I spent a week meeting NYC's elite. Here's 5 lessons they taught me.

Shaan Puri 0:00 Okay, I just got back from New York. I was there for a week. It was probably the most fun business trip of my life, and I wrote down five bullet points I have here that I think we could, uh, dive into, and the first one I wanna dive into is [upbeat music]

Sam Parr 0:18 When was the last time you've been to New York City?

Shaan Puri 0:20 Oh, dude, it's been, like, 10 years since I've been to New York. Like, I just don't really go.

Sam Parr 0:24 Well, uh, you had a great time. That's good. Whenever people come here, I feel like I wanna be a steward, where I wanna be like, "Look, it's not that crazy to live here, and it could be awesome, and it's exciting." And I'm not, like, one of these guys that's, like, I'm not a Knicks fan. I'm not, like, a New Yorker. I just live here, so I don't wanna, like, pretend-

Shaan Puri 0:41 [laughs]

Sam Parr 0:41 ... that I'm, like, a s- you know, that type of person, but I felt proud to show you around.

Shaan Puri 0:45 Yeah, and you did. Uh, y- uh, I also... I think a lot of people had that in New York 'cause it'd be like, "Hey, we're going to hang out with this person," and it would be half hangout, half city tour because there's, A, there's a lot going on, and B, I think there's a lot of pride in, in, like, knowing the city, and being a part of the city, and bringing friends from other places to the city, which I think is, is pretty cool. So, uh, one is trust, trust as a service. The next one is marketing. Third one, proximity. Fourth is city brands. And the fifth is what is it really? Okay, so those are the... those are my five, my five key phrases. You- which one do you wanna start with?

Sam Parr 1:23 Number three.

Shaan Puri 1:24 Proximity?

Sam Parr 1:25 Yeah. We use that word all the time.

Shaan Puri 1:28 Proximity, so, uh, what do I mean by proximity? Proximity is being closely together. So I wanna read you some notes from one of my, one of my hangouts. So I hung out with, um, with the comedian, uh, Hasan Minhaj, and he's been on the pod before. He's listened to the pod sometimes. We've, we've gotten to become friends from afar, and I got to go to his office, and hang out, and meet his team, and see how they work. I'm a big fan of watching how different people work, you know, go to their office, that sort of thing. He saw that me and Ben were together, and now Ben lives in Austin. I live in San Francisco Bay Area, so we're, we're not toget-... We don't work together in the same office, but him and his team do in New York City. He commutes in from, like, wherever, Connecticut or something like that, to the city to work.

Sam Parr 2:07 Is his main job his podcast?

Shaan Puri 2:10 I don't know if I... I, I don't think he would say that. I think his main job is just being cr- being a creative, of which a podcast takes up maybe half of his pie chart, and the other half is movies, and, and his tours, and things like that, so... is, like, Netflix specials, those sorts of things. So he said this thing. He goes, "As soon as you walk into a creative office, and there's the hot secretary, and the all glass windows, and the fancy matcha in the, in the kitchen," he goes, "you've already lost the plot." [laughs] "You've already forgotten what it's all about." And so he was like... he, he took... He's like, he's like, "It's not about all that stuff. It's not about the, the glass, and the, and the hot secretary, and the matcha. It's not about any of that. It's about this," and he hands the, me the yellow legal pad where he's handwriting his, his script. And he's like, "It's about these sticky notes on this wall, and there's not even enough space. But we gotta figure it out, act one, act two, act three. This is the work." And he goes, "I wanted it to be tight. I wanted us to have close proximity." He's like, "It's a covalent bond." And he was talking about the power of proximity. He goes, "You know what? I even take it further." He goes, "Whenever anyone's in New York... Like, you're in New York right now. Come to the office. Come hang. Come be a part of this. You need to work for a day? Here, come work right here. Oh, uh, you're shooting this movie. You need a place for hair and makeup? Do it right over there." He goes, "Because it's when you're here and we're just doing things, you know, we, we, we s- get to sort of bump into each other, like, you know, our atoms get to bump into each other, good things happen. I pick up a little bit of what's going on in your world. I figure out a way to help you. You figure out a way to help me." And that proximity, I realize, is something I really miss. You get it a lot in San Francisco in the tech world. New York, I would say, is even a level above that because it's even denser. Everything feels very high proximity. Like, we did a different thing every hour, I would say. Like, we were hanging with somebody, you know, for probably 90 minutes at a time, and then we would go do something else. There was no more than, like, 10 minutes of transit time between anything that we were doing. It was insane. We were just hopping from one thing to the next. And so I thought his note on proximity, proximity with your coworkers, proximity with peers who you think are interesting, and remembering, like, what is it all about? Is it about the space, and the gloss, and the remote work, and, and all that stuff, or is it about the sticky notes, and the close proximity, and spelling- smelling each other's, you know, deodorant?

Sam Parr 4:22 Yes, but also, like, the time that you were here, you were going, going, going. You got nothing done. You know, I think that you were educated. You were inspired. You... Which is important, and also, if I'm Hasan and I'm writing all the time, which I kind of am for this podcast, like, two hours before this podcast, I need quiet time. No one talk to me. I'm in a room by myself.

Shaan Puri 4:41 So he actually gave me some good inspiration for that too. Um, so he goes, "I'm here," you know, whatever, "a couple days a week, and we stack it." 'Cause I, I met up with him... I think I went to his office, like, 10:00 PM.

Sam Parr 4:51 At, like, 9:00, right? Yeah.

Shaan Puri 4:52 Yeah, it was like I was with you at dinner, and then I was like, "Hey, we gotta go [laughs] meet someone." They're like, "What?" Um, and we went. I got- think I got to his office at 9:30 or 10:00.

Sam Parr 5:00 Was it people were there?

Shaan Puri 5:02 Him and his whole team was there. I thought he was just maybe hanging out for us. No, they, he was in a meeting. We waited for him for [laughs] you know, 20, 30 minutes, and then we s- we hung out for another two, three hours. Then he took the train home. It was, it was insane. He goes, "No, no, these days I stack them. I tell my, tell my person, like, you know, top to bottom meetings, meetings, meetings."

Sam Parr 5:17 Wow.

Shaan Puri 5:17 Like, that's where we're talking. He goes, "Because then the next three days, it's quiet time." And he said-

Sam Parr 5:23 That's awesome

Shaan Puri 5:23 ... [laughs] I th- I think what he did was he, like... He's like, "I rented a office space above a Dunkin' Donuts," like the smallest little writer's room you can imagine. He's like, "And I go there when it's writing time." The other thing we sa- he said was, he goes... We were talking about, like, maker's time versus manager's time-

Sam Parr 5:39 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Shaan Puri 5:39 ... like the Pollan essay, and you gotta know which t- which schedule you're supposed to be on. Are you on a manager schedule where every 30 minutes back to back to back, you're, you know, you're context switching, you're meeting a different group, you're making decisions, or are you on maker's time where you need long blocks of uninterrupted creative time that's might feel unproductive for an hour of it, but you needed that time to kinda get in the groove, and then, then you get at flow state, and you start, start working? And he goes, "I told my team, like, I need to be above this Dunkin'. I need to be in that room alone, no Wi-Fi, no nothing, not... Just me and the legal pad. Don't even just... I don't even take a laptop because- I could produce pages. When I produce pages, it's like a magic trick. Money rains from the sky when I do that. So you gotta give me time to generate these pages.

Sam Parr 6:21 Dude, he's cool.

Shaan Puri 6:21 And I, I don't know, I just took a lot of inspiration. When you meet someone who's a, a creative and an artist at the top of their field, it is... feels very different than just meeting an entrepreneur. You know, uh, there's a couple different, like, inspiring versions of this. Like, if you walk into, like, you know, Elon's factory where he's building things, right? Or when we did the MrBeast tour, he's like, "This is the largest soundstage in America. That guy's trapped in that room for a year, and we're building this set over here." You know, somebody like-

Sam Parr 6:48 Or an athlete, or when you talk to an athlete, and you see their schedule, and you see how they think about all these little things.

Shaan Puri 6:52 How, how seriously they take their body.

Sam Parr 6:54 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 6:54 Their recovery. Forget the workout. The recovery is impressive. And so there's, uh, these, these little pockets of, like, world-class people, when they make you realize, like, oh, that's what it looks like when you dial up to 12, whether it's athleticism, whether it's building, or in this case, it's about the creative process, creative work. And so that was, that was pretty inspiring. So you have-- I went to your office too, and, uh, got to see, you know, you built basically a place for proximity. In what ways do people underrate it? In what ways does it unlock you? Give me, give me something on it.

Sam Parr 7:24 Yeah. So I need a, I have, um, a door right over here, and it has a recording s- uh, light on there. So no one kn- people know not to come in here right now. And I keep that on a lot, even when I'm not recording. But then every probably s- 40 minutes, I quit what I'm doing, and I just walk around. And people get mad at me at my office 'cause they're like, "You're just staring at me." And I'm like, "No, I just wanna, like, pop in on different conversations and listen." And I do that all the time. I think that there's a phrase, um, what's it called? Like, managing by wandering, where it's like-

Shaan Puri 7:53 Hmm

Sam Parr 7:54 ... you know, like, the CEO would, like, walk around, like, the factory floor with zero intention other than just to learn and see what's going on and occasionally find a problem and help solve it. And so I do that all the time, and I love it. It makes me happy. And so there's a joke where you can kind of see it. We have, like, frosted glass now because they say that I would just, like, stare at people in, in [chuckles] the office.

