Is This The End Of The Pod?

Shaan Puri

Alright, we need to talk about this. The podcast is either gonna end today or we're gonna figure this out. Is that dramatic enough for you? Okay Sam, can we start? Can I start with an apology?

Sam Parr

Yes.

Shaan Puri

Can I say sorry? I was... let me check my notes. I was a little pissy yesterday, and you were on the receiving end of me being a little pissy. We had a fight, an argument, a disagreement, a lover's quarrel... I don't know what you want to call it. We had something, and I want to talk about it here. Not just because I'm a sicko and I'm like, "Oh, this is good content, Jerry Springer," but also mostly because I found it... I thought about it a lot afterwards. I found it kind of fascinating. At first, I felt really bad. I don't know about you, but I felt really horrible the rest of the day. So, without discussing the specifics, I want to talk about what I learned after that fight. Can we do that?

Sam Parr

Okay, yeah.

Shaan Puri

Okay, so here's the story. We got in a fight yesterday, and I wouldn't even call it really a fight.

Sam Parr

It's like every six months, there are just disagreements that we have to work through.

Shaan Puri

Exactly. And like most things, it starts off as a misunderstanding, turns into a disagreement, which leads to an argument. It escalates to a fight, and then it kind of de-escalates into a grumpy agreement. You sort of move on. Can I first tell you why I even wanted to talk about this?

Sam Parr

Yeah, do.

Shaan Puri

You know who J.J. McCarthy is by any chance? He's a rookie football player. He's a quarterback for the Vikings, so he's a rookie.

Sam Parr

Yeah, I don't know who he is, but I know the name.

Shaan Puri

Football... he just got drafted. Like any team that sucks, they draft a quarterback hoping he's going to turn the franchise around. He just had their first preseason game—not even in the season yet—and he threw an interception while he was playing. After the game, he's doing an interview, and I'm scrolling on Twitter when I see this. I'm seeing this after we have our fight. The interviewer asks him, "JJ, you go out there, you want to perform well, but you know you throw that interception, and I'm sure that didn't feel great. What was going through your mind, and how are you feeling after doing that?" This guy's response was epic. He goes, "What was going through my mind? What an opportunity!" The interviewer responds, "What? What an opportunity?" He continues, "Yeah, I mean, my success in my career is going to be based on my resilience. My ability to bounce back from mistakes. I throw an interception? What an opportunity to learn, to get better, and to improve." I was like, "Whoa, fucking mindset alert!" You know, I pride myself on mindset. I am a student of mindset, and when I heard that, I thought, "Wow, that was an uncommon response to a very common situation." I would say most guys are down on it, but then they'll lie and be like, "Well, I just... you know, next, we had to focus on the next play. Just put it out of my head and then, you know, just get better." But they're kind of bitter about it. This guy was so genuine when he said, "What an opportunity." I kind of had that same thought where I was feeling bad after a fight. I saw that clip and thought, "Okay, what an opportunity for me to learn here." The reason I think it's an opportunity for me is that we joke on this podcast—I'm generally super laid back. I don't really get easily bothered. I pride myself on having a good mindset, but of course, I'm a human being. I mess up, which is why when I get bothered, it's rare, and I suck at it. So, I wanted to tell you some of the things that I reflected on afterwards. I have like 5 to 7 thoughts. Can I just read them out to you?

Sam Parr

Yeah, and I might have a few as well.

Shaan Puri

So, the first point is that fights don't start as fights. What I mean by this is you never start a conversation intending to fight, nor do you really see a fight coming. The analogy I was using in my head was that a fight is like a forest fire. When a forest fire happens, the explanation usually given is that there was a bunch of dry brush or dead sticks on the ground. It's sort of this accumulation, this pile of sticks that nobody really clears out. It's not a problem until someone drops a cigarette on it. It could be something that you just squish out with your foot right away; you put it out, and there's no big deal. But if you don't put it out right away, that accumulated dry stuff can catch fire. It could become a wildfire and tear down a whole forest. So, that was my first observation: the debris on the forest floor is kind of like a hidden danger. It's a dog that’s not barking. You have to make sure that if a cigarette does drop on it, you're able to immediately put it out or clear it out ahead of time. That was the first thought.

Sam Parr

Which, by the way, the reason why that's very easy for you to say is that it's very hard to address. The reason it's hard to address is because a lot of times, people—particularly me, and I know you do as well—have this idea where you're like, "I don't want to ruffle feathers. I'll just go with the flow." If you do that too often, then you're like, "Shit, I've been going with the flow, and now I'm bothered." That's a very hard balance to implement: when do you go with the flow, or when do you say, "That's not my preference"?

