How To Master Storytelling ft. David Perell

Shaan Puri

Alright, look, Sean. I don't want to toot my own horn, but *beep beep*! This is an interview that somebody else did with me. David Perel, who you might know online as "the writing guy," invited me out to San Francisco, and we did an interview for his podcast called *How I Write*. My episode is doing so well—so well! I have this little Chrome extension, and this thing is doing 11x. *11x* means it is 11 times higher performing than his normal videos. Something good is in this video that is doing 11x on YouTube, and it's all about storytelling. It's all about writing—it's stuff that a lot of people ask me about, but I'd never taken the time to sit down and talk about it. Well, David got me to sit down and tell you everything that I know about this stuff. I hope you like it! I was a little sick during the interview, but it was my *Michael Jordan flu game*. I came prepared, and I brought the heat. I'm really hyping this up, and it's because I'm excited about it. I'm really proud of this interview; it's doing really well. A lot of people are messaging me about it. So we asked David, "Hey, can we run this on our feed?" We took the episode from him, and we're going to run it on our feed. It's basically an interview where he's the interviewer and I'm the guest, talking about storytelling and writing. So if you like those two things, you're going to like this episode. Alright, enjoy this episode with me and David. *Story is a 5-second moment of change.* Whoa, what is happening? We want to work backwards from the emotion. The only things people will share are things that are *LOL*, *WTF*, *OMG*.

David Perell

wait it's all about here so like what should I do next time I sit down

Shaan Puri

To write, the real great writers I believe are great at framing their ideas. Oh, interesting! So, Mr. Beast, Steve Bartlett, Dave Chappelle, Hasan Minhaj—those are the people I try to learn from. You know, I could teach a 30-second master class; it's just this.

David Perell

Sean Purry is one of those guys that I really wanted to learn from. I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to tell better stories by listening to good storytellers. But Sean has really deconstructed the storytelling process. You hear people saying all the time, "Oh, storytelling is really important. You should get really good at it." However, there aren't many people who come in with concrete, clear frameworks like he does. So, this is a master class on storytelling. Come on in, it's time to roll! I said this to you when we first shook hands, but this podcast has probably led to the biggest increase in how much I've admired a guest and how that admiration has grown through the prep process. I just want to compliment you on that. In particular, there are a lot of things that you do really well in your writing that I'm not good at. This is one of those episodes where I just have a bunch of questions, and I'm here to make my writing way better. The place I want to start is storytelling. I have no frameworks for thinking about storytelling.

Shaan Puri

Before you do storytelling, can I give you a compliment on your compliment? Yeah, so, great compliment. First of all, it was very specific. But the second part is actually a writing tip. I didn't... the thing you said where you're like, "I started kind of going down your rabbit hole," and my, like, respect for you or whatever you said, like, my... whatever your score went up a lot during that process. I learned this from these two guys, Dylan and Henry. They're young guys; they were like 21 when I met them, and they were recording these videos. I was like, "How many views do these get?" And they were like, "Oh, nobody watches these." I'm like, "But you guys are really trying. Is it like someday somebody will watch these?" He's like, "Yeah, specifically we're creating a binge bank." I was like, "What's a binge bank?" And he goes, "It's when you basically stack material so that, like, even though each one of these, if we just looked at the view counts, it'd be kind of discouraging—like, not that many people read this or watched this—but they were like, we started thinking about it differently. Instead, we said, 'Alright, each one is not getting that many views, but I'm creating a bank where if somebody ever said, "I'm curious about this guy. I want to learn more. What is this guy all about?"' that in the next hour, you would walk out with, like, my reputation would be way higher with you, right? Like, you would feel like you know me, you would like me, you would respect me." And it changed the way I thought about that. Because I used to not... I used to be very results-driven. It's like, "Ah, if it's not immediately paying off, it's hard for me to get excited about it." But when I thought of the binge bank, I just thought, "Oh, I need to create this library that if anybody—like, if David's gonna do research—is he gonna spend an hour or two hours going down the rabbit hole? I need to leave a little breadcrumb trail that by the end, he's like, 'I love this guy. I'm all about this guy.'"

David Perell

Guess where I ended up? Guess what the final thing was, which was like the shebang of... alright.

Shaan Puri

I totally blog post that I probably forgot about as my guest it's like

David Perell

that 40 page pdf with all your main principles that was like the pool I swam

Shaan Puri

in for

David Perell

the longest and I ended up there

Shaan Puri

Yeah, who knows? But that's the... you leave that trail. I should probably do it better, but this idea of creating a "binge bank" is so much more valuable than a resume or a portfolio. It's like people will come knocking, they will get curious about you, and... give them a way to just binge your content like it's a Netflix show. After 2 hours, they should feel like you're *the* man. That's a goal I think people should have.

David Perell

so what do you do to do that intentionally

Shaan Puri

Well, the first thing is, like, you don't get discouraged by how small your thing is today. That was the first part. If you create something and the feedback loop is not quite there, you're either going to willpower your way to keep going, or you're going to be a very wise person and say, "Results take time." I'm neither of those things. I'm bad at willpower and not that wise, right? I kind of know that's the answer, but it's a way to trick yourself. The way to trick yourself is to say, "Oh yeah, this one thing doesn't have to go viral for this to be successful. This is for my binge bank." I know the idea of a binge bank is important. I want to have that as an asset that's there for me. So, what are the 10 things that somebody should go consume? I started paying attention to that and started putting that together.

David Perell

One of the things that you are very good at is that I feel like you're just good at learning skills, putting names to them. This is a good time to dive into the storytelling. I guess that you had this whole day where you're like, "Oh, I'm gonna go check out Aaron Sorkin," and he always comes back to like this one core principle. Tell me about what you've learned from storytelling, and then maybe even like the meta of how you learn new skills.

Shaan Puri

the storytelling is cool because you know I think everybody intuitively knows storytelling is a pretty dope ability and I look for this mismatch between things that have a lot of value but you're not taught or even better it sounds kinda lame to say you're working on it like if I find that I'm like oh this is a good one another example of that to me is enthusiasm anybody who's been around somebody who's like got high energy enthusiasm you like that person that's inherently like a it's a very likable trait of course there's a over the top obnoxious version but it generally you want to on the side of have energy have enthusiasm those are people you want to do projects with work with be involved with but nobody will ever be like yeah I'm practicing my enthusiasm right like I'm practicing this that sentence doesn't even compute so if there's a thing that has value that other people don't practice or try at and even better it's like almost taboo or lame to say you do it I've found that those skills are actually like premium skills to me because you almost like differentiate yourself in the marketplace storytelling is another one of those joke telling is another one of those like if you're like I am working on like getting funnier they're like are you trying to be a comedian no like you like funny people though right like of course everybody does whether it's relationships work content creation whatever you're doing if you're humor level if you're more humorous people will like it better nobody practices so it's like what do you expect just you know to magically happen like we kinda know everything comes to everything is downstream of practice so storytelling was one of those skills where I knew that I loved it whenever I met somebody who was a great storyteller I wanted to get better at it so then who's the best in the world at this right that's the next question one of the people that came to mind when I googled around was aaron sorkin and he's written you know famous tv shows I don't even west wing newsroom the social network movie it's great for writing dialogue and in these interviews he says this thing he's like they're like what's the key to storytelling like can you teach a like a 3 hour masterclass he's like I could teach a 30 second masterclass like it's just this it's intention and obstacle and he said it even better he goes I worship at the altar of intention and obstacle and I was like I don't even know what the hell he's talking about but the way this guy's serious about it tells me like I need to go dig in what is he talking about so what does this mean intention and obstacle is just at any given moment the the hero of the story whether it's you or someone you're talking about has to have a very clear intention what do they want and under that is like why do they want it how bad do they want it what happens if they don't get it right that's what goes into intention and then obstacle like who's in the way right so you know harry potter wants to live what's in his way voldemort's trying to kill him the most powerful wizard of all time is trying to kill him right intention and obstacle and basically if you watch if you read any story or you watch any movie you should be able to pause at any moment and just?

Shaan Puri

At the screen, just say, "What do they want right now, and what's in their way?" If you ever go like five minutes without that being clear, people will lose their attention and drift away. Once I realized that, I made it the central premise of any story. What I realized was that this was an incredibly powerful tool. It is the fundamental building block of storytelling. The more interesting thing, which we could talk about, is that it doesn't have to be life or death.

Sam Parr

Alright everyone, really quick. If you've heard this podcast before, you know that Sean and I think the most important skill set you need in business is **copywriting**. So, what we did was go through all of the podcasts that we've done—it's like 500 of them—and we found all the best copywriting tips, our resources, our frameworks, and our templates. We aggregated all of them into one simple document so you can skim it all and get everything that we've ever talked about with copywriting. It's in the link below. It's awesome! Check it out.

Shaan Puri

So most people think of it when... like the example I even gave was Harry Potter trying to live and most evil wizards are trying to kill him. Okay, cool. But you can shrink that down, and actually, you get bonus points when you can do intention and obstacle on a lower stakes moment. So, [for example] "I wanted a croissant and..."

David Perell

all the places were closed but I need my croissant you need your croissant

Shaan Puri

And the audience has to believe that you truly needed it. You’ve got to make them believe that you really want it. Ideally, because you actually do, right? You don’t have to fabricate the story; it should be real. I'll give you an example. I was at an executive off-site. My company had just gotten acquired, and I got put on the executive team of this now 2,000-person company. I felt a little out of place, as I had never worked in a company bigger than 20 people. I wanted to use storytelling as a crutch, as one of my tools in my toolkit. How can I use this to better myself? Alright, so we were supposed to go around the circle and share what’s been going on or something recent that happened that you want to share with the group—some kind of icebreaker. Every single person just did it in a work context. “Oh, we’re working on this thing, but then this person on my team had this problem or they quit,” or whatever. “Oh, we’re working on this thing, but then legal said this.” It was kind of boring, boring, boring. Then it was my turn. I said, “Yeah, recently I had a big moment, a big day.” [Pause to get people curious.] I said, “I just moved out of the house. I was young, right? So I just moved out of the house. I’m living in my own place. I’ve been living there for a year now, but I’ve never invited my mom over.” My mom’s in Badger, asking, “Why don’t you invite me over?” What she doesn’t know is I never invite her over because I don’t know how to host. She was always the host. If someone came over, I don’t know how to do adult things. People are kind of laughing, right? Because I’m like, I had been trying to get her to treat me like an adult, but the reality was, I’m not. I’m actually still a little boy, right? So I’m telling the story about how my mom comes over, and I decided to cook. I decided to cook Brussels sprouts—the most adult food there is. The problem is, I don’t know how to cook Brussels sprouts. So I’m doing it, blah, blah, blah, and I tell the story of cooking the Brussels sprouts. I kid you not, everybody’s entertained; they listen to it. And during the break, everybody made a...

Shaan Puri

To come up and be like, "Dude, that Brussels sprouts story is hilarious! That was so funny! What was that? What even just happened?" They kind of couldn't even explain it. For me, it was just another example of using storytelling, even in low-stakes moments, to actually build likability and fandom more so than the dramatic. "I was skiing and there was an avalanche." That's cool, but it's unrelatable, and actually, there's something fundamentally unlikable about it. I want to write, and usually, if I want to write something, it's because I'm trying to have fun. But I'm also trying to build an audience of people who like me, or are fans of me, or get customers who want to, you know, buy my product or whatever. I try to use likability for that. It was interesting; I was at a sort of...

