How to Have an Early Adopter Mindset, ConstitutionDAO, Optimizing Twitter Bios, and More

Shaan Puri

It's sort of like if you look at what our rich friends do now that's not common, and then that's just gonna become... like more people are gonna do that thing. Yeah, I feel like I can rule the world.

Sam Parr

What's going on? So, did you see Andrew Huberman replying to my tweet? Yeah, I did. I feel kinda giddy a little bit.

Shaan Puri

I feel a little honored

Sam Parr

yeah do you feel I mean it's kinda cool to interact with him right

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I think he's great. I just feel... I think he's really great. The cool part about this podcast is that we, you and I, get to hang out often. Then, once in a while, we have a bunch of guests. I would say for all the guests, I like them all, but maybe 2 out of every 10, I'm like, "Oh, this person, I really get along with them." I really respect what they're doing, and he's definitely one of those people.

Sam Parr

So, hear me out. I think that we should get... okay, so you have to go somewhere on Wednesday, yeah? I went and found a guest. Tell me what you think about this guest. When I got this person, I realized we should do this way more often. I met this guy who has a fine local services business in California. I asked him, "What did you used to do?" He replied, "I was in the CIA." I asked, "What did you do there?" He said, "I would go to the Middle East and try to get people to commit treason. I would do it by trying to influence them and persuade them to basically give me secrets so we could do espionage." I was like, "That's the most amazing thing I've ever heard! Can you tell me everything?" I just sat down for like an hour, asking him questions, and I asked him to come into the pod group.

Shaan Puri

the podcast or that was prepod

Sam Parr

PrepOd... and so I go, "Dude, you just wanna come out and tell me all these..." He like told me stories about being in an alley in Lebanon, trying to get some person to show up. And he... the way that he convinced... He's got all these weird stories, and it's about persuasion and influence and shit. I realized, I'm like, "Sean and I should just start doing that way more." Just getting people who are interested, regardless if it has to do with money or not.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I think that's cool. I met a guy once who was using our product. We held a meetup, and about 200 people flew to our office. It was basically a big party. There was this guy who was always very mysterious because our product was kind of like Clubhouse. You could just sit there, hang out all day, and chat. It was always online. I asked him, "So, you don't work? What's the deal? You're always online doing this." He replied, "Yeah, I'm in between gigs." I thought, "Oh, I'm unemployed," but I didn't really think too much of it. When he showed up, I noticed two things. First, the guy was incredibly muscular. You know, I kind of bumped into him, and it felt like I hit a rock. It was so strange. He wasn't trying to look super fit, but I could tell he was one of those people that...

Sam Parr

like yeah

Shaan Puri

They could do 90,000 pull-ups. It's like, "Oh, your core is just incredibly... you're just... your whole body is made of muscle." It's not that you have giant muscles, but your whole body is a muscle. And so I was like, "Okay, that's interesting." Noted. Later on in the night, I introduced him to two people. One person was from Russia; he spoke Russian with them. I introduced another person from Pakistan; he spoke in Urdu with them. And I was like, "How many languages do you speak?"

Sam Parr

was he a white guy

Shaan Puri

white guy and I was like and he spoke with like almost like a perfect accent and I was like what the hell why do you know how to speak in all these different languages he's like oh and he kinda like as the night got on like you know he wasn't drinking but we were all drinking and he's like he kinda confided he was like yeah I was actually a spy for many years in the faa and he starts telling me these stories and they're so unbelievable that I'm like I just kinda think this guy is is he lying is he telling the truth it's very hard to tell because the stories are so good like you know the story is like you know he's in a bar in russia and you know there's mobsters there and then yuri milner the the famous investor comes in and he's like okay I wanna talk to yuri and yuri just kinda blows him off and then he says something in russian and this is like the perfect one liner and I was like what's going on here so we go to the battery later that night the battery is basically this private members club in san francisco that is like a soho house for san francisco and my the previous investor who bankrolled my whole company the the idea lab that I was working at he created the battery so we go we're hanging out there and on the way out it's like 2 in the morning we're leaving and the battery has I think 14 hotel rooms but really there's like the penthouse that you rent out for for parties and the penthouse I think was like $10 a night at least maybe $15 a night to rent out and there's an elevator that goes straight up to the penthouse and so at that elevator we're walking out and at the elevator is elon musk he's getting in the elevator and it's him it's jason calacanis and there's 2 other people we don't know and and I was just like you know kinda like fangirl moment I was like oh shit that's elon musk and so the guy the spy guy he's with me and he goes oh elon's there he goes hold on he walks over and they're waiting for the elevator the elevator is about to be there he walks straight up to them and he goes like classic pickup artist doesn't address elon he goes jason and he's like jason and he goes to jason calacanis jason calacanis is like oh hey what what's up and he's like he's like jason I met you last year at the conference and I told you you know what what I do with the government and all that and I offered you a tour I I I offered you a tour but I forgot to give you my number let me give you my number now and I'll be able to get you that tour and if if if elon wants to come he can come too oh my god he's like he's like he he like focused on jay's cat guy it was just sort of like you know elon if you're interested you're welcome to join as well you're

Sam Parr

you're gonna tag along

Shaan Puri

And then he walked... we walked away, and I was just laughing because it wasn't like some super smooth... It's like he tried to do a super smooth move. Wasn't that smooth in my opinion, but was still hilarious. And he had the balls to approach, so you know, good for him.

Sam Parr

so who was the guy

Shaan Puri

I mean, I don't want to say his name, but yeah, he's just a guy. I haven't seen him since. So, I was like, one night with this CIA guy.

Sam Parr

Well, this guy is coming on when you're gone. Long story short, we should do more cool shit like that.

Shaan Puri

yeah for sure

Sam Parr

Speaking of cool stuff, can you... I don't know what's going on with this constitutional issue, and I know you know everything about it. Can you tell me? Because it's actually amazing. Or like, yeah, I think it's amazing.

Shaan Puri

I got a DM a few days ago. It says, "Hey, a group of us are getting together to buy the Constitution."

Sam Parr

okay like like like the united states constitution

Shaan Puri

the united states constitution I think

Sam Parr

there's 11 of them right

Shaan Puri

There's 11 copies. I think there's only one that's in the hands of private buyers. This is the one who owns it, so I don't know who owns it, but it's being auctioned off by Sotheby's. They said, "Hey, there's a Sotheby's auction in a couple of days. We're gonna create a DAO," which is a crypto term for basically a group—just a group of people. Think of it like a company. We're gonna form a DAO, and anybody, anybody could contribute any amount you want. We're gonna try to buy the Constitution. I was like, "What the fuck?" I was like, "That's great! How much is it?" I think he said they're gonna need, I wanna say, $10 or $20 million. I think it's $20 million that they're gonna need to raise.

Sam Parr

who messaged you

Shaan Puri

I mean I don't think they all want their like name out there necessarily

Sam Parr

okay well who's the organizer behind this

Shaan Puri

it's a it's a small group of kind of like nft collectors

Sam Parr

is it basically it's not packy or

Shaan Puri

No, he's kind of... so they basically approached me, Packy, and I think some others to try to help get the word out. Got it. So, the amazing thing is, there's a thing called ConstitutionDAO. They have raised, in 3 days, I think $3,000,000 from 2,000 people, something like that. I'll just pull up their Twitter handle. The Twitter handle is @ConstitutionDAO, and it says, "We the people, for the people. We're buying the Constitution from Sotheby's in 4 days. We need your help." Then, if you go to the website, it shows that they have it. It says amazing copy at the top: "What if we held hands and bought the Constitution together?" It's just hilarious why I'm putting it. Then it says they've raised $3,600,000 so far, and I think they need... where do they write their target? Okay, I don't think they write their target anywhere here, but I'm pretty sure I asked the guy, and I'm pretty sure they said they need roughly $10,000,000 to $20,000,000.

Sam Parr

That's crazy! It's actually pretty amazing. So, who owns it? How does it work? How is it tracked? And how do you know to trust these people?