Shaan Puri

Right, that describes it. Either I avoid confrontation—that's one reason to just let it go—but you don't really fully let it go, right? Like, 10 to 15% lingers. In my case, it's a lot less about avoiding confrontation; it's more that I don't want to let myself get bothered by something small, so I ignore it. I think I ignore it, but like 10% of it lingers. If you ignore too many things, that 10% can start to add up. If unaddressed, it's that stuff on the forest floor. Okay, so here's the second one: fights are natural. That was the second thought I had. I wrote down in my little diary here, "fights are natural." We've been working together on this podcast for four years. I can count probably three serious arguments or disagreements that we've had that felt uncomfortable to deal with. Maybe there have been some other ones I'm forgetting, but it's understandable. You work together with somebody for four years on a project; you're going to have disagreements. In the moment, it doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel natural. Logically, you know, "Hey, this is normal," but in the moment, it feels bad.

Sam Parr

And let's emphasize how bad it is. When I argue with you, or when I argue with Jordan or Joe, my other partners, it ruins my week. I hate that feeling. I think you are a little more comfortable with confrontation. For people like me, these Midwestern nice people who have been raised to just "swallow it," you just live life resenting others sometimes, or you just don't complain. I hate it. There have been times where I've had to fire someone, and I won't fire them for a year because I just don't want to have that conversation. I hate it. It bothers me. I wake up in the middle of the night...

Shaan Puri

It ruined my night. I was going to show you my... I'm wearing an Oura ring. I was going to show you my sleep score; it's terrible. I slept 3 hours last night.

Sam Parr

I woke up in the middle of the night at 3 AM and I ate 3 pieces of cookie dough from like a Nestlé's "Break and Bake" (whatever it's called).

Shaan Puri

Yeah, break and bake! Dude, I wish I had a break and bake; that would've made me feel better. I just woke up feeling **shitty**. The analogy here is in your diet. You can wake up feeling **shitty**—at least I do. This is part of my evolution from a guy with a horrible diet to trying to be better about it. I know when I feel **shitty**, and it's either because I just DoorDash Taco Bell, and that was just a bad decision, and I'm paying the price for that. But also, even if you do the right thing at the wrong time, if I eat a full meal at 10:30, it doesn't matter if I had grilled chicken and whatever. If it was a healthy meal, if I eat too late, I'm just going to feel bad. So, you could do the right thing at the wrong time and still feel pain. You could do the wrong thing at the wrong time and also feel pain. For me, this was surprising because usually, if I have a confrontation, it's a relief. I've been trying to avoid having it, and when I do have it, I normally feel quite relieved. But this time, I felt awful. I felt terrible. I couldn't sleep. It was such an unusual feeling for me, which made me think I didn't do it right.

Sam Parr

Alright guys, really quick. Back when I was running The Hustle, we had this premium newsletter called **Trends**. The way it worked was we hired a ton of analysts and created a sort of playbook for researching different companies, ideas, and emerging trends to help you make money and build businesses. Well, HubSpot did something kind of cool. They took this playbook that we developed and gave to our analysts, and they turned it into an actionable guide and a resource that anyone can download. It breaks down all the different methods we use for spotting upcoming trends and identifying different companies that are going to explode and grow really quickly. It's pretty awesome that they took this internal document, which we use for teaching our analysts how to do this, and turned it into a tool that they are giving away for free. Anyone can download it! So, if you want to stay ahead of the game and find cool business ideas or different niches that most people have no idea exist, this is the ultimate guide. If you want to check it out, you can see the link down below in the description. Now, back to the show.

Shaan Puri

So, that's probably relatable but not surprising. I'm going to give you some of the things that I found interesting. The first is about this guy named Dr. Gottman. Let's call him Dr. Gottman because I forgot his first name. Do you know who Dr. Gottman is? No? Dr. Gottman is the love doctor. Literally, this is a guy who studied marriages. His claim to fame is that he could watch a couple for 15 minutes having a conversation about something and predict with over 90% certainty if they were going to end up divorced or stay together. In fact, he had something called the "Love Lab," which was his research lab where he would bring couples in. He would say, "Talk about X," and he knew that X would lead into a little bit of a conversation. A little bit of resentment would come up, and he could watch how they handled it. In just 15 minutes, he could predict with 90% accuracy. By the way, if you let just a normal marriage counselor or an average person on the street watch that same 15 minutes, their accuracy was about 50%—just like flipping a coin. They had no accuracy, essentially. But this guy had 90%. Why is that? Because he had done this a bunch, and he was able to identify what the things to look for were that would cause a couple to break up. So, one interesting thing last night was I went down this rabbit hole of like, "What did Gottman say? What are these things?" He's got a couple of interesting, very insightful things. One thing he has is called the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." It basically is like, "I look for four things that if a couple does these four things, they are highly correlated with not staying together in the long run, low marriage satisfaction, and divorce."

Sam Parr

It's like the emotions of **contempt** and **resentment**. What were the other two?

