How To Master Storytelling ft. David Perell

1. 0:00 – 3:16

   Intro

   1. SPShaan Puri0:00

      All right, look, it's Shaan here. I don't wanna toot my own horn, but beep-beep. This is [laughs] this is a, this is an interview that somebody else did with me, uh, David Perell, who you might know online as The Writing Guy. He, uh, invited me out to San Francisco, and we did an interview for his podcast called How I Write. And my episode is doing so well, so well. It is... I have this little Chrome extension. This thing is doing 11X. 11X means it is 11 times higher performing than his normal videos. Something good is in this video that it's doing 11X on YouTube, and it's all about storytelling. It's all about writing. Uh, it's stuff that a lot of people ask me about, but I'd never have taken the time to sit down and talk about it. Well, David got me to sit down and tell you everything that I know about this stuff. Um, I hope you like it. I was a little sick during the interview, but it was my Michael Jordan flu game. I came, I came prepared, and I brought the heat. Um, I'm really hyping this up, and it's because I'm excited about it. I'm really proud of this interview. It's doing really well. A lot of people are messaging me about it. And so we want... We asked David, "Hey, can we run this on our feed?" Um, you know, we took the, took the episode from him. We're gonna run it on our feed. It's basically an interview where he's the interviewer and I'm the guest, talking about storytelling and writing. So if you like those two things, you're gonna like this episode. All right, enjoy this episode with me and David. [upbeat music] Story is a five-second moment of change.

   2. DPDavid Perell1:27

      Whoa, what does that mean?

   3. SPShaan Puri1:28

      You wanna work backwards from the emotion. The only things people will share is things that are LOL, WTF, OMG.

   4. DPDavid Perell1:35

      Wait, so hold on here. Stop the podcast.

   5. SPShaan Puri1:37

      [laughs]

   6. DPDavid Perell1:37

      So, like, what should I do next time I sit down to write?

   7. SPShaan Puri1:40

      The real great writers, I believe, are great at framing their ideas.

   8. DPDavid Perell1:44

      Oh, interesting.

   9. SPShaan Puri1:44

      So MrBeast, Steve Bartlett, Dave Chappelle, Hasan Minhaj, those are the people I try to learn from. You know, I could teach a 30-second master class. It's just this...

   10. DPDavid Perell1:55

       Shaan Puri is one of those guys that I really wanted to learn from. I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to tell better stories by listening to good storytellers, but Shaan has really deconstructed the storytelling process. And you hear people saying all the time, "Oh, storytelling's really important. You should get really good at it." But there's not a lot of people who come in with concrete, clear frameworks like he does. So this is a master class on storytelling. Come on in. It's time to roll. I said this to you when we first shook hands, but this podcast was probably the biggest increase in terms of how much I've admired a guest and how much that's grown through the prep process.

   11. SPShaan Puri2:35

       [laughs]

   12. DPDavid Perell2:35

       And so I just wanna compliment you on that. And in particular, there's a lot of things that you do really well in your writing that I'm not good at, and this is one of those episodes where I just have a bunch of questions, and I'm here to make my writing way better, and the place I wanna start is storytelling. I have no frameworks for thinking about storytelling.

   13. SPShaan Puri2:54

       Before you do storytelling, can I give you a compliment on your compliment?

   14. DPDavid Perell2:57

       Yeah.

   15. SPShaan Puri2:57

       So great compliment, first of all, very specific. Uh, but the second is actually, it's a writing tip, which is I didn't... The thing you said where you're like, "You know, I started kind of going down your rabbit hole," and my, like, whatever, respect for you, or whatever you said.

   16. DPDavid Perell3:12

       Yeah.

   17. SPShaan Puri3:12

       Like, my, uh, whatever. Your score-

   18. DPDavid Perell3:14

       [laughs]

   19. SPShaan Puri3:14

       ... went up a lot

2. 3:16 – 6:03

   Binge bank

   1. SPShaan Puri3:16

      during that process. Uh, I learned this from these two guys, Dylan and Henry. They're young guys. They were, they were, like, 21 when I met them. And they were recording these videos. I was like, "How many views do these get?" And they were like, "Oh, nobody watches these." And I'm like, "But you guys are, like, really trying. Like, is it like someday somebody will watch these?" He's like, "Yeah. Specifically, we're creating a binge bank." And I was like, "What's a binge bank?" And he goes, "It's when you basically stack material, so that, like, even though each one of these, if we just looked at the view counts, it'd be kind of discouraging, like, uh, not that many people read this or watched this." Um, but they were like, "We started thinking about it differently. Instead, we said, 'All right. Each one is not getting that many views.' But I'm creating a bank where if somebody ever said, 'I'm curious about this guy. I wanna learn more. What is this guy all about?' That in the next hour, you would walk out with like, my reputation would be way higher with you, right? Like, you would feel like you know me, you would like me, you would respect me." And it changed the way I thought about that. And so then I, 'cause I used to not... I used to, like, be, like, very, um, results driven. It's like, "Ah, if it's not immediately paying off, it's hard for me to get excited about it." But when I thought of the binge bank, I just thought, "Oh, I need to create this library, that if anybody, like, if David's gonna do research, he's gonna spend an hour or two hours going, like, down the rabbit hole, I need to leave a little breadcrumb trail that by the end he's like, 'I love this guy. I'm all about this guy.'"

   2. DPDavid Perell4:34

      Guess where I ended up. Guess what, like-

   3. SPShaan Puri4:35

      [laughs]

   4. DPDavid Perell4:35

      ... the final thing was, which was, like, the shebang of, "All right, I totally bought."

   5. SPShaan Puri4:40

      Uh, some old blog post that I probably forgot about is my guess. [laughs]

   6. DPDavid Perell4:42

      It's like that 40-page PDF with all your main principles.

   7. SPShaan Puri4:45

      [laughs]

   8. DPDavid Perell4:46

      That was, like, the pool I swam in-

   9. SPShaan Puri4:47

      Right [laughs]

   10. DPDavid Perell4:47

       ... for the longest, and I ended up there.

   11. SPShaan Puri4:50

       Yeah. Who knows? But, like, that's the... You leave that trail. Uh, you could pro- I should probably do it better, but, like, this idea of create a binge bank, I think is so much more valuable than a resume or a portfolio. It's like people will come knocking. They will get curious about you, and, like, give them a way to, uh, to just binge your content like it's a Netflix show, and by y- after two hours, they should feel like you're the man. That's, that's a goal I think people should have.

   12. DPDavid Perell5:15

       So what do you do to do that intentionally?

   13. SPShaan Puri5:19

       Well, the first thing is, like, you don't get discouraged by, like, how small your thing is today. That was, like, the first part, which is if you create something and the feedback loop is not quite there, you're either gonna just willpower your way to keep going. You're gonna be a very wise person and say, "Results take time." I'm neither of those things. Bad at willpower-

   14. DPDavid Perell5:36

       [laughs]

   15. SPShaan Puri5:37

       ... and not that wise, right? Like, I, I kinda know that's the answer, but it's har... So it's a way to trick yourself. And, um, the way to trick yourself is to say, "Oh, yeah, um, this one thing, it doesn't have to, like, go viral t- for this to be successful. This is for my binge bank. I know the idea of a binge bank is important. I wanna have that as an asset that's there for me. So what are the 10 things that somebody should go consume?" And I started paying attention to that and, and started putting

3. 6:03 – 8:05

   Storytelling

   1. SPShaan Puri6:03

      that together.

   2. SPSam Parr6:04

      One of the things that you are very good at is that I feel like you're just good at learning skills, putting names to them, and this is a good time to dive into the storytelling. So I guess that you had this whole day, you're like, "Oh, I'm gonna go check out Aaron Sorkin," and he always comes back to, like, this one core principle. Tell me about what you've learned from storytelling, and then maybe even, like, the meta of how you learn new skills.

   3. SPShaan Puri6:25

      The storytelling is cool 'cause, you know, I think everybody intuitively knows storytelling is a pretty dope ability, and I look for this mismatch between things that have a lot of value but you're not taught.

   4. SPSam Parr6:37

      Mm.

   5. SPShaan Puri6:38

      Or even better, it sounds kinda lame to say you're working on it.

   6. SPSam Parr6:41

      Mm.

   7. SPShaan Puri6:41

      Like, if I find that, I'm like, "Ooh, this is a good one." Uh, another example of that to me is, uh, enthusiasm.

   8. SPSam Parr6:47

      Mm.

   9. SPShaan Puri6:48

      Anybody who's been around somebody who's, like, got high energy, enthusiasm, you like that person. That's inherently, like, a... It's a very likable trait. Of course, there's an over-the-top obnoxious version, but it, generally, you wanna err on the side of have energy, have enthusiasm. Those are people you wanna do projects with, work with, be involved with. But nobody will ever be like, "Yeah, I'm practicing my [laughs] enthusiasm."

   10. SPSam Parr7:08

       [laughs]

   11. SPShaan Puri7:09

       Right? Like, "I'm practicing this." Um, that sentence doesn't even compute. So if there's a thing that has value that other people don't practice or try at, uh, and even better, it's, like, almost taboo or lame to say you do it, I've found that those skills are actually, like, premium skills to me 'cause you almost, like, differentiate yourself in the marketplace. Storytelling is another one of those. Joke telling is another one of those. Like, if you're like, um, "I am working on, like, getting funnier." They're like, "Are you trying to be a comedian?" "No." Like, "You like funny people, though, right?" Like-

   12. SPSam Parr7:39

       Yeah

   13. SPShaan Puri7:39

       ... of course, everybody does, whether it's relationships, work, y- content creation, whatever you're doing. If your humor level... If you're more humorous, people will like it better, but nobody practices. So it's like what do you expect? Just, you know, does it magically happen? Like, we kinda know everything comes from prac- every- everything is downstream of practice. So storytelling was one of those skills where I knew that I loved it whenever I met somebody who was a great storyteller. I wanted to get better at it. So then who's the best

4. 8:05 – 14:22

   Intention & Obstacle

   1. SPShaan Puri8:05

      in the world at this, right? That's the next question. One of the people that came to mind when I Googled around was Aaron Sorkin. Uh, he's written, you know, famous TV shows. I don't even... West Wing, Newsroom, the Social Network movie. [smacks lips] He's great for writing dialogue. And in these interviews, he says this thing. He's like... They're like, "What's the key to storytelling? Like, can you teach a, like, a three-hour master class?" He's like, "I could teach a 30-second master class." Like, like, it's just this. It's intention and obstacle. And he said it even better. He goes, "I worship at the altar of intention and obstacle." And I was like, "I don't even know what the hell he's talking about," but the way this guy's serious about it tells me, like, I need to go dig in. What is he talking about? So what does this mean? Intention and obstacle is just at any given moment, the, the hero of the story, whether it's you or someone you're talking about, has to have a very clear intention. What do they want? And under that is, like, why do they want it? How bad do they want it? What happens if they don't get it, right? That's what goes into intention. And then obstacle. Like, who's in the way, right? So you know, Harry Potter wants to live. What's in his way? Voldemort's trying to kill him. The most powerful wizard of all time is trying to kill him, right? Intention and obstacle. And basically, if you watch, if you g- read any story or you watch any movie, you should be able to pause at any moment and just point at the screen and just say, "What's, what do they want right now, and what's in their way?"

   2. SPSam Parr9:22

      Mm.

   3. SPShaan Puri9:23

      And if you ever go, like, five minutes without that being clear, people will lose atte- their, their attention will drift away. And so, um, once I realized that, I made that the central premise of any story. And what I realized was that [smacks lips] this was a incredibly powerful tool. It is the fundamental, like, building block of storytelling. And, um, the m- more interesting thing, which we could talk about, is it doesn't have to be life or death.

   4. SPSam Parr9:50

      All right, everyone, really quick, if you've heard this podcast before, you know that Shaan and I think that the most important skill set you need in business is copywriting. And so what we did was we went through all of the podcasts that we've done, it's, like, 500 of them, and we found all the best copywriting tips, our resources, our frameworks, our templates. We aggregated all of them into one simple document so you can skim it all and get everything that we've ever talked about with copywriting. It's in the link below. It's awesome. Check it out.

   5. SPShaan Puri10:15

      So most people think of it when, like, the example I even gave was Harry Potter trying to live and e- most evil wizards are trying to kill him. Okay, cool. But you can shrink that down, and actually, you get bonus points when you can do intention and obstacle on a lower stakes moment.

   6. SPSam Parr10:30

      So I wanted a croissant, and all the places were closed, but I need my croissant.

