How To Set Goals For Lazy People | Goal Setting 101

Shaan Puri

Here is how I set goals so that I can actually hit them. This is coming from some guy who is, you know, frankly pretty lazy. I’m not like you; I’m not like, "Oh, I need to lose weight. I must have a 500 calorie deficit; therefore, it is done." I will now, like, you know, track this thing. That always felt like too much work to me. But let me tell you what does work for me.

Sam Parr

By the way, you're seeing the exact opposite. It's less work to do it that way because then you don't think. You just do what you're supposed to do.

Shaan Puri

That's the thing that somebody who has discipline and willpower says, like, "Oh, it's easier to just do it right the first time." Yeah, we know, bro. We know that's true, we just don't live life that way. It's okay, you know? I speak from the procrastinator's perspective.

Shaan Puri

perspective

Sam Parr

alright you wanna tell us about this game or what

Shaan Puri

Well, first of all, I think we need to spice up the intro. I think the intro needs to be more engaging. Right now, we're just casual with it; we just come on like it's just a conversation. People love that—they love the authenticity. But you know what works? When you become a cheese ball and you just start performing. You make it a show, give a proper intro, and do all the things. "This is my first million," the podcast that has two future trillionaires that come at you. Oh, by the way, did you see this? Did you see this guy who went on LinkedIn and then quoted the Manifest Cowboys thing?

Sam Parr

wait woah what happened

Shaan Puri

I tagged you in it. Some guy was telling a story on LinkedIn. "Oh bro, I'm going ham on LinkedIn right now." "Oh, you really?"

Sam Parr

what like what do you mean like trying to get popular

Shaan Puri

I told you I hired that content remixer guy, Brandon. He has been amazing! What he does is take my old, good tweets and post them on LinkedIn. People on LinkedIn, bro, it's like a gun to a knife fight. They're like, "Wow, incredible content! This is fantastic! What a stimulating conversation!" You know, LinkedIn is like the most boring content farm, generically, right? So, I've been over here fighting on Twitter against, you know, professional tweeters who are researching for 8 hours a day and creating these epic threads. And I just come off the dome, bro. I'm like that painting at the top of the Sistine Chapel—just off the top! Now, I bring that to LinkedIn, and it's a whole new experience for them. It's like a habanero pepper for them, or a ghost pepper—it's the last wing on "Hot Ones," and they don't know what to do with it. So, this guy has been posting, and I just get to check the notifications. I'll be like, "Oh shit, he posted that thing from like a year ago that I said," and people on LinkedIn are loving it. But today, it's...

Shaan Puri

going to

Sam Parr

be popular

Shaan Puri

yeah I think I added like I don't know a 1000 followers this week or something like that dude I

Sam Parr

By the way, I knew this woman named Candace. You may have known her too. She was an entrepreneur and owned a bikini company. She said, "You know what? I'm just gonna start this." This was in 2015, 2016, 2017. She goes, "I'm gonna start posting stories about our bikini business and how things are going." It was like, you know, new product updates, whatever. And it was all like, you know, hot ladies in bikinis, you know, with big...

Shaan Puri

boots on

Sam Parr

this list

Shaan Puri

like what the algorithm it went crazy it broke

Shaan Puri

people's braid and she eventually got banned and she obviously did the right

Shaan Puri

thing of like making a a

Sam Parr

Obviously, she did the right thing by making a public fuss about it. It's like, "What? I'm just talking about my business. What's wrong with this? This is professional content. I sell bikinis." And so, it worked awesomely for her. I think that if you have a business that is related to something like that, you can really kill it on LinkedIn. But anyway, you're crushing it on LinkedIn right now.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, so this guy, Thomas Angel, I'll give him a shout out. He posted, he goes, it says, "I don't do business, I manifest." #m

Sam Parr

f m

Shaan Puri

And then he goes, "Sprouts Farmers Market was number 1 on our vision board when we launched our Everything Latte at Altitude Functional Beverages." I guess that's his company, Altitude Functional Beverages. So he goes, "After 13 months, we're now in 10 stores. Blah blah blah, here we're great, we're great, we're great." And he says, "Thank you to the OGs. #ManifestCowboys." Then he tagged us in it, and I totally forgot you had said that on the last pod. I was like, "Wow, that is incredible!" "Manifest Cowboys" is one of your top 5 little creations, and I just feel like we need to go all in on the only podcast featuring two trillionaires: the Manifest Cowboys, the men who never age. I haven't seen a wrinkle in my life; same body fat as your milk—2%. That's how we need to go. And then we say, "Hey iTunes, play that back 15 seconds. Go back 15 seconds, play that again."

Sam Parr

did you make up that 2% nonsense that's beautiful

Shaan Puri

Again, off the top, I told you I'm good early in the morning. We just moved our podcast to an early morning recording, and I just have like an extra 10% juice early in the morning where I'm...

Sam Parr

a little crazy that's so funny

Shaan Puri

yeah I just roll out of bed and these are the thoughts in my head

Sam Parr

dude you're like a rapper right now you just keep you keep rhyming I like this

Shaan Puri

I saw this hilarious clip. It's actually my favorite form of marketing: you take a clip from something else. So, you've seen this one where it's a bar and the whole bar is watching something on a big screen. The original clip was like from the World Cup, and like the guy scores a...

Shaan Puri

In the bar

Sam Parr

put something on there yeah

Shaan Puri

You just put whatever on there, right? Like, I'll put like "The Milk Road." The Milk Road shows up in your inbox, you know? The email pops up, and then the crowd just goes crazy. So, I saw a version of that somebody did with Joe Rogan. It's Joe Rogan talking to somebody, and he's like, "Have you seen this?" The guy's like, "No." He's like, "Pull that up." Then they just replace it with this TikTok of this young, chubby white boy rapping. He's really horrible, but it's hilarious. He's dancing and rapping at the same time, and Joe's like, "God, how do they do it?" They show the reaction, but they've spliced it together. I saw one of those, and that just really made my morning.

Sam Parr

I spent so many hours in the morning and at night just scrolling through Instagram and TikTok, and just laughing constantly. All these young people are so funny now. I don't think when I was younger and that age, doing stuff like this, no one was this funny. The amount of funny people is... it's way higher now.

Shaan Puri

Me and my sister, we send each other TikToks all the time. Maybe she sends me like 25 TikToks a day, and I send back maybe 10. The caption on each one isn't like, "Oh, you gotta watch this," or "Oh, this is really funny," or "That's so true." It's every, like, 7 lines she's just like, "People are too good! How are they so talented?" TikTok is the greatest talent show ever created. It's America's Funniest Home Videos every hour on the hour, right? It is this giant talent show. When you watch it, you're like, "I am nothing compared to these people. I am the dirt on their shoe. They scrape me off before they walk into their house." You feel so dumb. I just can't understand how they come up with these ideas, how they film them, or where the inspiration comes from. It's too good.

Sam Parr

It's so good, and the subreddit "The Fighter and The Kid" that you and I like... just the commenters are so funny. It's like every top comment is one of the best jokes done by a comedian that I like.

Shaan Puri

you know what

Sam Parr

I mean, it's... that's how high caliber it is. I just... and it's almost like the way that I describe it: It's like it doesn't matter if you're into the outdoors or not. When you see a big mountain, you're like, "Oh wow, that's epic!" You know? You appreciate the epicness. That's how I feel when I watch TikTok. I'm like, I don't even like this thing that they're talking about, but how on earth did someone come up with this? And it's just that over and over and over again. I'm in awe. I'm in awe.

