The Top 0.1% Of Ideas I've Stumbled Upon On The Internet

Shaan Puri

Well, let’s do it. So, part 2. Okay, here’s part 2 with George. If you wanted the business ideas, we did that: **5 banger business ideas**. That was amazing! I got like goosebumps from it. This is part 2. We’re going to do some of your frameworks. The biggest one, I think, the one that went the most viral, is about **high agency**. You did a thread about one idea. I think you framed it like, "One idea that has impacted my life the most is the concept of high agency." Can you talk about what high agency is, why it matters, and how you spot people with high agency?

George Mack

So, **high agency** is something I've probably thought about for 6 to 7 years. It's one of those topics that, when you search for it, is quite difficult to find online. This is why I started writing about it to scratch my own itch. The way I would describe **high agency** is: if you were stuck in a third-world prison cell and had to call somebody to break you out, who would you call? That person is probably the most high agency person that you know. So, I mean, thought experiment time now. Who do you guys think of when I ask that question?

Sam Parr

my friend jack smith

Shaan Puri

that's a tough one

Sam Parr

I feel like I would just go for

Shaan Puri

The richest person I know, because I'm like, the money is going to be the most useful tool versus like a MacGyver who's going to break me out of my cell.

George Mack

So, Steve Bartlett answered that question with Prince William, which I think is not allowed. It can't be somebody who's a royal family member; it has to be purely on merit.

Shaan Puri

Well, you know what? The meme you have in the tweet I think is a great visual of this. Sam, have you seen the tweet? I mean, I don't know if you've seen it, but he basically has...

Sam Parr

The one where he tells you, like, if someone says something's impossible, a high-agency person will think, "Well, that's just a story you've told. Now I'm going to overcome it." Versus a low-agency person who will be like, "Oh, that story is true." I think that's a clue in it, but...

Shaan Puri

I'm talking about the very first picture that he has in the tweet. It basically shows two guys stranded on an island. One guy is using pieces of wood from the island to spell "HELP," hoping that if someone flies over or a boat sees it, they'll come to save him. The other guy, however, made a boat out of the wood. The high agency is represented by the guy who builds the boat, while most people just put out a sign for help. They are kind of the victim, looking for someone to come and rescue them.

George Mack

I guess if I had to trim it down, I would think about the advert for high agency that we spoke about last time. Are people high agency or low agency? Are they happening to life, or is life happening to them? It's a spectrum, right? There are circumstances and different things that go on, but you can immediately plot that X-Y axis in your head of people that you know. There are people who are happening to life and people that life is happening to.

Shaan Puri

And so, why does the idea of **high agency** matter so much to you? You said you've been thinking about it for **6 or 7 years**. That's probably longer than your longest relationship. Tell me why you have had such a long relationship with this concept.

George Mack

I think it's the most under-discussed personality trait, and it's probably the most important personality trait. The most similar concept that I've seen online is, have you seen Paul Graham's "Relentlessly Resourceful"?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, well, he just says, "I've created Y Combinator. I've now seen thousands of founders, and if I think about the trait that is most valuable in founders, it's not intelligence, it's not charisma, it's not, you know, engineering prowess. It's the fact that the best founders are relentlessly resourceful." He also says, "Can you describe what a test is? Would you describe this person as an animal?" Would you say, "Yeah, he's an animal"? If you can say, "Man, that guy's an absolute animal," or "She's an animal when it comes to this," that's the sign of a winner. I think that's the output of a high-agency person. How do you describe them? They're basically... they're an animal.

George Mack

Yes, and he has a great bit in there about inverting it, which is: what would be the opposite? It would be "hapless," which is probably a good case of life happening to them. I think there are a few reasons—four, kind of tenants—I would say why high agency is probably not as sticky an idea as it could be. It has four ideas in it: 1. **Locus of control**: I have control. 2. **Intentionalism**: They've thought about the direction that they want to go in. 3. **Resourcefulness**: I'm capable of getting the outcome. 4. **High bias for action**: They've already started the thing before they've even listened to this podcast. They're just constantly moving. So those four things...

Sam Parr

And it's... I think it's not changeable. It's sort of like telling people they should have started a business before they had children. It's like, "Dude, we don't..." I don't like talking about that because you can't change that. You are what you are, you know what I mean? It's not particularly fun to talk about because I think that you have that scale already set.

George Mack

I disagree I think

Sam Parr

go on tell me I changed my mind

George Mack

There's definitely some truth to what you say, and also that's quite a high agency reply. I think there is a little bit of a genetic component to it. But theoretically, I think you could reduce somebody's agency. Therefore, if you can reduce somebody's agency, you could also increase their agency. It's probably like muscle building. There's a genetic component to it, but I still think everybody can increase or decrease their agency depending on the inputs that they put into the system.

Shaan Puri

I had a tweet once that went kind of viral about this. I said, "One small poker tell for if an employee is going to be great is if they're willing to spend money out of their own pocket to move faster." They're not doing it to impress you or to take one for the team. It's not the money that matters; it's that this person simply cannot stand being blocked or slowed down. Sharks die if they stop swimming. I said this because we hired this woman in our business, and she is so good. We've promoted her two times already in probably two years. She now basically runs a huge part of the business, and she's awesome. One of the things that I noticed is not the spending money part, but I noticed that we will be talking about an idea, and it looks like she's not listening because she'll start typing on her computer. Then I'm like, "Yeah, so just send that over to me." She's like, "Yeah, I just did." I'm like, "What?" She will literally do it before the words are done coming out of my mouth. She cannot help but take action. Her bias for action is so high that it's almost annoying. It's so high that you're like, "Hey, can we just talk first before you go finish the thing?" But on balance, it is so much more valuable to have somebody who's that high action because they just get more done. She's like twelve people; she is literally like an entire team herself. She will make decisions very quickly, immediately implement them, and then fix whatever's broken so quickly before the other person has even gotten out of bed. I think that that's a trait that I now look for in hiring as well. But you said something interesting: you said it could be taught. So how do you develop high agency?

