#398: How To Stay Poor. Do The Following: w/ Law Smith
Eric is OUT with a high ankle sprain.
Law rolls solo at the top reading a post by Acquistion.com's Managing Partner, Alex Hormozi, titled "How To Stay Poor. Do The Following:"
The caboose of this episode, Law as a guest on The Matt Balaker Podcast (hope that's cool, Matt!).
Sorry if the A/V ain't up to snub this ep!
2:02 Scheduling snafu
6:58 Happiness is relative to where you are in the world.
12:29 What to do if you’re a professional.
16:17 What do you do when one year is hot as you are? Do anything to help the rest of us have a chance?
22:10 His high school football coach and his father.
28:03 Why you need to break down statistics in order to get better.
---
Episode sponsored by SQUARESPACE create a customizable website or online store with an all-in-one solution from Squarespace. Choose a website template and start your free trial today. https://squarespacecircleus.pxf.io/sweatequity
---
Sweat Equity 🔗s
Hosts’ Eric Readinger & Law Smith 🔗s
---
Wanna help Sweat Equity without spending a dime? Sure, we’re the #1 business comedy & comedy business podcast on earth, but we can always practice Kaizen, aka continuous improvement. Please? We’ll be your BFF! Hook us up by
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ REVIEW
WRITE a quick hitter sentence in the review
Smash SUBSCRIBE
SHARE with friends, co-workers, acquaintances, family members you love and the fam you don’t like talking to
#comedy #business #girthyroi #sweatequity💦 #69b2b #entrepreneur
Law Smith 0:01
sweat equity podcast and streaming shows the number one comedy business podcast in the world. During a different today, we have scheduled staff who I miss. I miss my heterosexual life mate Eric,
but we'll be back better than ever. Next episode. For this episode, make sure to check out our sponsor Squarespace. Episode sponsored by Squarespace the all in one customizable, customizable UI, there's gonna be a rough, a rough go at it, customizable website, where you can, it's as easy as a template to just have your own professional personal website where you can have your resume, your, your brand, your message, or it's scalable. If you need a custom code, you need a program you need to add anything. We've done so many websites and Squarespace you can start your free trial and hook up this show by hitting the display a little lengthy link, the Zelda link in the episode description. You know, make sure to be BFFs by subscribing the show, sharing it with a friend. Say hey, these guys are a couple of knuckleheads. They're getting a couple of rascals get into a lot of trouble. Give us a five star review. Write a little sentence about us. It could be anything like last flaccid package phi is scary small, and then share the show share with them. That's all you got to do.
You are listening to the sweat equity podcast? So I'm learning so well. On this podcast, we had a scheduling snafu. And it happens every now and again. And what usually happens is one of us will say, maybe I record so low. And then I go, Oh, that sounds great. And then we'll never do it. And I was thinking about that today. And I was like, Alright, no matter how awkward it is to attempt to Bill bird this episode, or Tim Dylan, this during a kind of a monologue. You know, it's one of those things where, why not take 10 minutes to do this. And then I'm going to put in a podcast interview I did with the matt Bolliger podcast, an old buddy of mine. We talk a lot of comedy, and business. And I really looked at the video I kind of looked like I'm on NyQuil for some reason, I'm real low key like talking like I'm a former, you know, just like a former rappers I was real cool. Yeah, whatever. Like real low voice. I don't know what's wrong with me that day, but it was a good it's a good discussion on the west. And I think I did spend some wisdom. So I want to bring up one thing I saw today, I thought this was pretty cool. Um, I'm trying to do the tech part of this while talking. I read it. I read a post by Alex or Mozi, H O R, Mo Zi homos the managing partner@acquisition.com in his LinkedIn little, you know, slogan blurb that you can put on your profile. I put really help scale founder led companies to 100 million now. Never met the guy. I just saw this light text someone else. And it was an image that has a tweet from him that says how to stay poor, blue the following. And so I'll read this. I'm trying to read this as best I can. I'm not a good reader, but these are all these are all things if you want to stay poor. stay busy, accomplish nothing. Start tomorrow. Read books do nothing. take advice from poor people on how to get rich, which is the old joke of like, why would I take you know fitness advice from a fat person? Pick a spouse who makes you feel guilty about working. That's a tough one. For once, quit forever. Blame your circumstances. I