Using Shame & Rage When Setting Goals, Octopus For Breakfast Story, and Flipping Disadvantages

Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) and Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) talk about the best goal setting steps, a crazy Jeff Bezos story, and how to flip your disadvantages in business to advantages. ----- Links: * Intro.co * Woot * Mediocre * AppSumo * 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: (02:10) - Shaan is going HAM on LinkedIn (04:15) - #ManifestCowboys (09:45) - Elspeth Beard & training for an ironman (17:00) - How to set goals (25:05) - Goals and anti-goals (42:35) - Woot and Octopus for Breakfast (46:30) - A Mediocre Corporation (56:55) - Twitch sold out ----- 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.

• 0:00Shaan Puri?

  Here is how I set goals so that I can actually hit them. And this is coming from some guy who is, you know, frankly, pretty lazy. And, um, you know, I don't, um, I'm not like you, like, I'm not like, oh, I need to, to lose weight. I must have a 500 calorie deficit. Therefore it is done. I will now like, you know, track this thing. That always felt like too much work to me, but let me tell you what does work for me.

• 0:24Sam Parr?

  By the way, it's the exact opposite. It's less work to do it that way because then you don't think you just like do, you just do what you're supposed to do.

• 0:31Shaan Puri?

  Classic thing that somebody who has discipline and willpower says like, it's easier to just do it right. The first time, yeah, we know, bro. If we, and we know that that's true. We just don't live life that way. Like, it's okay. You know, I, I speak from the procrastinator's perspective.

• 0:53Sam Parr?

  All right. You want to tell us about this game or what?

• 0:55Shaan Puri?

  Well, first of all, I think we need to spice up the intro. I think the intro needs to be like, right now, we're just casual with it. We just come on like it's just a conversation and people love that. They love the authenticity, but you know what? You know what works? When you become a cheese ball and you just start performing and make it a show and you give a proper intro. You do all the things. This is my first million, the podcast that has two future trillionaires that come at you. Oh, by the way, did you see this? Did you see this guy who went on LinkedIn and then quoted the manifest Cowboys thing?

• 1:28Sam Parr?

  Wait, whoa, what happened?

• 1:30Shaan Puri?

  I tagged you in it. Some guy was, he's telling the story.

• 1:34Shaan Puri?

  Oh, bro, I'm going ham on LinkedIn right now.

• 1:36Sam Parr?

  Are you really? Why? Wait, like, what do you mean? Like trying to get popular?

• 1:39Shaan Puri?

  I told you, I hired that content remixer guy, Brandon. And so Brandon's been amazing. What he does, he just takes my old good tweets, he posts them on LinkedIn and people on LinkedIn. Bro, it's a gun to a knife fight. They're like, wow, incredible content. This is, wow, what a conversation. This is stimulating because you know, LinkedIn is like the most boring content farm generically, right? So like, I've been over here fighting on Twitter against like, you know, fucking professional tweeters who are researching eight hours a day and like creating these like epic threads. And, you know, I just come off the dome, bro. Like, you know, I, I'm that painting at the top of the Sistine Chapel. I'm just off the top.

• 2:19Shaan Puri?

  And now I bring that to LinkedIn and it's a whole new, it's a habanero pepper for them. And so it's a ghost pepper. It's the last wing on hot ones and they don't know what to do with it. And so this guy's been posting, so I just get to check the, um, the notifications. And I'll be like, oh shit, he posted that thing from like a year ago that I said, and people on LinkedIn are loving it. But today it's going on.

• 2:42Sam Parr?

  It's getting popular?

• 2:44Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I think I added like, I don't know, a thousand followers this week or something like that.

• 2:48Sam Parr?

  Dude, by the way, I, I knew this woman named Candace, you maybe knew her too. And she was an entrepreneur and she owned a bikini company. And she was like, you know what? I'm just gonna start, this was in 2015, 16, 17. She goes, I'm gonna start posting like stories about our bikini business and like, you know how things are going. And so it like, like new product updates, whatever. And it was all like, you know, hot ladies in bikinis, you know, like big boobs and stuff. It looked great.

• 3:14Shaan Puri?

  Like what the algorithm?

• 3:16Sam Parr?

  It went crazy. It broke people's brain and she eventually got banned. And she obviously did the right thing of like making a, a public fuss about it. It's like, what? I'm just talking about my business. What's wrong with this? This is professional content. I sell bikinis. I've got, and so it worked awesomely for her. And so I think that if you have a business that is like, uh, related to something like, you know, like that, you can kill it on LinkedIn. But anyway, so you're crushing it on LinkedIn right now?

• 3:39Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. So this guy, yeah, this guy, Thomas Angel, I'll give him a shout out. He, um, he posted, he goes, it says, quote, I don't do business. I manifest hashtag MFM. And then he goes, uh, Sprouts Farmers Market was number one on our vision board when we launched our, the everything latte at altitude functional beverages. I guess that's his company, altitude functional beverages. So he goes, after 13 months, we're now in 10 stores, blah, blah, blah. We're great. We're great. We're great. And he goes, thank you to the OGs, hashtag manifest cowboys. And then he tagged us and I totally forgot you had said that on the last pod. And I was like, wow, that is incredible. Manifest Cowboys is one of your top five, uh, little creations. And like, I just feel like we need to go all in.

• 4:23Shaan Puri?

  On the only podcast featuring two trillionaires, the manifest cowboys, the men who never age, haven't seen a wrinkle in my life. Same body fat as your milk, 2%. Like, that's how we need to go. And then we say, hey, iTunes, play that back 15, go back 15 seconds, play that again.

• 4:48Sam Parr?

  Did you pick up that 2% nonsense? That's beautiful.

• 4:51Shaan Puri?

  Again, off the top, I told you, I'm good early in the morning. We just, we moved our podcast to an early morning recording and I just have like an extra 10% juice early in the morning where I'm a little crazy.

• 5:05Shaan Puri?

  I just roll out of bed and these are the thoughts in my head.

• 5:09Sam Parr?

  Dude, you're like a rapper right now. You keep rhyming. I like this.

• 5:14Shaan Puri?

  I saw this hilarious clip of, it's actually my favorite form of marketing is you take a clip from something else. So you've seen this one where it's a bar. And they're, the whole bar is watching something on a big screen. And it's like, the original clip was like from the World Cup and like the guy scores a goal.

• 5:33Sam Parr?

  Something on there, yeah.

• 5:34Shaan Puri?

  You just put whatever on there, right? Like I'll put like the milk road, the milk road like shows up in your inbox. Like, you know, the email pops up and then the crowd just goes crazy. And so I saw a version of that. Somebody did it with Joe Rogan. It's Joe Rogan talking to somebody and he's like, have you seen this? And then the guy's like, no, he's like, pull that up. And then they just replace it with this Tik Tok of this young chubby white boy rapping. And he's really horrible, but it's hilarious. And he's like dancing and rapping at the same time. And Joe's like, God, how do they do it? And like, they show the reaction, but they've spliced it together. And I saw one of those. And so that just really, you know, made my morning.

• 6:11Sam Parr?

  I spent so many hours in the morning and at night, just scrolling through Instagram and Tik Tok and just laughing constantly at all these, just young people are so funny now. I don't think when I was younger and like that age doing stuff like this, no one was this funny. Like the amount of funny people is, it's, it's way higher now.

• 6:28Shaan Puri?

  Me and my sister, we sent each other maybe, she sends me like 25 Tik Tocks a day. I send back maybe 10. And like the caption on each one isn't like, it's not like, oh, you gotta watch this. Oh, this is really funny or uh, that's so true. It's every, every like seven lines, she's just like, people are too good. Like, how, how are they so talented? Like, because TikTok is the greatest talent show ever created. It's America's Funniest Home Video every hour on the hour, right? It's like, it is this giant talent show. And when you watch it, you're like, I am nothing compared to these people. I am, I am the dirt on their shoe. They scrape me off before they walk into their house.

• 7:12Shaan Puri?

  Like, you feel so dumb. Um, and I, I just like, I can't, I don't understand how they come up with these, how they film them. Like where the, where the inspiration comes from, it's too good.

• 7:24Sam Parr?

  It's so good. And the subreddit, the fighter and the kid that you and I like, just like the commenters are so funny. It's like every, every top comic, it's like one of the best jokes done by a comedian that I like. You know what I mean? Like it's like, that's how high caliber it is. I just, and it's almost like the way that I describe it, it's like, it doesn't matter if you're into the outdoors or not. When you see a big mountain, you're like, oh wow, that's epic. You know, like you appreciate the epicness. That's how I feel like when I watch TikTok. I'm like, I don't even like this thing that they're talking about, but how on earth did someone come up with this? And it's just that over and over and over again. And I'm in awe, I'm in awe constantly.

