The man who made a billion off blueberries

Want to start your own million dollar business with less than $1k? Get the guide: https://clickhubspot.com/ejn Episode 744: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talk about the insane economics of Broadway shows, the blueberry billionaire plus business lessons from sports. — Show Notes: (0:00) Billy of the week: John Bragg (20:40) America's Banana King (24:29) Sam goes to Broadway (34:01) Lessons from Tennis (42:36) The pain cave (50:53) Rebranding motivational phrases (59:48) Jerry Seinfeld on how to be great — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies! Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N. A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Shaan Puri?

  This guy's story is kind of amazing. So this is basically a farmer billionaire. Love it. And? In.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like my days off on the road. Let's travel never.

• 0:17Shaan Puri?

  Okay, let me give you this one. This is kind of a crazy story. So, do the words John Bragg mean anything to you? No, they don't. Didn't mean anything to me either. Shout out to Shane Parrish over at Farnham Street. He did a great podcast with this guy that caught my attention. This guy's story is kind of amazing. So this is basically a farmer billionaire. Love it. And? In.

• 0:44Shaan Puri?

  There was only two sources for this. Farnham Street and the Van Trump Report had written about this guy. Those are the only things I could find. He's got a biography as well, but, um, all right. So, so here's this guy's story. I just think there's, there's a bunch of factoids about this guy that I just think you're gonna love. You're gonna love this guy's whole aura, his vibe. He is the billionaire of the week. Cue the music.

• 1:07Speaker 02

  A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion dollars.

• 1:12Shaan Puri?

  John Bragg, this guy grows up on a family farm, like a sawmill or something like that. And when he's in high school, you know, what do teenagers do? They start to experiment. They start to dabble. Maybe a little bit of, maybe girls, maybe weed. No, no. Blueberries. He tries to harvest blueberries for the first time at 13, 14 years old. You know, he starts, he gets the itch. And then he goes to a local blueberry farmer. He decides, hey, can I pick blueberries for you? And he picks blueberries all year. His last year of high school, him and four or five other blueberry pickers end up making $4,000 each picking blueberries, which was a lot of money at the time because this guy's very old. And he realizes, oh, wait, I can pay for college if I just pick blueberries every year. And so he's making, college was like 10 or 12 grand. He's making four grand.

• 1:56Shaan Puri?

  He realizes, oh, I can do this. My parents otherwise weren't really gonna be able to send me, but I could do this. And so he makes more money the next year and the next year picking blueberries. Finally, when he graduates, he's got a couple of options on the table. You know, plan A was going to be to become a teacher and he was going to make, I think, like thirty eight hundred dollars or something like that, be a teacher, extra hundred bucks if he coaches like the basketball team or something. And plan B was let me go work on the family business, maybe over time, buy out my dad on the sawmill. But he decides to go plan C. He's like, I think this blueberry thing, there's something to it. And he decides to start his own blueberry farm. So he buys a little piece of land. And he starts trying to harvest blueberries and it goes pretty well the first couple of years.

• 2:38Shaan Puri?

  He's doing all right, but a couple of years in, he there's a problem in the blueberry industry, which was that one year there was just huge supply glut. So there was way too many blueberries, not enough buyers and prices crashed. And so he's like, shit, you know, could have quit, but he's like, no, no, no. I'm just going to figure out what I should have done differently. He's like, I need basically like a backup plan, a sort of, you know, an insurance. And he wasn't doing financial insurance, but he's like, I need another way to make money in case this ever happens again. Never again will I let this happen to me where I'm at the mercy of the prices. And so he decides, I think I need to build a packaging and freezing plant for blueberries. Now, he's got no money, but he's like, I'm going to try to do this. So he goes to the other blueberry farmers.

• 3:24Shaan Puri?

  He says, hey, guys, we all just got whipped. Let's put some money in together and I'm going to build this plant and then you can use the plant too. You could freeze and package your stuff too, if it ever, if we ever have oversupply. And so they do that. He borrows money from the bank. He gets money from the other farmers. He starts to build this thing, never, no experience, by the way, no manufacturing, no factory experience, but he's like, I could do this. So he builds this plant and in the first year that they build the plant, he's ready for two million. Like a capacity of two million, but they only produce a hundred thousand because there's this crazy frost that kills all the blueberry production that year. And he's like, oh my God, I owe so much money.

• 4:04Shaan Puri?

  And I, and like, we came in at like 5% of the, like the estimated like freezing capacity. This is terrible. I have this empty factory now. I owe a lot of money. And basically it's like, dude, you gotta just let this go, declare bankruptcy, move on with your life. Instead, he calls another guy who he knows, this guy McCain, and he's like McCain, he's like, yo, what's something you need to make, but you don't want to make? Is there anything? Give me the last thing you want to do, but you should do it. And the guy's like, all right, I got you. Onion rings. He's like, onion rings? Okay. He's like, can you send me like a file like about? So he gets like a little book on how to make onion rings. And he's like, all right, say less. I'm never going to ask you another question. I will figure this out from here.

• 4:49Shaan Puri?

  And so he, he's got an empty factory, but he turns it into like, just for that one season or whatever, he makes onion rings for this guy. It just tides him over enough to continue. And so he carries on and he ends up building something called Oxford Frozen Foods, which today controls about 40 to 50% of the global supply of blueberries. It's like 70 million pounds of blueberries they're making every year.

• 5:15Sam Parr?

  Dude, they still have onion rings, blueberries and onion rings and mozzarella sticks on their website.

• 5:20Shaan Puri?

  You never forget, you never forget who got you there. And so he builds this absolute juggernaut over time and they become bigger, bigger, bigger. His brother invents this like blueberry picker that can do the work of 35 like humans doing this. And he's like, oh, amazing. And then what he does is he actually like gives it out, basically like freely shares it with other blueberry farms too. He's like, he's like, what's good for one is good for all. Here we go. And so he wants the entire blueberry industry to grow because he's like, the more the blueberry industry grows, the better we all do. I don't want to be the biggest fish in the smallest pond. I want the pond to get bigger and we're competing with all the other fruits out there. So if we can up our production and we can have more blueberries, we can build more innovative products, this is going to be good for everybody. And so he's got this very interesting business philosophy.

• 6:05Shaan Puri?

  He ends up then going in to a new business. So it's many years later. Actually, I actually, I think he kind of did this around the same time. I shouldn't say many years later. I don't know the exact date on this, but it wasn't like once he is already like huge. It was like somewhere, somewhere around the same time. TV was picking up and cable, cable TV was picking up. And this guy's from Nova Scotia, population 9,000. And so they held like an auction, they were like, hey, all right. Who wants to buy the cable TV rights for Nova Scotia? Nobody shows up. He's the only guy there. And so he picks up the cable TV rights for that area. And he's like, all right, I don't even know what to do with this. Like, I guess I'll put like some old recorded programming on here. There's like no programming, basically.

• 6:51Shaan Puri?

  But he's like, whatever, let's do this. And so he's in that business. And he's losing money the first couple of years. And his dad's like, bro, you got to figure this out like this. You can't just keep bleeding money over here. And so he cuts his costs, he tries to figure this out, and he finally gets it to like, kind of a, like a break even point or whatever. He ends up, over the next, you know, couple of decades, building the largest private telecom company in the country. And he owns cable TV networks, you know, everywhere. He does a bunch of acquisitions, he takes on a bunch of debt, and he ends up buying up others. And he goes down, uh, he goes like, sort of down, uh, the stack. So whereas most TV companies want to do the sexy fun stuff, they get into original programming and content, and they're like, content is king. He's like, yeah, no, you know what's king?

• 7:34Shaan Puri?

  Fiber. Like, I'm gonna go own the underlying infrastructure for, for cable TV. And he ends up building this juggernaut. And so this guy ends up now, he's like, whatever. Like, you know, much older now in his eighties or something like that. And he's worth a billion dollars. He built the largest farm, uh, fruit farm, basically, in, in the world. And he's built the largest, largest private telecom company in, in the country. Isn't this kind of amazing?

• 7:58Sam Parr?

  This is amazing. I'm, as you're telling me this, I'm, I've noticed there's a trend amongst this era of people. Was this, was he doing it right when cable was getting started?

• 8:09Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 8:10Sam Parr?

  Man, there's, uh, there's a trend. So Ted Turner, who eventually went on to start CNN, he owned a billboard company, which he parlayed into a radio station, and then eventually a cable, uh, news network, CNN, cable news network. Uh, do you know another guy named Jim Patterson? Have you heard of Jim Patterson?

• 8:28Shaan Puri?

  No, who's that?

• 8:29Sam Parr?

  Dude, Google Jim Patterson. Another Canadian guy. Look at what he looks like. He's like a-

• 8:34Shaan Puri?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen this guy before. He's like one of the richest guys in Canada, right?

• 8:38Sam Parr?

  Yeah, he's like, he's like, one of these guys who is like, he's like Energizer, Energizer Bunny. Like, he like, he is like a wind-up toy. Like, he just can't stop, like, moving. But he, I think his story was, he, uh, at a young age, uh, opened up a car dealership. And within three years-

• 8:55Sam Parr?

  He bought like a plastic manufacturer or something very like out of left field. And then another thing, and another thing, now he owns a telecommunications business, but he also owns like Ripley's Believe It or Not. And I think that like the Patterson Group, which he owns the whole thing, I think has a hundred thousand employees or something insane like that. And then another one is his name's John Cat. His last name is crazy. I'm gonna butcher it.

• 9:20Shaan Puri?

  Catsmangitis?

• 9:21Sam Parr?

  Yes, is that it?

• 9:23Shaan Puri?

  He's got a condition, catsmangitis?

• 9:24Sam Parr?

  Do you know him?

• 9:26Shaan Puri?

  No.

• 9:27Sam Parr?

  So he started a grocery store. I think it was called Apple Foods.

• 9:31Shaan Puri?

  Dude, let me just tell you this. Any guy who looks like this, if I just showed you this photo and I said, rich or poor?

• 9:37Sam Parr?

  Yeah, you already know everything about him just by looking at him.

• 9:40Shaan Puri?

  One photo?

• 9:41Sam Parr?