David Perell

It was a very fancy dinner at a multi-billionaire's house. It was one of those dinners where everyone had flown in for the occasion. There was an Olympian sitting across the table who was a big fan of *Grown Up*. We were all going around doing introductions, and it was my turn. I was nervous; I really wanted to impress everybody. One of my childhood heroes was sitting at 9 o'clock [position at the table].

Shaan Puri

yeah we do a lot right

David Perell

And I, you know, sort of pumped myself up. I talked about, "Hey, this is what I do for a living," and I'm like, "I crushed it!" You know, man, everyone would love this. So, we're hanging out after dinner back in my apartment, and my buddy goes, "Yo, you did the worst job ever! That was a horrible intro." I was like, "What are you talking about? Every word to the bone! I had my one-liners ready to go. I crushed it!" He's like, "No, you were just trying to sound impressive. In a moment like that, you tell a funny story or you make a joke and you lighten the mood. You did exactly the wrong thing."

Shaan Puri

Right, yeah, that's first of all, a great friend to say that. Can we call that out? You're absolutely right. I learned this from Hasan Minhaj, the comedian. I was going to go on stage and I said, "Hey dude, you do this for a living. I don't know how to do this stuff." He goes, "You wanna... comedy is a low-status game." So he says, "You know you're going to be up on stage and you're nervous, so your natural tendency is going to be to puff your chest out to kind of project this false bravado." But he's like, "Actually, what you want to do is build connection with people. You build connection with people through vulnerability, through low stakes, through low status." Specifically, he starts his comedy special... I went and wrote it out to try to understand what he does. In his last comedy special, he starts out sitting on a stool, talking about how he and his wife have been trying to get pregnant and they haven't been able to. They went to a doctor, and he says, "The worst news ever, it was my fault. My balls don't work," basically. Right? Like, is there a lower status thing as a guy than to be like, "My junk doesn't work"?

David Perell

so it's just the way like that that word choice is inherently funny

Shaan Puri

Exactly. So, you know, he's obviously a master at this. I'm trying to learn from people who are in business. I don't try to learn how to be a better storyteller or better writer from business people. Why would I do that? I would try to learn from the people whose expertise is storytelling, writing, or entertainment because they're going to be the best at this. You know, Aaron Sorkin, comedians—those are the people I try to learn from. I think that was one principle that sounds like you learned the lesson the hard way too.

David Perell

how is storytelling different for you in writing versus speaking

Shaan Puri

it's not that different in general one of my biggest writing rules is write like you talk most people have this false thing we do I think it's from school like school kind of teaches you like they're like read shakespeare write these essays you know I need 6 pages 6 pages minimum you know double spaced you know all this stuff use a big vocabulary all the things that don't work in the real world you learn in school I think what school teaches you is basically just pretend like hey be something you're totally not that's what good writing is in the real world I don't think that's true I think you know good writing is simple good writing is easy to read good writing is entertaining to read good writing has a voice it's not just like this you know archaic sounding thing so anyways I you know one of the principles is write like you talk so if I'm gonna write a story I will actually say it first and then I'll just write down what I said that's like a starting. For me because for most people myself included if you sit down the like blank page you know of death is like the most intimidating thing it's very hard to even get started but if you are stuck and you just say okay so what is the story like forget the words what are you trying to say I'm trying to tell a story about the one time with the bus stops and blah blah blah cool what makes it interesting alright great where did it start what's the start of the story well sir it was when I blah blah blah and what's the end well the end was when this happened alright cool sounds like you got a beginning middle end you know what happened and you roughly hit the outline cool maybe that'll start writing and so write like you talk is an important principle and then the other thing is there are nuances that are different so for example in writing I'll use a ton of like parentheses because you can't do that in you can you can break the 4th wall basically when when you write but when you talk it would be like me saying so we were going this way you know we we always take that route right it's like a that's a parenthesis when you're talking when you're writing it's actually much easier to do but when you're talking you can use pauses a dramatic pause how do you do a dramatic pause in writing it's kinda hard to do you have to like use like line breaks or whatever right like you gotta try that so you some tools are a little bit different but I would say 80 to 90% of it is the same to me

David Perell

Have you learned anything about the pacing of a story? Like how you drag it out or compress it? Does that change for different platforms? How do you think about that?

Shaan Puri

Definitely! You know, I think another misconception is that shorter is better. Too long is too boring. Actually, anything could be any length. The general rule is that it can only be as long as it is interesting. If you can go this long, you know, a long blog post, but it's interesting all the way through, fantastic! That's the right length. However, you should always try to understand your level of credibility or buy-in with the audience. So here in a podcast, you can kind of riff. In a podcast, you could be like, "Dude, what?" You know, we could talk about something we said in the lobby or be like, "Oh, you just had Sam Altman on. Does he have a bodyguard?" We could just not talk about writing for 5 minutes, and that's totally fine. However, if it's cold traffic on the internet, you better have an amazing headline and a first line that's going to hook people and match what the headline was. You don't have that reputation with them. So if you know your audience's level of buy-in with you, you can kind of dance around subjects versus being very direct and immediate, trying to provide value right away to hook people. Right? So, you know, TikTok is a platform where you're swiping. If it's not interesting in the first 0.9 seconds, you're gone. So on TikTok, you see people right away trying to say a thing. On podcasts, you'll see people shoot the shit and build chemistry because people aren't going to swipe away from the podcast in the first 30 seconds. That's not usually how people consume podcasts. So you gotta know your medium, and you gotta know your audience. What's the level of buy-in you have? How do you...?

David Perell

You think about the hooks for a story... One of the things I've noticed with comedians, and really studied, is how fast they're able to build context. They can do it in like 6 to 8 words, where some people just go on and on and on and on and drones. That hook, how you bring people into the story, is **super important**.

Shaan Puri

I agree however I so what is a hook so a hook is basically it's the first thing you're gonna say it's you're trying to hook their attention great I think actually right now for for the type of person who's gonna listen to this you probably have studied a little bit of copywriting maybe or you've gotta pay attention to what like oh this person's blowing up on twitter what do they do oh they like you know they write their threads and the first line of their thread is like here's the unbelievable story about how this you know chinese immigrant took a simple thimble and turned it into $10,000,000,000 whatever so I'm like unbelievable sounding of a that you're like oh you have to pick it's like maximum clickbait right I actually think that hooks somewhat overrated underrated is frames so what's a frame so a frame is you take an idea an idea can be this big or it can be this big depending on the frame so I can be like you know what's this I don't have a good example on top of my head but we'll do one that we just talked about that hasan minhaj is a comedy thing right I told a little story about what he's doing in in his opening line so I could just say here's what he did at the start of his thing I could say here's what you can learn about public speaking from one of the greatest public speakers in the world hasan minhaj right so I could take the same content where I'm gonna talk about starting with a low status thing but I can put it in the frame of this is not just for comedians this is actually when you're at a dinner party and you're supposed to make an intro and you don't know what the hell to say this is how to not make an ass out of yourself you change the frame right and so I think that more important than a hook which is just like a grab you by the throat attention grabber is think about how you're gonna frame your ideas hooks are about the words you're gonna write frames are about the idea and how you're gonna make that idea relevant and how you're gonna connect 2 ideas that seem unrelated to be related the real great writers I believe are great at framing their ideas more so than like just coming up with that perfect one line hook thing that's gonna like you know just kinda trick the person into clicking

David Perell

Yeah, let's get super concrete here. So you wrote a super viral thread on Clubhouse, and this was the standard way to do a frame. It says: 1) Clubhouse existential threat #1: Time to value ratio Let's brainstorm, and you're like... jargon, fancy words.

Shaan Puri

no no no I wasn't me bragging that was somebody else

David Perell

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, I don't like it. It's like brainstorming with no storyline, and then it didn't do that well. You come in and you're like, "So everyone seems to think Clubhouse is the next big thing, but I think it's gonna fail. Here's how I think it all goes down." Yes, why did you choose that? So that...

Shaan Puri

If you compare the two, on your YouTube, you should put these side by side so people can see it. The other one was written by this guy, Chris, who created an app that was kind of like Clubhouse. It went super viral; it was called Secret back in the day. I don't know if you remember this, but it went super viral. They raised like $100 million. The founder sold some secondary shares and bought a Ferrari. It was the hit product for a very short window of time, and then it died. So, if anyone has the credibility to say why Clubhouse might fail, that guy was actually the one. The problem was he was extremely dry, told no story, and just used very, you know, 12th-grade reading level jargon. He said things like "Clubhouse's existential threat" and "the time to value ratio," which immediately felt like homework. Whereas my thing was, "Everybody thinks X, but I think Y." The most important part was, "Here's how I think it's gonna go down," not "Here's why I'm right." "Here's how it's gonna go down" is basically like gossip; it's a story. "Here's why" is logic and rationale. So that's kind of why I wrote it that way. The reason this thread got like 20 million people to read it was because I wrote it almost like a screenplay. I didn't say, "Here are the five problems with Clubhouse." I wrote, "You're the founder of Clubhouse. First of all, fuck yeah! You know you're winning. Everybody is talking about your app. Your app is cool. You know Kanye's in your DMs, VCs are throwing money at you." I set it up right: that's you right now. And already, if you're reading that, this is not how most business tech Twitter writing goes. Most business tech Twitter writing is an intelligence contest, and I was telling a story. So, you know, that's why I think it worked. I think if I had written it trying to be the 9,000 IQ guy in the room, it would not have worked.

David Perell

So when you see people say that "I'm writing now," and I'm like, alright, I'm not gonna do an intelligence contest. I'm gonna try to do exactly what Aaron Sorkin said: there's intention and there's obstacle. I'm gonna frame what I'm saying in terms of story. I'm gonna focus on the frame and say that my writing still is just like, "Yo, this is lame." What do you think is going on there that makes it feel dry or like it lacks a sense of momentum?

Shaan Puri

Well, in the same way that comedy is great, but not every line should be a joke, storytelling is great and not every piece of content needs a story. I think one challenge is that I wrote one piece as a story, and it did great. That doesn't mean everything I write online has to be like a screenplay or story type of thing. What worked in that situation isn't going to work in every situation. So, you’ve got to know the tools and when to use them. A hammer's not good if you're just trying to open a door; sometimes a key is what you need. That's the first thing: don't just force it. The second thing is that you probably need reps. I don't know, I've done this a lot of times; that wasn't the first story I've ever written. So if you're like, "Cool, I'm going to get better at storytelling," be prepared to tell 100 stories, starting with maximum cringe and getting to not cringe, right? It's going to take 100 attempts. Expect that it's going to take 100 intelligent reps. So, do it, and then for the next one, you have to be like, "What could I do better?" Oh, my hook was a little weak there, or, oh, it droned on too long, or I don't really have a...

Shaan Puri

Maybe this shouldn't have been a story; maybe it should have been something else. So, 100 reps where each one you try to say, "What's one thing I could do better than the last time?" Just one thing, that's it. Then you just keep going. If you could do 100 of those, then better stories will work. It's not going to feel forced because you'll learn the skill through those 100 reps. This is the MrBeastism of, he's like, "Everybody asks me, 'How do you do YouTube well?'" He's like, "I tell them all the same exact thing: make 100 videos, and in every video, do something better than you did before." It doesn't even matter what it is—just one thing better than before. Do 100, then come back and talk to me. Two things happen: First of all, nobody does it. They all want just some answer; they have no intention of actually going and doing the work. Then, of the few people who actually do the work, they never need to talk to me again. By the 100th one, they've figured it out. They're doing great, and they feel like they never come back for advice. That's why it's the perfect advice to give someone because it's true, and it saves both of us the hassle, you know, if you actually followed it.