Shaan Puri

Constantly, yeah. People talk about how these things are a waste of time. I don't know what their TikTok feed is like, but my TikTok feed is incredible. It is the most entertainment per second I've ever experienced in my life. It is funny and insightful. I learn stuff all the time—little life hacks, how stuff works. I was watching TikTok about how a farmer farms squash, and I was like, "Oh, I didn't know that!" I'm just learning things that I didn't even know I wanted to know because I would never click on a YouTube video. But, bro, if I go on YouTube now, it's like... you know when you go to a city and they're like, by the tourist destination, "Oh, you want to get on this horse carriage? It'll be for a funny picture and a romantic date." You have to do this old, slow, uncomfortable thing because, might as well, they gotta do something different. Life's too good now. That's how I feel when I go on YouTube—like I'm getting back on the horse carriage after I've experienced an F1 car. I don't know how YouTube's gonna survive.

Sam Parr

Dude, speaking of this type of stuff, speaking of entertainment and doing epic things, I'm reading this book about a woman named **Elspeth Beard**. That's an interesting name! In 1979 or 1980, I think she was 22 years old, and she just said, "Fuck it! I'm going to ride my motorcycle around the world." So, she got on a ship, went to America, rode it all across America, then got on a ship on the other side to go to whichever continent is on the other side of California.

Shaan Puri

is this shit from a pen name

Sam Parr

Dude, I did it across America, which is soft. That's soft! There's a McDonald's every 50 miles, you know? She did it like in Iran and shit, you know what I mean? Like, there are levels to this game. She did it in 1979, and she was like, "We couldn't even get maps." Anyway, I was reading it and I was like, "I'm such a pussy." Why don't we live more? Do we need to live more epic, adventurous lives? She did this thing at age 22, and now she's like 65. She's still giving talks about it and making money because we are all so weak. We refuse to do these interesting things. It's not that hard nowadays to ride a motorcycle across the world. It's not that hard! You take 6 months, you buy a $20,000 BMW, it ain't gonna break. You use your iPhone; it ain't hard. But I just thought it was interesting that she did this thing at age 22. It's kind of like whenever I see people, like whenever I see the Rolling Stones perform, I'm like, "This motherfucker's 80 years old and he's playing a song that he wrote when he was 18." That's longevity! That's good! And that's like kind of what she's doing. So I'm amazed that you could do one thing at a young age and live off of it forever. And, man, we're soft! We gotta do more epic stuff. We're just sitting in our houses all the time doing this lame stuff. We gotta be more adventurous, right?

Shaan Puri

what would you do

Sam Parr

I've always wanted to walk across America, so I would do that. I've already ridden my motorcycle across America and I've driven across America a bunch of times. I think I could drive my motorcycle across as well.

Shaan Puri

alright

Shaan Puri

What was genuinely hard? So, not like it sounds hard, but what genuinely was hard?

Sam Parr

with with riding a motorcycle across the country it was easy man

Shaan Puri

general other stuff you've done any anything you've done what's the actual thing that you've like that's been really hard

Sam Parr

Doing an Ironman was like legitimately hard. I felt pain. I think it’d be fun to ride a bicycle or something like that across America, and I think that would be genuinely tough—physically and emotionally tough. I did an Ironman, and that was like legitimately hard. I felt like I was in pain for almost the entire time. It sucked.

Shaan Puri

Dude, so Ramon and Sully... they texted me. Ramon was like, "Guys, we gotta do this Iron Man in Hawaii!" He's an idiot. He's like, "I'm signing us up," and he caught me when I was in that... when I had that trillionaire, 2% body fat energy. And I just... two words, all caps: **"I'M IN."**

Sam Parr

and really say that

Shaan Puri

he literally was typing

Sam Parr

how to ride a bike

Shaan Puri

No, he was typing his speech bubbles and I just responded. I said, "Ramon, say no more." Then he stopped typing in the iMessage. Okay, 3 hours passed.

Sam Parr

he booked it didn't it 3 hours passed

Shaan Puri

Yeah, he starts sending me like PDF ticket reservations. He starts sending me stuff... I'm like... and I now realize what I have done. I realize your boy is not as hard as he thinks, he's not as tough as he thinks, he's not as "in" as he thought he was.

Sam Parr

and do

Shaan Puri

you even

Sam Parr

know how to swim have you ever swam before

Shaan Puri

I have a 15-foot pool, and I can swim in it, but I've never done a 1-mile freestyle swim, like an ocean swim, just to start the race. So, I go, and then I had to backtrack. I just came quick and said, "Hey, I've seen the first one, but I can't wait for the second one." They go, "What? Iron Man? Right? That's what we're talking about." He goes, "No, bro, you're not getting out of this." And I go, "No, I am." That's when I realized I didn't have that reason. So then, every day, he's been texting me like, "Hey, here's this cool link to how to train." I'm like, "I'm not opening that link because if I open that link, and I know what it entails, there's no way I'm going to do this."

Sam Parr

So, I was guilted into doing this by him. I trained for 6 months and I did pretty good. I did alright, and he got last.

Shaan Puri

And you're very, very fit, and you're saying it's hard. If I trained my hardest for a year, I would not be as fit as you were before you trained for your Ironman. I would be the "before" photo. So it doesn't make sense. And so then I just told him, "If I don't talk to you anymore, I don't have to do it." So I'm just not responding to him, and we'll see if this just...

Sam Parr

For the listeners, so they know how stupid it was... It was like the Three Stooges. We went down there, and I trained. I was a Division 1 athlete; I trained, I did fine, I was great. But they... and I hired a coach. I did everything the right way. These freaking idiots who we went with, they bought the bike the day before when they were down there. The night before, you set your bike up at the place and leave it there. Sully and Ramon were like, "Hey, so how do we use those pedals with that attached to your feet? We bought them. How do we use them?" They were sending it up there. Sully, that's not the guy we went with, he did the swim. He did the entire thing in backstroke because he didn't know how to swim with his head underneath the water. They assigned a kayaker lifeguard to him because they were so afraid that he was going to drown. I swear to God, and he finished.

Shaan Puri

he did it

Sam Parr

Of all the 9,000 people there, I'm not exaggerating, they got literally last place. Last! So it's like 9,000... yeah, 9,910 and 9,000. They were miserable. Then the next day, they're like, "This is sick, bro! You wanna do it again?" It was the craziest thing on earth. These guys are idiots. They also asked me if I wanted to go climb Mount Kilimanjaro with them, and I was like, "No, no, I'm out. I do not want to do that."

Shaan Puri

I'm not bored. They're like, I don't know, 7 to 10 years older than us, so they're in a midlife crisis and we're getting dragged into their midlife "fighting against Father Time" thing. And now we are doing these things as well, you know? So actually, this is a topic I wanted to talk about, which is **how to set goals**. I think you had something on your thing about...

Sam Parr

I wrote

Shaan Puri

setting goals

Sam Parr

about that

Shaan Puri

Yeah, so let's talk about this. I don't know what you wanted to do, but I had this idea: What is your approach to setting and hitting goals?

Shaan Puri

is that

Shaan Puri

what you were gonna say

Sam Parr

Yeah, well let me go on a little rant here. I've been doing this thing called "intro." You know, that intro thing where you just talk to people? It's actually really fun! That's what I do. I do it from Friday at 5 PM to 7 PM.

Shaan Puri

oh really

Sam Parr

2 hours off

Shaan Puri

if they just turned off the money you do it because it's so fun

Sam Parr

no I am doing it because it's fun and I get paid $2,000 an hour

Shaan Puri

obscene amounts of money

Sam Parr

Yeah, so both... it is, it is. It's fun money, envelope money. I've been doing this, and a question that I ask people constantly is, "What does success look like in 5 years?" Specifically, if this is a money thing, how much money do you want? How much revenue? How many users? What I've learned, and I've been working with some family members who want to get their finances in order, is to ask, "Alright, how much do you spend every month? How much do you want to spend every month?" Then, let's work back to figure out how much income you think you need. I think the vast majority of people don’t write things down. I did this one intro call with a guy, and I said, "Hey, here's this app that I used for a long time. It's called My Weekly Budget. Just every time you spend a cent, write it down. Do it for 4 weeks, and then look back at how much you spent." He responded, "I never thought about that." He messaged me later and said, "I've been writing this down for like 2 weeks. I had no idea I was spending this and that. I've been saving thousands of dollars now that I know." I do the same thing with weight loss. I say, "I want to weigh this much, therefore I can only eat 2,100 calories." I'm just going to write down whatever I eat. Writing things down—both goals as well as the things that you're doing—gives you an idea of how to get to where you want to go without really changing a significant amount of your behavior. Have you noticed that?

