On today’s episode Zach Pogrob is revealing the keys to assessing and replicating the behaviors that will produce the best results. Listen in as Zach and I discuss how he focused on writing and creating in a way that has cultivated a community of over 100k on Instagram, what it means to operate in a flow state, and his best advice for navigating the seasons of behaviors to optimize results. Zach also shares why he’s embracing obsession vs. passion and finds freedom in discipline.
Zac Pogrob is the Founder of BehaviorHack on Instagram. He is an entrepreneur, writer, and owner of Photo Booth. As a former D1 college player, he had multiple injuries that forced him to take a brutally honest look at himself and his life. He put in the work in the gym to rebuild his body while simultaneously programming and rebuilding his mind from personal development, podcasts, and audiobooks. This was how BehaviorHack came into existence. His use of social media is unique and real, articulating an undeniable truth and creating content in a way that makes the most impact on his audience.
Connect with Zach in the following ways:
Instagram: www.instagram.com/behaviorhack
Episode Transcript
I’m Marcus Aurelius Anderson and my guest today truly embodies that phrase. Zach Pogrob, also known as Behavior Hack on Instagram, is an entrepreneur, writer, and owner of Peak Photo Booth. As a former D1 college player, he had multiple injuries that forced him to take a brutally honest look at himself and his life. He put in the work in the gym to rebuild his body while simultaneously programming and rebuilding his mind from personal development podcasts and audio books. This was how Behavior Hack came to existence.
01:23
His use of social media is unique and real, articulating undeniable truths and creating content in a way that makes the most impact on his audience. So what’s his content like? Think part Naval Ravicon, part Tim Ferris, part Andy Frizzella. In addition to being a powerful content creator, he has multiple businesses, including his highly visible peakvotoboost.com. Follow him at behavior hack on Instagram, Twitter, and subscribe to his substack behavior hack dot substack.com.
01:51
Zach, it’s been a long time coming. Thank you for being on my friend. I know you’re a busy man, so I appreciate you. Absolutely, happy to be here, man. This is a great conversation I’ve been looking forward to. A lot of people ask a lot of questions, but I’m gonna keep it selfish for a little bit so that we can actually get to some of this stuff that we were talking about before. When you’re creating content, is there a process that you have? Is there a music that you listen to? Is there a routine that you try to follow to create the best content that you can? It’s changed over time, I think. When I was starting out, I was putting out a lot more than I have now.
02:19
And at that time, I would kind of sit down and just focus and try to pump stuff out. But recently it’s changed and there’s not really much of a process other than creating the right state to make content and then capturing those ideas and I have them and like, this isn’t necessarily an original thing. And I’ve heard more and more creators talk about this method where it’s not necessarily about how you’re creating content. It’s about how you’re creating this mindset and this energy state. And so that could be meditating, that could be working out, that could be a long walk. And then
02:47
just paying attention when that comes because most of the stuff I put out is just in the moment. I write it and it’s up within like 10 minutes. I think that is sometimes the best content because it’s the most pure type of energy you’re putting out there. Absolutely. You’re in that place where you’re, Stephen Presto talks about it. You’re in the place where you’re beyond resistance, you’re beyond adversity and now you’re actually receptive to all these things that are out there that we may not have access to any other way. And to give you more specifics, because I think it’s interesting. Some of these I’ll share like me writing all my stories, I’ve done it once in a while.
03:17
It’s really just like, something will come, you capture the smallest piece of it because it’s hard sometimes when you have like a big idea. It’s science, I’ll be working it out and I try to work out on my phone. I’ll record a voice note on Apple box, get like a word down. And then it’s like, all right, if there’s no workout, I’m gonna go, usually I go on Twitter and I’ll like write out the drafts before it goes on Instagram or anywhere else. And then it’s about like, how can I take this little nugget of an idea that was given to me from something.
03:45
and put it in a way that’s interesting and shareable. I’ll rewrite posts sometimes five, 10 minutes, which is crazy sometimes, and it’s just a few lines, but to me, I really do love playing with the words and the rhythm of the words. I’ll read it aloud. More that goes into it, I think, than some people see, but I enjoy that process. Yeah, you’re condensing it down to something that’s powerful. Like you said, if it’s this long thing, people aren’t gonna read it today. A lot of people, they want that kind of soundbite, they want that tweet-worthy kind of character.
04:14
amount and that gives them a chance to really see what you’re saying. And then like you said, that gives you a chance to really polish and wordsmith that. So it says exactly how you want. It has the cadence, the diction, the intonation that you want. And that’s what makes the most impact. I believe you have the idea, but then the key is getting the idea, but the real way it works is by condensed. You’re going to making it a nice package, like packaging the idea in a nice way. All the time. You’ve got, I think over a quarter million followers on Instagram alone right now. So almost, almost.
04:40
Well, you’re influencing some of the most influential people out there because you have a lot of people that are following you. So that is an indication that you’re on the right track. That’s the best compliment you can get. Yeah. And you were talking about, is there a specific meditation practice that you enjoy the most that is most useful for you? The most pragmatic? Yeah. When I said meditation before, I actually was just using it as an example. I don’t meditate too much. I have at times in the past, every day for a month or two months. But I would say the closest thing to me now is just working out without music, especially. That to me is like a meditative type of thing.
