Controversial Business Lessons From Napoleon, Edison & Hitler

Episode 369: Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) and Producer Ben (@BenWilsonTweets) take a turn with One Question Friday... instead of a question they discuss traits of conquerors from yesterday and today. ----- Links: * My First Million * How To Take Over The World * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. * Want more insights like MFM? Check out Shaan's newsletter. ------ Show Notes: (02:25) - lessons from Hitler (10:25) - addictive personalities (18:10) - charismatic people (26:25) - bias to action ----- Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. ----- Additional episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto * #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

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

• 0:00Ben?

  That is what all of them did. That's what Napoleon did. That's what Hitler did. That's what Caesar did. Is this like taking tons of resources and focusing them on a very small point and taking lots of gravity and to kind of narrowing the focus?

• 0:19Ben?

  Hey, my first million fans. This is producer Ben. I'm subbing in this week because Sean is out with some family stuff. But for one question Friday today, Sam and I sat down to discuss how to take over the world, some things that I have learned from studying lives of great achievers and conquerors throughout history. And Sam and I just got to talking about history and great people in our own lives and what we've learned from them. So it's a little bit of a more random and less focused one question Friday, but I think there's some really good stuff in it that I think you'll really enjoy.

• 0:49Sam Parr?

  So I asked you traits of conquerors. And the reason I'm thinking about that is I just finished this like epic book. It's like 1400 pages long. It's called the, what is it called? The, I think it's the rise and fall of the Third Reich. Have you heard of that?

• 1:08Ben?

  Yeah. So it's kind of one of the seminal texts on Hitler Nazism.

• 1:13Sam Parr?

  Yes. And it's crazy. And I was reading it and I was like,

• 1:18Sam Parr?

  this is nuts that the reason I read it was I wanted to figure out why would, why would like a country, you know, be so complicit with such bad things. And I was like, what on earth was about this Hitler dude that like convinced all these people to do all these, these bad things? And so I learned and it was wild. And I started and basically it all kind of came down to like, he was in prison one time because he like tried to like, basically was a glorified protester. Like I do, he kind of like stormed the, it was like storming the Capitol kind of like type of thing. And he was arrested for it. And in prison, he wrote his book called Mein Kampf. And in the book, he wrote, like, I've, I've recently discovered that it is my obligation to lead

• 2:03Sam Parr?

  the German people to greatness. And he like dedicated his life to that. And it was wild that there was like a decision to be made. And like, it was almost perfect execution. I mean, you know, it wasn't in the end because he didn't achieve his, whatever he was trying to achieve. But like, he got so freaking far, so past what like,

• 2:23Sam Parr?

  What I ever would have thought and at the time when Nazis came to power, right before they came to power, they were the freaks of Germany. Like at the time, they were like, they had a lot of homosexuals in their, in the crew, which was like not looked on nicely, you know, at that time, they had like a bunch of artists, a bunch of like oddballs, people who were like, had a lot of antisocial behavior, like they dressed funny, like people were like, who, these guys are a joke. No one's gonna take these idiots seriously. And it, you know, it changed quickly. And so anyway, I thought that was fascinating about conquerors and like these types of people and like how on earth they, they came to be. And so I wanted to ask you, like, what are some common traits amongst those?

• 2:59Ben?

  Do you feel weird learning lessons from the life of Hitler?

• 3:03Sam Parr?

  No, because I, well, I'm not necessarily learning a lesson that I want to emulate, like, but that said, I do think you can learn good lessons from bad people. Like that's, you definitely can learn a good lesson from a bad person. That, there's no doubt about that. Like you can, and like, I mean, everyone's bad in someone's eyes, but like I can read about Napoleon and learn about like war and strategy and apply that to like business. So I can, I can always learn good lessons from bad people. But, uh, I do, I just wanted to learn, like, why did we do this? Why did so many people go along with this crap?

• 3:36Ben?

  So here's the thing. Here's a lesson I learned from Sean, Mr. Beast and Hitler. Okay. There's your headline.

• 3:44Sam Parr?

  Oh, my God.

• 3:45Ben?

  But so here's, this was so fascinating to me. So, uh, we're, we're do this Camp MFM thing and we're at Cameron Indoor Stadium and they decide to do a half court shoot off between Sean and Mr. Beast for $10,000, right? And Sean turns to the camera.