  Yeah, like when he, this guy, when he gives you a handshake, he's pulling you in. Do you know what I mean? You can just look at him and you know what he's gonna do. He's gonna pull you in, he's gonna smack you really hard on the back shoulder.

• 9:51Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. And no chance this guy has one wife. By the way, let me look this up. I bet you, I'll bet you anything right now.

• 9:57Sam Parr?

  Let's just.

• 9:58Shaan Puri?

  Wikipedia?

• 9:59Sam Parr?

  If you Google his kids, they're beautiful.

• 10:01Shaan Puri?

  First wife, divorce. New wife, Margot.

• 10:05Sam Parr?

  This guy started Apple grocery store. It's like a twenty. It's a twenty store chain in New York City. Like it's tiny, but then he bought a radio station. And then that's like how he got extra rich. And then I think he also bought a cable news network as well. And so my point being is there's this.

• 10:24Shaan Puri?

  And then a refining company and then.

• 10:25Sam Parr?

  Dude, he owns like an airline. I think he owns like a small private airline. He owns everything. There's this type of entrepreneur where they're kind of cowboys where they start in one thing and they get into media eventually. And a lot of it happened in the eighties, the late seventies and the early eighties when cable was getting popular. And it was sort of like the first version of a SaaS business. You know, it was recurring revenue, huge TAM, kind of weird and unknown. People weren't sure what to do. And I believe that a lot of the cable news networks, they were regulated. By the FCC and you had a certain satellite like you'd only own X amount of satellites.

• 11:09Sam Parr?

  Like there was some type of like limiting blocker where only a certain amount of cable companies could even exist. And so if you're able to like get in on that, it was almost a near monopoly. Ted Turner came along and he was one of the first guys that were like petitioned Congress and was like, this is nonsense. We need more competition. And that's when CNN came about. But in this whole era.

• 11:27Shaan Puri?

  Like, I like how sometimes when we explain these things, it's kind of like when I explain stuff to my kids. Like they're like, how does, like, how does the picture come on the TV? Like, where is this coming from? And I'm like, oh, satellites. And they, and they're like, but how does it get from a satellite to our TV? I'm like, it shoots it. Like, it's a video that it's shooting Gabby Dollhouse at our, at that tower, I think. I think that's what the cables are for, or maybe that's electricity. I'm not sure exactly what's going on.

• 11:56Sam Parr?

  It doesn't matter though. Just go back.

• 11:57Shaan Puri?

  But you're like, they ran, there was only so many satellite, you had to buy these letters, but they only had so many letters. No, we're not the letters. Okay.

• 12:05Sam Parr?

  I do know that it is true.

• 12:07Shaan Puri?

  There's some spectrum available.

• 12:09Sam Parr?

  There's like, yeah, yeah, we know a lot about spectrums. There was, I do, I do know there was a famous like, like hearing where Ted Turner like made this passionate speech to like politicians, to convince them that they have to change the rules to allow small upstarts to get a satellite. But anyway, that's cool. I like this blueberry guy. All right. So a lot of people will talk about how you need a million dollars and three years of experience to start a business. Nonsense. If you've listened to at least one episode on this podcast, you know, that is completely not true. My last company, The Hustle, we grew it to something like 17 or 18 million dollars in revenue. I started it with like $300.

• 12:49Sam Parr?

  My current company Hampton does over 10 million in revenue, started it with actually no money, maybe $29 or something like that, nothing. And so you don't actually need investors to start a company. You don't need a fancy business plan, but what you do need is systems that actually work. And so my old company, The Hustle, they put together five proven business models that you could start right now, today with under a thousand dollars. These are models that if you do it correctly, it can make money this week. You can get it right now. You can scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Now, back to the show.

• 13:23Shaan Puri?

  Let me give you some of his, uh, his little business isms, his philosophies. Okay. So, and this is again, some of this from, uh, from, from Shane Parrish's stuff.

• 13:31Sam Parr?

  Dude, I can just tell this guy, is he, Canadians are in midwestern people where I'm from. They're the same, the same people, aren't they?

• 13:38Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. It's like, it's a species in its own. So here's a great line by him. I have no reverse gear. I just thought that's an amazing line, um, which is like, he's like, yeah. You know, when things got hard and the blueberry crop died and then the factory is empty. Like, I just didn't consider going backwards. I did not consider, like, it was just not a gear I have to either stop or reverse course. Like, I just decided I have to find a way through. And the onion rings are the way through. Um, another thing that I thought was interesting, which was kind of counter to conventional advice. So, you know, most people who are in, uh, the business, the game of business, Buffett and all the real estate guys, the famous phrase they all say is,

• 14:20Shaan Puri?

  you make your money on the buy. You don't make your money when you sell. If you buy it right, then you're going to make money.

• 14:25Sam Parr?

  Dude, I read that line, like, after I bought three real estate projects that I totally lost money on. I was like, shit. I, I, I'm being serious.

• 14:36Shaan Puri?

  It's not like the fine print, by the way. This is like, this is like the first thing you learn.

• 14:41Sam Parr?

  Like, I was like, reading a Warren Buffett book and I read that quote and I remember thinking like, that was literally the exact opposite of what I thought it was.

• 14:48Shaan Puri?

  You were just doing the John Bragg. So here's John Bragg's philosophy. Intentionally overpay.

• 14:53Sam Parr?

  Okay. I'm in.

• 14:56Shaan Puri?

  So he goes, he goes, "Early on, I intentionally overpaid for acquisitions. And word spread fast. If you want to sell, sell to John Bragg. You'll get a fair price, quick close, no games," which I love that. Like, if I'm, I'm going to put that on my, uh, on our like little mini private equity shop, uh, website.

• 15:14Sam Parr?

  I feel like that advice typically isn't right, though.

• 15:18Shaan Puri?

  Well, typically not. So here's the caveats. Here's the caveats of, you know, they say like, you know, the amateurs learn the rules or amateurs don't know the rules. Professionals know the rules. And then masters know when to break the rules or whatever that thing is. This is kind of when to break it. So he goes, I will overpay as long as it's something that's only available once. Because when opportunities are scarce, you need to pay what it takes. I know many people who tried to nickel and dime, and then spent the rest of their life regretting not getting that key asset. So I think in the, in the, in the realm of buying the TV rights, when there's only, they're only going to be up once. And whoever gets it's going to own it. Those are, that's like a time to overpay. Or if it's a key asset that locks down, you know, a certain competitive advantage,

• 16:01Shaan Puri?

  don't quibble on price. In fact, come in over so that you make sure you've secured that asset and you develop a reputation. He, he said something like, you can't buy a reputation. I was like, I think that actually what you're saying is you can buy a reputation. It's like, oh, but here's the reputation. I will overpay, right? Like, it's like SoftBank in the venture game right now. It's like, oh, you, you want a bunch of money and that a huge crazy valuation? You go to SoftBank first. Right? And there's actually like some merit to that strategy when you have these like, you know, this, this, if you can get the things that have huge upside. So was he like an M and A guy like? It was a lot of building the empire through M and A. And what was he buying? Other cable companies or other farms? Both. Here, here's another banger of a line. So he has 40 to 50% of the global supply.

• 16:46Shaan Puri?

  And about half of that is like stuff that he owns and operates his farms and half his farms he's buying, or owns like a, you know, a big stake in. And he's, he goes, here's the exact line. He goes, we don't want to have 100% of the industry. That, that wouldn't be good politics.

• 17:04Shaan Puri?

  Dude, that's like. Imagine having the choice to have 100% market share in the back. That's, that's not polite. What a baller. Here's a, here's some Sam porn for you. So focus is absolutely critical. Probably the biggest single principle you can have in business. Here's a big mistake people make. They make their first million and they think now I can succeed in any business, even ones I know nothing about. Been there. Sam buying the ranch. Yeah, been there. And then he goes, I just wanted to, he goes, I wanted to just stick to my knitting. Figure out what I could do well, and then just do more of it. You know, everybody else who came into this industry wanted to make a buck. I was this young guy who said, I'm here to play this game for a long, long time.

• 17:47Sam Parr?

  This guy's awesome.

• 17:48Shaan Puri?

  This guy's awesome, right?

• 17:49Sam Parr?

  I think he's my uncle.

• 17:50Shaan Puri?

  Then he goes, uh, here's a couple other great, great quotes. The guy who asked the question to me looks better than the guy who knows the answers. I like that. Done.

• 18:00Sam Parr?

  Did you get all this from Shane's podcast with him?

• 18:03Shaan Puri?

  Uh, Shane's and then there's like a couple other people that have written about him, but a lot of this from Shane's podcast. Uh, which I didn't even get to watch because I, I was doing the, like, I discovered this guy this morning. It was like on my list of like things to check out. And as soon as I checked out, I was like, oh man, this is amazing. I gotta, I gotta go watch this later. So I've, I've actually only like skimmed the transcript and stuff for this. Um, so I might be getting some of the details wrong. A couple of other things, he's one of these like Buffett types where it's like, he's a billionaire, but the vast majority of wealth came like after the age of 70. So it's like, you know, just saying the same way for Buffett where they just, they keep compounding. Um, he had some other things I thought were pretty interesting, so.

• 18:38Sam Parr?

  I would have thought he'd be richer. If you own all half the blueberries in the world, wouldn't you be richer than 1.5 billion?

• 18:45Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Punk.

• 18:50Shaan Puri?

  Weak shit.

• 18:54Sam Parr?

  He better be a huge like philanthropist and have given it a lot away. Uh, cause I definitely would have thought he'd be richer, right?

• 19:01Shaan Puri?

  I mean, I guess, I don't know. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna knock him. Um, all right. So he believes in Buffett a lot. He loves Buffett. And so he Buffett has a great quote, which is, I'm a better investor because I'm a businessman and I'm a better businessman because I'm an investor.

• 19:17Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 19:17Shaan Puri?

  So at age 70, he was worth, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars. So he goes to each of the executives at his companies and he says, today you're just businessmen. You're not investors. He gives them $10 million each, not as a bonus, but as an investment portfolio that they get to run. And he said, I want them to see how strong companies operate and how weak ones fail. There was no penalty for losing the money and no bonus for the gains. It was pure education. Isn't that like pretty wild to do?

• 19:45Sam Parr?

  So he gave, uh, how many managers did he have?

• 19:49Shaan Puri?

