GaryVee and Sam Parr meet in NYC | My First Million Podcast

Shaan Puri

How was the big stage you went to new york

Sam Parr

Yeah, so what I did was I went to New York. I originally went to meet with some advertisers of ours and to be...

Shaan Puri

on wining and dining or what

Sam Parr

Yeah, we... yeah, kinda. I'll tell you about it. Then I went to be on the Gary Vaynerchuk podcast, and then I went to be on... is his name Pomp? Yeah, everyone knows him as Pomp. Pomp, yeah, and Anthony.

Shaan Puri

papillano or something his his

Sam Parr

It was cool! I did Gary Vaynerchuk's podcast first thing in the morning at 8, 9, or 10 AM. When I got there, I was a little groggy from my flight because I took some medicine. It went okay; we'll see what happens.

Shaan Puri

gary hold on so you walk in what what happens

Sam Parr

Yeah, so I walked in. He has two offices in New York: 1. Hudson Yards, which I've been to before. It's buzzing. 2. This one was a studio. It's a little quieter but still pretty badass in Long Island City. I don't know if that's Brooklyn or not, but it was awesome, man.

Shaan Puri

and you guys know each other you don't know each other so this is like

Sam Parr

The first time... but we had... He knew who I was, and obviously I definitely know who he is. He knew who our company was. He was totally nice, and he was really low-key at first. He wasn't like "cocaine Gary."

Shaan Puri

yeah

Sam Parr

he was like

Shaan Puri

you guys do a little chitchat small talk beforehand or you just got into it

Sam Parr

Barely. So here's what happened. We sat down, and there was an audience of about 5 or 10 people. It was me and Adam on our side, and then he had an entourage. We sit down, and he goes, "Alright, go." He looks at me, and I was like... I looked at Adam and said, "Gary, I think you're interviewing me." He goes, "Oh, I am." I was like, "Right, Adam, is that right?" Adam looked at me and said, "Yeah, that's what we set up."

Shaan Puri

adam the safety blanket

Sam Parr

Yeah, and Gary was like, "Oh, okay. So tell me about who you are." It was good. It was great.

Shaan Puri

so he's a nice guy that's good to know

Sam Parr

yeah you know he's an easy target because he's so loud

Shaan Puri

yeah

Sam Parr

I believe the screen went off there. I believe that he is totally legitimate and a really good business person. I think his company, Vayner, is really, really hard to run. He said that he was currently the COO and CEO. But great business... or I mean, good business, and he's totally legitimate. He's like... because you can... like... but what?

Shaan Puri

what makes you say that salinas

Sam Parr

well you could put him in like the donald trump category of a guy who talks a lot and you're like I don't know this guy's the real deal

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

he's totally the real deal he just talks a lot

Shaan Puri

But what were the little tidbits that gave you that impression? Right? Because I believe that I don't... I'm not saying you're lying.

Sam Parr

So, whenever I go to the office, I ask them, "How do you like working here?" I always ask employees, including the front desk. I go, "What's your experience?" You can kind of tell if they actually like it. He has 800 employees, and the office space was really expensive real estate. There was really nice furniture, and everything was set up professionally. It's a real business, right? You can tell what's legitimate and what isn't once you go in there. In this Hudson Yards office, they had VaynerMedia bottled water. The office was buzzing, and everyone had nice computers. It wasn't a startup.

Shaan Puri

right felt like a legit operation

Sam Parr

Totally, 100%. And kudos to him, man. He's talented.

Shaan Puri

and you did the podcast you know rate your performance

Sam Parr

I gave myself a c +

Shaan Puri

okay

Sam Parr

And then, because I hadn't done any reps that day, I did a podcast later that day and I had a rep in.

Shaan Puri

it firing

Sam Parr

Yeah, and I was like, "Alright, I'm on it." It just fell a little flat. But Adam and his people said it was one of their favorite ones they've ever done.

Shaan Puri

Do you have a little prep routine you do before you get on stage or before an interview? How do you switch the light?

Sam Parr

Oh well, I typically will... you know how it is. Like when we're doing this thing, I was in a piss... I was in a shitty mood a minute ago, and these lights turned on and you're like, "Alright, I gotta... yeah, like snap out of it." And what I do is I talk to the receptionist or I'll talk to the Uber driver, just to like start getting [in the right mindset]...

Shaan Puri

get out of your head

Sam Parr

yeah get my words going and get in a better happier mood

Shaan Puri

yeah

Sam Parr

and that's usually what I do

Shaan Puri

okay

Sam Parr

is that what you do

Shaan Puri

No, like everything I try to... I study and come up with a framework for how to do it and a technique. So I picked up two things. I picked up one from Conor McGregor. I was watching this documentary...

Sam Parr

of him talk with a pencil in your mouth

Shaan Puri

Pen in your mouth... Yeah, so this, I tried it and it actually works fantastic. Basically, you take a pencil or a pen, hold it sort of horizontal, sideways, and bite on it so it's in your mouth, you know, sort of going out past your cheeks. Then you just talk for one minute. What happens is, because the pencil's there and your mouth's in this awkward position, your tongue has to really work to flick over and under this thing to get to the spots it usually goes to. So you end up enunciating way better. I don't know if it's placebo; I don't know if it really is like an actual warm-up for your tongue, but this works. I've recorded myself before and after, and I could tell the difference. I had other people listen to it and I said, "Tell me which one of these sounds better." I don't know whether it's placebo or not, but that one works for me. The other thing is like a quick physical change, so...

