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My First MillionHow he beat the S&P 500 for 11 years doing (almost) nothing
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EVERY SPOKEN WORD
50 min read · 10,479 words- 0:00 – 7:55
Zero Action Investing
- SPSam Parr
And I was like, "What have you been doing?" He's like, "Well, actually, I'm a public investor. I'm a, I'm a, um... I invest in public stocks."
- SPShaan Puri
You're like, "Oh, you lose money for a living. Got it." [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. I was like, "I'm pretty nosy. Do you have your laptop on you? Pull up your brokerage account right now."
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
And he did. [upbeat music] So check this out. So, um, a few weeks ago, I met this guy in Hampton, and basically the, his story is that a while back he sold his company, and he made something like eight figures in, in, in c- in money after he sold his business. And I was like, "What have you been doing?" He's like, "Well, actually, I'm a public investor. I'm a, I'm a, um... I invest in public stocks."
- SPShaan Puri
You're like, "Oh, you lose money for a living. Got it." [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. I was like, "I'm pretty nosy. Do you have your laptop on you? Pull up your brokerage account right now."
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
And he did. And we like... I was looking through his whole brokerage account, and I wanna show you his results, but basically he's had a c- nearly a 22% annual return for the last decade, which is amazing, but that's not the interesting part. I, uh, I had this idea where we basically exported his brokerage account, and we put it in Claude, and we asked it, "Over the last 12 years, how many decisions did you make a year?" A decision is defined-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah
- SPSam Parr
... as how many stocks you bought or sold in a year. And if I remember correctly, he's roughly owned around 15 stocks over the last decade or so, give or take five. But what was interesting is that he only made 2.9 decisions a year. And we put together this cool graph, and there were some years, I believe, uh, three out of the last 10 years, he made zero decisions, and at most he made six decisions in a year.
- SPShaan Puri
So let me, let me, let me just read the kind of... Like, this is a great, this is a great graphic, by the way. So if he had put $100 in when he started, so this is 2014, so 12, 13 years, he's averaged... His annual return is 21.8 versus 13.5% for the S&P 500. For three years, he did nothing. That was the longest stretch of, of no activity. That was 20- 2022 to 2025. And it looks like he beat the market 11 out of 12 years. It was only one year where he didn't beat the market, uh, and that was 2022.
- SPSam Parr
And basically, if you were to invest around $10 million when he started, I think, I think that math is something like $60 million, depending on what part of the year you started. The reason why it was interesting to me is even though I preach patience, I mean, I preach all this shit. I sound very smart when I preach this, but, you know, you and I are very similar. We, we move a lot, and we oftentimes mistake movement with progress. And I thought it was really interesting to see this guy's numbers every single year, because when you think about three decisions a year, that's four months of just thinking, planning, plotting, not doing anything. Zero Action.
- SPShaan Puri
What... By the way, what was he owning? Is it, like, he basically bought the FANG stocks, or was he buying obscure things? What was he doing?
- SPSam Parr
They weren't obscure. Um, one was a very... I don't wanna g- reveal too much of his info, but, um, one was a very large travel stock, so, like, imagine a popular airline or something like that.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
Another one was a, was a popular clothing stock. It wasn't Lululemon, but imagine, like, a Lululemon, things like that.
- SPShaan Puri
And, and so he was do... When you say, you know, he's got four months of thinking, was it actually four months? Like, was he just sitting every day and doing research, basically? Was he... Is that his actual day-to-day task, or he was more of a passive investor, kind of set it and forget it, and then sometimes would, would hear something or learn something and decide to make a change?
- SPSam Parr
So I texted him. I go, "Hey, I wanna talk about this. Do I have your permission?" He said, "Yeah." And then I said, "How do you actually make decisions? 'Cause I am curious, you know, 2.9 decisions a year. What are you actually doing?" He said, "I study a few things that I can understand, and I study them very deeply. I keep very detailed notes, and then I just wait for an opportunity. Blank Company, for example, I had studied them exce- extensively for about six months prior to COVID, and I really liked it, but I thought it was expe- expensive. And so I spent a lot of days writing notes about it, documenting my research, saying, saying what I'm learn, reading the annual reports, and I keep an eye on it. And then when the market, um, presented itself and the opportunity presented itself and it got cheap enough, I bought it that day."
- SPShaan Puri
Mm. So he is, uh, he is doing the Buffett thing, right? He's basically spending every day learning, and then when there's a, a moment, moment in time, going ahead and making a position. Were you... What, what surprised you the most? Was it the number of decisions? What else? What else surprised you?
- SPSam Parr
A few things surprised me. The first thing is, you know, we love having investors on here, from Howard Marks, um-
- SPShaan Puri
Ray Dalio
- SPSam Parr
... uh, Ray Dalio.
- SPShaan Puri
Mohnish, yeah.