Shaan Puri

Close. So, it's criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. Some of these were gendered. For example, men were typically more guilty of stonewalling, meaning when a wife brings something up, he just kind of shuts down. In his mind, he's like, "I'm not fighting." In her mind, it's like, "You're not even open. You're closing me down, and I'm trying to express something to you." But contempt was the one where, regardless of gender, if you did these things—like an eye roll or anything that indicates hierarchy, such as saying, "Oh, you're such an asshole"—that creates a dynamic where one person feels superior and the other feels inferior. Anything that indicates contempt is one of the worst things that could happen because it shows a lack of fundamental respect and equality in the relationship. He also had another concept called the "magic ratio." They would observe an interaction, and the way they did this was fascinating. Couples would talk for 15 minutes, and he would encode every minute. I think they divided it into like 18 signals in a minute or something like that. They had a specific encoding system for things like eye rolls, body language, and phrasing. All of these little nuances would be immediately encoded, and then they would have a score at the end. They would assess both positive and negative interactions, which were like micro-interactions. It didn't even look like they were having a huge fight—yelling at each other or throwing things across the room. Even in a normal conversation, he could get that indication. He said the magic ratio is 5 to 1. Every couple is going to have negative interactions; that's unavoidable. What's important is the ratio of positive to negative interactions. If it was 5 to 1, the couples would stick together. Below 5 to 1, you start to see a higher likelihood that the couples will not stay together. I thought that was kind of interesting. There are a ton of little micro things he has in there, like repair attempts. How do you deescalate? Couples that stayed together had a good habit of using humor, taking a break, or just saying, "I'm sorry, that was stupid. I shouldn't have said that. That's not actually what I mean. What I mean is this." This way of deescalating during a fight was a huge tool that was very useful. That was one thing I think I did poorly yesterday, which was that I was not deescalating well. I could have taken a break, made a joke, or said, "Actually, the way that came out is not how I feel. How I feel is really this." Instead, it was like sunk cost—like, "I said it now, I gotta defend it," which is such a stupid way to go. He's got this whole philosophy that I'm super fascinated by now, and I'm really excited to do a deeper dive on it. By the way, how cool is that guy?

Sam Parr

Yeah, he's great. I joke with my wife where I'll say, "Look, I've made my [point]? I am dug in. Okay? There is no retreating here. I'm what you call *dug in*. I cannot go back." And the reason I'm raising my voice is because that would mean that if I talk lower, it's [like] I'm losing the argument.

Shaan Puri

Right.

Sam Parr

And that is not happening.

Shaan Puri

You know, in UFC fights, I remember McGregor would always say, "We'll see who takes the first back step." He's not just trash-talking like, "I'm gonna knock you out." He would get in their mind, saying, "Let's see who takes the first back step." Because he's actually a counter-puncher, he wants the guy moving forward. So he put that in their mind: if you take a back step, you're a bitch. As silly as that sounds, that would describe my behavior in a lot of interactions.

Sam Parr

Yes.

Shaan Puri

Let's see who takes the first back step, which is not serving me well.

Sam Parr

No, I get in trouble a lot for it, and it's incredibly stupid. There are so many times where I'm like, "Shit, my ego won't let me retreat," but that is the right decision.

Shaan Puri

Right, let me give you a mechanic that I learned and wish I had yesterday when we were fighting. I once took an improv class in San Francisco, and the very first class, instead of teaching you how to do improv, the very first lesson was not "here's what you do," it's "here's what you do when you screw up." Because you're going to screw up a ton. You are beginners; this is hard. You are going to screw up a lot. So, the first tool we were given was... she was like, "When you say something that was stupid, or didn't make sense, or was not funny, and you tried to be funny, the weight of the world is going to come crashing down on you." And here's your solution: ready? "Whoop!" And she was like, "Could you all do that?" We were like, "Whoop!" And she was like, "That's it! When it happens, just go 'whoop!'" That just means to everybody, "Clear the slate! That didn't happen. We're moving on. We're moving past that. It was a whoop." I wish I had a mechanic like that in so many more areas of my life. A way to eject, abort, or pull out of a tailspin, like, "I didn't want to go this way. I didn't want to say that. I didn't want that to come across the way it came across." I needed a "whoop" to just be like, "That wasn't... let's wipe this slate clean real quick." Like an Etch A Sketch, just quickly shake it, and it's gone.

Sam Parr

Yeah, you would look really dumb if you did that. But I agree, that is a very helpful thing. I get in more trouble because of this thing more than anything else.

Shaan Puri

Right, alright. Another observation: **"My body keeps the score."** So I have this coach. He's an executive coach, which is like, you know, business strategy but mostly like therapy... thinking through... basically helping me think more clearly and be a better person. And he's great, and he has this stuff that he says that's great that I'm like, "I totally buy it." He has other stuff that he says that I'm like, "I get that you buy it. I'm not sure that I buy it yet." And one of the things he always talks about is like, "The body keeps the score."

Sam Parr

Have you read that book?

Shaan Puri

I've read the book, but I don't have back pain. I think it's more of a... it's literally like a back pain book, right?

Sam Parr

It's sort of... it's basically like the easiest one. Are soldiers who have PTSD? They see... they feel things physically. And I, frankly, actually don't remember the entire premise, but I believe it was: if you change your body, you can actually change your mind.

