10 Lessons We Learned From Filming 131 Episodes of My First Million In 2023

Shaan Puri 0:00 If you wanna stay being a broke idiot, don't listen to this video

Sam Parr 0:03 Yes. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 0:03 And then he'll be like, he'll be like, "Here's the first lesson for you. Do this. And I know what you're gonna say, blah, blah, blah. Well, here's what I say about that." And then he'll, like, flash his, like, fancy shit. [upbeat music] So Sam texted me this morning and he goes, "We did over 100 million views this year for the podcast." And 100 million, I thought he was wrong. I was like, "No way. You gotta go double-check that." Uh, he was right. We did, and that is way more than I thought we did. That is a bonkers number. I remember when we started this podcast, that sounded completely crazy. And what we wanted to do today, it's the end of the year, we wanted to look back and find what were the key takeaways and lessons that we learned from the 100 million views that we had this year on the podcast. So what were the biggest things that stood out when we look at the whole year? What were the biggest takeaways that we had? Uh, Sam, wh- where do you wanna start?

Sam Parr 1:08 Yeah, let me... Let's just get the lead out the way. Let's start with the numbers. So I'm gonna give you... I'll be transparent about a bunch of numbers, but not all, but a few. Um, all right, so in the last twe- 11, uh, um, so we have 11... We have 10 days left in the new year, so I... We're not actually at 100 million. I think technically we're at 95 million, but I think it's, the past few months, it's been, like, five million a week. So on YouTube, we got 80 million downloads or 80 million views so far. That includes YouTube Shorts, which is, those pop off sometimes, and we'll get millions of views. And so I don't put too much emphasis on that, but, so, uh, YouTube was around 80 million. And then downloads for the podcast, the actual podcast, so we call, we call everything the podcast, but there's basically, we call it the RSS feed. That's Spotify, iTunes, whatever you listen to your podcasts. That was around 15 million, and so collectively we're at, at about 95 million. We did 131 episodes, um, which is a ton, by the way. Like, this job, it's fun, but that's a lot of work. Do you agree?

Shaan Puri 2:14 [laughs]

Sam Parr 2:15 Like, or, or do you, do you still think that every episode is fun?

Shaan Puri 2:18 Every episode is fun to me, and I feel like I'm able to, um, I feel like I'm able to improvise well. So it is a lot of work, but there are some days, some of our best episodes are ideas we have 90 minutes before we record and someone sends a text saying, "Actually, what if we tried this?" And, uh, those turn out really well sometimes. And I think it's because what we've tried to do is make this podcast the byproduct of the other work we do. So it's like the, the basic business model is do interesting business shit, so, so invest in businesses, create businesses, talk to interesting people, and then the p- pod is just distill the, you know, the, the most interesting 10% that you're allowed to talk about and go talk about it. And so if we do that right, the pod's pretty easy. When we don't do that right, then the pod gets pretty hard.

Sam Parr 3:08 But it's kind of like exercising. Like, some days I don't want to do it, and then a- almost every single time, even if it's a bad episode or something I didn't like, I didn't love, I feel happy and I'm proud that I did it.

Shaan Puri 3:21 Right.

Sam Parr 3:21 So for me it's, it's, it's like exercise. Um, all right, and I'll give you a few more stats. So do you want me to go through the most pop- the top three most popular episodes?

Shaan Puri 3:28 Yeah. What are they?

Sam Parr 3:30 All right. So we actually have two categories. So, which is weird, because the most popular episodes on YouTube are not the most popular episodes on podcasts. So again, RSS feed. So the three most popular episodes on Megaphone, that's what we use to track this. The first one is The Greatest Businesses of All Times: PsyOps-as-a-Service Work Harder, Not Smarter Hack. That was the, the title. The second one was Brainstorming ChatGPT Business Ideas With Billionaire Dharmesh Shah. And the third one, shockingly, I didn't think this was gonna be the top one or one of the top ones, was Nick, Nick Huber, How to Make Millions From Content Without Selling Ads. That was the most popular, the top three most popular on podcasts. The top three most popular on YouTube, it was the same one actually. It was Brainstorming ChatGPT Business Ideas With The Billionaire. It was with Dharmesh Shah. That has 450,000 views. I don't know this for sure. I think he did something, Dharmesh did, to manipulate this.

Shaan Puri 4:23 [laughs]

Sam Parr 4:23 I think he, for sure, emailed this out to his audience. I wouldn't be surprised if he bought ads or did something because Dharmesh loves to win and be number one.

Shaan Puri 4:31 [laughs]

Sam Parr 4:31 So he's number one on YouTube. The second most popular one on YouTube, 10 Years of Money Wisdom in Under 20 Minutes, 425,000. That is you by yourself, and I think you made that episode with YouTube in mind. Is that right?

Shaan Puri 4:44 Yeah. Made that as a YouTube first.

Sam Parr 4:47 And it worked. And then the third one was very recent. It was November 2nd. How I Bought a Multi-Million Dollar E-Cart Business For $0, 391,000 views on YouTube. Sarah Moore and Shaan. And then I'll just say the fourth one

Sam Parr 5:00 was Martin Shkreli when we interviewed him. That had 257,000 views.

Shaan Puri 5:04 Right.

Sam Parr 5:04 Um, so that was a, tho- some of those were a bit surprising. What do you think about that?

Shaan Puri 5:10 Those make sense to me. I mean, each of those is basically, when I read the title, I'm like, "Yeah, I'd click. I'd click that." And that's basically what, [laughs] what works on YouTube is I'd click that, and then you gotta deliver on the promise. And so, uh, you know, maybe this is, maybe this whole content thing is a lot simpler, and you just gotta get the, get the titles right, and then you work backwards from there. Make the content off the title.

Sam Parr 5:31 Well, and this, this point is for any content creator out there. We, you and I, this show, we are kind of bastard children of content creators, so we started without YouTube. We only went for podcast downloads on podcast apps. I think we had a YouTube channel, but it was really, like, you and I went to [laughs] Best Buy and we bought a camera and we just set it there and we just uploaded it. And, and so we didn't really care about it. I think we only started caring about a year ago. And, uh, what's crazy is I- I- if you really wanna do it the right way, or maybe not, but the really right way is you start with one in mind and you go all in on that. We didn't go all in on YouTube. I don't think we should have, but, but I understand the argument that we should have, because what works on YouTube doesn't always work on RSS feed and vice versa. Um, and so speaking of YouTube, by the way, do you wanna hear... Here, here's a few more stats. So we added, uh, so we did 131 episodes. We added about 250,000 subscribers. Or sorry, 210,000 subscribers, subscribers. We started the year at 150,000 and we ended with 360,000. And you wanna know the, the biggest needle mover besides actually caring about YouTube? Uh, do you wanna know what it was that got us subscribers?

Shaan Puri 6:47 Uh, I, I'm gonna guess it's the gentleman agreement. Is that not it?

Sam Parr 6:49 The, the gentleman's agreement.

Shaan Puri 6:51 [laughs]

Sam Parr 6:51 And so for all the listeners out there, here's another takeaway. When you hear a YouTuber say, "Click the subscribe button," and all that, and you hear everyone say that, and it gets... You, you think it doesn't matter. We saw a, there's a distinct point in the chart where we asked people to subscribe, and it went up. And so, like, it absolutely works. And so it's sort of like the thing, you know how people say, "Why are you buying ads on Facebook? Nobody uses Facebook. No one clicks ads." Nonsense. That is absolutely not true.

Shaan Puri 7:20 [upbeat music] I can't find this client info.

Speaker 7:25 Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application. Every team can stay aligned. No out of sync spreadsheets or dueling databases. HubSpot, grow better.

