Q&A: Gut punches, favorite guests, plus advice for life
Life Goals, Experiences, Mentors, and Fatherhood - October 30, 2024 (5 months ago) • 46:16
Transcript:
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Shaan Puri | Alright, Sam. I was going through the mailbag; people email us questions, and there was one that I had to bring up. We gotta start with this.
So here's the email:
> Dear Sam,
> Last month, I sold my e-commerce business, and recently a startup that I invested in went public. I'm in my thirties, I own very little—house, cars, nothing. I have $53,000,000 in cash sitting in my bank account, but I'm not sure what to do. If I do something, it needs to be big. I'm torn between a few options: just put it in the S&P 500 and move on, get into real estate, try private equity, or chase a $1,000,000,000 idea. I've hit three major wins in a row: I exited my company, I invested in a startup, and I got really lucky on a real estate deal. But I'm not entirely confident I can rebuild it from scratch if I lose it all. My life goals are pretty simple: have five kids, a wife, and become a billionaire. I'm currently with someone I'm planning to marry. What do you got for me?
Okay, so let's answer this question, and then there are some good other mailbag questions that we have here.
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Sam Parr | So, let me tell you what I told the guy. I basically said, "If you make $50,000,000 at the age of 35, that basically becomes $1,000,000,000 eventually." But that's kind of irrelevant. I think that's a dumb goal to become a billionaire or want to become a billionaire. I think you should do what you love after you have that much money.
But if you want to become a billionaire, you will. What I told him was that I think he should put most of it into a high-yield savings account or some type of short-term treasury note or something like that. Then, just sit for 6 to 12 months and do nothing except read and have conversations with interesting people.
That 6 to 12 months may take 36 months; it might actually take 5 or 10 years. But whatever you want to do, in my opinion, you should plot, read, and talk. Only do something if you're obsessed with it. Oftentimes, when you make a lot of money, you get bored. Because of that, you start to... it's like falling in love with someone when you're really horny. It's like, "Dude, you don't actually love that person." You know what I mean?
So, I think you have to be really intentional about the next project that you do. You don't give yourself a timeline, but you sit, read, and wait for it to happen.
With the money, I would do some type of high-yield savings account for like 6 months. Then eventually, I would do an 80/20 split between S&P and bonds. I would try to live off 3% of that money and then just plot and wait until I find that one thing.
For example, let's say that you're comfortable living off $1,500,000 a year. You take how much you need in the S&P to live off that, and the rest you are willing to allocate towards your big dream and new adventure.
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Shaan Puri | Alright, I like the advice. Here's an analogy: here's what I would tell this person. Do we have a name for this person? They don't want their name out there. | |
Sam Parr | Let's call it Derek.
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Shaan Puri | Chuck, okay, Derek. Alright, Chuck, here's the deal. Here's an analogy for you: you've got a beautiful big screen TV, a stunning 96 inches. It's an enormous, beautiful plasma, retina, whatever the display is. But it seems to me that behind the TV, you have what a lot of us have—you've got the cables all tangled up.
The reason I say this is because you asked one question that's actually five questions probably in one. So let's separate them out. Let's start to pull the tangles on these cables that are stuck behind the TV.
One cable is: what do I do with this cash? Meaning, I've got cash sitting in the account. Should I just leave it there, or do I do something with this money?
There's another one, which is: what do I do with my time? Those are two separate questions because when you get rich, the essence of getting rich is to separate the questions of what do I do with my money, what do I do for money, and what do I do with my time. Those are now separate questions for you.
But before, when you have no money, they're the same. You work, you put your time in—that's how you get the money out.
Then you have a third question, which is: what are my actual goals? So, you said, "My goals are to have five kids, have a wife, and have a billion dollars." I don't know very many happy people who got happy because they acquired things. They have things, but they have caused...
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Sam Parr | The kid thing might be different. I think you could acquire a kid and be happy, actually.
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Shaan Puri | I don't think so. I think life is a lot more about figuring out what you love to do, where you feel most useful, and who you want to become. More importantly than the things that you end up doing, I think I would ask a question: **What are my actual goals?**
I've used the word "actual" as a loaded word because usually we have these goals that we just borrowed from others—either from our parents, from society, from the movies, or from newspapers. These goals are theirs, but we make them ours. It's a goal you had 10 years ago, but you're not the same person you were 10 years ago.
When I did this episode with Mike Posner, he said, "Dude, I was in my twenties. All I wanted to do was get rich, get famous, be successful, and be respected." He continued, "Then I was in my thirties, doing things that would give me those things, but that's not what I wanted anymore. I was living the dreams of 21-year-old me rather than 31-year-old me, who actually had new dreams."
I needed to update that. I needed to update the sort of motivational thing on the poster. There's another great question: **In my case, if I'm doing something, it's gotta be huge.** Anytime I hear that, there's usually a chip on your shoulder. You probably want to work on that.
A great question here is: **Are you being driven, or are you being dragged?** What's the reason? Why do I feel the need to do that? Is it to prove something to other people?
I talked to a guy who had dinner with someone who created a $50 billion+ company. He's doing a new one, and I asked, "Why are you doing another company? It's stressful and hard. You just have kids. Why are you doing this?" He replied, "I just want to prove... I need to prove that it wasn't just a fluke the first time." Really.
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Sam Parr | That's interesting.
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Shaan Puri | I'm laughing because I'm like, "Prove to who?" You know, nobody doubts that you could do this. We all actually respect and admire you. We think you're amazing. Who are you proving this to? Is it proving it to yourself? Why do you doubt it?