• 4:04Sam Parr?

  Basically, Mr. Beast goes, Sean, if you make a shot at half court, I'll give you $10,000. And Sean goes, will you give me 10 grand in Bitcoin? He goes, sure. Let's do it.

• 4:14Ben?

  So, yeah, I think in the end, told him that he'd give him 10 grand, actually in pennies. I don't know if he ended up doing that or not. But, so, um, they're going to go start shooting at half court and Sean turns to the camera and does his cheesiest, like he's joking around, Mr. Beast impression. And he goes, I'm about to shoot from half court with Mr. Beast and whichever one of us makes it first is gonna make $10,000. Like totally hamming it up, kind of poking fun at himself, right? The funny thing is, when we post the video, it actually popped off and went viral on TikTok. His little

• 4:49Sam Parr?

  Really?

• 4:50Ben?

  Yeah, yeah, that was one of our videos that is, I think in the millions of views. If not, it's in the hundreds of thousands of views on reels and on TikTok. And what it realized in my mind, what clicked in my mind when I saw that is, oh, like, it's actually

• 5:07Ben?

  not that hard to figure out what you're supposed to do to be successful in this kind of stuff. Just very few people are willing to commit to the bit fully, right? Like, Mr. Beast fully commits to the bit. Like, he actually does that every time. He looks at the camera, "I'm about to give $100,000 away to these people if they eat a cockroach," or whatever he says, right? And he fully commits to it. And Hitler is the same thing. Like, you go and you watch those speeches, and he's ridiculous, right? He's gesticulating, he's yelling, he's screaming. But he, like, fully committed to being Hitler, to, like, representing, you know, German greatness and the Aryan race or whatever. But like, he didn't care.

• 5:51Ben?

  Everyone thought he looked ridiculous outside of Germany, right? Like, tons of people mocked and made fun of Hitler. He was very mockable, very easy to make fun of. And you can easily make fun of Mr. Beast and the thing he does. Sorry, Mr. Beast, for comparing you to Hitler. But like, the idea of just like, throw away your shame and embarrassment. Whatever you're trying to do, just fully commit to the bit, and you're gonna be really successful? I think that's very true.

• 6:14Sam Parr?

  Dude, I, and I want to talk about like, other people and what they had in common, but like, the, like, I was like,

• 6:22Sam Parr?

  emotional reading this thing. So basically, Joseph Goebbels, is it Goebbels?

• 6:26Ben?

  Goebbels.

• 6:27Sam Parr?

  Goebbels, he was like, head of propaganda. And this guy, like, if you Google him, he looks like the most evil person on earth. And he was a horrible guy. And he wrote in a journal throughout this whole process. Like, he was journaling like crazy, and so his book cited his journal. And they tell the story of basically Hitler has just killed himself, and Joseph Goebbels and his wife have, I think, five or six kids. And they write in their diary and tell people, they're like, "Well..." We're gonna go and kill our kids right now, then we're gonna kill ourselves because us and our children belong to the Führer, to the Third Reich. And if the Third Reich won't exist, we do not deserve to exist either. And I like, I was like, that's just like the worst crime.

• 7:11Sam Parr?

  I mean, I don't know about the worst because they did so many horrible things, but I mean, they just went and killed their, their children, six of them, all below 12 years old. And I was like, this is the power that charisma or whatever it was had over people that like, they, they went, committed, I mean, all the, obviously we killed, or not we, but they killed five or six million people. There was, it was horrible, but like that act is even more intimate in some regards. And I remember reading that. I'm like, holy crap. I cannot believe that this person, this evil guy got all these people to do this crazy shit. It was, that was one of the more emotional periods of that book.

• 7:49Ben?

  Yeah, that's tough. That's tough. Okay. Let's, let's talk a little bit like kind of military strategy and good strategy. Like let's, let's pivot from the darkness a little bit. So, uh, common attributes of great conquerors. So one of the things that I think is interesting, have you heard of blitzkrieg?

• 8:07Sam Parr?

  It basically is a, it's a German thing where it says like when they attacked, they, they kind of go all out for short periods, right? Like, uh, the opposite of what World War One was, wasn't it?

• 8:17Ben?

