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EVERY SPOKEN WORD
60 min read · 12,019 words- 0:00 – 1:40
There are 99 days left in the year
- SPShaan Puri
There are 99 days left in the year. 99 days. I almost feel like this 100 day left in the year is more important than the New Year's resolution. [upbeat music] I just encourage anyone, man, this, it's the end of the year. Use this last sprint and like treat it like an athlete does the fourth quarter of a game, and really ask yourself like, "What do I want this year to be all about? Have I, have I kinda made my mark on the year?" And 99 days might sound like a short amount of time, but that's an eternity. You can make so much happen in 99 days, and I just encourage anyone to just hear that today and just ask yourself the question like, "Have I made my mark on this year yet?" And if not, let's, you know, there's one sprint right here and we can, we can use.
- SPSam Parr
I have two comments on that. The first is I think the idea of quarters is so stupid. Quarters should be months. Don't make a Q4, make it like M6 and then M7.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Right.
- SPSam Parr
Like four weeks is a significantly better... I've like, the time that something takes is often dictated by like the increments that we measure them in.
- SPShaan Puri
The chunk you give it. Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, I can't stand that. Like in Google Calendars, it defaults to 30-minute increments. I'm like, "No, make it five-minute increments."
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
Uh, the second, I, I joke with a bunch of my Jewish friends, one of the reasons why they're so successful is the Jewish New Year is in September, so Rosh, uh, Rosh Hashanah, I can't even say it correctly, um, that was in September. And so I'm like, "Dude, you guys have like three months head start in terms of New Year's resolutions [laughs] and like reflecting on your year."
- SPShaan Puri
Right. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
And so I was thinking about that, where like I, I've actually liked that, where you make New Year's resolutions like
- 1:40 – 3:35
Parkinson’s Law
- SPSam Parr
two months in advance, and so you got a two-month head start on everyone.
- SPShaan Puri
Well, there's a, I think it's called Parkinson’s Law, which is like, uh, work expands to fill the time you give it. It's like, um, it's like modeled after physics, like a, a, a gas will expand to fill whatever container it's in. So if you shrink the container, the gas will be more compact. If you have a bigger container, it'll spread out. Your projects take the, work the same way. And so if you default to, like you said, Google Calendar, if the default meeting is 30 minutes or an hour, guess what? You'll find a way to talk for 30 minutes to an hour. If you had m- moved that same meeting to 22 minutes, you would've got it all done in 22 minutes. So yeah, I think take this 99 days and make it happen. I, I don't know, what, what, where are you at with that? Do you, do you think this way? Do you... I know you're trying not to be the kinda ADD entrepreneur or the cortisol entrepreneur anymore that's like spiking in, in stress.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. I'm trying to fight my natural instincts. Um-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] How's that going?
- SPSam Parr
So it's... I- it's good. I think my theory is that you can't change your weaknesses or it's really hard to make your weaknesses a strength. You can potentially neutralize it, but that's like the best case scenario.
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
And so instead, you do something where you just create a system where your weakness like can't really show itself. So like for example, if you don't work out, you're like, "Well, I'm never gonna be self-motivated, but if I prepay for this trainer to show up at my home, like I'm still gonna be lazy, but like they're gonna f- I just have to do this. Like there's no choice."
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
So with me, I've got a CEO, my co-founder Joe, and so we have set it up to where we only talk mostly about personal stuff throughout the day, but there's only one day of the week where I can come and complain to him or suggest improvements for the business. And that one day a week-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... it's only 45 minutes, and I have to write it out in advance. And so because of that, I'll like see something and get pissed off, and I'll be like, six days later when we talk about it, I'm like, "I'm not actually that angry."
- SPShaan Puri
Right. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
And so
- 3:35 – 9:25
The toxic love of events
- SPSam Parr
like I'm a big fan of creating systems. So it's worked for me. Uh, do you have anything, um, major that you wanna do over the next 90?
- SPShaan Puri
Um, yeah. I wanna, there's like one more event I wanna create. I've realized that as the world is so online, so digital, I think it's just put premiums on everything that's IRL. So I wanna create one more IRL event. We have Hoop Group, which is our basketball event that we do once a year, and I wanna create a second... And that, that thing's been like such a blessing, right? It's like super fun, super fun to do. Unbelievable crew of people that come to that thing, and it's built this awesome network around something that I would just do for fun anyways. And, uh, I wanna do another one of those. The problem with that one is it's, it's so exclusive. Like, not only is everybody there, like, kinda like the top of the top, like, you know, uh, in terms of the, their careers, but also you have to be like really into basketball, which is fundamentally limiting for a lot of people. They're just not that into basketball. So I wanna create a- another event that is not limited in that same way.
- SPSam Parr
Launch it or host it?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, it's gonna happen before the end of the year. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Okay. All right.
- SPShaan Puri
And I don't even have the concept yet. [laughs] So that's okay. Um, but you know, how, how long does an idea take? Like, that's how long an idea takes, right? How long does a decision take? A decision takes that long too. So you know, I, I kind of, people would, would normally say, "Oh, that's not enough time." If you ask any professional event planner, they'd say that's not enough time. Thankfully, I'm not a professional event planner, and I will make it happen in that amount of time.
- SPSam Parr
I think the best way to become successful is to see how other people did it, whether you're gonna copy them or just use it as inspiration, because then now you know what's possible. So starting at the age of 24, I did this relentlessly, and I was very methodical about it. And I created a spreadsheet where I tracked roughly 50 people who were uber successful, and I looked at the year that they were born, the year that they started their apprenticeship, and then the year that they started the first thing that made them successful, finally the year that they broke through. And I aggregated all this data, along with the stories of what they did to be an apprentice and what they did to finally break through, and I put it together in a database. And HubSpot went and found this thing that I frankly even forgot about, but it did change my life, and they resurfaced it. They made it even better, and they put it into a thing that you can download for free right now. So if you click the link in the description or click the QR code right here, you can see this database that I made when I was 24, and it changed my life. And so if you're looking to become successful or you're already successful and just want some more inspiration, check it out. So, uh, for the listener, my last company was, it was The Hustle. It was a newsletter, but it started as an event, and it was basically one event that I would host, like, basically when I needed money, so, like, every nine months. [laughs] Like, uh, I would do it, use the money, and go hang out for, like, two months and then, like, do it again. I did that for, like, three e- events in a row, and then it became a newsletter. But the first event that I hosted, I'm gonna try and get the dates correctly. The event happened, I think, on July 1st. I started working on it on May 15th, so it was roughly six weeks. And so I sort of had first mover advantage, and so I could kinda be crappy and it'd still be kind of interesting. And, uh, I think I charged $300, and I think roughly 350 people came.