David Perell

what did you learn from

Shaan Puri

storyworthy storyworthy is an amazing book by this like teacher guy who's like this 20 time storytelling champion of the moth story tell I didn't I didn't even know what this thing was but whatever if you're the champion of something I paid a little bit of attention he's got this book and in the book it's basically how to tell better stories I would say you know probably worth reading the book he's got one thing that I really took which was stakes so he's like every great story needs stakes meaning if the story is intention and obstacle but if you don't make it clear what's at stake for the for the person if they don't get it then the story is not gonna have very not be very compelling so you know when you tell a story let's say it's the and it doesn't have to be high stakes like it doesn't he he's actually very again he the other thing he says is like don't tell like he calls like vacation rops so it's like don't just tell a story about this great night you had this party because like nobody cares nobody wants to hear about your vacation nobody wants to hear about your cool college party you went to like just fundamentally those are bad stories the second thing is like a great story is not just I was swimming in the ocean and a shark hit me and I survived like it doesn't need to be extreme and again it's actually almost better if it's not but you still need stakes so how do you have stakes even if it's not a shark biting you off and his his answer was the stakes come from the emotion so as long as you believe that that other person was gonna feel a certain way then the story has stakes so for example if I'm trying to impress my mom doing the brussel sprouts thing embarrassment is what's on the line right like I'm gonna be embarrassed and my ego is gonna take a hit so as long as you believe that that's true for me the story will be entertaining when it's when I actually tell it when it's actually delivered the other one he says is he goes what is a story story is a 5 second moment of change woah what does that mean a 5 second so he's like you know everything that you tell in the story comes to this one moment this 5 seconds where the character is transformed you know just I use movies because it's easier that most people don't have like a big archive of writing in their head but like we've all watched the same shows and movies every rom com is like some version of the following the guy is a player and he's never going to settle down that's the start of the movie or she's a high powered lawyer who's doing great in her career but never made enough time for love that's always the start of the story there's only 2 rom com right like she was in love they thought she thought they would get happily married he broke her heart start of the rom com so well guess what the ending of the rom com's gonna be always the exact opposite of that if she was the high powered lawyer who never made time for love she's now gonna be in love and she's gonna actually quit her job as a lawyer and be like open up a bakery right like that's how the movie's gonna end or if he didn't wanna settle down and he was a player by the end he's gonna be chasing her and he's gonna like propose to her right he's gonna wanna settle down so spoiler for all romcoms ever and that's actually all movies ever die hard jurassic park you could do the same exercise watch the opening one minute the end is gonna be that character the opposite of his current lifestyle or belief system or habits you know scrooge hates christmas he loves christmas or whatever it's all every movie every story is the same so the heart of the story is the 5 second moment when they actually made the transformation when they switched and it's usually when they lost it all when they had the heartbreak when they hit rock bottom when they had no choice but to be brave because they were finally cornered like whatever it is right you know in batman when it's like he's in the cave and he's gotta get out and nobody's ever made it out I don't know if you remember this part of the dark knight or or one of one of the batman movies and the mentor was like only one person's ever got out he's like how did he do it he's like he didn't use the rope they're like may basically he jumped with no safety net and so the 5 second moment of change is the character climbs up the thing takes off the rope if he doesn't make this jump he's gonna die but actually because he was gonna because of that makes the leap and actually makes it that's the transformation moment everything is based all of stories yeah if you don't know what's the 5 second moment of change for the for the main character you don't really have a great story

David Perell

How does this apply or not apply to the story of a company? If I'm trying to tell the story for a passage, or you know, you think of all these companies... "Oh, we started in a garage, we had no money, this is what we believe." Right? You have Airbnb, you have the Obama O's [cereal], and then you have Brian Chesky who's going to the houses and he's taking photos with his own cameras. He's doing the hustle. It's like these founders really believed. So how do we take these ideas and apply it to what we're building?

Shaan Puri

the origin story of all silly valley companies is is similar so let's take airbnb for example what was the you know moment of change the moment of change the origin story of airbnb is we were broke jokes who had right the beginning of the rom com we were broke jokes not only did we not have a successful company we didn't even have an idea so like we were the worst situation for an entrepreneur no money no team no idea no respect no reputation no nothing right even worse wrong founding dna we were dull designers and the narrative was you gotta be an engineer to build a you gotta be a developer to build a a tech tech company and so well the moment of change was basically they I think they had no money like they didn't have enough money to pay rent or something like that so they the moment of change is basically one of them had a crazy idea to be like hey what if we rent out our space here for this there's a design conference in town what if we create a like a bed and breakfast for people who are coming because all the hotels are sold out the bed and breakfast we don't have a we don't have a hotel and they're like well we can just put an air mattress here and they laughed and they're like whatever and then 3 people came stayed paid the money and had a great time and they're like holy shit this might be a thing and then there's several holy shit moments right there's like we ran out of money again so we did the obama o's serial thing we they tell the story about when they were getting knocked off by a big by the sanwar brothers of rocket internet they were cloning their company and gonna kill them and he tells that story it's like we you know face this life or death moment and then we had to make a decision and we changed we went from being scared to being like all right we're going to compete with these guys we're going to beat them and that's the moment that's that's what the each of those micro stories is about the way I've learned this is you have what's called signature stories so your signature stories are the like the 4 or 5 stories that if I only could tell you these 4 or 5 you would know everything there is to know really about me so for example your origin story like for you with rite of passage what's the origin story like I'm assuming you didn't just create this because life was good you already were good at everything and and and you know there must have been some moment where you were like I gotta do something here

David Perell

will you help me improve my origin

Shaan Puri

yeah give me what it is right now

David Perell

Alright, so I worked this job at a New York advertising agency, and I was super intimidated by my boss. He's like 64, has a big beard, and he's just not a super welcoming guy. Super talented, though. I wasn't doing well in my job, and he called me into his office. I was working on a pitch deck for Bacardi, trying to be all impressive and stuff like that. I wrote in the pitch deck that the idea we had was going to be "epic." He was like, "Yo, that is not a good word to be using. You're not...," he said something to the effect of, "You're not in college anymore. We don't write like that here." Then, through writing that sentence, he started saying, "Hey, you really need to improve your writing. You're just not a good writer." I was like, "Well, you know, I tried learning to write in school. I don't even like writing! My whole job is writing, and I gotta get good at this." So that was in November. Then we go through December, and I get a raise. I'm like, "Oh my goodness, this is gonna be great! Life's going well." Then, on January 5th, seven months out of college, I get laid off. Of course, in my head, I'm thinking, "I got laid off because I'm not a good writer. Uh-oh, I gotta learn this crap!" But I don't even like writing. Then I'm seeing all these people who are good at writing, and they're just making moves on the internet and stuff. So I spend two to three years learning how to write. I start building an audience, and during that time, people reach out to me. They're like, "Hey, you're pretty good at this. Can you start teaching me how to do it?" I'm like, "Wait, I learned all these things on my own! I had to figure these things out out of desperation for how to learn how to write." Then that led into "Rite of Passage," and that's how the company got started.

Shaan Puri

Okay, great! So let's workshop that. Cool. Alright, let's go back to the origin. There's a beginning, middle, and end. **Beginning:** You're at the start of your rom-com. You're working in a job, and you said you're not doing so well. Your boss kind of embarrasses you, and you end up getting laid off. **Act 1** of the movie: I think to make that part better, you have the element there. **Act 3:** So we know Act 1 is going to be about not liking my job and my job not liking me. I mean, even worse, my job doesn't like me, right? The second part is that I'm not doing so well, and I'm kind of embarrassed and intimidated by my boss. Great! Super relatable, super likable. You have a moment where you got specifically embarrassed around the epic thing, calling you like a college kid or whatever. You're like, "Okay, hopelessness. Max Payne got laid off." Cool. I'm sure you had some feelings about that. **Act 3:** Now I get paid a million dollars to teach people writing, and I'm doing a podcast interviewing my writing heroes. They're like, "Dude, you're awesome! I'm a big fan." Okay, great! So we have the element of an amazing story. How do we actually make it better? Yeah, so the first part is your Act 1. You didn't focus on the pain enough or the attention and the obstacle and the feelings you had at that time. For example, you said, "I wasn't doing too good at the time," and then you're like, "But then I got promoted or a raise." I don't know what that is, right? You might also want to leave the promotion or raise out; it doesn't really add to the story and sends sort of confusing, conflicting messages. Right? Never let the truth get in the way of a great story. Let's sort of start with that. So why did you not think you were doing well?

David Perell

The company was constantly trying to figure out what to do with this person. I can't believe this happened, but he literally brought me into his office and said, "I need you to stop thinking like Jeff Bezos." I was like, "Can you explain?" He replied, "Do your job. You are a sales guy; focus on that. I don't want you focused on the future of media and where that's going." So, there was just a lot of tension there, and he and I never really got along that well. Right?

Shaan Puri

I think you want to... I bet you if you zoomed in, go back to the memory bank and remember any moments where you felt the opposite of how you're going to feel at the end. At the end, you felt really proud and you've accomplished and you've overcome. But at the beginning, you probably felt embarrassed, somewhat insecure, whatever. So, for example, if you were like, "Yeah, I remember there was this new guy that just got hired and I was training him. I was trying to welcome him and train him a little bit, and then he got promoted before I did." I was like, "I'm doing something wrong." Or, you know, at my performance review, I remember there was a category for pros, and he had like three words, and then cons or whatever, like "needs improvement" was huge. Right? A little anecdote like that I think will make it more real. What were the moments where, if you said, "I wasn't doing so well," that it really hit home for you? You know, something like that.

David Perell

Let me just wrap everything we've spoken about into what I'm gathering. It's the romantic comedy. I got my beginning, I got my end, and I want a perfect yin-yang between them. What I want is to build up to those 5 seconds of change. I want one emotion leading up to that change. That is the moment of tension where something pivots. Then I get to the end, which is the opposite. What I want to do is focus on intention and outcome, obstacle, intention, and obstacle. Thank you. So my intention is: I want to be good. I want to be good at my job. I want to be valued. I want to be respected. Actually, I could even bring it into like, I want to be a worthy human being. I'm in my first job, and I'm like, "Dude, you have no skills." So I have that, and I'm like, my job is about being a writer, and my boss thinks that I'm not very good. So that's my obstacle. That's sort of what I'm getting from you.

Shaan Puri

Right, yes, exactly. You nailed it. Now, let's go to the 5-second rule because what you said was basically some version of, "The beginning was pretty good, and the ending was pretty good, but the middle... you were like, 'So then I got laid off.'" Then I started thinking about, "Well, I want to improve my writing." It sounds like an arbitrary epiphany. Maybe there was a mentor that told you something, or maybe you read something online that inspired you. Or perhaps you had a long talk with yourself on a long walk one night and you were like, "You know what? Screw this!" There's probably a moment when you decided, "Actually, I'm going to get good at this." That's usually a very important part of every story. It was like, what triggered the turnaround? So you want to know that and then explain that part. Then you basically were like, "And then I got better, and then everything was great." It's like, "Whoa, whoa! What if you fast-forwarded the montage too fast?" What triggered the turnaround? And then what did you actually go do? Not in long specifics, but what's the first thing you started to do to get momentum? And then what was maybe some resistance you felt that you overcame? Because, like, you know the Pixar rules for storytelling? I don't know if you've...