• 8:04Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, people talk about how these things are a waste of time. Uh, I don't know what their TikTok feed is like. My TikTok feed is incredible. It is the most entertainment per second I've ever experienced in my life. It is funny. It is like insightful, I'll learn stuff all the time, little life hacks, how stuff works. Watching TikTok about like, you know, how a farmer like, you know, farm squash. I'm like, oh, I didn't know that, right? Like, I'm just learning stuff that I didn't even know I wanted to know. Cause I would never click the YouTube video, but bro, if I go on YouTube now. It's like, you know, you know, when you go to a city and they're like, uh, you know, there's like by the tourist destination, they're like, oh, you want to get on this horse carriage?

• 8:46Shaan Puri?

  You know, it'll be for a funny picture and like, you know, it's a romantic date and you gotta like, do this old, slow, uncomfortable thing because I might as well, you know, you gotta do something different. Life's too good now. That's how I feel when I go on YouTube, like I'm getting back on the horse carriage after I've experienced like an F1 car. And I don't know how YouTube's gonna survive.

• 9:06Sam Parr?

  Dude, speaking of like this type of stuff, speaking of like, uh, uh, entertainment and like doing epic shit. I'm reading this book about this woman named Elsabeth, Elspeth Beard. That's an interesting name. And in 1979 or 1980, I think she was 22 years old and she's just like, says, fuck it. I'm going to ride my motorcycle around the country. Or sorry, around the world, around the globe. So like, you like, get on a ship and go to America, ride all across America, get on a ship on the other side, go to, whichever continent is on the other side of California.

• 9:35Shaan Puri?

  Is this just a female pen name?

• 9:37Sam Parr?

  Dude, I did it across America, which is soft. That's soft. Like there's a McDonald's every 50 miles, you know, she did it like in Iran and shit. You know what I mean? Like, like there's levels to this game and she did it in 1979. And so like, she was like, we couldn't even get maps. But anyway, I was reading it and I was like, I'm such a pussy. Like, why, why don't we live more, do we, do we need to live more epic adventurous lives? She did this thing at age 22 and now she's like 65. She's still giving talks on about it and making money. Because we are all so weak and we refuse to do like these interesting, it's not that hard nowadays to ride a motorcycle across the world. It's not that hard. You take six months, you buy a $20,000 BMW, it ain't gonna break. You use your iPhone, it ain't hard.

• 10:18Sam Parr?

  But I just, A, thought it was interesting that she did this thing at age 22. It's kind of like, whenever I like, see people like, um, whenever I see like the Rolling Stones perform, I'm like, this motherfucker's 80 years old and he's playing a song that he wrote when he was 18. That's longevity. That's good. That, and that's kind of what she's doing. So I'm like amazed that you could do one thing at a young age and live off of it forever. And B, we're soft, man. We gotta do more epic stuff. Like, we're just sitting in our houses all the time, doing this lame stuff all the time. We gotta, we gotta be more adventurous, right?

• 10:46Shaan Puri?

  What would you do?

• 10:49Sam Parr?

  I've always wanted to walk across America, so I would do that. I've already ridden my motorcycle across America. I've driven across America a bunch of times. I think I could drive my motorcycle across.

• 10:57Shaan Puri?

  All right. What was genuinely hard? So not like, um, it sounds hard, but what genuinely was hard?

• 11:06Sam Parr?

  I, um, with, with riding a motorcycle across the country, it was easy, man.

• 11:11Shaan Puri?

  Just in general, other stuff you've done, anything you've done. What's the actual thing that you've like, that's been really hard?

• 11:16Sam Parr?

  Doing an Ironman, that was like legitimately hard. Like I felt pain. I think it'd be fun to like ride a bicycle or something like that across America. And I think that would be genuinely tough, like physically and emotionally tough. I did an Ironman and that was like legitimately hard. I felt like I was in pain for almost the entire time. It sucked.

• 11:32Shaan Puri?

  Dude, so, uh, Ramon and Suley, they're, they texted me. Ramon was like, guys, we gotta do this Ironman in Hawaii this year. I'm signing us up.

• 11:43Shaan Puri?

  And like, he caught me when I was in that, when I had that trillionaire 2% body fat energy. And I just, oh, two words, all caps, I'm in.

• 11:52Sam Parr?

  Did you really say that?

• 11:53Shaan Puri?

  He literally was.

• 11:53Sam Parr?

  Did he even know how to ride a bike?

• 11:55Shaan Puri?

  No, he was typing his speech bubbles and I just, I just responded. I go, I go, Ramon, say no more. And then he stopped typing in the iMessage. Okay, three hours.

• 12:05Sam Parr?

  He booked it. He booked it, didn't he?

• 12:06Shaan Puri?

  Three hours pass. Yeah, he starts sending me like PDF ticket reservations. He starts sending me stuff. I'm like, and I now realize what I have done. And I realized, your boy's not as hard as he thinks. He's not as tough as he thinks. He's not as in as he thought he was in.

• 12:27Sam Parr?

  Do you even know how to swim? Have you ever swam before?

• 12:31Shaan Puri?

  I have a 15 foot pool and I can swim in it, but I've never, it's like a one mile free, like an ocean freestyle swim.

• 12:41Shaan Puri?

  Just to start the race.

• 12:44Shaan Puri?

  And so I go, and so then I had to backtrack. So I just came quick. I go, um, hey, I've seen the first one, but can't wait for the second one. They go, what? Ironman, right? That's what we're talking about? The movie? He goes, no, bro, you're not getting out of this. And I go, no, I am. And then he's, and that's I didn't have a reason. And then he's, then every day he's been texting me like, hey, here's this cool link to how to train. And I'm like, I'm not opening that link. Cause if I open that link, there's no, if I know what it, what it entails, there's no way I'm going to do this.

• 13:17Sam Parr?

  So I was guilted into do this by him and I trained for six months and I did pretty good. I did all right. And he got last.

• 13:24Shaan Puri?

  And you're very, very fit and you're saying it's hard. If I trained my hardest for a year, I would not be as fit as you were before you trained for your Ironman. I would be the before photo. And so it doesn't make sense. And so then I just told him, I go, if I don't talk to you anymore, I don't have to do it. And so I just stopped responding to him and we'll see if this.

• 13:44Sam Parr?

  Just for the listeners, did they know how stupid, like it was like the Three Stooges. We went down there and I trained. I, I, I was a division one athlete. I trained, I did fine. I was great. But they, and I hired a coach. I did everything the right way. These freaking idiots who we went with, they bought, they bought the bike the day before when they were down there. And like the night before you set your bike up at the place and they leave it there. And Suley and Ramon were like, hey, so how do we use those pedals with that attached to your feet? We bought them. How do we use them? They were like setting it up there and Suley, this other guy who we went with, he did the swim, he did the entire thing in backstroke because he didn't know how to swim with his head underneath the water.

• 14:30Sam Parr?

  And they assigned a kayaker lifeguard to him because they were so afraid that he was going to drown. I swear to God. And.

• 14:39Shaan Puri?

  But he finished, he did it.

• 14:40Sam Parr?

  Of all the 9,000 people there, I'm not exaggerating, they got literally last place. Last, like 9,000.

• 14:49Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 14:54Sam Parr?

  And they were miserable. And then the next day they're like, this is sick, bro. You want to do it again?

• 15:00Sam Parr?

  It was the craziest shit on earth. These guys are idiots. They also asked me if I want, if I wanted to go climb Mount Kilimanjaro with them. And I was like, no, no, I'm out. No, I do not want to do that.

• 15:11Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, the problem is they're like, I don't know, seven to 10 years older than us. So they're like in a midlife crisis and we're getting dragged into their midlife, fighting against father time, uh, you know, thing. And now we are doing these things as well. You know, so actually this is a topic I wanted to talk about, which is how to set goals. I think you had something on your thing about

• 15:31Sam Parr?

  I wrote something about that.

• 15:34Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. So let's talk about this. So I don't know what you wanted to do, but I had this idea of what is your approach to setting and hitting goals? Is that what you were going to say?

• 15:42Sam Parr?

  Yeah. Well, let me like go on a little rant here. So I've been doing this thing called intro. You know, that intro thing? Like you just like talk to people and it's actually really fun. That's why I do it. I do it from Friday at 5pm to 7pm.

• 15:51Shaan Puri?

  Oh, really? So they just turned off the money you do it because it's so fun?

• 15:55Sam Parr?

  No, I am doing it because it's fun and I get paid $2,000 an hour.

• 15:59Shaan Puri?

  Obscene amounts of money.

• 16:01Sam Parr?

  Yeah. So both. It is, it is, it's fun money, envelope money. Um, and I've been doing this and a question that I ask people constantly, and they never rarely have answers to, and they act like I'm like profound for asking this. I'm like, dude, this is like table stakes, which is what does success look like in five years? Like specifically, like if this is a money thing, like how much money do you want? How much revenue? How many users? Whatever. And what I've learned, and then I've been working with some family members and they're like, want to get their finances in order. And I'm like, all right, well, how much do you spend every month? How much do you want to spend every month? And then let's work back from how much income you think you need. And I think the vast majority of people, they don't write shit down. And so I did this one intro call with this guy and I was like, hey, so here's this app that I used for a long time. It's called my weekly budget.

