This Guy Is Richer Than Jeff Bezos & Elon Musk... (#425)

Shaan Puri

Alright let's do this what what topics you got today

Sam Parr

I've got a 1,000,000,000 of the week

Shaan Puri

a $1,000,000 isn't cool you know what's cool

Sam Parr

Alright, so I'm going to tell you some facts about this "Billionaire of the Week," and I want you to see if you can guess who this person is.

Shaan Puri

okay I'm game

Sam Parr

So, Steve Jobs' approach... One time, Steve Jobs approached him for advice about designing the Apple stores. When they discussed each of their products, Steve said to this guy, "I'm not sure if the iPhone is going to be very popular in 20 years, but I'm certain that your products are definitely going to be popular." That's one interesting thing about him.

Shaan Puri

intriguing okay

Sam Parr

He's had multiple tennis matches with Roger Federer. He lives in a 150-year-old castle. Last year, his company did $84 billion in revenue and $22 billion in operating profits. This is Mike. Give it away this year. His company was the 4th largest company in the world, and oftentimes he's number 1 on the list of the richest people in the world.

Shaan Puri

the louis vuitton guy

Sam Parr

the louis vuitton guy

Shaan Puri

what's the name rene I don't

Sam Parr

I know how to say his name because it's French. We're going to call him Bernie, but it's Bernard Arnault. I don't know if the "t" is silent. Sorry.

Shaan Puri

but it's it's usually not a hard t but we're gonna go with that

Sam Parr

yeah is that a hard t or is that a soft t I don't I don't know

Shaan Puri

bernie arnie you are the man so so steve jobs really went to this guy

Sam Parr

Dude, yeah, a lot of people really respect this guy. So, I'll give you a little bit about his background and some facts about him. He owns 46% of the Louis Vuitton empire, which is called LVMH. It's a multinational luxury goods conglomerate with a market cap of $430 billion. Oftentimes, he, Elon, and Bezos go back and forth, but he's kind of the odd man out because he dresses really nice. He looks like someone who owns Louis Vuitton would look; he has this black turtleneck and a nice sports jacket. However, he's been called, I believe, "the wolf in cashmere sweaters" or something like that because he's pretty ruthless but dresses nicely. Yeah, I'll tell you a little bit more about him. So, at 21, it's kind of an interesting background.

Shaan Puri

so denim fox right

Sam Parr

the denim fox yeah yeah yeah

Shaan Puri

I wish the the jork juggernaut is what they call it

Sam Parr

The dog and the Canadian tux—that's what I'm known for: the denim dog. So listen, at 21, Bernie joined his father's construction company after finishing his engineering degree. By 25, he was the CEO of the company. The company wasn't small at all; at the time, it was doing something like $10,000,000 in revenue, which is the equivalent of $40,000,000 now, and had 1,000 employees. Right when he joined, he said, "Let's expand." He started investing the profits in some finance businesses and real estate, things like that. Then, in 1981, he goes to the U.S. and starts expanding the business. Eventually, he specializes in townhomes, sells a bunch of them, and makes the equivalent of $75,000,000 now, which was $25,000,000 back then. I don't know what he made from it, but there's an interesting thing that happens. So, he's in a taxi in New York and he asks the taxi driver if he heard of the President of France. The taxi driver was like, "Nope, never. But I know all about Christian Dior." You know, Dior is a luxury brand. He started thinking, "Okay, so this guy, who's just a normal guy in New York, doesn't know who the President of France is, but he knows all about Christian Dior. Maybe I should explore luxury brands." So, he buys the holding company of Dior. He got inspired by that first taxi cab meeting. He raises a bunch of money, buys it, fires a ton of people, turns it around, and sells the other brands that Dior owns. It's a really good success and that's like his first big entry into luxury brands. Then, in 1987, he gets the idea to buy Louis Vuitton. He does the same thing: raises a bunch of money, buys it, fires a bunch of people, and definitely turns it around.

Shaan Puri

Louis Vuitton... a big deal. Was it doing very well at the time, or was it distressed? Christian Dior was distressed when he bought it.

Sam Parr

They both were distressed, but they were both brands. So that kind of brings us to the big question here, which is, I mean, Louis Vuitton has been around for hundreds of years, or at least a hundred years, I think since the 1800s. But they were kind of mismanaged. Have you seen that movie with, I think it's Lady Gaga? Lady Gaga, where she plays the wife of the Gucci guy and murders him?

Shaan Puri

I saw part of it yeah

Sam Parr

yeah you saw the trailer

Shaan Puri

movie to be honest with you

Sam Parr

Yeah, it was only Deese, but you know, I'm a big Gaga fan. So, it's like mismanaged. A lot of these family businesses have great style, but it's kind of like a singer managing their own career. Maybe the left part of the brain doesn't actually work well with business, but it works all the trade and stuff. So, it was the same thing where it was definitely mismanaged. He raises all this money and just turns them into an operation powerhouse. Then he starts going on a spree where he buys all this stuff. He owns all these brands. He owns, you know, I don't freaking buy any of this stuff, so I'm going to look like an idiot talking about it, but Sephora, which is a big makeup brand, Fendi, which is another popular brand, Bulgari, Marc Jacobs—like everything that a woman aspires to own, he owns a huge portion of that market. But I want to tell you about a few of the things that interest me about this guy. First, have you heard about him? Do you know anything about him?

Shaan Puri

I had only seen him because he's at the top of the rich list and he's, you know, LVMH. But I didn't know this backstory. So go on.

Sam Parr

So, what interests me about him is that I think Peter Thiel has this book called *Zero to One*. It's awesome! I really like reading that book, and it kind of had an impact on me. He talks about extreme personalities and having extreme results, all about an engineering culture, yada yada yada. But there's one part of the book where he lists out all the moats. He says you can have a secret that no one else knows, you could have a patent, or you could have technology that no one else has. But then he mentions there's this one moat called *brand*, and that's a huge moat.