You did it. Then doing it to prove something wrong or prove something right is sort of a silly reason to do something.
So anyway, my final advice would be: I would do nothing financially. You know, like you said, just put it in a savings account for a year. I would get a coach to help untangle some of these mental wires that are tangled up. I would get in shape because when you're in shape, all things start to look a little different.
I would spend a year with people that you really love, helping people and hanging out with them. So I would find people who need help; I'd go help them. I'd find people who are free; I'd go hang out with them.
I would start to hang out with people who maybe have gone through this season of life. I think of it like a season. I'd be like, "Oh, I had this season of achievement, and now I got a season of wandering." But I gotta figure out what I'm doing next.
Call it that so you don't feel uncomfortable when you're like, "Oh man, I'm so unproductive now." Call the season what it is and go hang out with people. Make no decisions until you know the clarity will show up.
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Sam Parr | The worst thing this person can do—well, one of the bad things this person could do—is go and buy a bunch of stuff or get themselves into situations that can't easily be untied.
For example, I mostly follow my own advice, but when I had an acquisition, I did one dumb thing: I bought some real estate that I was going to turn into a business. I did it right away, and a few months into it, I thought, "I don't know what the hell I'm doing, and I don't like this."
It took about a year to unwind all of that. It consumed my brain and really messed with me. I regret doing that, and I think a lot of people make the same mistakes. It's a very common mistake to go and acquire a whole bunch of stuff, which weighs you down and ruins the whole seeking process.
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Shaan Puri | The only alternative version of that is when you go and do something for your parents.
There's a great clip we should play of, you know, who Stephen A. Smith is, the ESPN anchor. He talks about when he first got money and he drives to his mom's workplace. He says, "I went into her office and I said, 'Mom, get up, get your bag, we're leaving.'"
He told her boss, "She ain't ever coming back," and he talks about how he retired his mom on the spot. I thought, that's a cool thing to do—pay off your parents' mortgage or debt or something like that. If you're going to do anything, do that. It's a sort of philanthropy in your own economy first. I think that's...
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Sam Parr | That's what I did, by the way. I flew my parents first class to Europe, and it was awesome! I have this video of them. My father stood up, and you know how old people hold their phone with two hands? He was holding his phone, doing a circle, and I was taking a picture of his seat. I have a video of him doing that, and it brought me so much joy. I feel happy that I got that video; it made me happy.
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Shaan Puri | By the way, I got a little hack on that. When we sold The Milk Road, my mom was on vacation with all of her siblings. She has like 8 or 9 siblings.
So, I got them all together. I was like, "Hey, have the hotel call and say your massage is ready," and call all of the rooms at once. Then they all went down, and basically, I got them all kind of like a day pass at the spa in Vegas.
It wasn't even that expensive, probably a couple thousand dollars, but for my mom, it was like having a mortgage paid off. She felt like, "Oh, my son treated me to something." But also...
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Sam Parr | She got to brag.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, I got to brag. My kid is so good! She felt good that it was good for everybody. It wasn't just good for her. Doing something nice for her siblings made her feel so amazing. | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, and she could brag that her kid has this together, and maybe the other ones don't. Someone asked us this question, and it's related to a topic that we're talking about: what's the number one thing that you've read or seen recently that's wowed you?
I read this book called *The Replay*. It's a novel. Do you ever read novels? Yeah, I'm really into novels now. I thought, growing up, I was like, "Guy..."
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Shaan Puri | Do you read novels? Don't you read any of them?
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Sam Parr | Like I was scarred by grade school or middle school from having to read novels I didn't like. Then I got into the business world, and I thought, "Oh, we only read Peter Thiel books. We don't read this nonsense."
Now, I've fallen in love with novels. I read this great book called *Replay* by Ken Grimwood. It's about a man who dies at the age of 35 and consistently relives his life over and over again. He does everything you would do if you could replay your life, like getting rich by buying stocks or trying to get a ton of girls.
However, he is able to talk to his parents again when they were alive. I read that book recently, and right when I got to the part where he talks to his parents, who had died, it made me very emotional. I called my parents and said, "Hey, November 4th, what are you doing? Clear your schedule."
So, we're taking a big, lavish trip together.
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Shaan Puri | That's awesome.
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Sam Parr | This book made a really big impact on me because it gave me this idea: in 30 or 40 years, however long it's going to be, when my parents are no longer alive or whatever the situation is, you cannot do in 20 years what you can do today.
I have regretted not taking advantage of that. So, I made a list of all the things that in 20 years I'm going to regret, and I'm going to go and just get it done now. That book had a big impact on me.
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Shaan Puri | Oh, that's great! I'll give you a couple of examples. Chris Williamson put up a little screenshot essay that I really liked, and he called it... I forgot exactly what he called it, but he goes, "Type A people have Type B problems, and Type B people have Type A problems."
So, what is he describing? Type A is like the achiever, the assessor, the kind of high-functioning ADHD or high-functioning high-anxiety person. This is a lot of people we know, probably a lot of people who listen to this podcast. It serves you really well; you get great grades, or you'll be successful in your career because you're so Type A about it.
But you suck at just relaxing, chilling, enjoying, slowing down, being grateful... you know, being in the moment and not constantly thinking about planning for the future or assessing the past. You're just there.
