The Market Is Crashing. Here’s What We’re Doing About It…

Sam Parr 0:00 All right. Can we talk about the stock market going down? Because I had to yell at a bunch of people. [upbeat music] So basically, uh, the markets dropped, what, 5% this week, and in our little circle jerk world, it felt like the world was ending.

Shaan Puri 0:22 So the... I guess the Dow dr- had its worst day in two years. SP 500 is down about 5% so far this week as of time of recording, and I think the tech stocks did a bit worse, so NVIDIA's down 12%, Google, you know, whatever. A couple of the tech stocks which more maybe where our- where we're at, we are at in a bubble did worse. They gave back a lot of the gains that they've been having so far this year. And so it, it was a bad day for the markets. And by the way, I wake up, I wake up, and I think some people are on the East Coast, you're on the East Coast, a couple people in the group chat are on the East Coast, and it either says one of two things. It says, "The world is ending," with four or five likes on it in our group chat, or it says, "We're going to Valhalla, boys," and it has four or five likes on it. Every morning. And I really... I don't even check the market, I just look at that text and I know directionally is the arrow up or down, but it kinda gets to you, that, that, that way of thinking.

Sam Parr 1:14 It bothers me. I had to yell at my partner Joe because he just calls me, "Are you freaking out about this?" I'm like, "Freaking out about what?" He's like, "The markets are just going down like crazy. Like, should we sell everything? Like, what do we do?" Like, my reaction was just like, w- this is expected. Like, if you, if you just buy index funds like I do, like, there are ups and downs, but in general, over five, 10, 20-year periods, you're, you're expected to, to, to go up and down. And he just, like, freaked and I... And, and it made me angry. Like, it made me angry, 'cause I was like, I wasn't stressing, but now I am, and this is not healthy, and that's what happened.

Shaan Puri 1:49 [laughs] Okay, so I had a similar experience. Ben calls me. I'm on vacation. So Ben calls me and he's like, "Dude, what are, what are your thoughts on, like, you know, the market?" [laughs] I'm like, "First, first of all, are we only gonna do calls when the market crashes, uh, about the market? It's not a topic we normally discuss. Okay, so first of all, I, I have no thoughts." It reminds me of that s- uh, skit, um, back in the [laughs] the Dave Chappelle skit where he, where he was like, "What does Ja Rule think? What's Ja have-"

Sam Parr 2:16 Yeah

Shaan Puri 2:17 ... "to say about this event?" Uh-

Sam Parr 2:18 We gotta get Ja on the line

Shaan Puri 2:19 ... what's... Yeah, let's get Ja on the line. Let's talk about the market.

Sam Parr 2:22 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 2:22 Second thing, he was like... He goes, "Yeah, I... We, we should probably do nothing, but uh, you know, I did think, like, maybe we should do X, Y, Z." And he, like, laid out some, like, new plan. And the funny thing is I have been in a mode where I've just been trying to... I, I, I've, I've understood that one of the most powerful things you could do is take a simple idea very seriously. I'm actually gonna do a whole episode on this, taking a simple idea seriously. But in general, picking a few things that matter and then just simply doing them as well as possible a- and, and reinforcing it. So I actually do a thing which is I wrote out for the year, I said, "Here's the three big things," big shifts I always call it, like, three shifts I'm making this year. I'm making this shift, this shift, and this shift. Those are the three things that need to change in my life. The rest of the things are going great. I don't need to talk about the things that are going great. And every single week, I write down that shift again in our Slack. I retype the exact sentence, and then I say what I'm doing today and how that ties to that shift. And if I am gonna do something today that doesn't tie to that shift, I just simply don't do it. Um, or with very rare exceptions, do it. So I've been doing this for a while now, and I told Ben, I was like, "Ben, d- so remember th- that thing we've been saying over and over again about, like, what we're doing this year, why we're doing it, why it's the right plan? Did we need to add a disclaimer which was unless the stock market crashes, and then we're just gonna throw all this shit out the window and suddenly change our decision-making about all the things that we're doing?" Uh, and it sounds ludicrous to say it like that, but that's where his mind went in the moment, and I don't blame him because my mind used to go there too, and I've, I've developed a set of rules for myself through making horrible, expensive mistakes, which is fundamentally when markets crash, just I have to assess, like, A, i- is the wolf at the door? Like, do I actually have an existential crisis? If so, okay, I'll, I'll, I'll make a ch- I'll shift my attention to this and, and change. But, like, if that's the case, it's because I somehow over-levered or, like, really stretched myself too thin, or, like, I've made a huge bet that I should have never made in the first place. So is the wolf at the door? No. Okay, if the wolf is not at the door, simply do not react. Just do nothing for 30 to 90 days and then see where you land.

Sam Parr 4:32 How would you have reacted five years ago?

Shaan Puri 4:34 Well, I can tell you how I did react five years ago: making mistakes. So when COVID... Uh, actually, even before COVID, I remember at the end of maybe 2019, 2020, we had just sold our company, and my cousin, who's a hedge fund guy, and really all I know is, like, this is my cousin, he's a hedge fund guy, and our whole family thinks he's the smart stock market guy. You know, people, like, in your family when you don't really understand what people do, you just boil them down. You just categorize them into, "Oh, he's the doctor," so no matter what my issue is, let's call the doctor. Even he's a heart doctor, I got a foot issue, doesn't matter. That's the doctor. You know, I'm the tech guy. It's like whether your router doesn't work or you need a... You're, you're making a startup investment, just call Shaan. Well, this is the stock guy, and he was like, "Uh, you know, it's been a long bull market. I'm moving this, this, and this." And so I went to cash and, you know, I was like, "Yeah, yeah, you know, longest bull market in history. I'm g- I'm gonna shift some of my allocation around," 'cause I got this one hot tip from my cousin, the stock market guy.

Sam Parr 5:26 Isn't that funny how, uh, when you phrase it as wonderfully as, "We're in the longest bull market ever," you're like, "I don't know any of the evidence, but that was a great line. I'm in."

Shaan Puri 5:37 Exactly. Exactly. He, he told me something about a dead cat bounce. Damn, that sounds fancy.

Sam Parr 5:41 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 5:41 What is that? I'm Googling. It's like if anytime I'm making decisions off a Wikipedia article I just read, like, bad things are happening in my life. Um, when COVID happened, I'm, you know... It's like, I don't know, it's global pandemic. The world is ending, and people are talking about L-shaped recoveries or, uh, W-shaped recoveries or whatever the hell, like V-shaped recoveries. I don't know what, what's going on. I'm drawing on my notepad trying to figure out, oh, that means stock market goes up-

Sam Parr 6:04 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 6:05 ... or just stays down. And, and by the way, you know what it ended up being? A K-shaped recovery, the letter they didn't even talk about at the time.

Sam Parr 6:12 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 6:12 I was listening to all, all the smart money, and it turned, a K-shaped recovery where, you know, main stream, Main Street went down, it just got bogged down by inflation, and assets soared, and people who were in assets-

Sam Parr 6:22 Wait, how do you have a K? Like, doesn't that... There's multiple lines on that chart, I guess.

