The Shocking Truth About Billionaire Networking | Christopher Kai DSH #565

I gotta start saying yes to more things.

You've inspired me.

It's not just you sharing your story, it's the people in the room.

And I broke down the actual character for listen in Chinese.

We combine different symbols mean different things.

But if you literally look at the symbol for Chinese for the word listen, literally, when I'm listening to you, I'm listening with respect, one out of attention, ears, eyes, and heart.

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Thank you guys for supporting, and here's the episode.

All right, guys, we got Christopher Kai here, aka the billionaire networker, my man.

How's it going?

What's going on, man?

Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Absolutely.

You only booked one-way tickets.

I thought that was interesting.

I do because when you think about life, how many people actually live our life?

We always talk about how, oh, I'm busy doing this and that, but like, ultimately, if you don't remember today, next year, are you really

living your life?

And since I travel so much as a speaker, as an author, as a coach, I literally, let's say, went to Barbados a few weeks ago.

My speech is on Friday.

They put you up in a resort.

That's cool.

So I get there Wednesday.

Supposed to leave on Friday to Miami, where I'm mostly these days.

But I got invited to an event.

I say, hey, you want to come check out this moonlight thing by the beach with my family?

I'm like, sure.

Because again, what will I remember next year?

Will I remember going back to Miami?

Even with this, right?

I was going to leave, but you're like, hey, I'm available Friday.

I'm alright.

Cool.

Yeah.

Yeah, your flight was this morning, right?

It was actually yesterday.

Oh, yesterday, man.

Yeah, you've been over 100 countries.

So

been all over, man.

Was that one of your goals to just explore a lot?

You know, I just love learning.

So when people ask me, hey, what's your favorite city?

It's really who are the people I meet in the city?

And for you, for instance, like I'm really impressed with Vegas, you know, Nick Oak, our mutual friend.

Yeah.

He's a good dude.

He's really connected.

And I don't know if you remember, but again, either I did or my staff reached out to you four years ago.

Crazy.

Because you mentioned that you want to be a speaker.

Yeah.

And I not only speak for a living all around the world with eBay, Google, Amazon, or with the Prince of Saudi Arabia, it's also helping people become speakers.

Yeah.

You clearly have a great story.

That's still on my list to give a TED talk one day I did.

I know you gave one.

Two.

Yeah.

I heard they're actually very different than normal talks because you have to memorize the whole thing, right?

It's much more specific than people might think, where you have a full-on, you have to do it this way, and they actually give you the whole template.

And for me, since I'm an actual speaker, as a profession, it wasn't hard for me, but for everyone else, I think they're really floored by how much preparation is involved.

Yeah, because I'm more of a just speak my mind type of guy.

I don't like to make PowerPoints.

I like to just go with the flow because every audience is different, right?

When you speak, you're probably similar, I'd assume.

You just kind of feel out the audience.

No, I've been doing this for over 20 years, so

I definitely get to know the audience, but they're hiring me for a very specific purpose, right?

Got it.

But to your point, as long as you keep in that timeline, so they'll say, hey, you got 18 minutes or 10 minutes.

And I've actually met the TED founder, Richard Solworman.

He's come to my events.

I have a brand that I call the Gifters X Talks, which has been called the TED Talks for Entrepreneurs.

But it's funny when you hear actual legends, the guy's 88 years old.

And when he first started this 40 years ago, Sean, he was like, I didn't like the sponsors.

I don't like those people with the ties.

Forget the PowerPoint decks.

It's going to be 20 minutes.

And so he was like a really

just in your face kind of guy.

Yeah, wow, yeah, interesting.

I didn't know he was 88.

He's still alive now, actually.

That's crazy.

Shout out to him, man.

And running that type of company, they were the first kind of public speaking kind of platform, right?

They essentially made public speaking cool.

So he sold it to a guy named Chris Anderson, who's currently at the curate.

He's actually an English guy.

But Richard Solwarman, he looks like he's like Yoda.

He's like a very smart man.

Went to the University of Pennsylvania, architect, written, I think, 90 books.

Wow.

But he's one of those guys, you meet him, he calls himself charmingly abrasive.

I like that.

Is he an East Coaster?

He's East Coaster.

He lives in Florida now.

Okay.

But just fascinating man.

Dude, I remember when I was broke in college, I would watch TED Talks for hours, just so many interesting topics.

And I accredit a lot of my mindset to TED Talks, actually.

Yeah, you can learn a lot from those.

Yeah, yeah.

You're a top hunter speaker in the world, man.

I mean, was that instant success?

Or you said you've been doing it for 20 years?

It's never instant.

I mean, I started giving speeches in high school.

Then apparently my friend named Henry in college was saying, hey, I'm Christopher's Chrismatic.

He was running for office.

I want to be like Christopher Winnie Chrismatic.

I'm like, what does that even mean?

But it wasn't until I got to American Express where I started building out these global sales decks.

They literally hired me to create the sales decks that we use to pitch IBM and Phys Microsoft.