Shaan Puri

I have noticed that, yes, and I do that. I think a lot of people think they do that, but let me go into a little more detail on some stuff I do that I think is maybe a little bit different. Alright, so I'm going to give you a couple of bullet points here on how I set goals so that I can actually hit them. This is coming from some guy who is, you know, frankly pretty lazy. I’m not like you; I'm not like, "Oh, I need to lose weight. I must have a 500 calorie deficit; therefore, it is done." I will now, like, you know, track this thing. That always felt like too much work to me. But let me tell you what does work for me.

Sam Parr

By the way, you're seeing the exact opposite. It's less work to do it that way because then you don't think. You just do what you're supposed to do.

Shaan Puri

**Thing that somebody who has discipline and willpower says:** "Oh, it's easier to just do it right the first time." Yeah, we know, bro. If we... and we know that that's true, we just don't live life that way. Like, it's okay. You know, I speak from the procrastinator's perspective. Alright, so here are some things that I do that work for me. **First is...** and you tell me if you do this or not. I set picture goals or movie scene goals, not just written goals. For example, sometimes it's hard for me to figure out, like, let's say it's a financial goal. Okay, how much money do I want and when? Then I kind of like... I'll pick a number. I'll be like, "Is that too high? Is that too low?" I gotta make it real in some way. So sometimes what I'll do is, if it's a number goal, I'll do the math to add it up. I'll be like, "Okay, here's how I want to live. I want to spend this, this, this, and this. What does that actually come out to?" And I'll go bottoms up to create the goal. Or I'll just simplify it. I'll be like, "I don't know, numbers and logic are a little too hard to understand." I'll go on Zillow and I'll just find the picture of the house I want. I'll be like, "This, this is my goal." I can just look at that picture of that house, and it has a whole feeling and a whole set of assumptions that if I was living in that house, like, life is pretty good. That is my motivating goal. I'm more motivated by a picture or a little movie scene in my head than I am by just this, like, kind of written text that requires my brain to do a bunch of work to try to make life out of this.

Sam Parr

like a vision board text yeah I do it

Shaan Puri

yeah I guess I just described a vision board okay

Sam Parr

cool

Shaan Puri

so yeah that that's

Sam Parr

the first thing pinterest yeah great idea

Shaan Puri

yeah alright

Sam Parr

it's like an uber but okay sam 1 yeah uber 0

Shaan Puri

Okay, let's keep going. The second thing I do is set floor goals and ceiling goals. I don't set just one goal; I set a range. The floor goal that I'll set for any project is like, "Alright, at a minimum, this is the minimum that it would take for it to feel like a win." So, I just write that down. I'll be like, "Alright, this is the minimum goal." What was happening normally was that I was writing a goal, then I'd kind of beat myself up, thinking I'm not ambitious enough. So, I needed to set more audacious goals. I would set a bigger goal, a bigger goal, a bigger goal, and then I would inevitably sort of under-deliver on that. Now, I'd have to either be disappointed because I didn't reach my super ambitious goal, but still, clearly, a good thing happened, or I would have my super ambitious goal and secretly in my head, I'd have my backup goal that I wouldn't tell anybody because it wasn't as cool. But I knew logically that it was still good. So then I just started writing it down: here's the floor, here's the ceiling. The ceiling is the "F yeah!" moment—like, what would make me say, "F yeah, that really worked out!" I'll give you an example after this, but alright, floor and ceiling goals—that's the next one. Do you do anything like that? Like a range?

Sam Parr

No, but that's a good idea. I just... no, I just like put the... maybe I kind of do. I say, "Here's what I think will happen," but then I say, "In the best case scenario, I think this might happen," but I'm not expecting that.

Shaan Puri

Right, that's how I started this podcast. I was like, the floor goal is if I just invite a bunch of cool guests on. Well, probably if I do one of these a week, that's 52 guests. Let's say half of them are cool. Let's say half of those cool people become kind of like buddies or friends, or you know, we like each other. Cool! So I'll make like maybe 12 to 15 new friends that are kind of heavy hitters, enough where I can invite them on a podcast. I was like, that's a win. That alone is a win. It's enough to do this podcast once a week. So that was my floor goal. My ceiling goal was, well, what if people actually listen to this? Wouldn't that be sweet? If people would, you know, on their commutes, listen to this and we would have this big audience of people who listen and trust us, that would be amazing, right? And so now...

Sam Parr

With that methodology, I approach risk-taking. I ask myself, "Should I quit my job and start this company?" Well, the worst-case scenario is that it’s going to take me six months to find a new job. Therefore, I’ll have six months of savings lined up. If I just so happen to build a successful company, that’s gravy—that’s awesome! But basically, I’m taking the risk that I’m going to find a new job and have six months of savings. Great! That’s my baseline, and I’m fine with that.

Shaan Puri

So, **floor and ceiling**—that's the second part. Okay, **goals and anti-goals**. I stole this from Andrew Wilkinson, who probably stole it from somebody else, but it's really easy to set a goal and not acknowledge some of the common trappings you could encounter, even if you accomplish your goal. A simple example: in college, my buddy dated this girl whose dad was a partner at a big consulting firm. He was a partner, and the guy would make, you know, $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 a year. He made it to the top of his ladder, but also, every single week, he would fly out Monday through Thursday. He would come back Friday and be there Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Then he would leave again Sunday night. He was just gone for like half of her life growing up. So that's an example of achieving your goal but maybe hitting an anti-goal as well. He probably didn't plan to say, "I don't want to see my family... you know, my kid growing up for the first 18 years of life. I'm only going to be there half the time." But it just kind of came as a byproduct of trying to hit their goal. Now, I set out specific anti-goals. Like, "Oh yeah, I want to do this podcast, but I don't want it to feel like a bunch of work every week." I'm not trying to make this my job; I want this to be a fun hobby. An anti-goal might be that all of a sudden I'm drowning in work trying to edit this thing, upload the thumbnail, write the show notes, and do all this stuff. That would be an anti-goal if the after-pod recording took 5 hours a week or, you know, 10 hours a week to produce. By identifying the anti-goal upfront, you can make a game plan that solves it. Do you do that?

Sam Parr

I do it a little bit differently. I don't call it an anti-goal. No, I say, "Here's the price I'm willing to pay to achieve the thing I want to achieve." For example, when I started this company, The Hustle, I told my wife—when we were dating—I said, "Just so you know, the business is going to come first for the next handful of years. Because then, when we get married and have kids, I'll have more time for that. But right now, business is first." I'm going to give up vacations. The price I'm willing to pay is that we're just not going to have that much time together unless the business gets in the way.

Shaan Puri

**Baby, tell me again who's number one on my priority list?** **Yes, that's right, baby! Say it again. Say it again. Say it again.**

Sam Parr

again yeah tell me

Shaan Puri

it's valentine's day who's my date the hustle that's right that's

Shaan Puri

right you got it

Sam Parr

you got it

Shaan Puri

you understand

Sam Parr

I have to confirm

Shaan Puri

you gotta double opt into this shit

Sam Parr

So, I always say, "Here's the thing. I'm willing to get... this is the price I'm paying." You know what I'm saying? You want to look good? You can't bump the price. You gotta... yeah, you want to look good in the nude? The price you gotta pay is you gotta eat this crap chicken and not have fun there. You know, you gotta pay a price.

