I Spent 48 Hours With MrBeast To Learn Business From Him (#355)

Shaan Puri

So he's got a runner, basically. He's got a dude outside the house at all times, just sitting in his car 24 hours a day. It's like a personal DoorDash. So if he ever needed something... I don't know if you noticed, he was like, "Oh, I wanna play Settlers of Catan." So he's like, "Hey, can you go get Catan?" and the guy would just run to the store, go get Catan, bring it back within 15 minutes.

Sam Parr

he was outside our house

Shaan Puri

The whole time, and he's outside the studio, wherever he goes, these two people are there. [They work] 12-hour shift seats, so 24 hours a day he's got somebody just watching his back.

Sam Parr

alright so I guess we we're all gonna we all wanna talk about the same thing right

Shaan Puri

Yeah, this is going to be the Camp MFM recap episode. I'm pretty sure that's all we're going to talk about because it was kind of amazing, and I have a lot of things to say.

Sam Parr

I have a lot of things to say. Let me set the background because you're the one who organized it, so I think you need a third party here. Basically, a month ago Sean said, "I'm gonna organize a basketball weekend and I want you to come. I'm gonna invite some other people. Please Venmo me $1,800 and show up at this address at this time." That's pretty much all I knew about it. I didn't know anything else, and I think it was 3 weeks in advance, right?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, something like that. Three to four weeks in advance. In between then, it got sort of canceled and put back on again because I first...

Sam Parr

I couldn't

Shaan Puri

I couldn't get anybody to come. I invited 5 people... of the first five people, only one said yes. I was like, "Yeah, maybe... maybe this idea is only good in my head." And Ben (not producer Ben, business partner Ben) pushed it through. He was like, "Nah, I think we could do it." And then we ended up with like 27 people there.

Sam Parr

And oftentimes when I'm saying, "Sean is doing X, Y, and Z," in reality, I mean Ben. So, Ben seemed to be really the backbone here. You maybe had the idea; I don't know who had the idea, but Ben Levy was the guy, and he did a really good job. So basically, three weeks out, it just says, "Hey, come to North Carolina in Raleigh, near Duke, and we're going to have a basketball camp. Just show up." That's all I knew. Then I get an email. I booked my flight, and I sent you $1,800. A day before, you sent out who's coming, and it was like me and you, both Bens, a couple of HubSpot people like Jonathan, and then it was like Hasan Minhaj, Mr. Beast, and it was like 20 other really amazing entrepreneurs. You rented out this... shoot, I don't know, like a farm.

Shaan Puri

basically or a farm

Sam Parr

it's like

Shaan Puri

a a winery yeah

Sam Parr

Yeah, with a lake and a zip line going into the lake, there were about 24 entrepreneurs. You hired this amazing basketball trainer who was also an entrepreneur, so he fit in and was really insightful. We kind of half-assed the incredibly unimportant things. For example, when we went to play basketball, I asked, "Hey, is there any food here?" and you said, "Well, there's just a bunch of boxes of Clif Bars." I was like, "Oh, okay, that's fine. I'm okay with half-assing that." So anyway, we all stayed in these two Airbnbs and just played board games, acting like 12-year-olds for two nights. It was amazing; it was so cool!

Shaan Puri

Yeah, it was basically a summer camp for grown-ups. The origin of it is pretty simple. I genuinely love meeting new people. In fact, the podcast was originally started as an excuse to just get to talk to really fascinating, interesting people. But I hate most of the traditional ways to do it. I don't like going to conferences. I don't like going to networking events. I hate just being like, "Hey, you wanna grab coffee?" So, I basically was like, "Look, there are a bunch of people who I think are dope. I would love to hang out with them, get to know them. You know, strangers become friends, friends become lovers... that whole thing." Then finally, I was like, "What if I just did it instead of a networking event or a conference? What if we just did it with something that would be dope no matter who came?" So, we had this idea for a basketball getaway. We were like, "Alright, here's the criteria: they love basketball, number two, they're a great hang, and number three, they can teach us something because they're a baller in their own craft, whatever that craft is." That's why we had people in the house who had built billion-dollar companies. We had people who bootstrapped their way into tens of millions. We had entertainers like Mr. Beast or Hasan, who had millions and millions of fans and were creative talents. We had people who used to be in the NSA. We had a bunch of people from different backgrounds come up and join this thing. So, that was the criteria, and that's basically how it played out. And I'm pretty sure, by the way, that it was the best weekend of Ben's life. Like, Ben, I don't know if you got married over the weekend, but...

Sam Parr

I want to talk about Ben in the middle or the end, but I have a feeling... I told Ben before we recorded, "Ben, the next 6 months in your life are going to have the most change you've ever experienced."

Shaan Puri

Totally agree, totally agree with that. In fact, I was going to text you something very, very similar, which is like, I don't know if you realize this yet, but your life is about to change. You can't really go through life being surrounded by wildly ambitious people who believe in you and spend time seeing other people who have realized their dreams come true, and not go back to your house and look at yourself a little differently in the mirror. You're going to look at yourself and be like, "Alright, let's turn that ambition knob up two notches." Right? Let's turn that faith and belief in myself up because I saw that these people are no smarter or better than me. They're just people like me; they just went for it.

Sam Parr

dude in all this smarter

Shaan Puri

knob up

Sam Parr

All those "smarter," "better," and "more successful" people were looking up to Ben. Did you notice that?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, and what... there was just a feeling of... I wouldn't even say looking up necessarily; it's more like equals. I think everybody there viewed themselves as an equal to everybody else. I'm sure everybody there had a moment where they were like, "Dude, I'm way out of place." Some people were like, "Oh, you know, I play basketball, but I'm not really that into basketball." So, some people maybe felt out of place there a little bit. Some people felt out of place in the house because they didn't know anybody. They saw everybody else; you know, half the people knew the other half. But some people knew nobody coming in. And then, some people I bet felt out of place because they said, "Wow, I'm talking to this guy who's, you know, leaps and bounds further ahead in their business career." But everybody had to deal with that and then come to terms with it. I think that's part of the challenge.

Sam Parr

So, say your piece, Ben. Then I actually want to come back to you. Me and Sean, I want to go like, "You go, I go, you go, I go," of the things that we learned this weekend. I know that you have a list, and I have a list.

Shaan Puri

yeah great so ben do a quick one first

Ben Wilson

There's just so much to say. It was one of the best weekends of my life. It's so amazing, Sean. I guess I would ask, there's like a really special feeling that is very difficult to convey throughout the entire weekend. You guys touched on it a little bit—just like no egos. Even though people are at very different places, there was just this really feeling of openness and connection. Even though there were these really, really successful people in all these different domains, there was very little "dick swinging." Everyone was just on the same level, learning from each other. It was very cool, Sean. What do you think it was that went into this weekend that created that environment where people were able to feel that way and be that way with each other?

Shaan Puri

I think it's 3 things you actually mentioned 2 of them first was the weekend felt very special and I think that with you when people feel like they're a part of something bigger than themselves when people have a little bit of awe or intrigue or curiosity or fear even they get out of their out of their comfort zone and so part of it was if you make something that that feels special that feels different that inspires them all or some they they they don't know what's coming next it brings everybody back to sort of like an equal footing of the sort of a childlike thing I remember when so we invited alex basil who's a trainer to to a bunch of nba stars like kyrie irving and trae young and this guy's like you know he's like the top of his craft he trains like he came from training like you know kevin durant to us he sent us a clip he's like here's what I was doing today tomorrow I'll be seeing you schmucks and like right like you know but that first 5 minutes I would say when he had us doing very simple like drills everybody was spread throughout this whole private gym that we had rented and we're all literally dribbling the ball almost accidentally in unison like that old nike commercial where all the the beats sync sync up there was little pockets little moments like that where it just felt special and you know so so I think that's the first piece is you gotta give people a feeling that they're part of something bigger than themselves number 2 you invite people who are inherently curious so everybody there I would say actually has an ego everybody there has an ego otherwise they wouldn't get to where they were but bigger than their ego is their curiosity and so as long as you can create the curiosity factor where who's this person oh they're interesting oh they're interesting they're interesting then again the attention go they're so used to attention being on them they're so used to being the most interesting person in the room so you want people who are naturally curious about the people around them so even the sort of quote unquote celebrities or kind of the big hitters that we had in the house that were maybe the the wealthiest or the most popular people that were there I picked specifically people that in my limited interaction with them they were very curious like for example when you had first met mister biz you met him before we did you were like yeah he just called me and he was like yeah I'm on this walk I do this every night I just call somebody and say yo teach me something and I said already I know everything I need to know about this person same thing when hasan came on the the podcast he asked me more questions than I asked him I felt bad afterwards I was like dude I just blew the podcast because he was asking me questions I'm supposed to ask him nobody gives a shit about me they wanted to know from him but that showed me like he would fit into this group because he would be curious about oh what's this real estate guy doing what's this guy doing who's rolling up like those claw machines at amusement parks and pinball machines and like that's what this guy does and he's building a little mini empire doing that right you need somebody who's curious otherwise they would just be like that's weird I don't know stay away from me right you're different k what's your 3rd I would say the 3rd was the immersion so it wasn't like a you couldn't get away for better or for worse like normally you go to a dinner you sit there for 3 hours it's sort of a safe space you know the routine and then you leave and you get to go back to your place so you can you can stay surface level with a lot of people with this it's like dude I'm sleeping in the same room as somebody else sometimes definitely under one roof for the house we're eating breakfast together lunch together dinner together we're figuring out logistics you wanna shower first for me so you get people out dude

Sam Parr

I shared a room with 2 other guys

Shaan Puri

yeah exactly so I

Sam Parr

think ben shared a bed

Shaan Puri

Yeah, Ben had a bizarre crasher. So, I think he had to... you invited him, so you had to deal with that.