  Yes. So it means lightning attacks or lightning strikes. And the idea is it's these short, quick, like, uh, attacks before, you know, you shock the enemy and, and go faster than they expect. What's interesting to me is that blitzkrieg is, was sort of a marketing stunt. It wasn't anything that the Nazis talked about internally. It's really something like an American invention to explain German success.

• 8:46Ben?

  What the Germans actually talked about was this word.

• 8:52Ben?

  Oh, I can't remember the word in German. But it essentially means gravity. Looking it up. Schwerpunkt. And it means gravity. And so it wasn't just that the attacks were fast, although they were. But it was actually like massed strikes. So they attacked fast, yes, but they were able to sustain that attack and follow up on it for a long time, which is actually the same thing that Napoleon did. So in the Napoleonic Wars, before he came along, people were stretching out their troops further and further to try and flank their enemies. And then he's like, well, if everyone's gonna do that, I'm actually just gonna pack all my troops in the middle and then like punch a hole in the middle of their lines. And I think like, to go back to

• 9:34Ben?

  the Amazon example, like, I think that has big applications in business as well.

• 9:40Sam Parr?

  Well, haven't you heard the phrase blitzscale?

• 9:43Ben?

  There you go. That's Reid Hoffman, right?

• 9:45Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 9:46Ben?

  Yeah. Of, it's not just going fast, although fast is important, but it's that like, focusing tons of resources on a small focal point. So like to go back to the Amazon example, it's starting with bookstores, right? Starting with just books. Like, I'm gonna take tons of resources and just focus on this tiny place and then follow up on that victory. I'm gonna win books first and then I'm gonna follow up on that with with other marginal victories.

• 10:10Sam Parr?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 10:11Ben?

  And so that was interesting to me that like, that is what all of them did. That's what Napoleon did. That's what Hitler did. That's what Caesar did. Is this like, taking tons of resources and focusing them on a very small point, taking lots of gravity and kind of narrowing the focus? So that was one interesting takeaway for me.

• 10:29Sam Parr?

  What else did they, did they have that? They did a lot of like, conquerors, which I don't, I don't know even how we would define a conqueror, but there's like the stereotypes of like a Napoleon. I don't know like what would, a good American leader example of this would be, but like whoever we describe it as, what else do they have in common? Or even the business people like Edison or something?

• 10:53Ben?

  Yeah, I mean, so for me, the number one, you know, you mentioned Edison and the one I think I think of is total obsession, right? With Edison, the big thing that clicked for me was he was inventing so much that he was basically not eating, he's super skinny, super gaunt, he wasn't washing his clothes, he smelled bad, he was barely sleeping, he would like invent and tinker until he fell asleep at his workbench and then he would like wake up in the morning and like start inventing again. His family was worried about him and I was like, oh, man, like substitute inventing for meth or heroin. And it'd be very clear that this guy was an addict, that he was a junkie.

• 11:32Ben?

  And I, that's when it clicked for me, oh, all of these people who are super successful have addictive personalities. It just so happens that they're addicted to something that is considered positive.

• 11:43Sam Parr?

  Was he born that way, you think, or realized people, are they born this way?

• 11:47Ben?

  I think so. And if you look at the numbers, people who achieve a lot, CEOs, you'd think that like they don't have problems with substance abuse, right? Because these are highly functioning people, but it actually turns out that they have higher rates of addiction and substance abuse than the general population when they study it. And so I think they are born with this propensity to addiction and they're the kinds of people that like they could end up,

• 12:17Ben?

  you know, conquering a vast European empire or they get hooked on laudanum when they're like a teenager and end up a junkie on the streets, right? Like they're gonna end up addicted to something, let's just hope it's something positive.

• 12:29Sam Parr?

  Dude, have you read, have you ever heard of this book called The First Rate Madness, I think it's called?

• 12:34Ben?

  No.

• 12:35Sam Parr?

  So this author has this premise where he was like, in times of like stability,

• 12:42Sam Parr?

  a non-mental ill, mentally ill leader is needed. But in times of turmoil, which includes like the American Civil War or includes like someone.

• 12:53Sam Parr?