   7. SPShaan Puri10:35

      You need your croissant, and the, but the audience has to believe that you truly needed it. And you gotta tell them. Be like... You gotta make them believe that you really wanted it, i- ideally, because you actually did, right? You're, you know, you don't have to fabricate the story. It should be real. I'll give you an example. I was at a, um, like, executive offsite. Uh, my company had just got acquired. Like, I put on the exec team of this now, like, 2,000-person company, and I don't... I feel a little out of place. Like, I've never worked in a company bigger than 20 people, and I wanted to use storytelling to kind of, like, as a crutch, as, as one of my tools in my toolkit. How can I use this to better myself? All right. So, um, we're supposed to go around the circle and, like, say what's been going on, uh, or, like, what's something, what's a, what's something recently that happened that you wanna share with the group? Some BS, like, uh, icebreaker. And every single person just did it in a work context. "Oh, we're working on this thing, but then this person on my team has, did this problem," or they quit or whatever. "Oh, we're working on this thing, but then legal said this." And it's kinda, like, boring, boring, boring. And, uh, I was like, "Yeah, recently, I had a big moment, big day." And, uh, okay, pause, right? Get people curious. I said, um, "I just moved out of the hou-" I was young, right? So I was like, "I just moved out of the house. I'm living in my own place. I've been living there for a year now, but I've never invited my mom over. And my mom was badgering, 'Why don't you invite me over?' What she doesn't know is I'd never invite her over because I don't wanna... I don't know how to host. She was always the host if someone came over. I don't know how to do adult things." So people are kinda laughing, right? 'Cause I'm... But I'm like... I was like, "I had been trying to get her to, like, treat me like an adult," but the reality was- I'm, like, I'm not. I'm actually still a little-

   8. DPDavid Perell12:14

      [laughs]

   9. SPShaan Puri12:14

      ... little boy, right? And so I'm telling this story about how my mom comes over and I decide to cook. I decide to cook Brussels sprouts, the most adult food there is.

   10. DPDavid Perell12:21

       [laughs]

   11. SPShaan Puri12:21

       Problem is, don't know how to cook Brussels sprouts. So I'm doing it, blah, blah, blah, and I tell the story of cooking the Brussels sprouts, and I kid you not, everybody's like, everybody's entertained, they listen to it. And during the break, everybody made a point to come up and be like, "Dude, that Brussels sprout story was hilarious. Um, that was so, that was so funny. Like, what was that? And what even just happened?" They kinda couldn't even explain it. And for me, it was just another example of using storytelling even on low-stakes moments actually builds likability and, um, fandom more so than the dramatic-

   12. DPDavid Perell12:52

       Mm

   13. SPShaan Puri12:52

       ... I was skiing and there was an avalanche. That's cool, but it's unrelatable, and actually, there's something fundamentally unlikable about it. And I wanna write, uh, usually, if I wanna write something, it's because I'm trying to, whatever. I'm trying to have fun, but I'm also trying to build an audience of people who like me or are fans of me, or get customers who wanna, you know, buy my product or whatever. I try to use likability for that.

   14. DPDavid Perell13:14

       It was interesting. I was at a sort of a very fancy dinner. It's like multi-billionaire's house, and y- it, it was one of those dinners where everyone is like, you know, people had flown in for the dinner.

   15. SPShaan Puri13:22

       [laughs]

   16. DPDavid Perell13:23

       And there's, like, an Olympian who's sitting across the table who I was, like, a big fan of growing up. And, and we're all going around, doing introductions, and it's my time to do the introduction. So I'm nervous. I really wanna impress everybody. Like, one of my childhood heroes in sports-

   17. SPShaan Puri13:39

       At 9:00. Yeah, yeah [laughs]

   18. DPDavid Perell13:39

       ... yeah, so I do a lot, right? And, uh, I, you know, sort of put myself up and I talk about, "Hey, this is what I do for a living." And I'm like, "I crushed it," you know? Man, everyone loved this. And we're, we're hanging out after, after dinner. I'm back at my apartment. My buddy goes, "Yo, you did the worst job ever. Like-

   19. SPShaan Puri13:57

       [laughs]

   20. DPDavid Perell13:57

       ... that was a horrible intro." I was like, "What are you talking about? Every word to the bone, like, had my one-liners, like, ready to go. Crushed it." He's like, "No. You were just trying to sound impressive. In a moment like that, you tell a funny story or you make a joke, and you lighten the mood."

   21. SPShaan Puri14:13

       Right.

   22. DPDavid Perell14:13

       "You did exactly the wrong thing."

   23. SPShaan Puri14:15

       Right. Yeah, that's, uh, first of all, great friend-

   24. DPDavid Perell14:18

       Great friend

   25. SPShaan Puri14:18

       ... to say that. Great friend. Can we call that out? And you're, you're absolutely

5. 14:22 – 15:53

   Hasan Minhaj

   1. SPShaan Puri14:22

      right. Uh, I learned this from Hasan Minhaj, the comedian. 'Cause I was gonna go on stage, and I was like, "Hey, dude, like, you do this for a living. I don't know how to do this stuff." And he goes, "You wanna, um..." He goes, "Comedy is a low-status game." So he goes, you know, "You're gonna be up on stage and you're nervous, so your natural tendency's gonna be to puff your chest out to kind of project this br- false bravado." But he's like, um, "Actually, what you wanna do is build connection with people, and you build connection with people through, um, vulnerability, through, uh, low, low stakes, uh, through, um, low status specifically." He starts his comedy special, I went and wrote it out to try to, like, understand what he does. His last comedy special, he starts out, he's sitting on a stool. He's talking about how intention, him and his wife have been trying to get pregnant, um, and they haven't been able to. And they went to a doctor, and he's like, "The worst news ever. It was my fault. My balls don't work," basically.

   2. DPDavid Perell15:16

      [laughs]

   3. SPShaan Puri15:16

      Right? Like, is there a lower-status thing as a guy than to be like, "I, you know, my junk doesn't, doesn't perform"?

   4. DPDavid Perell15:21

      Also, just the way [laughs] like, that, that word choice is inherently funny.

   5. SPShaan Puri15:25

      Exactly. And so, you know, he's obviously a master at this, and trying to, trying to learn from people who are... Like, I'm in business. I don't try to learn how to be a better storyteller or a better writer from business people. Why would I do that? Uh, I would try to learn from the people who their thing is storytelling or writing or entertainment, because they're gonna be the best at this. You know, Aaron Sorkin, comedians. Those are the people I try to learn from. And so, uh, I think that was one principle that sounds like you, you learned the lesson the hard way too. [laughs]

6. 15:53 – 18:06

   Writing vs Speaking

   1. DPDavid Perell15:53

      How is storytelling different for you in writing versus speaking?

   2. SPShaan Puri15:58

      It's not that different. Um, in general, m- one of my biggest writing rules is write like you talk.

   3. DPDavid Perell16:03

      Mm.

   4. SPShaan Puri16:04

      Um, most people have this false, uh, thing we do. I think it's from school. Like, school kinda teaches you, like, they're like, "Read Shakespeare, write these essays. You know, I need six pages, uh, six pages m- minimum, you know, double-spaced, you know, all this stuff. Use a big vocabulary." It's all the things that don't work in the real world, you learn in school. And I think what school teaches you is basically just pretend. Like, uh, "Hey, be something you're totally not. That's what good writing is." In the real world, I don't think that's true. I think, uh, you know, good writing is simple. Good writing is easy to read. Good writing is entertaining to read. Good writing has a voice. Um, it's not just like this, you know, archaic-sounding thing. Um, so anyways, I, you know, one of the principles is write like you talk. So if I'm gonna write a story, I will actually say it first, and then I'll just write down what I said. That's like a starting point for me. 'Cause for most people, uh, myself included, if you sit down, the, like, blank page, uh, you know, of death is, like, the most intimidating thing.

   5. DPDavid Perell17:05

      Mm.

   6. SPShaan Puri17:05

      It's very hard to even get started. But if you are stuck, and so you just say, "Okay, so what is the story? Like, forget the words. What are you trying to say?"

   7. DPDavid Perell17:16

      Mm-hmm.

   8. SPShaan Puri17:16

      I'm trying to tell a story about the one time with the Brussels sprouts and blah, blah, blah. Um, cool. What makes it interesting? All right, great. Um, where did it start? What's the start of the story? Well, the story is when I blah, blah, blah. And what's the end? Well, the end was when this happened. All right, cool. Sounds like you got a beginning, middle, end. You know what happened, and you roughly hit the outline. Cool, maybe now start writing. And so, uh, write like you talk is an important principle, and then the other thing is there are nuances that are different. So for example, in writing, I'll use a ton of, like, parentheses.

   9. DPDavid Perell17:45

      Hmm.

   10. SPShaan Puri17:45

       'Cause you can't do that in, uh... You kind of, you can break the fourth wall basically when, when you write, but when you talk, it would be like me saying, um, "So we were going this way. You know, we al- we always take that route." Right? It's like a, that's a parentheses when you're talking.

   11. DPDavid Perell18:00

       Mm.

   12. SPShaan Puri18:00

       When you're writing, it's actually much easier to do. Um, but when you're talking, you can use pauses and a dramatic

7. 18:06 – 19:01

   Pacing

   1. SPShaan Puri18:06

      pause. How do you do a dramatic pause in writing? It's kinda hard to do. You have to, like, use, like, line breaks or dot, dot, dot, dot, dot or whatever, right? Like, you gotta try that. So you, some tools are a little bit different. But I would say 80 to 90% of it is the same to me.

   2. DPDavid Perell18:20

      Have you learned anything about the pacing of a story? Like, the, how you drag it out or compress it? Like, does that change for different platforms? How do you think about that?

   3. SPShaan Puri18:28

      Definitely. Um, you know, I think another misconception is shorter the better. Like, you know, too long is too boring. And actually, um, you know, s- anything could be any length, it just has, you can only be as long as it is interesting.

   4. DPDavid Perell18:44

      Mm.

   5. SPShaan Puri18:44

      That's a general rule. It can only be as long as it is interesting. If you can go this long, you know, a long, you know, blog post, but it's interesting the whole way, fantastic. That's the right length. However, you should always try to understand, like, what is your level of credibility or buy-in with the audience?

8. 19:01 – 22:30

   Hooks vs Frames

   1. SPShaan Puri19:01

      So here, in a podcast, you can kinda riff in a podcast. You can be like, "Dude, what, you know, we could talk about something we said in the lobby," or be like, "Oh, you just had Sam Altman on. Does he have a bodyguard?" Like, we could just not talk about writing for five minutes, totally fine. However, if it's cold traffic on the internet, you better have like, an amazing headline and a first line that's gonna hook people and be right about the, match what the headline was because you don't, you don't have that reputation with them. So if you know your audience's level of buy-in with you, you can kind of, um, dance around subjects versus be very direct and immediate and try to provide value right away, um, to hook people right away. So you know, TikTok is a platform where you're swiping. Like, and if it's not interesting in the first, like, n- .9 seconds, you're gone. So on TikTok, you see people right away try to say a thing. On podcasts, you'll see people shoot the shit, um, and build r- you know, there's a chemistry thing.

   2. DPDavid Perell19:53

      Mm.

   3. SPShaan Puri19:53

      Because people aren't gonna swipe away from the podcast in, in the first 30 seconds. It's not usually how people consume podcasts. And so you gotta know your medium and you gotta know your audience, what's the level of buy-in you have?

   4. DPDavid Perell20:03

      How do you think about the hooks for a story? Like, one of the things I've noticed with comedians, and really studied, is how fast they're able to build context. They can do it in like, six to eight words, where some people just go on and on and on and on and on. It drones. And that hook of how you bring people into the story is super important.

   5. SPShaan Puri20:24

      I agree. Um, however, I t- so h- what is a hook? So a hook is basically, it's the first thing you're gonna say to try to hook their attention. Great. I think actually right now, for, for the type of person who's gonna listen to this, you probably have studied a little bit of wr- copywriting maybe, or you kinda pay attention to what, like, oh, this person's blowing up on Twitter. What do they do? Oh, they al- like, you know, they write their threads and the first line of their thread is like, "Here's the u- unbelievable story about how this, you know, Chinese immigrant took a simple thimble and turned it into $10 billion," whatever. Some like, unbelievable sounding hook that you're like, "Oh, you have to pick..." It's like maximum clickbait, right? I actually think that hook's somewhat overrated. Underrated is frames.

   6. DPDavid Perell21:06

      Yeah.

   7. SPShaan Puri21:06

      So what's a frame? So a frame is you take an idea. And an idea can be this big or it can be this big depending on the frame. So I can be like, um, you know, uh, uh, what's this? I don't have a good example off the top of my head, but we'll do one that we just talked about. The Hasan Minhaj is a comedy thing, right? I told a little story about what he's doing in, um, in his opening line. So I could just say, "Here's what he did at, at the start of his thing." I could say, "Here's what you can learn about public speaking from one of the greatest public speakers in the world, Hasan Minhaj," right? So I could take the same content where I'm gonna talk about starting with a low status thing, but I can put it in the frame of, this is not just for comedians. This is actually, when you're at a dinner party and you're supposed to make an intro and you don't know what the hell to say, um, this is how to not make an ass out of yourself. You change the frame.

   8. DPDavid Perell21:58

      Right.

   9. SPShaan Puri21:58

      And so I think that m- more important than a hook, which is just like a grab-you-by-the-throat attention grabber, is think about how you're gonna frame your ideas. Hooks are about the words you're gonna write. Frames are about the idea and how you're gonna make that idea relevant, and how you're gonna connect two ideas that seem unrelated to be related. The real great writers, I believe, are great at framing their ideas more so than like, just coming up with that perfect one-line hook thing that's gonna like, you know, just kinda trick the person

9. 22:30 – 26:49

   Viral tweets

   1. SPShaan Puri22:30

      into clicking.

   2. DPDavid Perell22:30

      Yo, let's get super concrete here. So you wrote a super viral thread on Clubhouse. And this was the standard way to do a frame. So it says, "One," parenthesis, "Clubhouse existential threat. Number one, time to value ratio. Let's, let's brainstorm." And you're like, jargon, fancy words. I don't like that.