05:09
I think a lot of people will resonate with that. You probably resonate with that. That’s where I get a lot of ideas, truthfully. It’s interesting too. People say, I don’t meditate, but in my opinion, like you’re saying, if you’re present when you work out, that’s moving meditation. Like you’re in this flow state, so to speak. You got all this release, all these endorphins. You may have some caffeine in your body before you start to. Definitely guilty of that. Yeah, and you’re finding out all these cylinders. Even Steven Pressfield says that he’ll ride for four hours, but then he’ll go for a hike afterwards. And sometimes that after effect is when.
05:37
All this stuff comes to you and you get these additional insights or you make it more condensed or make it more succinct. And that’s what people need. They want that like really powerful condensed version of what you’ve got. Yeah, you hear the walking thing. A lot of people say they get the best ideas on walks and I definitely relate to that. Something interesting that I’ll say that I haven’t really heard many other people mention is sometimes if I’m just doing a bunch of work, let’s say I have like all these like quicker tasks, like emails, just things need to edit and I’m like banging them out. Sometimes I’ll get good ideas then too, I think because my brains are like firing so quickly.
06:06
And so that’s like another like, it’s almost contrasts the original way, but yeah, I get ideas then too. Yeah. And what happens is now you’re just in that place where you’re bashing those ideas and you don’t have time to think about it. It just comes out and that’s when something interesting can sometimes appear on the paper. You’re like, huh, where’d that come from? 100%. Yeah. As I said before, there were a lot of people that were asking questions that want to ask questions that are listeners, but we’ll get to some of those later on. There was another part that I wanted to talk about. So many people talk about how do I find my passion?
06:34
What is this idea of passion? You talk about passion, you talk about obsession actually, and how that there’s a similarity, there’s a difference as well. Why should we not follow our passions per se? Why is it so tricky to do that? Yeah, I just posted this yesterday, and like a lot of this is semantics. A lot of this is just like passion, obsession. You can use them like interchangeably almost. I’ve kind of tried to like, lately, like look at all my content, the last like, I’ll tell you like 50, 30 to 50% of my posts are all about obsession, because I like the idea of, at least for like,
07:04
long period of time focusing yourself around one core thing, one mission, one thing that you get known for. Because I’ll get DM now like, dude, I saw this about obsession and thought of you. That’s happened like often. And this is an original idea. This is just me paying attention to other people who have built brands. There’s a million of them. Jocko. Basically, when I think of them, I think of discipline. Discipline equals freedom. When I think of Anthony Pompadiano, Bitcoin guy, I think of buy Bitcoin, be financially free. You build this thing and you keep hammering it every single day.
07:34
and people know you for that. And I think that’s powerful. But anyway, to answer your original question on passion versus obsession, yeah, passion, the way I look at it is like passion is like a fleeting thing and obsession is like not necessarily a permanent thing, but something you can’t get rid of. And you can have, I think, different obsessions in your life, but in the moment that has to be your thing, the one thing that you’re focused on. So I think you can do many things with your life, but while you’re doing it, like do one thing at a time. So to me, like passion is something like you’re interested in, you like wanna try.
08:03
You enjoy it, but obsession is the thing that you like can’t not do. It’s the thing that like when you’re sitting in your computer, you literally are like peeing yourself because you want to keep writing this or working on this, designing this, you know, you’re not eating for six hours, you’re staying up till 5 a.m., but it’s fine because you’re like plugged in, you’re working out, you’re doing this activity. And so that’s like the difference to me. I agree. There’s a lot of passion that we can have momentarily and then it’s fleeting and it’s gone. That obsession, as you said, it wakes you up in the middle of the night to
08:32
write down that note or to dictate that note into your phone or into your Apple watch so that you don’t forget that. Because when you get that idea, sometimes in the middle of the night, you think, oh, I’m going to hold on to it. And then the next morning you’re like, shit, I have no clue what I was talking about, or I have one word and it doesn’t mean as much. So we have to be willing to embrace that in the moment. I think so you were talking about shower moments, how you’re kind of in between things. There’s that presence. And all of a sudden now it’s like, oh, here’s this opportunity when we had that soft focus, so to speak, where you’re doing something, but it’s not so
09:01
consuming that we can’t allow our mind to travel and almost like a walker, like with working out, it stimulates us in that way that gives us that insight that we couldn’t have found maybe any other time. So it’s, it’s important to, to respect that and then to ride that wave as much as we can, like you say, with an obsession. That’s a, you know, the hard part is like the key part of obsession is it’s kind of like the world doesn’t want you to obsess the world makes you like feel wrong for obsessing. And that could be like the cliche, like staying in different parties, but that could also be just like,
09:29
setting barriers in relationships, you know, and like making sure you’re, you’re doing what you want to do, even if it’s not culturally normal or culturally accepted. And, you know, there’s a line there, but I think that’s when like really special things start to happen when you renew, not like be rude to people and not like shut people out, but you really like harness this energy that you have instead of like being normal and spreading it out to different activities. Just like that idea of discipline, like from Jaco, it takes discipline to reinforce any kind of barrier, any kind of boundary for ourselves.
09:58
Because if we don’t, now we’re just gonna be trampled on. And even if we’re trying to be a nice person, we’re not respecting ourselves in the process. And we’re probably not helping that person that we’re allowing to trample on us either. We’re just encouraging the behavior. And that’s not what we should be doing. Because if your energy is spread out, it’s like a laser. All this light’s here, but if we put it into a millimeter, it goes through walls. I like that, that’s good. That’s a good analogy. And do you feel that your creative energy is best in the morning? I’m more of a night person lately.
