#2 – Who we are – This is Becoming Great

Transcript

[00:00:00] And I looked from a distance.

[00:00:01] I’m sitting there with a guy sector, lent us the money and I see Eric can’t handle his shoulder just like he’s shrinking as his stand at small things.

[00:00:18] All right. Let’s go. Eric. How are you doing today? Well, I recently discovered that I’m scared of 14 year olds and a guy. Exactly.

[00:00:33] So I’m doing Thai boxing. Well, then I’m usually just practicing with the parts. I’m not very good.

[00:00:39] And just today, I decided it was time to to bring it up a notch and go for a sparring session where people fight each other. And I went in. No, I was pumped with adrenaline. Feeling like a big, strong man. And then I get to face this 14 year old guy, you know, and and, you know, he looks like you were fighting a 14 year old.

[00:01:02] Yeah. What? No. The 14 year old was fighting me. He wasn’t a big guy. He was the biggest 14 year old I’ve seen that day.

[00:01:15] So there is some hope for change. He was about half my size, you know. You know, David and Goliaths when they’re fighting. Yeah. And during shearing for David, it feels like the world was shearing for the little guy. A shed for. Go ahead. Yeah, sure. For going on to. I was going and I came in feeling like a big, strong man.

[00:01:37] This little guy. He beat the freaking. So what did you have going for him? Probably a sucky opponents, but that was his. But you are beautiful. Pretty good. You’re pretty good.

[00:01:54] If so, he was it was so small I couldn’t hit him. He was super fast. Oh, he was quicker. Yeah, it was super fast. And it was so flexible.

[00:02:03] So he was like he went here to me and I wasn’t flexible enough to kick him in the head, but he could kick me in the head like, what the fuck? But how cocky were you before to fight?

[00:02:17] Well, how cocky do you think Julia had was when he faced David?

[00:02:21] Well, you know, when you were playing soccer back in the days and you saw your opponents, it’s OK. These guys are really short, like go from high shots. This should be one best thing. He’s just a kid. I bet we barely have to try hard.

[00:02:34] Yeah. I mean, I came into that round. I’ve done some other rounds and I was so tired from the other round. Look, finally, how I’m going to fight with the little kid. The rest.

[00:02:44] Oh, boy, was I wrong. So I came in with the mentality. I’m just going to show now. I’m just going to keep it on a distance, relax. And I was already limping a little bit because someone else had hit me on the leg and then come back and my leg was broken.

[00:03:01] Oh, my God. My 14 year old boy.

[00:03:04] But other than that, I’m good. So I’m ready to do podcast the hell out of this.

[00:03:09] I have a quick story I want to share first. Speaking of when you play soccer and you look at that, a team like all their players are told this is gonna be difficult or this case a small win win this. Once I was playing in a soccer team, that was it was called the wide team because we had a lot of red, a lot of width in our team, which means everybody soccer. There was no one was good. So we were the worst team. And one time we didn’t have a keeper and one guy in the team had broken his arm and the other arm. So he had two arms broken. And you know what is that? Objects. He had them like white hard things to cast. And two casks on each arm broke. And I was it. And I just imagined, look at we’re going to play a team that’s a goalkeeper with two broken arms.

[00:04:03] We won that game, but now we’re lost. We’re lost. All right.

[00:04:12] Before we get into this. Explain what happened yesterday, huh?

[00:04:17] Ok. So my day just today was one of the most intense days ever.

[00:04:24] And it starting with you and me having a very good conversation about my life, but little things in general. And we got into the topic of of loneliness. And I love to explore this a bit later because you shared some really good things on loneliness. What happened was that I started explaining about how I felt lonely and you went straight into solution mood. Like you could do this, you could do that, you could do this, you could do that. And I got this feeling in my chest like, hey, I wasn’t done here.

[00:05:02] So quite bluntly, I’m just stop.

[00:05:07] Let’s focus on me for a bit. Let’s explore this feeling. And you very lovingly accepted that. Even though I kind of verbalise matter in the face, you were much softer than that.

[00:05:17] You did ask for permission. You don’t trust you were not a traffic police. Yeah, you’re right. You’re soft.

[00:05:22] Ok. I started with stop. Then maybe I ask for permission. Yeah. At least we got into very good conversation about not about loneliness, about why I’m feeling lonely, what what the connection is and.

[00:05:38] Cal, after that, let’s let’s go back to that with you.

[00:05:42] What what was your insights on on loneliness? When did you feel lonely?

[00:05:49] Well, this is such a big topic, so I feel like we should do.

[00:05:54] Maybe an entire episode of where we could explore this, but basically I’ve been into a process of realizing that a lot of emotions that I had I’d have been suppressing or I didn’t know what they were that they were actually they were actually some kind of loneliness. So I would love to explore this a little bit deeper. But for now, can we focus on what did this lead into?

[00:06:19] Ok, we’ll do that. Yeah. So basically we felt that we had a very, very meaningful conversation here and it felt like something that a lot of people could learn from.

[00:06:29] So me being am me, I said, hey, why do you think we’re live streaming this?

[00:06:37] And you being you saying, yeah, let’s do it.

[00:06:42] And two minutes later, we started posting this on unanswered. Yes. Our regular conversation.

[00:06:50] And we had a lot of fun with it. Quite a few people wanted to watch. Quite a people interacted with us and we got into live streaming mode. So we sat talked for another hour and a half with racing pulses, learning that you can see how many watches, you can see what they’re riding.

[00:07:06] You could do things with this and not have been distracted by the shot. Yeah.

[00:07:10] Both of us looking like a distracted golden retrievers because we tried to look at the computer screen, which was here, and then both of us saw the other one, Linda, in like there was a beautiful girl taking her coat off on the screen before coming back.

[00:07:25] I’ve never done that. You couldn’t have done that. Never wanted to see a beautiful girl take your clothes off. Me neither. Yeah. So that led us onward.

[00:07:34] So we did another livestream session on Facebook. Later that day where I practiced the speech that I’m gonna do on Saturday and. We posted in the same thing on Instagram, but also on Facebook and I was the only one talking. And still it got out on your your Instagram feed. So what did you feel?