Shaan Puri

and I think he's like I never understood brand so

Sam Parr

I don't wanna invest

Shaan Puri

in this

Sam Parr

There's one sense that he says, "This is definitely a moat, not for me. I don't get it. I don't understand it." I always thought that was funny because when a lot of tech people discuss moats, they talk about technology, network effects, yada yada yada. Rarely do they discuss brand. Well, this guy, Bernie, that's truly what he understood. He was like, "No, that's where all my margin is. I can create a brand. I'm going to create luxury goods. I'm going to get luxury margins." Not only that, it's going to live forever. So, Louis Vuitton, by the way, was founded in 1854. His whole thing was like, "In 10 years, there will be far fewer luxury brands. The ones that survive will be more important because people are getting richer and richer." If a brand has been around for 50 years, he thinks it can be around for another 50 or even 150 years. That's like his whole shtick, and I thought that was interesting. He has this rare combination of operational excellence and also good style and understanding of brand. Typically, this might be an overreaching statement, but a lot of times, these really rich people, like Warren Buffett, might be a little bit like that. He sees what a good business is and thinks, "Well, I don't care. This could probably last for a long time. Let's just do it. I can look at the spreadsheets and understand it." Then there are other people who are like, "This is a sick brand," but they totally mismanage it and aren't numbers-oriented. But then you have a guy like this who does a pretty good job of being ruthless, which you need to be in order to make the business hugely profitable and very successful. He also understands vision and some of these intangible things—basically, how to make things cool, which is very, very challenging. It's hard to have just that, let alone both of those features. So, I thought that guy was interesting, and he has a few interesting quotes. I'll wrap up with this: "Luxury goods are the only area in which it's possible to make luxury margins. For me, luxury is how do you create desire?" He also says, "I'm optimistic long term, pessimistic short term." So, interesting, interesting guy.

Shaan Puri

Here's another one. I think there's something about being rich without being famous. He has some quote like that.

Sam Parr

And he's not quite a recluse, but he owns this island in the Bahamas where he spends most of his time. Obviously, he flies private and is somewhat under the radar compared to Bezos, who's in the news with his, you know, new girlfriend and things like that. This guy's pretty low-key in his business. He owns all the voting shares and all that. When he dies, he always says he's giving 20% to each of his five children, and it's run like a family business. So in that regard, he's pretty low-key and out of the media mostly.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, okay. I can't really fully find it, but he had said some French phrase which is like "the only..." something about being happy. Basically, it was around the idea of wanting to be wealthy but not rich. He had some cool French way of saying it, but I can't find it off the top of my head here.

Sam Parr

well it'd be like it'd be a lot cooler if you did but that's alright

Shaan Puri

sure would

Sam Parr

Well, that's my "Billy of the week," dude. I have another weird internet culture thing that I was kind of relating to, like your engineers. I was thinking about this, and I think that what I'm about to say is incredibly not normal, but I think for you it's normal. It's incredibly normal for me, and it's probably normal for a bunch of our friends. So, I was thinking about this: I have this new researcher that you're trying to steal from me a little bit. I met him through a friend of a friend, but it all started on Twitter, the Twitter DMs. Without talking to this person—whether by phone, Zoom, or whatever, meeting in person—we just text, and we hire them. We do a business exchange, and you put a lot of trust in one another. I've realized I've done this like 20 times, where some of my best coworkers and some of my best friends, in fact, just started through internet culture. We very rarely exchange words, and we've done some relatively big business together, where we're exchanging tens of thousands of dollars a month, or we've invested in one of the companies or whatever. I've done it with the partner of my latest company, Joe. We basically were Facebook friends. Have you ever done it? Yeah, maybe only like six times, but we knew each other for like five years before we really talked a lot in person. I've done it with this guy, Diego, who I'm helping with his agency business.

Shaan Puri

I probably heard a funny story about you on this. So, somebody who's worked with you goes, "Yeah, Sam gave me the login to his Instagram or something like that, or to LinkedIn. I don't know what it was." And what is it that you requested back from this internet stranger, Sam?

Sam Parr

I asked for his social security number. I asked for his girlfriend's social security number. I asked for a picture ID of both him and his girlfriend, and a utility bill so I knew exactly where he lived.

Shaan Puri

The San Farr School background checks... like, dude, what is your plan? Okay, let's say, what is he going to do? Alright, let's say he posts something or changes the password. What are you going to do with this utility bill and his social security number? What is your revenge?

Sam Parr

Well, I don't know, but I know it's scary enough that if someone has that... I don't know, sign them up for a credit card? I would show up to his house for sure. I would show up.

Shaan Puri

to his house

Sam Parr

I don't know, but maybe it's scary enough that it worked. Have you done this? Have you done business with a bunch of... it's not anonymous people because you actually get to know them. But the internet, it's like a weird internet thing.

Shaan Puri

Totally, that's like very normal now at this point. Which is strange; it shouldn't... it almost feels like it shouldn't be normal, but it is.

Sam Parr

I don't think it's normal for most people

Shaan Puri

I mean, it just seems natural. I feel like I know these people. I see their writing, or I hear their podcasts. They email me a bunch of times, and we go back and forth. Then they're in my Slack, and sure enough, it's like, "Hey, you know, here's everything. Here's the keys to the castle." Once you get that, and once you're working together or doing things together, that builds even more trust. It just layers on. Then you meet them four years later, and you're like, you see them in person, and then you're like, "Nice to meet you." You know, you don't know what to say. It's like, "Nice to see your... nice to see your body." That's the accurate way to say it. Nice, nice to see your face finally.

Sam Parr

Yeah, like sick legs, dude. I'm okay not meeting these people. I like it how it is. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I enjoy these types of relationships.

Shaan Puri

yeah it's a feature not a bug right

Sam Parr

For sure! We have this one developer working on a project I have. He's in Hong Kong and he's in high school. He built this amazing thing, and I don't really know anything about him other than I want to work with him for a very long time. He sent me some of his work, and it was so awesome. I just realized this is super odd and also amazing. I don't think a lot of people realize that you can do business like this. I'll tell my family, and they'll think I'm crazy, but it's become so normal to me that I forget it's not normal among others, right?