Shaan Puri

Right, I like that. Alright, the next one is "In Your Face Daily." So now we're on number 4. We paint the picture; that's kind of the mood board, the movie scene, the floor and ceiling method, the goal and anti-goal method. Now, "In Your Face Daily" is one where I think a lot of people make a mistake. They write down the goal at the moment they're motivated and inspired. They read that book, they watch that video, you know, they get their pen and paper out, they write it down, then they close the book and just go back on autopilot for the next 17 days. They can't even revisit their goal. So my big thing is, I need to see it daily. Right? The goal is like the barista. You know, if I'm going to get coffee before work every day, I'm going to see this face. I'm going to see my goal's face every single day. I will set this up in Slack. I will just use the remind function. I'll say, "Remind me every day that my goal this week is for Milk Road to add this many subscribers, or to go viral with one post on Twitter, or to chase down that investment that I'm really bullish about and make sure we get in this round." I will set that reminder so that it pops up every single day, and it's only me who sees that. But now, I do that with my team. At the end of every, you know, either daily or weekly, I will repost the goals that we had for the week and just be like, "Here it is. Make sure you keep this top of mind." Or as my next method is the "Tip of Your Tongue Test." If you can't say what you want, if it's not at the tip of your tongue, what you're going for, you're not clear enough about it. You are not giving yourself the best chance to succeed because you can't articulate your goal at the tip of your tongue. Ben, can I pick on you for a second? Ben, are you there? I know he's like at the beach, so he may not have the best audio or video.

Ben Wilson

I I got kicked out of my last spot I can I can try

Shaan Puri

okay try ben with your podcast how to take over the world what is the goal

Sam Parr

the goal is to be

Ben Wilson

A top 100 podcast overall in the Apple Podcast ratings.

Shaan Puri

Okay, sounds good. Sam, critique that real quick. He's missing one critical element. Do you know what it is?

Sam Parr

probably the input

Shaan Puri

the input meaning what

Sam Parr

Like I think for goal setting, it's probably a little bit easier to be input-oriented. So, like, what you're willing...

Shaan Puri

like what you're gonna do x

Sam Parr

I'm gonna do X, you know, because you can't exactly control the output. So, like, it'd be more input-oriented. I would also probably say if for the podcast, I would put a download number on it. But I don't know, what do you think?

Shaan Puri

right or a time box right like by when oh a time box

Sam Parr

yeah by when

Shaan Puri

Do you have 10 years to do this or 1 year to do this? That's a critical element to a goal. It should be SMART: - Specific - Measurable - Achievable - Relevant - Time-bound It should be pass/fail, like it should be easy to figure out: did this happen or not? And if you don't have a time box, you can't ever judge it, right?

Sam Parr

So Sean, do you have your computer open? "Yeah." Go to my Twitter handle. What does my bio say? I have made this for the past month or two, and it's been working wonderfully. It's exactly what you're talking about.

Shaan Puri

Oh, perfect! You go, "I own the hustle, sold it to HubSpot. I tweet about this, I do the podcast." And then you said, "Losing another £5 this month" (August).

Sam Parr

Yes, I've always... whatever the goal is, I put it up there on Twitter so I see it every day. The thing that you didn't mention that I love doing is I love shaming myself. I love shame. I think shame and rage are the two best fuels to get something done that people never talk about. I still do things to make Erin Coyne, my 8th-grade girlfriend, angry. In my head, I'm like, "What's gonna prove her wrong?" You know what I mean? Like, how am I gonna win and prove that she was wrong for breaking up with me? So, I think rage is awesome, but I think shaming yourself or guilting yourself—where you put it publicly and you have to do it—really helps. The other thing that I do constantly that works wonderfully is you have to set appointments or put something on the table. For example, I have a couple of bad tattoos I want to get fixed. I've been wanting to do it, but I've been so lazy. You just gotta make the appointment. It's like, "Fuck, I can't bail! I already put down money on this thing; I have to do this." You know what I mean? I think that those things really, really help.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, like my Ironman competition coming up. But "Shame and Rage," that's pretty good. I mean, "My First Million" is a good name. "Shame and Rage" would have been a great name for this podcast.

Sam Parr

Dude, shame and rage are such good fuel. I don't know, like people say, "Don't be angry." I'm like, "No, fuck that! Anger? I love anger!" I love anger. Anger gives me so much goodness. Like, I'm still like, what is the phrase? "Chips on shoulders, put chips in pockets." I love anger. Anger is such a good emotion to drive you.

Shaan Puri

I used to do that. I used to have a thing that I've taken off this list, which was "use your own psychology against you." So it'd be like: > "Oh, if I state publicly what I'm gonna do, then I feel the pressure to go ahead and do it." Or like, yeah, if I use kinda insecurity or anger, that could be a fantastic fuel for accomplishing my goals. But I don't personally do that anymore because it makes the process of doing the thing kind of unpleasant. It *is* effective for hitting the goal, but... [trails off]

Sam Parr

That's because you have this really big problem. You've got a huge problem. You know what your problem is?

Shaan Puri

I'm too happy

Sam Parr

Emotionally stable and happy? Yeah, you've got... that's a really big issue in your life. You're just too emotionally stable. So, you know, like I'm sorry that your parents were wonderful to you, but that's just the price you have to pay. You know what I mean?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, Sam goes around to his house, just like shaving half an inch off every table, just trying to get it to have a little bit of instability in it. He's like, "It's better."

Sam Parr

I want the plates to slide

Shaan Puri

baby yeah

Sam Parr

You know, I had the advantage of having a problematic childhood. You were disadvantaged by having a perfect little life.

Hubspot

this data is wrong every freaking time

Hubspot

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

Hubspot

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

Sam Parr

hubspot grow better

Shaan Puri

Alright, I'm gonna finish my goal thing real quick. I got three more. The last three, the most important three, are: I don't move unless I actually believe that it's gonna happen.

Shaan Puri

yeah

Shaan Puri

So, a lot of people will say, and I would say, Ben, you don't have to come back on, but people will say things like what Ben just said. I would say at least half the time, if they are honest with themselves, they want to be a top 100 podcast in the world, you know, in 12 months. If I say, "What do you think are the odds that that's gonna happen?" they'll be like, "Well, it is hard and it is risky." And they'll sort of like... if it comes down to it, their belief that it's actually going to happen is quite low. I don't let myself move unless I actually believe that it's gonna happen because there's this virtuous and vicious cycle: belief drives action. If I really believe that some shit's gonna work, if I really believe that this person's gonna say yes and buy my product, I will pick up the phone immediately and call them. It's only when I don't believe they're gonna buy my product that I'm like, "Well, I'll call them after I finish this PowerPoint." "Friday is not a good day to call because of this." And, "Hold on, let me just go clean my room real quick." You know, because I just want to get that done. Then I'm gonna be in a better headspace. It's your belief that drives the level of action you're gonna take. Massive belief equals massive action. Massive action equals a good result, and a good result reinforces the belief. This is also what happens to people who lack confidence. They don't believe, therefore they take timid action. Timid action creates shitty results, and that just reinforces to them, "See, I knew it wasn't gonna work. I kind of knew it wasn't gonna work. I knew it was gonna be too hard. I knew the odds were against us." Then it just happens again and again. So, I don't move until I work myself into a spot where my belief is super high. Last two baby goals or giggle steps: I've kind of learned that if you have a big goal, you gotta set a baby goal or a giggle step. A giggle step is a step...

Shaan Puri

that is is

Sam Parr

that a trademark giggle step and just a tip are you too

Shaan Puri

I met this woman, and she created this phrase. She was like, "Hey, you know that book *Atomic Habits* by James Clear?" I was like, "Yeah, yeah." She said, "It's alright." I was surprised and responded, "Oh, you mean like the best-selling book that's sold like 3,000,000 copies this year? One of the greatest self-help books in the last decade in terms of sales?" She replied, "Yeah, it's okay, but it's missing the most important thing." I asked, "What is it?" She explained, "He got it kind of right that you need to set a simple first step, but even his is way too hard. If you want to set a habit to floss your teeth every day, you actually want to start with something so simple it'll make you giggle because it's so not a goal that it's achievable, and you'll actually do it." So she said, "All you would do if you wanted to floss your teeth every day is literally put one piece of floss next to your bathroom sink. Just floss a single tooth, then put it down and walk away." I thought, "Oh, what's that gonna do? A single tooth?" She said, "It'll literally make you laugh. It takes away a lot of the fear and the built-up scariness of going down this endeavor."