Shaan Puri 6:26 A K is only when it's four.

Sam Parr 6:28 Or when they ta-

Shaan Puri 6:28 Up and down

Sam Parr 6:28 ... or when they talk about, um, like flattening the curve, I'm like, I literally have to draw, like, an axis. I'm like, wait, so what does flatten... Like, what does that mean?

Shaan Puri 6:37 [laughs]

Sam Parr 6:37 You know what I mean?

Shaan Puri 6:37 By the way, the dumb thing isn't drawing it out and trying to understand it. That actually is the smart thing to do. It's taking, uh, uh, you know, a poorly informed action, a- action was the mistake. And so I ended up doing a bunch of things that I really never should have done. I sold a bunch of things, thinking that that was being safe and conservative, but it was actually a poor decision. In general, the number of poor decisions I've made simply from reacting versus responding, and I define a reaction as making a decision in the moment based on an emotion that I'm feeling, usually fear or greed. Responding being I have let the emotion cool off, I've let that settle, and I am now choosing a decision, uh, that I'm gonna make based off of some sort of logical rationale that I could write down, and I could write down the counterargument for it. And I, when I look at my argument for and my argument against, one of them wins. Um, and so anyways, now, now that's the, the short version of my, the current, my current process, which I do not, uh, claim to be foolproof, but it is just a improvement over, over dumb mistakes I made in the past.

Sam Parr 7:39 I found this great chart. I think it, uh, was, like, starting in 1990 or '94. This chart breaks it down to if you missed the top gaining days of a market, what would your portfolio be like versus what would your portfolio be like if you just set it and forget it. And it was something like, what was this? Uh, I think the starting number was $10,000. And so it was like if you missed the 30 best days, uh, you would have only, uh, $30,000. If you missed the, which is roughly 83% less than if you just set it. So if you just set it and forget it, you would have 181. If you missed the 30 best days, you would have 30 grand. And then if you missed the 10 best days, you would have 83 grand. You know what I mean? Like, you would-

Shaan Puri 8:19 Right

Sam Parr 8:19 ... like, I see this chart of, like, if you miss it. Now, I posted that chart, and people are like, "Yeah, well, now do that chart with, uh, missing the worst days." And I'm like, "Well, you'd have way more money." But, like, if you have some magic balls that, that could tell me [laughs] like, you know, well, get that pole vaulter guy with the huge balls. Maybe he could tell me, like, where is the worst day, that I could time it and we're good. You know what I mean?

Shaan Puri 8:40 Right. [laughs]

Sam Parr 8:40 But, like, like-

Shaan Puri 8:41 Tell me where I'm gonna die, and I, I'll know not to go there. [laughs]

Sam Parr 8:44 Yeah, like that type of situation. And so I'm Team, like, set it and forget it. I also think that you have to look at VTI, the, the Vanguard Total Index Fund. We're still up, like, 8 or 10% year to date even with this little crash. So, like, I still feel good.

Shaan Puri 9:01 Okay. Great. A good segment.

Sam Parr 9:03 Thanks.

Shaan Puri 9:03 Anytime I talk about the s- uh, the stock market or, um, it reminds me of, like, any time a, a, you know, a tech VC suddenly is, like, a foreign policy expert or is, like, a pandemic expert or whatever, you know, I, I'm a, I'm a novice when it comes to investing outside of my, my realm, which is basically m- [laughs] my realm is starting businesses or investing in private startups. Um, those are the two things I actually, you know, have spent enough time in to, to feel like I, I know what I'm talking about. Anything beyond that, I, I, I'm better off sticking to a, um, you know, an 80/20 type of strategy where I just, just do, just avoid huge mistakes and don't try to beat everybody.

Sam Parr 9:40 Yeah. And if you look at how many hedge funds beat the market, it's something like 5% of them. And so these are companies that have thousands of nerds just sitting around a computer to try and, like, beat the index, and they still, like, the vast majority of them struggle. And so that, like, whenever I see that stat, I'm like, yeah, don't try that. All right, guys, really quick. So back when I was running The Hustle, we had this premium newsletter called Trends. The way it worked was we hired a ton of analysts, and we created this sort of playbook for researching different companies and ideas and emerging trends to help you make money and build businesses. Well, HubSpot did something kinda cool. So they took this playbook that we developed and we gave to our analysts, and they turned it into an actionable guide and a resource that anyone can download. And it breaks down all the different methods that we use for spotting upcoming trends, for spotting different companies that are gonna explode and grow really quickly. It's pretty awesome that they took this internal document that we had for teaching our analysts how to do this into a tool and are giving it away for free that anyone can download. So if you wanna stay ahead of the game and you wanna find cool business ideas or different niches that most people have no idea they exist, this is the ultimate guide. So if you wanna check it out, you can see the link down below in the description. Now

Sam Parr 10:48 back to the show.

Shaan Puri 10:49 All right, dude, I gotta ask you about the Olympics. So you're my Olympics guy, and I am famously not an Olympics guy. I, I like watching them, to be honest with you. I just think the Olympics are an insane, an insane sport. But I emailed you as part of my Friday newsletter thing, and I was like, "Dude, what should I be watching for?" And you gave me a couple of tips, couple of storylines that made the Olympics, I don't know, 10 times more interesting for me, and I wanna talk to you about a couple of the things that you, you brought up, starting with this 1,500-meter race.

Sam Parr 11:21 How good was that?

Shaan Puri 11:22 A race I did not even know I cared about. I didn't even kn- honestly know this event existed. But can you set this up? Because you gave me storyline I needed, uh, to, to really care about this, and it was incredible.

Sam Parr 11:36 All right. So going into the 1,500-meter, so the 1,500-meter is, uh, 109 meters short of a mile, so roughly 15 seconds of a mile. So a really fast mile, let's say, is four minutes. A, uh, a, a good 1,500 is 3 minutes 44 seconds. Going into the race, there was two clear favorites. This guy named Jakob Ingebrigtsen. So basically this guy, I call him the Justin Bieber of track and field. So he was raised by his father, and, like, I think he has seven siblings, of which two or three others are also elite runners. Not as good as him, but, uh, elite runners. And so he's raised in this family with his dad, who's very disciplinarian, and he's also his coach. And he's like, they're raised to be great runners. And in Norway, where he's from, they have a TV show, so they're almost like, uh, reality TV stars also in Norway because these, uh, three brothers are wonderful at running. So this guy is the best. He's been the best since he was, like, 18. Uh, he has, I think, the second fastest or third fastest mile time of all time. He has the world record in the two mile. The problem with him, he's kind of a pretty boy. He's got these, like, cute tattoos all over his body, and all the runners are a little bit arrogant and co- cocky. You have to be like that in order to be one of the best athletes in the world. But his cockiness comes off as more arrogance. And it also kinda sucks because he's, like, this guy who's kind of ha- been the best since he, since he was young, and so he's not easy to root for. You know? He's, like, the guy who's had it all, and he is the man, but he kind of acts like the man. Now, the other guy he was gonna race against, this guy named Josh Kerr. I've been lucky enough to meet Josh in Austin one time because I was friends with his manager.