   3. SPShaan Puri22:51

      No, no, that wasn't me writing. That was somebody else.

   4. DPDavid Perell22:52

      Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I don't like it. It like... It, brainstorm. Like, no storyline. And then it didn't do that well. And you come in, you're like, "So, dot, dot, dot, everyone seems to think Clubhouse is the next big thing, but I think it's gonna fail. Here's how I think it all goes down."

   5. SPShaan Puri23:09

      Yes.

   6. DPDavid Perell23:10

      Why did you choose that?

   7. SPShaan Puri23:12

      So the, if you compare the two, and like on your YouTube you should put these like, side by side so people can see it. The other one was written by this guy Chris, who created an app that was kinda like Clubhouse. Went super viral. Was called Secret back in the day. I don't know if you remember this. It's called Secret. Went super viral. They raised like, $100 million. The founder like, sold some secondary, bought a Ferrari. Like, it was like, the hit product for like, a very short window of time, and then it died. So if anyone has the credibility to say why Clubhouse might fail, that guy was actually the guy. The problem was he was extremely dry, told no story, and just said, cl- and used like, very like, you know, 12th grade reading level jargon. Like, "Clubhouse is existential threat. The, the time to value ratio." Like, it immediately s- felt like homework.

   8. DPDavid Perell23:57

      Mm.

   9. SPShaan Puri23:57

      Whereas my thing was, everybody thinks X, but I think Y. And more, the most important part was, here's how I think it's gonna go down, not here's why I'm right. So here's how it's gonna go down is basically like, gossip. It's story. Um, here's why is logic and rationale. So that's kinda why I wrote it that way was... And then the rest of the thread, the reason this thread got like, 20 million people to read it was because- I to- I wrote it almost like a screenplay. I was like, I didn't say, "Here's the five problems with Clubhouse." I wrote, "You're the founder of Clubhouse. First of all, fuck yeah."

   10. DPDavid Perell24:34

       [laughs]

   11. SPShaan Puri24:34

       You know, you're winning. Everybody is talking about your app. Your app is cool. You know, Kanye's in your DMs, VCs are throwing money at you, and I set it up, right? Like, you- that's the setup. That's you right now. And already you know, if you're reading that, this is not how most business tech Twitter writing goes. Most business tech Twitter writing goes is it, it's an intelligence contest, and I was telling a story. And, um, and so, you know, that's why I think it worked. I think if I had written it with the, you know, me trying to be the, the 9,000 IQ guy in the room, it would not have worked.

   12. DPDavid Perell25:05

       So when you see people ... Say that I'm writing now and I'm like, "All right, I'm not gonna do intelligence contest. I'm gonna try to do exactly what Aaron Sorkin said. There's intention and there's obstacle. I'm gonna frame what I'm saying in terms of story. I'm gonna focus on the frame." And say that my writing still is just like, yo, this is lame, what do you think is going on there that makes it feel dry or like it lacks a sense of momentum?

   13. SPShaan Puri25:33

       Well, in the same way that comedy is great but not every line should be a joke, uh, storytelling is great and not every piece of content needs a story. Uh, so I think one challenge is like, I wrote that one as a story, it did great. That doesn't mean everything I write online is like this screenplay story type of thing. That worked in that situation, it's not gonna work in every situation. So you gotta know, like, the tools and when to use them. Hammer's not good if you're just trying to open a door. Sometimes a key is what you need. And so that's the first thing. Don't just force it in. The second thing is like, you probably need reps. Like, I don't know, I've done this a lot of times. That wasn't the first story I've ever written. So if you're like, "Cool, I'm gonna get better at storytelling," be prepared. Like, tell 100 stories starting with maximum cringe and get to not cringe, right? [laughs] Like, but it's gonna take 100.

   14. DPDavid Perell26:17

       Yeah.

   15. SPShaan Puri26:17

       Expect that it's gonna take 100 stabs at this, and specifically int- 100 intelligent reps. So it's like, do it, and then the next one you have to be like, "What could I do better? Oh, my hook was a little weak there," or, "Oh, you know, it droned on too long," or, "I don't really have a point. Maybe this sh- shouldn't have been a story. Maybe it should've been something else." And so 100 reps for each one, you try to say, "What's one thing I can do better than last time?" Just one thing. That's it. And then you just keep going. And if you can do 100 of those, then I bet your stories will work. It's not gonna be, it's not gonna feel forced, 'cause you'll learn the skill through those 100 reps.

10. 26:49 – 27:26

    MrBeast

    1. SPShaan Puri26:49

       This is the MrBeast-ism of, uh... He's like, "Everybody asks me, like, 'How do you do YouTube good?'" He's like, "I tell them all the same exact thing. Make 100 videos, and every video make what, make... Do something better than you did before. Any wha- anything. Doesn't even matter what it is. One thing better than before. Do 100. Then come back and talk to me." And he's like, "Two things happen. First of all, nobody does it. They all wanted just, like, some answer. They had no a- no intention of actually going and doing the work. And then of the few people who actually do the work, they never need to talk to me again. By the 100th one, they've figured it out. They're doing great." [laughs] You know, like, "They never come back for advice. That's why it's the perfect advice to give someone, 'cause it's true and it saves both of us the hassle, uh, you know, if you actually followed it."

11. 27:26 – 29:10

    Storyworthy

    1. DPDavid Perell27:26

       Yeah. [laughs] What did you learn from Storyworthy?

    2. SPShaan Puri27:30

       Storyworthy is a amazing book by this, like, teacher guy who's, like, this 20-time storytelling champion of The Moth storytelling... I didn't even, I didn't even know what this thing was, but whatever. If you're the champion of something, I pay a little, little bit of attention. He's got this book, and in the book it's basically how to tell better stories. I would say, you know, probably worth reading the book. He's got one thing that I really took, which was stakes. So he's like, um, every great story needs stakes, meaning if the story is intention and obstacle, but if you don't make it clear what's at stake for the, for the person if they don't get it, um, then the story's not gonna have very, uh, not be very compelling. So, you know, when you tell a story, let's say it's the... And it doesn't have to be high stakes, like it doesn't... He, he's actually very again- He, the other thing he says is like, "Don't tell like..." He calls it, like, vacation romps. So it's like, don't just tell a story about this great night you had, this party, 'cause, like, nobody cares. Nobody wants to hear about your vacation. Nobody wants to hear about your cool college party you went to. Like, just fundamentally those are bad stories. The second thing is like, a great story is not just I was swimming in the ocean and a shark bit me and then I survived. Like, it doesn't need to be extreme, and again, it's actually almost better if it's not. Um, but you still need stakes. So how do you have stakes even if it's not a shark biting you off? And his, his answer was, um, the stakes come from the emotion. So as long as you believe that that other person was gonna feel a certain way, then the story has stakes. So for example, if I'm trying to impress my mom doing the br- Brussels sprouts thing, embarrassment is what's on the line, right? Like, I'm gonna be embarrassed, and my ego's gonna take a hit. So as long as you believe that that's true for me, the story will be entertaining, um, when it's prop- when I actually tell it, when it's actually delivered. Um,

12. 29:10 – 32:02

    5-second moment of change

    1. SPShaan Puri29:10

       the other one he says is, he goes, "What is a story? A story is a five-second moment of change."

    2. DPDavid Perell29:15

       Whoa, what does that mean?

    3. SPShaan Puri29:17

       A five-second... So he's like, you know, uh, everything that you tell in the story comes to this one moment, this five seconds where the character's transformed. You know, just I use movies 'cause it's easier that most people don't have, like, a big archive of writing in their head, but, like, we've all watched the same shows and movies. Every rom-com is, like, some version of the following: Uh, the guy's a player and he's never gonna settle down. That's the start of the movie. Or she's a high-powered lawyer who's doing great in her career but never made enough time for love. That's always the start of the story.

    4. DPDavid Perell29:47

       [laughs]

    5. SPShaan Puri29:48

       There's, there's only two rom-coms, right? Like, she was in love. They thought, she thought they would get happily married. He broke her heart. Start of the rom-com. So well, guess what the ending of the rom-com's gonna be? Always the exact opposite of that. If she was the high-powered lawyer who never made time for love, she's now gonna be in love, and she's gonna actually s- quit her job as a lawyer and be, like, open up a bakery, right? Like, that's how the movie's gonna end. Or if he didn't wanna settle down k- and he was a player, by the end he's gonna be chasing her and he's gonna, like, propose to her, right? He's gonna wanna settle down. So spoiler for all rom-coms ever, and um, and it's actually all movies ever. Die Hard, Jurassic Park. You could do the same exercise. Watch the opening f- one minute. The end is gonna be that character ... the opposite of his current lifestyle or belief system or habits. Um, you know, Scrooge hates Christmas. He loves Christmas or whatever [laughs] .

    6. DPDavid Perell30:38

       [laughs]

    7. SPShaan Puri30:38

       It's all, every movie, every story is the same. So, the heart of the story is the five-second moment when they actually made the transformation, when they switched, and it's usually when they lost it all, when they had the heartbreak, when they hit rock bottom, when they had no choice but to be brave 'cause they were finally cornered. Like, whatever it is, right? Uh, you know, in Batman, when it's like he's in the cave and he's gotta get out and nobody's ever made it out. I don't know if you remember this part of The Dark Knight or, or one of, one of the Batman movies. And, uh, the mentor was like, "Only one person's ever got out." He's like, "How did he do it?" Um, he's like, "He didn't use the rope." They're like, "Ma- basically, he jumped with no safety net." And so the five-second moment of change is the character climbs up the thing, takes off the rope. If he doesn't make this jump, he's gonna die, but actually because he was gon- because of that, makes the leap and actually makes it. That's the transformation moment. Everything is based... All stories, yeah, if you don't know what's the five-second moment of change for the c- for the main character, you don't really have a great story.

    8. DPDavid Perell31:37

       How does this apply or not apply to, like, the story of a company? Like, if I'm trying to tell the story of Write of Passage or, you know, you think of all these companies, oh, we started in a garage, we had no money, this is what we believe, right? You have Airbnb, you have, like, the Obama O's, and then you have Brian Chesky who's, like, going to the houses and he's, like, taking photos with his own camera. He's, like, doing the hustle. It's like these founders really believed. So how does...

13. 32:02 – 42:07

    Origin Stories

    1. DPDavid Perell32:02

       how do we take these ideas and apply it to what we're building?

    2. SPShaan Puri32:04

       The origin story of all Silicon Valley companies is, is similar. So let's take Airbnb, for example. What was the, you know, moment of change? Uh, the moment of cha- uh, the, the origin story of Airbnb is we were, um, broke jokes who had n- right? The beginning of the rom-com, we're broke jokes. Not only did we not have a successful company, we didn't even have an idea.

    3. DPDavid Perell32:27

       Mm.

    4. SPShaan Puri32:27

       [laughs] So, like, we were-

    5. DPDavid Perell32:29

       [laughs]

    6. SPShaan Puri32:29

       ... the worst situation for an entrepreneur. No money, no team, no idea [laughs] , no respect, no reputation, no nothing, right? Even worse, wrong founding DNA. We were all designers, and the narrative was you gotta be an engineer to build a, uh, you gotta be a developer to build a, a tech comp- tech company. And so, um, well, the moment of change was basically they... like they had no money. Um, like they didn't have enough money to pay rent or something like that, so they... the moment of change was basically one of them had a crazy idea to be like, "Hey, what if we rent out our space here for this... There's a design conference in town. What if we create a, like, a bed and breakfast for people who are coming 'cause all the hotels are sold out?" The bed and breakfast, we don't have a, we don't have a hotel. And they're like, "Well, we can just put an air mattress here." And they laughed, and they were like, "Whatever." And then three people came, stayed, paid the money, and had a great time, and they're like, "Holy shit, this might be a thing." And then there's several holy shit moments, right? There's like, "We ran out of money again," so we did the Obama O's cereal thing. We, uh, they tell the story about when they were getting knocked off by a big, um, by the Samwer brothers of Rocket Internet. They were cloning their company and gonna kill them, and he tells that story. It's like we, you know, faced this life or death, death moment, and then we had to make a decision, and we changed. We went from being scared to being like, "All right, we're gonna compete with these guys. We're gonna beat them." Um, and that's the moment. That's, that's what the, each of those micro stories is about. The way I've learned this is you have, uh, what's called signature stories.

    7. DPDavid Perell33:59

       Mm.

    8. SPShaan Puri33:59

       So your signature stories are the, like the four or five stories that if I only could tell you these four or five, you would know everything there is to know really about me. So, for example, your origin story.

    9. DPDavid Perell34:11

       Mm.

    10. SPShaan Puri34:11

        Like for you with Write of Passage, what's the origin story? Like I'm assuming you didn't just create this 'cause life was good, you already were good at everything, and, uh, and, and, you know, there must have been some moment where you were like, "I gotta do something here."

    11. DPDavid Perell34:25

        Will you help me improve my origin?

    12. SPShaan Puri34:26

        Yeah. Give me what it is right now.