Shaan Puri

Right, so he'll ask me. He'll be like, "I'll say something," and he'll say, "Where do you feel that when you say that?" I'm like, "I don't feel like I said it from my mouth. What are you talking about?" He's like, "No, like is there a tightness in your chest?" I'm like, "Bro, I don't wanna do yoga. I just wanna say what's going on and then figure it out with a logical solution." He's helping me learn that I hadn't really fully bought in until yesterday when I felt terrible after our conversation. I was like, "Oh shit, I think he's right. I think the body does keep the score." I'm more of a believer in that woo-woo stuff, so that was another observation.

Sam Parr

What did you feel? Terrible because you felt that I was wrong, or because you didn't like the words you used?

Shaan Puri

I felt terrible because I felt like I did myself a disservice. I don't think I conducted myself well. I thought I actually had a good message. I don't disagree with any of my words, but I disagree with all of my delivery. What a shame, because what I did was a total net negative. I undermined my own message. I didn't express it well; it wasn't effective, and I made you feel not good too, because that wouldn't feel good anyway. The other lesson, of course, is that people don't remember what you say; they just remember how you made them feel.

Sam Parr

If it makes you feel better, I think your delivery wasn't as bad as you think.

Shaan Puri

That does make me feel better.

Sam Parr

Thank you, and I agree. I agree with your points; the points you made were not bad. The problem with having an argument with you is that you are quite logical, and you do make logical points. The other problem is that most people, myself included, are more emotional than logical. That's sometimes hard for you to understand.

Shaan Puri

Yes, and also to give myself a bit more blame here: I am like a firecracker or something like that. You can play with it, you can hold it, and nothing's going to happen for like 364 days out of the year. That firecracker is just easy to handle. But on July 4th, there's one day, like 5% of the time, where this fuse gets lit. There’s no warning, and it's explosive. So, that's what I think my problem is. I'm extremely tolerant and unbothered until the moment I'm bothered. Then, I become a big whiny baby, and I get really upset really quickly, more than I should. What I realized yesterday was, oh, that's just because I don't have many reps doing it. This is kind of a bullshit statement, but my greatest strength is that I have no weaknesses. I think it's honestly true in this situation. I'm so rarely bothered that when I am bothered, I'm poor at handling it. Whereas I think somebody who frequently runs into situations like this becomes more mature and has better tools to deal with it than I do.

Sam Parr

It's almost like, because you're pretty emotionally healthy, that is actually a weakness. You know what I mean? Because you don't assume that other people are broken or that their egos dictate things. Do you know what I mean?

Shaan Puri

Well, I think you're giving me a very generous benefit, but I'll consider that not just a compliment, but maybe something that might be true. Can I read you a couple more bullet points?

Sam Parr

Just... yeah.

Shaan Puri

Words I jotted down in my journal here: There are no winners in war. There's always a benefit to expressing myself and finding resolutions when there's a mix-up. However, once it escalates, there are only losers. In a situation like that, I think at a certain point, the conversation was productive, and then at another point, it became unproductive. By the way, we weren't cursing each other out or anything; I don't mean to make it sound like that. But just on a relative scale, it wasn't one where I felt, "Wow, that was super constructive, and I feel better about the relationship." It's like, no, I think we did some damage there. There were only two losers in that interaction. There was no winner and loser, which is stupid because when you argue, you kind of want to be a winner. That defaults to the other person being a loser in the interaction, but that's a false idea.

Sam Parr

Have you read Dale Carnegie's *How to Win Friends and Influence People*? Clearly, I should go and reread it.

Shaan Puri

I read the first chapter about people loving their name, and then I was like, "This..."

Sam Parr

Is great.

Shaan Puri

And I'm...

Sam Parr

Like, he has a famous line in that where he goes, "The most beautiful word in the English language is a person's name, so say it a lot." But like, right in the third chapter, like one chapter after that, he tells a story about how he was with this influential person who was telling him a story. The guy got a lot of the story wrong. He was saying, "This is a quote from Shakespeare," and Dale was like, "Actually, you know, that was Thomas Jefferson who said that." The guy who he corrected *fucking hated* him. He was like, "Don't correct me over this shit." The whole point is that when you try to correct people or argue with them to prove a point, it rarely ever works in your favor. Which sucks, because sometimes it makes you feel good to win an argument or to think you won an argument. But actually, more often than not, it's a shitty thing.

Shaan Puri

Well, didn't Lincoln also say the same thing? Like, "Never criticize." I always had trouble with that idea. I think in the book *How Do Infants Influence People*, it was like "never criticize." I was like, "Never?"

Sam Parr

Yeah, I'm...

Shaan Puri

Thinking you're like, "Never criticize," and I was like, "Never? How do you function with never criticizing? How do you... how do you pay accountability?" I... I don't... I still don't understand that, like... well...