10:25
And, you know, sometimes I’ll wake up at nine, but I’m like, you know, I’m going to bed at three. I don’t feel bad about it. I mean, it’s what’s working for you now. Like you said, there’s seasons, there’s times when getting up really is what we have to do. We don’t have to be Jocko. We don’t have to get up at four. There was a psychologist or a sleep specialist that I interviewed recently. He said there are four different archetypes of the way people sleep. So there’s some people that are night owls. There are some people that do most of their stuff early in the morning. And if we’re not kind of programmed for that or we’re not raising it, then it’s really.
10:53
detrimental for us to try to shift ourselves into that place. Now we’re grinding against this friction. You mentioned friction. I like the idea of friction, but I like trying to turn it as much as I can into traction if I can push off of it. If I can go with it, as opposed to allowing it to just grade me down. And I think that that’s one way we can do it. I like that friction versus traction. That makes a lot of sense. It does. It’s just like adversity, right? When we try to resist it, it can crush us. But if we can actually lean into it, if we can accept it for what it is,
11:22
Not only does it allow us to process it faster and get beyond it, but now we’re not caught in this semantics of trying to push back and forth and debate it and trying to say, why am I a victim? Why is this happening to me? We don’t have that luxury. And if you’re an entrepreneur, it’s about executing. It’s about trying to fall down. People try to make it easy, but they overcomplicate it by trying to make it easy. When they could just be out trying to create shit, just like you said, you had that draft and you revise it, revise it, revise it, revise it. And now it’s perfect and now you’re like.
11:51
I’m going to release this into the wild, see what happens. That’s exactly it. And you know, sometimes it’s not even perfect. Sometimes there’s typos, but you know, I’ve noticed some of my best, believe it or not, some of my best posts have typos because it doesn’t matter. I’m spiritual. I’m not, I’m not talking about energy every sentence. Like I have been kind of with this stuff, but it’s true. Like the energy, even if there’s a typo, if the energy is right, if it’s in the right package, if it’s worded the right way, it doesn’t matter. Like I swear, some of my best posts have typos, which is crazy, but, and you know, I don’t like that, but in the end, I’m glad I got it out.
12:21
that way. Yeah. And like you said, when the Nazi police come down to say there with an asterisk, you’re like, really? Of all this that I did, I like gave you something and you’re trying to like nitpick this? Really? You know, it’s funny with that too. It’s like that actually helps to post sometimes because it like gets more engagement. It’s funny. Like, yeah, I’ve seen like TikToks like that, like viral TikToks where it’s just like a typo and it goes viral because of that. It’s pretty crazy. The internet’s a weird place, man. It is like you said, and if you can understand it and you’re aware of it, like you said, it’s about trying to get the intention out there.
12:48
You’re talking about energy is a lot of attraction only works as hard as we do. We can’t just sit there and hope it’s going to fall in our lab. And you did 75 hard. When did you do that? I did it last fall. Tell me your biggest takeaways. Biggest takeaways. It was good. You know what? I did a lot of the things already, but I guess it taught me like how quickly you can get used to like a hard routine and people don’t realize that it seems so insane, but like, to be fair, like I did do a lot of the things already. I would say I did almost all of it other than my diet wasn’t perfect all the time. And.
13:18
I usually work out twice a day. It was really just adding those two things, but I got very used to it. And it’s interesting. It is like you’re saying like traction, friction, like you get over that initial traction, then you’re off and people underestimate how easy that can be when you have the right program. That’s why, that’s why 75 hours is so good. It’s just so specific and like people like you’ve done it as well. I did the year long of it. You had the year live hard. Yeah. I still got to do the whole thing. I can’t before like I die. Like I have to do the whole thing.
13:45
And like, what a program that guy made, like Andy Purcell. It is truly unbelievable. And it works because it’s so specific. You probably have people who ask you about it and they’re like, Oh, what if I did this? But you’re like, no, the whole point is like, it’s specific and you don’t change it. It’s an amazing thing he did. Helped a lot of people. It absolutely has. And again, what’s it do? It forces us to create a priority. For those of you that don’t know what 75 heart is, go follow Andy Purcell, go find 75 heart on the app, but you’re working out twice a day, 45 minute workouts. One has to be outside.
14:12
You’re drinking a gallon of water, you’re following a diet, you’re reading 10 pages a day, and you’re taking a progress pick. And there’s other variations on it, but just by doing that, because what happens? Everybody tries to make everything a priority, and therefore nothing’s a priority, and they wanna meditate, they wanna learn this new workout, and they wanna journal, they wanna read this, and they wanna do all this stuff, and they get overwhelmed, they don’t do any of it. But like you said, it’s so specific, it’s like, it’s either pass or fail. Did you get a gallon of water in? Well, I got three quarters of a gallon. Well, then you start over at day one.
14:41
I started over because I didn’t take a selfie. I didn’t take a picture. So, but I did start over. Yeah, but it’s about that accountability. I knew people that were listening to Audible thinking that that counted. He’s like, no, read the fucking instructions guys. It says to read because it makes you put everything else away. You have to open this analog thing and actually read it. But that’s where you get the most out of it. No, 100% I’m with it. And you and Andy, you guys have DM quite a bit, right? A little bit, yeah, just a little, nothing crazy. He seems like a great guy though. And you can tell he really cares about people.