George Mack

Emmett from Twitch has a flowchart that's really cool. It literally outlines a question-by-question process of how to develop someone's agency over time. I think I would use the midwit meme algorithm to consider how I would make someone low in agency and then avoid that. If I were to make someone lower in agency, I would make them hyper-general. I would use no deadlines and not break things down into step-by-step instructions. So, I would go through the list of how to make someone low in agency first and foremost. I'd say it's much easier to spot in other people as well. I would look at who the most high-agency people are that you know and then try to reverse engineer the values and behaviors they have, rather than trying to analyze yourself. This loops back to the first episode where self-analysis is not that useful. In terms of job interview questions, one of my favorite ones that I've shared with a few founders is asking about weird teenage hobbies. If candidates can go against the crowd when they're teenagers, it's much easier for them as adults. It's tough, but it's easier. I have one founder who voiced my money the other day, and he said, "I pre-screen all candidates with that, and it's like the best quality filter for potential high-agency people."

Shaan Puri

We, on this podcast, often ask a question: "You're awesome! I'm so inspired by this right now." If I had met you or been able to observe you when you were 12 or 13 years old, what would I have seen? Would I have had any clues that you would become this kind of outlier type of person? A couple of people have given some pretty interesting answers. For example, Jess Ma, who came on the show, is a super impressive entrepreneur. I think Paul Graham once said that if you had to bet on five people in Y Combinator, it would have been like Sam Altman, the Collison brothers, and Jess Ma was one of the five. She said, "Yeah, basically I was kind of a runt in school. I wasn't that good in class, I kind of got picked on, and I was weird. But I created... I liked gaming, and I basically created a server farm for my favorite game. I started charging for it, and I was making tens of thousands of dollars renting out server space for this game back when I was 14 years old." We also had Saeed Balke come on. This guy has built a $1 billion bootstrapped business, which is so unfathomable to be able to do. Somebody told me that when they asked Saeed about his teenage years, he hacked his school's system so he could change his grades. He was willing to do the work to hack into his school system to change his grade instead of just studying for the exam and getting a good grade. Guess what? That's also a guy who found other growth hacks along the way to grow his business incredibly fast without needing any capital.

Sam Parr

I was with a guy this weekend. He's a friend, but a new friend. He told a story about how he got in trouble when he was a kid because he built something that allowed him to remote control a street light near his home. Then, a few hours later, he talked about his new business idea. I remember him getting in trouble for controlling the street light near his house and how his mom grounded him for three weeks. I'm like, I'm in.

Shaan Puri

And by the way, Y Combinator (YC) has a one-page application. In there, every question in the YC application has to have earned its right to be there. If you're on the one page, there are only about seven questions. One of the seven questions is: "Tell us about a real-world system that you've hacked for your benefit." Not literally hacked, but any real system in the world that you have sort of gained from in order to do it. Because business is a high predictor of being relentlessly resourceful, as we talked about.

Sam Parr

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

Shaan Puri

george what's the answer for you like did you have weird teenage hobbies

George Mack

Yeah, it might not translate as well to an American audience, but my dad bet me I couldn't do 10 kick-ups with a soccer ball. And, you just hit... so testosterone is in the system.

Sam Parr

what's a

Shaan Puri

kick up by the way

George Mack

like so a juggle with a soccer ball

Shaan Puri

okay gotcha

George Mack

So, my dad bet me I couldn't do that. £10. And testosterone just hit, like, the first bit of armpit hair. I remember thinking, "Fuck that guy, I'll prove him wrong." So, I trained and I trained and I trained. He didn't... cool parenting hack, by the way. He didn't try and push me to do it; he just bet me whether I could do it, and he made sure that he had to see me do it. Anyway, I ended up doing it, and then I kept doing it more and more. I ended up in an Adidas advert for a FIFA World Cup. I used to tour around doing tricks at different stadiums and held like three unofficial world records for different tricks and things like that. Then ultimately, I decided I wanted to lose my virginity, so I stopped doing it. But it was, yeah, really fun.

Sam Parr

did it did it work giving it up

George Mack

yeah still trying but some day soon

Shaan Puri

yeah tends

Sam Parr

to work out that way

Shaan Puri

sam what about you did you have weird teenage hobbies

Sam Parr

Yeah, I basically like the small, predictable things. Like, I had an eBay store when I was 12, or I remember in 4th grade.

Shaan Puri

small or predictable

Sam Parr

Well, yeah, like I mean things that I think you would expect me to do. Knowing me, I also, in 4th grade, when we had to pick a book to do a book report on, I did "How to Win Friends and Influence People."

George Mack

I like

Sam Parr

I enjoyed the stuff that I like now. Back when I was 12 years old, you're like, "Listen up class! Dale Carnegie said that your own name is the most beautiful word in the English language, so say it with me." You know what I mean?

George Mack

like yeah I was

Sam Parr

in the like the were you into anything

Shaan Puri

You know, when I first heard this, I felt really bad because I couldn't think of anything special that I did. Monesh Babri was on the episode, and he basically said there's a golden period. He studied, like, I went to his house, and he's got this whole wall of books on science, brain chemistry, and neuroscience. He was basically like, there's a golden decade, basically between the ages of around 10 and 19 years old, where the brain is optimal for specialization. During that time, if you look at the people who are great programmers, they usually started programming very early on.

Sam Parr

mhmm

Shaan Puri

Or great musicians, like at age 6, he composed his first piece. It's like, wow, this is insane! I felt really bad because I was like, "Oh shit, it's too late for me." Right? Like, what am I supposed to do now? I was just kind of a normal kid, picking boogers in junior high. I didn't do that, but then I started thinking about it more. I really thought about whether there was anything unique I experienced. The one thing I did think of was that I was really into improv early on. I didn't do it a ton, but I did go to our Texas state finals with group improv. It's basically me and my buddy doing group improv, which is kind of like a podcast without a microphone, right? That's what two people doing improv back and forth is. Then, I was in a couple of movies as a kid, so I kind of was doing this acting, improv, performing thing. I think if there's anything, that's what it was. But I wasn't a lemonade stand kind of guy or an eBay flipper type of person. The only other weird thing I did was play this game, NBA 2K, which is common. But the uncommon thing was I never actually played the game. I didn't go in and dunk or shoot; all I did was play franchise mode. I would simulate the season, then I would do the draft and scout all the prospects.

Sam Parr

so you wouldn't actually play like the like the

Shaan Puri

No, it wasn't intentional. Like, I thought, "Okay, first I'm gonna build this great team." So I was just like a CEO, basically. I was focused on free agency, trades, scouting, and finding diamonds in the rough. But I got so addicted to that, I never ended up playing with any of those players. I would just simulate. I would just do that for like...