Sam Parr

What he said in that letter, or in that chapter, was that Lincoln would do this thing where he would write an angry letter to someone. One time, he wrote a scathing letter to someone, but he didn't send it. The reason why he did that was because one time he talked badly about this guy, and the guy was like, "I challenge you to a duel," which was a fight to the death. Lincoln was like, "Dude, I'm not doing that. That's insane. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you." From that point on, Lincoln decided he wasn't going to criticize people ever again. Instead, he would write these letters where he would vent his frustrations and then just not send them. He found that it made him feel better.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, but we need to try that. I still don't fully understand how you do the "never criticize" thing, but I think they're right. Rarely does it do any good. Okay, let me give you a couple of others. **Everybody is the hero of their own story**, and convincing them otherwise is a fool's errand, myself included. I recently heard this when I was in Canada at Andrew Wilkinson's event. I was sitting at a dinner table with Chris Sparling. Chris is Andrew's business partner, who's more under the radar but a super fun guy. He's one of my, I don't know, top three dinner party guests. The guy is just electric at a dinner table. One of the things he said was, he brought this up: "Isn't it funny? I have never met a person who does not view themselves as acting... I forgot exactly how he said it, but like acting good, just no matter what they're doing." He said, "I think everybody, from serial killers on, views themselves as the hero of their story." They justify either what they did was right or the wrong thing they did was justified. He's like, "Isn't that crazy?" I was like, "That is actually crazy," and it was so true. I felt like when we were arguing yesterday, I was the hero of my story. I had done all these valiant things, you know, my protagonist moves. Then you were like, "Uh-huh, but I am the protagonist." As it escalates, you're the villain, I'm the hero, and you're like, "I'm the hero, you're the villain." I was like, "Wait, we are both idiots." That's actually what we both are. We're neither the heroes nor the villains in this scenario. But it was just a good reminder of, man, I'm guilty of that. If I'm guilty of that, everybody's guilty of that. I looked it up, and there's something called **narrative identity**, which is like the psychological name for this phenomenon. Even, you know, Hitler believed this about himself.

Sam Parr

And the problem is that then you go and ask your wife or your close friend about any situation. You explain it, and oftentimes they'll say, "You are right." But the reality is... you're probably not explaining the situation in a way where you can truly get wonderful advice. Do you know what I mean?

Shaan Puri

Right, well, there's another one I looked up when I was talking to ChatGPT about, like, what is the name for this? My friend Buddy and I just had this argument. What's the name of that syndrome? What was I doing, and what is that called? One of them was called **mistaken attribution**, and the principle was this: when I'm wrong, it's because of the situation; when you're wrong, it's because of your character. If you do that, it's a very unhealthy mindset to have or a bias to have. It's a **misattribution bias**, and we all do this. We think, "Oh, those things that I did wrong? Well, that's just because of what was going on in the situation." However, if you don't give that same benefit of the doubt to the other person—that their actions were situationally dictated and not from a poor intention—then you end up with the same problem as in investing. It's like, "When I win, it's skill; when I lose, it's bad luck." In the same way, in a fight, it's, "If I'm wrong, it's situational; if you're wrong, it's character. It's you. You just... that was a choice. That's who you are."

Sam Parr

Someone told me this years ago, and it kind of changed my life. I try to use it all the time, but I'm human and I fail. I failed on it a little bit—or a lot—yesterday. Basically, it's the idea that: > We judge ourselves on our intentions, but we judge other people on their actions. I try to remind myself of this constantly. It's another thing that's very simple but hard to practice. However, I think it's very important.

Shaan Puri

Truly, during our conversation yesterday, it was like, "Well, you know, I didn't have any malintent in this," right? Yes, I know that. And so again, I know that you had no malintent in what you did, right? You're like, "Yeah, of course." Well, we should have done that. To be like, then what the heck are we talking about? None of this matters at that point. What are you mad about? What am I mad about? How does this even make sense? If we both agree that the intentions were correct, then we could deescalate this down to, "Oh, we just weren't clear about X, Y, Z," or, "Oh, we had a miscommunication or misunderstanding. I thought you meant this; you thought about that." Oh yeah, silly mistake on my part, but I didn't mean to make that mistake. It's just a natural mistake, you know, because I'm not a perfect person. So I think there was a moment in there where we could have deescalated that, but we didn't properly do it.

Sam Parr

That's how every argument actually should start. That's actually what I'm going to do: **Can you explain your intentions?** And I'll explain my intentions. Then we'll break down the actions to see if there's alignment or whatever.

Shaan Puri

Right, I once argued with my wife, and then I had a training session with my trainer right afterward. You could tell I was a little off at the beginning. My vibe is usually "good vibes only," but I did not have good vibes that day. I was just quiet, and he was like, "What's up?" I started to explain the situation, and he said, "Oh, here, I got the solution for you." I thought he was giving me the solution to the argument, to the problem, the issue we were discussing. But he said, "No, no, here's what you do. When you're in that moment, just remember: I love you, right? You love me, cool? And we want to be happy. Alright, then we're good." He was just like, "Cool, then nothing else matters." What he meant was, "Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?" He said, "I have a lot of clients that are like you—Silicon Valley types, businessmen, you know, logical, left-brained thinker types. There is a desire to be right, and it is sometimes at odds with the actual outcome you want, which is happiness, harmony, cooperation, feeling good." If you remember what you really want—happiness, harmony, cooperation—you will realize you want that more than you want to be right. You will act totally differently. So just remind yourself of that as the argument starts.