15:11
Like he was damning me a long time ago and I had like no following. And I think he does that with a lot of people. He really cares about people. Well, if he sees something in you, he will. He’s not gonna just do it to anybody. I’ve been in the Arte syndicate since its inception with, and that’s his group with Ed Milet. And again, it’s like, he gives you like all the nitty gritty stuff, but again, it comes down to execution, falling down, not being afraid of trying. I mean, that’s what everybody seems to do. They get in their own heads. They make it more complicated than it has to be. But…
15:40
You learn more from the execution and failure and adapting than you would from trying to create an entirely different business model, all these ideas that people want to try to get a perfect first and then come up with excuses not to execute. And that’s how your first, I mean, well, you’ve had different businesses, but like the photo booth business, stuff like that, you literally kind of found that niche. So you were saying, instead of trying to find this passion or obsession necessarily, you find opportunities that can give you insights into what those things are. Can you tell us kind of how that business started and
16:08
how it’s taking off now and how that’s helped you in other areas. Yeah, definitely. Basically a long story short with my company, peak photo booths. We do high end luxury photo booths for weddings specifically, also other events, parties, week 16s, that type of thing. I started it. No crazy story. I worked for a company that did very similar things. That was around a while. We’re filling for two summers, saved up a few grand. And then I was going upstate to school in upstate New York. I was stationed in upstate New York. I was at Fort Drum at North of Watertown there. So it’s interesting. Yeah.
16:37
That’s where I got hurt. So really, that’s crazy. Oh, wow. Yeah. I went to school in Binghamton, New York, and I was like, Hey, I’m going to start a photo booth up there. I’m going to try it, even though there’s really nothing going on up there. There was colleges. And so that was my idea. And so I spent basically all the money I had a few grand and built my own photo booth and, you know, just went running like a loss, like rat, whatever you want to say. Yeah. I built it up there in the first year. There wasn’t much then the second year, which was the last year of school. I.
17:05
got to a decent point, even up in Binghamton, where I was doing 6, 7 events a week. And then when I moved it home, then I moved the business to Long Island, which was where I was coming after I graduated, the business really took off because it’s Long Island, New York City, a lot of stuff going on over here. I’ve been running it since and did really well pre-COVID. It was just growing, growing, growing. COVID definitely took a big hit in terms of the actual ability to provide the service that year. But now we’re at a point that it’s just like…
17:33
as much as it’s like a slingshot, like as much as it came back, it’s going forward and we’re in a really good place now and it’s becoming a really special business that I’m proud of. Not necessarily because I truly am not passionate about photo booths, but what I love is, what I’m obsessed with is like understanding and recognizing opportunity and making something that no one has made before, like a model, essentially a business model. And that is really exciting to me. You also mentioned how you had this ability to really harness social media and the internet.
18:03
You were saying that a lot of people that you were competing with didn’t understand that at the time. So that gave you like this almost blue water strategy, this advantage, right? Oh yeah, that’s the biggest thing. And photo booths aren’t even the best example of that because there are a lot of people in it and there are a lot of people who are smarter now. But yeah, that’s a hundred percent how I grew it. I understood how to do Google ads and how to use the internet while a lot of people didn’t understand it as well. And you know, that’s the case with, I tell anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur as young, like start a simple home service or even some event services are good.
18:32
get good at Google Ads, get good at getting reviews, and you’re going to have a business. I have a friend, my best friend actually, he has had multiple different businesses throughout his time. I always told him, you need to have a service. You need to do a service. He was trying to do beverages, really hard business to do by yourself and with a small team. I was like, dude, you’re an amazing service provider. You provide such great service. So he learned from literally having zero experience how to service hot tubs. And just he learned it while he was doing this other job.
19:01
but he really taught himself on YouTube how to do hot subs. And now like a year later, this guy has like a hundred plus Google reviews, the best hot sub repair, the best like reputable hot sub service company on Long Island, Long Island spot service, if you need someone. And it just shows you like, can get out there and use the internet, but you’re being unstoppable with a lot of businesses, especially old school businesses. I also want to point out that for you, I hate to say this, but for a lot of people 2020 changed everything because of what was going on in March with the pandemic.
19:30
but you actually found the gift in that adversity by that’s when you really leaned into your content, leaned into creating something. And it’s a whole different ball game when, if you’re just quoting people and there’s nothing wrong with that. I like to quote things that have influenced me, but when you’re actually creating something and you’re birthing this idea, whether it be just a single statement or content at the level that you created, it really makes you look at what’s important. It makes you understand what do you believe.
19:58
And then when you put it out there and then you get this response, it helps you see what’s really going on. And that’s when you were actually doing a lot of that work. How did it feel to create that first amount of content to get some of that traction initially as opposed to friction in the process? Yeah, you’re saying when I started going more from like posting quotes to like doing my own stuff. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And that was, you know, that was everything. I did do that. A lot of that during, grew a lot during like that beginning of COVID time. And I was just like, like I’m not gonna just sit here and wait for my business to go back.
20:27
I’m gonna like put this energy into something. And that was everything. Like I had to do that. Even though it’s hard because I did start it more like almost not anonymously, but like shoot on and miss Lee where like there was like a character but no one really knew who I was. And that was everything. Yeah. That’s the only reason I have that. That’s the only reason you’re interviewing me right now. You know, and it’s everything, but it’s hard for someone. It was harder for me. And I’m still not the most like public creator. I want to be more. And I’m just, it doesn’t come natural to me but I’m getting better at it. And I do enjoy it. And that’s where you find your voice. You know, you find your voice creating. If you want to look at those old posts, it
20:56
Like some of them are bad, some of them are very cringy, but you know what? That’s how you do it. You get better. I’m sure you feel the same about your old writing. Yeah, I do. I’m proud of my first book, but I just remember it was like, God, I felt like there’s days when you’re creating content or you’re trying to write stuff. Like I’ll write for four pages and it’s just garbage. Like, what am I even writing? But then that’ll be the thing that primes you to get to that one paragraph or that one statement. Then you’re like, okay, this is what I needed to get to this. Okay. It was worth it.