Sam Parr

it's a fantasy league

Shaan Puri

10 years in there, I was basically a fantasy GM, which I guess is kind of like being a CEO or a business person. You're just doing that part; you're not actually doing the work. But my honest answer is that I was not elite at any of those things. Whereas I think the people who really excel tend to show that brilliance early on and become oddly good at something. Their obsession takes over them. I don't think I personally had that.

George Mack

I love that do you want me to give you the rest of the checklist for the high agency people and you can see who in your life you know

Shaan Puri

yeah weird teenage hobbies what else you got

George Mack

Energy distortion field. So, if you meet with them when you're tired and defeated, you leave the room ready to run a marathon or a treadmill with max incline. Low agency people do the opposite. This is the kind of idea of "treadmill friends." Afterwards, you've got so much energy that you need to go on a treadmill; you can't sleep. Then you have "sofa friends," who you need to lie down after hanging out with them. Who's like the treadmill friends in your guys' life that comes to mind?

Shaan Puri

Sam's like that for me. My buddy Sully is like that too. I can't hang out with Sully without it turning into a long walk. Literally, our hangout tends to be us walking for like four hours, talking. We almost have to burn off the energy from the excitement of the ideas and stories we're sharing while we're doing it. That's how this podcast got created. It was on a four-hour walk with him, and I was like, "You know what I really want?" By hour three, I said, "I really want to create a podcast. I want to be Tim Ferriss. I want to wake up and have a million people's earballs." That was a thought that came to me when I worked myself into that state. Ben, my business partner, is kind of like that too. I probably call Ben about eight times a day on average. We just talk eight times in a day, which now that I say it, sounds very weird, but it feels very normal. If I didn't have kids, it would probably be twenty times a day. Who are yours, George? Who are yours?

George Mack

Probably three. Chris Williamson from Modern Wisdom. We're like just out all night. We can just go and go and go.

Sam Parr

And you guys are both similar. Chris is, in a good way, like an academic. He just learns and then teaches. I feel that way listening to his podcast. So, who's the second one?

George Mack

David Sanram from Founders... he's just, if espresso was a human being, it would be David Sanram. So that guy, I'd add on that. Then the third one is my old boss, Steve Bartlett, who runs the "Diary of a CEO" podcast. I remember when Steve was running the business, he'd have offices in Manchester, London, and New York. I'd work in the Manchester office, and Steve was maybe there a quarter of the time in that office.

Sam Parr

and what business is this is this this

George Mack

this was back at his marketing agency social chain chat

Sam Parr

okay

George Mack

And I would open the door, and I'd know if Steve was in that day without seeing him, just off the energy in the room and everybody else's vibe. So those three would be my three.

Shaan Puri

that's a great compliment how'd you get the job by the way why why did you join social chain

George Mack

He had a unique angle. Essentially, the UK, as you mentioned earlier, is the sixth largest economy in the world. It's not just London; the UK as a whole is the sixth largest economy. However, there is a very poor list of cities and towns attached to it. So, he based himself in Manchester and just marketed himself well. He attracted all the talent that was in Manchester, which is where I was. Do you want the next one?

Shaan Puri

yeah keep going

George Mack

You can never guess their opinions. However, it's the boxer that writes poetry, the advertiser obsessed with the history of war, and the beauty queen who reads Nietzsche. If their beliefs don't line up with their stereotypes, they've exercised agency. So when you give them an opinion on ABC, do they fit in a box or do they often surprise you? They've fought things through, right? Anybody who pops up...

Shaan Puri

What you're saying is basically that they're non-cliché. We just had Jack Smith on the podcast. I think Jack is one of these types of independent thinkers. He's a successful, smart tech guy, you know? He almost has more of an engineer's brain. Then he came on and was talking about this "woo-woo" energy system healing—healing through energy using colors in a room that he sat in and how it cured his... whatever. I'm like, "Jeff, you're too smart for this."

Sam Parr

And I never know how he's going to reply to certain stuff. Right? Like, I'll explain something to him and I'm like, "I think you're going to be too smart to believe this," but you're open to learning more. That's wild to me.

Shaan Puri

Or even what he's going to do, his next move, right? In Silicon Valley, when you sell your company, there are two paths. Either they take you to a room and say, "Hey, here are two boxes. Would you like to become a VC? The vest is under this box," or you're a founder and your next thing is going to be AI healthcare or whatever. It's like cliché. Whereas Jack, after he sold his company, spent a year in his garage building the most ergonomic chair he could think of. It's like you couldn't guess what the guy's going to do next. He was totally non-cliché in that sense.

George Mack

I like it. The next one is **immigrant mentality**. If they've moved from their hometown, that's a good sign. If they've moved from their home country, that's an even greater sign. It takes **agency** to spot you in the wrong place, **resourcefulness** to operationalize a move, and a **growth mindset** to start from zero in a new location.

Shaan Puri

dude that's a great. That's a great. And I've moved around to like 9 different countries so I think I I win

Sam Parr

And that's kind of like what you're saying about America. You know, sometimes we started out as a country of immigrants, and that's maybe one of the reasons why we kind of have the outside of coverage a little bit.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, yeah. What's the saying by Keith or Boyd? It's like, "The people you hire are the company you build." The same thing applies to countries. If the initial seed population was a bunch of crazy risk-takers who were willing to get on a boat and go to a new land to establish it from scratch, you're going to create a population of people who have that same mentality.

George Mack

The way I've thought about America, the way I've narrowed it down, is this: if you look at what makes human beings special, if you have one human being in a jungle, that's one of the worst animals ever. We're just going to get destroyed. However, if you put 500 of us together, you've just introduced a master predator that the world, that forest, that jungle has never seen before. This is because we can cooperate. America is that concept on steroids. When you go there, the enthusiasm, the energy, the agency—sometimes the IQ isn't there. I'd probably argue that us Brits might be slightly smarter, no offense. However, you've got those qualities, which means you can't just have an idea and leave it at that. It's like, "Yeah, great idea! Let's do it!" There's a bias to optimism and a bias to action. Whereas you have the Brit who might say, "I don't think that'll work because of A, B, and C." That's why America is the best: because you can cooperate faster than any other country, in my opinion.

Shaan Puri

The Doritos Locos Taco did not come from pessimism. That’s only an idea that is uniquely American. You would never find that idea being born in any other country.

George Mack

I love it blast 2 blast 2 they send you niche content

Sam Parr

so low agency people look

George Mack

At the social engagement of content, before dealing with its quality, high-agency people just look at the content. They spot upcoming trends very early. The final point is that some people are nice to your face but gossip behind your back. The social incentives are to be nice to people's faces and gossip behind their backs. In contrast, high-agency people do the opposite.