• 16:45Sam Parr?

  Just every time you spend a cent, just write it down and just do it for, uh, four weeks and then just look back at how much you spend. And like, oh, I never thought about that. And he messaged me and he goes, I've been writing this down for like two weeks. I had no idea I was spending this and that and this. I've been saving thousands of dollars now that I know. And I do the same thing with weight loss. I say, I want to weigh this much weight. Therefore I have to burn, I can only eat 2,100 calories and I'm just going to write down whatever I eat. Just writing things down, both goals as well as like the things that you're doing. So you kind of like have an idea is the easiest way to get to where you want to go without really changing a significant amount of your behavior. You have you noticed that?

• 17:20Shaan Puri?

  I have noticed that, yes, and I do that. I think, I think a lot of people think they do that. But let me go into a little more detail on some, some stuff I do that I think is maybe a little bit different. All right. So I'm going to give you a couple bullet points. Here is how I set goals so that I can actually hit them. And this is coming from some guy who is, you know, frankly, pretty lazy. And, um, you know, I don't, um, I'm not like you, like, I'm not like, oh, I need to, to lose weight. I must have a 500 calorie deficit, therefore it is done. I will now like, you know, track this thing. That always felt like too much work to me. But let me tell you what does work for me.

• 17:58Sam Parr?

  By the way, it's the exact opposite. It's less work to do it that way because then you don't think, you just like do, you just do what you're supposed to do.

• 18:05Shaan Puri?

  Classic thing that somebody who has discipline and willpower says like, it's easier to just do it right. The first time, yeah, we know, bro, if we, and we know that that's true. We just don't live life that way. Like, it's okay. You know, I, I speak from the procrastinator's perspective. All right. So here are some things that I do that do work for me. First is, and you tell me if you do this or not. I set picture goals or movie scene goals, not just written goals. So for example, uh, sometimes it's hard for me to figure out, like, let's say it's a financial goal. Okay. How much money do I want and when? And then I kind of like, I'll pick a number. I'll be like, is that too high? Is that too low? And I gotta make it real in some way. So sometimes what I'll do is if it's a number goal, I'll do the math to add it up.

• 18:49Shaan Puri?

  I'll be like, okay, here's how I want to live. I want to spend this, this, this, and this. What does that actually come out to? And I'll go bottoms up to create the goal. Or I'll just simplify it. I'll be like, I don't know, numbers and logic is a little too hard to understand. I'll go on Zillow and I'll just find the picture of the house I want. I'll be like this, this is my goal. And I could just look at that picture of that house and it has a whole feeling and a whole like set of assumptions. That if I was living in that house, like life is pretty good. That is my motivating goal. Like I'm more motivated by a picture or a little movie scene in my head. Then I am by just this like kind of written text that it requires my brain to do a bunch of like work to try to like make life out of this.

• 19:28Sam Parr?

  Like a vision board. Yeah, I do it.

• 19:30Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I guess I just described a vision board. Okay, cool. So yeah, that's the first thing.

• 19:33Sam Parr?

  Pinterest. Yeah. Great idea.

• 19:37Shaan Puri?

  All right.

• 19:37Sam Parr?

  It's like an Uber, but.

• 19:40Shaan Puri?

  Sam one, Sean zero. Okay, let's go, let's keep going. Second thing I do. Floor goals and ceiling goals. So I don't set one goal, I set a range. The floor goal that I'll set for any project is like, all right, at a minimum, this is like the minimum that it would take for it to feel like a win. And so I just would write that down. I'll be like, all right, this is the minimum goal. And what, what was happening was normally I was writing a goal. Then I'd be like, kind of beat myself up like I'm not ambitious enough. So I need to set a more audacious goal. So I set a bigger goal, bigger goal, bigger goal. And then I would like, you know, inevitably like sort of under deliver on that. And now I'd have to like, basically I'd either be disappointed because I didn't reach my like

• 20:24Shaan Puri?

  super ambitious goal, but still clearly a good thing happened. Or I would have my super ambitious goal and secretly in my head, I'd have like my backup goal that like, I wouldn't tell anybody because it wasn't so cool. But like, I knew logically that that was good. So then I just started writing it down. Here's the floor, here's the ceiling. Ceiling is the F yeah, like what would make me say F yeah, that really worked out.

• 20:46Shaan Puri?

  And so like, I'll give you an example, I'll give you an example after this, but all right, floor and a ceiling goal, that's the next one. Do you do anything like that, like a range?

• 20:55Sam Parr?

  No, but that's a good idea. I just, no, I just like put the, maybe I kind of do. I say, here's what I think will happen, but then I say, in the best case scenario, I think this might happen, but I'm not expecting that.

• 21:06Shaan Puri?

  Right. That's how I started this podcast. I was like, the floor goal is if I just invite a bunch of cool guests on, well, I'll probably like, if I do one of these a week, 52 guests, let's say half of them are cool. Let's say half of those cool people become kind of like buddies or friends or, you know, we like each other. Cool. So I'll make like maybe 12, 15 new friends that are like kind of heavy hitters enough where I could invite them on a podcast. I was like, that's a win. That alone is a win. It's enough to like, do this, do this podcast for, for, you know, once a week. And so that was my floor goal. My ceiling goal was, well, what if people actually listen to this? Wouldn't that be sweet if people would, you know, on their commutes and they would listen to this and, and you know? We'd have this big audience of people who like, listen and trust us. That would be amazing, right?

• 21:51Sam Parr?

  Well, I do it with, I use that methodology for risk taking. So I say, should I quit my job and start this company? Well, the worst case scenario is that it's going to take me six months to find a new job. Therefore, I'll have six months of savings lined up. And if I just so happen to build a successful company, that's gravy. That's awesome. But this, but I just, basically I'm taking the risk that I'm gonna, I just, I'm assuming that I'm, I'm gonna find a new job and have six months of savings. Great. That's my baseline. I'm fine with that.

• 22:17Shaan Puri?

  So floor and ceiling, that's the second part. Okay, goals and anti-goals. So I stole this from Andrew Wilkinson, who stole it from somebody else probably. But it's really easy to set a goal and not acknowledge some of the common trappings you could get, even if you accomplish your goal. Simple example. In college, my buddy dated this girl. Her dad was like a partner at a big consulting firm. And he was a partner. He guy would make, you know, a million, $2 million a year, probably. He was, he made it to the top of his, like, of top of that ladder. But also he was, you know, oh, every single week he would fly out. Monday through Thursday, he would come back Friday, be there Friday, Saturday, Sunday, he would leave again Sunday night.

• 23:01Shaan Puri?

  And he was just gone for like half of her life growing up. And so that's an example of achieving your goal, but maybe hitting an anti-goal as well, which was, he probably didn't plan and set out to say, I don't want to see my family. You know, my kid growing up for the first 18 years of life, I'm only gonna be there half the time. But it just kind of came as a byproduct of trying to hit their goal. So now I set out specific anti-goals, like, oh yeah, I want to do this podcast, but I don't want it to feel like a bunch of work every week. Right? Like, I'm not trying to make this my job. I want this to be a fun hobby, right? And so an anti-goal might be, all of a sudden I'm drowning in work, trying to edit this thing and upload the thumbnail and write the show notes and do all this stuff. That would be an anti-goal if the after pod recording took five hours a week or, you know, 10 hours a week to go to produce it.

• 23:47Shaan Puri?

  And so by identifying the anti-goal upfront, you can make a game plan that, that solves it. Do you do that?

• 23:51Sam Parr?

  I do it a little bit differently. I don't call it an anti-goal, no. I say, here's what, here's the price I'm willing to pay. Achieve the thing I want to achieve. So for example, when I was, I said, um, when I'm gonna start this company, The Hustle, I told my wife, I go, when we were dating, I go, just so you know, the business is gonna come first for the next handful of years, because then when we get married and have kids, I'll have more time for that. But like, right now, business is first, and I'm going to give up vacations. I'm going to give up. The price I'm willing to pay is we're just not gonna have that much time together unless i- if the business gets in the way.

• 24:20Shaan Puri?

  Right. Baby, tell me again, uh, who's number one on my priority list? That's right, baby. Say it again.

• 24:30Sam Parr?

  Say it again. Yeah, tell me.

• 24:32Shaan Puri?

  It's Valentine's Day. Who's my day? The hustle. That's right. That's right. You got it. You got it. You understand. I have to confirm. You gotta double opt into this shit.

• 24:41Sam Parr?

  So I always say, here's the thing I'm willing to, um, this, this is the price I'm paying. You know what I'm saying? You wanna look good naked? The price you gotta, yeah, you, you wanna look good in the nude, the price you gotta pay is you gotta eat this crap chicken and like, not have fun there. You know, you gotta pay a price.

• 24:55Shaan Puri?