Shaan Puri 7:39 Yeah, and actually, that was one of my takeaways for the year was when we were like, "All right, we should start growing on YouTube. What do we, you know, what do we not like about... What, what's stopping us from wanting to do that?" And one of the things is, dude, I don't wanna be that guy who's like, "All right guys, if you like this video, click the like button, then smash the subscribe button, and turn on notifications as well." It's like, oh God, I gotta turn into, you know, like, inflatable arm YouTube guy. And, uh, you know, like, in front of the car dealerships, it's like that, that wave, you know-

Sam Parr 8:06 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 8:06 ... inflatable arm balloon thing. I was like, "Oh God, I don't wanna do this." But you had a really great idea of this idea of the gentleman's agreement. So basically, how do you do the cringe thing in the non-cringe way, right? How do you turn lemons into lemonade? You did it with the gentleman's agreement. I think we also did it recently with the Thrill of the Shill, where it's like-

Sam Parr 8:23 Yeah

Shaan Puri 8:23 ... all right, look, we wanna have ads to promote our businesses. Cool. That's fine. And I think the audience gets that that's fine. But how do we not make this an experience that's annoying for us to do, like sit down and record these, like, shitty ad reads, and then on the audience side, they just wanna hit the skip button? It's like, what would be neither? What would be fun for us and f- actually fun for them to listen to? And then when we switched to the Thrill of the Shill, I feel like that was a good idea. And I think that's something that people should do more of, if you can pull it off, right? Um, you should basically set a standard of like, "No, no, no, I'm gonna have my cake and eat it too." And, uh, I feel like we did that in two areas this year, and I, I feel like that's a, that's something worth, worth remembering as we go into next year of like, all right, what would also be, um, instead of something that's kind of lame or a bit of a drag or just kind of extra work, how do we make it awesome for us and the audience? Because it didn't take that much more effort to do that. It just took a little bit of, uh, you know, charm.

Sam Parr 9:21 No, and it wasn't hard at all. [laughs] The problem was the gentleman's agreement that we would always tell people about, it, like, faded out. Like, it got-

Shaan Puri 9:28 We forgot to say it, yeah

Sam Parr 9:29 ... it got not, it got

Sam Parr 9:30 not novel. And we were like, "Oh shit, we have to come up with another one." And I, like, watch all these YouTube videos, and I just see one, and I write it down, and I'm like, "Copying that. Copying that."

Shaan Puri 9:39 [laughs]

Sam Parr 9:39 And I just have forgotten to say it. So we screwed up by not being consistent. Do you wanna go, like, uh, tit for tat a little bit and, like, just go through, like, interesting things that you've learned throughout the year?

Shaan Puri 9:49 Yeah, yeah. All right. Um, I'll go first with one. So this podcast is steady Eddie. This podcast is the tortoise, not the hare. So it grows very steadily. You could put up this chart from Social Blade that's like your, our YouTube growth. And it's great in that, uh, you know, we started the year under 150,000, we're ending the year almost 400,000, but there's, like, no spikes. This thing is just a line that's just creeping up like a, you know, like, this is like if my uncle goes for a hike, this is what it would look, this is, like, what it would look like.

Sam Parr 10:22 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 10:22 It's a, it's a map. It's like this is his Strava right here. And so I'm like, what is this? This is so different than everything else I do, because I am much more of a go for the home run, try to do something incredible, and then if it doesn't work, or even if it's, like, you know, you find something that's good, ah, just don't really follow through. And this is, like, a, a leak in my game in a way, but I kind of took some pride in this. Um, so let me give you some examples. So on Twitter, we all joined this group chat called the 100K Club. We all had, I don't know, 10 to 20,000 Twitter followers, and we all, five or six friends, we all wanted to hit 100K. We independently had that goal. And we all did it. We all surpassed it. Um, but we all did it very differently. Nick Huber, uh, Nick Huber did it, and he's kind of polarizing, so he'll say controversial shit that, uh, he believes, but he'll kind of spice it up a little bit. He knows what he's doing. He uses controversy to grow. And Saahil's like, "Every day I wake up and I open a fortune cookie, and then I type it out." So whatever it was-

Sam Parr 11:26 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 11:26 ... I'll put that on Twitter. And he, "I'll do that every single day, and I'll do a thread every, every Tuesday-

Sam Parr 11:30 Yeah

Shaan Puri 11:30 ... and Thursday. And why would I not? It works." And we're like, "Why would it not?" 'Cause it's so boring to do that, but he's-

Sam Parr 11:36 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 11:37 ... he did it, and he did it, and he grew l- the most out of all of us. I think he's, like, at a million. And he did it with, like, what I'll call more cookie cutter stuff.

Sam Parr 11:46 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 11:46 Feel good. You know, kept it, uh, you know, pretty safe. No controversy. No real, like, I would say, like, not much original i- you know, storytelling or, or wisdom, but more, like, general best practices, like, kind of, uh, you know, stuff we've heard before but packaged well.

Sam Parr 12:04 He's posted so many videos of children and just probably titled it, "Humans are amazing

Shaan Puri 12:09 Yeah, be like, "Oh, I love my son."

Sam Parr 12:11 But that's just like- [laughs]

Shaan Puri 12:11 I'm like, "I'm never gonna write that shit." Right? Like, you know-

Sam Parr 12:14 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 12:14 ... I looked at my son and I was like, "Hey, listen, you're never getting that. All right?"

Sam Parr 12:17 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 12:18 "You're never getting that from me. I'm not u- I'm not using you for that, and you're not using me for that, all right? We're not doing that." But jokes aside, you know, Sahil was more of consistency and, um, and just put out, uh... You know, he was ready to hit base hits, and he just base hitted his way to a million. And I did the opposite. I didn't have a schedule, I didn't draft things, I didn't have a ghostwriter, I didn't do anything. I just had a f- I had probably six tweets that went viral. One was, like, this Clubhouse thread. One was about the metaverse. One was about Elon Musk. One was about whatever. I just had a couple of these things go, go really, really viral, and I would go weeks and weeks without even tweeting, and then I would just do that. And, and I got to maybe 350,000. And so here's the lesson learned. The joke's on me in the end. So this is kind of the, the long-winded takeaway is I was like, "Your boy's a home run hitter. I just go for the big swings. I don't have to do all that consistency BS. I just come in, just mic drop with a viral thread, and I peace out." And I was so happy with myself. And then I kinda looked up at the end of the year, I was like, "Huh." Like, the people who did the consistency thing got way further and had, and did way less, like, uh... They didn't have to pull a rabbit out of a hat to do it, and I felt like I was having to pull a rabbit out of a hat in order to, to get growth to happen. And because that's so hard, I could only do it so often. The podcast, because I do this with you and you are a more structured, disciplined guy, you're like, "Let's set recording dates and let's never miss them." And I'm like, "Dude, what if we did, like, 10 episodes in the next two days? But then, like, you know, if I'm busy, let's not do an episode." Like, I would've had a totally different schedule. I would have such worse results. And when I look at this it's like, damn, consistency wins again. This brings me to a real-

Sam Parr 14:05 By the way, it's, uh, it's five... I think we're f- Is this 550 or 520? So we're, like, 500-

Shaan Puri 14:12 Yeah, 500-plus episodes. Yeah

Sam Parr 14:13 ... 533 Ari said, so we're 500-plus in. It's a lot. It's a lot.

Shaan Puri 14:19 And we record like clockwork. Same time, same days, every week, no excuses. And so I would've never done that on my own.

Sam Parr 14:26 Some excuses. We've had some excuses.

Shaan Puri 14:28 Well, ex-

Sam Parr 14:28 But-

Shaan Puri 14:29 We have reasons.

Sam Parr 14:30 No.

Shaan Puri 14:30 [laughs]

Sam Parr 14:30 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sickness, children-

Shaan Puri 14:32 [laughs]

Sam Parr 14:33 ... and, uh, that's about it.

Shaan Puri 14:35 So all right. So but I guess the, the, the, this takes me to one of the biggest lessons I learned was through the podcast we met Andrew Wilkinson. People know about him. But I also met his business partner who you know, Chris. And Chris said something at a dinner that I've, I've shared on the podcast, but it w- it was the question of the year. He goes, "Do you know..." Somebody was talking about some- something they did. They failed. They like, "Oh, but I'll..." And then somebody else to, like, kinda pat them on the back was like, "Well, but, you know, you learned so much."