Sam Parr

like push ups or something

Shaan Puri

Push-ups, a wind sprint, a jumping jack, a scream, music... whatever. I am a big believer that the fastest way to change the way you feel is through changing your body rapidly.

Sam Parr

like it works

Shaan Puri

That's like a Tony Robbins-ism. Tony Robbins has this great YouTube video. If you just search for "Young Tony Robbins," you'll find it. It's the same guy, 25 years ago, in a tank top, giving a speech. He talks about how, before he gets on stage, people always ask him, "Okay, you're a public speaker. You do a really great job. How do you do it?" He responds, "Because I don't make the mistakes most people do." He explains that most people are sitting in a low-energy shell. Their body posture sucks, and then they just get up on stage without warming up. He compares it to an athlete, saying, "An athlete would never do that." He treats himself like an athlete. He gets himself into a mental and physical state. The second thing he does is not try to memorize what he's supposed to say. He believes that when you try to memorize your speech, you're preparing, but your mind ends up editing. It's comparing what you're saying to what you kind of remember you were supposed to say. This creates a whole other thing going on in your head that takes you away from the moment. The third thing, and this is the last one, is that before he goes up there, he convinces himself that the audience has to hear this information like their lives depend on it. He feels that he is there to help. He relates it to this podcast, for example. He thinks about how someone out there is commuting, and they have this idea they haven't taken action on. They might be beating themselves up about it or looking around at the five people they hang out with the most, thinking, "These people are not like me." Then, as they listen, they realize, "Oh, there are people like me out there." They think, "Yes, I should take some action, and yes, I should have some energy today." So, he convinces himself that they have to hear this, and that he is there to serve them. I was like, "Okay, yeah."

Sam Parr

just hearing that so

Shaan Puri

I do that

Sam Parr

just hearing that has made me

Shaan Puri

feel better

Sam Parr

There you go. Another thing that I did while I was out there is, on Sunday night, I tweeted out that when I fly, I take a lot of Xanax. It's the only drug I do; I don't do any alcohol. Sometimes, the night before, I'll take a little bit as well because I really hate flying. So, on Sunday night, I tweeted that I rented this Airbnb, which I did, and I'm going to host a meetup. I got 200 replies saying, "Let's meet up," right? I couldn't do that, so I only let 20 Trend subscribers come. The Trend subscribers are also not 100% of you listeners, or not 100% of listeners are subscribers, but all subscribers are listeners.

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

And they... so I met, I think at 30, ended up coming, and it was **fucking awesome**. It was so cool! This one kid flew up from South Carolina or something. I tweeted about the meetup on Sunday night. There was no preparation. All we did, me and Adam, was land, and on Monday morning, we went to the Mexican place next door and said, "Hey, can you bring over enough tacos for 20 people? Here's $200 or $300, and go buy some beer. We'll pay you more money." And that's all we did. It was awesome! These people are **fucking fanatical**. It is crazy. It's nuts. It's really odd.

Shaan Puri

who was the most interesting person

Sam Parr

So many interesting people... One guy, I forget his name (maybe he's listening), he was an older gentleman - the eldest guy there, which is not old, but in his fifties or forties. He built custom electric cars, and through the trends group, sold 50 cars to another company. **Electric cars**, yeah. Like he was making... they took a [regular car and converted it to electric, presumably].

Shaan Puri

they take a prius or a

Sam Parr

They took four... no, they took, yeah, they took some type of pickup truck and made it an electric delivery van.

Shaan Puri

oh wow

Sam Parr

For a cannabis company in LA, because who else did I meet? I mean, I met all types of people. One guy who sells fake boobs for a living, so he sells his...

Shaan Puri

name sell me more

Sam Parr

fairchild did this guy ever talk to you on twitter

Shaan Puri

no his name's fairchild hunter fairchild yeah yeah I see this guy on my twitter all the time

Sam Parr

yeah he his boss

Shaan Puri

he sells fake boobs really

Sam Parr

yeah his his boss invented like a better

Shaan Puri

dude what's in his bio because I've looked at this guy's bio and he's not advertising this so let's no

Sam Parr

It was awesome with Hunter on blast. I was sitting down with this girl, Aditi. Hunter came over, and we were just shooting the shit. We asked him, "Hunter, what do you do?" This woman, Aditi, she's nice; I met her before. So, Hunter said, "Well, I sell breast implants." We were like, "What?" We just started talking, and I asked him, "So, do you have a woman who comes with you and shows the buyers? Like, do you need sales brochures? How do you show that your implants are the best?" He was just walking us through this whole process. It was crazy! I had never heard of such a thing.

Shaan Puri

yeah me neither but of course

Sam Parr

he came up from virginia for this that's great

Shaan Puri

alright cool so you can do more of that or what

Sam Parr

Well, you and I need to do more. So what we can do is New York. That we could get easily... we could have gotten 200 people. Yeah, so we can do one in New York. I think Acast, or whatever we use, tells us where people are.

Shaan Puri

right we gotta go to canada we gotta go to utah when we shouted out utah the

Sam Parr

I know I still get more

Shaan Puri

A crowd of these friendly Utah... you know, citizens (whatever they're called, Utahns?) reach out all the time like, "Hey, when you guys are here, I got you!"

Sam Parr

so maybe like

Shaan Puri

and it feels good to be taken care of like that

Sam Parr

it does

Shaan Puri

it feels great

Sam Parr

maybe great hospitality what's what's month is it february yeah when you

Shaan Puri

end of february

Sam Parr

we we should do a thing where we could try to hit up like 3 cities in 5 days

Shaan Puri

right