Shaan Puri 13:08 Was this, was this the guy you asked to see his calves or to touch his calves or something? [laughs]

Sam Parr 13:13 Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Shaan Puri 13:14 [laughs]

Sam Parr 13:15 The, uh, eh, the ... So Josh, I think he's from Wales. I th- I, I forget. Or no, Scotland. Sorry. Is it Scotland? Whatever it is, it's part of the UK, and so they f- they run under a British flag. And so he is more of a silly, quirky ... Like, he's got, like, the British, like, shithead kind of attitude that's very likable. And interestingly, if you- the reason [laughs] I talked about his calves, unlike a lot of the runners, he's still a really skinny guy. He's not as skinny as the other runners, and so he kinda sticks out. But he's, like, the man. And leading up to this race, they'd been talking trash to each other constantly. And track and field is usually a gentleman's sport. No one talks trash, and that kinda is one of the reasons why it's boring. They talked trash going into this race. And so it was, like, framed as Josh and Jakob versus each other. Josh is typically slower, but he al- he usually wins races because when in championship racing, it's not always the fastest person who wins, it's the person who shows up that day and has the best tactics and comes through in the end. 'Cause oftentimes they go sorta slow, and then the second half of the race is really fast. So it's typically not who's fastest, it's just who performs that day. So we go into this race, and it's just those two. We think that's what's gonna happen. It comes down to the last, uh, 200 meters, which is, uh, half a lap. So the last half a lap, it's setting up exactly like we thought, where Jakob is in front winning the race because he's the faster runner, and Josh Kerr behind him waiting to kick and beat him. And Josh takes off, and he's about to get Jakob, and out of nowhere, this American, Cole Hocker, who's got the slowest time of most all of the other eight runners in the field, comes out of nowhere and he wins. And not only does he win, with 100 meters left, that's the last straightaway, he's boxed in between Josh and Jakob. And you see him try to take off and Jakob, or Jakob is kinda blocking him a little bit, so he kinda pushes him a little bit, but he loses his momentum, and that's really hard in running because accelerating's the hard part. So when you lose the momentum, typically that's your one and only chance to do it. Somehow, Jakob goes just to the right a little bit so Cole Hocker can slip right through him on the inside rail, and he beats him. And not only does he beat him, Jakob fades to fourth, which is, like, insane. Josh Kerr gets second, and this guy Cole, he doesn't just win, he runs the wor- uh, the Olympic record, so the fastest time ever in the 1,500 meter, and he runs something like the seventh fastest time in the 1,500 meter ever. And he crushes his PR, and it was one of the best races I've ever seen.

Shaan Puri 15:34 That was a great summary. Uh, a couple of the things that I thought were fascinating about this. So when he was doing the trials and the, like, the semis, like, basically leading in, that guy Jakob had this strategy where he was so cocky, he would basically just start at the very p- back. So the race starts, he doesn't really care. He lets every single runner get a f- ahead of him, and he would just hang back at the back, and then, like, kind of the second lap, third lap, he would pass everybody and he would win the qualifiers. And it was just a cocky thing to do, but it was also effective because he, like, he knew he could push the pace and he just didn't wanna burn too much energy right at the very start.

Sam Parr 16:14 The, the goal of the semis and leading up, it's to win and qualify using the least amount of effort.

Shaan Puri 16:19 Right. Exactly. And in the semis, him and Josh were going, and it looked like at the end they both kinda were feeling each other out. It looked, it was the first time running felt like boxing, where you could see, oh, they're, they're kinda measuring each other's distance, their power, and they're getting a feel for each other. And you could tell even in the semis, there was almost a moment where Jakob won, but Josh kind of realized, like, "If I had pushed this last 50 meters, I think I could've taken him, but I don't wanna show him the full bag right now."

Sam Parr 16:46 They did something that was, uh, very controversial. Not controversial, but it's very, uh, it's part of the story in running, which is when you are winning a race or you're at the end of the race, if you look around to see who's around you, that's, like, a cocky move.

Shaan Puri 16:58 Right.

Sam Parr 16:59 And what you do is you see Jakob turn his head as if he's looking behind him. It's like, "I see you behind me."

Shaan Puri 17:04 Right.

Sam Parr 17:04 And that's, like, uh, that adds to the, the story, which is always fun.

Shaan Puri 17:09 Yeah, yeah. The runner's insult. [laughs]

Sam Parr 17:10 Yes.

Shaan Puri 17:10 And so we, uh ... And so but in the final, you, what you were saying was amazing 'cause he did the exact opposite. He starts the race immediately in first place, this guy Jakob. Goes faster than anybody has planned in the first two laps, faster than even afterwards. I was reading some interviews like, "Why did he fade so hard?" He's like, "Dude, I, I went way too hard at the start accidentally. Like, I didn't pace myself properly. I, I just got out, you know, kind of, like, in the, lost myself in the moment, lost some composure." He, he just went too fast at the beginning, pushed a pace, and, and it was pr- it was amazing. That, that part you talked about where the American dude tried to pass him, got kinda pushed back, it looked like it was a complete wrap for him at that point. It looked like there was no way you can get bumped back and then pass him again, but it ended up working out, which I thought was amazing. So if you haven't seen that one, go to YouTube and just type men's 1,500 meter. Watch the, uh, six-minute clip on the, on the NBC Sports channel. It is, like, straight out of a, a sports movie type of thing. Every, you know, like, if you're an American, you watch that, it is, uh, super inspiring to see this guy who was a complete underdog. Nobody was even talking about him. It was just a question of which of these two other guys, and then this little, the little engine that could basically passes them all at the very end, runs the race of his life. I thought that was amazing.

Sam Parr 18:26 And the best part, dude, Paris has killed it with this Olympics. The best part is they have this bell right at the finish line of all the events.

Shaan Puri 18:32 Right.

Sam Parr 18:32 And when you win an event, you walk over to the bell and you ring it. And he goes over and he rings this bell, and it was just, like, a really cool moment. So, like, I was all about it. I was, I was screaming so loud I woke my kid up from a nap. I was so pumped from this.

Shaan Puri 18:45 [laughs]

Sam Parr 18:45 So yeah, it, I'm, I'm happy. I've been a distance running fan for years. It's not the most popular sport because it's not that, that exciting. I'm happy this existed. It's good for the sport.

Shaan Puri 18:55 Okay, so I have a couple other winners and losers I wanna go through with you. So winner for sure, Cole Hocker in the 1500 meter race.

Shaan Puri 19:03 I'm gonna do another winner here. Mixed relay. Another race I didn't even know existed.

Sam Parr 19:08 It's new.

Shaan Puri 19:08 Didn't pay atten- Did you, did you watch this?

Sam Parr 19:11 Um, so historically, America's greatest event is the four-by-four relay, which is a-

Shaan Puri 19:16 Right

Sam Parr 19:16 ... quarter of a mile, one lap, four people each running one lap. We've, we've almost always been the best. The mixed relay, I think it's a weird event. It's, I think it's only lasted for two Olympics. This might be the only second Olympics that we've done it. Uh, and America, we got our ass kicked by, uh, was it Belgium?