- SPShaan Puri
I, I'll frame it differently. I think what you did brilliantly was the name of it was Hustle Con, and the vibe of it was scrappy entrepreneurs, the, the real deal. And the beauty of that was you didn't have to provide a polished, luxurious thing-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... because that was off-brand. So thank God I don't have any of that, because that would be off-brand anyways. It's like, uh, I have a friend who, who created Summit Series, the big, like, event they do on, like, the mountain. They bought... They ended up... The, the event that where they ended up buying the mountain, where they, where they-
- SPSam Parr
They bought a summit, yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, and he said the best thing Burning Man ever did was create the ethos of, like, hey, like, it's a piece of dirt. You create the town. You clean up the town.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
It's like, we're... there's no, there's no, uh, there's no signs.
- SPSam Parr
It's self-governing, yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
Like in our event, if we didn't have the right sign where the bathroom was, people would get upset.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
Burning Man, they just changed the expectation where it's like, "Of course we're not gonna baby you. You, you set up your own tent. You survive. You bring your own supplies. You clean up everything." And they... he's like, he's like, "From an event planning perspective, brilliant." [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. Um, it's great. Um, and so I'll be eager to see how you pull this off. It's definitely pull-off-able. It's just, like, a lot of pressure. It is a very stressful period.
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
And it's sort of like running a marathon, where leading up to it you're like, "This is kinda cool." It gets closer and you're like, "I'm scared. This sucks. Never doing this again." The day happens. You don't really remember a lot of it. It was a lot of work.
- SPShaan Puri
Right, like a wedding.
- SPSam Parr
A week later you're like, "I can do this again, and I can make it better."
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
You know? It's like-
- SPShaan Puri
Child's play
- SPSam Parr
... giving birth and hosting, and, uh, hosting an event and running a marathon are all kind of similar.
- SPShaan Puri
Hosting an all-male tech conference. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
Those are the two similar, similar events. Yeah. I also think, you know, uh, constraints are very, very im- important, so time constraint is one constraint. You said money. You know, we do the events out of pocket. We don't make any money off of them intentionally. So well, that's a little bit silly. Why, why do you do that? Well, because the constraint is what is an event that is so good, that is so, so fun, so valuable, so meaningful to us, that we would be willing to spend, you know, 150 to 250 grand to make it happen? And that literally just eliminates, like, 99 options of what you might do if the goal was to try to make 100 grand or try to make 200 grand, make 300 grand, or make a million dollars. Um, and so the constr- so using the constraint of what's an event so good I would pay, I would pay to host it, is what's led us to creating, you know, some very unique events so far, and that's, that's kind of what I wanna do again. I wanna give you a little anecdote that I thought was pretty interesting. So there's this guy, Joel Greenblatt. Do you know who that is?
- 9:25 – 12:25
Joel Greenblatt’s Jelly Bean experiment
- SPSam Parr
Um, he writes books on stock picking, right?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, he's like one of the, one of the best, uh, investors, uh, you know, of all time. So, like, like Warren Buffett, he outperformed the market for decades using a different strategy, but, but, but, you know, nonetheless outperformed and did really well. So he goes to give a talk, and he puts in the front, in this, like, in the front of a, uh, of the auditorium he's got this jar of jelly beans inside. And so he says, "Hey, I'm gonna g- a- anybody can... You... Come on up, come on up to the front, take a look at the jar, and I want you to write down an estimate. Don't show your friend. Don't t- don't show your neighbor. Write down an estimate for how many jar... how many beans are in this jar on this piece of paper." And he said, "You can, you know, you can't open it, but you can do whatever you want. Come up here and look, take a look." So everyone goes and they take a look. Some people are counting the, the beans in the row, and then the height, and then just kind of try to estimate it. And so, um, he tallies up... He gets all the, the results, and, um, the guesses are 1,771 beans.
- SPSam Parr
That's the average of the guesses?
- SPShaan Puri
That's the average of all the guesses. Now, guess what? That's only five off from the actual. There's 1,776 beans in there. The average of this group of 100 people was incredibly close. Um, but he doesn't tell them how close they were. Then he goes around the room and he says, "Actually, you know what? Let's make this a little, little faster. Um, why don't you just tell me how many you think are in this thing? Say it out loud." So the first person says, "Uh, 850." [laughs] And so the next person, who might have been thinking 2,000, was like, "Oh, shit, maybe 2,000, maybe that's way off. Um, 1,300." And then the person who was thinking 1,700 was like, "Ah, 850 and 1,300." And they... so they, they all say their guesses out loud. When they all said their guesses out loud, they went from being off by five to being 50% off. The guess, the, the average I think came down to, like, 900 or something like that. So they were off by a mile now. Same people, same jar. The only thing that changed was hearing what other people thought. And he gave this example. He goes, "This is the stock market. For most of you, if you, if you were able to independently think and analyze a business and try to come up with what you think the true value of that business is, you're smart people, you'd do pretty well. But the reason smart people don't do well in the stock market is 'cause they're listening to the news, and Jim Cramer, and the analyst reports, and then they look at the ticker and it's going down. I guess it's bad. And as it gets going up, ah, I gotta get in." And so, you know, it's gonna go higher, right? And, and they let everybody else influence their thinking as to what the business is actually worth. And he goes, "If I t- if you remember one thing about how to be a great investor, it would be To look at the jar and write down the piece, the number on the piece of paper and know that on average you'll be much closer to the true value than if you just listen to what everybody's saying. And he goes, "Now this is so difficult. There's a reason Warren Buffett says you should buy low-cost index funds even though he doesn't. And I say you should buy low-cost index funds
- 12:25 – 15:30
The aftershocks of Joe Hudson
- SPShaan Puri
even though I don't [laughs] because it is so hard to do what I just told you."
- SPSam Parr
So we had Joe Hudson on the other day.
- SPShaan Puri
Mm-hmm.
- SPSam Parr
So I consider myself to be a fairly easily influenced person. Like, I'll hear about Sam Newhouse and I'm like, "That's awesome. I love that." I'm easily excitable maybe is, is a good word. And so he said something that was interesting, um, where he was like, um, I forget exactly how he phrased it, but whatever, the way he phrased it, I went and started reading this book called Untethered Soul, which is kind of a fine book. It's only fine. But there was, like, one concept that I found was interesting. So have you heard of transcendental meditation?