[00:08:00] The man that was uncomfortable and. Yeah, that took my nervous system out of conference zone, too, uncomfortable zone into panic zone because you have posted videos before and I’ve been so impressed by that because to me it’s a big step. Starting around due to channel posting inspirational pictures on Instagram. And I would love to do that one day, but I’m not quite there yet. So for this episode, I have set up a separate account where I can do that. And actually, yeah, I’m going into solution mode, so let me backup. You asked what emotion I was feeling and I was sweating from my nose. I think that describes the emotion I was feeling.

[00:08:54] Yeah, it does. You were filled with joy.

[00:08:57] Yes. Sweaty joy for sure. Sweaty panic joy. So we had an intense day. We feel hangover on life today. Yeah. Eric Meredith made up that impressed expression. And just to clarify for anyone listening, when Eric said me being me, what he’s meaning is that one of Eric’s principles in life is that just begin. Just do things. Just start. And that is a very strong habit in many ways, because you get shit done. And what kind of flipside would you say, Eric? There is that kind of habit.

[00:09:41] With flip side, you mean bad things? What do you mean?

[00:09:43] There’s two sides of any coin.

[00:09:45] Okay. Okay. So I see this as one of my biggest strengths is that I do things without really thinking about the consequences.

[00:09:56] I see it as one of my biggest weaknesses too, because I do things without really thinking about the consequences.

[00:10:04] Sometimes consequences aren’t so good.

[00:10:09] Sometimes I mean, the simplest one is that I’m I’m constantly making jokes and nine times out of ten.

[00:10:18] That turns out well, 1 times times out of town.

[00:10:21] I heard someone’s feeling and it becomes a really tricky situation because I didn’t really think about the consequences of that or I.

[00:10:29] I’ve started companies that lost me a lot of money because it was a really shitty bad idea and I just kept going because that was me.

[00:10:39] So I’d have done that. I’m. What else have I done that turned bad for me? Doing things like that.

[00:10:48] Well, I’ve said yes to a bunch of trips I didn’t really want to go to. I’ve ended up in places that they really want to be, but most of the time it turns out, well, I’ve got shitloads of panic from telling things on podcasts. And then as I did this podcast in Sweden, more or less giving every single detail of my sex life and my troubles there without really thinking that through it turned out really well.

[00:11:13] But just sitting there was really nice talking to. So now everyone is big Swedish can find out about my sexual struggles.

[00:11:20] And yeah, that’s probably both a good thing.

[00:11:26] Well, it’s a volatile strategy for sure. There’s a lot of very good things about it and some downsides. And one of those downsides that I have in mind is that if things are not all the way thought through, you might forgot something. And one thing that we have realized that we have forgotten is to properly introduce ourselves. And yet that is the intention with this call. The intention is to give sort of a background to because I think most of the people going and seeing this. So is so we wanted to give an introduction of how to me and Erik know each other. Who am I? What is my background? And I’m pretty sure as well that you will hear some things about Erik that you haven’t heard before.

[00:12:12] All right. And.

[00:12:17] A way that we want to do this is that we want to tell this story together, because me and Eric have had kind of similar lives in many ways, and our timeline has been going together. They’ve been separating, they have been going back.

[00:12:34] So.

[00:12:37] I feel ready to begin. Do you have something you want to add to that?

[00:12:40] Oh, it sounds fun. Let’s go for it. The CBO rounds up. Well, we’re going to end up here.

[00:12:44] We know that we’re here. You will be just standing behind me. All right. Go ahead. Promise.

[00:12:53] So.

[00:12:58] You told this story before about what your interest were when you were just a tiny kid. And I think looking at what those kinds of interests are are interesting because I can kind of give you a hint, a taste for what’s going to come up in the future. So when you were just a kid, what did you love doing the most?

[00:13:25] So this is contemplation on this. This train of thought comes from. From Simon Cynic. He talks about what you should do in your life if you haven’t found your passion. And he suggests this exercise that I’ve been doing where I close my eyes.

[00:13:47] And I see myself as a child. I’m doing. What I love to do. I’m playing with my favorite toys.

[00:14:02] And I’m seeing this in front of me.

[00:14:07] And then I open my eyes again and I’m coming back to to understand what was going on, what did I love to do and what I was playing with, I was playing with Legos or sand to build things. So I was building a tree house. Everything I was doing was about building things. And what I take away from this is that that’s something I still love to do. I love building things. I love creating them. I love to take that to the next step. Today, I’m building companies and organizations. I’m building a lot of my relationships. I really want to see them develop and grow. Building a lot of myself and dancing skills or fighting skills, I don’t get beaten up by 14 year olds. And I think that this is a great way to get an understanding of what we what we really want to do, because the children version of us just did what they wanted to do. There were no demands. They didn’t have a job. They didn’t try to impress anyone. So I think that anyone who read a lot or Love to Dream Away is probably doing similar things today and maybe should have a job that reflects that or anyone who liked to compete a lot should probably be in a competitive area today as well. So I saw myself when I see them myself, I see myself as a builder and them one answer to who I am. How did you see yourself cool.

[00:15:36] The reason I brought this up is that I was exactly the same always built the highest towers in kindergarden and I just love, love building stuff. Always had some plan. I was had some project to do.

[00:15:47] And I think that’s very deep in the core of you and me. And that’s one reason that we work well together, I think.

[00:15:55] And there is the stereotype. A Swedish stereotype of the Swedish typical Swedish family.

[00:16:05] And what do you have there? You have a villa. Probably a yellow villa. You have a golden retriever. You have a Volvo. It to kids, middle class, something like that. And I checked every single box on that typical. It’s the sweetest, gentlest and you must have checked quite a bit of them as well.

[00:16:29] I checked all of them. I would say, yeah. I mean, in many ways, my parents were very different. But if you look at all the just random stereotype things, the one you just mentioned, we did have the dog, not a golden retriever, but the dog. We did have the yellow villa. We had an average car. There were two kids, two parents still married.

[00:16:51] Yeah.

[00:16:52] And I played football like you’re supposed to do as a child. And yeah, that was pretty much it. So take every single box.

[00:16:58] So up until around 15, it was the typical Swedish life. And then something bad happened that quite drastically changed the direction for both of us. Yeah. And that’s how we met. Actually, by total accident. So what happened around 15? Something was introduced.

[00:17:20] Yeah. So I’m sitting in a physics class and I’m 16 years old.