Sam Parr

who's this who's this lady

Shaan Puri

I hate that I forgot her name now, but oof... yeah, I met her. I think it's Betsy... Betsy something. I gotta find her last name; I don't remember her last name.

Sam Parr

that sounds made up so far

Shaan Puri

And it also might not be her first name. I might be the worst person in the world, but like, "Giggles Steps" is good. Jevan, see if you can Google that and pull up her full name. I've only met her twice. Okay, the last one is: you gotta revise up or abort down. I think what a lot of people do is, as things get hard, they start to compromise the goal. They'll start revising it down, down, down, down, down to the point where it's not even motivating anymore. It's like you sort of took the edge off the goal. Now you kind of don't fail, but you also don't really succeed. So my rule is, I either revise up, meaning, "Oh shoot, I think this could be even bigger." For example, this podcast—we've revised up. It's now bigger than I thought it could be. So now I've revised up. It can actually be, you know, X millions of listeners every month. Hell, we're already at, you know, 1.3 million, 1.5 million, something like that, per month. Why can't this be...?

Sam Parr

way last month last month we were at 1.7 I think

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. So that's bigger than I would have guessed, right? If one was my original goal, I'm revising it up now. Or I'll just abort down. I'll say, "You know what? This isn't going to work."

Sam Parr

that's that that that's a weird word to to use to describe this

Shaan Puri

it's a

Sam Parr

weird word

Shaan Puri

Well, you know, "eject" maybe is the better way to say it. I will just **eject** out of the plane if I feel like, you know, now that we have given it every throw and everything we've got at this, and we've learned new things. We have new information that tells us this isn't going to work. Rather than compromising down and getting stuck on something we're not even really excited about, if we're no longer excited about it, I'll just change the goal completely or I'll leave the goal aside. I'll just go do something else because the new information has kind of shown me something. It's just a check to say, "Don't just continuously dial it down," because that's very tempting to do, and it's very easy to slip into mediocrity. So, by forcing myself with something harsh, which is, "Alright, would I just quit this?" It's like so harsh that it forces me to, like, no, stick with the real goal and find a way to make it happen or change, you know, based on your new understanding of reality. Change this completely. Don't just take it down a notch and another notch and another notch, and now it's all of a sudden not even that special to be good. So those are my **how to hit goals**. Those are the things I do to hit goals.

Sam Parr

I remember years ago when we were just trying to make it happen. You said, "I think $6,000,000 is the number I need to feel financially secure," or I don't remember what word you used—maybe stable or that I need to never work again, free. Did that goal change as you got older? Were you right or wrong about that goal?

Shaan Puri

I think I was right, but I was wrong in one key aspect. Actually, I said it on the podcast early on, and our friend Narendra DM'd me. He was like...

Shaan Puri

you're wrong

Shaan Puri

Hey, you're wrong. Six won't be enough for you. I was like, "Well, I don't know. I do the math." He's like, "It's not enough." First of all, maybe your target return of what you think you're going to make on that six... you know, the idea is if you have a certain amount of money invested, what can it earn? It's going to compound at some rate, 5%, 7% a year, whatever it is. Could you live off of that compound interest rather than... and the principal would never go down? You would never have to withdraw lower than the principal. So you'd be financially free. You don't need new net income coming in because the money you have is working for you now, and you don't have to go work for your money.

Shaan Puri

and you

Sam Parr

thought that was 6

Shaan Puri

I thought it was 6 because I had done some calculations. Okay, now I think the number is... the real number is probably closer to 10 or 11, and the aspirational number is like 25 and up. Because then it's like, "Oh, it's not even close at that point."

Sam Parr

So, the reason why I'm bringing that up is the interesting thing about goals. I used to think if I achieve this thing, whether it's financial...

Shaan Puri

or body or whatever that

Sam Parr

like I'm gonna be changed and body

Shaan Puri

or whatever that like I'm going to be changed and I realized that pretty much across the board every goal that I

Sam Parr

Achieve... I'm like, "Oh, this was not as cool as I thought. I'm going to create a harder one." At first, I was bummed, but now I'm like, "Oh no, that's not it." It's just the chase. Like, I'm born to hunt, you know what I mean? I have to chase a goal, and I have to accept that when I hit my goal, it's not going to change much. It's just going to be a cool benchmark to go to the next one. So with goal setting lately, or over the last couple of years, I've been like, "Oh, just know that this isn't going to change anything." But it will be exciting to chase after it. That's an interesting thing that I've learned a little bit as I've gotten older with goals.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, and specifically financial goals. Your lifestyle creeps up. So, like before, when I did the, let's say, $6,000,000 number, I was like, "Alright, $6,000,000. If I earn 5%, if I'm getting 5%, let's say the S&P kind of average return is 8% or something like that." I was like, "Okay, let's say I can get 5%. What would be, you know, that's $300,000 a year. Cool." At the time, I think I was spending under $200,000 a year in my burn. I was like, "Oh, that's good, and I have like, you know, a 30% buffer." Well, now I spend, I think, more than that. And so, because lifestyle creeps up, it's like, you know, I started to pay for more stuff. I started to buy more things. I started to travel a little bit differently. I started to do all the things that people do, and now you...

Sam Parr

didn't travel differently you don't you just don't travel

Shaan Puri

But when I do, I travel a little bit differently. The lifestyle creeps up, and so I think that's the thing you have to do. If you're not trying to be really disciplined in your lifestyle, which I'm not, I think life is to be enjoyed and I want to enjoy it to the fullest extent I know. As I learn new things, new ways to enjoy, I want to do those things and not feel limited by money. I think you've got to account for that. You've got to over-buffer.

Sam Parr

are you looking to buy a house now

Shaan Puri

I'm looking at either buying or renting a new house yeah

Sam Parr

dude renting is so awesome I've been loving renting man don't buy

Shaan Puri

me too

Sam Parr

yeah it's it's it's sick

Shaan Puri

the only downside with renting is just like sometimes you don't there's not enough inventory for like

Sam Parr

what you

Shaan Puri

Wanting to find something when you're in the suburbs... but if you're patient, you can just find it. Right now, the market seems to be, at least where I'm at in California and the Bay Area, moving. Everything's getting marked down. So, everything's down 20-30%, except for stubborn sellers who haven't realized yet that they need to mark down. Even those sellers aren't getting offers, and then they're pulling their listings off the market because they're like, "Okay, it's not selling. Now this just looks bad." They're switching to, "Okay, we'll rent this," or "We'll just stay in it," or whatever. The market is quickly turning here to a buyer's market, which is what I'm kind of seeing.

Sam Parr

Alright, I have something interesting to share with you. Have you heard of this company called Woot? W-O-O-T.

Shaan Puri

Of course, yeah. Woot was like an internet staple, an OG staple. It was one of the cool websites where you would go and there was a daily deal. It's like, "Buy this TV for like $22" or something.

