The Man Who Fixes Problems for the Most Powerful People in the World

Rey Flemings is “The Man Who Knows What the World’s Richest People Want (and How To Get It),” and in this episode, he discusses what he’s learned about wealth, money, success and happiness while on the job, how he makes impossible tasks possible, and what it was like to try and smuggle ventilators into New York City during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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00:00 - Intro
01:04 - How Rey smuggled ventilators out of China
05:39 - What is Myria? (Rey’s company)
11:20 - The difference between being rich and being wealthy
16:24 - How the constant exposure of success impacts happiness
21:20 - The difference between a million and a billion
25:15 - How to rebuild trust in our society
32:04 - How your circle shrinks the more successful you become
35:44 - How capitalism has changed since 1776
42:42 - The questions Rey asks potential clients
55:35 - What stresses Rey’s clients out?
57:10 - How do successful people raise kids?
01:04:10 - Rey’s day of reckoning
01:07:07 - What is success for Rey?
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ABOUT THE KNOWLEDGE PROJECT
Like the mentor you’ve always dreamed of having, The Knowledge Project shares timely yet timeless lessons for work and life. Past guests include Naval Ravikant, Daniel Kahneman, Jim Collins, Angela Duckworth, Seth Godin, Melanie Mitchell, & Esther Perel.

[beethovenkasompe]

I don't know this guy, but I feel like he is someone I can connect so much with. The thought process and perspectives on tackling serious community issues are great.

[bilalfurqan]

I wanna personally thank the interview for asking amazing questions. This interview was cool of wisdom.

[sbzush]

Thanks for the interview. I would just like to point out a slight inaccuracy in reference to the sparker of the Arab Spring, Mohamed Bouazizi. He did not have any degrees. He had left school early to take care of his uncle and family and never continued his education.

Some media outlets falsely reported that he has a degree, some even exaggerated and said two, as Rey has heard. But all of that is inaccurate.

So, while the moral of the story is accurate (that working according to society's norms then not receiving the expected reward can be disappointing), the example of Bouazizi is not relevant.

[TaurusBaileyAttorney]

Great interview by great guy Rey Flemings

[BradKaellner]

The self-made billionaire is the apex of success in the US. It would be fascinating to hear from everyone who achieved it... was it worth it?

[tzc]

Lol this is a smart man, I like the idea of making kindness cool sexy and socially desirable a lot, society needs a real mental shift for positive change as this is the underlying basis for all things essentially. Now it is just convincing people who run these companies, and make business decisions, as well as governments that media and marketing shouldnt be purely to achieve a selfish goal lol. But i think the warren buffet point about human problems compounding faster than he can compound money also sums up this problem perfectly. No amount of money can change an underlying mental problem which persists then will consistently lead to other issues, reminds me of give a man a fish he eats for a day, teach a man to fish you feed him for life. The majority of the problems in the world are not financial ones, it is more psychological and mentality wise, e.g. fair resource allocation, greed, immorality, lack of empathy, material egotism, weakness of mind, and cooperation/the acceptance of differing beliefs etc etc fundamentally.

[espedale]

Great podcast, but you may need a new sound engineer. Ask your sound person if they understand the proximity effect. Rey's voice is booming!

[michaelshepherd]

Who is your sound tech? Please have them turn. The volume of the voices up. There are times I can barely hear you your guest most of the time I can hear you. I can barely hear almost completely, and I am in my car with it completely blaring and it is hard to hear you, had to listen five times to hear the words croissant

[tzc]

But one thing here also, when we look at the erosion of trust within society - who is primarily to blame here? If not government and media lies fuelling distrust and division, companies like facebook abusing privacy of citizens, all of these engineering society to maintain unjust status quos etc etc. The distrust has a cause, and these things are some of the biggest causes of this distrust within society. So it is semi ironic to come on as someone working for governments and probably in close proximity with these people, and suggest the same people who created these issues in the name of power, will happily just resolve them now. I would personally call bullshit on this for the majority of these people (elon musks aside).