21:24
but it’s tough and you say that you’re not a natural at this so to speak. So anybody that’s listening, the content that you create is incredible, but it takes that iteration. It takes work. It takes that obsession to continue to get better at it. It does. Yeah, but you get better. That’s the hardest thing. And I even have been like kind of stuck in my way. It was like my page, it doesn’t grow as quickly as it used to. It used to grow a lot faster. And it’s probably cause I’ve gotten like a little comfortable. I’ve been doing like the same thing and you have to be able to iterate. And in the beginning I did a lot. You have to be able to keep working and find what works.
21:53
I think people get caught in the trap of being just extremely consistent, but not with something that’s working. And then it’s just like, you’re kind of waiting to burn out at that point. Yeah. And there’s a lot of people that are listening. So when we’re working on this kind of stuff, when we’re trying to create content for me, if I feel like I’m saying the same thing all the time, I try to find something that’s almost diametrically opposed, whether it be an article or picking up a book of something that is completely contrary to what I’m thinking. But what that does is that gives me, one, it keeps me from being blindsided by my cognitive
22:23
And it may actually create cognitive dissonance in me, but what I do is I look at that tension and say, why is that not jiving with me? And then maybe that gives me insights that I’ve witnessed seen from my normal kind of vantage point. Yeah, that’s a good way to look at it. I’m just saying I haven’t thought about it. It’s a good way to, like you said, when we kind of run out of ideas, it’s like, I can talk about adversity for so long. But then if I have to look at these other ideas or other components that come from that. But for me, I have to punch them in the face with this first statement to be able to slip in pragmatic empathy.
22:52
or to talk about boundaries, or to talk about respecting somebody else. Everybody’s been traumatized, everybody’s had things that happened to them. So it’s difficult to be really angry at somebody, but at the same time, you don’t have to be in their toxic environment. You don’t have to just stand by as they do this emotional drive-by. You can still keep yourself intact in the process. And it feels like in the world today, it’s very much either one or the other. Even Andy Frisella’s content, people think that he’s just this guy that’s in your face and yelling. There is that part of him.
23:21
But there’s a lot more to him than just that. Even David Goggins or even Jaco, if he gets to know these people well enough, you’ll see that there’s a lot of depth there. But people just want that superficial soundbought. They just want that thing that makes it feel good. And we have to understand that there’s more to it than just what we see on the interwebs. Yeah, a lot of these guys, they catch your eye. That’s why they are the way they are. I don’t think they’re doing that on purpose. And it’s just who they are, truthfully. But there is always layers deeper. I really like the word you said. I just want to highlight it. Pragmatic empathy. That is a very good phrase.
23:51
it’s like tactical, you want something to come out of it, but it’s also like understanding where some of that. It is. I mean, if you’re talking to a person in your business or an employee or a potential client, we have to understand where they’re coming from. We have to understand what they need. We also have to understand if they’re a threat or if they’re angry. And because we can understand what that is, we can pragmatically say, what’s the best thing for me to do? It doesn’t do me any good to have all these skill sets, but don’t have the self-awareness to have pragmatic empathy.
24:18
and now I can deploy the correct thing to help them, to help the team, to help accomplish the mission. But a lot of people see it as just, oh, I’m being empathetic, which means I sit on my hands. It’s like, no, that made me need to help this person stand up. It also means that you need to respect them enough to say this person doesn’t want me to help them stand up. They want to fucking figure it out on their own, which is fine too, because we’ve all been knocked down. So when you were first going into this creation mode, what were some of the people that really influenced you? I mentioned some names at the beginning of the interview, but…
24:45
Who are some of the ones that really influenced you a lot and then maybe still continue to influence you now? It’s tough because it’s one of my first started. It was because I saw these like very like cliche, like infographic pages. I would post them to like these like little like icons. And that’s how I started. But then I quickly, and I was like, yeah, I could do that too. So I started it. I quickly realized like those accounts were like mostly like fake followers and you know, they weren’t even real. And I found my own thing. It’s hard, like in terms of style, I like Stephen Bartlett.
25:14
And I like a lot of things he says. I’m not too into his content to be honest, but I like his style and like the way he publishes his work. Jack Butcher from VisualizeValue was like huge for me. I really liked the way he, not necessarily his visuals, like they’re incredible, but just his communication in general, like the way he tweets and condenses ideas is like pretty amazing. And I try to like capture that in my tweets. I try to like do the same thing. I have a long list. Like I have a list of people that I’m not going to vote on. I’m just going to like think. No, you’re fine.
25:43
I mentioned Naval and Tim Ferriss and Andy Fercell, obviously. Oh yeah, they’ve been, they’ve been huge. Yeah. In terms of like the message, Andy Fercell was huge for me. Like he was probably number one when I was starting Andy, Jaco, David Ganges. But you know, what’s interesting, like, I think you go, you really do go through seasons in terms of people you take influence from and like, I don’t listen to those three as much as I used to. It’s just because of what I need at the moment. I think the inspiration and the advice I need at the moment, but they helped me so much when I was younger.