Sam Parr

yeah that's right

Shaan Puri

But I think that's the other thing. It's so immersive that there's nowhere to run. At some point, you're going to just be your real self because you can only fake the funk for so long. You can do it for 2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours, but by hour 5, you're just going to be sitting there, you know, tired and cranky, and you're going to be your real self. That's just the way it is. So I think those are the three things I would say that created that environment.

Sam Parr

well and I was gonna say it started from the top down I mean I would I would say mostly it was your brand partially it was the brand you and I have created together which is actually similar to both our personalities but basically like you're a casual person you're a relatively low ego person as in like you're easy to be around and it kind of stemmed from from from that so I think that actually matters a lot and it was like the house we are in was kinda like gross but in a cool way like people on my twitter were like dude that's a sick set you made it look like a grandma's house I'm like oh no that's just like this woman's bedroom it just looked like that alright can we get into like some of the stuff I've got one do you wanna go first I've got one on the intensity alright so first alright so for the if you're under 35 and you maybe don't know who mrbeast is he's a youtuber who's only 24 maybe he's got a 100,000,000 subscribers really big business that makes 9 figures a year and he just makes tons of videos that gets viewed by a lot of the world so I have an interesting story about him so we're in a car and I was talking about like a popular band or politics or something I think we were even talking about a movie like harry potter and I could tell that he didn't he wasn't registering what we were talking about he was trying to partake in the conversation and be polite but I could tell that he didn't he didn't like know what I was saying and I said something to him I go hey have you ever heard about this thing and I think it was like harry potter or something or it was like it was like something like mainstream and he goes no I I really I don't I just don't know anything about that I've never seen that and I could tell that he didn't know this about a lot of things and I said what's going on how do you not know about this and he goes when I was young I made a goal when I was 15 when I was young 15 I made a goal to be the most popular youtuber in the world and I pretty much stopped paying attention to everything else so if whatever you're talking about is not part of like youtube culture I don't know what it is and that was incredibly interesting to me and he said a few other things that showed his intensity the the second thing was he said I've gotten so big and I've like studied it and gotten great at my craft that I can't really learn too much from other youtubers so I talked to a lot of experts on human behavior and researchers in order to improve my craft and also I don't really have work weeks so I just kinda work and I get obsessed over stuff and I roll out of bed at 10 or 8 am or whenever it is and my team like tells me what I have to do and then I just work all night until I get tired and then go to bed and I work 7 days a week and then occasionally I get burnt out and I take a couple days or however long I need to recharge and then I do it again I don't pay attention to the normal work week the third thing that he did was he didn't care about rules so sean and I did a podcast with him at about a it ended at like 11 pm and hassan made a joke like you wanna go play ball and jimmy was like mister beasley's real name is jimmy he goes yeah let's go right now and as he said that his 2 coworkers that were with him started getting on the phone calling high schools principals of schools like all these people in order to get a basketball court and we couldn't we couldn't make it happen but he was like really really going after that to make that happen and I thought that was crazy interesting and once someone said something to him someone said something like well what if they like don't let us for insurance reason

Ben Wilson

and he goes well just tell them we'll give them

Sam Parr

a $1,000,000 if someone gets hurt and it was just so funny that he wasn't paying

Shaan Puri

he goes that usually does the trick yeah I was like how many times have you done this bro

Sam Parr

He just didn't pay attention to the rules. I thought that was interesting. Now, I'm going to contrast that with this other person. I'm not going to say his name, but you know who I'm talking about. He was a young guy in his thirties. He might have been the wealthiest person there. He wholly owned a business that was worth probably $500 to $800 million and it made tens of millions a year in profit. He basically told me that he worked really hard to get it going, but now he works one week a month. During the other weeks, he likes to travel, and for the other two weeks of the month, he's just kind of searching. His company owns a bunch of companies, and during those two weeks, he's just online searching for other deals and companies to buy, but at a fairly casual pace. I thought this was interesting because these two guys were the exact opposite of each other. When you met them, one guy you'd be like, "Oh, you're easy to be around. You're well-balanced." The other guy, Jimmy, not well-balanced at all. But both of them had this laser-focused intensity. When they're on, they're on. They played their game at a really, really high level, highly leveraged. At that type of scale, it was just like any time I make a decision, the outcome is potentially big, and I don't always have to make a lot of...

Shaan Puri

Decisions... I agree with everything you just said. In fact, I think we could probably do a two-episode series literally just on Mr. Beast. And I don't mean that because I'm a fan. In fact, I watched some of his videos. I like... yeah, I've watched a couple of his videos. It's not like I went in thinking, "Oh, this guy's my favorite." You know, it's not that. I watched a couple of his videos and thought, "Oh, okay, I get it. That's cool. I get why that works." But, you know, whatever. It's kind of a dumb... you know, kind of a dumb video thing. But it appeals to people. It's good, good fun. So it's not that, but I am now a much bigger fan of him after seeing how he operates. I'm going to tell you a couple of stories. So you didn't go for this, but a couple of us who arrived the day before—Ben was there—we got to go visit his studios and tour his production facility, which is like... I don't know, Ben, how big is that place? Like 50,000 square feet or something like that?

Sam Parr

like basically an airplane hangar right

Shaan Puri

Imagine a giant airplane hangar. On one end, they're like, "Oh, we're building this set over here." It's like a Hollywood production thing. There are four production teams, each individually creating different videos at the same time because they're all going to get released, you know, next month or whatever.

Sam Parr

and you're like in rural north carolina

Shaan Puri

People make this pilgrimage out to see Warren Buffett, and they call him the "Oracle of Omaha." I was like, man, we're driving—making this pilgrimage. We're driving two hours after we flew six hours to get there. But I was like, where are we, and where are we going for this pilgrimage? So we get out there, and it had that same special feeling. You go there, and it's like this group of people who are all singularly focused on one mission, which was to create the best videos possible. They wanted to create the best videos that get the biggest reactions. That's all they were doing, 24/7—they were all just working on that. I'm going to tell you a couple of amazing stories from that experience. First of all, we got into one of his videos. In one of his videos, they were filming the grand finale when the person either wins or loses the money. So we were in that video as just random bystanders. The second thing was we asked him, "What’s your model, dude?" His model is basically this: he started off making videos with no money, just him in his bedroom doing dumb stuff. For example, he would say Logan Paul's name 100,000 times or take a plastic knife and try to cut through a plastic table. In the next 48 hours, he just sat there with a jagged picnic knife, trying to cut through the table. He would do stuff like that—no budget, no whatever—but he understood even at that time, like, "Okay, what would get somebody's attention? What would make them laugh? What would make them watch? What's a little bit of a spectacle?" Low-budget spectacles. Now he's doing high-budget spectacles. When we got there, there was a camera flying above us, fireworks, smoke bombs, and crazy stuff going on, right? Because now he's investing, I think on average, Ben, what is it—like half a million or a million dollars per video or something?

Sam Parr

like that

Shaan Puri

I think he said **$1,500,000** per video just on the production. That's kind of insane. The thing I admired the most about him was that, okay, in that house there were, let's say, 25 people. Everybody there was entrepreneurial. So if I said, "Who here is entrepreneurial?" Out of, let's just pretend, 100%, how many people would raise their hand?

Sam Parr

almost all

Shaan Puri

Okay, 100 out of 100. I said, "Who here has a clear vision of what they want?" Now, how many people do you think are raising their hand?

Sam Parr

60

Shaan Puri

Okay, maybe 70. Who here can think about that vision and can honestly say that it is wildly ambitious? Like Mr. Beast's ambition is to be, you know, a billionaire YouTube creator, to get to 1,000,000,000 followers and make $1,000,000,000. He has told me that he wants to be one of the richest men on the planet, the most famous person on the planet, and president. So, okay, that's his ambition. What's yours? Right? So how many can just say in their own right that they're thinking really big, that they're thinking wildly ambitious? So we're at 60%. Where are we at now? Maybe 20.

Sam Parr

or we're down to

Shaan Puri

We're down to 20%. Now, if I ask the last question, the most important question of them all: Who here is truly and totally obsessed? Meaning, you are willing to give every hour of your day, every dollar you create. You're willing to reinvest back into your thing. You don't take anything off the table. You don't hedge. You don't buy that nice house. You don't buy those fancy cars. You don't put it away for your kids. You wake up, you do your thing until you pass out, and you are giving every hour, every dollar, and every ounce of your soul to that ambition. How many people are left? What percentage is left raising their hands? How many people?

Sam Parr

He might be the only one. I would say, well, it's also because he was the youngest. But that could just, you know, play out where even if he's not the youngest, he still would have behaved that way.

Shaan Puri

He would be the only one. And that's not just about that house. I could go down into San Francisco. I could say, "Hey, gather around every venture-backed founder here." I could go into a gymnasium full of people who all say they want to be a big YouTuber, or all say they want to be a comedian.

Sam Parr

And by the way, this isn't necessarily a good thing. It could be a good thing, but it could also, I think, be his downfall.