Sam Parr

So, Ethan Brooks at The Hustle kind of told me about it, but I had read about it for a bit because the founder interests me. He's this guy named Matt Rutledge, and Woot was, like you said, one of the original daily deal sites. It was acquired by Amazon, and the story is really interesting. I remember reading this a couple of years ago. So, Matt Rutledge is this guy from Dallas, and he flies up to Seattle to meet with Bezos, like, you know, right when it closes. They get a Sunday breakfast, and Rutledge wrote that Bezos had, like, a weird energy the whole time. But whatever, I'm sitting in this meal, and I finally just say, "So, Jeff, why did you buy Woot?" Jeff had just ordered breakfast, and they have the meals in front of them. He looks down at the meal, then he looks at Matt, and like 15 seconds pass. Matt's thinking, "Should I just ask him if he wants to move on and we could just skip this?" Jeff looks down at his meal again, then looks back up at Rutledge and says, "You see, you're the octopus that I'm having for breakfast right now." Because Jeff had just ordered, like, eggs and octopus for some reason—like a weird breakfast. He goes, "When I look at the menu, you're the thing that I just don't understand." Basically, he had never ordered octopus for breakfast before, and he's like, "This is weird. I'm gonna order it. I've never seen it before. I don't get it. I'm gonna order it. You are the thing that I've never had, and I must have for breakfast: the octopus." And that's why he said he bought this guy's company. This Rutledge guy was like, "Dude, you're fucking insane." He didn't think about it like that. My takeaway was Rutledge was not like, "Oh, you're..."

Shaan Puri

**Fake story. That is a fake story. You either just made that up.**

Sam Parr

or no I read it in an article those are quotes

Shaan Puri

made it up that is too

Sam Parr

those are direct quotes

Shaan Puri

hilarious to be that is too hilarious to be real

Sam Parr

The exact quote is incredible. This is... I'm going to read it verbatim from the article. This is Matt in Rutledge telling the reporter, "You're the octopus that I'm having for breakfast. When I look at the menu, you're the thing that I just don't understand. The thing I've never had. I must have breakfast octopus." And he just... and that was like a 20-second pause for him to say that. Just like this... *fucking weirdo*, you know? Like a *Star Trek* type of guy. And as you would expect, as one would expect from what...

Shaan Puri

There have been many great stories on this podcast. Many great stories... thousands of great stories, I might say. This was the greatest story I've ever heard on this podcast. First of all, you told it great. I didn't know where you were going with this: - The breakfast - The looking down - The looking up - The 15 seconds And then that line... "Is all-time weirdo." That is *so weird* of a thing to do. What do you expect?

Shaan Puri

what do

Sam Parr

You expect? I was actually... I did a podcast the other day with someone, and they asked me about my successful friends and what they all have in common. I was like, "Well, they all work hard, they all are smart, but they're all *fucking weird*." They're all weird, and like everyone I know who's successful is pretty *fucking weird*.

Shaan Puri

so who do you know that would say that line by the way not that line

Sam Parr

no one no one but that guy's like bezos is like the weirdest of the weird the maybe me

Shaan Puri

maybe me

Shaan Puri

the only guy

Sam Parr

yeah like I've heard him say like yeah like your business is one Google away from me destroying you like he says stuff like that but this guy says I must have the breakfast octopus but this company woot it's really interesting because it's basically just a daily deal site whatever and like matt is like he said amazon ruined it as you'd expect and like but they did all this funny stuff like they would sell a daily deal and then the deals that they didn't sell they would create this feature called a bag of crap which is a a a thing that like users would just buy blindly and in the faqs it says like well if you don't like it just list it on ebay but we don't take refunds and anyway he leaves and he starts another thing and he calls it the me a mediocre corporation that's originally what it's called and the and the underlying premise is that we're building a store that you don't need to buy anything to have fun so like their copy is really really good and he basically said in an article he was like I want everyone's expectations to be incredibly low with this business so that's why we called it a mediocre corporation and it's pretty hilarious and I was reading their copy and so now a mediocre core corporation they basically own like 8 different websites so and they're all like daily deal sites and all of them have like 350 to $2,000,000 2,000,000 visits a month so I bet you they're it's actually a pretty substantial business and if you read the copy it's beautiful it's wonderful it's a wonderful copy and I was thinking about this the the basically as I've sold my company to a big company I've realized that basically for the longest time I thought basically the only thing that a start up has that's better than a big company and why a start can win is like focus we could focus harder on stuff and we can move faster so we can move fast and have more focus and then I started reading about this guy and I started thinking about like the hustle like what made it interesting and the second and the third thing that I've add is that basically be because there's less bureaucracy you can have more soul you can do more funny interesting stuff and the reason you can is basically the founder comes up with something says like we're just gonna do it whereas at a big company there's like middle management and they're like I don't wanna lose my job so I'm not taking this risk I'm not gonna pitch the bag of crap like feature even though that's hilarious and users love it I ain't pitching it I am I'm not gonna do it and I'll give you a good example so I love appsumo appsumo was started by my friend noah kagan and neville maduro is my good my best friend and he like helped run it and it was a daily deal site as well listen to this copy so they ran a deal one time where you could purchase like fonts I don't know how you buy fonts but that was the thing listen to the opening paragraph from the daily email that he sent out neville wrote this if the names lucinda sands unico unicode or court courier new don't mean anything to you go ahead and close this message you see my friend today we're reaching out to the community of people known as font whores you know who you are if your knees go weak when I whisper garamond you might be one you might be one of them and I read this I remember I read this years ago before I met neville and I was like this is this is beauty this is beautiful this turns off the people who you want to be turned off and it gets you know the people who you want it and I was just like in my head I'm like dude you're writing about having sex with this font that is so funny that is awesome you are making the most boring topic really cool and you cannot do that at a big company it's incredibly hard and it's not hard because the company's bad or good it's just that's the rules of the game and it's just like you're playing you know the game on hard mode if you're trying to like make a big company cute and I would just think this is just this company wu it's just such a perfect example you should go to some of their websites they're they're they're the mediocre corporation they own casemates mediocrity that's one of their things they own this site called meh.com side deal morning save and it's just deals and I thought it was interesting and the copy is hilarious and this is and I've been thinking about businesses that you can build which you are building and I did where it's just like 1 or 2 people can kinda be the tastemakers and that can scale and be leveraged really nicely kinda like a daily email you know what I mean but as you get bigger you you can won't be able to do it all it's gonna get worse and worse and I think that's just what's gonna happen

Shaan Puri

Yeah, totally! By the way, their domain is **mediocre.com**, which is an amazing domain to have. This is such a cool story; I love that! And I love that email by Neville. That's amazing copy. I think it's so true about personality. You said "soul," but I would say **personality** because it's not just personality you interact with. It is such a differentiator in life, in all aspects of life. But it also works in business. People go into business assuming they have to play some role. They feel like they have to put on a suit and tie and be some character. All they're doing is simply blending in with every other suit and tie that exists out there. I see this all the time: founders will try to play the same game as the companies they admire—the big companies, the successful companies. They assume that because these companies are successful, they need to act like them if they, too, want to be successful. What they forget is that before they were successful, early on, the way they got successful was through having **personality**, having a point of view, and having some edges to them. Those edges keep some people away because it's too rough for them; it's not what they wanted. For other people, they're like, "Wow, this is the handle I need to grab onto because I love this." So, you know, before Apple was Apple, they were at the **Homebrew Computer Club**. They had the two advantages you talked about. You said focus; I call it **freakishly obsessive**, and I use that word specifically because they are obsessed with some topic. Whatever it is, it could be **Raspberry Pis**, it could be **blockchains**, it could be whatever. They're usually obsessed with something that's not mainstream because it's not that fun to be obsessed with something that's already totally mainstream.

Shaan Puri

there's not there's not

Shaan Puri

Much joy in that for this person. The second is that they're freakishly obsessed, which is not only an extreme form of obsession, but they're willing to go to lengths that other people wouldn't. The topic is usually niche and weird. For example, fonts are a good example of one of those things. Then the other part that you mentioned, which is personality, just gets squashed out of a big company. Imagine if, at the beginning, when you're one or two people, the personality of the company is basically the personality of the founder or founders. It's typically like a room...

Sam Parr

Of people, and they're like one-upping each other. It's like, "That's funny." But check this out: what if we even went harder? You know, like you could have that vibe because you're incentivized to do that. You want to grow; you want to do interesting stuff.