  It was like trying to dominate and conquer, or it includes like MLK, you know, trying to like during the civil rights movement is like a non or sorry, a mentally ill leader during those periods is actually ideal and they tend to be better. And the author explains like, well, first, let's define mentally ill. And it's like a propensity to like be addicted to drugs and alcohol, or like huge bouts of depression. Or in Lincoln's case, he actually tried to kill himself like two or three times before he became president. Or Churchill Churchill was like, I've thought about killing myself a ton, but I'm just too big of a sissy in order to do it. But like I am. And so, and he became an out, he was an alcoholic. And

• 13:34Sam Parr?

  so like, they basically just talk about how the great, great leaders during troubled periods, majority of them have mental illness.

• 13:44Ben?

  Yeah. And this is something, again, to go back to Mr. Beast, that I actually don't know if I, I'll just say this, and we'll see if I should cut it or not. But I was talking with him, and he was like, Yeah, I can't really gamble because I'm kind of a gambling addict. And he talked about like, I don't know, say the name of the game, highly addicting crypto gambling site that he would be wagering like tens of thousands of dollars on.

• 14:17Sam Parr?

  Yeah, man, I, that's no secret, though. Like, people who are, who get there, they are.

• 14:23Ben?

  And that's what I realized is that for, for him, YouTube is another form of gambling, right? Because like, you put out the video, and who knows how it's gonna do. And then you get that dopamine hit of like, oh, this got 50 million views. Like, it's very similar, that variability, the way that the algorithm can pick it up, make anything go viral. It's just, it's just his gambling addiction put into something positive, right? And so, I think that's very much exactly what you're saying, that for a lot of these people, In normal circumstances, they can't just chill and be happy and be normal. They have to be like running at such a high level. They have to be running at a 10 at all times. And that's good in extreme circumstances, but not in normal circumstances.

• 15:08Sam Parr?

  I don't even want to talk about Mr. Beast that much because we've like, kind of like done that plenty, but I remember at like 11pm at night, someone mentioned basketball and how excited he was to play basketball and Jimmy, he goes, let's just go right now. And we were like, what dude? It's like 11 o'clock. No one, he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's figure it out. And as he said that, his assistants were calling high school gyms, trying to wake up like the principals and being like, hey, I'll give you five grand if we can come play basketball right now. And I was like, what? No, dude, I don't want to do that. It sounds like hell. But, but he was serious. He wanted to go do it.

• 15:45Ben?

  Yeah.

• 15:46Sam Parr?

  It was weird. It was crazy. Who, who have you met besides him that you'd put in that category of these like obsessed, like almost conquer types, whatever, whatever we're calling this, this personality type. Who have you met that kind of has that gene other than him?

• 16:02Ben?

  Uh, you, I think you kind of have a screw loose in that way. Like, look at the way you approach fitness. Like you have trouble dipping your toes into things.

• 16:15Sam Parr?

  Yeah, that's for sure.

• 16:16Ben?

  And you've talked about you're, you're, you have an addictive personality as well.

• 16:19Sam Parr?

  I do. But yeah, I think I definitely am crazy. I think though, that I don't have the drive, like I, I am a little bit more self-aware where I'm like, uh, no, I don't want to do that. That sounds too hard. Uh, but yeah, I'm definitely crazy. Uh, in that obsession regard.

• 16:37Ben?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:42Speaker 02

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• 16:57Sam Parr?

  I'll give you one.

• 16:58Ben?

  Yeah, give me one.

• 16:58Sam Parr?

  Do you know who Tucker Max is?

• 17:00Ben?

  Yeah.

• 17:01Sam Parr?

  So Tucker Max is this author. He's my friend. Um, I haven't talked to him in a while, but I used to be buddies with him and he's an author. He wrote, uh, I hope they serve beer in hell. Now he has a company and lately he's taking kind of like a fairly. Right turn, or I don't know what you want to call it, where he like writes these articles predicting that the world's gonna end. And I don't agree with anything that he says about that type of thing. I mean, I agree that like, okay, cool, prepare and be like self sufficient, but I don't think the world's gonna end. And I disagree with so many of his point of views. But whenever I hang out with him and I hear him talk, in my head, I'm like, I think you are wrong. I think you're wrong. I think you're wrong. And yet, I find myself by like, like fighting myself from buying into

• 17:45Sam Parr?

  what you are saying, even though logically, I'm like, no, that's, I don't believe that that's true for these following reasons. But when I get around him, I'm like, dude, you like are so confident. You are such a good storyteller. You have such strong energy driving you into one direction. It's sucking me in. And so I would find myself having to like pinch myself to him like, dude, you gotta snap out of it. And Tucker Max has that hardcore. And if you read his writing, even it comes through in his writing, you'll read something and you'll say, oh, this guy's totally right. And then I gotta go and like, read something that's the opposite, like, oh, well, there are counterpoints.

