This Strip Club Mogul Runs A $800 Million Business (#390)

Sam Parr

Alright, we're live! Sean, you look nice. We're both updating our studios. Looks like yours got done first.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, sorry to steal the show, but we switched it already, so I don't know what...

Sam Parr

I don't know what else to do

Shaan Puri

the grand reveal would have been cooler if we'd both did it at the same time but whatever

Sam Parr

Well, that's alright. It's yours, isn't it? Mine's gonna get worked on this weekend, dude. So basically, for the listeners, we're making our studios look nice, whatever. It's totally limiting my options for my lifestyle. I'm now thinking about this, and I'm like, "Oh shit, I need a bigger house." I could have a guest room, a podcasting room, and potential baby rooms. It's like, what if you want to travel? This freaking podcast is taking over! No, like, poor me, I can't travel for two months at a time.

Shaan Puri

or you can just do it in both houses

Sam Parr

Dude, I'm thinking about my lifestyle and where I want to live, which I've talked about a lot on here. I don't know what to do. I don't know where I'm going to end up. I don't know what I'm going to do. It's driving me mad.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, by the way, we should do an episode that explains how we thought through the full studio setup. When the whole thing's done, mine is about 70% done and yours is at 0% so far. When we're finished, we should do an episode explaining how we approached it, how we pulled it together, and how we did it without a big headache. We can cover all the stuff we bought, how much it all cost, and do a full breakdown as a separate video on YouTube.

Sam Parr

Alright, I'm down. Yeah, we gotta... and we'll pimp out the guy who did it, Kevin. Yeah, sure, we could do that.

Shaan Puri

okay cool let's jump with what what topics you got you wanna go first

Sam Parr

Alright, I'll start off with something interesting. I want to give an award that I'm calling the **Chad Bro Chill Award** to this guy named **Eric Langan**. So, listen to this guy's story. I just randomly came across this because my friend **Alex** showed it to me. It's kind of like a true **rags-to-riches** American dream story. So, hear me out. This guy named Eric, he's 21 years old, and he starts dating this woman. She sees that her place of work is not exactly treating her respectfully. He says, "You know, where this woman works, I think this is an interesting business. I think if I created a business that treated my employees a little bit better, I could retain them better and build a better business." So, he's 21 years old and somehow he's accumulated all these really nice baseball cards over the past 10 years of collecting. He takes them to a convention, sells his baseball cards, and now he has **$44,000** in cash. He goes, "I'm gonna go and start my business." And what is that business? It's a strip club. He was dating a stripper, and this guy Eric... he takes this well.

Shaan Puri

done with the story enjoyed that

Sam Parr

Yeah, so he takes this company and he buys... he has one strip club, he starts another, and eventually he takes it public. Yes, this is a publicly traded company that owns a bunch of strip clubs, and that symbol is "RICK." So now, at this point, it has an $800,000,000 market cap, and it's basically a wonderful cash-flowing company. It has an $800,000,000 market cap, does something like $300,000,000 in revenue, and around $80,000,000 in cash flow. It's kind of interesting because they basically buy mom-and-pop strip clubs, which I don't know if that's like an oxymoron, but...

Shaan Puri

just pop and pop

Sam Parr

Yeah, yeah, something like that. You know, just like your standard local mom-and-pop strip club. He buys them for 1 or 2 times revenue, puts a little operational process in there, and he's also got a crazy clientele where guys like Drake and Pitbull and all these people rap about his strip clubs. You know, I wanna be honest, I've only been to one strip club in my life. I went to one strip club ever. It was in Vegas like 4 years ago. Have you been to a strip club?

Shaan Puri

Same story. I actually have a funny story about this. So, we went to a strip club for the first time when I was 21 years old, maybe. I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know if this was the start of a new hobby or if this was the start of a bad day. In Vegas, there are guys on the street who are like, "Boys, looking handsome! You guys want free limo, free drinks?" And you're like, "Yeah, no questions! Yeah, yeah, yeah! That sounds like a good offer I have."

Sam Parr

no further questions we get

Shaan Puri

in this limo we're like and we're like hey do we get to choose where it goes it's like nah we're dumping you off at this like place 5 miles away and you're gonna go into our establishment and so we we get dropped off at this place we're like I guess we're at a strip club now like wow I guess we probably should have thought that one through we go in and it's it's 4 friends and my buddy I I won't say their names but so we go in and I'll just tell you the characters there's me I'm the the the group I'm like the jester I'm the I just I'm just there to make jokes and I'm like oh this is this I'm gonna thrive here there's gonna be so much so much funny material but I'm not the I'm not the one who's sort of the most I'm not the most prude I'm not the most kind of aggressive when it comes to to women there's one guy who's like the ladies man everybody this guy always gets all the girls and when we go to the strip club we're just sort of expecting him to take the lead it's like yo ball's in your court here you you tell us you're the man you tell us boys what to do and then we have one guy who's been in a relationship for like 95 years just got out looks like a dad and we were like you know okay you just stay at the back you're you're not gonna know what to do here you you've been in a relationship for 95 years we walk in and within 2 minutes we're like hey where'd dad where'd the dad go like he's gone and we see him while we were nervously just like ordering drinks at the bar like as if that's why we came to the strip club was like to go get a drink at bar and we're using the free coupons the guy gave us up from the street we're like trying to tear them and be like does this come with 2 of any drink and like we're like what's a spirit technically and like you know because they're like it doesn't apply to any spirits and then we're like where'd he go and then we see him holding hands with a stripper walk into the back and we're like what the we're like the back we can't even see him anymore we don't know what how does he know what to do back there we were all just like you know befuddled but now we're all sort of like challenged it's like okay challenge accepted we all see this guy for like 45 minutes so we let 15 minutes go by we assume he's gonna come back this guy's nowhere to be found and we're like what is going on what is he doing back there and then so we kinda get nervous we go back and so each of us picks a stripper and we all we each go to the back so ladies man goes with the you know some super hot stripper

Sam Parr

like in the same room

Shaan Puri

No, we don't know. You just go behind this curtain now. We don't know. I don't know where my friend is. I don't know if I'll ever see him again. So, Ladies Man takes the hottest stripper, goes in the back. Spoiler: he ends up falling in love with her. He literally falls in love with the stripper. He's like, "Dude, she's the best!" And he's like, "No, it's not about her looks. Her heart was so pure." So he fell in love. That's what happened to him that night. I go back with...

Sam Parr

now they've got 3 kids

Shaan Puri

And I'm like, "So how does this work here? I got questions. You know me, right? I started a podcast and I got questions." So I start asking, "How does this work? What does this do? Do I sit here? Can I sit anywhere?" I'm like, "Do I tell you or do you tell me? Who's in charge?" I have so many questions. She literally asked me if I'm a cop because... and I'm like, "No, I'm just a curious guy." So that's my experience back there. I just used it as an interview, an unrecorded podcast basically. Then our buddy, the dad, finally comes out. We're all done. We all just spent 15 minutes and $75 later, and we're like, "I don't know what the hell just happened. I've spent all my money." He comes out and we're like, "Dude, what happened back there?" He told us two things. So we asked him two questions: "Where did you go for so long and how did you have the confidence to do that?" The second was, "Why'd you pick her?" Because she was like, you know, she was not the best looking, you know, in lunch. So he goes, "Oh, I just asked her for a tour." And so she gave me...

Sam Parr

a tour

Shaan Puri

Of the whole building, he's like, "Oh, we didn't do a lap dance. No, no way!" I was like, "Oh, we thought you were doing something cool." Then we all got peer pressured, and it turns out we were wrong. Second, we were like, "Why'd you pick her?" He goes, "Oh, I didn't know you get to choose. I thought it's like Harry Potter; the wand chooses the wizard." That was like the epic line. So forever, we've just always said that the wand chooses the wizard whenever you end up making a bad decision.

