of like my journey and whatnot and what I think like entrepreneurs could do and like kind of this, the whole thing that I talk about today. And I basically just stopped it. And the heart issues stuck with me for, I don't know, months, months and months. And then there was this moment, I got my heart checked out in New York City because I was having roughly 3000 heart palpitations a day. Some percentage of my heart beats a day, like almost 5% of my heart beats a day were irregular. And it was an electrical circuit problem with my heart and it would beat too fast. And I had what's known as PVCs. And then in October, I stumbled across my writing that I had given up and one of my heart palpitations were at their worst. And let's talk about something that's not always top of mind, but still really important. Life insurance. Why? Because it offers financial protection for your loved ones and can help them pay for things like a mortgage, credit card debt, it can even help fund an education. And guess what? Life insurance is probably a lot more affordable than you think. In fact, most people think life insurance is three times more expensive than it is. So with state farm life insurance, you can protect your loved ones without breaking the bank. Not sure where to start? State Farm has over 19,000 local agents that can help you choose an option to fit your needs and budget. Get started today and contact a state farm agent or go to statefarm.com. Hey, it's Sharon and here's where it gets interesting. Raise your hand if you want salon perfect nails for just $2 a manicure. Yeah, me too. With the Ulvin June Manny system, you can say goodbye to expensive services that take hours and hours and love your nails more than ever. I would know I've been doing it for years. Get 20% off your first Manny system with code PERFECT MANY 20 at alvinjune.com/PERFECT MANY 20. That's PERFECT MANY 20 at alvinjune.com/PERFECT MANY 20. Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. At Mint Mobile, we like to do the opposite of what Big Wireless does. They charge you a lot. We charge you a little. So naturally, when they announced they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided to deflate our prices due to not hating you. That's right. We're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month, new customers on first three month plan only, taxes and fees extra, speeds lower above 40 gigabytes of detail. Hey, Prime members, are you tired of ads interfering with your favorite podcasts? Good news, with Amazon Music, you have access to the largest catalog of ad-free top podcasts included with your Prime membership. To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to amazon.com/adfreepodcasts. That's amazon.com/adfreepodcasts to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads. Expand the way you work and think with Claude by Anthropic. With a brainstorming solo or working with a team, Claude is AI built for you. It's perfect for analyzing images and graphs, generating code, processing multiple languages and solving complex problems. Plus, Claude is incredibly secure, trustworthy and reliable, so you can focus on what matters. Curious? Visit claud.ai and see how Claude can elevate your work. Discover Hydro, the best cap secret in fitness. Hydro is the state-of-the-art at-home rower that engages 86% of your muscles, delivering the ultimate full-body workout in just 20 minutes. From advanced to beginner, Hydro has over 500 classes, shot worldwide and taught by Olympians and world-class athletes. For a 30-day risk-free trial, go to hydro.com and use code ROW450 to save $450 on a Hydro Pro rower. That's h-y-d-r-o-w.com, code ROW450. As I started reading it, I would just kept breaking down into tears being like, "Why are you ignoring this again?" And it's amazing I started reading it and started writing and I haven't had hard palpitations since then, which blows my mind if that's not biofeedback. How is it channeled today? I really am a firm believer that there's only-- you only have enough focus to do one or two things really well. I have some like VA's overseas and they have faster broadband internet than some people do and where I'm living in Tennessee. Before I moved to Nashville, I just recently moved to Nashville. I was doing some research and there's been no good place to basically find all the broadband providers in one area and as I was crunching, me and my business partner crunched 184 million rows of governmental data in order to create a tool to help other people find the best broadband in their area. It's called broadband now, but on that journey, I told my business partner, "I don't want to get behind this unless there's something we can actually get behind. We're not doing this just for the money." And so what we're focused on now with that business is bringing awareness to 39 million Americans who only have access to one broadband provider or zero. And basically how that's an inefficient market. And so that's one form of me bringing my expertise to have a greater impact because I think there's large chunks of the US population that are going to be left behind by just not having access to internet. And then the other is with what I'm doing on Nicholas Reese, which is really trying to create tools and systems to help people realize that there's a different path you can take in life. And sure, it's going to consist of some uncomfortable situations. And sure, you're going to have to develop new skills, but that's ultimately the manifestation of this wake up call that there's more out there than the money and that relationships and how you want