Asad Shah is an aspiring stand-up comedian born in Pakistan. He moved to the United States when he was six years old and says he lived a sheltered and restricted childhood. He jokes that his parents were a little too religious (Muslim).

Now 29, Asad has been living in Los Angeles since college, which makes for great stories that he shares with great enthusiasm on this week's episode.

He's also very active on Twitter—his following has grown to 17k+ and counting. In addition to Twitter, Asad gives advice via his newsletter on how to make money, escape mediocrity and free your mind.

In this episode, we discuss Asad's stand-up comedy experience. He says sometimes you'll walk out on stage and the audience looks like they're mad at you for being there. But says even when you bomb in front of a crowd, you gain confidence. And for any aspiring comedian, he says having "stage presence" and comedic timing are more important than being funny.

We also talk about how his life in L.A. is different than that of other social media influencers'. He tells the story of going out to dinner with a group of "influencers" and feeling "some type of way" in his head. But says he's matured since then, choosing to focus instead on financial independence rather than any inferiority he may have felt a few years back.

I expected this to be an outstanding conversation based on what I knew of Asad, but this episode far exceeded expectations. Please enjoy!

Other topics discussed:

• Moving to LA

• Wanting to be famous

• What happened to masculinity?

• Worsening of inter-gender dynamics

• Decline of face-to-face interaction

• Role of modern feminism

• Thoughts on #MeToo movement

• Girl accusing boyfriend of being "rapey"

• What L.A. was like when Kobe died

• Aziz Ansari is awkward & has no "game"

• What financial freedom means to Asad

• Brad's Indian friends who don't like Pakistanis

• How the partition of India & Pakistan went down

• Rampant homelessness & tribal warfare in Pakistan