• 18:19Ben?

  Yeah, yeah. I so I just thought of one that's a little like, I guess off the wall. His name's Dallin H. Oaks. He was on Circuit Court of Appeal. He was one of the highest judges in the United States, was on the shortlist to be on the Supreme Court for Reagan, but then didn't become a Supreme Court Justice, ended up becoming an apostle for the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, is now the number two person in the church, is set to take over the church probably in a few years. What I found interesting is, I think that was the first time I met him when I was like 16, that I encountered true charisma, and it felt different than I thought it would feel. Because when I talked to him, he talked to me for like 10 minutes, unbelievably

• 19:01Ben?

  charmed me, like I couldn't believe it. But the impression I had coming away was, wow, I'm so smart. Because he was so good at, I don't want to say manipulating, but like, At playing on my feelings and just being like, wow, that's really interesting. What, you know, and just kind of like getting me to feel comfortable and divulge information about myself and like focusing all his attention on me that I came away and I was like, man, I'm super special. And I think that's what truly charismatic people do. People think that it's like inward magnetism, but it almost goes the opposite direction of like somehow they're able to make you feel like you're the special one. And, uh, and then you like get like drunk on that almost.

• 19:46Sam Parr?

  Totally. I've been, uh, I used to work for this guy named John Cobb. John ran this company called Apartmentless. They bought my other business and I don't know how big they are now. Maybe it's like a hundred, they've raised maybe one or $200 million of funding and like, they're probably going to go public or I, I met, that's what they have to do. And this guy, I was only 22 when I worked there and he would give these talks at the office. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I believe that I am, and we weren't even doing anything interesting. It was just like a Zillow competitor, which was like, not exactly the most sexy thing. We're not saving the earth. We're not going to the moon. Like there's nothing like, it's just a cool money-making scheme and a slightly better way to maybe find an apartment in some cities. And I remember like hearing him talk and I'm like, I am

• 20:27Sam Parr?

  so, we are, we are democratizing housing and like, we are like, I am so on board with this. We are making people's lives so much better. And like it, we owe it to the world to do this. And he has just shown me that it is possible. And you begin to think that rules don't apply to you. And you say, it's us versus everyone, which is a common tactic in a cult. And you should always do this in a good company, which is you have you and then you have the enemy and everyone's out to, to, on the enemy's side and it's us versus them. And you have to create that dynamic. And also I felt with him, whenever he would give these talks on a Friday, we used to have this thing where Friday at four, he would give a talk. And I remember thinking like, rules don't apply to us. Like, and

• 21:11Sam Parr?

  I, and I've heard stories about Travis Kalanick at Uber. And I remember the people, it was like the same thing. They were like breaking laws and they're like, there, it wasn't these laws, we shouldn't be breaking them. It was, these laws shouldn't exist and they are wrong. And we need to prove to them that they are wrong. You know what I mean? And I remember hearing that and you just get intoxicated with it.

• 21:30Ben?

  Yeah. You know who's, uh, who's pretty good at this, uh, I found the Camp MFM is Suli. Uh, your friend.

• 21:37Sam Parr?

  You think so?

• 21:37Ben?

  Yeah, just like when I was talking to him, I think he kind of brain raped me a little bit like.

• 21:42Sam Parr?

  Why?

• 21:43Ben?

  At the end, I don't know. I just, at the end, he just was like so interested in me. And then I was just like, did I just tell Suli like everything about my life and like everything?

• 21:52Sam Parr?

  He does that.

• 21:53Ben?

  Yeah.

• 21:53Sam Parr?

  And like, and he won't tell you a thing about his.

• 21:55Ben?

  No, yeah, I was like, how is it that like you're the multimillionaire, like you have this successful business that you sold? Like you've done all this impressive stuff and like, we just spent 20 minutes talking about me and like, you know, everything about me. And I don't know anything about you at the end of this. How did this happen? Uh, he's so good at it. I don't know.

• 22:09Sam Parr?