  I don't know. Six teams. So sixty million bucks.

• 19:51Sam Parr?

  He gave them what? Like a stock portfolio or he gave them ten million dollars and told them?

• 19:55Shaan Puri?

  Ten million dollars to go invest, go buy businesses.

• 19:58Sam Parr?

  Oh, within the, their, their portfolio?

• 20:01Shaan Puri?

  Sure.

• 20:02Sam Parr?

  Wow. Okay. That's badass. That's crazy.

• 20:04Shaan Puri?

  He said, um, and this was at age seventy and then he's like, most people stop learning once, once they become successful, but the outliers never stop being students. Love that. Uh, resonated with me. All right. What else resonated with me? Let me give you one more.

• 20:17Sam Parr?

  Dude, how about the fact that like I just Googled, I Googled the Shane podcast. Shane went to his office, uh, which is really cool. And he's eighty-four years old doing a podcast. Like that's, that's amazing that he's with it and he's sharp and he's had this pod.

• 20:32Shaan Puri?

  Dude, when I'm eighty-four, I'm gonna be in the metaverse. I'm gonna be so just like plugged into what everybody's doing in the future.

• 20:40Sam Parr?

  I hope.

• 20:41Shaan Puri?

  All right. You want to do one or you want me to go?

• 20:44Sam Parr?

  Have you read about United Fruit? If we're gonna talk about fruits. Have you read about United Fruit?

• 20:47Shaan Puri?

  United Fruit? Is that the Banana King guy?

• 20:50Sam Parr?

  Man, that's a great book. I'm in the middle of reading it and it's the story of United Fruit, which is, uh, basically centered around bananas. So like.

• 20:58Shaan Puri?

  You want to do the quick story? I think we've talked about it before, but it's, it's on theme. It's on trend.

• 21:02Sam Parr?

  In the, uh, late eighteen hundreds, I think bananas were discovered, I think in Nicaragua or somewhere in Central America and they brought them to America. Americans were like, yeah, we, we want every banana we can get our hands on. We love it. Uh, it even got to the point where like, I think in the nineteen twenties, when immigrants would land at Ellis Island, we gave them a banana and that was like, you're here now. This is America, this American thing. And it's sort of American because.

• 21:26Shaan Puri?

  Like when you get to Hawaii and they give you the lay and like.

• 21:28Sam Parr?

  Yeah, it was like a banana. And this, the banana company, United Fruit, it became so big that it was basically a monopoly and they did the same thing where they tried to hide that they weren't a monopoly for years and years and years. And Sam, the banana man, I think his name's Samuel Zamuri. He was, I think a Ukrainian immigrant. And he started out like, uh, with like a fruit cart, like walking the streets and his whole thing was he would sell ripes. And so the way it worked is a banana. Train would start in one part of the country, I believe Louisiana, and it would slowly make its way up over seven or eight days to the northern part of America. And along the way, it would drop off at bananas at different markets. And his whole shtick was, uh, he was gonna sell ripes, meaning bananas that were already becoming a little bit brown, that

• 22:10Sam Parr?

  they previously thought were, uh, throwaway bananas. And he was like, oh, I'll buy them for a fraction of the price, and I'll just be really fast at getting them to where they need to go. And he eventually becomes so big that by the time he's in his sixties, he, he takes over United Fruit, and it's a big deal.

• 22:25Shaan Puri?

  Well, he, he starts with a hundred fifty dollars. And by the time he's twenty-one, he's got a hundred thousand dollars. And this is way back in the day, right? So this is like a lot, that's a lot of money.

• 22:35Sam Parr?

  And he keeps on going. And it gets to be so-

• 22:37Shaan Puri?

  And that's, you're saying, he's basically, he starts as just like a dude on the dock or whatever, like a dude on the side of the road, taking their discarded trash and going and hustling it and selling it. And by the time he reaches his peak, he buys the, he buys the whole company, where he was initially just like taking their discarded trash.

• 22:56Sam Parr?

  And the book is called The Fish That Ate The Whale, because he was the fish and he eventually ate the whale. But it gets even crazier. So Samuel Zemery, he has a lot of admirable qualities. You know, he's this like hardworking immigrant, he's pretty quiet, and he's like a stoic guy. But he's kind of a warlord, uh, because, because, uh, at one point, uh, Nicaragua, like, they have like some type of meltdown, and a new president or dictator comes in charge, and they won't sell them bananas. And so he funds a coup. So he basically gets like a small unit of like ten or twenty people to like, help this other guy assassinate the current leader and take over. And that leader was like, all

• 23:38Sam Parr?

  right, thanks for getting our back, now you could have some more bananas. And, uh, so that's kind of like the story of Sam- Samuel Zemery. It's pretty badass.

• 23:46Shaan Puri?

  Got that killer instinct. Let's go. Um, yeah, that's, this is, is pretty wild, right? Like, imagine a story like that today.

• 23:55Sam Parr?

  Is there such a thing?

• 23:58Sam Parr?

  I can't think of, uh, I mean, what Elon does in rockets is like, pretty like, you're kind of like dominating another planet, like potentially, I mean, that's like pretty crazy.

• 24:09Shaan Puri?

  Like the Republican Party this year, like going to the point of like, actual, like, funding a militia.

• 24:17Sam Parr?

  I guess like Donald Trump is doing this, like, where he's like, for shits and giggles, I'm gonna like, play a joke and run for president, and it just kind of starts to work. Uh, but, yeah, I mean, it's a pretty crazy story. Um, yeah, so, it's been great. So, I did something this weekend, and I thought about you, and I've been holding this in me, like, waiting to, like, talk to you about this, but...

• 24:39Shaan Puri?

  Like a man in Lant or, or, uh, November, holding it in.

• 24:43Sam Parr?

  Yeah, oh, man, uh, yeah. If you know, you know. Uh, so, I saw a Broadway play, for the first time ever this weekend. Phenomenal.

• 24:54Shaan Puri?

  Wow.

• 24:55Sam Parr?

  Phenomenal. Uh, it's called Oh, Mary. It's basically about, uh, Mary Todd, who was Lincoln's wife, and it's just like a comedy. It's, it was fantastic. Never been to a, never really been to a play, honestly, my whole life.

• 25:07Shaan Puri?

  Because you judged it, or just happened to not go? What, what's the deal?

• 25:11Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I don't know, like, you know, it just went on the list of things to do. It just didn't, it just didn't, it didn't make its way into my life, and I finally went. The first thing is, I thought of you, because you had made an offhanded comment a while ago, that you cared about, like, running, uh, writing a show.

• 25:24Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I just thought it'd be cool. I went and saw one, and I was like, oh, that would be kind of a fun, fun thing to work on, yeah.

• 25:29Sam Parr?

  So you had the same thing I did, which is like, it was like, a new art form that you hadn't previously experienced, and then you go to it, and you're like, I understand the appeal now. Is that right?

• 25:37Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, yeah. I had gone to a bunch when I was a kid, and so I think I liked it from that. Like, I was a theater kid when I grew up, so I liked it.

• 25:45Sam Parr?

  Now, how's it related to this podcast? Well, for one, if you Google "Oh, Mary" revenue, you can see, there's a website called BroadwayWorld.com, where they estimate, um, the, the revenue of each show. I guess they look at, like, if they're selling out, and, uh, the average ticket price online. And this thing, Oh, Mary, I think it's been live, uh, for, uh, June of 24, it came out, and it's been making, uh, a million dollars a week, so it's doing quite well. And it started off with about $4 million in funding to, to get going.

• 26:21Sam Parr?

  And it all reminded me of this podcast that we did about two and a half years ago. You, you didn't make it, but we had this guy named Michael Harris. Did you ever look into who Michael Harris was?

• 26:30Shaan Puri?

  What was it Death Row? Which, which record label was he the guy?

• 26:34Sam Parr?

  Yes. Yeah. So the short of it is, uh, some people call him Harrio because his name's Michael, uh, Michael Harris. They call him Harrio, like Harry OG gangster. So Harry was famous because in his early twenties, he was basically a drug kingpin and he made a lot of money, uh, selling cocaine. And at one point in the podcast with him, I said, yeah, and I was trying to be nice. I was like, you know, I, instead of saying you are a drug dealer, I said, I read an article saying that, the article said that you were selling one million, yeah, the, the article said you were selling $1 million a day in cocaine. And he goes, I think that article said $2 million a day.

• 27:13Shaan Puri?

  He's like, I told that journalist it was two.

• 27:16Sam Parr?

  I was like, yes, sir. Uh, and eventually at the age of like 32, I think he gets sentenced to life in prison. One for attempted murder, one for a drug conspiracy, which basically is like the Rico kingpin law. And he had a life sentence and recently, I think like 10 years ago, Trump commuted his sentence and that's how he got out of prison. And when he was 32 years old, he founded Death Row Records with Dr. Dre and Suge Knight, while he was serving a life sentence in San Quentin. And that's like how Death Row got started. And one of the reasons why it's called Death Row is because he was-

• 27:50Shaan Puri?

  Wait, they co-founded it with him while he was in prison? And what did they, what'd they want from, what, what was he able to offer them while he was in prison for life?

• 27:58Sam Parr?

  Money, money. So his wife, his, his wife was on the outside.

• 28:03Shaan Puri?

  Okay.

• 28:04Sam Parr?

  Uh, and she somehow had funds to fund Death Row Records, you know?

• 28:09Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 28:09Sam Parr?

  Now, how's this relate to Broadway? Well, on the podcast that I did with him, he said something that I didn't pounce on because I wasn't, I didn't know anything about it. But he made this comment to me where, when he was 29, I think, he was the first ever black producer of a Broadway musical or Broadway show. And he kind of told the story, but basically somehow he got in cahoots, you know? He was, he was considered, uh, like well-known for being like a drug guy and-

• 28:40Shaan Puri?

  I hope you said cahoots to him.

• 28:45Sam Parr?

  Right after I said, okay, okay.

• 28:46Shaan Puri?

  He's like, how do you end the podcast? Which button ends this podcast?

• 28:54Sam Parr?

  I was like, holy moly.

• 29:00Shaan Puri?

  Harry O, you dog.

• 29:02Sam Parr?

  Holy moly, Harry.

• 29:06Sam Parr?