  Right. Um, I like that. All right. The next one, in your face daily. So now we're on number four. We be paid to the picture. That's kind of the mood board, the movie scene, the floor and ceiling method, the goal and anti-goal method, and now in your face daily. This is one where I think a lot of people make a mistake. They write down the goal at the moment they're motivated and inspired and they, they read that book, they watched that video, you know, they got their pen and paper out, they write it down, then they close the book, and then they just go back onto autopilot for the next like seventeen days, and they can't even revisit their, they don't revisit their goal. So my big thing is, I need to see it daily, right? The goal is like the barista, you know, if I'm going to get coffee before work every day, I'm gonna see this face, I'm gonna see my goal's face every single day. And so I will set this up in Slack.

• 25:41Shaan Puri?

  I will set up, I'll just use the remind, uh, function. I'll say, remind me every day that my goal this week is for Milk Road to add this many subscribers, or to go viral with one post on Twitter, or to, you know, um, to chase down that investment that I'm really bullish about and make sure we get in this round. And I will set that reminder so that it pops up every single day. And it's only me who sees that, but now I do that with my team. At the end of every, uh, you know, either daily or weekly, I will repost the goals that we had for the week, and just be like, you know, here it is. Make sure you keep this top of mind, or as my next, my next method is, the tip of your tongue test, which is. If you can't say what you want, if it's not at the tip of your tongue, what you're going for,

• 26:24Shaan Puri?

  you're not clear enough about it. And like you are not giving yourself the best chance to succeed because you can't articulate your goal at the tip of your tongue. Ben, can I, can I pick on you for a second? Ben, are you there? I know he's like at the beach, so he may not have the best audio video.

• 26:39Ben?

  I got kicked out of my last spot. I can, I can try.

• 26:43Shaan Puri?

  Okay, try. Ben, with your podcast, How to Take Over the World, what is the goal?

• 26:47Ben?

  The goal is to be a top 100 podcast overall in the Apple Podcast ratings.

• 26:54Shaan Puri?

  Okay, sounds good. Sam, critique that real quick. He's missing one critical element. Do you know what it is?

• 27:00Sam Parr?

  Probably the input.

• 27:02Shaan Puri?

  The input meaning what?

• 27:06Sam Parr?

  Like, I think for goal setting, it's probably a little bit easier to be input oriented. So like what you're willing,

• 27:13Shaan Puri?

  I'm gonna do X.

• 27:14Sam Parr?

  I'm gonna do X, you know, because you can't exactly control the output. So like be more input oriented. I would also probably say if for podcasts, I would put a download number on it, but I don't know. What do you think?

• 27:24Shaan Puri?

  Right. Or a time box, right? Like by when?

• 27:27Sam Parr?

  A time box, yeah, by when?

• 27:28Shaan Puri?

  Do you have 10 years to do this or one year to do this? That's a critical element to a goal is to be, it should be pass fail. Like it should be easy to figure out, did this happen or not? And if you don't have a time box, you can't, you can't ever judge it, right?

• 27:41Sam Parr?

  Sean, do you have your, do you have your computer open?

• 27:43Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 27:44Sam Parr?

  Go to my Twitter handle and what's my bio say? I have made this for the past month or two, and it's been working wonderfully. And it's exactly what you're talking about.

• 27:54Shaan Puri?

  Oh, perfect. You go, I own the hustle, sold it to HubSpot, I tweet about this, I do the podcast. And then he said, losing another five pounds this month, parentheses, August.

• 28:03Sam Parr?

  Yes, I always, whatever the, the goal is, I put it up there in Twitter, so I see it every day. And the thing that you didn't mention that I love doing is I love shaming myself. I love shame. I think shame and rage are the two best fuel to like get something done that people never talk about. I, like, I still do things to make Erin Coyne, my eighth grade girlfriend, angry.

• 28:28Sam Parr?

  Like I'm still in my head. I'm like, what's gonna prove her wrong? You know what I mean? Like, how am I gonna win and like prove that she was wrong for breaking up with me? So I think rage is awesome, but I think like shaming yourself or like guilting yourself or you put it publicly and you have to do it. The other thing that I do constantly that works wonderfully is you have to like set appointments or put something on the table. So for example, I, I have these, a couple of bad tattoos I want to get fixed and I've been wanting to do it. I've been so lazy. You just, you gotta make the appoint, you make the appointment. It's like, fuck, I can't bail. I already put down money on this thing. Like I have to do this. You know what I mean? And I think those things really, really help.

• 29:01Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, like my Iron Man competition coming up, but um, shame and rage, that's a pretty good, I mean, my first million is a good name. Shame and rage would have been a great name for this podcast.

• 29:12Sam Parr?

  Dude, shame and rage is such a good fuel. I don't know. Like people say like, you don't be angry. I'm like, no, fuck that anger. I love anger. I love anger. Anger gives me so much goodness. Like I, I'm still like, what is the phrase? Chips on shoulders, put chips in pockets. I love anger. Anger is such a good, a, a good emotion to drive you.

• 29:33Shaan Puri?

  I used to do that. I used to, I used to have a thing that I've taken off this list, which was use your own psychology against you. So it'd be like, oh, if I state publicly what I'm gonna do, then I feel the pressure to go ahead and do it. Or like, yeah, if I use kind of insecurity or anger, that could be like a fantastic fuel for accomplishing my goals. But I don't, I personally don't do that anymore. Cause it makes the process of doing the thing kind of unpleasant. It is effective for hitting the goal, but.

• 30:01Sam Parr?

  Well, that's because you have this really big problem. You've got a huge problem. You know what your problem is?

• 30:06Shaan Puri?

  I'm too happy.

• 30:07Sam Parr?

  Emotionally stable and happy. Yeah. You've got, that's a really big issue in your life is you're just too emotionally stable. So, you know, like, I'm sorry that your parents were wonderful to you, but that's just the price you have to pay. You know what I mean?

• 30:22Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Sam goes around to his house, just like shaving half an inch off every table. Just trying to get it to have a little bit of instability in it. He's like, this is better. I want the plates to slide, baby.

• 30:33Sam Parr?

  Yeah. You know, I had the advantage of, you know, having a problematic childhood. You, you, you, you were disadvantaged by having a perfect little life.

• 30:43Speaker 03

  This data is wrong every freaking time.

• 30:46Speaker 04

  Have you heard of HubSpot?

• 30:49Speaker 04

  HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  Whoa, I can see the client's whole history, calls, support tickets, emails, and here's a task from three days ago I totally missed.

• 31:01Speaker 04

  HubSpot, grow better.

• 31:04Shaan Puri?

  All right, I'm gonna finish my goal thing real quick. I got three more. All right, last three, the most important three are I don't move unless I actually believe that it's gonna happen. Yeah, so a lot of people will say, and I would say, Ben, I, you don't have to come back, go on, but people will say things like Ben just said, and I would say at least half the time, if they are honest with themselves, I want to be a top hundred podcast in the world by, you know, by, you know, in 12 months. If I say, what do you, what do you think are the odds that that's gonna happen? They'll be like, well, it is, you know, hard and it is risky, you know, both. And they'll sort of like, if it comes down to it, their belief that it's actually going to happen is quite low.

• 31:45Shaan Puri?

  And I don't let myself move unless I actually believe that it's gonna happen. Because there's this like, there's a virtuous and vicious cycle. Belief drives action. If I really believe that some shit's gonna work, if I really believe that this person's gonna say yes and buy my product, I will pick up the phone immediately and call them. It's only when I don't believe they're gonna buy my product that I'm like, well, I'll call them after I finish this PowerPoint day. I'm gonna, actually, you know, Friday's not a good day to call because of this and hold on, let me just go clean my room real quick, you know, because that's, you know, I just want to get that done. Then I'm gonna be a better headspace. Like, it's your belief that drives the level of action you're gonna take. Like, massive belief equals massive action, massive action equals a good result, and a good result reinforces the belief. This is also what happens to people who become, have a lack of confidence.

• 32:30Shaan Puri?

  They don't believe, therefore they take timid action. Timid action creates shitty results, and that just reinforces to them, they're like, see? I knew it wasn't, like, I kinda knew it wasn't, I knew it was gonna be too hard. I knew, I knew this wasn't, like, the odds were against us. And then it just happens again and again. So I don't move until I, I work myself into a spot where my belief is super high. Last two, baby goals or giggle steps? So I've kinda learned that, like, if you have a big goal, You gotta set a baby goal or a giggle step. A giggle step is a step.

• 33:02Sam Parr?

  Is that a trademark? Giggle step and just a tip are your two?

• 33:06Shaan Puri?

  I met, I met this woman and she, she created this phrase. She was like, hey, you know that book, Atomic Habits by James Clear? I was like, yeah, yeah. She's like, it's, it's all right. And I was like, oh, you mean like the bestselling book that's like sold like three million copies this year? Like one of the greatest self-help books, you know, in the last decade in terms of sales? She's like, yeah, it's okay, but it's missing the most important thing. I was like, what is it? She goes, he's, he got it kind of right that you need to set like a simple first step, but it's even his is way too hard. Like if you wanna set a habit to floss your teeth every day, you actually wanna start with something so simple, it would make you giggle because it's so not a goal that it's achievable, you know, actually do it. And she's like, so all you would do if you wanted to floss your teeth every day

• 33:50Shaan Puri?

  is literally put one piece of floss, floss next to your bathroom and like next to your sink and just floss a single tooth and then put it down and walk away. And it's like, oh, what's that gonna do? A single tooth? And it's like, it'll literally make you laugh. It takes away a lot of the fear and the built up like scariness of it going down this endeavor.