Shaan Puri

Right, yeah, totally. I've also shifted a lot of my real-life friends to online interactions. I'm like, "Hey, we can hang out 10 times more through the group chat and through a bunch of these little apps or things like that." I feel like I get to know them better that way, almost. And, you know, ain't nobody got time to hang out in person anymore.

Sam Parr

And now we know why the birth rate in America is declining rapidly. But yeah, this is basically a thing that I do, and I thought I should bring it up because I don't think most people realize how some of that stuff happens. It's actually quite random how it occurs. If I see a 19-year-old who's impressive, or like a 21-year-old who's impressive, and they write well and are clever in my DMs... this sounds creepy, but I'm interested in giving them a shot on something. It's really cool how these little projects actually turn into pretty meaningful things after a while.

Shaan Puri

right yeah they're iybs interesting young boys and sam's got a list

Sam Parr

isn't that a michael jackson song pretty I o pretty iob

Shaan Puri

yeah pretty little things is

Sam Parr

what I rip no disrespect

Shaan Puri

Alright, I want to tell you about somebody interesting I met recently too. So, did we talk about Chris Sparling on the podcast yet?

Sam Parr

We have this great friend named Andrew Wilkinson, who has maybe close to a $1,000,000,000 empire. Chris is his partner in crime.

Shaan Puri

And I had never met him until we went to that event in Vancouver for the show.

Sam Parr

didn't really similar you guys are very similar

Shaan Puri

me and him

Sam Parr

you have similar some some similar parts of you

Shaan Puri

Yeah, for sure. A couple of observations I would say about him. I want you to tell me if you... because you've interacted with him, right? You've met him?

Sam Parr

only a couple times but yeah and we're both

Shaan Puri

Very interested in these kind of high performers. Especially in this case, it's a high performer who went and built their own island. Did they win in their signature way? I think that’s particularly what's interesting to us. Like, if somebody's just a VP at Google, I'm a lot less interested than somebody like Chris who basically...

Sam Parr

made their own path

Shaan Puri

I think he... you know, Andrew met him when he was working at a bank. He was like a banker—not like a cool investment banker, but like a "go to the bank, I need to write a check" banker. They started talking about cars because Andrew had driven up in a cool car, and they both nerded out about cars. Then they were like, "Okay, what's going on? What do you need? Are you getting a line of credit or whatever for your business?" Chris was like, "Yeah, I'm studying to be a CPA or I'm about to get my license to be an accountant or something like that." And Andrew was like, "Hey, you wanna just leave here with me and work with me?"

Sam Parr

you know chris told happened at the bank

Shaan Puri

He didn't say it like that, but he offered him a job. He said, "You should come work with me; I need help." At the time, Andrew just had Metalab, his design agency. He was doing well and had gotten to maybe a couple of million dollars a year in profit, you know? Let's call it, I don't know, 4 or 5 years in, something like that. But he hadn't started what became Tiny, which was acquiring a bunch of other internet companies. Chris tells the story, and here are some of the things that I took away from this meeting. One interesting part of the story is that he goes, "So my first day at work, I show up, and Andrew's not there. I'm just waiting at the door, and 30 minutes go by. Andrew's not there." Then, Andrew rolls up in an Uber with, you know, one AirPod hanging out of his ear or whatever. He opens up the trunk and takes out this giant box full of papers.

Sam Parr

oh no

Shaan Puri

He's like, "You're here? Okay, fantastic! Here's all of our papers for, like, you know, here's the business finances. I gotta go to a meeting and there's no office space for you. So, I talked to my neighbor; they have room in their basement. Just go knock on the door, tell him you're with Andrew, and like, there's a desk in their basement. Here's this box of papers." Then he's like, "Andrew left," and Chris is like, "Man, I made a huge mistake. Who is this guy? What is happening here?" He goes, he knocks on the door, and he's like, "Hey, do you have, like, a basement desk for me?" "Yeah, yeah, come on in."

Sam Parr

and then like when you see the guy with the hole in his boot you know you're there

Shaan Puri

Make him write the hole in his boot exactly. He's like, "So that's how it started." Then I go, "Okay, so then that time he's just doing Metalab." So what had this become? Tiny. He goes, "Well, we looked at the business and the business was good. The business was generating revenues, generating profit." I was like, "Okay, well, what do we do with this profit? What are we supposed to do? Should we reinvest this in some way into the business? Can we grow? Should we hire people?" He goes, "Oh, I don't know. What do all agencies do?" He goes, "Agencies hire a bunch of people and then buy fancy offices. They put a basketball hoop in the office, you know? They put a play pit in the office." And he's like, "Yeah, that doesn't seem like a good idea. We should not do that." That's kind of the only thing they agreed on: "Let's not do that." They go, "Well, okay, we can't follow agencies to figure out what we should do. How should we think about this?" And they go, "Well, look, we're a business that has clients. We have, you know, like a service team, and then we have some profits. Like, we are a boring law firm. Let's just pretend we're a boring law firm. Let's not try to be a cool agency. Let's be a boring law firm and not get too high on our own supply." Okay, so what could we do with these profits if we weren't going to try to just get flashier and flashier with the design agency? That's where they decided, "Let's buy a better business than our current business. Let's buy a business that has recurring revenues, maybe that is less service-oriented, more product-oriented, and let's use the profits from the service business to buy increasingly better businesses." So I thought, I liked that story, that frame. I enjoyed that.

Sam Parr

and and what was the first thing that they bought was it dribbble

Shaan Puri

No, that wasn't the first thing. I don't know exactly what the first thing they bought is, but honestly, it was probably another agency, is my guess. Regardless, that's kind of the start of their journey. I had never met Chris. Andrew talks a little bit about him, but you never really know what people are like. Here are my observations: Chris had the juice. It was very surprising to me that Chris had the juice because normally in these partnerships, there's like the outgoing face of the brand that everybody knows, and then there's the quiet, silent but deadly operational partner—finance partner, whoever partner—that doesn't really care about the spotlight and is usually more reserved. I would say most of that is true, but at this dinner, I thought it was remarkable that he was kind of like this. He was shy, but he still had the juice. I've never really seen that combo before. I think he would have rather just been at home reading a book, but he had this thing, which is like, "I'm at this dinner," so the switch is flipped, and he was super talkative. Not because he's Mr. Charisma or anything like that...