  So somehow he got in the loop with this, but he funded Denzel Washington and early Denzel Washington, his first ever play.

• 29:15Shaan Puri?

  Damn.

• 29:15Sam Parr?

  Michael Harris, Harry O was the fund, he was the investor that funded this show with a million dollars. I think this was in 93 or 92 when Denzel, he was just getting going. And he starts telling this story and while, while I was at this play, I was like, holy crap, this guy got his way into being the first ever producer of Broadway? Like while I was there, I'm like, oh my God, like he was so much cooler that I even realized.

• 29:43Shaan Puri?

  Dude, if I invested in Denzel before he became Denzel, that's like, you know, you know how Jason Calacanis is like, I was saying he's the fourth investor at Uber? I would never shut up about it.

• 29:55Sam Parr?

  Google, um, Michael Harris, Denzel Washington. You'll see a photo of them together and Michael Harris looks like a, like a well-to-do guy. He's wearing a suit. Turns out he was only, I think 29 or 28 in these photos and he, he was a drug kingpin. Kind of amazing, right?

• 30:12Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, that's, that's incredible. When he was 26, uh, 26 or something?

• 30:15Sam Parr?

  Was he 26?

• 30:16Shaan Puri?

  Like, I think he was, he was pretty young.

• 30:18Sam Parr?

  Yeah, very young and like allegedly had made something like a hundred million dollars selling drugs. Pretty crazy. And when I was like sitting there in this play, I was like, obviously what, what do you and I do when we do everything? We go to the play and you type in like, oh, Mary revenue on Google. And I started seeing the numbers and I'm like...

• 30:35Shaan Puri?

  It's like the play's going on in front of you. You're turned around counting how many seats are in the upper bleachers and they're like, are you, are you watching the show? What are you doing here?

• 30:43Sam Parr?

  And this is how I remembered, uh, Michael Harris saying that where it all like clicked together where I was like, oh my God.

• 30:50Shaan Puri?

  Do you know how much revenue these shows generate?

• 30:52Sam Parr?

  I'm looking at it's it's astounding. It's astounding.

• 30:56Shaan Puri?

  The number one, this I'm just gonna give you the top, top five, top five highest grossing Broadway musicals of all time. You have number one Lion King grossed over two billion in just, just the ticket sales. Wicked, 1.7 billion. Phantom of the Opera, 1.3. Hamilton, which is newer, already crossed a billion.

• 31:16Sam Parr?

  Insane, right?

• 31:17Shaan Puri?

  And of course, our guys from South Park.

• 31:21Sam Parr?

  Are they number one?

• 31:22Shaan Puri?

  They're number five. Book of Mormon, number five, 850 million dollars.

• 31:26Sam Parr?

  That's insane.

• 31:27Shaan Puri?

  That could be us, dude. That could be us. We just need to be talented and hardworking. That's all we're missing.

• 31:35Sam Parr?

  They are so talented. When I was at the show, I was like, this is just, they're oozing with talent. One of the guys, Abe Lincoln, the character was played by, what's the guy from Silicon Valley? Kunal? Is that his name?

• 31:47Shaan Puri?

  Oh, he's in the play?

• 31:48Sam Parr?

  Yeah, he's in the play. And it's like, it was like famous actors and actresses were like in the plays.

• 31:52Shaan Puri?

  He's like a jacked Indian Abe Lincoln? Like, what do you mean? What do you mean he played Abe Lincoln?

• 31:56Sam Parr?

  It sounds crazy, and honestly, it is crazy. The guy who played Mary Todd was a, was a guy. So like, it's all types of crazy. Yeah, there's a, it's a, it's a whole thing. But I just had to like nerd out with you about this.

• 32:11Shaan Puri?

  So I looked into this pretty hardcore. So it's definitely a outlier hits business, just like most.

• 32:16Sam Parr?

  It's angel investing.

• 32:17Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, it's angel investing because, and then I was looking at the venues. I was like, should I own the best venue in San Francisco? Like, can I go buy the San Francisco, like, you know, I forgot what it's called, like the, the theater or the opera house, whatever. There's like a bunch of, there's like three or four different theaters for this. And I was looking at them because the theaters make money either way because the shows have to pay rent. They gotta be like, hey, we want to do 60 days on stage. They're like, great, take your money, right? Whether that show becomes a hit or not, they paid the money upfront. So I thought that was kind of interesting. Then I was looking at the shows. Then I was looking at how much it costs to produce the shows. Because I'd just seen the one about Lehman Brothers, which I recommend, by the way. It's like a, it's too long. First of all, it's way too long.

• 32:58Sam Parr?

  Dude, the one that I went to, we only went to it because it was 90 minutes. I can't sit there for more than 90 minutes.

• 33:03Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, less is more, guys. Less is more here in the theater. But, um, but it was great and it was, it was business entertainment, which is what I considered to be my genre. And I was like, damn, if they could take, I wasn't even interested in learning about the Lehman Brothers. If they took an uninteresting subject to me, but they made it great and I remember the story because of it. This is cool. This is a really cool format. And so, yeah, definitely, uh, definitely interested in that. If somebody actually knows how to do these things, I would love to, uh, to talk to you. Email me. Maybe we could make something, make something.

• 33:32Sam Parr?

  We were.

• 33:33Shaan Puri?

  I have a story in mind, but.

• 33:34Sam Parr?

  We had, um, Tim Ferriss on the pod and like the top comment on YouTube was like, rich guys finally discover board games and like, uh,

• 33:44Sam Parr?

  like this.

• 33:45Shaan Puri?

  The rich guys part. I was like, yeah, hell yeah.

• 33:47Sam Parr?

  Thank you. No, this one's gonna be like, the bros discover plays.

• 33:52Shaan Puri?

  Like, like Sam, they were singing in the middle of that. You're talking one second, then they're singing. It's incredible.

• 33:59Sam Parr?

  It's all a part of the story.

• 34:05Shaan Puri?

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• 34:47Shaan Puri?

  So I'm watching a lot of sports lately. I know it's like, uh, everything's kicking out. Like football season just kicked off. Tennis was awesome. By the way, did you see the, have you been following, do you follow tennis?

• 35:00Sam Parr?

  A little bit, like I went last year and like, I kind of watched a little bit on TV. The, the Russian gal, she's, she's an athlete, man. She's a freak. What's her name?

• 35:10Shaan Puri?

  Sabalenka, I think.

• 35:11Sam Parr?

  She looks like a Terminator.

• 35:14Shaan Puri?

  So I follow, uh, I've, I've gone in and out of tennis, right? There's many years where I won't even pay attention. Then there's like, oh my God, Nadal, he's amazing. And I'm watching these guys and the, a great tennis match is up there. It's like very thrilling to watch a great tennis match. It's like a great UFC fight. Like there's some sports where, um, you know, the, the median game is like really good. I put like, you know, NFL in that category. But then there's some sports where just the peak is just like peak drama, right? And boxing and UFC are like that where like the average thing's not that good. But the peak, the biggest personalities, when it's all on the line and it's just two guys going in there and they're trying to take each other's head off. Like it's hard for a basketball game to match that. Okay.

• 35:58Shaan Puri?

  So tennis, um, tennis is kind of up there in that sense. So there's the new, the new wave, uh, of tennis players. So this guy Alcaraz and, um, this guy Sinner. Did that happen? Did the men's final happen? It just happened, yeah. And so, um, so I really wanted Sinner to win because I just like went down the rabbit hole of this guy's YouTube highlights and he's unreal. And, um, and the other guy is also unreal, but he's, he's unreal when it's in the sense of like, um, you know, a guy who just like does all the right things. It's like he eats right, he works out right, like he just does it. He just like prepares really hard. He's very talented. He's maximizing his potential. He's not like, uh, there's not a lot of like flaws to like attach with there, you know? There's not a lot of like, it's like, oh, so you work hard and do all the right things.

• 36:43Shaan Puri?

  Great. Yeah, that's fantastic. Um, in fact, they showed the warmup right before, because I think Trump showed up at the US Open. So it was delayed like half an hour or an hour or something like that. And so the guys were just in their locker room, like supposed to be warming up. And Alcaraz is like, you know, doing a side plank in midair with his trainer and like activating his core to get ready. And the other guy was playing dodgeball with his trainer and like running around the gym, like just throwing balls at each other. Like smug sigs. Yeah. So I was like, I was like, I kind of like this other guy. Anyways, they go out there, Sinner loses and he just keeps losing to Alcaraz. He's, he's, he's ranked number one because he beats everybody else. But Alcaraz has beat him, I don't know, four out of the five last times that they've faced each

• 37:25Shaan Puri?

  other. And he's like, and so he had this great quote that I thought, like, forget tennis. This is just like a great like mindset quote. So they were talking about like, you know, hey, you know, it must be tough. You're at the top and then you you're ranked number one, but this guy seems to, you know, you've had some tough matches. This guy's got your number a little bit. And here's what he said. He goes, I was very predictable on the court today. He changed up his game and the style of how he plays. And now it's on me if I want to make changes or not. I'm definitely going to work on this. You know, for example, I didn't use a lot of drop shots. I didn't do one serve and volley. You know, you arrive at a point where you're going to play this guy. I gotta go out of my comfort zone. So here's what I'm going to do. I need to start playing more unpredictably. I might even lose some matches, but I'm going

• 38:08Shaan Puri?

  to have to do it. I'm going to have to make some changes. I'm going to have to try to become more unpredictable as a player. That's what I have to do to become better at tennis. And at the end of the day, that's my main goal. And I really just love this mindset from the number one ranked guy who's beating everybody else. And he's like, you know what? I'm here, but the top of the mountain is still a little higher. But this path I'm on doesn't get me to the summit. I gotta go back down for a bit. And I gotta find a new trail. And that is so hard to do in life. It is so hard to go back

• 38:38Sam Parr?

  One of these things where he's like

• 38:39Shaan Puri?

  To the bottom and reinvent yourself.

• 38:41Sam Parr?

  He's like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna learn how to play tennis, but I'm really learning how to play the game of life. It's like one of those type of moments.

• 38:46Shaan Puri?