[00:17:27] And Bjorn, a guy in my my class, he’s playing a game on his calculator. We had this really, really nerdy calculators called Texas Instruments Silver 85. The call them the highest number you have to call away. So this is nerds when you’re bragging about your calculator. That’s that’s me. I had three of them. OK, you’re three times the size of my nerd in that. Yeah. And he had a game on it. It was poker. The way I to play calculator is calculator. So we started playing poker on his his calculator during physics class.

[00:18:06] And then we started we went and bought this set of poker chips.

[00:18:11] We started playing poker on all the physics classes because our teacher didn’t really pay attention and all the physics class.

[00:18:20] If they don’t, you’re in your physics class. You’re either you’re a teacher. Fifty year old students are gambling in their classroom.

[00:18:27] Yes. I remember I had a chemistry teacher called Hobbs and he he liked liked poker as well. So he used to come and sit down. And we had these chips everywhere. We never had money on the table. And he was like, yeah, of course, you’re only playing with chips, right? Yeah. He had no money at all. And. No. No.

[00:18:45] Yeah. Right.

[00:18:47] So yeah, that was how I put the story starts.

[00:18:49] How did you afford to start all very similar. But we were not allowed to play in school. I think for kind of understandable reasons. But I liked that teacher. You liked a good hustler teacher. No. I was playing weed with friends at home games and.

[00:19:07] Yeah.

[00:19:08] That’s what did it feel like for you when. When you first started playing that game.

[00:19:16] I’ve always loved car games. We’ve played a lot of card games in my family. So for me was just so fun to just play. I loved the playing of it and money didn’t play such a big role. I didn’t play for a lot of money. I think over the course of six months, the one who lost lost the most lost power in 50 euros or something so low. Low stakes.

[00:19:43] And it was just the only thing I wanted to do and can recognize this feeling like.

[00:19:51] Yeah. Imagine that you’re your kid, your you’re 7 years old and it’s Christmas morning and you’ve been waiting for Christmas for so long.

[00:20:03] And then you wake up at 5:00 in the morning. But it’s Christmas. So you really don’t want to go back to sleep. You just want to jump out of bed. A big Christmas. Christmas, Christmas.

[00:20:11] Christmas. I would like that. But with poker. So it was physics class. This is class. This is class.

[00:20:19] Actually, poker. Poker. Poker. That’s a really good analogy. And that’s exactly the feeling that I had. I felt like being able to play. That’s that’s like Christmas. Those home games were deemed most fun thing. But that sort of didn’t make that big of a difference because you could actually only play at the home game. Right. And then if other players lost too much money, they had a nasty tendency to not to want to play anymore. So then you had to wait until they were willing to lose some more money back. Yeah, but then something happened. A circumstance changed. So imagine out at the yard back kid on Christmas. But you’re living in a land where you could celebrate Christmas every single day and every day was equally fun.

[00:21:09] Is that Santa’s land with Santa lives?

[00:21:12] Imagine Santa’s land for people like us. And what what does that mean? Eric, I’m guessing you’re going for online poker. Online poker, as I remember out before my 17th birthday. I have wished for one thing as a present. I said, mom, because I was under aged mom. I only want one thing. I want an account to play online poker. I don’t want anything else.

[00:21:46] And she gave me thirty dollars to play for like. And that is when I met Infinite Opportunity.

[00:21:59] Everything I own today is from those 30 dollars.

[00:22:01] By the way, did you give her some something back on that investment?

[00:22:08] Mm hmm. Maybe I should. Maybe I should.

[00:22:18] A good mother, though. My mother was paranoid when I started playing, so I started playing.

[00:22:23] I was also 17, 16, 17 when I played online. And I never so I set up a fake account. It wasn’t even my own name with it because I wasn’t old enough. And I started writing Hustler. I was a hustler. So you were playing in your mother’s name or how did you do it?

[00:22:39] Yeah, my mom’s name and then my dad’s and I got him banned for life from PokerStars for four years.

[00:22:50] Well, I set up a fake accounts. It was my own name. But with a different date of birth and stuff. And I started playing these three poker money tournament on poker dot com.

[00:23:01] And I remember the first tournament I played well, not the first actually won any money. And I was sweating or so nervous.

[00:23:10] I was so panicky because I was in the money and it was so much tension.

[00:23:16] And then I won seven dollars.

[00:23:21] I’ve never cared so much about seven dollars in my life, but that became my 30 bucks than the equivalent.

[00:23:28] And for the one listening like I can’t stress enough how much fun D. This was the best time in poker. This was the free year old times and I think most professionals start of there that you play free roles or one dollar tournament. The free world is a tournament where there’s no entry fee, it’s just advertising, not the content, but the poker site is doing. And you can win like really small amounts and then you have a chance to actually play for real playing those one dollar tournament. That was the best part of getting into poker and everyone were doing it.

[00:23:59] All of my friends were doing it. Yeah. And yeah. My friend. Christopher, he still has a print screen on his computer when I’m bragging about how much money I have. So he saved this. And there’s a picture of my poker account and I’m I’m really, really rich.

[00:24:18] I have thirteen dollars.

[00:24:22] I was so proud. I’ve never been prouder of money than those 13.

[00:24:29] Good times. Good times.

[00:24:33] I stood around. I still remember the beginning of poker in my world. It was like a fairy tale. I just enjoyed it so much. And you know how a lot of friends around me that play and those became my best friends. So it became like a real community around that, too.

[00:24:50] And speaking of communities, how did you and I meet as we met online on the tinder of poker? I called Porky Fordham. Don’t know if it’s Swedish poker forum.

[00:25:04] And I’m not really sure how it happened the first time or why we met. Do you know this?

[00:25:09] Probably because we had we were five guys that after awhile had an office in Stockholm. And so we started a thread on poker forum like a diary. And we had a lot of posts and a lot of people reading. So you probably were on that trend?

[00:25:23] Yes, sure. Yeah. This poker blog on the forum. Yeah. And you guys were so cool because you had the biggest blog on the forum.

[00:25:30] And I think that I just said, hey, why don’t I come up and visit? And you said, hey, come up the visit.

[00:25:38] Yeah. We didn’t have an office back then. We were playing at my dad’s house.

[00:25:42] You know, I think they already had the obvious. But you and I were sitting in your dad’s house.