Then, you have the Type B person, who we all characterize as the guy who's just walking around, wandering through life, sniffing flowers. Like, dude, you're not getting ahead! Where's your savings account? What's your plan? How are you going to get ahead? You don't have all your ducks in a row. What you're missing out on... you know, society basically rewards the Type A's.
Even if you're high Type A and you suck at being Type B, it feels like you could always catch up, even though in reality, you can't. The Type B person, we sort of look down on; they almost seem lazy in a way. It's like, "Why aren't you getting your act together? What are you doing? You're prioritizing your happiness too much, almost. You should be productive right now."
I thought it was so true that people fall into these buckets. As cliché as it is, as an oversimplification, it really highlighted to me how undervalued Type B people are. I have a few Type B people in my life where if you look at their resume or their series of accomplishments or how they spend their day, it just feels like, "Wow, you're behind."
Then, when you hang out with them, you're like, "Wow, you're ahead! You've got this thing figured out." I think that one of the big mispriced assets is... do you know how to chill?
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Sam Parr | Dude, that's such... | |
Shaan Puri | A bad thing for you to say.
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Sam Parr | What's this called? Did you just call it "calmness," a mispriced asset? Sure did.
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Shaan Puri | Sure did.
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Sam Parr | You need a lesson in your own advice, brother.
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Shaan Puri | Good call! You know, I call cold plunge people "hot tub people."
Cold plunge is like you're trying to optimize everything. You're trying to shock your nervous system and get your adrenaline pumping in the morning. On the other hand, hot tub people are trying to hang out, have a beer, and kick it with friends. They're happier than the cold plunge people.
I think one of the things to really do is to take pride in being able to do both well. Instead of trying to be a higher achiever, work on being able to shift gears and do both well. | |
Sam Parr | Where, when did you see this post? Because, like, a lot of times people ask us these questions and it's almost a recent thing. It's always the most recent thing.
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Shaan Puri | This was last night.
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Sam Parr | Oh, wait, really?
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, that was the question. I said, "Well, did you read anything recently that wowed you?" Recently, last night. | |
Sam Parr | Which is because I try to do something interesting. So whenever you go to some conference or anything, you're always like, "I took these notes on the lessons I learned." Yep, and I suck at that. I was curious if this is something that you saved from a year ago and you're still contemplating. | |
Shaan Puri | Dude, I have a Slack channel called **Golden Nuggets**. It's like a conversation with me, myself, and Irene. It is the longest conversation, and it is all just little tiny nuggets that I pick up from people.
For example, when Gary Tam was on the podcast, I wrote down this great line he said: "At some point, you realize it's all made up, but you get to make it up." I was like, man, that's just such a powerful, simple way of explaining a lot of life.
It's all made up. These are all stories we tell ourselves. The rules are made up, but you get to make it up. You get to make up your story—the story you tell yourself about yourself, about the world, and about how your life is going to go.
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Sam Parr | I think Gary Tan was a top 10, maybe top 5, person we've ever talked to.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, well, that's a good question because one of these... Let me find it. Here we go.
Jason from Detroit wants to know a similar thing. He says, "Fellas, I was looking at the numbers recently. You've hit 600+ episodes and 100+ guests. I have to ask you, who is on the Mount Rushmore for MFM? The number one thing you learned from them."
And PS, I don't want to hear, "I love them all, I can't pick favorites." I need you to... Dion Sanders hit.
P.S. Did you know that Deion Sanders publicly ranks his kids? Check it out. [He linked us to an article where Deion Sanders is ranking his kids.] Shiloh has...
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Sam Parr | Deion Sanders Jr. is number 1. | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, as you should be.
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Sam Parr | That's insane! Deion Sanders, number 5? What?
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Shaan Puri | Shador Sanders is the quarterback of his team, number 4. Out of 5, he's not doing so hot.
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Sam Parr | What a weirdo. Okay, well, Garrett Tan's up there, but that's like a recent one. So I try actually to stay away.
I'll let me tell you mine really quick. Dude, they're all brown dudes. I just realized Dharmesh, Manish, and Sayed. I guess Sayed's not Indian, but two out of the three are Indian, which is pretty funny.
Dharmesh is amazing to me. Dharmesh proves that you can be aggressive while still being calm and nice. Dharmesh is like shockingly aggressive towards life. Do you know that about him?
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Shaan Puri | **Darmesh** is the co-founder of **HubSpot**. Cut to the ad.
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Sam Parr | Alright, so a lot of people watch and listen to the show because they want to hear us tell them exactly what to do when it comes to starting or growing a business.
Many of our listeners have a full-time job and want to start something on the side—a side hustle. A lot of people message Sean and me, asking, "Alright, I want to start something on the side. Is this a good idea? Is that a good idea?" What they're really saying is, "Just give me the ideas."
Well, my friends, you're in luck! My old company, The Hustle, put together 100 different side hustle ideas, and they have appropriately called it the **Side Hustle Idea Database**. It's a list of 100 pretty good ideas. Frankly, I went through them, and they're awesome. It gives you how to start them, how to grow them, and a little bit of inspiration.
So check it out! It's called the **Side Hustle Idea Database**. It's in the description below; you'll see the link. Click it, check it out, and let me know in the comments what you think.
Alright, we're back! Dharmesh is a billionaire—maybe a multi-billionaire. I don't know. He started HubSpot, which is like a $30 billion company. He's been on the show two to three times, and I think he's coming on next week or in a few weeks.
He's super aggressive about life, but he comes off as a really nice guy—calm and easygoing. And while he is calm and easygoing, he's very aggressive about life, and I love that.
