🚀The dark side of fame

What few people talk about on purpose...

👆🏼You can listen it, up here: 🎧

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Fame, money, girls, what else do you need? 🤤

I dare not recall what desires must have been in the mind of 17-year-old Kristóf. 🙄

One thing is for sure... I wanted to be very successful!

What did "Success" mean? 🤔

Different for everyone...

Back then, for me it meant living my life like a rock star! 👨🏼‍🎤

But would I still live that way now? 🤨

Before we discover that, let's see... 🔍

🚀 How's the challenge going?

🧡 I followed my heart and what a good decision I made

Since then, we have found a significantly better direction and we are going to work very hard in that direction. A lot of people helped me in this decision, Zola, MakeItCount and Joci the StartUp Mafia leader. Without them I could not have made such a considered decision! 🫰🏼

In a later Blog article, I will explain this dilemma in more depth, because this is not enough for a small section. ✍🏼

👕 New OM Merch Drop

If all goes well the new Summer Drop arrives on Sunday evening. Given the weather this time it will be a short jersey Polo in a very similar color to the sweater. 🌞

The motto remains the same: Education ≠ School

It will have the OM logo on the left arm and the usual numbering on the right, like this: II/1

The price will be 10.000 HUF with free Fox Post-delivery. 🦊

It's worth watching the Instagram Story on Sunday afternoon, as you'll be the fastest to get it! 👀

🚀 We were invited to the finals of a Startup competition

Joci and his friends organized a Startup competition called Future Founders Club, which I even posted in an Insta Story. The finals are on June 16th and we got an invitation as guests that they would like to welcome us. 📩

It will be very exciting in the sense that there will be renowned Startup Mentors from all over Europe who have built several billion-dollar Startups. I dread to think what experience and knowledge we will leave the competition with. 🧠

Thanks again Joci for the invitation! 🙏🏻

🆕 Out with the new Update

Which has sped up the app to hyper speed, but you may have already encountered that. Honestly, I don't know what Edu and Kokesz did, but it was like going from an Opel to a Mercedes. ⚡️

Simply the loading speed dropped to 1-2 seconds, down from 5-7. Which is an amazing achievement! 😱

Ok, now we can start... 🏁

💭 Why does everyone want to be famous?

Well, I don't think I need to explain much when I say it's because of social media. But it's not that simple, I'll explain in a moment... 🤨

On Tuesday I was in Budapest for a lecture by Jordan Peterson, where he talked about power as a universal currency. People want more and more power for themselves to prove their place in society. ✊🏼

And we discussed in the previous article that you can gain power if you have one thing that is in short supply in the world. 🧐

Back in the day oil, capital, diamonds... (don't get me wrong they are all valuable, even today)

We just invented a new thing that anyone can get, regardless of location, gender, age. 🥵

Anyone can get it, yet there are few of them, quite a paradox. But I don't want to go into the depths of Jordan Peterson, because I don't have nearly the knowledge that he has. 😳

This special thing is none other than "Attention"! 👁

Because Attention is so scarce these days, the one who has a lot of it has "power". ✊🏼

And power is a universal currency that everyone wants to have - as we have already discussed above. 💰

So that is why - or part of it - everyone wants to be famous! 🤩

👦🏼: "Why only partly?"

Because that in itself would not be enough, because we would not know EXACTLY what power entails (of course we could say that power is a responsibility, which is absolutely true, but that's not what I mean) 👀

I used to see it as what comes with power:

Is it any wonder I wanted to be like that?! I don't think so... 🙃

What 17-year-old wouldn't want a life like this for themselves?! 🥹

👦🏼: "Okay, Kristóf, now you're starting to confuse me, now then..."

🧐 How can this turn negative?

👦🏼: "What is this Shadow Side you speak of in the title?!"

The rough thing is, for a long time I didn't understand what these big stars were talking about either, but lately, it's like something has changed and I've started to experience it too. 🫤

I'm nowhere near as famous as Dan Bilzerian - in fact I wouldn't even call myself famous, more like known - but it was interesting to me that you can experience it on such a "small level". 😯

To quote Dan Bilzerian:

"The negatives are you have a total loss of privacy."

How many stars have you heard of who had it all, money, women, experiences, fame, etc. Yet their lives ended - in very many cases mental problems - but it's quite possible that fame itself could have triggered this. 🤒

"Being a celebrity is like being bullied at school, but on a global scale."