  Totally, totally like, and to be like, I'm gonna lose, I'm gonna probably lose some more matches because I'm gonna have to learn this. I'm gonna have to experiment with this new style. And that's gonna suck, but I'm gonna do it. And like, I've whatever you're doing in life, that analogy probably holds for you right now. Whether it's you as a parent, it's you on the book that you're writing, it's you at your job, it's you in your business, like whatever it is, I guarantee you there's an element of like, if I want to get to the next level, what I've been doing doesn't probably get me there. And I need to like, be willing, when the time comes, when the, when I recognize the moment, I need to be willing to go back down the mountain for a little bit, and then come back up a new way.

• 39:25Sam Parr?

  I have you ever heard of this guy named Mep Gervlasky? If you Googled him, that's a hard name.

• 39:31Shaan Puri?

  Name, so no.

• 39:31Sam Parr?

  Yeah, that's a, that's a hard last name to Google. But if you Google Marathon MEB, M E B, you might recognize his face.

• 39:38Shaan Puri?

  Marathon MEB?

• 39:40Sam Parr?

  M E B. You see MEB? I don't recognize this guy. He's 50? Yeah, so I think in 2004, he was the gold medalist in the Olympics in the marathon for America. But he's an immigrant and so when he won, it was sort of one of these things where everyone got behind him because he's a nice guy and it was like the American dream type of energy. And I think it got to the point where he like spoke at Obama's, a bunch of Obama events and whatever. He's a big deal. He's, uh, he's great. His brother listens to MFM, his brother Howie. And he reached out to me when he heard that I liked running and I've been friendly with him for a couple of years now. And this past weekend was this thing in New York called the Fifth Avenue Mile.

• 40:24Sam Parr?

  And so they get all these guys, these Olympian milers, and they get them to run one mile down Fifth Avenue, which is basically a huge street and it's slightly down. They shut it down or they're just running on the sidewalk? No, no, no. They shut it down. It's a big event. It's like a huge event. And there's tens of thousands of people there. And so I went with Howie and I got to like be like his like sidekick. So in Howie, who, uh, he runs a management company who, um, he originally, Howie was managing his brother Meb. Now he manages other runners because Meb was like, can you do, can you help me make more money? And he was like, yeah, fine. I'll do it. And then eventually now he manages, I don't know, 40 runners or something. And a lot of his athletes were running at this race. And so I got to be his like assistant basically and he like took me and like I got to meet all these cool people, whatever.

• 41:08Sam Parr?

  And these guys are flying, by the way. I think the guy who won ran three minutes and 46 seconds for the mile, which is, which is crazy. And the guy who won. What's your mile time? Dude, back in high school, a minute slower, four minutes and 47 seconds. Okay, Ted Bundy, now, what's your mile time now? Not, what's your mile time 18 years ago? That was not my question. Uh, seven minutes, not, I mean, seven minutes, like very like recreationally like average. So wait, did you run it or you just hung out with Howie? Ah, hell no, I didn't run it. I was watching. I was watching. I was just sitting on the sidelines watching. And we got to watch these guys run and they look like, uh, gazelles. They look like animals. It's like crazy. And I was asking him, I was like, what separates so like, because when I was watching the race, the winner and the guy who got.

• 41:52Sam Parr?

  Third, they're really close. Like it doesn't seem very far when you see them, but like it's like a second is only, it's not that much, but it is a lot when you're running. And I was like, what separates Nagoos, the guy who won, uh, what separates him from the guy who got last? Because they kind of look the same. They're tall and they're skinny and they look like freaks. Like what's going on? And he was like, it's mindset. He was like, once you get to this level and you're already a nine out of 10, what separates the guys that get first versus last in these big races is when they step on the lines, they're killers. He goes, he wants to kill you and he acts like a nice guy, but the when they, when they step there, they think,

• 42:32Sam Parr?

  I am here to win. I'm built to win. I am not trying to finish second. I'm trying to be the best and I'm trying to win no matter what. And I was like, well, your brother was like a happy-go-lucky guy, like he looks like really kind. And he was like, yeah, he is. But he would sit down for hours and envision winning the New York marathon. And then when he got to the starting line, you couldn't talk to him. He was an animal. He was out to win. And I thought that was really fascinating and I'm always finding it fascinating, particularly in sports, particularly in these uh, uh, individual sports, tennis, swimming, track and field, cycling. I think we had Lance on and like we talked a little about this. What separates these, the freaks of the freaks? What makes you a freak among freaks? And it appears as though it is not physical. It is absolutely mental.

• 43:18Sam Parr?

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• 44:02Sam Parr?

  Out there and literally the biggest plugging creator for the platform. They can build anything, custom portals, SaaS products, and they do it about 10 times faster and cheaper than traditional development. Zero code is also all about AI business automation, transforming manual and slow processes into efficient automated ones. So stop cobbling together different tools and solutions and head to zero code.com. That's zero code as in the word zero and then code Q O D E. Again, code is with a Q and tell them that Sam sent you.

• 44:34Shaan Puri?

  Have you heard this phrase? You probably heard it because you're like into running, but I don't. Don't run, don't do it. It's not a, it's like motorcycles. I just don't get on that. So one of the guys who was filming for us, he was talking about this. He wants to film this documentary about this woman and she's like this amazing long distance runner. I don't know her name. You probably do, but the point is he was talking about this phrase called the pain cave.

• 45:02Sam Parr?

  Yeah, we go to the pain cave.

• 45:03Shaan Puri?

  You go to the pain cave. Yeah. And I was like, like not into running, but I'll just take that phrase out. That was a cool phrase. He's like, he's like, so the pain cave describes like when you're in these like ultra long races, 100 mile race or whatever. And it's like miles 60 or 70, you hit this just like extreme level of like physical, mental, spiritual exhaustion and pain. And you go to the pain cave. And I'm like, but what do you mean? What does that mean? You go to the pain cave. He's like, you go to the pain cave mentally. Okay. And you basically, I mean, you could probably describe it better than I can, but my understanding was you accept that there's going to be this stretch where you're going to be this pain.

• 45:44Shaan Puri?

  You go to the pain cave. You know, you're there. You become comfortable. You become not comfortable, but you become acclimated to the pain cave. And you're able to stay there where others want to quit and other, and you even want to quit, others would quit. And then you push through and you end up getting, you know, to the, to the second, to the, you get your second wind, you get out of there and you get to the end. Did I, did I butcher the pain cave or did I describe it right?

• 46:07Sam Parr?

  No, no, no. And a lot of athletes.

• 46:08Shaan Puri?

  You visited?

• 46:11Sam Parr?

  I've been on vacation a couple of times. No, I was training for an ultra before and it was miserable and I hated it. And I remember going out for a three hour run and it just is, it's horrible. It's not a fun experience and like you get to a certain point and what's, it's crazy to do a sport or an activity where even if you are winning, you go through hell. So we had Brennan Schaub on the, on the pod, uh, who is a former UFC fighter. And he said that one time he was fighting on a, on a card and the guy who was fighting above him, Crow Cop, who was the main guy. Afterwards Brennan, uh, saw Crow Cop like on a stretcher and Crow Cop had just won the championship, but Crow Cop still had gotten hurt.

• 46:53Sam Parr?

  And he was sitting on a stretcher, holding ice on his head or something like that. And he looked horrible. Like he just got beat up really badly, even though he won. And Crow Cop was like, give him a thumbs up. And Brennan was like, these animals think that this is winning and that's why I'm not going to be the best. It's because even when you win, you are beat down and broken and they still are giving you a thumbs up of like, yes, we did it. And that's what separates the winners from the losers is the guys who like are willing to go through the pain cave. Because in a lot of sports, I think it's so fascinating. And I honestly, I think this way about business or anything really in life. That when you win and you get everything you wanted, you still have to go through hell.

• 47:34Sam Parr?

  And that's kind of fascinating and interesting to me. It's like the, the mindset of, of, of these winners who can just eat so much shit. And honestly, business is the same way. It's not as physical, but it's still emotional where even if you think that you're on top of the world or things are going well, I don't know if you've experienced this where, but where everyone on the outside thinks like, oh, you're the man. You must be killing it. I'm like, dude, it's really, really hard and it feels like it's going to fall apart all the time.

• 48:00Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I find that, um, these phrases like pain cave or whatever, there's some, there's a lot of power in just having like a label to put on the thing so that when you're feeling it, you don't feel like this is, this is a bad thing that you don't panic. And you don't feel like it's forever. You realize it's like a temporary phenomenon. And so I, I know that one of the things that people brought up to me is that, um, this analogy that's been very useful. And it's like, if you're gonna be an entrepreneur, you know intellectually, there's gonna be these ups and downs. If I told you that, nobody would be surprised at that idea. Yet, when it's happening, you're like, oh, you got that feeling in your stomach when you're going up and down a roller coaster, and it does not feel good, and you want it to stop, and you don't like it, and you think this is bad.

• 48:45Shaan Puri?

  And then you're like, but the thing we talked about on the podcast is like, you got in line for the roller coaster. Like, what did you think was gonna happen? You stood in line, you waited, you chose this first. You knew this is the nature of roller coasters, and that there are no, there are no ups without downs, and there's downs, ups. Like, this has to be, it's a necessary condition of doing this activity. So, don't complain, and don't be surprised, and don't feel like woe is me, and don't victimize yourself, and don't think this is forever, because it's not. And so, like, that's been a very helpful metaphor for people, is just remembering, like, you got in line for the roller coaster, baby. Like, there was gonna be ups and downs. Don't be surprised when they come. And a tactical thing that's helped me is I have this Slack channel I've told people about, it's called H highs and Lows.

• 49:29Shaan Puri?

  And anytime there's an extreme high or an extreme low, I go immediately, and I put it in that channel. And I put my exec team in there as well. And the beautiful thing about it is, when you go in there, you see something from like, four to six months ago, that was like, an extreme low in the moment, or an extreme high in the moment, and now it has like, no effect. You're like, yeah, obviously, if it was a low, it's like, obviously, we survived, it was fine. And even if it was a high, it was like, doesn't have that same pull. And so, it keeps you from, in this moment, going too high and too low, because you could just scroll back and see all the other moments that, in the heat of the moment, you thought were such a, you know, such an extreme, and now are like, whatever. You know, just random, random things of the past. How often are you adding stuff to that?

• 50:14Shaan Puri?