finally So doing that I always try to catch myself and go now it's on me. blame other people saying, expect the government to save you. That's a tough one that you know. And if you're you're struggling, it should only be the last resort. I think I don't. I've been unemployed a bunch of times since I got into the working world never taken unemployment. Not because I, I just wanted to, I didn't want to use it as a crutch. value the opinions of others over your own. So that's, that's interesting. complain. Now, that's the only one on this list that I'll kind of say, I like complaining. I nearly passed about what I'm complaining about. I just think it's kind of funny to vent about small things. Like like I was, I bought some high Nunes saw them last second, but I was about to buy a big truly, like huge like, like, the biggest Can you can sit by, I guess. And I'm like, that's just malt liquor. That's what's so funny about truly, you're just drinking malt liquor, packaged differently. Anyway. Back to this list. Think the role to stare? Yeah. Avoid discomfort. Tolerate mediocrity. make promises break promises. Wait for perfect conditions. Prioritize looking rich over being rich. That's the $100,000 millionaire. Avoid working on what matters most. Find something that works. Stop doing it. Assume you're always right. There is too take it personally, then get emotional. I wish every adult read this list. Increase your income, increase your expenses even more. Yeah, that's a lot of people. Stay undecided. I do have a problem between friends and people that can't make a decision. It drives me nuts. And then I looked like the asshole because I freak out. Compare yourself to people poor than yourself to feel better? Yeah. I mean, don't do it out loud. But I have been thinking on this theory of like happiness is relative, right? Like, if you are in lower class income earning in the United States, three to $4,000 put you in the 1% of the world or something like that. So, you know, by thinking of all the poor people in the world, you might feel better, but really, it's it's, it's relative to where you are in the United States. That's a tough one I used to have. I think about it driving, right? I'm only mad. I only go nine miles over the speed limit. And I'm mad if I can't do that. And if I see someone going by me, I made a bad decision and got behind a slow Subaru lesbian driving with their fat Birkenstocks on the brake, mostly. And I chose poorly and I got zoomed around. I get pissed. Because my happiness is relative to being ahead of the people that were behind me. It's weird. Do what everyone else is doing except to get something different. Yeah, that's interesting, too, whatever else is doing split to get something different. Yeah, I guess if you're doing your squats, getting your light power gun. And you you think you're gonna get big biceps by doing that. Instead of massive quads. Good hamstrings. Nice glutes. I can see that. Yeah. Okay. Do things to make everyone else happy. Yeah, this is you know, this is one. A lot of people I've been talking to lately, especially entrepreneurs, myself included, like you got to take 10 minutes a day. To think about the day did you get the stuff you needed to do? Did you prioritize that first over, trying to help people out? I used to spread myself too thin and Did you know I had to realize I couldn't work at the same clip I used to. As well as it's just not good for me. For a lot of things, I was taken on a lot of stuff that really didn't matter. But you know, it wasn't a people pleaser thing. Someone call me a people pleaser. I was like, I tell people to fuck off all the time. Show up late or not at all, this is my biggest pet peeve with life, people who are constantly late. And I don't get mad, I never get mad at like, people I don't know I'm meeting with or I don't know very well, and they're late. It has to be a pattern. And it has to be there is this just type of person, they'll never get it. This is what bothers me. It's not that hard. I'm glad I got it instilled in me in high school because of football. We have 6am practices in August. And if you weren't there at 545, you you were deemed out. Because you're not 15 minutes early, you're late. And it's like the best. The best rule. It's dirty. And it's it. It's I may get places a little bit early, but good intentions around it is not that big of a deal anymore. You have a you have a guiding computer in your pocket that you could dig around on until whoever gets there. For me, I've always had I could always sit down and just write jokes or a to do list or something. I'll keep myself occupied for the however many minutes but showing up late and consistently doing it is horrendous behavior. Because it's a subconscious control thing. Your time is more valuable than the other person's Anyway, last two, or last one never prepare.