Shaan Puri

The way this would work is a group of people get together to buy something. Now, this is how they've bought several other things. People are creating DAOs to buy CryptoPunks. So, oh, you want a CryptoPunk, but a Punk costs like $1,000,000. Now, you don't have $1,000,000. Well, you want to invest $10,000 into a CryptoPunk? Cool! We can all pool together $10,000 each and buy a CryptoPunk collectively for $1,000,000. We all own whatever that math comes out to. As you know, we don't do public math, but it's something like whatever, you know, less than 1% of the CryptoPunk is yours. You can sell your stake in the CryptoPunk, so they fractionally own it. That's what I think they're trying to do here. They're trying to fractionally own the Constitution, which is hilarious. They're going to take the actual Constitution and turn it into an NFT, and then you can fractionally own the NFT.

Sam Parr

and what laws or

Shaan Puri

my loose understanding of it

Sam Parr

how does it protect the investors how are the investors protected

Shaan Puri

protected in what way what do you what do you need protection from who's who's that to get you

Sam Parr

They can lie about the price that they sold it. They can never sell it.

Shaan Puri

who so okay we're buying it

Sam Parr

for something if they get a hold of it then they can accidentally ruin it

Shaan Puri

Custodied... I don't know how they do custody. So, like, I don't know who actually holds the keys. Maybe it's a group that owns the keys. I think the way the DAO is structured is there's a wallet. The wallet holds the NFT and it requires a certain percentage of votes in order to do anything with it, to move the NFT again. So, you kind of vote as a group, and if whatever over 50% of people do it, then they're going to do it. Okay, hold on, let me tell you what this person said. So, okay, maybe I could say his name; it says it in his profile. This guy, Austin Kane, reached out. He goes, "We're lit!" He just started off hot. "We are literally purchasing the Constitution of the United States." I was like, "Okay." I go, "Cool, how much is it?" Sotheby's estimate is around $15 to $20 million. "We're building around the clock. Your NFT shaped his views on this idea, so I'd love to have you be a part of it." Blah, blah, blah. And they're basically pulling together assets. I think the Discord group that they have has like thousands of members. I think they had $10 million in soft commitments, like verbal commitments, and... 3.

Shaan Puri

Something $1,000,000 [in] actually funded commitments and so you crowdfund the DAO. Then I think what they plan to do is they actually plan to hold the physical Constitution in like the Smithsonian or something like that. So they plan to... have the [document displayed].

Sam Parr

them and do do they make a profit does this guy also make a profit for organizing

Shaan Puri

I don't know. They don't, you know, there's not a ton of details about how the DAO is structured and whether they have some preferential thing, and you know.

Sam Parr

Watch the shit. So, like, this is the same idea we had for "They got $10,000,000 in 3 days."

Shaan Puri

10,000,000's their soft commitments they have 3.6 actually wired into their wallet

Sam Parr

And you were going to say we had this for the Jordan thing, and yeah... Look, I was talking to a friend about that the other day. I'm like, "I still think that'd be great." The only reason that I... if we ever actually wanted to do this, I think there's differences. That constitution is likely just being sold to the highest bidder, whereas if Jordan found out that someone was gonna do X, Y, and Z, he'd be like, "No, fuck that. I don't wanna do that."

Shaan Puri

Yeah, yeah, perhaps. Then again, it's been on the market for what, 7 to 10 years? Something like that. So maybe he's ready to sell if somebody can actually meet the price. I think one challenge we had was that we were just busy and just kind of messing around. Somebody would actually have to go boots on the ground, figure it out, go see it, and determine why it's not selling. They would need to figure out what the rules are around it. Could people Airbnb it? Could you turn it into a museum? Or could you do something with it? Or is it literally going to be an inactive asset? You know, I think this is something that can happen. There's another version of this. Have you heard of Kraus House?

Sam Parr

no what's that

Shaan Puri

so I'm a little jealous I didn't think of this idea myself but

Sam Parr

I like the name

Shaan Puri

I might just do my own. The name is really good: **Kraus House**. So, Kraus House, which is spelled K-R-A-U-S House, it might be the weird spelling of "house" too. But basically, they're at kraushouse.club, and here's what it says: "We're a DAO of basketball fans, and we're crazy enough that we're gonna try to buy an NBA team." So they're basically trying to do the same thing. They're trying to crowdfund and buy an NBA team. Today, NBA teams are owned by billionaires, you know, successful business people—Steve Ballmer types—who go buy these teams for $1 to $2 billion. The idea here is: why wouldn't all the fans of, let's say, the die-hard crazy fans of the Grizzlies, or whatever, band together? Could they band together? Could they raise enough money between fans of the team and investors who would just love to own a piece of an NBA team? You buy the team, and then you control the team through the same sort of vote. So you decide which GM to hire, do we keep this person on for another year or not? It's sort of like a crowd-controlled NBA team.

Sam Parr

Which is a huge deal. That's a... yeah, it's a dope idea. It's incredibly... it's impossible because with buying a basketball team or any American sports team, like what are the top 4 or 5 sports? It's not impossible. The issue is not the lack of money. The issue is that, you know, in England they knight you and they start calling you "Sir Richard Branson." In America, we allow you to buy a sports team, but it's a select group of people, and very few people are actually allowed to do it. It's done that way on purpose. So for all...

Shaan Puri

The people... like, true. You basically have to get approved by the other 30 owners. So, you know, they can vote to block you, but that's not to say they would vote to block this. I think this could generate a ton of attention and press and be seen as pretty forward-thinking. I don't think it's a given that they would block this.

Sam Parr

I don't think it's a given that they block it, but my... Is this not like a thing where I can just get the money and buy it? I'll just go and buy it.

Shaan Puri

Right, yeah, but I do think money is the limiting factor here. If you look at a team that's for sale right now, if you want to buy them, you have to put up the money. It's sort of like you need to come over the top with the bid. You're not going to get a deal here. You'd have to say, "Okay, the price is $2 billion. We're going to pay $2 billion, or we're going to pay $2.4 billion, or we're going to pay $3 billion," because we have to be the winning bidder. If you could choose between a simple, clean transaction with another billionaire, you'd probably take that. So, we're going to have to buy something that's got "hair on the deal." Now, there's another group that's doing this in a much more practical way, and I don't know if practical is better. What they're trying to do is they have a DAO [Decentralized Autonomous Organization], and they're trying to buy a fourth-tier soccer team in the English Premier League or whatever. So, it's not a team that's in the actual Premier League, but it's in the ranking system where you can ladder in or get demoted out. They're buying one at the bottom, and it's like a joke of a team. It's similar to the show "Ted Lasso." They're basically trying to do "Ted Lasso."

Sam Parr

who did that

Shaan Puri

And they're like, "Great! What? It's another group of people, another crypto group that's putting this together." They're buying the team, and that's a pretty permissionless thing. The price is not astronomical; you don't need $2,000,000,000 to do it. You can buy it for $10,000,000. So, you're going to buy the team for $10,000,000. They're going to crowd control the whole thing. They're going to mint NFTs because they're going to own the IP of the team brand. They're trying to show what technology can do, kind of like the first crypto-first team. They want to run their team as an example that other bigger teams might look at and say, "Oh, that's smart!" For instance, they minted and sold $20,000,000 worth of NFTs for their team, and every jersey comes with their NFT. How does that work? Well, there's a social token that gets you access to season tickets. What does that mean? So, they're trying to demonstrate it that way, and they're literally trying to rank up. The goal is to eventually get into the Premier League and, you know, can they one day play against Manchester United? That would be the dream.

Sam Parr

I don't want to spend much time talking about NFTs and crypto because I'm so bored of it. But I just read this amazing Wall Street Journal article about Gary Vaynerchuk. Did you happen to see that?

Shaan Puri

I didn't see that, but I've been following kind of what he's been doing. Tell me, what stood out to you?

Sam Parr

Gary's... for the listeners, Gary's been on the pod a ton. Everyone probably knows who he is. If you don't know, he's basically a celebrity for having a big mouth, but he's cool and he talks a lot. He owns an agency that, at this point, is quite large. If I had to bet, I would say they're like a $200 million revenue business. It's really big, and he bootstrapped it. He is on fire lately. So, basically, before we get to the article, he launched a thing with Michael Rubin. I forget, Michael Rubin launched two new businesses, and Gary's a partner in one of them. I think it's the NFT trading card one. Is that it?