Sam Parr

he's like wise charm he has wisdom it feels like

Shaan Puri

He was, I would call it, honest. He would just ask a question, and if he said something, he'd be like, "Hold on, hold on. So is it like this?" Or he'd say, "But you're saying this. Is that because you think that, or is that because your parents taught you that? Why did you say that?" And he would ask.

Sam Parr

these questions that were

Shaan Puri

very pointed

Sam Parr

that's what reminds that's one of the ways in which you guys are similar is you ask those same questions

Shaan Puri

I do, and I was eating it up. I was loving it! I was like, "Oh, this guy's right up my alley." The other thing he did that was like me, but times 10, is he was like Mr. Framework.

Sam Parr

exactly you guys are the exact same way for that reason

Shaan Puri

I called about the dinner. I was like, "Bro, you have just named 14 different cognitive biases in one dinner. It's crazy!" He'd be like, "It's like the Streisand effect mixed with the... you know, the sucker's bias." And I was thinking, "What are you talking about?" He had just an index—an index of mental models. I was like, "Did you download Twitter threads and just memorize them? How do you know all this, and why are they so top of mind for you?" That's really how he thinks. He truly seems to think that way, which I thought was really interesting.

Sam Parr

Well, you know why. Andrew told me this. I don't know what Chris's story is, but Andrew said they were basically building their own companies and reinvesting the profits into their own things. Then they read the biography of Warren Buffett; I think it's called *Snowball* or something. After that, they read a Charlie Munger book and thought, "Oh yeah, let's do this instead." So, they started buying companies at work. I think Tiny's website says, "We buy wonderful companies." That's basically, I think, exactly what Buffett said, right at the last.

Shaan Puri

Tiny is just, "We buy wonderful internet companies." And then there was, "Yeah, but Berkshire just doesn't have internet in it."

Sam Parr

Right, and so they basically stole a lot of Buffett's really great ideas. Also, have you ever read a Charlie Munger book or anything by Charlie Munger?

Shaan Puri

yeah yeah for sure

Sam Parr

Dude, there are frameworks about everything. There's one called *Poor Charlie's Almanack*, I think it's called, and it's like 88 different frameworks. I started reading it and I'm like, "Dude, I need a story here." But yeah.

Shaan Puri

It was a very strange book. People say they love that book, and I'm convinced that anybody who says they love it hasn't actually opened it. Because when you open it, it's not even like a book. Have you actually opened the book?

Sam Parr

I read the whole thing and I I found it very hard to even remember stuff

Shaan Puri

to read dude it's like a little bit of your books

Sam Parr

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the table of contents, except it's long. It's a very challenging book to read. What I remember from the book, and then hanging out with Chris, is like, "Oh, you read a lot of Munger because you guys are sort of similar in that framework." Another thing Buffett does is he'll say things... I forget exactly how he phrases it, but he's like, "You know, why kill a mouse when we can go and shoot an elephant?" He'll say things like this or he'll create some analogy.

Shaan Puri

Picking up painters in front of a steamroller or, you know, doing these things. He might send that to me. We were talking about something, and he goes, "So is that like Damocles' sword that slays the beast?" I was like, "What the fuck are you talking about? I don't know what that is. What are you saying in English?" And he's like, "No, like you know the story of Dio, whoever. There's some Greek guy." I was like, "No, I don't know any of these things. What are you talking about?"

Sam Parr

Yeah, it's like, "Dude, I need an analogy for your analogy." But I've noticed that Chris, in the little bit of time that I've been around him, does the same thing. I can tell who he's read, and he's really good at what he does. I think he's also naturally like that. He just thinks in frameworks and analogies and things like that. He can take complicated things and make them quite simple.

Shaan Puri

Totally! I think he's really, really super curious, which I really respect about him. When he was asking questions, I felt like he wasn't doing it to make conversation; he was doing it because he actually wanted to know the answer. He was genuinely interested, and I think that comes off. I believe that is a huge saving grace for people. They often overthink how to be in social situations, and the easiest hack is just to genuinely be interested in the other person. Everything else will work itself out. That's how I felt about Chris, and I really liked that we had an interesting, different conversation. I'll share one little tidbit that can take a dinner conversation from surface level to a lot more interesting. I forgot who was talking, but it was the CEO of something, and she said something that caught my attention. I said, "Let me ask you a question. It's a little bit of a weird question, can I ask you?" She said, "Yeah." I continued, "What you said was really interesting just now, and it made me wonder: why did you want that so bad growing up? Whose love did you want more, your mom's or your dad's?"

Sam Parr

oh my god

Shaan Puri

And, you know, she immediately... it's like she's taken aback by the question. Then she kind of answers, and people open up about their relationship with their parents. It's kind of like, "Where'd that chip on your shoulder come from?" is really what this question is asking. I stole this from Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins asked this question, and I saw that in most of his live coaching sessions or whatever during his events. He had asked this question, and it immediately found the actual answer to the problem. Since then, I've kept this question in my back pocket, and I ask it from time to time. It's a very revealing question, hard to say without sounding just like pretentious.

Sam Parr

prick yeah did you have like your like glasses like in your mouth like yeah

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly! You got it. The tip of the frame, the tip of the glass, needs to go into the mouth. You have to be wearing a turtleneck. But if you do happen to have a turtleneck on, it is such a good turtleneck question.

Sam Parr

that's ridiculous and it worked

Shaan Puri

Oh, it worked! Then the whole table kind of shared their answers to it. It went from, "Alright, we can either sit here and go 1 inch deep," to, "We ended up 50 feet deep." I felt like everybody actually knew each other. After the fact, it was like, "So, what do you do again?" You're trying to remember. It kind of reversed the order of how most of these networking dinners go. I've been to a lot of these, and I appreciate something that can break out of that surface-level fluff that's not really that interesting.