- SPShaan Puri
Y- you basically, uh, sit down and instead of being quiet with your thoughts, you're chanting and you're chanting something. It doesn't even matter what you're saying, but it's, uh, the rhythmic auditory thing almost drowns out the other thoughts in your head. I've done this before. There, there's a Buddhist practice that's like this that I, I was once taken to that I thought was r- pretty awesome. Uh, but I don't do it regularly.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. And, and I've done it as well, and I don't do it regularly anymore. Uh, but, like, there was one line from Untether, uh, Untethered Soul where he talks about the guy who created TM, transcendental meditation. His name was, uh, his last name was Yogi. Uh, uh, but he, like, tells this story where he's like basically like the most important key to have, like, a happy life is when you have these thoughts in your brain, you, you should treat that, that thing in your brain as a roommate. And so if you were to have a roommate that said, "You totally screwed that up. You suck. Like, that was not good what you did. You are never gonna make up for it." Like, everyone has these, like, negative thinking. You have to be like, "Dude, you are not me. You are my roommate." And what this guy who created TM, he was like, "You just have to ask yourself all the time for every thought, you have to ask, 'Why am I thinking this?'" And, like, I'll just, I'll, I'll hear it, but I'm not gonna listen to it. But I have to ask myself on a consistent basis, "Who am I? And why am I thinking about this? And what does this mean for me?" As opposed to just listening. And just the act of asking yourself that is actually really important, and that simple question oftentimes can have breakthroughs for self-enlightenment. And so, uh, because I'm a very influenced person, I have to, like, read something and be like, "Why does this excite me? Okay, but is this the, is this actually who I am?" And, like, this constant, like, "Who am I? Is this who I am?" It's okay to like this person's story. That doesn't mean I'm gonna copy it. Um, like, this, this, like, constant inner dialogue because I've been asking myself, "How do you become less influenced by people who aren't aligned with what you, your life's calling or, like, your mission is?" And so when it comes to, like, this memetic discussion of, like, how do you not let this person influence you, I'm just, am t- trying to look for exercises on how to actually combat that because it is incredibly hard.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, although y- y- you're talking about the v- and you're saying, you're taking it to the extreme where you're like, "Even the voice in my head, don't let that, don't let that necessarily influence me 'cause that thing is a m- you know, monkey throwing feces all over the room." You know? It's like, it's not necessarily the most reliable, aligned source for me.
- SPSam Parr
Like,
- 15:30 – 18:05
Shaan’s “5 voices in the head” theory
- SPSam Parr
it is not you. It is just a roommate.
- SPShaan Puri
I, I love the roommate thing. I love the roommate thing. That's great. Have I told you about my five, five voices in the head theory?
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] No. Is one of them telling you to kill? 'Cause we should talk about that. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] So I, I believe that people, it's not one roommate. I think there's this five voices in the head, and once you know that, that these, uh, these parts of you exist, you'll start to recognize them 'cause they'll pop up. It's kind of like the movie Inside Out, if you've ever seen it. And inside the girl's head, there's, like, she, s- they, they do it with emotions. There's, like, the red angry guy, there's the blue sad girl, there's the fearful one, and then there's the grossed out one. So the Inside Out showed this in a movie with emotions, but I think there's a similar thing going on with voices in your head. Who are the five? The first one is the critic, and the critic is like David Goggins in your head. You're never enough for him. You, you did, you did 100 pushups? You should've done 200. You could've done more, you pussy.
- SPSam Parr
Like, typical.
- SPShaan Puri
And he's there for a reason 'cause he serves you, keeps you honest, prevents you from getting high on your own supply. There's a reason that he gets to have a room. But God, dang it, if you listen to that guy too often, y- you know, life, life doesn't end up very well for you. Then you have, uh, another voice, and I call this the voice of the mother. And the vois- voice of the mother is a more caring voice, but it's also the one that's protective. It's trying to, y- you know, it's slicing your grapes for you even when you're 19 years old. It just doesn't want you to get hurt and wants you to live a nice, safe life and be protected and wants everything to go well for you. And that's great too because it's nice to be protected. It's nice to, to be, to play it safe. You don't wanna take too much risk. But at the same time, the dose makes the poison. Too much of that can also ruin your life because you'll play it too safe. And you go on and you go, you go forth, and so there's these different voices. I could go through all of them, but, like, that, that's the idea is that there's these f- five different voices. And then at the end of it, if you're able to hush up all these voices and get them to go back to their room for a little bit, the thing that's left, that's you. The last voice is you. [laughs] That's the self. And, uh, the problem is we're so, it's so noisy in there because these other voices are constantly chirping that it's hard to hear what you truly, what you truly think, what you truly want. 'Cause it sounds so easy. Well, you should just do what you want. Most people don't even know. So why do we do things like meditation? Why does sleep help? Why do we do therapy? 'Cause you're trying to get these other voices to just shut the [beep] up for a minute so you can actually just figure out what you want and then go do that. It's pretty easy once you get there.
- SPSam Parr
Have you ever described anything to, uh, AI and you, like, describe this, like, really, like, interesting thought? You're like, "I think I just came up with
- 18:05 – 20:00
Six Thinking Hats
- SPSam Parr
this cool idea," and they're like Yeah, dude, that's called the theory of relativity.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
And you're like, "So I'm as smart as Albert I- we both, we invented this concurrently?" Um, [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Why, is this, is this a thing? Is this a thing that exists?
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. Well, there's this great book called The Six Thinking Hats. I found this to be a very productive book.
- SPShaan Puri
Uh, the, Edward de Bono?
- SPSam Parr
Uh, I believe... Is that, I'm looking it up. Who... I think that might be him. Uh, yeah, yeah, you're right.
- SPShaan Puri
The, the lateral thinking guy? Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
And it's, like, basically, like, oftentimes at work or, like, um, when you're working on a project, like, typically there's always the guy who, like, defaults to, like, "That can't work because..."
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
And I remember reading that and I'm like, how, or thinking about that, I'm like, "How do I change this guy or change myself?" And so there's the six hats of thinking, and one of them's, like, the guy, the, the white hat is focus on facts, the yellow hat is be optimistic, the black hat be devil's advocate, whatever, and there's, like, six hats. And, like, when you're having a discussion you're like, "Okay, I hear you, what you're saying. Can you go ahead and, like, tell me, like, if you were an optimist, what would you say about this idea?" And, like, you, it just, it creates a significantly better conversation where you're like, "Okay-
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- SPSam Parr
... listen to this voice."
- SPShaan Puri
Get in character.
- SPSam Parr
"Okay, I hear you are, you, you're being this person. That might be who you are. I need you to pretend that you're, uh, an optimist person [laughs] and, like, tell me, like..." [laughs] Uh, or, like, okay, you're this creative... Like, we used to have creative people at the, uh, at The Hustle, and it's like, okay, you're saying this crazy idea. I need you to be a manager right now. Think through a manager's perspective and tell me how this makes profit so I can continue paying everyone's salary. And it's like, okay, let's think through that lens.