💡 Side note: A lot of stars have talked about the pressure to conform. Which is really an interesting topic, don't know how many times I've seen disdainful looks when someone saw me riding a bus or waiting for the subway. It's because they "expect" that if you are so "successful" you should have a good car, go to fancy places, etc. The problem is that as I feel closer and closer to achieving these things, I feel less and less attracted to this world. 😕

In Dan's case, there are paparazzi everywhere, everything he does gets picked up by the media and he can't have any secrets or so. ❌

💡 Side note: London Real had an interview with Dan Bilzerian where he said that appearances are deceiving and he doesn't feel happy anyway. Joy does not equal happiness. One is just a momentary good feeling, the other is a long-term state of consciousness. She explained that what she is doing is very dangerous, trying to buy happiness with money, because money can only buy happiness and after a while you need more and more expensive things to reach the same level. 💰

📕 Book recommendation: Dan Bilzerian's biography "The Setup" describes this perfectly and you can easily understand what exactly he meant. You'll find it summarized in BookBase! 🎧

In my case it's a bit different, I'll explain...

Thanks to TikTok and YouTube, more and more people recognized me on the street and came to take a picture or exchange a few words, for which I am still very grateful to this day. 📸

Luckily, I can say that I am the same in real life as I am in the videos, so I don't have to wear any kind of mask - at least 99% of the time, but more on that later. 👺

The problem starts with the fact that I have no control over who recognizes me, when and when they want to come. So, I might be annoyed about something and someone might run up to me. 🤕

👦🏼: "What's up with that, I don't get it!"

The truth is, because this is the first time that person is seeing you, you can't make them think you're a jerk, even if you're not in the best mood. 🥴

He can't help it if he came at the wrong time... and that's when you do need to put on that mask and overcome your inner torment for those few minutes. 🙂

But that's only the minor problem... 😣

Since people know you from the internet, so in many cases they only see the good side of you, many will treat you as a role model. 😎

But what would you do if you saw a role model drunk and dead in a nightclub? 🤮

You'd be a little disappointed... - well, that's just the internet doing it to itself, you might think -. Meanwhile, the sad truth is that he's human and he needs to blow off some steam. 🙏🏻

💡 Side note: I've gone to Budapest - I really don't like Budapest - to party with the boys just so they wouldn't recognize me and I could finally have some free time... and, when we bought the ticket... they recognized me. From then on, I had a compulsion to behave!

It's bad to be recognized in situations when you shouldn't be recognized. You go to a nightclub to relax, not to conform to others. 🥃

You go to the pub to play table football with your friends, not to answer questions from strangers. ⚽️

So as not to misunderstand the message of this post...

⚠️ SO, LET'S DRAW A LINE HERE... ⚠️

I'm still very happy if you come and recognize me! 🙏🏻
This is what really motivates me and makes me feel good!! ☺️

💡 Side note: There were times when I got emotional after 1-1 meetings, because it was so nice to see that we could make such an impact on someone's life! 🥹

Simply just before you come there, ask yourself if you would want someone to come to you now in the opposite situation. And I promise the answer will be clear! 💭

Don't you know how "creepy" it feels when someone takes a photo of you from a distance and sends you an Instagram post saying "haha gotcha". Or when someone starts running towards you in the dark because they recognize you. 😳

And again, the rude thing is that I would only put myself in the "more known" category. But I've seen some really big stars incognito, which was pretty gross... 🫥

Just writing this down in case he reads it! 😉

About 2 years ago I was sitting with a friend at Zing Burger in Széll Kálmán Square, we were eating our burgers, when a guy walked in, maybe with his little son - if I remember correctly - wearing a full hoodie and maybe even sunglasses! 😎

But you know with the hoodie pulled up like that on his head, I say huh who is this weird guy. Then I continued eating my menu and then I see them heading out - after getting their takeaway burgers - they exited the Zing. 👣

Takes the hood off and you know who it was...

Balázs Sebestyén! (Hungarian celebrity) 👀

That's when I realized that at this high level it was going to be even more violent than I thought!

But let's be honest, the picture above is still tempting... 😏

And so are you:

👦🏼: " Kristóf, this little shady side is worth it for me!"

Let me just add 2 more thoughts here:

"Everyone wants to be famous, until they are not. Then you realize the negative side of it and the problem is that it's very hard to reverse it afterwards."

A very wealthy entrepreneur once said that to me:

"The best chance in life is to be rich but not famous."

But, if you still want to be famous, I'll show you...

✅ What exactly do you do?

[ ] First, look at the positive and negative sides of fame. ❌

[ ] Step two, - don't trust me blindly - look for celebrity interviews on the subject and see what they think. 🎙

[ ] Step three, after that, the picture will be much clearer, so you can decide whether you really want to be a celebrity. ⚖️

[ ] If the answer is yes, then step four, think about how you can be famous and keep your privacy at the same time. Who I think did it right: the Pamkutya, GaryVee and the animated youtube channels without faces. 🫥

💡 Side note: You can be famous even if few people know your face or know your real name. Maybe that's the best way to get the positives from both sides of the coin.