    13. DPDavid Perell34:27

        All right. So I worked this job at this New York advertising agency, and I was super intimidated by my boss. He's like 6'4", you know, big beard. He's just not, like, super welcoming guy. Super talented. Super talented. And I wasn't doing super well in my job, and he sorta calls me into his office, and I was working on a pitch deck for Bacardi. I was trying to be all impressive and stuff like that, and I wrote in the pitch deck that the idea that we had was gonna be epic. And he was like, "Yo, that is not a good word to be using. You're not..." He said something to the effect of, "You're not in college anymore. We don't write like that here." And then through writing that sentence, he then started saying, "Hey, you really need to improve your writing. You're just not a good writer." And I was like, "Well, you know, I tried learning to write in school. I don't even like writing. My whole job is writing, and I gotta get good at this." So that was in like November. Then we go through December. I get a raise. I'm like, "Oh my goodness, this is gonna be great. Life's going well." Then January 5th, seven months out of college, I get laid off. And of course in my head I'm like, "I got laid off 'cause I'm not a good writer. Uh-oh, I gotta learn this craft, but I don't even like writing." But then I'm seeing all these people who are good at writing, and they're just making moves on the internet and stuff. So I spend years, two, three years, and I'm learning how to write. I start building an audience. And during that time, people reach out to me. They're like, "Hey, you're pretty good at this. Can you start teaching me how to do it?" And I'm like, "Wait, I learned all these things on my own. I had to figure these things out out of desperation for how to learn how to write." Then that led into Write of Passage, and that's how the company got started.

    14. SPShaan Puri36:14

        Okay. Great. So let's workshop that.

    15. DPDavid Perell36:15

        Cool.

    16. SPShaan Puri36:16

        All right. So, um, let's go back to the origin. Let's do... So there's a beginning, middle, and end.

    17. DPDavid Perell36:20

        Okay.

    18. SPShaan Puri36:20

        Beginning, you're start of your rom-com. You're working in a job. You're not, you said you're not doing so well. Your boss kind of embarrasses you, uh, and you end up getting laid off. Act one of-

    19. DPDavid Perell36:31

        Sure

    20. SPShaan Puri36:31

        ... of, of the movie Uh, I think to make that part, just to make that part better. So I think you have the element there. Act three is, uh... You know, so we know act one is gonna be, "Don't like my job, and my job doesn't like me." [laughs]

    21. DPDavid Perell36:43

        [laughs]

    22. SPShaan Puri36:43

        Even worse, my job doesn't like me, right? Um, second part is, I'm not doing so well, and I'm kind of embarrassed, and I'm kind of intimidated by my boss. Great. Super relatable, super likable, all that. Um, you have a moment where you got specifically embarrassed around the epic thing, calling you, like, a college kid or whatever, and you're like, "Okay, hopelessness." Um, max pain, got laid off. Cool. And I'm sure you had some feelings about that. Act three is, now I get paid millions of dollars to teach people writing, and I'm doing a podcast interviewing my writing heroes, and they're like, "Dude, you're awesome. I'm a big fan." Okay, great. So we have the element of an amazing story. How do we actually make it better?

    23. DPDavid Perell37:19

        Yeah.

    24. SPShaan Puri37:20

        So the first part is your act one, you didn't focus on the pain enough, or the intention and the obstacle and the feelings you had at that time. So for example, you said, "I wasn't doing too good at the time." And then you're like, "But then I got promoted or a raise." So I don't know what that is, right? Uh, you know, you might also leave the promotion or raise out. Doesn't really add to the story.

    25. DPDavid Perell37:37

        [laughs]

    26. SPShaan Puri37:38

        It's con- sort of confusing. Conflicting messages, right?

    27. DPDavid Perell37:40

        [laughs]

    28. SPShaan Puri37:41

        Never let the truth get in the way of a great story. Let's, let's start with that. So why did you not think you were doing well?

    29. DPDavid Perell37:47

        The company was constantly trying to figure out, what do we do with this person? I, I, I can't believe this happened, but he literally brought me into his office and he goes, "I need you to stop thinking like Jeff Bezos." And I was like, "Can you explain?" He's like, "Do your job. You are a sales guy. Focus on that. I don't want you focused on the, the future of media and where that's going." And so there was just a lot of tension there, and he and I never really got along that well.

    30. SPShaan Puri38:12

        Right. So yeah, I think you wanna fi- I bet you, if you zoomed in, go back to the memory bank and you remember, like, any moments where you felt the opposite of how you're gonna feel at the end. At the end, you feel really proud and you've accomplished and you've overcome, but at the beginning you probably felt embarrassed, you know, uh, somewhat, uh, insecure, uh, whatever. So for example, if you were like, "I, um... Yeah, I remember there was this new guy that just got hired and I was training, I was, like, trying to, like, welcome him and train him a little bit, and then he got promoted before I did."
14. 42:07 – 43:25

    Tony Robbins

    1. SPShaan Puri42:07

       uh, Tony Robbins, I'm a big Tony Robbins fan. He does an amazing job telling his story. And he's like, "I remember sitting in my apartment. I looked in the bathroom, and I was doing..." I had... 'cause I used to do dishes in the bathtub 'cause my s- my dishwasher didn't work, so I'd soap up the bathtub. And he's... All he's trying to say is, "I'm a loser. I was a loser. Now I'm super successful. Why? Because I'm Tony Robbins and I figured it out, and you can too." But first he has to convince you that he used to be a loser, otherwise the whole Tony Robbins shtick doesn't work. So he's like, "How do I convince somebody I'm a loser? I could say that I wasn't doing too well, or I could say that I used to have to wash my dishes in a bathtub." 'Cause that paints a picture of a loser. He's like, "I remember I was s-..." And then he says, "I was sit in my apartment, and I didn't have any furniture 'cause I didn't have any money, so I just had this one chair. Like, I didn't have a sofa. I had a hard chair that I used to sit on." And he's like, "It was just a chair." And he's like, "And I remember, uh, the s- a song was playing that was like..." There's some song where he's like, "I don't have a friend," or something like that. "It's only me and my chair." And he's like, "Dude, that's me. It's just me and this stupid chair." And he's like, "So I went for a run." And he's like, "Even though I hadn't run in years, and I was overweight, I went for a run. And even, even when my lungs were burning, I was like, 'No, you, you may be a loser at all things in life, but you're not gonna lose this run.'" And he tells this story, and it's kind of inspiring when you're hearing this. And he's just zoomed into one moment that's visual, that's audio, that's a feeling, and he's convinced you of that before state so that the after has some

15. 43:25 – 44:12

    Transformations

    1. SPShaan Puri43:25

       impact.

    2. DPDavid Perell43:25

       The two things that I'm getting there is, first, you can tell a story. A story is not a record of what happened.

    3. SPShaan Puri43:34

       Absolutely.

    4. DPDavid Perell43:34

       It is not you saying, "This happened, this happened, this happened, this happened." It is almost this-

    5. SPShaan Puri43:40

       It's transformation

    6. DPDavid Perell43:41

       ... it's a tr- Oh, interesting.

    7. SPShaan Puri43:42

       A story is just a change. S- The world was one way, and then it was another way. I was one way, and then I was another way. My company was failing, and then it was succeeding. All a story is is just change. You only wanna include the what happened so much as it explains how that change came to be. Um, yeah, it's not as just a, a, a timeline of events.

    8. DPDavid Perell44:03

       And then you're also really cuing into emotion.

    9. SPShaan Puri44:06

       Yeah. [laughs]

    10. DPDavid Perell44:08

        How so?

    11. SPShaan Puri44:09

        Well, that's what, like, people respond to, you know? Um,

16. 44:12 – 46:17

    Steven Bartlett

    1. SPShaan Puri44:12

       like in my writing course, I used to teach, um, I used to teach this one thing, uh, that I was like, you know, you wanna work backwards from the, from the emotion. I learned this from, uh, a guy who used to be my, my, I don't know, intern or something like that. Like, we hired him when he was 20 years old, Steve Bartlett. Today, a lot of people know Steve Bartlett. He's got a big podcast called Diary of a CEO. He's built a company. He's done a bunch of things. He's on Dragon's Den. Like, he's a famous guy now. I met Steve when I was 20. All right, when he was 20. I was 25 maybe. And, uh, he flew from the UK, he lived in our office, like slept in our office, and he wanted to work with us. And we worked together for, I don't know, what, nine months or a year or something like that. Um, and Steve was awesome in a bunch of ways, and he was obviously just, like, a 21-year-old in a bunch of other ways. But the awesome thing I remember was he was like, he told me something. He goes, "I just think about what is Jenny in her bedroom gonna think when she sees this?" I go, "Who's Jenny? Who's Jenny? What are we, we talking about?" He's like, "Oh," like, "if we're making a piece of content that's gonna go on social media, social media is Jenny in her bed laying down, just scrolling, just swiping." And she's like, "Basically, this has to make Jenny in- Jenny, like, stop-

    2. DPDavid Perell45:20

       [laughs]

    3. SPShaan Puri45:21

       ... think something, and share this with her friends. Otherwise, it's going nowhere." There was no point in writing this thing or doing this thing 'cause it created no reaction from the person. They're just gonna keep swiping. The world is full of infinite content. We only stop at things that we have some reaction to. And, um, so I stored that away. And then I heard it, the same idea from another person. This is how you know a good, a good idea. The BuzzFeed guy goes, "Everything we do at BuzzFeed is about Debbie at her desk." I'm like, "Jenny in her bedroom, Debbie at her desk."

    4. DPDavid Perell45:50

       [laughs]

    5. SPShaan Puri45:51

       "What's going on here?" He, he goes, he goes, "The most powerful network in the world is the bored at work network." He goes, "All..." And BuzzFeed was, like, growing like crazy at the time. He's like, "BuzzFeed basically taps into if someone's bored at work, and they just wanna, like, you know, have a distraction for five minutes, we wanna make a piece of content that will distract them and get them to forward it to a bunch of other people who are also bored at work."

    6. DPDavid Perell46:11

       Right.

    7. SPShaan Puri46:11

       "And that's the whole network, is the bored at work network." All right, second time I heard the idea. Then I heard the idea a third

17. 46:17 – 49:09

    Viral videos

    1. SPShaan Puri46:17

       time. This guy, Chris Quigley, he ran a advertising agency that would make videos go viral. And at the time, I was like, going viral is like a lottery ticket. Like, how do you do a viral video? I don't know. It's just like something amazing must happen. So I go, "What's your hit rate on virality? Like, one out of 100? Two out of 100?" He goes, "No, like eight out of 10." I go, "Eight out of 10?" And he's like, "Yeah, look." He showed me their, their views. And I was like, "How do you do this?" And he's like, "Well, you know, over time, the more viral videos you make, you have, like, a base of an audience." But he's like, "That just gets you, like, some people will see it. But how viral it goes is how much they share it." He goes, "So what we do is we work backwards from an emotion." He goes, "The only things people will share is things that are LOL, WTF, OMG, AWW." He like, all the acronyms for all the emotions. So like, oh my God, wow, like, ha ha ha, right? Like, if it doesn't do that, nobody will share it. So he goes, "We first start with this is the desired reaction we have. Then we'll write a script or a, write a, write a, a blog post or whatever, and then we'll go check. Do we think that's gonna create this reaction in somebody? No? All right. Let's juice it up. How do we make it more funny? How do we make it more outraging? How do we make it more endearing and heartwarming?" Like, whatever those are. And, uh, so once I heard that three times, I was like, "Okay. I get it. I need to create a react- a reaction out of the average person just in their bedroom or at their desk, and I need to start with the emotion, uh, my target emotion, and then work backwards from that. Write the thing that will create that emotion."

    2. DPDavid Perell47:43

       Yeah, it's funny because when you write, you're like, "Okay, I'm publishing, uh, this on the internet. Bunch of people are gonna read it, you know, get a big audience." And so you think of, "Hey, there's all these people." But actually, you're just writing to Debbie in her bedroom-

    3. SPShaan Puri47:57

       [laughs]

    4. DPDavid Perell47:57

       ... or Sally at her desk, you know? And people consume your content alone. And when you're writing, you are writing to one person in one place at one moment in time. And you have to remember that because the nature of the connection that you're trying to make is different. And to double down on that idea, in a lot of our media environment, especially with a platform like Twitter, when you scroll Twitter, like, you're on the throne, you're on the bus, you're waiting in line. You're, you know, your friend's seven minutes late. You're like, "Come on. Where the heck are you?" You know, I'm trying to... A reservation's coming up. And you're just sort of browse and browse and browse, and, and your brain's only like halfway on. And if you can really first understand your own state when you're in that environment, and then write to the person who's in that state, now you have a very keen sense of who is this person, and you're writing for one person. Even though if you're looking, you're seeing, hey, 119,000 impressions. Those are not 119,000 people at once like a football game. They're 119,000 individual people at 119,000 individual instances in time. And if you think like that, you communicate very differently.

    5. SPShaan Puri49:04

       Yes. Perfectly said. You're writing to one person-

    6. DPDavid Perell49:07

       Yeah

    7. SPShaan Puri49:07

       ... at one moment in time. That's, I think, a very

18. 49:09 – 56:04

    Miss Excel

    1. SPShaan Puri49:09

       good point. And the other, uh, thing that this reminded me of is, do you know this person Miss Excel? Have you seen this person?

    2. DPDavid Perell49:14

       Yeah, yeah.