Shaan Puri 19:33 No, Ne- the Netherlands, so-

Sam Parr 19:35 The Netherlands, sorry.

Shaan Puri 19:36 This was a hilarious race because the r- the way that the mixed relay works, say, is it's two guys, two girls, and they alternate. So it's a baton. You're, you know, you're handing off the baton. The American guy gets off to a good start. The woman for the [laughs] for the American team is standing in the wrong spot. Did you see this?

Sam Parr 19:53 No.

Shaan Puri 19:53 She was standing 30 meters forward, and at the last second, the official was like, "Yo, what are you doing [laughs] way over there?" You see all the other people, like, in her leg of the relay, they're all standing literally, like, 20 meters back. And she just spaced, she just spaced during the Olympics and didn't pay attention to where she was supposed to stand. It's like if you lined up for a kickoff at an NFL game, and one dude was just at the 30-yard line, and everyone else is standing somewhere else completely into be- It made no sense. The last second she gets into the, to the zone where she's allowed to be, so she didn't get DQ'd, which would've been horrible. But then the crazy part was this woman at the end. The Femke Bol.

Sam Parr 20:32 Femke Bol is awesome.

Shaan Puri 20:34 Do you want my Femke Bol shoes? I, I am, I am thrilled by this athlete that I didn't even know existed 24 hours ago. Femke Bol. A- if you haven't watched her, you gotta go watch this woman run. She just dominated the US in the last leg. She's this Dutch runner who looks like she's not even expending any effort whatsoever. She's like, she's like AI, dude. She looked like fucking ChatGPT grew legs and ran, effortlessly ran the re- the rest of this race when the rest of the humans were, like, sweating and trying. Femke Bol, dude, I feel like in another life, that would be your, uh, your, your dream girl. Femke Bol.

Sam Parr 21:11 Uh, I love her. I love her. She is my-

Shaan Puri 21:13 [laughs]

Sam Parr 21:13 [laughs] My dream girl. Uh, she's gonna be, so she's-

Shaan Puri 21:16 You gotta forget another life. This life.

Sam Parr 21:17 [laughs] Yeah.

Shaan Puri 21:17 [laughs]

Sam Parr 21:18 Hey, Fem, if you're listening. Uh-

Shaan Puri 21:20 [laughs]

Sam Parr 21:20 ... she, uh, she'll, she's a 400 meter hurdle specialist, and she's gonna race, uh, this woman named

Sam Parr 21:26 Sydney McLaughlin. And Sydney's gonna kick her ass. Uh, but Fem's gonna get second, and it's g- it's still gonna be a fun race. That's my prediction.

Shaan Puri 21:33 Wow, okay. Fighting words. I am, uh, officially, I'm like a half citizen of the Netherlands after watching that race, so I'm, I'm in on that one. That's another big winner for me. That race, and specifically Femke Bol, was a huge winner. Can I do some losers, losers of the Olympics?

Sam Parr 21:46 Let me do one more winner. So this is a relatively new thing. So starting in 2016, I think, in Rio, uh, something like that, uh, the Olympics did something cool. They got al- so there's a bunch of refugee athletes. So, uh, like, people who, uh, fled Iran. Like, there's a wrestler who fled Iran because he, uh, he was protesting and, and he fled. And so he's, can't compete for Iran anymore. There's a bunch of Syrian athletes, things like that. Uh, and so what the Olympics do is they put these guys onto this team. I forget what they call it, but it's basically the refugee team. And they come into the stadium with the Olympic flag, and I always cry, get, I get really emotional when I see these guys come in, 'cause this is, like, the definition of the Olympics for me. Um, and so they, like, pick athletes who are refugees and who have a, a shot at, uh, doing, doing good and hitting the standards. So anyway, they have this one boxer who is from Cameroon, and she had to flee Cameroon. And it's the first time that one of these refugee folks has ever medaled. And so she's guaranteed-

Shaan Puri 22:41 Right

Sam Parr 22:41 ... to get third place at least, maybe second place, uh, in boxing. And so her match, I think, is tomorrow. And so that's amazing. So, like, a lot of these kids, uh, well, they're young men and women now. They, but they, like, for example, fled Cameroon or South Sudan because they were being recruited to be children soldiers, things like this. So they, like, walk across, you know, a country to flee, and now they're in the Olympics. And I, and that's my favorite part of the, of the Olympics.

Shaan Puri 23:07 Do they have, like, a, so they, they walk in with the Olympic flag. What do they wear when they're at the Olympics? I haven't seen this. What, what's that uniform?

Sam Parr 23:13 Hi- historically, they wear, like, blue Olympic jerseys. And so they, when, and, and when they come in, uh, to the stadium, they all look different, you know, 'cause there's Syrians, and then there's Africans. And, like, uh, they all look different, and it's really cool to see this group of people who are all from all over the world but have similar, like, troubled backgrounds. And they all, like, come together wearing this jersey, and it's really cool to see that jersey kinda unite them.

Shaan Puri 23:36 Yeah, I love that. There, by the way, there's a surprising number, or maybe they just stand out when you hear the story, but there's a, there is a surprising number of Olympic athletes who were either, like, foster kids or, you know, adopt... This is basically The Blind Side story, right? It's like, "Oh, there's their parents." And you're like, "Oh, that doesn't look like their parents. Uh, interesting. What's the story here?" And it's like, well, they, they had this, like, incredibly tough upbringing, but then it makes sense at the same time. It's like, if you're looking for the people who are, like, extremely gritty and the people who are gonna, you know, overcome the, an incredible number of obstacles that it takes to become the best in the world at something, it kinda makes sense that maybe you were forged in the fire that way.

Sam Parr 24:12 I remember, like, you know, I was an ath- a track athlete, and I remember being really nervous before races. But you wouldn't, you'd be a lot less nervous if you came from a really hard life 'cause you'd be like, "This is easy, dude. This is, like- You know, like, this is nothing compared to what I experi- It's like to- today's a day off of my normal life.

Shaan Puri 24:27 I'm running-

Sam Parr 24:27 And so-

Shaan Puri 24:27 I'm running for, uh, for a time, not a, not running away from dictators, right? [laughs]

Sam Parr 24:32 Right.

Shaan Puri 24:32 It's different stakes. [laughs]

Sam Parr 24:34 Yeah. And so, uh, that's why I love sports. And so what, who are the losers?

Shaan Puri 24:37 So we got another w- so the winner, w- another winner we're marking here is the Team Refugee team, and my honorable winners are the, uh, the parents who adopted, uh, several of these foster Olympians. You know, [laughs] that,

Shaan Puri 24:48 that may be my, uh, my future, future, uh, career. All right. So some of my losers here. And of course, I say this playfully 'cause they're Olympiads. They're not actually losers. I'll give you the most controversial one first. Simone Biles and, in general, gymnastics.

Sam Parr 25:03 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 25:04 Can I give you my case? Can I zag here? Can I give you my case on why-

Sam Parr 25:08 Please.