- SPSam Parr
And we're not investors. Uh, not exactly. You know, sometimes maybe it's like a side hobby, but I'm interested in those people because I'm very curious, because it's such a black-and-white way to figure out someone's decision framework, because there's very clearly, like, "I thought about this, I executed this," whereas with startups it's a little bit more iterative, where you can, like, you can go back in time and, like, fix something because you can kind of build it on the fly a little bit. And so I'm very fascinated about this. And there's this cool quote. It says, um... It's by Warren Buffett. He says his investment strategy is lethargy bordering on sloth. That's, like, the cornerstone of his investment-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... uh, thesis, which I thought was interesting. And I was like, that's so fascinating. And we had Kevin Ryan on the podcast. Uh, Kevin Ryan is a guy who owns sort of like an incubator, uh, a startup lab. I don't know how you'd describe it, but they've launched a, a handful of, like, tens of billions of dollar startups. And he was like, "I basically get one good idea a year." And I thought that that was interesting that a lot of the people who I admire, they do tend to make very few decisions throughout the year. The second thing is that they don't agonize over very small decisions. I know that this is something that I do often. And I think the way that you fix this is you determine what decision is reversible and which isn't. And for the ones that are reversible, don't sweat over 'em. Don't agonize over them. I actually think you... There's a world where you're quite good at this, where you're good at, like, categorizing which decisions are important versus which aren't. Would you agree?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, I do think I, I do think I do that pretty well. But it's because-
- SPSam Parr
On this show, we have spent hours talking to some of the best investors alive. Well, lucky for you, the team at HubSpot, they have pulled out the principles that matter most and turned it into a very simple, easy-to-read wealth guide. It's 35 principles from the top investors. We're talking guys who have been on the pod like Howard Marks, Mohnish Pabrai, Morgan Housel, Cathie Wood, and a ton of others. So these are all their frameworks, their mental models, their rules. Basically, how to play the long game and how to avoid ruin. You can get it in the link below.
- SPShaan Puri
My default state is I don't care. So it's pretty easy then. Everything is ruled out unless it has a real reason I need to care. Whereas I think if your n- natural wiring is the opposite, where you really are anxious, or you think about everything, and you think about everything, it feels like everything matters by default. If that's your default, it's very hard to then pull down 89 different things and convince yourself that they don't matter to find the one that does. So I, I think it's a lot of just your kind of nature in that sense of my nature is to not really care about most things.
- 7:55 – 10:05
Premortems
- SPSam Parr
genius. And then the last thing was they tend to write their ideas down, where they will write it down. Oftentimes you'll notice people write premortems. Have you heard of a premortem, where you write down everything that can go wrong?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
Like, was I still happy? I... You don't wanna do this thing called resulting, where you say like, "This was a bad decision because the result was bad." It should be, "This was a bad decision because the input or the framework was bad." And so they'll do things like premortem, or they journal, or they'll make arguments to themself on why this is or is not a good idea. So those are some of the trends I've noticed. But I thought this was really cool to see on paper how many decisions a year this guy's making who is... He's a retail investor who's outperformed the market.
- SPShaan Puri
Have you heard of the Jack Dorsey premortem he did before he started Square?
- SPSam Parr
No. What did, what did he do?
- SPShaan Puri
So Jack Dorsey had helped create Twitter. You know, I... Supposedly he, it was his idea for Twitter, and he was the CEO of Twitter for a long time.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
So his next company was gonna be Square, and it is very easy when you just were the guy who created Twitter, and all of Silicon Valley has purchased real estate on your balls, and you know, it's very easy to get high on your own supply.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And so what, what did Jack Dorsey do? He humbled himself with a premortem. And so before he started Square, I think he created a list called 140 Reasons Why Square Will Fail, and he wrote down 140 reasons [laughs] why, and he, he gave it to, uh, employees.
- SPSam Parr
Can we put, uh, buying real estate on your balls into the hall of fame? [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Thank you. Thank you. You know, sometimes it's like words just come outta your mouth before you can think about it. That one, I had the idea and I made a decision.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And I said, "It's g- it's... I'm gonna let this one fly." [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, let's put that, that one, that one just, uh, that... what its place in the, uh, hall of fame.
- SPShaan Puri
Some farts were not meant to be silent, let's put it that way. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And I decided to let that one rip. Okay. So, so yeah, so Jack Dorsey wrote this thing, and he said it was very useful because it's kinda the Charlie Munger thing where, tell me if... You know, I... All I wanna know is where I'm gonna die, so I know not to go there. And, um, if you know why the reasons your company might fail in advance, you can then... a- and, and not avoid that, not, not avoid the elephant in the room. Well, then you can actually
- 10:05 – 16:50
Zuck's Victory Lap
- SPShaan Puri
design a company that's going to achieve despite those potential failure modes. You also... So, uh, you know, while you were talking about this, I was thinking about Mark Zuckerberg while you were talking about it, because he recently has been doing a lot of press. He's on a bit of a victory lap [laughs] at the moment.
- SPSam Parr
Again.
- SPShaan Puri
Which feels honestly a little premature, because like AI changes every... The leader changes every, you know, six months of, of who seems like they're dead versus who seems like they're ahead. And right now Muse is doing really well, and so he's really excited and he's going out and, and talking a bunch, and-
- SPSam Parr
But the stock agrees that it was a good decision so far.
- SPShaan Puri
Right. Sure. Um, so he's... But he's doing all kinds of stuff. Uh, he's dropping F-bombs in interviews now, which he, you know-
- SPSam Parr
Did he really?
- SPShaan Puri
He, yeah. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
That doesn't seem natural. What did he say?