  Alright, so, the last one was four months ago, and it was, oh, cool. Trump just tariffed all of our goods 150%. So, like, imagine a thing used to cost us $10. Now, we pay the $10, but then we pay an extra $15. That same item cost us $25. That's the full sales price of some items. You know what I mean? Like, oh, cool. We make no money now. Oh, got it. Cool. Uh, business makes a money thing out of our control. Like, got it. The, and then there was another one. And then there's a high two months before that. When, you know, this celebrity with six million followers is posting about our brand. And it's like, oh, that's awesome. But like, now that I look at him, like, who cares?

• 50:56Shaan Puri?

  I don't care. Nothing, like, nothing. My life didn't change for either one of those two things. My life didn't change. We got through the, we got through the low and I already forgot about the high. You know, another one.

• 51:07Shaan Puri?

  Rihanna's manager emailed us asking for product, like, you know, Rihanna wants her shit. That's cool. That's exciting. Wait, wait, hold on. Was Rihanna asking for free stuff? Yeah, yeah, they always ask for free stuff. Really? Yeah. Rich people don't pay for things. That's insane to me. You thought rich people would buy things? They request things and you gladly give it to them. Have you DM'd, I, I think I've, I've done it maybe twice. Have you DM'd people asking for free stuff? Asking for free stuff? No, I've never DM'd anyone. I think I've been like, yo, this is a great, if anybody wants to send me one, I'm happy to take it. Like, that's the, I think that's the lowest I've stooped. I don't think, maybe I have. I don't, I can't remember ever DMing, asking for free stuff.

• 51:51Shaan Puri?

  In fact, like, we usually, we go the other way, which is like, if it's like a friend's product or somebody we know. You always buy it. We want to be their, like, first customer and we want to, like, purchase it to, like, show, because, you know, like, you know, it feels good and seems like the right thing to do. Another one, Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve this last year, the Mexican president blocked all imports. So like, hey, that's cool. Our warehouse is in Mexico and on Christmas Eve, all imports are blocked with no notice and no, there's no other thing you could do.

• 52:24Shaan Puri?

  Cool, this shit at the port. Do you have a coup staging team?

• 52:30Shaan Puri?

  This is just in one business. This is just in the econ business. This is not even like, I have five other businesses. So imagine, like, if this is probably, there's a high or low every two months, three months maybe. But now you multiply by six businesses. That means every single month, you're getting hit with a high and a low in one of the businesses.

• 52:48Sam Parr?

  I think it was um cool. You said something actually that was quite good, which is uh it feels nice to label certain demotions because it makes it feel better. I went through a period. It's sort of what's that? That's we always reference that meme where like

• 53:01Shaan Puri?

  Midwit.

• 53:02Sam Parr?

  Yeah, this is like the opposite of that, which is like when I was really young and not very successful, I consumed tons of motivational stuff. And then I started like doing some stuff and I'm like, oh, that's for weaklings.

• 53:13Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 53:13Sam Parr?

  And then now I'm like, no, I actually do like reading about like other success stories and

• 53:18Shaan Puri?

  Love me a good quote nowadays.

• 53:20Sam Parr?

  Yeah, like I actually do love that stuff because it feels nice to like label something. It's sort of like when you read a book and you're like, well, that was the best books. They people say the same thing about them. They go, everything they said was obvious, but it felt nice for them to say it out loud for me to read it and to be told what to do and remind me of the right things to do. And that has helped me all the time. I that's like, I pretty much read like lots of like, or it's actually my YouTube page is like only motivational shit.

• 53:50Shaan Puri?

  Here's the trick. So I've rebranded it. Just liking motivation. That's a pretty low class thing to do. Okay, that's, that's, you know,

• 53:59Sam Parr?

  Very low status.

• 54:00Shaan Puri?

  Low status shit. Oh, oh, I need motivation. I'm so, so weak. I mean, it's like, I need a blood transfusion. It's basically what you're saying. You don't need motivation. You don't like motivation. You like wisdom.

• 54:11Sam Parr?

  Oh, my God.

• 54:12Shaan Puri?

  High class thing to like. All right. There. I helped you out.

• 54:16Sam Parr?

  I listen to tons of wisdom. It gets me fired up.

• 54:23Sam Parr?

  My favorite wisdom channel.

• 54:26Sam Parr?

  Yeah, there's this YouTube channel called motivation for you. Best, the best wisdom.

• 54:30Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 54:33Shaan Puri?

  I'll give you another little label. So I was reading this book, another high class thing they do. I found this like old book out of print, had to like call a guy to get this book. And it's like, it's amazing. It is such a such a thin book and it's really amazing. I'm not even gonna tell anybody, but it's my secret gem. And so in it, though, he talks about, so it's a book about um how to have better ideas. So he's like, this, this is great advertising exec who's basically like, he's like, you know, and somebody asked me this and I laughed when they asked me the question. And then I realized I didn't have a good answer for it. He's like, and then I started thinking about it. I couldn't get this question out of my head. And he's like, I have now come to the realization that producing great ideas can be as reliable of a process as Ford producing Model Ts on the assembly line.

• 55:17Sam Parr?

  Hmm.

• 55:17Shaan Puri?

  And here's how the assembly line works to produce great ideas. And one of the things he says in the book, he goes, this is just a great quote. He goes, "The brain, much like the body, has a second wind." And because he's talking about like, there's going to be this point, like pain cave. There's a point in the process where you kind of fatigue out. He's like, I need you to hang in there for like, give it, there's going to be another, you have a little like 10, 15% left. You're just going to give yourself a chance for the brain to have a second wind, much like the body. And literally like for the last two weeks as I've been working, I've hit this point where I'm like, ready to like, stop the thing, go be distracted. I'll go, I want to open up Twitter or I want to go like, go do, go eat some food or do something. And it is, the brain, the brain has a second wind. Let me just give it a second here.

• 55:59Shaan Puri?

  And then I pushed through for like another 15 minutes and it's actually like been like very, very productive. This little, the once, one little simple idea.

• 56:06Sam Parr?

  Can I make a guess as to who wrote that? And ignore this if it gets away too much. It was by a copywriter if I had to guess. Is that right?

• 56:13Shaan Puri?

  It was by an ad man. Yeah. So he copyrights.

• 56:15Sam Parr?

  It's crazy. Copywriters, like there's this weird underground world. I don't, I don't know if you ever have noticed this. There's copywriters out there where they sort of have a weird mystical like wizardry about them. And they end up learning about copywriting, but in order to be a great copywriter, you have to understand how humans think. And then if you can, if you could be a master copywriter, you're basically a master at learning about what motivates human beings. And thus you can teach all about life. But I've come across all these guys that are like old school internet marketers, but also people who are around even before the internet. And they often have these weird auras around them that if you find a bunch of their old landing pages, they explain some of the things that you're talking about.

• 56:59Sam Parr?

  And you get on their webpages and you're like, I have to give you my money. And there's not even a buy now button. I have to track you down. But I've come across a bunch of these guys. One of them is, um, Bill Bonner, the guy who started Agora. So Agora Publishing is like the billion dollar a year.

• 57:14Sam Parr?

  Newsletter business that is quite shady, but another one is Mark Ford. Do you know who Mark Ford is?

• 57:20Shaan Puri?

  No, who's that?

• 57:21Sam Parr?

  So he has this book called Ready, Fire, Aim on business and he's pretty under the radar guy. I think he's probably in his seventies at this point, but he helped make Agora really popular. There's Eben Pagan. Do you know who Eben Pagan is?

• 57:35Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, Double Your Dating.

• 57:36Sam Parr?

  Yeah, Double Your, from, uh, Eben Pagan was a guy who was one of the first internet marketers because he got going in the nineties when the internet was just getting going and he had a an ebook called Double Your Dating and he wrote it under a pseudonym called David D'Angelo. And Eben Pagan is another guy where if you Google Eben Pagan and come across his courses or books on copywriting, you get entranced and it sort of becomes like a moment where you're like, I used to think this way, then I read this. Now my life has just changed. Eben Pagan was one of those guys. A lot of old Russell Brunson stuff is like this. Um, but there's a copywriting world that like you come across these old guys or they're not old. Russell Brunson's not old.

• 58:13Shaan Puri?

  These guys are age.

• 58:14Sam Parr?

  No, yeah. I mean, like underground. I don't know how to explain it.

• 58:18Shaan Puri?

  No, yeah, it's like, almost like they ruled the world, but they're not, it, it, today they're less uh, relevant and on the forefront and up in, in the center of attention as they were fifteen years ago, thirty years ago, forty years ago. There's a bunch of people like that.

• 58:33Sam Parr?

  Yeah. And what happens and what a lot of people don't realize it is you can just copy exactly what they do. And it still works and you don't have to invent anything. So I'll give you an example. There's this guy named Dan Kennedy. We talked about Alex Hermosy. And a lot of people say this to Alex as if it's an insult. I don't think it's an insult at all, but they'll say, you just ripped off Dan Kennedy. And so I started reading a bunch of, it's not an insult at all. It's totally okay to steal from the, the greats. But if you read a lot of Dan Kennedy's stuff, first of all, if you Google Dan Kennedy, you're going to see what he looks like and you're probably, you, you'd probably dismiss him. You're like, oh, what does this person know about business? Cause he literally looks like a cowboy. But you read their books and their advice is beautiful. So long as you come with an open mind.

• 59:12Sam Parr?

  And it's incredibly effective, but it's sort of like, um, we talked about, uh, books that where you say phrases like, oh, it's banned in prison because it's too powerful.

• 59:20Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 59:21Sam Parr?

  They all have catchphrases like that.

• 59:23Shaan Puri?

  I love copyright. I think there's certain professions where it's almost like Darwinian, right? So like the only way to survive as a copywriter, let's say that was your goal, a copywriter, then we'll kind of extend that to like an ad man, right? Like the Ogilvies of the world. And the only way to survive is to have these breakthrough ideas and be super persuasive with the written word. So it's like a, an animal that was grew up, that was on an island and the animal had to develop this shell if it needed, if it was going to survive. That was the only way to survive in that climate. And so if you want to get great at persuasion, you want to get great, great at the written word, you could learn from a bunch of people. You can go learn from Elon Musk or Steve Jobs.

• 1:00:06Shaan Puri?