Shaan Puri

I think it's an incredible thing. I don't necessarily mean it's a healthy thing, but I think it was honestly just kind of stunning.

Sam Parr

Oh yeah, like it was absolutely stunning. I agree with you, but I'm saying it could go either way. The strength could become the weakness.

Shaan Puri

There's a reason most people don't do it. I think that's what you're saying, which is that there's a price that comes with that. And that price is one that most of us will not pay. What do you think, Ben?

Ben Wilson

I just think there are a couple of things he said throughout the weekend that made me think, "Oh, this guy is so successful." But to Sam's point, he's on a nice edge. If you play out his life a hundred times, I think in about 25 or 30 of them, he literally ends up on the street as just an addict. He does have that obsessive personality, and if he had ended up, for whatever reason, obsessed with not the right thing, that's the way it would have gone.

Sam Parr

I also think that if we had a list of like... I have a list of three things that might be his downfall. Keep in mind, the guy is like 24, so he's going to evolve quickly. One, he was incredibly naive about business, which is actually a pro in a lot of cases. But in his case, I think that he needs to get a little bit less naive and learn more about business. You know, the thing you said about him cutting through a table with a plastic knife? That's kind of how he's done his life. He's just, you know what I mean? He's just brute-forced his way through. I think that's great; that can get you a long way. But in order to last and be as big as he wants to be, like a Bezos, you've got to have a little bit more sophistication as you grow. He's got plenty of time, though. The second thing is hiring. I think that he kind of told stories that made it seem like he just hired his friends and was like, "Hey, you're fun! You want to do this?" I don't think that's going to cut it either. Then the third thing is company building. We asked him on the pod about work hours and meetings, and I actually don't remember if he did it. I don't think he did a great job of answering it, but the vibe I got was a little bit like, "Just whatever Jimmy wants, Jimmy gets." I think that's okay for a little while, but in order to be as big as he wants to be, you've got to have a little bit more company building and a little more process-oriented things. Those are kind of the antithesis of being a cool YouTuber in many regards.

Shaan Puri

So, I'll disagree with you on a couple of those points. I think that, first of all, he's 24. I remember when I was 24. At 24, I became a CEO for the first time.

Sam Parr

time of like a real company a company that had

Shaan Puri

Revenue and employees that were not like my two best friends from college. Where he's at at 24 and where I was at at 24 is like if me and Usain Bolt go and run a race. There is such a difference. On one hand, he's sitting in a room. I think the oldest person in our group was maybe 43, and I would say the average age was maybe like 34 or 35, something like that. Probably something like that.

Sam Parr

by the way I'm not insulting him I'm incredibly impressed

Shaan Puri

Right, so I just think about where he's at on the learning curve. Like, yeah, there is no shortcut to the learning curve. You gotta learn all these lessons. But where he's at is actually pretty far along. The brute force approach actually works. Like you said, there is a strength to that. I think that if you're doing what he's doing, which is, "You're just like, 'Forget it! I'm doing it. I'm holding nothing back. I'm going all in, and I'm gonna repeatedly go all in until I find a way to make this work,'" I think that overcomes a lot of the mistakes you're gonna make.

Sam Parr

maybe for the first maybe for the first billion or 2

Shaan Puri

yeah yeah exactly

Sam Parr

I think that is a great attitude. What he proved is that you can have that attitude even late stage in your career. Even though he's 24, he's got late stage in terms of results. In most cases, he's probably in the top 10%, but he's late stage. In order to get as big as he wants, he said he wanted to build multiple $10 billion companies. I think he even mentioned a $100 billion company. You know, we're talking Walmart here. You can't always bet the farm at that size.

Shaan Puri

And I'm going to be honest with you. I had an initial reaction to him that was sort of like, there was a part of me that was like, "Ah, fuck this guy." Not because he did anything bad; he's totally nice. But there was something about his ambition that was almost uncomfortable. It felt like I was not talking to somebody who lived in the same reality that I live in. So my initial reaction was like, "Okay, you're saying things that either don't make sense, or it's too one-sided, or it's just pure, unadulterated, raw ambition." There's something uncomfortable about that because I kind of like people who are well-balanced. I told him this when I was talking to him. He was basically saying, "I admire Elon, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos. These are the people that I admire. I'm like them; I'm wired like them, and I like to hang out with people like them." I responded, "Yeah, I'm not like them." We were on the phone, and there was like a 10-second uncomfortable silence because it was true. I thought, "What am I going to do? Pretend I am?" No, I could just say what's real. I said, "You know, that doesn't mean I'm not ambitious. I might just..."

Shaan Puri

My ambition is for a different outcome. All those guys created world-changing innovations. They became the wealthiest men on earth and developed incredible spectacles, like self-landing rockets, self-driving cars, electric cars, and the iPhone. Those people were wildly ambitious in that way. There are other people who are wildly ambitious in different ways. Someone I look up to and model myself after is Naval. I think he's really successful in business, but he's also revered for his wisdom—not because he created the iPhone. He hasn't gone through five marriages and breakups, nor has he been bankrupt and then back to the top while feeling depressed. To me, that's not winning. But I understand that for other people, that is winning. I'm glad there are people who think that's winning because they're the ones who will create the next iPhone and the next Tesla. I was explaining this to him, and I think that was the only point. I don't actually think he's naive about business or anything. I just think that when you have your play style, it's very appealing to say, "My play style is the cool one, and all the other ones are weak for these reasons." As people get older, they really start to respect other people's play styles. I think this has happened for most of the people I get along with. They can admire a billionaire just as much as they can admire a single mother. They realize that these are just different games. I can truly admire others—not in a token, just saying the right thing kind of way—but because I genuinely feel it in my heart. I respect the way you approach your Super Bowl, and your Super Bowl is just as valid as mine.

Sam Parr

Even at the time of your... that's a great way to put it. The way that I also put it is, I say, "I don't care about money. I care about people who actualize their dreams." Their dream could be to be the best parent, to be a billionaire, to be an athlete, to be strong, or to be skinny. I don't care what exactly your dream is; I just want to see you achieve it. That makes me happy when I see someone going places. It just so happens that money and traditional success is a very practical way to measure that or to achieve it. It just says, "Well, I'll just do this business thing," as opposed to being the best parent, which is a little bit more challenging. But yeah, I completely agree with you.

Shaan Puri

We have another friend, or I have a friend. You've met him. I don't know if you love the guy or hate the guy because he is also uncomfortably ambitious. You remember he came to a dinner with us once. I don't want to say his name, but he came to a dinner with us, and you could describe your impression of him. But he... he's also... how does it bear?

Sam Parr

to be around him

Shaan Puri

I met him when he was 19 or 20, something like that. At that time, he was basically like, "Yeah, I'm going to be a billionaire, a multi-billionaire. It's just a matter of, you know, is it at 25, 26, or 27? I don't know when." I asked him, "So, do you date?" He replied, "No, I'm just going to wait until I'm a billionaire. Then I'm going to date, you know, the hottest woman on earth who also loves me and is like the heir to the throne somewhere." He was like, "I'm just going for 12." He said, "First, I'm going to be a multi-billionaire, then I'm going to date this 12 and marry her. Then I'm going to have all these children, and my children are going to do this." I was just like, "Wow, that's like... you know." If somebody else was really excited about their thing that was kind of small, he'd be like, "Well, that's kind of a waste of time, right? Why not just do something bigger that would make you more money?" He's just so matter-of-fact, so black and white about it.

Sam Parr

how's he doing is he

Shaan Puri

In a way that's not going to be rude, like he's not trying to be rude, but he just genuinely obsesses over his thing, which in his case is investing. He wants to be a better investor than Warren Buffett. He's like, "You know, I've watched every video and read every book by Warren Buffett, Ray Dalio, and all the greatest investors. I've studied them. I'm just as good as them. Yeah, I'm younger than them, but I'm just as good as them. In fact, I think I'll be better than them. You know, by the time they're 90, I'll be better than them."

Sam Parr

how's it going

Shaan Puri

I mean, who knows? I don't know. I can only check in with them so often because if you talk to them too much, it's just like, "Oh dude, I get a headache." Like, I feel insecure because I'm not as ambitious. And then, I just get frustrated because I'm like, "Dude, come back to reality! You're floating away in your own bubble somewhere." But I like people like that. Those people also serve a real place in my life.

Sam Parr

Can I... can we... can I bring up a different topic other than Mr. Beast really quick? That was subtle but crazy fascinating. So, Ben Levy invited this guy whose Twitter handle is Commodore. Commodore is famous, I guess, because he started a DAO and he's trying to buy an NBA team. He's raised tens of millions of dollars to do it. I started talking to this guy, and we began discussing all types of stuff. I asked, "What's your name, by the way?" He replied, "Commodore." I said, "Oh, that's a sick name! Why did your parents name you Commodore?" I forget what it was, but he said, "Oh, that's not my real name. I'm anonymous this weekend." I was taken aback. I asked, "What?" He explained, "Yeah, in order to avoid some legal implications... and I don't actually know what all the implications were. I'm just anonymous." I asked, "Does anyone here know who you are?" He said, "No, no one here knows my real name. Ben Levy, the guy who invited me, has no idea who I am or my name." I thought, "That's interesting." So, I just called him Commodore. We talked about family, his wife and children, where he lived, and how I might be familiar with that area. We had about 30 minutes for a really deep conversation. I asked, "What were you doing before this?" He said, "Oh, I was doing this, this, and this." I was like, "Oh wow, that's amazing! What was it called?" He replied, "Oh, I can't tell you. I'll dox myself." I understood and remembered we were anonymous. I thought that was so fascinating. What did you think about that?