Sam Parr

where'd you get that one from

George Mack

One of my friends, Lewis, is someone I know will always say the honest thing to my face. It's so useful to have a friend like that. Whereas the low agents... like, you basically see whenever someone's going against incentives. Oh, the agency that requires going against incentives. I've written this: I often don't go against incentives, even though I know about incentives and I understand agency. I still fall for it. It's the Daniel Kahneman thing at the start of the conversation. To go against the social incentives of pain, I'll say a rude thing to your face that you need social pain for. Also, when you're not there, there's no actual benefit. All the benefit is to cost it behind your back to do the opposite and swim upstream. You need agency.

Sam Parr

You're very philosophical, which I think is cool. It's almost like you have a business just to justify the reading, just to give you an excuse to spend time reading and thinking about all that.

Shaan Puri

like your own patron basically you're like cool

Sam Parr

can

Shaan Puri

I find myself sitting in a room, thinking of ideas, inverting them, and then thinking about them again. I write them down and share them with the world.

Sam Parr

like do you do you even like capitalism

George Mack

I love... well, I love compressing ideas. That's why I like advertising; I can use that skill to compress things down. I always loved Donald Schwarzenegger's biography, where he made all his money from real estate so he could do whatever the heck he wanted with his acting career. I think he's slightly underrated for doing that.

Shaan Puri

Sam, did you know I offered to invest in George's business? I was like, "I'll invest on fair terms. I'll blow this thing up. We'll grow this baby like crazy." He was like, "That's all good, but there's one problem. If this grows, I'm going to have to... it's going to suck me more towards that, and I actually want to be all in the business of ideas. I don't want this to become, you know, bigger and more."

Sam Parr

made you wanna so much more

Shaan Puri

it made me respect him so much more right and I was like again it's that's a high agency thing to do right to be able to can you say no to money like can you say no to money might be like another thing to just add on your list how many times have you said no to money I've I've told the story in the podcast before but you may not have heard it the highest agency moment of my life was I was in 6th grade I think I got put in detention after school and our detention was you go to the lunch room school's out everybody leaves it's just the 20 kids who got in trouble that day you have to sit in silence and do nothing and they see they seat you kinda like every other chair diagonal so that you can't really you could talk to somebody but you it's not very easy to you can't whisper you have to be a little bit loud and it's me and it's the weirdest kid in our school there's a kid who had hair down to his waist and he always wore these like weird tattered shirts and he was just a weirdo and I saw and people used to pick on him and so I'm sitting there and I'm kind of a bully and I wanted to pick on him a little bit I just wanna mess with him I was bored right I'm in d hole you you you have 2 hours to do nothing and I see on the floor of the lunchroom there's like a grape that was like from lunch hours earlier and it's like nasty it's on the floor of a little kid's lunchroom and it's like got hair on or whatever and I just whispered to him and I was just like yo I'll give you a dollar if you eat that grape and he looks down he's like a dollar I was like yeah and then he reaches down and I'm like oh my god he's fell for he's going for it this is insane he picks it up and he eats the grape and I'm like grossed out my mind is blown I can't believe he did it I'm like alright deal's a deal I get get out my wallet I take a dollar I hand it to him and then he took the dollar and he ate it wow wow I could not believe it damn this was like 22 years ago or something I I still remember it vividly and I just thought that was the biggest no fucks given moment I have ever probably still to this day in my life of like you know f you f your money f the grape I am going to like he just ate the dollar I couldn't believe it no upside in it but he sent an absolute message to my core

George Mack

I love it

Sam Parr

that's ridiculous where do you wanna go from here sean

Shaan Puri

You have a couple of other cool lifestyle things you do. So, do you want to talk about the Kale Phone? I think this is something that might be helpful for people. What is the Kale Phone method that you do?

George Mack

Yeah, so again, talking about sticky ideas. Let me pull it up. I’ve got them here, actually. I have my cocaine phone and I have my Kailh phone. I ended up writing about this, and then it ended up on Fox News where it was like Trump, Biden, and then George, my cocaine Kailh phone. Essentially, what I realized is there are two things that are presented to you in modern society as people get more and more addicted to their phones. There’s option one: be a phone monkey and just be on your phone all day, dealing with the cortisol and all the stress and mental fatigue that everyone’s facing. Option two is to just give up on the phone, put it away for a week, and have a digital detox. The benefits of that are, yeah, you feel mentally clear, you feel incredible, and you come up with creative ideas. But if your mom goes to the hospital, how’s she going to get a hold of you? Or if you’re out and about and you need an Uber, like, “Fuck, I can’t get an Uber!” Or if I want to use Apple Notes to write down ideas, I can’t do that. So I realized that what society presented was either the smartphone addict or the phoneless Luddite. Actually, there’s somewhere in between, which is the cocaine and Kailh phone. The Kailh phone is like all serotonin apps that make you feel good—so Audible, Notes, Uber, Google Maps, stuff that you need for necessities, as well as maybe an emergency number for your mom, wife, or business partner if they need to get a hold of you. You have that peace of mind when you’re not on your cocaine phone that they can still reach you. Worst case scenario, somebody dies. Then, cocaine phone: everything—Slack, WhatsApp, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram—let’s go crazy! Put the cocaine phone in the drawer, check it when you need to check it, then use the Kailh phone when you’re out and about for a walk. The single best thing I’ve probably done for my mental health, and everybody who tries it—or a lot of people who try it—writes to me and goes, “This is a game changer.”

Shaan Puri

What is the actual other phone? Is it just an Android phone? What did you do for the other phone? Is it just two iPhones?

George Mack

just another iphone

Sam Parr

but do you have 2 sim cards

Shaan Puri

how do you do the number yeah

George Mack

I have 2 sim cards so I have a different number in the kailh phone than the cocaine phone

Shaan Puri

Oh, got it. Okay, the only drawback is that they basically have to have a second phone line, and people have to know to reach you there when you need it.

George Mack

But it's only your mom, wife... maybe, yeah, right? That's the only people who really need that. It's just for the peace of mind that most of the time they would. The only time they go do it is when somebody's at the hospital. But it's having that peace of mind that therefore I don't need to check a cocaine phone for that incident.

Sam Parr

Sean, let me ask you a question. Be honest about this, and I'll answer it and I'll be honest too. Do your parents still pay for your cell phone bill?

