“Trust the process.”

In this episode, Nick speaks with Eric Malka about his journey as an entrepreneur, discussing the importance of mindset, resilience, and personal growth. He emphasizes that success does not equate to happiness and that true fulfillment comes from within. Eric provides insights on how to navigate the challenges of entrepreneurship, the significance of long-term vision, and the necessity of maintaining wellness throughout the journey.

What to listen for:

• Resilience and grit are necessary traits to have for entrepreneurship
• Success does not guarantee happiness; true fulfillment comes from within
• Mindset is crucial for overcoming obstacles and achieving goals
• Long-term vision is essential for success; short-term plans often fall short
• Trusting the process and being patient is key to navigating challenges
• Wellness, including physical and emotional health, is vital for success
• Learning from failures is part of the entrepreneurial journey
• Everyone has unique strengths; it’s important to identify and leverage them

“To be successful as an entrepreneur you have to be healthy physically, emotionally, and spiritually.”

• Success isn’t just about the hustle—your body, mind, and spirit fuel your business
• Physical health gives you the energy and stamina to keep showing up daily
• Emotional health keeps you resilient through setbacks and tough decisions
• Spiritual health helps you stay grounded and connected to your “why”

“Everybody’s different and we all have our superpowers. It’s about identifying that innate gift you have and really honing in on it and leveraging that.”

• Comparison kills progress, your strength lies in what makes you unique
• Everyone has an innate talent or gift worth recognizing and nurturing
• Mastery comes from focus, so sharpen your gift instead of chasing everything
• Owning your uniqueness makes your work more impactful and fulfilling

About Eric Malka

Eric is an entrepreneur, brand builder, investor, and published author with more than 30 years’ experience in Luxury Consumer Goods. As co-founder and former CEO of The Art of Shaving, he is a pioneer of the luxury men’s grooming industry, leading the company from startup to international expansion.

In 2009, The Art of Shaving was acquired by Gillette/Procter & Gamble – Eric was tapped by P&G to continue in his role as CEO through the end of 2010. In 2014, he established Strategic Brand Investments; a private equity fund specialized in helping early-stage entrepreneurs develop iconic brands and grow businesses.

• https://www.ericmalka.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-malka-9071529/
• https://www.instagram.com/malkaeric/

Resources:

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Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”

Nick McGowan (00:15.66)
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host Nick McGowan. Today on the show we have Eric Malka. Eric, how you doing today?

Eric Malka (00:39.679)
Good man, thanks for having me. Doing great.

Nick McGowan (00:41.71)
Absolutely, I’m excited for you here. I think we’re gonna have a great conversation. We’re already shooting the shit and having a good time with it, so it’ll be fun. So why don’t we get this kicked off? Why don’t you tell us what you do for a living and what’s one thing most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre?

Eric Malka (00:56.341)
Auto bizarre. So what do I do now is I’m an investor. I invest in early stage companies in the men’s grooming and beauty category. I help founders achieve what I was lucky enough to achieve in my own career by building my company called the Art of Shaving, which I sold in 2009. So helping founders try to do the same thing.

against the lots by the way.

And something weird about me? Yeah, I was thinking about that. What’s weird about me? That’s a tough one, I’m kind of, you know, I’m not going to say I’m normal because nobody is normal, but I’ve lived, you know, I’ve lived in many different countries. I was born in North Africa, grew up in Canada.

Nick McGowan (01:43.539)
Hahaha

Eric Malka (01:57.011)
lived in New York City, Miami, I’ve lived in Puerto Rico, I speak three languages, you know, I’ve been around.

Nick McGowan (02:06.391)
Some of that’s a bit abnormal, like not normal for people that just stay in a town or something. So I’m glad that you bring that up. That’s something I talk to people about, like even right now, we’re recording this and I’m in Montana. I currently live in New Mexico and my partner and I travel throughout the summers and all that. People listen, know about that stuff, but those that stay in their town and that are just kind of townies get stuck there and they just only see the things that they see.

Eric Malka (02:31.028)
Yep.