Shaan Puri 8:11 [laughs]

Sam Parr 8:12 But, like, I w- I sometimes I'll just-

Shaan Puri 8:13 Probably a few complaints. [laughs]

Sam Parr 8:14 Yeah, sometimes I'll just, like, pop into meetings, and I'll just sit, and I won't say a word, and then I'll walk out. And I love doing that 'cause it helps me learn what's going on and how people feel and what people's opinions are. And I frankly love doing that. But I do require, like, lots and lots of quiet time.

Shaan Puri 8:29 Yeah, it's like a barbell strategy, right?

Sam Parr 8:30 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 8:30 You wanna have, uh, extreme high contact, ground truth, close proximity, serendipitous interactions, and then you wanna have structured, isolated thinking time, working time that's, like, highly secluded. And that seems to be the optimal is to be able to have the ability to go far in either direction and not just stay in, like, kind of, like, weak middle where it's, like, a lot of Zoom calls and, you know, some Slack messages and a, a bunch of light touches, but never really going deep on anything at any, in, with any people or any work.

Sam Parr 9:01 And I also hired a, a cheap designer. My office isn't particularly fancy. But I wanted it to look, like, aesthetically pleasing 'cause I wanted to be here. So, uh, I, I took a little bit of a different route than him.

Sam Parr 9:11 What's the, um, what are the other few?

Shaan Puri 9:13 All right. So I had, um [upbeat music]

Sam Parr 9:16 All right, so this episode is all about excellence. A while back, I shared my personal framework for building excellence in my own life, and the team at HubSpot turned it into a 30-day operating system that you can check out right now. It breaks down the systems that have took me 10 years to figure out and shows how exactly I use them day to day. These are systems that genuinely changed my life. So if you wanna build a good life, scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Now, let's get back to the show. [upbeat music]

Shaan Puri 9:45 I had marketing, I had trust, I had city brands, and I had what does it really mean?

Sam Parr 9:49 What does it really mean?

Shaan Puri 9:51 Okay, so this has been a long recurring theme. What I mean by that is everybody's typically looking for some new insight. I actually value a repetitive insight 'cause it means there's more to learn. It means there's probably higher signal. Like, if I hear, if the same lesson comes up three or four times in a thr- in a two-year span, I add more weight to it, whereas I think most people, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know." I think that's how most people treat things that they've heard before. So I th- I think on this podcast, I mentioned a couple of years ago, I was at an event with the guys from Tiny, Andrew and his business partner, Chris, who's much less well known. And I was sitting at dinner, and this guy was talking about a business he had failed in. And he said the thing that every, "Oh, you know, but, but I learned so much."

Sam Parr 10:35 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 10:35 And then Chris goes, um, "What did you learn?" And then the guy's like, "Oh, so much." He goes, "So what's the main thing you learned?" [laughs] And then the guy was like, uh, he's fumbling and stumbling. He couldn't really figure out what to say. Then he said something that was like... I don't remember the specific example now, but it would be like if I, if, if I had started a restaurant, and my restaurant failed, and then I was like, "I learned you shouldn't start a business, um, when it's rainy season." And it's like, "That's what you learned?" It's like that, you didn't even learn the right lesson. And Chris basically pointed this out. He goes, "I've talked to so many entrepreneurs." He goes, "Very rarely do I feel like somebody actually learned the right lesson from the thing." And this kept coming up. You know, this has come up for me many times. And so w- what does it really mean? I think it is a, is, is a very important question I don't, I don't think people sit with enough. And so let me give you maybe a, a couple of examples. So we met up with Gary Vee's right-hand man, Nick Dio, who we've talked about on this podcast for a very unique job. So Gary Vee, big public persona, but he can't be everywhere at once. So he's got this guy, Nick, who's his right-hand man, and he's basically an extension of Gary. Nick will host dinners for people that, people in the Gary orbit who he thinks are cool. And they just, they pay the bill, they bring cool people together. Gary's not even there. He met up with us. He's like, "I just got off a flight from, uh, the Con," what is it? "Cannes, uh, Film Festival," and he was there all week in Paris, and then was like, "Oh, you guys gotta come next year," and he was full of energy.

Sam Parr 12:01 And Gary, does Gary tell everyone that he went to Cannes?

Shaan Puri 12:03 Well, I think Gary was there in this case, but it's like they needed more manpower. And so we were talking to him, and I was like, um, I think the, the simple explanation that everybody... You know, I, I kinda asked him, I was like, "What, what does everybody think you do?" He's like, "Oh, everybody thinks I basically Just go party and like, you know, drink and dine-- wine and dine with like, you know, Gary Vaynerchuk. I said, "What do you-- so what do you really do?" And it's very interesting when you ask somebody, "What do you really do?" And he goes, that's a great-- he goes, "You know, most people don't really ask that, but I'll, I-- you know, I think you're genuinely asking, so I'll tell you." And he gave me two stories that I thought were pretty dope. The first thing he said was, he goes, he goes, "Every room that you're ever in socially, there's some slack. There's, the room is slacking in some way." So he goes, "There's, there's a social slack that nobody can really put their finger on, but maybe the music's too loud, maybe it's a little too cold, maybe that guy doesn't know who to talk to. Maybe the drinks are... Maybe the-- maybe there's no drinks. We all need some drinks. Maybe it's there's two groups that don't really know each other, they haven't bridged the gap yet in, in this room. Maybe they will in three hours, but can I do it in the first thirty minutes? Because it'll change the way the night goes." He goes, "There's always this social slack in the room, and what I'm really great at is identifying that social slack and picking it up, finding a way to like stir the drink so that it tastes better of every room that I'm in. And people don't really even necessarily notice what I did, but it's, it-- the goal is to elevate the experience for everybody in the room."

Sam Parr 13:22 But they benefit from it in some capacity, and what's an example?

Shaan Puri 13:25 Yeah, exactly. So he gave a couple of examples. So I don't know if you saw this, when the Knicks won the, the championship, the, there was a viral clip of, of Jalen Brunson toasting in this small restaurant, and he, he basically was like, "F Wemby." And then they, he, somebody had record- He didn't mean for it, but somebody had recorded it and it leaked, and it like got out and it, it went like mega viral. Well, that was happening. They, the Knicks, after their championship game, they went to Gary's social club, his place, uh, Fly Fish, and they were in the room we were in, where they have this like omakase sushi room, and that's... He's like, "Dude, that was the chair right there. Look, watch the video. This is the s- this is the exact spot." And so he's like, "You know, through the relationship building I had done, when they decided, 'Hey, we want a cool place to celebrate,' they decided to come here. That's obviously very good for the brand of like, if that's where the Knicks celebrate their first championship in fifty years, it's obviously gonna be very good for our restaurant chain or for our concept," right?

Sam Parr 14:18 That's pretty cool.

Shaan Puri 14:18 "And it's good for our members club." So that's like one example. He, he gave another example of like being very intentional. So he's like, if Gary starts to get into streetwear and new fashion, um, then he's like my j-- he's like, then I basically go and I try to meet the hundred fifty most interesting people doing interesting things in streetwear and fashion. I go into them with no agenda. I'm just trying to meet them, understand them, help them, do whatever I can with them, but now they're part of our network. And then sure enough, like one of them is raising money, we invested in it, and boom, it's this like, you know, this hit, uh, product that, that comes out of it. He's like, "We didn't know going in that would be the win. Who knows? It could've been something else completely." But we don't, we don't have to know where. We know we have like five touch points. It's like maybe that they're gonna come on the podcast, maybe it's gonna be an investment, maybe they're gonna be friends, maybe they're really insightful, they'll teach us something. Maybe it's the m-- who knows what it is. I don't need to know what it is up front. I'll go in with no agenda and pick it up on the other side.

Sam Parr 15:13 [upbeat music] All right, everyone, I'm gonna make this quick. So if you're an OG listener of My First Million, then you might remember a guy named Ben Wilson. Ben Wilson was Shaan and I's producer early on in the podcast. He also has his own amazing podcast called How to Take Over the World, which we love, and he's been battling cancer, and he just announced it. We've known about it for a little while, but he just announced it on Twitter, uh, the other day. And the reason I'm talking about it here is because when he made his announcement, he did say that he had a GoFundMe, uh, that you should check out. You should look him up, um, on Twitter, and he linked to that. But he also explained that he had stage four high-grade neuroendocrine carcinoma, which I don't know too much about that, but he said it's in his brains, his bones, his lungs, and his liver, and he's trying to get hold of a very specific and uncommon type of drug called tarlatamab. I'm sorry, I can't pronounce these things, but it's, it's, it's a, it's a very specific thing. And so if you have ever gotten value from My First Million, and also if you are in this world, we're just trying to w- raise awareness for what Ben's going through, then you can look up Ben Wilson on Twitter. He has a sixteen-minute video that's quite inspiring where he addresses, uh, his, his diagnosis and what he's facing, and he is-- I find it actually quite inspiring. He's got this amazing line where he's like, "You should live like you're living, not live like you're dying." And so you should watch that. But also, if you do wanna support him via his GoFundMe, a- and also he leaves his contact information. So if you're in this world where you can help him in any way, uh, his information is all there. So look him up, Ben Wilson, on Twitter. We'll also link to this in Spotify, iTunes, and, uh, YouTube. [upbeat music] Gary's easy to make fun of because, uh, first of all, I'm-- I love him. I think he's awesome. I'm not making fun of him. But people give him a hard time online because he's like loud, and he's been doing content, and he, and he says silly, fun stuff. And this is another thing where people would maybe mock, like, "Oh, he just hires this guy to go party for him." And so I wanna acknowledge that, but I think this is awesome. I think that Gary has done so many things that have been a bit ahead, and he, and he makes a ton of predictions, and he's not right all the time. But like the fact that he's like been doing social media like he's been doing for forever, and he was totally right. And then just like having this, I'm like, "Huh, this sounds like ridiculous and awesome, and it could be very beneficial."