David Perell

seen this 22 yeah

Shaan Puri

the most important one I don't know what the 22 say but I remember one which was something like the hero doesn't have to win the audience loves the hero because of the way they try and that was really important to me I was like oh that's right every underdog story is lovable because of how hard they try and if somebody just tries something and immediately it works that's not a very good story and you're not very like you don't feel good for them so you gotta say what you tried what resistance you felt and then how you overcame that resistance it doesn't have to be a long thing but you wanna make it feel real and the last thing I'm I'm kinda emphasizing to you that I think anybody can do in their storytelling is you're not saying what happened you're zooming into moments to explain how you felt with ideally some relatable visual or audio like moment so it's like I remember he said this to me and I'll never forget these three words he said you know like whatever some some sentence or I remember looking around and you know there was nobody else there like in tony robbins I'm a big tony robbins fan he does an amazing job telling his story and he's like I remember sitting in my apartment I looked in the bathroom and I was doing I had because I used to do dishes in the bathtub because my my dishwasher didn't work so I'd soap up the bathtub and he's all he's trying to say is I'm a loser I was a loser now I'm super successful why because I'm tony robbins and I figured it out and you can too but first he has to convince you that he used to be a loser otherwise the whole tony robbins shtick doesn't work so he's like how do I convince somebody I'm a loser I could say that I wasn't doing too well or I could say that I used to have to wash my dishes in a bathtub because that paints a picture of a loser he's like I remember I was sitting there he says I was sitting in my apartment and I didn't have any furniture because I didn't have any money so I just had this one chair like I didn't have a sofa I had a hard chair that I used to sit on he's like it was just a chair he's like and I remember the song was playing that was like there's some song where he's like I don't have a friend or something like that it's only me and my chair and he's like dude that's me it's just me and the stupid chair and he's like so I went for a run and he's like even though I hadn't run-in years I was overweight I went for a run and even even when my lungs were burning I was like no you you may be a loser at all things in life but you're not gonna lose this run and he tells the story and it's kinda inspiring when you're hearing this and he's just zoomed in to one moment that's visual that's audio that's a feeling and he's convinced you of that before state so that the after has some impact

David Perell

The two things that I'm getting at are, first, you can tell a story. A story is not a record of what happened. Absolutely, it is not just you saying, "This happened, this happened, this happened." It is almost this... it's transformation. It's a... oh, interesting! A story is just a change. The world was...

Shaan Puri

One way, and then it was another way. I was one way, and then I was another way. My company was failing, and then it was succeeding. All a story is, is just change. You only want to include what happened so much as it explains how that change came to be. It's not just a timeline of events.

David Perell

and then you're also really queuing into emotion

Shaan Puri

Yeah, how about that? That's what people respond to. In my writing course I used to teach, I had this one thing that I would say: you want to work backwards from the emotion. I learned this from a guy who used to be my intern or something like that. We hired him when he was 20 years old—Steve Bartlett. Today, a lot of people know Steve Bartlett. He's got a big podcast called "Diary of a CEO." He's built a company and done a bunch of things on "Dragon's Den." He's a famous guy now. I met Steve when I was 25 and he was 20. He flew from the UK and lived in our office; he even slept in our office because he wanted to work with us. We worked together for, I don't know, 9 months or a year or something like that. Steve was awesome in a bunch of ways, but he was obviously just a 21-year-old in a bunch of other ways too. The awesome thing I remember was when he told me something. He said, "I just think about what is Jenny in her bedroom gonna think when she sees this?" I was like, "Who's Jenny? What are we talking about?" He explained, "Oh, like if we're making a piece of content that's gonna go on social media, social media is Jenny in her bed, laying down, just scrolling, just swiping. This has to make Jenny stop, think something, and share this with her friends; otherwise, it's going nowhere."

Shaan Puri

In writing this thing or doing this thing because it created no reaction from the person they're just gonna keep swiping the world is full of infinite content we only stop at things that we have some reaction to and so I stored that away and then I heard it the same idea from another person this is how you know a good good idea the buzzfeed guy goes everything we do at buzzfeed is about debbie at her desk I'm like jenny in her bedroom debbie at her desk what's going on here he goes the most powerful network in the world is the bored at work network he goes all and buzzfeed was like growing like crazy at the time he's like buzzfeed basically taps into if someone's bored at work and they just want to like you know have a distraction for 5 minutes we want to make a piece of content that will distract them and get them to forward it to a bunch of other people who are also bored at work and that's the whole network is the bored at work network all right 2nd time I heard the idea then I heard the idea a 3rd time this guy chris quigley he ran a advertising agency that would make videos go viral and at the time I was like going viral is like a lottery ticket like how do you do a viral video I don't know it's just like something amazing must happen so I go what's your hit rate on virality like 1 out of a 100 2 out of a 100 he goes no like 8 out of 10 I go 8 out of 10 and he's like yeah look he showed me their their views I was like how do you do this he's like well you know over time the more viral videos you make you have like a base of an audience but he's like that just gets you like some people will see it but how viral goes is how much they share it he goes so what we do is we work backwards from an emotion he goes the only things people will share is things that are lol wtf omg aww he like all the acronyms for all the emotions so like oh my god wow like like like if it doesn't do that nobody will share it so he goes we first start with this is the desired reaction we have then we'll write a script or write a write a a blog post or whatever and then we'll go check do we think that's gonna create this reaction to somebody no alright let's juice it up how do we make it more funny how do we make it more outrageous how do we make it more endearing and heartwarming like whatever those are and so once I heard that three times I was like okay I get it I need to create a reaction out of the average person just in their bedroom or at their desk and I need to start with the emotion my target emotion and then work backwards from that write the thing that will create that emotion

David Perell

Yeah, it's funny because when you write, you're like, "Okay, I'm publishing this on the internet. A bunch of people are gonna read it, you know, get a big audience." So you think of all these people, but actually, you're just writing to Debbie in her bedroom or Sally at her desk. People consume your content alone. When you're writing, you are writing to one person in one place at one moment in time. You have to remember that because the nature of the connection you're trying to make is different. To double down on that idea, in a lot of our media environment, especially with a platform like Twitter, when you scroll Twitter, you're on the throne, you're on the bus, you're waiting in line, or you're with your friends, seven minutes late, thinking, "Come on, where the heck are you? I'm trying to make a reservation!" You're just sort of browsing, and your brain's only halfway on. If you can really first understand your own state when you're in that environment and then write to the person who's in that state, now you have a very keen sense of who this person is. You're writing for one person, even though if you're looking, you're seeing, "Hey, 119,000 impressions." Those are not 119,000 people at once, like a football game. There are 119,000 individual people at 119,000 individual instances in time. If you think like that, you communicate very differently.

Shaan Puri

yes perfectly said you're writing to 1 person at one moment in time that's I think a very good. And the other thing that this reminded me of is do you know this person miss excel have you seen this person yeah yeah so she for anybody who doesn't know she's basically like an excel influencer for lack of a better word she basically teaches people excel trick tricks but the reason she got popular she went on tiktok she started dancing while like putting an excel trick on the screen or a tip on the screen weird combo but it works I was reading some interview with her and they were like how do you create your content like what's what's your process and I was like oh I'm curious what her process is and she goes I don't she's like it's kinda weird she's like most people if you say what's the process and they're like consistency like wake up at a certain time start right away you gotta write every day you gotta post at a certain time you gotta do all these things she's like I don't do any of that she goes I literally first like just change my own energy she's like I work I she's like I'm kind of woo woo woo in that way but like I basically get myself into a peak state of mind like I get myself into a certain mood and a certain certain state of mind where I feel magnetic I feel charismatic I feel energetic I feel it's just like it's like a like a it's like literally like a science called energetics she's like I work on my energy and 2 things happen 1 ideas start coming to me much faster than if I sat down and said what are some ideas I need to post some content today and so she's like I just work on something that I say I let ideas come to me an idea will hit and as soon as it hits she's like I run to my phone hit record and I just do it she goes because I believe all content is just energy transferred through the phone it's my energy shifting to you my emotion that I've how I feel about this if I feel excited about this insight that I have or excited about this this tip that I have I wanna get you excited about that tip too and the best way to do that is for me to be there first and I think this is a very underrated thing for writers because most writers they're not performers all performers know this no athlete goes on the field without being warmed up and being hyped up no stage performer goes on stage just kinda cold and low energy but almost every writer starts cold and low energy and just sits there somewhat miserably and and there's even some weird glory from like this like I don't know this like pain that's martyrship of like how you need to be as a writer I think that's all stupid I think it's very similar to performing in any other way I think you should get yourself into a great state of mind and then have that energy and then sit down and write and let it flow and let that energy rip through you so that the other person who reads it is going to feel the same excitement you have about the insight or feel the same excitement you have about this plan or whatever it is you know you want that to come with it and a lot

David Perell

Of times when people write, they have this idea. They're away from the computer, like they're at the bar with their friends, on a walk with somebody else, or at Thanksgiving dinner. They're like, "Man, you know Auntie Diana? She has no idea what's going on in the world. That woman is crazy!" And you're so annoyed at like 11 PM at Thanksgiving. Then you try to write like three days later, and the problem is they're not capturing the energy that Miss Excel is capturing before she does the videos. People end up writing in such a sober state that their writing ends up being boring and sterile. 100%. That's the thing I said.

Shaan Puri

At the beginning of this podcast, I mentioned that I look for things that I think are important but that other people often overlook or would be too embarrassed to say they’re working on. This is an exact example of one of those. Nobody wants to work on their state, their energy. They don't want to. You know, Miss Excella does. She's like, "I'm gonna make myself magnetic before I make content." Oh, I like that! That's pretty cool. I don't...

David Perell

even know I don't

Shaan Puri

Even if you don't know what that means, if that sounds provocative, right? Like, "Okay, it's better than whatever the hell I'm feeling when I sit down to write." Okay, that's a new standard for me. I'm gonna do that. I think most people would probably, in their heart, believe that this is true: if you kind of got your energy right before you did the thing, it'll probably turn out better. Nobody's gonna do it, which is the best part. It's the arbitrage. It's how a less talented person like me could do really well.

David Perell

Wait, it's all about "Here Snap" the podcast. So, like, what should I do next time I sit down to write? How does this actually work? Where am I gonna dance? Do some jumping jacks? Like, what do I do?

Shaan Puri

Actually, do that. That's exactly right. State change is three things. **Number 1:** A radical change in your physiology. You could sprint, do push-ups, dance, or do 20 air squats. You could even dump your face into cold water. Whatever it is, it's the fastest way to change how you feel. So, do that. That's the very first thing. I have a friend who's a professional poker player. He does the same thing. Poker players are notoriously degenerate. You're literally sitting there in a casino, which is like the worst air-pumped environment. There are no windows, and you're around other degenerates all day. People are smoking; it's bad. He's like a monk. During a tournament, in the breaks, he goes to the parking lot and does wind sprints. He's not doing it to be a better runner or to increase his VO2 max. He's doing it because he wants to make a better decision when he gets back to the table. He knows he makes better decisions when he changes his state, and that's part of his edge. That's why he's been a European poker champion and a tour champion for several years. **The second thing** is a change in your focus. What are you even focused on? The way I imagine it is that I have this laser beam of focus. I don't know if this is true, but it's what I've convinced myself. If I just turn my attention to this, I will crush it. This will be amazing. If I put 100% of my focus on this podcast right now, this podcast doesn't stand a chance. The only limit to me is just where I'm pointing the beam.