Wow.

At the time, I actually wrote a speech.

And it reminds you how you would feel, Sean, if you're in your 20s and you write a speech for the former vice chairman.

and former CFO of American Express.

He was like a man of status and stature.

And I wrote the speech, you know, for your convenience, here's a speech you can use.

He read my speech verbatim for an event at American Express.

Wow.

Yeah.

And so I was like, oh, this is cool.

Like, I can write well, perhaps.

I have been told I can speak well.

Well, it wasn't until I wrote my first book that people, hey, you want to come speak in my church or my school?

And I don't think people realize because people are always like, you speak for a living.

Yeah.

The corporate training space, corporate conferences, is a $1.6 trillion space.

Damn.

E-learning is $800 billion.

The Tony Robbins self-help world is $67 billion.

When you add up those, it's $2 plus trillion dollars.

Holy.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

I can see it, man.

I've watched those talks at Google.

They must pay those guys a lot of money to speak at Google.

It's just, because when you think about it, the corporates have more money than music and sports.

And when you really think about that, you're in the sports world.

Who funds that stuff?

Corporations.

That's true.

They're their sponsors, right, on the jerseys.

Everything.

Maroon 5, it's Honda, Presents, Maroon 5.

All the money comes from corporations.

So whether it's look at eBay or Amazon, it's insane how much money they have.

Right.

And what are you trying to get across messaging-wise to these nine to five corporate workers?

Yeah, it's funny.

So there's really three types of speeches I talk about, at least for corporates, because I have more process development too.

And so it's primarily leaders want to communicate better with their employees through storytelling.

Employees want to understand how to build rapport with their executives through storytelling to rise up the ranks.

Lastly, let's say DiscoverCard hires me as a sales guy.

So how do you scientifically, quantifiably, and measurably connect with someone based on science and storytelling?

Storytelling is so important.

I actually wrote down my goal this year is to get really good at it because my mind is so fast that sometimes I oversimplify stories.

But it's an art, man.

You see, all the top business people are good at it.

It's a science.

I mean, you look at someone like Howard Schultz.

The guy goes to Milan, Italy, in 1983, almost 40 years ago, and he's like, oh my gosh, he's so inspired by the baristas and the people in the espresso bar.

And he takes this Italian experience, brings it back to the the U.S., and now it's Starbucks.

And he literally, if you look at the Starbucks website, he literally said, we're going to make sure that everything about Starbucks is about the experience.

Because it's a freaking coffee shop.

Yeah.

But there's baristas, it's grande, but he created this, this feel, just like with Disney, just like with Apple, just with Elon Musk, who have been to be four, right?

Just with you.

You have this awesome story, you know?

Yeah, I love that, man.

Yeah,

these corporations have so much money.

I was listening to a podcast yesterday with Oz Perlman.

I don't know if you know him.

He's a mentalist, but he does shows for corporations.

He makes 70 million a year.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that's nuts.

I mean, you look at Gary Vee, the guy, you know,

quarter million dollars for one speech.

Damn.

Yeah, he could easily do 10 to 30 million.

Now he has his own speaking bureau.

I was just at a conference that's called A Spy, which I spoke at, so he was there as well.

Wow.

But I don't think people realize he's not a president.

He's not an A-list liberty, but in the space of social media, a quarter million, that's in the U.S.

You have different rates.

You have a domestic rate and you have international rate.

Interesting.

So which one's higher?

International, always.

Really?

Yeah.

Because when you get billed out out for that one hour, he might be in the East Coast in New York, right?

But if he's going to Saudi Arabia or Dubai or Singapore, that might be a two-day trip.

Yeah, we got to talk, man.

I just got offered to fly out to Saudi Arabia to speak at Leap.

Yeah.

250,000 people.

And I turned it down because I just don't have experience, honestly.

I can help you because I've spoken.

The Crown Prince's charity is actually one of my clients.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

And Saudi Arabia, this is the thing about people, if you're open-minded.

I had some flack when I went to Saudi Arabia.

It's like, whoa, you're going to Saudi Arabia?

I'm like, look, dude, he has a foundation called the Misk Foundation and it's for the youth.

And the reason why, now I know why people go outside the U.S.

to help perhaps people is that I met, let's say, one Saudi prince there.

And every country has power and wealth concentrated.

But when you go there, do you know how many Saudis there are in Saudi Arabia?

How many?

31 million.

Damn.

Yeah.

But 60% of them are under the age of 30.

Okay.

And so he wants to build out volunteerism and sports.

But when you meet him and you work with his non-profit, I'm like, like, this is pretty cool.

You can help the entire country of Saudi Arabia.

Nice.

Whereas if you're in the US, there's bureaucracy, there's all these talking heads, there's egos and whatnot.

But if you go there, you find the right person, whether in Dubai or some of these countries, you can really affect a lot of change.

That's cool, man.

Yeah.

Next time I get offered an international gig, I'll take it.

You know what?

I'm in, man.

I got to start saying yes to more things.