Shaan Puri 17:29 Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think it's, it-- to, I, I told him, I said, "This is the equivalent of if you ever hear that stat that LeBron James spends a million dollars a year on his body."

Sam Parr 17:38 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 17:38 And it's like, whoa, that's a lot. Like, you know, is he crazy? And it's like, no, are you crazy? He's L- he's LeBron James. His body is the product. Of course, he's gonna sp-- uh, what an incredible return on investment. He's now playing in year twenty-three in the NBA. Like I think that million dollars just unlocked another forty million dollar contract twice. Like, are you joking? That's, that's obvious. So what is the equivalent in, in your niche is a very good, uh, it's one of my favorite like kind of thought experiments, uh, questions. Like what would be the equivalent of spending a million dollars a year on your body for, for whatever you do? I, I think I've told this story about like my executive coach. He, he spent a million dollars of his own money learning from the best coaches of all the different modalities. Like if somebody's really good in like whatever, somatic ... therapy. I don't even know what that is, but, like, whatever. He'll go find the best in the world. He'll approach them and be like, "Hey, is there any way I can get kind of two weeks of immersive one-on-one training in this? Name your price." And he did that with, like, you know, 15 of the best coaches in the world over a period of two years, and, like, spent a million dollars. And because of it, he's like, "A, what a cool experience, and B, like, I made myself more valuable as a coach-

Sam Parr 18:42 Yeah

Shaan Puri 18:42 ... because I now, like, I'm well-versed in, in different, different domains that I got. And I would, I started with a deep dive with the world's best, then I continued for years after that of my own self practice.

Sam Parr 18:53 All right, go to number four. I think it was New York brands.

Shaan Puri 18:55 Yeah, city brands. So I think it's really interesting how there's only a few cities in the world that have brands. Like, New York has a brand. New York has a look, it has a feel, it has a sound, it has an attitude, it has an aura, it has a reason to go there. It has, like any great brand, it has loyalists who swear by it. It has haters. Like, I grew up in Houston. Houston has no brand. Got a lot of people, got a good size economy. What's the brand?

Sam Parr 19:23 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 19:23 Like, it's like-

Sam Parr 19:24 Yeah, it's kind of like a-

Shaan Puri 19:25 ... oil and gas town, kind of. What does that even mean?

Sam Parr 19:27 It's like, it's just that it's kinda new. Like, oil and gas is, like, a relatively new thing. It's only, uh, many, I mean, it's many decades, but it's, yeah, it's kinda new. But, like, Detroit, you know, has one, I think. New York has one. But yeah, a lot of places don't.

Shaan Puri 19:39 Las Vegas has a brand. San Francisco, LA have a brand. New York has a br- There's not that many places that have brands, and I think there's a, it's kind of a myth [laughs] you know, like, um, [laughs] I think if you're, if you're actually, like, trying to make a city attractive, you wanna have a brand and be intentional about it. I actually think, I told this to, uh, an NBA team owner too. Very few NBA teams have a brand. And when you're not a brand, you're a commodity. You're basically saying, "Coming and playing here is just the same as coming and playing somewhere else." Now, there's a couple teams that have a brand, maybe because of the city they're in, right? Miami, LA, New York. The brand is really the city, not the team. But there's one, there's, there's been a, there's been a couple examples of teams that have brands.

Sam Parr 20:21 I'm not a basketball guy at all, but, like, I know that, like, was it the 76ers or the Pistons? Who was the tough guy? The, the-

Shaan Puri 20:27 The Bad Boys.

Sam Parr 20:28 The Bad Boys.

Shaan Puri 20:28 Exactly. The Bad Boy Pistons is an example of a brand. They gave it a name. It was cool. They made merch. They brought players in that reinforced the brand. It became a thing.

Sam Parr 20:40 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 20:40 It embodied, it stood for something. Some people hated it. They thought they were dirty. Other people loved it. They said they were tough.

Sam Parr 20:46 Or the Fab Five in, in Michigan, I think.

Shaan Puri 20:48 Fab Five was an exa- exactly. Fab Five was another one. They wore all black socks, baggy shorts. Right? What does a brand do? It has a look and an aesthetic, an icon, a visual, a brand, a logo. And so, the, the same thing, uh, right now. The only team I would say that truly has that kind of a, a brand is, um, the Miami Heat. They have this thing that they, every reference is called Heat Culture. And it's like, "Oh, well, there's Heat Culture." And Heat Culture is basically, like, we, they don't s- it's kinda like Navy SEALs. Like, when you come, you get weighed in every day with your [laughs] weight and your body fat, and you have to be under a certain body fat or you don't get to play. And, like, a lot of other NBA teams cater to their stars, and d- you know, they don't really, they don't wanna, like, rock the boat. Whereas Miami's like, "No, this is Heat Culture. This is part of Heat Culture."

Sam Parr 21:30 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 21:30 "If you came here, you should know what Heat Culture's all about." And if you think about the best companies, the best cities, they have a culture, they have a brand. And then the, the people who get, there's people who get attracted to that, who come there for that. And when even people who aren't, didn't come there for that, they will change their behavior to fit the culture, to fit the brand. If I know that this place only rewards and respects people who are bold, people who take action, people who do X, Y, Z, then I'm gonna bring that version of myself to the party.

Sam Parr 21:57 That's pretty cool. That's a good observation. I think UConn had that, 'cause I saw the 60 Minutes guy, or the coach on 60 Minutes-

Shaan Puri 22:03 Genaro

Sam Parr 22:03 ... and he was like, "People are like, 'Uh, well, winning isn't everything.'" He's like, "In our culture, winning is everything. Like, we're here to win." And then, uh-

Shaan Puri 22:09 Yeah

Sam Parr 22:09 ... I think SF has one.

Shaan Puri 22:10 SF has one. I would say it's a little less intentional, and it's not really, it's like there's the tech scene in SF, and then there's SF. SF kinda hates the tech scene-

Sam Parr 22:21 Yeah

Shaan Puri 22:21 ... despite it being the driver of growth in SF. And then there's the tech scene, which has its own little brand. Uh, but it, it just kind of, like, stood out to me that, like, I, I, I think it's hard because there's nobody who, like, it's not a company, right? There's not, like, a, a, a-

Sam Parr 22:34 Yeah, but the mayor has four years to kinda, like, somewhat-

Shaan Puri 22:36 Yeah

Sam Parr 22:36 ... but then-

Shaan Puri 22:36 But, but, like, you know, who's the mayor, and are they the kinda world-class leader that can build this? And then can you kinda hand it off from one person to the next? It's, it's a really tough thing, but man, when you have it, what an ad- what a competitive advantage. 'Cause right? Like, you recruit, you move there. And so did our other friends that, well, we all visited. They all moved there. It's not like they were born and raised in Manhattan. Uh, you know? It, it's, it attracts talent. And when you attract talent, you attract certain type of people, you attract earning power, you attract all kinds of things. And then, you know, it, there's a flywheel that, that

Shaan Puri 23:04 spins.

Sam Parr 23:04 What about, uh, the number one thing? What was number one?

Shaan Puri 23:07 Trust. Okay, so one person I bumped into at Gary Vee's club or whatever was this Instagram or creator called Jack's Dining Club. Do you know this guy?

Sam Parr 23:17 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 23:17 Jack-

Sam Parr 23:17 He's the, he's the hottest thing going, dude.

Shaan Puri 23:18 What, what is his exact name? Is it Diner's Club? Dining Club?

Sam Parr 23:19 He's like, uh, I follow him. I think he's 22 or 23, and he has tens of millions of followers.

Shaan Puri 23:27 All right, Jack's Dining Room is the, is the name, and then he's got this brand called Yes Chef. So met, met this guy, Jack, and, you know, Ben was like, "Oh, dude, I love your videos." Everyone's like, "I love your videos." And I, I was out of the loop. I didn't really know any of his content. But I started, uh, I grabbed Ben's phone and I started watching some of his content. Pretty fascinating what this guy's doing. [laughs] The core video hook of what he's doing is, "We're here at the best sandwich place in Paris. This is a..." And then he's like, he's got a sandwich. He's like, "This is a cheese and mayo Dijon sand-" whatever. And he's like, "The croissant." And he's like, "Dude, this thing is a..." And then he takes a bite, and he loves it. And this guy's brand is pretty incredible. Like, um, [laughs] he, he has these things he does now. Have you ever seen his, like, Reserve club?