- SPShaan Puri
There's, there's, there's two different ones. We could play the clips, but the, [laughs] the first one, he's in the backyard. He's b- he's, he's like barbecuing. And so they were... It was some... He was like FaceTiming somebody, and they were like, "Oh, Mark, you smoking, are you smoking meats again?" 'Cause remember like-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... many years ago when he was trying to be c- trying to be cool and casual, and he outed himself as a robot, basically.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And he was like, "I'm just smoking some meat in the smoker."
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And he just tried to have like a chilled four-hour ba- barbecue stream that didn't go well. So this time he was like, "Smoking meat." They're like, "What type of meat?" He goes, "Whatever the [beep] we want." [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Oh, my God.
- SPShaan Puri
And then the second one he was talking about, he did an interview with Alexander Wang, who [clicks tongue] Alexander Wang is, I think the youngest billionaire in the world right now. So Alex Wang, uh, was a kind of math Olympiad kid who then went on to start Scale AI, which was like the f- one of the first big data companies for these AI labs, meaning the AI labs need data to train their models. Where do you get that data? It's, you know, takes a lot of... It's a grindy kinda operational business to go collect and have clean data for the labs. So Scale was doing that. Ultimately, uh, Meta bought it for I think $15 billion or bought like a huge chunk of it, and acquired... They, they basically, a big part of it was just getting Alex. And so they ask Zuck, they go, in the interview they were like, "Why, you know, why Alex?" And he's like, "Yeah, it's kinda weird, right? Like, what is this data guy gonna do with the social media guy, and that's gonna be, like, the leading AI lab? How does that work?" Um, you know.
- SPSam Parr
Do you think, like, this is why, just kissed him on the mouth, and he's like, "This is my golden child."
- SPShaan Puri
Basically. Verbally, verbally kissed him on the mouth. So they're sitting there, this is on Cheeky Pint, and he's, um, he says, "I tried to meet as many of the f- great founders of his kind of age group, his generation, as I could, and I, you know, I would try to meet as many of them as I could," and he, he said, "I just realize Alex is the guy. He's the [beep] guy, and that's it. He's the guy." [laughs] And he's complimenting him, like, in this, in this, like, just more absolute, not overly intellectual thing, but he's the guy. And they were, you know, they were talking about how m- you know, Meta was getting trounced for when they were doing VR, and he was calling, you know, talking about the metaverse, and then it was just kind of like it, it wasn't really working. Uh, he had made a big bet. I think he had put, like, $60 billion, or so, he had put a, a absurd amount of money into developing this. Like, 10 times the amount that they, they spent developing the iPhone was spent on Oculus-
- SPSam Parr
Wow
- SPShaan Puri
... and the VR program, and it had produced nothing on par with the iPhone, so, in terms of popularity and, and users actually wanting it. And so he was wrong in that. But when AI came around, he correctly pivoted to it, and he said out loud, he goes, "Yeah, this is a type of game where you're not, like, it doesn't m-," he goes, "You don't get judged by your mistakes. You're only judged by the things you got right, and how right you got them when you got them right." And so he kind of has given himself permission to make mistakes, but make the type of mistakes where if I'm right, I'm gonna be right in such a major way that it wipes out the history of all the battles I lost, 'cause I won the war. And if you know Zuck, he, like, loves the Roman Empire. He loves war. He loves, his favorite game was Civilization. And, um, if you see even his shirts are, like, like, Latin for, you know, it's always, like, Latin phrases for, like, "Give me Zuck or give me nothing," you know, like [laughs] stuff like, stuff that used to be, like, about Caesar. And so I, I just think it's an interesting idea that's very different than investing of what you were, you were talking about, where investing, Warren Buffett's, you know, famously is like, you know, rule number one is ve- of investing is don't lose money. Rule, rule number two, don't forget rule number one, where it's about having, not making mistakes. Whereas entrepreneurship is the opposite. You can make tons of mistakes, as long as when you do get something right, you have enough chips on the table and you actually get them right in a big enough way. Bezos talks about this, like with, in baseball, the mo- the most you can get from a great hit is four runs. But in business, you can get 1,000 runs with one correct swing of the bat. And so you just have to focus on g- getting those correct swings of the bat, 'cause when you do, it's 1,000x. It's a 10,000x.
- SPSam Parr
Can I ask you a question about this? Uh, I wanna ask about the, Zuck's up, but for Alex Wang, uh, he's 29, so Scale was a $14 billion company, so one of the largest private companies, uh, maybe top 200 or something whenever it was bought, or top 100. When I hear what you're describing, it's sort of like you're saying Zuck was saying, "This guy is technical and knows what he's talking about, and I've interviewed all these people," and you almost sounded like you were describing him as an individual contributor. Are you saying that this guy led a $14 billion company? And typically, if you're the CEO of a company that big, you're not the smartest in the room. You're just pretty good at a bunch of the important stuff. But when you described him, it was like, "Oh, he's a great leader. He's good at everything. And also, he knows AI better than all these other people."