You've inspired me.

Because again, it's not just you sharing your story, it's the people in the room.

And what I always talk about, there was a young woman in Saudi Arabia.

She's total hijab.

I can can only see her eyes.

She said, Christopher, because I talked about how leaders need to listen more.

And I broke down the actual character for listen in Chinese.

I know you're part Chinese, where it's literally six symbols where Chinese is like Lego.

We combine different symbols and mean different things.

But if you literally look at the symbol for Chinese for the word listen, if I say what Ting Dao Ni,

on the top left, it's the character for ears.

Right below that is character for respect, which is king.

On the top right, it's character for 10.

Right below there's eyes, meaning listening with 10 eyes right below that is counted for one meaning i'm listening to you with one undivided attention right below that is heart so when you look at someone in the language of chinese the culture literally when i'm listening to you i'm listening with respect one undivided attention ears eyes and heart right so when i told that to this woman in saudi arabia she's like oh my gosh christopher i'm so moved by your story i'm teaching saudis how to learn chinese wow So regardless of where you are in the world, when you share stories like this, it doesn't matter if you're Saudi, it doesn't matter we're American.

according to stanford university professor jennifer acker she found that stories are 22 times more members than facts dang 22 times because there's emotion involved there's emotion involved but then you look at someone like aristotle 2 000 years ago he talked about the modes of persuasion and this is why people get hired it's not just your story It's the science, it's the strategy, it's the structure of that.

But if Aristotle knew this 2,000 years ago, where the pathos, which is the emotional appeal, which is why TED Talks is 65% of that, like think about the TED Talks you remembered.

Yeah.

Is it the facts and figures?

Not really.

Or is it the emotional connection that you had?

It's the emotion.

Dude, I've cried on some of them, to be honest.

Like, some of them are super emotional.

Well, you and I, we just met, right?

But, like, we're both, you know, Chinese.

So you're like, yeah, my parents hated dogs as I did.

Yeah, yeah.

So I'm like, yeah, Sean, we had to come out.

Literally, my mom's like, just have this taste in her eyes, right?

Like, I hate dogs that they smell, they're dirty.

Yeah.

We're clean people, you know?

Breaking the mold, man.

So both your parents were Chinese?

Both Chinese from Hong Kong, yeah.

Nice.

So strict on education.

Very strict.

Wow.

Yeah.

And did you like just support it or did you kind of rebel?

You know, again, it's like you want to make your parents proud.

Yeah.

So I went to school, did well, went to college, but I was always very entrepreneurial.

Yeah.

And you want to make your parents proud, right?

So I'm just grateful that I did the college thing.

I'm like the black sheep where my oldest brother, he's like a lawyer, has got a CPA and all he's like Series 7s.

My second brother, he's an MBA.

I'm the least successful because I've only written seven books.

I only went to college.

I didn't go to law school or B school, you know, but I'm good.

You know, I'm just grateful that my parents raised me with a sense of value, structure, and loyalty.

That's funny.

So, in their eyes, you're the least successful, even though you're until I started speaking at Google.

My dad's like, you know, my name is G in Chinese, which means wisdom.

Okay.

And he would tell my brothers, like, you know, G is pretty good.

I'm like, well, he's been doing this for a while, you know.

Yeah, that's cool.

Do you get along with your brother?

I love my brothers.

Yeah.

Like, you know, it's like the traditional look up to

your brothers.

But even that, like, I can speak Chinese.

Yeah.

And you don't call them by their names.

Chinese is very traditional and very structured.

So you're supposed to call them by big brother and second brother.

Like, yeah, I go, yiga.

And when I asked my mom, why do I have to call them that?

And my mom said it's out of respect.

And at the time, I'm like, I don't respect them.

So to this day, I don't actually call them by their actual formal titles, like big brother, second brother.

I call them by their names.

Wow.

That's like very disrespectful in the Chinese culture.

I didn't know that.

So you broke the mold a bit there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wow.

And do they live in the U.S.?

Yeah, they're all in New York.

Nice.

Yeah, the East Coast vibe.

Yeah.

Why'd you choose Miami?

Well, I chose the West Coast first because I love warmer weather.

You know, if you're in the East Coast, I'm not a fan of cold weather, you know, snow and stuff like that.

Yeah, but it was more I chose hot weather first and I was in Beverly Hills for some years and I traveled literally half of the year around the world.

Yeah.

And I decided, okay, I have online training programs.

I speak around the world.

I don't have to be anywhere literally.

That's why I buy one of my tickets.

And so I was exploring.

I spent about two months in Europe.

I was in South America.

But I love Miami because it's like the Latin culture is amazing.

I want to pass my Spanish.

I'm close by my

family in New York.

Nice.

I want to explore South America and Europe.

So whatever I do now, it's multi-purposed.

Yeah.

You know, yeah, this is a cool podcast.

It's amazing.

But I want to get to you as a, I get wanted to get to you as a friend.

I know you want to be a speaker.

You also part Chinese.