• 34:06Sam Parr?

  Who's this? Who's this lady?

• 34:09Shaan Puri?

  Uh, I hate that I forgot her name now. Um, but yeah, I met her, I think it's Betsy, Betsy something. I gotta find her last name. I don't remember her last name.

• 34:17Sam Parr?

  Sounds made up so far.

• 34:18Shaan Puri?

  And it also might not be her first name and I might be the worst person in the world, but like giggle steps is good. Jim, see if you can Google that, pull up her, pull up her full name. I've only met her twice. Okay, last one is, uh, last one is you gotta revise up or abort down. So I think what a lot of people do is as things get hard, they start to compromise the goal and they'll start revising it down, down, down, down, down to the point where it's not even motivating anymore. It's like you sort of took the edge off the goal and yeah, now you kinda don't fail, but you also don't really succeed. And so my rule is I either revise up, meaning I, oh shoot, I think this could be even bigger, right? This podcast, we've revised up. It's now bigger than I thought it could be.

• 35:02Shaan Puri?

  And so now I've revised up. Okay. It can actually be, you know, X millions of listeners every month.

• 35:10Shaan Puri?

  Hell, we're already at, you know, one point something, 1.3, 1.5, something like that million per month. Why can't this be?

• 35:15Sam Parr?

  By the way, last month, last month we were at 1.7, I think.

• 35:19Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, exactly. So that's bigger than I would have guessed, right? One, if one was my original goal, I'm revising up now. Or I'll just abort down. I'll say, you know what? This isn't gonna-

• 35:29Sam Parr?

  That's a weird word to use to describe this. It's a weird word.

• 35:35Shaan Puri?

  Well, you know, eject maybe is the better way to say it. I will, I will just eject out of, you know, the plane if I feel like, you know what? Now that we have given it every, thrown everything we've got at this, and we've learned new things, we have new information that tells us that this isn't gonna work. Rather than compromising down and getting stuck on something we're not even really excited about. If we're no longer excited about it, I'll just, I'll change the goal completely, or I'll leave the goal aside. I'll just go do something else. Because the new information has kind of shown me something to, it's just a check to say, don't just continuously dial it down. Cause it's very tempting to do, and it's very easy to slip into mediocrity. So kind of by forcing myself with something harsh, which is, all right, would I just quit this?

• 36:21Shaan Puri?

  It's like so harsh that it forces me to like, no, stick with the real goal and find a way to make it happen. Or change, you know, based on what your new understanding of reality, change this completely. Don't just like take it down a notch and another notch and another notch and another notch. And now it's all of a sudden not even that special to be good. So those are, those are my how to hit goals. Those are, those are the things I do to hit goals.

• 36:41Sam Parr?

  I remember years ago, you, when we were just kind of trying to, we were coming up, trying to make it happen. You said that you go, I think $6 million is the number I need to feel financially like, secure, or I don't remember what word, like stable, or like that I need to never work again. Free. Did that goal change as you got older? Were you right or wrong about that goal?

• 37:05Shaan Puri?

  Um, I think I was right, but I was wrong in one key aspect. And actually, I said it on the podcast early on, and our friend, Narendra, DM'd me and he was like,

• 37:16Sam Parr?

  You're wrong.

• 37:17Shaan Puri?

  You're wrong. Six won't be like six is not enough for you. And I was like, well, I don't know. I like I do the math. He's like, it's not enough. Like, you know, first of all, maybe your target return of what you think you're going to make on that six, you know, as your, because the idea is if you have a certain amount of money invested, what can you, it is going to earn, you know, it's going to compound at some rate, 5%, 7% of years, whatever it is, could you live off of that compound interest rather than, and the principal would never go down. You would never have to withdraw lower than the principal. So you would be financially free. You don't need new net income coming in because the money you have is working for your money now and you don't have to go work for your money.

• 37:56Sam Parr?

  And you thought that was six?

• 37:58Shaan Puri?

  I thought it was six because I had done some calculations. Okay.

• 38:02Shaan Puri?

  Now I think the number is like, the real number is probably closer to 10 or 11. And the aspirational number is like 25 and up because then it's like, oh, it's not even close at that point.

• 38:14Sam Parr?

  So the reason why I'm bringing that up is the interesting thing about goals is I used to think if I, if I achieve this thing, whether it's financial or body or whatever, that like I'm going to be changed. And I realized that pretty much across the board, every goal that I achieve, I'm like, oh, this was not as cool as I thought. I'm going to create a harder one. And at first I was bummed, but now I'm like, oh no, that's not like, because it's just the chase. Like I'm born to hunt. You know what I mean? Like I have to chase a goal and I have to accept that when I hit my goal, it's not going to change much. It's just going to be a cool benchmark to go to the next one. And so with goal setting lately or the last couple of years, I've been like, oh, but just know that this isn't going to change anything, but it will be exciting to chase after it.

• 38:59Sam Parr?

  And so that's what I, that's an interesting thing that I've learned a little bit with, as I've gotten older with goals.

• 39:04Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. And specifically with financial goals, your lifestyle creeps up. So like before, when I did the, let's say six million number, I was like, all right, six million. If I earn 5%, if I'm getting 5%, let's say they, I think the S and P like kind of average, you know, return is 8% or something like that. I was like, okay, let's say I can get five.

• 39:25Shaan Puri?

  What would be, you know, that's 300K a year. Cool. At the time, I think I was spending under 200K a year in my burn. I was like, ah, that's good. And I have like, you know, 30% buffer. Well, now I spend, I think, more than that. And so, because lifestyle creeps up. It's like, you know, I started to pay for more stuff. I started to buy more things. I started to travel a little bit differently. Started to do all the things that people do. And now-

• 39:46Sam Parr?

  You didn't travel differently. You don't, you just don't travel.

• 39:49Shaan Puri?

  But when I do, I travel a little bit differently. The, the point is lifestyle creeps up. And so, I think that's the thing you have to do if you're, if you're not trying to be really disciplined in your lifestyle, which I'm not. My, I think life is to be enjoyed and I want to enjoy it to the fullest extent I know. And so as I learn new things, new ways to enjoy, I want to do those things and not feel limited by money. I think you gotta account for that. You gotta like over buffer.

• 40:15Sam Parr?

  Are you looking to buy a house now?

• 40:18Shaan Puri?

  I'm looking at either buying or renting a new house. Yeah.

• 40:21Sam Parr?

  Dude, renting is so awesome. I've been loving renting, man. Don't buy.

• 40:24Shaan Puri?

  Me too. Yeah.

• 40:25Sam Parr?

  It's, it's, it's sick.

• 40:27Shaan Puri?

  The only downside with renting is just like, sometimes you don't, there's not enough inventory for like, uh-

• 40:32Sam Parr?

  That is a big downside.

• 40:33Shaan Puri?

  When you're in the burbs, but like, if you're patient, you could just, you can find it. And right now, the market seems to be, at least where I'm at in California and Bay Area, the market seems to be moving where everything's getting marked down. So everything's down 20, 30%, except for stubborn sellers who haven't realized yet that they need to mark down. And then even those aren't getting offers. And then they're pulling their thing off the market because they're like, okay, it's not selling. Now this just looks bad. And they're like switching to, okay, we'll rent this or we'll just stay in it or whatever. Like, the market is very quick, quickly turning here to like a buyer's market is what I'm kind of seeing.

• 41:10Sam Parr?

  Hmm. All right. I have something interesting to, to share with you. Have you heard of this company called Woot? W O O T?

• 41:17Shaan Puri?

  Of course. Yeah. Woot was like, um, an internet staple, OG staple. It was one of the cool websites where it was like, you'd go and there was a daily deal. It's like, buy this TV for like $22 or something.

• 41:29Sam Parr?

  So Ethan Brooks at The Hustle kinda told me about it, but I had read about it for a bit because the founder interested me. He's this guy named Matt Rutledge and Woot was like, like you said, one of the original like daily deal sites and it was acquired by Amazon. And the story is really interesting. I remember reading this a couple of years ago. So Matt Rutledge is this guy from Dallas and he flies up to Seattle to meet with Bezos, like, you know, right when it closes and they get a Sunday breakfast and they're like Rutledge, he wrote, he's like, Bezos had like a weird energy this whole time, but whatever. I'm sitting in this meal and I finally just say, so Jeff, why did you buy Woot? And Jeff like had just ordered breakfast and they have the meals in front of them and he looks down at the meal, then he looks at Matt

• 42:13Sam Parr?

  and like 15 seconds passes and Matt's like, should I just like ask him if he wants to like move on and we just like skip this? And Jeff looks down at his meal again and then looks back up at Rutledge and he goes, you see, you're the octopus that I'm having for breakfast right now. Cause Jeff had just ordered like eggs and octopus for some reason, like a weird ass breakfast. And he goes, when I look at the menu, you're the thing that I just don't understand. Basically, he had never ordered an octopus for breakfast before and he's like, this is weird. I'm gonna order it. I've never seen it before. I don't get it. I'm gonna order it. You're the thing that I've never had and I must have for breakfast, the octopus. And that's why he said he bought this guy's company.