Shaan Puri

I don't know. I didn't find it that fascinating, but now that you say it, I'm like, "Yeah, that was kinda crazy." It did feel crazy.

Sam Parr

it did feel crazy

Shaan Puri

You people who have your... you see people who have their handle online and that's their persona. But you're right, I've never actually met one of those people in real life and have them just be like, "Yeah, that's my identity." I've just given... like, I don't use my birth identity, my legal identity. I use my online identity as my main identity and I'm just...

Sam Parr

like if his friends do

Shaan Puri

was that commodore

Sam Parr

I called them commodore the whole time I thought that was his real date for the first 24 hours

Shaan Puri

Every time he walked over, people would say, "Hey, where's Commodore? Is he ready to go?" It's like, "Who is this guy? Nobody here knows who this guy is, and we're all okay with it." That was kind... yeah, you're right, that was kind of amazing.

Sam Parr

And I was like, "Can I just take a picture of you and reverse search this?" He goes, "You can, but you won't." And I was like, "You're right, I'm not going to."

Shaan Puri

but yeah

Sam Parr

yeah yeah

Shaan Puri

There was sort of a respect at some point. It's like, "I'm not gonna try to know this because you're cool, and I don't need to." Why would I do something you're not comfortable with? You don't want that. Alright, I'm your friend. I'm not gonna do that to you.

Sam Parr

Dude, that was... it was so weird at first, and then it became completely normal. Now, I totally get this "anan" thing. I asked him, "Do your friends know who you are?" and he's like, "No." He's like, "A lot of them just don't know what I do for work."

Shaan Puri

So, there was a group of people there that were pretty interesting. One guy, who we both loved and who we did a podcast with... I guess I'll explain the rest of the setup. We did a couple of other cool things. I thought we had a chef who was there at the house just making all the meals. That was great! Nobody had to think about anything. We had...

Sam Parr

Just cut the fruit. The whole time, we just had trays of fruit and snacks. I thought it was great.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, it was incredible! Then we had Kevin Durant basically send us like 30 pairs of his shoes. Dude, everybody who got there received a pair of his shoes. We got a custom shirt jersey that said "Camp MFM" with your name on the back and your number. So, people kind of had their jerseys for the weekend. Nike also sent bags for us, so there were a couple of things that were really cool. You know, I was talking about the moments in between the moments. We tried to have some moments in between the moments.

Sam Parr

It felt like Christmas morning, with all these shoes here. We all got there and unwrapped them. It was really cool.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, we all turned into little kids. We're like unboxing our things and being like, "Oh yeah, I got it!" You know, all these people could afford $1,000 shoes a thousand times over, but it's still great to just get a free cool thing that somebody sends you.

Ben Wilson

Can I say one cool thing you did, Sean, is that it wasn't all KD's. It was like KD's and a couple of Kyrie's and some LeBron's. So it was fun to open up to be like...

Sam Parr

oh which shoes did I get

Shaan Puri

yeah that was

Ben Wilson

true did you ever find

Sam Parr

your shoes by the way ben

Ben Wilson

I did they were the wrong shoe someone had just grabbed the wrong back

Shaan Puri

dude ben came

Hubspot

Up to me, he goes, "I think someone stole my shoes." I was like, "Ben, I don't think anyone stole your shoes." I went and made an announcement: "Ben cannot find his shoes. If you found them, please give them back." He goes, "Dude, someone totally jacked them." I was like, "Ben, no one stole your tennis shoes. We all just got dozens of free ones." Our software is the worst. Have you heard of HubSpot? See, most CRMs are a cobbled-together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous.

Shaan Puri

I think

Sam Parr

I love our new CRM. Our software is the best: HubSpot. Grow better.

Shaan Puri

Some other great moments... So, we had gotten connected with the guys at Duke because we're in North Carolina. We said, "Hey, can we come and get a tour of the place?" And they did! Basically, some of the former players who are now coaches, along with some of the current players, came together and took us on a tour of the practice facility. What did you think of that, by the way? You're not like... I went to Duke. That's inspirational, obviously. Cool!

Sam Parr

dude it was so cool it was so awesome so I don't know anything about basketball

Ben Wilson

I even made a joke when we walked in

Sam Parr

I go, "Ben, who's that dude?" and it was Coach K. I was like, "Yeah, so I don't really know anything about basketball," but it was inspirational because the assistant coaches, now I think they are, told stories about working with Coach K, who's known for, you know, 30 years of excellence, tradition, and perfection. They told some amazing stories, and I did feel like I was in a, I don't know, holy place when I was there.

Shaan Puri

So, I want to say something about that too. One of the players there, Emile Jefferson, he was on the championship team maybe in his 7th year or so.

Sam Parr

was he like the coach like the guy leading the tour

Shaan Puri

Yeah, he was the guy kind of telling the most stories, and I just want to give him a shout-out because basically, they didn't know what the hell was going on. Neither did our group. All of a sudden, 30 people are standing face to face in this practice facility. It's like, "Okay, who are you guys? What am I supposed to show you? What are we doing here?" And like, I don't...

Sam Parr

I think we did it here. He did good. It also helped that we had Mr. Beast here and Hassan, so everyone thought that, like, "Oh, everyone else here must be famous too; I just don't recognize them."

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. It's like they didn't know we're all just prolific newsletter creators... yeah, podcasters and newsletter creators, and a couple of actually famous people.

Sam Parr

yeah they bawl we blog

Shaan Puri

yeah exactly so he tells the story and I just gotta give him credit like he it's really hard to that was like a make or break moment do you have a story or do you not and I just wanna encourage everybody to like have a story in your back pocket like whatever the most common question you get which is like in this case what's coach k like you know what was it like playing here what's it like you know whatever and don't just be like it was good man really cool really special to be here yes I mean it's just been awesome I've learned so much so that's what I would say 9 out of 10 people would have done he's like you know when I first got here I thought it was hot shit blah blah blah and then coach came she's yelling at me yelling at me man and I was just I didn't know what to do he's like later on I realized that once he stops yelling at you that's when it's bad because that he's given up on you but like you know for that moment he's like in some practices and then you say he said a counterintuitive thing he's like some practices he just sat there man he didn't say anything in the whole practice he wouldn't say a word and you just think oh man he's just checked out like he's not doing anything like I don't know it's weird I guess he doesn't care right now but then 3 weeks later he would reference something that he was observing that day and you're like dude you've been watching everything you got like cameras in the walls and microphones like how do you know all this stuff and he tells the story he's like you know we have this one little film room and the secret like he's like see that wall right there there's like a secret door you go in there there's a there's a film room right next to the practice gym he's like and he took me in there he's like come here and I I go in there and I hadn't been playing that well and he takes me in and there's like all these screens in there he's like and on all of the screens it's just a picture of me like various pictures of me all doing the same pose where I'm just sitting there like this I'm like I'm exasperated I'm like mad at the ref or my teammates or the coaches and your hands are out my hands are out my hands are up my palms are up I'm like it's like the the why like type of like expression and already everybody's on the edge of their seat in the story because they're like hey this is cool this is interesting I wanna know what was this about he's like he said look look at this son you're one of the leaders of this team you look like a beggar you're standing there with your palms out begging for a call from the referee begging for the coaches to help you begging for your teammates to do something he's like you're a leader I don't ever wanna see you look like a beggar again he's like don't don't do that this is not the body language of a leader my look at your face look at your hands and then I was like

Sam Parr

such a good story

Shaan Puri

Such a good story! He's like, "For the rest of the season, you'll watch me. If something happens, I'm like this." He's like, "You know, does a totally different pose. You'll never catch me doing that pose again." I thought it was a great way to connect with the group, right? We're all kind of CEO leader types. So, you tell a leadership story, a counterintuitive one, an entertaining one, and it has a happy ending. I just thought, man, he just killed it with that moment. For myself, if I look at how I was hosting that weekend, I felt like if I was going to level up how these things go, that's one thing I want to work on. In those moments where you need to either make the toast, welcome everybody in, tell the story, or get people primed for what we're about to do, the difference in the whole experience can just be in that two-minute story right before you start. That's what I want to get great at.