Shaan Puri 25:09 There's something about gymnastics that just creeps me out, dude. There's something strange-

Sam Parr 25:12 I agree

Shaan Puri 25:13 ... and joyless. There, there's not only the controversy that happened where a lot of, like, sexual assault stuff was going on with, with gymnastics, but gymnastics seems so high-stress, dude. Like, when she fell on the beam and, like, whoop, there goes, you know, four years. There's something just ... They have to do this fake smile while they're doing their routine, but it's like the ... They look like the Joker, dude. That's, that's not a real smile. I've seen real smiles. That is not a real smile. It just seems incredibly stressed. It seems like a joyless sport. And she is so dominant, which is amazing, but there's something uncanny about it. It's like watching an AI video where you're like, "This looks beautiful, but there's something inhuman about what I'm watching here." There's something joyless about gymnastics. That's my take.

Sam Parr 25:56 Dude, isn't it weird that you're, you're judged in a sport on, like, your appearance and your smile? Like, I think that's weird. I think that's weird. Like, if one of these women didn't smile and just had, like, a plain face, I think she would get hurt, uh, in, in terms of judging.

Shaan Puri 26:10 Dude, have you seen our YouTube comments? Everybody's judged on appearance. [laughs] Right now-

Sam Parr 26:14 It's just weird that it's, like, sports

Shaan Puri 26:15 ... in the basic comments, I'm gonna get ripped for everything I'm saying and mostly the way I look. [laughs]

Sam Parr 26:21 It, I think it's weird. I also dislike, uh, sports that are, uh, mostly judged. You know what I'm saying? I, that-

Shaan Puri 26:27 Yeah

Sam Parr 26:27 ... that always makes me mad.

Shaan Puri 26:28 Yeah. It's just, it's a ... Th- Gymnastics was a rough watch for me. Also, can't tell the level of difficulty.

Sam Parr 26:34 It all seems hard. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 26:35 They all look incre- they all look absolutely incredible. And it's like, well, no, this one was clearly four-tenths of a point worse than that one. And so it is kind of an unwatchable sport also because everything that all the athletes are doing looks superhuman to me. Whereas a race, there's something just so pure and primal about a race. It's like that person ran and won. I can tell who won and lost. In gymnastics, I really can't tell who wins and loses, um, at all.

Sam Parr 27:01 So in skateboarding, that's now an Olympic sport, and I like to skate. And you get points if you do ... So there's, uh, like, your regular stance, the way you skate all the time, and then you get more points if you do a switch, which is you put your not-dominant foot in front. You know, you switch around. It's freaking weird. Like, who cares which footed, footed you are? Like, why do you get ... Well, it ... Like, what if you're like? You know what I mean? I always thought that's weird.

Shaan Puri 27:22 Yeah.

Sam Parr 27:22 And it's similar with gymnastics. Like, if you use, like, uh, like, who's to determine what's more challenging if you use, like, your less dominant hand to

Sam Parr 27:30 lead?

Shaan Puri 27:30 Yeah. [laughs]

Sam Parr 27:30 I think it's weird. That's why I'm not a fan of that.

Shaan Puri 27:32 Like, if I take the SATs with my left hand, do I get an extra 100 points? That doesn't make any sense.

Sam Parr 27:36 Right. Or, like, with an eye patch.

Shaan Puri 27:37 [laughs]

Sam Parr 27:37 I, so I think that's strange.

Shaan Puri 27:39 Okay. Other losers, uh, that I have. This pole vault guy going viral 'cause he got a big schlong.

Sam Parr 27:46 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 27:48 Okay.

Sam Parr 27:48 He picked the wrong contest. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 27:50 Yeah, exactly. Dude, if I see another meme about this guy ... Everybody had the same joke. It's actually not even him. It's everybody who made the same exact joke of, like, he actually won.

Sam Parr 28:00 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 28:02 Dude, come on.

Sam Parr 28:03 Basically, a, a guy went up on a pole vault. He cleared the bar, but on his way down, his dick hit the bar, and it fell over. Uh-

Shaan Puri 28:11 Yeah

Sam Parr 28:11 ... it sucks. [laughs] That sucks. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 28:15 No, he won, dude. All right. Um,

Shaan Puri 28:18 last one is a winner, Noah Lyles. Uh, what do you have to say about this? The guy wins what seemed like the closest 100-meter race. They, nobody even realized that he won until it was finally, like, the camera in, like, a 90 analysis realized that his chest hair crossed the line first.

Sam Parr 28:36 Noah has a little bit of a problem. He's an amazing athlete. I think he's a great guy. He's real cringe. So you'll have to, if you pay attention, he's gonna be running the 200 meter, which is his, uh, better event. And he's probably gonna win 'cause he's great. He's got a cringe problem, which is, uh, wh- wh- he's the, you know, w- what do we, what do they call it in UFC? The Triple C. He's a, a-

Shaan Puri 28:58 Yeah

Sam Parr 28:58 ... three-time ch- He's a, he's a three-time champion. The third medal is, uh, for cringe.

Shaan Puri 29:02 Cringe. Yeah. [laughs]

Sam Parr 29:03 Uh, yeah. [laughs] So he's the cringe champion. Noah Lyles has a little bit of an issue with that.

Shaan Puri 29:07 Were you, um, surprised, impressed by the, uh, the finish?

Sam Parr 29:11 I thought that he was gonna get second. Yeah, I was surprised that he won. Um, I was surprised that he won. And here's another thing. I was surprised that the Jamaican guy who got second, you should look, look up how big that guy is. People don't realize this. These 100-meter runners and these 200-meter runners, they look jacked and ripped.

Shaan Puri 29:27 Right.

Sam Parr 29:27 And they look jacked and ripped because they're, like, mostly naked, and they're, like, flexing, right? They just ... You always look better when you're, like, [laughs] working out. But if you look at their body weight and their height, they're pretty lean, small guys. They're actually ... It's like Usain Bolt was 6'4" or 6'5", but he only weighed, like, 190 pounds. He, he's actually-

Shaan Puri 29:42 Right

Sam Parr 29:42 ... not that, not that huge of a guy. The guy who, from Jamaica, just beast. Just beast of a guy. I was shocked that he did as good as he did.

Shaan Puri 29:50 [laughs] He's like Usain Bolt's protege, right? He's, like, uh, training with him or something?

Sam Parr 29:56 The, well, Jamaica's a small-ass country. They all train, uh, with similar coaches. So, uh, no, he's not good enough to be called his protege, but he's good.

Shaan Puri 30:03 Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Um, okay, two questions for you. Number one, do you believe that any of these guys are clean?

Sam Parr 30:10 Yes. Uh, I tend to be optimistic. I also thought Lance Armstrong was clean, though. So, uh, but I, I, I-

Shaan Puri 30:16 [laughs]

Sam Parr 30:16 ... tend to be optimistic. I think, uh, beating drug tests is, is fairly challenging, but I, I think they're clean. Yeah.