It's like a multiple dimension of why I do things.

I love that.

Yeah.

Yeah, I look for win-win opportunities as well.

I feel like if you could, what, kill two birds with one stone, they say, that's what you should do when you travel, right?

Yeah.

When you travel too, you're probably trying to experience the culture, meet the locals.

You're not just going for business right yeah the thing is again when you are a speaker you really are treated like a first-class guy so again oh you want to come to this resort literally when i spoke in switzerland this is what americans would not do i spoke at a stage with the president of switzerland a few years back right and they're like hey you want to go on a free trip to swiss alps and ski there but this is before the conference americans will not do that they take liability risk okay i went there they pick you up in a mercedes-benz you know so they treat you very very well but i don't don't want to just go to the resorts in the high-end places.

I want to see the people.

Yeah.

So for me, when I was in Barbados, I got to literally meet people that are from there.

This one guy showed me around Barbados because that's the true real experience of traveling.

Yeah.

I agree, man, because there's some nice resorts in Mexico and stuff or wherever you are, but you need to get out there, you know?

I've done work for the State Department.

I actually went to Ramallah, Palestine, and it's very controversial.

You talk about Palestinians and Jewish people or Israelis, but ultimately I was in Ramallah, Palestine.

I was in the West Bank.

Who gets a chance to go to places that you just hear about in the news?

Or from Saudi Arabia?

Like, I want to know the real people.

Because if you don't do that, what's the point of traveling?

I literally had epiphany one time, Sharon, that I was at like in Florence seeing the statue of David.

But when you really think about life and history, everything that we see in history, whether it's palaces, chalets, villas, mansions now, it was all built by people that were either poor or slaves.

Wow, that is crazy to think about.

Think about that.

Everything we see that's built for rich people and famous people, it was built by the poor and slaves.

That's crazy.

Yeah, you're right, though.

iPhones, clothing, everything, right?

Yeah.

So at one point, okay, I can look at that, but I'd rather literally go to the refugee camps.

I'd rather go to, like, there's a place called Cumuna Tresse in Medellin where I want to see.

Now, again, I started a homeless youth program at a large shelter in L.A.

Because when you write a book about networking with billionaires, it's very easy for people to just hang out with you.

Oh, it's cool.

And you know this in Vegas, right?

But I want to see real people.

I want to know their heart.

Yeah.

And I'm not very easily impressed with people because when you have literally met over 100 billionaires, you've hang out with celebrities, all that means shit.

You can edit that out perhaps.

No, you're good.

But it's about your heart.

Yeah.

What are you doing for humanity?

We're all going to be a bag of bones one day.

But what are we doing now?

That's cool, man, because a lot of people, money impresses them.

Material objects impress people, especially my age, right?

I mean, money is important.

And it's also disingenuous when you meet people that are wealthy.

It's like, yeah, money's not important.

Yeah.

It's not that important, but you drive a Range Rover, you live in Beverly Hills, and you have a place in Miami.

So it's quite disingenuous.

And people that don't have money should not ask people like Richard Branson or Elon Musk if it's if it's important to have money.

They just want to feel better.

Right.

You know, but it's definitely important because you have to have some level of options.

Yeah.

But once you get to a certain level, and you know this, how many yachts can you buy?

How many jets can you be on?

it's like that's just either flexing which is fine Yeah, but it really is at the end of your life What will you be remembered by absolutely, you know this podcast you might know this but you're gonna inspire so many people out there that yes, it's about business about marketing, but it's about family.

It's about integrity.

It's about adventure.

Yeah, no, that's definitely the goal man because every business I started before this was about was about me and money.

But this is the first time where I'm kind of seeing a greater purpose.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, but again, until you have a certain point, let's say for me, when people ask me, oh, what is your dream?

I'm already living my dreams, dude.

Like, I get to travel the world and speak, but now I also get to help people become speakers.

So I talk about networking.

Your networking is actually four levels.

So you actually have traditional, which is what most people do, which is they don't do it well.

They go to like some event that they don't know about.

And then you have science-based, which is an actual science.

Then you have big game networking, which we talked about how my book is called Big Game Hunting.

Yeah.

Networking with billionaires, executives, and celebrities.

But the last one is next Level Networking, where if this podcast is a lot of entrepreneurs, instead of going to an event, which you have a great event, right?

Instead of going to one event and meeting one person, maybe get one client,

next level is if you're on stage, again, when you're in Saudi Arabia, which I see you there, instead of one to one, it's one to many.

It's just so much easier, simpler.

You have more status, you have more credibility.

Otherwise, you have some dude at an event trying to meet someone.

I agree, because when you're at an event, it's like finding a needle in a haystack, right?

There's so many different people.

You're talking to 50 people.

Your energy is getting drained more and more.

You talk.

So it's, I agree.

There needs to be a better system.

And it's just, it's just very efficient.

And even for those who don't think they're great speakers, it really is about just being genuine, authentic, and just honest about who you are and what you do in a very structured way.