[00:25:45] We were four or five guys just rigging up our computer and my dad’s beautiful living room. He did not like that.

[00:25:53] It’s like when when everyone else does.

[00:26:00] When everyone else, they’re playing computer games like lawn, whatever the word is for that in English, probably land.

[00:26:05] When they were there, when they were playing Counterstrike, we were playing poker in the same nerdy way we were drinking Red Bull or this fake Red Bull like whatever it was called, that was much cheaper because we couldn’t afford eating snacks all night, playing poker and watching friends.

[00:26:21] We had friends all the time. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. Speaker is this reminds me of something that differentiated you from all the other players. And one of the reasons why we’re we’re here today.

[00:26:35] So something that’s. That’s very different, though, I mean, and me is the way we approached the game of poker or the way we approached things in general.

[00:26:47] So as we said before, I just began. I just did things which was in poker, what I am and did as well.

[00:26:52] But I just kept beginning. I didn’t really study. I didn’t learn much. I just did. Did it e-mail?

[00:26:58] On the other hand, he had a bookshelf of poker books, which was way more books than I’ve read in my life.

[00:27:05] Up until then and probably until now. So we were like 10 guys playing poker all the time. Nine of us was playing all the time. One of us was studying. Can you guess who won the most? Who won the most? Him.

[00:27:23] Well, in the beginning it was you guys. And what happened that don’t be humble, you might have experienced some swings in a downward direction.

[00:27:37] Yeah. He kept beating the crap out of us.

[00:27:40] So what would that led to, though, was they kept winning and winning and winning. And I started not winning. Win. Yeah. Face that way. Because you have the close lights.

[00:27:52] Yeah. So I stopped winning.

[00:27:54] Winning and we kept winning. Winning and winning.

[00:27:57] So that’s where our. Much better. That’s where our kind of love life.

[00:28:05] Streets. Path for a while. What? No, no, no. No. First, John, first we were going. We weren’t a poker trip together. Oh yeah. Forget that one. Tell me about the poker trip. Right. We went to my favorite carnival. I know where you want to get to this, you motherfucker. A Pioneer Square. Where would mean some arena or something?

[00:28:28] We were in Milan, also Milan in actually north of Italy.

[00:28:32] But again. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Really beautiful old school, Italian little Johnny Luger. No guy on the ground in Switzerland. Right. And probably. They’re playing some tournament. I’m not sure if we. I think we were too poor to even be able to enter the tournament. Yeah, I would leave you in a bit open. Oh, yeah. Maybe we did. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it opened. Was it 100 euro tournament. Really. That’s pretty baller. Maybe qualified for it anyway. So we’re playing a side game because I think we’re all bussed from the main event. Mainly yeah. We’re out. We weren’t flooded and everything else. I think we were all four of us Swedish guys playing at attempt except remember. I think we’re playing on a set and go, which is a nine man tournament. Yeah, we’re probably talking Swedish all the time. I mean, almost colluding. Yeah, we’re cheated. Probably. Yeah. So the Italians are super pissed of us. Do anyway. There was one guy at that table that was really pissed and really cocky and was trash talking. All of us and most of you offense.

[00:29:34] Yeah. This is the story I know. Remember, it is so bad for him. So you want to tell. OK. So it’s actually not in as it can go. It’s a side event. So it’s it’s a tournament that cost a couple hundred euros to play.

[00:29:46] And I’m playing and at my table this cocky old man, like in some really expensive. Really? This show off like Fendi clothes.

[00:30:00] He had two watches on his hand, like who wears to watch? I seen a guy in Vegas with four watches. I was this guy. Oh, man. To do it. Yeah. Has one of each had like one fancy Rolex kind of thing on each year.

[00:30:13] Should never store and talk a top by the way, for anyone who’s listening. That’s rude. Unless someone was wearing four watches.

[00:30:21] Yeah. So he was wearing two watches and he was such a frickin douche bag.

[00:30:27] He had no idea what he’s doing with no idea how to play. And.

[00:30:31] It was just really, really annoying. And then I played a part and I lost the pulse.

[00:30:38] He wasn’t even involved in the pot and he just stood up, came to to me and started like, massage me.

[00:30:43] Don’t worry, man. Don’t worry, man.

[00:30:45] And I obviously wanted me to worry, obviously the one to be pissed off. And as the 18, 19 year old guy, I was obviously I got pissed off.

[00:30:57] Who was he? Thank you. You stayed calm. Stay, Francois. Yeah. No, I said he was on fire. Eric said to himself, I told him there was a freaking asshole that didn’t know what he was doing.

[00:31:09] There was playing like an idiot because he was he couldn’t play for shit.

[00:31:13] So this guy starts screaming at me and he’s like, okay, let’s play heads up saying, give me 5000 euros and heads up as one on one foot of water.

[00:31:24] I one sound sort of it. He’s big. You know, back in a day, if you were pissed at someone, you took a glove and you slapped him in the face. I challenge you to a duel. This is what happens.

[00:31:34] This is just. Okay. I will do that. Yeah. So if we would have swords, we would have gone bonkers on his words. Unfortunately, we didn’t know words.

[00:31:43] So this guy doesn’t know for shit what he’s doing. He’s just filthy rich in the winning way. And I didn’t have any money. I mean, 5000 euros. That was basically my my life.

[00:31:55] But but me made me proud as a dumbass. I’m saying yes.

[00:32:01] Look, is that this can go into one of these just begin moments when I say just without really thinking it through.

[00:32:09] So, I mean, the tournament we were playing. I think it goes like 300 euros to play. And now we were gonna play heads up for 5000 euros.

[00:32:16] So everyone more or less stopped caring about the tournament and went to watch us play.

[00:32:22] So I’m sitting here 19 years old, cocky as fuck. A bit of panic. You what did I agree to? But too proud to back out.

[00:32:29] But how sure were you that you would win this? There’s dual.

[00:32:33] I was pretty sure, but still it was above my pay rate, so I actually partnered up with you and you paid half a buy for you.

[00:32:41] Yeah. I can do this. You’re like, yeah, let’s do that.

[00:32:44] So I put up two and a half thousand euros on the table. Even put out about taxes. And I had to borrow this money from a guy named Isa because I didn’t have the money. I think I had to do that too. I think we both borrowed money of him. So he gave us it gave me 10 500 euros bills, 500 rubles.