Nick McGowan (02:34.259)
And it’s not like the 1800s anymore where like you’re just in a town and you’re stuck there and you can’t really get out. Where now it’s easier to get out, but I find that some people have a hard time just making that initial step to just move along. Like you told me that you got on a bus, ended up in New York, then also had a knife at your throat a number of months later. So like that’s a fucking story right there, you know?

Eric Malka (02:39.476)
Yeah.

Eric Malka (02:49.182)
Yeah.

Yeah. That’s right. You know, I have friends that still live where we grew up, right? And their kids are going to the same school. And I don’t look down on that. I think there’s some beauty to it. It’s just different strokes for different folks, right? I ran from that notion.

I escape that reality, but for other people, that’s a beautiful thing where there’s roots, there’s family, there’s consistency. know, nothing wrong with that. It’s just not my vibe.

Nick McGowan (03:29.974)
Yeah, I think about how some people get stuck in the system of a thing. You know, I grew up here, I went to school here, my family’s here, all the systems are here that I’m used to. And sometimes it is totally a, this makes total sense and this is where I’m supposed to be. And that’s a beautiful thing. There are people I see from high school that are like that, but not everyone. Yeah. Yeah.

Eric Malka (03:41.705)
Yeah.

Eric Malka (03:46.505)
That’s right. That’s right. mean, yeah, if that’s what you want, and that’s what you get, that’s fine. But if you want something else, but you don’t have the courage, because your mindset tells you that it’s never going to happen, then I agree, that’s a problem.

Nick McGowan (04:00.16)
Yeah. Man, think about it. If you never sat your ass on the Greyhound bus, what else wouldn’t have happened? You know what I mean?

Eric Malka (04:11.046)
Yeah, I mean, you know, they say the first step is 90%. Right. So, listen, I didn’t have courage. had, desperation. So, you know, I was desperate to get out of there, man, between the brutal weather and my family dynamics and my community. And, you know, I quit school, my parents.

Nick McGowan (04:14.763)
You

Nick McGowan (04:23.34)
Hmm.

Eric Malka (04:37.06)
My dad lost his job. My parents got divorced. My girlfriend broke up with me. I just wanted to get the hell out of that place. you know, that desperation is maybe stronger than having big balls, but you do need, you also need some courage to actually go through with the thought of desperation, right?

Nick McGowan (04:46.016)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (04:52.074)
Hahaha

Nick McGowan (04:56.522)
Yeah.

yeah, it’s interesting how there’s a catalyst to everything, you know, like the desperation was for you. I’ve had somebody on recently who talks specifically about courage and how a courageous moment changed everything for them. But it really takes us actually looking at that moment and not thinking like, well, well, that was a cool thing moving along in life, but actually expanding on it or breaking it apart a bit. you’ve gone from traveling around moving and all of that, but you also have had different companies. You help people with companies now and

Eric Malka (05:21.694)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (05:29.077)
Truthfully, the reason why I wanted to have you on the show is because I know that the stories that I talk to different people about, you know, just having casual conversation when you actually get into deeper conversation with them, I like look for a two, three year period, all I wanted was death or like, I had no idea what was going on and I just tried to keep myself going and I thank God that I had therapy or whatever.

Eric Malka (05:53.065)
Yep.

Nick McGowan (05:53.799)
So I like to be able to find out what did that look like? Cause it’s not a matter of like, cool, man, you’re successful. You sold a, you sold a company cause you didn’t just have the thought of it two days before and then go, fuck it, I’m going to sell this thing. like, what were some of those pivotal moments going through that you can look at that? Like those are changing moments.

Eric Malka (06:02.899)
Yeah.

Eric Malka (06:07.23)
No.

Eric Malka (06:13.848)
there were many, but well, I never wanted to kill myself or by any means. I never dealt with serious mental issue. I’ve had traumas, but they’re relative to my own experience. I know some people had it much, much worse than I ever did. I’ll tell you an anecdote. I I turned 40 years old and I had just sold my company for

Nick McGowan (06:27.498)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Malka (06:42.632)
a nice amount of money. I had two beautiful baby boys. I had a beautiful loving wife. I lived in a gorgeous place, a beautiful city, friends, everybody in my family was healthy. And I was miserable. I was miserable as a dog. I was still very anxious internally. And that was a big aha moment for me because

I used to think all these things would make me happy and make my problems go away. You know, it would fix, you know, and I realized, wait a minute, if all these blessings that are incredible, are not going to fill that hole in, my, you inside nothing ever will on the outside. This is an inside job. I need to focus on this right.