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Shaan Puri | What do you mean by "aggressive about life"? That's a phrase. Tell me what that means.
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Sam Parr | So, if you ask him about his background, he grew up poor in India. He said, "I wanted to be the best because I wanted to prove that I was capable of achieving." He also didn't want to have nothing, which is what he originally had.
He wanted to be great at ping pong, so he studied ping pong and became the best at the school he attended. He mentioned that someone told him when he moved to America, apparently what people do is play golf to meet clients and take care of clients.
He said, "I'm a 23-year-old guy who moved here from India. I don't even know what golf is." But then someone else suggested, "Well, if you can't do that, just buy everyone's dinner as much as possible."
So, he has paid for 100% of the dinners that he's ever gone out to for everyone. Did I tell you that story?
No? Dude, I went...
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Shaan Puri | Out to dinner, and he paid. Sure enough.
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Sam Parr | I went out to dinner with him, and it was me, Nick, Ray, Neville, and Dharmesh.
Dharmesh walks to the bathroom at the end, and Nick goes, "Watch this." He runs and pays for it. Dharmesh sits down, and Nick says, "My treat."
Dharmesh stands up and says, "This is unacceptable. I'm sorry, I can't..." Well, hold on, I'll tell you in a minute. He runs to the back of the kitchen, makes them refund Nick Gray's credit card, and gives his credit card.
He comes back and says, "Let me tell you a story. You know, when I came here from India, I didn't know how to play golf. Someone told me to buy dinners, so I committed at the age of 22 to 100% of the time pay for everyone's dinner. I have done this... maybe he's 55 now. He goes, 'I've done it for 25+ years.' So by you paying for dinner, I will not allow you to break that thing."
I go, "Have you really done it?" He goes, "Dude, I've done it so much that one time I went out to eat with just me and Brian from HubSpot. Apparently, there was a company there at a company outing who saw us and bought our dinner as a thank you because we use HubSpot or whatever."
So Dharmesh was like, "I didn't have that much money. We were kind of new, but we paid their..." | |
Shaan Puri | 15 the next morning.
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Sam Parr | He goes, "Dude, we paid their $15,000 dinner bill because I refused to have that streak broken."
So, Dharmesh Besh is very aggressive about life. He started wanting to teach his kid how to program, so they made an online video game that makes about $1,000,000 a year or something crazy like that. It's hugely popular.
He's very aggressive about life, but if you go and hang out with him, he's gentle and soft. He'll let you do all the talking.
So, I would say Dharmesh is one of my biggest inspirations. What about yours?
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Shaan Puri | Classic gentle giant. It's hard to pick my favorites. It's funny though, my Mount Rushmore of guests has really nothing to do with their episode. It's just about the impression they left on me or what I took away from them. That may or may not have even been a remarkable episode. Maybe they didn't tell the best stories or have the best ideas right off the bat.
So here are a couple of mine. They might all fall into the bucket of people who are playing their own game. I really, really admire, probably more than anything else, somebody who takes the time to define how they want to play the game of life. What their rules are, what their goals are, and what their code is that they live by. Then, of course, succeed in doing it. The result is that they are both happy and successful because, you know, one without the other is sort of the ultimate failure.
Ryan Holiday comes to mind. I couldn't even tell you one thing he said when he was on the podcast.
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Sam Parr | Dude, Ryan's cool. | |
Shaan Puri | I've since then followed Ryan. I was like, "Man, I really appreciate this dude." He seems... I think the only thing I remember from the podcast is that I told him, "You are one of the... let's call them like mentally well or something. You seem like one of the most well-balanced, grounded people that's ever come on this podcast. You just seem genuinely happy and content, and it just comes through in your vibe."
For example, instead of getting money and thinking, "Now, how do I parlay this into a private equity thing to make more money off of it?" he did the thing that he really wanted. He bought his own bookstore and made an awesome bookstore. He said, "A bookstore is a terrible investment," but he bought a bookstore at the top and built his office at the bottom. He's got a bookstore. Why? Because he absolutely loves books. He loves the vibe of a bookstore. So every day, he gets to bask in the glory and vibe of his investment.
Whereas I put something in the stock market, and it's just a number on the screen somewhere. There are these clips of every time he has somebody come on the podcast. They record upstairs, and on the way out, he just starts handing them books. He's like, "Have you read this?" They're like, "No." He's like, "Oh my god, you gotta read this! Here, let me earmark the page where you're gonna love this book. Okay, this is their famous book, but actually, this book is better." He just leaves them with like six books as they walk out, like it's a library. I just love Ryan Holiday's approach. | |
Sam Parr | He did that with me, and I think it was literally $1,000 worth of books. It was like a year's worth of reading, but he's the man.
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Shaan Puri | I don't know him too well, but he's got his ranch, his family, and he spends his days doing what he loves, which is reading, writing, and exploring ideas. He's tremendous. Everybody I know who has met him respects him. It just seems like he's living life on his own terms. He's not playing somebody else's game. | |
Sam Parr | Do you know how many books he's written, by the way? How many books has he published?
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Shaan Puri | I would guess like 7 or 8... 15? Yeah, he's prolific.
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Sam Parr | He writes a daily email. I don't know how he's so prolific. He's the man.
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Shaan Puri | Buddy, Billy works for him, and you can get a good sense of how somebody is when you talk to someone who works under them and has for years. He's got, you know, nothing but good things to say.