26:12
And, you know, maybe that’s the most important time to be helped when you’re like trying to get from A to B. It’s that foundation. You’ve got that influence there, but then you’re branching out to create what’s yours and a lot of people are afraid to step into that. They want to step behind somebody else’s name instead of their own. Yeah. And your influences should change over time too. I think like that’s like the book steal like an artist. Have you read the book? Oh yeah. Yeah. It’s an amazing book and like, it’s so true. The things he says, like you can create something really special by just like one combining different people into one.
26:40
Like I love what you said, like a comment you gave me earlier is like my dream compliment. You said like Neval, Tim Ferriss, and what did you say, Andy Purcelli? Cause I literally have, I’m not joking, like in a note somewhere where I’m like writing like content goals, it’s like Tim Ferriss X Jack Butcher X Jocko, I think. So what you said is like pretty close. It’s so interesting, right? Cause I’ve tried to like, even though they’re different people, it’s like kind of similar in my mind. That’s a good way to look at your content. I think like who can you combine and to do something different. Or I love the other thing from that book, which is like.
27:08
Think about your favorite creator that inspires you and then go make what they would make on another platform. You know, so like what would like Naval Ravikant’s blogs look like if you’re a blogger or like something like that? How would Andy Vercela write Twitter threads? Because he doesn’t do that. You know, like how would he like that is interesting to me. Yeah, Naval made a comment. He was saying how a unicycle is interesting, a bear is interesting. But when you put a bear on a unicycle, it’s like, holy shit, that’s interesting. I want to see that. It’s like.
27:36
We then diagram these things that we’re experts in or these philosophies that we’ve absorbed. And now what comes from that is something unique, even if it’s not, like you said, quote unquote original. But let’s be real, there’s nothing original in the world. Like there’s no emotion that you’ve experienced that hasn’t been experienced for people for centuries and will continue to be experienced as long after we’re gone. And Elvis Costello says, every musician is a thief and a magpie. We’re just imitating somebody, whether we’re aware of it or not. And then we may be directly stealing from them, but…
28:05
even if we haven’t heard the quote, it’s probably out there, but that doesn’t matter because if that’s the first time that somebody’s heard that content and it’s from you to them, it’s like, I don’t care who it came from, you help me. And that’s what they want. Same idea, just different messengers. And it might be someone else, it’s definitely someone else’s quote. And something else, I was reading Alex from Mozi, who I’ve been really, he’s really helped me a lot lately with the things he said. He’s putting out some amazing stuff. He said something which I really liked. He says, it’s like what we were talking about before, like the combination of people that’s unique, but it’s also like,
28:34
you see something and you expect it to be one thing. So you look at him and you expect to see… You can expect a lot of things with him. One, you’re like, you could be going in for business content and you expect typical business advice. Or you could just see him from what he looks like, which is like a jacked dude with a mustache or a beard. And then he breaks that pattern. That’s when things get really interesting. And I try to do more of that. And I’ve tried to do some of that with my content where it looks like typical quote content, but it doesn’t read like it. I don’t want it to read like the typical. I want it to be like, holy shit, this is really like a gut punch.
29:04
I try to do that. You do it. I think you accomplished it. I don’t think you’d have as many followers or as much interaction as you do if you didn’t. And like I said, I’ve been following you for a long time. And I was like, this guy gets it. I’ve been doing martial arts since I was little and Bruce Lee’s martial arts, he can do. I’m an instructor under Bruce Lee’s protege, Guru Dan and Nassanto. But Bruce said, I absorb what is useful. I discard what is useless. And I have it as specifically my own. And to me, that’s like the ultimate entrepreneurial ethos because again, we all have unique experiences.
29:32
doesn’t mean I just throw them all away and just learn this one thing, but I bring that overlap of what I’ve done and it will influence the flavor and the taste sort of of what I’m creating. And then we have to be willing to lean into that even if it doesn’t sound exactly like so-and-so. When I first started to learn to play the guitar, I wanted to sound like certain musicians, but I didn’t have the technical prowess to emulate them. But in the process of falling down, trying to get to that place, I discovered unique voicings, unique things I hadn’t heard before. So to me,
30:01
It gave me a style, even though I wasn’t understanding it. And then years later it’s like, Oh, that’s where I got that. I was trying to sound like this guy. I wasn’t good enough, but I sound like this now. Yeah. Signs that goes under the radar. It just happens that you really realizing it. And we’re all influenced whether we realize it or not. Yeah. It always does with everything you do. It goes, a lot of it goes under the radar. Yeah. But when it comes out, it’s neat the way that it comes on the other side. So of all the devices out there and we’re in this sphere where everybody’s kind of either just nothing’s original or they’re just kind of regurgitating the same thing.
30:31
What’s the worst piece of advice that you hear continually repeated and you’re smiling because you’re like, I am where you’re like, God, there’s so much of it. I was smiling. I thought you were going to ask me the best advice. I went the other way first. I wanted to read you to go the other way and then we’ll go on the other side. No, yeah, that’s fine. The worst advice is I’m just going to say 99% of everyone you follow. I am going to be completely honest. You should go into your following list and unfollow like friends, keep them whatever, if you really want to see them. But like in terms of like creators on follow almost all of them.
30:59
You got to look at them and ask if you’re getting value from somebody. And a lot of times you’re just giving seconds of your day to them over years. And that’s like a lot of time. And we do that for 500 people. It’s like, you don’t think about that, but it’s like, and not even the time, but the attention. And so like, it’s hard for me to think of like one specific bad advice, but like the best advice I can give is to cut out all the bad advice. Cause the thing is average advice is still bad advice because you’re wasting time and energy. And that’s like an interesting thing, I think to think about. Like there’s just so much noise.