Shaan Puri

yeah I simply you told me about this yeah

Sam Parr

Yes, and then he also is doing... He has a new book coming out, and he just launched this thing like a year ago. We had him on when he did it, called VeeFriends, which I think is like a collection of NFTs. I think it's valued north of $500,000,000, right?

Shaan Puri

I'll have to look up the latest, but yeah, it was basically like a top 10 or top 15. It's been a top 10 or top 15 crypto project for its entirety basically, and I talked...

Sam Parr

I was with him at this dinner the day it launched, or something like that. I think he said that he had made like $20 or $30 million that day from it... just a huge sum of money.

Shaan Puri

There's been $93,000,000 of sales of VeeFriends, and I think he gets, you know, let's say a 10 to 15% stake of royalty on every sale. So I think it's pretty easy to estimate that at the low end, he's made $10,000,000 off of VeeFriends. At the high end, it could be like $30,000,000.

Sam Parr

so he's just like prolific

Shaan Puri

Let's say what it does... He decided to make an NFT token that he could own, and it guaranteed you one utility. Just the way we did the NFT that said you get 5 minutes of airtime on our pod someday. By the way, the guy who bought it reached out.

Sam Parr

okay what'd he say

Shaan Puri

He's an interesting guy doing interesting things. So, you know, he... I asked him, "Do you want to cash that in or are you going to hold?" He hasn't replied yet. Gary V did one where he said if...

Sam Parr

you own a bank account

Shaan Puri

at my conference

Sam Parr

is the buyer just a rich guy is he just like a rich crypto guy

Shaan Puri

I think he's, yeah, I think he's like **crypto rich** basically. Got it. Not like **mega mega rich**, not like **crypto billionaire rich**, I don't think, but...

Sam Parr

which is like a wealthy crypto guy who's yeah

Shaan Puri

Like, [he] got in early-ish and has done very well and is now doing a bunch of things. So anyway, GaryVee's NFT... if you bought it, great! You have this NFT which might be cool as an NFT. You might like the art, it might be... he might launch more products into it someday. But at the very minimum, it gave you access to his conference. So it was a conference ticket, in a way, that you could use. And it was the only way, I think, to get into the conference maybe. That's what he did.

Sam Parr

And he hasn't even... I think he just announced when the conference is going to happen. It's going to happen for a guaranteed three years or something.

Shaan Puri

yeah covid kinda bumped it back but whatever

Sam Parr

So, kinda cool! His latest thing is this new book called "12 Things to Be a Good Leader" or something like that—I forget the exact title. He created a rule where if you bought 12 copies of the book, you would receive a mystery NFT. It's still to be determined what that NFT or token actually gets you, but that's what he promised. As of today, it is the largest preorder ever in publishing history. I think as of yesterday, he has sold 1,000,000 copies of his book before it's even gone live. The people have no idea what they're getting. The way he did it was by hosting a 3-hour live session on YouTube and Instagram a few days ago, where he told people to buy the book. His whole shtick is basically, "I don't ask for much, and I provide a ton of content." When he has a book come out, he's begging everyone to buy it. So, that's kinda cool! It's the largest book release ever, and that is nuts! That is so crazy!

Shaan Puri

So, the way... and you know why people are buying this, right? You know why people are buying 12 copies of this book?

Sam Parr

because oh did I not say the 12th copy they get one of these tokens right

Shaan Puri

They get a mystery NFT. So, he promised you that there's going to be an NFT. It's going to be good and it's going to be for anybody who buys, I think, I don't know if there are tiers or what, but like, yeah, if you buy 12 or more books, you're going to be able to get one. And so, it's kind of crazy, right? Like, that's a million books. That's an insane number of books to sell. Very few books do a million copies. I think I was looking at this site because I signed up to write a book next year with Tucker Max's thing. I was like, okay, so what's good? You know, is good like 100,000 copies? 10,000 copies? No...

Sam Parr

I bet it's like a1000

Shaan Puri

They're like, you know, some stat... 99.whatever% don't sell a thousand. Won't even sell a thousand copies. 10,000 copies, it's like, you know... Yes, the best sellers do eventually sell, you know, like 100,000 copies. And then there's things like, you know, like "4-Hour Workweek" or in this category at least "Atomic Habits." I think "Atomic Habits," he did 3,000,000 copies sold in about the first 2 years or something like that.

Sam Parr

and the biggest winner of the past 5 years is mark manson's book

Shaan Puri

which one was that

Sam Parr

"The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" - that book was so big that when I was reading the quarterly reports for... whoever it's owned by (Harper's, which is owned by one of Rupert Murdoch's companies - I don't remember if it's Fox or News Corp), but anyway, they... one of their big things was talking about that book and how it's like saved their publishing business.

Shaan Puri

Right, and there's basically... so, why did this work? One reason why it worked is because Gary has been doing this for, you know, he's been building trust for like 20 years. I've known about Gary V for 10 years, and I thought, you know, he didn't start then. I don't think so. Definitely before that. So, he's built up a lot of trust, and he's maniacal about content production. He creates so much content in addition to everything else he does, and it helps. The content helps feed the agency; it helps feed all the things he sells, like books. But the amount of content he produces is wild. He built up this trust. He was talking about NFTs; he was talking about trading cards before trading cards had their huge run-up. So, if you're like, "Oh, Gary's talking about trading cards, I don't know about that. I'm going to hold off and see how it goes," then you just see this huge run-up in basketball cards. Then Gary V starts talking about Pokémon, and then he starts talking about NFTs. Pokémon goes up through the roof; NFTs go up through the roof. And then you look at his track record, and you say, "Oh man, he kind of was also big on social media before social media." It was obvious. He was saying, you know, I remember when Instagram got bought, he went on the news and...

Sam Parr

he's underpriced

Shaan Puri

He's like, "This is a steal!" and everybody else thought, "Oh my God, they paid $1,000,000,000 that has $0 in revenue. What are they doing?" He was like, "Are you joking? This is an absolute steal by Facebook." He was talking about Musical.ly and how kids were making music videos before it turned into TikTok. I remember tons of people were making fun of him, like, "Okay, great. Yeah, yeah, 12... we're all gonna be like 12-year-olds making dance videos in our bedrooms." He was right. He was right on social media, he was right on baseball trading cards, he was right on Pokémon, and then he was right on NFTs. He started talking about NFTs, and they had this huge bull run partly because a guy of his stature, him and Logan Paul, when they started talking about Pokémon and NFTs, it actually drove a lot of attention into NFTs and a lot of adoption. So then he launches his own, and you're like, "Oh, do I want to buy this VeeFriends, this doodle that he made?" It's priced at 2.5 ETH. He auctioned off the initial ones at 2.5 ETH. Today, the floor price, meaning the minimum you could buy it for, is 8.1 ETH. So if you just bought it, that's like doing 8 times roughly $4,000, so you know, $32,000. Basically, you're up almost 4x; you're up 3x on the last thing he told you about. So this time when he says, "Hey, buy my book. I'm gonna get you a special NFT," you might have missed VeeFriends, you missed the NFTs when I told you about them, you missed the basketball cards before they all got hot. Get this one right. I think if you have a track record of being early and right, this kind of FOMO builds, and people just start to trust you. I think that's what's happening right here. People are like, "Alright, cool, I'm in. I'll do this."

Sam Parr

Yeah, and I think what I would like to do is... I don't know this, but eventually, I would like to look at what he's been wrong about. Gary is right a lot, but he takes a ton of shots. I was reading Glassdoor reviews of VaynerMedia to understand what's cool about working there and why people like it so much. They were saying, like, the haters—of which there will always be haters—or the negative reviews said something like, "He's always saying the latest and greatest thing is going to be the next big thing." For example, they named like four apps, and I'm like, "Oh, I'm not even... these are dead. Those were cool like two years ago." So, I'd be curious about what he's been wrong about. But I do think that he's likely right more than he's wrong, and he's been right in big ways.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I was actually watching... So he did another cool thing, actually. Not to make this the Gary Vee hour, but he did an interview with Mark Zuckerberg, which I thought was a pretty big deal. Amazing.