Sam Parr 24:08 No, but I, he, he has a whole suite of brands called Yes Chef.

Shaan Puri 24:13 Go to his Instagram and watch one of the Reserve videos if you can see it. Basically, it's these, like, you pay, like- ... th- a thousand or more than a thousand dollar, like, you know, spend thousands of dollars to go as a group of, like, let's say 10 on, like, an unreal culinary experience. Like, we get on a private jet, we fly to this place. On the jet there's a s- the, the best sushi chef is making f-

Sam Parr 24:34 Got it

Shaan Puri 24:35 ... you know, omakase on the, on the plane. Then we land, we get the champagne. It's just like some in- overly indulgent, like, foodie-

Sam Parr 24:40 Like a dinner-

Shaan Puri 24:41 ... experience

Sam Parr 24:41 ... on the sand in a fancy beach.

Shaan Puri 24:44 Yeah, but, like, look who's there. It's, like, Machine Gun Kelly.

Sam Parr 24:46 It's like... Yeah, I see that.

Shaan Puri 24:46 Leonardo DiCaprio. These are, like, fans of his content. [laughs] They're, they're like, "I've seen your videos. I actually tried that restaurant, 'cause I saw that you, you had, you said they had the best chicken sandwich in LA. I drove an hour to go get there." And he's like, "Wow, that's incredible, Leonardo DiCaprio. Thank you for, [laughs] thank you for saying that." [laughs]

Sam Parr 25:04 Dude, he... And then it says, like, if you go to his Instagram, it goes to sh- Yes Chef Guides, Yes Chef Festival, Yes Chef Reserve, Yes Chef Supply, Yes Shep Run Club, Yes Chef Group. [laughs] He has a whole, like, thing around this. Who's-

Shaan Puri 25:19 He's got a whole ecosystem going. All right. So, so, [laughs] so what was I thought really interesting about this was just the idea of trust. So when we were, when we were in New York, there was these, um... Every place we went to was like, "This is the hottest, the hottest steakhouse in New York, the hottest sushi." I was like, "Bro, you know, you gotta c- you gotta stop saying that. [laughs] These can't all be the hottest restaurant. How many, how many hottest restaurants in New York are there?" It's this kind of word of mouth thing. And, and one thing I thought about was like, man, there's brand... If you think about just the general idea of if I really wanted to have great food, who do I trust to tell me where the great food is in any city?

Sam Parr 25:55 Just like a f- yeah, I don't know, a smart friend.

Shaan Puri 25:58 Well, well, a smart friend, but that smart friend has to be, like, well-traveled, well-versed.

Sam Parr 26:01 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 26:01 Like, you know, who, who? Not everybody has... The, the, this guy's job, Jack, he's basically your boy who knows the spot in every city. And I thought, man, he's kinda sitting on a goldmine of trust. I think trust is gonna be the thing that is in lowest supply over the next 10 years. Like, dude, every video I see on Instagram, I'm like, "Is this fake?" You know, whene- whenever I see, like, a, an ad, I'm like, "Okay, that's an ad." And then I see a normal, funny video, I'm like, "That might've been a deep fake." Um, yesterday I saw this insane thing where you can create, like, a, a UGC character. So it says, "A new era of influencing," right? So, like, check this out. You see this girl?

Sam Parr 26:38 Okay, so it's a, a pretty... They're all pretty, like, Instagram influencer-

Shaan Puri 26:43 It's a hyperrealistic... I don't know if you can see the detail, but, like, hyperrealistic-

Sam Parr 26:46 Oh, my God

Shaan Puri 26:46 ... looking person, right? This is a AI-generated person. But then it's like it will... We can keep the character exactly the same, so the face, the eyes, the jewelry, the style, the hair. And so you have one character, and it says, "One character, endless content." So, like, this is like catfish heaven, right? Like, I'm gonna be able to make this character, then I'm gonna be able to put her in every scene. She can be the face of my brand. She could just be an influencer on her own. She could do videos. She could do anything. And you're just gonna be able to create a hyperrealistic looking person, post content for them, and no one will ever know that this entire thing is fake. And, like, even if this is only mildly impressive to... This is very impressive to me, but if this is mildly impressive to you, cool. Fast-forward 12 months. Like, we're going into, like, peak fakeness around the world. And what happens when everything is easy to fake? Trust becomes incredibly important.

Sam Parr 27:34 That's crazy.

Shaan Puri 27:35 I think, I think podcasters like us are [laughs] are well-positioned, because people know we're real human beings. And, like, in a flood of endless content, you're just gonna gravitate towards people you trust. I think this guy Jack is sitting on a goldmine of trust. So, so where do you get food recommendations today? Yelp. Yelp is the, the default answer. And it's like, dude, Yelp sucks. I've never seen anyone be like, "God, I'm, I love Yelp so much." Like, you know, "I trust Yelp so [laughs] much. Yelp, Yelp always knows the best place to go when I want ramen in my city." And so I was like, this guy... And I pitched him this idea. I was like, "Look, you're selling hats. Wonderful. You're selling these, like, thousand dollar, you know, fun private jet experience. I'm, I'm sure that's a blast, but it, it's, it's pr- obviously not that scalable as a business." I was like, "You should create Jack's List as Yelp. You should try to compete with Yelp. You should create an app that I just say, 'I want the best burger, the best pizza, the best taco, the best ramen in any city,' and you better have it. And it's your pick." It's like, "Here's number one, maybe number two or three," and that's it. That's the whole app. And I was like, "That is what you should do with this trust, is you should go after Yelp."

Sam Parr 28:42 Is he gonna do it?

Shaan Puri 28:43 And then him and his business partner were like, "Ah, yeah, but blah, blah, blah, blah." And I was like, I was so convinced. I was, [laughs] I was like, "Actually, you know what? You're right. How about I just build it, and you just let me use your name and face, all right? Uh, you just give me, you just give me the... I'll give you tw- You don't believe in it? Great. I'll give you 10, 20%. Like, let me build this." 'Cause I'm so bullish on this idea that, like, he should create this as the... How do you do, like, a, a huge swing of, like, 500 million, fi- you know, to, to $2 billion swing as a creator? Like, every video you have gets 100,000 likes of people who are, like, wishing that they could go to this place. That's incredible. That's, like, you know, that, that's an unbelievable, you know... 10 million people are watching you eat this froyo in Vermont. If that's really the best froyo in Vermont, like, you should just create your list and curate it and have it be the trusted place, way more trusted than Yelp. I think trust is sort of, like, you know, gold right now.

Sam Parr 29:34 I've been, um... What's the thing called? Soro? What's the, uh, the music one? What's-

Shaan Puri 29:38 Suno.

Sam Parr 29:39 Suno. I bought a subscription to there a while back. And, like, I taught my daughter how to pee on the potty, because we have a song. We made this artist called Noah Flan. You know, he's kinda like Noah Kahan. He, like, but he's like a, I don't know, the cheap version. We call it Noah Flan. And it, we have a song called Let It Flow, and it's him singing, like, um... What's the Elsa song?

Shaan Puri 29:59 Let It Go.

Sam Parr 29:59 Le- Let It Go. And it, and it, you know, it goes, um-

Shaan Puri 30:02 Let it flow.

Sam Parr 30:03 "Let it flow.

Shaan Puri 30:03 Let it flow.

Sam Parr 30:04 Let the pee fall from your body. Let it flow, let it flow. Pee into the potty. Let it..."

Shaan Puri 30:10 [laughs]

Sam Parr 30:11 And it's, like, this, like, folk song. And, uh, and so whatever we're-

Shaan Puri 30:15 Play it. Is it on your phone? Play it.

Sam Parr 30:17 Yeah, let me see. Hold on.

30:19 To the bathroom quick. There's nothing in your way.

30:24 Listen.

Shaan Puri 30:24 [laughs]

Sam Parr 30:25 Pull those pants right down Plant your feet and sit. Take a breath, relax, and here it comes. That's it. Let it flow. Let it flow. Let the pee fall from your body. Let it flow. Let it flow. Pee into the potty. You're so big.

Shaan Puri 30:52 Dude.

Sam Parr 30:52 You're so strong.

Shaan Puri 30:52 Send me that. [laughs]

Sam Parr 30:53 It's great, right?

Shaan Puri 30:53 [laughs] What a hit.

Sam Parr 30:56 Shake it out and clean.

Shaan Puri 30:56 Holy shit. Okay, Miss Rachel. [laughs]

Sam Parr 30:58 Let the pee fall. It talks to you.

31:01 So I, I created Noah Flan because I'll be like, "Hey," you know, I could tell she has to go to the potty. I'd be like, "Hey, do you wanna let it flow with Noah Flan?" And like, we'll, you know, we'll sing.

Shaan Puri 31:11 [laughs]

Sam Parr 31:12 And, uh, so I'm creating, uh, a s- I'm creating a series of songs for, like, I use Suno-

Shaan Puri 31:17 For all behaviors

Sam Parr 31:17 ... for, like, all behaviors, and, like, because I hate listening to, like, the same Moana song over and over again.