So, you know, that was a moment where that happened.

Nick McGowan (07:39.048)
Yeah, you know, it’s a it’s important for us to talk about that stuff because I think it can be too easy for us to see other people on TV or social media or something like that and go, my god, look, they must have everything together. Even if that doesn’t make sense, like subconsciously, we just think, they look good. Like the people that are on social media, there are times where I have conversations with people, they’re like, well, I think I want to become an influencer and show off my life and how I do these things. Like, well, cool, if you’re gonna do that.

Eric Malka (07:53.922)
yeah.

Eric Malka (07:57.918)
Yeah.

Eric Malka (08:04.638)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (08:07.593)
You should just have a camera up 24 seven. So people can also see you crying in the bathroom because something didn’t go your way or whatever instead of just curating the rest.

Eric Malka (08:12.286)
Yeah.

But I think successful people and famous people don’t get empathy, right? I remember everybody was telling me, you’re living the dream, man, you’re living the dream. And it was true to a certain extent. It was my dream and it was the dream a lot of people have for themselves. But it made me cringe inside when I heard that because I didn’t connect with that feeling, right? I was extremely grateful.

Nick McGowan (08:21.885)
Hmm. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (08:38.365)
Yeah.

Eric Malka (08:44.532)
for what I had, right? The gratefulness was there, but there was still anxiety, fear, sadness that I still hadn’t dealt with, that needed to be dealt with. And I think as people pursue their dream and falsely believe that those dreams are going to resolve all these problems, I think that’s really the fallacy, right? And I was lucky enough to achieve my dreams to have that curtain.

Nick McGowan (08:56.073)
Hmm.

Nick McGowan (09:10.046)
Yeah.

Eric Malka (09:14.91)
fall and see that it wasn’t the answer to all my problems.

Nick McGowan (09:20.339)
Yeah, you know, it’s don’t know if I’ve heard of anybody when they’re being really honest that hasn’t had something like that. You know, they’ve been super successful and they’ve made a lot of money or they sold a company and like still didn’t have the fulfillment. Yet people will still look at that and go, but they’re not me. They don’t have my problems. They don’t have this. They don’t have that. It’s like, I was trying to learn from somebody else’s experience, but going cool. I see that. Let me go fuck up and get punched in the face for myself because I don’t fully believe it until I’m bloody.

Eric Malka (09:29.012)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Malka (09:48.136)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (09:49.863)
Like being able to take from that. So what sort of things as you walk through, even just mentally thinking through the stuff that you’d gone through, like what are some of those key things you talk to business owners about now that are in a startup phase, super passionate about what they’re doing, but also need to get their head on straight with like a logical side of it of like, you’re still going to walk, you’re going to get punched in the mouth and here’s how you handle those hits. What are some of those things you’ve learned?

Eric Malka (10:13.17)
Yeah, I mean, first of all, I’ve learned that nobody’s achieved their dreams or high success without serious obstacles along the way. So you need to cultivate, you know, resilience and grit.

and I look for that in people that I work with, right? I want to make sure that they’re, you know, they’re not going to give up, but at the first sign of trouble, right? But more importantly, I think that to be successful as an entrepreneur, because this is the world I live in, the entrepreneurial world, I think you have to really be healthy.

physically, healthy, emotionally, spiritually, in every way you can. That’s just going to not only make your odds higher of success, but you’re going to enjoy the journey more. People around you are going to enjoy that journey more. And you’re going to enjoy the fruits of your labor after that’s over. I see too many entrepreneurs sacrificing, seeing their kids grow up, their health.

just for pursuing their success. And I think that’s a really dangerous trade-off.