Sam Parr

amazing it was so good

Shaan Puri

Yeah, it was good, dude. He steamrolled Zuck too. He kept interrupting, of which the comments were just ripping him for. He steamrolled Mark Zuckerberg. Somebody said in the comments, "Gary's talking to Mark about social like he's his big brother and Mark's his little brother." But, you know, obviously Mark Zuckerberg invented social networking and runs the world. But it was true; he really was kind of all over him. He's a better talker than Mark, right? So that's actually kind of natural. He's a better speaker, he's more engaging, and he's quicker off the cuff. Mark is a little bit more, you know, rehearsed and kind of thoughtful about his words. That doesn't always play super well, you know, in front of a camera. But what did you think of that interview? Did you hear anything that...?

Sam Parr

I thought it was great. I thought Gary said something cool about how he knew NFTs were going to be big because of Farmville. People would pay for these badges. He also referenced another Facebook app that I didn't know what it was, but my context clues were like, okay, it was a thing where you could purchase a cool picture. He was like, "That's how I knew it was going to be big." Mark goes, "You know, I never really thought of that." I thought that was funny and pretty cool. Also, Mark's haircut was horrible! It looked as if they just put a bowl on his head and cut the bangs around it. What's he doing with a bad haircut like that?

Shaan Puri

It's awful, actually. Gary had a great line in that, which is like, he's basically talking about the metaverse. You're going to have this avatar, your character, who has its own virtual clothing. It wears that like it looks like a Sim, basically, if you've ever played The Sims. And Gary's like, "You've been living this life." Like, basically, Mark already looks like a Sim. Mark looks more like a character from a video game than an actual human being. He talks more like a character from a video game than a human being, and he wears the same exact thing every day on purpose.

Sam Parr

yeah just to share

Shaan Puri

which is what your character in a video game does like black shirt blue pants

Sam Parr

and he said and he and he and he nagged him and he goes this is you already

Shaan Puri

He didn't go into details, but he was kind of complimenting him, like, "You've been ahead of the curve." I thought it was hilarious, you know, that he called about that in a way.

Sam Parr

Alright, let me ask you a quick question. I've been thinking about something that we've had a bunch of friends discuss: limiting screen time. I did a very short amount of research because I was curious about what trends have existed that separate rich people from poor people. For example, in the Greek and Roman era—which I don't know the exact years for, but it was sometime BC—you were considered rich if you were very, very white. Roman poetry would praise the "white girl," which meant pale skin. Pale skin was a mark of beauty and social class because it indicated that you weren't outside working hard. Of course, that changed around the 1960s. Being tan started to mean that you had leisure time; you had enough time to hang out outside and have fun. Skin tone became a marker of wealth. During World War II, women were using tea bags as self-tanner. Coco Chanel, around the 1930s and 1940s, talked about being bronze and tan, and it became popular to be tan. So, what do you think? I'll tell you what I think mine is. What do you think will be the trend in 20, 30, 50, or even 100 years? My opinion is that it will be a lack of screen time. It will be like, "Oh, you use a computer?" and the response will be, "No, I don't use a computer." I think it's going to be about people. Mark Lorre talked about that, and I believe Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates have mentioned it too. Jennifer...

Shaan Puri

says his his kids don't get screen time

Sam Parr

that's what he said

Shaan Puri

Yeah, he said this a few years ago. This came out, I think he kind of backed off it because it sounds really bad. Because like, "Dude, you addicted the whole earth to social media and you're like 'don't let your kids do it'?" But let me see what the exact thing is. I remember for sure that he either limited or... said he wouldn't do it. So he said...

Sam Parr

Dude, I noticed that once I got a little bit more success in my career, I don't check anything on the weekends. And for different projects, I'll get to it when I get to it. Like, I'm just not gonna check my email... I don't wanna be on the screen.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I remember it was a big deal when he said it. I think his kids were like under 3 at the time, so it was like, "You're probably not doing a ton." It's like my daughter's two, she has a ton of screen time, but... you know, I get Mark Zuckerberg doesn't have to do that necessarily. He was like, "Yeah, maybe when they get older." As they get older, I'm sure they will. But people were like, "Hey, you know, the media is sort of out to get you" in this kind of case.

Sam Parr

I've got a couple of pretty wealthy friends, and they'll be like, "No, our kid has never... we don't use our phone in front of them. We don't let them see a phone." And then, you know, I'll go and hang out with other friends who maybe aren't in that position, and like, we go out to dinner and they're playing on the phone the whole time. So that's my... I think it's already happening.

Shaan Puri

and I

Sam Parr

think it's gonna happen in the next 10 20 30 years

Shaan Puri

There are a few more points to consider. Back in the day, being fatter—having a big belly—used to be a sign of wealth. This was because, obviously, you had enough means to eat food and you lived a leisurely lifestyle. Now, it's the exact opposite. Having abs is seen as a higher status than having a belly. Someone once told me that having a big nose was a sign of great power and authority. I don't know if that perception has really changed over time, since you can't control it as much. I guess you could get a nose job, but I think you're absolutely right that these status signals shift over time. Essentially, you want to be doing what the masses are not doing. For example, if everyone is on horseback, you want to be in a car. When everyone is in a car, you want to learn horseback riding. The same goes for hunting. Having others hunt for you used to be the norm, but now it's a status symbol to have the free time and skill to go out hunting as a hobby. I think you're absolutely right that being away from the digital experience will become a status symbol. Being able to not have to work online, play online, or talk to people online is going to be rare. It will be more rare than diamonds or gold because everyone is becoming increasingly engrossed in the online world. Therefore, having anything in the offline world will be considered an extreme luxury.

Sam Parr

And that actually, in terms of money-making in business, is an interesting trend to look at. There's this thing called... what's the dumb phone thing? Is it called a Light Phone?

Shaan Puri

light phone

Sam Parr

I keep hearing a lot of people talk about this thing have you heard of the light phone I I don't know much

Shaan Puri

About it... Getting it... So basically, if you haven't seen it, the Light Phone is a really minimalistic-looking phone. It looks pretty cool, honestly. It has a very clean design. It's like a very basic phone that doesn't have an app store.

Sam Parr

like an it looks like a

Shaan Puri

zoom zoom

Sam Parr

remember remember a zoom or or Microsoft yeah it's like

Shaan Puri

It looks like the early cell phones, but just cleaner. You know, like a flip phone or whatever. Basically, it's just a phone that doesn't have apps. You can text on it, you can call on it, but you can't use the internet beyond that. It's meant to be like, "Hey, do you want to be detached from the world?" Maybe your kids or whatever. You know, if you need to be reached for an emergency, but you don't want to be kind of like on Instagram at that time. I think it's a great idea. The problem with it is the inconvenience, which is that I think you need to switch your SIM card every time you want to use it and stuff like that if you want to use the same phone number. So that's kind of annoying. But I think it's great, and I'm surprised this isn't bigger. I think it was like a Kickstarter project. I'll buy it.

Sam Parr

I'm gonna buy it. So, we just did this NFT thing and we said we'll do content stuff. I'm gonna set us up with the... or I'll set it up and you can decide if you wanna go with the health thing with that executive checkup. Then I'll buy one of these Light Phones and we could talk about it. I think it's amazing. I think it's cool. Yeah, you could still use music. I think it's really cool.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I think it's great. What else comes to mind that's like this? So, what are some other things? There's obviously in-person experiences, like travel, meetings, and concerts. I think that already has a bit of a premium, but I believe that premium will get larger. The rarity will increase because if most meetings just happen over Zoom, then it will be a special occasion when you make the effort to fly and meet somebody face to face. The same goes for concerts. If you're there, experiencing it, it's going to be one of those feelings you can really only get by doing that. So, it's going to become more valuable over time. I was talking to a comedian, and he said, "Dude, I was worried, like, you know, after COVID, what would happen?" He said, "Demand is roaring back. The demand now for shows is higher than it was pre-pandemic."