Shaan Puri

I'd pay them back alright my dad tells me the amount it's a family plan we've been

Sam Parr

on it for a long time I just change it dude

Shaan Puri

this is can I change it with keeping my number that's too

Sam Parr

much work save I am also on my family plan and so george when you're talking about getting a new cell phone

Shaan Puri

I'm like, **shout out** to everybody who's on their family plan right now. **Shout out** to everybody whose dad is paying the phone bill. It's all we have. That's our last connection. That's the last cord that gets cut between you and your parents: the promise to the phone plan.

Sam Parr

I don't even know how to... I've never gotten like a new phone without calling my mother first. I always have to say, "Hey, my phone broke. I'm going to buy one. Will you tell AT&T they gotta put it on the plan?"

George Mack

what so when you sold the hustle she didn't go go get your own fucking phone plan she carried on going

Shaan Puri

it's not a money thing

George Mack

fair play well there we go

Sam Parr

it's not fair play I don't know I I I don't think you're using that word like I think it should be used

George Mack

especially if you

Sam Parr

yeah you text your mom saying I need

George Mack

to get a cocaine phone it's probably gonna go down too well as well

Sam Parr

so I I thought sean I thought you would have also have been on yours

Shaan Puri

Yeah, yeah, for sure, dude. My wife feels it's like almost a sign of disrespect that I didn't create a new family plan with us as the core family unit. I'm like, "Look, it's just a hassle, okay? I'm not... listen, don't read more into it than what it is, dude. I'm just lazy, okay?"

Sam Parr

There's this episode on Ellen DeGeneres where she's asking Bill Gates, "Let's see if you know how much a gallon of milk costs." Like, you know, you're so out of touch. So when you talk to me about a cell phone plan, I'm like, "I don't know, $5 or $100?" I... yeah.

Shaan Puri

you would

Sam Parr

go to

Shaan Puri

the like $23 right

Sam Parr

Yeah, just say with the phone plan, I'm like, I don't know, $1,000. I have no idea.

Shaan Puri

So, George, are there any drawbacks? Or, like, in practice, let's say I wanted to go do this. Because the idea is really sticky; it's really viral. Even if you never did it, it just sounds cool. But you actually... let me verify, you actually live this way?

Sam Parr

Yeah, for you, sir, I gotta run. I'll leave all my stuff up. I had a 1:30 appointment. I'll see you soon.

Shaan Puri

see you so you actually live this way you actually have the 2 phones

George Mack

Yeah, I've done it for three and a bit years. Whenever I doubt it, I've had incidents where I've lost one phone or had an issue with signal in a certain country. When you go back to that lifestyle of waking up and downloading social media as your first input into your brain or messaging apps, you only realize it by contrast. I think that is so destructive, particularly for people who are creative or ideas people. Downloading whatever the worst news headline is and bringing it into your consciousness, especially if you then use your phone as your alarm clock as well, is... I think it's toxic. I've experienced it by contrast; I can't deal with it.

Shaan Puri

I want to ask you about Lee Kuan Yew. He's someone who's been on my list of people I want to do a deep dive into. It sounds like you've read a bit about him or studied him a little. What are the learnings from Lee Kuan Yew?

George Mack

So, Lee Kuan Yew was the leader of Singapore during his reign. He took Singapore from essentially being a third-world country with a lot of problems. You've got China and Japan on your doorstep, which historically are not the friendliest neighbors to have. Part of the British rule, part of the British Empire, he transformed Singapore into one of the best financial hubs in the world. He ran the country like a CEO. One of my favorite anecdotes about Lee Kuan Yew is how he used to obsess about the airport onboarding experience. It's interesting; you see such obvious ideas in startups and you wonder, why don't countries just take this? The onboarding experience, or the conversion rate optimization of a landing page, a website, or an advert, versus when you arrive at the airport. What's the airport like? What are the queues like? What are the immigration queues like? What are the bathrooms like? How clean are things? What's the first few miles from the airport to the city? Lee Kuan Yew used to obsess over everything. He would change the roofs, clean things up, inspect regularly, and see how quickly things were moving. He knew that these were talented people coming for the first time. Dubai does this incredibly well. You go there for the first time and you think, "Oh wow, they've looked at everybody else's onboarding experience and 5x'd this immediately." They create those magic moments, like designing Facebook or designing Asana, within the first few minutes of entering and leaving the airport. You have to think of it like a stand-up comedian: the first thing is you arrive, and the last thing is you leave. He used to obsess over that. I remember I went to Austin airport, and as you go up to get an Uber, you have to go through about three different car parks, and your phone signal goes out. You're sweating. I remember thinking to myself, "We would..."

Shaan Puri

A criminal. If you try to get an Uber in an American airport, you're treated like a criminal. It's like, "Oh, if you're gonna do a drug deal, then go to the 3rd parking garage, 4th floor, behind the fence. That's where you can go get picked up if you're gonna be an asshole."

George Mack

Yeah, I remember being there, thinking, "You would fucking hate this." I also remember thinking, "That's so weird." Not many people have that thought walking through Austin Airport.

Shaan Puri

Lee Kuan Yew is rolling over in his grave right now. So, that's interesting because I remember when I was in my teens, I went to Singapore. If you haven't been, the Singaporean airport is like a mall. It's like an experience! They have a fitness facility, a movie theater, and it is just a beautiful place. Everything is clean, and there are tons of comfortable seating. It is not like a pain the way that most airport experiences are. I remember just noting that and being like, "Oh, that's weird. Why is Singapore's airport so good?" So, it's very interesting that he thought about it as a first impression onboarding experience. Now, is that just a cool story? Did that pay off in some way? Did the immigration rate go up? What changed from that? What were the things that he did to actually turn the country around? What were the big levers that he pulled? So, onboarding is one. What really worked?

George Mack

Attracting talented immigration is the single biggest thing, from my understanding of Singapore's story. Part of that, obviously, is the onboarding process. If you look at it, Singapore has essentially no natural resources. It's not blessed with Saudi Arabia's oil or, like, Los Angeles's beauty necessarily. But just attracting as many talented immigrants as possible is key. I don't know as much about the specifics around the economics, such as taxation and things like that, but it's just a wild case study. I know Charlie Munger is obsessed with Lee Kuan Yew. He has this story about Lee Kuan Yew: rather than marrying the hottest girl in his class, he picked the only girl in his class who performed better than him. He was at the most elite university in Singapore, and he married the lady who was the only one smarter than him. So, he's a very odd, peculiar individual.