Sam Parr

That's hilarious! I actually lied. I didn't remember the first time I went to a strip club. It was Neville Madora, my buddy in Texas, who was taking me to my Thursday 6 PM flight. He goes, "Let's actually go at 2. I want to... let's go out to eat." I go, "Alright, cool." He says, "I got the perfect place in mind." So, he takes me to a strip club next to the Austin, Texas airport called The Landing Strip at 3 o'clock on a Thursday. We get there, and I'm like, "What do we do?" I remember him saying, "Well, let's just get lunch or something." So, I ordered chicken fingers and fries. The lady comes up to me as I'm sitting down and puts her hand on my shoulder, saying, "Hey, you need anything?" I was like, "Yeah, like..."

Shaan Puri

ketchup

Sam Parr

some ketchup would be nice

Shaan Puri

and and she

Sam Parr

Like, I was all defeated and brought the ketchup. I remember texting my girlfriend at the time, now my wife, and I was like, "Hey Sarah, I'm at a strip club. We're just getting lunch. Do I tip them extra?" Because I didn't. All I did was eat lunch, and it was only $6. Like, what do we do? It was the same thing—an incredibly awkward situation, very uncomfortable. But I care. I read about this company, and I thought, how interesting! This guy, his name's Eric, he’s the CEO of the company. It's called... what’s it called? It’s called Rick's. That’s their ticker. It’s called RCI Hospitality Holdings.

Shaan Puri

The CEO is pretty present on social media. His Twitter handle, I think, is @RicksCEO. He’s pretty active. I think the other thing that’s interesting is that we were going to do this for The Milk Road because strippers know a recession is coming before anybody else. We were going to send our writer to talk about, like, “Hey, what’s going on in the markets?” I was like, “Oh, just go to a strip club and ask the strippers. They’ll tell you. We’ll be one week ahead of the news.” He was like, “What?” I said, “Yeah, they know. The tips... they understand what’s going on. They know the psychology and the state—the psyche—of all men. And they know where they’re at financially as well.”

Sam Parr

Dude, well, he does his earnings call on Twitter. One time, he did it and the host was Liquidity, that Twitter guy. He does his... or it's like Elon. I don't know, but Elon Musk sat through one of the earnings calls, and it's incredibly interesting. They're also coming out with a new, like, OnlyFans thing called "Admire Me," which is like an OnlyFans but for their dancers. He calls them entertainers. So, if you're an entertainer at the strip club, you can create a small side hustle with your clients. I just thought this was like... I was like, well, this is a pretty fascinating business. I'd never heard of it. I never in a million years thought a strip club conglomerate would be publicly traded. It's a pretty fascinating company.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, alright. Well, I don't have much to add. The sort of "Juan chooses the wizard" was the ending of my knowledge about strip clubs at that point. I retired from the game.

Sam Parr

by the way are are you doing something for black friday like for your like

Shaan Puri

with my family no

Sam Parr

Are you like selling discounts and stuff? What, as an eCommerce owner, what's your opinion on Black Friday?

Shaan Puri

So, I think I'm doing it wrong because everybody else is like, "Black Friday! Black Friday! Biggest time of the year!" People are sending memes in the group chat that's like, you know, the 300 Spartans when they're charging and they're like, "We're ready! We're ready for Black Friday!" For two years in a row, Black Friday has been a big disappointment. The reason why I think people think about Black Friday the way they do is that November should basically be double your other sales months. So, you should kind of get a 2x with that. With that 2x, you're going to have a lot of profit. So, I think that's why they call it Black Friday, because you end up in the black. I don't know if that's true or not, but yeah, that's what somebody told me.

Sam Parr

did you just pick that up

Shaan Puri

You generate a lot of your profit for the year during this last push of the year. That's how you go from the red to the black. I think it requires a large, repeat customer base. Black Friday is basically an excuse; it's a sort of trick in the mind of a consumer that gives them a license to spend when they didn't even need to. You get a lot of returning customers coming back, so without having to do more marketing necessarily, you're going to get them back. But you're also steeply discounting. If you're marketing at all, you have your marketing spend and your discount spend. So I'm like, where is all this profit that other people speak of? It hasn't worked for us. We've had way bigger months outside of November. This year's doing good, but I don't know. I don't get all the fuss about it. I like it more as a consumer than I do as an e-commerce store owner. But then again, I might just be a crappy operator, and there might be a better way to do it. I'm doing all the things, you know, the best practice stuff. I'm sending an email every 42 minutes. It's like, you know, that's what you gotta do: just keep spamming the hell out of everybody, discount the things like crazy, and hope and pray people show up.

Sam Parr

do you buy stuff as a consumer for black friday

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I shop that brand, **32 Heat** and **32 Cool**. It's like the Costco performance wear brand.

Sam Parr

no but that's awesome

Shaan Puri

You must know these guys. Basically, there's like a... I think it's, I don't know if they're made by Costco or they're sold in Costco, but it's called **32 Degrees**. That's the name of the brand. They make, you know, like an Under Armour or Lululemon style thing, but like the cheap version. On Black Friday, these guys have had the most ridiculous sale. You'll just get a shirt for $4 or $6 that's normally like, you know, $30. It's like 80% off! They just try to move all their inventory during this part of the year. So for the last couple of years, I have dropped like $500 and bought huge boxes that arrive at my house, like it's furniture. Inside is just 32 Degrees stuff that I give out to my whole family and wear throughout the year. But that's the only thing I did on Black Friday. Then sometimes I'll go scroll Amazon and see what they have.

Sam Parr

Dude, I think we need to **boycott Black Friday**. Black Friday is the worst! I think it's just where people buy... you know, George Carlin said this funny thing. He's got this whole skit—he's a famous comedian—on stuff. He said, "A house is just basically a pile of stuff with a cover on it." And when you buy a second house, it's really just so you can store more crap. You can store more stuff. I am so anti-stuff at this point in my life. I don't want to buy more stuff. We need to get all MFM listeners to just boycott Black Friday. I hate this idea of buying stuff that you don't really need. Then you have to go and pay more money. You know what's the worst? The biggest kick in the ass is when you have to pay money to have someone come and throw away the boxes of all the stuff that you bought off Amazon. That is the worst feeling! I cannot stand that, and I refuse to do it. Now, I have a metal trash can that I just burn it all in. I hate buying more stuff! I cannot stand all this stuff that we buy on Black Friday, and I refuse to do it. I think we gotta get everyone to not do it.

Shaan Puri

actually burn your trash

Sam Parr

Yeah, yeah. I have videos of me doing it because Sarah... Sarah has this funny meme that she shares with our family. It's like, you know, "No matter what happens, we can't... we're never gonna change them." But dude, I'm not paying money to throw away Amazon boxes. I refuse to do that. That's crap.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I paid like **$600** to have **100 Junk** come haul away a bunch of boxes for crap that I bought.

Sam Parr

it's the worst

Shaan Puri

I'm not going to do it feeling, but like this isn't Vietnam. You can't just go burn your trash. This is not India; you can't do that.

Sam Parr

I think legally you can. I think you can. You're going to have little... you're going to have fires in your yard.