Sam Parr

and so you're asking what else is like this will will the rich people poor people think

Shaan Puri

what else could be kind of a status symbol I think I have a couple

Sam Parr

Of yeah, I think like the splitting time thing between cities, it's still expensive.

Shaan Puri

but in one place

Sam Parr

It's still expensive, but it's not prohibitively expensive. So I think that's going to be far more... I'm doing it now, and I realize I'm in a fortunate situation, but I think that it's far more accommodating than ever before. I think that part-time living and splitting time between cities is going to be quite common. I don't know what else...

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I think that's actually a great point. It's sort of like, if you look at what our rich friends do now that isn't common, that's just going to become more mainstream. So, like, you know, you're talking about having a few Airbnbs or having three homes and just shifting throughout the year based on where you want to be and whatever season you want to experience. It's about not having a hometown. Dude, here's more of a thing.

Sam Parr

Here's one, and you're getting into it now. I've been into it for a minute as well. Did you see...?

Shaan Puri

can you

Sam Parr

Show me this. Well, kind of. I tweeted out asking people to say, "What would you like?" So, I'm building this house and I'm like, "How would you optimize it for longevity, health, and fitness?" I got so many amazing replies, and the most consistent one was cold plunge and sauna. So many people are interested in that, and I think that that's a much bigger trend than I ever thought. I think having home saunas and home cold tubs is something that's going to be... I think we're still in the early stages of that. I never would have thought that that was going to be a thing.

Shaan Puri

yeah that's the I I just bought a sauna by the way like 2 days ago

Sam Parr

I know I saw you cut the... what's his name? Andrew said, "Don't do infrared," and you're like, "But I bought an infrared. Is that so?" Okay.

Shaan Puri

yeah by the way there's a sick company so check this out

Sam Parr

is it david david's company

Shaan Puri

florence have you seen this

Sam Parr

This guy just DM'd me, who I'm friends with. He spoke at Hustle Gun. He goes, "Hey, I just met with Sean about my sauna business."

Shaan Puri

he's this guy yeah

Sam Parr

and he said that you also like this type of stuff

Shaan Puri

have you did you go look at it did you see it

Sam Parr

I got sick he just he he dm'd me a video and you wanna explain what it was

Shaan Puri

So basically I... How do you spell it? Sauna floor? So there's two that got... that got... that got kinda like highlighted here. Where are...?

Sam Parr

you at

Shaan Puri

the url is we are florence

Sam Parr

how do you spell florence

Shaan Puri

f l o r e n s

Sam Parr

f l o r e n s okay

Shaan Puri

Okay, so basically we are talking about Florins. What he's done is build a custom, kind of new version of an in-home sauna. It plugs into a normal outlet, which, when I was looking up saunas, was a big concern for me. I didn't want to have to get an electrician out here to handle the power for the sauna. It's small enough to fit in a space designed for one person, and it has a super nice, clean design. Most saunas have that typical cabin look, but this one fits in a modern home. It's very slick looking. So, he's building this thing, and he showed me one. I'm going to go visit him; he's got one down here not too far from where I live.

Sam Parr

that's in the presidio

Shaan Puri

so then there's one of the presidio called ancient ritual have you seen this one or have

Sam Parr

that's the one I saw

Shaan Puri

Ancient ritual... So, there's two. Ancient ritual is the other one that people are kind of hyping up. I think that one is almost like Peloton for a sauna. Normally, when you get into a sauna, you're on your own. It's like, "Dude, here, go sit in this hot box and think," or, you know, "Talk to the naked guy next to you." I don't know, do whatever you want to do. I think what ancient rituals are doing—I'm not exactly sure—but I think they are sort of like a guided meditation. They have sounds, they have scents, and they'll talk you through what to do. It's like Calm or Headspace meets a sauna. That's my prediction. They're a little bit stealthy; there's like nothing on the website. But that's my understanding of it just from figuring it out.

Sam Parr

dude the florence thing is amazing yeah

Shaan Puri

So, I'm really excited about both of these. I don't think either of these is like, you know, a mega huge business, but I think it could definitely be a really healthy business. It might be one of those that surprises you. Maybe there's bigger potential. Maybe this ends up like pools. I think our buddies are in the pool construction business. They were telling me something like, you know, some absurd percentage of homes—like 50% of homes or whatever—in areas that can host a pool will get a pool in the suburbs. It's like, yeah, that's not the exact percentage, but it's a $50,000 average ticket. It's the number one optional upgrade to a house that happens. So, you know, those companies are doing really well—pool construction companies. Maybe if you fast forward 10 years down the road, saunas and cold plunges are going to be as common as swimming pools in America. I could see a world where that's the case.

Sam Parr

I definitely could too, so I'll have to remember exactly what the study says. There was a very reputable and famous study, and it said two interesting things. The first thing it said was that if you sauna for two 20-minute sessions a week, it decreases the likelihood of cardiovascular disease by something like 30 or 40%—a massive number. Then it said if you sauna for three 20-minute sessions a week, it's going to decrease it by like 60%. The numbers are astronomical, just from two to three, let alone from zero to two. So, saunas... the way it works is basically that when your body heats up that much, I guess it stresses it, and that's a really healthy and good stress. Anyway, it's pretty sick. I'm all about that. Do you want to talk about these last two things you have on here? I'm very eager to know what those are.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, let's talk about them. By the way, just to put an end to this: we talk about this because we're interested in it. This is our hangout. If you want to be a fly on the wall, great. But I would also say there's been a big lesson I've learned. Anytime you discover a group of people who are very interested in and living a lifestyle that is different from yours, it's very easy initially to write it off and just say, "Oh, that's frivolous. That's just kind of whatever. They're out of touch or they're weird." It doesn't really matter what category it is. When I saw gamers and people who stream video games and watch others play video games, it was so strange to me. I remember making fun of this kid in college because I walked in on him watching somebody else play a video game on a live stream. The guy was playing in Korea, and I was like, "You're watching a dude in Korea play this video game? Why don't you just play? Better yet, why don't you get outside and let's go get some food?" I made fun of him for it. Then, years later, I'm selling my company to Twitch, and I'm talking about how great this trend is. He called me and was like, "You mother... you made fun of me for this 10 years ago, and here you are now, on board!" That's happened to me so many times in life that now I go the exact opposite way. I see somebody like you who says the same thing that our other buddy said, which is, "Maybe I should go to the Mayo Clinic and get these advanced scans done once a year." I think maybe that's something more people are going to want to do. Why would he want to do this? Why are people choosing plant-based lifestyles? What is that all about? Now, I lean in anytime I discover these things. That's become some of the best discoveries or life changes I can make, or investments. It's a great way to invest because you're actually on the cutting edge of stuff. You're in early, which is super important, obviously.

Sam Parr

There's a famous business book on it where he talks about... I think it's "Crossing the Chasm" or something. He discusses early adopters and then there's basically this bell curve of people: - At the beginning of the bell curve, it's people who are late to adopt - The middle is like the average Joe - There are early adopters - And then there's one more category... like cutting edge You and I both have a handful of friends who, I would say, fall into these categories. I forget the exact names for them, but in that bell curve, there are people who are... [The sentence trails off, implying there's more to be said about people at different points on the adoption curve]

Shaan Puri

On names, because you got the idea right but you kind of butchered all the names. So it's basically: 1. The earliest is **innovators**, and it's like the people actually figuring things out 2. Then there's **early adopters** 3. Then there's **early majority**, that's kind of like the big chunk 4. **Late majority**, that's the other part of the big chunk 5. And then there's the **laggards**, who are like, you know, people who still have AOL email addresses and are driving around looking for Blockbusters

Sam Parr

And for a lot of things, I would say you are on the right side. You're either an innovator or the one next to it, an early adopter.