Shaan Puri 15:00 They're like, "Oh my God, I learned so much. Yeah, so many lessons learned. So many." And Chris goes, "Like what?" And you would think for somebody who went through-

Sam Parr 15:08 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 15:08 ... this traumatic experience and so many lessons learned, that they would be like, "Number one, this. That's the most important lesson. Number two, this. Number three, this." Those lessons weren't at the tip of their tongue. In fact, the lessons weren't even in their head. They learned actually nothing, and Chris correctly called it out. And I had never heard anybody question this assumption that when somebody says, "I failed, but I learned," he was like, "You know, I don't think people really learn." He goes, "And in fact, some people who when I ask them what they learned, they say something that tells me they learned the wrong lesson." And I think that's what happened to me this year on the consistency versus, like, big home run virality thing. I think I learned the wrong lesson. I was cursed by the fact that I did go viral a few times, and I, I did pass my kind of 100K goal. And actually the lesson was, dude, if I just had consistently tweeted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, probably would've took me 30 minutes, I'd probably be at a million followers instead. And, um, and so I think I learned the wrong lesson, and I think that Chris's question of d- did you even learn the right lesson from this experience? It showed up everywhere for me this year. Everybody I talked to, I realized, uh, you know, more people fell into that camp. The outlier was somebody who went through something and had the right takeaway from it. The outlier was that.

Sam Parr 16:33 Well, I would say to you, and this isn't a leading question, but it, it is for me w- when I ask myself this, which is, is that even worth it? Is having... Is being popular on social media even worth it? And I talk to a lot of people who are significantly success- more successful than I am in term- terms of traditional success. They've built bigger companies, whatever, and they'll ask about getting popular on social media, and my immediate response is like, "But why? Like, you're doing, you're doing awesome, and you can be private. That sounds way better." And so I would wonder, is it even worth it to have a million for you? In your case, actually, the answer is probably yes, but that's something that I always ask people when they talk to me about social media.

Shaan Puri 17:15 I think for a lot of people the answer is no, because it's almost the cliché example of, uh, play stupid games, win stupid prizes. It's like if you play the I wanna be popular on social media game, you win the wonderful prize of having bunch of followers who, you know, don't really know or care about you, and you basically turning your life into a performance for them, right? So y- you sort of win the stupid prize in the end. For me, my, the, like, you know, after a bunch of soul searching, it was became very obvious that the thing I actually wanted to do, the thing that would bring me the most joy in my life is, like, if I get to be kind of like a, one of these, like, thinker guys. It's like I think, you know, I don't actually wanna be Elon Musk. I wanna be Tim Ferriss.

Sam Parr 17:57 Right.

Shaan Puri 17:57 And once I realized that, and that sounded very true for me, I was like, "Okay, then I gotta do that. I gotta go learn cool stuff. I gotta synthesize, uh, you know, information from a bunch of places, and then..." Yeah, which is super fun for me, and then I'm gonna try to teach it. And I like teaching it, and I'll, you know, I'll try to share it. I'll try... I like sharing it. Why not? I'm so excited about the stuff that I'm figuring out. I'd like to create content. And I'm good at creating content, so it's a good fit for me. And so, um, for me, it is probably the right game. I wouldn't say being popular on social media's the right way to phrase it. I think it is, like, uh, getting to be a thinker, like it ma- making that your, your actual job.

Sam Parr 18:29 Sure. For sure.

Shaan Puri 18:30 Um, but you're right that for a lot of people, that's what-

Sam Parr 18:32 Me, me calling it popular on social media, it's like calling it a creator. Like, it just... [laughs] It's like, oh, that's cute.

Shaan Puri 18:38 [laughs]

Sam Parr 18:38 That's not how I meant it.

Shaan Puri 18:39 [laughs]

Sam Parr 18:39 But that's how it sounds like. Um, all right, the biggest thing I learned this year, and I have a bunch of them, but number one the biggest thing. So I'll, I'll set the stage here. So I think last spring, I d- I... Do you remember what month it is? We were like, all right, uh, I had... I was at the two... So basically, when I sold the company to HubSpot, I had like a two-year deal where, um, I, uh, stock, head of S, whatever. That ended in February, and then we had to renegotiate some stuff, some, some contracts. And I think we started that... When did we start that? Do you remember which month?

Shaan Puri 19:12 End of April.

Sam Parr 19:13 End of April? It didn't end until September. Is that right? Did it... Was it September where it ended?

Shaan Puri 19:19 Something like that, so August, September.

Sam Parr 19:20 So we go to negotiate this, and I'm a pretty soft guy. I have known all along that I'm bad at negotiating. I just, I, um-

Shaan Puri 19:28 You're like a Ferrero Rocher, hard on the outside,

Shaan Puri 19:30 soft on the inside. [laughs]

Sam Parr 19:31 Yeah. Like I, I just... I'm not good with uncomfortable conversations. I, uh, I, I just, I don't love confrontation. I want people to think that I'm easy to deal with, but I leave a lot on the table. I leave a ton on the table. And we go to negotiate this contract, and Shaan, you were like, "Let me take the lead on this." And you did so many things that I thought were the stupidest thing ever.

Shaan Puri 19:55 [laughs]

Sam Parr 19:57 And I was like, "You're being rude. This is stupid. You're being... Like, you're asking for too much. You're-

Shaan Puri 20:02 Being difficult, yeah

Sam Parr 20:03 ... you're being difficult. You're in the weeds too much. Why do you care about this one s-" You know, it'd be like a five-page or eight-page contract, and you're like, "This one sentence, guys, we need to talk about it. Like, we need to change this word from like, uh, uh, you know, like mandatory to optional."

Shaan Puri 20:16 Plume to plume.

Sam Parr 20:16 I don't even remember.

Shaan Puri 20:17 [laughs]

Sam Parr 20:18 Yeah. Like it, like you were like... It, it, I think we probably had 10 revisions and I, and we had a, we, you and I had to hire a lawyer to go through all this stuff, and we sweat the details so much. In my heart, I was like, "Everything about this is wrong." And you wanna know something? I was wrong. You were right. You negotiated this wonderfully. And, um, I learned so many things, and I could summarize this in, uh, something that you'd said. I think you said someone told you, which is the person who could be most uncomfortable in a negotiation will oftentimes win.

Shaan Puri 20:50 Yeah, I think that, I think that's it. So the way you said it isn't ac- actually the way I would say it. So you said, uh, you know, whoever's more uncomfortable will win, and it's actually like the first thing a negotiator realize it's not about winning. Like both sides want things, usually different things. You have to make sure both sides get what they want so that both sides feel like they win. But that, uh, it is true that you have to be willing to be uncomfortable for much, like almost like the definition of the word uncomfortable, for longer than you're comfortable being uncomfortable, right? That was the... That's what I was trying to say. 'Cause, you know, um, it's very easy in the moment to say, "If I push this button, the pain stops, and the uncertainty goes away, and the item goes off my to-do list," and I, it's very tempting to wanna push that button.

Sam Parr 21:34 Well, like I'm not particularly that... So at The Hustle, we did enterprise sales basically, so we, you know, $100,000 plus advertising deals. I wasn't particularly good at that, but one thing that I learned early on was it's w- for any salesperson, it's best to not be like a hard-hitting, like, "I'm gonna sell you this, I'm gonna sell you this." Instead you say, "All right, so what are you guys looking for? Like what would, what, what are you trying to get out of this? Um, what, do you need more customers?" Or you know, you, you basically ask them what they want and then you tailor a solution or ta- or, or, or position your solution to fit their needs.

Shaan Puri 22:04 Right.

Sam Parr 22:04 You did a really good job of that, where you're like, "All right, HubSpot, um, tell me everything you guys want, and w- we'll try to accommodate or, or, or I'll phrase my solution to fit your needs."

Shaan Puri 22:14 Right.

Sam Parr 22:14 And, and, and we, y- you did a really good job at that.

Shaan Puri 22:17 All right. Um, so let me do a simple one. This year, my cash flow, so my monthly income I think went up by like four and a half X. However, I didn't... I, I was very focused on making money, and I didn't, and I normally don't care about like, you know, e- expenses or, you know, it's like, you know that phrase, it's like, "It's not how much you make, it's how much you keep"? That's true. I just don't really follow it very well.