Sam Parr

No, it's funny. We were talking and we were arguing, and 30 minutes in, your newborn started crying. Yeah, and when I heard that cry, it broke my frame. I was like, "I don't want him to be upset." Like, you wanna... Is there any... And I wasn't there physically, but if I were, is there anything we could do to like make him happy?

Shaan Puri

Like, can...

Sam Parr

We hug in front of him... I remember thinking, "I don't want this kid to be upset." Like, that's the only thing that's important. That's actually the important thing. It's like, "Oh, he's upset." That's unacceptable.

Shaan Puri

Podcast dads are fighting.

Sam Parr

I remember thinking, "Oh, let's tend to you." You know what I mean? It totally broke my frame. For some reason, making him not cry just for 2 seconds is significantly more important than any large business conversation. I thought that was kind of interesting.

Shaan Puri

100%. Alright, I have a couple more, and then we can stop, you know, hugging each other. So, I wrote a category: "What did I learn about myself?" I noticed that as I was doing this, my coping mechanism was like, "Oh, this research is fascinating. Oh, this framework is cool." I was like, "Alright, alright," but I'm kind of distancing myself from the cold hard facts of my own behavior and my own mistakes. I want to tell you what I wrote under "What I learned about myself." I said, "I made the cardinal sin." The cardinal sin in any relationship is measuring. I remember once meeting this guy, Stan Chabnowski. Stan Chabnowski is a very successful businessman.

Sam Parr

And Google.

Shaan Puri

Not Google, but Facebook. Yeah, so he first was an entrepreneur. He created, him and his buddy James Currier have been business partners for like 20 years, and they have a great business marriage. I was hanging out with Stan once, and he was telling me about what they did with Tickle and how they sold that for like, whatever, to, you know, like $100,000,000 just to Monster. Then they created this other company, this other company, this other company, and then Zuck recruited him. Zuck recruited him for like 10 years, and finally, you know, he went and worked with Zuck. He ends up running Facebook Messenger, and he's had an amazing career. I said, "One of the cool things was when he went to Facebook, I was like, how did James handle that? Now he's doing all the work for that. They co-founded NFX, this fund and incubator, and they are an accelerator. Now you're going and taking a job at Facebook. Doesn't that put some stress on the relationship?" He kind of laughed and said, "That's not an issue. We have such a strong partnership that it's great, and that worked out great." I was like, "How do you guys do that, man? Because I want to work with somebody for 20 years. When I think about winning, what winning looks like in my life, that's what winning looks like: find somebody amazing and just do projects with them for 20 years. Find a handful of people that I could do that with." He told me, "Oh, the secret is very simple. The first thing is turn it into a giving contest." He said, "98% of the relationships you are in are taking contests, meaning you're trying to get out as much as you can. You're asking, 'What am I getting out of this relationship?' That's the fundamental underlying question: what am I getting from this other person? What am I getting out of this?" You don't realize it until you get into a tit-for-tat scenario, meaning, "They didn't do this, so I'm also not going to do that. They did this to me, so I'm also going to do that to them." You get into this tit-for-tat contest, measuring, and basically, it makes the pie smaller. The beautiful thing about James is that he is constantly trying to figure out how to make our relationship pie bigger, meaning he's just thinking, "How do I give more to this relationship?" He doesn't measure, even when I'm not giving as much. He just gives. He just keeps asking himself, "How can I give more?" Because the beauty is that if you're with somebody who's wired that way and you start to do it too, your relationship pie grows like crazy. I remember hearing that and being like, "This is the way. That is the wisdom. That is the fundamental truth about how to do this." Tony Robbins has a very similar framework around four levels of love. One of those he calls the tit-for-tat thing; he calls it "whoring." He's like, "I'll give to you if you pay me." Basically, it's like, "I'll put out for you if you put out for me." He's like, "Most of us run around our whole lives whoring, and most of the relationships we have are there." That is the root cause of why you get into these negative patterns with people. In game theory terms, if every time one person even accidentally shortchanges the other, and then you intentionally shortchange back, and then they pick up on that and shortchange back, what are you left with at the bottom? Very little. But it is very common, and I think that was the cardinal mistake: I was measuring what I was getting instead of focusing on what I was giving and how do I give more. Because that's just who I am. Whereas what I was doing was saying, "How can I give so much? Because then I'm going to get back." That's fundamentally a measuring scenario, where instead it should just be, "I want to roll differently." So I think that was probably the biggest mistake I made, I think.

Sam Parr

Is that your list?