Shaan Puri

I'm trying to go... I'm intense. I'm intentionally trying to go that way. So I thought, you know, I'm just not that... I'm not like a futurist type of guy because I've been so wrong. I figured out the formula for it. The formula is: have an ego, make a prediction, be wrong like five times, and have it rubbed in your face how wrong you were. Boom! Now you're a futurist. I remember the first time the iPhone came out. I was like, "Who the fuck wants to read tiny text on a screen? That's awful!" I thought nobody would watch a movie on this. I was like, "Yeah, you can watch it, but who would ever watch a movie on this tiny square? That would be the worst! It's worse than an airplane headrest." I remember saying these things to people. I was in college, a junior, and nobody remembers this, but I remember being that wrong. Then there was Snapchat. I remember being that wrong. My username still has the word "test" in it because I was so certain. I thought, "Snapchat? This is stupid, right? This is just for kids and dick pics and stuff like that. It certainly won't go beyond this." And then Bitcoin. I was wrong early on. Guys in my office were telling me about it back in 2012, 2013, and I was kind of laughing, saying, "Guys, let's focus on something legit here." Now I'm like a fucking Bitcoin evangelist. Twitch? Same thing. I was wrong about streaming. I've been wrong so many times that I've actually flipped the script. I had to reassess my life and say, "I'm not going to be very good as a technology entrepreneur or a technology investor if I just continue to write off the big things as dumb and stupid early on." I need to go the exact opposite way. What would it take for me to do that? I just inverted. So instead of, you know, anytime I see that same feeling, I lean into curiosity. What's making people want to do this when I think it's so strange? Now that's flipped the script for me.

Sam Parr

And we either had Justin or Emmett on at Hustlecon or on here, and they're talking about Justin.tv, which was the site before Twitch became a thing. It was basically anyone could log in and create their own live TV channel. Emmett, I believe (you could tell me if I'm wrong), I believe the story was like... Emmett would notice there's a small corner of the site where these guys are watching video games. It wasn't a lot of people, like thousands of people, but they were spending...

Shaan Puri

2% I think of the traffic at that time on

Sam Parr

But they were spending a significant amount of time watching, and he was like, "This is the one that we gotta go to."

Shaan Puri

And I don't even think it was that data-driven. Actually, the data pointed against it because, again, I remember it was a small trap. It was a small amount. They had a combination of two things working in their favor. Number one, Emmett was like... I guess actually the number one factor was they were in a tough spot. The current thing wasn't working, and they had nothing to lose. They were going to run out of money and fail, or they had to try something dramatically different. When you feel like you're in a tough situation and have nothing to lose, you actually have one of the greatest assets on your side. You know, when you have nothing to lose, you play completely differently than when you feel like you have something to lose. So that was the first thing they had to change. The things that were popular were all illegal streams—illegal streams of sports. So they knew, "Oh, people want to watch this," but we can't ever build a business around this.

Sam Parr

yeah

Shaan Puri

So, 90% of people are doing this on the site. We can't use the 2% thing... it worked. And then the other one was, he was like, "I personally like watching these." So he's like, "I'm gonna go with that. These are my favorite things to watch on the network, so if I'm gonna work on this, I'm gonna work on the ones that I personally find the most interesting." Actually, most of the company wanted to go work on the hotter, sexier idea, which was called... What was the thing called? The video thing they had. Not Viddy, their version of it called...

Sam Parr

socialcam socialcam

Shaan Puri

So, the company split in half. They said, "Alright, Justin.tv is not gonna work. Abandon ship!" We gotta figure out, you know, what's the emergency ship. They had this idea. I think Michael Siebel, who now runs Y Combinator, and Justin Kan wanted to do SocialCam. It was like Instagram for video. Instagram was the hottest startup in Silicon Valley, but it was photos. We were going to do Instagram for video. They were able to instantly raise money. They got tons of initial hype, traction, and press. All the talented people in the company wanted to go work there. I talked to this guy, Jacob, who's the original designer at Twitch, and he's still there today. I asked him, "How'd you know to bet on Twitch instead of SocialCam?" He goes, "Oh no, dude, I wanted to be on SocialCam. They just were like, 'No, the team's full, bro. You go work on the thing with Emmett.' Because Emmett is his childhood friend. He said, 'You gotta go do that one.' He was like, 'Oh, fuck. Alright, whatever.'" And you know, that seemed like the great idea, but actually what Emmett did was lean into this really weird behavior, this unique lifestyle that these gamers were doing, where they were streaming themselves playing for 8 hours a day. That turned out to be the thing.

Sam Parr

And that's kind of my point. I think that there are these communities, particularly on Reddit. But you can also do it on Twitter or just type in any idea or hobby along with the word "forum." You can find these niche communities of people that are kind of "freaks," and it's fun to learn all about it. For example, intermittent fasting is something we all talk about now. I remember about eight years ago, Business Insider wrote an article about a Microsoft executive and mocked him for the idea of intermittent fasting. They were like, "What is this?" But there have been communities online where I've read about people doing this forever. And you're like, "Fasting? No! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!"

Shaan Puri

Just look at anything they make fun of in Silicon Valley. At the beginning of the coronavirus, it's like VCs are so paranoid about the real world that they're wearing masks to conferences. Guess what? Everybody's doing that now—wearing masks. Oh my god, intermittent fasting is Silicon Valley's latest craze. Not eating until noon every day. You know what Google engineers are doing, right? The media loves to make fun of it, but guess what? That's what everybody's going to be doing. What are some other things that are like that? I think, you know, some of them are meditation. By the way, that was like that too. People made fun of it, and then, you know, boom! It's like the new yoga. The other ones I think that are happening are like stem cell treatments or any blood platelet spinning stuff. It's like, "Oh, you have knee pain?" Well, these guys go to Puerto Rico and Germany to get this blood spinning treatment and get stem cells injected in their knees. That and gene therapy feel good.

Sam Parr

and gene editing I think is is

Shaan Puri

Gene editing is one. Another one is breathwork. I think breathwork is where meditation was. I invested in this thing called Othership; they just actually launched their app. I use it every single day and I use it religiously because it makes you feel so good. To the average person, I do it outside now after Huberman was like, "Get sunlight on your eyes first thing in the morning." So I do it outdoors. I'm sitting in my driveway basically doing it, and neighbors are walking by, they're walking their dogs. But they feel it was a very normal behavior to go for a morning walk, and they see me doing breathing techniques on my driveway. They think I'm a nut, and I love it! I go louder as soon as somebody walks by because I want them to know they live next to somebody from the future.

Sam Parr

Dude, there's this guy... His name was Bill. Well, we'll also start with there's this guy named Arthur Leonard. He's dead now, but in the '60s and '70s, he was a New Zealand track and field coach. He had runners like... Paul Walker. Or not Paul Walker, that's John Walker.

Shaan Puri

peter and furious actor

Sam Parr

Yeah, yeah. Peter Snell and all these New Zealand guys started winning the Olympics in the 1500 meters, 5K, and 10K. Everyone's like, "Dude, what are you doing with your runners?" He goes, "We run like 120 miles a week. We do long-distance running, and we go slow. We just do a whole lot of it." This one coach from Oregon got really interested. His name was Bill Bowerman. He said, "Well, I'm the track and field coach at Oregon University. I have all these great runners. What are you doing?" He goes over to New Zealand in the 1970s and learns from Arthur Leonard. He comes back and starts making it popular. Two things happen: the University of Oregon gets really good at track and field, and he ends up making shoes for his runners so they can run a little bit faster. He calls that company **Nike**. He starts it with another runner, Phil Knight. The other thing that happens, and this just worked out perfectly, is he starts talking about it to all of his friends. He even writes a book about it, and I believe it's called *The Joy of Jogging*. The idea of jogging wasn't even a thing in the 70s. People were like, "What do you mean you're just gonna run?"

Shaan Puri

the police from what yeah

Sam Parr

Like, are the police gonna go after you? It was astounding. Prior to the 1970s, there was the jogging craze of the seventies. Before that, people didn't go out and run; that just wasn't a thing. So anyway, that's another example where running became popular, and Bowerman created Nike to kind of capitalize on it.