- SPShaan Puri
So he was saying, what he said about him specifically was his strategic mind, so figuring out what should we be doing, his claritive communication-
- SPSam Parr
Got it
- SPShaan Puri
... so his ability to communicate that effectively, and then his, like, strong beliefs on execution. So for example, that for Meta to win in AI, they needed to have an extremely small team working on it, not a big team. So talent density, how talent density was one of the most important char- factors in the, in the vic- in victory in AI. Meaning, what you don't want is 2,000 pretty smart people on this. You want 20 or max 200 extremely smart people who can all hold the problem in their head, the whole problem, project in their head, and they all know each other, and they're talking to each other, and it's tight, and there's not too many voices in the room, and that it should be extremely flat in the, the way it's organized. So he had these very strong opinions that Zuck believed was the correct answer, and that because of that, they should go ahead and, and, and try to pull it off. So that's what he, he kind of described as his, his attributes of what, what it meant when he said he's the guy.
- SPSam Parr
So a leader, kinda, he, for sure, like leadership ability, not, not, he's not doing all the work.
- SPShaan Puri
Another interesting part of this was, um, is
- 16:50 – 20:45
The Superpower of 100x Leaders
- SPShaan Puri
they were ask... Uh, I think it was on Senra's podcast, and Senra was asking him, like, "So how did he know that you were good at those th- How'd you even meet the guy? How'd you even meet Mark Zuckerberg? Why, why'd you meet?" He said, "Well, you know, Meta was one of our big customers at Scale," but he goes, "Yeah, Zuck kinda just, like, does this every once in a while." Like, every few months, you know, he would, uh, like, he'd just hit you up, and he's, he's like, "He'll send," he's like, "If I ever sent him a question in WhatsApp, like, 'Hey, what do you think we should do about this?' I would get this extremely thorough, extremely crisp WhatsApp message that's almost like a blog post length delivered back to me." He goes like, he goes, "That's just one of Zuck's, like, superpowers, is he's an extremely good writer. He's extremely clear in his thinking, and he's able to... The way most people send short, quick text messages, he's able to send long, thorough t- text messages in the same amount of brain pow- like, in the same, like, time that it takes a normal person." And then the exact opposite was true, was he goes, "He also is quite, you know, humble for, so for a guy who basically runs one of the, um, you know, the most valuable companies in the world. He would always just text me, 'Hey, what do you think we should do about X?'" He's like, "And it wasn't just me. He's sending that to, you know, 20 people that are not on the official board of advisors. He's not waiting for the quarterly board meeting to discuss this with these, like, you know, five-star generals. He would just, anybody who he thought was smart, he'll just say, 'Hey, what do you think we're getting wrong here? Hey, what do you think we're, what do you think we should be doing about this?' And, you know, he's not necessarily gonna just do what we say, but he's constantly seeking from very smart people their take, and then he's also using that to assess the talent of those people." Of who he thinks is consistently giving him back high signal on those things.
- SPSam Parr
So I guess there's, like, two, uh, sides of the spectrum. But basically, like, there are people where it's a dictatorship, and they... Like for example, um, Cornelius Vanderbilt was, like, basically sort of like the Elon Musk of, uh, the 1800s. He was the richest man in America, and he was known for just, like, he would make decisions with very little transparency. People wouldn't know why he was doing it. He was described as shrewd, where he would make a decision, and people would be like, "We have no idea why you're doing that," and six months later, it would reveal itself. Like, oh, he was right. He predicted this. Like, he was doing all this stuff in secrecy. But then there's so many other leaders that tend to make de- uh, decisions almost in a consensus way, which is very different from the popular belief on how leaders are.
- SPShaan Puri
Mm.
- SPSam Parr
Um, and I have noticed that. When I've, when you and I or I've hung out with, like, people that are 100 times more successful than I am, oftentimes they'll ask my opinion, and in my head I'm like, "I'm way dumber than you. Why are you-"
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
"... asking my opinion?" Like, and then I could tell that they're gathering information, and I have found that to be like a superpower amongst a lot of leaders.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. There's a, what's that thing called? Dunning-Kruger. Uh, the Dunning-Kruger effect, where if you know nothing about a subject, you have very little confidence. If you know a little bit about the subject, you have this false sense [laughs] of too much confidence on it. And then as you actually learn more about it, you realize how little you really knew and, and y- your confidence on the subject dips, right? And this is why black belts in jujitsu who've been doing it for 20 years are the ones who talk about how, like, "I'm still at the beginner, I'm a beginner at this. I'm still just figuring this stuff out. There is so, there's so much more that I don't know than what I do know." And then you have Jonah Hill, who becomes a blue belt and is like, "I'll murder anybody who fights me," [laughs] you know? Like, it's like you get that blue belt confidence.
- SPSam Parr
Right.
- SPShaan Puri
Uh, y- y- your blue belts feel like black belts, and the black belts feel like blue belts. Like, it's this weird thing that happens with how much you know about a subject. And it does seem like, you know, some of the smartest people are the ones who are the quickest to, A, admit how little they know, B, understand how big of a factor luck is in their success, and C, constantly be searching for insight from people who, on paper, should be, you know, le- are less accomplished, less intelligent about the subject than they are because they, they know, they're kind of
- 20:45 – 21:35
Sam Hires an Executive Coach
- SPShaan Puri
always hunting for anything that resonates, anything that has some signal to it. And they know it can come from different places, and they're, they're humble enough to do it.
- SPSam Parr
The shitty part about doing this podcast is I, um, I signed up for an executive coach, and I've, like, done three or four sessions with him, plus this, like, assessment. And he was like, "You're really self-critical of yourself." I'm like, "Dude, it really sucks. My job is I hang out with the people who are the best in the world-"
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
"... at w- everything they do." And he was like, "You described yourself as lazy. You said that you're not ambitious." He's like-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
"... you seem very ambitious." I'm like, "I am hanging out with literally the 30th richest person on Earth."