Shaan Puri

I have one last one, but it's a positive one, so I'll end on a positive note: **The best relationships are bigger than you.** My wife and I used to argue a bunch when we were dating. We actually ended up breaking up right before we finally got back together and ended up getting married. We broke up because I was like, "Dude, you're just upset all the time, and I don't really know what to do. Like, I'm just being me, and if that upsets you, we shouldn't be together." And she's like, "No, I'm not upset." I'm like, "You're upset. We're upset a lot. We're fighting a lot. This is too much. I don't want to do this."

Sam Parr

Do that. How long were you dating when you broke up? And how long did you break up for? Then, how long until you got married?

Shaan Puri

Okay, I think something like we were probably dating for **two years**, broke up for **one month** exactly, and then got back together. It's been amazing ever since, in an unbelievable kind of way. You know, most people are like, "Oh, people don't change." If my friend was in a relationship and I heard, "Okay, so y'all were fighting all the time, you broke up for a month, and then got back together," I would be like, "No, now I'm gonna be cool about everything." I'd be like, "Dude, come on, are you serious? What are the odds of that? What are the odds that it'll just all turn around?" And then it actually did. One of the things I would say is that it turned around like a **one-eighty**. Let's say it turned around like **one-thirty**, which was a huge improvement. Then, when we had kids, it became a full **one-eighty**. I told my wife the other day, "Dude, when's the last time we fought?" She said, "I don't know, but do we have time to fight?" I was like, "Exactly!" The best thing about kids is that both you and I have an unspoken agreement. First of all, we no longer doubt each other's intentions. I know you are trying to be great for me, and I'm trying to be great for you. We're not perfect, and that's okay. Second to that, when we do disagree or have an argument, we only let ourselves suffer for like **ninety seconds**. You were saying, "Dude, when I have a conversation like that, it ruins my week." It used to ruin our week, then it started to ruin our couple of days. Now it literally ruins just **ninety seconds** because we gotta be awesome parents. We have to function; we gotta go to gymnastics right now. Are we really gonna make this car ride uncomfortable? So, I said, "Dude, how about we just agree to let that go and get back on the good foot?" We've been doing that now for the last **three or four years**, and it has been amazing. It is a miracle. It is something I would not have believed. If my friend told me, "Yo, that's how it's gonna go," I'd be like, "Oh, you're bullshitting yourself." But I think the principle is that the best relationships have something that's bigger than just yourself in them. You can't really be selfish as a parent. Your selfishness goes down when you have kids because it's really about, at least for me—I should speak for myself—life is very much in service of them. I will give up so much I used to never give up for them. I feel like, in a way, the podcast thing is great for us because it's something bigger than us. Let's say we didn't have the podcast. I probably, after that last interaction, wouldn't have talked to you for a few months just out of, "Well, we don't have to talk, so why would I talk?" Whereas the podcast is like, "No, I gotta make this right," which made me think, "What can I do better?" This made me grow up and be a little bit of a better person today.

Sam Parr

Before you put a bow on it, let me say one thing. When we had that argument, or when I have any argument with anyone in business, this little thing gets in my head. Sometimes I'm like, "You know what? I don't want to do business ever again. I don't want confrontation." It's like when you're losing a board game and you just say, "Forget this game!" and flip it upside down. Sometimes I'm like, "I don't want any of it. I'm out. I don't want any drama." The reason I like reading history and biographies is that I'm able to see people I admire and some of the issues they've had. I've said before that "all great men are bad men." Meaning, anyone you admire who has achieved greatness—whether it's a president or a CEO—there are people who dislike them because they've had to make tough decisions, like in war. You might think, "That war was unfortunately good," but there are huge downsides. I think about how to do anything interesting in life, whether it's business or whatever, it involves confrontation and tension. A lot of times, that is such an uncomfortable feeling. But it's sort of like working out; you have to go through that discomfort to make your muscles strong. I hate it when it's happening, and I have to remind myself: "Don't burn it down. Don't walk away from everything. You can achieve what you want; you just have to go through some arguments sometimes." Let's say you had a company with 100 employees, and 26% of those employees are unhappy. That's a pretty good ratio. You have roughly 75% of people who are happy. But that means that every single day, if there are 26 workdays in the month, someone's going to complain to you. Do you know what I mean? Someone's going to complain to you every single day. What it does to you is it makes you think everything is bad. It's really hard to switch your psychology to say, "No, not everything is bad." I need to compartmentalize these two things. I've gotten better as I've gotten older, but that is a huge issue for me personally. I think it's an issue for a lot of people where they face some adversity. Typically, human adversity—like tension between people—is, in my opinion, the hardest and most common one. The reaction is often, "Forget it."

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I have that reaction.

Sam Parr

I have that reaction.

Shaan Puri

Super fast. I think even on the thing yesterday, I was like, "Oh, forget the whole thing." Not the podcast, but like the situation we were arguing about. I was like, "Oh, forget it. Who cares?" Even then.

Sam Parr

I do that all the time. I have to... it's a really hard thing to say. Is my future self going to be happy or sad that I made this decision in this particular moment? It's really hard to nail that down.