to spend your energy are really the most important things. And it's been a journey and like we said before the call that I feel like there's almost like these credibility vampires. I feel like it takes away from my credibility if for some reason I'm vulnerable and can admit that I don't always have everything figured out and that maybe money isn't the most important thing. And I feel like for some reason I've been afraid of sharing that part of me because it would take away from my credibility or like basically the people that would believe in it. And it's funny. It sounds ridiculous to say out loud, but it's been a very real fear. Interesting. Yeah. So I love that you brought up the biofeedback piece. I think that it's kind of been an ongoing thread here with our guests. I mean, you know, we have Stephen Kotler, who's episode is today who talks all about flow. You know, we had Alex Jamison, who's the co-creator of Super Muts Super Size Me. And you know, I mean, that's a common thread, paying attention to, you know, how your body responds to what the world is giving back to you. It's really one of those things I think that, you know, I think it's covered up in health and wellness and all this nonsense and it's marketed in energy drinks and crap. But I think it really comes down to very simply paying attention to how your body responds to the situations that you're in. And it's really easy to ignore that impulse. I mean, I got really, really bad IBS in my 20s and it was amazing. Like after those jobs that I absolutely despised, stopped and all went away and it was kind of like, oh, and I mean, I just, I wanted to force the issue. Like, you know, I was in sales and I thought, this is it. I have to be the successful sales person. I have to figure out how to get to six figures as a sales person. I have to like, you know, get every award. And in the meantime, I'm destroying any sense of health I have in pursuit of some accolade that nobody is going to give a shit about when I die. Right. So, wow, really, really just mind blowing stuff, Nick. I mean, I am really, really pleased that you reached out to me. I think this is such an incredible story of, you know, going through a transformation and experiencing something. I think that, you know, people really need to hear because I think it's really in the world that we live in where everybody seems like they're something up to something far more epic than we are, it's really easy to be the person that you were at the beginning of this. Totally. And if you would have told me back then, or when I wrote that goal to make a billion dollars, like, that I would be here, why I'm at now focusing on what I'm focusing on, I think I want to laugh in your face. Um, it's just, it's just so funny and I think the ability to allow yourself to change and to be humble, like, I think I've learned to be, actually, I know I've learned to be a lot more humble than I was when I was, when I first started, I was much more arrogant. And I just think it's very interesting to give yourself the space and the self love to allow yourself to go through the changes you need to go through. Because really, like you said, and, like, basically the map is not the model, your map of the world is not the world, basically, you're, like, your expectations and everything that you have within, and, and, like, all those ideas you have, you have to let yourself develop into something other than that and be comfortable and be okay with that. Because really, all of those are just your expectations that you've had before or that society programmed into you or whatnot. And I think that, that self love and that ability to let yourself go and develop into what you need to is so powerful and key. And I think if there's anything that people get out of this, I would love for them to get that out of it, that, like, self love and the ability to evolve and let yourself evolve in whatever direction that feels best and, like, that you know you need to go. I think that's, that would be key, that would be huge. I would consider, I would consider that a success. >> So Nick, I'm going to wrap things up with one last question for you. You know, our show is called the unmistakable creative, so in a world of this much noise, how do you become unmistakable? >> You be yourself and you have an impact on others. >> Awesome. Well, Nick, this has been absolutely fantastic. You know, I think our listeners are going to really, really get a lot out of, out of this conversation. So I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and, and share your story with our listeners here at the unmistakable creative. >> Definitely. Thanks for having me. >> Yeah, my pleasure. 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Starting a t-shirt company from a college dorm room
Learning to recover from the failure of a business
Having the audacity to go for what you really want
Why Nick tied his self worth to making money
A pivotal moment that caused Nick to change his path
Looking at a difficult parental relationship with a father
Handling significant amounts of adversity in order to grow
The 30 day cold shower challenge
The importance of being able to tolerate uncomfortable situations
Developing a confident internal narrative to go after what you want
How to improve your map of the world my modeling great ones
Why reading non-business books is incredibly useful
Creating the awareness necessary to know you're in an identity crisis
Why relationships matter more than anything in the world
An incredible story of love, heart problems, and what matters in life
Battling with credbility vampires