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
When you compare, like, whatever it is I am doing compared to that, it is actually quite challenging because I realize what the levels are and how high they go. And every once in a while, I will definitely, like, shit on myself for feeling
- 21:35 – 30:15
Identify the Game You're Playing
- SPSam Parr
that way. Do you feel that way sometimes?
- SPShaan Puri
I mean, I try not to, but I def- [laughs] I definitely feel that way. You know, one of the, the comparison thief of joy bullshit. You know, like, yeah, that, that's definitely true. The only way to cope with it is to do two things. One, get comfortable in the game you're playing. That I- I'm not playing the game that those guys are playing. Those guys are trying to change the world, or they're trying to be the richest guy in the world, or they're trying to have the most power. They wanna run for president. I, I don't wanna do any of those things. And, um, you know, so that's the, that's the first thing is, like, get really comfortable in what game are you actually playing. And I don't think most people even are aware of what game they're playing in life. Like, if I ask, if you ask a normal person-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... or even you ask one of your smart friends, do you think they know what game they play?
- SPSam Parr
No, and in fact, I've been doing this exercise where I've been asking people, like, before they ask me advice or whatever, if they're wanting to brainstorm with me on their problem, I'm like, "Well, where are you trying to be in five years?" And they'll be like, "I don't know. I've never thought about that." Like, there is a-
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- SPSam Parr
... even amongst really successful people, driven people, there is a lack of, like, the end state looks something like this.
- SPShaan Puri
So I want you to, I want you to imagine. Close your eyes and imagine, uh, a friend who is somebody you respect, smart, accomplished. Let's say sm- you th- somebody you think is smarter than you and more successful than you, all right?
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
All right. If you ask that person, "What game are you playing?" What do you think that would be the words that come out of their mouth?
- SPSam Parr
They'd be like, "What are you talking about?" Like-
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- SPSam Parr
... it would be like shock.
- SPShaan Puri
Okay, so first they're confused. "What are you even, what are you even really asking me?" And then you sort of explain, "Well, we're all playing some sort of game, and maybe, uh, LeBron James is playing... Right now, LeBron James, age 42, is playing a game of I'm trying to defeat Father Time and catch Michael Jordan. That's really what he's doing. So he's trying to defy the laws of aging to keep playing basketball at age 42. And then he goes and joins Philly 'cause he wants to win a championship, and he wants to, you know, really cement himself as the greatest of all time. Right now, it's him and Jordan who are com- compared. That's the game LeBron is playing in the NBA. Now, another player on his same team might be playing a different game. Jaylen Brown, who just left the Celtics, um, or, you know, got traded away from the Celtics, and he was always the number two there. And I think he wants to show what he's really capable of. And he wants to show that this, you know, I would say this year he's playing a game of proving himself. It's a prove myself game. "I wanna prove I'm one of the best players and that they made a mistake trading me away."
- SPSam Parr
And most of the NBA players that probably if you talk to them, I've talked to a couple of these guys, they're like, "I'm just trying to have fun and make a good living."
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, exactly. "I'm trying to, I'm trying to, you know, get this bread while the bread is there for the getting [laughs] . You know, I'm trying to, I'm trying to make my first All-Star team. I'm trying to get that next contract. I'm trying to do something." And so if you break it down into the Aaron Sorkin way of thinking about things, the hero has something that they want, and there's something that stands in their way. That's a story. Intention and obstacle. And so, you know, for example, when we were in our 20s, what was the game we were trying to play? If we're honest, it was trying to make it. And then I think make it meant be a successful person, make money, you know, become a multimillionaire was, I think, both of our goals, hence, you know, part of the spirit of this podcast, why it works.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
'Cause we kinda shared that chase. That's when we met, and we were both chasing that same thing. We were both playing that same game. Now, we played it different ways, but we were both fundamentally playing that game. And then when we got into our 30s, it was like we started playing a different game. It was this family, I'm gonna start a family while still being successful, but not in the sweaty, grindy way I played in my 20s. I, and I didn't know what that meant, but I knew that's what I was trying to do, and figured out how to do that through some combination of investing and having kids and do, doing all this good, good stuff. And, you know, then you might play a different game at a different phase. And so what do you... That person you were thinking about, what game do you think they're actually playing?
- SPSam Parr
Probably just trying to, um, do the same thing they were before, which is they're already successful, but they wanna go a level, a, a level above and be more successful and more powerful-
- SPShaan Puri
And what-
- SPSam Parr
... and more prominent.
- SPShaan Puri
And what's the why on that?
- SPSam Parr
Uh.
- SPShaan Puri
They don't f- they don't feel like they have enough. They don't feel like they've proved it.
- SPSam Parr
They, they feel like they've won their game and they need to win another game in order to feel whole.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Right. Okay. So, so I think it's... You know, but if you, if that person said that out loud, they'd probably feel a little bit silly saying it.
- SPSam Parr
They'd feel s- feel stupid. "I don't know. I've never thought about it. Dude, I'm just trying to, like, build something great." You know what I mean?
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
That's usually, like, the answer.