    3. SPShaan Puri49:15

       So she, um, for anybody who doesn't know, she's basically like an Excel influencer [chuckles] for lack of a better word. Um, she basically teaches people Excel trick, tricks, but the reason she got popular, she went on TikTok, she started dancing while, like, putting an Excel trick on the screen or a tip on the screen. Um, weird combo, but it works. I was reading some interview with her, and they were like, "How do you create your content? Like, what's, what's your process?" And I was like, "Oh, I'm curious what her process is." And she goes, "Uh, I, I don't..." She's like, "It's kinda weird." She's like, um, "Most people, if you say, 'What's the process?' And they're like, 'Consistency, like, wake up at a certain time, start right away. You gotta write every day. You gotta post at a certain time. You gotta do all these things.'" She's like, "I don't do any of that." She goes, "I literally first, like, just change my own energy." She's like, "I work, I..." She's like, "I'm kinda woo-woo-woo in that way, but, like, I basically get myself into a peak state of mind. Like, I get myself into a certain mood and a cer- certain state of mind where I feel magnetic. I feel charismatic. I feel e- energetic. I feel..." And she's like, "It's like a en- like a, it's, like, literally like a science called energetics." She's like, "I work on my energy, and two things happen. One, ideas start coming to me much faster than if I sat down and said, 'What are some ideas? I need to come up, post some content today.'" And so she's like, "I just work myself into that state. I let ideas come to me. An idea will hit, and as soon as it hits," she's like, "I run to my phone, hit record, and I just do it." She goes, "Because I believe all content is just energy transferred through the phone. It's my energy shifting to you, my emotion that I've... How I feel about this. If I feel excited about this insight that I have or excited about this, this tip that I have, I wanna get you excited about that tip, too. And the best way to do that is for me to be there first." And I think this is a very underrated thing for writers, because most writers, they're not performers. All the performers know this. No athlete goes on the field without being warmed up and being hyped up. No stage performer goes on stage just kinda cold and low energy. But almost every writer [chuckles] starts cold and low energy, and just sits there somewhat miserably. And, um, and there's even some weird glory from, like, this, like, I don't know, this, like, pain, this martyrdom of, like, how you need to be as a writer. I think that's all stupid. Um, I think it's very similar to performing in any other way. I think you should get yourself into a great state of mind, and then have that energy, and then sit down and write and let it flow and let that energy rip through you so that the, the other person who reads it is gonna feel the same excitement you have about the insight or feel the same excitement you have about this plan or whatever it is. Um, you know, you want that to come with it.

    4. DPDavid Perell51:44

       And a lot of times when people write, they have this idea, they're away from the computer, like they're at the bar with their friends, they're on a walk with somebody else, they're at Thanksgiving dinner. They're like, "Man, you know, Auntie, Auntie Diana, she has no idea what's going on in the world. That woman was crazy." And you're so annoyed at, like, 11:00 PM at Thanksgiving. And then you try to write like three days later, and the problem is they're not capturing the energy that Miss Excel is capturing before she does the videos. And people end up writing in such a sober state that their writing ends up being boring and sterile.

    5. SPShaan Puri52:15

       100%. M- The thing I said at the beginning of this podcast was like, I look for things that I think are important that other people don't practice, overlook, or would be too embarrassed to say they're working on. This is an exact example of them, uh, of one of those. Nobody wants to work on their, like, state, their energy. They don't wa- You know, Miss Excel does. She's like, "I'm gonna make myself magnetic before I make content."

    6. DPDavid Perell52:36

       Oh, I like that.

    7. SPShaan Puri52:37

       [laughs]

    8. DPDavid Perell52:37

       That's pretty cool.

    9. SPShaan Puri52:38

       I don't even know, I don't even know what that means, but that sounds provocative, right? Like, okay, uh, it's better than whatever the hell I'm feeling, uh, when I sit down to write.

    10. DPDavid Perell52:45

        Yeah. [laughs]

    11. SPShaan Puri52:45

        Okay, that's a new standard for me. I'm gonna do that. And so, um, I think most people would probably in their heart believe that this is true, that if you kinda got your energy right before you did the thing, it'll probably turn out better. Nobody's gonna do it, which is the best part. It's the arbitrage. It's how a less talented person like me could do really well. [laughs]

    12. DPDavid Perell53:04

        Wait, so hold on here. Stop the podcast. So like, what... So what should I do next time I sit down to write? How does this actually work? What, am I gonna dance? Do some jumping jacks? Like, what do I actually do?

    13. SPShaan Puri53:13

        Yes, exactly. That's exactly right. So state change is three things. Number one, radical change in your physiology. So you could sprint, you can do pushups, you can dance, you can, um, do 20 air squats. You can dump your face into cold water. Whatever it is, you will im- It's the fastest way to change how you feel is a radical change in your physiology. It's the first thing. Um, so do that. That's the, that's the very first thing. Um, I, I have a friend who's a professional poker player. He does the same thing. He goes, "During..." Uh, poker players are, like, notoriously degenerates. Like, you're literally sitting there in a casino, which is like the worst air pumped in environment. There's no windows, and you're around other degenerates all day. People are smoking. It's bad. Um, he's like a monk, and he w- during a tournament, in the breaks, he goes in the parking lot and he does wind sprints. He's not doing it to be a better runner. He's not doing it to increase his VO2 max. He's doing it because he wants to make a better decision when he gets back to the table. He knows he makes better decisions when he changes his state. And, um, that's part of his edge. That's why he's been a European, like, you know, poker champion and a, a, a tour champion a, a, you know, several years. So first thing is a change in your, your, um, your state. The second thing is a change in your focus. So what are you even focused on? Um, wh- Like, you know, the way I imagine is I have this laser beam of focus. I don't know if this is true, but it's what I've convinced myself, which is if I just turn my attention to this- I will crush this. This will be amazing. If I, if I put 100% of my focus on this podcast right now, oh, this podcast didn't stand a chance. And the only limit to me is just where I'm pointing the beam, and if I'm trying to point it in five different places or whatever, that's gonna be a problem. This also works with like if you have to write something and there's a deadline. If your focus is on the deadline, it's the wrong place to focus, right? If your focus is on, you know, um, your, uh... How hard it is for you to do something, if you're focused on how hard it is, it's not a good place to focus. [laughs] Like you need to focus on the thing you want. Um, so you know, don't focus on the wall where you're like trying not to crash, like turn, right? Basically, focus on where you're turning. And then the last one is basically your story. So what's the story you tell yourself? Um, we all have some story that we tell ourselves, and if you improve the story, you'll change the state of mind that you have. So if I go into the sto- if I go into this podcast right now, and my story is, um, uh, I'm just he- I'm doing a favor to David, I'm just doing this. Oh man, like, you know, I had to drive an hour to come here and, you know, this means I'm not gonna be able to do this thing and whatev... That's the wrong story.

    14. DPDavid Perell55:34

        [laughs]

    15. SPShaan Puri55:35

        Obviously, I'm not gonna perform very well. I'm not gonna be at a peak state.

    16. DPDavid Perell55:37

        Right.

    17. SPShaan Puri55:37

        Whereas if my story was, there's gonna be someone who listens, one person, one person who's listening to this podcast, and they're gonna hear one thing that I say, one story, and they're gonna be like, "Wow, I can't unhear that. That was amazing." And that person's gonna go on and do amazing things, and they're gonna write me a letter one day and be like, "Dude, that podcast you did changed my life." I'm gonna approach this podcast differently, right? I, the different words will come out of my mouth if my story about what's happening

19. 56:04 – 58:31

    Change your state & focus

    1. SPShaan Puri56:04

       is different. So similarly, if you wanna basically change your state, physiology first, focus second, story third.

    2. DPDavid Perell56:09

       Nice. One of the moments I had around story that I thought was really revealing was I w- I worked with a coach and we were talking about my writing, and I was in a slump. I was down. And-

    3. SPShaan Puri56:25

       What's a writing slump? What does that mean?

    4. DPDavid Perell56:27

       I just wasn't vibing.

    5. SPShaan Puri56:28

       How were you feeling?

    6. DPDavid Perell56:29

       I wasn't feeling it.

    7. SPShaan Puri56:29

       Like-

    8. DPDavid Perell56:29

       And I just wasn't proud of the stuff that I was doing, and I couldn't get inspired. And, uh, he said, "Well, what is it that you want?" And I said, "Well, you know, I, I used to write these, these pieces, these long-form pieces that I was really proud of. You know what I want? I wanna be a creative force. I wanna be a creative force. That's what I'm going for." And I sit down to write, and I'm like, "I wanna be a creative force. That's what I'm all about." And he's like, "Hold on, hold on, hold on. Stop, [laughs] stop the train. You said you used to be a good writer, and you would get in a great flow. What did you do back then that you don't do now?" I was like, "Huh. Actually, it's pretty simple. I'd find an idea that was interesting. I would try to figure out that idea for myself, and then I'd figure out for myself, and I'd say, 'Well, then I gotta share this with other people.' And I'd just do that over and over and over again, and I never stopped. That's all I did and that's all I focused on." He's like, "Hold on. What you're saying is now you're focused on being a creative force. That's your story. That's not working for you. Let's get back to finding an interesting idea, not judging the interestingness, figuring it out for yourself, and then sharing it with others." Ever since that, no more slump.

    9. SPShaan Puri57:57

       Right. [laughs]

    10. DPDavid Perell57:58

        All that was was a change in my story.

    11. SPShaan Puri58:00

        Yes. Amazing. Uh, that's amazing, and I think, you know, the other part of what you said there, which is letting curiosity be the, the guide, the driver, um, sounds very simple, but all great ideas are actually quite simple. [laughs] That's the beauty of them. You know, there's a... I think there's a profound, um, benefit of revisiting simple ideas and then saying, "Am I doing those?" Um, I don't look for new ideas as much as I look for ideas I've already heard that I haven't fully actualized

20. 58:31 – 1:03:43

    Paul Graham

    1. SPShaan Puri58:31

       yet, and, you know, that's one. Um, y- you've read, like, Paul Graham wrote this essay, um, Great Work. I, I assume that you've read that one.

    2. DPDavid Perell58:38

       Yeah.

    3. SPShaan Puri58:39

       I recently... I read it two nights ago-

    4. DPDavid Perell58:41

       So good

    5. SPShaan Puri58:42

       ... for the first time. He wrote it like a year ago, and it was like 13,000 words. So I was like, "I'm not doing that. Like that's too long." Well, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. So I'm ready to... I'm thinking about what, what do I wanna work on right now? How do I wanna do this? And I went back to that, and in that he, he has this great line. And he goes, "If I had to boil down all great work into one, one word, it would be curiosity." And he says another thing, which is, "Curiosity drives an, a level of excitement." He goes, "And excitement, excitement is really a great indicator." He goes, "Excitement is the engine and the rudder of the boat." It's the engine, and that excitement is motivating. It's dri- it's a driver to get you to go do things, but it's also the rudder. It, it also can point you in the right direction. If you don't know which path to choose, just choose the one that's most exciting. Just go, keep following that, and that will lead you to the right place. It's, uh, excitement is the engine and the rudder, um, I think is a really powerful idea. And I, every time I've drifted away from that like you did, like I start with that, good things happen, and then I'm like, "Ooh, now ambition is the driver," or, um, doing something that sounds cool or important or money is the driver, and then, like, all the bad things happen.

    6. DPDavid Perell59:47

       [laughs]

    7. SPShaan Puri59:47

       And I'm like, "Shit, uh, why aren't these working?" And it's like, well, 'cause you stopped doing the working formula, which was leading to all these great things, um, because you thought you needed to like, you know, you thought you needed to do something different. And I try-

    8. DPDavid Perell59:59

       Well, so many people are like, "Oh, I hate writing." And most of the time it's that they associate writing with doing things that they don't wanna do. And then when they think about, well, it's time to write, they subconsciously don't allow them to write about the thing that they're the most curious about or excited to write about. Because in school-

    9. SPShaan Puri1:00:20

       That's not what you get to do, yeah

    10. DPDavid Perell1:00:21

        ... no one's excited about the average school paper. Maybe one or two things, but people just aren't trained to think like that. One of the things that I need to reconcile with you and try to s- sort of figure out, 'cause I got two Shaan ideas, and we need to figure out how they sort of come together, is- This line that you have, "If you're in your head, you're dead." Love that line. So good. At the same time, you are always deconstructing things. You have... You find something that you like, and you're like, "Hold on. What's going on here? Let me try to break it down. Okay, I'm actually gonna go check out this book, go talk to this expert, try to figure out what's going on." So how is it that you are deconstructing, thinking, being fairly analytical, but at the same time, not getting in your head? Those things feel like polar opposites to me.

    11. SPShaan Puri1:01:08

        Yeah. Two things. One, I read something yesterday, uh, this, like, mini book online that was called... I think it's called, like, A Technique for... A Technique for Coming Up With New Ideas. It's like some old book. Um, and in it, it said this thing. It goes, "The, uh, the most valuable traits you can have sound like opposites when, you know, if you pair them together." So he goes, you know, uh, imagine an entrepreneur who is both visionary and detail-oriented. That's a, that's a Steve Jobs, for example.

    12. DPDavid Perell1:01:41

        Mm.