Sam Parr 22:48 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 22:49 And the biggest expense-

Sam Parr 22:50 Sounds good

Shaan Puri 22:50 ... always-

Sam Parr 22:51 Sounds smart. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 22:52 The biggest expense always is taxes, and I didn't do a lot of tax planning. So this is a very simple one. One of my big takeaways for the year is, um,

Shaan Puri 23:01 r- uh, lesson learned again that taxes are your biggest expense once you start making real money. And I looked into a bunch of different p- opportunities, and at the, only at the end of the year did I, um, do something smart, which was I know somebody very well who is phenomenal at real estate. They have a very niche application of real estate. Um, they crush it, uh, like I'm talking about went from zero to owning a billion dollars in real estate with no outside capital, um, in like, you know, eight years type of thing. And I watched them do that brick by brick. I know this tr- this meth- th- this like specific thing that they do where they have a bit of an unfair advantage, where, why it works, and I never really asked them to participate in a deal. I was like, uh, you know, they don't take any external money, so why not? But I know that we have a good, really good relationship, so I was like, "Maybe they would take it." So finally, towards the end of the year, I was like, "Hey, can I like deploy some capital here? Because if I can invest with you, I think I'll get a great return, but also I'll get that sweet, sweet depreciation." And, um, so I will get a, you know, sort of a double return on my side because I get the, you know, the returns for the property, but I also get the tax savings today. I just started doing it, and it is so good. It is-

Sam Parr 24:15 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 24:15 ... so smart and I'm s- I am so regretful that I didn't take this more seriously earlier. And Jess Ma came on the podcast and she said Sh- it was her that triggered me to go take action on this. She goes... I go, "Do you spend a bunch of..." She goes, "Oh, I wanna talk about what rich people do with their taxes." And we didn't even really get to that in the episode, but during the pre-call I was like, "What do you mean by, uh... We should talk about it." Like, and she's like, "Well, I think just the general thing is that most entrepreneurs really don't spend enough time on, on their taxes. And I get it, they wanna build their business." But she's like, "If you just look mathematically, like, this is gonna be, you know, s- between, I don't know, 30 to 50% of all your income every year gets taxed this way."

Sam Parr 24:56 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 24:56 "And 20-plus percent of your gains, um, of all your investment gain's gonna get taxed this way." She's like, "It's financially irresponsible to not at least spend 5 to 10% of your time on this."

Sam Parr 25:08 So-

Shaan Puri 25:08 And then I did the math and I was like, "10% of my time would be five full weeks of a year." I was like, "There's no way I'm gonna do that," but I was like, "I should at least spend, like, two, one."

Sam Parr 25:18 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 25:18 You know, like something where I'm actually focused, dedicated, and planning.

Sam Parr 25:21 So who did you hire? Like a, did you like a tax strategist?

Shaan Puri 25:25 I talked to a few, but I, you know, the reality was it's not that hard. Like, real es- real estate really is the best way to do this. 'Cause what you do is you take, um, you know, you take inc- ta- income and you have i- taxable income coming from one place. You take that cash, you deploy that cash into real estate, and my, you know, my wife is a real estate professional so we have, we can offset the active income. And so you, you put the cash there. Now that cash is gonna grow in the property, but you got all this tax loss to wipe out your, your taxable income, if that makes sense. So, so you get cash on both sides, but the i- taxable income gets, gets, uh, you know, reduced by using real estate. So it doesn't really ta- Like, I don't need to do anything exotic.

Sam Parr 26:02 Well, it, it, by the way, it is hard. It, it's hard to find deals that are, are good. I mean, like, I've bought real-

Shaan Puri 26:09 Well, that's the key. Like, I knew this for a long time. I was like, "Great, what am I gonna g- do? Go look for fourplexes in Missouri?" Like, I, I, I don't have the time or the energy or expertise to do this. Then you have a bunch of different, like, you know, fund manager-type people. You're like, "All right. I gotta vet them and figure out if they're any good, and, and, and do a couple deals with them," and I could do that. In this case, I was lucky that I had a very longitudinal relationship with somebody that I had seen do this with their own money. They're not a money manager. And so, um, and they get, you know, a far above average returns because of what they do. And so anyways, that, that became, you know, the thing I'm gonna do. So anyways, we, we should talk more later. You, you should do this, too. I, I'm, like, so convinced that this is a good idea for people in our position, and I think most of our friends in our circle, we're all, like, internet money people and we, like, kinda suck at the, the real-world money stuff.

Sam Parr 27:00 Yeah, I suck at it. Um, all right. I've got a- another one. I've titled this Loose Cannon, Loose Results. So for the majority of my career, I've been a loose cannon. I would say silly stuff, and it would get a reaction, and I would get results sometimes. Uh, [laughs] I gotta put that asterisk, sometimes. Uh, like-

Shaan Puri 27:20 The result being a, a laugh. [laughs]

Sam Parr 27:22 Or, like, I was in the media business. We are still in the media business, which is like-

Shaan Puri 27:27 You get clicks. Yeah

Sam Parr 27:27 ... I could, I, I can go the obnoxious or

Sam Parr 27:30 blunt or ridiculous route, and I can get clicks. And the problem with that is as you get more popular, you have to decide are you gonna go all in on that or are you gonna not go all in in it, or you wanna be this medium ground? And the medium ground is bad. And so here's ex- here's an example of someone who goes all in on it. Dave Portnoy. The guy's a missionary. He... But here's what, here's what that means. So he says ridiculous stuff. He had a sex scandal this year. Uh, regardless of what the facts are, I'm not even debating what the facts of that, of his issues were, he was accused of being, um, uh, I, I, it might have been, like, crazy. Like assault, like some really bad shit. And he went all in on it, and he came out with, like, and he, like, he kind of, I don't think he joked about it, but he, like, confronted it head-on. But then there's other things that he's done where he's like, "Look, I'm so rich. I can do all this stuff." And, but there's a downside to that. The upside is he got lots of traffic. He, uh, you know, whenever he goes through any type of scandal he gets lots of views and somehow I imagine he gets paid for those ads. The downside is obvious, which is you are now this guy where you've gotta live this life where you're this loose cannon guy. You say whatever you want, and you're a huge target. Then we've gotten really close with Andrew Wilkinson, who is not a loose cannon. He says some stuff, uh, bluntly, but in, and he's a very honest guy, but he's reserved a bit.

Shaan Puri 28:53 More measured. Yeah.

Sam Parr 28:55 He's more measured. We had, um, uh, Sayed on the p- uh, what's, what's Sayed's last name?

Shaan Puri 29:00 Sayed Balkhi.

Sam Parr 29:00 Uh, Balkhi. He's one of the best guests we've had. Very measured. The guy's only 32 or something, and he's in the ballpark of being a billionaire. He owns all these companies. And off air, uh, when I've hung out with him, he's a, a little bit less measured, but on air he was def- like, he, he was very, like, "I, look, my reputation matters. I need to have a good reputation," and he cared about that stuff. We also had Kevin Ryan. Kevin Ryan, probably the second or third most successful guy we've had on the podcast. Very measured, uh, very honest, but very, like, straightforward, but also, like, calculating. Uh, Sarah Mora was another person. Sarah Mora, Sarah Mora, she s- uh, explicitly said, "I don't wanna be famous. I'm only gonna be here." And she still said good stories, but I'm sure that she, like, her reputation was in mind, things like that. And I think that, um, I'm not willing to go the Dave Portnoy route, for sure. I don't want that flak. I've said very mild things, and I'll get flak for it, and I'm like, "Yeah, I just don't wanna live this life where I, where I go hardcore." So anyway, a takeaway is I've actually wanted to pull back some public persona stuff, not reveal certain numbers. I don't wanna be a target. I don't wanna have to fight these battles. I don't get joy from that. I used to get joy from that, and I would respond to haters constantly online just to prove, like, "See? You can't talk shit to me. I'm, like, I'm a real guy. I, I read all the comments." That's stupid. I don't wanna be that person. That-

Shaan Puri 30:24 [laughs]

Sam Parr 30:24 That, that's a pretty big takeaway. You, you've done a good job of, like- You've not... You've actually had a few fires this year where you said some stuff that you got called out on, and you didn't back down from it, but you also didn't-

Shaan Puri 30:35 Like what?