Shaan Puri

It in five different places or whatever, that's going to be a problem. This also works with, like, if you have to write something and there's a deadline. If your focus is on the deadline, it's the wrong place to focus. If your focus is on how hard it is for you to do something, if you're focused on how hard it is, it's not a good place to focus. You need to focus on the thing you want. So, you know, don't focus on the wall where you're trying not to crash; turn right. Basically, focus on where you're turning. And then the last one is basically your story. So what's the story you tell yourself? We all have some story that we tell ourselves, and if you improve the story, you'll change the state of mind that you have. So if I go into the store, if I go into this podcast right now and my story is, "I'm just doing a favor to David. I'm just doing this. Oh man, like, you know, I had to drive an hour to come here, and you know, this means I'm not going to be able to do this thing," that's the wrong story. Obviously, I'm not going to perform very well. I'm not going to be in a peak state. Whereas if my story was, "There's going to be someone who listens, one person, one person who's listening to this podcast, and they're going to hear one thing that I say, one story, and they're going to be like, 'Wow, I can't unhear that. That was amazing,' and that person's going to go and do amazing things. So they're going to write me a letter one day and be like, 'Dude, that podcast you did changed my life,'" I'm going to approach this podcast differently. The different words will come out of my mouth if my story about what's happening is different. So similarly, if you want to basically change your state: physiology first, focus second, story third. Nice one of...

David Perell

The moments I had around story that I thought were really revealing were when I was working with a coach. We were talking about my writing, and I was in a slump. I was down and...

Shaan Puri

what's a writing slump what does that mean

David Perell

I just wasn't vibing. I wasn't feeling it, and I just wasn't proud of the stuff that I was doing. I couldn't get inspired. He said, "Well, what is it that you want?" I replied, "Well, you know, I used to write these long-form pieces that I was really proud of. What I want is to be a creative force. I want to be a creative force; that's what I'm going for." So, I sit down to write, and I'm like, "I want to be a creative force. That's what I'm all about." He's like, "Hold on, hold on, hold on. Stop, stop the train. You said you used to be a good writer and you would get in a great flow. What did you do back then that you don't do now?" I was like, "That's pretty simple. I find an idea that was interesting. I would try to figure out that idea for myself, and then I'd say, 'Well, then I gotta share this with other people.' I just did that over and over and over again, and I never stopped. That's all I did, and that's all I focused on." He's like, "Hold on. What you're saying is now you're focused on being a creative force. That's your story, and that's not working for you. Let's get back to finding an interesting idea, not judging the interestingness, figuring it out for yourself, and then sharing it with others." Ever since that, no more slop, right? All that was was a change in my story.

Shaan Puri

Yes, amazing! That's amazing. I think the other part of what you said, which is letting curiosity be the guide, the driver, sounds very simple. But all great ideas are actually quite simple. That's the beauty of them. You know, I think there's a profound benefit in revisiting simple ideas and then asking, "Am I doing those?" I don't look for new ideas as much as I look for ideas I've already heard that I haven't fully actualized yet. And you know, you've read Paul Graham's essay "Great Work," right? I'm assuming you've read that one. Yeah, I recently read it two nights ago for the first time. It was so good! He wrote it about a year ago, and it was like 13,000 words, so I was like, "I'm not doing that; I guess it's too long." Well, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. So I'm ready to think about what I want to work on right now and how I want to do this. I went back to that essay, and in it, he has this great line. He says, "If I had to boil down all great work into one word, it would be curiosity." He also says another thing: curiosity drives a level of excitement. Excitement is really a great indicator. He goes on to say that excitement is the engine and the rudder of the boat. It's the engine, and that excitement is motivating. It's a driver to get you to go do things, but it's also the rudder. It also can...

Shaan Puri

You’re in the right direction. If you don't know which path to choose, just choose the one that's most exciting. Just keep following that, and that will lead you to the right place. **Excitement is the engine, and the rudder**. I think that's a really powerful idea. Every time I've drifted away from that, like you did, I start with that, and good things happen. Then I'm like, "Oh, now ambition is the driver," or "Doing something that sounds cool or important," or "Money is the driver." Then all the bad things happen, and I'm like, "Shit, why aren't these working?" It's like, well, because you stopped doing the working formula, which was leading to all these great things. You thought you needed to do something different.

David Perell

So many people are like, "Oh, I hate writing." Most of the time, it's that they associate writing with doing things that they don't want to do. Then, when they think about, "Well, it's time to write," they subconsciously don't allow themselves to write about the thing that they're the most curious about or excited to write about because of school.

Shaan Puri

that's not what you get to do yeah

David Perell

No one's excited about the average school paper. Maybe one or two things, but people just aren't trained to think like that. One of the things that I need to reconcile with you and try to sort of figure out is this line that you have: "If you're in your head, you're dead." I love that line; it's so good! At the same time, you are always deconstructing things. You find something that you like and you're like, "Hold on, what's going on here? Let me try to break it down." Okay, I'm actually going to go check out this book, go talk to this expert, and try to figure out what's going on. So how is it that you are deconstructing, thinking, and being fairly analytical, but at the same time not getting in your head? Those things feel like polar opposites to me.

Shaan Puri

yeah 2 things 1 I read something yesterday this is like mini book online that was called I think it's called like a technique for a technique for coming up with new ideas it's some old book and in it it said this thing he goes the the most valuable traits you can have sound like opposites when you know if you pair them together so he goes you know imagine an entrepreneur who is both visionary and detail oriented that's a that's a steve jobs for example like steve jobs is famous for being a visionary he he doesn't ask the consumer what they want they just want faster horses he you know they want a car actually right that's how he vents you know the iphone and figures out what to do but he's insanely detail oriented where he's like what does the inside of the box look like and they're like dude steve nobody's gonna look at this he's like I'm gonna look at this I will know what's inside the box it needs to be beautiful at that level of detail pixel level detail same thing for all things right I consider myself a creative person I'm also highly analytical with data sounds like opposites and so there are many things where the exact opposite if paired together creates a like 1 +1 equals 3 type of reaction and they're often presented as false choices you're either this type of person or you're this type of person screw that be the type of person you want which sometimes means having both gears and knowing when to go into which gear when do I need to be creative when do I need to be analytical when do I need to be hard charging entrepreneur when do I need to be silly playful dad you know paint my nails whatever right like I have to have these gears to have the life I want similarly you want to be in your head at the times it makes sense to be in your head the brain is a valuable tool it just cannot be the master so the you know I need to be in my head when it's about maybe it's analysis maybe it's oh I'm feeling fear I need to actually use logic and I ask myself is this fear even true and what's the probability of that and if that happened how would I handle it I guess I would just do this I guess it's not so scary after all so usually if the problem is emotion you can solve it with emotion if the problem is logic you can solve it with logic and so I try to use them at the right times the if you're in your head you're dead is basically a is more of a life philosophy than it is a work philosophy which is people who kinda go around life not feeling a whole lot and not being present in the moment they're in their head about stuff they're missing life and that's that's a problem you know more so than than a writing tactic

David Perell

have you ever seen that advice from ray bradbury where he says don't think

Shaan Puri

you ever

David Perell

I have seen this, so I heard what you said here, and it immediately reminded me. He says, "I have a sign at my typewriter that says, 'Don't think.'" I'm like, okay, that's interesting. He's trying to surprise himself at the keyboard, and the only way to surprise himself is to get out of his head. I think that a lot of writing a first draft is like this. You're trying to get outside of that part of your brain that judges, that condemns, that says, "No, no, no, it's not good enough," and just put stuff onto the page. You know you're doing it well when what you're creating is like, "Whoa, where did that come from? Where did that come from? Where did that come from?" Then the question is, how do you engineer yourself to do that? For me, if I'm sitting and typing, I can't do it. My ideas, for me, are where I do editing. The thing that was game-changing for me was voice transcription. Getting really good at it allowed me to stand and talk.

Shaan Puri

talk and walk

David Perell

Go outside, walk and talk. Just blab, blab, blab, blab. Half of Austin definitely thinks I'm some sort of crazy psychopath kind of guy, but you know what? It's made my writing better. A bunch of people I work with, they're like, "How do you just bang out first drafts so fast?" I'm like, "Because I don't sit and type like everybody else does. I just go for a walk."

Shaan Puri

I think that's a great point. I believe you need to figure out a way to engineer that for yourself so you can consistently have it. I think everybody has a different version of how to do it. What you said reminded me of something, though. You're talking about Ray Bradbury. I think this is a very useful troubleshooting tool. When you're stuck, there are many ways to get unstuck. One way to get unstuck, like I said, is to make a radical change in something physical you do. I mean, that's a good tactic. Music is also a good way to get unstuck. In general, a philosophy for how to get unstuck is: if you're stuck in the specifics, go general. Meaning, if you're stuck in the logistics of how something is going to happen and it's not quite adding up, you don't just keep trying to do the same thing. You can zoom right out and go super general. Alright, super general. What am I trying to do here? I'm trying to do this. If I had all the superpowers in the world, how would I do this? Super general is just like, you know, "Who's somebody who's done this before?" Or, "I don't know exactly what type of thing I want to write. What inspires me?" The way to get out of these situations sometimes is to go general. It's very hard to turn off the brain, but it's not so hard to redirect it. Redirecting it is a useful tool. You can redirect it towards, "Hey, I'm going to go rock climbing," or "I'm going to go exercise." That'll take my brain off of it. It could also be, "I'm stuck in the muck here and I need to just zoom out." Or, if I'm stuck in the general, for example, sometimes I'm stuck in the general of, "What do I want to be in life? What do I want to do? Who am I?" Then, you can go specific. Ask yourself, "What's the best idea I've heard in the last two days? If I were going to write about that, what would it be?" Or, "What's the most interesting phone call I've had?" Then you go specific because you're stuck in the general. It's a very useful thing to do: if you're stuck in the specifics, go general; if you're stuck in the general, go specific. You'll redirect the brain.

David Perell

I want to switch over and talk about voice. You're really good at putting your voice onto the page. You do something very specific that I'm not sure how consciously you do this, but you're so good at getting inside the head of a reader to understand, "Alright, how are they feeling about this at the moment?" Basically, you said it earlier: breaking the fourth wall. By doing that, you build trust and connection. It creates this friendly casualness, as if we're having a conversation. My goodness, that is levels away from what most writers are able to do. Have you ever read...?