  Yeah, he's good at it. So is Ben Levy, Sean's partner. Sean, he's really good at that, man. Ben, I always call Ben a shark, uh, but he's not actually a shark because he doesn't mean, he's not going to like harm you probably. Well, maybe, I don't know. I don't think so, but he, uh, like he's so good where I'll have to stop myself. I'm like, dude, shut the fuck up. I don't, you don't need to tell this guy all this shit. Like it's good to be private about some stuff and he's so good at getting stuff out of, getting stuff out of you. He's really good at that.

• 22:37Ben?

  Yeah.

• 22:37Sam Parr?

  So yeah, those people, they, they are good at that. They, um, another guy is, um, who I found myself getting like intoxicated with, there's a couple of people, uh, uh, Sam Bankman Freed. You know, the guy from, uh, uh, what's his, what, what the, the, you know, Bitcoin. What's his company called?

• 22:58Ben?

  FTX.

• 22:59Sam Parr?

  What is it? FTX and he has another one, I think. Uh, anyway, FTX, when I hear him talk, I just think like, oh, you're right about everything. Like, I don't want to, I like, I can't have and it's hard for me to understand anything than, other than what you believe, because you've just logically shown to me that this is all true. Even though I'm like, you have to remind, I have to remind myself, like this guy's just a 29 year old, smart guy, which is cool and all, but like, he's just a guy. He's, he's just a dude. He's still figuring out, just like I am, but I will hear him talk and I'm, I buy into everything he's saying. And another good person is Malcolm Gladwell. If you ever read a Malcolm Gladwell book, you'll think, oh, everything you're saying is facts. In reality, a lot of it's just theories and he'll say, this is just my, this is just a theory based off of the data.

• 23:41Sam Parr?

  Who knows if I'm right or wrong. This is just an idea, but I'll read hi- his stuff and I think, oh, this is, this is just how the world is. And my takeaway from that is storytelling is so important. It's so important.

• 23:54Ben?

  I think that Malcolm Gladwell is full of crap. Most of his stuff is like of little to no value. Anyone who asks me how to do storytelling, I'm like, just go listen to Malcolm Gladwell's podcast and analyze every single sentence. Like, it doesn't matter what you think of what he has to say. I think he's this generation's most gifted storyteller, and it's like, not close.

• 24:17Sam Parr?

  Dude, he's so good. He's so good.

• 24:19Ben?

  He's unbelievable. He's unbelievable.

• 24:21Sam Parr?

  He gets you intoxicated, is what he does. You feel like this intoxication, and you feel like, of course, this is the answer. What you are saying is true. And I have to purposely go and seek out, like, other opinions to be like, oh, well, you know, I gotta remind myself, this isn't necessarily true. It might be, but maybe not.

• 24:39Ben?

  Ogilvy has this good quote, David Ogilvy, like, very famous copywriter and advertiser, that the job of the first sentence is to get you to read the second sentence. And the job of the second sentence is to get you to read the third sentence. And if you read Gladwell with that lens, that framework in mind, he's such a master. Like, the first sentence of every podcast is independently extremely engaging and interesting. And it gets you to listen to the second sentence, which is itself extremely engaging. And like, every single sentence is a masterpiece that gets you to go into the next sentence. Everyone should read it. Everyone should read and listen to as much Gladwell as they can.

• 25:20Sam Parr?

  What's the name of his pod? I forget. It's called something history?

• 25:24Ben?

  Revisionist History.

• 25:25Sam Parr?

  Yeah, it's good, man. And he does a really good job of voice inflections. It doesn't sound like, my voice is fairly aggressive. His voice is like, soft and welcoming and like, warming. And so his inflections aren't like, when Sean and I talk, and then we like, get down low, and then we, and we come right back up. It's way more subtle. But in everything he says is like, a kind of a whisper. But he's, but, but he like, knows how to use empty space and silence, and then he knows how to come back in and lead you down, and get you to come a little bit more, and then he'll break it to you. You know what I mean? Like, he does these things. And I like, I'm tripping. It's called a slippery slope. That's what I call it. Same, in the slippery Slope is my name for that copyrighting concept of the first sentence is to get you to read the

• 26:09Sam Parr?