So anyway, Ryan Holiday's up there. Jesse Insel is kind of like that. I really admire this dude's variety. He goes from being a rapper to starting a jingle company and selling that, to starting a private jet share company and selling that to Warren Buffet, to creating a coconut water brand, and now a pickles brand, and a running brand.
He just takes the things he loves. His business is him pushed out. He loves running, so he creates the running club. He creates the Everest thing where you run up and down this mountain until you've run as many miles as Everest.
He just seems to have taken his passion and instead of wearing his heart on his sleeve, he has manifested it through the world of business. I think that's really cool.
He's a creative dude, seems like a lot of fun. I like some of his other things, like having a masogi for the year or his little three C's thing that I stole. He's like, "Yeah, every day I take 10 minutes, and it's a compliment, a congratulations, or a..." what's it called when you're like console... consolation for somebody when they've gone through something?
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Sam Parr | Yeah. | |
Shaan Puri | He just thinks of who in his life deserves one of those right now. Who deserves some congratulations, a compliment, or being consoled? He texts that out. It's a very easy way to build amazing relationships in life.
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Sam Parr | I'm doing his 20. It's called 29 029. It's the Everest... it's Everest Stadium, I think.
Yeah, I was invited by his partner, who I became friends with. He was like, "Pick which one you want to go to." So, I got Sarah signed up for it, and we have to pick the date.
But yeah, it sounds awesome, dude! It's really popular, by the way. It's also really expensive, and they're always sold out.
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Shaan Puri | As it should be, the last one I had is Mike Posner on my little Mount Rushmore, which I don't think that episode's come out yet. He said a couple of things that stood out to me, but the biggest one is just an operating philosophy for any creator.
You know, his first song was a hit—whatever, 5 times platinum. His second song was a little disappointing, only 3 times platinum. His third song only reached 1 times platinum, and he felt like those were total failures.
Every time he went to the studio trying to make a hit, he said, "I only succeeded in making something that I hated and nobody else loved." When he went in trying to make a hit that everybody would love, all he made was something that everybody else hated. And because he hated it, everybody else hated it too.
He goes, "Now my philosophy is very simple: I just do what's cool to me, and every once in a while, the whole world agrees." I just thought that is a wonderful battle cry for a creator or an artist—to say, "I just make what's cool to me, and sometimes the whole world agrees."
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Sam Parr | Yeah, that documentary he has where he walks across the country... or it's like a music video actually? Or is it a music video?
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Shaan Puri | It's like... | |
Sam Parr | A 10-minute video. So good! He's very inspiring.
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Shaan Puri | Go watch the music video for "Move On."
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Sam Parr | Is that what it is? Yeah, it feels like a documentary because there's so much talking in it. But, you know, a 10-minute one? That's pretty badass. Alright, which one should we do?
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Shaan Puri | Let's go to this one. Isaac from Maryland says, "I just started training in boxing. Thanks for the inspiration! I took my first liver shot. Wow, son of a gun! It feels like somebody hit the off button on my body."
I thought about it later and started thinking, what's the equivalent of a liver shot in business? We all know that a punch to the jaw is the thing that's supposed to knock you out, but sometimes it's the sneaky liver shot that gets you.
I told my wife about this idea, and she says, "That sounds like something stupid that your friends on that stupid podcast would talk about."
So let's have it, boys. What's the liver shot of business?
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Sam Parr | Tell me if you’ve felt this before. You’re having a problem in your company, and you think, “I have found this one person that’s going to change everything. Everything’s going to be better because I’ve hired this one person.”
I think, “Have I ever had a situation where my expectations have been lived up to?” And I don’t think I’ve ever had that.
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Shaan Puri | Wait, what did you just say? You've never had a situation where your expectations have been lived up to?
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Sam Parr | When my expectation is that this person is going to be the silver bullet... oh.
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Shaan Puri | Oh... oh, yeah, yeah.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, they've never lived up to it, and it's not their fault. They could be fantastic, but whenever I buy into someone so much, they'll do one thing that kind of bums me out. Then I'm like, "What else is there that you're going to do?" And then, like, they're... | |
Shaan Puri | Not gonna happen. Biopathic medicine? Yeah, there's nothing. Churro.
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Sam Parr | You get it? Yeah, it's like I have to try. It's so... I have felt that so many times. I've always made that mistake consistently where I buy into someone. You know, like when you're in high school and you're seeing a girl, or like a girl you have a crush on so much, and she finally gives you the chance. You're like, "Every life is perfect! I have crossed the threshold!"
And then, like, she never ends with elbows... yeah, or like her ring toe is bigger than her big toe. You know what I mean?
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Shaan Puri | Dude, I hate that for real. I know it's out of their control, and I think like 30% of the population has that thing where one toe is longer than the other, but it's disgusting to me.
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Sam Parr | Have you seen *Shallow Hal*? It's about this ugly dude who dates a 10 out of 10 model, but her toe is like... that. So, he breaks up with her only because of that.
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Shaan Puri | On this podcast, you will get a Warren Buffett quote and a "Shallow Hal" quote. It's the same... within 5 minutes.
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Sam Parr | Do you know who makes an appearance in *Shallow Hal*? It's Tony Robbins. He's like the whole... in the movie. He convinces Jack Black to only see people's inner beauty, so now he only sees people that way. It's pretty funny! I love that movie; I think it's a great film.
I'm getting my gut punches from being let down by people, which is frankly, I'm 100% to blame for that.