- SPShaan Puri
They get somewhat defensive. There's a great book called The Score, and it talks about how, like, games are this incredibly powerful thing. So y- let's take a game li- he, the way he says it is the game... Like, if you, if you decide to play a game, the game decides what you want and who you need to be to get it. So for example, he's like, let's say you play a game like charades. Well, to, to play a game like charades, what do you want? It's like I want my team to guess what I'm doing, and so who do I need to be? It's like I need to be really expressive. I need to be really collaborative. I need to be a great communicator. That's what I need to be to win this game. If that same person goes and plays Mafia, it's like I need to be a lying, cheating bastard.
- 30:15 – 33:45
Keep Your Sails Up
- SPShaan Puri
very similar.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, that was great.
- SPShaan Puri
That's Napoleon. "Sir, what is your next plan?" He replied, "I act, and the plan e- emerges from my action." And I really like this. Scott Galloway had a good one that was on, he said on the podcast that I remember writing down, where he goes, "You gotta keep your sails up." And we asked him, we go, "What, what do you mean keep your sails up?" And he goes, um, like, "Look, when shit's not good, it's pretty easy to just get down on yourself and, like, droop. But, like, if you're a boat, just keep your sails up 'cause you're not... You wanna be ready when that wind comes, and it'll give you that boost. But it won't ha- it won't work if you g- if you put your sails down when you're down." And I just thought that's just, like, a great piece of motivation for people is, like, look, all right, you might be getting your, your shit kicked right now, but keep your sails up because that wind will come. And when it does, you know, it'll help your boat. So this is, like, a little bit of... You've talked about this, like, motivation corner, you know? Uh, motivation's this cheesy thing that you're supposed to be too smart for, but I don't know. Kinda, kinda love me a good quote.
- SPSam Parr
I do, too. When, uh, I... We've said basically, like, motivation is good when you're, like, not successful but you wanna be successful. It's not particularly good when you're in the thick of it, and then it's also good again when you already become successful, and you're like, "What do I make of all this?"
- SPShaan Puri
Right. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
What, uh, when have you applied this to your life?
- SPShaan Puri
You know, I remember when we were doing our first company and things were not going well. Um, we-
- SPSam Parr
Is this, like, Blab era?
- SPShaan Puri
No, this was, like, in the Sushi era. I just remember it was living in an apartment. We were sleeping on an air mattress. We had, like... I just remember we didn't even have, like, little... Like, we didn't have a trash can. We would just take the garbage bag, and we had a nail that we nailed into the wall, and we would just nail the garbage bag to the wall.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And I remember, like, s- we would go out, and like, you know, if, uh, if, if any friend or a girl came over to our apartment, she was just like, "What is... What... What are you guys? This is terrible." And it was, like, kinda unnecessarily bad, meaning we were letting the badness of our company seep into the badness of our life. [laughs] And that was a mistake. And I remember one day, we lived in Boulder, we just-
- SPSam Parr
You're like, "I deserve this. I'm filth. I don't even deserve a trash can." [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, exactly. We, we treated ourselves poorly. We, we let kind of, like, the last play effe- affect the next play. If you ever play sports, they always talk about, like, a next play mentality. We didn't have a next play mentality. We had a last play mentality. Things were bad yesterday, probably gonna be pretty bad today. We weren't saying that, but we were acting that way, and our level of productivity was going down. And actually, to switch it didn't require anything to change in our business. It didn't even require a new strategy. We just changed our routine, and so we, we kinda got our sails up a little bit, meaning we, um... I remember we went for a hike. We just, like... One morning we were like, "Forget work. We're going for a hike." And we lived in Boulder, and we hi- we hiked the Flatirons. And we were just on such a high from physically doing something hard and having, like, a win. Even though it was a win unrelated to the business, it was a win to ourselves. And then when we came back in, we, like, had a better attitude, therefore had better ideas. When we had better ideas, we actually kinda believed in them a little more because we had just had a win this morning. And this is all sounds very basic to anybody who's, like, lives a good life and has, like, healthy routines and whatnot. But we were in a, a bit of a downward spiral and needed to, like, reverse it. And reversing it... Like, what we thought needed to reverse was that our situation needed to change, or our outcomes needed to change, or our, like, success needed to change. And in actuality, we just needed to, like, do some basic shit to get our sails back up. It's like, get the trash can. Go for the, go for the hike. Clean up the room. You know, w- wear your good outfit today. Like, let's go, let's go, like, start stacking some small life wins and, um, and then operate from
- 33:45 – 38:55
Sam Attacks His Panic Attacks
- SPShaan Puri
that place.
- SPSam Parr
I think that these things that you're talking about, like, we can make fun of them because they're small, and it seems silly to, like, tell your, tell your bros, like, about these small little motivational things, but they make huge impacts. For example, I hate flying. Every time I've flown for the last 15 years, I've been on Xanax. I ta- I have Xanax for flying. I hate it. I read this book about a month ago. It's called Dare, D-A-R-E. And it's-
- SPShaan Puri
The drug, the drug program? [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
It's the same name, but it stands for, um... It's a book on how to deal with panic attacks, and the D stands for dismiss. And so what that means is, yeah, I'm gonna get panicky. So what? Who cares? Whatever.
- SPShaan Puri
Mm.