Nick McGowan (11:38.299)
Yeah, think about the hustle culture. Everybody that was hustling and like the more that you push and push and push and basically driving yourself to burnout, it’s unhealthy. But

Eric Malka (11:49.941)
It is. But there’s a nature appropriate for that, right? Like you can’t drink the same at 20 that you will at 50. You know, some people do, some people do. You know, you can’t take Michael Jordan at 22 and at 52 and he’s the same player on the court. He’s not, he’s the same guy. So, you know, there’s a time that I don’t, you know, for me it was, my 20s were about learning.

Nick McGowan (11:51.388)
You don’t sit. Sure. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (12:06.727)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eric Malka (12:18.824)
My 30s was about, you know, reaping the rewards of what I had learned. And my 40s was really to hone my skills and my 50s are about returning, Returning, you know, being of service to others because I’ve been so blessed. So there’s an age appropriate, you know, you shouldn’t be hustling that hard in your 60s. Unfortunately, some people have no choice, but you know, you should know that there’s a time

Nick McGowan (12:31.921)
Hmm.

Nick McGowan (12:44.327)
Yeah.

Eric Malka (12:48.21)
that you have the most hustle energy, if you will. That’s the time you should utilize that energy.

Nick McGowan (12:52.103)
Sure.

Nick McGowan (12:55.751)
So let’s look at people. Let’s say people in their earlier mid-20s. There are some people that are designed

to just completely generate, just continue to produce and do things and by the end of the day they need to go to bed just completely exhausted. Others are not like that. It’s a smaller percentage of people, because for the most part, most of us on the planet are generators of a sort, but the people that aren’t that way, but see other people doing it and go, well, Jimmy and Johnny and Susie are going crazy and they’re hustling like mad. And part of that is a systemic thing that they were raised to just…

drive yourself fucking bat shit crazy and don’t stop. And some of it might also be, I’m excited, I’m gonna keep doing, but how do you work with those people differently? And really, how do you understand that about each of those?

Eric Malka (13:42.197)
I mean, everybody’s different, You know, and we all have our superpowers. It’s about identifying that power, that got, you know, that innate gift that you have and really honing in on it and leveraging that. Right. If you’re trying to be something you’re not, you’re going to, you’re going to fail. You know, you can’t be good at everything. A lot of times you need a partner to offset your weakness or employees.

You you hire your weakness sometimes, but it’s about understanding what you’re really, really, really, really good at and really building on that innate strength to make it like, to be the best at that, you know? And that’s really what I try to do.

Nick McGowan (14:23.704)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (14:29.957)
So don’t want to get secret sauce from you or have you share the recipe of that sort of stuff. But let’s say you’re talking with somebody about that, that’s trying to figure it out. You know, what, what is it that I want to do? There’s something in here, but I’m not sure. How would you help those people figure that stuff out?

Eric Malka (14:46.066)
Well, very simply and it’s very complicated. It’s simple in theory, but hard to figure out, which is a lot of people try to figure out what they need to do next. And what they really need to be thinking about is where they want to go eventually, right? When you set sail to discover the world, you’re not saying, okay, we’re going to get out of the harbor and go left. You’re saying,

Okay, I wanna try to go to Antarctica. And then I chart approximately the best way to get there. And then there are things happening and you course correct along the way. So I think what I try to tell people is answer a simple question. What do you want? Where do you wanna be in 10 years from now? Because those three year plans, they don’t work, right? People think that success happens in 12 months or less.

They’re always going to be in the 12 months or less chase. It takes 10 to 20 years to really build anything. And where do you want to be in 10 years from now? That’s enough of a runway that gives you time to figure it out and to get there. It’s really being a treasure hunter at the end of the day, right? You have a bit of a business plan. You know, you know, there’s a treasure at the end. You’re not sure you’re going to find it. And, you know, the idea is where what do you want? And when I

Nick McGowan (15:45.219)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (16:01.231)
Yeah.

Eric Malka (16:11.814)
Ask that question a lot of, sometimes they know or they think they know. And sometimes they really have to dig deep and think about it. But once they figure out the answer to that, then it’s what are you prepared to do? Or are you prepared to do everything it takes to get there? You know, it’s easy to say, I want to be an NFL quarterback, right? When I’m 10 years old, I want to be Tom Brady one day.

