Hear 4: Quang Nguyen

In this episode of Hear 4 You, Quang Nguyen shares his journey from a stable, high-paying career in a growing industry to stepping away in search of something deeper—truth, purpose, and personal alignment.

We explore:

• Why money and traditional success stopped bringing him happiness
• The concept of “diminishing returns” in life experiences
• How depression and burnout became signals for change
• His decision to pursue YouTube as a platform for philosophy and truth-seeking
• The idea that life operates on incentives, leverage, and entropy
• Why most people may be chasing goals that aren’t truly theirs

Quang also breaks down practical ways to approach risk, build momentum, and rethink what it means to “win” in life. From mental models to personal struggles, this conversation blends philosophy with real-world application in a way that’s both grounded and thought-provoking.

If you’ve ever felt stuck, questioned your direction, or wondered what more might be out there—this episode offers a new lens to look through.

Please check out Quang's Youtube channel where he explores the world of Philosophy. 

If you would like to be on the podcast please send me an email at hear4youpod@gmail.com

Transcript

0:02

Hey, I'm Eric and I'm here for you. Today's episode is one that might challenge how you think about success, happiness, and the path that you're currently on. I'm joined by Quang Nguyen, a former high-performing professional who walked away from what many would consider a perfect life on paper. He had a great job, financial stability, and a clear career trajectory. But beneath the surface, something didn't add up. Instead of continuing down that path, Quang made a bold decision to pursue truth, meaning, and a deeper understanding of life itself. In this talk, we dive into the philosophy behind his decision, the mental frameworks that guided him, and what it really means to live a life aligned with your own goals, not the ones handed to you by society. If you've ever questioned whether you're on the right path, this one's for you. So please, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Quang Nguyen.

Quang 1:12

You know, before YouTube actually, I would avoid posting photos or anything on social media.

Eric 1:16

Really

Quang 1:17

Yeah.

Eric 1:19

kind of a private person.

Quang 1:20

Not that it's just like I, I didn't see the appeal behind it, you know, I saw that others were spending a lot of their times looking at the lies of other people, and I was kinda like, I don't really want to do that.

Eric 1:32

It's, that's so ironic you say that.'cause that's, not to jump straight into obviously your YouTube channel, but watching your video, and listening to why you made the decision you made, I, I felt a lot of connections with you. I, pride myself with this podcast to be a situation of kind of, go as you can, right? It's just a conversation of just two people, you know, talking, about someone's specific life. And to that point, I try not to do a crazy amount of research. but I watched all your videos. I'll say

Quang 2:05

Oh,

Eric 2:07

so I. What's that now? No.

Quang 2:11

I'm not, I'm not particularly proud of them. A lot of them, but

Eric 2:14

you should be. What are you

Quang 2:15

yeah.

Eric 2:16

man? It's incredible editing. You did a great job, enunciated perfectly. mean it, I was kind of blown away. I only saw six I, but I was kind of shocked at how well it was done for somebody who just decided to make this decision, so quickly, in my opinion,

Quang 2:34

I definitely wouldn't

Eric 2:35

don't know how long it took you.

Quang 2:36

thank you very much for the compliments. you know, I only have like the experts that's point of comparison, right? So when I see all these amazing YouTube videos, I compare myself to them. I see that there's a lot of space between me and them, and that's kind of like, I wouldn't say that I'm not proud of it. Like I'm proud that I got them out there. But, you know, it's the benchmark I'm aiming for is a lot higher than what I'm producing.

Eric 2:55

You basically decided all the things like you had mentioned in your videos, all these things that everybody has these incredible thoughts and dreams of owning a home, having the dog, the wife, the the family structure, the good job. You sat there and said, I want something more in life.

Quang 3:14

As someone who decided to take a philosophy, I have thought a lot about this and there's more than just one answer, Let's start with what it is that people are optimizing for in their lives, right? Like what kind of personal philosophy do people have? Mine before any of this was, I want to maximize happiness and I want to minimize regret and unhappiness. at a certain point I realized that. Money was no longer buying me more happiness. There's diminishing returns on how much happiness money you buy you, right? Like when you buy your first car, you're very happy. When you buy your second car or a more expensive car, you're probably not going to be as happy as when you bought your first car. And it's the same with a lot of things. Like for example, the first time I went to Japan, I was very happy I've already been to Japan three other times, right? It's like, sure, it's cool and it's very, I, I like, I love Japan, but the level of happiness that, that you get from that, it's just not the same. And I just started looking at that from like all the other angles. Every other experience that I've had, it was just kind of. Okay. I am, what am I trading for this money, right? I'm trading a certain level of unhappiness. It's like I, a job's a job, right? And I, I did like my job, but, you know, there's ups and downs and at the end of the day, you're still trading your time for money. And I just thought that trade wasn't worth it anymore, right? Like I'm trading a certain amount of unhappiness for this money, and that money wasn't buying me an acceptable level of happiness. So it's like, do I still want to continue with this? And, I'm fortunate enough where I have a decent runway and I can. Try to figure something out, and that's why I decided to, do YouTube.