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
And it starts, like, actually changing the conversation meaningfully. So what you've described is a little bit similar to what one of my favorite business authors of all time has described. So congratulations, you are now my favorite business author.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Yeah. All right. Sweet. [laughs] Well, that's a win for me. By the way, I like doing this, the, the physical version of this. So I actually have, like, two ha- two hats that I use. So when I was,
- 20:00 – 22:45
The two minds of a creator
- SPShaan Puri
I told you I was studying the creativity-
- SPSam Parr
You literally put your hat on?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. So I, I, I was studying the creative process and, and one of the biggest things in the creative process is that you need what Jerry Seinfeld calls two minds, the two minds of a creator. And the first mind is this, uh, childlike mind. So, you know, when you wanna sit down and create and you're sitting in front of a blank page, the reason people have writer's block, the reason people struggle to, to, to create daily is because you're afraid. You're afraid of failure. You're afraid of looking bad. You're afraid of... You want so badly to be great that you're not willing to do something bad, to not put something bad down on the page, so you put nothing down at all. And as a self-protective mechanism. So he talks about how you need the childlike mind at the beginning, who's just gonna grab a crayon and just scribble. And, and then you, and you almost wanna have this attitude towards that, that version of you that's like, "Oh my God, sweetie, that's amazing. Can I hang that up on the fridge?" And, like, you need to nurture that, like, that energy because it's what's gonna get you going, right? It's gonna get you to put things-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... on the page, and then you'll, you'll eventually figure out how to make it good. Good comes later. Don't worry about that. So you need this childlike mind. He's like, and then what happens is, about four hours later when you come back and you, you now have a bunch of scribble on the page, you have to completely change into a ruthless asshole. And y- now this is the editor, and the editor is basically saying, "No, no, no, less of this. Trim the fat. Too many words, too many syllables. Cut down. Rearrange this." And you, you gotta be able to do both. You know, somebody who can only do the free play and never edits, never has any kind of, like, discernment or taste or judgment, um, doesn't work. But if you bring the judgment into the room early on in the brainstorm, you're not gonna have a very good brainstorm. And so we created these two hats, literally, like, Diego got 'em made for us-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... which was, like, uh, it, it says Rick Mode, which is, like, Rick Rubin, so it's, like, Rick Mode, when it's like, dude, we're just messing around. We're playing. We're just, we trust ourselves, and you're in Rick Mode. And then we have Prick Mode, and you put on the Prick Mode hat, it goes the other way. It's a different color, and if you were, if we were in Prick Mode, then it's like, well, that's who I'm supposed to be right now, so let me go ahead and do that. And I, I, at first I felt kinda silly, and then I started noticing there's a lot of examples of great people who do this. So Warren Buffett has a, a actual thing on his desk called the too hard pile, 'cause his investing philosophy is that, look, you can't have a great opinion on 100 straight stocks or investment opportunities. He's like, you should be able to pretty quickly figure out the five that are very interesting, probably, like, you know, good, good no-brainer things to do. The five that are absolutely terrible, duds, stay away, red, red flags everywhere. But then 90%, it's too hard to judge. It's, it's too close to call. Can't tell. And so he literally creates the too hard pile on his desk so that he can put things in there-
- SPSam Parr
That's awesome
- SPShaan Puri
... to just mentally say, "Look, I, I don't have to come to an answer. It's just in the too hard pile. I don't need to worry about it."
- 22:45 – 23:50
Blue notebook vs. red notebook
- SPShaan Puri
Um, there was a guy, Zach Dell, so the son of Michael Dell from Dell Computers, and Zach Dell's got this really interesting company called Basepower now. And he was on a, a podcast and he was saying, he's like, "I have two notebooks." So he's like, "So I got the," I forgot what it is. Like, the red notebook and the blue notebook. And I think you will like this, 'cause this is every business own- like, CEO, business owner has this. He goes, "The red notebook is working in the business. So if I have an idea of what we should, you know, what we should do, what we should change, this, you know, this customer thing." And then the blue is working on the business, which is, oh, you know, this person's not in the right role, or we need to hire somebody for this, or, you know, we need to, we need to get an office space. We need to rearrange our office space so these two groups are sitting closer to each other so that they're gonna have better chemistry. And so in the business and on the business, and he's like, "I have two separate notebooks so I know which one I'm doing when, and I know if I'm spending too much time in the business, it's like I'm all over the red notebook." Oh, was that, is that it? Do you have the same thing?
- SPSam Parr
Two notebooks, baby.
- SPShaan Puri
Two notebooks. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] That's what we say.
- SPShaan Puri
Can we just admire the showmanship?
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Can you just do that again, instant replay? Sam picks up the notebook-
- SPSam Parr
Oops
- SPShaan Puri
... shows it like that
- 23:50 – 27:00
Sam’s three notebooks
- SPShaan Puri
where it looks like one thick notebook, turns, fans it out, two notebooks.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Yeah, I have got two notebooks. Um, I actually have a third. Hang on.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] But wait, there's more. [laughs] The ultimate showman.
- SPSam Parr
Hey, Zach, suck on this.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] In the business, on the business, and out of business. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Well, one is like-
- SPShaan Puri
What's the third one?
- SPSam Parr
This is like, um-
- SPShaan Puri
Feelings
- SPSam Parr
Uh, it's like the five-day, uh, five-year journal that I write where it's like, "Here's how I feel today-"
- SPShaan Puri
Interesting
- SPSam Parr
... like right now. The next one is like content ideas, like just random ideas. And then the next one is like, "Here's what I actually have to do," and like-
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- SPSam Parr
... I need to like work through the actual problem.
- SPShaan Puri
What's your system for this?
- SPSam Parr
Um, so this one I on- I do almost religiously every day. So this is the five-year journal, so every day I write like, "Here's what I, here's what I did today. Here's something to be grateful for."
- SPShaan Puri
So this is like 5, 10 minutes in the morning? What do you do?
- SPSam Parr
No, three minutes. So it could be like, uh-
- SPShaan Puri
Three minutes
- SPSam Parr
... uh, "Today, I, I read about Aristotle and I loved it for these reasons, and I need to be reminded to do X like Aristotle." Or it could be like, "T- today I went to San Francisco. It was amazing. Um, we brought, um, help with us and it made the trip so much easier." So it could be like, just like, just, it just like, I'll look back at a year, I'll be like, "Ah, that's a good reminder." Uh, the next one, this one, uh, will be more like, uh, uh, like, you know, like, um, let's say I'm reading a book and I'll like have like an interesting idea related to that book, so I just need to get it on paper. And then the next one is like, "Here's what I have to do today," uh, and like, uh, it's mostly checklists, but I'll like kinda brainstorm solutions to the problem.
