Money Habits, Dating a CEO, Travel - Q&A With My Wife

Hello, I'm Janice, Micaiah's wife, and today we're asking some questions from Instagram on business, life, and everything in between. What money habits have been crucial for building your wealth? I think the big thing for me has been playing games, money games, with no ceiling. So, like, if I'm in a job, I've always felt like the chances of me actually getting to return that job, at least on my timeline, are pretty poor. Because it's not like the boss is going to walk in one day and say, hey, Micaiah, like, you've been crushing it. We're going to bump your salary ten times. in a business like you can actually grow the revenue 10 times in one year it's a lot but it's it's far more likely than your boss giving you a 10 times raise so i just always try to think about playing games with no money ceiling in your experience does money buy happiness when i first got it i was like for sure like the money is a huge relief because you i didn't realize how much time i spend thinking about money how much it consumes our lives Once you get accustomed to the money, I think the same questions come back that everyone faces, which are like purpose, meaning, what am I here on this earth to do? And if anything, it's harder because once you have the money, your answer can't be to get more money. I mean, it can be, but that's a really bad answer. So I think money lets you focus on other things other than money, which can lead to happiness. So it's sort of an indirect thing. I don't think money directly buys you happiness, but it buys you the ability to focus on things that buy you happiness. What has been the number one thing you feel like money has bought you that has led to happiness? Travel. Like, we're in here in Hong Kong now, in this, like, sick room, and I just get to look at the bay, and... I mean, we've been traveling for, like, practically a year straight, and it's just been... That's the one thing. You know, I bought the Porsche. sold the Porsche. The Porsche was really nice. But like, yeah, just getting to travel and like travel with you. It's been like, that makes me happy. As someone who's visited 30 countries, what are two lessons that you've learned? I think the most important lesson I learned was actually when I visited Nicaragua. I was super stressed out. We were waiting on a million dollar deal for the company and it was this investor in China. So I would like, they were on a different time zone than us. So I would. Spend all day working and then stay up all night waiting for them to email me to know if we're going to get the million dollars or not. And I was losing sleep for like three months waiting for this answer from this investor. And eventually I was like, I just need to get out of here because I'm going crazy. And so I booked Thursday and I booked a flight for Saturday to Nicaragua. And I just hung out with people. And I remember that like they were so happy and they had so little. And I was like, I'm waiting on a million dollar deal. And I'm so unhappy. Like, this is ridiculous. Actually, so this is one of the reasons I wear bracelets. I bought a bracelet after that trip because I was like, I want a physical reminder to remind me of that lesson. So I've never forgotten that. And I wear a bracelet now to always remind myself, hey, it all works out. And stop stressing over this stuff. It's not worth being unhappy over. Can you share some regrets or things you wish you did in your early 20s? I think the biggest regret of my 20s in general is that I kept waiting for a certain level of success to allow myself to live the life that I wanted. It wasn't that I couldn't go out and do these things. It was more like I'm not allowing myself to be happy in this moment because I haven't achieved a certain level of success. And so I was just constantly like delaying happiness. And then like one day I'll get all this success and I'll be happy. I don't think that it actually needs to be that way. I think you can learn to be happy in the struggle. It just wasn't something that I was good at or, frankly, prioritized. Because I was like, I'm willing to be unhappy in the struggle to be successful and happy later. Having now sort of crossed the chasm, I think you could be happy in the struggle and know that you're working towards your future. And I just spent a decade not doing that. How can men build their confidence? I think as a man in today's society, there are... a lot of sort of attacks on what it is to be a man. I think there's a very positive message of equality that gets distorted and means we do things exactly the same. And I think as a man today, like there are certain things that are just, whether it's from caveman days or whatever, sort of innately wired into man, like leading, making decisions, feeling like you are progressing in life and actually making something of yourself. is a very, I think, innate thing to being a man. And as you sort of step away from that, I think it's very hard to actually be confident in yourself. So one, I think you need to be progressing towards something. This is something I've had to learn after retiring because you're not progressing towards anything. And I could feel myself sort of losing my edge. And so now I'm progressing towards making content and doing other cool things. but you need that as a man to be working towards something and I think that never goes away. The other thing you need is you need core values. And you need core values that you believe are important and then you actually live up to. And by living up to your core values repeatedly, you reinstill confidence in yourself as a man and you've learned to believe that you are a man that does what they say they will do. So that's my formula. It's worked out pretty good. How can someone become the first millionaire in their family? The thing that keeps poor people poor is not that they don't work hard. It's not that they don't have even the skills. It's usually the mindset. The default assumption for a poor person is that they will remain poor. And so their environment is constantly reinforcing that. If you compare that to a rich kid, sure they have money, sure they have connections. But the reason the rich kid gets rich again is because the default assumption for that rich kid from birth is that they will become successful. their parents believe it, their teachers believe it, their friends believe it. So they believe themselves that they will become successful almost no matter what. So if you are in that environment where everyone's reinforcing that you will be poor, the most important thing you can do is get out of that environment, move to a place where becoming successful is the default assumption for the people in the room, and just find a way to get in that room and stay there as long as possible. What common trait have you encountered in every entrepreneur that you've met? I've met a lot of entrepreneurs, but the successful ones all share a common trait that the unsuccessful ones don't. And it's this deep, deep obsession with what they're doing. It's not a nice to have. It's not a I hope, I wish. It's like I am obsessed with becoming successful in this thing that I'm doing. And it's going to eat up my sleep, my free time. When I'm on vacation is all I'm thinking about, as you know. And it's like that. That level of obsession is required and you can't get around it. You can't take a shortcut. But the unsuccessful