  second, which is get you read a third. That's a slippery slope. I want to pull you down that slope because the further I pull you along, the more bought in you get. And if you read like a Tony Robbins book, he'll say like, I'm about to tell you about one thing that's going to change your life. And he'll spend the rest of that chapter saying, we're about to get to it. We're getting to it soon. But before we do, I need to tell you why it's important. And then like, there's a reveal at the end. And oftentimes that reveals a little bit anticlimactic, but you're so deep down the slippery slope that you just you're bought in. And so that's what Malcolm Gladwell does wonderfully. He gets me to go down this slope and he pulls me down. And a lot

• 26:47Sam Parr?

  of the great dictators and CEOs and these like leaders, both good and bad, they were awesome at being orators, which is something we don't really talk about anymore. But like Obama was like that, where I was like, I heard Obama talk. And I'm like, dude, whatever you say, yes, I like this.

• 27:05Ben?

  It's seductive almost.

• 27:06Sam Parr?

  It's seductive. It's seductive, which the root of all this is learning how to write well, and how to storytell, and then if possible, how to speak, how to speak it.

• 27:17Ben?

  Can I talk about one more attribute that actually you and Sean have done a good job with recently on getting me on me about is this idea of like bias to action. So for me, my favorite story about this is Napoleon comes into command of the French army in Italy. And it's just been sitting there for months. And the reason is, they have, they don't have enough guns. They don't have enough ammunition. They don't have enough shoes. They don't have enough clothes. They're like horribly undersupplied. The morale is low. And so the general before Napoleon is like, we cannot, they're fighting the Austrians. We cannot go give battle to the Austrians like this. We're in a horrible state. And Napoleon comes in and he's like, okay, so today.

• 28:01Ben?

  I'm going to take account of everything that's happening in this army. You're going to give me an accounting of exactly how many shoes we have, the status of everything. And tomorrow, we're going to march to go fight the Austrians. And they're like, this is a horrible idea. Like, you should not do this. This army is in no shape to fight. And he's basically like, yeah, Isaac Newton, an object at rest stays at rest. An object in motion stays in motion. And so like, I don't care, we're going to go attack. And so they go out, they attack, they score a cheap, easy victory. And then they're just rolling, right? And then they roll through Italy and kick the crap out of the Austrians in like a matter of weeks. And so I, you know, I've been talking to you and Sean about doing better with how to take over the world and, and getting bigger. And I'm just like, ah, man, I have all these problems.

• 28:42Ben?

  I like, I need more researchers, I need more writers, because I have to do all this research. And both of you were just kind of like bullshit. Like, no, you don't. Just put stuff out, like, just put out more episodes. What's wrong with you? Just put out more episodes. And, uh, and so that's something I've been focusing on is like, it's so easy to focus on all the inputs, on like getting everything ready, on planning, on preparing. And this bias to action of like, no, no, no, no. Every single day, you need to be taking steps that have measurable outcomes, uh, that advance your goals forward. You need to be doing, and you need to have a bias towards doing those things rather than planning and preparing.

• 29:21Sam Parr?

  Dude, and a good example of that is like only six months ago or something. So we were fairly popular. Sean, for some reason, because he's always a little disorganized, his microphone wasn't working. And he's like, fuck it, I'm just gonna use my AirPods. I'm like, alright, fine. And he puts his AirPods in and only one of them worked. And the other one didn't even work. It was, for some reason, it was out of battery. He goes, we're just like, screw it. We're gonna record this, Sean, with just your webcam and your one AirPod. See, that AirPod is gonna be your microphone and your, like, how you could hear me talk. He's like, yeah, let's do it. Versus waiting 20 minutes for it to get charged. We're like, no, we can't wait. We have to do it right now. We have to go. And, uh, I think that that is the way to go. I, I think that the world wants you to be vanilla.

• 30:05Sam Parr?

  The world wants to make everyone vanilla and they want you to be safe. And that means planning, planning. And so so many people write on their goals for the day. I bet you there's a lot of people listening. They have one task today, which says, plan. Workout or plan, you know, like business, like what, how I'm going to launch this business, like plan something. It's like that's sort of to do. And that's really just kind of a self masturbation. Like it's a, uh, it's a bullshit way to make you think that you actually are doing something when instead you should just start and figure it out along the way because virtually everything, not everything, but almost everything related to a project is reversible.

• 30:50Sam Parr?