Shaan Puri 31:22 Yeah.

Sam Parr 31:23 I, I like, like, folk music. I'm like, "I'm gonna just go make something that I think you might like and I will like." And so now we sing, like, "Let it flow. Let it flow."

Shaan Puri 31:30 A great, a great Suno prompt word, by the way, 'cause if you say folk, it becomes almost too, too folky. Americana. Just use the word Americana in your prompt.

Sam Parr 31:38 That's a good one.

Shaan Puri 31:38 It'll, it'll add a little bit of that edge you want in it.

Sam Parr 31:40 Well, now I have Noah Flan. Like, he's, like, a saved character.

Shaan Puri 31:43 A saved person.

Sam Parr 31:44 And so I actually, I, like, I made a YouTube, uh, page for it, and I'm, like, uploading his songs. And, uh, and so anyway, like, AI has been awesome. I know that we can hate on it, be like, "That's not a real artist," but I'm telling you what, we love Noah Flan.

Shaan Puri 31:55 [laughs] Exactly.

Sam Parr 31:56 We sing Noah Flan at our house. Um, our... What was the... [laughs]

Shaan Puri 31:59 It start- You know the words go when it starts, like, "Pull your pants down." [laughs] It's like, "Whoa, what's going on?"

Sam Parr 32:04 Well, we have this, uh, there's this company called, um, Live, Live, uh, Lovevery. You know Lovevery?

Shaan Puri 32:11 Yeah, like the toy company or no?

Sam Parr 32:12 Yeah, yeah. It's like a toy company.

Shaan Puri 32:14 Yeah. L- yeah.

Sam Parr 32:14 And, uh, they, like, send these books, and they, they, we got a, we bought a book for them on potty training, and, like, they tell a story about a kid going poop.

Shaan Puri 32:22 Yeah.

Sam Parr 32:22 And, like, he's like, "Oh, I ate these pancakes. My stomach is growling." And then they show him on the toilet, and then they actually show the poop. And I'm like, "That's disgusting."

Shaan Puri 32:30 [laughs]

Sam Parr 32:31 And it totally worked. It totally helped her. And so what I'm learning is that when you, like, have to, like, teach children things, you need to be pretty explicit in the stuff that, like, a grownup doesn't necessarily wanna talk about. I talk about it anyway.

Shaan Puri 32:41 [laughs]

Sam Parr 32:42 And it, like, goes into, like, detail. Like, you have to push, and it falls out of your body. Like, these things actually helped her, and it's pretty freaking gross, but, like, yeah, that's what I'm doing with Noah Flan.

Shaan Puri 32:51 By the way, I was, I was very touched and impressed by seeing you as a dad in New York. I also wanna give you a shout-out. You're a great dad.

Sam Parr 32:59 Thank you.

Shaan Puri 32:59 Uh, I don't know if you know you're a great dad. I think you do. I think you actually do know-

Sam Parr 33:03 I work really hard at it

Shaan Puri 33:04 ... that you're a great dad.

Sam Parr 33:04 I try really hard at it. I, I, I try so hard. It, it... I, I think I told you when we, I had kids, I was like, "I finally have found my mission in life." I work really hard at being a good dad.

Shaan Puri 33:13 Yeah, you were like, uh, what'd you say? Y- y- you learned from your mom. You said, "Talk to them like they're adults and feed them like they're adults."

Sam Parr 33:18 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 33:19 And, uh, you know, at dinner I was sitting next to your daughter, and she was like, "Pass the green beans." [laughs] And I was like, "What? What's happening?" [laughs] I was so stunned I didn't do it, and then she's like, "Green beans." [laughs] And then I gave it to her.

Sam Parr 33:29 Well, I just remember, like, growing up and seeing people, and I'm like, "Why does the kid menu exist?" Like, I'm just gonna give them the same, like, we're just doing the same thing.

Shaan Puri 33:37 Right. Yeah. You're a great dad.

Sam Parr 33:38 Thank you.

Shaan Puri 33:39 Uh, all right. So what was my other one? Okay, marketing. There were some great one-liners that the marketing nerd in me loved. I just wanna say them. So we were at this... What was the name of that, like, fancy steakhouse thing we were at?

Sam Parr 33:49 86. Something... It had the number 86 in the title.

Shaan Puri 33:52 Yeah, yeah, like the, The 86 or whatever. This, some, some restaurant. Really hard to get into.

Sam Parr 33:55 Great, great restaurant.

Shaan Puri 33:56 Great restaurant, great food. And the waiter brings out a box, like a treasure chest, and he's like, "Gentlemen, have we dined here before?" And we're like, "No, not really." And he's like, "Oh, well, you're in for a treat." And he opens up... He, he starts to open the treasure chest, but he doesn't open it just yet. And he's like, "Can I tell you the story of..." You know? And we're like, "Yeah, please." And he's like, "So we..." And he tells a story about how this restaurant, which is in New York, owns a farm in, like, Melbourne or something in Australia, and they source their own Wagyu beef. They raise them. They, you know, they only feed them, you know, probiotics and Skittles or whatever, [laughs] whatever they feed them.

Sam Parr 34:35 He was like... Well, it was kind of funny. He goes, "About three weeks before we take their life, we feed them macadamia nuts and butter."

Shaan Puri 34:43 [laughs]

Sam Parr 34:44 And that just really tops it off. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 34:46 And he's like, he's like, "And so the meat, the steak, just so you guys know," almost like a warning. He's like, "Just so you guys know, when the steak comes, gonna be incredibly soft. You can eat it with a spoon." [laughs]

Sam Parr 34:57 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 34:57 And I remember like, "Whoa, steak so soft you could eat it with a spoon?"

Sam Parr 35:01 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 35:01 I was like, "Damn, that was a bar." So I just started writing down, like, I just... I wrote that one down. I thought, "Wow, that's a, that's a marketing kill shot right there." I, I kind of love that idea, 'cause again, how do you say in five words what somebody else could try to convince you of in 500 and still not succeed at?

Sam Parr 35:15 He did the same thing with the knives. He opened it up. He goes, "You see these steak knives? These aren't normal steak knives. These steak knives-

Shaan Puri 35:21 Yeah

Sam Parr 35:21 ... are from 1930, which is the era-

Shaan Puri 35:24 [laughs]

Sam Parr 35:24 ... that we, this building was created."

Shaan Puri 35:25 He's like, "This is Teddy Roosevelt's steak knife. Here you go, sir."

Sam Parr 35:27 He goes, "Have you heard of Al Capone? He ate here. This was his knife."

Shaan Puri 35:30 [laughs]

Sam Parr 35:30 Like, it, it was beautiful.

Shaan Puri 35:31 There might be some blood on that one still. [laughs]

Sam Parr 35:33 [laughs] Yeah, it was, it was great.

Shaan Puri 35:34 And so... And then we were like, "But what about the spoon part?" Uh, oh, was that a, was that a figure of speech? Okay. So, so that was one. Another one, uh, again, in the restaurant space, 'cause again, the restaurant marketing is, is, is off the hook here. This one restaurant's claim to fame w- they go... A- and three different people told me the same thing about this restaurant separately. They go, "Taylor came here twice in a row." And I was like... And they s- so they make you have to make a swift gift.

Sam Parr 35:57 Taylor Swift came two nights in a row? That's the line? [laughs]

Shaan Puri 35:59 T- Taylor S- "Taylor came here two nights in a row." And I was like, "Damn, that's another kill shot." Like-

Sam Parr 36:04 She forgot her credit card. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 36:05 ... how they're gonna tell you this place is great is Taylor came here two nights in a row. And I thought, "Wow. Okay, that's in the pantheon of, like, great, you know, one-liners. That sa- that says a lot." Another, another one. You gave me this one. Uh, I was, I was asking you about your denim collection. Tr- I was like, "So what's... Why? Why the denim thing?" And you were like, "I just..." Like, you started talking about it and you go, "It's like history you can wear." And I go, "Is that their slogan?" He go, "No, I just said that." I was like, "That should be their slogan." I thought that was an incredible line for whoever's the, you know, the hir- the, who's the power to, power that be in the, in the denim world. But they need to, they need to give you a little royalty and take that line.

Sam Parr 36:41 Yeah, like Levi's can make, like, a, you know, instead of saying, "We make it like they used to make it"- Uh, it's like, you know, uh, wear history. Like, yeah, I think that's a g- that's actually a golden one.

Shaan Puri 36:54 And then I was talking to somebody else who has been incredibly successful at marketing, and I go, "What's the, what's the tri- what's the trick for what you're doing? How did, how'd you pull this off?" And he goes, "Everybody wants something. You just gotta figure out what it is. The rich want status and praise. The rich and unknown want fame. The fame- famous want privacy." He goes, "So I just figured out how to create products for, for each of those use cases." [chuckles] So he's like, "For the famous people, I gave them privacy. For the r- rich but unknown, I gave them a pathway to fame. For the, the successful person who's got it all, they still want access into the right rooms, and they want praise." And he goes like, "You just gotta know who you're selling to because it'll tell you how to sell it." And, um, I thought, "Okay, that's, that's pretty good." And, and yeah, I've heard this before in other, other versions. It's like, um, you sell a mom safety. You sell, uh, you know, you sell the, the busy parents time. You sell the woman youth. You sell the male, um, you know, power. You, you basically you gotta know kinda like what's the, what's the one word you're ultimately selling to a person, right?