[00:33:01] The purple ugliest frock. That’s purple money. Looks like money, boy. And we start playing this tournament and.

[00:33:11] Yet to make a long story short, yours truly like him lost in poker is it’s an ugly made of can be said to set the stage a little bit here surrounding this old guy.

[00:33:30] It’s now not only him playing an isolated table, he s a squad around him. Here are at least 10 Italian guys just screaming in Italian behind him when he’s winning every report. And I looked from a distance. I’m sitting there with a guy sector lent us the money and I see Erik on a table, his shoulders just like shrinking as his stack kept small. Then I see you, Walker. Everybody’s sharing over. And then I see Erik report. I said, long story short. Guys, I want the short story.

[00:34:07] I didn’t want to tell them.

[00:34:10] Yeah. So it felt like I was up against the entire Italian army or something. And this guy.

[00:34:17] This guy was he was a really rich guy and he was in the casino a lot. So obviously the casino was sharing for him. He had a lot of friends there. And I was his cocky 19 year old Swede from nowhere going up and going to show him my balls. Didn’t work. Well.

[00:34:34] No one wants you to compete. All right. So, yes, to recap what we learned so far, Eric is getting beaten up by 14 year old kids and Eric is beat up by overpowering guys.

[00:34:48] Yeah, that’s me.

[00:34:53] But there’s a twist because I remember after thinking maybe it was that evening or the next evening. We were sitting down at a table and Eric said, I remember you said, you know, guys, I’m actually not bad into poker. Oh, yeah. All right. You just lost money. Of course, it fits that way. It’s not. I’m gonna start a company. All right. You’re gonna play four year olds and win this money back. And that is sort of where our paths diverged for a while. Yes. I met someone walking on a slightly more lucrative path. Yeah. Yes. I started a company. Well, I started this short version of what happened cause then we’d since speak that much for a couple of years.

[00:35:42] So if you could just the jury, we kind of drifted apart, you and I. Because I stopped playing and I’d say that poker was our main interest together. Oh, okay. I’m gonna be a bit blunter.

[00:35:52] Poker was the only thing you cared about when he didn’t care about anyone. We couldn’t really remain friends because if I called you is like, hey, you wanna hang out? You’re like, no, I want to play poker and grind him.

[00:36:06] So poker was Emma’s lover, mistress, drug life, passion.

[00:36:13] Yeah. He didn’t care about anything else. So I started a company. And real quick, that company grew a lot. That was the only thing I did for the next six years or so. And.

[00:36:28] We didn’t speak, you and I, for this was, I think, our parts, but I’d like two thousand and nine. I don’t think I met you there. And then we met two thousand and fifteen in October.

[00:36:44] How did that happen? That was.

[00:36:49] A freak accident or a divine orchestration, divine, depending on how you want to view those things. So just to recap, what I did is pretty much exactly what Eric said. I played. I liked poker so much that I just could not think of anything else for five, six years. I played twelve between 12 and 15 hours per day, almost every day, seven days per week. And I loved it. I had so much life force, but I think that was around 2014.

[00:37:26] Poker market started to dip. America couldn’t play anymore and all the circumstances around poker became much worse. It was much, much more difficult to win money from poker.

[00:37:37] And by the way, anyone who’s listening to this and I should have said this from the beginning. Disclaimer Too late. If you’re thinking this sounds really cool, I want to make money playing poker. Don’t. It’s virtually impossible to get into poker these days.

[00:37:52] You have computer software working against you and people are so good. But yeah, it’s not going to happen. So I wouldn’t recommend my worst enemy to get into poker in 2019.

[00:38:03] If you try, it’s very likely that you’re going to feel like I did at that poker table with the Italian guy. Yeah, that’s the feeling you should take with you from poker. This story goes. That’s the way it would be like if you started it. Yeah. Very, very.

[00:38:16] Not like an underdog. Like he’s gonna turn this around. If you’re gonna be crushed like a bug, it’s gonna be a kind of bad dog. Yeah.

[00:38:26] So. So at that point, poker was much worse.

[00:38:30] And things happen around me that made it obvious that I needed to take a break like my because I’d focused so much on poker. That’s sort of my relationships were failing. My body started to fail and suffer. OK. I’ll take a break. So for the first time in my life, I took a break from poker. That was longer than two weeks, I think. And I went on a long road trip on myself in America. I was away for months and then I moved to Berlin and I stayed there for a year. And I’ll tell you what they did in Berlin a little bit later. So but first, I want to jump a little bit and say how how it came. But me and Eric met each other again. So I was in Berlin for a year and the plane and then I started playing a little bit again, playing some live tournament and stuff. And I went to a tiny little island of Malta. And I’m playing a tournament.

[00:39:29] I’m playing in a party tournament in Malta, and I’m one of these guys that I’m rather one minute late than 20 minutes early, which is why I think it’s a good live strategy. But if you’re playing poker, that means that sometimes you’re gonna be losing some chips because you’re sitting out. And I was one minute late, so I’m running to the lobby, going to my table. And if I’m late, I’m gonna lose my start losing my money. So I’m running to the lobby and I hear a voice. M.L.. And I see Eric. Eric. Hey, man. How are you? Obviously, I’m just assuming that Eric is a multitude to played a tournament and that’s all. You playing? I’m playing the main man. What’s going on? Yes, I know. What did you say?

[00:40:16] Well, I was playing a smaller, less shitty tournament. This was the first. Ironically, this was the second time I was to that casino. And I’ve been living in Malta for five years when this happened. Yeah. And I was just being a 200 euro tournament you were playing of two thousand or 5000 euro tournament or something like that?

[00:40:33] I’d say, yeah. No, no, I was asleep anyway. Yeah. So you haven’t played for years and you had this feeling that. Go to go to a casino and play a tournament that you did only for fun. You wanted to try what it was like playing so.

[00:40:49] All right. All right. So so we stopped to talk a little bit.

[00:40:53] And it was like a voice inside of me said, hey man, how about we have dinner tonight? And you said, sure. And later that night during the lunch break, we had a dinner and. Yeah, Eric started telling me his story, and you remember that slightly more lucrative path. I started to see what was what had happened there. But Eric had walked a slightly more lucrative path.