Eric 4:40

That's fantastic. It takes an incredible mindset and an unbelievable level of bravery. To do what you did, can you walk me through the exact moment or like the series of events that led you to realizing, Hey, I need to get out of this job. I need to pivot to find this happiness.

Quang 4:58

I'll bring us back to, let's say the beginning of 2025. So I started my job like at early 2024, my most recent one, and it, we were a small cannabis startup. at the end of the year we got purchased by a larger company. At that larger company, I ended up getting promoted and I was like, okay, I guess this is the rest of my life, right? I'm gonna be working for this large company and I'm going to, work my way up and we're gonna grow, like cannabis is a growing industry, so we're gonna grow and I'm going to be the cannabis guy. my goal in mind at that time was I'm going to be the best cannabis procurement guy in the world. And like I, I was tricking myself'cause I didn't actually want to be, I was just kind of like, I was on that path, right? And I was just kind of like, I guess this is it. This is, this is my life now. And in May I did something called the West Coast Trail, which is like, I forget, like 80 kilometers where it's at miles, 50 miles or so. On the west side of Canada. and it was like a vision quest or something like that, right? Like, I spent time in the woods and I really spent a lot of time thinking and finding myself and when I left that I truly did think, okay, I'm doing this cannabis thing, you know, like, but I also wanna do this YouTube thing on the side because, I like talking about things and YouTube is a way for people who are interested in what you have to say to come and listen to you, right? So I finished my first video, released it in August, and I got pretty decent reception from it, right? Like 6,000 views or so. And I'm like, okay, like there's something going on here. There, there's something. So I push out a second video, which I'm like, okay, what happens if I just push out a video in a week? Poor reception. You know, it didn't do very well. Understandable. but at this time, work was starting to get very difficult as well. He said work has highs and lows, and at some point I'm just kind of like, man, like work is like, it's killing me. Like I wasn't able to sleep. literally every night I would go to work, go to bed, and just think about work until like 3:00 AM wake up at six, and then like work again. And, yeah, it wasn't very healthy and at a certain point I decided, you know, this isn't enough. At this point I'm thinking a lot, I have what a lot of people would consider to be a very, fortunate life, right? I make a lot of money is fully remote. I have a happy wife, have a house, have a dog, no kids. But, I felt like objectively speaking I should be happy, but I wasn't. And that's when I really did the mental calculus. And I said, what is it exactly that makes somebody happy? And, the answer that I came to is having a goal that is aligned with your personal mission, maybe there's something spiritual there, maybe it isn't. And when I thought about what I would do if I were to leave my job, something that a lot of people say is, what would you do if. there were no constraints in your life, right? And the answer I came to was try to forget what the truth is, and that's kind of how I landed up on, philosopher.

Eric 7:38

That's insane. I, I could never find the strings to connect me to becoming a philosopher at that point. It's one of those things that you hear about it and you're like, it's stuff that I read in textbooks but philosopher is, it's an everyday job, like people are philosophers and to make that decision to go from, mm-hmm. As you said before, people would see a highly successful job, a good career, but was draining you to a pivot of I'm a truth seeker, and now I'm here to not only seek that truth, but help others. I think that's massive. That's incredible. in your video, you had mentioned that you had experiences with, depression and certain thoughts and tendencies, kind of during that period before transition. How did that shape and influence the direction that you wanted to go moving forward?