Sam Parr 37:56 Yeah, like-

Shaan Puri 37:57 Like, the one word of this podcast that we try to sell is inspiration. And so we're gonna talk about hundreds of different people, hundreds of different cool things they've built, hundreds of different ways to be successful, hopefully so that you are ultimately inspired to do some badass shit yourself. Like, this is just a pod- podcast where we shout out people doing things that we think are pretty badass and therefore hopefully inspire somebody to do a badass thing in their own, their own version of their life.

Sam Parr 38:22 I, I know I have felt this way, and I still feel this way even though I know it's wrong, that branding and, and, and marketing, but not marketing. I think everyone understands direct response marketing. Like, I put this much money in. I just do the thing that gets the highest click through, click-through rate, and I click it. That's sort of like, that's fine and everything, but I think that, like, the great people understand that branding and marketing, when I say marketing, I mean, like, brand marketing, it's not shticky. And then I remember thinking like, "Well, Mark Zuckerberg wears a hoodie." That's not branding. Of course, obviously, it, it is branding, but I was like, he's-- It's all about utility. And then I read Peter Thiel's book, um, what's it called? Um-

Shaan Puri 39:01 Zero to One.

Sam Parr 39:02 Zero to One, and he talks about secrets, and he talks about, like, what's your special sauce? And it's so funny that Peter Thiel, he did two things that were interesting. He said, "Branding is a moat. Branding is a secret that you can know." And then he goes, "Unfortunately, it's not a secret that I know, so I'm not even gonna write about it." [laughs] That's like-- Do you remember that part of the book? He's like-

Shaan Puri 39:21 Yeah, he, he acknowledges. He's like, "I underestimated it. Now, I've come to appreciate it. I still don't know it or how to do it. Can't tell you about it."

Sam Parr 39:28 Yeah, he's like, "I don't know anything about it, but I know it's real."

Shaan Puri 39:31 [laughs]

Sam Parr 39:31 And then, um, we had Aaron Levie on the podcast. Aaron is, um, a CEO of a company called Box, which makes enterprise cloud software. You could dismiss that as being boring, whatever, but he's immensely successful. And we asked him what books he likes to read. He was like, "If you're gonna read any business books, just read these four," or something like that, and he listed off, uh, four books. He's like, "If you read those, you'll, you're gonna be amazing." And the first book that he said was a book called Positioning by this guy named Al Trout, I think his name is.

Shaan Puri 40:00 Mm-hmm.

Sam Parr 40:01 Um, I think he also wrote The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, of which Tim Ferriss, that's like one of the only three books that he always says, like, "Just read this one." And, um, I just have noticed that when you're telling these stories, I am in my head. I'm like, I... I'm taking notes right now where I'm like-

Shaan Puri 40:17 By the way, it's Al Ries and Jack Trout.

Sam Parr 40:19 Sorry. Yeah.

Shaan Puri 40:19 We can combine those. Yeah.

Sam Parr 40:19 Jack Trout and Al Ries. My big-- The takeaway that I've-- Like, you said you like repetition. A, a, a repetitive thing that I find myself is getting into the day-to-day weeds of, of my business and thinking, "Well, what's the ad click-through rate? Okay, what if we just pointed a red arrow at this guy's face? It's gonna get a higher click-through rate. What if we did this?" But it's somewhat, it's these things that appear to be irrational that aren't ir- irrational at all that have the biggest needle moving difference. So making your brand associate with one word in the same way that Volvo does with safety, or Lamborghini would do it with, like, flashy, or Ferrari with fast, whatever. Or, or these other things that don't have an ROI right away, like taking someone and saying, "Here's the steak. You see this steak right here?" And then telling the story. You say that into, in a meeting where people only care about numbers, and they're like, "Huh? But just, just, just make a cheaper steak and just sell it at a higher margin, please."

Shaan Puri 41:12 Right.

Sam Parr 41:12 Um, and I just, I, I just think that when I'm hearing you tell this story, it's a reminder that I need to care about these things significantly more than I do, and I think probably everyone should.

Shaan Puri 41:21 It's incredibly hard to do, and it takes a long time, and it takes faith, and it takes a leader who I think has that core insight. Remember that kind of to back to my point of like what does it really mean? What is it really? Like, what is it really? What is Apple really? Why do we buy Apple, right? Because we're buying some version of design or simplicity, right? That's the, the positioning Apple still has over everybody, is that they make simple, beautiful products. So I think that you have to really like dis- to distill, distill, distill, distill, distill. I remember I was talking to Hormozi once, and I go, "What's your brand?" And he goes, "Oh, my brand? Business." And I laughed. I was like, "Business isn't a brand." Like, I was like, "That's just a, that's just a word." He goes, "I wanna own the word business." He goes... And then, you know, he said this. I don't, I don't know if I would agree with this, but he's like, "Grant Cardone owns real estate. I wanna own business." And I think what he meant was like on the, in the world of, like, YouTube and content, I wanna be the guy when, like, when you think of business. And right or wrong, I thought there's incredible power in the focus and simplicity of trying to own a single word. And, um, you know, you could disagree and say, "Well, no, we really-- that doesn't capture everything that we do," and, "No, no, no, we wanna... It's more nuanced than that." And it's like, yeah, but you don't really achieve anything when you try to spread it all out too thin, right? When you do the peanut butter strategy, you're spreading it all across the bread. And so I think there is a lot of v- value in trying to say, "Well, if it was a word, what would the word be?" And if it was a word, is that the word other people would associate with us right now, or is that just what we say internally? And if that was a word, like, are we doing that everywhere, or are we only doing it in this one area? And, um, unfortunately, you don't usually like the answers to that stuff. [laughs]

Sam Parr 43:03 There's, like, that quadrant of, like, um, urgently needed or not urgent, and then above it, it's, like, impact versus low impact, and, like, there's this quadrant of, like, it's not urgent, but it's very impactful, and that's, like, the thing where you probably should spend time on but you don't. This is, like, one of those things.

Shaan Puri 43:20 Right. Right. Those are all the marketing-- Actually, there was one more marketing one that I think is, is pretty cool too. I'll give you this one too. So we had a dinner at probably the best Indian restaurant I've ever been to. If you've ever heard of Gymkhana, Gymkhana is, like, this really famous Michelin star restaurant in London. They have a sister restaurant in New York called Ambassador's Clubhouse, I think. We went there with, uh, with our friend who, who runs their... He doesn't run the restaurant group, but they, they've launched a sauce line. So, like, you know how, like, Carbone started as a famous restaurant-

Sam Parr 43:49 Yeah, Rao's

Shaan Puri 43:50 ... and then launched their sauces. R-Rao's?

Sam Parr 43:52 I don't know.

Shaan Puri 43:52 I've learned it's not Rao's, it's Rao's. Uh, they did the same thing, and so this guy's doing it with Indian sauces. And so great dude, great dinner. We hung out and, you know, he was telling me about the business, and I had actually passed on investing on this early on for one reason, which was I was like, "I don't know how many people cook Indian food at home." Like, I get why pasta sauce is gonna sell a lot of units because people make a lot of pasta at home.

Sam Parr 44:16 Wait, how did you, how did you come across this one? Because this isn't-- that's not in your wheelhouse.

Shaan Puri 44:20 Um, a friend had invested in it and sent it to me and, um, I should have pa-- I should have dug in more, but I also didn't really respect the story of this restaurant. So again, the story comes before the sauce, and what's the story here? So-

Sam Parr 44:33 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 44:34 ... um, same sort of Taylor came here two nights in a row type of story like, "Oh, you know, XYZ celebrities are here." The restaurant, I think, [laughs] has a hundred thousand person wait list. [laughs] Like, this is an insane number. Um, like, getting a reservation there is, like, impossible. The g-- the story of the group, they, they-- basically, it was, like, one guy, he partnered with a chef, and the restaurant wasn't doing so hot, and so he decides, [laughs] even though he's got no culinary experience, he's not a trained chef, he fires the chef, goes into the kitchen, and takes over the kitchen, is like, "We're gonna figure this out." Nine months later, they had a Michelin star, which is unbelievable. That's like if I decided to play in the NBA, and in nine months I was like... Or like, you know, the World Cup, and I'm playing in the World Cup next sh- next, next cycle. Like, it's insane to be able to do that. And so they, they pulled this off.

Sam Parr 45:21 Ah, yes, I've seen this. Oh my God, it looks amazing.