Because people often have this hesitation.

It's the mindset thing, right?

Yeah.

But when you're on stage, it isn't just about you sharing.

What people don't realize when you're behind stage is when you're meeting like John Stripe from Stripe, John Collison from Stripe, who created Stripe, right?

When you're meeting Max Levchen from PayPal, when you're meeting Kevin O'Leary, so it's one thing to go up to Kevin O'Leary at an event and say, I love you in your content.

It's another thing to say, hey, Kevin, we share the stage in Saudi Arabia.

Yeah, you know, it's huge.

It's a status thing.

It's almost like, oh, we went to Harvard.

People at Harvard don't say that it's pretty precise to go to Harvard.

But when you're a speaker on these stages, and I've literally spoken with Elon Musk, Richard Brans, and President Clinton.

So that's why it's like,

I'm equal to you.

It's huge.

You know, that's massive credibility.

What do you want to raise money, have clients, have fans but really the impact because whether people realize or not if you don't have what i call first-class credibility they don't care about you yeah you know you have the built this amazing brand you've had like grant cardone and all these people like noah kick and like all these like brands

that they might not know you

but they see oh wow grant cardone's there no it's so true man no one gave a about me before this podcast but now that i have a platform you know people are looking for sure yeah and it is what it is yeah getting backstage my number one goal whenever i go to an event i mean if you're if you get in there oh my gosh the connections i've gotten so many guests so many business deals it's it's where you have to be even if you have to pay yeah i mean again unfortunately what people realize that everyone has these great stories let's say with the non-profit world right i started this homeless feed program over 10 years ago we've mentored inspired thousands of homeless kids they've stayed in school got on the ellen show elon mess has come as one of our guests but when i would reach out to these publications like Christopher, again, they would tell me bluntly.

It's like,

where's the happy story?

They want want to hear about homeless kids every day.

They want to hear about one kid who was homeless, that got inspired, who's not on the Ellen Show, who went to a university.

Because it's a story.

But it's about how you frame it.

So for you, yeah, you're a successful entrepreneur, but you have 11 million followers on Instagram.

You have all these amazing guests.

So now people are attentive to you.

Before that, you're probably the same person, same integrity, same kind heart, but...

People want exposure.

I try to be the same man.

I have battles with my ego sometimes.

Just comes with success, but I try to stay the same.

Yeah, when you look at Jeff Bezos with Elon Musk, Elon Musk is one of the most humble guys.

I met Jeff Bezos.

I met Richard Branson.

So it's easy to be successful, but when you meet a Gandhi, for instance, Gandhi would literally say he wants to be more humble than dirt.

This is Gandhi.

You met him?

No,

I'm not that old.

Yeah, yeah.

That's funny.

No, I have not met him.

I don't even know when he passed away, but I'm not that old, but just thinking of Mohammed Gandhi, who literally said i want to be more humble than dirt yeah what a quote right there man yeah what was it like interviewing elan because that was an about what 10 15 years ago that was an older one yeah it's an older one um

but

you can see someone in the view you can read about them but let's say i was at my homeless youth program he came to the shelter and at the end of it we always say hey we always take a picture i said elan please sit here He didn't sit when I asked him to sit.

He sat when we sat together.

That little nuance where I've met his mother, met his brother, but those are very telling examples of who he is as a person.

He was raised right.

So like he's just a very straightforward guy, on camera, off camera, and he's a humble man.

Nice.

And so it was just inspiring to know that you got to not just meet the guy, but he actually said at one point, wow, you know a lot.

I did my research.

Yeah, that's cool, man.

That's important as an interviewer, right?

Some people go in with no research, and you could tell.

So interviewing over 100 billionaires, did that make you want to pursue making more money or did it?

Well, the thing is, again, I didn't come up with with any money, right?

So it's like meeting some of these billionaires.

It was more of a like, I see billionaires as the Picasso's of capitalism.

So if I want to be an artist, which I am, I used to be singing a signature, I'm a speaker right.

So if I'm an artist, I want to look at Raphael, I want to look at Dante, I want to look at, I want to look at

Rodin, right?

But in capitalism, same thing.

My favorite book is called The Titan, The Life of John D.

Rockefeller Sr.

So for me, it's not about the billionaire being money guys.

It's about or gallos.

It's about their artists.

if there's eight billion people in the world and there's only three billion three thousand billionaires why would you not want to learn from the people like a mark cubin or richard branson right because they really know the true artistry of capitalism and it really is an art yeah yeah it is um i think there's a fine limit of how much you're willing to sacrifice to get there So did you see a lot of them really sacrifice a lot?

They sacrifice everything, but that's the thing.

Like, you really don't need

billions of dollars to be happy.

It's like, that's flexing, right?

I remember remember years ago, people always find this shocking.

Years ago, because I'm a minimalist, minimalist.

I don't like buying things.

I don't like experiences.

Yeah.

I'm a minimalist.

I think it's the Asian side.

But it's like, when I cleared 10 grand net many, many years ago, I already achieved the freedom that I'd never felt.