Quang 8:25

Well, it wasn't the first time that I would say I experienced depression. Now I never had IT clinic clinically diagnosed, but just from, you know, my, like self diagnoses, understanding, a lot about what depression is and like I study psychology in university. I'm confident in saying that most people will probably have some depressive belts throughout their life. And so it wasn't my first, I had my first one, I wanna say, in my early twenties. And for this particular one, my thoughts were why is it back, right? What is it that is causing this to come back? And in a lot of my soul seeking and truth seeking, a lot of people point to the idea of having a goal. And the goal that I had in mind, you know, being the best cannabis buyer in the world, it didn't really resonate with me, especially since a lot of research was coming out that, like I might be wrong with the specific numbers, but one in four people get addicted to cannabis when they use it. And I'm like, okay, well I don't really want to be a part of ruining people's lives. But like one in four was something I wasn't really comfortable with, especially since a lot of the people that are getting addicted to it and are getting their life's trajectory to thrown off course our children. So that created a lot of friction in how I've perceived my job. so my goal there with the company. It ended up not being something I truly wanted as a goal. And I was like, okay, so if lacking a goal leads to depression, which is a connection that I can fairly confidently say there's a strong correlation between having a goal and depression. then what should my goal be? And yeah, that's when I go back to seeking the truth. Okay, well let's go with like an infinite goal that I can like never actually achieve to try to cheat the system and just have many goals along the way.

Eric 10:10

I love that. It's in your video and, and on this, you've said that you left to seek truth. what does that actually mean? I think you've spoke on it here a little bit of what that truly means to you, but in the beginning, did you kind of have an idea of where that would take you? Trying to figure out what seeking truth was to you?

Quang 10:30

Yeah, so we'll get a little bit spiritual here, which is what? Is the purpose of life, right? not your life, not my life, but just life in general. Why is it that a bunch of atoms knocked together and life came about, and what patterns can we see from life and what can we kind of derive forbid? Now, a lot of this might just be me assigning my own meanings to things, but the purpose of life seems to be to. Survive and procreate what humans and some other animals have also added onto that is agency, which is to live life however you'd like. because we got decently good at surviving and reproducing, we have time to do other stuff now too. So what have we done in that time? We have pretty much done nothing but truth seeking activities, which is develop technology and well before technology, it was religion, right? Religion was our first attempt at trying to understand the truth. And then, the scientists of the past kind of figured that, we can't really prove or disprove this, so let's go with ways in which we can scientifically come up with explanations for things. And that's all been truth seeking till now, and we are still doing truth seeking. So it's like, okay, maybe, the reproducing and the surviving was like step one. And step two is find the truth. And I don't know if we're ever going to get there as a species. Maybe AI will get there for us or whatnot. But, I do think that perhaps it is the purpose of life to figure out why we're here.

Eric 11:54

when you started, did you have any philosophical or spiritual influences that kind of guided you at your early start? And if you did have like any beliefs, were there ones that you held onto or ones that you completely let go of while starting your journey on this?

Quang 12:12

I would say I had no particular beliefs before this. I've been thinking a lot about how it is that I came to where I am now and perhaps This might lean into an answer that you're looking for, but when I was young, I read something on a sheet of paper in my grade one class. I remember this very clearly and it said to me, critical thinking is one of the most important skills to learn. I had no idea what that meant at the time, but it definitely altered my life's trajectory.'cause I always tried to be a better critical thinker after that. And critical thinking seems to be at the forefront of what it means to be a good philosopher. So, you know, it's not something that's easy to gauge, how good you are at critical thinking compared to others. But if I had to guess, I would imagine that my critical thinking skills based on that alone, would be superior to, some of my peers.

Eric 13:00

Do you think, now that I'm kind of just looking at, as you had mentioned, like just the course of human nature, the process of it all to kind of discover your own truth. Is that something we can discover or something that we create to discover?

Quang 13:14

I think that there is universal troops and there definitely are. Personal truths as well. So, I'm not sure if that's a cop out answer, but there is truth to both, right? Like the way how I kind of see it is that there are over 8 billion human realities out there, right? But there's only one true reality. And that doesn't necessarily mean that the 8 billion realities are false realities because everybody's reality is a result of their experiences, right? So. Yeah, that's where, I mean, what I mean by a lot of it is discovering your own truth. But I'm not only interested in my truth and other people's truth. I am very interested in what the real truth is. But, once you learn about how we perceive stuff, it kind of makes you wonder if we're ever going to get there with our bodies.

Eric 14:00

I'll be honest, Didn't expect to have my mind expanded, so quickly. So I, I'm gonna pivot, pull back a little bit because I need my mind, I gotta give my mind a second to kind of process what you're doing to me here. why, why choose YouTube as your platform? You know, there's so many other platforms, with Instagram you could probably get the same information out just as quick in these small bites, Is YouTube really that medium to kind of get what you're looking for across to people?