Shaan Puri

Oh man, wow, incredible! I want to talk to you about Twitter. So, shocker, this Twitter thing that's playing out with Elon running Twitter is wildly entertaining. I guess there are two things I want to say. The first is, you know, before when I heard about Elon Musk and how he did things, I admired him. But there was a part of me that felt bad. It's like, "Man, I'm just a lame duck compared to this guy." This guy's achieving the incredible. He must be just this execution machine, this strategic genius. Now that I see him running Twitter, I don't feel so bad after all. I feel like the edge has been taken off a little bit.

Sam Parr

Are you up for this? If we have a scale, and all the way to the left is AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) and all the way to the right is just total fanboy, where do you rank?

Shaan Puri

I'm more towards aoc but it's not like so black and white like

Sam Parr

right

Shaan Puri

Obviously, the guy is super smart. Obviously, he's super successful. Obviously, he's done some amazing things and he's built some really amazing products. Those are, I mean, inarguable. I find him corny and I find him to be a virtue signaler. Sometimes he gets them... like crossed, you know? Like he gets the signals crossed. He'll be like... you know... For example, yesterday he tweeted something out. He reinstated Trump, and they were like, "Yo, why don't you reinstate Alex Jones?"

Sam Parr

alex jones yeah I saw that

Shaan Puri

And he was like, "Then he wrote a poem." The guy was like, "What?" He wrote a poem about, you know, the suffering of children, blah blah blah. Then they go, "No, but really, by the same logic of why you would reinstate one person, why would you not reinstate, you know, Alex Jones?" "Yeah, well, I don't disagree with him, but I'm just curious about that policy decision." And he goes, "You know, my first child died in my arms. I felt her last heartbeat, and I will never... you know, I will never allow somebody who promotes or uses the suffering of children for profit, fame, or gain in some way."

Sam Parr

right

Shaan Puri

Fair sentiment, I know that. Okay, great. Very emotional sentiment, you know, that's fine. But at the same time, constantly talking about free speech and how it shouldn't be one person deciding... you know, whatever. It's like, well, that's you now deciding where you're drawing the line off of your random personal experience that is traumatic and sad. You know, it's a little bit strange, right? So, whether you disagree or agree with Alex Jones is sort of irrelevant. It's sort of like his virtue signaling about his sad experience got caught in the crossfire with his virtue signaling about how hardcore he is about free speech. He said this himself: "I'm hardcore about free speech. I'm hardcore that as long as you're not doing something, as long as you're not breaking the law with what you're saying, then you should be allowed to do this." So, I believe there's some truth to that. Anyways, I think he's obviously really talented. He's probably going to have success with Twitter, but he definitely has... you know, I consider myself to be somewhat impulsive, and this guy is impulsive to the max. On one hand, I think there's a kind of brilliant method to his madness. What he's doing is basically a hardcore culture reset. He's like, "Let's just get rid of everybody who's in charge." So, on day one, he fired the CEO, CFO, CMO... all of them walked out the door. Alright, that's day one. Leaders shot the leaders, you know? They're out. Next, he basically cut like half the employees, then he cut another half after that, trying to be like, "Yo, this is going to be a hardcore work environment and none of that soft stuff anymore." I think ripping the band-aid off the way he did, while harsh and not that graceful—just doing it via an email saying, "Reply hardcore by 3 PM or you're out"—could have been a better way to do it. But nonetheless, it was very effective and ballsy, so I like that.

Sam Parr

yeah I like that too

Shaan Puri

Along with that comes cutting a bunch of the burn down, so trimming a bunch of the fat and making it a more financially healthy thing. But now I'm like, "Okay, what are the scenarios? How can this play out? What are the different ways that this can go, and what's the best?" So I kind of wrote some of these out. I'll give you my three scenarios, okay? So I'll do them from...

Sam Parr

and I and I'll rank if I agree with with with each of the 3 I'll I'll rank most likely

Shaan Puri

so you you want me to go from worst to best or best to worst

Sam Parr

least funny to most funny

Shaan Puri

Okay, least funny to most. Alright, least funny is the mid-case, the base case, the expected case. So, he makes Twitter more financially viable. He's cut down costs and added this $8 a month subscription that, you know, let's say he can make it more and more valuable so people opt in. It makes it a little less dependent on ad revenue. The initial reaction, where advertisers pulled out, gets subdued a little bit. People come back to the platform; they realize, "Okay, he's not evil or gonna like... you know, there's not gonna be other people impersonating their brand." So, they come back. He resets the culture, resets the cost structure, makes it more viable, and makes it a little more moderate. He gets rid of some of the hardcore left lean, cleans up some of the bot problem, and gets some solid wins. For example, "Oh, you can edit your tweet, you can post long-form videos, you can just make search better." He just improves the product in ways that the power users will appreciate. The end state is, you know, he gets a kind of a 1 to 2x on his money from where it is today.

Sam Parr

I don't think 1,000,000,000 is a likely scenario. This is very far too reasonable.

Shaan Puri

This is a reasonable scenario. So, yeah, and personally, you know, he gets a kind of a... a win. You know, a moral victory. It's net positive for the company; Twitter's moved in a positive direction, and financially, it wasn't a disaster.

Sam Parr

No, this is like asking Picasso not to paint or John Lennon not to make music. It's just... that's an unreasonable request. Regardless if it's reasonable for most, it is *incredibly* unreasonable for this human being.

Shaan Puri

And well, I'll say this: he came in and did the hard part where he gutted the fish. He changed the culture and he's going to recruit good talent. But in order to do this, he would need to replace himself as CEO within the next 6 months, basically. Then that person will steward it from there. He did the deep cuts; he did the hardcore, like shock therapy. Then somebody's going to take it from there if this is going to happen because I don't think he's going to do that over a 3-year span, you know, running a steady ship. Okay, now let's go to the generous scenario, the best-case scenario, what he says he wants to do. Have you heard his stated plan? Like, what his goal is with it?

Sam Parr

I heard where he said he wants to make it like the town square. He wants to make it like an "everything app" and he wants to add video and a bunch of other things like that.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I think the "everything app" is strategically what he's trying to do. So what he basically looks at is WeChat, and for those who don't know, WeChat is basically: - WhatsApp - YouTube - Bill pay - Amazon - Venmo ...and like everything rolled into one.

Sam Parr

yeah it's hard to it's hard to fathom if you if you don't use it

Shaan Puri

It's basically like WeChat is just a connector between people and all the things that people do. Let's say I want to send you money; I could do that. If I want to message a business, I could do that. If I want to pay my utility bills for the month, I could do that on WeChat. If I want to post a video or watch a video or something like that, I could do that too. So, WeChat is like this super app. There have been a lot of people waiting for when this is going to happen in the West, but it never happened. All these things were siloed into different apps. There are people who are like, "Oh, that sucks to have eight different apps. There should just be one app that does all the things." Everyone nods and agrees, "Yeah, all in one makes sense." But then the reality is, go build the all-in-one app. People aren't just going to ditch their current apps. You're not going to be as good at those things that those other apps specialize in. Plus, people aren't just going to change their habits and ditch eight apps for one just because you want them to. His idea is to create the super app. Daily active users would need to go from around 200 million to 1 billion, so it becomes like Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, or Twitter. It jumps to that "big boy" table.

Sam Parr

Because basically right now, Twitter is of like the 8 or 10 social networks which include Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp, Reddit, and a few others... it's the least popular in terms of users, correct?

Shaan Puri

And so, you know, best case scenario: he goes for the super app. Maybe some things go his way, like maybe TikTok gets banned in the US and Twitter quickly grabs short-form video (although Facebook and YouTube would probably have something to say about that). But, you know, maybe they go for that. He cleans up the bot problem, he improves the ad platform... Like, both me and you have tried to run Twitter ads - it's *god awful* compared to Facebook.