Shaan Puri

the boron letters years ago okay so this is a must read

David Perell

yeah copywriting

Shaan Puri

copywriting I'm I'm surprised you don't have them like printed out of your pocket they're that good so the boron letters are this amazing thing by this like kind of renowned copywriter gary halpert I think writing to his son and he's in jail so the writer is now in jail he's writing to his son bond I think is his name and so it's like a series of 23 letters and I put they're hard to find 2 is really annoying there's hard to there's like one blog I put it I hosted them on my blog now because I was like this is crazy that it's so valuable and so hard to find so anyways he posted he wrote these letters and he just wrote it again to 1 person he's like I'm writing to my son but obviously these were kind of like general principles of life and copywriting and marketing and he's teaching he's trying to teach him everything he knows but the but because of the way he wrote it with such a casual like like warm relationship like he's not even just writing to one person he's writing to its son mhmm and because he's writing to his son he's like and this dear bond is where things get interesting or he's like you're probably wondering dad why do you say this we're gonna get to that but first a little detour and he just started writing so differently that I was like oh I like this style this is just like has a swag to it that that is just like appealing to me so I started stealing that basically I was like oh I'm gonna write like that I'm gonna write like I'm writing to 1 person and that one person is like my little young grasshopper it's like yeah this is my kid or it's my my little cousin or it's me when I was younger it's like I know what you're thinking blah blah blah but mama mia you're wrong right and I'll just like try to like try to just make it fun and interesting as if it's written to 1 one one person that has like a warm relationship somebody that's kind of like I wanna be the sensei and they that's how I write in in those words like a master teacher relationship and other times it's the opposite it's I'm the beginner and I know that other people are more more knowledgeable about this and I'll be like and I just will be open about that I'll be like so being the idiot that I am I'm gonna I I decided I was gonna do these three things I knew there was probably a better way to do this you probably know 4 4 better ways yourself you're probably staring at us right now wondering how could this gonna be so dumb well the answer is blah blah blah right and I'll I'll try to say it like that because I'm just trying to make it where I'm trying to imagine what is the reader thinking at this what would I think if I was them and then I try to address that in the moment because it's very frustrating to me when like imagine if you ask somebody this question you're like how did you do it and they're like I just did this and you're listening to a podcast and then that podcast host doesn't ask them like wait wait wait what do you mean it just worked like how or what do you mean he gave you a $1,000,000 why did he give you a $1,000,000 right like it's the most frustrating experience in the world when that doesn't get addressed so in writing I try to do that too like I try to just call out the thing I would be wondering about or I would be skeptical of or I would be excited about in that moment I just try to include it in the the dialogue one of

David Perell

The things that we talk about all the time in Rite of Passage, one of my core principles is **imitate, then innovate**. It's exactly what you did there. I asked you a question, and you said, "Okay, have you ever heard of this thing?" Well, Gary Halbert does this very well. Then what you did was deconstruct exactly how he does it. You found a general principle of his work. You said he's not just writing for one person; he's writing to his son. Then the implications of that are this, this, this, and this. The roadmap that you took to give me that answer I think is very revealing of how you think about writing. You start somewhere, deconstruct, and then you say, "How does that show up in my own world?" Then you try to build up a generalizable principle that you can use for your toolkit whenever you're typing yourself.

Shaan Puri

yes that's exactly right I think that is a great thing for anybody to try to do if you wanna get better at something that's that's the way yeah by the way I randomly just thought of the best example of framing from way earlier while you were talking which is kind of how the brain works the brain relaxes it and then something comes to it have you seen the dave chappelle thing called unforgiven have you seen this on youtube no alright so do you remember a while back dave chappelle was in a feud with I think it was netflix and he was like the chappelle show was put on netflix and he wasn't getting any royalties so like it's his name it's his face it's all his life's work and not only was he not getting paid for it he had had a big falling out with the creators of the chappelle show where like he ended up quitting right when they they the story what the time was they offered him $50,000,000 he said no and he went to africa and became a crackhead instead that was like the rumors like ish pell's a crackhead now and he's in africa and it was like and he later he was like no I just said no why do I have to be a crackhead in africa I went home like what are you talking about so anyways here's the objective his objective was he wanted people to boycott the show how do you get people to boycott the show you gotta if you wanna drive people to take action you gotta be smart with how you're gonna like how you're gonna persuade them through the written word or in his case he wrote it first and then he performed it on stage and what he did was instead of talking about netflix or talking about his show or saying go boycott my show please he started he reframed the problem in a totally different way that I thought was brilliant he just changed the frame completely so he tells a story he goes I remember I was 14 years old first time I did ever did comedy I was 14 years old I go to this comedy club and I tell this joke and he's like I'm not he's like I'm gonna admit it I was good right away comedy came naturally to me I'm not one of those people who's like it took me a decade he's like honestly I was good and I was 14 15 15 years old I think and he's like I was underage but I was good and he's like I came backstage and there's this guy who's been doing this for 20 years and they were like hey kid you did pretty good man that that was that was good and it was like one guy came to me he was like hey man I like that joke I had this big audition coming up for this tv show or something like for this other thing you mind if I use that joke he's like even as a kid I'm 15 this guy's you know bigger older I looked up to this guy he's like I I didn't wanna do it so I was like my joke's all I got I got no money all I have as a comedian is my jokes he's like but and this guy was kinda asking I felt uncomfortable he said he just needed it for this audition so I was like alright man like sure you could use the joke for the audition the guy's like alright cool he's like several months later I go to the club I'm about to perform that guy's before me he tells my joke and the joke kills me he's like I was pissed and he's like I didn't know what to do he's like afterwards I went up to the guy again I'm a 15 year old kid I'm like he basically is framing it as I'm this powerless kid and this guy's taking advantage of me and he goes I told him I was like hey man you said you were just gonna use it for that thing like I I don't want I want my joke back and I think maybe he had given a $100 or something like that and and the guy's like the guy kind of roughed him up he grabbed him and he was like I was just asking to be nice you know I could just take it and he's like I was scared I didn't know what to do let that guy take my joke okay so that's he's I'm gonna tell you another story he tells a story about later on he's in new york and he's he's like I got a date with this jamaican girl he's like fine girl yeah banging I couldn't wait to go on this date but I didn't have any money I'm I'm still a struggling comedian but now I'm older I'm 22 24 something like that he's like and I walk around new york and I see these guys doing like that 3 card money where they're like you know that game and I'm watching it and a guy puts down a $100 moves the thing around I know it's over here he guesses the wrong one he loses he shows it's over then next guy goes same thing puts down $20 I know it's over there he picks over here he loses oh my god I could do this so I step up I put all a $100 down I say I'm gonna double this that I'll take the take my girl out tonight I know the ball's over here I say that one ball's over there he's like what the hell just happened he's like I was pissed I lost a $100 I have this date tonight he's like so I stuck around and I watch and I realized those tourists they didn't leave they were still here and they did it again he's like oh they puzzled me like those guys are in on it together they pretended not to know where it was and I was the mark who came up and said oh I figured this out they got me and then somebody else came up they were about to make the same mistake and I told them don't do it they're all in on it and the guy goes oh okay and he leaves he's like the guy roughs him up again and he goes hey man he goes I don't care what you think he's like never get between a man and his next meal he's like you just took money out of my pocket this is my job this is my livelihood and taking away a man's livelihood is the equivalent of killing him oh he tells him that okay cool then he finally gets to the netflix story and he basically weaves together those parts from before he's like they didn't ask me if they could put it on netflix they didn't ask me to basically like they didn't ask for anything they just took my name took my face took all my content they just took it he's like and then the second thing was that he's the the people would say well you signed the contract dave he's like I was a 21 year old kid I hired lawyers to read these contracts they told me everything I said hey you can use this forever in perpetuity in all parts of the universe and they're like it's standard dave don't worry about it this is standard hollywood stuff don't don't worry about it so he's like so I signed it later on I realized those guys all go out to dinner every week the lawyers on my side their side they're all in on it this is just like the 3 card money that's how hollywood is I was the mark so yeah I signed it but whatever and he got the whole audience on his side by like making this argument by using these two stories I think it is the most brilliant like example of of pr or like a written story that I have ever seen the way by the end of that thing you're like I will delete netflix if they don't take the show off and that's exactly what happened people saw that that video on youtube it went super viral because it was so well done people boycotted netflix they took it off and they netflix said we don't have to do this today but we voluntarily will do this like we were also moved by your story we're not gonna put your put your budget up there unless you say we can do it even though contractually we have the rights to do whatever we want we're gonna honor the noncontract here I thought that was the power of like you know reframing not like oh I'm getting screwed I want money to like a more universal you know you're getting picked on by the man you're getting screwed by people who are all in on it and I thought that was absolutely brilliant nice yes you should go watch this thing it's amazing

David Perell

Yeah, I want to talk about distribution. One of the things that we're working on at Rite of Passage is figuring out how to take people who don't write all the time and don't really have an audience. They've just published something really good. For example, say you are an absolute expert in the distribution of San Pellegrino waters from a little town in Italy. You know how they package it, what's the story of the label, all that sort of stuff. You might say, "This is how the sparkling water boom came about," and tell a story of how it begins in a little town in Italy with San Pellegrino. Okay, you have this expert who has never written online. They write something, and it's awesome. I want to help them distribute it. They come to me and say, "What do I do? How should I talk them through that?"

Shaan Puri

I think distribution is built over time I don't think that's something you can do from day 1 right like it's kind of back to that 100 videos thing from earlier if you're going to write online there is sort of a beachhead moment you have to create you have to create a trusted audience over time and you have to know that distribution is earned that's why distribution is so valuable because it's hard to replicate so for example my buddy jason used to say this thing he goes oh I have the 1 2 3 rule of interestingness what does that mean he goes tell me one one thing that's interesting right you tell me one thing that's interesting about san pellegrino I'll say that's interesting tell me 2 things that's interesting I thought those were interesting that's 2 interesting things you tell me 3 interesting things I'll say you're interesting so and this is just like a general philosophy I think you should have with writing is like you don't deserve that like trusted follower relationship until you've and 3 is a small number really on the internet it might be like 20 things like you might have to tell somebody 20 interesting things before they're like this guy is interesting I can't wait to get his next one and you just have to build that up like you have to build you have to consistently be telling somebody something interesting multiple times for you to earn that that you know channel between them where they're now gonna be receiving your content or they'll be willing to vouch for you and spread you to another person not just on the merits of the one thing but because you are interesting and you consistently share interesting things and then when groups of people think you're interesting it's even more powerful right because then another person comes in and just says oh everybody thinks this guy's interesting cool I'll follow him right like which is why the more twitter followers you get the more you're gonna get right and it's actually not a bug people get mad about that like the rich get richer it's not a bad thing it's actually a useful mental shortcut the people who have earned a following are probably likely worth following with some exceptions but it is a useful hack versus I have to individually vet every account to figure out who I want to follow that's the slow way like I'm going to follow the people that other people follow that is it sounds just like oh you're just being a it's part of the herd mentality or groupthink or whatever but there's a reason it exists there's like a evolutionary advantage to doing it too which is it saves you a lot of time by adding to individually vet every person so I would say to that person who wants that distribution it's cool that's one interesting thing let's do 20 and you know start with your friends start with your friends and family start with some group chats start with you know maybe you have to push the wheel a little bit you know send it to some people who might find that interesting that you know of with a personalized message of why you think they might find that interesting yeah you're gonna have to do some of that hustle at the beginning to get to get the word out but you should also not like have some expectations that just because you said one interesting thing it it deserves to be you know spread everywhere this is not really how it works

David Perell

Right on Twitter itself, you have built a huge audience without writing that many things. You've had a few posts that have just absolutely cranked. What do you think you understand about that platform and communicating there that other people are missing?