Quang 14:27

YouTube is very important to me for a couple of reasons. Number one, it is one of my main sources of information. you know, I have always had trouble reading in the past, and school definitely wasn't doing it for me either. But when people came on YouTube and started. Teaching things in ways that resonated with me. I, I, I definitely binged a lot of YouTube, like, there's this one physicist from Fermi Lab that just goes on YouTube and talks about physics in a very high level way, but very understandable. And I, I like absorbed so much physics information from him and it's not. Physics, there's a bunch of other topics as well. of course, you definitely have to go into it with a lens of anybody can say anything, so you have to be a bit skeptical as to what it is. you're pulling from YouTube. But I've learned so much from it, and I have that attachment to it because of that. Not only that, when it comes to how I see the future, YouTube is probably going to be one of the largest, if not the largest media companies out there. And if I really wanna get my message out there and obviously benefit from it, I would want to do well on that platform.

Eric 15:37

that's to say your vision when you started was, I'm going to do this to put my information out there. And how you see it evolving is YouTube. and I agree with you, I think YouTube is going to be the main source of media as time progresses. It's just readily accessible. Everybody's already on it. Why not push it further? do you feel like that's the trajection you're pushing for? Will that be the truth that you're kind of looking to figure out for yourself?

Quang 16:01

Yeah, I think that YouTube is one of the biggest things here is YouTube democratizes the people's ability to put content out there, right? So I try to project the future in a way. A lot of the traditional media, and a lot of people say this right, a lot of the traditional media will probably go away and they'll be replaced with this democratized version of, of media. And it's kind of like, what Uber did to the taxis. Like at first it was like a cabal of people And you, in order to be a taxi driver, you have to spend a bunch of money to be a part of the taxi cabal. what's the other word I'm looking for here?

Eric 16:34

no, no. Cabals, right.

Quang 16:36

So then Uber came along and democratized it and that's what anybody could be a taxi. And I feel like that's what YouTube's doing to media.

Eric 16:42

Oh, I agree. And I think it is the right platform to stick on too and kind of push through. YouTube has survived and surpassed most all expectations. I think you got it on the right track.

Quang 16:52

Yeah. You see so many high quality productions now like Michelle Carve, Johnny Harris, like Mr. Beast. That's bigger than what anything traditional media is doing now.

Eric 17:01

Well, then you also have those people kind of transitioning into traditional media. Well, I say that in the sense of Mr. Beast switched over to Amazon for like Beast games and whatnot, not technically traditional media. but he's just expanding beyond those forms of media. So I assume that's the same. And Vsso did the same thing as well with, his, science studies on Amazon and whatnot. But YouTube was that kickoff platform. So I imagine that's, that's the end. I don't wanna see the end goal because to a philosopher I get there is no end goal. There's always more to learn,

Quang 17:30

Well, I also have a lot of business experience, right? So I have to keep an eye out on the markets. I have to make sure that whatever I'm doing, it's aligned with the direction of the markets.

Eric 17:41

So with that, is it safe to say that you've never really doubted yourself whether you've made the right choice in transitioning into becoming this creator, philosopher?

Quang 17:50

Oh, I doubt myself every night. one of the things that I have for that, that I, I think is a weakness of mine is like I'm a, I. I, I always thought I was not good enough, for a lot of things actually, when I was younger, like I thought I was an idiot. And, my, like, my grades in school were awful. My teachers and my parents thought I was an idiot. Like my, my parents called me multiple times, like, I can't believe you're so dumb.

Eric 18:13

Wow.

Quang 18:14

yeah, and my teachers would not say it directly to my face, but I remember this one moment where I used the word ideal in my 11th grade. English class and my teacher was like, wow, Kwang, I'm surprised you know that word. And I'm like, wow, you must really think I'm an idiot. And it just kinda reaffirmed my belief though.'cause I thought I was an idiot before that.

Eric 18:31

You've opened my mind to so many things, I never really even considered when talking about these specific topics. And so to hear you say that and think that, kind of a wild thing to wrap my head around. Can I ask What surprised you the most in creating this content? what took you aback to say, this is what I should be doing?

Quang 18:53

What surprised me the most was probably that my first video actually got some traction. I hear so many stories about people releasing videos and getting like zero to 10 views, and that was the expectation that I had when I released it. So when thousands of people watched it, I was like, no way. Like thousands of people listened to what I had to say. that was wild. It gave me some validation that I could probably do this as long as I get good enough because like, it's all a function of skill, right? How I like to see goals is like a goal is a certain distance away. And in order to get to that goal, you have to do two things. You have to take steps, and your steps have to take you far. So for example, if your goal is to dig a hole, you can dig it with your hands or you can grab a shovel, which is leverage, which will take less steps that you get used to that goal, right? So my goal is very simple, which is to not die in the ditch. So as long as I can not die in a ditch while doing YouTube, then, I probably achieved my goals based on my understanding as to how monetization works. I just need to like, keep doing this for a certain while and get good enough and I can probably like achieve my goal of not talking to judge.