Shaan Puri 45:25 And so food's am-- food's unreal. You should go, you should definitely go. So I was talking about the sauce thing. I was like, "Yeah." I was like, "I just didn't think people were cooking Indian food that frequently at home." And he goes, "Oh, you know, this is where Ro really helped us out." So there's, there's a guy who came on our podcast, Rohan Oza. He's a guy you might have seen on Shark Tank. I think we were the only podcast he's ever done. [laughs] And it took, took a lot of, like, twisting his arm to get him on, but he was amazing. He started, you know, he was inv- involved in making Smartwater a success, Vitaminwater a success, uh, Poppi, uh, soda, which I have right here on my desk, like, Poppi a success. So he's been just a, a killer with brands. Uh, tons of brands, by the way. Those are only, like, three of, like, a dozen brands that you'll find in grocery stores that this guy's been, like, you know, uh, early and, and big on. And I think Ro is incredibly gifted when it comes to, to, like, what is it really, right? 'Cause when he ta-- when he talked about this Poppi thing, it was like, I think when they started, it was, like, apple cider vinegar as a, as a drink supplement, and he was like, "No, no, no."

Sam Parr 46:21 It was called, like, Mother's Miracle or something or Goddess. Yeah.

Shaan Puri 46:23 He was like, "We need to make clean soda." He's like, "I grew up in Zambia drinking Coke and Fanta and soda." He's like, "We need this to taste like a Fanta but be good for you." And he's like, "I think that's where the, where the market is." And so similarly with Gymkhana, he goes, "We're gonna make chicken great again." [laughs] He's like-- I was like, "What?" He goes, "It's not about use this when you're gonna cook Indian food once in a blue moon at home. It's of people who eat meat, eighty-five percent of their meals at home are chicken."

Sam Parr 46:53 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 46:54 "And what we need is for our sauce to make your chicken taste good and be less boring 'cause it does. You add this sauce to our-- to your chicken, your chicken's gonna taste phenomenal. So it's not about the one day you're gonna decide to make Indian food for, for all your friends and host an Indian food thing. Like, who does that? That's pretty tough. It's pretty high risk. What we need to do is make chicken great again." And I was like, it's that sort of marketing genius that you need that can be the difference between this being a really niche fringe thing to being worth, you know, three billion dollars, you know, [laughs] in five years. It's like that insight executed well. A lot of investors say they add value. That guy added value by, like, giving you, like, the, the, the point of highest leverage to refocus the entire company around.

Sam Parr 47:37 This is awesome. I'm looking at their website. By the way, that's, like, something that you'd make fun of, like, with a guy, like, giving a TED Talk. It's like, "We didn't stop there. You see, we moved the office and, like, put the couch from here to here." It's like-

Shaan Puri 47:48 What do we have in common with our ancestors-

Sam Parr 47:50 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 47:50 ... from cavemen to, [laughs] to our, our forefathers to today?

Sam Parr 47:53 Make chicken great again? Like, what? But it, it makes sense.

Shaan Puri 47:56 We all love chicken. [laughs]

Sam Parr 47:57 And I'm like... Because what's funny is, like, when you're copywriting, you wanna use such detail that the person feels it in their bones. So for example, if you're selling, like, a weight loss thing or a gym product to a woman who's a little overweight, you're like, "I know why you always offer to take the photo when you're with your friends."

Shaan Puri 48:17 Oh, that's a good one.

Sam Parr 48:17 "I know how you feel." It's like you wanna go after these thoughts where they're not always loud, but they exist, and they're silent enough that when you-- someone says that, you think to yourself, "I didn't know other people thought that."

Shaan Puri 48:33 That was an incredible example, the quiet thoughts said out loud. So true. People wanna feel seen and understood, and some of the great marketers, they describe this. They say, "If you could describe the problem in such great detail that the person feels completely understood-

Sam Parr 48:48 Yeah

Shaan Puri 48:48 ... they will trust you fully that whatever solution you speak next, because you understood the problem so well, they now believe that you understand the solution equally well." Whereas everybody else just sells the solution.

Sam Parr 48:59 Yeah, so you have to think. You have to-- Like, this is the point when you're, when you're copywriting an interesting idea, there's this thing called, um, like general knowledge, and then there's specific knowledge. And general knowledge when you're doing copywriting is when you spend weeks just learning all about the industry, all about like stuff that may not even apply to it exactly. And then specific knowledge is when you learn about exactly how the product works. But you need that general knowledge to understand a vague idea. So for example, if you're doing like gym work, um, or like a weight loss supplement, you know, eventually you'll get to the, um, specific knowledge where you're like, "Okay, so like the body loses weight by doing X, Y, and Z, and this product helps you by doing whatever." But the general knowledge is just talking to women and being like, "So how do you feel?" Uh, like, "Well, I feel like fat," or whatever. Like you're, "All right, but tell me more. Tell me more. Tell me more." And that's how you come up with these ideas where you're like, "She said this, but this was below the iceberg, so I had to dig deep, and I've noticed that this is like a common thread. Therefore, that's the perfect thing that I can use in my marketing." So when you said that, uh, you need to make chicken great again, okay, that's, that doesn't mean anything. But when you said, "Everyone wants to eat chicken because it's healthier, but it's so boring and bland. You need a good sauce for it," that like hits 'cause I eat chicken all the time. I'm like, "I'm so boring of this shit. I don't wanna eat this anymore." And so this is like a classic copywriting marketing shtick of like-

Shaan Puri 50:21 Yep

Sam Parr 50:21 ... general knowledge and learning how to, how to-

Shaan Puri 50:23 And, and positioning. So literally the positioning extends because it's, uh, you know, what, what his make chicken great again was actually a strategy. It's not the marketing, it's the strategy. And the strategy basically then just, is, is, is to pair it with the positioning, which is, is this a sauce for cooking Indian food at home, or is this a sauce for having really flavorful, delicious chicken? Two totally different positions. And then that extends, which aisle would you be in in the supermarket? 'Cause there's aisles for pasta sauces and Asian ethnic sauces, and then there's, there's aisles for, uh, toppers, uh, you know, marinades, sauces, things that you put on meat, and that's where you see like that Bachan's like, uh, Japanese barbecue sauce or whatever. It's an example where like I don't think a lot of people were really that into, "I'd like to just put-- I, I, I'm really looking for whatever this, uh, umami savory Japanese sauce is." But if I'm looking for some bar-- you know, some, some kinda Asian barbecue sauce to put on my food, my, on my chicken, that sounds pretty good, and it, it's in the right aisle, and so the positioning literally becomes physical in the aisle. And then you, then you get down to like the actual m- actual marketing, and then you say, "Oh, well, we should probably market to people who are eating a lot of chicken." Maybe that's people who are trying to be healthy right now, but the, you know, the seven days a week of plain chick-- you know, chicken breast is getting pretty old for them. What if one day a week they were able to add our marinade or add our sauce on top? And actually it only adds a hundred calories, but damn, that thing changes the whole meal. All of a sudden-

Sam Parr 51:46 Yeah

Shaan Puri 51:46 ... it's popping off. And so you, then it becomes an actual marketing strategy.

Sam Parr 51:51 I did this with Hampton a bunch where I was like, "What, what do people fear about building a company?" And it took me forever, and I'm like, I'm still working on it. But one of the, the emotions that I'm trying to get at is when you're building a company, the biggest fear oftentimes is not... Like once you have a business that already has a couple million in revenue, it's not like, "Is this gonna fail?" It's like, "I started this at thirty-two. Am I gonna be forty-two years old and be like, 'This thing barely grew, and I just wasted a decade on something where I could have been working on a different opportunity, and I just blew it all?'" And like that is like the fear for where like I'm thinking about for some of our marketing of like, well, everyone has that fear, and you don't talk about it out loud, y- but you like fear like, "I should do this other thing and this other thing," and I'm always fearful of that. And so Hampton helps by giving you a room of peers who can help you make big fifty million dollar decisions, not by yourself, and so you actually have like peers around you. But like I sp- I spend a lot of time thinking about like these phrases and words that you can use that aren't spoken often, but when they are, people just jump.

Shaan Puri 52:52 Well, I like the phrase fifty million dollar decisions just as a-- that had resonance for me. Let me give you one other example that's kind of in this like quiet thoughts, uh, said out loud. So right now we're in a big, uh, like decluttering mode in our house, like we're just like getting rid of clutter.

Sam Parr 53:07 Oh, you had a great line. You, you had a great line for that, by the way. You made a joke. You're like, "I'd rather move than declutter this place."

Shaan Puri 53:14 Yeah. [laughs] Yeah, exactly. I, we almost are like, "We just need a new house. We need to start over." Like it's that bad.

Sam Parr 53:20 Everyone feels that way. It's like I'd rather... That's a really good one. I would-- If I was like a moving company or a cleaning company.

Shaan Puri 53:26 Well, my, my wife has started, she goes, sh-- uh, 'cause I was like, "What got, what's gotten into you? Like you're every day you're like just..." I, I used to really struggle to be like, "Hey, let's get rid of this. This is junk. We don't need this." And I used to do that, and then she would hang on to it either for sentimental value. "No, we do need it once in a while. No, we paid a lot for that." And like, "I'll sell it. I'll g- I'll, I'm gonna do something with it. I don't wanna just throw it away." All these reasons for hoarding, right? And so she didn't view it as hoarding, and then she didn't like when I called it hoarding, right? So that was like our... We were in a stalemate where like nothing was really moving. All of a sudden things changed, and I was like, "I didn't do anything. What? W-wha-- Can you tell me what the answer was? 'Cause I surely didn't have it." And she goes, "Well, I started following these women on Instagram. I just changed my feed." She's like, "I just decided I'm gonna follow like twenty of these people. I unfollowed a bunch of like parenting and like fitness stuff to like get my feed to be just brainwashing of the right flavor." And she goes, "'Cause I, s- she, I saw this one thing that really s- resonated with me." I was like, "Oh, what was it?" And so there's these decluttering coaches on Instagram. I don't know if you've seen this. They have like millions of followers.