Sam Parr 30:35 ... engage in it.

Shaan Puri 30:35 What did I do? I don't even remember.

Sam Parr 30:37 Um, there was a-

Shaan Puri 30:38 I'm sure it happened. What did I-

Sam Parr 30:39 There was a time where you criticized someone who worked for you and it caused a little bit of a spat on the internet of-

Shaan Puri 30:44 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah

Sam Parr 30:45 ... uh, and I, I, I don't remember another time, but I think that, that's what I'm referring to. And in my head, when I'm hearing you say that or, and when I'm seeing that, I'm like, "I wanna stay out of this. I don't want any of this drama."

Shaan Puri 30:56 [laughs]

Sam Parr 30:56 "I don't wanna, I don't want, I don't want the stress." You know, we've seen it with Chamath, uh, a bit where he put himself out there and he's done some contradictory things, and he's taken a lot of flack. And I respect that he's, like, owned up to it, and he, like, faces it head-on. I don't wanna live that life. I thought I did. I don't. As we've gotten more popular, I, I for sure do not wanna live that life, and I prefer to be more private now than I was in the past.

Shaan Puri 31:21 That's a good one. Um, I have kind of a related one. So one of the best meetings I had this year was with James Currier. James Currier, for those don't- don't know, he is the founder of something called NFX, which stands for Network Effects. They basically in- they, they have like, I don't know, a billion dollars of assets under manager. They, they invest in tech startups. He's been in... He's a Silicon Valley OG, so he's been building successful tech companies for, like, you know, 20 years or something like that.

Sam Parr 31:47 Yeah, he's had m- I, I think multiple $100 million-plus exits.

Shaan Puri 31:51 Correct. And super fun guy. So I go to his office. So I drive down to Palo Alto. I don't usually leave the house, but for James, I'm there. And literally

Shaan Puri 32:00 it's just me and him in the office. I was like, "Where is everybody else?" He's like, "Yeah, we don't really even have that many people, but also, yeah, nobody's coming to work anymore. Everyone works from home." So it's just me and him in his office for a couple hours, and, uh, he shared with me a piece of advice that really stuck with me, and I started seeing everywhere. Something I hadn't really thought about. So he goes, he goes, "Can I give you some unsolicited advice?" I was like, "Please." And he goes, "You know, today..." He drew this, like, line on the whiteboard, and he's like... He goes, he goes, "I really like what you guys are doing with your show. Uh, but I don't know, like, where you go from here." He's like, "You're kind of in the middle." He's like, "Meaning if I think about really upmarket," he's like, "you know, when we make content, we're not making content that... We don't want a million views. If we did a million views on a piece of content, we probably made the wrong piece of content." He goes, "'Cause what I'm doing at NFX," he's like, "I'm trying to invest in, you know, whatever. It's the next Airbnb, the next Twitter, the next whatever." So he's like, "I need the most ambitious founders in the world who are building, you know, like, venture-backed tech companies to read our stuff, really care about it, and think, 'When I'm gonna raise money, I'm gonna go to NFX.'" And he's like, "So you have us and a16z and others that are trying to be really upmarket 'cause we're trying to attract a certain quality of founder of which there's only, you know, a smaller pool. But they also care about different things. They're only gonna... You know, they don't wanna hear about the, the vending machine side hustle." Like, we'll, we'll be like, "Oh dude-

Sam Parr 33:26 Sure

Shaan Puri 33:26 ... this guy's got 18 vending machines. He's making 22K a month. Isn't that sick?" And, like, he doesn't care about that. They're trying to get, you know, o- only people who are gonna, like, disrupt the healthcare system or some sh- like that. I don't know. You know, so such a big idea. Who even knows what it means? And-

Sam Parr 33:39 By the way, I would disagree with him. I, I think that the... I, I think they care enough to listen but not enough to actually do anything about it. You know what I mean?

Shaan Puri 33:48 Oh, yeah, and the vending machine thing. Actually, you're right 'cause I meet a lot of these people, and they're, like, pretty fascinated by, like, uh, the economics of stuff that's outside of their world-

Sam Parr 33:56 Yeah

Shaan Puri 33:56 ... 'cause they're just business nerds. Um-

Sam Parr 33:58 I think they actually care enough to be entertained by it, but-

Shaan Puri 34:01 Right

Sam Parr 34:01 ... that's, but that's about it.

Shaan Puri 34:02 But, like, then you have on the other end of the spectrum you have, you know, let's say... And I, I love Gary Vee, but, you know, Gary Vee is basically, like, motivation, grind. Like, "Hey, you gotta..." Like, his content will be literally he's like, "I'm gonna pull up to this garage sale, and I'm gonna-

Sam Parr 34:16 Yeah [laughs]

Shaan Puri 34:17 ... flip this VHS for, you know, on, on eBay. And imagine if I did that every day. You could... You, you... That could be your hustle." And it's like, so I could make, you know, 100 grand a year. It's like I kinda... A job can do that, but this is, I guess, the, the entry level of entrepreneurship. And it's like he... And he, uh, so he has a huge audience. But-

Sam Parr 34:33 Which I respect, by the way

Shaan Puri 34:34 ... but if you said, "Hey-

Sam Parr 34:35 I just don't wanna do it. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 34:36 ... Gary, you know, like, what's the deal flow?" Like, the best investments Gary's made, I think, came from his peers, like his friends he hung out with, not, like, his listeners in that way, right? Not, not his fans-

Sam Parr 34:46 Sure

Shaan Puri 34:46 ... right? Um, and he probably, like... I, I shouldn't speak for him, but I guess, like, it's very easy if you're in that position to be like, "It's great 'cause I get huge numbers, but I'm not necessarily... It's not like a two-way thing. I'm not learning back from my audience as much. Maybe I'm, you know, I'm happy to sign autographs and take selfies, but I'm not try- I, I'm not excited to go have dinner with five people in this group because I don't feel like it's gonna... You know, iron's not sharpening iron there, right? Like, I, I'm a black belt. I'm more hanging out with white belts, and so I kinda wanna... When I'm trying to spar, I wanna spar with black belts." Anyways, so he's like, "You have a decision to make. You're in the middle right now with My First Million. You kind of have a foot in both camps." And he's like, "It's gonna be very tempting for you to go down market." And he's like, "Don't do it." He's like, "Go... If anything, go up market." And he's like-

Sam Parr 35:34 I agree

Shaan Puri 35:34 ... "Y- in the long run, you're gonna want... You're gonna be more interested in the topics that those people are interested in. You're gonna not wanna keep saying the same, like, beginner level, 'Here's how you...' You know, literally here's how you make your first million. Here's how you get... Here's how you should quit your job, and here's how you get a startup idea, and here's how you incorporate an LLC. Like, you're not gonna wanna make that content as you grow." And he's like, "You should steer up market." He's like, "My only advice to you is that." Um, I think that was so smart and so... I don't even know why he said that to me 'cause who's even thinking about that? I wasn't even thinking about it. But now, like, I'm just gonna give you an example. Alex Hormozi I think is o- on one hand absolutely killing the content game. I think Alex is awesome. I think he's super, super talented, but I think he's making a mistake in that he goes very down market. I'm just gonna read you some titles of his last, of videos he's posted in the last, like, two months, okay? How to make so much money it makes you sick. Um

Sam Parr 36:31 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 36:31 [laughs] Um

Sam Parr 36:35 How to get rich this Black Friday

Shaan Puri 36:38 Watch this if you're tired of being broke. Uh, the real reason your business isn't growing. Um, a bunch of these, right? So like, I, I, I don't wanna, you know, pick on these, but these are more down market video concepts, and they'll get views for sure. And like, the comments will kinda show you p- people are like, "Oh my God, you changed my life. You're my hero," blah, blah, blah. And like, it's not that he's not doing a service for those people. However, I, I look at that and I think for me, the game I wanna play is definitely gonna be not to go down market, to resist the temptation to try to create that content, and to focus on creating up market content, which is gonna have a lower view count number, but it's gonna have a higher value per viewer and more of the audience. And the... It's like I'm creating a magnet. I'm not creating an audience, I'm creating a magnet with my content, and I wanna attract the right people. And so, uh, anyways, that was a big lesson or takeaway for me that I wouldn't have otherwise thought about.