- SPShaan Puri
Hmm.
- SPSam Parr
So your boy's got books. Um... [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
And by the way, that's like a, a consistent thing I've noticed amongst creators that I like, is that they, I think the easiest way to say it is they write drunk, edit sober.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
Um, so I've noticed that consistently. But then you have stories like Eminem, his, the famous story where he walked in with Dr. Dre, and like Dre plays the first beat, and then within five seconds he goes, "Hi, my name is," like, you're like, "Okay."
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
So like, it definitely could just happen, but typically the people who are systematically great, including Eminem, like people I've seen, um, I think Anderson Cooper did a thing, a story on Eminem where they're like, "Dude, he writes like crazy. Like, I've never seen someone write down so much stuff." And another thing that they would say about him, and Eminem when he was younger, came off as this like party guy. Maybe he was, but they were like, "He's at the studio at 9:00 a.m. and he goes home at 4:00." Like it's a, it's a work day. And like I notice that there's way more systematic ways to being creative than there is examples of epiphanies.
- SPShaan Puri
Right. Well, the, the, the analogy I would use, 'cause I, I think it's, yeah, both. Like I think, yeah, you have those moments where, um, the song comes on, the beat comes on, and he starts doing, "Hi, my name is," or that, y- you hear this a lot where somebody is like, "Ed, 24 hours, they wrote both of the hit songs that defined their careers in one day. All it took was one day." And it's like, no, all it took was every day for their whole life.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- 27:00 – 30:00
“Your brain is an old mansion”
- SPSam Parr
rate and the conversions just came like in number 98 and 99.
- SPShaan Puri
Back to back, yeah. Well, the, well, the, the, the, the analogy I use is imagine your brain as this like old mansion, old mansion on a hill. And you go to it, you inherited it. You find out you inherited this gift from your, you know, your great-grandfather. You didn't even know you had it, but it was yours. And so you go and you walk in, you're like, "Wow, this thing's amazing," and it's in terrible shape. Cobwebs everywhere, but this thing could be amazing. And you decide, you go to the rest- you go to the bathroom and you see this like wonderful, this old tub, this amazing tub, and you're like, "Man, this is, this is crazy. I've never had a bath like this. I sh- I'm gonna turn it on." You turn the water on, and of course right when you turn the water on, it's creaky, takes a second, it sputters, and then out comes brown, muddy water. Like the most disgust- And you're hor- you flinch. You're like horrified. You're like, "Oh, disgusting."
- SPSam Parr
Oof.
- SPShaan Puri
You turn it off. This is, this is the f- you know, the, the first thing you write when you sit down to write, the first thing you, you say. If I said, "Hey, freestyle right now," it's what would come out. You'd be horrified at your own disgust. It, it's your own like, your own output is gonna be, is gonna disgust you. But you, you know, what do you do? So most people just turn the water off and say, "Ooh, never again. That bathtub has, it's nasty. Don't go in there." Um, but a few people are like, they leave the water running, and sure enough, it's brown, it's brown, it's brown, it's brown, it's brown. And then eventually it starts to, little spurts of clear come out, and eventually the water starts running clear. And I think what happens in that example where Eminem goes in and freestyles is that he's had the water running, and he's running clear.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
And so, you know, when the, when the moment comes, he's able to perform. He's able to come up with an idea. He's able to have a good idea because that, it's warmed up. The whole system is warmed up. The muddy water is gone because he's got, putting in the daily reps, you know, along the way. And so I think that's a lot of how this works. And, uh, you know, I feel that way about this podcast. Like let's say we didn't do this podcast for three months. One might think that, "Oh, we're gonna be, uh, we're gonna have so much saved up material. We're gonna be awesome. It's gonna be so much better."
- SPSam Parr
No.
- SPShaan Puri
And then as you know, like-
- SPSam Parr
It'd be rusty
- SPShaan Puri
... it would be way worse. [laughs] It would be terrible. This podcast gets better the more often we do it. Obviously, there's some limits to that. Like if, if I did it again in two hours, like maybe I'd be out of s- I need a little fresh feed stocks, a little inspiration, a little fresh air in between.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, you gotta get warmed up.
- SPShaan Puri
But by and large, the more you keep the water running, the better your, the, you know, the clearer it eventually starts to run. And it's when you stop using it for a while that, y- you know, it's like, there's this flywheel where the more it generates, the better it generates. And the less it generates-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, there's this-
- SPShaan Puri
... the worse it generates.
- SPSam Parr
There's this story about Tupac Shakur who, uh, died when he was only 25, and so he was very prolific for a very short amount of time. And there's a story. He goes to, he went to prison for, uh, doing some bad stuff, and he's there for like nine months, and someone was like, "Well, it must have been like, you know, let's find the icing on the cake. Like at least you had like a lot of solitude so you could like write." He goes, "I can't write in here. It's the worst. Like A, there's like very little inspiration, and B, like I can't get it out." He would write way better when he was like a machine gun in the studio, like just go, go, go.
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
"All right, we did that one. All right, let's try another one." Can
- 30:00 – 41:40
Obscure billionaire, family dynasty
- SPSam Parr
I tell you an interesting story? And this is sort of related to like someone who followed, uh, none of the rules that people default to, and I think it's really interesting, and I think it's gonna interest you because A, it's an obscure billionaire who I'm sure you've never heard of, but you know their work, and B, it's a family dynasty business, which I think you're tiptoeing into like your interests.
- SPShaan Puri
I'm tantalized.
- SPSam Parr
Okay. Have you ever heard of Advance Publishing?
- SPShaan Puri
No. But you said I know their product. What's the product?
- SPSam Parr
Well, the most popular ones, but not necessarily the most profitable, are Ironman, GQ Magazine-
- SPShaan Puri
Mm
- SPSam Parr
... Reddit, Charter Communications, Warner Bros., Discovery. Some smaller ones that you probably like is the, or that you've heard of, American City Business Journals, Turnitin.com. They just bought a mountain biking event. Vanity Fair, GQ, Vogue.
- SPShaan Puri
Reddit? Reddit's, Reddit's a public stock. What do you, what do you mean they own Reddit?
- SPSam Parr
They owned Reddit before it was public.
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, okay, gotcha.