Shaan Puri 30:23 Right. [laughs] Before you ask me for my investment advice, I advise you to look at my perph- my portfolio. [laughs]

Sam Parr 30:28 Yeah. Like, I was like-

Shaan Puri 30:30 All right

Sam Parr 30:30 ... I thought Lance was clean, so You don't

Shaan Puri 30:34 Right. Um, okay, second question. What's left to look forward to rest of the Olympics for me? 'Cause the Olympics are also a complete...

Shaan Puri 30:41 Uh, the other loser is the Olympics programming, how impossible this is to follow and watch. If you didn't tell me, "Hey, here's three, four storylines that you should pay attention to," that I could get emotionally invested in it and understand what I'm looking at when I look at it and which, which event to pay attention to, this would've been impossible to even enjoy. So what's left to enjoy for me?

Sam Parr 31:02 So the men's 200 will be fun. So here's a sleeper, uh, uh, of a, an event. There's a kid named Quincy. There's a, a grown man named Quincy, Quincy Hall, who's in the 400 meter dash. He potentially is gonna win. But then there's younger Quincy, who's a 16-year-old kid, who looks like a 16-year-old kid. You know, a lot of, like, 16-year-old pro- prodigy athletes, they don't look like children. He looks like a child. He got fourth at the 400 meter trials in America. You have to get top three in order to go to the Olympics, but he got fourth, which means he's put on a relay. He's probably not good enough to be in the final 4x400, but if you watch the prelims for, uh, when America is in the 4x400, watch this young kid, Quincy. He's 16 years old. He's like darling. Like, he's got, like, uh, r- the perfect type of charisma where he's, like, composed, but he still, like, talks like a child. That's gonna be really exciting. I think he'll be the youngest, uh, American track and field athlete ever, uh, to go to the Olympics.

Shaan Puri 31:52 My mind only has room for Femke Bol, so, uh, I really... Uh, look at my notes here. I've just put boxes around the name Femke Bol, like, you know, 16 times as you've been talking, 'cause I'm not really paying attention to anything except for her.

Sam Parr 32:04 I mean, she's good. She- but she's gonna get her, her ass beat in the 400 meter hurdles, but she'll, she'll be... She's a wonderful, uh, second place winner. Uh, so watch Quincy in the 4x400 relay prelims. He'll be, he'll be a runner.

Shaan Puri 32:17 Okay.

Sam Parr 32:17 And that will be really exciting.

Shaan Puri 32:19 Okay. One last question for you. You're a runner. These [laughs] one of the things that they were talking about was like, "Yeah, I had to recover from that 100 meter thing to be ready for the 200," or whatever. They're... Like, Noah Lyles was talking about this. I understand that in theory, but also this is a 10-second race. They run it and-

Sam Parr 32:35 Yeah

Shaan Puri 32:35 ... it takes nine seconds. You really need two, like, you have two days. Is that really hard to recover from a nine-second race?

Sam Parr 32:41 No. So yeah, it is because-

Shaan Puri 32:44 You get sore from that?

Sam Parr 32:45 They do the... So to, to run a race at, at a big championship, you have to run three races. So one, one sprint race is actually three. So the quarter, semi, race. The semi and the final are usually always on the same day. So that final happened I don't know how many hours, but the same day as the semifinal. So he had ran that morning as well.

Shaan Puri 33:05 Right.

Sam Parr 33:05 And when you run sprints, it taxes your central nervous system, which is different. So you basically, it's sort of like, uh, if I were to say, like, "Hey, you have to do this box jump squat 20 times in a row, and you gotta go for max height," you're gonna be this type of sore where your insides, like, you, you feel like your nerves hurt, not necessarily, like, your aerobic system. Do you know what I mean?

Shaan Puri 33:26 This is, like, how when I get done with this podcast and I go hang out with my wife and I'm just like, "I need to just, uh, not talk for a while," and she doesn't understand. She's like, "You talk for a living. What are you ti- talking, you're tired from talking?" I need to tell, I need to go with this, uh, s- sympathetic nervous system e- uh, explanation just to confuse her too, to make it acceptable, so I'm gonna do that.

Sam Parr 33:45 Yeah, and that's how it feels. Like, if you go and do, like, a explosive workout, it's like your, it's like your insides just feel depleted. It's, it's kind of a weird-

Shaan Puri 33:52 Right

Sam Parr 33:52 ... uh, feeling.

Shaan Puri 33:53 I guess I'll take your word for it. Never gonna do it. All right. Um, [laughs] that's the Olympics segment. Uh, thank you, Sam, for making that interesting

Shaan Puri 34:00 for me.

Sam Parr 34:01 All right. So let me tell you, uh, about a story and, and I wanna hear something. Uh, I have a question for you on how this story ends. So in 1929, there's this guy and he starts this company where it's very odd. He basically [laughs] is cleaning the rags and uniforms for circus performers. Very strange start, but that's how this company starts. And he turns that into a business, and he calls it ACME Industrial Laundry. And he kinda scales that up, but not a lot. It's a very small business. But he scales it up to where he starts doing laundry for other uniform businesses. Now, he started that in 1929. By 1960, his son, who's in, like, 21 years old, comes into the business and he's like, "Hey, Dad, I would love to work for you and maybe take this over one day." And the, the dad's like, "Yeah, sure. Let's do it." And it does okay, but inevitably, there's a little, little argument between the father and the son. And so the father calls the son into the office and he's like, "Hey, look, man, this isn't working." And the son's totally expecting him to be like, uh, you know, "You're fired. You're out." And the dad goes, "Look, this isn't working. Here's the keys, man. You run it. S- let's see what you can do. I'll step out your way. Let's see if you can pull this off." And so the s- son, he's at the time 21, 22, 23 years old. His name's Richard. He takes control of this business. And he's like, "Let's grow this sucker." And so in 1960, when he takes it over, it's doing $180,000 in revenue, which is something like $2 million today. It has 12 employees, and he's like, "Look, we're gonna, like, focus on doing laundry for, uh, companies who need cleaning supplies," so, like, extra rags. They're basically just washing rags. And he grows it, and it works out well. And he grows it to the point where after, I think, eight years, the business grows from $200,000 a year up to $1.6 million a year, which is the equivalent of, like, 15 million bucks a year. He's growing this business, and it's a, he's now expanded into laundering company uniforms, which is a very strange thing to get into. I didn't even know that existed. But he grows this sucker for the next 50 years. And now they've renamed the company to Cintas. Have you heard of Cintas?

Shaan Puri 36:07 Yeah. I see their trucks.

Sam Parr 36:08 I, I see their trucks all the time too, and I had no idea. Okay, so do me a favor. Go to Cintas market cap. Just Google that and sh- look at what it says.

Shaan Puri 36:18 $75 billion. Wow.