Sam Parr 54:27 I love them.

Shaan Puri 54:27 And they're just women that are just helping other women like kind of figure out how to like think about decluttering their house. It's not even strategy, right? 'Cause the answer's obvious. Put the shit in a bag and get rid of it.

Sam Parr 54:36 It's mostly personal. It's like how to feel about like saying goodbye to something that like your baby used to play with.

Shaan Puri 54:41 Exactly. Or you spent money on it, and now you feel like it's wasteful to get rid of it. Um, things like that.

Sam Parr 54:47 It's sort of like how personal finance is more personal than finance. It's like cleaning is more like dealing with the inside. You know, what is, uh-

Shaan Puri 54:53 Right. [laughs]

Sam Parr 54:54 ... Cesar Millan, the dog trainer says. He goes, "I train the human and we rehabilitate the dog."

Shaan Puri 54:58 Yeah, exactly. That is, that's so true. And so she was talking about like there was one Instagram reel she saw where the woman was walking around the house, and she goes You know, I've been keeping all this stuff for my kids because I want them to-- I'm trying to, like, make sure they have everything they might need, but they don't have me anymore because now when I walk around, I just see, I j- my brain is just thinking, "Oh, I gotta pick those up. Oh, I need to put that away. Oh, I really wanna reorganize this shelf. Ugh, I've been meaning to get to this." Like, oh my God, I-- And then she's like, "Another one was, are you ashamed? Like, do you, do, does panic come inside you when somebody offers to, like, come over and do a playdate? Like, the idea of having guests over-"

Sam Parr 55:35 Mm, that's a good one.

Shaan Puri 55:35 "... does it trigger panic in you? Like, that's not what your home is supposed to feel like. So whatever upside you thought this is giving you-"

Sam Parr 55:42 That's a great one.

Shaan Puri 55:42 "... think about the panic that you feel." And she, and my wife is like, "Dude, every time." Like when we go to school drop-off, we have the Tesla with, like, the, the wings, and so when you open the door, it's like such a [chuckles] it's like so open house for, like, our car, and our car is, like, there's goldfish and Cheetos and four soccer balls and 19 shoes in the back of the car, right? Like, it's just like we have three kids, three car seats. It's a, it's a madhouse back there. And so she's like, "Let's drop off over here at the corner." [laughs] And I'm like, "What the hell? Why?" She's like, " 'Cause I don't want anyone to see. Kids, get out the other door so nobody sees."

Sam Parr 56:16 You just open the window. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 56:17 And so when the, when the, when the creators on Instagram started to speak to those moments and those fears, which is the equivalent of you volunteering to take the photo so that you're not in it, then all of a sudden it, like, the flip switched. It, it's like I could see the power of, like, the right sentence that just hits the nerve, that literally just rewires someone's behavior.

Sam Parr 56:37 That's a great story. I'll be eager to see how long that lasts because that potentially could be life-changing.

Shaan Puri 56:43 Yeah, hopefully it is, um, 'cause it's, it's pretty traumatizing to be like, "I did this." Like we [chuckles] this is hilarious. We've been, like, house hunting, so, like, we're seeing all these really nice houses that are, like, staged, and every time we go in I'm like, "Yeah, but you gotta remember, we're gonna ruin all this. We don't live like this. Like, this is, like, a perfectly staged minimal house with no stuff in it."

Sam Parr 57:02 Yeah, it's like when you go, like, shopping for clothes, you're like, "Picture that with a mustard stain on it. Do you still like it?" [laughs]

Shaan Puri 57:08 [laughs] Do you have mannequins with bellies? 'Cause I'd like to see-

Sam Parr 57:11 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 57:11 ... what this looks like. And so, so then with, with our house, I looked up our old, like, like, Zillow photos of when the house right bef- this same house we're in before we moved in, and I was like, "What do you think of this house?" And it looks amazing. [laughs]

Sam Parr 57:26 Oh, that's so funny.

Shaan Puri 57:27 It's like we ruined this. This already was epic. We, we, we messed it up. And so, you, you know, you have to kind of like-

Sam Parr 57:33 Did your wife get assault you?

Shaan Puri 57:34 ... face reality.

Sam Parr 57:35 [laughs] Yeah, I s- I-- it's near and dear to my heart, this whole clutter thing. I argue with my, uh, wife about that stuff all the time too. And it's one of the reasons I like living in New York is I make the excuse, "I've got a small apartment. You guys can't get me anything."

Shaan Puri 57:47 Right.

Sam Parr 57:48 Uh, and it's, like, not that small. Uh-

Shaan Puri 57:50 [laughs]

Sam Parr 57:50 ... but dude, the, the clutter thing bothers me. It, it kills me. It, like, I-

Shaan Puri 57:53 Dude, when you walked into my house, like the entry, you open the door, it's like a, whatever, 30-foot ceilings, 'cause should be so beautiful. Instead we had a giant pink, like, UFC octagon trampoline just in the middle of the house. And the kids did love it. It was pretty fun, but, like, damn, man, like we, what, w- where did we go wrong? [laughs]

Sam Parr 58:13 Like it's, it's Amazon, man. By being able to buy shit so easily online, it, I think that, like, if I was, um, I don't think this would land as well, but if I was, like, an influencer in this space, it would be about, like, consumerism and, like, and, like, showing people... Like, for example, if I was to get you, if I was gonna show you why you should eat healthier, you could do a bunch of, like, visualizations, but, like, I could just show you, like, look, when you go to the movies and you get popcorn, I could just sh-- I could tell you that they put 100 grams of butter on it, or I could just show you a block of fat and be like, "That's 100 grams."

Shaan Puri 58:46 Right.

Sam Parr 58:47 "And that is what is on here." For this, I could be like, "Here's your bill. Like, here's the money that you would have saved not buying this stuff." You know what I mean? Like-

Shaan Puri 58:55 Right

Sam Parr 58:55 ... uh, that wouldn't land as good, but that's how I think about when I'm like, "Oh my God, it's so much waste." Or I'll be like, "A kid in China made this. It flew over on an airplane. It got into this factory. It went to this UPS." Like, that's where it hurts me. I'm like, all this energy, it's just wasted. I hate the waste. And so that's what lands with me when I think of, like, the waste, but that's, that's a significantly less, um, popular emotion.

Shaan Puri 59:18 Right. Right.

Sam Parr 59:19 Uh, but this stuff is fun. If you wanna learn more about this stuff, my favorite book on this topic is Made to Stick by Chip Heath. It's two brothers from Stanford, and they do the best job of showing, like, five ways that you can make ideas stick with people, and I, and I'm kind of, like, thinking I'm gonna reread that.

Shaan Puri 59:36 I've read that, and I've read Positioning, by the way. Even though they come highly recommended, I actually did not think either was great. There's some books you read and you're like, "Holy shit, every page is, like, you wanna frame it." Um, that's not how I felt at all about those books. Also, they're pretty old, so the examples they'll give are not as relevant. I think this is something you just have to, like, actually study the ground truth ads, and you have to notice what resonates. You have to start paying attention, and you start to, have to start collecting for yourself. Um, the books can provide some, you know, some general frameworks, but I, I personally didn't think that either of them was, like, good enough to, like, to feel like I, I actually understood it.

Sam Parr 1:00:15 Um, okay. Well, agree to disagree.

Shaan Puri 1:00:19 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:00:20 That was great.

Shaan Puri 1:00:20 No, but you do both, right? You're, you have a pretty strong swipe file and a-

Sam Parr 1:00:24 Yeah, no

Shaan Puri 1:00:24 ... and an eye for this sort of thing. You know, you, and you've been doing that for fifteen, twenty years now.

Sam Parr 1:00:29 I thought Made to Stick was cool because it just put frameworks, but, like, there's, like, classic ones that you see, and some of them are funny, where it's like, this person is this rich. It's like, well, what does a trillion mean? Well, it's an... And then you do, like, the seconds thing. I think I, I told you the story where, like, a million is, like, 72 hours, a billion is, like, f- 82 weeks, and then a trillion is 32 years.

Shaan Puri 1:00:51 Mm-hmm.

Sam Parr 1:00:51 Like, there's, like, ways to, like, break things down that are far more tangible, um, and that's what I learned from, um, what's it called? Made to Stick.

Shaan Puri 1:01:00 [laughs] Didn't stick. Almost, almost, almost lost that one. [laughs] Um-

Sam Parr 1:01:05 That's like my joke when I... It's like, that's a dad joke. When people say, uh, I'll say, uh, they can tell I've got bad hearing and they go, "Do you have bad hearing?" I go, "Huh?"

Shaan Puri 1:01:11 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:01:13 It's never funny. No one has ever laughed.

Shaan Puri 1:01:15 [laughs] I, I'll give it to you. [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:01:18 [laughs] All right. That's it. That's the pod. [outro music]