    13. SPShaan Puri1:01:41

        Like, Steve Jobs is famous for being a visionary. He, he doesn't ask the consumer what they want. They just want faster horses. He... You know, they want a car, actually, right? That's how he invents, you know, the iPhone and, and figures out what to do. But he's insanely detail-oriented, where he's like, "What does the inside of the box look like?" And they're like, "Dude, Steve, nobody's gonna look at this." He's like, "I'm gonna look at this. I will know what's inside the box. It needs to be beautiful at that level of detail, pixel-level detail." Um, same thing for all things, right? Uh, I consider myself a creative person. I'm also highly analytical with data.

    14. DPDavid Perell1:02:12

        Mm.

    15. SPShaan Puri1:02:12

        Sounds like opposites. Um, and so there are many things where the exact opposite, if paired together, creates a, like, one plus one equals three type of reaction, and, um, they're often presented as false choices. You're either this type of person or you're this type of person. Screw that. Be the type of person you want, which sometimes means having both gears and knowing when to go into which gear. When do I need to be, uh, creative? When do I need to be analytical? When do I need to be hard-charging entrepreneur? When do I need to be silly, playful dad? You know, paint my nails, whatever, right? Like, I have to have these gears to have the life I want. Similarly, you wanna be in your head at the times it makes sense to be in your head. The brain is a valuable tool. It just cannot be the master. So the... You know, I need to be in my head when it's about... Maybe it's, uh, uh, uh, analysis. Maybe it's, oh, I'm feeling fear. I need to actually use logic and ask myself, "Is this fear even true? And what's the probability of that? And if that happened, how would I handle it? I guess I would just do this. And I guess it's not so scary after all." So usually, um, if the problem is emotion, you can solve it with emotion. If the problem is logic, you can solve it with logic. And so I try to use them at the right times.

    16. DPDavid Perell1:03:24

        Mm.

    17. SPShaan Puri1:03:24

        The if you're in your head, you're dead is basically a, as more of a life philosophy than it is a work philosophy, which is people who k- kind of go around life not feeling a whole lot and not being present in the moment, they're in their head about stuff, uh, they're missing life. Um, a- and that's, that's a problem, you know, more so than, than a writing tactic.

21. 1:03:43 – 1:06:53

    Advice to writers

    1. DPDavid Perell1:03:43

       Have you ever seen that advice from Ray Bradbury where he says, "Don't think"?

    2. SPShaan Puri1:03:47

       No. [laughs]

    3. DPDavid Perell1:03:47

       You ever seen this? So I heard that, uh, what you said here, and it immediately reminded me. He says, "I have a sign at my typewriter. It says 'Don't think.'" And I'm like, "Okay, that's interesting." He's like, "I'm trying to surprise myself at the keyboard, and the only way to surprise myself is once I'm in my head, I can't do that." And I think that a lot of writing a first draft is like this. You're, you're trying to get outside of that part of your brain that judges, that condemns, that says, "No, no, no, it's not good enough," and just put stuff onto the page, and you know that you're doing it well when what you're doing is like, "Whoa, where did that come from? Where did that come from? Where did that come from?" And then the question is, how do you engineer yourself to do that? Like, for me, if I'm sitting and typing, can't do it. Like, my ideas... That for me is where I do editing. The thing that was game-changing for me was voice transcription getting really good, 'cause now I can stand and talk.

    4. SPShaan Puri1:04:38

       Talk and walk is-

    5. DPDavid Perell1:04:38

       Go outside, walk and talk, just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Half of Austin definitely thinks I'm some sort of-

    6. SPShaan Puri1:04:43

       [laughs]

    7. DPDavid Perell1:04:43

       ... like crazy psychopath kinda guy, but you know what? It's made my writing better, and a bunch of people I work with, they're like, "How do you just bang out first drafts so fast?" I'm like, "'Cause I don't sit and type like everybody else does. I just go for a walk."

    8. SPShaan Puri1:04:56

       Yeah, I think that's a, that's a great point. I think you need to, to figure out a way to engineer that for yourself so you can consistently have it. Um, I think everybody's got a different version of, of how to do it. What you said reminded me of something, though. You go, um... You talk about Ray Bradbury, "Don't think." Uh, I think this is a, uh, a very useful troubleshooting tool. So when you're stuck, there's many ways to get unstuck, and one way to get unstuck, like I said, radical change in something physical you do. I mean, that's a good tactic. Music is a good way to get unstuck too. Um, but in general, a philosophy for how to get unstuck is you're... If you're stuck in the specifics, go general, meaning if you're stuck in the logistics of the how something is gonna happen, it's not quite adding up, what you gotta do is not just keep trying to do this. You can just zoom right out. Go super general. All right, super general, what am I trying to do here? I'm trying to do this. Super general, um, if I had all the superpowers in the world, well, how would I do this, right? Super general is just like, um, you know, uh, who's somebody who's done this before? Or super general, okay, I don't know exactly what type of thing I wanna write. What inspires me, right? The way to get out of these sometimes is to go general, to go, uh... And so even if, like, don't think is hard, 'cause it's very hard to turn off the brain, but it's not so hard to redirect the brain.

    9. DPDavid Perell1:06:12

       Mm.

    10. SPShaan Puri1:06:12

        And so redirecting it, I think, is, is a useful tool. You can redirect it towards, hey, I'm gonna go rock climbing. I'll go exercise. That'll take my brain off of it. It can also be I'm stuck in the muck here, and I need to just zoom out, and that's it. Or if I'm stuck in the general, so for example, sometimes I'm stuck in the general of, like, what do I wanna be in life? And like, you know, what, what do I wanna do, and who am I, and all this stuff. Um, specific, what's the, like, what's the best idea you heard in the last two days? What, like, if you were gonna write about that, what would it be? Or like, what's the most interesting phone call I've, I've had? Um, you know, then you go specific 'cause you're stuck in the general. So it's a very useful thing to do is just, like, to get unstuck, know if you're stuck in the specifics, go general. If you're stuck in the general, go specific, and you're, you'll redirect the brain.

22. 1:06:53 – 1:11:48

    Writer's voice

    1. DPDavid Perell1:06:54

       I wanna switch over to talk about voice. You're really good at putting your voice onto the page, and you do something very specific that I'm not sure how consciously you do this, but you're so good at getting inside the head of a reader to understand, all right, how are they feeling about this at the moment? And b- basically, you said it earlier, breaking the fourth wall, and then by doing that, building trust and connection, and then it creates this friendly casualness as if we're having a conversation that, my goodness, that is levels away from most... from what most writers are able to do.

    2. SPShaan Puri1:07:31

       Have you ever read The Boron Letters?

    3. DPDavid Perell1:07:34

       Years ago.

    4. SPShaan Puri1:07:35

       Okay, so this is a must-read.

    5. DPDavid Perell1:07:37

       Yeah.

    6. SPShaan Puri1:07:37

       Uh-

    7. DPDavid Perell1:07:37

       Copywriting.

    8. SPShaan Puri1:07:38

       Copywriting. I'm surprised you don't have them, like, printed out in your pocket-

    9. DPDavid Perell1:07:41

       Yeah

    10. SPShaan Puri1:07:41

        ... they're that good. So The Boron Letters are this amazing thing by this, uh, like, kind of renowned copywriter, Gary Halbert, I think, uh, writing to his son, and he's in jail. So, uh, h- the writer is now in jail, and he's writing to his son, uh, Bond, I think, um, is his name. And so it's, like, a series of 23 letters. And, um, I put... They're hard to find too, it's really annoying. They're hard... There's, like, one blog. So I put it-- I hosted them on my blog now, um, because I was like, "This is, this is crazy that y- so valuable and so hard to find." So anyways, um, he posted the-- he wrote these letters, and he just wrote it, again, to one person. He's like, "I'm writing to my son." But obviously, these were kind of like general principles of life and copywriting and marketing, and he's teaching, he's trying to teach him everything he knows. Uh, but the, but because of the way he wrote it with such a casual, like, like, warm relationship, like, he's not even just writing to one person, he's writing to his son.

    11. DPDavid Perell1:08:37

        Mm-hmm.

    12. SPShaan Puri1:08:37

        And because he's writing to his son, he's like, "And this, dear Bond, is where things get interesting." Or he's like, "You're probably wondering, 'Dad, why do you say this?' We're gonna get to that, but first, a little detour." And he just started writing so differently that I was like, "Ooh, I like this style. This is just, like, has a swag to it that, uh, that is just, like, appealing to me." Um, so I started stealing that, basically. I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna write like that. I'm gonna write like I'm writing to one person, and that one person is like my little young grasshopper." It's like, yeah, this is my kid, or it's my, my little cousin, or it's me when I was younger, and it's like, uh, "I know what you're thinking, blah, blah, blah. But mamma mia, you're wrong," right? And I'll just, like, try to, like, try to just make it fun and interesting as if it's written to one, one, one person that has, like, a warm relationship, somebody that's kind of like, "I wanna be the sensei," and they-- That's how I write in, in those where it's like a master-teacher relationship. And other times it's the opposite. It's, um, [lip smacks] "I'm the beginner, and I know that other people are more, more knowledgeable about this." And I'll be like-- And I just will be open about that. I'll be like, "So being the idiot that I am, I'm gonna... I, I decided I was gonna do these three things. [scoffs] I knew there was probably a better way to do this. You probably know four, four better ways yourself. You're probably staring at this right now, wondering how could this guy be so dumb?"

    13. DPDavid Perell1:09:50

        [laughs]

    14. SPShaan Puri1:09:51

        "Well, the answer is blah, blah, blah," right? And I'll, I'll try to say it like that 'cause I'm just trying to make it where I'm trying to imagine what is the reader thinking at this? What would I think if I was them? And then I try to address that in the moment, 'cause it's very frustrating to me when... Like, imagine if you ask somebody this question. You're like, "How did you do it?" And they're like, "I just did this." And you're listening to a podcast, and then that podcast host doesn't ask them, like, "Wait, wait, wait. What do you mean it just worked?" Like, how... Or, "What do you mean he gave you a million dollars? Why did he give you a million dollars?" Right? Like, it's the most frustrating experience in the world when that doesn't get addressed. So in writing, I try to do that too. Like, I try to just call out the thing I would be wondering about or I would be skeptical of or I would be excited about in that moment. I just try to include it in the, the dialogue.

    15. DPDavid Perell1:10:36

        One of the things that we talk about all the time in Write of Passage, one of my core principles is imitate, then innovate, and it's exactly what you did there. So I asked you a question, and you said, "Okay, have you ever heard of this thing? Well, Gary Halbert does this very well." And then what you did was you deconstructed exactly how he does it. And then you said you found a general principle of his work. So you said, "He's not just writing for one person, he's writing to his son." And then the implications of that are this, this, this, and this. And the roadmap that you took to give me that answer I think is very revealing of how you think about writing, where you start somewhere, you deconstruct, and then you say, "How does that show up in my own world?" And then you try to build up a generalizable principle that then you can use for your toolkit whenever you're typing yourself.

    16. SPShaan Puri1:11:25

        Yes, that's exactly right. I think that is a great thing for anybody to try to do. If you wanna get better at something, that's a, that's the way.

    17. DPDavid Perell1:11:32

        Yeah.

    18. SPShaan Puri1:11:33

        By the way, I randomly just thought of the best example of framing from way earlier-

    19. DPDavid Perell1:11:37

        [laughs]

    20. SPShaan Puri1:11:38

        ... while you were talking, which is kind of how the brain works. The brain relaxes and then something comes to it. Um, have you seen the Dave Chappelle thing called Unforgiven? Have you seen this on YouTube?

23. 1:11:48 – 1:18:18

    Dave Chappelle vs Netflix

    1. DPDavid Perell1:11:48

       No.

    2. SPShaan Puri1:11:49

       All right. So do you remember a while back, uh, Dave Chappelle was in a feud with, um, I think it was Netflix. And he was like, um, the Chappelle's Show was put on Netflix, and he wasn't getting any royalties. So, like, it's his name, it's his face, it's all his life's work, and not only was he not getting paid for it, he had had a big falling out with the creators of the Chappelle's Show where, like, he ended up quitting right when they, they... The story at the time was they offered him $50 million. He said no, and he went to Africa and became a crackhead instead. That was, like, the rumors. Like, "Dave Chappelle's a crackhead now, and he's in Africa."