[00:41:20] And I think what was so interesting about that meeting is that we sort of both had a puzzle piece that the other person was needing. So what was going on in your life at that point?

[00:41:39] Ok, so this is October 2015. We are just about to take Katrina media to the stock exchange. I’ve. I think that I’ve just found out that we’re gonna miss the deadline, so the deadline I was going for.

[00:41:57] Which would have been in November has just been postponed to February. And I’m so overworked. I’m in complete panic mode. I’m feeling like shit. So all the time you dedicated to poker.

[00:42:09] The last year I’ve been dedicating to business, digging my head down into it and just pushing through. So I’m at the place right now where I’m super, super focused on where I’m going. I know exactly what’s going to happen. I’m in extreme business mode and at the same time, I’m feeling miserable. It costs nothing is really working in my life outside of business.

[00:42:38] I miss. Well, we miss the deadline, which was partly my fault. Gonna have to wait three months. Just let a lot of people down with regards to this.

[00:42:47] And yeah. Then I meet you.

[00:42:50] And speaking of these two pieces of puzzle. It’s like I saw you and my first feeling was like, wow.

[00:42:59] This guy has is either high or he’s figured out something because you were so calm.

[00:43:08] He was sitting there looking like Ferdinand and the Disney movie, like smelling the flowers like.

[00:43:17] Used to being like.

[00:43:21] This guy has figured something out.

[00:43:26] You started telling me about yoga and meditation and Eric in 2015. He was like, that’s frickin bullshit. Meditation is what’s this, yoga? That’s a girl thing with just an excuse to wear tight pants.

[00:43:42] Do they get nice asses? They do.

[00:43:47] And I was like, but at the same time, I remember the respect I had for you when we were playing poker. The intelligence you showed in the dedication of learning the shelf of books was like.

[00:44:03] Anyone else would have told me about this meditation crap, biologists, no fucking hippie your like. But then when used like plum.

[00:44:12] He’s guy has figured something out.

[00:44:16] I need to learn from him. Felt like. What is going on with you here?

[00:44:24] I think this is such a funny coincidence because. Like you said, I think if anyone else would have told you about yoga and meditation or any of those things, or I think you couldn’t have listened. But you remember me as a guy. I was super stressed and excited like you, to be honest. We were 20, we were pretty much the same person. Yes. Super stressed. Just wanted to build things moving forwards. And then because I was you and I were so similar, you could take those ideas anymore. And I could see in your eyes that your eyes were strength like intense. It looked like you were glossy in your eyes because there was so much tension going on in your life. So I could see that Eric sees something in what I have done. Just to clarify, during this year in Berlin, I didn’t play, didn’t work. I did two things. I had a very deep meditation practice and I only explored questions that had to do with what’s the meaning of life and spirituality. So one year reading books and meditating, basically. So I was in a period of religious. Yep.

[00:45:43] I was the best year of my life, though, and. So.

[00:45:49] Eric could see something in me. That was a missing puzzle piece for him, which was the calm and relaxation and good emotions and presence. And I could see something in Eric that obviously was missing in my life at that point, which was in a drive, hunger, dedication, something that was very natural to me before. But that was missing now. So I can see how Eric got something here. And obviously, your story about Katrina was insanely inspiring. So I want to learn stuff from him. And Eric is thinking I wanna learn stuff from him. So we had a dinner. I actually ended up fourth in that tournament. So you stayed around and you were looking at the final table. And then we had breakfast the day after. It was like a really good one night stand. Yeah. Without a hangover. Yeah.

[00:46:49] And the sex is a disclaimer on sex, I promise.

[00:46:56] Wink, wink. Exactly. Yeah. Let’s leave it at that.

[00:47:03] All right. Cool. So.

[00:47:06] We both see how we were very similar from the beginning and how we could benefit from developing a friendship. And after that, you and I have just become more and more close and more and more into bind. And we are having very similar ideas of how we want to live live our lives.

[00:47:26] You think that just even way before our path kind of separated, I felt a very strong connection to you. And I think that you you touch upon that when you say we were basically living the same lives, we were basically the same guy. And I felt that very strongly back then. And I remember was I was very sad that we had drifted apart. And I felt the same thing there when we had that dinner is like, wow.

[00:47:53] I remember I came home to Johanna that evening and I was in the best mode and.

[00:48:01] I haven’t told you this, but how exciting.

[00:48:06] I started telling telling you Hannah about my evening. I was so excited. I was like, this is a Johanna.

[00:48:15] I think I have a man crush.

[00:48:21] So that was why I fell in love it. I fell in love. And Johanna wasn’t jealous. Luckily.

[00:48:29] Oh, that’s sweet.

[00:48:33] And then we started hanging out more and more, went on some trips together. So when did we start talking about grades?

[00:48:44] I think I actually might have shared this vision, so I’ve had this vision of great for a very long time.

[00:48:51] So let’s slow down because I don’t think we’ve told this story before. When did you start getting the ideas of Great and which was the biggest insight realisation moment for you?

[00:49:10] Not sure if there is a specific pig inside. Moment. I know that I’ve been so what Katrina media is doing is doing marketing for four casinos and Katrina runs.

[00:49:25] I don’t know, 40, 50 different Web sites doing this. And.

[00:49:31] I’ve always wanted to build one really, really good product over a very long time, and that’s not as profitable as doing a lot of different products over the short term. So if you want to do something for three years, then it’s much better to build a lot of Web sites than it is to build one. But if you want to build something for 50 years or a decade, then it’s much better to build one. So I always had this dream about building one really good product and I could really see how that would happen. But there was never time. We were always running. It was always hitting the next target. That was never enough time to race the view.

[00:50:08] And I’m always inspiring to you about that dream. Was it because you saw problems in Katrina or was it because you felt the desire to explore this way of creating that product?

[00:50:25] I think it goes back to the passion of building things. I mean, when you’re building things, you much rather build one really cool thing than 50. Kind of cool things. At least that’s the way I work. And so I would much rather build the highest tower in kindergarden than build 50 small towers.

[00:50:44] So I think that the view of how it looked in my head, you know, you and I used to play with complex all sizes, small wooden bricks in kindergarten. And I remember on the box was the picture of the Eiffel Tower.

[00:50:58] Like this super fancy health building. I can never make it.

[00:51:02] And you’re thinking, let’s go higher.