Shaan Puri

well I'll say this I think it what I did worked on twitter so basically I I remember I was at 20,000 followers which is a lot in general but I was like I wanna get to a 100 now I'm at about 400 so I like oh I way overshot that goal 400,000 followers but most I'd say as I'd say the generic best practice is be consistent and define what your niche is and then talk about stuff in that niche I don't really do that so I would say I defy that but I don't think that's what helped I think I almost won in spike of doing that I think if I had been more consistent and I had to find my niche I would be at a 1000000 followers instead of 400,000 so let me put that out there even though I didn't follow the best practices I don't think the right takeaway is those are the wrong I think the right takeaway is it would have been even bigger had I followed those the one thing I did get right was I knew when everybody's attention was on a certain subject I had an interesting take it's not by writing so much as it is the thinking I I'm sure I haven't listened to all your interviews but I am sure one of the most common themes is that great writing is just great thinking clear writing is just clear thinking writing helps you think better and thinking better thinking helps you write better they're so tightly intertwined that the unhelpful but true advice is I think I had an interesting thought to say and I said it at the right time when people were paying attention to that subject and then thirdly I wrote it in an interesting way that helped the spread of it I wrote some thread about the metaverse that went super viral and I don't think it's because of how I wrote it I think it's because the thought in it was genuinely a good thought like I remember at the time facebook had just rebranded to meta and zuck went on the lex friedman podcast I was like yeah I read this really interesting thing on twitter blah blah blah it's like he wasn't saying it because my prose was great or my grammar was great or my hook was he read it because he thought the core idea underlying idea was unique and interesting and I think that's more what to strive for is like you're building up these 2 skill sets having unique and interesting things to say being good at packaging ideas right two distinct skill sets you can't do only one and not the other or it'll reveal itself to be pretty shallow if you just have interesting things to say and crappy packaging you you don't get very far if you have great packaging but mundane things to say people get very fatigued of it it doesn't really work

David Perell

One of the ways that I like to judge a writer is by measuring how good they are at building a connection with their readers. Some writers, like ChatGPT, are like a 0. It can be super informative, right? You learn a lot, but you're not actually building any sort of emotional connection. The same thing goes for Wikipedia. Then there are other people, like you. I think this is something that you're very intentional about. For the average word that you have, there is a real connection that is built. I think that you're really focused on that because of your goals as a creator. How do you go about writing so that it's not just a one-and-done? How do you ensure that there’s actually going to be a glue, like, "Sean, I like this guy. I want to consume his stuff," and actually, "I want to consume his stuff every single day"?

Shaan Puri

When you say "connection," what do you mean by that? Do you mean trust? Do you mean likability? What do you mean?

David Perell

I think what I mean is an indispensability from that creator

Shaan Puri

So I did the lamest thing ever once. I hired a consultant who was an expert at personal branding. I... I paid $95.

David Perell

that that feels like almost feels like you're not even being serious

Shaan Puri

I framed it as the lamest thing ever. I'm aware how lame it was, and it's not like I was like, "Oh, I want to change my image" or whatever. But I was like, "Well, truth be told, if I am a creator, that means I am kind of an individual brand." Okay, so what? And this person worked with all these people, so I was like, "Alright, let's do this."

David Perell

it goes back to the theme of what is something that is super important

Shaan Puri

That people want something that's valuable, something that others either overlook or would actually be embarrassed to do. Totally. And you're poised, not embarrassed, so I'll do it. Okay, so I hire this guy and I sit down, and we talk. I'm like, "Okay, I learned a bunch of things from him." One of the things he taught me was, "You guys, people will follow you to the ends of the earth if you are giving them a feeling that they can't get anywhere else, more consistently than anybody else is going to give it to them." So what does that mean? He basically was like, "Think of yourself as a little Shopify store, and your only SKU, your little... you're a merchant. Your only SKU is basically how somebody feels after consuming your content." For example, I used to love TED... TED back in the TED Talks. I remember TED Talks.

David Perell

were like

Shaan Puri

ted talks used to be the shit now they were

David Perell

so good

Shaan Puri

did they make fun of them or whatever 2014 hey 2012 2014 like a little ted talks with a shit and or even before that I was in college with the miracle so why do I like a ted talk even the sound of music of the the whoosh out of a ted talk or the intro saw the sound and the the way that it looked it was like this like training like pavlovian training of like you're gonna hear one really cool idea in 18 minutes and you're gonna walk away feeling inspired no inspired about the world in some way inspired to either go do something inspired that the world is improving in some way inspired to make a change whatever and ted is a merchant of inspiration and so I thought about that I was like oh yeah that's right I I listen to these comedy podcasts why because I get this feeling that I'm hanging out with my my my friends my funny friends but like they're not my friends they're just comedians that hang out but that's why I think comedy podcasts are so popular because they can consistently give somebody the feeling of camaraderie bullshitting with your boys without you ever having to like actually be funny have funny friends and go hang out right and so like you're getting that without the cost amazing and so anyways but and this is why like you know we got acquired by twitch people watch twitch people watch other people play video games because you get the feeling of playing a video game without having to actually sit down and buy a system buy the game get good at the game and play the game you get the same rush watching this guy try to win just by watching it's it's kind of amazing so once I realized that I was like oh okay this guy's right you know what I gotta do is pick what feeling I want people to have and then I gotta deliver all I gotta focus on is delivering that to them more consistently than anybody else is gonna give it to them if I do that all my personal brain dreams will come true you know so that was the the big takeaway that was the lesson I had there so when you say it seems like you're intentional about it that's what it that's the underlying thing that it is is picking up front what am I trying to deliver what's the what's that feeling and then consistently be like alright how could I do that what's a story I could tell what's a framework I could give them what's a nugget I could give them that would that would do that for them

David Perell

It seems like I want to talk about editing. Your thing is that you're really good at writing for drafts. Actually, you don't seem like somebody who's an "eighth revision, I'm going to put this away for six years" kind of guy with editing. You seem like you're pretty off the cuff. You're sort of like, "Miss Excel, what does they want? The emotion they want to have?" I would guess then you sit down, you write it, then you go away for a few hours, maybe go on a walk, come back, look at it, and ship it off. So for you, let's bring together emotion and editing. How do you edit for the sort of emotion that you're talking about there?

Shaan Puri

Okay, the first thing I learned was from Sam Parr. He has this principle, I think he came on your show too, which is "the walk away." So first, you do the **shitty draft**. You dump it. I kind of knew editing was important, and the mistake I used to make was that I'd edit right away. That's a terrible idea—don't do that. First, you do your research and your thinking. You do a quick brain dump, and then you have to walk away. You read what you wrote, and then you're going to forget about it. So, I will go do stuff. I'll go work out, I'll go play with my kids, or I'll go for a walk. I'm not trying to think about it at all. I know I'll come back to that later. I know it sucks today, but I'm going to edit it later and make it great. I'm certain of that, but I don't consciously think about it. Then I come back to it usually, let's say, 4 hours, 6 hours, 8 hours, or even 24 hours later. I read the thing, and immediately I'm like, "Oh, this is bad. Bad! Change this." I think, "Why don't I talk about this instead?" or "I wanted it to have this takeaway, but I don't think it has that right now." I ask myself, "Alright, where would I punch that up?" I wouldn't have written this if I didn't think it had the potential to give you that because I was very intentional upfront, thinking, "This will do it." It's not coming through. Where? The analogy I'll use is like imagining a river flowing. It's a useful analogy because I think a lot of people are like, "There's nothing there. I'm going to make it happen." Another story you could tell yourself is, "It's a river. The water wants to flow. My ideas are excellent. People are going to love this. They want to consume this, and my ideas are worth consuming." But there are some rocks in the river that are blocking the flow. What are the rocks? All I gotta do is simply remove those, and the water will flow nicely. It was a more empowering thing for me versus thinking, "I gotta make this good. It's bad. I gotta create good." It's like, "No, I kind of assume if I got to the..."

Shaan Puri

Of running something, it's gotta be like there's something good in it. I just got to remove the suck out of it, right? Pixar uses that analogy too. They say all movies we make start with suck, and our only job is to just remove the suck with every draft. So they do another revision and say, "What sucks about it now?" Well, it sucks that the main character is not that likable because blah, blah, blah. So then they remove that suck and they come back again. That's kind of the same mindset. I'll just look at it after I come back and I'll say, "Is this doing what I want it to do? Do I think this is dope? Does this do what I want it to do?" If not, what are the rocks I can remove? What's the suck I can remove from this? This part's boring, this intro doesn't really hint at what's to come, this ending is just kind of... So yeah, that's it. That's the idea. I don't have a good ending. Okay, so then I'll just find that area and I'll just try to fix that. Cool, how about with humor? What have you learned about writing with humor? Are you formulaic about that? Have you studied it? That's where I'm looking now. I'm starting to pay attention. What I've learned so far... I'll tell you what I've learned so far. I was like a white belt in the humor game. It's just, you know, you don't want it to be... Humor is the sauce, it's not the entrée. So some people are writing something to be funny, like, "This is meant to make you laugh." Usually, that's not me. Usually, I'm trying to get a...

Shaan Puri

Across, but I'm going to make you laugh along the way, which will make this more enjoyable for you to consume. So, it's the sauce on the meal, but it's not the meat; it's not the protein of the thing, which is good. It depressurizes it. It's like, "Oh, I just need to apply a little bit here." That's the first part. The second part is that all humor is just surprise. Every joke is a setup and a punchline. However, if you see the punchline coming, it's not very funny. So, humor as surprise means I have to set it up in a way where you don't anticipate what I'm going to say. The contrast between what you thought I was going to say and what I actually said is what makes you laugh. You just kind of have to look for those moments where there's a bit of an expectation. You set up an expectation and then you subvert that expectation.

David Perell

Jerry Seinfeld's article in *The New York Times* starts with an interesting anecdote. Here's how he begins: > When I got my first apartment in Manhattan in the hot summer of 1976, there was no pooper scooper law and the streets were covered in dog crap. I signed the rental agreement, stepped outside, and my car had been towed. Despite these initial setbacks, Seinfeld's enthusiasm for the city remained undiminished. He concludes: > Despite this, I still thought, "This is the greatest place I've ever been in my life." This opening effectively captures Seinfeld's love for New York City, even in the face of its less appealing aspects.

Shaan Puri

you know

David Perell

Sets it up: "Pooper scooper." Funny word, yeah. What's going on there? I think that maybe we can go into funny words because it is interesting how certain words have a much higher propensity to be funny than others, right? If he had said, "There is no law around cleaning up your dog's excrement," that would be different. Now, "pooper scooper" is like jovial, funny, right? Exactly. Then he goes and sort of takes you into this other time. You're thinking about poop, but then he goes, "My car had been towed," and you're like, "Oh my goodness, this sounds terrible." Then you said, "Surprise," which is why I thought about that. He goes, "Despite this, I still thought this is the greatest place I've ever been in my life." This is in like this ode to New York City. Theo Von is super... that's exactly who I was thinking about.

Shaan Puri

he's super popular right now

David Perell

so good

Shaan Puri

And he's been... I followed him since like the Real World days, basically the Road Rules days. If you just listen to him talk, his brain does something different. His brain is almost wired differently. That was my initial story, but then I thought, "I bet you could practice Theo Von-ing a little bit." Because, like, what Theo does—if you've never seen him—it's not going to make any sense. But if you've seen him, this will make all the sense in the world. Theo Von will basically improvise. He has no idea what he's going to say, but he improvises. He uses random language or he'll make up a story that is totally not true, but it's kind of believable when he keeps a deadpan face while he's doing it. You can kind of practice that. So, yeah, I think practicing is obviously the best way.

David Perell

To do it well, that's a big one. Let's follow this made-up language, coming up with words and things that other people hadn't thought of. How do you go about doing that? It's a fun little thing to play around with. One of the things that I did is I liked thinking through the juxtaposition. I wrote a piece about how I fell in love with the Bible, and I was like, "It needs a little bit of humor in it," because it's, you know, it's the Bible, right? It activates a part of your brain.