Sam Parr 36:20 It's a $75 billion company. And their main business is still laun- uh, now they, they launder uniforms, but they also supply the uniforms. So they make uniforms for all types of businesses. You know, like you'll see, like, if you see like a typical janitor outfit, that's a very easy one, but it could be restaurants, it could be anything. And then they, uh, rent you your uniform, and they'll launder it for you. But then they've expanded, so like if there's a fire extinguisher in the bathroom of a restaurant, it probably has come from them. If there's cleaning supplies, it probably comes from them. Because once they made inroads into a business, they're like, "Hey, a- along with your uniform, we're gonna sell you all these other things." And so I think they do something like $8 or $9 billion, uh, a year in revenue, and it's subscription revenue, so it's like a huge company.

Shaan Puri 37:03 Why is it subscription revenue?

Sam Parr 37:05 It's uniform rental.

Shaan Puri 37:07 Oh. [laughs] Nice.

Sam Parr 37:09 Yeah. [laughs] They gotcha. Uh, it's called, uh, RaaS. Uh, uh, you, you know, like [laughs] rental as a service. I don't know, it just, that's just what they do. Uh, they, they sell uniforms or they rent uniforms. And so they're able to get like these subscription businesses, and then it's also like real recurring revenue because, uh, they'll sell you all this other stuff and they've got inroads. But as the business was taking off, Richard Farmer, uh, his name, uh, he starts getting old and he's like, "I need to figure out a way how to like keep this within my family." And so to this day, the family, the Farmer family still owns something like 20%, I think, maybe 18% of the business. And like, he was like, "I made it my mission to create this like generational thing, and I've trained my children to help take this over and to make decisions as, as it comes to, uh, giving away our money, but also governing the, the, the company." I don't... A family member isn't the CEO, but they're still like involved. And so the reason why I looked this guy up is I'm very fascinated with how you could pull this off, where you could keep your family in the business. I think that it's very hard, and it's high risk, high reward. And so I've been like studying all these families who have pulled it off, and these guys have. And from the outside, there's a dozen other examples of people who have crashed and burned, and this has not worked.

Sam Parr 38:18 My question to you, is this a thing that you aspire to have? You know, your, one of your three kids, uh, kinda take things over or you pass the baton to them, or do you not care about this? Because I've talked to a lot of people, and it seems 50/50 of people who are like adamantly in favor, and other people who are just like, "I don't give a shit."

Shaan Puri 38:41 My answer's really split. I don't aspire to do this, meaning it's not something I'm planning to do or really wanna push on anybody. Um, do I think it would be awesome? Yeah, totally. In the same way where like if my son plays basketball as his favorite sport, that's gonna be awesome for me because I love basketball, and I could coach him, and I could help him i- in a way that I couldn't if it was tennis or not, not sports at all. So it's, to me, it's a bonus. It's not a plan. I do think about this stuff because on two ends of the spectrum. On one end, I've met way too many rich guys who talk themselves into working too long, working too much with this like, "I'm just doing it all for my kids." It's like, dude, kids just kinda want you at home, actually. They just wanna spend some time with you right now. They, th- they don't really care, you know, whether you leave them, you know, $12 million or $22 million or $42 million. It's not like... Your kid right now doesn't care, and also doing that, giving them more might actually be a disservice to them. Back to the kind of, you know, uh, our conversation earlier about about the Olympics and how like, you know, what does, uh, where does character come from? Um, so I think that it's really dangerous to talk yourself into, "I'm doing this for my kids," so I refuse to let myself do that. I think anybody who says that honestly is lying. I think you're doing it for yourself, um, and you use your kids as a justification to, uh, why you're, why you're doing that, as my, my, my general opinion. And so I just, to safeguard myself from ever lying to myself in that way, 'cause it's such a s- sexy lie, right? Who's gonna say anything bad to you? You can never get checked, right? There's no checks and balances if you just say, "I'm just doing it for my family. I'm doing it for my kids." And so, um, so I think it's really important for myself to not, not lie to myself that way. If my kids happen to wanna be intere- ha- happen to have an interest or appeal to it, awesome. I will be super excited and can't wait to, to do that. I do hope that that happens, but hope is, you know, not a plan, not a strategy. Um, on the other hand, I'm on vacation, and one of the best moments of my day yesterday was I went to a water park. Dude, have you been to a water park like in the last 20 years?

Sam Parr 40:48 Dude, Nick Gray rented a water park for his 40th birthday. But in order to save money, [laughs] he rented it from 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM. And so me and a bunch of 40-year-olds went to his birthday party, uh, where we had a whole water park for ourselves starting at 7:00 AM.

Shaan Puri 41:04 Besides that, have you been, have you been to a water park?

Sam Parr 41:07 No, I... It's just too full of pee, man. It grosses me out.

Shaan Puri 41:09 [laughs] I know. I was absolutely, uh, disgusted by being in that pool with so many people. Um-

Sam Parr 41:15 Dude, somebody like Tweety Bird shirts and... Ugh, no, not for me.

Shaan Puri 41:20 Yeah. They did this thing where they... 'Cause I'm in the kids' section, and they, um, they take a, a break at the top of the hour for five minutes as a potty break of like, "Hey, this is the time to like take your kids to go and pee."

Sam Parr 41:33 That just brings more attention to it. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 41:35 Nobody left the pool, and I was like, [laughs] "Nobody's leaving right now? There can only be one explanation for this."

Sam Parr 41:42 It's filthy.

Shaan Puri 41:42 Anyway, besides that, there was one beautiful thing amongst the disgust, which was while we were walking in, you know, there's this dad and he's pulling like a wagon. Like his, when you have kids, you just bring so much shit everywhere, and his kid was walking next to him. His kid's probably like seven years old, and he's walking in front of us, and he stops like 10 feet ahead, and it's like a really narrow path. And normally, like my like flaw as a parent is I'm very impatient and just like get like, I get like really like fussy and like annoyed easily when I'm like beyond like a four-hour stretch with my kids. I just become like cranky. And so this guy stops. I'm ready to be cranky, and he does something really, really awesome. I realize why he stopped, and it's 'cause his kid asked him something. And the dad who was... The kid was like, kind of like looked kinda athletic. The dad didn't really look super athletic. Looked like, you know, typical water park American, [laughs] let's say.