Shaan Puri

There's another thing he did was around air conditioning, right? Didn't he do like a big push for having AC in the country?

George Mack

Yeah, I saw that recently. I think it was Peter Levells on Twitter who was breaking that down. He was obsessed with getting air conditioning because he was convinced it was key to economic success.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, like he was basic... So there was an interview with him. I'm reading an article now from Vox. Basically, in this interview, he was asked, "Was there anything else besides multicultural tolerance that enabled Singapore's success?" His answer was **air conditioning**. He said air conditioning was the most important invention for us. If you look at countries like India—my parents grew up there—you'll see that it's so hot that during the day, during your brain's most productive hours, they take like a **3-hour break**. You just stay inside and try to sleep. Even then, you can't really sleep because it's so hot. You're just laying on a cot with a fan trying to cool down because you can't be outside. You can't really be productive in thinking right now; you just have to wait out the heat. My assistant is in the Philippines, and one of the things she always talks about is how they would have these heat waves. It's super hard for her to work because she flipped her schedule. She works in the evening her time, which is daytime my time. I asked her, "Man, is that really inconvenient for you? How does that work for your lifestyle?" She said, "Well, of course, it takes some adjusting, but one of the big things is I don't have to deal with the heat. I sleep during the day when it's really hot, and I wake up in the evening when it's cooler. That's when I work, and I feel better that way." It's also, by the way, why so many great engineers come from the Nordic regions. Those are places where it's too cold to go outside.

George Mack

say say

Shaan Puri

It's too dark to go outside; it's like dark all the time. So, they just stay inside their program and code on computers because there aren't really better options out there. They develop this amazing engineering talent because during their formative years, they just stay inside for a bunch of time. And what's the best thing to do when you're inside? It's like play on the computer, play video games, and learn to program.

George Mack

just second and third order consequences everywhere you look crazy

Shaan Puri

Exactly, exactly, exactly. Do you have any other key frameworks that really, I don't know, shifted the way you think? Or ones that you keep seeing pop up that you don't think most people appreciate?

George Mack

I'd say there's two. One is probably mine and your favorite meme, the Medwitt meme, which just refuses to die. It's like a fine wine; it gets better with age. I've realized how often I've been the guy in the middle over the years. Then, I try to come up with solutions to not be the guy in the middle, and then I realize...

Shaan Puri

You have any canonical examples of the midwit meme? Of you in the middle that you could think of? Like just personal attacks on your psyche?

George Mack

Yes, one was when I started to get really obsessed with sleep around when I was like 20 or 21. I had everything sleep optimized. Matthew Walker had just been on Joe Rogan, so I got the 10-step checklist routine. I had the supplements; I had everything. I was doing the whole two-hour wind-down routine: no screens before bed, red light glasses on, and I was brushing my teeth in the dark. Then, my girlfriend at the time came in and hit the lights just minutes before bed, completely blinding me. I was like, "What are you doing?" I was sitting there in bed, and of course, she was on the left or the right, and she immediately fell asleep within two minutes without doing any of the things I was doing. I was stuck there for an hour afterwards, shaking with adrenaline from how angry and blitzed I was. I realized, oh shit, a lot of sleep issues stem from the fact that the more you think about sleep, the more pressure you put on it, the worse your sleep becomes. For example, if I were the CMO of Whoop or Oura, the one thing I would suggest as a product improvement would be to never allow users to know the next day's score. This is probably one of the most toxic things for sleep. People checking their sleep and going to bed thinking about what score they're going to get creates an insomniac cycle. In contrast, having a summary of the previous week when you're detached from the results is probably useful, but knowing the next day's score is particularly bad. So that's a midway area.

Shaan Puri

That's a great one. I think one of the studies about what makes people unhappy, depressed, or suicidal shows that one of the strongest signals is this idea of **rumination**. It's almost like an obsessive thought loop about yourself and your thoughts. Once you get into that thought loop, it is very, very difficult to get out. It's also why one of the easiest hacks to feeling better about yourself is to simply go help other people. The over-focus on yourself and your own condition is what creates your own poor conditions. You know, it's the same reason my trainer says this thing: "Whatever you feel you lack, that's exactly what you gotta give." If you feel you lack respect and you got disrespected, go give respect. If you feel like you lack money, go give money. Literally, just flipping the mindset from "I lack" to "I have enough so I can give" breaks this thought loop of worry and anxiety around certain topics. Sleep is the same way; health is the same way. You could literally become manic about your own health, stressing yourself out, which decreases your health. I think a lot of people fall into this trap with therapy and self-improvement, where they get addicted to the medicine, and it creates too many thoughts about yourself. The happiest people are the ones who are not doing this extreme introspection all the time.

George Mack

Yes, the single... the single. Because I noticed that when it came to decisions, let's say people probably get this right now, like a big decision: "Do I move to the city or stay in the city? Do I quit this thing or carry on doing this thing?" I would have this thing in my head where it would play the worst-case scenario. If I thought about moving to the city, the amygdala would fire, and then I'd think about the other thing, and the amygdala would fire again, playing the worst-case scenario. As a result, **paralysis by analysis** would kick in. I'd make the decision to not make a decision. One of the biggest bits of advice I got was to stop thinking about making decisions and start thinking about making experiments. I realized there were decisions I was procrastinating on for two years that I could have done both of them ten times over in the time spent thinking about the thing.

Shaan Puri

**Mhmm, yeah, that's a great one.** Sam has a nice little concept on this called "worry time." He believes that once he thinks something is worthy of an experiment or worthy of trying, it's a big difference from just saying, "I'm going to do this." It's more about experimenting with something rather than committing to it as a new thing. He gives himself a little bit of grace by saying, "I'm going to try to experiment." He schedules his worry time. He says, "Cool, what I don't want to do is make this decision and then reassess it daily, worrying about it every single day." He worries about questions like, "Is it working? Is it going to work? Am I good enough? Is this right? Is this wrong? Am I making a mistake here?" So, he schedules it. He literally puts it on the calendar for Sunday and allocates 30 minutes for his worry time. He knows he will worry about this on Sunday, so he doesn't need to worry about it today. For now, he just needs to do it. He explains that when you don't decide when you're going to worry about something, you end up worrying about it all the time. You're almost worried that you're never going to assess it. I found that to be a great hack: to schedule the worry time. My trainer says it's like when you plant a seed to grow a plant. If the next day you come and dig it up to check, "Are you growing yet? Is it working?" you're actually destroying the plant's ability to grow. So, plant the seed and don't just dig it up every day to stare at it and wonder why it's not working. Carry on, water it, give it sunlight—that's all you really need to do from there.