31:28
It’s hard for me because I’ve talked to other creators as well. And a lot of them, I truly like either mute their content or I don’t want to look at it because it’s just like, there’s no intention behind it. They’re just pumping, pumping for like an algorithm. And that’s something I really try not to do. Like I’ve not lately had an album post that much just because of that. I don’t like being that guy. There’s a bounce there. Let me think one specific bad piece of events. I think you’ve already said it. I think the bad advice is to try to consume everything and make something out of it. Yeah. I think everybody listening, if they would just fast from this kind of stuff.
31:56
What do they do? They pick up a book and they’re like, I read 52 books this year. I’m like, stop patting yourself on the back for being smart. Like tell me a book that really changed your life this year. And they’re all like, um, well, it’s like they’re consuming, but they’re not digesting. They’re not applying knowledge that is acquired, but unutilized is the equivalent of ignorance. Why are they consuming so much hoping that it’s going to answer the fact that they will not try to put in the work and fall down and put this stuff into play. Yeah. And so like the opposite of that is the best advice I’d say, which someone put it the right way.
32:26
I forgot his name. I think his name is Scott Adams. No, it’s not Scott Adams. That’s someone else. Scott something. I think he might have wrote the book called Ultra Learning. I feel so bad in this coding. Anyway, it’s on my profile. Actually, you can see it on my page somewhere. And it says do the real thing. And it’s just like, that’s like, I think my life has just been a process of doing the real thing like more and more. And so basically, that goes from like starting a business. The fake thing is like you read a bunch of business books, and you get an LLC, and you get business cards, you make an announcement.
32:55
make an announcement. I did that when I started my business. You make a big announcement, you get an article in the newspaper, that might be okay. But that’s like marketing. But not really though. Not if it’s a newspaper. You get what I’m saying. You get a logo, you get a sick logo, you get business cards, all the polos versus the real thing is just picking up the phone and calling 1000 people and telling them about the business and trying to get people to give you money and make a sale. That’s the real thing. And people don’t do the real thing. And I haven’t a lot when I was younger.
33:24
And I feel like that’s successful. Success is just doing the real thing. Why don’t people do the real thing? It’s hard. It’s real work. There’s real fraction or attraction, whatever word you want to say there. And sometimes you don’t know. Like sometimes you’ll think, oh, I need to figure out, I need to go compare this CRM and this CRM or this email newsletter platform and this one. That’s what I really need to do. So I have 15 tabs open comparing them instead of, okay, I just need to like get more leads and like get someone to give me their money, get more ads going, get better ads.
33:52
That’s like the bottleneck, I think, to a lot of people. And sometimes it’s hard to recognize those things and it does take education, but it’s just like you can’t compensate the real thing with just all education. And people know the real thing. And here’s the thing, when you have the real thing, you’re putting out real content, you attract people that are from that kind of real, recognized as real. If you’re creating a bunch of vanilla generic bullshit, you’re gonna have a bunch of vanilla generic bullshit people that are not going to put any of it into play. So it’s just this big waste of time. It’s a fool’s errand.
34:21
It’s the definition of insanity. If I make it slicker, maybe if I do this, it’s like, no, maybe if you would just fucking put something out there that’s honest and real, that actually hits one person and then you figure out where that goes, that’s where your tracks and comes from instead of just leaning into friction and then having the audacity to not know. Why do I still have all these like road rash on my arm? It’s like, cause you’re just continuing to do it. I completely agree. Yeah. So that’s how we get there. Now there was some friction in your life when you were the one soccer player and
34:51
You’re basically an athlete, that’s all you’re doing. That’s what you live for. And we were talking before how I don’t know anybody that’s succeeded that hasn’t hit adversity in some way, shape or form. Can you tell us about that time? Because at that moment, it was like, it felt like everything was over for you. Would you say that? Tell us about what it was like with the injury and that realization that this was not what your path was gonna be. Yeah, I think I could boil my success down to one thing, which is like a very good ability to be unattached to anything.
35:20
And like that’s a hard skill, but like grew up playing soccer, like a lot of people who grew up doing things, you know, did it when I was a kid to third, fourth year college. I was, you know, who you were, you were a soccer player. And then you get bad. I was badly hurt multiple years in a row. And just at one point, it was just like, all right, this is not happening. It’s from my life anymore. I guess I’m not going to waste this time. Once I made that jump though, and was finally willing to like, let that part of me go. That’s when everything good started happening. Cause I started like creating the person I wanted to be.
35:48
versus just being the person I was. And I’ve done that throughout multiple things I’ve done. And that really is a big thing, I think. Because together, you want to go, you have to be willing to let go of who you were and to unattach yourself from the wins, unattach from yourself, and the pride you feel about yourself. So that’s what I’d say. I felt like I had a new life when I stopped playing soccer because it’s so much effort, it’s so much time. And I had this whole new world open for me. And sometimes I think that could be soccer, that could be a job, that could be…
36:17
relationship that can be a lot of things to a lot of people. And when you do make that jump, it’s really good things can start to happen. How long did you stay in that place of denial where you still tried to hold onto it hopelessly? It wasn’t as tragic as you describe it. Like truthfully, I was just playing soccer and sitting on the bench most of the time because I had injuries or just truthfully wasn’t playing well enough. And that was a long time. It was like multiple years. And I have a lot of feelings about college and you know, we don’t need to go into that, but like, I wish I started my life earlier. I feel like I was just in this buffering stage and.