Yeah, okay. That’s your dream. Nobody’s going to take that away, but you understand what it takes to get there. You understand the sacrifice, the hard work, the hours from not only you, but your parents are going to have to sacrifice. your practice and buy your equipment. So people, they either focus on the short term. They don’t think really long term about what they want. And then when they think about the long term, they’re not really

Nick McGowan (16:48.207)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (16:56.367)
Hehehe.

Eric Malka (17:10.832)
understanding what it’s going to require to get there. So that’s where I really start to try to frame that, you know, because there’s an inverted correlation between your aspirations and the odds of achieving that. Right. So if I just want to be a pretty good at, you know, I want to just play amateur football. My chances of achieving that are pretty high. If I have the athletic abilities and I have the time to do it.

Nick McGowan (17:13.797)
you

Nick McGowan (17:23.685)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (17:38.18)
Yeah.

Eric Malka (17:39.571)
I should be okay. I’ll play high school. Maybe I’ll even play a little bit of college. But if I want to be like at the top of the game, the odds are completely, completely different, right? I want to be a billionaire. The odds are, you know, 0.0006%. But if I want to just have a nice little business that supports my family and I don’t have to answer to anyone in my community, the odds are much, much, much greater.

So that’s really where my head goes when I try to guide people into understanding that.

Nick McGowan (18:18.198)
Yeah. I really loved that you talked about what do you want? Not where do you want to be? Because I think a lot of times when people say, well, what’s your five year, 10 year, where do you want to be in five or 10 years? I personally have always said the fuck if I know what I really want is freedom. And what I want is to be able to be myself and enjoy the things that are deep inside of me and find myself through that.

But the, do you want to be in 10 years? I don’t know. I didn’t think I was going to be in Montana in August of this year. You know, like that’s cool because that’s how life can work. But the fact that you said, what do you want? Yeah, exactly. It’s like a big fuck around and find out, but you got to go fuck around and find out.

Eric Malka (18:51.592)
Yeah, exactly.

Eric Malka (18:56.274)
That’s the treasure hunter, right?

Eric Malka (19:03.988)
Yeah, because it’s not a linear, right? You have to know where you are and where you want to go and then it’s not a linear way to get there. Sometimes you have to go through the Montana to get to California, you know, you don’t know what’s gonna happen. So yeah, that’s how I look at things. That’s how my life was. I always leaned in, you know, people think I’m courageous or I take risks. I’m like, no, I had no plan B. And I was a little bit desperate.

Nick McGowan (19:14.702)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eric Malka (19:33.78)
And I had nothing to lose. When you have nothing to lose, you’re not risking anything.

Nick McGowan (19:34.104)
Yeah, it’s a little different. Yeah, if the ships are burnt, I mean, you might get back on them. just not.

Eric Malka (19:44.245)
No. And when I started my company, I sold my car and I started with $12,000. I mean, I would have blown that in Vegas over the weekend, right? So I wasn’t risking much. That’s really the logic I think of. Maybe I’m minimizing what I did, but I don’t see this. I think I took a lot more risks when my company was generating a lot of cash and I doubled down to go big.

Right? That was a risk. Calculated risk. That’s what entrepreneurs do. They calculate. Sometimes they calculate it poorly, but it was a calculated risk. But that was a risk. So yeah.

Nick McGowan (20:16.771)
Sure.

Nick McGowan (20:20.087)
Yeah.

You should learn after that calculation, yeah. Yeah, and I don’t think that’s undercutting it or anything like that. It’s easy for us to say none of it’s linear and people that are into their journey of just being an adult understand that most things aren’t linear, but it can be really difficult when you’re looking at just the immediacy of something right in front of your face and it’s hard to see what happens after that.

So how do you keep yourself present throughout those moments and how do you share with young entrepreneurs? Like, I get it, you’re freaking out right now.

Eric Malka (20:59.348)
Trust the process, It’s trusting the process. You know, the analogy I use is the guy trying to break out of prison with a spoon. I’m gonna dig a tunnel with a spoon, man. That sounds like a really impossible idea. But you know, the guy that starts chiseling at that wall, you know, three months later of chipping, all of a sudden he’s inside the wall. A year later, he’s building a real tunnel, you know?