George Mack

A 100% one guy who's completely changed my thinking, and you should have him on the show. He's an absolute machine of a founder who goes under the radar. You know, LMNT, the electrolyte company?

Shaan Puri

yeah lmnt like the yeah so like

George Mack

In five years, they're growing like banana numbers—like 100 out of 1,000,000. I met James, the founder, who talked about high agency. We were camping, and there were bears nearby. I'm terrified of bears, as you wouldn't be, as a human being. But no, James is there. Am I right? If James is there, he'll highlight, "It's fine, I'll deal with that." In his way, they've managed to scale the way they have. He's written about this publicly. He does three weeks on, one week off; three weeks on, one week off. So, you know, one of your aphorisms or Naval's aphorisms is to "sprint like a work."

Shaan Puri

a lion

George Mack

Yeah, don't race like a cow. I realized with his philosophy that he has that one-week assessment. I noticed that when I went on holiday, the first three days would be difficult for me. It would take me until the fourth day to switch off. I think he's baked into his schedule that the first three days are for fun. Then, the following three days, he's assessing the OKRs, reviewing the numbers, looking at the experiments, and plotting out the next three weeks. After that, the following three weeks is just a hardcore sprint. He's completely redone the work, and it makes sense. We just downloaded this workweek philosophy from the industrial age versus really thinking about it. He's managed to do that for himself and his whole leadership team while the company's growing like bananas. It's factoring in that worry time, and it makes so much more sense.

Shaan Puri

I love that! Yeah, I think that's great. It actually makes me think about the typical work schedule: Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 5 PM. Why? Even though I'm my own boss and I'm in my own house, my schedule is a little bit different. I suspect that it is not as different as it should be in terms of what would actually be the most beneficial for me in my life, both for my creativity and my enjoyment. I probably just started with the normal structure: 52 weeks in a year, working Monday through Friday, taking weekends off, and then having 2 to 3 weeks of vacation somewhere in between. Then I just tweaked that. But I wonder, from first principles, what if I didn't even know that structure? How would I design my work? I bet there's probably even more I can do on that front. This is obviously a bit of a luxury to have, but it's also an intentional choice. Some people's goal is to have fancy cars and go to festivals, but that wasn't my dream. My dream was total control of my time and to have a lifestyle that I truly enjoy—something that's super fun. So that's the luxury I want to keep funding.

George Mack

And the realization I had from his schedule of that 3 to 1 is that the rewards of working like a lion have never been higher. With leverage, code, and internet businesses, the ease of grazing like a cow has never been easier. Going back to the cocaine kale foam... there’s so much going on. There’s always the busy trap you can end up in. You've got this weird period of time right now where the rewards of this have never been higher, but the actual act of doing it has never been harder. His philosophy of 3 weeks on, 1 week off... I would encourage everybody to just search "Element 3 to 1." He wrote an essay on it. You should have him on the show; he's phenomenal. The fact that they've done it while also growing as aggressively as they have for the whole leadership team is impressive. They all take a week out to be creative and come up with new ideas when they come back, and that is phenomenal.

Shaan Puri

yeah that's pretty awesome by the way the thing you just said about the the lion versus the cow so the people haven't heard it the the the phrase is is you know you wanna work like a lion not a cow the way a lion works is they they first just wait and they look for prey right they're just observing they're looking for an opportunity they're not just gonna run around randomly or chase like small insects they look for a worthy a worthy challenge a worthy prey and when they see the gazelle then they sprint as hard as they can they don't walk they take massive action they move with speed they catch it they feast they celebrate then they rest and reassess and wait for the next challenge whereas a cow stands in the field slowly walking around all day grazing on this low nutritional you know density grass all day of course they're animals that's how they that's what they need to eat that's fine but in terms of working a lot of us work more like the cow we sit at our desk 8 hours a day minimal you know kinda like some low simmer of productivity and then we don't have the juice to sprint nor do we feel confident and secure enough to rest reassess to celebrate we just sort of feel this anxiety to be constantly you know sort of on and sort of on is a problem you're you're a ufc guy right did you ever see that interview with conor mcgregor after he lost his fight to nate diaz do you remember this era where he was on his rise he's gonna fight nate diaz and this was probably the first opponent that he was favored against so he was supposed to you know he was supposed to get crushed by aldo he he he you know and but he beats aldo he's supposed to get beat by mendez a wrestler that's his kryptonite he beats mendez and then it's nate diaz oh here's a guy he's lost half his fights won half his fights you know he's not a champion mcgregor has proven everybody wrong you're certainly gonna beat diaz and instead he goes and he loses and the one reason he lost was his cardio was really poor he had miscalculated his training and then he he ran out of gas and so when he went back to the lab and he's rested and reassessed and tried to figure out what to do next he said this great line he goes yeah hired this coach and they go so you're training a lot more now right to have more cardio like you're doing more and more and more he goes no actually it was about doing less he goes the thing was I was never resting my body the analogy my my trainer gave me was you're like a a light bulb that's always flickering you're just at a dim level and you're never turning off and you're never really bright because you're never resting you're always doing stuff you're overtraining and you're never giving your body a chance to to recuperate and so because of that your training is never peaking you're never actually shining really bright nor is the switch ever going off so that's what they changed then he came back and he ended up you know winning the winning the next fight just a couple months later and his cardio had had improved in that that no most people thought in that 2 months you can't really improve your cardio that much but he did and he was able to win that fight I always thought that was a wonderful example of this kind of like 3 2 1 sort of philosophy but not in business but in you know sports mhmm

George Mack

Yeah, how about my friend called it "rest ethic"? It's like, ah, that's the sticky idea there. It needed to be compressed. He talks about his subconscious as he's the technical co-founder, so like believing the ideas of his subconscious. I think we'll see more and more focus in that area as leverage gets higher and higher. Realizing that there's no such thing as overworking; there's just under resting.

Shaan Puri

There's no such thing as overworking; there's only under-resting. What do you do to rest besides sleep?

George Mack

I'm trying to think of anything that's nonbasic

Shaan Puri

well that's okay if it's basic I'm I'm into simple things that work if it's just I go for walks that's great

George Mack

On... I mean, an honest answer would be "call phone in the morning, goodbye." So, I'm detached from immediate inputs coming through, having a bit of intentionality and soreness.