Yeah, this one, this is another little one that I had to knock off a little bit. It preparing not sexy. It's not. It's not romantic. Preparation isn't. You know, it isn't one to one, whatever you prepare, will be executed. However, the most successful people I know prep their life work everything. They try to think three steps ahead. And the people that are constantly kind of in that hectic, I'm always late, kind of like always in a tizzy like, oh, like, so much anxiety. separation will reduce anxiety. And and really, if you're a professional, if you really kind of take pride in what do you should do, you should spend that time prepping? No one has to see either. It's not cool to prepare. But like no one wants to see you work on a joke. or figure out how the sausage is made of a job because it's a magic trick. And same goes for some work deliverables, you're doing a few. If everybody knows you stayed up around the clock, they'll think you're just not efficient. But if you can prepare, deliver, sometimes, you know, one of the best things I've been doing lately is before I walk into a meeting, or whatever I want to get out of this meeting. Or sometimes it's just lunch. Like, I'm trying to make an effort to see friends that we all have kids now little kids and so it's like, I'm trying to make a conscious effort to see them. And then when I see him, let's see if we can hang out again, let's Let's book something next month, because I live near all my best friends are a lot of them. And I rarely see him. So like preparing in that situation, just little things. You know, like I put in at the end, I'd love to know which ones which one was the hardest hitting most relevant for you. And then the comments are pretty funny because a lot of people take this emotionally. I do like one that said discomfort as a gift. Yeah, I try to make myself either physically or, like personally uncomfortable doing something. And that includes like, trying to learn a new skill on the fly. You know if you're a chat GPT person and you're trying to figure it out on the fly, because you're a little behind you feel behind the million people that signed up. Yeah, I get that. Anyway. I thought that was interesting. I thought I'd share it. I hope this all comes out. In the final The final version of this. Let's see if I can get it all up. I got two hours until the end of Wednesday. All right, enjoy this interview I did with my buddy from LA Matt. Matt Bolliger Maddie ballgame. This is Smith, and you're listening to the matt Bolliger podcast
Matt Balaker 15:41
Good day ladies and gentlemen, thank you once again for joining the Matt balaka podcast. Please encourage your friends, acquaintances, those who haven't spoken within seven to 10 years to like, subscribe and share. We really appreciate it. Today I am particularly excited because our guest is not only a longtime friend of mine, he's a comedian, host of the sweat equity podcast, a digital marketing expert who never misses leg day. Please join me in welcoming law Smith to the program. How you doing law? Yay. I'm gonna keep the shades on for the least do when one year is hot as you are you do anything to kind of help the rest of us have a chance. So I appreciate that. Well, I'm just not having the skin day I want you know, I am a summer but it is.
Law Smith 16:35
You know, I think I need to drink some more water i got i Can I throw out. Speaking of like kind of merging these two worlds comedy and in business. That's kind of what our podcast is about sweat equity. pod.com If anybody wants to check it out.
Matt Balaker 16:52
Oh, they do.
Law Smith 16:54
It's uh, you know, we I don't know if you ever did writing like, like writing exercises to write jokes, like a thing to get you going. Yeah, just
Matt Balaker 17:05
something to kind of grease the wheels a little bit to get you out of your head a bit.
Law Smith 17:09
And like when you're first when you first start doing stand up, you kind of do it. You're kind of doing it all the time. And then it becomes like second nature like You're like we it's called like dad jokes now kind of thing. Like puns were play. I think sometimes puns can be the most clever thing. So I was doing this on our podcast last night and I've got I've got an adult beverage to my right here. left on your screen probably. And okay, so I I've made this white trash cocktail that my fancy is gay friend even admits it's amazing. I'll tell
Matt Balaker 17:51
your audience you got the seal of approval. If your fanciest gay friend admits it, then you're in good company.
Law Smith 17:56
He's a fancy old gay too. So he doesn't put up with a lot of stuff. No, very particular. He's a he's a branding expert out of St. Pete. Shout out to David Downing.
Matt Balaker 18:07
What's up David Downing? How are you?
Law Smith 18:10
So it is he knows vodka but it didn't like a big tumbler what I call a game day cup, you know something over 16 ounces. And then there's my son there Tito's vodka and diet. Canada dried ginger ale in lemonade. The diet version or zero sugar version? It is exquisite. So like it, I was trying to think of a name forever. This has taken me months. This is all I've been doing all summer.
Matt Balaker 18:42
productive summer I like it.