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

Let's wrap up with this last thing here. What is this? I always enjoy your wisdom. **Put yourself out there. Announce what you're trying to do and how you're trying to do it.**

Shaan Puri

so so this actually came from the facebook the zuckerberg interview with gary v so gary v goes you change your name to meta you change the name company's name to meta so like you know like what's that about you kinda wanted to like announce this to what's the kinda like the thinking behind that because I I think I get it but you know explain it and zuck basically said this thing he goes he goes you know I think this is really important and he goes you know how it is when you run a company he goes you have you know hundreds of employees thousands of employees we have thousands tens of thousands of employees it's really hard to get the message out inside your own company one of the best ways to get your company to realize you're serious about something is to go talk about it externally so that's the first thing he said and I thought that was so true when whenever a statement gets made publicly inside the company they also read that article they read that press and say I guess we are committed to this I guess we are I guess that is a top level priority and they start to take it seriously so all of a sudden the product managers start adding features for that thing or the top talent will switch to that division because they know that that's an area for growth for the company so it works internally then he goes the other thing is he's like you know we we wanted to put a message out there to the world like he goes I think it's really powerful he goes we wanted to say what we were doing so that people who want that to exist will come work for facebook and gary goes yeah it's like a recruiting thing right he goes he goes yeah he goes it's kind of amazing you know if you just say what you're trying to do and how you go about doing it that like it repels he goes you'll get a lot of hate and he's like we always get hate anytime we announce anything we get hate he's like so that's gonna come anyways and he's like when you say what you're trying to do what you're trying to build you know what you're trying to do with your life and basically how you're trying to go about it you will repel the people who find that off putting and you will attract the people who want it and he said it so simply this is not a oh I've never thought of that or wow that's such a new concept it's not that but it reminded me of like a lot of good things that have happened in my life that simply came from saying what the hell I'm trying to do why I'm doing it why I'm so excited about doing it and how I'm planning to go about it here's what I plan to do because the other thing facebook announced was we're investing $10,000,000,000 into you know the metaverse this year like into our arvr projects and 10,000,000,000 is like a huge number and so that that basically says we're changing the name and we're investing $10,000,000,000 that means this is our future this is the bet and and so that will attract talent now I just thought that's such a powerful concept for anybody it doesn't even really matter what the what the stakes are like I've done this when I try to hire interns most people when they try to hire interns they spend all their time you know they they they write a a blog or they write a job post and then they'll like you know hope and pray the right person comes by and the better way to do it is you write a job post that would attract the you think about who the ideal person for this is and you say what would make them stop what they're doing and be like holy shit I gotta check this out I gotta go reach out to I gotta talk to them and so now you're not gonna write a normal job description that says the role the responsibilities the requirements minimal changes

Sam Parr

you also need to know who you don't want to work there

Shaan Puri

Exactly, and it'll work out. So, like, I put a thing up on Twitter once. I remember, I think I've talked about this before on here. I put up the thing, yeah.

Sam Parr

people shit on you

Shaan Puri

People shit on me. They've been showing me for everything I do. This one, I kind of like almost hand wrote it and made it look handwritten. I said, "Hiring an intern. You're gonna get 3 years of experience in the next 12 months. I don't drink coffee, so you'll never have to go fetch me some. You're not gonna know what to do. I'm gonna throw you in the deep end, but don't worry... I won't let you drown." I said, "You're gonna work on this, this, and this for me because I'm trying to do X." I don't know what my startup was at the time, but I was trying to build X and I wanted somebody who could come in and do things like A, B, and C, and who knows what else. I basically was like, you know, whatever. And there's a P.S. at the end. This got like hundreds of applicants to come in. Why? Just because I didn't write a normal job description. Secondly, because I said what the hell I'm trying to do, and it attracted the type of people who want to do something like that with their life. They found an overlap between their interests. It sounds again so simple, but if you kind of check yourself, you say, "Have I done that? When's the last time I put a stake in the ground? I put a flag in the ground and said, 'Here's like I'm Sam Parr, here's what I'm doing,' so that you would attract like-minded people?" I think you kind of did it with the fitness influencer thing, to be honest. You said, "I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna get away from this business stuff and I'm gonna focus on being... I'm gonna become a fitness influencer." I'm half joking, but I'm also half serious. Then you started posting the content every day. You started doing it in public on Facebook, you posted it on Twitter. I'm sure some people made fun of you or left comments that were like slight jabs or whatever, but you put it out there. I'm betting your DMs are full of people who are now...

Sam Parr

yeah

Shaan Puri

it's sending you cool equipment ideas

Sam Parr

yeah

Shaan Puri

flying out to meet you like that's just what happens when you do that

Sam Parr

And it's not... When I told people this, someone was like, "Do you want to make money off this?" I was like, "No, but I would love for a professional athlete to think that this is kind of cool and be like, 'Oh, I don't know you... You like fitness? Want to come over?'"

Shaan Puri

right

Sam Parr

Or, you know, like a cheaper man. He didn't find us this way, but he's like, "Oh, you're into the body and things like that. That's neat! I want to learn a little bit about the media business. Can I learn it from you? Have you read the book *The 48 Laws of Power*?"

Shaan Puri

I haven't read it, no, but I've heard some of them. I find it weird. The summary is basically that the guy goes on TikTok. I don't know how he's in my algorithm, but the author, Robert Greene, does like one individual power at a time on TikTok, and it always comes up. But it'll always be something so generic that I don't know how to... it's very weird. He'll be like, "Laws of Power: you don't want other people to like you," or something like that. It's something like that, and I'm like, "Okay, I don't know what this is. Why is this book so hyped?"

Sam Parr

His books are incredibly in-depth. I believe that in some state prisons throughout the country, certain states have banned the book. It's incredibly interesting and powerful. No, for real, it is. It's a crazy book. Law number 25—I used to memorize the laws when I read it. I just had to Google it now because I don't remember it that well. Law number 25 is to always or consistently recreate yourself. He says, "Be the master of your own image rather than letting others define it for you." Incorporate dramatic devices into your public gestures and actions. Your power will be enhanced, and your character will seem larger than life. With this Facebook thing, as well as a lot of other things, they get made fun of for doing that. But these huge gestures oftentimes work out well.

Shaan Puri

Right, like I did. Here's this little example of it: I had a Twitter bio for the last few months. I just changed it, I know.

Sam Parr

I thought it was good 10,000,000 rev

Shaan Puri

Or something, I basically said that every Twitter bio I ever saw was about the past. I thought, "Okay, I see the value in that. It's good for somebody to land and know what you're doing." But I thought, what's more interesting is: what are you trying to do now? I said, "How could I plant my flag just at the top of my profile?" It was very controversial. I think a lot of people felt... I don't know, they don't tell me, but I'm assuming there are a bunch of people out there who probably read it and thought, "This is kinda cringey," or "Why is he saying this? This is weird." And there are some people that would DM me like...

Sam Parr

all all you did was said I wanna make a hun or no the business will do 10,000,000 in revenue this year

Shaan Puri

I said 3 things I said 4 things I said I'm trying to be in a great mood daily

Sam Parr

yeah

Shaan Puri

I'm going to get into phenomenal shape for the first time in my life. I'm going to make $10,000,000 by December. I remember what my last one was... something else, but those are the three things.

Sam Parr

about fitness maybe

Shaan Puri

The second one was fitness—getting in phenomenal shape for the first time. That, and something else... maybe it was like, I don't know, blah blah blah, family—something to make me sound good after I said, "I want $10,000,000 by December." Okay, so I put that out there, and I got, I would say, five really important messages from there. They were like, "Yo, I respect you for putting that there. I might be able to help you with the fitness thing," or "I see you have the mood thing. What are you doing for that? I want to learn." I'm like, "Great! I would love to teach it." Or, "$10,000,000? How are you planning to do it? How far along are you?" I get an email from one guy who keeps saying, "How far along are you? You're getting close. Your thing is inspiring me." I set my goal too. My goal is not $10,000,000; my goal is $100,000. But I want to make $100,000. So, like, it attracts like-minded people. And I don't even think that that was that good of one version of this. I think the law you just said is super important: to continuously reinvent and craft it. Play with it! Don't get stuck in whatever you used to say three years ago or even three months ago, necessarily, if it's no longer the most badass, exciting, fun version of you and what you're trying to do.