Eric 19:58

So you talk about life as a game, and you mentioned in your video that everybody talks about winning the game of life, playing this game of life. are the rules as you see them currently?

Quang 20:11

Oh, that is definitely going to be a topic of a future video, but there, there's like different things which just like rules, mechanics and what society imposes on us. So what society imposes on us is not. They're not actually rules, right? Like laws and everything like that. They're not truly rules of life. They're rules of existing in the society if we want to participate in it. But aside from that, there are like the mechanics, which are like time and you know, physics for me, what I believe the rules to be. And when I say rules, I mean this applies to like all life forms across any, moment in time. The first one would be that life follows incentives. So the incentive to survive, the incentive to, reproduce and now the incentive to live our lives the way we want. And if you like, pay attention to what anybody does, they're always chasing some kind of incentive. it might not be obvious at the time, but like, have you ever thought of a moment where somebody did something and you're like, why did they do that? And the only reason why you would think that is'cause you didn't understand the incentive behind it. And something that I think about is like, when I'm at the mall and somebody has like a breakdown. They're yelling and screaming, right? I'm like, well, why are they doing that? It's because they believe that it's gonna solve their problems. And they believe that by yelling and screaming like this, somebody's gonna come along and solve their problem. And it's like the same reason why people are very nasty to retail workers because. we've rewarded that behavior. Rule number one. When you, kind of think about it, it's everywhere. Everything follows incentives and when you understand that, it actually makes it a lot easier for you to get what you want. Like, for example, when I did performance reviews for my employees, one of the big things you have to do is assign them like smart goals for the next year. And you just have to align the goals with what you have to incentivize the goals properly. So it's not like if you have the wrong incentives, people will. Warp what it is they have to do to get there. Like there's a story of rattlesnakes or cobras in India where they, we don't know if this is true, but it makes a lot of sense, which is that the ruler at the time wanted less snakes, so they were giving out a bounty for the snakes. So what people started doing is they just started breeding snakes and killing them for the bounty. that's a misaligned incentive. Because you're rewarding the dead snakes. You're not rewarding removal of the snakes. And you see that everywhere. so that, that's my number one rule. the number two rule I have is leverage. And I'm not quite sure if this is actually a rule, but I really, I'm comfortable with it. And leverage leverages the idea that You have more leverage, the same amount of effort will take you further. And it's the same like with the shovel and the hand thing. It's the same thing with almost any action. Any goal. Like for example, what's stopping me from snapping my fingers and making a million dollars? It's the leverage, right? Jensen Hu could technically do that. He could set his company up in a way where he sells X number of video cards every time he snaps his fingers. So when he snaps his fingers, he'll get a million dollars. it's pointless for him to do that, but he has the leverage to do so, right? So that's kind of how I see leverage. And yeah, I do believe that rule would exist for all life forms across all time. And the last one is entropy, which is that things just seem to fall apart when you don't put enough energy into it. this is, your body like infrastructure, relationships, like literally everything will fall apart. maybe not everything, but most things will fall apart if you don't put enough energy into it. I'm not sure if diamonds would fall apart, but, the idea is there.

Eric 23:45

So based off those rules that you kind of established there, what are most people getting wrong about how they're playing life, how they're trying to win.

Quang 23:56

I think they were making the same mistake I was, which is that when you don't have your own goals, you end up following what the goals that other people tell you. And that might not necessarily lead to happiness. So people are saying stuff like, chase this, chase that, you know, get money, go on vacation, do all that stuff. And sure, it feels good the first couple times, but unless like that's your goal to go to every single country in the world or something like that, it may not give you the happiness that you actually want. So I think that what a lot of people will need to do is do their own soul searching, figure out what it is that will make them happy. And if you're in a job that is making you unhappy, think about whether or not it's worth that trade.

Eric 24:36

Okay. So to that point, would you say that you personally are winning now, and what does winning look like to you?