Nick McGowan (21:13.034)
Ha ha ha ha.

Eric Malka (21:28.752)
Eventually you chip at it, you’re gonna get somewhere. And it’s about trusting the process. It’s about not being impatient. It’s about urgency, but not impatience.

Nick McGowan (21:32.552)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (21:39.274)
Yeah, that’s easier said than done, obviously, and everything in each moment, it can be harder to go, well, I want this thing to be done now. I am captain impatient often.

Eric Malka (21:42.91)
varies.

Eric Malka (21:47.721)
that but that’s why we’re here, you and I, we’re trying to share that wisdom that we’ve learned. But if you don’t have urgency, you’re not going anywhere. If you have impatience, you’re going to trip and fall. You know, that’s how that’s what I advise in entrepreneurs, because I see that 99 % of the failure rates is because of impatience. We’re trying to launch too soon. We’re trying to scale too fast. We’re not ready to

Nick McGowan (21:51.35)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (21:58.496)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (22:03.468)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (22:11.636)
Hmm. Yeah.

Eric Malka (22:17.874)
to do it. I have this framework for startups called crawl, walk, run and fly. And what I see when I analyze businesses is they’re skipping these stages. That’s where they get into trouble.

Nick McGowan (22:32.011)
Yeah. And those stages are typically the most critical. Like those are the big lessons that you need to learn to be able to get to the next level of things and not even a different level, but into the next conversation. Like I think of having different meetings with people where it’s like, if I didn’t have these meetings with these people before, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to talk about these things. And if I didn’t fuck things up before, I wouldn’t have been able to coach people on different things or share any wisdom because you don’t have that. But

Eric Malka (22:42.548)
100%.

Eric Malka (22:57.384)
Yeah. yeah, failure is part of the journey for sure.

Nick McGowan (23:01.698)
Yeah. So it sounds like what you’re saying is really taking it day by day and being present in those moments with that. But if you’ve got somebody who’s like, I want to get ahead of these things, how do you help them see it? Because if they don’t see it for themselves and they say, fuck, fine, Eric, I got it, but I want to do what they’re doing. I want to be a lot faster. How do you then help them actually slow down a bit and take it step by step?

Eric Malka (23:24.66)
It’s not my job to clip people’s wings because, know, who am I to say that, you know, the odds are, the odds of somebody doing it in five years instead of 15 years are very low. But who am I to say that you’re not the guy that’s going to those odds. If you would have told me to slow down when I was 25, you know, I would have totally go fuck yourself.

Nick McGowan (23:44.075)
Sure.

Nick McGowan (23:52.193)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Malka (23:53.353)
But you know what happened when I was I failed miserably because I was trying to go too fast with my third company. And that taught me an invaluable lesson when I started my fourth company, which I started much slower. So whatever lessons you haven’t learned from your parents, your community, your school, your government, life is going to teach them to you one way or another. So it’s about learning. It’s not about anything else than to learn.

Nick McGowan (24:00.831)
Yeah.

Eric Malka (24:22.832)
If you don’t learn from your mistakes, you’re never going to get ahead. If you’re trying to think that you’re not going to make mistakes and you’re never going to fall in your face, you’re going to be in for some bad surprises. It’s about getting up, dusting yourself off, learning so that you don’t make that mistake again. I’ll make new mistakes, but I’m not going to make that one again and keep forging ahead. That’s the grit. That’s the resilience. keep, you know, but.

Nick McGowan (24:36.321)
Yeah.

Eric Malka (24:52.264)
You know, if you get punched and you run away and you’re like, all right, I’m done with this. Then you weren’t meant to be in that, in that path anyways.

Nick McGowan (25:03.041)
Yeah, I can see that. I can also see how some people, for the most part, can get stuck in this is the way I want it to be, instead of looking at the reality of something and saying, this is what it is now. Exactly.

Eric Malka (25:14.792)
That’s a might.