  But those guys, in order to do what they did, they grew up, you know, they, they had to have other disciplines that they were great at. And they could be good, or maybe even really good at copywriting. But there's people who, that was the only way that they could make it. And so those people like sharpen that. And you see this with a bunch of different things. So you see this with a lot of investors. When we have them on the podcast, we're like, wow, like, I wanted to ask you about like stocks and like, you know, analysis. But 95% of the things you thought, you think about and talk about is like mastering your own, like your own psychology and disciplining yourself and like learning like impulse control and learning how to like be a little, you know, to think for yourself and be comfortable in your own skin. And it's like, yeah, that's actually what,

• 1:00:51Shaan Puri?

  that's the thing it was required in order to be great in the investment world. Combination of like independent thinking and then like self-control and playing the long game and patience, right? And then you talk to people who are, you know, maybe comedians and comedians are like, wow, you're actually like kind of a truth teller. And it's like, well, yeah, like, that's kind of what comedy is. It's like basically like seeing things for what it is that nobody's saying out loud, and then we say it out loud, and then everybody laughs because everybody knew it. And so you realize like, oh, these comedians are actually like pretty wise and pretty like spot on and spotting like the truth, the underlying truth in sight. He's like, yeah, because if they don't do that, they don't make anyone laugh. And they get booed off the stage and it's horrible. And so the ones who survive are the ones who figure out how to do that one thing at a world-class level.

• 1:01:35Shaan Puri?

  And so you could study different disciplines where like the Darwinian, you know, pressure, the natural selection forced them to become like A++ at a certain thing.

• 1:01:45Sam Parr?

  Who uh, who, who do you think falls in that category where you learn about them and, and they've done the same thing to you? Where you went to them for like, let's say, writing, uh, and they changed your life?

• 1:01:56Shaan Puri?

  Seinfeld. Seinfeld is the easiest example. So I, I wanted this year, I was like, oh, like, could you like make yourself funnier? I just sort of assumed that like, you know, growing up, it's like you either are funny or you're not. And in my house, like my sister is really funny. And so it was always like, she's the funny one and she's the great storyteller. And I was like the nice kid. And so I always had this probably like, from a young age, desire to be more like her. And like today is so funny, people would be like, from the podcast, they'd be like, oh yeah, you're a great storyteller. I'm like, you haven't seen my sister. My sister's amazing at this. I'm just okay. But over time, as I've grown up, I've realized like a lot of these things that seem like you either have it or you don't. Creativity, humor, storytelling, like, no, these are just skills you can develop. Like you, if you just try, you can get way better at it.

• 1:02:40Shaan Puri?

  And so humor was one this, this year I went into and I was like, all right, let me just take two weeks and be like, let me just learn what there is to learn. Let me just see if I can make myself funnier. So I went and studied Seinfeld. So I went for the jokes and then I came out and been like, this man is wise and has some of like the best, sort of like, he has this incredible creative process, like the way he works has changed the way I work like completely, like night and day difference.

• 1:03:04Sam Parr?

  In what way?

• 1:03:05Shaan Puri?

  So Seinfeld does this thing in the morning, you, you know about this, but like maybe other people don't. Seinfeld, for the last 45 years, has a morning routine. Seinfeld's morning routine is very simple. He's like, if you want to be a comedian and you want to write, you want to, you know, tell great jokes, you've got to write jokes every day. So he wakes up in the morning, he sits down with a yellow legal pad, a pen and a coffee. And he has two hours where before he's pre-input, pre-everything. Nobody, no meetings, nobody can call him, he doesn't read the newspaper, he doesn't check social media, doesn't do anything else. He's like, I'm going to do two hours of this and then I can do whatever I want for the rest of the day. And he sits down, he does this two hour morning block, it's two hour morning routine. He's done that every day for 45 years, to the point where there's a photo, where he

• 1:03:47Shaan Puri?

  took the pages from his yellow legal pads over the 40 years and he laid it out on the street, I think in New York.

• 1:03:53Sam Parr?

  No way.

• 1:03:54Shaan Puri?

  You haven't seen this?

• 1:03:55Sam Parr?

  No, I'm gonna Google it.

• 1:03:56Shaan Puri?

  It literally becomes the yellow brick road. This is awesome. Are you kidding me? This is so cool. So he to promote his book, so he published a book basically of like all of his like scrap jokes that he didn't put into his stand up. It's called, is this, is this anything? I think is the name of the book. But to promote it, he did this yellow brick road of all his yellow pages. And, you know, like, for example, you know, how did I work before this? Right? I'd wake up, I check Slack, I check my email. I'd then start to think about what I'm gonna do, but then I got kinda hungry, then I go do this. Then, oh, I had this meeting scheduled at nine, so I'm gonna get to my main thing at 11. And just Seinfeld's like keeping it sacred of like, yo, what's your main thing? You spend two, if you're gonna be creative, you're gonna spend two hours in the morning creating. That's it. Tim Urban from Wait, But Why told me the same thing.

• 1:04:38Shaan Puri?

  He goes, if he goes, all I have to do in life is wake up and spend the first two hours writing. And if I do that, life is amazing. And if I don't do that, my life sucks. He's like, and by the way, it's only two hours. It's not eight hours. It's not 10 hours. I don't have to keep grinding all day. Two hours is more than enough if I actually do it. So Seinfeld does that and he talks about writer's block. Where they're like, but Jerry, like, what do you do on days where you don't know what to write? He's like, uh, like, what do you do with writer's block? He goes, oh, you know, it's funny you ask, cuz there is no writer's block. And they're like, what do you mean, Jerry? Like, of course, like, we have all felt it. There's writer's block. He goes, no, no, no. There's lazy, there's afraid, there's having too high of expectations, but there's no writer's block. Let's be clear. And he's like, here's the security of writer's block. You ready? Accept your own mediocrity.

• 1:05:21Shaan Puri?

  Don't sit down and think, today I'm gonna make this great thing. It's gonna be so amazing. I'm the words are gonna flow. I'm gonna make this funny joke. Because that's what stops you. What you need to do is almost an anti affirmation. You need to sit down and say, today I'm gonna sit down, it's gonna be hard to write. The thing I'm gonna come up with is gonna pretty much suck. I'm gonna look at it and I'm gonna hate it. I'm gonna wanna crumble it up and throw it in the trash. It's gonna be that bad. But you know what? I'm gonna put it down on paper anyways, because every once in a while, there'll be a little nugget of something good. And then after I find a little nugget of something good, I might be able to polish it with a ton of work later and make it great. And he's like, this sort of like anti affirmation. Right? So like, I have taken that and completely stolen that as my daily process. From this guy I went to to learn about like how to make people laugh and I'm like,

• 1:06:03Sam Parr?

  That's awesome.

• 1:06:03Shaan Puri?

  I learned how to work, how to live. Like he talks about, he does transcendental meditation. They're like, oh, is that, that's really great. Do you love meditation? He goes, no, I just want to write great jokes. He's like, but you have to whip the mind. You have to whip the body. He's like, so why do I work out to be a better comedian? Why do I meditate? To recharge my battery so I can be a better comedian? He's like, all this stuff I do is to be a better comedian. He's like, he's like, you'll learn pretty quick. If you don't work out, you're leaving, you know, some of you on the table from being able to do your best work. If you don't do something like a meditation or something to recharge your mental battery, you're going to do worse work. Like it's just as simple as that. Right? Uh, he's got a ton of stuff on that.

• 1:06:38Sam Parr?

  I've been, that's so great. Jerry, I listened, I listened to a lot of his YouTube videos, his interviews, um, because it's the same thing where I learn more about life than anything. You know, there's a famous one where he talks about like consultants, like in, in comedian, uh, comedians and making jokes.

• 1:06:52Shaan Puri?

  The best.

• 1:06:53Sam Parr?

  Uh, what, what's he say about that?

• 1:06:55Shaan Puri?

  So the joke is, uh, he's getting interviewed by, I think like Harvard Business Review, and they go, um, you and Larry David famously wrote Seinfeld together with no writers room, just the two of you guys. You wrote every single season, every episode, and burnout was one of the reasons you stopped the show in the end. Like, you know, uh, was there, and he goes, the Harvard Business Review goes, was there a more sustainable way to do it? Could McKinsey have helped you find a better model? And he goes, who's McKinsey?

• 1:07:22Sam Parr?

  Wait, did they really ask that?

• 1:07:23Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. He goes, who's McKinsey? And they go, it's a consulting firm. He goes, are they funny? He go, they go, no. He goes, then I don't need them. If you're efficient, if you're efficient, you're doing it the wrong way. The right way is the hard way. The show was successful because I micromanaged it. Every word, every line, every take, every edit, every casting, that is my way of life.

• 1:07:43Sam Parr?

  Did you have this up right now?

• 1:07:46Shaan Puri?

  Dude, I have like a dossier of Seinfeld, like I told, I studied this man, like. I went deep on this.

• 1:07:53Sam Parr?

  That's awesome. Have you ever seen him live?

• 1:07:56Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I've seen Seinfeld. Honestly, wasn't that funny?

• 1:07:59Sam Parr?

  I was gonna say the same thing. I was gonna say the same thing.

• 1:08:01Shaan Puri?

  Love the guy, don't love his comedy, actually.

• 1:08:04Sam Parr?

  His, his standup is meh. His writing is the best, but his standup for some reason is just fine.

• 1:08:10Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, it's just okay.

• 1:08:12Sam Parr?

  I've been up.

• 1:08:13Shaan Puri?

  But actually, it's in part why I really love this guy, right? Because he's been touring for 50 years as a comedian. 50 years. This is unbelievable. Like LeBron James is jealous of Jerry Seinfeld's longevity. There's like 50 years unbelievable longevity as a touring comedian. And he's also, I think it was remarkable, he's one of the, he's the first and only billionaire comedian. Mostly because of Seinfeld, the show, but also like comedians in cars doing coffee. He sold for like a hundred million dollars.

• 1:08:39Sam Parr?

  Did he really?

• 1:08:39Shaan Puri?