Quang 24:47

I don't wanna say that I'm winning now because the way how I see it, it's like a S wave. You're gonna have moments where you win and moments where you feel like you're losing, and I. I haven't fully formulated this idea yet, but the idea is most things in life behave like a s wave. So I'll use a relationship. for example, I use a relationship with my wife. So most things in life, seem to be something like. Ascending sine wave. this is not my personal idea. I think I originally got it from Ray Dalio. it's actually on his books. He has sign waves on it. my relationship with my wife was something like. Things would get good and then they would not. Then they would go up and then they go down. And when they go down, that's like a challenge. So you have to overcome that challenge for it to go up. So that challenge should be, Hey, I really don't like how you don't do the dishes, or something like that. Right. And I can either. Never do the dishes. And eventually she'll get too upset with me and we'll break up, or I could do the dishes and our relationship will get better. And it just kept being like that over and over again, right? and I kind of feel like that's how life should be as well. You're going to have moments where things are on the rise, but then you're gonna have challenges. And when you overcome those challenges you get to the next peak. And the thing is, if you don't have those challenges, you end up sitting at baseline. And because you never increased your baseline. It's not a good place to be in.

Eric 26:05

a good mindset and structure to go well to kind of work through. So it's, helping me think about a few things on my end. So maybe I'll do the dishes more now that you've said it. if I can pivot to your thoughts of success and purpose and, and freedom, more along the lines of, to you specifically, how has your definition of success changed?

Quang 26:28

when I was younger, because I didn't think much of myself, my goal was like$25,000 a year living in an apartment. And when I surpassed that, I already considered myself to be successful. I was like, man, I'm making like 40,000 a year pushing shopping carts for Costco. Like, this is great. Like this is the dream. Right? And, I've come to realize that a lot of this is mindset, like the human mind really does shape reality. Like right now, how would you describe the world in terms of people's sentiment towards it? how, How do you think people feel about the world right now?

Eric 27:01

right now I would say, it's a rough one. It's not great. I would say, I'd hope this is true, but I'd say a majority of, the people in the world are seeing everything going on and realizing it's not a great place. It's not very good, for a lot of people around the world

Quang 27:16

So I understand where they're coming from, but from my point of view, we're at like one of the best moments in history.

Eric 27:22

really.

Quang 27:23

Like compared to the previous, decades, previous centuries, right? There's been so much more death and destruction and, and tragedy in the previous centuries, yet we feel like the world's about to end. There's like a disconnect there, right? So it really is a mindset thing. like there's way more inequality back in the past. I'm not saying that we should dismiss inequality. We should definitely do something about it, but like. When I just compare today versus, you know, the previous centuries, there's a lot to be happy and hopeful for. You know, medicine is able to save the lives of so many people. And for most of the western world, like food's a solved issue. Housing is mostly a solved issue, like people can't buy houses, but, the rent is an option

Eric 28:10

Yeah.

Quang 28:11

technically, like a lot of people are now living with their parents, All around the world. It's just a western thing where you want to go out and live in your own, like buy your own house, right? like for example, I moved out and I moved back into my parents because remember what I said about, trying to minimize regret? Well, one of the biggest regrets is not spending enough time with your parents. And I'm like, Why am I living on my own when I don't need to be? And people regret not spending time with their parents. I'm gonna go back home and live with my parents

Eric 28:36

see.

Quang 28:36

Like, you know, there's some conflicts here and there, but overall we get along pretty well.

Eric 28:40

I mean, it's great to have a partner that also kind of vibes with that and it works with your parents. So that must be a breath of fresh air,

Quang 28:47

I, I'm not sure if I fully answered the success thing. I think that it's, a matter of mindset. That money is definitely something that we need to be wary of because money is how we're able to, you know, feed ourselves and, provide home housing for ours and our loved ones. So there is a certain level of monetary success that is required, and what I feel is that people are not understanding that they're not providing enough value, so they're not leveling up their own skills to get more value and therefore get more money. It's a capitalist mindset. But based on, if you saw my value video, then you kind of understand where I'm coming from, which is that you do need to increase your value if you want to get paid more. And the way how, without getting too political, it seems like a big chunk of society wants to extract value rather than improve their own value.

Eric 29:40

I see. Yeah, no, I don't know that I can argue that either. There's a lot of people out there just wanting to, As you had mentioned in your video, it's more along the lines of not anyone can really thief except the government, right? It's, they're just trying to take what they can on that front and you can't do that. They want to just take without growing. I understand where you're getting that to that point. So kind of on the monetary side of things, do you feel. free now or just differently constrained by putting, maybe different pressures on yourself.