Sam Parr

Dude, I was at this one dinner recently, and there was this younger guy who was a fan of our stuff. He was clearly learning how to interact with people. He was like an internet guy who had read "How to Win Friends and Influence People." The first thing he said to me and my wife was, he asked us, "When did you guys first have sex, and what was it like?" I swear to God, I was so frustrated. I said, "I'll answer your question, but you gotta answer mine first. How much money is in your checking account? How long is your dick? And what was it like when you saw your parents having sex for the first time?" He was like, "What?" I go, "Yeah, that's weird, right? I don't wanna talk about that. Don't be weird." He clearly had read a book on how to do this, and then he saw something you said and thought that would be a good idea. It wasn't. It was a total mess. Well, there's something...

Shaan Puri

that you gotta do right you can't just ask out of the blue

Sam Parr

oh he did

Shaan Puri

The only reason this question worked on ours was because when somebody's explaining the chip on their shoulder, it's a natural question to ask, "Where did it come from?" Then they give you some bullshit answer, and you say, "Alright, let me ask you a different question," and you dig in that way. You can't just go up to somebody and be like, "Hello, I'm Sean, nice to meet you. Hey, I was curious, what's your deepest, darkest secret?" Right? It doesn't really work like that.

Sam Parr

Yeah, it was weird, man. It was weird. It was one of these guys. I'm... it was horrible, but you pulled it off.

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Sam Parr

hubspot grow better wyatt what else you got

Shaan Puri

okay oh I'll give you one other chris little gem that that came out of the the talk somebody was telling a story about somebody else and and it was kind of a story that was like what do they call it like a romp which basically like a it's a romp like like a like it's like a it's like a tale about like your you you know you could tell a tale of like your drunken days and this the the the crazy thing that happened we almost got arrested then we ended up fine right it's like it's a story that doesn't have a lot of like it's not like a meaningful story it's an entertaining story and and so person's telling this story about like this business romp so somebody was like gonna get rich and then they like went almost went broke and then now they're okay and like you know whatever happened and he goes and and the the takeaway was you know that you know that person they said you know yeah they could've they could've sold the top and made a bunch of money but they said you know well if I had done that then I wouldn't have blah blah blah blah and he said something that has stuck with me which he goes do you think that's the right lesson to learn out of that and he goes he goes I wonder that sometimes he goes people always talk about like how the lessons that they're learning chris and he goes he goes a question I've often asked is like is is this person somebody who's learning the right lesson out of things and I thought it was so funny it was like a blunt thing to say and so I loved it already the second thing was it's so true I look around the people around me in life that I encounter and very rarely like if if like a lot of people have go through experiences and think they learn a lesson but if I was to measure like the hit rate of are they actually having the correct takeaway out of a situation it's shockingly low and I think that that is one of the greatest indicators of success is are you actually able to learn the correct lesson from your life experiences nobody's a 100% on that because we all have weird things where we'll blame other people or we'll glorify ourselves and not realize that we just got lucky we'll we'll do weird things like that but I realized oh I wanna only be around and work with people and hire people who are high on this score I don't really care how much experience you have but if you don't take away the right lesson from the experiences you were going that you have and that you're going to have your rate of learning is just gonna like it'll be a different rate or you'll just end up in some weird trajectory where you'll do dumb shit because you're taking away the wrong lessons from your life experiences and I've I just never heard somebody say that out loud and it really stood out to me and it's like and now I see it everywhere

Sam Parr

That's a really good question. I wonder if that is something that he came up with or if he was inspired by it. I mean, that's a hard thing. That's a really unique question.

Shaan Puri

It kind of came as an offhand comment. This one wasn't one of his frameworks or go-tos. I could tell he literally just asked the question because he was... because it was so... he heard. It was kind of like, you know when somebody starts a sentence and your brain is trying to fill in the blank of the last thing they're going to say? Then they say something totally different, and you're like, "That is not where I thought you were going with that." That's what happened in the story. It's like 90% of it kind of made sense, and then the last 10% at the conclusion was like some other weird conclusion. He was like, "What is that? Wait, that was the conclusion?" I feel like the conclusion should have been X, but you're saying their takeaway was Y? What? I don't even think he really meant it that way or that he put that much weight into it. But that was my golden nugget of that dinner: that one question. I literally can't stop seeing it everywhere now. Like, my kid does something, my wife does something, I do something, and I started to think back. I was like, in what areas did I take away the wrong lesson? I don't know if you think back in your life, can you think of an example where, if you're honest with yourself, it's like, "Yeah, actually, I kind of learned the wrong lesson." Did I even learn the right lesson from that? Was that the right answer?

Sam Parr

There's a few things, like you know that phrase "fail fast"? I used to believe that was cool, but then I thought, "I'd rather succeed fast." So, yeah, I'd rather not fail. How could I succeed faster than I fail? I remember thinking for years, "Well, it's okay, I tried something." But then I thought, "If I'm a baseball player and I take lots of swings but I don't get any hits, that's bad. That's not good. That's very bad." So the lesson here is I should swing and also have a high batting average. I remember thinking, "Oh, just shots on goal, that's all that matters." But I'm like, "No, I need to score too." For years, I thought it was okay to fail because I was like, "Oh, I'm failing fast, I'm moving fast, I'm breaking things," whatever. Then I realized maybe I shouldn't break things and I should actually succeed fast. I remember that change happened about five years ago.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, totally. I can think of a bunch of examples in my life where I've messed that up. But now, did...

Sam Parr

did you that's

Shaan Puri

not the case

Sam Parr

Did you learn the right lesson when you got roasted by some people for posting your private chef? Dude, you posted this picture of this nice-looking food, and people were like, "Dude, your blood glucose is gonna spike and you're gonna be so unproductive because you're eating rice." I thought that was pretty funny, all the hate you got.