[00:51:05] Let’s build three times the size. But that’s like the dream of building an obviously we never managed to build it. You probably needed 10 boxes to do it. But this was my Eiffel Tower. This was my car up close. Eiffel Tower model sticks and I could see this in my head, but I never had the time to start building it because it takes a long time to get the actual tower done.

[00:51:26] So I think the main drive behind it was the urge of creating that thing. The vision I had that this can become something really cool, this can be something really big.

[00:51:37] And just wanted to create that for.

[00:51:40] For the fun of it or for the meaning of the purpose of building and to create something that’s very valuable for anyone who wants to use it. So I think that was my my main drive. So I knew that I wanted to do that one way or another. And at the same time, I had figured out that.

[00:51:57] So I had had a lot of money for quite some time. I made a lot of money. I had much more money than my friends and. I didn’t feel happy with that. I felt that it sure it gave me a lot of very valuable things. I had the freedom I could eat where I wanted, I could travel where I wanted, I could do all these things, but I couldn’t. At the same time, because I was working all the time. So money didn’t give me happiness because it didn’t have the time to do anything with it. So still feel like, OK, money can probably be used for something else. And I got into the thinking about what if I’m building this Eiffel Tower of a project, but we can give away all the profits so we can at the same time maximize the purpose of it. And helping as many people as possible with it. Which was a completely new idea to me and made me so much more inspired a building this because to me more money was more zeros in a bank account. I couldn’t touch it. I couldn’t understand it. Couldn’t really relate to what was going on. It’s similar to when we were playing poker. It was just numbers. It was never real money. Percy. But when seeing edit and calculating the number of lives that could impact, seeing the smiles that could happen, seeing the families that could be brought together. It became so much more tangible than money was for me. Just seeing the people around me that how they would benefit from from being helped or all of these things. So this idea Stoli grow in me and I think it was already growing when we met. I think it was already there in my my dreams. But it wasn’t time to slow down or start over. That’s kind of where the idea comes from, there is no absolute moment it happened.

[00:53:54] It just came over time. And I think I shared this vision with you over coffee in Stockholm or something the first time in you. You really enjoyed it. My really interested about is hearing this this view of thinking things and we still didn’t really hang out that much. And then we went to the US together. I think that’s where we really started benefiting from each other’s friendships and.

[00:54:23] You have anything you want to touch upon before the US trip or.

[00:54:27] Yes, a.

[00:54:29] Due to Katrina public and then do you still work at the company after that, but did you have sort of a lot of free time and was done when you really started to form ideas with great and you were starting to see more visions or what did you do off after you created a company?

[00:54:48] So Katrina media went public on the 11th of February 2016 on my 28 birthday, and I made 15 million euros dollars that day and reached all of these financial goals.

[00:55:03] All the things that I dreamed up, everything they want to do I didn’t know, didn’t have to work for one single day in the rest of my life. I didn’t want to. But my main feeling that day was relief. I didn’t really celebrate the money, I celebrate that I’d managed to. To survive this super hectic period. I just wanted to lay down and rest. That was the biggest thing. Sure, I was really happy about the money, all of these things as well. But at the same time, I was so exhausted so I couldn’t really do anything else.

[00:55:40] So I stayed with Katrina for about a year because I’d promised to do so. I had some meetings, I did some business traveling, but I didn’t work at all in the same place. And about a year later, I just quit.

[00:55:57] So I think I quit late 2016.

[00:56:04] Yeah. And then.

[00:56:09] I came back to regular life. I had reached all of these goals. Things were normal on. Like anyone else, I would get a cold. I would be tired. I felt that I was lacking a purpose.

[00:56:24] Before I was chasing this money, I was building this thing and now it wasn’t. I had these arguments with my my girlfriend. We had all these challenges and problems that we had and solve them with money couldn’t solve. Our relationship didn’t magically get better just because I had money.

[00:56:45] So we ended up separating.

[00:56:49] In early 2017, after seven years together, she was my everything and now was completely crushed.

[00:57:02] And I went to you and this became another one of the most meaningful moments in in yours and my relationship.

[00:57:14] I remember knocking on your door in your apartment in Stockholm, and I told you that.

[00:57:21] What’s going on? I’ve told you I was devastated, but.

[00:57:26] I felt that I was making the decision down than theirs, and my God, I just. Hold things in.

[00:57:33] Smile, laugh. Say to hell with that girl. Let’s go find others.

[00:57:39] Should I just let myself be crushed? Let myself be sad and vulnerable. And I rang your doorbell and you opened the door.

[00:57:56] What happened for you there?

[00:58:07] Trying to think back to that moment. I remember you were very. Open.

[00:58:16] You were crying, but you didn’t. You didn’t need me to make you feel better. Do you want to feel sad and you wanted someone to just hold space? I can’t exactly remember, but I think we used we said a lot that day.

[00:58:35] Yeah, a lot of things to be.

[00:58:40] Rhythm, you opened the door and you said hi. I tried to say hi. Yeah. No words just came.

[00:58:53] I just burst into tears. You came in, you hugged me and you were just holding me.

[00:59:02] Said nothing.

[00:59:08] He was just crying, and I remember I tried to start talking and no words came out. I just couldn’t. And.

[00:59:19] I felt a lot of.

[00:59:26] Guilt or shame? For crying, for not being the man I could be. And at the same time, I just felt so relieved that I could just feel and just be prescient without feeling, not trying to.

[00:59:40] Force it away because I’m already way above the point of no return. I cannot turn this into a laughter or play around with it. I’m in horrible shape. So I can just go with it. There is no other way from here.

[00:59:58] We sat down in your couch. And.

[01:00:03] I told you the the full story of this, what was going on and I remember that you were so shocked about all this because you had no idea we had problems. I never told you about that part.

[01:00:16] And yeah, the long story short is that me and Johanna, we had a perfect relationship in so many ways. But our sex life just didn’t work the way we wanted to. That was the only reason we broke up. I’m sure we’re gonna revisit that topic some other time. That’s a long sidetrack.

[01:00:37] It really stands out to me how different our lives were back then, because now we’re going to touch on this. I’m sure we have we’re meeting regularly and we are sharing these kinds of things. But before then, it seems so weird and alien and distant now that you didn’t share the fact that you had this big problem with anyone.

