Coach for SpaceX & OpenAI destroys your limiting beliefs for 88 minutes straight
Episode of My First Million · September 18, 2026 · 1 h 28 min
Executive coach Joe Hudson walks Sam Parr and Shaan Puri through limiting beliefs, self-reliance patterns, conflict avoidance, negative self-talk and weekly self-awareness experiments.
Summary
Joe Hudson, founder of the coaching company Art of Accomplishment and a former venture capitalist who works with founders and researchers at leading technology companies, joined Sam Parr and Shaan Puri to discuss the psychology of entrepreneurship. Hudson argued that transformation has to be addressed at three levels — the mind, the emotions, and the nervous system — and that intellectual understanding alone rarely changes behavior. He described what he called the "self-reliance pattern," common among founders who learned in childhood that no one would take care of them, and said it produces difficulty asking for help, an ambivalent relationship with authority, and an inability to admit being hurt.
Hudson introduced what he called the "golden algorithm": the emotion a person avoids is invited in by the very avoidance behavior. He recommended visualizing negative outcomes, including the death of one's company or the end of a marriage, in order to defuse fear, citing his own practice with his wife of 27 years. He said companies can be assessed on two metrics — how quickly hard conversations happen and how quickly they resolve — and gave tactical advice on conflict, including asking employees to bring a plan rather than solving problems for them and being vulnerable about one's own state.
On negative self-talk, Hudson argued that changing one's reaction to the inner voice is far more efficient than trying to change the voice itself, and that the content of the negative voice is generally untrue. He proposed weekly experiments such as enjoying what you already do 10% more, spending a week doing only what you enjoy, and thanking five people a day. Hudson recounted his own path: a rebellious youth with an alcoholic CEO father, an eight-second Samadhi experience on day three of a Vipassana retreat that he compared to getting hooked on heroin, seven years of not working while meditating up to seven hours a day, a stint as a cleantech venture capitalist for a family office, and the founding of Art of Accomplishment in 2018.
Asked about AI risk, Hudson said researchers he has observed spread out widely on questions about AGI and extinction, and concluded their views reflect how they were raised more than any factual reality. He argued that AI's outcome will be determined by "a democracy of clicks and money" rather than any single leader, and that society is unsupportive of the people building it. Puri countered that tech and AI billionaires have contributed to the public's distrust through poor communication.
Chapters
- 0:19
Introducing Joe Hudson and limiting beliefs
Hudson is introduced as a coach to founders, and explains what limiting beliefs are and how they show up in diets, learning and transformation.
- 4:06
The grind myth and three levels of change
Hudson disputes that suffering is required for success and lays out the mind, heart and nervous system levels of transformation.
- 8:26
The self-reliance pattern
Hudson describes the childhood origins of self-reliance in founders and the refusal to feel helplessness, introducing the 'golden algorithm'.
- 14:46
Unkinking emotions and shifting language
Hudson uses the hose metaphor for emotions like anger and discusses how awareness matters more than affirmations or phrasing.
- 18:08
Visualizing negative outcomes
Hudson recommends rehearsing divorce, death or company failure to remove fear, and the hosts compare it to fight preparation and stoic practice.
- 24:07
Working with the nervous system
Hudson explains pleasure, abusive self-talk and brief moments of presence as ways to retrain nervous system activation.
- 28:15
Conflict avoidance and hard conversations
Hudson frames conflict as the site of efficiency gains and gives practical methods for delivering hard feedback.
- 38:45
Negative self-talk patterns
Hudson catalogs types of self-abuse cycles and argues that changing one's reaction to the voice is more effective than changing the voice.
- 43:20
Is self-work worth the effort?
Puri asks whether being blissfully unexamined is better, and Hudson argues self-awareness is required when identity must change.
- 51:21
Experiments to run this week
Hudson offers concrete weekly experiments including enjoying things 10% more, doing only what you enjoy, and thanking five people a day.
- 54:43
Bliss, identity and billion-dollar purpose
Hudson says positive emotions destroy identity and tells the story of asking his wife whether they'd sell the business for a billion dollars.
- 1:02:21
What the titans are really like
Hudson says high performers rarely second-guess themselves and often feel simultaneously superior and broken.
- 1:05:17
Joe Hudson's journey
Hudson recounts his rebellious youth, an eight-second Vipassana experience, seven years of searching, parenting, and his path from art to venture capital to coaching.
- 1:14:07
Why everything is framed as an experiment
Hudson explains the habenula and why reframing self-work as experiments prevents the failure response.
- 1:20:04
Coaching AI labs and existential risk
Hudson discusses coaching OpenAI researchers, argues AI views reflect upbringing, and the group debates public distrust of tech leaders and apocalypse narratives.
Key points
What was said, by whom, with the exact words. Timestamps jump to the moment.
- Joe Hudson
Hudson argues that asking 'will it last?' after a transformation is itself a limiting belief masking anxiety, since learning naturally ebbs and flows.