Shaan Puri

yeah like also that wasn't rice

Sam Parr

whatever it was people were like giving you a hard time I thought it was pretty funny you only clapped back a few of them

Shaan Puri

There are three or four reactions. **Reaction 1:** So, what did I do? I posted a tweet that was just about a delicious meal. I was so happy to be having this meal that I said, "Best life decision was hiring a family chef." There were four reactions: 1. The predictable positive reaction, which was, "Oh yum, looks good!" 2. The predictable negative reaction, which was, "Hey, douchebag! People are struggling in the world, and you're posting this? Nice flex, you know, asshole." 3. The predictable next question, which was, "How much does this actually cost? What goes into this?" This is a fine question—no problem there. 4. Then there was just the random or interesting reaction. I think the person who had the right answer said that you should either just move on if it's not interesting to you, or if it is interesting, you should think, "Yeah, that's something I want in my life." Let me bring that back to the front of my brain as something that I kind of want.

Sam Parr

I thought that I thought it was very funny

Shaan Puri

I didn't even know I wanted that until I met somebody who had a private chef. I was like, "Wow, this is incredible!" So you're telling me that instead of them having to cook three meals a day, and they have a wife and kids, their whole family doesn't have to cook three meals a day, do grocery shopping, and do the dishes. They end up with a meal that doesn't taste as good, isn't as healthy, and takes up, you know, probably on average three to five hours per day. If you average it all out, including the groceries, the cleaning, the cooking, and all of it... But by the way, three hours a day out of your, like, you know, people only have like 16 waking hours, right? This is a really significant chunk of time per day. I was like, "Well, I saw it and I was like, oh, that's a goal that I didn't even know I should have, but I want that." I want that way more than I want, you know, a ski home in Tahoe or a fancy car or those types of things. Then, I didn't do anything about it for a while because I assumed, "Oh, you gotta be like a billionaire to have that."

Sam Parr

no you can get them for as cheap as maybe a a1000 a month maybe and then I was like oh

Shaan Puri

Let me do the math. How much do you actually need to do this? Then I did the math and I was like, "Oh, I think I can do this now." So, I just did it, and my life got way better. I posted it because, just whatever, it's Twitter. I didn't really think too much about it. But, you know, there is a benefit in seeing somebody make a decision in life or have something in life that is attractive to you. It brings it to your attention and makes you think, "Do I want this? Do I not? Can I have this? Can I not?" I think there's some value in that too. So, anyway, that's my story on the tweet.

Sam Parr

I thought it was pretty funny. I thought it was hilarious. I was frustrated you didn't like holler at some of these people. I almost started replying to them for you.

Shaan Puri

But I haven't decided if I'm a heel or a face yet. So, to use wrestling terms, I'm tempted to just be a heel.

Sam Parr

know like it's way easier

Shaan Puri

In the tight world, I would say, like, what's his name? The dude who loves Keith... Keith for Boy.

Sam Parr

yeah I called him out I I don't like that guy

Shaan Puri

Well, you don't like him because he's a heel, which is funny, right? You know, he basically doesn't mind pissing people off, telling people off, whatever it is. That's his brand. Some people are like, "Man, I love it! Scratch tells it like it is," or "He's funny." He must be, you know, he basically has his aura of "I'm better than you," like many great wrestling villains. He'll tell you how much you suck. Some people hate that; a lot of the majority of people hate that. Then there's a minority of people that love that and find him interesting. Either way, you can't ignore him. He's like a... you have to take a position because it's so polarizing. It's not just like, you know, vanilla. I would say you actually do a lot of what he does, where I don't think you think you're doing it. You're like, "I didn't say anything bad." It's like, "Bro, you put a question mark at the end of that line." When you put the question mark there, you're saying like, "That's a middle finger." You know that, that's not...

Sam Parr

a.

Shaan Puri

Do you know you're doing it when you're doing it or

Sam Parr

Not all the time, maybe some of the time, but I think I don't like... I'm kind of a stickler with language. I like using certain words. So if someone says something and they end it with a question mark (?), my reply will be, "I don't know if you're asking a question or if you're getting me to agree with you."

Shaan Puri

like I stupid or yeah

Sam Parr

Do you know what I mean? I just... it’s like I just like... or when people sensationalize things. Like, they say, "Well, this happens all of the time." For example, someone replied to you and they go, "I've been seeing a lot of this lately." My response would be, "Oh, okay, well, what are some other examples?"

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

do you like I I it's like I just don't like when you say this

Shaan Puri

I was like like what just curious like like what what are you talking about

Sam Parr

I'm a stickler with language. I don't like when people say, "This always happens," or "This never happens," or "These people are everywhere." I don't like phrases like that. Or when someone says, "This is so common that it's becoming an issue." I'm like, "Well, I actually don't think that it's any more common than it has ever been." Anyway, so I'm an asshole about that. Do you want to do one more topic?

Shaan Puri

yeah let's do do you have 1

Sam Parr

no I blew my load early

Shaan Puri

oh wow just all the way on birdie

Sam Parr

and the internet thing

Shaan Puri

but you think it is that I generate so many more ideas than you let's go let's did your mommy not love

Sam Parr

you or

Shaan Puri

your daddy not love you

Sam Parr

If we look at the three years that we've done this, I think it ebbs and flows. I think that each person goes...

Shaan Puri

on a chance dude

Sam Parr

Dude, each person goes on a 3-month run. Dude, 100%. I think you talk more, but I don't think that you necessarily bring more topics.

Shaan Puri

right right

Sam Parr

I think that but how much you

Shaan Puri

believe that but

Sam Parr

Thanks for your permission. When I was selling The Hustle, you carried me. When you were selling Milk Road, my shoulders got tired. That's all I'm gonna say.

Shaan Puri

these delts weren't couldn't come to nothing these are milk

Sam Parr

road cats

Shaan Puri

that's all

Sam Parr

I'm gonna say so I think it ebbs and flows

Shaan Puri

There was a guy who basically took every idea from the podcast and put it in a database. This is how I know I win. He took every idea from the podcast and put it in a database. He said it was 75% me and 25% you, but that's specifically on ideas, not topics.

Sam Parr

But that's maybe ideas... Yeah, yes. Like this Bernie guy, that's not an idea.

Shaan Puri

but come on

Sam Parr

that's that that's that's you're

Shaan Puri

Definitely the king of the billing of the week. I think you somehow know a bunch of these old-ass motherfuckers in different spaces. You find these guys. I don't know how you find these guys or how.