• 42:55Sam Parr?

  And this Rutledge guy was like, dude, you're fucking insane. Like he didn't think about it. Like, like my takeaway was Rutledge was not like, oh, you're-

• 43:02Shaan Puri?

  That is a fake story. That is a fake story. You either just made that up or-

• 43:08Sam Parr?

  No, I read it in an article. Those were quotes.

• 43:10Shaan Puri?

  That is too hilarious to be, that is too hilarious to be real.

• 43:16Sam Parr?

  The exact quote here, this is, this is, I'm gonna read it verbatim from the article. And this is Matt in Rutledge saying, telling the reporter, you're the octopus that I'm having for breakfast. When I look at the menu, you're the thing that I just don't understand. The thing I've never had. I must have breakfast, octopus. And he just, and that was like a 20 seconds pause for him to say that. Like, just like this fucking weirdo, like, you know, like Star Trek type of guy. And as you'd expect, as one would expect from, what?

• 43:46Shaan Puri?

  There have been many great stories on this podcast. Many great stories. Thousands of great stories, I might say. This was the greatest story I've ever heard on this podcast. First of all, you told it great. I didn't know where you were going with this. The breakfast, the looking down, the looking up, the 15 seconds. And then that line is all time weirdo. That is so weird of a thing.

• 44:11Sam Parr?

  What do you expect? What do you expect? I was actually, I did a podcast the other day with someone and they asked me about my successful friends and like, what do they all have in common? I was like, well, they all like work hard. They all like are smart, but they're all fucking weird. They're all weird and like everyone I know who's successful is pretty fucking weird.

• 44:26Shaan Puri?

  So do you know that would say that line by the way?

• 44:29Sam Parr?

  Not that line, no one, no one, but that guy's like, Bezos is like the weirdest of the weird.

• 44:33Shaan Puri?

  Maybe Mois.

• 44:35Sam Parr?

  Maybe Mois, yeah. Yeah, like I've heard him say like, yeah, like your business is one Google away from me destroying you. Like he says stuff like that, but this guy says, I must have the breakfast octopus. But this company, woo, it's really interesting because it's basically just a daily deal site, whatever. And like Matt is like, he said, Amazon ruined it as you'd expect. And like, but they did all this funny stuff, like they would sell a daily deal and then the deals that they didn't sell, they would create this feature called a bag of crap, which is a thing that like users would just buy blindly. And in the FAQs, it says like, well, if you don't like it, just listen on eBay, but we don't take refunds. And um, anyway, he leaves and he starts another thing and he calls it the me, a mediocre corporation. That's originally what it's called.

• 45:16Sam Parr?

  And the, and the underlying premise is that we're building a store that you don't need to buy anything to have fun. So like their copy is really, really good. And he basically said in an article, he was like, um, I want everyone's expectations to be incredibly low with this business. So that's why we called it a mediocre corporation. And it's pretty hilarious. And I was reading their copy and so now a mediocre corporation, they basically own like eight different websites. So, um, and they're all like daily deal sites and all of them have like 350 to $2 million, uh, 2 million visits a month. So I bet you there, it's actually a pretty substantial business. And if you read the copy, it's beautiful. It's wonderful. It's a wonderful copy. And I was thinking about this, the, the basically as I've sold my company to a big company,

• 46:00Sam Parr?

  I've realized that basically for the longest time. I thought basically the only thing that a startup has that's better than a big company and why a startup can win is like focus. We could focus harder on stuff and we can move faster. So we can move fast and have more focus. And then I started reading about this guy and I started thinking about like the hustle and like what made it interesting. And the second and the third thing that I've add is that basically because there's less bureaucracy, you can have more soul. You can do more funny, interesting stuff. And the reason you can is basically the founder comes up with something says like, we're just gonna do it. Whereas at a big company, there's like middle management and they're like, I don't want to lose my job. So I'm not taking this risk. I'm not gonna pitch the bag of crap like feature, even though that's hilarious and

• 46:44Sam Parr?

  users love it. I ain't pitching it. I'm gonna, I'm not gonna do it. And I'll give you a good example. So I love AppSumo. AppSumo was started by my friend Noah Kagan and Neville Madoro is my good, my best friend and he like helped run it and it was a daily deal site as well. Listen to this copy. So they ran a deal one time where you could purchase like fonts. I don't know how you buy fonts, but that was the thing. Listen to the opening paragraph from the daily email that he sent out. Neville wrote this. If the names Lusanda Sands Unicode or Courier New don't mean anything to you, go ahead and close this message. You see, my friend, today we're reaching out to the community of people known as font whores. You know who you are. If your knees go

• 47:26Sam Parr?

  weak when I whisper Garamond, you might be one, you might be one of them. And I read this, I remember I read this years ago, before I met Neville and I was like, this is, this is beauty. This is beautiful. This turns off the people who you want to be turned off and it gets, you know, the people who you want it. And I was just like, in my head, I'm like, dude, you're writing about having sex with this font. That is so funny. That is awesome. You are making the most boring topic really cool. And you cannot do that at a big company. It's incredibly hard and it's not hard because the company's bad or good. It's just that's the rules of the game. And it's just like, you're playing, you know, the game on hard mode if you're trying to like make. A big company cute. And I was just thinking, this is just, this company woo. It's just such a perfect example. You should go to some of their websites.

• 48:11Sam Parr?

  Their, their, the mediocre corporation, they own casemates. Mediocrity, that's one of their things. They own the site called meh.com. Side deal, morning save, and it just deals. And I thought it was interesting and the copy is hilarious. And this is, and I've been thinking about businesses that you can build, which you are building. And I did, where it's just like one or two people can kind of be the tastemakers. And that can scale and be leveraged really nicely, kind of like a daily email. You know what I mean? But as you get bigger, you can, won't be able to do it all. It's going to get worse and worse. And I think that's just what's going to happen.

• 48:44Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, totally. By the way, their domain is mediocre.com, which is an amazing domain to have. This is such a cool story. I love that. And I love that, that email by Neville. That's amazing copy. The, I think it's so true, personality, personalities. You said soul, I would say personality, because it's kind of what others interact with. It is such a differentiator in life, in all aspects of life, but it also works in business. People go into business assuming you have to play some role. You have to like, put on this suit and tie and be some character. And all you're doing is simply blending in with every other suit and tie that exists out there. And so they'll like, I see this all the time. Founders will try to play the same game as the companies they admire.

• 49:27Shaan Puri?

  The big companies, the successful companies, they assume because they're successful, that I need to act like them if I too want to be successful. What they forget was that before they were successful, early on, the way they got successful was through having personality, having a point of view, having some edges to them. And those edges, they keep some people away because it's too rough for them. It's not what they wanted. And for other people, they're like, wow, this is the handle I need to grab on to because I love this. And so, you know, before Apple was Apple, they were, you know, the homebrew, they were at the homebrew computer club, right? They were basically, they had the two advantages you talked about. You said focus, I call it freakishly obsessive. And I use that word specifically because they are obsessed with that, some topic, whatever it is. It could be raspberry pies, it could be blockchains, it could be whatever.

• 50:11Shaan Puri?

  They're usually obsessed with something that's not mainstream. Because it's not that fun to be obsessed with something that's already totally mainstream. There's not, there's not much joy in that for this person. And the second is that they're freakishly obsessed, which is not only just an extreme form of obsession, but they're, they're willing to go to a length that other people wouldn't. And they're willing to like, the topic is usually niche and weird. So, you know, fonts is a good example of one, of things like that. Then the other part that you mentioned, which is personality, it just gets squashed out of a big company. Cause imagine if the, at the beginning, when you're one or two people, the personality of the company is basically the personality of the founder or founders.

• 50:49Sam Parr?

  And it's typically like a room of people and they're like one upping each other. It's like, haha, that's funny. You're like, all right, but check this out. What if we even went even harder? Like, you know, like you have that like vibe because you're incentivized to do that. You want to grow, you want to do interesting stuff.

• 51:02Shaan Puri?

  Totally.

• 51:03Sam Parr?

  You're not incentivized once the company gets bigger.

• 51:05Shaan Puri?