“They have some sort of transformation, something happens, and then they ask themselves, will it last? That's a great limiting belief”
- Sam Parr
Parr identifies his own limiting belief that success requires prolonged suffering followed by happiness at the finish line.
“you have to grind really hard and do tons of stuff that you don't like in order to get to the end result”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson says he has never seen a startup fail from lack of effort, and that relationships and decisions matter more than working harder.
“I've never seen a venture company or a startup fail because of lack of effort”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson's 'golden algorithm' holds that the behavior used to avoid an emotion is what perpetuates that same emotion.
“So the emotion that you're trying to avoid is the emotion you're inviting in the exact way that you're trying to avoid it”
Linked moment · 12:46Skip to 12:46 using a listen link in the info box.
Joe HudsonHudson advises falling in love with the emotions one is avoiding, comparing it to leaning into the burn of a workout.
“Fall in love with the emotions you're avoiding. Like, think about it this way. It's just like working out. You want to work out, you're going to have to like lean into the burn”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson says he and his wife periodically grieve and visualize their divorce in full so that fear no longer governs how they show up in the marriage.
“We visualize the divorce. It's horrible. We like have the entire experience because once we've had it, we don't have to be scared of it anymore”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson argues people fear an emotional experience rather than the actual circumstance, illustrated by the idea that homelessness would not be frightening if guaranteed happiness.
“So what's actually occurring is that we're scared of an emotional experience, not an actual experience”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson frames conflict as a signal pointing to where a system can be made more efficient, so avoiding it means forgoing improvement.
“conflict is the place where efficiency can be gained, whether it's in a marriage or in a business or between business partners”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson says he measures organizational health by only two metrics: how quickly hard conversations happen and how quickly they resolve.
“If I go in and monitor a company's health, I literally just use two metrics. How quickly do they have the hard conversation and how quickly do they resolve it?”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson recommends asking employees to bring a plan rather than prescribing the solution, calling the latter disempowering and another form of self-reliance.
“hey, sales are off, I need a plan, please present it to me tomorrow about how we're going to get sales back on track, that's a far more powerful way to do it”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson argues the CEO's happiness is the correct measure of a company's direction and would be his criterion when investing.
“If the CEO is happy with the way the company is going, the company is going the way it should be going”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson argues it is far more efficient to change how you react to negative self-talk than to try to change the self-talk itself.
“if you try to change the self-talk, it's very inefficient. If you change the way you react to the self-talk, it's far, far more efficient”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson claims the content of a person's negative inner voice is always untrue and can be disproven multiple ways.
“if you tell me anything that your negative voice in your head says to you on a regular basis, I can prove and I can tell you five ways it's not true”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson contends that for most people meditation amounts to self-abuse because they spend it managing themselves without enjoyment.
“meditation for most people is just self abuse because they're just sitting there trying to manage themselves for 90 minutes”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson argues that avoiding self-awareness only works if you happen to land in a role suited to you that never changes.
“if you are not self-aware, then you better have landed in a place where you by nature are going to be capable. And that place can't change”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson suggests a starter experiment of enjoying whatever you are already doing about 10% more, five times a day for a week.
“so right now, enjoy yourself. Don't change what you're doing at all, but just enjoy what you're doing 10% more”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson recommends spending a week doing only what you enjoy, which forces you to find enjoyment in unavoidable tasks like taking out the trash.
“Don't do anything you don't enjoy for a week. Go to work and you can only do the shit that you enjoy”
- Shaan Puri
Puri argues that the capacity to feel positive emotions is like a muscle that must be practiced rather than expected to appear at a milestone.
“I think all these feelings are like a muscle. You just never... How many times before this did you feel ecstatic and triumphant and never?”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson says positive emotions are the scariest for most people because they destroy identity.
“especially the positive emotions. But they're the scariest emotions for most people to feel because they're the biggest identity-destroying emotions”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson says enjoyment is the best measure of efficiency because it determines whether you have energy to return the next day.
“if I get to the end of the day and I say, how much did I enjoy myself? That's the best measure of efficiency because I have energy for the next day and I want to come back”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson proposes testing meaning by asking whether you would sell the venture for a billion dollars if you could never do it again.
“would you sell this business for a billion dollars if we could not do it again?”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson says most very high performers simultaneously believe they are more capable than others and fundamentally broken.
“they both feel like they're better than everybody and worse than everybody simultaneously”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson recounts an eight-second experience of oneness on day three of his first Vipassana retreat that redirected his entire life.
“this experience of I am one with everything and everything is good. And it lasted eight seconds. And it was like getting hooked on heroin”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson explains that framing self-work as experiments bypasses the brain's failure-avoidance circuitry so you keep iterating rather than quitting.