    3. DPDavid Perell1:12:21

       [laughs]

    4. SPShaan Puri1:12:22

       And it was like-- And he later, he was like, "No, I just said no. Why did I have to be a crackhead in Africa? I went home." Like, what are you talking about? So anyways, here's the objective. His objective was he wanted people to boycott the show. How do you get people to boycott the show? You gotta-- If you wanna drive people to take action, you gotta be smart with how you're gonna, uh, like, how you're gonna persuade them through the written word, or in his case, he wrote it first and then he performed it on stage. And what he did was instead of talking about Netflix or talking about his show or saying, "Go bloody catch my show, please," he started a, a, a com- he reframed the problem in a totally different way that I thought was brilliant. He just changed the frame completely. So he tells a story. He goes, "Um, I remember when I was 14 years old, first time I did, ever did comedy, I was 14 years old. I go to this comedy club, and I tell this joke." And he's like, "I'm not..." He's like, "I'm gonna admit it, I was good right away. Comedy came naturally to me. I'm not one of those people who's like, 'It took me a decade.'" He's like, "Honestly, I was good and I was 14, 15, uh, 15 years old, I think." And he's like, "I was underage, but I was good." And he's like, "I came backstage and there's a guy who's been doing this for 20 years, and they were like, 'Hey, kid, you did pretty good, man. That, that was, that was good.'" And he's like, "One guy came to me and was like, 'Hey, man, I like that joke. I have this big audition coming up for this TV show or something like, for this other thing. You mind if I use that joke?'" And he's like, "Even as a kid, I'm 15, this guy's, you know, bigger, older, I looked up to this guy." He's like, "I, um, I didn't wanna do it 'cause I was like, 'My joke's all I got. I got no money. All I have as a comedian is my jokes.'" He's like, "But, you know, this guy was kind of asking, I felt uncomfortable. He said he just needed it for this audition, so I was like, 'All right, man, like, sure, you could use the joke for the audition.'" The guy's like, "All right, cool." He's like, "Several months later, I go to the club, I'm about to perform, that guy's before me, he tells my joke, and the joke kills." He's like, "I was pissed." And he's like, "I didn't know what to do." He's like, "Afterwards, I went up to the guy. Again, I'm a 15-year-old kid. I'm p-" Like, he basically is framing it as, "I'm this powerless kid, and this guy's taking advantage of me." And he goes... I told him, I was like, "Hey, man, you said you were just gonna use it for that thing. Like, I, I don't want, I want my joke back." And, um, I think maybe he had to give him 100 bucks or something like that. And, uh, and the guy's like, the guy kind of roughed him up, he grabbed him, and he was like, "I was just asking to be nice. You know I could just take it." And he's like, "I was scared. I didn't know what to do, and I let that guy take my joke." Okay, so that's the story. He's like, "I'm gonna tell you another story." He tells a story about later on, he's in New York, and he's, uh, he's like, "I get on a date with this Jamaican girl." He's like, "She's a fine girl. You know, banging, you know. I couldn't wait to go on this date, but I didn't have any money. I'm a s- I'm still a struggling comedian. But now I'm older, I'm 22, 24," or something like that. He's like, "And I walk around New York, and I see these guys doing, like, that three-card monte where they, like, you know, that game. And I'm watching it, and a guy puts down 100 bucks, moves the thing around. I know it's over here. He guesses the wrong one, he loses, he shows it's over there. Next guy goes, same thing, puts down 20 bucks. Uh, I know it's over there. He picks over here. He loses. I'm like, 'God, I could do this.' So I step up, I put all 100 bucks down and say, 'I'm gonna double this, that, I'll take the, take my girl out tonight.' I know the ball's over here. I say, 'That one.' Ball's over there." He's like, "What the hell just happened?" He's like, "I was pissed. I lost 100 bucks. I had this date tonight." He's like, "So I stuck around, and I watched, and I realized those tourists, they didn't leave. They were still here, and they did it again." He's like, "Oh, they puzzled me. Like, those guys are in on it together. They pretended not to know where it was, and I was the mark who came up and said, 'Oh, I figured this out,' and they got me. And then somebody else, uh, came up, and they were about to make the same mistake, and I told them, 'Don't do it. They're all in on it.'" And the guy goes, "Oh, okay," and leaves. And he's like the guy roughs him up again, and he goes, "Hey, man." Uh, he goes, "I don't care what you think." He's like, "Never get between a man and his next meal." He's like, "You just took money out of my pocket. This is my job. This is my livelihood, and taking away a man's livelihood is the equivalent of killing him."

    5. DPDavid Perell1:16:26

       Whoa.

    6. SPShaan Puri1:16:26

       He tells him that. Okay, cool. Then he, he finally gets to the Netflix story, and he basically weaves together those parts from before. He's like, "They didn't ask me if they could put it on Netflix. They didn't ask me to u- u-," you know, basically like, "They didn't ask for anything. They just took my name, took my face, took all my content. They just took it." He's like, "And then the second thing was I, is that the people would say, 'Well, you signed the contract, Dave.'" He's like, "I was a 21-year-old kid. I hired lawyers to read these contracts. Uh, they told me everything. I said, 'Hey, you can use this forever, in perpetuity, in all parts of the universe?' And they're like, 'It's standard, Dave. Don't worry about it. This is standard Hollywood stuff. Don't wor- don't worry about it.'" So he's like, "So I signed it. Later on, I realize those guys all go out to dinner every week, the lawyers on my side, their side, they're all in on it. This is just like the three-card monte."

    7. DPDavid Perell1:17:12

       Wow.

    8. SPShaan Puri1:17:12

       "That's how Hollywood is. I was the mark. So yeah, I signed it, but whatever." And he got the whole audience on his side by, like, making this argument, by using these two stories. I think it is the most brilliant, like, example of, of PR or, like, a written story that I have ever seen. The way, by the end of that thing, you're like, "I will delete Netflix if they don't take this show off." And that's exactly what happened. People saw that, that video on YouTube, it went super viral 'cause it was so well done. Um, people boycotted Netflix. They took it off. Uh, and they... Netflix said, "We don't have to do this, Dave, but we voluntarily will do this. Like, we were also moved by your story. Uh, we're not gonna put, put your special up there unless you say we can do it. Even though contractually we have the rights to do whatever we want, we're gonna honor the non-contract here." I thought that was the power of, like, you know, reframing, not like, "Oh, I'm getting screwed, I want money," to, like, a more universal, you know, "You're getting picked on by the man. You're getting screwed by people who are all in on it." And I thought that was absolutely brilliant.

    9. DPDavid Perell1:18:11

       That's... Yeah.

    10. SPShaan Puri1:18:12

        You should go watch this thing. It's amazing.

    11. DPDavid Perell1:18:13

        Yeah. I wanna talk about distribution.

24. 1:18:18 – 1:21:40

    Distribution

    1. DPDavid Perell1:18:18

       So one of the things that we're working on at Write of Passage is, what I wanna figure out is I wanna figure out how to take anybody, people who don't write all the time, don't really have an audience, they've just published something really good. Like, say that you are a absolute expert in, like, the distribution of San Pellegrino waters from, like, the little town in Italy, how they, w- where they package it, you know, what's the story of the label, all that sort of stuff, and you are like, "This is how the sparkling water boom came, and I'm gonna tell the story of how it begins in a little town in Italy with San Pellegrino water."

    2. SPShaan Puri1:18:51

       Right.

    3. DPDavid Perell1:18:51

       Okay? You have this expert- He/she never written online. They write something, it's awesome, and I wanna help them distribute it. They come to me and they say, "What do I do?" How should I talk them through that?

    4. SPShaan Puri1:19:04

       I think distribution is built over time. I don't think that's something you can do from day one, right? Like, uh, it's kind of back to that 100 videos thing, uh, from earlier. If you're going to write online, there is sort of a, um, beachhead moment you have to create. You have to create a trusted audience over time, and you have to know that the distribution is earned, which is why distribution is so valuable, because it's hard to replicate. So for example, my buddy Jason used to say this thing. He goes, "Oh, I have the one, two, three rule of interestingness." I go, "What does that mean?" He goes, "Tell me one, one thing that's interesting," right? You tell me one thing that's interesting about Sanpellegrino. I'll say, "That's interesting." Tell me two things that's interesting. I'll be like, "Those were interesting. That's two interesting things." You tell me three interesting things, I'll say, "You're interesting."

    5. DPDavid Perell1:19:51

       Mm.

    6. SPShaan Puri1:19:51

       And this is just like a general philosophy I think you should have with writing is like you don't deserve that, like, trusted follow or relationship until you've... And three is a small number. Really, on the internet it might be like 20 things. Like, you might have to tell somebody 20 interesting things before they're like, "This guy's interesting. I can't wait to get his next one." And you just have to build that up. Like you have to build, you have to consistently be telling somebody something interesting, um, multiple times for you to earn that, that, you know, channel between them, where they're now gonna be receiving your content or they'll be willing to vouch for you and spread you to another person, not just on the merits of the one thing, but because you are interesting-

    7. DPDavid Perell1:20:30

       Mm

    8. SPShaan Puri1:20:31

       ... and you consistently share interesting things. And then when groups of people think you're interesting, it's even more powerful, right? 'Cause then another person comes in and just says, "Oh, everybody thinks this guy's interesting? Cool, I'll follow."

    9. DPDavid Perell1:20:41

       Mm.

    10. SPShaan Puri1:20:41

        Right? Like, which is why the more Twitter followers you get, the more you're gonna get, right? Uh, a- and it's actually not a bug. People get mad about that, like the rich get richer. Um, it's not a bad thing. It's actually a useful mental shortcut. The people who have earned a following are probably likely worth following, with some exceptions, but it is a useful hack versus I have to individually vet every account to figure out who I wanna follow. That's the slow way. Like, I'm going to follow the people that other people follow. That is, it sounds just like, oh, you're just being a le- it's part of the herd mentality or groupthink or whatever, but there's a reason it exists. There's like a evolutionary advantage to doing it too, which is it saves you a lot of time of having to individually vet every person. So I would say to that person who wants that distribution, it's cool. That's one interesting thing. Let's do 20.

    11. DPDavid Perell1:21:26

        Mm.

    12. SPShaan Puri1:21:26

        And, uh, you know, start with your friends, start with your friends and family, start with some group chats. Start with s- you know, maybe you have to push the whe- wheel a little bit. You know, send it to some people who might find that interesting that you know of with a personalized message of why you think they might find that interesting.

25. 1:21:40 – 1:32:34

    Twitter / X

    1. SPShaan Puri1:21:40

       Yeah, you're gonna have to do some of that hustle at the beginning to get, to get the word out. But you should also not like have some expectations that just because you said one interesting thing it, s- it deserves to be, you know, spread everywhere. That's not really how it works.

    2. DPDavid Perell1:21:54

       Right. On Twitter itself, you have built huge audience without writing that many things, and you've had a few things that have just absolutely cranked. What do you think that you understand about that platform and communicating there that other people are missing?

    3. SPShaan Puri1:22:10

       Well, I'll say this. I think it, what I did worked on Twitter. So basically I, I remember I was at 20,000 followers, which is a lot in general, but I was like, "I wanna get to 100." Now I'm at, I'm at 400, so like, oh, I way overshot that goal. Um, 400,000 followers, but it, most, I'd say, as I say, the generic best practice is be consistent and, uh, define what your niche is and then talk about stuff in that niche. I don't really do that. So I would say I defy that, but I don't think that's what helped. I think I almost won in spite of doing that. I think if I had been more consistent and I had defined my niche, I would be at a million followers instead of 400,000. So let me put that out there. Even though I didn't follow the best practices, I don't think the right takeaway is those are the wrong. I think the right takeaway is it would've been even bigger had I followed those. The one thing I did get right was I knew when everybody's attention was on a certain subject, I had an interesting take. It's not my writing so much as it is the thinking. Like, I'm sure, I haven't listened to all your interviews, but I am sure one of the most common themes is that great writing is just great thinking. Clear writing is just clear thinking. Writing helps you think better, and think better thinking helps you write better. They're so tightly intertwined that the unhelpful but true advice is, I think I had an interesting thought to say, and I said it at the right time when people were paying attention to that subject. And then thirdly, I wrote it in an interesting way that helped the spread of it. I wrote some thread about the metaverse that went super viral, and I don't think it's because of how I wrote it. I think it's because the thought in it was genuinely a good thought. Uh, like I remember at the time Facebook had just rebranded to Meta and Zuck went on the Lex Fridman podcast and was like, "Yeah, I read this really interesting thing on Twitter," blah, blah, blah. It's like he wasn't saying it because my prose was great or my grammar was great or my hook was great. He, he read it 'cause he thought the core idea, underlying idea was unique and interesting. Um, and I think that's more what to strive for is like you're building up these two skill sets, having unique and interesting things to say, being good at packaging ideas.

    4. DPDavid Perell1:24:16

       Right.

    5. SPShaan Puri1:24:17

       Two distinct skill sets. You can't do only one and not the other, or it'll reveal itself to be pretty shallow. If you just have interesting things to say and crappy packaging, you don't get very far. If you have great packaging but mundane things to say, people get very fatigued of it. It doesn't really work.

    6. DPDavid Perell1:24:30

       One of the ways that I like to judge a writer is like if I, like as a measure when I read their stuff is like, how good is this person at building a connection with their readers? So some writers, like let's take ChatGPT.

    7. SPShaan Puri1:24:45

       [laughs]

    8. DPDavid Perell1:24:46

       ChatGPT is like a zero, right?

    9. SPShaan Puri1:24:47

       Right. [laughs]

    10. DPDavid Perell1:24:48

        It can be super informative, right? It's, you learn a lot, but you're not actually building any sort of emotional connection. Same thing with Wikipedia, right? And then there's other people like you. I think this is something that you're very intentional about, and I think that for the average word that you have, there is like a real connection that is built, and I think that you're really focused on that because of your goals as a creator. And how do you go about doing that writing so that it's not gonna be just this one and done, but so there's actually gonna be like a glue of like, "Shaan, like I like this guy, wanna consume his stuff, and actually, I wanna consume his stuff every single day"?

    11. SPShaan Puri1:25:27

        When you say connection, do you... what do you mean by that? You mean trust? Do you mean l- likability? What do you mean?

    12. DPDavid Perell1:25:33

        I think what I mean is an indispensability from that creator.

    13. SPShaan Puri1:25:38

        So I did the lamest thing ever once. I hired a consultant who was an expert at personal branding.