  And so you should always start and so you should always just like, just make it happen and always have a bias to action because it also is intoxicating. Right, right. Dude, have you ever sold anything on the internet? Um, no. So like people would talk to me about like, how do I do this? How do I do that? I'm like, dude, just whatever you do, build it so you can get it live tomorrow. And so then you can get just $1 in revenue in the first five days. Because the second your phone goes ka-ching, because like I have this thing on Shopify that goes ka-ching every sale I get, the first time you hear that, you're like, oh, I need to feel that again. Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. Like it gets you amped up when you hear that.

• 31:35Sam Parr?

  And so that's why whenever people talk to me, they're like, which platform should I use for my new blog? I'm like, it doesn't matter. Just go to Substack right now and make your blog post live tomorrow. And then the second you see traffic on the analytics, you're like, oh, I like that. That tastes good. I like how that feels. I gotta do it again. I need more. I need to take another bite. And that's why whenever people talk about anything they want to do, I'm like, if you're a noob, launch right away, immediately, immediately. If you're like, I have this guy named Brett Adcock who sold a company for two or three billion dollars and his next company, it's like a robot business. He's investing $200 million in like five years of research. I'm like, all right, that's cool. You're a proven hitmaker. Like, take your time and like perfect this thing. But if you're like a rookie, you gotta jump right in and get that taste of dopamine immediately.

• 32:18Sam Parr?

  Otherwise it will never happen or it just fades and you just aren't interested anymore.

• 32:22Ben?

  So it's interesting. What you're saying reminds me a little bit of like the difference between the Greeks and the Romans. So the Greeks like masters of the Mediterranean.

• 32:30Speaker 03

  Ah, yes, the old Greeks and Roman.

• 32:33Ben?

  Hear me out though, because here's the thing. The Greeks were like much better academics than the Romans. They knew geometry. They knew algebra. They knew like philosophy, right? And the Romans were basically dumb jocks. They didn't know any of this stuff. And it turns out that Roman construction and bridges were actually much better than Greek ones. Why is it? Because the Greeks would sit down and try and figure out the geometry of the best way to build a bridge. The Romans did not. The Romans just went out and built a bridge. And then it kind of crumbled. And then they're like, oh, what if we did this? And then they rebuilt it. And then that didn't work out so well. And then over the generations, they just went out and did stuff until eventually they had like the perfect way to build a bridge that would stand forever. Did they ever know the math behind

• 33:18Ben?

  it? They literally never did. They just went and tried stuff until they found the thing that worked best. And that was what let them take over the world. And so that just like backs up what you're saying of like, you actually don't need to know why this stuff is working. You don't need to know the math behind it. You don't need to do the research. You just literally need to try stuff until you find out what works.

• 33:37Speaker 03

  Well, John, what? I was gonna say, I think, you know, two things I just heard was one, and this is all kind of wrapping this back up to how this applies to like podcasting. I heard bias towards action, which is just like go, go, go. And I also heard like be very methodical with how you tell stories like Malcolm Gladwell-esque. So like, let's just say you're starting a podcast today, zero to 25,000 downloads, bias towards action, 25 to 100,000. Let's just say you're really dialing in the storytelling component of it. And then, but it sounds like you're flipping back to, okay, just bias towards action, go, go, go. So like, I don't know, I think it could be helpful to go from like, at this stage, you want to focus on just making shit happen versus being

• 34:20Speaker 03

  more methodical with how to actually level the podcasts up, that kind of stuff.

• 34:24Ben?

  Can I use an example? Like Danny Miranda, you were on his podcast a few days ago, Sam, and I don't think he's figured out his niche very well. He needs to work on that. He hasn't figured it out yet. But guess what? He's in a really good position to figure it out because he just got started. He's been doing great interviews. He's super action oriented and he's gonna figure it out.

• 34:45Sam Parr?

  He's got the data.

• 34:46Ben?

  And he's got the data, right? And now he can pivot and he can try different stuff. He can think about different ways to position it versus the person who is just like, "No, no, no, Danny's not doing it the right way. I need to position my podcast perfectly." No, just start with action. You can figure out your niche and exactly how to position your podcast later.

• 35:02Sam Parr?

  Dude, it's way better to execute a bad plan than it is to execute no plan. And because you can change a bad plan into a good plan in most cases as you go, but you can't, you know, you're up shit creek if you're doing nothing all day.

• 35:16Ben?

  Yep.