- SPSam Parr
A stands for allow, and be like, "Yeah, let's go. I'm ready. I'm open to it. Let's get panicky." R stands for run towards, which is, now I want it. I want this panic attack to come faster.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Let's go, baby. And then E stands for engage. Once the panic attack has reached its climax, you think, "Okay, it's passed. Let's engage in a new activity. Uh, let's read."
- SPShaan Puri
Mm.
- SPSam Parr
"Let's listen to whatever music I'm listening to. Let's engage in this conversation." And I read that book, and I had a flight coming up. I had to go to Jackson Hole the other day, and I went sober. It was the first time that I've done that in 15 years, and it was because of that one... Like, I, I read h- I, uh, I read half the book because I, I just needed to, for it to tell me what DARE meant, and I was like, "I'm good. I'm gonna try that."
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Right.
- SPSam Parr
And so I found myself, like, putting myself in situations where I would get anxious.
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, so walk me through. Your... Where did you start the D? Is it at the airport? Is it way before that? W- Walk me through step by step.
- SPSam Parr
There was two. One was it was the first time that we had left both of our kids for, like, a, a four-night trip. Th- So I was, like, nervous, not because my, I was gonna miss them, but my little girl was showing a little bit signs of separation, so I was starting to get nervous. And so I found that it was, like, compounding. I was, like, getting her worked up, and I was getting w- And I was like, "Oh my gosh." So I started it the night before, but then when I got to the airport, I found myself like, "Okay, in about 40 minutes I'm getting on that plane. The door's gonna shut, and I'm gonna get panicky. Let's go. Let's see how powerful this thing is. I'm so excited to put this into place. I'm pumped. I'm gonna get panicked. I'm gonna freak out for a minute, and I'm gonna see how wonderful this new exercise is. I'm so excited." And there is, like, some science behind this, which is basically, like, w- when you wanna get panicky, it's kind of impossible to get panicky. It's like, do you know cra- do you know... Are you actually crazy if you tell yourself that you're crazy and you're aware you're crazy?
- SPShaan Puri
Mm.
- SPSam Parr
It's, like, one of these things where it's, like, har- you know, it's, like, uh, some weird logic like that. But, um... And so, like, 40 minutes before I was like, "All right. I'm gonna feel it." And then when I actually sit in the seat, I'm like, "In two minutes they're about to close that door, and it's go time. There's no getting out. I'm trapped in here, baby."
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Like, it was as if, like, uh, instead of, like, being like, "I'm trapped in here with you," it was like, "You're trapped in here with me now." [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Like, yeah. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
That's hilarious.
- SPSam Parr
I remember, like, it was as if I'm in the octagon with this. It was like you hear the door close, it's like, "You're stuck, baby." [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Like, and I have... And it totally worked. This exercise, which was totally a woo woo mind thing w-
- SPShaan Puri
Was it like night and day, meaning-
- SPSam Parr
Night and day
- SPShaan Puri
... it was a totally different experience, or it was just a lessened version of what you usually have?
- SPSam Parr
You know what's messed up? I've flown a l- my whole life.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
It landed. It's on the tarmac-
- 38:55 – 41:00
Role Playing Hard Situations
- SPSam Parr
I hear about that. Um, and so I've been working on this. And so I was, like, studying, like, fear and panic and how to get used to it, and I saw this really cool video with the coach of... Did I tell you about this, George St-Pierre?
- SPShaan Puri
Um, I did- I don't think you told me about this video, no.
- SPSam Parr
So, um-
- SPShaan Puri
For us
- SPSam Parr
... a lot of, sort of like investors, a lot of MMA coaches who you'd expect to be these, like, big meatheads, and many of them are, they're really-
- SPShaan Puri
They're philosophers. Yeah
- SPSam Parr
... they're like philosophers a little bit.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
They're, like, really into this stuff. And the reason they're into this is because getting in your underwear and going to f- like, kinda fight to the death in front of a million people, that's a very traumatic, scary thing. And so how do you prepare yourself to do that? And so they start to study this stuff about fear. And this guy, um, I forget his name, um, but he's-
- SPShaan Puri
Is it Mousasi or a different coach?
- SPSam Parr
Yes. Yes.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
Is, is that the Arab guy from, uh-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah
- SPSam Parr
... Canada?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
He's cool. He's very thoughtful. He's, he's-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, he's great
- SPSam Parr
... he, he comes off like a p- a philosophy guy, but he's a coach for MMA. And George St-Pierre, one of the greatest UFC fighters of all time, also a very academic-y sounding person. And he was like, you know, George doesn't like to fight. Like, he doesn't like to hurt people. But he loves training, and, you know, he got good and so he kinda came to his career. But he didn't like to fight. And frankly, he was very fearful. Uh, he was not this guy that was like Conor McGregor that's like, "I cannot wait to get into combat." That wasn't George. And so what we did to make him less fearful is months leading up to the fight, we would start training the actual day of. So he would eat the meal before training that he was gonna eat that morning before the fight. But then we would take it a step further. We would, we got UFC gloves, so not, like, practice gloves. He would wear the exact ones that we thought he was gonna wear. He would dress in his UFC outfit. And then also, before he would train, we would have the competitor's walkout music play. And then we also went and got these huge lights that we'd put around the octagon so it felt the same heat and the same brightness, and so he could start getting used to these jitters. And I was thinking, I was like, it's kind of interesting that, um, they do this for, like, the scariest thing on earth, but when I have a hard conversation, like I have to fire someone or something, oftentimes I'm going through that motion unprepared. Meaning in my head I've sort of thought about it. And I was like, next
- 41:00 – 45:50
How to Prep for the Scariest Moments
- SPSam Parr
time I'm, like, gonna actually do, like, a yuppie corporate thing that I'm fearful of, a negotiation, a firing, having a tough conversation, I'm like, the next day I'm going into that conference room and I'm literally gonna do, like, the walkthrough-
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- SPSam Parr
... of exactly how I feel. And I should do that for everything I feel. And so in preparation for this flight stuff, I found myself, like, occasionally I would, like, actually pack my suitcase, or I would, like, go through the same motions. And I'm like, this feels silly, but, like, it does feel nice because this does make me nervous when I'm packing for a flight to get r- And so, uh, it was really useful to hear his perspective on how they would get down to the very granular details of the, the fight and replicate it so your nervous system was used to it.