Sam Parr

you think of just wikipedia bro

Shaan Puri

Yeah, but like, why do they even get on your radar? You'll be like, "This guy used to own this coal mine, and then he bought the shoe factory." And then he owns, like, you know... Have you ever read the St. Louis Post? And I'm like, "Nah, you know he owns that." So I'm like, I don't know how you found this guy, but you know, more power to you.

Sam Parr

I just fucking bucks can I give

Shaan Puri

You okay? Let me give you a couple of ideas. I'm going to go rapid fire. I'm going to just empty the chamber here on some things that have been on my list. I have a D to C idea that I'd like to do.

Sam Parr

pass

Shaan Puri

And by "I'd like to do that," I mean I'm not going to do it, but I want to invest in and advise somebody who does it and is really good at it.

Sam Parr

wait do you still ever wanna launch an ecom store

Shaan Puri

I don't know. I'm torn. I don't want to operate it myself, but I do want to incubate them. I want to incubate them and hire a CEO that would run them, in theory. But that might also be difficult. So, I have a gut health one. Gut health is... this is nothing new. Let me just start this by saying, "Oh, bro, this exists." Yeah, I know it exists. Almost every D2C idea you've had exists. Gut health is a trend that is going up, up, and up, and it fits a sales model that really works with D2C. What do I mean by that?

Sam Parr

you mean you could just buy it over and over again you'd never know if it actually works

Shaan Puri

So, what works in D to C (Direct to Consumer)? A great D to C product is one that is going to be high margin. Can you get to 75-80% gross margins? Well, with supplements, you can get to 80-85% gross margin, so that's fantastic. The next thing that works in D to C is that it's a repeat purchase or it's a consumable. This means it's something that somebody's going to buy many times. They'll shop from you again and again because either they ran out, they ate it, they drank it, or, you know, the deodorant stick ran out—whatever it is. Unlike a mattress, you want something that people grow out of or it runs out of. So, you want a high repurchase rate. Well, supplements have that as well, and health and wellness products have that too. You want something that is a problem-solution fit. Basically, you want something that is not just a "kinda nice to have" fashion item. What works better, what sells better, is something that you can say, "Do you have this problem? We have the solution." And this is why, if you scroll down to the bottom of a New York Post article, you're going to see a toe fungus ad. Why is a toe fungus ad always there? Because guess what? People have toe fungus. It's a very easy problem to address.

Shaan Puri

People are looking for a solution and are willing to buy something that promises them it’s going to go away. So, it’s about the promise of a solution.

Sam Parr

Remember the best promise solution ever? Claude Hopkins invented the advertising for toothpaste in the 1920s. He said: > "Rub your tongue over your teeth. You feel that film? Now brush with our toothpaste, Crest. Now rub your tongue over your front teeth." That was the best problem-solution [advertisement]. It's easy to understand, like "Oh, I see exactly what you mean." Well, and this solves it.

Shaan Puri

Why that one's even better is when you get to be the one diagnosing the problem. You have way more authority, and you're basically creating a new problem category for people that they weren't fully aware of. This happened, and this is why I like gut health a lot. Five years ago, I didn't hear anybody talking about gut microbiome or leaky gut. I personally...

Sam Parr

leaky gut love that I love that phrase it's beautiful branding

Shaan Puri

I get a beautiful branding gut. I'm on board. I have a family member who's just like, "Oh, I'm super worried about leaky gut." And I'm like, "What?" Then she's like, "Yeah, I bought every book, I watch these YouTube videos, and dude, it scares the shit out of me." Now I drink apple cider vinegar, I do this, I do that. I'm like, interesting. Somebody just created a problem, taught you about it, and you might or may not have it. There's no way to know. It's a beautiful one, a bunch of solutions, and it was branded in this way that sounded horrible. I don't want a leaky gut.

Sam Parr

It's a... it's a... it's a speed. It's spooky, is what it is. It's a spooky phrase, just like "cleansing." It's like, "I'm gonna do a juice cleanse." Like, bro, I don't think this juice is like a pipe cleaner and that it goes through pipes. I don't know if that's how it works.

Shaan Puri

So, I bought this domain, **drinkguts.com**, and I have this idea for a brand called **Guts**. Guts is basically a drink that you consume; it's like a protein powder, and you drink it for gut health. It helps with digestion. A lot of people who are either constipated or go to the bathroom all the time can benefit from it. It helps with weight loss and sugar control, among other things. I think I can incubate this brand, and I just need an amazing marketing CEO. So, I'm looking for that.

Sam Parr

have you have you heard of olipop

Shaan Puri

I've heard of olipop I've drank an olipop before yeah

Sam Parr

So, Olipop is basically... it looks like a soda or a seltzer. It looks exactly like this. I'm drinking Spindrift right now. It's just like water with a little bit of fruit in it. It looks just like that, except it says "probiotic" on the can. Yes, which always turns me off, by the way. I'm like, "No, I don't want that good stuff."

Shaan Puri

turns me on probiotic dude you know who's antibiotic you

Sam Parr

Dude, I'm antibiotic. I'm not probiotic. I'm neutral in the biotics, at least, but I'm definitely not pro. But you know how to...

Shaan Puri

make about oxidants

Sam Parr

you're anti oxidants

Shaan Puri

are you pro oxidants dude

Sam Parr

I'm what was it Michael Scott say? He goes, "I wouldn't say I'm superstitious, but I am a little stitious." Olipop, do you know how big they are?

Shaan Puri

I think they're huge dude I see them in every grocery store

Sam Parr

a 100,000,000 + and they're doing a big one by the way

Shaan Puri

poopy or poppy you seen this one

Sam Parr

no what's the problem an even more

Shaan Puri

It's like a gut health soda or a probiotic, like LaCroix. I see that one popping up at Whole Foods now.