Sam Parr

and now it's awful for I think I think the system sucks

Shaan Puri

like the actual

Sam Parr

The system does suck. I just bought Twitter ads yesterday, and I kept getting errors when I was trying to set it up. So, like, the tech is bad. But a lot of people are saying that right now, because 50 of the top 100 advertisers have pulled back, and usage is at an all-time high, their Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is 5 or 10 times better than it used to be 6 months ago.

Shaan Puri

oh wow okay that's interesting that's a good good

Sam Parr

But that's not necessarily a sustainable thing, or... that's not a win for Twitter. That is a loss for Twitter. That is, "Well, no one's using it." They're fooling advertisers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not actually like a win for them.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. But let's say he gets it to be a Facebook-level ad system and grows it. He has to figure out something with short-form video or something that's more appealing. But let's say he does it, and the end state is that it's now culturally up there with all the other big social networks—like Facebooks, YouTubes, and TikToks of the world. He turns the profits around because he's got this leaner team that's doing that, and it's like a 10x return. Now he's the GOAT. Everybody's like, "God, this guy did this too!" This is like, you know, the next level thing. Now he owns one of the big social platforms. He single-handedly turned that around, and he did what nobody could do. He did what Jack couldn't do. He did what Ev couldn't do. He did what Dick Costolo couldn't do. He did it, and he did it as his third job side hustle. This guy is the GOAT. This data is wrong every freaking time.

Hubspot

Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated.

Hubspot

Woah! I can see the client's whole history: calls, support tickets, emails. And here's a task from three days ago that I totally missed.

Sam Parr

HubSpot: Grow better. I find it fairly unreasonable as well. In fact, I actually think it's more unreasonable than the first scenario that you gave.

Shaan Puri

right it should be because it's like this like amazing outcome okay so now what is the the bad case the worst case scenarios I think it's basically like there's this super cycle going downwards like a downward cycle so a lot of what's happening in crypto right now one thing in crypto blew up and then people who had taken loans to invest in that thing now their loans they're defaulted on their loans so the people who lent them money they're out of money they blow up then the people who had stored their money with that bank or exchange now they lose their deposits it's just like daisy chain of bad news all stemming from a lot of leverage in the system and some a few people being reckless or fraudulent and so let's say in this case what it would be is like tesla stock I think is down 50% from last year or more he's personally lost a $100,000,000,000 of personal net worth tesla stock is not the more attention he puts on twitter people feel like he's taken his eye off the ball so basically overall economy is going down we had enter a recession people slow down buying these like really expensive teslas stock is crashing he still has this interest payment he owes he owes a $1,000,000,000 a year in just debt service on twitter and I think twitter's net profit was less than that so he can't even currently the profits from twitter can't even just pay the debt let alone any profits above debt and so let's say advertisers keep pulling out on the twitter side the initial spike from watching elon's chaos goes away maybe he even makes some mistakes maybe they fired too many of the infrastructure people there's the fail whale maybe it gets hacked because the security system is now more vulnerable as they make all these quick impulsive code changes and they fired a bunch of long time engineers and so you get maybe hacks maybe leaks dms get leaked maybe if maybe the the site's just going down meanwhile tesla stock's going down meanwhile he owes all this debt if all of this starts to happen basically like a financial sort of like cave in occurs and you know elon ends up and and he's getting sued by ex employees he's getting sued by advertisers who said hey our brand got damaged because you verified some fake account for $8 that then said you know we don't like jewish people or whatever right like you know that's so he's getting sued on all ends and elon ends up you know fat and broke right so that's the like worst case scenario on that side react to that one

Sam Parr

So, you know, you and I both watch UFC and boxing and stuff like that. There's this famous sentiment that says, basically, nearly all champions leave their careers on their back. This means that if you don't get out on top—which only a few people have, like Khabib, Mayweather, and Georges St-Pierre—you end up getting knocked out. If you don't leave at the top, which very few people do, you risk sustaining an injury that devastates your life. You could end up like Muhammad Ali, unable to talk. I think that what's true in boxing and UFC is also true for business. If we look at history, it tends to be the case that people who keep pushing and pushing inevitably lose at some point. The bigger you get, if you keep taking these really big, "bet the farm" type of risks, you're just going to lose more and more. I think there are some examples, like Jeff Bezos, who said, "Alright, this worked. I got to pass on the torch." I don't think a guy like Elon Musk has the ego control to do that. What you are saying for this final scenario is more likely to happen than the other two. I don't think he's going to be able to hand over the reins, and I think that potentially this will be a— I don't know if the phrase is "career-ending," but maybe like a "power-ending" move or something like that.

Shaan Puri

right a fall from grace

Sam Parr

Yeah, a fall from grace... I think that could definitely happen. I think that even, you know, you think about a guy who's worth $100 billion or whatever he was worth, and you think, "Well, there's no way a person like that can blow that." And I actually think that regardless of the fortune size, you *can* blow it. Buying a $50 billion asset that isn't quite working wonderfully is a really good way to blow it. I think that could be the case here, but I don't think he'll admit it because he's just... he's crazy. I don't think he can admit a lot of weakness or fault.

Shaan Puri

His core assets, Tesla and SpaceX, are high-risk assets. They're not like, you know, a railroad company that's just a steady utility company that’s going to print cash and grow 2% a year. These are themselves pretty volatile assets that the market has really pumped up. As the market has turned, those are going downwards for sure. Now, how fast and how hardcore? If he keeps selling Tesla stock in order to keep Twitter alive, it’s going to be like Elon is distracted. His priority is Twitter, and he’s selling the stock. What else is he supposed to do? Where else is he supposed to get money to fund a money-burning business like Twitter? So, I think there are some downside scenarios. Do I think he ends up broke? No, I think the guy will never be broke. Do I think that he goes from being the richest man in the world and probably considered the greatest entrepreneur to, two years from now, Twitter ends up as a disaster—maybe bankrupt or sold, taking a $20 billion loss? In the meantime, Tesla stock has lost him maybe another $100 billion or more. He’s no longer the richest man in the world. He’s no longer seen as this, you know, Iron Man, invincible type of dude. He’s been hit with lawsuits, #MeToo allegations, and news leaks constantly. That’s what I predict is going to happen in the next two years.

Sam Parr

for sure

Shaan Puri

It's going to be... he went from golden boy to now he's going to be the guy who can't do anything right. It's just going to be constant leaks and hit pieces, I think, for the next 2 years for him.

Sam Parr

I think the Elon case study is not necessarily about how smart a human being is. You know, I thought of Elon before and I was like, "This guy's a genius. He's amazing." I actually think it's more a case study of the capacity to suffer. What I am continually shocked by is his ability to suffer for longer periods of time and to add more suffering. Just, you know, people are just dumping suffering into his truck and they're just tossing it on there. It's like, when is this truck gonna break? I'm shocked it hasn't so far. But I believe everyone has a limit, and I'm just shocked we haven't hit it yet. Maybe this is it. It's pretty amazing. If you talk to people about him, he'll even say at one point, "Death would be a relief to me." Someone asked him, "Are you afraid of dying?" He goes, "No, it'll be a relief." I think he has done a decent job of being funny and laughing in spite of suffering, but I think that he's lonely. I think that his life sucks. I think he lives a generally unpleasant, unhappy, suffering life, and that's what he's chosen to do. There’s going to be a limit to it, and I think that this could be that limit.

Shaan Puri

I think that is true of all the greats, or most of the greats. They're sort of tortured souls, you know? So I think that's true for a lot of people. One other signal that I think is kind of in his favor, or kind of bullish... Do you know this guy George Hotz (or Hotz)?