Wow.

So when you start making more money, you start making millions.

It's like, really, I don't like cars.

I don't like buying clothes.

So that's why, like, when you really think about life, Naval Ravikant, who co-founded Angelist, he's such a bright guy.

He's like, desire is suffering.

More you desire, the more you suffer.

But that's also Buddhism.

Now, whether you like religion or not, when you study the people that have been most successful in however they're defined to success, there is some material stuff, but it's really spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical.

Most of us focus primarily on material.

Buy the car, buy the house, buy the clothes.

But that doesn't make you happy.

Not long term.

Yeah, and they've done, it's called Hadana Adaptation.

You buy a cool pair of shoes.

Oh, it's cool for a day.

Maybe two, maybe a week.

Yeah.

But I've met so many people that are wealthy.

They buy yachts they don't use.

They buy mansions they don't live in.

They buy cars they don't drive.

But experiences.

This is the first time of us connecting aside from your networking thing, but you're a great interviewer.

Again, you do a great job of creating a space like a Joe Rogan or Larry King or any or Open Winfrey.

They understand their role.

They hopefully want to create a platform to help people with their stories.

I love that, dude.

When I look at how I spend my money and what makes me most happy, it's traveling and I'd say meals with other people.

Yeah, and

money actually does buy happiness through three things.

It's experiences, as you're saying.

It's actually buying your time back by delegating to other people things you don't want to do.

And lastly, it's charity.

So money actually does buy happiness.

I agree.

And you could have started any charity.

Why did you focus on homeless?

Well, before that, I was already mentoring people that were teenagers because when you're a teenager, they're old enough to dream like an adult, but they're still young enough to dream.

And for me, my inspiration was as a college leader, leadership guy, right?

I was a leader in college, and I never forgot that dream of being excited, helping people, right?

I just didn't realize it wasn't very scalable.

So I started it with the college market and high school market, but it's like the older you get, the younger you want to be.

Yeah.

Because it's so freaking boring being an adult.

You have responsibility.

I'm like,

fuck that.

Like, I don't want to be an adult.

I remember this guy, I was at church one time.

This guy was like, I think his name is Schultz, but he was 80 years old, playing his harmonica, lived in Costa Rica.

You want to have that sense of fire and enthusiasm and energy because otherwise life is so boring you can make so much money in the world but like I've met some of the most boring rich people because they think that there was a goal and they're too afraid to like go out and say I need help

yeah that's my fear just becoming a I'm not gonna name drop anyone but you know what I mean right well you know I have I have a friend of mine he's early 30s he's already cleared 20 million dollars and I said to him I don't know if you realize you're gonna be the happiest you're gonna be in your life what do you mean because he's very content as a person.

He doesn't like flashing things.

It's like people who like follow all the people that have the cars and mansions.

Nothing wrong with that, by the way.

It's cool to be on mansions and cars.

But it really is, at the end of the day, what do you most enjoy?

Having a meal with someone that you learn from.

Absolutely.

I actually don't believe in retirement.

Why?

Yeah, they're doing studies on this now, and your brain health deteriorates so rapidly once you retire.

Why retire when you're actually doing what you love?

And I know it's the thing is people always say, oh, do what you love.

No, that's the worst advice.

Do what you love, the money to follow.

No, I was a single starter for many years.

I was doing what I love.

The money to follow.

The better thing, I forgot someone told me, it's like, do what makes you money the quickest way possible with integrity, and then do it with what you love.

Agreed.

That's what I did, basically.

Yeah.

Now I'm at the point, like, I could retire today, but this podcast is so fun, dude.

And I'm inspiring hundreds of people.

Thousands.

Yeah, thousands.

Eventually millions, yeah.

Because

it's a spider web effect, right?

So you influence one family and who knows.

The guy that introduced me to Nick, our mutual friend, he met me, and his name is Dr.

Chow.

He saw me speak seven years ago in Dallas.

Wow.

And then I met him at Aspire at this tour with, again, Mark Cuban and Sarah Baliki.

I met him at this tour I'm speaking at, and he said he inspired me.

I inspired him seven years ago.

I didn't even know.

Dang.

Yeah.

You're coming to meet people.

Yeah, Dr.

Chow was a fun guest.

He's got a crazy story, man.

And that's like an immigrant, right?

He was broke and you inspired him.

And he almost committed suicide in high school.

He has an accent.

He came from from Vietnam he grew up in the south you know but like to know that you inspired some seven years ago I didn't even know yeah you saved his life man I mean that is crazy think about how many lives you've saved again it's it's knowing like how do you be humble you know like you you have a certain level of status and credibility but like I said I always go back to if you take it's it's what I call literally the the

SQ

We think about IQ, EQ, right?

You know, intelligence and emotional intelligence.

But I'm giving a speech at a Biohack biohack conference in Miami next week.

You're welcome to come if you like.

Nice.

And it's going to be about, what's the point of biohacking your body if you have boring relationships?