36:47
It was because it was normal, it was because it was who I was. And when I did, you know, I want to tax myself from that really good thing started to happen. And that’s why I’m kind of dwelling on that, because there are people right now that are listening to us that are going to college and they have no clue why they’re going to college or they’re in a job because it’s not making them a millionaire, but it’s giving them enough money to live this lifestyle, which isn’t really serving them. And they’re kind of in this buffering stage as well. And they don’t see it where they see it, but they want to find the next glorified distraction.
37:15
whether it be social media, an empty relationship, alcohol, drugs, entertainment, whatever. And the sooner that they can get to that place where they’re like, what’s real? What matters to me? There’s nothing like adversity to make you figure out what the hell actually matters. And for you, you were able to finally grip that, but then you had this incredible work ethic as an athlete and you’re like, what if I applied this idea as this athlete to be relentless, to be obsessed, and now apply it towards this thing that actually serves me? And all of a sudden…
37:44
Just that curiosity alone can create the opportunity. And then once you lean into it, all of a sudden, it’s like that lack of commitment that creates all the anxiety. It’s like you have to either jump, there’s one level of commitment and that’s total. So just being stuck in this one place and thinking, oh, I’ll do that next week, or I’ll do that when I have more money, or I’ll do that next season. And we don’t know how much time we have. We don’t know what opportunities are out there that we’re missing. Compressing the time is important, but also that amount of time that we would have built other things, whether it be relationships.
38:14
content and actually incredible conversation. All those things happen within these periods of time. So like you said, with these content creators, if you’re consuming 500 of them and they’re not helping you or if you just stay in this place of glorified hesitation, it doesn’t help you get where you wanna go. Yeah, I posted something the other day, which I liked. It was like, just don’t waste your life. Like I was like, don’t waste your life learning, I think was a specific thing, which is a good post. If you’re listening to this, go find it on my profile. It was like a carousel, a few different lines.
38:44
And just like, it’s something I struggle with because most of the stuff I post is stuff I struggle with and just thoughts I have, you know? And it’s like, there’s so much to like learn and do and think about, but like, you’re going to waste your life. Like if you look at the amount of time you spend doing things that don’t matter, it’s, it’s just normal though. It’s very normal to waste your life. And the key is to not waste your life. I say it over and over, cause like those three words, like I think are strong, like don’t waste your life. It’s true. I mean, how many times do we have people that
39:12
They get good at shit that doesn’t matter. They chase the easy dopamine, all those things that we’re kind of alluding to. That doesn’t matter. I mean, if that matters to you, then that’s fine. But eventually you get to a place of maturity where you’re like, and it doesn’t really matter. Like in the grand scheme of things, of all that stuff went away, what matters to you now? And you know my story. It’s like, it took me, like I was 40 and it took like everything being taken away from me to actually make that knowledge. And here’s the thing, I knew it all along. I knew it. That’s the real truth.
39:40
but I was afraid to act on it because I didn’t want to actually have to take accountability. But when adversity like kicked in the face, I had to lean into that. I had no other option. So you were talking about how quickly we adapt like on 75 Hard. For most of us, we hit adversity and then like a child that gets his hand burnt from the stove, we get away from it. But for me, I had to sit with it. But you, you’re voluntarily sitting with it and absorbing that knowledge. Even if it’s only for an extra second, you’re going to get a lot more than you would have gotten any other way. No, you’re right.
40:10
And your story is like an unbelievable example, but you probably recognize like how many successful people now came from injuries or just like a tragic event. It’s just, it’s crazy how common it is. Like it’s crazy when you really start looking at it. And it’s like, I think I put it once, it’s like a bandaid. It’s like you rip off a bandaid and then that’s like the rawness of your life is out there. You know, that’s when you can heal though, and make something stronger. And you know, you live that more than anybody, I think. That’s what happens. It strips away all the stuff that we’re not and you see what you are. And then you’re like,
40:39
there’s a lot of stuff I don’t like, but that’s part of being there. Like it helps you see what maybe you do like, or maybe you’re like, I want to lessen these things that I don’t like about myself so much. And we’re all afraid to look like we all will look in the mirror and we kind of see what we want to see even now. But when we have no other choice, the choice is simple. And that means we have to do the work we have to move forward, we have to get through this friction, turn it into traction, and get to the other side. Otherwise, we’re going to be stuck wasting our lives. I love that when you have no other choice, the choice is simple. That’s freaking great.
41:08
That’s really good. It’s awesome. So where can we learn more about you? Where can we support you? Where can we consume this amazing content? Yeah. It’s Instagram at behavior hack. B E H A V I O R H A C K. I think I spelled that right. Only people who spell it differently are like English people in England. They sell it a little different. They do everything different in English. Yeah. And, uh, Twitter is my real name. Zach Pograb, Z A C H P O G R O B. And do have a sub stack. You can subscribe to behavior hack.substack.com.
41:38
And that’s really it. My company is called Peak Photo Booths. If you’re in the Northeast, you can venture an unbelievable photo booth for your wedding and or whatever event you’re planning. And that’s really it. I thank you so much. My friend has been an honor. No, thanks for having me. Great convo. Thank you for listening to this episode of Okta non-verbal. If this message resonates with you, please share it out with others on social media. Hit that subscribe button and leave a review for the show anywhere you listen to podcasts.