Sam Parr

Love him! We gotta get this guy in the pod. This guy is one of those freaks that I love. He is a total freaking weirdo and just a... he's a punk rocker. It's what...

Shaan Puri

He's telling people his background, and then I don't know if you've been following what he's doing with Twitter, but I want to tell you.

Sam Parr

So, years ago, when Sean and I both lived in San Francisco, I think he started out of a hacker house, didn't he? It was just a hacker house with a bunch of computer guys. He started building a self-driving car—not a self-driving car, but technology that you can add to most cars. It's called Dot AI, I believe. He starts developing this self-driving car technology and makes these crazy predictions. There's one story of a journalist coming to see his self-driving car technology. He's driving throughout San Francisco, and they're like, "This is amazing! When did you get this to work?" He's like, "Oh, just this morning." He's just like a cowboy who builds stuff that is incredibly illegal and unregulated. He just plows through and does it anyway. He raises all this money, but it ends up flaring out and not working out, and he quits and leaves. But he's very outspoken, very opinionated, clearly a smart guy, and kind of a punk rocker in terms of self-driving cars. He makes fun of all his competitors, including GE and Ford. So, he's kind of a loose cannon, but in a good way, in my opinion.

Shaan Puri

So, two things: 1. I don't think Kama has flamed out. I think it's still going. It has not become the winner, but he did resign as CEO or president or whatever. The company's still alive. 2. Before that, you know his backstory... I think he was the first guy to jailbreak an iPhone.

Sam Parr

he jailbroke like a tesla too I think

Shaan Puri

He jailbroke an iPhone, then he hacked the PlayStation. So, he hacked Sony, which was pretty huge. Then, he was doing something with Tesla. I remember at the time there was some story... I’m sorry, I don't have this in front of me, but there was some story where Elon basically offered him a job or something like that. Yeah, so Elon offered him, it is what he claims, Elon offered him **$12,000,000**. So basically, he's saying, "I'll give you $12,000,000," or let me explain it differently. He did a demo that showed he had the self-driving car technology, and it wasn't using at the time what was the kind of the core technology for the vision system, which I think was Mobileye. Mobileye was the hot company; it's what Tesla was using. George Hotz made a version of that without using Mobileye, and Mobileye was kind of limiting, it kind of sucked, and it was kind of expensive. So Tesla wanted to get off it. He says that Elon made him an offer, which was, "I'll give you $12,000,000 for this technology—$1,000,000 for every month that it takes you to do the task." So, like, if you give it to me today, it's **$12,000,000**; if it takes you 9 months...

Sam Parr

Just, just, just a pissing match between two people ready to take that play, that game.

Shaan Puri

Exactly, exactly. He's like, "If you can create a driving system that replaces Mobileye that Tesla's using at the time..." and then they kind of walked that back and whatever. They basically discussed, you know, "Do you want to come work?" Whatever. So then he creates Dot AI, which was the idea that you don't need to buy a Tesla that has self-driving capabilities. What about all these other millions and millions of cars that exist? Are they just going to be left in the dust? He's like, "No, I'm going to build a retrofit system." So you could put this on a Honda Civic, install this thing on the top, and then it will be able to be self-driving. We'll install the cameras and the technology so that your car can be retrofitted to be self-driving. That was the dream of that system. So he's this hacker guy, a brilliant programmer, and also a very entertaining guy. He's sort of like... we've talked about Martin Shkreli's live streams where he looks at stocks and finance and things like that. This guy, George, does the same thing. He'll live stream himself figuring things out. So the other day...

Sam Parr

He’s the real deal. I think that examples like that show you’re the real deal. I don’t think he’s full of it. I think he’s a loose cannon, but I think he’s the real deal.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, agreed. So the other day he goes live on Twitter, live streaming video, and he's like: "Let's see how Twitter works. Sorry, I'm just gonna... I've never looked at the Twitter source code, but let's... and I don't work there, so I don't have access, but like, just right-click inspect and let's see what they're doing." He starts messing with it, saying, "Okay, so what is this? Okay, this is the login prompt. What if I remove this?" And he starts playing with it. He's just talking live while he's doing it, trying to figure out how it works.

Sam Parr

what platform is this on

Shaan Puri

So, he was doing it on Twitter. He streamed it live on Twitter as the video. Then he goes, he does Twitch a lot and things like that. So then he tweets out to Elon. He tweets out about the hardcore email, and he's like, "This is great! This is exactly what it takes to win." You know, people should be jumping on this. Immediately, he starts getting backlash. People are like, "Oh yeah, you know, this guy is asking you to work twice as hard for less money and without giving you extra pay. Like, oh yeah, we should all just be slaves to this billionaire." People are ragging on him in the comments. He goes, "Dude, can you imagine the excitement of getting to work on this right now? This is amazing! Screw it, I'll put my money where my mouth is. Hey Elon, I'll do a 12-week internship. I'll work for free, and I want to come help you fix Twitter."

Sam Parr

and he took it

Shaan Puri

Elon goes, "Sure, let's talk." Then George goes back... you know, here comes the pissing match. He goes, "My number hasn't changed," which is just a hilarious thing to be like. You know, [it's as if he's saying] "You call me," and "Let it be known you have my number."

Sam Parr

that's what he said he goes my that's what his reply was

Shaan Puri

He goes, "Great, my number hasn't changed!" Oh my God. And then, so he agreed to... he's there now. He joined Twitter. Elon gave him the problem, saying, "You're gonna fix Twitter search. You have 12 weeks to do it." So he's publicly trying to fix Twitter search right now. He's tweeting out every day the things he's doing. He agreed to work on this for just the cost of living stipend. He said he thinks he's going to make $2,000 a week, which is what he said is the cost of living in San Francisco. So, that's $8,000 a month. And this is a guy who is basically a multimillionaire. He cannot be hired for a job. He's like, you know, an entrepreneur who could snap his fingers and get funding again.

Sam Parr

Well, and he's tweeting as he goes. I just saw him tweet something, and the first line was: > "I don't know if I have the authority to do this, but..." And then he said what he wanted to do. I was like, "I'm in. You got me." That's a beautiful first sentence. I'm following your journey.

Shaan Puri

And one of the things he did was say, "Alright, I'm trying to fix the search thing, but I need somebody." He wanted someone to do just a front-end design task, which, like most programmers, most real programmers aren't good at that stuff. So he's like, "I want it to just auto-complete. You know when I open search? For some reason, it shows me just this random follower of mine's name. No, it should prompt me on the ways that I can search. Like search for people, search for hashtags, search within my likes. Show me what the things I can do." He goes, "Don't send me a resume. Don't tell me it can't be done. Just send me a code snippet that I can plug in and it works. If you do that, you're hired." That's the interview. It's wildly entertaining to watch this guy do it, and I think this is part of the bull case. If Elon can get real hackers and real people who are ready, it's kind of like a movie when it's like, "Oh, the old gunslinger." They go to his house, he's retired, but he agrees to dust off the old boots and get back out there. It's his men. If he can assemble...

Sam Parr

we have a final mission for you

Shaan Puri

yeah exactly like if he can assemble I told you

Sam Parr

I'm retired

Shaan Puri

Be like, "Yo, this is Ocean's 11. We're gonna go do this." It's like a three-month gig. Just get off your ass and come do this.