entrepreneurs I know treat it more like a nice to have, not an obsession. Do you think travel is important for personal development? Certainly important for my marriage. But outside of that, yeah, for sure. Like it's if you don't travel, you will live in an echo chamber and that echo chamber, you won't even realize what is. being reinforced in an echo chamber versus a natural state of the world. And as you move to different parts of the world or just travel, you see different cultures, you see different societies, different ways of thinking. I think breaking out of that echo chamber allows you to reevaluate your own thoughts, your own beliefs. And so you can actually figure out like, what do I internally believe versus what is just the echo chamber where I'm living or where I grew up? So for me, I always found Silicon Valley a very unhealthy echo chamber. It's the only place where you can sell a company for half a billion dollars and be a failure because Zuckerberg sold his for, you know, we didn't even sell. It's worth a trillion. So I had a rule. I tried to get out of Silicon Valley when we were running the company every quarter because I want to escape that echo chamber and really push myself to understand what I believe, not just what is in my surroundings. Can you have a great life working a traditional nine-to-five? You can have a great life on a nine-to-five. like there's no question about it and i think this whole stigma and like the only way to break free is to be an entrepreneur and all that is not for everyone entrepreneurship changed my life but you were a nine to five employee and you made way more money than i did as an entrepreneur for many many years just being a paid silicon valley engineer so i think the the nine to five hate is overblown but the nine to five default career path should not be one that you follow which is slowly accumulate sort of like raises within the company. You get a 3% raise every year, barely matches inflation. The way that the economy is working today, you actually won't be able to afford the American dream anymore. Like inflation is too high, hedge funds and private equity are raising the prices of asset classes. And I think that's a losing strategy. At the very least, if you're going to work a nine to five, you should be building extremely high value, hard to replace skills. Then you can actually make a strong six-figure or seven-figure salary into nine to five, have a great work-life balance. It's a perfectly fine strategy, but don't just get a degree, stop learning, and then just wait for your 3% rates every year. It's a default way to not achieve the goals that you have in life unless your goals are very low. Do you believe in work-life balance? No. Work-life balance in the traditional sense of leaving the office maybe at nine to five is perfectly fine. Even if you're an entrepreneur, you know, I was home every day for dinner, but balance is probably not a way I would have described my life. Even if I was home at 5.30 after dinner, I was working. I was thinking about work. I was thinking about work at 2 a.m. So it goes back to like this idea of obsession. I think obsession is way underrated and work-life balance is something that doesn't belong in an entrepreneur's vocabulary when they're building, when they've achieved their success. do what you want. What was the hardest part of building your business? I would say the tactical stuff actually wasn't that hard. If you suck at sales, go read a book, talk to sales mentors. If you're bad at managing, you can learn how to manage. It's the managing your internal emotions where you feel like everything's failing and you still have to show up and make those sales calls. That is a skill that you can't read in a book. You can't read a book that will teach you how to still do the work when you feel like it's a waste of time you feel like everything's crumbling that's something you just have to learn through practice through repetition and through like through sheer relentless tenacity where you're just like not willing to fail in an unhealthy way and eventually you build that that repetition that practice to do these things that are really hard no one can teach you that you just learn it through hard times i'm gonna ask you a question now What was it like dating a CEO especially in the early days like when we were three four people? I think I had it really good actually. Well, I guess I know a lot of significant others of CEOs who Really did not get time with their partners because they were always obsessed and thinking about work But I think when I was dating you you really made an effort to separate time with me as time with me. And it was a very like concerted effort to spend quality time together when we were together. So I think I had it better than most people actually have it. Yeah. So I think I was really lucky. You were a high paid nine to five employee. What made you never want to be an entrepreneur? I think it's this idea of obsession that you talked about. I just don't. I think in most things in my life, I don't have that level of obsession. I'm very happy to dabble in a lot of different things and kind of seek out this path and seek out that path and be good at a little bit of everything. But to really dive into one thing for a really long time obsessively is just not really who I am. And I think also seeing you go through your really extreme ups and really extreme downs, I was like, I think it's more important for me to stay a little bit more stable so we can have some balance in our relationship. You are an amazing rock. Thank you for answering my questions. So some rapid fire questions. Let me give you a word and you'll give me your first thought on this word. Hong Kong. Rushed. Everyone's way too busy. I don't know what the rush is. Like they're rushing. Just to wait and lie. Like, it's crazy. Everyone here is way too busy. You can see how it got built so fast. London. Peaceful. London is actually, I find, a very peaceful city. So much green space. Great international blending. Like, it's a great place to have a home. Entrepreneurship. The first word that came to mind was struggle. But it's a struggle that's worth it if you want to go through it. But it's definitely a struggle. Entrepreneurs. Overhyped. Overrated. Entrepreneurship is not for everybody. Now it's like this sexy thing because people want to sell you courses and stuff. But like it's a life path for those who choose it. It shouldn't be a life path for everybody. Filming. It's fun. For me, content is like the most fun I've had ever building anything. And we're not really building a business. We're just like hanging out, filming cool stuff. But it's a lot of fun. Your wife. I got to pick a good word. Stellar was the first word that came to mind. And I was like, I don't know if that's the best word. But I'll go with Stellar. Stellar in every aspect. Gorgeous, intelligent, well-traveled, supportive. Everything I could have asked for. Thanks so much for tuning in, for watching. Drop some love in the comments for my wife. She was awesome for doing this. And we'll see you in the next one.

Watch this next: https://youtu.be/y5ks4FhoGfQ

If you're new here my name's Michia (Muh-ky-uh). I'm a serial entrepreneur and investor. Since selling my last startup for 9 figures, I'm investing my own money into the next wave of founders at my VC firm, L7V. 

I'm sharing everything I learn here so subscribe and stick around.