- SPSam Parr
So I can... I'll tell you.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
And, and they still own, I think they own 30% of it still, but I'll tell you the story. So there's this guy named Sam Newhouse. Sam Newhouse was born, I think, in like 1895. He's born into this, like Jewish family. He's like 5'2". He's like a little guy. He's tiny, and he, his father gets sick, gets really bad asthma, and so is, he can't work. And so he's got like four other siblings, and he's like, at the age of 13 and 14, the mom is like, "Hey, dude, you're the man of the house. You gotta, you gotta drop out of school and help me pay the bills." And so he does like a mail-in order course, basically the equivalent of an online course in bookkeeping, and he convinces this local, uh, business person to give him a job. He's like, "I'll do your bookkeeping." So he does his bookkeeping, starting at the age of 15. By 16, a year later, the business guy who owns a very small local newspaper, and he's like, "Hey, I have this newspaper that I own. It doesn't really make a lot of money." And it made like the equivalent of like $800,000 a year in revenue today. He's like, "Can you just, like, keep an eye on this? You seem very trustworthy. You know numbers. Figure out how to make this work." Within six or seven months, he turns it around and it started making money, and he's at this point 17, and the guy's like, "Dude, good job. Here, I'll give you, uh, a percentage of the profits now, and I'll also give you a little bit of ownership." And Sam Newhouse is like, "I like this. I think I'm pretty good at it." So he does it for a couple more years, and then after about three years, he convinces, um, a bunch of family members to all pitch in and loan him money, and he buys his first newspaper. It was called Staten Island Advance, which is why the company today is still called Advance Publishing. And so his whole shtick is basically he bought this newspaper, and he goes into it with a few things in mind. The first thing, he's like, "Look, we're just here to sell ads. Let's, let's keep it real. The, the, the content that we create, it, well, we can make it as good as we possibly can within our constraints, but, like, we need to make a profit." And so he's very, very, very good at selling ads, and he's very good at keeping cost controls down. And for the next, I think, 60 years, he buys a new newspaper every three years, and it slowly accumulates roughly 15 to 20% per year in revenue growth, and he grows, and he grows, and he grows, and he grows. And by the time it's, like, 1980, he has one of the largest privately owned companies in America, and he's doing, like... Well, today, Advance Publishing does, like, 8 billion a year in revenue. Back then, it was doing, like, a billion in revenue. But what's interesting is this little guy named Sam Newhouse, he never had an office. He worked out of a briefcase. All he had was a briefcase. Most of the deals that he did was handshake agreements. He had zero partners. He had zero executive management team, and by the time the company was doing a billion in revenue, it was literally just him. Like, just him making these decisions, and, and he would ins- he would hire a publisher, uh, which is basically a GM or, like, a CEO of a newspaper, and he would go to each one each week, and be like, "Hey, what's going on, man? How is everything going?"
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
He was very polite, though, but he was like-
- SPShaan Puri
He was the headquarters just driving around.
- SPSam Parr
He... And he would drive from thing to thing to thing, and he kept doing this and doing this and doing this, and then after a while, when he's, like, close to 60 and 70 and 80 years old, he starts getting his sons involved, and they've now created this, like, dynasty. And it was his sons who was like, "Okay, our dad bought all these, like, kind of low prestige local newspapers where, like, they pretty much just exist to buy ads." Basically, the way that he thought about it, he was like, his whole thing was like, "How much m- profit can I make in 10 years off of this particular newspaper?" That's how he would value things. So he was like, "Okay, I can make $8 million in profit over the next 10 years off this newspaper. I have no problem buying it for $4 million," which is, like, I think at the time, that, like, he would buy them for six to eight times, uh, annual earnings, 'cause he was like, "I'm looking for 10 years at a time. That's how I measure it." And he kept going, and then eventually his kids were like, "Okay, Dad built, like, a cool company, but, like, it's not, like, well-regarded. We want to do something great." And so they buy The New Yorker, which was, at the time, a very prominent magazine. They buy this little thing called Condé Nast, and Condé Nast was a series of, uh, magazines, including Vanity Fair, Vogue, and all this other stuff, uh, like GQ, and they were like, "We're gonna make this, like, we're gonna make our family great." And so they come up with this idea of Vanity Fair, which is hard to describe now because it's not as relevant, but they were like, "We're gonna hire these amazing, uh, editors," and that's where they get this woman named Anna Wintour, who if you've seen, like, The Devil Wears Prada-
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- SPSam Parr
... that's her. And their whole shtick was, "We're gonna give the, hire these amazing editors, and we're gonna give them, like, do whatever you want. As long as it, like, makes some profit, do whatever you want. We don't care." And that's what they were famous for, and so they've had a bunch of editors of these really awesome magazines for, like, three or four decades. I think she's been doing it for, like, 30 years. And then come the dotcom era, they were like, "Okay, we've gotta figure this out. What do we do?" And so they buy Reddit for $10 million, and they hold onto it, and it grows, and it grows, and it grows, and eventually they spit it out and do its own thing. And so their $10 million investment into Reddit is worth, I think now, like between $2 and $3 billion.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, that's wild.
- SPSam Parr
They've, like, done this over and over and over again. They're still a privately held company. I believe his name is Steven Newhouse, who must be the great- or the grandson of the founder. He recently bought Ironman, the triathlon series. They've bought, uh, they just bought a mountain biking, uh, event. They, um, own Turnitin.com. I think they recently bought that for, like, over a billion dollars. Uh, they own 4% of Warner Brothers. Which owns HBO, CNN, Discovery Channel, all this other stuff. Uh, they own 14% of Charter Communications. And so it's just this big, like, playground where they, like, buy these really cool things, and they own them forever.
- SPShaan Puri
This is fascinating. What, you, what's something you're gonna s- you know, you're like, "I can steal from this playbook"?
- SPSam Parr
So something that he did that I believe Warren Buffett did, um, when you are buying multiple businesses, something that you tell yourself that's cool is to consolidate the back end, the back office. It's counterintuitive. That is not the way to do it. Every entity should be its own thing that's, uh, can run itself and is completely independent. That is the best way to make sure that they can move fast and act on what's good for their local business as opposed to having, like, some HR... Or sorry, some HQ that's helping make decisions. Another thing is, I need to be reminded of this all the time, I think everyone does, is how if you know what business you're in, even if it's not sexy, and you're able to stick with it for a long time, and you are what you are, and you know what you are, it can really work a lot better than pretending to be something else. For example, he knew. He was like, "Guys, ads are first, okay? So if we hire journalists, that's fine, uh, that are great journalists, but you have to, like, stick within this playbook. We aren't going to, like, appeal to, like, be sexy." It was his kids who got into that, 'cause they wanted to be that. But he was like, "No, this is what we're doing. This is the mission, and we're gonna do it over and over and over and over again." Like, you and I will, like, talk about this podcast oftentimes, and we're like... This is a fake example, but we're like, "Should we talk about politics?" And, like, one could say, like, "Yeah, we should. It'll get more popular. We'll get more..." It's like, or we just stick to what we know and, like, enjoy our niche and just be kings of that small niche. Do you know what I mean?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
So that's a big takeaway.