  Been touring for a long time. Yeah, Netflix picked it up for a hundred million dollars. He's a super, he's outlier. But the great thing about Seinfeld is if you see him, he's not like naturally just oozing charisma and like talent. Like there's some guys that could do amazing impressions. You're like, I could never do that. Right? Or there's other guys that are just like, they have just this knack, this gift for gab. And you just see it like the way they grew up. Like this guy's just so funny. And Seinfeld is like a, he looks like an HR manager, right? Like he doesn't look like he's the most naturally talented guy. And that's kind of why I love it. Like the guy's the most successful comedian. He's because he's just this craftsman. He like squeezed everything out of his natural talent. And I think how often does that really happen?

• 1:09:22Shaan Puri?

  Like, how often do people really maximize their potential? Very rare.

• 1:09:25Sam Parr?

  I remember when I was starting The Hustle, Scott Belsky, like I cold emailed him and asked him to invest and he didn't want to invest. But then I just like added him to The Hustle and I started writing like extra good emails. And he eventually replied, he's like, this is so good. Can I invest like a very small sum, but I just want to let you know, like the, this is like, you're fantastic. This is great. And he let me hang out with him. So for anyone listening, Scott Belsky, at this point, he's known as like a legendary investor. But before he was this amazing investor, he had started Behance, which he had sold for, I think, a hundred and 75 million dollars. Now, he, he was nearly the CEO of Adobe, which is one of the largest companies in the world. I think now he works at A24. Is that right? Like the big shot Hollywood production company.

• 1:10:10Shaan Puri?

  He's the like chief strategy officer and something else.

• 1:10:14Sam Parr?

  And I didn't listen to his advice when I, when I met with him and I always regretted that I didn't listen to his, his advice and I didn't understand it until now. He basically was saying the exact opposite of scale, scale, scale. I was like, I need to automate this. I need to hire more people. I need to get away from writing this email every day and making it great. I need to add more revenue. I need to get more advertisers. And he was basically like, you need to go in a room and just not have anyone around and you just need to write this email every single day for about four or five years and be, uh, he used the, I'd never heard anyone use the word steward. He was like, you need to be a steward of greatness and a steward of taste for your audience. And I didn't understand what that entirely meant, but what I thought in my head, I was

• 1:10:59Sam Parr?

  like, but you're wanting me to act like I'm a small business owner? You're wanting me to act like a craftsman? I was like, I'm not trying to be some garage band. I'm trying to be Lady Gaga. Like I'm trying to sell out stadiums. What are you talking about being a craftsman? Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't understand what you're saying. Why am I going to say small? I want to sell out. I don't want to, like, that's the whole goal. And it took me years to understand what he meant, which was you can become this like huge, successful person and also be a craftsman. You know who honestly does a great job at this and it seems silly is Dave Portnoy. Dave Portnoy has his hat, and I don't even like the comedy anymore, but he's had his hands in it and he's been consistent now for 25 years and he's ridiculous.

• 1:11:44Sam Parr?

  He's a ridiculous person. He's sort of obnoxious, but you know what? He's done it. He's done exactly what Scott Belsky has said, which is you need to be in the thick of it and you need to be focused purely on creative and you need to be a steward for taste. And I didn't understand what that meant until I was about 32 years old. I think he told me this when I was 26 and I, and I, and I was like, Scott, how are you so successful? You don't know anything about business. You're telling me not to like focus on scaling and all this. Gaga, Scott, Gaga. And, but now that I know like some of these people who are actually making the most money are actually still craftsmen. Uh, and like, and, and so like I distinctly remember, I'm like, I want to sell out stadiums. I'm trying to sell out. I'm not trying to be a small, little like Korean family owned bodega. Like I'm going to take over the world, baby.

• 1:12:30Shaan Puri?

  You, you said Dave Portnoy, there's another guy who's like that, Bill Simmons. And he's probably, you know, he's probably the reason I'm doing a podcast today is because I was back in college in, I don't know what, what that was, 2007, listening to his, to the BS Report. You know, I used to like fall asleep listening to the BS Report. Like it was like, it was that like, and at the time podcasts were nothing. And he, he had been a blogger before that. Then he was ESPN columnist, then he did the podcast, then he did 30 for 30 documentaries. Then he went, he gets fired from ESPN because he does the, he does the ringer. Why do you get fired? He was pretty outspoken against Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner. Got it. This guy's like, kind of covering shit up and like not, like he doesn't care.

• 1:13:14Shaan Puri?

  It could be contained, that's the best idea. Violence thing, there was like the concussion stuff. And he was basically like, he would make jokes, but like the NFL's ESPN's biggest partner. And so he was, he got suspended a couple of times. And then they were just like, this guy's too hard to work with. And so they, um, they killed his project Grantland and they fired him. And so he comes back after licking his wounds a little bit, and he comes back with the ringer, which is just the Grantland, Grantland again. And he'd been doing this now for like a long time, but he ends up selling to Spotify for $200 million. And there's a great tweet that was going on the other day. So the tweet was basically a video of Simmons, and he's walking through the office. He's carrying like a chair, like a school chair. And he's carrying a chair and a microphone. And he's like, uh, and they're like, they're like, Bill,

• 1:13:59Shaan Puri?

  what are you doing? He's like, a trade had just happened in the NFL, the Mike Parsons trade just happened. And it's like, kind of like, uh, you know, in the grand scheme of things, not like a big story, but like, you know, it was like the biggest story that week. And his, his company has like 15 other podcasts. And so there's like this NFL podcast going on. And he's like, I gotta go talk about this. So he's just carrying a chair through the hallway and there's a guy behind him like filming him like, Bill, what are you doing? And he just barges in and he like puts down his chair with his microphone. And he wants to like, talk about it with the guys. And they're, and somebody tweeted, they're like, honestly, respect. This guy's been doing this for like 20 years. He's got, he's worth like $200 million. And yet on a like Thursday, he can't wait. He's literally carrying his chair and his microphone and wants to sit with his friends and do a podcast about this trade. Like, that's kind of

• 1:14:43Shaan Puri?

  goals. You know what I mean? Like, that's actually like career goals. And that really, like, I don't know, that that kind of like stuck with me. Like, that is really what you want is like, a job that's so fun, and so like, so you that it doesn't matter what's the money in the bank. Like, you really just want to do it. You just want to do the thing, to the point where you're just gonna carry your chair down the hallway and try to find a podcast to go do about it, you know? I thought that was great.

• 1:15:06Sam Parr?

  Where's he now? So is Grantland still a thing?

• 1:15:09Shaan Puri?

  Grantland died with ESPN. He creates The Ringer. Ringer sold to Spotify. And so it's part of Spotify. And he's been, you know, making bank ever since.

• 1:15:19Sam Parr?

  Why haven't we been able to get him on here? You've talked about him like, four or five times as like, your number one.

• 1:15:25Shaan Puri?

  He's like that girl at the dance, I don't want to approach.

• 1:15:27Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:28Shaan Puri?

  I'm like, hold on, I just gotta like, I'm gonna fix my shirt real quick. I gotta take my shirt. I gotta go, I gotta go get some punch. I'm thirsty. Yeah, I gotta, I'll do everything else. Just go for asking him.

• 1:15:38Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I mean, he looks pretty awesome. I don't know really anything about him. I would love to talk to this dude. He seems great. And you've talked about him like six or seven.

• 1:15:47Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:48Sam Parr?

  Is he?

• 1:15:50Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I mean, to go from a dude who couldn't even get hired by like, a local paper, basically. So he starts blogging early on on the internet, parlay's that blog into like, getting his own section and being the highest paid sport writer at ESPN. But the thing is, it's not just that he was the highest, it's not that he's successful, he did it his way. Like, he created an entire style of writing on, like, a publication like ESPN. He basically wrote like a blogger on ESPN. Nobody did that. He wasn't impartial. He was like, no, I love the Red Sox. I love the Patriots. I'm from Boston. What are you talking about? I'm gonna write like a fan. Like, I'm gonna write like a fan, and sometimes I'll be pissed at what my team is doing. Sometimes I'll be excited about it. I'm gonna make a bunch of references to like, MTV Road Rules, The Challenge. Like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna

• 1:16:34Shaan Puri?

  do what I'm interested in, even though that makes, none of it is like, by the book. And then he does podcasting early on, then he does the documentary series, builds the most successful sports documentary series.

• 1:16:44Sam Parr?

  What, thirty for thirty?

• 1:16:45Shaan Puri?

  Thirty for thirty. He like, it was his brainchild. He conceived it. He created it inside of ESPN. Like, nobody believed in it, basically. And he, you know, he's kind of fought for it, got it done. It became super successful. I, he's epic, dude, what he's done. And still on the podcast, he, you would never know. So he'll never reference the fact that like, he's basically richer than like a lot of the athletes he covers at this point. He's super well-connected to him, but he's tried to like, never really, he doesn't let that sort of creep into his content. Also, he didn't really rub it in ESPN's face, uh, which he very much could have because they like, literally kicked him to the curb and didn't believe in him and told him like, Grantland, the idea is a failure.

• 1:17:24Shaan Puri?

  Like, that, that's a money loser doesn't work. And he replicated the same business and sold it for $200 million. So, you know, like, he, he could have done a victory lap and never did.

• 1:17:34Sam Parr?

  That's awesome. I'm a, I'm a Bill Simmons fan now.

• 1:17:37Shaan Puri?

  There you go.

• 1:17:37Sam Parr?

  Should I interview him without you?

• 1:17:40Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I think you should.

• 1:17:41Sam Parr?

  So, Sean's not here today, but he says you're, you're his inspiration and he would do anything for you.

• 1:17:47Shaan Puri?

  There's been a couple of these guests where you fangirl. That would be one where I'd be, I'd be too much of a fangirl. And, uh, it really would be counterproductive to the podcast.

• 1:17:55Sam Parr?

  That would be great to get you rattled. You're not normally, uh, someone who gets rattled. All right. That was a good episode. I enjoyed that, but, uh, that's, that's the pod.

• 1:18:14Shaan Puri?

  All right. Let's take a quick break because as you know, we are on the HubSpot Podcast Network, but we're not the only ones. There's other podcasts on this network too, and maybe you liked them. Maybe you should check them out. One of them that I want to draw your attention to is called Nudge by Phil Agnew. And whether you're a marketer or a salesperson and you're looking for the small changes you could make, the new habits you could do, the, the small decisions you could make that will make a big difference. That's what that podcast is all about. Check it out. It's called Nudge and you can get it wherever you get your podcasts.