Sam Parr 37:34 Yeah, I think so- like, sometimes some of the contractors who work on this podcast will suggest ideas because they're just looking at like YouTube analytics, and I'm like, "No, I c- I, I... Eight o- eight out of the 10 things I, I don't think would-

Shaan Puri 37:47 Right

Sam Parr 37:48 ... would work."

Shaan Puri 37:48 If Apple sold iPhones for $5, they'd sell more units too, right? Like i- but if you're building an up market brand or if you're Louis Vuitton, like you, you don't want to go down market. There's another guy we met, uh, at the-

Sam Parr 37:59 And, and we fall victim to it as well. I, I don't wanna act like our shit don't stink, but like even though you and I will fight it, like sometimes we will give in.

Shaan Puri 38:05 Correct. The only reason this lesson resonates is 'cause it's something I'm wrestling with, right?

Sam Parr 38:09 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 38:09 If I have a solved problem, I don't really care about it. It doesn't stand out as a big takeaway 'cause I didn't, I didn't have the problem in the first place. This is a problem I have, so I'm trying to figure out where to go, and this advice was very helpful. Um, there's another guy who does this. Have you seen this guy on Instagram, The Genius CEO?

Sam Parr 38:24 Yeah, yeah. Uh, he came to-

Shaan Puri 38:26 Do you know him personally?

Sam Parr 38:27 He, he's in Austin right now. I think he's so funny. I think he's so funny.

Shaan Puri 38:31 He's so funny. So like, I find him hilarious, and like when I met him-

Sam Parr 38:34 I can't tell if his Instagram's a joke. Like, it's... Like there's a lot of like nuggets in there.

Shaan Puri 38:39 It's-

Sam Parr 38:39 But he'll be [laughs] he'll be like, "Bad Bunny is only making $30 million a year. What a bitch move. We're gonna teach this guy how to make a billion." Like [laughs] he'll like insult these people-

Shaan Puri 38:48 Yeah

Sam Parr 38:48 ... and it's pretty funny.

Shaan Puri 38:49 Yeah, he'll be like, uh, he goes, "Thi- this product i- this product is gonna bust faster than a bunch of you chumps out there. So let me tell you how I would do it."

Sam Parr 38:58 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 38:58 And I was like, "Whoa!"

Sam Parr 38:58 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 38:59 Like what a hook. Um, but so we met this guy in real life. In real life, total sweetheart and very smart guy, right? Super nice dude, humble, whatever. And then I'm like, and then I'm like, "Why do you have this like ridiculous mustache? Your fingernails are painted. You got this like crazy chain and a Gucci purse," but like-

Sam Parr 39:15 Well, he looks like a celebrity. He's like a tall, good-looking guy.

Shaan Puri 39:18 Yeah, he looks like an IG, like a, like a-

Sam Parr 39:20 Yeah

Shaan Puri 39:21 ... like a male IG thot, but you're in person you're a totally respectable, humble, nice guy dad. And he was like, "Oh yeah, I created this character." He's like, "I realized like what hits on IG is gonna be like fancy cars, fancy shit, six-pack abs, hot girls." And so he's like, "You know, I just do that. It's my character, and I built a following." So he's got 200,000 followers on here. His content is hilarious, and-

Sam Parr 39:44 It's so funny

Shaan Puri 39:44 ... he's- but he's selling, uh, you know, FBA, you know, uh, you know, basically like, "I made my millions selling drop shipping basically. I, you know, doing FBA brands. Uh, you know, you're- if you wanna stay being a broke idiot, don't listen to this video."

Sam Parr 39:59 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 40:00 And then he'll be like, be like, "Here's the first lesson for you. Do this. And I know what you're gonna say, blah, blah, blah. Well, here's what I say about that." And then he'll like flash his like fancy shit. He's like, "This is a video of me buying this Van Cleef, uh, you know, necklace."

Sam Parr 40:14 It's so funny. I love it.

Shaan Puri 40:15 "Any more questions?" And I'm like, "Wow, what is happening with this guy?"

Sam Parr 40:18 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 40:18 But I think he's also gonna be trapped in the down market thing, right? He's selling a mastermind you gotta p- go pay to get into. He's gonna make millions of dollars doing this, but I don't think he's got any like, you know... I don't think he's got any way out. You know, that is, that is a, uh... He's cornered himself in that way.

Sam Parr 40:33 Sure, sure. Yeah, I, I... He's a good follow.

Shaan Puri 40:35 [laughs]

Sam Parr 40:36 He's very funny. Um, all right, let me give you another one. So the biggest takeaway that I, I want people to have from this podcast, we've done it now for three or four years, is... And, and I, and, and at first I, uh, like I'll go get a haircut and they'll be like, "So what do you do for work?" And I was like, "Oh, I do this, I do that. I, I work on this podcast." And they're like, "What's the podcast about?" And I'm like, "Well, it's called My First Million, but it's not... Like the title is inaccurate and, and I'll, I'll explain what it's about." And what,

Sam Parr 41:00 what I, what I tell people is that, "Look, we've had multi- multi-billionaires on this show. We've had employees at companies on th- on this show. I think what we care about is people who create a path and they do it." Not necessarily... Like I don't necessarily think just because you are a billionaire you are particularly better than anyone else. Like what I care about is someone who says, "I'm gonna be great at this weird type of art. I'm gonna be-

Shaan Puri 41:27 Intentionally choose a game. So they choose a game with intention, and then they play the sh*t out of that, their game. Right?

Sam Parr 41:33 Right.

Shaan Puri 41:33 That, is that the description? 'Cause that's what it is for me.

Sam Parr 41:36 That's exactly it. And so for example, the guy I talk about all the time, Brett Adcock, he's not like me. He's like, "Well, I'm gonna raise a billions, billions of dollars and try to create a $500 billion company." I'm, I'm inspired by that, but I will never... I don't want to do that.

Shaan Puri 41:49 Right. Or even this example you just gave, The Genius CEO. He chose to play that game, and he's playing the sh*t out of it. I respect that. I don't wanna do that, but I, I, I kind of admire people who intentionally choose their game and then play the sh*t out of it.

Sam Parr 42:03 I admire the hell out of it. Or we've, we've had John Coogan. John Coogan, um, started Soylent, which scaled to be a, a fairly large business. He's got another company, and now he's like a full-time content creator. He has a, uh, a YouTube channel, and he- it's beautifully done. He's doing it wonderfully. And then we've had Rob Dyrdek on. We've had Laird Hamilton on. Guys who l- aren't the Silicon Valley type of lifestyle, but they kill it in whatever they do, and I admire all of them equally. And so the takeaway that I've had, which is there's a million ways to get to where you wanna go or there's a million ways to get to a certain way, uh, to a certain place, what... And for a lot of these people it's money, but there's still a million ways to get there And there's... You shouldn't just like, for example, when I moved to San Fran- San Francisco I was like you have to raise VC, you have to do this, you have to do this. But then we me- meet Sayed who, m- m-

Shaan Puri 42:49 Breaks all the rules

Sam Parr 42:49 ... I imagine... Yeah, I imagine he's worth 500 to a billion dollars. He started a WordPress blog, which sounds crazy stupid if you don't know what you're talking about, which I didn't. Turns out that killed it. Then he bought tons of gas stations. Now he owns 50 different WordPress plugins, collectively that does over 100 million in revenue. He's a young guy in Florida, not even a cool part of Florida. He's not Miami. I think he's in like Tallahassee or I forget where. Like somewhere in Florida.