Sam Parr

dude when I think probiotics I think diarrhea like you're gonna do something to my poop like yeah

Shaan Puri

so they're gonna I think that's where the branding opportunities come in to to to fix that

Sam Parr

guts doesn't exactly help your cause here

Shaan Puri

I know, but I think it's a loud, splashy name that can be almost like so bad it's good. I don't think it's very trademarkable; I think that's the problem with it. But I kind of want to work with a designer just to make a fake P to C packaging of this. I kind of want to crowdsource this idea through MFM. So basically, I'm like, "Let's find a marketing CEO through this." I have a guy in mind. Let's get somebody from a design agency; let's make the packaging for fun and see what we could do. Somebody who's like a supply chain guy, let's go find the formulation lab. Let's just crowdsource this idea. I think that would be a great approach.

Sam Parr

Lot of fun! Here's something I want to test. So, what you're saying reminds me... We're in the 55th minute or something like that of this podcast, and you're saying something about a call to action. I'm curious how many people you're going to get. Last episode, or two episodes ago, we were talking about my Airbnb. I said, "You can see it at marathonranch.com." I just kept talking, and I was curious how many people went to the site. Do you have a guess?

Shaan Puri

I mean, I would guess it's low. I'm going to give you the homey guess: I don't know, 100 visits.

Sam Parr

So, we set it at minute 38 or something like that. Like, not in the beginning. It got like 3 or 4,000 views and nice. Not one... not one booking, by the way. Not one booking. Not one.

Shaan Puri

to be clear

Sam Parr

Yeah, one time I shared it on Twitter and it got 2,000,000 impressions. Not one booking. So, it didn't help me at all. But I'm curious, I bet you'll get maybe 15 qualified people messaging you. One time, you talked about this thing where you wanted a woman to holler at you for this brand you were working on. People started hollering at me to get to you. Like, four of them were Instagram women, like models, wearing thong bikinis and trying to reach me to talk to you. My Sarah saw my phone and was like, "Dude, this lady... what are you looking at?" I was like, "Check this out! This lady just DM'd me trying to talk to Sean." It was pretty funny.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I also like that you say "holler at" still. It's like, you know, staying tight when I think something's cool.

Sam Parr

how about dank I'm trying to bring dank back do you remember dank

Shaan Puri

I'm still writing TRL when I get home from school. So, you can just email me at **[email protected]**. I'll put it in the show notes, like in the description of the podcast too. I hired an assistant who just reads all my emails and triages them into buckets. That's like: **action item**, **needs a reply**, **read this**, and **in case you're interested**. Then she filters out a bunch of the crap.

Sam Parr

amazing that per month

Shaan Puri

I went from being horrible at email. I don't see stuff I should; I see a bunch of stuff that's trash. I forget to reply to things. I'll read it on my phone, think to reply later, but I never remember to come back and reply later. I had a horrible system. Now, shout out to my assistant, Dreya, who's helping me so much with that. It's like a literally overnight game changer.

Sam Parr

Well, I got an email from her saying, "Sean would like to schedule time to speak with you in Vancouver." At first, I was like, "What the fuck? Shut up! Are you kidding me? There's some grandpa?" Yeah, I was like, "Really?" And then I was like, "Okay, this is awesome." I messaged you and asked, "Where'd you get this person from? Very interesting. She did a good job."

Shaan Puri

Also, by the way, your call to action thing just reminded me. I think we should do two things for upcoming shows. I'm going to put it out there now: it's time for another "Drunk Ideas" episode. This is where we come up with ideas that only sound good if you're drunk. So, half-baked, kind of bad, but maybe good startup ideas. We should do that!

Sam Parr

long distance girlfriend the best one ever

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. A very long-distance girlfriend was an all-timer. The second one is, I think we should do our version of "The Bachelor." I think we should get MFM's most eligible guys and gals. Basically, submit your application. We need a photo. We'll put up a dating site, which is basically like... we ask a couple of questions, and then we take the best and present them on the show. People could reach out to them, and they will get a bunch of inbound messages from people who want to actually date them. Let's see if we can get somebody married out here. Let's see if we can get somebody to fall in love.

Sam Parr

The second time we've done that, by the way, we've had one MFM marriage. But did you before the MFM divorce? Yes, that's unavoidable, and that's not a joke.

Shaan Puri

we do it then we take it away

Sam Parr

Did you see when I did that on Twitter? I tweeted out like 10 of my friends who were single and...

Shaan Puri

yeah that's a great idea we should just do that because of it crushed

Sam Parr

it crushed alright I'll tweet that out after this

Shaan Puri

well let's just let's do this by the time this comes out let's let's make a landing page

Sam Parr

he he wants to do he wants to call it hot millionaires in your area

Shaan Puri

no we're not gonna call it hot millionaires in your area

Sam Parr

hot mfmers mfers

Shaan Puri

What can we call it? So, what should we call it? It could be maybe something with "singles." Maybe something with... let's see, what else? What do you mean?

Sam Parr

I don't know we we gotta get creative actually

Shaan Puri

no no no don't give up you could do this

Sam Parr

I don't know, we could change the word "singles" to "shingles." Is there anything there? Dude, that's the thing that's always at the bottom of the website. It's like "hot singles in your area," so just call it that: "hot singles in your area."

Shaan Puri

Too much competition on that name, dude. That's the most competitive term on the internet. It's gotta be like "MFM Most Wanted." But it's most wanted because, you know, they're wanted in a dating sense.

Sam Parr

yeah we we get it we get it

Shaan Puri

mfm's most wanted

Sam Parr

that's fine that's actually great that's actually great we're gonna do that

Shaan Puri

and then better than shingles

Sam Parr

It's, I don't know... I like changing words. You know, "Twitter Shitter"—it's classic. And then this month, Sean, we probably should do like a merch thing.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I'm working on it. I'm going all in on just creating great content.

Sam Parr

I don't understand what content has to do with merch

Shaan Puri

It's like merch is content to me, okay? Like, we're not gonna get rich selling t-shirts, but we can make awesome t-shirts that are like as good as great content. It makes you laugh, it's interesting, it's cool, it's fun. It's meant for fun, not meant to be like, you know, our Patreon.

Sam Parr

I'm down no offense to people

Shaan Puri

On Patreon? No, but y'all are little... *bitches*. Patreon is like certified small voice stuff.

Sam Parr

Yeah, dude, I don't want to be like... I don't want to have a patron. Alright, that's the pod.