Sam Parr

It's also the bear case, though, because that sounds great and all when you're just getting something going. It doesn't sound good when I have all types of private stuff in my DMs that I would not want to be public. You know, I share intimate things, like I'll complain about other people or I'll say, "Hey, how are you solving this problem? I can't figure it out." I don't like the fact that people are doing things this way when there's already 300,000,000 users. There's a lot of payment information and intimate information on this platform. So, I would say it's also a bear case.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, by the way, on that... So, Elon goes, "All the messaging should be encrypted. If a gun was to my head, I should not be able to reveal what's in somebody's DMs." So, we need to go with end-to-end encryption. He told the employees that. Then, I reached out to the original founder of Signal. He's willing to help us, you know, think through how to do this... help us implement this end-to-end encryption quickly. And the same thing, he's like, "You know, basically, that guy who started Signal, he sold it to Facebook." He was the guy from WhatsApp, right? He regretted it and was like, "F this! These guys are basically screwing with my baby. They're reducing the encryption, they're adding ads, they're mining the data." So, he quits out of principle and starts Signal, a completely encrypted messaging tool because he really believes in this. I forget if he was the one who founded it or if he was the funder. He was maybe the main funding source.

Sam Parr

yeah whatever he was involved

Shaan Puri

He was involved. He put like $50 million in, but yeah, that's another example of people, you know, getting... getting kind of like world-class people involved. But do you realize that? How he's gotta go do the work every day for like the next 5 years? Who's that... who's that person gonna be?

Sam Parr

The last eight weeks or so have been kind of a gift... a gift from God in terms of just drama. I'm just chomping at the bit every morning to go and look at my Twitter app or to check the news. I'm loving this, man! This is a soap opera, and I'm on board. I said I was off board originally when Elon was doing Twitter, and now, with FTX and all this other drama, I'm back. They got me back! This has just been awesome. It's been a dopamine hit every single day, you know? I'm feening... I'm waiting for that next hit. Every morning, I check it, and so this has been just... I'm kind of...

Shaan Puri

Of the opposite, dude. I'm going the other way. I can't resist sometimes. What's that? Is it the R. Kelly thing where he's like, "My mind's telling me no, but my body, my body is saying yes"? Like, that's how it feels. My mind is like, "This is all a distraction unrelated to you. Go read a book, go outside, go build something."

Sam Parr

This is the opposite of what you stand for! "Go read a book." Have you ever read a book in your life? I... You the other day told me about a book you were reading, and I was like, "Oh, that's great!" You're like, "Yeah, I'm only 5 pages in though."

Shaan Puri

you literally were telling me about a book

Sam Parr

That you were reading and how impactful it's been. Then the next sentence was, you said that you were 5 pages in.

Shaan Puri

do you remember that

Sam Parr

it was like about like yoga or some bullshit

Shaan Puri

it was

Sam Parr

like the

Shaan Puri

quicker the better

Sam Parr

and now you're telling me to get off twitter and read a book I didn't know you read books

Shaan Puri

tell others

Sam Parr

when was the last

Shaan Puri

time when was

Sam Parr

the last time you read a book from beginning to end

Shaan Puri

From beginning to end? Okay, that is a bit of a challenge. I read probably 1 book a year from beginning to end, and I read probably 10 books from beginning to 35 pages in a year.

Sam Parr

that's so funny

Shaan Puri

Yeah, by the way, I think that's the optimal way to read books. Most books you can get the general principle, and if it doesn't compel you to finish it, you should have no problem putting it down, saying: "I took what I needed from that, and I'm ready for the next interesting little nugget or principle." Because these books are... a lot of filler.

Sam Parr

Tell me about this jet thing that you've had on here twice now. By the way, our... So we have this document, it's called **MDB Master**. It stands for *Million Dollar Brainstorm*. I don't know if you saw this. It's across 200 pages, so Sean and I have this document that every day in the morning we write our topics. It's... it's 50,000 words now and 200 pages.

Shaan Puri

deleting we've delete I've deleted a bunch of topics off this like once we're done with that I just delete them

Sam Parr

It's pretty wild how long this document is. But you've had this thing in here about jets. What about it?

Shaan Puri

okay so I forgot who was saying this maybe andrew wilkinson somebody else

Sam Parr

andrew

Shaan Puri

He was saying this about empty legs. So basically, private jets are obviously really expensive and really awesome. Have you...?

Sam Parr

ever flown private on your own dime

Shaan Puri

no have you ever flown private on anyone else's dime either

Sam Parr

I flew I flew private a a couple times one time andrew paid for it

Shaan Puri

how was it

Sam Parr

It was sick... You know, there are things that maybe, like fancy socks, and that's basically it. Those are things where it doesn't matter; just buy the cheap ones. They're just as good as the fancy ones. And then there's things where you spend money and it actually makes a difference. Unfortunately for all the plebs out there, flying private is one of them. I'm a pleb too, by the way. I don't fly private; it costs too much. But flying private... it is **game-changing**. When I did it, I was like, "Oh, okay. This is awesome."

Shaan Puri

I kind of imagine it to be similar to the strip club experience, where I would constantly feel like I need to be doing something to maximize the opportunity. I can just imagine myself standing up and just stretching repeatedly. Like, I don't know, am I... is there caviar? I don't even like this. I read...

Sam Parr

I read a newspaper when I flew... when he flew me. I read *The Wall Street Journal*. I've never read the newspaper in my life, but I picked up the newspaper and I opened it up. I opened it up and just had it, and I like flopped it and smacked it to get the crease out of there. That's what I did when I flew private, and it was an amazing experience.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I feel like I would need to pick up some new hobbies and wear leather if I was going to be flying private.

Sam Parr

so you're gonna get into sudoku

Shaan Puri

So, he had tweeted this thing about empty legs. Basically, private jets. I think some really high percentage, maybe 25% or 30% of all private jet flights are completely empty. It's just the jet relocating from one place to another in order to be ready for the next flight. There's this arbitrage then of empty legs with basically like, "Hey, this was gonna fly anyways. It's just gonna cost, you know, $40 to do this flight." And it's getting... you know, there's no value. It's just a burn. Could you basically give people the opportunity to hop into these empty legs? I found there's a website, or there are several, but like there are websites that will let you fly private. You don't need to own the plane. You don't need to sign up for some membership. It's literally just like, "Hey, if this is going from here to there, if you wanna go, 20 grand, and it's like, this is yours. You and six people can go on this thing." That's kind of interesting. Have you seen or heard about this?

Sam Parr

No, but one time, I... I've heard a little bit about it. One time, I was like, "You know what? I'm just gonna call the airport." There was one time that I needed a flight from Nashville to New York. I just Googled "Nashville executive airport" and I remember I called them. I said, "Hey, can you put me in touch with a flight broker?" They did, and I talked to the guy. I said, "Hey, I need to go to New York in like a few hours tonight. Is there any pilots that need work and can fly me from Nashville to New York?" There was a guy willing to do it for **$6,500**. He said, "That's the cheapest we could do for $6,500." It was like a crazy hack that I didn't think actually worked, and it did.

Shaan Puri

Right, so like right now, in 4 days, I'm on Jetly.com. There's a place in Texas going to Fort Wayne International in Indiana. It's going there anyway, and it just says "negotiable." You can just like... you can go do this. Or right now, let's see when this one is. This is in 2 days. So in 2 days, if you're in Poland and you want to go to Italy, you know, it's $15,000, and you can have this private jet flight if you happen to be going there.

Sam Parr

and you get the whole plane

Shaan Puri

yeah I think you get the whole plane because it's it's empty

Sam Parr

how many does it seat

Shaan Puri

let's see so you can clear I mean

Sam Parr

it could is it if it's a small one it could seat you know 7

Shaan Puri

People, alright, so this is okay. This one is going from Teterboro—where is that?—to West Palm Beach.