Sam Parr

dude let me tell you what I another thing that was great about this event and it involve it's all about you and again when I say you and sean I'm actually meaning probably 40% sean 60% ben levy so basically you I told you this like 3 times you pulled this off perfectly and you nailed the important stuff and you failed and ignored the non important stuff the non important stuff is the nice to haves that but here's the thing most people would spend time on that so you had no website you had no like invitation you just dm people you said venmo me money and I didn't know what I was getting into but I just trusted you you last minute sent us the address so basically like on the way to the airport you told me the address of where I had to go to I didn't know what time dinner was I just know I just sometime throughout the day hopefully I show up at this address and I and I and like hopefully there's a place to sleep all I did was I sent you money and I told you my shoe size that's all I did and I showed up and there was all these amazing people there and you nailed it and you did it quickly and the airbnb was perfect we had a chef there that was perfect the house pretty messy kinda just not not messy horribly but almost but borderline like this is disgusting we go and play basketball all day and you have this amazing trainer at this awesome high school gym that was also perfect but I'm like alright is there any like drinks here like what do we what do we do and it's like well there's just a water fountain and some clip bars and I was like okay that's less than ideal but you know what that that doesn't matter because I I appreciate that you just like you just ordered this shit on amazon you go but that's not the important shit we're gonna focus on the important stuff you had we had a podcast studio there that was already set up an important thing that we needed and it was like kinda like a little hoodie a little hood set up and it was fucking perfect it was exactly what we needed what like the the the people that you selected were awesome we didn't do any like real introductions we just hung out and you just you did I think if you're executing on a project what you did this weekend was a perfect example of just getting the main things right now in the future maybe you'll know or maybe you'll want to like alright you know we should actually have like people didn't like eat this type of food we should not do that this time and like that's the unimportant stuff though and it was perfect I I don't even remember what we ate I think it was just like hot dogs and chicken and salmon like none nothing fancy but that wasn't the important part the important part that we all just sat around in the kitchen and just told stories

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I really want to do more of these in the future because, a) it was just like a dope life experience, and b) it kind of merged a bunch of things into one. It's like if I ever need a vacation but also want to hang out with cool people, do networking, or go to a conference, but I also want to do other stuff besides business with my life. With this, it was like I got a vacation, got to hang out with a bunch of people—some I knew and some I didn't know. Half I knew, half I didn't know. The third was to do something fun. Like, oh wow, I got to train with an NBA trainer and play pickup basketball. That was just a blast! We got to play inside Cameron Indoor Stadium at Duke. There were just a whole bunch of dope things happening with that.

Sam Parr

And you have to tell the story. So basically, we're at Cameron Indoor. We're at this, you know, holy ground. I don't know how it happened, but basically, Mr. Beast, he actually did this twice. He goes, "I'll give you $100,000 if you can make this half-court shot right now." This was the day prior, and I think he missed it. But then the second time at Duke, he goes, "First one..."

Shaan Puri

That makes it... I said it to him. I said, "Jimmy, how about this?" Because I know him. Once I got to know him a little bit, I was like, "Oh, he's like me. He's a bit of a degenerate gambler; he loves to gamble, he loves action." He's also always trying to ratchet up the intensity and awesomeness of the situation. So, if the situation is here but the level can be raised, I think most people talk themselves out of that. He's immediately like, "Oh, the level can be raised? Raise the levels! Raise the levels already!" Like, you know, it'd be like, "Oh, you guys want to play a board game?" And then he'd be like, "Let's go! Right now, do a tournament with the best board game!" And like, "Dude, this thing... Oh, you want to play basketball? I don't care if it's 1 AM; let's find a gym. We're going to go play right now!"

Sam Parr

Talking to him about how I love Coke Zero, he goes, "Let's go right now and buy a bunch." I was like, "Alright, cool." So we just went to the store and bought Coke Zero. He's like, "I've never had it before. I want to see what this is about."

Shaan Puri

I know I have no input. It was like, "Oh, there are some cool people here. You'll get to know them; you'll enjoy this." He goes, "Who's cool?" I was like, "All these people." He's like, "Okay, hey, come sit over here. I want to talk to you." He would put somebody in the hot seat and be like, "Who are you? What are you? What's your story?" He would listen to them for five minutes and then say, "Wow, alright, awesome! Hey, who else is here? Come here, come here. No, no, no, I'm serious. Come sit in the seat." I was like, "Wow, this guy will always try to match up the intensity again in a great way." So, we're at Duke, and we're just getting a tour. They just finished a volleyball game; the hoops weren't even down; they were raised up to the rafters. I go, "Jimmy, I bet you $1,000 I can hit a half-court shot before you." He goes, "Nah, $10,000." I was like, "Deal!" I was like, "Hey, talk to the Duke guys. Any chance you can set up the court real quick? I just bet Mr. Beast $10,000 I can make this shot before he does." They were like, "No, we're not supposed to," but I kind of want to see this $10,000. And again, the reality was we weren't even supposed to have gotten in there in the first place. All the hoops were gone; there was another game coming on the court soon. Reality has no bearings on what he wants. The world will shift to what he wants, basically. Sure enough, all of a sudden, the hoops come down, a ball appears out of nowhere, and we're doing this thing. There's a circle around us, and now I'm like, "Oh shit, I gotta hit this shot."

Sam Parr

took you like 4 times

Shaan Puri

Yeah, basically 2 or 3 attempts. No, you know, I came up close but not quite. You could feel in the moment that, like, okay, well if this takes a while, something that was really dope is about to turn really lame to watch. If you ever watch the slam dunk, that's a performance 9 times in a row. Yeah, like there's a performance here, so I was like, "I better make this." And sure enough, I shot it, hit it, we got it on video, I won $10, and did.

Sam Parr

he give you the money

Shaan Puri

No, he hasn't paid me yet. I gave my... he's like, "Do you want it in Bitcoin?" or he's like, "I really could send $10,000 in pennies to your house," you know, just like in a giant pallet.

Sam Parr

he he goes he goes by the way that will cost me $2,000 to ship because he's done that before

Shaan Puri

yeah yeah exactly he knows the logistics of this it's a guy

Sam Parr

what did you think of sean

Shaan Puri

I have a penny guy

Sam Parr

yeah he does what do you what did you think of sean's execution did I nail it

Ben Wilson

Yeah, I think you were 100% right. Nailed execution! Yeah, like I said, everything about it was perfect. Sean, do you think it's something like, could you just copy and paste it, or does it need to be different every time in order to create that feeling of it being special?

Shaan Puri

I think you could copy and paste 80% of it and change 20%. So, I think that would be the plan. I want to basically... I just bought a domain. I'm putting up a website today: **mfmcamp.com**. I'm going to put the pictures from this one. I just kind of want to make a blog about where this was. But I'm also going to put a form on there for people who want to come to this in the future. Because half the people who came to this, I didn't know they had reached out and had first had the idea.

Sam Parr

I think you should let people apply, but I don't think you have to keep it just like 20 or 25 people in, you know, unfortunately, really exclusive.

Shaan Puri

I'm gonna do two versions. I'm gonna do the exclusive one, which is basically hitters only, right? No small boy stuff there. That's what this one was like. There were about 20 to 25 people in the room. Everybody had their claim to fame, whatever it may be. For example, we had one guy, Al, who built the biggest quilt company in the world. They do over $100 million a year selling quilt patches and accessories. That's his thing. He even bought a town and is making it the quilting hub of America—a tourist destination for quilters everywhere. The guy's crazy, but he's totally different from the next guy who's done it in a different area. So, I'm gonna do one or two of these a year that are the small 20-person type of events. I might even go smaller; I might even go to 15. I think this was too many people. I also want to do one that's like one notch less.

Sam Parr

the d league

Shaan Puri

Yeah, that is... it's not the D. It's more like the B. The B league, right? It's like, but these are people who get our culture. They listen.

Sam Parr

to the show isn't it like development league isn't it like the nba like

Shaan Puri

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. They changed it to the G League now because D sounded bad. But basically, I want to do like a 1,000-person or 500-person event, or something bigger. Maybe not 5,000, maybe not that big, but maybe it's 200. That'll be like a retreat somewhere. It's less intimate, less exclusive, but it's still people who are all entrepreneurs. They've all made their first million, right? According to the podcast, they all listen to the pod. They get the jokes, they get the humor, they get the style. So when they show up, they know the vibe. The vibe should be immaculate from day one, and that's what I want to do. So that's what I'm thinking of doing out of this. What do you think of that idea?

Sam Parr

Yeah, I think it's awesome. I told Kip, the CMO of HubSpot, "Kip, Sean just did this on his own, but you gotta carve out some budget. Just let us, or let him, have this money, and we gotta make this happen. This is magical." And he's like, "Dude, I followed all your guys' pictures on Instagram from this. This is amazing. We're in!" Yeah, I thought it was awesome. I think it's a really good idea. You should do a bigger one. That bigger one will be freaking exhausting, but it'd be fun.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, totally. I hate events, but the fact that I still want to do this, even though I hate events, shows me that it's a good thing to do. Okay, so those were a couple of the things. Can I share a couple of the other takeaways or anecdotes? One takeaway: a lot of people there were pretty... I'll call it "straight and narrow." A lot of the conversations were about their kids. It wasn't like there was a ton of alcohol needed for the social aspect.

Sam Parr

I don't

Shaan Puri

think like like you know socializing

Sam Parr

Nick had like a whiskey and maybe other people had a beer, but there was virtually no alcohol or drugs. At worst, it was like some tobacco, and that was it. We played board games.

Shaan Puri

that was you that was just you

Sam Parr

that was me no that was you very he he he smoked a cigar austin reeb smokes smoked a cigar

Shaan Puri

Yeah, yeah, true. I'm going to read this. So, Nick, who is @sweatystartup on Twitter, wrote a blog post. Did you read this thing? He goes, "Yeah, I spent the weekend with multimillionaires. Here's what I learned." He organized this thing, blah blah blah, and he texted his wife after to put a screenshot up. He said, "I'm very inspired by a lot of the guys here. I had some incredible deep conversations with some spectacular people. A few things I am ready to change right away: 1. I want a therapist. 2. I want to bring energy to the kids. I think I need to disconnect from the phone to do that. 3. I want to drink less alcohol. 4. I'm ready to bring a positive mindset to being a family man and a dad, and nurture that garden in the same way that I've nurtured business and social. 5. I want to honor you, treating you like the queen that you are. I'm so lucky to have you." It's like, whoa! Those are some come-to-Jesus thoughts, and I'm glad that he had that impression. He said something else: "Here's my takeaways. We're all dorks. I was expecting a room full of giants, people with charisma, blah blah blah." He's like, "Don't get me wrong, some people could tell great stories, but for the most part, everybody was just normal and had overcome odds. They were just smart storytellers who were really obsessed with their thing."