You know?

Yeah.

So I'm going to biohack relationships.

And the most important one is yourself.

And so you have IQ, EQ, but I have what I call SQ,

which is what I call the silent quotient.

If you are awake for 10 hours a day, how much time do you actually spend in silence?

Not much.

Think about it about it, right?

Without your phone, without your iPad, without your, but how do you actually do what you love, do what gives you joy if you're not silent?

It sounds so simple.

But I would say I spend 80% of my time in silence.

Whoa.

By myself at home.

So I may, I should say, I spend 80% time by myself working, but I do spend a lot of time in silence.

Interesting.

And what are you trying to achieve while you're in silence?

Again, going back to clarity, you really will never know what you truly feel passionate about if you're silent and being by nature.

I'm grateful enough to live in a very nice high-rise in Miami, looking at a hundred and eighty-degree unobstructed view of Piscayne Bay, but it's just about peace.

You can achieve money, you can achieve connection, you can achieve status, but very few people can say, you know what, Sean, if I pass away tomorrow, I'd be at peace and content.

Wow.

I hope to get there one day.

I'm not there right now, I'd say, but.

It's a mission.

I've been working on spirituality a lot the past year, man.

Meditation helps being around people that don't irritate you, that don't always just like trying to get at you.

You know, it's just about if you spend more time in silence and you meet people that really give you that sense of peace.

Like one of the greatest compliments that I get when people meet me like offstage, like, Christopher, you have such a great sense of calm.

And my ex-girlfriend, she just said she just thanked me for giving her a sense of calmness.

Wow.

Even your ex said that.

I still have it to this day.

She's an amazing woman.

And she always asked me, why are you dating me, Christopher?

Because I go to all these crazy events.

I'm like, because you're real.

You're honest, you're genuine, you're loyal.

Because she grew up a lot of money, not a lot of money in Bolivia.

She came as an immigrant.

Wow, I respect the immigrant journey.

My parents, immigrants, dude, my fiancé's family is from Bolivia.

I just went there last year.

Santa Cruz?

Uh, no, Cochabamba.

Wow, that's crazy!

Dude, it was sick, honestly.

The food was amazing.

I actually got really sick, but apparently, everyone does when they eat there.

Yeah, yeah, it's it's actually there's some countries that are underrated, man.

Bolivia is one of them.

People don't realize, like, let's say in Europe, they go to Rome,

Italy, it's cool, right?

But if you start going, like, Budapest and Zagreb, Croatia, and Ljubljana, Slovenia,

it's just that, again, it's marketing.

We've been marketed that, oh, you have to go to Brazil, which is cool.

But believe me, I have not been there.

But, like I said, my ex-girlfriend is from there, and I just have a lot of respect for people that come from a third world country.

Yeah.

You mentioned it's mainly the people when you travel.

Do you have a favorite country, though, outside the people?

Well, I must, I'm biased because I would say Hong Kong.

The parents are there.

My parents have since passed.

But when I went back to Hong Kong last year, it was the first time that I was there by myself without my parents.

I thought, how inspiring is it that my mother, who's a school teacher, would take me back to Hong Kong as a kid.

So I spent summers there.

And I was like tearing up because I go, wow, this is so amazing that my mother gave me as a gift Hong Kong.

Wow.

So everywhere I went, I saw the oldies doing Tai Chi.

I saw the McDonald's that I used to go with, my grandfather,

the father, my mother.

But it's like, again, going back to life and stories,

how can we impact people?

You have this amazing podcast, you have an amazing story, you and your fiancé, whether you realize it or not, you're like the future.

We can end racism if we just procator with everyone.

You really think about it.

Like we're 99.99% the same genetically, whether you're black, white, Asian, you're mixed.

But if we had an open-mindedness about people, instead of just saying, oh, you're black, you're white, you're Asian, you're Latino, it's like, we're all the same people.

But based on society,

oh, you're this or that.

I'm like, yeah, I'm a human being.

Yeah, yeah, I literally don't care.

I think business and sports are like the great equalizer because it doesn't matter what you look like.

You could just, if you have the numbers to back it up, you know what I mean?

But look at Jerry Merlin.

Jerry Merlin had all the numbers, but he went to Harvard, and then he got into the NBA, and then Kobe was asked, well, what about Jerry Lynn guy?

Like, you don't really get to the NBA if it's just like a one-hit wonder, you know?

Right.

That's my dream guess, dude.

What he went through.

I mean, because he.

Jerry Merlin?

Yeah.

He was still putting up numbers and they could still cut him like a few years back.

I could see that I could help you get him.

Yeah, that'd be fun.

He was so humble, too.

It's like, but like I said, like, if he would get shouted at with like words, racist words.

Yep, his own teammates, too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Carmelo Anthony didn't like him.

Yeah.

He couldn't take it.

I think ego.

There's a documentary about it.

But yeah, Carmelo didn't like when he got all that spotlight.

Well, yeah, again, it's just like it's funny because if you're a black man, you should understand racism, right?