But that’s a mindset. you don’t have the right mindset, mindset is everything. Mindset is everything. If you don’t have the right mindset, if you’re not open-minded, if you’re not learning constantly, if you’re not taking responsibility for everything that happens to you, you’re never gonna get anywhere. I mean, that’s the recipe for disaster. So you’re describing somebody with the wrong mindset that wasn’t taught to have the right mindset, and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as they…

again leverage who they are. know, maybe that’s somebody that should be an accountant, you know, or somebody that should have.

uncertainty in their career because being an entrepreneur is a very uncomfortable thing. It’s very uncomfortable.

Nick McGowan (26:02.143)
Uncertain. Yeah. I don’t know where certainty is in being an entrepreneur. But then again, I talk to people that are like, have a job? And I’m certain. I’m like, I’m certain they could fire your ass tomorrow and you’d be looking for a new job. So that’s my certainty for you. Yeah, exactly. Well, not even just that. Yeah.

Eric Malka (26:13.684)
Yeah, exactly. This is America, buddy. Employment at will. I know it’s a scary proposition, man. You work 30 years for a company and they give you a shitty watch and send you off and nobody, you know. It’s scary, man. To me, that was my motivator, you know. First of all, I was not employable. I’m not an, I’m not employable. I’ve had, I’ve held a job for three months. You know, I got fired quickly.

Nick McGowan (26:31.616)
I understand that.

Eric Malka (26:43.252)
And you know, that’s just me, you know, just follow your path, right? The guy that is the NFL hero is not the same guy as I am, who’s an entrepreneur. It’s not the same guy that’s living, as we said in the beginning, in the same neighborhood they grew up in and their kids are growing up in. Those are two different guys. The problem happens when you’re not doing what you should be doing.

Nick McGowan (26:50.56)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (27:02.602)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (27:11.999)
Hmm.

Eric Malka (27:12.914)
the path you want. If I want to just have a simple life, no problems, a nice job, build my career, save for my pension, no judgment. There’s nothing wrong with having that life. As long as that’s what you choose for yourself.

Nick McGowan (27:25.374)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (27:29.236)
Yeah.

Yeah, it’s like purpose. I often talk about and think about our purpose and what we’re here to do and everybody’s purpose is different. But the world will tell us that, well, if you’re going to live a purposeful life, you need to be Oprah or Steve Jobs or do something crazy. When in all reality, your purpose may to be to be the best dad or mom or community leader. But it’s understanding that about yourself.

Eric Malka (27:46.9)
None.

Eric Malka (27:52.501)
100%. I’ve learned that changing the world means sometimes just changing one person’s life. Impacting one person, that’s enough. You don’t have to be Mother Teresa, right? Then it becomes overwhelming. That was a problem I had when I was young. I was so ambitious that it was overwhelming.

Nick McGowan (28:01.843)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (28:09.855)
Yeah.

Eric Malka (28:20.148)
It’s like there’s this huge mountain to climb, 30,000 feet. And I’m at the base, you know, with my shorts and I’m like, you know, overwhelmed. That’s how I felt. And it’s not until I realized all I have to do is just every day climb a bit of that mountain.

Nick McGowan (28:20.382)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (28:29.907)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (28:37.34)
Yeah, yeah, that’s a good visual too. So for the people that are on their path towards self mastery, what’s your advice to them?

Eric Malka (28:49.096)
you know, my advice is focus on your wellness. eat a healthy diet, exercise, move. You don’t have to be, you know, a bodybuilder, just move every day. meditate or do something spiritual so that your emotional system.

Make sure you’re dealing with any traumas or any insecurities or any fears that you may have that are holding you back. Work on your stress level, basically, that’s what I’m saying. And what that does, in my opinion, is that it increases your chances of achieving whatever goals you have in life, and it makes the journey more enjoyable.

Nick McGowan (29:43.941)
Hmm. Very much so. And I appreciate that. And look, I appreciate your time today. I think this has been a great conversation. And Eric, before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

Eric Malka (29:54.036)
ericmelka.com. I’m not hard to find. can Google the art of shaving. ericmelka.com strategic brand investments.com. I wrote a book called On the Razor’s Edge. I’m online. You can find me.

Nick McGowan (30:10.016)
Perfect. Well, man, I appreciate your time today. Thank you so much.

Eric Malka (30:13.225)
Thanks for having me.