  Imagine a room, imagine a room of, of one person. Okay. It's just that whatever that person thinks is normal to them. You get two people, two co-founders, maybe they're both a little bit weird. And so they riff off of each other, it gets going. Now you add the third wheel, even if that third wheel was totally vanilla, they're a total normal person, they're now outnumbered. So they joined the thing and they're like, all right. I guess that's how we get down here, right? You had a phrase, you go, you need to let your freak flag fly if you're going to work here. And so you, whoever came in, you indoctrinated them into your weird culture to do weird shit and do cool shit. And that was normal there. So the third person comes in, even if they're vanilla, all of a sudden they become flavored too. The fourth person comes in, same thing. But at some point, the next, like, I don't know where it is, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 people,

• 51:49Shaan Puri?

  somewhere in that range, I would say between 15 and 50 people. The person who gets hired typically will spend most of their time not with the founders anymore. And so now they're, now one vanilla person is spending time with a bunch of other vanilla people and they're hiring other people who have a greater and greater percentage of vanilla, right? It starts with, they need to be 25, 30% because hey, we need to be serious and get stuff done around here. Then you start hiring 50% vanilla and by the time, you know, you get to 50 or a hundred people, you're hiring a hundred percent vanilla people. And those people now, when they, someone says a weird idea, it's crickets in the room. It's risks come first, there's reasons why not, rather than why we would. It's, oh yeah, that has this one extreme strength, but it might have some other extreme weaknesses. So don't take the risk.

• 52:33Sam Parr?

  That's going to offend certain people or that's going to like cannibalize this thing or that thing, or yeah, it's just like bullshit excuses.

• 52:39Shaan Puri?

  Right. What will they say? What will they think? And so what will they say?

• 52:43Sam Parr?

  But really what it comes down to, it comes down to, I've got a good gig. I don't want to fuck it up. Uh, let's not, let's not rattle this. You know, I don't want to shake this up.

• 52:53Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, exactly. And I'm not comfortable shaking it up because I don't know that that's what we do here. Because a lot of time has passed. I don't hang out with the people that are like totally high conviction of being weird. And, um, and yeah, like I have, I have more to lose than I have to gain by doing this because when I say this idea, I don't get respect in the room. I get sort of like strange glances and nervous laughter. And then, you know, somebody tells me why my idea is a bad idea. So I learn to just keep that shit piped down. My freak flag is now, you know, buried at the bottom of my trunk and it, you know, it's folded up and it's in its case. And so that's what happens at the, at the end of these companies. Now, some companies fight that off. So for example, this is why I think a lot of people like founder led companies because they keep that soul.

• 53:36Shaan Puri?

  They have one person in the company who has the gravitas. So like, I think, I think this happened at Tesla and it happened at Elon's companies. He is so publicly weird and big thinking and out there and willing to just go with it. That he kind of sets the tone, even if you don't on a day to day, ever have meetings with Elon or work with him, or you don't get the culture from him inside the company. You get it from seeing what he does on Twitter. So he kind of performs.

• 54:01Sam Parr?

  Did you see his new butthole feature?

• 54:03Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, exactly. And so now if you're at Tesla, you're like, okay, the boss's boss's boss's boss likes that weird shit. And it gets a bunch of play on Twitter and we've seen five things pay off by going overboard. Like, does a Cybertruck window really need to be bulletproof? No, but Elon would think that's fucking cool. So we're gonna do it. And I know Elon thinks it's gonna be cool because he lets the flag fly on Twitter. And so I see it even though I don't interact with them day to day. So that's one way to scale that personality is to have a such a strong personality and do it on blast. Another version, I remember when I was at Twitch.

• 54:37Sam Parr?

  Dude, but he's got to put up with so much shit for that. And it's actually to be in his position. I've been in this position and I've like weakened out a bunch of times where I'm like, oh, fine. I'll let you guys get your way this time. Like, you know, like you're gonna quit if I don't give it to this. Fine. I'll let you have it this time. And in my head, I'm like, but this is the wrong decision, but I'm only make, I'm only agreeing to go with this, even though I don't like it. Because like, I don't want them to quit. And like, I just don't want this headache right now. Whereas he's the type of guy, because he's like, you know, like on the spectrum, he's like, no, I don't like pick up on this social cue. Like, we are not doing it. Like, we're, this is fine. I'm okay being uncomfortable here. You know what I'm saying? And that's, that's how I'm inspired by him a little bit.

• 55:15Shaan Puri?

  The belief in himself and also just the lack of self-awareness is important there, right? You can't be like us. You can't be a self-aware wolf and just have too much self-awareness. You have to have a little bit of like, you know, you don't give a fuck in your system in order to do this. Well, at Twitch, one thing happened. I remember that I was like, super, super proud to like, be there, working there at the time. I was like, because I give it a lot of shit, you know, I just do the sort of like, the stereotypical startup guy thing where you're like, huh, startup cool, big company dumb, big company slow, big company boring, big company no risk, big company no innovation, right? Like, it's the startup caveman who's just like, you know, like, you know, small startup good,

• 55:58Shaan Puri?

  even though small startup is like failing and has no money and like no users, no, no impact, no nothing. It's like still in our head, there's like something to be really proud of there. But sometimes at these companies, really cool shit happens. And I remember one was, they released this campaign for Prime Day. So Twitch gets bought by Amazon. Amazon wants all of the Amazon companies to really push Prime Day. It's the like, it's basically its own Black Friday that they created where it's like, yo, here's an excuse to go spend a bunch of money that you otherwise weren't going to spend. And Prime Day is huge for, for Amazon. So they, you know, the memo comes down, Twitch, you need to support Prime Day. And then everyone's at Twitch like, shit, what do we do? And Twitch has a user base that is so easily offended. It's like,

• 56:40Shaan Puri?

  anything Twitch does, any policy it creates, it's like, hey, we're increasing, you know, the safety and for women. It's like, why? Because women can't defend themselves? It's like, dude, we're like, we're just trying to help. Like, we're not trying to offend anybody every step of the way, but you could sort of do no right. And so, so people were just like, dude, what are we going to do? How are we going to promote this like Amazon Prime, go buy shit stuff? Like, people are going to think we're just total sellouts. Like, this is not going to be cool. It's not going to be, go over well. So I don't know who the genius is in this company, but somebody was like, Like imagine like a TV show where they're like, God, like everyone just think we're just a sellout. Everyone thinks it's just a sellout. And you cue the dream music, like sellout, sellout.

• 57:21Shaan Puri?

  I got it. Twitch sells out. And they made it. They like turned it on its head and they went self-aware. You know, like, and it's always sunny. It's like the gang, you know, the gang goes to a Trump rally or whatever. It's like, the event was, come watch how hard Twitch will sell out today. And they basically leaned into it completely instead of trying to do it and then sort of like, set themselves up to catch a bunch of arrows from the users who were like, God, stop trying to promote Prime Day. This is annoying. This is why I didn't want Amazon to buy Twitch. Like, I knew it was just gonna sell out to this corporation.

• 57:54Sam Parr?

  I call that the Eight Mile Strategy. Have you seen Eight Mile?

• 57:58Shaan Puri?

  Yes, exactly.

• 57:59Sam Parr?

  Like, there's this one, like, the last scene Eminem's like, yeah, I am white. Yeah, I am poor. Yeah, this guy did have sex with my mom. Yeah, this all happened. And then, like, he makes it entertaining. And then the other guys are like, well, fuck, I can't make Yeah, like, I can't, I can't mock that. You just took it away from me. You know what I mean? I'm powerless here. It's the Eight Mile Strategy, and I love it.

• 58:22Shaan Puri?

  That's exactly what it is. And so, yeah, they went full Slim Shady. They basically, what they did was they created a QVC-style set, right? Like, the cheesiest, salesiest set. And then they invited the big streamers. And it was like, they created this, like, this neon 80s logo that was like, Twitch sells out. And then the people would jog onto the stage and be like, today I'm gonna sell you this shitty blender. And they're like, and people found it so entertaining, and it was funny, and it was self-aware, and they, they just, and it sold like crazy. Like, it was so successful. And I don't know who this was. It was somebody in, like, the creative marketing department. I think I met them at one point, but I was like, hey, you don't know this, but like, that was the number one thing I respected, you know, that we did. Of all the features we shipped,

• 59:05Shaan Puri?

  of all the projects we tried, that was my favorite. It was my number one. I thought that was so well-done. Whoever came up with that, you had guts, you had creativity, and you, like, turned a disadvantage into an advantage. Which is like, for me, that's the highest form of respect. When I see somebody who can take a disadvantage and flip it to an advantage, it's like, that's, you're my person. You are, you are everything that's right about business in my book.

• 59:28Sam Parr?

  I love that. I'm gonna look that up. I wanna see, I wanna, like, I wanna see the content. I bet it's hilarious.

• 59:33Shaan Puri?

  It's good. It was really well-done.

• 59:36Sam Parr?

  We need to come up with a better way to end the show. If we're gonna come up with a way to start it, we have to come up with a

• 59:41Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 59:43Ben?

  Before you guys end, Sean, you never talked about the basketball game.

• 59:47Sam Parr?

  Oh, yeah, you gotta talk about that. Do you want to talk about that?