Shaan Puri

totally

Sam Parr

you're not incentivized once the company gets bigger

Shaan Puri

Imagine a room. Imagine a room with one person. Okay, it's just that person—whatever that person thinks is normal to them. Now, you add two people, two co-founders. Maybe they're both a little bit weird, and so they riff off of each other. It gets going. Now you add the third wheel. Even if that third wheel is totally vanilla, a total normal person, they're now outnumbered. So they join in, and they're like, "Alright, I guess that's how we get down here." You had a phrase: "You need to let your freak flag fly if you're gonna work here." So whoever came in, you indoctrinated them into your weird culture to do weird stuff and cool stuff that was normal there. The third person comes in, and even if they're vanilla, all of a sudden they become flavored too. The fourth person comes in, same thing. But at some point, I don't know where it is—15, 20, 30, 40, 50 people—somewhere in that range, I would say between 15 and 50 people, the person who gets hired typically will spend most of their time not with the founders anymore. Now, that one vanilla person is spending time with a bunch of other vanilla people, and they're hiring other people who have a greater and greater percentage of vanilla. It starts with needing to be 25-30% because, hey, we need to be serious and get stuff done around here. Then you start hiring 50% vanilla, and by the time you get to 50 or 100 people, you're hiring 100% vanilla people. Those people, now when someone says a weird idea, it's crickets in the room. It's risks come first. There are reasons why not, rather than why we would. It's, "Oh yeah, that has this one extreme strength, but it might have some other extreme weaknesses, so don't take the risk."

Sam Parr

It's just like... bullshit excuses.

Shaan Puri

right what will they say what will they think and so what will they say

Shaan Puri

but really

Sam Parr

What it comes down to is, I've got a good gig. I don't want to mess it up. Let's not rattle this, you know? I don't want to shake this up.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. I'm not comfortable shaking it up because I don't know that that's what we do here. A lot of time has passed, and I don't hang out with the people who are totally high conviction of being weird. I have more to lose than I have to gain by doing this. When I share this idea, I don't get respect in the room. I get sort of strange glances and a little nervous laughter. Then, you know, somebody tells me why my idea is a bad idea. So, I learned to just keep that... my freak flag is now buried at the bottom of my trunk. It's folded up and in its case. That's what happens at the end of these companies. Now, some companies fight that off. For example, this is why I think a lot of people like founder-led companies. They keep that soul. They have one person in the company who has gravitas. I think this happened at Tesla and at Elon’s companies. He is so publicly weird, big thinking, and out there, willing to just go with it. He kind of sets the tone. Even if you don't have meetings with Elon on a day-to-day basis or work with him, you still get the culture from him inside the company.

Sam Parr

from seeing what

Shaan Puri

he does on twitter so he kinda performs did you see his new

Sam Parr

butthole feature

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. So now, if you're at Tesla, you're like, "Okay, the boss's boss's boss's boss likes that weird stuff." It gets a bunch of play on Twitter, and we've seen five things pay off by going overboard. Like, does the Cybertruck window really need to be bulletproof? No, but Elon would think that's **fucking cool**, so we're gonna do it. I know Elon thinks it's gonna be cool because he lets the flag fly on Twitter. I see it, even though I don't interact with him day to day. So that's one way to scale that personality: to have such a strong personality and do it on blast. Another version... I remember when I was at Twitch.

Sam Parr

He's gotta put up with so much shit for that. And it's actually tough to be in his position. I've been in this position, and I've backed down a bunch of times where I'm like, "Oh fine, I'll let you guys get your way this time." You know, like, "You're gonna quit if I don't give it to you? Fine, I'll let you have it this time." In my head, I'm like, "This is the wrong decision," but I'm only agreeing to go with this, even though I don't like it, because I don't want them to quit. I just don't want this headache right now. Whereas he's the type of guy, because he's, you know, on the spectrum, he's like, "No, I don't pick up on this social cue. We are not doing this. This is fine. I'm okay being uncomfortable here." You know what I'm saying? And that's how I'm inspired by him a little bit.

Shaan Puri

The belief in himself and also just the lack of self-awareness is important there, right? You can't be like us; you can't be a self-aware wolf and just have too much self-awareness. You have to have a little bit of, like, you know, you don't give a fuck in your system in order to do this well. At Twitch, one thing happened that I remember. I was super proud to be there working at the time because I gave it a lot of thought. You know, I just did the sort of stereotypical startup guy thing where you're like, "Startup cool, big company dumb. Big company slow, big company boring, big company no risk, big company no innovation." Right? Like, it's the startup caveman who's just like, you know, "Dumb, small startup good," even though the small startup is failing and has no money, no users, no impact, no nothing. It's like, still in our head, there's something to be really proud of there. But sometimes at these companies, some really cool stuff happens. I remember one instance was when they released this campaign for Prime Day. So, Twitch gets bought by Amazon, and Amazon wants all of its companies to really push Prime Day. It's basically its own Black Friday that they created, where it's like, "Yo, here's an excuse to go spend a bunch of money that you otherwise weren't going to spend." Prime Day is huge for Amazon. So, the memo comes down: "Twitch, you need to support Prime Day." Then everyone's at Twitch like, "Shit, what do we do?" Twitch has a user base that is so easily offended. It's like anything Twitch does, any policy it creates, it's like, "Hey, we're increasing safety for women." And then people say, "Why? Because women can't defend themselves?" It's like, dude, we're just trying to help! We're not trying to offend anybody every step of the way, but you could sort of do no right. So, people were just like, "Dude, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna promote this? Like, Amazon Prime, go buy shit? People are gonna think we're just total sellouts. This is not gonna be cool."

Sam Parr

so what do they do

Shaan Puri

Gonna be going over well. So, I don't know who the genius is in this company, but somebody was like, "Imagine a TV show where they're like, 'God, everybody just thinks we're just a sellout.' Everybody just thinks it's just a sellout." And if you cue the dream music, like, "Sellout, sellout," I got it! Twitch sells out, and they made it. Yeah, they like turned it on its head and went self-aware, you know? It's like in *It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia*, where the gang goes to a Trump rally or whatever. It's like the event was, "Come watch how hard Twitch will sell out today." They basically leaned into it completely instead of trying to do it and then sort of set themselves up to catch a bunch of arrows from the users who were like, "God, stop trying to promote Prime Day! This is annoying. This is why I didn't want Amazon to buy Twitch. I knew it was just gonna sell out to this corporation."

Sam Parr

I call that the 8 mile strategy have you seen 8 mile

Shaan Puri

yes exactly

Sam Parr

Like, that was one, like, the last scene. Eminem's like, "Yeah, I am white. Yeah, I am poor. Yeah, this guy did have sex with my mom. Yeah, this all happened." And then it, like, he makes it entertaining. And then the other guys are like, "Fuck, I can't make fun of him about that." Yeah, like, I can't mock that. You just took it away from me, you know what I mean? I'm powerless here. Like, it's the 8 Mile strategy, and I love it.

Shaan Puri

That’s exactly what it is. So, yeah, they went full Slim Shady. What they did was create a QVC-style set, right? Like the cheesiest, salesiest set. Then they invited the big streamers. It was like they created this neon '80s logo that said "Twitch Sells Out." People would jog onto the stage and say, "Today, I'm going to sell you this shitty blender." People found it so entertaining. It was funny and self-aware. They just nailed it, and it sold like crazy. It was so successful. I don’t know who this was, but it was somebody in the creative marketing department. I think I met them at one point. I was like, "Hey, you don’t know this, but that was the number one thing I respected. Of all the features we shipped and all the projects we tried, that was my favorite. That was my number one. I thought that was so well done, whoever came up with it."

Shaan Puri

up with

Shaan Puri

That you had guts, you had creativity, and you turned a disadvantage into an advantage. Which is, like, for me, that's the highest form of respect. When I see somebody who can take a disadvantage and flip it to an advantage, it's like... that's my person. You are everything that's right about business in my book.