Law Smith 18:44
Well, you know, you have to have these, like, you know, you're like, Oh, I created an amazing thing that I'm not gonna really profit off of, but I'm gonna tell everybody about it because I love it so much. Again, part of what our show is for the podcast we do sweat equity is at least give some kind of pragmatic advice. One, one episode, some little nugget every episode. And so like, I'm like, I gotta come up with a name and it was beating me down like you can't get the word UL of the day or something or you know, and so I thought about I go alright, a iced tea and lemonade is a
Matt Balaker 19:23
What's that together? As an Arnold Palmer.
Law Smith 19:26
Okay, what's iced tea? lemonade and vodka?
Matt Balaker 19:31
Oh, Long Island? No, it's
Law Smith 19:33
a John Daly. Oh. I'm surprised that people know that. I asked my co host
Matt Balaker 19:40
on the show. I didn't know it. But I want to John Daly even more than ever. It's a perfect name for him. It's a perfect drink. You might need to have like a mob row to start together.
Law Smith 19:51
Right and Right, right. And then I go, Okay, this is Canadian, and it's got to belong here to it. And I go, Oh, it hit me. Like, Monday night and I was just like, two nights ago. I was like, Oh, I know the name. It's a mayor Rob Ford. It gives you the gusto to just say crazy stuff. And it's kind of kick ass like him. So
Matt Balaker 20:16
we could all use some more gusto. So, I know we met in the early 2000s in LA, but that's not where you grew up. So where where did you grow up LA?
Law Smith 20:26
I grew up in Tampa. I'm a townie one of The Few The Proud. One of the few families that's like been around this city for a while. Now I'm back in Tampa went to Auburn for undergrad, school and then right after like,
Matt Balaker 20:46
yeah, so let's pause there for a second. Don't you have some family connections to Auburn, like you and or Bo Jackson.
Law Smith 20:54
So my big brother's Bo Jackson. My resemblance is Charles Barkley. My uncle is Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple. My baseball coach was the big hurt Frank Thomas not literally that all those reasons are like half the reason I went the other half was I got in my my real family. All went to Florida. I couldn't get in by the time I was applying. And I did my loyalty to the Gators. My dad played for the Gators played for the LA Rams. And then Redskins.
Matt Balaker 21:31
Oh, you actually play? That's right. Because didn't. Were he and Bo Jackson on the same team at Sawyer.
Law Smith 21:39
My dad's about to turn 75
Matt Balaker 21:40
Okay, I was gonna say like, like, those probably early 60s. Okay, okay, so OJ
Law Smith 21:46
was number one in the overall Draft. He was eighth and I think the third running back taken. If you want to Google Image 1969, Playboy all American team, you'll see a guy that looks like a bigger me. Next, like literally two feet from OJ on the team kind of picture. They're all wearing their own uniform kind of thing.
Matt Balaker 22:09
That sounds fun. So I'm sure you had no complexes as a kid. If you're into sports and your father was an NFL draft pick,
Law Smith 22:19
you know. So my my high school coach, I was I love playing high school football. I had to quit because I got too many concussions before they were
Matt Balaker 22:29
Oh, you're in early, you quit before CTE was even cool. So yeah, I were to be ahead of the curve.
Law Smith 22:34
I would go partially I was an outside linebacker, I'm 511. I think at that point, I was like, two and just like working out like crazy. Because you're 17 and you have like, literally nothing else to do. Right? I go do three hours of practice and then go live. And what's it called? I would if I got my bell rung I could if you brought if you broke your vision into four columns like blood Drance I couldn't see like the third one I could see all the way to my right like peripheral that couldn't see like, like center to right kind of thing. It'd be like a light right turn. If you're thinking like if you're driving. And so if you're playing outside linebacker, there's three wide receivers on your side that are going trips on you. You're supposed to shade over, because you're gonna go into coverage probably unless you're blitzing. I couldn't even see these guys. I could see the wide receiver all the way. You know, the the furthest one but I couldn't see you guys in the inside. And I was like, this is a problem. And so, you know, my dad actually didn't want me to play football. My mom did. But my
Matt Balaker 23:46
did not want you to play for health reasons or just because he knew you couldn't live up to his legacy.