    14. DPDavid Perell1:25:45

        [laughs] Dude.

    15. SPShaan Puri1:25:47

        I paid this guy five grand.

    16. DPDavid Perell1:25:49

        [laughs] That, that feels like, almost feels like you're not even being serious. [laughs] It's such a cliche.

    17. SPShaan Puri1:25:55

        I framed it as the lamest thing ever.

    18. DPDavid Perell1:25:57

        [laughs]

    19. SPShaan Puri1:25:57

        I'm aware how lame it was. And it's not like I was like, "Oh, I wanna change my image," or whatever. But I was like, well, truth be told, if I am a creator, that means I am kind of a-

    20. DPDavid Perell1:26:07

        Right. Yeah, of course

    21. SPShaan Puri1:26:07

        ... individual brand. Uh, okay, so what... And this person worked with all these people, so I was like, "All right, let's do this."

    22. DPDavid Perell1:26:13

        It goes back to the theme of what is something that is super important that people-

    23. SPShaan Puri1:26:16

        Su- Want something that's valuable-

    24. DPDavid Perell1:26:17

        [laughs]

    25. SPShaan Puri1:26:18

        ... that other people either overlook or actually would be embarrassed to do.

    26. DPDavid Perell1:26:23

        Totally.

    27. SPShaan Puri1:26:23

        And your boy's not embarrassed.

    28. DPDavid Perell1:26:24

        Right, right, right.

    29. SPShaan Puri1:26:25

        So I'll do it. So I hire this guy, and um, I sit down and we talk, and I'm like, "Okay." I learned a bunch of things from him. One of the things he taught me was, he goes, "People will follow you to the ends of the earth if you are giving them a feeling that they can't get anywhere else more consistently than anybody else is gonna give it to them." So what does that mean? He basically was like, "Think of yourself as a little Shopify store-

    30. DPDavid Perell1:26:50

        [laughs]
26. 1:32:34 – 1:45:02

    Writing with humor

    1. DPDavid Perell1:32:34

       How about with humor? What have you learned about writing with humor? Are, are you formulaic about that? Have you studied it?

    2. SPShaan Puri1:32:40

       That's where I'm looking now. Like, I'm starting to, to pay attention. Um, what I've learned so far, I'll tell you what I've learned so far as, like, a white belt in the humor game is just, uh, you know, you don't want it to be... Humor is the sauce. It's not the entrée.

    3. DPDavid Perell1:32:58

       Mm.

    4. SPShaan Puri1:32:58

       So some people are writing something to be funny. Like, it's, "This is meant to make you laugh." Usually that's not me. Usually it's, "I'm trying to get a point across, but I'm gonna make you laugh along the way, which will make this more enjoyable for you to consume."

    5. DPDavid Perell1:33:09

       Hmm.

    6. SPShaan Puri1:33:09

       So it's the sauce on the, on the meal, but it's not the meat. It's not the protein of the, of the, of the thing. Which is good. Depressurizes it. It's like, oh, does it apply a little bit here? Um, that's the first part. Second part is all humor is just surprise.

    7. DPDavid Perell1:33:23

       Mm.

    8. SPShaan Puri1:33:23

       So, um, every joke is a setup and a punchline, but the punchline, if you see the punchline coming, it's not very funny. So humor is surprise, means I have to set it up in a way where you don't anticipate this is what I'm gonna say, and the contrast of what you thought I was gonna say and what I actually said is what makes you laugh. So you just kinda have to look for those moments where there's a bit of an expect- you set up an expectation, and then you subvert the expectation.

    9. DPDavid Perell1:33:47

       Jerry Seinfeld, article in The New York Times, here's how he starts it. Knew this was gonna come in, come in clutch, and it just came in handy. He goes, "When I got my first apartment in Manhattan in the hot summer of 1976, there was no pooper scooper law, and the streets were covered in dog crap. I signed the rental agreement, stepped outside, and my car had been towed. Despite this, I still thought, 'This is the greatest place I've ever been in my life.'"

    10. SPShaan Puri1:34:14

        [laughs]

    11. DPDavid Perell1:34:15

        You know?

    12. SPShaan Puri1:34:15

        Yeah, exactly.

    13. DPDavid Perell1:34:16

        Sets it up. Pooper scooper, funny word.

    14. SPShaan Puri1:34:18

        Yeah.

    15. DPDavid Perell1:34:18

        What's going on there? And I think that maybe we can go into funny words, 'cause it is interesting how certain words have a much higher propensity to be funny than other ones, right? If he had said, "There was no law around cleaning up your dog's excrement"

    16. SPShaan Puri1:34:32

        Right

    17. DPDavid Perell1:34:32

        ... that, that now is very... Pooper scooper is, like, jovial, funny, right?

    18. SPShaan Puri1:34:36

        Exactly.

    19. DPDavid Perell1:34:36

        And he then, he goes and goes, sort of takes you into this other time period. You're just thinking about poop. But then he goes, "My car had been towed," and you're like, "Oh, my goodness. This sounds terrible." And then you said surprise, which is why I thought about that. He goes, "Despite this, I still thought, 'This is the greatest place I've ever been in my life.'" And this is in, like, this ode to New York City.

    20. SPShaan Puri1:34:56

        Theo Von is super, um-

    21. DPDavid Perell1:34:57

        That's exactly who I was thinking about

    22. SPShaan Puri1:34:59

        ... he's super popular right now.

    23. DPDavid Perell1:35:00

        So good.

    24. SPShaan Puri1:35:01

        And he's been great. I've followed him since, like, the Real World days, basically, uh, Road Rules days. And so he's... If you just listen to him talk, like, his brain just does something different. He's, his brain is, like, almost wired different. That was my initial story, but then I was like, I bet you could practice Theo Von-ing a little bit as, 'cause, like, what Theo does, if you've never seen him, this is not gonna make any sense. But if you've seen him, this will make all the sense in the world, which is that Theo Von will basically improvi- he has no idea what he's gonna say, but he improvises. He uses random language, or he'll make up a story that makes, that is totally not true, but it's kind of believable, and he keeps a, you know, a, a deadpan face when he's doing it. Um, you can kinda practice that. And so, yeah, I think, you know, practicing is, is obviously the best way to do it.

    25. DPDavid Perell1:35:43

        Well, that's a big one. L- let's follow this made-up language, coming up with words, things that other people hadn't thought of, and how do you go about doing that? Like, it's a fun little thing to play around with. One of the things that I did is I like to thinking through the juxtaposition. So I wrote a piece about how I fell in love with the Bible, and I was like, it needs some little bit of humor in it-

    26. SPShaan Puri1:36:07

        Right

    27. DPDavid Perell1:36:07

        ... because it's, you know, it's the Bible, right?

    28. SPShaan Puri1:36:09

        [laughs]

    29. DPDavid Perell1:36:09

        It's, it's, it's this. It, it, it activates a part of your brain where you're like, "Okay, this is-"

    30. SPShaan Puri1:36:14

        Behave. [laughs]
27. 1:45:02 – 1:50:41

    Newsletters

    1. DPDavid Perell1:45:02

       you know, you built a newsletter called Milk Road, and you had to train another writer to write in your voice, and you believe that learning to write is actually teachable. So when you're teaching other people to write, what were some of the things that you focus on?

    2. SPShaan Puri1:45:17

       Uh, yeah. So we ta- uh, the teaching was important because I didn't want that. We had to send the email out every morning at like 6:00 AM. I was like, "I'm not doing that." [laughs] Like, I'm not good with consistency any- anyways. I don't wake up that early. Uh, I know that no matter how fun this is, that I will hate doing by like day 30. So from day one, I was like, "I'm not gonna write this, but it's gonna be in my voice and style. How do you do that?" Hired a guy who's never written before, and I sat him down and I was like-

    3. DPDavid Perell1:45:45

       Wow

    4. SPShaan Puri1:45:45

       ... um, first, my business partner, I was like, "You write this," and I was the editor. I was, I was his editor for 30 days, and I said, "Cool, now you're the editor, now you gotta hire a writer." We hired a guy who'd never written before, um, in any professional capacity or even blogged. I don't, I don't think he had a blog either. Uh, but I told him, and basically what we did was we took a... One thing that helped is the newsletter was like a consistent format, so it wasn't like 10 different formats, it was one format, and I broke down why we write it the way we write it line by line. Our opening line at Milk Road was always like, [lips smack] "Good morning. This is the Milk Road," the, you know, and we would say what we do, and then we would say in a funny way, and then we would add a t- we'd tag it with a joke. So we would say, "We are the number one source for figure out what happened in crypto yesterday. Um, think of us like, um, think of us like a Toaster Strudel, a fresh, tasty suite for you in, uh, treat for you in the mornings." And then parentheses, we tag the joke again, and we would just be like, "What the F happened to Toaster Strudels anyways? Kids these days, they're missing out," right? And it's like we would tag the... We, so we'd always tag the joke. And we'd be like, "We are, uh, GM, we're the, we're the Milk Road. We are, um, we give you exactly everything you need to know about crypto in the morning and nothing, nothing that you don't need to know." Um, and then we would say, we would tag it by be like, um, I would say something like, "We're, r- uh, reading this newsletter is as, is the second-best feeling in the world. The first best, of course, is when you're in a car, you roll down the window, and you start doing that cool dolphin thing with your hands."

    5. DPDavid Perell1:47:14

       [laughs]

    6. SPShaan Puri1:47:14

       Right? Like some relatable, funny thing that's just like puts you in a good mood.

    7. DPDavid Perell1:47:18

       Awesome.

    8. SPShaan Puri1:47:19

       And we were like, "Can we get this, can we get you to smile?"

    9. DPDavid Perell1:47:21

       [laughs]

    10. SPShaan Puri1:47:21

        "And can we get you to be like, 'I like, I love these guys'? Can we give you a reason to open this that's not based on the Bitcoin price?" [laughs] Was another way of thinking about it. And so we, that, you know, so I started training. I was like, "The first line, this is what we do, here's why we're doing it, and here's 10 examples of doing it good." And then he was like, "Cool, got it. I can, I can pattern match to that." The other thing that we did was he was, um, he was doing the school thing where he's like he thought he had to be a different guy. Like, "Oh, maybe I need to be a really sophisticated, do sophisticated analysis, or I need to do..." He kind of, like people think when they write they need to do something outside of themselves.

    11. DPDavid Perell1:47:55

        Yeah.

    12. SPShaan Puri1:47:55

        The whole point of writing is to take you and just push it out. And so don't try to create this fake thing that you think other people might want, just take you and push it out. And so, for example, he would talk about subjects, and the writing was fine, but the subject was boring. So I was like, "Dude, why'd you pick this?" He's like, "I don't know. I felt like, you know, it was in the news. People needed to know about it." I was like, "Do you care about this?" "No. Uh, not really." And I was like, "Would you have ever like texted me or Slack, yeah, Slack messaged me or sent me a voice note being like, 'Dude, did you hear about this? This thing's awesome,' or, 'This is crazy. Did you hear about this? This is really interesting'?" He's like, "No, I would never say that." I'm like, "Cool, then why are we telling oth- why are we telling 200,000 people about this if you wouldn't tell me?"

    13. DPDavid Perell1:48:33

        [laughs]

    14. SPShaan Puri1:48:33

        And so s- what I made him do, I was like, "Every morning, I want you to send a voice note, send a voice memo, and just tell me the news before you write anything. Just be like, 'Oh, yeah, everybody on Twitter is freaking out because they're worried about this, uh, thing that happened,' or, um, 'The price is up today because of, because there's rumors about this right now, and what that means is that if that happened, then this would happen.'" So he would just say it to me, and it was, it was such a good filter because he could stop himself. If he was gonna tell me something that was boring, he would catch himself, like, "I would never say this to somebody. It's boring to me, and it'll be boring to you." So it filtered out the subject beautifully. So like those are the two big things, was showing him what we do in a, like giving him a sample and then saying, "Here's what good looks like. Here's 10 more of examples of good." Um, and then secondly, installing that one step of like, don't do that imposter thing where you start talking about shit that you're not even that interested in, 'cause guess what? Nobody else is interested in it. Like, and the filter for that was send me a voice memo. If it's not interesting in the voice memo, it's definitely not gonna be interesting in long text.

    15. DPDavid Perell1:49:34

        Why do you think that dolphin thing is so funny?

    16. SPShaan Puri1:49:37

        Um-

    17. DPDavid Perell1:49:38

        It is hilarious

    18. SPShaan Puri1:49:38

        ... it's relatable, and like, you know, it's, it's not even that it's funny. It's just like funny that we put... Again, it's unexpected. Like, why are you writing this? Um, you know, everybody says we're the best. We said we're the second-best thing in the world. So im- im- immediately you're like, "What's first best? First best?" And then I can't say a serious thing. I have to say an unserious thing. So I'm like, "The first best thing is this feeling," 'cause we all know this feeling is great. Like, you know that feeling. It's an amazing feeling. And so, um, we just knew like, okay, things like that are surprising, likable, funny. You can do them in one line, so it's not like you have to like set up a long story or joke. It was very useful. It was very efficient as a like mechanism there.

    19. DPDavid Perell1:50:16

        Sweet. That was good fun. Thanks, man.

    20. SPShaan Puri1:50:18

        Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 1:50:41