But now you have an Asian brother coming along, right?

And again, I used to be a single-songwriter.

Yeah.

So in LA, it's not very sexy when you're a single-songwriter because people are like, you're a singer-songwriter, yeah.

Yeah.

Believe me.

you grew up in uh new york you said one raised in new york yeah so you experienced racism obviously yeah yeah same with me in jersey um but it was all just like oh you're not getting good grades just like dumb stuff like you know racists are so basic they always say the same things yeah you know and i'm like i'm a proud american yeah i'm a hardcore red-blooded capitalist american and you say go back to your own country i'm like okay i'm here yeah

yeah it's weird i don't know i had on a previous guest he was talking about generational trauma how it carries over 10 20 generations so maybe it's some deep psychological stuff.

No, but it's also insecurity, too.

Yeah.

If someone's a bully, they've been bullied before, right?

So, any person that I've ever met that's bullied me, because I was really short,

I was literally 4'10.

Like, so you're really tall.

I had the opposite problem.

You were 4'10 in high school.

I was 4'10, freshman year in high school.

I literally showed the picture of my speeches, and it still gives me past trauma.

Wow.

And most of my friends are white because they get Catholic, right?

So the Irish, Italian, you know.

Yeah.

So I was 4'10 going into freshman year of high school.

It was actually an old boy's school.

And so it was not pretty to be a short kid in school.

Did you have trouble fitting in also?

Thankfully, I talked and I seemed very friendly, but it was just very tough to meet girls.

Same.

Yeah, I got no girls.

I like kissed a couple, but never, nothing more than that, you know.

I kissed a girl and I like her.

No, I definitely had some identity struggles growing up looking back at it, dude.

Yeah, but again, you're the future, dude.

You're part

English, I think, right?

Yeah,

part Irish and part Chinese, right?

But again,

it's what you think makes you, what you didn't like as a kid makes you stand out now.

Yeah.

Yeah, everything happens for a reason, right?

You learn from it.

And now, like, how crazy is it, Sean, that the very first memory I had as a kid was getting punished in first grade for talking too much in class.

Wow.

You know, and now I literally talk all around the world.

I paid for it.

Yeah, I failed marketing class in high school.

Marketing?

Yeah, my teacher hated me.

Now I have the number one marketing show in the world.

That's awesome.

I actually want to email him, not to be spiteful, but just to catch up with him and understand where he was coming from because he he was dealing with a divorce and like I think he was taking it out on the kids.

We're all people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have no no ill will towards him.

I try not to hold regret.

The thing is I remember I interviewed this guy who's a former gangbanger because I actually not only did I create this homeless youth program at the shelter I actually ghost wrote a book called The Incredible Stories of Skid Row from Homeless to Hoffman in the City of Angels.

I interviewed a few dozen people that were formerly homeless.

This homeless shelter ended up changing lives around.

But this one guy named Luis, he literally used to be a gangbanger.

His freaking son, 14-year-old son, was killed by a gangbanger.

Damn.

He goes to court.

The judge asks him, do you have anything to say about this guy who killed his 14-year-old son?

He's like, no, I don't have anything to say.

I know where he's going to go.

I've been there before.

He doesn't have any anger.

Because

if you hate someone, that hates in you.

It's the worst thing in life.

It's like, if you're angry at someone, if you're jealous, if you hate someone, dude, that person's not going to care.

It's your body that's literally going to die slowly because the anger literally increases the cortisol levels, minimizes your immune system.

So this is why people hire me to be a speaker.

It's not just a cool story and cool hair.

There's science involved with this.

Yeah.

Anger and stress causes disease, right?

They've proven it now.

Yeah.

I mean, it's pretty crazy because I saw my dad just resent his parents his whole life and it was eating out of him internally, man.

But what your dad really wants is love.

That's what he wanted.

He wants acceptance, wants care.

And there's a book called The Five Love

Languages.

I never realized how powerful understanding love is my parents loved me but they didn't love me the way i wish they did meaning hugging right physical touch physical touch affirmations that's the thing that asians don't do that yeah my mom never told me she loved me um never hugged me yeah but low-key i wanted that to be honest you know yeah yeah it's interesting asians have a very unique style of showing love right tough love they say it's it no it's just because it's out of respect We don't hug people because it's almost like violating their space.

Because Latinas, as you know, man, I love Latinas.

They be hugging you, kissing kissing you.

That's what I'm saying.

It's bezos, and basos means kiss, you know.

So it's like, is it a coincidence that you have a you know, fiancé that's uh Latina?

Probably not, yeah.

That's the love I wanted going up.

Yeah, Christopher, it's been fun, man.

Anything you want to close off with our promote?

I just hope you all know that your story is a gift to the world, and I'd love to connect with all of you.

Just find me, Christopher Kai, I'd love to connect and share and listen to your story.

Awesome.

We'll link it in the video.

Thanks for coming on, brother.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Yeah, thanks for watching, guys.

As always, see you tomorrow.