Shaan Puri 43:14 [laughs]

Sam Parr 43:14 Yeah, no disrespect Tallahassee. I see-

Shaan Puri 43:16 Yeah

Sam Parr 43:16 ... uh, Ari, but look I'm from Cis-

Shaan Puri 43:18 Catching strays. There's just, there's just people just listening to this pod just like, "Oh man, their hometown where they grew up." [laughs]

Sam Parr 43:23 Dude.

Shaan Puri 43:23 Just gets, just gets letter bombed.

Sam Parr 43:24 Fort Lauderdale, I don't care. I'm from, [laughs] I'm from St. Louis, all right? I can say these things. I'm not from a cool place, so all the Baltimore's out there, you know, like I, I feel love for you.

Shaan Puri 43:33 Shout out to the tier, tier C cities out there. [laughs]

Sam Parr 43:36 Yeah. It, it, it, it's, it's objectively not like the place to be. And, but what I'm saying is I appreciate the hell out of people like that and learning about all of these different ways. And my biggest takeaway from this year and doing the podcast, which is there's a lot of different ways to do it. You just have to choose where you wanna go, and you gotta choose what rules you're willing to play by. But there's not one way to do it. And I wouldn't even, I wouldn't even go as far as to say there's one that's likely. In fact, if I had to say that, I would say the one that's likely to get there is starting a small services business and just growing it over 50 years and paying yourself a good salary after year 10 and doing that for, for decades. Which is not at all what I would've expected. You know? It's just a, a normal small business owner that does it for a long time is significantly more likely to have a higher income and die rich than any other way, but there's a lot of different ways to do it, and that's one of the things I appreciate, uh, appreciate about doing this podcast.

Shaan Puri 44:33 That's a great one. And I do think that that's the... If you zoom out, that is kind of the point of the pod. The point of the pod isn't saying do X or do Y. It's check this out. You can do X. Here's how that works. You could do Y. Here's how that works. You could do Z. Here's how that works. And by the end of it, you're either gonna be in one of two positions. Some people hear all that and get overwhelmed. They don't know where to go. There's too many p- too many paths, too many possibilities. Um, they... It, it sort of paralyzes them. But I hope that's not most people. I think for most people the, the net reaction is kinda like, wow, winning and being successful is this thing that feels scarce if you're not around it. Right? Like where I grew up, I didn't know any businesspeople. Nobody in my family was a business purple, person. No one. Not my cousins, not my aunts, not my uncles. None of them did businesses.

Sam Parr 45:21 Were you raised in Tallahassee?

Shaan Puri 45:23 Born in Oklahoma.

Sam Parr 45:24 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 45:25 And, uh, the... And so, you know, I wasn't around it.

Sam Parr 45:28 Ari, Ari just, Ari just flicked me off for making fun of Tallahassee, by the way.

Shaan Puri 45:31 [laughs] And so-

Sam Parr 45:33 Go ahead

Shaan Puri 45:33 ... so you know, I, I wasn't around it. It seemed like this faraway thing that I didn't really even understand w- w- There was no map. And I thought maybe there's one path, but I don't know it and I'm not invited to that, to that party. And then my hope is that if you listen to this podcast, you're gonna hear over the course of a year 100 different examples of ways to win and how they work. And at that point, it's just a matter of choosing, and all of a sudden winning and success becomes this thing that instead of being scarce and difficult is abundant. It's everywhere, and it's right at your fingertips. If you just start, start doing whatever sounds most intriguing to you, and then you just keep playing the game, you, you know, it'll, it will work out for you. Um, that's... I think that's what the pod ultimately does for people.

Sam Parr 46:19 Good. I hope it does. Um, d- I have one more. Do you have one more?

Shaan Puri 46:24 Uh, you go.

Sam Parr 46:26 All right. My last one. So we had Scott Galloway on. Scott Galloway's a guy who he, he said on the pod, he goes, "I'm worth over $100 million." And he also said in that same sentence, "I'm deeply afraid of running out of money." We had Morgan Housel on most recently, and he said something like, um, he knows that you shouldn't necessarily set goals for money, and he knows like objectively he's got enough that he likely won't ever run out, and he knows that he shouldn't check his net worth. But then also we pressed him on it, and he was like, "But of course, like if I'm laying in bed at night, like

Sam Parr 47:00 just because I know what I'm supposed to do, I still wonder what it would like, be like to have more." And I don't think we've ever had anyone on the podcast, maybe Jack Smith, maybe Jack Smith, but Jack Smith's like a freak. But I don't think we've ever had anyone on the podcast, regardless of what they have, they don't want more, and that sounds like a really negative thing of like, uh, uh, what? You have enough. Why do you need more? Why do you need to achieve this and that? I think it should be the opposite, and I think the takeaway is no matter what you have, you're always gonna feel that there's another level and that you should one-up. And I don't think that's a depressing takeaway. I think the takeaway should be You will always want more accomplishments, more achievements, and that is okay. That is totally okay, and that is normal. And just expect that wherever your goal is, once you achieve it, you're gonna feel satisfied only for a short amount of time, and then you're going to want to achieve more. And that's, uh, basically 95... or no, I would say 99% of the time that's true, and that's okay. It's okay to want more.

Shaan Puri 47:59 Right.

Sam Parr 48:00 Uh, I think there's a healthy way to go about it, and there's an unhealthy way to go about it. I would say Scott probably has unhealthy ways. I would say I have unhealthy ways. And I think you can change those unhealthy ways to healthy ways. But y- no matter what you have, you will accomplish it, whatever your goal is, and you'll get there. It'll take six months, and you'll say, "What's next? How do I do it again? How do I do more?" And just expect that that's going to happen.

Shaan Puri 48:25 Yeah, I think when people hear that, it sounds like, uh, you know, it sounds wrong or sad or bad or something like that. But another way of looking at that same thing is, um, the concept of infinite and finite games. And so the, uh, my, my understanding of it, I, I haven't spent a ton of time on this, but my understanding of it is, a very simple understanding is a finite game is one where you play For the result. So you play in order to achieve an outcome, and you're hoping to get to that outcome. And that's the purpose of it. And then an infinite game is one where you play for the sake of playing. And so you, you know, you play because you want to play. Now, if you look at that in practice, so for example, for me, basketball is something I c- I consider like an infinite game, right? Like I, I play because it's so fun to play, and I want to play, and my goal is not to like win and stop. My goal is to win, but I, I wouldn't stop if I won because, uh, but not because it's like greed. It's like, well, winning is a, is bait. It- the scoreboard makes the game more interesting. And i- in a, in a small burst, yes, of course we're trying to win the four... You know, by the end of the fourth quarter, I wanna have the higher score. But ultimately like, you know, "Hey, all right, let's run it back. Let's play again. Let's play again. Let's play till our legs fall off," is ba- is basically how it's always felt for me. And that's the closest thing I felt to an infinite game until kinda business came in, and it's actually very, very similar. It's like I like having a scoreboard. It makes it more fun to play when you do keep score. But I'm not trying to get to a result to s- I'm not doing work to get to a result and then I'm gonna stop working. It's, I like playing. I plan to keep playing. I'm playing for the sake of playing and, but the scoreboard makes playing a lot more interesting and fun and intense. And I, I, I look at it that way.

Sam Parr 50:09 And that should be the takeaway. The takeaway is that, because I had the... Or I previously had the, "If I get to this, I will not feel stressed and I won't work anymore." The reality is I still felt stress. I felt less stress though. There's no do- no doubt about that. I felt a lot less stress. And six months later I was like, "But I have to go and do something. I, I feel like a piece of shit just sitting here, and I feel good contributing." And so-

Shaan Puri 50:33 By the way, why do you think you, uh, if I just said, "Why do you still feel stressed?" Why do you think you feel stressed af- even after the event?

Sam Parr 50:40 Because I think that I, I, uh, the, the stress, I, I think that I... Well, like to get like therapeutic, it's all baked into some type of childhood trauma and, and, and that just takes years to like unwind. But why does it, uh, why, uh, part of the stress is comparing yourself to others, um, and so you want to achieve more, and also wanting more stuff, which is, uh, what do they say? Desire is hell or desire is pain.

Shaan Puri 51:04 Suffering, yeah.