Sam Parr

I love that I'm gonna look that up I wanna see I wanna I like I wanna see the content I bet it's hilarious

Shaan Puri

it's good it was really well done

Sam Parr

we need to come up with a better way to end the show if we're gonna come up with a way to start it we have to come up with

Shaan Puri

a yeah

Shaan Puri

hey just

Shaan Puri

sort of before you guys end up with

Ben Wilson

sean you you never talked about the basketball game

Sam Parr

oh yeah you gotta talk about that do you wanna talk about that

Shaan Puri

Yeah, let's do it. I gotta be a little vague about it, but yeah, let's do it. You guys saw... so I sent you guys the guest list for this thing. I guess I should explain what it is. So I went...

Sam Parr

to a conference that'd be smart yeah

Shaan Puri

I went to a conference and it was fun. It was a lot of fun, but I don't know about you, but I have this feeling before I go to a conference which is like... there's like a 48-hour period before where I'm like...

Sam Parr

what are the reasons I could

Shaan Puri

Not going to do this... Yeah, what are the reasons I could get out of this? I don't know why that urge comes over me. I think, like, just the idea in my head of what a conference entails is like this stuffy ballroom with awkward handshake conversations with people who, you know, nobody knows each other. It's just like the worst first day of college all over again, every day in my professional life now. So I was like, yeah, I just hate that feeling and I hate conferences. But there is some magic at conferences that happens. I do like meeting new people, I do like learning new things, and I do like some of the little side events that happen at the conference that are not the speaker on the stage and not the networking mixer where I have to go barge in and say, "What are you guys talking about?" "Oh, you guys have known each other for 10 years? Cool! Well, I'm Sean. I have a... Do you guys like podcasts?" Just like, you know... Oh, you don't really know.

Shaan Puri

we do

Shaan Puri

okay yeah

Shaan Puri

no I

Shaan Puri

I was just asking if you guys knew where the bathroom was. I was waiting this whole time to barge in and ask that. I'm going now. See you, dude.

Shaan Puri

by the way this

Sam Parr

The best way to approach that, I've learned, is just saying, "Hey, I don't know anyone here. Can I join your conversation?" I've noticed that to be the best. It's the upfront method.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. I dislike conferences for that reason. At the same time, I'm like, "Dude, I miss doing some stuff that was really fun that I just don't make a lot of time for nowadays." I miss just playing basketball. I used to play for 3 hours a day, just pick-up games. It was so fun! That was the best time—just me and my friends playing. We used to meet a bunch of cool people doing that. So, I was talking to Ben— not Producer Ben, but Business Partner Ben. I said, "Dude, what if we could get the magic of a conference to combine with the magic of just playing pick-up basketball? Is there a way to do this?" He's like, "Yeah, I got an idea." We came up with this concept. We have a friend who trains some of the biggest NBA stars. He's been training them for years. These are all-star, Hall of Fame-level players, and he's their personal trainer. He'll go to their house and work with them every day in the summer and things like that. We've become friendly with him because he's an entrepreneur, and we've gotten to know him that way, helping each other out with our businesses. So, we were like, "Yo, his name's Alex Basil. You train Kyrie Irving, you train Trae Young, you train Carmelo Anthony. What if I just got a bunch of business dorks together who all love basketball? Would you train us like you train them? Like a fantasy camp? Can we just pretend for a weekend that we are those guys?" He's like, "Yeah, I'm down! Just pick a weekend as long as I'm free, and we'll do it." I was like, "Okay." Once I had one side of it, I thought, "Alright, what if we just got like 10 to 12 people who were..."

Sam Parr

you need your anchor though you need your whale

Shaan Puri

And we needed our whale, and I was like, "How do I get people to come to this?" I was like, first of all, I don't even know who plays basketball and who doesn't. I was thinking, "Who would I want? Who's: 1. A great hang 2. Loves basketball 3. Successful enough in business where if I go invite the next person, the pull is that these other people are coming"

Shaan Puri

right

Shaan Puri

That's the key to any great event: these other people are going to be there. **The people are the event.** That way, I don't have to be great with the food and beverages, and like the environment... I have all these logistics I'm not good at. Like, the people are the event as long as the people are there to work. And so, I won't say who, but we landed one big whale - Famous Person X - and then the dominoes [started to fall].

Sam Parr

famous world famous mainstream famous type of person

Shaan Puri

Exactly. So, a mainstream, famous type of person. Then I was like, "Okay, cool." I started to get a couple of friends in, and then I sent you the guest list because you're coming.

Sam Parr

yeah

Shaan Puri

And producer Ben is coming. Or, like I told you guys to come, I don't know if you guys are coming or not, but you should come. It'll be fun.

Sam Parr

when's the date did you say the date

Shaan Puri

It's next month, or it's in 20 days. So it's 20 days from now, but you saw that guest list, dude. It's coming together! There are some pretty awesome people going now, and now it's way bigger than like 10 people. We've got 20 people. This is like...

Sam Parr

how many how big do you want it to be

Shaan Puri

Their dad owns this NBA team, and this person just sold their company for all this money. Then this person, they're the CEO of this publicly traded company. Like, I didn't even know that guy likes to play, you know? There's a whole bunch of really interesting people. I think this is gonna be dope, and I think this is a way better way. I think this is a hack where I don't have to go attend conferences; I get to host.

Shaan Puri

dude you

Sam Parr

should invite laurie jet.com

Shaan Puri

I should invite him yeah I haven't invited him yet

Sam Parr

that's a good one

Shaan Puri

if if he plays he don't he even owns a basketball team

Sam Parr

yeah I mean he's awesome

Shaan Puri

I will invite him but yeah what do you think about this

Sam Parr

This is awesome! It's gonna be the best. I think it's gonna be really fun. I think you should invite even bigger, more famous people than just like internet dorks. Mark would be cool, or... I don't know who else. That's actually the hard part: to think about who to invite. But yeah, it's gonna be awesome. I think it's gonna be really fun. I think it's a great idea. I think making yourself the center of these types of things is **badass**. It's a net win, there's no downside, right? Do you out-of-pocket any money?

Shaan Puri

I don't know. I haven't even thought about cost yet, but like, yeah, it will cost money to do this. However, it's not going to be super crazy, and I think everyone...

Sam Parr

would pitch in

Shaan Puri

Everyone would pitch in. Just let me clarify: we're not trying to make a profit off this thing. We're just trying to cover all the costs and make it dope.

Sam Parr

no I think it's a great idea

Shaan Puri

that'd be the goal

Sam Parr

And it would be... I was gonna look sick on social. Like, it's work-related. Let's tell Daddy HubSpot to pay for it.

Shaan Puri

Hey fellas, quick break between games here. I just want to quickly talk to you guys about your CRM needs.

Sam Parr

they'll be into it I think they're trying to if they're

Shaan Puri

gonna just gather around I have a quick powerpoint that

Sam Parr

I'd love to just run you through it. Yeah, I mean, it's hard. I think they would, but no, make them pay for it if we can record.

Shaan Puri

oh that's we only

Sam Parr

need to record we only need to record 1 or 2 things

Shaan Puri

We should record each day. We could probably record 2 or 3 things. We could even have 2 people on at a time, so it's not like... dude.

Sam Parr

and we should get couches and have people playing in the background

Shaan Puri

Yeah, the game is just running in the background. The audio sucks. It's just so much like screaming from that.

Sam Parr

The Full Send guys did a wedding. I think it was Post Malone's manager or some famously known person who was getting married. They set up a studio off to the side of the reception area, and they were in there recording a podcast for an hour. Logan Paul popped in for about 10 minutes, and this other person popped in for about 5 minutes. It was really cool; it was a great podcast. We should do something like that! They were like, "Alright, you guys wanna go back? I think dessert's at our table." And they went back. It was a pretty awesome idea. Yeah, it was really good. If you had explained it to me, I would have thought, "Oh, this isn't cool." But when I saw them pull it off, I was like, "Oh, this is actually really neat. We should totally do that and ask HubSpot to front the bill."

Shaan Puri

alright great alright done done

Sam Parr

alright well good idea that's a pod that was a good one