[ ] Step five is to follow the instructions in the previous blog post on how to build a community for yourself! 🤓

It's important to point out that fame and recognition have their positive sides, which I described in the previous blog post, but I felt it was important to talk about this side of it too, because there are two sides to the coin! And I don't want to mislead you by only presenting one side. 🪙

Thank you for reading! 🙏🏻

I hope that after this, you too will look at the people you know a little differently and just take a moment to think about their situation. 💭

🔥 Challenge

Luckily, I overcame the previous week's challenge and managed to do it with help. Now we have another goal, we want to get into a serious mentoring program abroad, but we have to complete a few things. ⚒

We're lucky enough to have a checklist in front of us of the areas of the business we need to improve in order to get in. ✅

It's not that long of a list, but it takes a lot of hard work to get through! That's why I'm experimenting with a new method:

• I set myself a "mission" each week, where I pick 1 item from the list and work on that only (you know I love missions because of my gaming background) 🎮

• Have ChatGPT make a learning plan for that project and ask him to break it down into smaller chunks of material. 🤖

• NOT READ ANYTHING, but... ❌

• I will start solving the given mission, using the knowledge I already have. 🧠

• If I get stuck anywhere, I go back to the GPT list and look specifically for that small segment, from the already pre-validated sites (I already have a collection of such startup blogs and only try to draw credible knowledge from them) 📖

• I will continue this until I finish the mission, and then after that... ♻️

• I'll copy out my whole written plan, put it into ChatGPT and ask him to review it and if he can improve it even better. 🤖

So, I could finish my part of the Checklist in 1 week, and then it could go on to Edu or Kokesz, depending on the project. 🤝

I feel at the moment this is how I can maximize the opportunities AI gives me, without compromising my creativity along the way. 🦾

You might want to try a similar system!

📖 What have I just read?

• The Startup Method - by Eric Ries, which is specifically about how you can turn a company into a Startup.

  • There are 1-2 parts that are very irrelevant for US, but I managed to find the 80 pages that are brutally valuable for us right now. Here he describes the numbers we need to watch that can predict our growth and even our eventual decline. 🚀

📕 Book recommendations: If you're interested, you can of course also find this summarized in BookBase! I needed the full book because the summary made me want to read it! 🎧

• A new Personal Assistant AI came out called heypi.

  • It can be brutally useful and you can even talk to it. So much so that it only speaks English and I've been banned from it... ❌

  • Why?! The answer is simple, after a while it asks you to verify yourself and of course you can only use US, Canada and Irish phone numbers. I ingeniously got an Irish number, only to find out quickly that it wasn't mine! 😄

  • So, I was blocked, sad story... 🙃

• I've dug into Pinterest Marketing, as we'll be trying out new Platforms to promote the BookBase.

  • But I also quickly realized that it wouldn't necessarily be Pinterest, as Home Decor and Baby Clothes are more the way to go here. "Not my type" 🫤

  • However, in the Jordan Peterson presentation, all I saw was that EVERYONE is BeReal, the problem is that as far as I know, you can't advertise on that platform, even though it's perfectly targeted to us. 🤩

If you know of any BeReal Influencers or if there are any, Hit Me Up!

🎧 What have I just listened to?

• And then the long-awaited Jordan Peterson performance, with a huge crowd at the Papp László Sports Arena. 🎤

  • Many young people and people my age, which surprised me - positively - he talked mainly about the relationship between the Bible and psychology, which I would not have expected, but the lecture made me realize 2 very useful things. 🙏🏻

  • One is that, if you understand your calling and take action, there is a cost, however, if you don't take action, there is! Jonah being swallowed by the whale is a good example of this.

  • The other is that sometimes it's worth stopping and thinking about what bad habit would I stop if I could and why don't I stop if I know it's bad?

  • It's a bit deep, but worth taking 5 minutes and thinking about! 💭

📕 Book recommendation: You can also find Jordan Peterson's books in the BookBase, both "12 Rules for Living" and "Beyond the Rules"! Pretty serious reads, my brother recently read the first one! 🎧

• And in the Philosophy class we talked about the life of Buddha - I know the two lectures are a bit contradictory - it was interesting to see how the prince became a teacher. 🧘🏼‍♂️

  • How he was so ignorant when he was a prince living within the palace walls and unaware of illnesses, old age and such negative events.

  • Regardless of Buddhism and religion, it is worth watching a video about him, because he is very inspiring! 🙏🏻

📕 Book Recommendation: The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama might be a good read here. You can also find it in BookBase! 🎧

✍🏼 Top Quote

"Fame is very agreeable, but the bad thing is that it goes on 24 hours a day."
~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

🧪 Question of the week

After reading this, has your view of fame changed?