Law Smith 23:52
I got I was like a good street player. You know, up until eighth grade. They didn't let me play. Like real football until high school. And then that first day I ate McDonald's on the way to try out crack. That's
Matt Balaker 24:10
what you do, man. Well,
Law Smith 24:12
I was like, Dad, so be easy. This would be like playing pickup. Sure. You know, and I was my height. You know, at eighth grade. Oh, okay. Like pretty. Yeah, were my dad. 642 20 So like he played like Eddie George. Very fast. Not a lot of wiggle. Just run you over here. Yeah, one cut very, very fast. There's an old Gatorade commercial with him winning the Orange Bowl in 1967. Spurrier won the Heisman. That year. He was his quarterback. There's an old Gatorade commercial chosen. And so my thing was like, Oh, I could walk into this and I just got my shit rock that first day and threw up all that McDonald's and And I think about it now. It's been 20 years since I played over 20 years. And I'm like, I can't imagine that I was out like, you're hot. You're in California, your heat is like you can get under the shade. It's not as bad. like ours is like, you feel the humidity from the grass up, you know, no escaping. But I had a good I had a good coach who was like, you know, he coached Lou Panella son, I went to Tampa Jesuit. And so, I guess, lupa Nelson may have had some issues like he couldn't live up to his dad. By the time I was talking to my coach about that. I was like, No, I mean, I think that was pretty practical. Like, I'm probably not gonna go to the NFL. I get huge in like, if I get to my dad sighs maybe I'll go to play college, I probably go to walked on, maybe D three D to safety somewhere. But it was that thing of like, I was already pretty funny in class. And so that was kind of I when I went out for parties, you know, it was more about not as much about hooking up as much as I did I get the funniest, like quip in that day. That advising when Yeah, right. And my friends are not comics in real life. I'm still friends with all of them. And they're funnier than most comics. I know. You know, like, they'll they'll kill me in a party trying to be funnier than each other. So well, I want
Matt Balaker 26:35
to talk about your comedy career. But before that, like you're a dad as well. And you and I grew up in a time when middle class kids played tackle football. What do you think now? Like, would you let your son play? Like Pop Warner high school,
Law Smith 26:51
I like Adam Carolla his theory on it. You know, you could not let them play and be safe. But, you know, being a pussy, your whole life will it'll carry on. And so I just, I just made all your female listeners shut off.
Matt Balaker 27:13
Well, if you know if they light if they watched us with the sound off, they'll be very happy.
Law Smith 27:19
Now I'm divorced. So I'm so okay. available. So yeah, I'm so low data and half the time. I know, their mom wants them to play basketball, like all the noncontact stuff. i My thing is, I don't want to force them to play anything. I want to see what they kind of take to. And if they like it. Yeah, we'll go through with it. I mean, if you're really talking statistically, like, football is fine. Right? My dad is like, I just talked to him today for 30 minutes on the phone. He's 74 play. He played all six years in the NFL. He's all banged up physically. He's got scars everywhere. He's got no cartilage in his knee. Of course not. You know. And so it's that thing of like, but he still reads like a Gore Vidal book at night. You know, he's like, yeah, he's like, he's a crazy modest dude. But like, he crushes like hip three bucks. He still in it in the conversations where I think some of his friends are starting to fade out. So you and then you really break down statistics. I try not to buy into fear movements, you know?
Matt Balaker 28:36
You're you've had a miserable 20 years.
Law Smith 28:40
Well, I look I just stopped watching the news altogether. And good advice. Good advice theory now is just like, if it's really important, it's going to make its way to me. You know, and I listen to I kind of obsessively listened to podcast wine work, is a lot of marketing is boring, when you're actually doing the work. But
Matt Balaker 29:02
real marketing is surprisingly analytical, and like math driven, it's not just like pretty pictures. What Yeah, it will slogans
Law Smith 29:10
were way far away from the Mad Men era of pitching like a whole campaign for a cigarette company or, you know, a Native American themed airline or whatever. You know, it's like, creative is like 112 of marketing now to me, like, people overvalue it in a lot of ways. There's a lot of other steps through there and they Yeah, it's I'm a mathlete. I got all A's in math that carried me through high school. I got into entrepreneurship, and family business management at Auburn. And everything kind of clicked after that, like a C plus my whole life got into that major, which was like writing business plans for local businesses and stuff.
Matt Balaker 29:55
So you had a major that could actually help you make money post college
Law Smith 30:00
If not right away. I mean, if if I maybe yeah, maybe I, you know, I didn't know how much I had that entrepreneurial kind of, like mindset.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