- SPShaan Puri
Very, very tempting to, um... And I, I wouldn't even say tempting. I think it is interesting when people don't really understand the business that they're in. And, um, that can be from a, a customer point of view. Like, why? Like, you know, for example, why do people listen to this podcast? Just to, just to use a personal example, right? It's like, if you can't really understand why somebody's listening, what are the odds you're gonna be fulfilling that [laughs] you know, at the highest level? That you're gonna be delivering to the person the, the reason they came, the job to be done for why they're here, right? 'Cause on one level, you could say for this podcast, "Well, they're listening for business ideas." Because you would say, well, often we talk about diff- different business ideas or opportunities, and certainly it's for somebody who's looking for their next business. So then we should go market this as a great podcast for somebody who's looking for their next business. And if you did that, it would be a shockingly small number of people and a small percentage of our actual audience. 'Cause what our actual audience likes to do is be entertained by the talk of business, right? Like, I like to hear about business ideas that I have no plan on ever going and doing. It sounds irrational. Why would you do that? Why waste the mind space there? And it's like, well, because it tickles some part of my brain to hear people brainstorming about an idea or teaching me about an idea that I never am gonna do. Uh, or I hear about a business that's completely different than mine, but I'm fascinated by it and I take inspiration from it. And I, for some reason, hearing about this dude's old newspaper business and how he was a traveling, you know, traveling in his car, checking on each, each HQ, and how he took a simple idea seriously and he stuck with it for, you know, 100 years, it made me reinforce what I'm doing over here in the restaurant business, what I'm doing over here in the oil business, or whatever other business you're in. And so we have to understand that for us, it's inspiring stories. So stories of people doing badass things to make it so that you go do badass things in your business. And secondly, people who are just business junkies. They just like to know. They like to hear. They like to... The, the fantasy football of the whole thing. They don't have to go plan to actually go do that thing. And once you understand that, you might, like, run your product or run your business a little bit differently.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, like a good example of what not to do is do you remember Jaguar had, like, a rebrand like two years ago?
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, yeah. Everyone hated it, right? What were they doing?
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. So basically, like, Jaguar, they're, they're... Historically, I think they were like... It's a British company, and it was, like, a cool guy car. Like, uh-
- SPShaan Puri
Right. James Bond
- 41:40 – 44:00
Nike stock falls 80%
- SPShaan Puri
right now Nike's in the news for the same thing. Nike stock is down 90... What, what is it down? 80%, 90%, something like that, from its peak. Um, I don't know if you've been following this, but-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. What's the, what's the gist of it?
- SPShaan Puri
So peak was-
- SPSam Parr
I know it's down
- SPShaan Puri
... peak was 170, and it's currently at 36.
- SPSam Parr
Ooh.
- SPShaan Puri
So Nike stock has fallen dramatically. It's now a $53 billion market cap.
- SPSam Parr
And just to put that in perspective, they do 46 billion in revenue. So they're trading almost at one times their revenue.
- SPShaan Puri
One time revenue. Like a shitty D2C brand [laughs] right?
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
And there's lots of reasons people can attribute to this. One of the popular reasons... I don't know if this is the full reason, right? I think there were some business model things they did. But one of the popular kind of complaints or cons- uh, things that people say is like, look, Nike, the brand, the premium you were getting was because you had this incredible brand. And it was worldwide recognized and respected brand. A- athletes everywhere wanted to be a part of it. It used to, Nike used to celebrate Greatness. You know, famously they would never show the shoe. They would talk about the athlete and the athlete being great, the athlete pushing through, the athlete achieving what others said was impossible, and they just so happened to b- be wearing Nikes. And the implication is, if you wanna be great ... Nike stood for greatness, stood for a- for excellence, and if you wanted to be great, if you wanted to be truly excellent, then you should wear Nike. And w- it drifted. And so, like, they started having, like, all these, like, body positive. So it's like, all right, there's a fat person wearing Nike. Great. Like, you know, there's a, you know, there's a, this person who's not, not great wearing, uh, wearing Nike. Yeah, not great at their sport.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And it's like, well, nobody wants to buy the brand of, of non-excellent athletic performance for an athletic shoe. And, uh, you could see how a large corporation could drift and could lose, lose that. And then they're gonna have, now they're gonna have their back to their roots moment where they're gonna trim the product lines, and they're gonna go back to their roots. They're gonna overpay some athlete to, to go back, and they're gonna have this new campaign. They're gonna fire their ad agency and hire a new ad agency, and they're gonna get back to their roots. And I, I anticipate this is-
- SPSam Parr
Do you think, think about the athletes. They're like, "I could be Nike's next mistake. Let's, like, I have to get in befo- [laughs] I have to get in before they realize how dumb this is."
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] And so yeah, like, I shouldn't have a chance [laughs] at being on a Nike billboard, right? Like, that, that should be impossible.
- SPSam Parr
Can I
- 44:00 – 48:35
I created a monster / turn shit into gold
- SPSam Parr
wrap up here with a s- um, a segment that I wanna call I Created a Monster/How to Turn Shit into Gold?
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Bro, this is brought to you by Jiffy Lube. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
I feel like every segment-
- SPSam Parr
It's-
- SPShaan Puri
... needs a sponsor, even a fictitious one.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Yeah. This is-
- SPShaan Puri
All right, go
- SPSam Parr
... this is called the I Created a Monster/How to Turn Shit into Gold. So, um, and it's, we're, this is, like, a positive episode, so this is perfect. So a few months ago, I, I kind of alluded to it, but I didn't wanna, like, say it. My sister-in-law got breast cancer recently, and which sucks because she's pregnant. She's due, uh, in October, and she got cancer, like, the sa- so the same day Ben called me, she called me. Uh, she called, uh, my wife, and she was like, "Okay, this is horrible. I'm pregnant and I have cancer. How can I make this awesome?"
- SPShaan Puri
Mm.
- SPSam Parr
And so she got inspired and I guess got inspired by me because everything I ... That was taking way too much credit, but, uh, [laughs] but it runs in the family, I guess.
- SPShaan Puri
I pulled you over for a speeding violation there on that sentence, but go, go ahead. Uh, you get a citation. Back on the road. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Yeah. I'm the pregnant one with cancer, but you are the hero, Sam. Uh. [laughs] But I guess what I'm saying, like, you know, as you know, being a, a creator, you get a lot of free stuff, and I think everyone's like, "I want that. I want, I, I want a free mattress." [laughs] And so she started making TikToks about being pregnant and having cancer, and she's, like, doing amazing where, like, I ... The video I don't like watching is, like, when she finally shaves her head. It always makes me cry. But then there's, like, her working out and doing stuff and, like, she's, like, basically starts off every video, "I'm 30 years old, I'm pregnant, and I have cancer, and, like, here's my workout today."