Sam Parr

new york new york to miami basically

Shaan Puri

Okay, so New York to Miami, Teterboro. Teterboro. Okay, let's see this one... seats.

Sam Parr

8 8 and how much

Shaan Puri

This, this... so the one to Miami seats 6. It's $15. So, you know, basically that's the price of a first-class ticket, right? Like for a lot of things, yeah.

Sam Parr

And it'd be a fun experience with a bunch of friends. So, if everyone ponies up $2,000, I mean, that'd be a pretty cool experience.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I thought this was kind of cool. Another example is what Airbnb did. They took something that was excess capacity and found a way to turn it into... to fill more of that excess demand, right?

Sam Parr

You know Dennis Hegstedt? He's my good buddy here in Austin, and once a week he goes, "Hey, I just got a notification." Austin to... I don't know, it'll say like somewhere in Utah. It's a Gulfstream, you know? It's normally $100,000, they have it for $20,000, and it could seat 10 of us. "You and a bunch of friends wanna go do this thing?" He does that all the time, and he actually... actually like pounces on these opportunities.

Shaan Puri

Okay, so what else we got? You got a couple of others. **Life after selling**? You want to do that?

Sam Parr

alright let's let's this is just an interesting thing so I always read the subreddit called fat fire and it's interesting because you don't know if anything fat fire means people who financially independent retired early so people who wanna do that but fats meaning they wanna retire with a lot of money and not work again and that's an interesting sentiment like most everyone wants to do that they go oh I would love to retire and and be rich and not to work at the age of 30 that sounds cool right there's this common theme of people doing that and they get depressed and that sounds like oh boohoo like why you know fuck those guys who cares but it's interesting nonetheless and there's this really interesting thread that I found so click where it says follow-up yep but the reason why this is interesting is like you are seeing such a such a clear journey that someone is experiencing and so this person wrote a post where basically about a year ago they wrote a post saying hey I sold my company I made $20,000,000 until that day I hadn't sold a single share I wasn't living paycheck to paycheck but I was living a normal life after the sale I basically had nothing to do with the company my wife kept working and she would just basically tell her friends that I was working from home but in reality I was just playing video games all day while our kids were at school and 6 months later doing this I am so depressed I hate my life I have nothing going on I'm sad I need to go see a therapist yada yada yada he writes another post 10 months later and he goes hey this is just a short follow-up to the post that I previously wrote but the crux of it is for this this moment in my life is so good I love waking up I love doing what I'm doing all day and it just I feel like I've got camaraderie and basically what this guy did was he sold his company made enough money was depressed for a little while and did the exact same thing again where he went and started another company and he has 10 employees it's cash flow positive it's not huge yet but it's enough to pay for the 10 employees and I think it could be big but what I realized was I loved the hunt doing it and another person said my number the amount of money that I made it wasn't anywhere near yours but I pulled the trigger and I sold the company I made a little bit of money and I basically retired and I float around in my pool all day I played video games I read and after about 3 to 4 months I was miserable I was so sad and now since then I started a small business it's never gonna be that big but I basically took one of my hobbies and I turned it into a small business and it has a lot of challenging problems and I've never been happier and I thought this topic and this these this thread who knows if it's real everyone could be exaggerating but it's incredibly interesting because you get to be a voyeur and see other people's lives where they anonymously say their true feelings and I thought that this was a really interesting insight that is rarely not uncovered or discussed in such a clear straightforward way where you see like a very like post 1 I'm sad post 2 I'm not sad and I thought it was like a really interesting insight and I went through this not as much with my company I was happy I took I got some chill time but I went to the same thing I'm like what do you do what am I supposed to do all the time and it's actually quite depressing and it's and it's not a topic discussed because you know who the fuck wants to talk about a guy who sold this company he doesn't have to work and now he's sad but interesting nonetheless and interesting because a lot of people want to do this and it's cool to see that it's maybe not all that fulfilling and basically particularly type a's who have the ability to do this you have to have like a way to contribute you know like I've talked to I have a few stay at home moms in my life who like after their kids went to school they're like my life is pointless you know like I I don't contribute to anything previously I I was contributing to my children's lives now they're in school they don't need me what the hell am I supposed to do I'm so sad and now this is like a really good example of that but in the business world so I don't know what do you think about this

Shaan Puri

So, I literally had a conversation like this yesterday with the guys who were helping set up the studio. They said, "I heard this," and they mentioned that Alex Hormozi said he’s never been as sad as after he sold his company. He was depressed—kind of like either sad or depressed. I don't know the exact phrase, but basically, the same gist of it. He sold his company, and that was supposed to feel the best, right? But actually, it felt the worst. They asked, "What do you think about that? Do you feel that?" And I said, "No, I feel excited! I feel super excited!" I'm like, "Oh, are you joking? Anything is possible now!" Sure, I have a bunch of free time. If it was always going to be doing nothing, that would feel a little bit... that would feel bad for sure. But for me, I'm very, very excited about this. I get to figure out what's next, and everything is possible. Everything seems interesting, and I'm open.

Sam Parr

And the background is, you had a project that you recently sold. We'll do a whole podcast on it at another time. Now you've got some free time.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, and I've had that before when we sold Bebo the first time. The same thing, like, you know, I've never felt that, but I have heard this now from a bunch of different people. I remember Michael Birch, who's been on the pod and was kind of a mentor and investor in my company. He basically said the same thing. You know, when he sold Bebo for $850 million, the next six months were not very fun. It was like a huge come down. He's like, "You can't even really talk about it because boohoo, boohoo, poor billionaire." Nobody wants to hear it. I think people take the wrong takeaway from this. I think what people take away is, "Oh, it's not all that it's cracked up to be to sell." You know, maybe that's not a good thing.

Sam Parr

I don't think that's the right takeaway. Because I agree with you, I was happy that I did it, and I don't regret it at all. It was everything plus more than it was cracked up to be.

Shaan Puri

Exactly. I think the real takeaway is that humans need a purpose and a direction where they're going to direct their talents, energy, and focus. Without that, you will be sad. The question is, sometimes in between things, you won't know exactly what that purpose needs to be. Figuring it out can feel uncomfortable. Some people get sad in that process because they are so used to having that purpose. But sadness isn't always bad. Sometimes, feeling bad equals discomfort, which equals being out of your comfort zone, and that equals growth. So, I think the better signal or takeaway is this: when you realize that, "Hey man, I've been filling my time, focus, and energy with one thing for so long," and then you take that away, you might feel a little lost. Now, you're going to fill it with something else—something new, something that can be exciting. However, not knowing what that is can be a little uncomfortable, and you will have to go through that until you find that thing again. That's okay; it's part of the process to figure out the right thing rather than just filling it with something else. It's the same way that when you break up with, let's say, a bad relationship or even an okay relationship, you know it's not the one you want. You break up, and yeah, it kind of sucks to be alone and single. There is a...

Shaan Puri

Of time where that does suck, but that suck is required for you to work on yourself, figure out what you want, make space for the next person. And then when you meet that next person, it's even better than it was before. But you couldn't skip that single step. If you just never did that, you would never have the better relationship the second time. So that's kind of my... the way I think about it, at least.