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Shaan Puri | Right, right. Mine is actually just having a health issue, either for you or someone you know really close to you when you're running a startup. Because the day before, everything felt level 10 important. This is the most important thing in the world. We're on a mission; we're at war. This is everything.
Then, as soon as you have a real health issue, there's that phrase: "A man has a thousand problems until he has a health problem. Then he only has one problem." And it's so true. The liver punch in business is when you have a real-life scare, and you're like, "Wow, I feel so stupid for having just spent so much time caring about these stupid KPIs and metrics, dialing the knobs, and optimizing this funnel." It's like, dude, honestly, who gives a shit?
So, it is the one thing that really just shook me out of the delusion that business felt like everything to me until that happened. That was my liver punch.
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Sam Parr | I always feel that way whenever I have a nurse treat me like... you know, like nurses.
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Shaan Puri | Are like a surreal job. | |
Sam Parr | Dude, they're like the tugboats of World War II. You know, like tugboats? They helped us win World War II. The tugboats worked their asses off to get these ships out there, but they're the unsung heroes. You know, no one gave tugboats love. What do you mean?
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Shaan Puri | What do you mean, tugboats? I don't know this.
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Sam Parr | So, during World War II, we were building ships like crazy. Or I'll give you a better analogy: 9/11. You know what a tugboat is? It's like a tugboat ring.
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Shaan Puri | Is it a tiny boat that pulls boats?
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Sam Parr | So, when you let’s say you have a cruise ship, when a cruise ship comes into a relatively small place, like for example, when a cruise ship is going to dock in San Francisco, you need a tugboat to go out and get it, and like drag it and place it perfectly where it goes.
But they've been the unsung heroes on many occasions. For example, during World War II, we were building ships like crazy and getting them out there. These tugboats were working their asses off, and the tugboat operators were performing miracles.
Same with 9/11. On 9/11, it was the tugboats that were getting people off the island of Manhattan to like Brooklyn or whatever. Nurses are like tugboats; you forget about a nurse, or you think you kind of dismiss a nurse as...
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Shaan Puri | Like, just the desk business... the doctor. | |
Sam Parr | It's the doctor who's the most important. Then, a nurse will come and give you Advil or a popsicle to soothe you. You're so much more important.
A) You're more important than the doctor, maybe.
B) You're more important than my job. It's not even close.
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Shaan Puri | Alright, let's do another one. You pick one off here.
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Sam Parr | If you could shadow anyone for a week to learn how they operate, who would it be and why?
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Shaan Puri | Alright, I would split it between either somebody who's hyper-productive, which might as well be Elon. There are all these myths about Elon, and I just want to see it for myself. I want to see what's the real deal. How is this guy running four companies, playing Diablo at night, and has 11 kids? I want to actually follow this guy and see what's going on.
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Sam Parr | What's Diablo?
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Shaan Puri | What is Diablo? It's a video game.
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Sam Parr | Oh, okay.
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Shaan Puri | The speaker is streaming on X at night, like that same night they catch the Starship. They catch the heaviest rocket ever with these chopsticks. Then, the same night, he's playing Diablo for like 4 hours on stream, doing a high-level raid. It's pretty wild.
In the same way, do you know that LeBron James recently screenshotted something showing that he was a top 100 ranked Madden player? He reached rank 100, which is like the top rank. | |
Sam Parr | No way! That's going to be one of the most played games in the world, right?
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, it doesn't mean he's a top 100 player, but it means he still reached the top rank of the people who are playing competitively at that moment. | |
Sam Parr | That's still impressive. It doesn't matter.
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Shaan Puri | Still impressive. Or like, you know, we've told the story about Travis Kalanick being the number 2 or 3 tennis player in the world. Luka Doncic, who's one of the best basketball players in the world, he's a top 100 Overwatch player. I play a lot of Overwatch. This is insane. It's insane that this...
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Sam Parr | Is "Overwatch" a war game?
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Shaan Puri | It's a first-person shooter, or I don't know what you'd call it. It's like a team first-person shooter or whatever.
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Sam Parr | And he's the best, or one of the best.
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Shaan Puri | He's a grandmaster player, top tier. He reached, I think, it was the top 500, which is the ranking they use; they don't do top 100, they do top 500. Luca was in the top 500. It's insane! I can't believe it.
People were like, "Oh, well, these guys, they're athletes. They have a lot of time to play video games and a lot of downtime when their bodies..." | |
Sam Parr | Just covered. Ridiculous.
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Shaan Puri | I don't give a shit, dude. I was playing Overwatch, you know, 3 hours a day for like, you know, 2 years. I couldn't even break, you know, bronze. This is incredible how he did that.
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Sam Parr | I think I want to... Alright, so did you read that New York Times article on Alex Karp?
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Shaan Puri | I didn't read it, actually, but a bunch of people recommended it. What did it say? So, he's the CEO of Palantir. What did it say?
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Sam Parr | Alex Karp is the CEO of Palantir. Palantir is almost a $100 billion company, and they're kind of controversial because they typically have a libertarian to Republican-leaning culture in Silicon Valley, which is not common.
He's also quite a character. He grew up in Germany, I believe, and he says some ridiculous things. For example, he once said, "I've got a Jewish mom and a black dad; I can get away with anything." He makes silly comments like that. He even mentioned during a quarterly earnings call, "The only time I'm not thinking about Palantir is when I'm out cross-country skiing or having sex." He just kind of says ridiculous stuff like that, but he's a unique individual.