Sam Parr

We played board games and went swimming. It was like children's stuff that was our interest.

Shaan Puri

He goes, "We all suffer with insecurity, fear of failure, and a general emptiness at times." He talked to a few guys who enjoyed their success more than five years ago. They have been worth $20 million for a long time, and they spoke about business as an unhealthy addiction. It leaves them searching for more and feeling empty after an exit. Others talked about their nagging ego and the need for more and bigger achievements. Some discussed a constant fear regarding their careers—that they weren't worthy or didn't have what it took—along with general insecurity. Another point he made was about how a lot of guys spend a lot of time talking about their kids. They invest a lot of energy in this area. Most of the folks spent considerable time discussing how they're trying to raise good kids and help them embrace struggle rather than protecting them from it. He noted that very few of them had new groundbreaking businesses. Most started normal businesses that already existed, not revolutionary technologies. They saw a need and just went after it better than anyone else—good old-fashioned boring stuff. He talked about the humility being astounding. Most of these people, despite their wealth, have not turned into jerks. They are still mentally tough, still willing to slum it, and they are humble. They are searching for ways to improve. Interestingly, most didn't drink alcohol. A couple of us had one or two drinks, but I was surprised that so many people were able to socialize and hang out without using alcohol. It inspired me to do more. Basically, he said the big question for most people in the room is, "What am I going to do with my life?" He shared one last quote: "I talked to somebody who said this: I walk around my house and my office sometimes just acting like I'm doing things. Then I just go outside, walk around, or cut wood." He noted that everyone is kind of on some search. I think that's a really good recap.

Sam Parr

To add to that, most people were really transparent. So, like, if we would ask them money questions, they would just say, "This is what I have, this is where I put it, this is what I do." They would be fairly specific, or they would say, "No, I don't have enough to do this, this, and this." Like, we're talking about flying private. They would say, "No, I'm not wealthy enough. I can't do that. I can't afford it." And I was like, "Oh, okay, that's cool." Or they would say, "I am wealthy enough to do that, and here's how much I spend, but I didn't do it until I hit this number." Or, you know, "My wife and I argue about X, Y, and Z," or "I'm nervous about my children for these reasons." People were really transparent.

Shaan Puri

Can I tell you a few more Mr. Beast nuggets real quick? Yeah, because I think he was the most like an alien. He was the alien amongst aliens, basically. So, he's got a runner. Did you know this? Did you see this? No? What I mean by that is, there is somebody 24 hours a day. It's two people; they do 12-hour shifts.

Sam Parr

what is those 2 kids that were that were there

Shaan Puri

No, no. That one guy was like his social media guy, TikTok guy. Another guy was somebody else. So, by the way, they're not kids. They're just a little younger than us, right? Like, they're in their twenties. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not like 10.

Sam Parr

well he's he's a kid kinda

Shaan Puri

yeah sorry

Sam Parr

no disrespect guys

Shaan Puri

so dude you're like 31 you're like young

Sam Parr

Well, they just had young energy. They had that college kid energy, and this was their vocation. They just lived in the dorm, and instead of basketball camp, they were at MrBeast's video camp.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, for us, this was like a weird getaway from adult life. And they're like, "Yeah, this is just like... I don't know, I guess I just bounced over here and tomorrow I'll bounce somewhere else." And they wore like, you know, Yeezy's or something like that. And we're like, "What does that mean?"

Sam Parr

mean by kids

Shaan Puri

these are funky shoes you know son what did you get there

Sam Parr

They had $300 sandals on. I was like, "What are those? Are they like Yeezys?" I was like, "What?" Yeah, so that's what I mean. They were younger in psychodemographic.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I was an idiot. I was like, "Whoa, those are like super Crocs! What are those?" They're like, "These are the Easy Slides. They're the hottest."

Sam Parr

chew biggest slur on earth

Shaan Puri

I was like oh sweet

Sam Parr

super crocs sport mode crocs yeah

Shaan Puri

So anyway, he's got a runner. Basically, he's got a dude outside the house at all times, just sitting in his car 24 hours a day. It's a personal DoorDash. If he ever needed something, I don't know if you noticed, he was like, "Oh, I want to play Settlers of Catan." So he's like, "Hey, can you go get Catan?" And the guy would just run to the store, go get Catan, and bring it back within 15 minutes.

Sam Parr

he was outside our house

Shaan Puri

The whole time, he's outside the studio. Wherever he goes, these two people are there. They have 12-hour shift seats, so 24 hours a day, he's got somebody just watching his back, ready to go.

Sam Parr

to the track do they do like find my location on iphone

Shaan Puri

We went to Duke, and you know, he's wearing his Yeezy slides. Then, all of a sudden, they were moving the hoop so we could play. So he's like, "Hey, go get my shoes from the car." He really needed his shoes. He was like, "I'm hungry," and they would just go. Even before he was hungry, they would just go. They're like, "Hey, I think he has Crohn's disease or something like that," so he's got a very specific diet. They were like, "This is a shit ton of yogurt in the fridge at all times." So it's like, "Where is all this yogurt coming from?" His runner was just stocking the fridge like, "Oh no."

Sam Parr

he's gonna need a snack

Shaan Puri

He's going to forget to eat, so I'm just going to hand him this at this time. That's a real... that's like a really fun moment. So he's talking to me, and he's like, "Yeah, I don't get it. All these people here are wealthy, but nobody here has that." He's like, "Why don't you guys do that? It's a waste of your time to go do those things, right? If you value your time, why would you?" And I was like, "Honestly, I don't think any of us had even thought about it." I never considered this possibility; I didn't know that was a...

Sam Parr

thing

Shaan Puri

Yeah, in the tech industry, like the biggest winners—Elon, the Google guys, Zuckerberg—you would describe this for a lot of them. It's actually a trait commonly found with greatness, which is a very matter-of-fact, simple way of looking at things. They are unafraid of how that looks, how that sounds, or what it costs. For example, he reinvests everything into every video. I was like, "Okay, so what's the game plan here?" He's like, "Well, just make the best videos possible. Just put it all in, keep growing it, make this the biggest thing ever. That's my goal." I was like, "Okay, but what about X, Y, Z?" And he said, "I told you my goal, so why would I consider X, Y, Z? Were you not listening to the first part where I said...?" I started to think about this because, again, the stunning thing for me was I had never really met anybody who puts every hour, every dollar, and every ounce of their soul into their wild ambition. That's what I took away from him. It doesn't matter if he was a YouTuber or an athlete. In fact, the trainer there used to train with Kobe and Kobe's daughter, Gigi, before they passed away. I was like, "Dude, I hate to be the guy who asks you for a Kobe story, but you gotta tell me a Kobe Bryant story. What do you got?" He started telling me, and I was like, "You know, is the work ethic thing legit? Because, like, I don't know if you follow this, but on Reddit, there are these stories where it's..."

Sam Parr

Like, dude, yeah. I sat and listened to that guy talk. He was... that was probably the best storytelling.

Shaan Puri

So, there are these stories about Kobe that you don't know if they're marketing or if they're real. For example, there's a story from Dwyane Wade, another Hall of Fame basketball player. He said, "Yeah, we went to the Olympics. That was my first time seeing how Kobe works because he was a competitor before that. Now we're on the same Olympic team." He continued, "We got to the gym at 6 AM, and Kobe was already there, fully sweating. We were like, 'Kobe, what are you doing? We just got here for the 6 AM practice. What are you doing?' And he's like, 'I'll listen, yeah, I'm ready. I'll be ready in a minute.' We asked, 'Well, why are you sweating so much?' He replied, 'Oh, I had my first workout at 4. I'm just finishing up. I'm gonna join you guys in a second. I'm gonna go get my ankles retaped and then go back.'" So, he's got this legendary work ethic. I was asking the guy, "Is it really true?" He said, "Dude, I thought it was bullshit too. So, I started texting him at 4." He said Kobe would hit him back right away. The guy was awake; he was at the gym. "It was insane," he said. "And then I was like, okay, so he's got the crazy work ethic. What else?" He mentioned that Kobe had this ability where, if you were in the room with him, you would feel like there was only you in the room. He would lock eyes, not look at his phone, and not move away. He would ask you questions and remember your name. The name thing was fascinating. Did you hear that story?

Sam Parr

yeah yeah

Shaan Puri

The other guy, Luke, tells the story. He goes, "We're at the gym, and it's like the first time I ever met Kobe. We're playing pickup, and I jumped in. He's like a trainer. I jumped in the game and I missed like 6 or 7 shots. Kobe just doesn't say anything to me. After the game, he goes, 'Damn, you... damn, man, you gonna make a shot or what?' The guy goes, 'I'm a volume shooter, bro. You should know.' And Kobe, he tried to like kinda basically make fun of Kobe. Kobe's like, 'How long the volume I know is 5,' like 5 rings. So they start, and whatever they had, that one interaction takes 5 seconds. They just laugh and move on with life. Three weeks later, he comes back to the gym, and Kobe goes, 'What up, Volume?' He just remembered who he was. He remembered his nickname. So then the guy was already impressed with that. He's like, 'But I had never talked to him besides that. I never told him my name. Nothing. He had asked somebody what my name is.' So three weeks later, he goes, 'I was leaving, and Kobe goes, 'Damn, Luke, can I go say bye?' And he's like, 'Wait, you know my name? And secondly, you're stopping? I just didn't wanna bother you.'