Shaan Puri

Do you also read the kind of history or biographies? Because it's like... the problem is 100 times bigger than your current problem. Whatever the tiff is with your wife or with your neighbor, or whatever it is, it's like, "Well, I just last night spent 4 hours reading about these guys who were shipwrecked," and... yes, you know?

Sam Parr

How they did each other.

Shaan Puri

Oh, okay. Problems are relative.

Sam Parr

I read for that reason too. It's sort of like when I used to box. I used to get my ass kicked in the morning, and I was like, "Oh, everything else, the volume's way turned down." I just got beat up, and it's okay. I don't mind. That's sort of why I like reading biographies. I also like reading them because I like seeing, "This is a normal feeling that I am having. It is okay." That is a cool thing about reading about these people. When I'm in these moments, I think, "Don't burn it down. Don't walk away. Don't do these things." It is normal to have this, and you have to accept that. In order to do anything interesting, conflict is part of that. Oftentimes, conflict or constraints is where beauty and art is created. Do you know what I mean?

Shaan Puri

Yes, 100%. That makes a lot of sense to me, and I think it's pretty wise, to be honest. Let me ask you a question: Have you ever heard the phrase "skill issue"? It's a slang term that comes from gaming. You might not be part of this subculture since you're not a gamer and you're not 17 years old, but one of the common internet slangs is "skill issue." What "skill issue" means is that when someone describes a huge problem—like they'll be on Reddit typing a whole thing about how this is bad, and this is hard, and this thing is out of my control—someone will just respond with "skill issue." I think it started with gaming, where people complain about the game, and then someone who's better at the game will just say "skill issue." Fundamentally, it means that there are so many things we describe as outside of our control or fundamentally hard or impossible that are actually a skill issue. Meaning, if you had the skill, you wouldn't be complaining about it. That's how I felt about yesterday. When I started reading the Gottman stuff, I realized, "Oh, skill issue." Disagreeing and arguing is a skill, and I have a skill issue. I am not as good at it as I could be. The reason why is that when I'm reading his stuff, he's got all these different words to describe things. I was reading his encoding of the arguments, and he mentioned "cross complaint." I was looking it up, and I thought, "Oh yes, he just did that. He did a cross complaint; that's what that was." That's why that didn't feel good. He said, "Yes, but," and I was like, "Oh dude, yeah, I did a 'yes, but' where I agreed but then undermined my agreement right afterwards with the next sentence I said." I realized, in the same way that I once read, "Intelligence is the number of distinctions you have on a subject." What that means is if you talk to Eskimos about snow, they have like 15, 18, or even 21 different ways to describe snow. We have one word for snow, but they have words for the snow that's a little bit runny, the snow that's really hard, the snow that falls fast, and the snow that behaves differently. They live in the snow, so they had to become intelligent about it. They had to create a vocabulary that described the distinctions because they mattered in their life, whereas someone who's not skilled and familiar with snow only has one word. In the same way, this guy was describing argument dynamics, and I realized, "Oh, skill issue." There are a bunch of words for snow that I don't know when it comes to arguing and arguing well. I think he's even got a book called "Fight Right" or something. I haven't read it yet, but I'm going to go read that. So that was the last interesting takeaway, which is, yet again, "skill issue." So many things in my life just come down to that. Oh, losing weight is hard? No, no, no, skill issue.

Sam Parr

I used to have this... friend in college who used to say, "The only way you get good at drinking and driving is through a lot of practice." I'm like, "You're a horrible human being, but you might be right." And that's sort of... that's...

Shaan Puri

Kinda like...

Sam Parr

This is kind of like this: you have to fight a lot in order to learn how to do it correctly.

Shaan Puri

Okay, well Sam, I'm sorry for all of those reasons that I just said.

Sam Parr

And it's mutual. You prepared this, so it's going to sound like you're... well, you are. It sounds like you're being the bigger person.

Shaan Puri

I definitely.

Sam Parr

The bigger man... and I want to let you know that everything is mutual. I feel like it sounds like you... well, it sounds like you're, in some ways, sort of acting as if you didn't blame me for anything; you only blamed yourself. I want to let you know that that's not actually the reality. You just used more words than I did. Your word count was higher, but that doesn't mean that the feeling is different.

Shaan Puri

Okay, I understand perfectly what to say.

Sam Parr

That's it. That's the pop.

Shaan Puri

By the way, we get to use the one-time and one-time-only YouTuber thing to do where it's like, "It's all over! I'm shutting it down. We quit. We're breaking up." It's the one time you could fake your own death, you could fake retirement, you could fake your breakup, and everybody wants to click to see the gossip. And then they, you know...

Sam Parr

It's the boy who cried wolf.

Shaan Puri

You can only do it once, but you get a hell of a lot of clicks that time. So I think we should use it this time. We should title this whatever... you know, "The 'Is This Game?' Podcast Is Over" or "Sorry Guys..." You know, "Sean's Apology" or like "We're Breaking Up: Here's Why." Some version of that.