Shaan Puri

Resting is not just napping. Resting is not having a thousand inputs coming into your brain at all hours of the day.

George Mack

Exactly. Having time to process things is important. It's like the Christopher Nolan thing of him not having a smartphone. I think there's probably a little bit of an advantage in not being as addicted to your smartphone, especially while everybody else is.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I started doing **Silent Sundays** where basically I just put the phone in a box on Saturday and I won't touch it all Sunday. It's a very small step, but when you do it, you realize the depth of the addiction. You start to have, you know, you're patting your pocket every 3 seconds or you're going to the bathroom and you're like, "What am I gonna do? How am I gonna entertain myself in this 6-second walk to the restroom?" That's literally how extreme it is for me.

George Mack

Yeah, that's crazy. It's crazy that this is happening society-wide and we've all... It's like caffeine. The real drugs or the real addictions are the ones that are probably going completely under the radar because we never want to kick that thing.

Shaan Puri

yeah the the real the dangerous addictions are the ones that are socially acceptable

George Mack

Yes, well, Louis C.K. has a cocaine... he has a "kale laptop." Apparently, he has one writing laptop that has no internet. It's just a test. It's smart because you're not going to beat the world's best data scientist when it comes to who has run all these A/B tests. Meanwhile, you've woken up on five hours of sleep with a little bit of a hangover, and you think you're going to win. You're not going to win.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, we'll finish with this. What's the... how to source your values? This is an idea I've never heard from you. What is that?

George Mack

So, I called this "Buffet Coin." It may need a stickier idea or a stickier meme behind it. But there's this incredible talk, I think it's Warren Buffet at the University of Georgia. It's my favorite idea of his that very few people have discussed.

Shaan Puri

it's on youtube how'd you see it

George Mack

I think I originally saw it on YouTube. There are a few write-ups as well, and he's given a talk. The kids in the class ask him how to be successful, the cliché "how to be rich" thing. Rather than listing the typical steps, he suggests a thought experiment: "Look around at the people in the class right now. If you could invest in them and get 10% of their earnings for the rest of their life, who would it be and why?" So, I mean, with Sean, you could probably think of lots of people. People at home can probably think of lots of people too. You think about it and go, "Okay, yeah, I'd definitely invest in GM or I'd definitely invest in Mike." Then he goes on to ask yourself, "Why? What is it that that person does? What are the values that they have, the behaviors that they exhibit?" We spoke in the first episode about how it's so hard to see in yourself, but it's so easy to see in other people. You're kind of hacking the self-awareness bias. The effort you put into ruminating and improving yourself is probably misguided. But by looking at other people, you can see immediately what works and what doesn't. You can then try to adopt those values. Then he flips the experiment around and asks, "If you had to short people in your life, meaning you take 10% of their losses, who would you choose and why?" From that, you can create a list of values to pursue and a list of values to avoid. What's beautiful about that is it's not just about money; you can apply that to health, happiness, and other aspects of life. Using that third-party awareness perspective is so much more useful than ruminating or analyzing yourself. At least, that's what I've found.

Shaan Puri

I love that I mean so simple right it's it's like the answer the answer becomes incredibly clear as soon as you ask that question you know who if if you take you know wealth or you take happiness and it's who would you bet on you could pretty quickly a couple of names come to mind okay great why why well because they're this this and this cool there's your blueprint you didn't need the advice from warren buffett like the advice was literally hidden in plain sight in the people that you knew right around you the blueprint was visible they were like a walking blueprint of what to do or what not to do I love that I've tried to use that on the health side because health is probably the one area of my life that I and when I say health I mean not being fat health is like a fancy way of saying it I'm not trying to do fancy health I've tried to be like hey I'm pretty fat I should just be not fat and I should be fit instead of fat and so what I realized was I was like oh all I simply need to do is just do the things that the fit people do so instead of searching for like which diet is best or which workout program should I be doing or what equipment should I it's like let's just simplify who in my life is fit and then simply what do they do and find the delta between what I do and what they do oh okay at night when I'm hungry I'll go grab a bag of chips from the pantry at night when they're hungry they drink a glass of water and they go to sleep right or in the morning you know the first thing I do is I roll over I check my phone my laptop I start working what they do is they go work out first for 45 minutes and then they start working okay good I like the blueprint is stupidly obvious it's right in front of me you know for example my trainer came with me on a trip and so we all packed our bag and when we all got there we all look at it in the bag and he had a protein powder in there he had a set of bands in there and he had a little myofascial like ball like a massage ball so that when he got off the flight he could quickly loosen up and it's just we looked at all of our bags you know business guys who were out of shape we just didn't even have the shit in the bag and it's not the tool it's just simply like it's not like he had to think how am I gonna be fit this weekend it's simply a way of life for him and so the the easiest question I have is what's is that I ask myself when I'm like in a situation is alright sweet what's a fit guy like me doing in a situation like this instead of what should I do what am I gonna do am I gonna do with the what should I order off doordash what's a fit guy like me order at a time like this and the answer is a lot easier when I simply think of what what does a person who already has the outcome I want how do they approach the same situation and luckily there's enough people around my around me in my life where I could just watch and see what they do

George Mack

And I think the key... *asterisk*... the key *asterisk* I think he gives as well is it has to be merit-based. So, like, you can't just pick the person with the billionaire dad or the ridiculous ab genetic. Francis and Gandhi style, the better the returns. If you almost look at a company, like the better returns on their start position, that you would bet on is probably the person to study the most. Like, if it's the super skinny guy, then you'd go, "I'd still bet on his fitness coin." Or if it's the guy from the worst background, but you'd still bet on his finance coin. Those are the real values you can learn from.

Shaan Puri

I love it, dude! George, as I knew, this was amazing. Two parts—so good! It’s so fun to talk to you, dude. This is why when I launched one of your Good Friday email series that I started doing on my website, you were the first guy I reached out to. I love trading ideas with you, and you are just an absolute fountain of insightful, interesting things that I think can help people's lives. So, thanks for coming on, man! Where should people follow you? Is Twitter the best place?

George Mack

Yeah, thank you for having me. Twitter: go to **George Mack** [@george_mack](https://twitter.com/george_mack) and visit **georgemack.com**. We've helped three different $1,000,000,000 companies get their best performing ads. So, if you need help with advertising as well, go to **adprofessor.com**. And yeah, thank you for having us, Sean.

Shaan Puri

awesome see you soon man