Sam Parr

Like, the guy was sneaking out, just casually trying to leave. Kobe just saw him walking around and I was like, "Dude, what the hell? Aren't you guys saying goodbye to me?"

Shaan Puri

And so, he knew his name. He was like, "He remembers everybody's name." I asked him, "Kobe, why is that easy for you?" He said, "No, it's not that easy. I just make an effort." I asked him, "Why do you care to learn all these people's names?" He replied, "Because for most people, this is the only time they're ever going to interact with me. If I remember their name, it's something so simple, and not only will they remember it forever, they'll tell everybody they know about this." He continued, "So I'm not just remembering. I'm not just making an impression on them; I'm making an impression on a thousand people throughout their lifetime that they're going to tell this Kobe Bryant story to." I thought that was so baller. That was the same thing I admired about Mr. Beast, just like I admired about Kobe in that same way.

Sam Parr

He did an even crazier story where Alex had mentioned, like, a few weeks prior, that his mom's birthday was on a particular date. On that particular date, Kobe texted Alex, "What's your mom's cell number?" He FaceTimed the mom and said, "What's up, Mom? I just want to say I hope you have a wonderful birthday today." And Alex is like, "I didn't even FaceTime my mom until I had the birthday."

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. So those stories were amazing. Again, those are the moments in between the moments, right? You can't plan for that, but you put a bunch of people in the room, and serendipity like that can happen. But the other story that was like that... so, the trait, the thing I was calling Mr. Beast, I was like he has a level of commitment that I call "kamikaze commitment." He has a kamikaze level of commitment to winning, like Kobe had.

Sam Parr

that too that's our new

Shaan Puri

That's a good phrase, bro. The manifest cowboys and the people who got that kamikaze commitment, the dogs. So I was like, how do you compete with a YouTuber like Mr. Beast? I thought about this. I was like, could I fund somebody? Could I just give someone like $5,000,000 to become Mr. Beast?

Sam Parr

and I was like

Shaan Puri

I don't think it would actually work because not just the talent there's like like he's not the best looking dude he's not the funniest guy he's honestly all the things he knows about youtube you could learn I I could tell you everything that he you know you need to know about youtube the the 85% that you would need to know to get pretty far ahead right there's the last 15% that you'll accrue over time but like dude you need a great clickable title and thumbnail here's what makes it clickable the first 10 seconds you need to hook people and tell them what they're gonna get out of this video and then you need to visually stimulate them and then you need to use these cuts and then you need to introduce a twist in order to keep their attention and here's the metric you need to care about right like you could train that what you can't train is the guy is willing to put all the money he makes back into the next videos so like imagine competing in a business with somebody who's willing to take no profit like they're gonna beat you on price they're gonna beat you on value because they're willing to lower their price and they're willing to reinvest all of their profits into building a better product so he's willing to reinvest all of his money and all of his time into this and then that compounds so at first that was really cheap that was you know the first brand that gave him a $10,000 the first brand tried to give him a $5,000 sponsorship I don't know if you know this story they quit trying to give him $5,000 for the video he was like he's like I talked to the guy on the phone for like an hour being like dude make it 10,000 more people will click he's like 10,000 just that number 10 grand in the title is gonna get way more clicks than 5 I don't know why it's just 5 is not the same as 10 in the title and so I was like just give me 10 they're like dude we just our budget is like I'm not even gonna keep the 10 I'm gonna give all 10 away so the gate they said yes to 10 he immediately went and gave $10 to a homeless guy and then that video gets like a 1000000 views and all the stuff that pays them pays the video off the advertiser's happy so then they get 20 grand 30 grand 50 grand 100 grand and eventually advertisers are willing to pay nearly $1,000,000 for to be a part of these videos but he's willing to take that and pour it all back in so how do you compete with somebody who's willing to spend all of their creative energy and time and all of their money I think that is like just kind of awe inspiring to see somebody execute the like sort of kamikaze commitment strategy I know I'm not willing to do it maybe because I'm not willing

Sam Parr

to do it

Shaan Puri

I got kids. I mean, I don't know what it is. I don't know what the factors are. It's really that I just... I don't need to. It's like I said before, being an Olympian is a trap. I don't need to be a gold medalist. I don't want to be Michael Phelps and give up like 20 years of my life to train every single moment of every single day to become that. That's a...

Ben Wilson

big thing

Shaan Puri

I need it

Sam Parr

I don't think his lifestyle is fitting for happiness and maybe even being fulfilled, but...

Shaan Puri

and by the way he would agree like he said that in

Sam Parr

I'm happy that he exists, and I know I am not that.

Shaan Puri

yeah yeah exactly

Sam Parr

those are the 2 certainties that I have on that

Shaan Puri

yeah before before we went on to are

Sam Parr

real and I and I and I and I am not it

Shaan Puri

face tattoos and cornrows right

Sam Parr

yeah face tattoos and cornrows I'm cool they other people have them not for me

Shaan Puri

Yeah, before I went there, I was like, "Maybe we should really double down on your channel. Maybe we should triple down on YouTube." I was thinking, "I think I could become like the biggest business creator on YouTube. Do I want that? I don't know." Then, when we were there, there was like a 30-minute shoot for the thumbnail of one of his videos. I was like, "Yeah, I don't think I want to do this. I don't think these are the things I want in my day."

Sam Parr

spend my energy on

Shaan Puri

I think somebody is willing to do that. Of course, many people are willing to do that to win that game. I was like, "I'd rather do a game where I'm willing to pay the price that it takes to get the outcome that I want." No, we try not to do it.

Sam Parr

You and I, we could play that game, but you don't have to play it his way. You know, his way is a reckless way, and it works, but I don't think you have to. There are lots of different examples of people succeeding in different ways. The wealthiest guy there, keep in mind, was basically the wealthiest guy there by a lot. I think he played the game totally different than Jimmy did.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, but I think the YouTube game... you know, like there is a default path. You'd have to really be saying, "I'm gonna go try to be an outlier." Right? I'm not gonna be... I'm not gonna be actually the 1.

Sam Parr

to be the top I'm

Shaan Puri

talking about the top yes

Sam Parr

if you want it to be the top mainstream type of guy I agree but there's like lots of games

Shaan Puri

Sweet lifestyle where we're making a few million dollars a year doing it. You're right, there are many ways to do that. But if you want to be at the top, right? And that's the question.

Sam Parr

I ask myself

Shaan Puri

do I wanna try to go for that

Sam Parr

no I don't but I would I I would I'd be okay with pretty good

Shaan Puri

And doesn't that feel weird when you spend time with people who hear that sentence and they're sort of repulsed? Isn't there a part of you that's sort of embarrassed to say, "I'm okay with just good enough"? There's a part of me that's for sure embarrassed to feel that way.

Sam Parr

Yeah, I used to feel so embarrassed about that. Then I realized, I started reading about stoicism and I went into this Ryan Holiday deep rabbit hole. I'm like, "Oh yeah, we're all gonna die and we're all gonna be bullshit and like just ashes." So, I'm not gonna play other people's games. But here's the thing I wanted to wrap up with: as I left that weekend, I felt a little angry at myself because I've experienced envy pretty hardcore. I felt a sense of inadequacy. You know, in a lot of places where I go, I'm the big shot. But there, we were probably below average in terms of traditional success. I remember being there and thinking, "I am nothing. I should want more and I should achieve more." I felt guilty for feeling that way. I was like, "Why am I feeling envy? This is one of the worst feelings you can have." Envy is, in some regards, worse than hate. So, I remember feeling envy and thinking, "Fuck, I'm falling into the traps. I'm doing what everyone says you shouldn't do." I said forever I wouldn't feel that way. I made the number that I made and thought I wouldn't want any more after that. But here I am, wanting more, and I'm giving into it. I felt really guilty about that.

Shaan Puri

I know exactly what you mean. I'll tell you what worked for me. It's like a hunger pang, right? You can't prevent yourself from feeling hungry, but you can choose how you're going to satisfy that... how you're going to address it. I told you I had come on the pod before when I visited that person's house. They had like a $20,000,000 house, and I was like, "Wow, this is just incredible." I wasted the first two days just kind of being envious or bullshitting about why this was bad. I was coming up with these other reasons, like, "Yeah, but you know, I want to focus on family," and all these things that were like, "Yeah, this is actually bad for these reasons."

Sam Parr

yeah just cognitive dissonance

Shaan Puri

Yeah, just like trying to convince myself that I was good. What I've come away with is that the right way to handle that moment is to just reframe it. Like, "Oh, this is sick! I'm getting to sample a set of options to see which one I want." Oh, okay, you have this and you live this lifestyle? Tell me about that! I want to hear about that. This is just like the person walking around at the party with the tray. "Oh yeah, I'll try the bruschetta." Okay, do I like bruschetta? Is that what I want? Now let me try the shrimp. Okay, is that what I want? Is that what I like? So that's how I approached it. At this place, I didn't feel the envy per se because as soon as it came up, I was like, "Oh, this is cool! This guy lives in Puerto Rico and does this, this, and this." Instead of feeling jealous, I thought, "I pay so much in taxes and he doesn't. Let me learn about that." This person has this wild success and they kind of work one week out of the month. Alright, is that what I want? What's that like? You know, tell me about that. I was getting to sample, which just helps me figure out what I really want and I get more broad exposure.