Karp was raised in Germany and studied philosophy. He used to argue and debate with Peter Thiel, who is right of center, while Karp is left of center. They had opposite politics, and Karp mentioned in an article that they would argue like ravenous animals. Because of that, they fell in love with each other.
Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale came to Karp with the idea for Palantir, and he was the perfect person to lead and run the company. He shares about 25 years of stories in a New York Times article because this is his moment; the company is 25 years old, and they are finally the top dog. He tells all these crazy stories, and he's just quirky and weird, and I love that. | |
Shaan Puri | The article starts with Alex Karp, who never learned to drive. His quote is, "I was too poor and then I was too rich." The picture shows him wearing pink socks at his New Hampshire home, just sort of sitting in his... | |
Sam Parr | Everything about him is weird. Everything you just said about that is different and strange. Keep going.
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Shaan Puri | I'm Jewish, racially ambiguous, and dyslexic, so I can say anything. Yes.
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Sam Parr | Okay, wow! He's just quirky, man. He's really funky.
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Shaan Puri | So, you want to follow this guy because you think he's a genius? Or do you just think this guy's a weird... well, weirdo, and you just want to see it up close?
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Sam Parr | All the above, and he's living in his own world. I have friends who report to him at Palantir, and they love him. This is one of those stories, similar to Ryan Holiday, where you talk to people who work for him; they all love him. They have jokes, and I think they reference it in the article. They call him "Papa Carp" or "Daddy Carp." They revere him like this wise, sage guy.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, okay, this guy is pretty fascinating.
Okay, so Alex Karp would be your pick. Easy. Nice!
I would either choose someone super productive like Elon Musk or somebody super creative like the creators of South Park. That documentary, *6 Days to Air*, is one of the things to watch.
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Sam Parr | How hard is that life?
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Shaan Puri | I don't want to be either of them. Both of them play the game on absolute hard mode.
But if I want to break my frame, I'm not going to hang out with people who have exactly what I feel comfortable with. I want to hang out with people who play the game at level 12, so I know what the hell level 12 is. Then I'll dial it back to 8 or 9, which is where I like to stay in that range.
But you won't even know what an 8 or 9 is unless you've seen what the extreme is. I want to see the extreme of productivity and the extreme of creativity.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, man, that documentary is amazing.
Basically, for those who haven't seen it, I think it's on YouTube for free. *South Park*, which has been around for 25 years, is basically two guys, Matt and Trey. They come up with an entire 30-minute episode in six days.
So, from idea to it being live is six days, and they do that every single season. They've done it for 25 years.
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Shaan Puri | Which is unheard of. That timeline is unheard of. Most animated shows would be like, you know, sort of like a...
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Sam Parr | It's like a family dies in 9 months.
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Shaan Puri | 6 to 9 months, 12 months—that's like normal. 6 days just breaks your brain. How do you do that?
The way they do it is, you know, it's like Monday. We're pitching ideas, and then we grab the idea. The animators start drawing, we go into the studio, and we start doing the voices so that the animators have the dialogue. We're working out the jokes as we go. It's crazy.
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Sam Parr | They also do that with SNL.
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Shaan Puri | By the way, I saw this interview with him recently. So, you won't—I don't know if you will know this—but I lived in Denver, and that's where they're from. There's this restaurant that's famous there called Casa Bonita. Do you know about this Casa Bonita story?
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Sam Parr | Dude, they bought it and it's amazing.
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Shaan Puri | Do you know what it is first?
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Sam Parr | Was it like... I know it's in this TV show. I watch it all the time. There was a joke in the show where Cartman wanted to go there. It's like... is it Mexican? I guess. And there are people jumping off cliffs into pools, and there's like, "Oh, you can eat Mexican food."
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Shaan Puri | Imagine you walk into the biggest Rainforest Cafe you've ever seen. You walk in, and it feels like you're in a cave or some kind of treasure hunt situation.
It’s part Rainforest Cafe on steroids, part school lunch. You just grab a tray and walk down this path. Then, there are these lunch ladies just putting slop on your tray. The slop is the worst Mexican food you've ever had in your life.
Finally, you exit the maze where you got your slop on your tray, and you sit down at a table. Now you're in this huge restaurant that has a giant indoor waterfall. There's a whole show that happens with cliff divers diving into the water. It's like a little play that's happening.
So, you get Broadway at the Rainforest Cafe and the craziest prison lunch you've ever had.
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Sam Parr | It's like an experience.
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Shaan Puri | It was dying, and I guess, you know, it's like a staple for anybody who lives in that area. It's like a thing. You knew if it ever died, it would never come back because the whole idea wouldn't even make sense in the first place.
So, they bought it for, I think, a couple of million dollars. The guy said, "So, you've since had to invest in kind of turning it around."
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Sam Parr | I saw this. | |
Shaan Puri | And he's like, "Yeah, we invested a lot of money." He goes, "How much did you invest?" And he goes, "We've put in about $40,000,000 to rescue this restaurant," which is just insane. Along the way, they filmed it as they were trying to rescue this thing, and it turned into its own documentary. So, just a crazy, crazy story.
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Sam Parr | Is the food better? The reviews on it are still not good.
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Shaan Puri | Good. I don't know, I don't want to hear any bad things about it. I love those guys. I love Casa Bonita. I have a lot of memories from there as a kid, and I love that these guys tried to basically do the same thing that the Fertittas did with the UFC. They bought it for $2,000,000 and then lost $40,000,000 trying to build the brand. They did that, but just with Casa Bonita. | |
Sam Parr | Dude, but yeah, I don't know if the outcome is going to be the same. But that's pretty wild. I mean, they're like epically rich, those guys. They've been...