“if you frame it as an experiment, then what you're doing is you're constantly learning and you're never failing”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson argues AI researchers' beliefs about AI outcomes reflect their upbringing more than any factual reality, since they spread out widely on every question.
“they're thinking about what's going to happen with AI has far more to do with how they were raised than it has to do with any kind of reality”
- Joe Hudson
Hudson says AI's outcome will be determined by collective consumer behavior rather than any individual leader.
“it is a democracy of clicks and money that's going to determine AI more than any one leader. And I think we shirk our responsibility by saying it's about one leader who's going to do it”
- Shaan Puri
Puri says public sentiment toward billionaire AI leaders shows zero trust, partly due to their own poor communication.
“there is zero trust, zero belief in the, that those are our great kings and fearless leaders that we want to get behind. Part of that is because of their own poor communication and presentation”
People
In the conversation
- Shaan PuriEntrepreneur and investor, co-host of My First Million, former Twitch executive
- Sam ParrEntrepreneur, founder of The Hustle and Hampton, co-host of My First Million
- Joe HudsonExecutive coach and founder of Art of Accomplishment, former venture capitalist who coaches founders and researchers at companies including OpenAI
Discussed
- Sam AltmanCEO of OpenAI, cited by Hudson as an example of a 'maximalist'
- Chris WilliamsonBritish podcaster and host of Modern Wisdom
- Mark ZuckerbergCo-founder of Facebook
- Georges St-PierreCanadian former UFC welterweight and middleweight champion
- Tony RobbinsAmerican life and business coach, entrepreneur and bestselling author
- Martin Luther King Jr.American civil rights leader who nominated Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize
- Mahatma GandhiIndian independence leader featured in a fable about modeling change
- Michael JordanBasketball player used by Hudson in an example about condescending encouragement
- Ev WilliamsTwitter co-founder named as a client on Hudson's website
- Mark PincusZynga founder named as one of Hudson's clients
- Stacy Brown-PhilpotFormer TaskRabbit CEO named by Hudson as a client
Topics
More from My First Million
Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerceSep 21, 2026 · 1 h 2 min
Whatnot co-founder Grant LaFontaine tells Shaan Puri and Sam Parr how a Funko Pop marketplace became a $20 billion live-commerce company.
- David Rubenstein: We took $5M and turned it into $500B
Sep 14, 2026 · 47 min
Sam Parr interviews Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein about building a $500 billion private equity firm, missing out on Amazon, historic documents and American history.
- Decoding Tony Hawk’s mindset in 72 minutes
Sep 9, 2026 · 1 h 13 min
Sam Parr and Shaan Puri interview skateboarder Tony Hawk about his early career, the 900, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater royalties, Birdhouse, investing and aging.
- How we scaled to $100M in under a year (ft. IM8 co-founder Danny Yeung)
Sep 7, 2026 · 54 min
Shaan Puri interviews Danny Yeung about building IM8, the David Beckham co-founded supplement brand, plus his earlier e-commerce and COVID testing businesses.
- I built a $2,000,000,000 business on vibes
Aug 24, 2026 · 1 h 16 min
Poppi co-founder Allison Ellsworth tells Sam Parr and Shaan Puri how a farmers market vinegar drink became a $1.95 billion PepsiCo exit.
From the publisher
Get Sam's guide to turn ChatGPT into your life coach: https://clickhubspot.com/edlv Episode 863: Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) and Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) get coached by Joe Hudson ( https://x.com/FU_joehudson ) on the mental game of being a founder. — Show Notes: (0:00) Intro (2:35) Limiting beliefs (6:48) Mind, heart, gut (8:20) The self-reliance pattern (14:45) Unkink your hose (16:35) Phrases that change your thinking (18:20) Visualize the negative outcomes (21:35) Most common fear of founders: homelessness (23:45) Tricking your nervous system with repetition (27:35) Avoiding conflict (32:40) How to address conflict (38:35) Abusive self-talk patterns (42:45) Is this stuff worth doing? (50:40) Experiments to try this week (54:45) Why bliss destroys you (59:35) Finding your billion-dollar purpose (1:01:00) What's the Illuminati like in person? (1:04:00) How Joe got here (1:22:00) Where you click matters — Links: • The Art of Accomplishment - https://www.artofaccomplishment.com/ • Descartes’ Error - https://a.co/d/0j1JxxLC • Tibetan Book of Living and Dying - https://a.co/d/0apYnAGF • The Inner Game of Tennis - https://a.co/d/0hy9hBRa • Listen - https://a.co/d/0gzKTFBy — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton (joinhampton.com): My community for founders. Average member does $25m/year. Many of the guests are members. Get after it...apply: http://joinhampton.com/mfm — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Shaan uses Mercury across all of his companies. you can too: http://mercury.com/ Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., Members FDIC • I run all my newsletters on Beehiiv and you should too + we're giving…
Summary, chapters and key points were generated from the episode transcript on September 27, 2026. Quotes are checked word for word against the transcript.