Sam Parr

and at the end of the day you're you're you're the one that brought them all together though so like but

Shaan Puri

I definitely know what you mean, dude. When it was like, "Alright, let's go around the circle and tell what's your story, what's your thing," I was like, "Oh damn, my little cricket level of success compared to the whales." There is a moment where you panic. I've always had this in any group setting where they're like, "Say your name and an interesting thing about you." For a moment, my initial reaction is like, "There's nothing interesting about me. Not one iota of me is interesting. I should just leave the room. How far away is the fire alarm? What happens if I vomit? Do I have to do this?" You know, that happens in three seconds. Then my body's like, "Oh wait, what do you do? What are you talking about?" And then I come back to normal. But yeah, that reaction happens to me in these group settings for sure.

Sam Parr

That was... I remember I felt the exact same way. I was like, "I am nothing." It's so... but here, it kind of made me feel better when people who I didn't know told me about my life. I'm like, "Fucker, you listened. Got you!" You know what I mean? So...

Shaan Puri

I gotta tell you this story

Sam Parr

a little better

Shaan Puri

Totally unrelated story, but dude, you just reminded me of it. It's so hilarious. Once upon a time, back in the day, my buddies and I used to gamble a lot. We didn't have much money; we were just fresh out of college. We had basically won a business bank competition, and we were extending the runway by playing poker and trying to win a few extra dollars. But sometimes we would lose, so who knows, we probably made it out slightly down. Anyways, one of the guys would play table games where you have no edge; you're going to lose. He'd go play craps or whatever. When he would lose, we'd be like, "Alright man, we should cut it off." And he'd say, "Hold on, let me just go get a coffee and go to the ATM to get more money to come back." We were like, "Dude, he's a degenerate. We gotta stop him." But we didn't. So we came back up to the hotel room, and he was gone for like another 5 hours. At 5 AM, he comes back into the room, and I wake up because I hear the noise. He doesn't know that I'm awake. We're asleep, and he doesn't know that I'm awake. He stands in front of the mirror in the hotel room. Actually, first he goes to the bathroom and changes into the robe, which is always a sign of somebody trying to get their value out of the hotel room because they lost a bunch of money in the casino. A little tip for degenerates: that's when they start using all the shampoos and stuff; they're trying to get back at the casino. So he comes out in a robe, he's looking at the mirror, and he just goes, "You suck."

Sam Parr

you suck

Shaan Puri

and he just goes you fat fuck you suck

Sam Parr

and he's

Shaan Puri

Just dissing himself, he goes and holds up his hand. He says, "5... 5 iPhones! You lost 5 iPhones!" He's telling you something, and dude, I start laughing so hard. He realizes that we're awake, and then it totally lightens the mood just because of how funny the situation was. We always refer to it as "5 iPhones." We always joke about it. If I go gambling, he's like, "How many iPhones?" I'm like, "3 iPhones! I lost 3! I lost 3 iPhones!"

Sam Parr

I'm not a stacking of phones

Shaan Puri

Rappers use terms like "racks"—like how many racks did you lose or how many racks did you win? We use iPhones. And dude, I'll never forget that story. It was so funny.

Sam Parr

And that's what I was telling myself: "A million subscribers? You only have 1,000,000 subscribers." I remember, dude, it sucked.

Shaan Puri

delete your account

Sam Parr

That weekend, you and I, this channel, hit **100,000 subscribers**. Then I went and looked at Jimmy's numbers, and I think he was adding **1,000,000** a month. I forget what it was, but, or sorry, **100,000** a day is what he was adding. And I was like, "Yeah."

Shaan Puri

we're we were like we just hit a 100,000 he goes nice today

Sam Parr

I remember that's how I felt. I was like, "Oh, we suck! We suck so hard." I felt that way, Ben. Are people... is this going to be a great episode? I got so much energy from this.

Shaan Puri

This is definitely self-indulgent, but like, who cares? I needed to debrief this. And I would say, like...

Sam Parr

I did think of that parts

Shaan Puri

We were patting ourselves on the back. Some parts were making fun of ourselves, sometimes making fun of other people. I hope we weren't hard on anybody. You know, Ben, what do you think?

Ben Wilson

it's good the one thing we didn't talk about was the actual basketball which I just

Sam Parr

You know, oh, oh yeah. So here's the reason Ben's saying that. In terms of the best basketball players...

Shaan Puri

what a coincidence ben that you bring up

Sam Parr

It was like Ben was number one, and then Nick Huber was probably number two or number three. Commodore was also two or three, but Ben was clearly the best. At one point, Ben dunked a couple of times in the game, but at one moment, he dunked on Jimmy. There's a perfect picture of that. Ben was, without a doubt, the best basketball player there. That was for sure.

Ben Wilson

So, I have to tell you, before going, I spoke to my wife. I was like, "You know, I think I'm going to be the best person there." But a big struggle for me is that I want to keep everything in check. You know, there are a lot of people there with a lot of money, a lot of influence, and a big audience. They could do things for me in the future, and I don't want to offend anyone or upset anyone.

Shaan Puri

keep keep what in check like I don't wanna embarrass anybody or like be too competitive

Ben Wilson

Like, I just don't want to seem like a ball hog or come off the wrong way, right? I just want to make sure everyone has a good time and has fun. So I go and literally, for like 5 minutes, I'm good. For like 5 minutes, I'm just playing in the flow of the game, making sure everyone has a good time. Then Nick Huber comes down, does a little move on me, and scores. Sean, I don't know if you did this on purpose, but Sean comes over and is like, "Dang, Nick Huber is good! I think he's the best one here."

Shaan Puri

And I lose it. I lost it. I immediately went out of my mind. I was like, "You think he's the best one here? I'll tell you exactly what you're saying." By the way, we were in the middle of a game. This is not like... I don't even know how we were having such a conversation. But I said something like, "Damn, Nick's good. We gotta guard Nick. I think he's the best one here." We don't know anybody here, right? We don't even know who plays and who doesn't play. We're all finding out in the first 5 minutes who knows how to ball and who doesn't. And then Ben goes, "F that! I'm guarding him." And then you went to go, "F that! I'm the best player here. I'm guarding him." And then you proceeded to... whatever you proceeded.

Sam Parr

I thought

Ben Wilson

you said I'm shutting him down

Shaan Puri

Yeah, you go. I'm shutting him down. So, whatever, we scored and ended up winning that game. Then, I subbed out. Five minutes later, Nick subs out of the game and he's just walking away muttering to himself. He goes, "I can't fucking score on Ben. He's like a wall." I was like, "Wow, mission accomplished!" You really flipped that switch. It was so fun to see it because honestly, every moment I've interacted with you outside of that game, like in pick-up basketball, I would describe you as too nice. You are overly nice, overly polite. You are a very humble guy, low ego—too humble, actually. I want you to have more of an edge and an ego. I want you to make your podcast the biggest podcast in the world. I never saw that until we were playing basketball. I saw a different side of you.

Sam Parr

Dude, I was talking trash to him just to get him fired up. He did the same thing to me; he just had his way with me. But I was talking smack to him constantly just to get him going, and he totally got going. Sean, you were really good too! In that last game, you had a bunch of threes. You were shooting well.

Shaan Puri

yeah yeah yeah we haven't

Ben Wilson

talked about sean's big moment

Shaan Puri

what was the big moment the the half court shot

Ben Wilson

No, the big moment was when we were in the championship game. I think my back was failing a little bit. We were on the same team.

Shaan Puri

yeah what was going on you were looking like you were in pain I didn't understand that but I was like okay give me the ball

Ben Wilson

So, you guys know that big dunk I had early on? I threw my back out when I did that dunk. For the whole rest of the day, I had no lift and I was in pretty severe pain. We were going to lose pretty badly. Then, Sean, how many points did you have? You hit like 4 threes in a row and a couple of twos. You really took over the game.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I was also lucky that I was fresh. I had dropped Husson off at the airport, so I came back right before the playoffs. Basically, everybody had been playing for like, you know, an hour before that, and I got to come in completely fresh. So that was kind of lucky. And then, Sam, we don't have a moment where you dunked or took over the game, but I do have an award for you. Ben Levy and I started creating some awards for people, and I'll just give you a sneak preview. Your award is "Person Who Most Played Basketball Like It Was Football."

Sam Parr

I know the rules

Shaan Puri

Physical motherfucker, man. You know, like, dude, if I was guarding you, you're the only person that anybody else there... okay, they could score on me, whatever. But I'm never gonna call for a switch. I'm gonna be like, "I got this guy." If I was guarding Sam, I'd be like, "Who wants to switch?" I am not looking to be like a battering ram right now. Nobody else started boxing out earlier than you.

Sam Parr

Well, I go to bed and comment, "Hey guys, I don't really know the rules. I can't dribble, I can't really do anything. What would you like me to do?" They're like, "Well, you got a big ass and you can jump high, so just stay down low and jump up to grab the ball and give it to me." And I go, "Oh, yes sir! I got you, I got you, captain." So that's all I did.

Shaan Puri

that was amazing that was a lot of fun and yeah let's do it again

Sam Parr

alright that's the app