Quang 30:14

I definitely feel more free now. That's one of the main reasons why I was willing to make this jump is I, in my role, I definitely felt like I mentioned it like a cornered animal at some points. I'm definitely more free now. It is unfortunate that I'm not gonna be able to go on vacation for quite some time, but it's a sacrifice I was willing to make, I love traveling. It's, being able to see so much of the world has allowed me to adopt this like grander worldview. And I hope to be able to see more of the world in the future.

Eric 30:45

would you say that's kind of like the kickoff to this, you're able to see a good portion of the world and understand that there's more out there than what you were just doing?

Quang 30:52

Yeah. A lot of it is, I think like everybody lives in their own bubble, right? And some bubbles are bigger than others. And as I grew my bubble, I kind of realized that there's a lot more out there that I didn't understand.

Eric 31:03

Some, just some quick thought process, things that I've been thinking about while we've been talking. Let's say, I feel stuck, but I'm afraid to change my life. what are some steps that helped you get to that kickoff point and where should I start?

Quang 31:16

Well, it's really what is your goal, right? And are you realistically able to accomplish your goal? Like, if your goal is a star in the MBA, might be difficult, right? Like if your goal is to do what you like or do what you love and try to make money off it. Well, first of all, is it possible? Is there a path there? since I wanted to be a philosopher, there is a path here for me to make a sustainable living, which is to get good enough at YouTube in the path before YouTube. It'd be like to write books and hope that people buy them or go on tour or whatnot and have these kind of talks with people. So you have to understand what that path is. And let's say you don't care about what it is that you do, you just wanna make money. Well then you have to learn the skills to make money Unless you are of a learning deficiency, you can probably do it. It will take some kind of grit. it will take a lot of grit And the big thing to understand as well is, do you have the ability and do you have the runway? If you don't have the runway, you will need to. Do it like on your personal time, right outside of your work. And then there are things you can optimize for so think about your goal, which whatever it is to start a business or whatever as a destination, and you need to take a certain number of steps to get there. So what you have to do is you have to maximize. Your energy, right? Because if you have no energy, you can't take the steps. So there are ways that, I wouldn't say proven that are highly likely to increase your energy, which is exercise, sleep well and eat well. Like unfortunately, that's the advice that everybody gives to everybody.

Eric 32:49

Yeah.

Quang 32:50

it's true, right? Like the reason why everybody says it is'cause it's true. These things will increase your energy and when you have energy, you can take the steps towards your goal.

Eric 32:59

outside of having that energy building up the right steps to get towards your goal, what other practices or habits have helped you to rebuild yourself, mentally for stuff like this?

Quang 33:09

Like for me personally, a big one is just trying to understand more. when you understand more, it means you're not guessing as much. Like the first time I dealt with depression, I looked up like ways to get around it and the big ones were exercising and sleep well, and you feel better about yourself, right? A big one is feeling better about yourself, but I got that through exercise, right? when you exercise, You feel better about yourself because you look better, people treat you better, and a lot of other things that compound with that. Now, I mean, it sounds like the only advice I'm giving is to get fit, but I do think that it's a very, very important, strategy.

Eric 33:47

So look good. Feel good?

Quang 33:49

Yeah.

Eric 33:49

All right. Perfect. I mean, words to live by. If Marky Mark can do it, why can't we? Right. What practices or habits helped you rebuild yourself mentally?

Quang 33:59

Finding models, actually finding people who are ahead of me and listening to what they have to say. it's difficult'cause there's so many fake gurus out there, but there are people out there that are very successful and they're really trying to help people out. a big one is Ray Dalio. Ray Dalio. He created a hedge fund, became a billionaire off it, and right now he spends a lot of his time teaching people. He doesn't need to do that at all. He could live out the rest of his life, retire and die but he's taking time outta his very valuable life to go and teach people. So I listen to what he has to say, along with many other people, people with proven track records that really don't need to be helping people, yet they choose to because they came from where we were and they want to help us get to where they are.

Eric 34:41

So when you mentioned, the hard divide between these people that are basically, they put their. Valuable time on the line to help us kind of push forward. do you discern from those type of people to the fake gurus, the ones that are just out there to, swindle you?

Quang 34:56

listen to what they're trying to sell. If what they're trying to sell sounds too good to be true. It probably is, and a big one here is like anybody trying to sell you investment advice is probably selling you snake oil. Because if their investment advice was actually good, they would just do that instead of trying to sell courses. Right? Anybody that's really just selling a get rich quick scheme probably doesn't understand what it means to get rich. or their scheme is to sell courses that that works too. Right?

Eric 35:26

that's how they get rich. Yeah.