- SPShaan Puri
That's really interesting. There's also probably a, um, sometimes you really anticipate events. Like, let's say there's something you're excited about, think something's gonna happen. And often the anticipation is, is more than the actual thing, and it kinda leads to disappointment.
- SPSam Parr
For sure.
- SPShaan Puri
You see this often with founders who sell their company or, you know, y- achieving something and then, yeah, you know, and then you kind of, ah, almost the anticipation was more, more exciting. And this st- And science has studied this, that actually the peak of enjoyment comes in the anticipation lead up to the event, not the event itself or the aftermath of the event.
- SPSam Parr
I feel that way whenever I buy anything. Like, when I'm, the three months that I'm researching buying a new car or buying, like-
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- SPSam Parr
... a winter coat, I love it. And then I, like, get the coat and I'm like, "Oh, okay." [laughs] Like, you know what I mean? Like, just buying s- even the smallest things, I anticipate it so much.
- SPShaan Puri
What happens is m- m- rarely does, in, on a high anticipation event, rarely does reality match the high. So this leads to disappointment when it's something you're excited about. Now, when it's something you're dreading, but it sounds like you're- allowing the anticipation to happen in a big way beforehand well then when the real thing happens it's kind of dull compared to what you anticipated and it almost blunts the effect just it's kind of like using the thing that disappoints you on something you're excited about well with something you're scared of you use it to your advantage because the real thing is actually less scary less less novel less has less stimulation because you've spent the time in the anticipatory state i mean my guess is that that has something to do with it
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, because all the things leading up to anything that you're fearful of contribute oftentimes just more, you know, as much as the actual nervous thing. So like when you're laying in bed the night before you have to have a difficult conversation, oftentimes that part is more miserable than when you're actually in the middle of it. When I used to run track and field and we'd run these races and it's not like the UFC and that you get beat up, but it's the same thing where you're like, even if I do good during this race, I'm about to go through pain. All my friends and family are here. I don't want to be nervous. I don't want to embarrass myself. And oftentimes in the middle of the race, you're not fearful at all, but leading up to it, you freak out.
- SPShaan Puri
And the weird thing is, if I think about like the scariest thing I ever did is probably probably the scariest thing I ever kind of signed up to do was skydiving. I wasn't really scared going into it again, mostly because I didn't really I didn't really care. I didn't think too much about it. But once you start going up and you realize, oh, 10,000 feet is we're over the clouds. I literally can't even see the earth. And then, you know, my friend went before me and I just saw him go. He just jumps and disappears. And I don't know. My friend is gone. So I'm like, actually, you know, I'm feeling it when I was up there. And the weird thing is that the antidote to the fear was not really like bravery or getting over it or convincing myself that it's not scary. Like that was hard to impossible for me. It was just acceptance. I was like, I'm like, you know, when you skydive for the first time, you don't do it by yourself. You're hooked to an instructor. And I was like, I'm hooked to the guy. He's going out. He's going out and I'm hooked to him. It's happening. And just the acceptance of like, well, it's happening. So that so that part is like the kind of like, do I don't I should I shouldn't I don't want to. I'm going to have to. I don't have to do it. It's going to happen. Once I accepted that it is already going to happen, that already like neutralized, I don't know, 50 percent of the fear. And then it was kind of more of what you were talking about was like, well, if it's going to happen, then all right, bring it. Let's feel the rush. Let's see what this is. Let's go. I want this to go. Let's go for it then if we're going to do this. I don't want to go skydiving and half do this or be scared the whole time while I'm doing this panicked. Let me let me enjoy this because it's happening anyways. And the acceptance was pretty key to like moving past that first emotion to the next emotion, which was not like not like still still had fear in it and that cocktail, but wasn't like pure fear.
- SPSam Parr
Well, maybe DARE will change your life too. It's dismiss.
- SPShaan Puri
It already changed my life once.
- SPSam Parr
Dismiss, allow, run towards, engage. It was a great little thing.
- SPShaan Puri
You should just refilm the commercial with the egg, crack the egg and be like, this is my brain on a plane. It's getting fried.
- SPSam Parr
All right, that's it. That's the pod.
Episode duration: 46:08
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Transcript of episode c7HzTX9CZic