Shaan Puri

where you're like okay this is your

David Perell

hey exactly right bible should actually just say faith

Shaan Puri

that should be the whole thing

David Perell

Exactly. So, it activates that. I was like, "I need something that's funny." I was like, "Okay, what is the emotional state that somebody's in?" I was working on it. I was serious, you know? You think of almost like this fancy library, and then I'm like, "I would do my Bible studies at a Schlotzky's parking lot in a strip mall in the Hill Country." Now, you just get this juxtaposition. I'm not sure it was that funny, but I think that it adds so much life to the piece. I always try to think of, like, if I'm trying to be funny or create suspense, what is the emotional state that the reader's in for most of this piece? Then, let me just, like we were saying, spring a little bit of Tabasco sauce of the opposite.

Shaan Puri

Yes, yes, that's exactly right. I think an exercise you can do is a Theo Von exercise. Basically, he takes a thing—so let's say it's the Bible. What a Theo Von humor kind of lane he does is he'll call the Bible something else that's kind of funny. Like he'll be like, "You know, that's Jesus' binder." And he'll be like, "This is the Bible, but now he calls it Jesus' binder." Then he'll do another one and he'll be like, "That's that old, you know, like the old Himalayan diary." And you're like, "What are you saying?" He just keeps coming up with different ways to say the Bible. Or it'll just be like, "You know, that big brown behavior book." He'll just keep going. I've never done this before, but you could try that. You could just take anything and say, "I'm going to come up with six." Just keep going. It's so hard to do. Just now when I was doing it, I was like, "Why the hell are you trying to do this live on a podcast?" But that's how you get better, right? Doing that trains your brain in a very different way of thinking than we are used to, and that pays off. Because again, common traits uncommonly together is very, very valuable. You don't need to be the funniest, nor do you need to be the smartest. If you're pretty smart and you're kind of funny, you're like the best. So that's my whole strategy. It was basically to do that. I know I'm not funny enough to be a comedian, but I'm funnier than the average smart guy, and I'm smarter than the average guy. So it's like pretty smart, kind of funny. That's a...

David Perell

Good combo! Well, it's funny because I went to church last weekend with a friend. After the service, she said, "Man, that was a really good sermon." I asked her what she liked about the pastor, and she replied, "He does a really good job of talking about very serious, weighty things but then layering in tons of humor." For example, he was discussing how you could say that good people go to the light, focusing on moral values and integrity, while bad people move to the darkness, running away from righteousness. Then he said, "At any moment, you can either be a cockroach or a moth." I grew up in South Carolina, and you know, sometimes you go into the pantry and find cockroaches on the ground. You want to step on those things, but they fly all over the place. They can practically pick up the babies and take them to cockroach land or wherever! Cockroaches run away from the light, while moths go toward it. He weaves these cockroaches and moths throughout the entire sermon, so you're getting this chuckle, but through the chuckle, it creates an avenue for extreme depth. Somehow, it's in the juxtaposition of those two things that the sermon really hits. The humor lowers your defenses about needing to be a super perfect person, and it's like, "Okay, we can have some fun here." But then the fun actually allows us to get to the depth.

Shaan Puri

And that's framing, right? He framed it differently. Same principle, framed differently, and all of a sudden, it's more accessible, more fun, more entertaining, and more memorable. Memorability is massively underrated. You know, what's the point of having good ideas if nobody remembers them? Part of your job, a responsibility, if you actually have something worth remembering, is to take the time and effort to package it in a way that is catchy and memorable. My buddy Trevor, who was my roommate in college, made his whole career doing one thing. He basically reads white papers, which are like scientific journals. They're the most boring reads—read the abstract, read the whole study, whatever. It's crazy; the scientists spend their whole life working on this thing, and then they package it in the dullest format possible, again with pride, because that's like a... a, you know...

David Perell

that's high status

Shaan Puri

Yeah, high status for them is like... it's so boring that only another person who's dedicated their life to this would possibly read it. This means that none of the insights get taken to the real world until, you know, somebody comes in and builds that bridge. So, he built that bridge. He would go learn something, he'd read this, and he'd go talk to the scientists—like, you know, somebody who's been doing this for 50 years. The number of people who follow them and listen to them is like, you know, 35. Then my buddy started writing a blog, a newsletter, and eventually YouTube. He built like a 100,000-person email list about a really dry subject, which is like, you know, growth mindset and how it applies in classrooms and stuff like that. The way he did it was with the same type of frame. He said, "Imagine two tigers. One tiger grew up in the zoo, and you know, a tiger that grows up in the zoo... he does it. He'll teach this to, like, third graders or he'll teach it to the New York Yankees, you know, CEOs of companies, or, you know, kids basically. He does the same speech to both of them because it's so easy to understand and so memorable." He said, "The tiger that grows up in the zoo, has its life been easy or hard?" Pretty easy, right? "Do they fight for their own food or is it given to them?" It's given to them. "Okay, cool. Jungle tiger... jungle tiger's life is hard, right? Lots of adversity. They have to fight for their own food; they know how to survive." If you take a jungle tiger and you put it in the zoo, what happens? They're like, "It'll get bored." It's like, "If you take a zoo tiger and you put it in the jungle, what happens?" It's like, "Dead." Like, it doesn't know how to survive. And he's basically like, "You wanna be a jungle tiger, right? How do you do that? Well, you have to get out of your comfort zone—the zoo, where everything is easy and handed to you." So, when you reach those moments where you're out of your comfort zone, say to yourself, "This is my jungle tiger moment. I gotta jungle tiger this right now because I have to put myself out of my comfort zone to do this."

David Perell

A language to remember a whole set of principles that were all previously packaged in very boring scientific terms. You know, one of the things that I'm noticing from you is that I always think, "How is my writing process going to change?" One of the biggest things I've picked up is that I don't need to learn from writers at all. What I'm going to do is study comedians. I'm going to be more deliberate about finding communicators that I really like and then trying to analyze what they are doing. I want to bring that into my writing. I also think that you really see a fluidity between mediums. Talking, writing, humor, and storytelling can all sort of play together. They're like paint colors. You can have the white paint, the black paint, the blue paint, and the green paint. But then you can also begin to mix them together to get all these different colors. Maybe we shouldn't be thinking about writing as all these separate lanes. In fact, for a lot of the different skills that you want to learn to make yourself a better writer, you might not even need to study writers. The best people for that might be in a totally different field.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, yeah, you nailed it. Good job! You synthesized it very, very well. I do think it's a good strategy to basically pick and choose from adjacent fields. You're going to do something different than if you only look in your own lane. It becomes very... it's why everything becomes the same. We all look at the same things; we all study the same things. So, like, you know, I was hanging out with Mr. Beast, and he said the same thing. I was like, "What YouTube channels do you like?" He's like, "I don't really watch YouTube that much anymore." I'm like, "You're the number one YouTuber in the world! You literally breathe YouTube." He's like, "Yeah, my channel." But then I was like, "So where do you learn from?" He's like, "Well, right now we think that one thing we're weak at is character development. So we study shows, TV shows and movies that are good at character development or whatever." And then he's like trying to steal from other areas. If you're just on YouTube looking at other YouTubers, you'll just become lost in a sea of sameness. I think that's a useful tip for people to take on.

David Perell

I want to end here. If you know, you built a newsletter called Milk Road and you had to train another writer to write in your voice. You believe that learning to write is actually teachable. So, when you're teaching other people to write, what were some of the things that you focus on?

Shaan Puri

yeah so we the teaching was important because I didn't want that we had to send the email out every morning at like 6 am I was like I'm not doing that like I'm not good with consistency and see anyways I won't wake up that early I know that no matter how fun this is that I will hate doing by like day 30 so from day 1 I was like I'm not gonna write this but it's gonna be in my voice and style how do you do that hired a guy who's never written before and I sat him down and I was like first my business partner I was like you write this and I was the editor I was I was his editor for 30 days I said cool now you're the editor now you gotta hire a writer we hired a guy who'd never written before in any professional capacity or even blogged I don't I don't think he had a blog either but I told him and basically what we did was we took a one thing that helped is the newsletter was a consistent format so it wasn't like 10 different formats it was one format and I broke down why we write it the way we write it line by line our opening line at milk road was always like good morning this is the milk road the you know and we would say what we do and then we would say in a funny and then we would add a we'd tag it with a joke so we would say we are the number one source for figuring out what happened in crypto yesterday think of us like think of us like a tosha strudel a fresh tasty sweet for you and a treat for you in the mornings and then parentheses we tag the joke again and we would just be like what the f happened to toast strudels anyways kids these days they're missing out right and it's like we would tag the we so we'd always tag the joke and we'd be like we are gm we're the we're the milk road we are we give you exactly everything you need to know about crypto in the morning and nothing nothing that you don't need to know and then we would say we would tag it by being like I would say something like we're reading this newsletter is is the 2nd best feeling in the world the first best of course is when you're in a car you roll it down the window and you start doing that cool dolphin thing with your hand right like some relatable funny thing that's just like puts you in a good mood and we were like can we get this can we get you to smile and can we get you to be like I like I love these guys can we give you a reason to open this that's not based on the bitcoin price it was another way of thinking about it and so we so I started trading it was like the first line this is what we do here's why we're doing it and here's 10 examples of doing it good and then he was like cool got it I can I can pattern match to that the other thing that we did was he was he was doing the school thing where he's like he thought he had to be a different guy like oh maybe I need to be a really sophisticated do sophisticated analysis or I need to do kind of like people think when they write they need to do something outside of themselves yeah the whole?

Shaan Puri

Of writing is to take you and just push it out. So, don't try to create this fake thing that you think other people might want. Just take you and push it out. For example, he would talk about subjects, and the writing was fine, but the subject was boring. I was like, "Dude, why'd you pick this?" He said, "I don't know. I felt like, you know, it was in the news. People needed to know about it." I asked, "Did you care about this?" He replied, "No, not really." I then asked, "Would you have ever texted me, or Slack messaged me, or sent me a voice note saying, 'Dude, did you hear about this? This thing's awesome,' or 'This is crazy. Did you hear about this? This is really interesting?'" He said, "No, I would never say that." I said, "Cool, then why are we telling 200,000 people about this if you wouldn't tell me?" So, what I made him do was this: "Every morning, I want you to send a voice note, send a voice memo, and just tell me the news before you write anything. Just be like, 'Oh yeah, everybody on Twitter's freaking out because they're worried about this thing that happened,' or 'The price is up today because there are rumors about this right now.' And what that means is that if that happened, then this would happen." He would just say it to me, and it was such a good filter because he could stop himself if he was going to tell me something that was boring. He would catch himself, thinking, "I would never say this to somebody. It's boring to me, and it'll be boring to you." So, it filtered out the subject beautifully. Those were the two big things: showing him what we do and giving him a sample, saying, "Here's what good looks like. Here's 10 more examples of good." Secondly, I installed that one step of, "Don't do that imposter thing where you start talking about stuff that you're not even that interested in because guess what? Nobody else is interested in it." The filter for that was, "Send me a voice memo. If it's not interesting in the voice memo, it's definitely not going to be interesting in text."

David Perell

why do you think that dolphin thing is so funny it is hilarious it's relatable

Shaan Puri

And like, you know, it's not even that funny. It's just funny that we put it again. It's unexpected. Like, why are you writing this? You know, everybody says we're the best, but we said we're the second best thing in the world. So immediately, like, what's first best? First best! And then I can't say a serious thing; I have to say an unserious thing. So I'm like, "The first best thing is this feeling," because we all know this feeling. It's great! You know that feeling; it's an amazing feeling. So we just knew, like, okay, things like that are surprising, likable, funny. You can do them in one line, so it's not like you have to set up a long story or joke. It was very useful; it was very efficient as a mechanism there. Sweet! That was good fun. Thanks, man. Yeah, absolutely! Thanks for having me.