Quang 35:27

Yeah. Yeah, I'd say like, listen to people with the proven track record and people that aren't necessarily giving you get rich quick schemes, and if they're not selling something that's even better. Like Ray Dalia has books, but you don't have to buy his books. Yeah.

Eric 35:43

so in your mindset, what's a question people should be asking themselves more often? but really aren't doing that?

Quang 35:52

The biggest one I would really hope that more people do is when you don't understand something, don't dismiss it. When you don't understand something, you don't have to agree with it, but when you don't understand, it means that there's a gap in your knowledge. And you don't agree with it, that's fine, but if you don't understand where they're coming from, that's probably a deficiency on your part. Like before, you know, when I'm young, I didn't understand why girls did things that were different from guys. Right. And is it'cause the girls are wrong? No, that's not it at all. Girls and guys are different and, that's like the base level of it. Right. But right now there's so much divide and so much like, tribalism that people aren't taking the time to understand the other side and they're completely dismissing it. Whereas I think that if you do take the time to understand it, you might. Be able to appreciate or maybe realize that the other side has more to say than, you know, I hate you, or whatever it is that you're hearing from them.

Eric 36:42

do you feel you are closer to the truth than when you started this journey?

Quang 36:48

Yes, 100%. It's been a completely wild ride. I hesitate to say this, but. It feels as though I've unlocked a superpower. it sounds ridiculous to absolutely say out loud. and, yeah, I'll continue with this, but let's start with, have you seen soul leveling?

Eric 37:06

Of course.

Quang 37:07

So it feels very similar to that. Where I was suffering, I was having a really bad time, right. And when I hit rock bottom, I came back and I have this like, new ability to see the world a different way. And it's not gonna, I'm not gonna go fight monsters or anything with the superpower, but it'll, like, I, I, it's almost as though I see like shapes and patterns through time. When I am like, trying to think and envision about things and like, remember what I talked about, the ascending sign waves of relationships. Like that's kind of what I'm talking about when I say I see the shapes and patterns, and I'll break up Ray Dalio again, but he also talks about how he's able to see and like, feel the market. So I, I'm not the only one that seems to have this intuition for stuff. so yeah, using this skill And a lot of thinking since I do feel like I'm closer to the truth. you know, if I was 1% of the way there beforehand, I'm 1.1 like.

Eric 38:06

Kwang, I could talk to you. for so much longer. In fact, there's so many other things that I didn't get to. I had a whole list that I wrote out here. mainly the domain expansion model of worldview. First off, incredible name. Well done there.

Quang 38:19

No, I hope they inspire a lot of anime fans with that one.

Eric 38:21

I can't stress it enough. Anybody listening to check out your YouTube video If you like Smash Brothers, he's in there.

Quang 38:26

Not a professional, but I went to my locals and did decently well.

Eric 38:29

I like to ask if there's anybody out there listening to you right now, maybe they're wanting to, Start their own venture as a philosopher or they hear your words and they're terrified of making this leap from this really nice job, this potential big growth into something that they truly love. what are some last words of wisdom that you can just let them know and say, Hey, listen. This is what I think.

Quang 38:53

I can't say this with a hundred percent certainty, but it seems as though the world is deterministic, which means that, What happens in the past will influence the future. And if you believe that, then you can derive patterns from a lot of this. one of the things I believe is it seems as though a lot of the actual universe can be modeled out in like mathematical functions. Try to understand and learn as much as possible before making the leap, right? everything that you do has like a probability of success, and that's based on what you put into it, right? The more information, the more knowledge, the more skill that you put into it, the higher level of success. So before you do anything, especially if it's high risk, like leaving your job, try to understand as much as the world as possible, get that probability up as high as possible. And then make the lead. when it gets to the point where you're like, I'm comfortable with the amount of risks that I'm taking because I believe that I'm able to influence the outcome, like towards my advantage or towards something that's acceptable, that's when I would say take the risk. It's very mathematical, very analytical, but I like to think I'm a risk averse person, so, that's kind of how I see things.

39:59

That wraps up today's conversation with Quang Nguyen. If there's one thing to take away from this episode, it's this: Just because something looks right on paper doesn't mean it's right for you. Sometimes the hardest but most necessary step is questioning the path you're on. If this episode made you think differently, share it with somebody who might need to hear it. And as always, if you enjoyed the conversation, make sure to follow the podcast so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you have a story you wanna tell or maybe you just need someone to talk to, please feel free to send me an email at hereforyoupod. That's H-E-A-R, the number four, Y-O-U-P-O-D@gmail.com. I look forward to talking to you soon