• 59:50Shaan Puri?

  Uh, yeah, let's do it. I gotta be a little vague about it, but yeah, let's do it. You guys saw, so I sent you guys the guest list for this thing.

• 59:58Shaan Puri?

  I guess I should explain what it is. So I went to a conference.

• 1:00:01Sam Parr?

  That'd be smart, yeah.

• 1:00:04Shaan Puri?

  I went to a conference and it was fun. It was a lot of fun. But I don't know about you, but I have this like feeling before I go to a conference, which is like, there's like a 48 hour period before where I'm like, what are the reasons I could not go to do this? Yeah. What are the reasons I could get out of this? I don't know why that urge comes over me. I think like just the idea in my head of what a conference entails is like this stuffy ballroom, like awkward handshake conversations with people who like, you know, nobody knows each other. And it's just like, it's like, just like the worst first day of college all over again, every day in my, you know, in my professional life now. And so I was like, yeah, I just hate that feeling and I hate conferences, but like,

• 1:00:44Shaan Puri?

  there is some magic at conferences that happens. I do like meeting new people. I do like learning new things. And I do like some of the like little side events that happen in a conference that are like not the speaker on the stage and not the like networking mixer where I have to like, go barge in, be like, what are you guys talking about? Oh, you guys known each other for 10 years? Cool. Well, uh, I'm, uh, I'm Sean, I have a, you guys like podcasts?

• 1:01:14Shaan Puri?

  Oh, you don't recognize me? Okay.

• 1:01:15Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:19Shaan Puri?

  No, I was just asking if you guys knew where the bathroom was. I was just waiting this whole time to barge in and ask that. I'm gonna go now. See ya.

• 1:01:25Sam Parr?

  Dude, by the way, the best, the best way to approach that I've learned is just saying, hey, I don't know anyone here. Can I join your conversation? I've noticed that to be just the best. It's the upfront method.

• 1:01:37Shaan Puri?

  Um, yeah, exactly. So, so I dislike conferences for that reason. And I was like, all right. Um, and, and at the same time, I'm like, dude, I miss doing some stuff that was really fun that I just don't make a lot of time for nowadays. I was like, I miss just playing basketball, just like, dude, I used to play three hours a day, just pick up was just, it was so fun. That was like the best time, just me and my friends and just playing. And, you know, we used to meet a bunch of cool people doing that. And so I was talking to Ben and I was like, not producer Ben, but business partner Ben. I was like, I was like, dude, what if, could we get like the magic of a conference to combine with the magic of like, just go and play, playing pickup? Like, is there a way to do this? And he's like, yeah, I got an idea. And so we came up with this idea, which was, we have a friend who

• 1:02:20Shaan Puri?

  trains some of the biggest like NBA stars. And he's been training them for years. And like, these are like, you know, all-star Hall of Fame level, level players. And he's their personal trainer, like he'll go to their house and work with them every day in the summer and things like that. And we've become friendly with him because he's a, he's an entrepreneur and we've, we got to know him that way and kind of helping each other out with our businesses. And so we were like, yo,

• 1:02:46Shaan Puri?

  his name's Alex Basil. We're like, Alex, you know, you train Kyrie Irving, you train Trey Young, you train Carmelo Anthony, you train these guys. Like, dude, what if I just got a bunch of business dorks together who all love basketball? And like, would you just train us like you trained them? Like a fantasy camp? Like, can we just pretend for a weekend? Like, we are, we're those guys? And he's like, yeah, I'm down. Like, just, you know, pick a weekend as long as I'm free. Like, we'll do it. And I was like, okay. And then I was like, once I had one side of it. And I was like, all right, so let's, what if we just got like 10, 12 people who were-

• 1:03:16Sam Parr?

  You need your anchor, though. You need your whale.

• 1:03:18Shaan Puri?

  And we needed our whale. And I was like, how do I get people to come to this? It's like, first of all, I don't even know who plays basketball, who doesn't. I was like, who would I want to, who's like, number one, a great hang? Number two, loves basketball? And number three, like, successful enough in business where if I go invite the next person, the pull is that these other people are coming, right? That's the key to any great event is, these other people are going to be there. The people are the event. That way, I don't have to be like, great with the food and bev and like the environment, like all these logistics I'm not good at. Like, the people are the event. As long as the people are there to work. And so I won't say who, but we landed one big whale, famous person X, and then the domino

• 1:03:59Sam Parr?

  World famous, world famous, mainstream famous type of person.

• 1:04:03Shaan Puri?

  Exactly. So mainstream famous type person. And then I was like, okay, cool. And I started to get a couple of friends in and then I sent you the guest list because you're coming.

• 1:04:10Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:11Shaan Puri?

  And producer Ben is coming and or like I told you guys to come. I don't know if you guys are or not coming, but you should come. It'll be fun.

• 1:04:17Sam Parr?

  When's the date? Did you say the date?

• 1:04:19Shaan Puri?

  It's next month or it's in 20 days. So it's 20 days from now.

• 1:04:23Shaan Puri?

  But you saw that guest list, dude, it's coming together. There's some pretty awesome people going now. And now it's way bigger than like 10 people. Like we got 20 people. This is like,

• 1:04:30Sam Parr?

  How many?

• 1:04:32Shaan Puri?

  Their dad owns this NBA team and this person, they just sold their company for all this money. And then this person, they're the CEO of this publicly traded company. It's like, I didn't even know that guy likes to play, you know, like there's a whole bunch of really interesting people. I think this is going to be dope. And I think this is a way better way. I think this is a hack where I don't have to go attend conferences. I get to host.

• 1:04:50Sam Parr?

  You should invite Lori, Jet.com.

• 1:04:54Shaan Puri?

  I should invite him. Yeah, I haven't invited him yet.

• 1:04:57Sam Parr?

  That's a good one.

• 1:04:57Shaan Puri?

  If he plays, he don't.

• 1:04:58Sam Parr?

  I mean, he owns a basketball team.

• 1:05:01Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. I will invite him. But yeah, what do you think about this?

• 1:05:06Sam Parr?

  This is awesome. It's going to be the best. I think it's going to be really fun. I think you should invite even bigger, more famous people than just like internet dorks like Mark would be cool, or I don't know who else. That's actually the hard part is to think about who to invite. But yeah, it's going to be awesome. I think it's going to be really fun. I think it's a great idea. I think making yourself the center of these types of things is badass. It's a net win. There's no downside. Are you out of pocket? Any money?

• 1:05:32Shaan Puri?

  I don't know. I haven't even thought about cost yet, but like, yeah, like it'll cost money to do this, but it's not going to be super crazy. And I think everyone will pitch in just nobody. We're not trying to make a profit off this thing. We're just trying to like, you know, cover all the costs and do make it dope.

• 1:05:44Sam Parr?

  No, I think it's a great idea.

• 1:05:45Shaan Puri?

  The goal.

• 1:05:47Sam Parr?

  And it would be, it's going to look sick on social, like it's work related. Which let's uh, let's tell daddy HubSpot to pay for it.

• 1:05:57Shaan Puri?

  Hey fellas, um, quick break between, between games here. Just want to quickly talk to you guys about your CRM needs.

• 1:06:06Sam Parr?

  They'll be into it. I think they're trying to

• 1:06:08Shaan Puri?

  Gather around. I have a quick PowerPoint that I'd love to just run you through.

• 1:06:12Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:16Shaan Puri?

  I mean, it's already happening.

• 1:06:19Sam Parr?

  But no, make them pay for it.

• 1:06:24Sam Parr?

  If we can record, yeah.

• 1:06:27Shaan Puri?

  Oh, that's a good idea.

• 1:06:28Sam Parr?

  We only need to record one or two things.

• 1:06:30Shaan Puri?

  We should record, each day, we could probably record two or three, like, things. We could even have, like, two people on at a time, so it's not like.

• 1:06:37Sam Parr?

  Dude, and we should get couches and have people playing in the background.

• 1:06:43Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, the game is just running in the background. The audio sucks. It's just so much screaming from basketball.

• 1:06:49Sam Parr?

  The Full Send guys did a, the Full Send guys, they had a wedding. I think it was like Post Malone's manager or some, some, like, famacy person was doing a wedding and they set up a studio off to the side of the reception area. And they were in there recording a podcast for an hour and like Logan Paul popped in for like 10 minutes and this other person popped in for like five minutes and it was really cool. It was a great pod. We should do something. And they're like, all right, you guys want to go back? Like, I think dessert's at our table. And they went back. It was pretty awesome.

• 1:07:16Shaan Puri?

  Great idea.

• 1:07:18Sam Parr?

  Yeah, it was a really good, it was like, if, if you explained it to me, I was like, oh, this isn't cool. But I saw them pull it off and I was like, oh, this is actually really neat. We should totally do that and ask HubSpot to front the bill.

• 1:07:28Shaan Puri?

  All right, great. All right, done, done.

• 1:07:30Sam Parr?

  All right, well, good idea. That's the pod. That was a good one.