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Shaan Puri | Rich guys in restaurants. Name a better combo.
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Sam Parr | Shit, alright. Wanna do one more, or is...? | |
Shaan Puri | That it? Let's do this fatherhood one.
So, Jeremy from Austin—okay, that's maybe somebody you know—says, "I'm a soon-to-be dad. I've read all the books, I've listened to podcasts, but I gotta hear from the boys: what advice was actually useful?"
Underlined for when you became a dad. So, we all get advice, but what was actually useful?
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Sam Parr | Dude, mine's so much easier. Yours is going to be insightful and philosophical. Here's mine: mine was like so easy to use.
It was called the "5 S's," but it really could just be like 2. So, when a baby's crying, 0 to 3 months, you swaddle them super tight. I was shocked at how tight you need to be.
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Shaan Puri | You turn them tighter than you think you're supposed to.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, like you're putting this thing in a straight jacket. It's like child protective services need to be called; that's how tight it feels when you swallow these kids.
Then you hold them on their side when they're crying, and you lift them up to your ear and you shush them. But when you shush, it's super loud. When they taught me how to do it, I thought, "That's gonna hurt the baby's ear."
But they're like, "No, this... I don't know, however it works, this is what they're used to hearing." You shush really loud in their ear, and they quit crying after like 20 seconds. So it was like the swaddle, sideways, shush that was...
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Shaan Puri | Very productive! Alright, that's good.
I'll tell you what doesn't help first. When we got pregnant for the first time, it was like, "Oh, better get some sleep now." That's not how sleep works, and that doesn't do anything. Don't help me with that.
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Sam Parr | Well, you can't build it up with a bank.
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Shaan Puri | If they wanted to say, "What could you actually do before the kid comes?" which is not much, it’d be like, "Hey, just take this 15-pound dumbbell and curl it. Just hold it in the curl and then try to do the rest of your life."
So now operate, you know, do your computer work, make food, and do everything while curling this thing. Because that's actually the only prep that would have helped.
I think the biggest prep is mental, at least for the dad. Here’s what I think are the three phases of fatherhood. This is my bit; I’m working on it.
Alright, the three phases of fatherhood are:
1. **I want kids** - that’s phase 1.
2. **I want kids** - yeah, I want kids, hell yeah.
3. Phase 2, which is when you’re pregnant and the baby’s coming: "I want kids..." Right?
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Sam Parr | Yeah, that's scary.
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Shaan Puri | Now, that's phase 2.
Then, phase 3, which you think is supposed to come when the baby is born, actually does not for most people. It comes about 12 to 18 months later. This is when you reach the point of "I can't live without kids." That's where you will get to; that's the third phase. It does come, so have faith.
It's totally normal to experience the initial desire for a child, followed by questioning, doubt, panic, and freak-out moments. Then, there's the initial anticlimactic phase where the baby feels like an inanimate object. As a dad, you might feel somewhat useless, just helping the mom, and you don't feel much. That was at least my experience.
You might be concerned, thinking, "Wait, do I not have a soul? Why don't I feel what I'm supposed to feel about this kid?"
Then, around 12 to 18 months, once they start to smile, laugh, or crawl—doing things like that—everything changes. You realize, "I can't imagine life without kids."
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Sam Parr | I probably spoke to 30 guys before I had my kid. I was like, "What should I expect?" I asked all of them a very blunt question, but they all understood what I meant, which was, "Did you love her right away, or did you love the baby right away?"
Of the guys I asked, probably 70% of them said, "No, I had love, but I wasn't in love."
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Shaan Puri | Cared about the well-being. | |
Sam Parr | I cared, but I wasn't in love until, let's say, 8 or 10 months in. Something like that. I personally was into it because I had animals. It kind of replaced a dog for me, if I'm being honest. I love dogs, and I liked that type of thing. So, I was into it, but I was preparing not to be into it right away.
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Shaan Puri | **Lowered expectations: the key to life.**
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Sam Parr | I think most men aren't into their kids for, you know, what I mean when I say "into," in love for like 8 months.
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Shaan Puri | I had a hilarious dinner with this guy, and he was like, "Yeah, I know. If I'm honest, it's hard. I care, but I guess I wouldn't say I'm totally head over heels, like, you know, I can't live without them type of thing."
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Sam Parr | It's like a roommate... It's like a roommate that you enjoy.
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Shaan Puri | I was like, "Oh, totally, totally normal." Turns around, you know, 12 to 18 months, they're like, "Yeah, they're 3." I was like, "Oh, you're broken."
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Sam Parr | Dude, you know what also shocked me? Like, all of my friends, after they have kids, most of them have said similar things, which is, "I wish I started sooner." And that shocked me. I was always the opposite; I always thought it was the opposite.
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Shaan Puri | But I don't wish that. I'm glad I got in all the stuff that you can only do when you're young, wild, and free. I'm glad I experienced that because it's a one-way door. Once you do it, you can't go back. There are no breaks, no mulligans, you know? At least for me. So, it just seems like I'm glad I took the time. | |
Sam Parr | Alright, that's this episode. We're going to call this "Mailbag." Mailbags are fun!
If you have questions, again, go to mfmpod.com. We're going to add a contact button, and you can ask questions there.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, we'll add a mailbag button. Drop them in there. Make them entertaining, make them fun. We like them!
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Sam Parr | Alright, that's it. That's the pod.
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