Sam Parr 42:33 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 42:34 And he- but he was showing him, he goes, "Oh, when you're doing that in soccer," um, he's like, "when they come at you this way, what you wanna do..." And he was showing him how to use his feet to like not have the ball get stolen. And, and the kid was not, like, making eye contact, but he was processing it. He was watching the, the dad, and he was processing. He wasn't saying a whole lot back, and the dad was trying to just show him something. And in the moment, at the base, it was just like a dad teaching his son something. And I don't know, I've gotten pretty soft, but, like, that like kinda like touched me for a moment. I was like, "This is so amazing." Just this, uh, this dad just teaching his kid this little thing, like just being able to pass down one little bit of information, and the kid so earnestly processing it. 'Cause there's so many things you tell your kids that they're not listening, and they don't care, and they don't wanna know, and they don't wanna listen. They don't wanna take their vegetables, basically. Um, but the kid genuinely cared, and it meant something to him. And you could tell the kid had had like a bad experience and was trying to figure out how to overcome the bad experience. And I fucking loved it, dude. And it just made me, for the rest of the day, I just found, like, all these little poc- little moments to, like, have a different conversation with my kid. And so, like, you know, later that day, I'd... We were, like, parking the car, and I was like... Told my son, I was like, "Come, come back to me." He's only three years old. And I did the thing, like, illegal thing you're not supposed to do. I like put him on my lap, and, like, had him, like, drive in the parking lot to, like, park the car. Uh, but like, he had to sit in my lap while I was driving it. Like, this was like 50 feet, but like whatever. And I told him, I said, um... My son does this really f- cute thing where he goes... He'll do something, and then, like, an hour later he'll, he'll go, "Daddy, you know why Mai do that?" Like, "You know why Mai said I wasn't gonna eat that?" And he just keeps... Oh, he's always like, "You know why Mai punched her?" And it's like, then he's got some explanation that never even makes sense, but it's so cute. And so, like, me and my wife, whenever we fight, we do that now. It's like, "You know why Mai was an asshole earlier? It's because I..." [laughs] You know, whatever. And so I told him, I go, "You know why Mai let you drive just now?" And he goes, "Why?" And I go, "Because I'm teaching you how to be a, be a man." [laughs] And then he goes... And, uh, and he goes, "Okay." And I am like, "Go tell your sister when you get back. Say, 'You know why I got to go do that? 'Cause Dad is teaching me how to be a, be a, be a big man.'" And he goes in the room and he goes, uh, "Hey, Blush, you know why, um, uh," [laughs] "why Dada let me drive? Because he's teaching me to be a big human." [laughs]

Sam Parr 44:43 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 44:43 And she's like, "What?" And my wife's like, "What?"

Sam Parr 44:46 Dude, that's awesome. I'm, uh, I'm excited for my... When my kids are old enough that I can try to do that, and I'm totally gonna do a ton of them. And yeah, I'm thinking about the same thing too about children and, like, what it means to, like, bring them in if, if it's all- at all possible. But I do believe that what you said was true of it is mostly a lie that we tell ourselves of why we are grinding. It ain't for them. It's so we could feel fucking dope and powerful.

Shaan Puri 45:08 [laughs] Yes, exactly.

Sam Parr 45:10 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 45:10 And by the way, I didn't answer your question fully, which is if they're interested. Yeah, a lot of people don't wanna do it 'cause they're like, "Oh, working with family's messy. Working with friends is messy." Um, I learned one thing on this podcast, episode some- I don't know, one of the first 20 episodes with Mike Brown. He said, uh... I asked him about, he brought his brothers into his business. And I was like, "Was that a good idea to bring your brothers in?" And he looked at me like I was i- like I was asking him, like, "Are, are you sure you wanna drink water? It's pretty wet." And he goes, "M- my view of life is you find the people you love, and you do life with them." And then that became, like, fucking central to my core. Over, like, in that split second, I, like, changed as a human being. I was like, "Oh, okay." That made total sense to me, and that's the answer, right? Like, find the people you love, and then do life with them. And I will hit up people, and I'll, like, try to find an excuse to just do a project with them or do a trip with them or do a something with them. Like, that has been so fruitful. In, in one of my businesses, we brought in my... You know, I do a business with my wife. We brought in my sister into a business. I've done so many diff- I've done a business with my two best friends. Like, that has become just an operating philosophy that, that has served me very well. And like yeah, there are times where it doesn't work out well. So what? That's like everything. There's no foolproof strategy. But the upside of finding people you love and doing life with them is so much higher than the downsides of when it doesn't work out, uh, in my opinion. But, um-

Sam Parr 46:30 Right

Shaan Puri 46:30 ... and that's how I feel about this podcast, by the way. Like, you know, when we met, I always loved hanging out with you. It's like Sam's this crazy combination of really smart, but smart about things that nobody else I know is smart about those things. Like, he knows about this fucking family apron rental business. You know, like, you just have a, a trillion of these things. And you're also really fun and funny, which is super, like... Which I learned to appreciate was very rare in people. Like, the more kinda successful you get, the more serious people get. Whereas you were one of these people where the more successful you got, the sillier you got. And I was like, "Dude, I just wanna have this guy in my life somehow," right? Like, how... I, I don't know what the excuse. Uh, you moved away, but I'm glad this podcast became, like, an excuse to, to do, to do that.

Sam Parr 47:14 Well, I'm glad too. And by the way, to the people listening, that shit takes work. Like, I, uh, particularly, like, like you and I, uh, like, like we give and take, uh, to make each other happy. But I would imagine it's the same thing with children and business, where it's like, I know this is the wrong thing that we should be doing, but I gotta let the kid, like, fuck up. You know what I mean?

Shaan Puri 47:34 Right.

Sam Parr 47:34 And I think that's really hard to do.

Shaan Puri 47:36 Dude, there was a great quote. I don't know if I'm allowed to quote this. I think I am. Uh, when I went to that event for, uh, the Tiny event in Canada, Chris, uh, Andrew Wilkinson and his partner, Chris, they, they own Tiny, the holdco. The holdco has like 40 companies inside. They're doing a session about holdcos. And somebody asked them, they were like, "Hey, I'm, I'm setting up my holdco. I'm in year one, and I just wanna know, like, how much support do you guys have from the back office? Like, do you centralize finances? 'Cause I think that could be really good, like cost savings, plus easy way to have oversight. And do you centralize legal? Like, what do you als- what do you, what do you guys centralize to, to get the most synergy?" And, um, their answer is, [laughs] Chris was like, "We, we, basic- up till now, we've done noth- we, we've centralized almost nothing." And he goes, "For two reasons. Number one..." So he had a, he had a, a smart reason, and then he had a great quote. His smart reason was, he goes, "Whenever we owned the financials, it felt good 'cause we felt in control. The problem was we were in control." The CEO looked at the numbers and was like, "Those are your numbers. Those aren't my numbers. I don't own that."

Sam Parr 48:37 Right.

Shaan Puri 48:37 "I don't know, I don't know what that target is. I don't know what those numbers are. I'm on the receiving end of these numbers." And, um, uh, that, uh, that's a good point. Um, the second thing, [laughs] the quote he said, he goes, um, "We wanted all of our companies to be able to run without us. And the only way to do that was to just completely..." You know, not completely neglect, but, like, to, to neglect them, to not offer support and services. And he goes, uh, "The children of deadbeat dads grow up tough and independent." [laughs] There was like a groan in the audience, but I was like, "I like that. I like that a lot." [laughs]

Sam Parr 49:11 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 49:12 He's like, he's like, "It's true." Like, you know, like, it's the, the kids that grow up in a, like, harder environment that are tough and, and independent.

Sam Parr 49:19 The, the, the refugee-

Shaan Puri 49:20 And-

Sam Parr 49:20 ... the refugee team of the Olympics.

Shaan Puri 49:22 [laughs] Exactly. And I thought that was such a good quote and, uh, a great answer. And he, he said, he goes, "By the way, now that might not be the answer. Now we might end up centralizing more as we're now a public company and all this other stuff. There's other reasons to do it now. But what got us here and what worked for us was that."

Sam Parr 49:38 All right. That's the pod. [upbeat music]