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
And she now is on TikTok. She's getting, like, tens of thousands of views on a bunch of videos. I think she's doing, like, a video a day. But I just thought this was really awesome. I thought this was really, really, really cool and admirable what she's doing because getting cancer and being pregnant, that's literally, like, one of the worst lots that can be drawn ever. Uh, but she ... And, and I like to tease her because I'm like, "The shitty thing about both of those things, your shtick, is that ideally they're gonna end. You're gonna have a baby-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... and the cancer is gonna go away. So you better get everything out of this, uh, you know, uh, while you can." But I think it's pretty cool, and I thought you'd get a kick out of this, uh, uh, what she's doing.
- SPShaan Puri
I do. I, I am getting a kick out of it. I think this is awesome. I'm gonna watch some of these videos after this. Um, I do have a suggestion, now that she's taking suggestions. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
I do have a suggestion.
- SPSam Parr
Well, she's in the arena now.
- SPShaan Puri
Well, kinda like you said, like, um, you know, the, the, uh, the, that initial hook is, like, s- obviously, like, a pa- a, a shock, right? Like, "I'm 30 years old, I'm pregnant, and I have cancer."
- SPSam Parr
By the way, let me, let me give her a shout-out. It's, uh, Syd Glander. Her first name is Sydney.
- SPShaan Puri
S-Y-D.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. First name Sydney, last name Glander, G-L-A-N-D-E-R. Okay, go ahead.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, everyone, let's go follow her. Um, I think she should tweak it a little bit. Maybe try it, uh, "I'm 30 years old, I'm pr- I, you know, I'm a expecting mom and future cancer survivor." 'Cause I think the words matter, the label you put on yourself-
- SPSam Parr
That's great
- SPShaan Puri
... the identity. Especially as a content creator, you ... There's this weird thing where the more public you are about an identity, the harder it is to ever switch it, and this is one she would wanna switch. Not having it-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... but surviving it, you know, like conquering it-
- 48:35 – 53:37
Tales from the house
- SPShaan Puri
uh, it was unrelated to the, to, to business or anything like that. But I don't know if you, if you're g- if you guys are like this, but does, uh, does Sarah, like, panic when guests are coming over? She seems cool as a cucumber. If anybody's ever met her-
- SPSam Parr
She seems cool as a cucumber
- SPShaan Puri
... she's literally cool as a cuc- maybe you're the one who would be, who'd be panicking. But my wife-
- SPSam Parr
She's pretty, pretty stoic, but I do e- I do empathize with that. Like, when you clean before the cleaning lady comes.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, so this is, like, the extreme version of that, where my wife, like, we have the Tesla Model X, which is awesome, but the, she hates the doors. And I was like, "Oh, why? Look, it's so convenient to get in and out." She's like, "No, everyone can see in our car at school drop-off." Like, I open up the kimono every time.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Everyone sees every Goldfish that's on the ground. I'm like, "They don't see or care." She's like, "No, like, park over there farther away so nobody will see when we open our trunk." So anyways, we're cleaning out the house. We're getting rid of some toys, and so my, uh, she doesn't wanna give, she doesn't wanna waste it, so she posts on her IG like, "Hey, does anyone wanna take these toys, like, pick up these toys?" Um, and, um, her friend, who's a kindergarten teacher, is like, "Oh, perfect, I'll take them for the classroom." And she's like, "Oh, great. Okay, great. I'm so glad these are going to a good place. Awesome." She puts it, like, as, like, up front, like, right by the door. Just come, grab them, and go. And so five minutes before, she picks it up, she's picking up, she's like, "Hey, we're on our way." And, and my wife's like, "Well, who's we? Oh no, who's coming?" And she's like, "Yeah, it's me, husband, all the kids. We're just gonna come over-"
- SPSam Parr
Ooh
- SPShaan Puri
... "for real quick. We're just gonna do this." And so we're in emergency clean mode. She's cleaning downstairs. She starts going upstairs, and I'm like, like, "Nobody's gonna go upstairs. Like, don't wor- like, this is, like, comical. Nobody's gonna go, nobody's gonna see that room. Don't even worry about it. Yeah, if you wanna pick up some stuff here, that's fine, but, like, don't worry about that."
- SPSam Parr
You ever seen those videos where, like, uh, people get pulled over by the police, and they wanna prove a point, and they barely roll their window down?
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
And they're just like, "I don't answer questions." [laughs] That's, like, basically what she's like.
- SPShaan Puri
That's what she was trying to do.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
She wanted to, like, crack the thing open and, like, do, like, an exchange through the, like-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... the slot like a prisoner in, like, a s- like, solitary confinement. Uh, anyways, they come over. Kids are playing around the house. It's time to go, and, um, and they're like, "Oh." And they're like, 'cause they're, like, calling his name, the, the kid, their kid's name. And they're like, "Ugh, he's doing that thing again." And we're like, "What?" And they, they're like, "He always does this. We go to someone's house. He just goes and finds a random room in their house and just hides there." And we're like, "Oh, that's funny. He's so silly." And they're like, "No, it's not funny, 'cause he won't come out. Like, he'll go an hour, two hours. Like, you, you won't find him."
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
And then we're like, "Oh." And then my wife starts to pa- she's like, "Let me go upstairs and just see real quick." And they're like, "No, no, no, you don't know this kid. I know how he thinks. We will go f- send a search party up and find him." So they go upstairs. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Dude, your wife's like, "Billy! Billy!"
- SPShaan Puri
And by the way... [laughs] Exactly.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
By the way, the husband is a real estate agent, so he's, like, you know, just finely attuned to just paying attention to home.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, he's scoping the sitch.
- SPShaan Puri
He scopes the joint out, and so he, he's going room to room. And my wife's just following him, making excuses in each room like, "We, we haven't had a chance yet to clean that up. We're, actually, we're moving."
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
"That's, uh, why this is like this." And like, "I don't know who did that. Somebody came here and did that."
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And so she's just making excuses while he's r- opening up every closet, every drawer, looking under the beds. Like, everywhere you would never think anyone would go. Linen closet, what's in there? And so, 'cause he might be anywhere. And finally, in the last room, finds him inside of a closet. And, um, like, they're coming down the stairs and, like, you know, I sm- I feel like my wife just saw a dead body, and, like, I think it might be hers, uh, that, that she saw on the way out. And she, we didn't talk for, like, 15 minutes after they left.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
Episode duration: 53:37
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Transcript of episode ymXF_yT1unQ