[01:00:59] Yeah, maybe it did share it with someone, but I didn’t share it with anyone. I must felt very lonely to keep that inside of you.

[01:01:08] Yeah, that was really lonely.

[01:01:11] There was one of these stupid pride things like I’m too proud to show anyone my weaknesses or vulnerability. And I think that goes with sex more than anything else. Because as a man and you’re supposed to be able to please your woman and we get a lot of our self-worth. Or at least I did. I still do. Of how well we can attract a mate. Like how much to women care about us is a big part of how I value myself today and a much, much bigger part of how I value myself back then.

[01:01:48] So do openly say that I have problems with this. That’s so scary. It’s like the most scary thing to talk about. SIGHING I never told anyone about it back then and now I’ve told a lot of people about it.

[01:02:08] Yeah. So after that, we I just wanted to hide away. I just wanted to disappear.

[01:02:16] Where are we now? Nowhere. I mean, in the story.

[01:02:22] I’d just broken up with Johanna. Well, we just broke up and.

[01:02:29] Yeah. Where? Couple of days after we met in your apartment or. I don’t know. Sometime.

[01:02:35] Is an artist as before. Like how? How safe did you feel being outside in front of me? At that point?

[01:02:47] So I want to know what your experience was.

[01:02:57] Do you feel it felt safe? I if I felt so many emotions. And I think I felt safe enough to be present with them that I didn’t even I didn’t consider anything else.

[01:03:13] I didn’t feel. Judged in any way, at least I don’t remember that.

[01:03:20] So I felt that I could just openly be. I think I felt that there was some discomfort from your end, but you didn’t really know how to deal with this, but at the same time you were like letting it be.

[01:03:36] It was kind of.

[01:03:38] I can imagine that you felt the same way, I felt like, OK, this is already an emotional roller coaster. There’s no way to stop this. Let’s just be here and see when this roller coaster decides to stop.

[01:03:52] So I don’t think that I thought much more than just go, which is a huge compliment to me, feeling safe then, because that means that I felt safe enough to just just be and just do this.

[01:04:07] See, I.

[01:04:09] I felt safe, and I think a big part of that was that you didn’t.

[01:04:14] You didn’t try to get the conversation in any specific direction. I don’t think that you gave much advice. I don’t need to think to try to understand that much. You were just there to listen and hold me.

[01:04:29] And that’s probably what I needed.

[01:04:35] Yeah, that’s how I felt. Yeah. And how do you think our friendship changed then and how do you think friendships in general change? If you have those kind of moments?

[01:04:53] I think our relationship changed a lot. I think especially my. Well, I can only talk for my relationship towards you. And I think that I felt safe enough to be a lot more honest and vulnerable. From that moment, because I felt that there. There was no judgments, especially, I think I felt safe afterwards, like. If I’m feeling shitty, I can be shitty and also, like I’ve already told you what my biggest shame in life was because me not being able to sort out our sex life was my biggest shame in life.

[01:05:32] So just sharing that big shame and I’d like.

[01:05:38] Yeah, that was my biggest secret. I don’t have any as big secrets anymore and I think secrets are the enemies of friendship.

[01:05:44] That’s very interesting because. I think David would shame. I think sharing those deep secrets can be very healing. And I know you did it with me and then you went on doing that in front of a wider audience in the Swedish Franklin’s podium. So how did how did that change your relationship with reduced shame to share it with other people and then a lot of people.

[01:06:13] It will. So first to share this story with you and I get this aha moment that, OK. He doesn’t think less of me because I’m sharing quite the opposite. And then I shared the same kind of story with others of my close friends and. None of them did anything other than giving me love from that. And it also felt like all of our relationship enhanced from that. So whatever I’ve been hiding away, being my worst enemy turned out to be my superhero. It was a super power sharing. This because people felt safe around me. They felt less vulnerable. They felt more willing to be vulnerable and open. And I just got so much love from wherever I told these stories.

[01:07:04] And then I won on this podcast interview with Alexander in Sweden. And that’s the big podcast in Sweden. And.

[01:07:13] Well, I wasn’t sure if I was going to tell these stories or what are we going to talk about or how we’re gonna do this? And we started talking and I was in a really bad place because me and Johanna had just separated like it was a month after we separated. And I think that was the worst time because the first couple of weeks, I didn’t really realize what was going on. I was kind of in denial.

[01:07:36] And amongst saying it kind of just slapped me in the face like. Wow. This is actually happening. She’s actually not coming back. I’m not coming back.

[01:07:48] So I more or less started crying during this podcast when he asked me how I was feeling.

[01:07:57] And I told him more or less the full story that I told you. We are different than that protocols had hundreds of thousands of listeners. So what was my biggest shame? Just a few months earlier, was now public knowledge open to anyone who wanted to hear it.

[01:08:21] And yeah, that shape changed my relationship to that so much that not now something I’m very I’m very proud of talking about that. And certainly that has changed the dynamic towards sex in general for me. Got another understanding for it.

[01:08:35] And it’s open up so many conversations with other people, making me feel a lot less lonely because I realized that so many other people who are struggling with similar situations.

[01:08:46] And do you think you feel less lonely because you allow people to see more of you?

[01:08:52] Or because you have more connections now with people. Probably a combination of the two.

[01:08:58] So by not if I’m holding a secret within me. There is no way for anyone to connect with that secret because they don’t know it. It’s simply impossible to know to connect with that secret because I’m not showing it. They come to grab it. They can’t touch it. They can’t do anything. But by showing it, you give people the option to.

[01:09:24] To connect with it and caress it or Huguette or share it or whatever they can do. And everyone was just showing my big secret. My big shame is love and try to understand and sure, everyone didn’t understand, but everyone tried one way or another.

[01:09:48] So I think that it became so much more connection with all these things and.

[01:09:55] Yeah, I felt a lot less lonely because people could connect because I showed it. But also because I was. Looking for those connections done because I was willing to talk about this before I would rather take a bullet to my head than talk about it.

[01:10:14] I think this is a good time to wrap this up so you guys are listening. Hope you enjoyed this.

[01:10:21] Let’s see what we learned today. Eric goes up against a 40 year old. He gets to know the talent guy. It’s fun when Eric Lothian’s think that. I think that’s mostly, mostly the main takeaway. All right, guys, have a good lead here. See you next time.