Sam Parr

So, I'll try to be really tactical here. I have a handful of friends who have made enough money that they're pretty much set. They built these great companies, came from nothing, sold them, and then want to start something again. After six months, they're like, "Oh, this can't ever be big," or "It's not growing fast enough," or "It's just too hard." I'm like, man, had you thought that about the thing that got you to where you are, you never would have gotten to where you are. You're kind of being a little punk and you're being soft. You need to get past that. I think that is a really big challenge that people go through. The way that I combated that challenge, or I think I've done a good job of overcoming it, is first of all, getting that first sale, regardless of what you have, is awesome. It's addicting and it gives you that dopamine high. Second, what I did is I took my lump sum and invested it in a boring 80/20 mix of stocks and bonds. Well, not entirely 80/20 because I do have some cash just sitting there. But that account, I haven't logged into in like a year and a half. I just don't log into it. I keep a certain amount of money in my checking account—tens of thousands of dollars—and then I have my credit card. I just assume that my net worth is tens of thousands of dollars. So, if I want something, I've got to go earn it. I'm like, "Oh, you know, I would love to go and buy X, Y, and Z. I better make my company work a little bit better." I think about it like that, and that has been a nice little hack that has helped me look at things differently.

Shaan Puri

That’s a little silly though, right? Because it’s like then the money is serving you no purpose, no utility.

Sam Parr

well it it why do you

Shaan Puri

want the money so bad if it wasn't gonna benefit you

Sam Parr

Well, because first, the cash flow that I make on a monthly basis covers my life and more. So, you're saying you...

Shaan Puri

don't even look at that account

Sam Parr

No, so the way I have it set up is a certain amount of my cash flow goes to my checking account, and that's my spending money. That's the account with tens of thousands of dollars. Then, once it hits a threshold, it automatically goes to my other account, which is my investment account that I don't log into.

Shaan Puri

Right, but what I'm saying is the investment account then is serving you no purpose. It's not improving the quality of your life at all.

Sam Parr

Well, yes and no. Yes, in the fact that when I got my deal done, I wanted a car and I wanted a house. I bought those things, and then I wanted to buy some clothes. I think I bought like $2,000 or $3,000, or maybe more, worth of clothing. I was like, "Alright, that's pretty much all I want." Oh, and I took a trip. It was a $10,000 trip to Hawaii. So collectively, that sum—my car was $110,000. It wasn't like crazy expensive, but it was kind of expensive. Collectively, I spent that amount of money buying the initial things that I wanted. After that, I was like, "You know, I don't really want more stuff. I don't want more things." So it served me, but now I don't want more stuff. If I do want something extra, in the back of my head, I know I could go and get the money to spend it, but I'd rather just go earn that. That keeps me hungry, and it's kind of more exciting and more fun. I appreciate it more. So in my brain, on one hand, I think I'm only worth $60,000 or $70,000 because that's what's in my checking account. But in reality, I'm like, "Yeah, when emergencies happen with my family, it's all covered." I try to just look at that $60,000 or $70,000 and think that's all I have.

Shaan Puri

okay I like that that makes sense

Sam Parr

but you don't like that

Shaan Puri

No, I like it. I think it's good. I use my own psychology for me rather than against me. It's much easier to understand how your brain works and then use it to your benefit than to try to fight the way your brain works and say, "No brain, think differently" and react differently to situations. You know what I mean? It's like the same way that if I publicly go on here and say I'm going to do something, then I know that my brain is not going to want to fail at that because the social pressure is going to make me want to do it. So, I just use that to my advantage. I'll go and I'll say, "I'm going to do X," and I call my shot because now I know I'm going to use that feeling of social pressure to help me do the thing I want rather than try to talk myself out of caring what other people think.

Sam Parr

No, I think that's a good way to live. We're going to do this; this is the second time we've said it, so we actually have to do it. But we're going to have to do a total podcast about what you're going to do next. I think that the best thing for people like you and me, and those who sell stuff, is that we have a little while to breathe and think. Very rarely do people get that. They sometimes will get it if they get fired and receive severance, but most people, the average American, doesn't get that until they retire—if they can retire. And even then, it's like, "Dude, I'm now old and like I don't..."

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

I don't have a lot of income coming in, so it's like... what, you know? But I think the best part of selling is you have time to reflect and think. The worst part is, if you do that for too long, you get stale. And you're gonna... I think you have a high likelihood of being depressed and sad.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, we've used that phrase before: "Work like a lion." I think Naval was the one who came up with this, but it's worth repeating because this is what you're describing. A lion will find what it wants, right? It finds its prey, it sprints, it catches it, then it feasts and celebrates that feast. Afterward, it relaxes, sits, and waits. There’s a rest period, then there's observing, where it lurks and waits for the next prey. Business is the same, right? You had a [success] and I had a [success] where we were sprinting to catch the win. We both caught the win, then we feasted and celebrated. We got that out of our system. It's important to enjoy; it's important to learn how to enjoy the thing. Then you rest, reassess, and look for the next prey. For you, you just found your next one and started sprinting. I'm still in the rest and reassess phase.

Shaan Puri

Where I'm thinking

Sam Parr

And that's what I told you: enjoy that rest. You *have* to enjoy it, and I think you truly do need... to rest and embrace it, which I know is very hard for you and most people.

Shaan Puri

No, that's easy for me. That's what I'm saying. I get when other people say that's difficult for them, but like, it sounds to me like a "snowflake" thing to be sad about. Not to minimize your feelings, I kind of get it, but it's...

Sam Parr

a new what I mean is like it's

Shaan Puri

Like, what's your perspective? It's like, my perspective is, dude, I can't... I'm so happy with how that turned out. That was awesome! The next thing is going to be awesome too. This is a new... it's a different type of season. In the same way that, oh, it's nice in the winter because you kind of bundle up, wear your fuzzy socks, and sip on your hot cocoa or whatever. It's a different season, and that's to be enjoyed for its own purposes. I don't feel bad for myself, and therefore I don't want anybody else to feel bad. In the same way, I think people too easily are willing to feel bad about themselves or feel bad for themselves. It's like a form of victimhood, right? I understand how it would be easy to think that way, but I do not think that way. I choose not to.

Sam Parr

No, I guess what I mean is you have a pattern sometimes of jumping into projects and going all in. I'm like, you know, maybe just... if you have an idea, just wait like 3 weeks and then do it, you know?

Shaan Puri

like like yours

Sam Parr

Yeah, like... you know, I... You started the Milk Road over a weekend. You were like, well, you were all in on one or two other things and then over the weekend you're like, "I'm doing this," and you went all in on it. Thankfully it worked, but you could see how that could be both an advantage and a disadvantage. But that's kind of the [point].

Shaan Puri

That, I think, is very sage advice for me because it's super easy to start something. You can start something in an hour, but once you start something, and if it's going to do anything, it's going to take weeks or months to make it work, to get it started. And then once it's working, now it's years to, you know, pay it off.

Sam Parr

Particularly a daily email that requires you to do something every single day... Daily emails are hard, aren't they? I mean, they're not that hard, but they're challenging. They're unlike other businesses.

Shaan Puri

Even if it wasn't the daily email, I guess either way, starting is so much easier than finishing. You gotta be careful because it would be easy to get distracted. The test is if I'm going to do something, it's a multi-year arc. If this is going to be in a good scenario, choose wisely. You know, those are very, very valuable years of your prime. The same thing goes for people taking jobs or anything else. It's like, are you sure you're going to give up like 20% of your prime for that? Or like people who want to wait, "I'm going to wait a year before I go do the thing I want." Are you sure about that year? You know how valuable that year is to you? This year in your twenties—do you know what that's worth? That's not just nothing. A year in your twenties is, I kind of think, like your sort of 20s to your 50s. Basically, that 30-year window is worth like 80% of the total time in your life. So, you know, each of those years is very, very valuable. Do not, do not, do not throw it away doing something you don't want to do.

Sam Parr

I'm eager to hear if people like this type of content. But I think they will. What do you think?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, if we like it, they'll like it. Who are our customers? The people that love what we do. Alright, we should wrap it up.