Sam Parr 51:05 Yeah, or desire is suffering. So wanting more stuff, um, which I try to combat by just, I'm like, "No, that won't..." I try to like say, "This won't make me happy." Uh, comparing myself to others, wanting more stuff, and also just wanting to get rid of a chip on my shoulder.

Shaan Puri 51:19 Right. I'll offer you a different answer that might be true for you. I don't know if it is or not.

Sam Parr 51:23 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 51:23 But I, I think, I, I believe this is more true. 'Cause I hear a lot of people talk about it and it's like, uh, childhood trauma. It's like, all right, well, nothing I can do about that.

Sam Parr 51:33 Yeah, it-

Shaan Puri 51:33 That's literally the past. It's written

Sam Parr 51:35 ... you're fucked. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 51:35 And it sounds like it's a, it's a long unpacking process that I don't wanna do that. Like I, I still got suitcases over here I haven't unpacked from vacations I've been on. Like-

Sam Parr 51:43 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 51:44 ... I just don't wanna, I'm not trying to unpack years of childhood trauma. Similarly, it's like, oh, I have to like stop the feeling of envy or w- desire? Oh my God.

Sam Parr 51:53 Which will never happen.

Shaan Puri 51:54 I'm hardwired as an animal to do that.

Sam Parr 51:55 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 51:55 That sounds like a game I'm never gonna win. So I actually think there's a different answer, which is, um, emotion. The, the emotions you feel are much like muscles. Uh, uh, it's basically you've had a lot of practice at stressing.

Sam Parr 52:07 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 52:07 So what happens is people practice feeling a certain way, and they don't think about it as practice, but what does it mean when you do something all the time or regularly? You are habituating yourself or practicing doing that. You're getting reps at doing it. And then sun- one day, suddenly they change the, the environment and they think that all that practice and that, that muscle that they've basically developed and practiced and repped daily will just go away, and this new muscle called contentmis- uh, contentness and happiness will appear because the money, the am- the bank balance in your ch- your Bank of America account has changed. No way, right? And so I would actually say it's the opposite. If you wanna change that feeling, it's not the money. It's, you have to find a way on a daily br- basis to practice having that feeling. You wanna, you wanna feel happy? You gotta practice happy. You wanna feel content and peaceful? You gotta practice content and pe- peaceful. You gotta practice that more than you're practicing anxiety and fear and stress and all these other things. And so for anybody out there who's listening, Sam is absolutely right. Your feeling's not gonna change. But I don't think it's because of these like deeply rooted psychological and historical reasons. A simpler example, a simpler explanation might be that I've really just gotten a lot of reps practicing one thing, and therefore that's easy and familiar and habitual for me, and I gotta start practicing the other. The same thing happened when we sold to Milk Road. I talked to Ben and I was like, "Ben, how does it feel for your first kind of big exit for you?" And he's like, "Honestly, it doesn't feel... Like I, I'm kinda disappointed. Like, it doesn't feel like very much. Like it doesn't, I don't feel that much." And I go... He's like, "Maybe it's because maybe if the number was bigger, maybe this." Right? He started going down that path, and I was like, "No, dude, it's because you're trying to feel like this kind of victorious joy. How many days out of the year, the last 365 days, did you feel that? Like zero. Did you let yourself feel that? Zero. And so what did you think, all of a sudden today you're gonna turn on and be really good at feeling that? Like no, dude. It's practice. Like you, if you wanna feel that, you, we gotta do that regularly so that that muscle's there." And, uh-

Sam Parr 54:09 Do you, uh, did you come up with this theory on your own? Or did you steal this from someone?

Shaan Puri 54:14 Uh, Tony Robbins, when I was at that event, he has a similar thing. He calls it your emotional home. He goes, "Everybody's got an emotional home." He's like, 'cause, he's like, he's like, "Look, watch, watch this. Raise your hand if you're somebody who, uh, you know, sometimes gets a little pissed off." Everybody raised their hand. He's like, "Raise your hand if sometimes you are just super silly, having fun, being playful." Everybody raised their hand. He's like, "Okay, so we're capable of both. You are not like just an asshole or just a super nice, easygoing guy. We all fluctuate." And he's like, "But it is true that we have an emotional home. It's the place, or your, like your home, it's the place you spend the most time." And he's like, "If your emotional home is that you are stressed out- It doesn't matter if you sell your company for a billion dollars. If you did- if you grinded for seven years and you were stressed all the time, you're not just gonna become a different guy all of a sudden, right? 'Cause that's your emotional home. Uh, but he's like, "Good news is you can move it." He's like, "You can move it if you basically practice it," right? And he's like, "So we wanna basically, um..." You know, y- you don't wanna wait for the th- for things to happen to feel a certain way. He's like, "You wanna have it on call, that you can change the way you feel, like, that fast. Can you do that? Can you change the way you feel that fast?" And a lot of the events of Tony Robbins, and the reason why people feel like almost like he's manipulative, is because he literally is manipulating the way you feel. He's showing you that, like, you can change the way... You can go from focused to jubilant to, um, zen and calm and reflective to motivated and inspired in, like, a 30-minute span just by the way he's kinda prompting you. And, uh, the trick obviously is to learn to do that yourself so that you now are in control of your own mood. You're the master of your own mood. And that's w- that was big, uh, that became a big focus for me after that event. That was my big takeaway from the event, was that, and then I started practicing that for the last, like, six, seven years.

Sam Parr 56:01 I wish you had come up with that on your own because you don't realize it, but one of the big three, like, uh, psych, uh... You know, so there's like Sigmund Freud, and then there's two other guys who are considered like the godfathers of 19th century, like, psychoanal- a- analytics and all this stuff. And one of the guys is Alfred Adler, and he's got... There's a book called The Courage to Be Disliked that's quite good. And what you are saying is exactly in parallel with what he has said about, like, happiness and like... It's like, well, you're anxious because you're choosing to be anxious, and you don't, you're not choosing to do this other thing. And he's got this whole book on it.

Shaan Puri 56:35 Right.

Sam Parr 56:35 But you d- you didn't realize it.

Shaan Puri 56:36 [laughs]

Sam Parr 56:37 But you've just discovered relativ- uh, you know, the theory of relativity j- uh, uh, j- just like A- A- Albert Einstein.

Shaan Puri 56:43 [laughs]

Sam Parr 56:43 You didn't even know about it, so you're kind of like, uh, one of the big three, uh-

Shaan Puri 56:47 This Adler guy sounds like a smart guy. Yeah, like-

Sam Parr 56:49 Yeah

Shaan Puri 56:49 ... I like the sound of this. I'm gonna go check this guy out. [laughs]

Sam Parr 56:51 Yeah. So, so, so that's you. Um, all right. Where do we go from here? Is that it?

Shaan Puri 56:55 That's it. I think we wrap it up. Uh, thank you for everybody for listening. You know, those, those views ain't gonna view themselves. It's because of you guys. But you know, we, we, we just talked about wanting more. Sam, are you satisfied? Are we, are we do- do we have enough subscribers, would you say?

Sam Parr 57:12 We only have 360. You know-

Shaan Puri 57:14 [laughs]

Sam Parr 57:14 ... MrBeast has 100, 100 million. We're nothing.

Shaan Puri 57:16 [laughs]

Sam Parr 57:17 We're losers. I'm anxious about this. And so if you've enjoyed this episode, if you've enjoyed any of our episodes, subscribe on YouTube, but also go to Spotify, go to podcast, the, the Apple version-

Shaan Puri 57:27 Yeah

Sam Parr 57:27 ... and subscribe on all those.

Shaan Puri 57:28 We could go to therapy and stop wanting this, or you could just click the button and make us feel happy.

Sam Parr 57:32 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 57:33 Which one? [laughs]

Sam Parr 57:33 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 57:35 Save us years of therapy and just click subscribe. [laughs] And just say, "You're welcome" in the comments. And we know when you say, "You're welcome," it's 'cause you saved us years of therapy. You just gave us what we wanted instead.

Sam Parr 57:46 All right. That's the pod. [upbeat music]