Sam Parr

do you and what does it say now you wanna build a $100,000,000 brand or something

Shaan Puri

Yeah, so I'm building a **$100,000,000** brand. I put that I'm investing in **badass companies** like **X, Y, Z**.

Sam Parr

What are the odds that... So you're building a business right now, which we purposely don't talk about, but you're building a business right now that's in a totally separate field than you are in now. If... if you... you being like "media Sean."

Shaan Puri

it's different than anything I've done before also yeah

Sam Parr

Yes, and many people, including me... Well, I haven't done this, but this is something I would've... I would do. Would say, "Well, what the hell, just focus on like the main thing." Yeah, but do you think it's gonna work out? Like, it seems like it might work out, right?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I think it's gonna work out. I mean, I started it with my wife because I wanted to start a business with her. I thought we had the idea together, and I thought that would be fun. I never did it before. Normally, I would go work all day and be super excited and stimulated by all the stuff there. She's not into tech; she's not into the things I'm into. So, I'd come home, and she'd say, "How's your day?" and I'd be like, "Oh, it's great." It's hard to go much further in-depth than that, right? So, this was a cool thing we could do together while we had our first two kids. I have two little kids now, so that's why I went into this very different thing. It was also a challenge. We have a couple of friends who also do e-commerce and are doing really well with it. I thought, "Okay, I can learn from them," and we can bounce ideas off each other.

Sam Parr

would you sell it next year for like 20 or $30,000,000

Shaan Puri

no I think it can get to I think it gets a 100 and like I think we should just go all the way

Sam Parr

that's pretty awesome and you're enjoying it still it's not exhausting

Shaan Puri

It's a pain in the ass tons of times, but overall, yeah. Like somebody, our buddy Sully, who I talked to and kind of look up to as a business mentor, he was like, "I really wanted to advise and help you with it." I was like, "Okay, why do you want to do this? Your time on this is not going to pay off. If you just spent that same hour in your other business or in one of these other ten things, it's honestly more valuable for you. As your friend, I don't want you to make a decision today that could actually be a bad decision." He goes, "Don't worry about that." He said, "I'm basic, you know? You could just be having free time." He goes, "Yeah, I don't. This is my free time. I am only happy when I'm in a prison of my own making." I thought it was just a badass way of saying it. He said, "I don't want to do nothing. I like doing hard things, challenging things, as long as I get to choose what the hard and challenging thing is. If it's something I don't want to do and it's even remotely hard or challenging, I'm like a whiny baby. But when it's really hard and I chose it, I picked this poison, then I have so much fun. I just wake up every day energized." I was like, "Wow, that's a great way to know yourself well."

Sam Parr

We can wrap up there. I think... where's Ben? Ben, what do you think? I think we covered a lot of interesting things. I like the philosophical wisdom... bullshit.

Ben Wilson

Yeah, the end was really great. It got my wheels turning about what I can build, kind of in public, and how I can put myself out there more. I love that part.

Sam Parr

I think building in public is overrated. By the way, I'm going to do it with this ketchup thing, but I still think it's overrated. You know what's better than building in public? Just doing cool shit and not talking about it. Being private.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, that's fair. I'm actually doing both right now. I have one thing that's in private and a bunch of stuff that's in public, and I actually like them both. Ben, what if I say... What if you were going to put yourself out there, what are you trying to do? How would you plant your flag so that you can, like a magnet, attract like-minded people to you? What's your version of "I'm Ben, and here's what I'm trying to do right now"?

Ben Wilson

Well, so I mean, obviously a lot of people know about my podcast already, *How to Take Over the World*. I'm trying to make it a top 100 podcast in the world across any category. We're trending in the right direction, but I haven't really put that out in public yet. I guess now it is, so there we go.

Shaan Puri

But Sam asked an important question: every goal or dream should have a time associated with it.

Sam Parr

yeah you always have to have it

Shaan Puri

Yeah, so what would be otherwise? You know, it's an endless wish. So, what do you want?

Ben Wilson

how much time is left in 2021 we got

Sam Parr

6 weeks yeah let's say

Ben Wilson

in 6 weeks let's set let's I got a little more than a month

Shaan Puri

Alright, everybody! Go subscribe. If you're listening to this, go subscribe to the **How to Take Over the World** podcast. It's honestly an amazing podcast; that's why we've run some episodes on this feed before. Alright, we'll get you closer. I think one of the reasons people struggle with this question is that they feel the pressure, like, "Oh, fuck! This is my purpose in life or my mission in life. I better get it right." Actually, you want to do the exact opposite. You want to treat it like a kid when you ask, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" They might say, "I want to be a dinosaur," or "I want to be a firefighter," or "I want to be a pizza man." It's like, okay, the best way to get to that statement is actually to put zero pressure on it. Say it out loud, and then say it out loud again. Say a different thing out loud. Play with the ideas until something sticks with you and resonates. Then you can say, "Okay, how do I juice that? If that's the dream on level 7, what would it be on level 10? What would it be if I turned the knob all the way, broke the knob off the volume thing, and it's now at like volume 12 accidentally? What would that be for this podcast? What would it be right now if you cranked it up?"

Ben Wilson

By the way, I feel like we both put ourselves out there by putting a number to it. Meanwhile, Sam is like, "I'm just gonna be a fitness influencer." But where's your number and timeline, Sam?

Shaan Puri

we're not judging a

Sam Parr

We're not judging here. No, I have one goal: it's to weigh 185 pounds by January 15th. Come on!

Ben Wilson

okay okay my bad

Sam Parr

my bad I have it written down on this piece of paper but that's not that's not an influencer

Shaan Puri

that's not

Ben Wilson

an influencer goal that's just a fitness goal

Shaan Puri

well no no that is because

Sam Parr

where are you at now so you're at 190 6 I started at 2 times

Shaan Puri

Sam's basically saying, "In the next two months, I want to lose 11 pounds." But, you know, he's already somewhat in shape. So, I don't know if he has a body fat goal or whatever. Now, what will that attract? It'll attract other people who also want to lose weight or have just done it, right? Those are the two types of people that are going to reach out to Sam: "Hey, me too!" or "I just did it. You can do it too! Here's what worked for me." So, like, that's the power of doing this and of saying it out loud. It's about convincing yourself.

Sam Parr

and ben don't come at the master when it comes to

Ben Wilson

goldfish okay

Sam Parr

I'm the self-made man. I'm... I'm the man. I'm a manifest cowboy, baby! I get it done. I just wanna know when you're gonna have 100,000 Instagram followers, Sam. That's all I wanna know.

Shaan Puri

know bro the

Sam Parr

manifest cowboy is hilarious

Shaan Puri

My buddy has the best nicknames. I just discovered this because he showed up for an event, and I was like, "Dude, you showed up! I thought you'd be late, and I thought you might skip it today since you didn't have to come." Our other friend was there, and he said, "That's why they call him Mister Show Up." I thought he was joking, but then literally someone called him Mister Show Up. I was like, "Is that your actual nickname, Mister Show Up?" He replied, "Yeah, that was the thing. Anytime somebody needed something, like a ride to the airport, I'd say, 'Oh, you need a ride home from the airport? I'll be there. Give me 15 minutes, I'll show up.'" Then, you'd give him a throwaway invitation to a party, saying, "Hey, I'm going to this thing, but you know you won't know anybody there, and it's two hours away. It might not be fun." He'd say, "Cool, I'll go." Then, I'd be like, "Dude, you showed up to the party! You don't know anyone here. I can't believe you showed up!" And that became his reputation: Mister Show Up.

Sam Parr

who is this guy

Shaan Puri

It's this guy Dom that I work with. I love this guy, and he's like, "I thought that nickname 'Mister Show Up'... I wish that was my nickname." Because I can tell you one thing: **Mister Show Up is gonna win in life**. 80% of life is just showing up, and if you're Mister Show Up, you're acing that part of life.

Sam Parr

that's hilarious I think it's gonna be a good app