#199 - The Secret to Being Great

In this special episode Sam (@TheSamParr) and Shaan (@ShaanVP) talk about recent content they've consumed. They break down Naval's tweetstorm on How to Get Rich Without Getting Lucky and discuss their appreciation for greatness. There is a unique example at the end of the episode. --------- * Want to be featured in a future episode? Drop your question/comment/criticism/love here: https://www.mfmpod.com/p/hotline/ * Support the pod by spreading the word, become a referrer here: https://refer.fm/million * Have you joined our private Facebook group yet? Go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion and join thousands of other entrepreneurs and founders scheming up ideas. --------- Show notes: * (1:07) 1. How to Take Over the World (Podcast) * (9:17) 2. The Almanac of Naval Ravikant (book) * (17:59) Sam's friend and their big bet on Bitcoin * (20:32) On greatness * (27:19) 3. Nonviolent Communication (book) * (29:26) 4. The Courage to be Disliked (book) * (30:05) 5. Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny (article) * (34:23) An example of greatness (NSFW)

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

• 0:00Shaan Puri?

  I had this thought, oh, this is what it would have been like to talk to Bill Gates at 21.

• 0:16Sam Parr?

  So, this episode is gonna be, it might be shorter than normal, right?

• 0:20Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 0:21Sam Parr?

  Okay, I wanted, I just drove, uh, like 30 hours and I listened to a ton of content. I wanted to tell you, Sean, about some of the stuff that I listened to and why it's interesting. Is that what you want to do for this entire episode?

• 0:34Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 0:35Sam Parr?

  And I'm sure you'll have some stuff, um, uh, that you consume. Okay, the first one, I found this podcast that has like, actually, let's see, how many reviews? I, I think like no reviews. I think it's, I emailed the guy, he's amazing, but, uh, it's called How to Take Over the World.

• 0:51Shaan Puri?

  We should just have this guy, we should just absorb this guy's, uh, podcast. We need to acquire this guy's podcast. This should just be on our feed.

• 0:58Sam Parr?

  Wait, did you, did you listen to it?

• 1:01Shaan Puri?

  No, I'm just looking at the description of it and then the gems that you just told me and I'm like, this should be part of MFM. This is great.

• 1:08Sam Parr?

  It's amazing, this guy, he, uh, he, it's like his hobby and he, they're so in-depth. So it's called How to Take Over the World. What I think he's doing is, you know, a lot of biographies of great people like Napoleon, uh, Julius Caesar, the Rothschild. They're like 800 to 1,000 pages. So it's like a real commitment to read it. So he just reads it and he takes notes. In one episode, he did one on Napoleon, he goes, I have 60 pa, or Thomas Edison, he goes, I have 60 pages of notes. And he just reads the book and takes notes and then just explains and tells stories from the book and does it in chronological, chronological order. And it's basically turns, if you listen to a thousand-page book on audio, on Audible, it's something like 40 or 50 hours. But with him, I just listened to this two-hour podcast and I feel like I've just read most of the book.

• 1:51Sam Parr?

  It's pretty amazing. But he also gives his analysis about it. And so I listened to a few of them. I listened to one on Edison, one on Napoleon and one on the Rothschild, Rothschilds. And there's three commonalities that I want to tell you about these guys. So do you know who Rothschild is? Rothschild, am I saying it right?

• 2:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:09Sam Parr?

  So basically, it was started by this guy named Anschel Rothschild in the 1700s. He basically built like the Amazon of of this his little ghetto in in in Germany, where he would sell like he would mail you an item, and if you wanted it, you would send him money. And it wasn't like that big, but eventually he started, he grew that over 50 years and started investing in stuff. And then his kids started the Goldman Sachs of of Europe. So it was like a long, uh, slow build up to building this family business. So I'm going to tell you three things that I've noticed that these folks had in common. The first, all of them enjoyed their work. So there's a story where Nathan Rothschild, this um, this one woman was talking to him. He's like, you know, I hope you better hope that your kids aren't addicted to work like you are.

• 2:54Sam Parr?

  And he goes, oh, no, I hope they are because I love what I'm doing and I don't ever want to stop. Uh, same with Napoleon, then someone said, Napoleon, what what's your heritage? What race are you? He goes, I'm of the race of men who found empires.

• 3:09Sam Parr?

  Uh, like they're addicted to it, like they love it. They they can't, they can't not do it. Same with Edison. Edison, he was like nice to his kids and nice to his wife, but he was really never around. And they called, he called his um, uh, his studio, which was in Menlo Park. I believe it's called Menlo Park in New Jersey. And they said that it it looked like a homeless uh, encampment because there's these men in suits. But they were just like laying around on the floor and sleeping there because they would do their best work from midnight to 6 a.m. And they would just sleep below under their desk. And they're like, well, why are you doing this? He's like, because there's so much to do and we love it, like we can't not do this. So they all enjoyed their work. The second thing, crazy, crazy, high energy. So super high energy. So Napoleon, he went to Egypt to go conquer something.

• 3:53Sam Parr?

  And on his way, he stopped in like some island where he like reorganized the government in three weeks. And he and he changed their currency, just they all have crazy high energy. And that's something that I didn't actually think was a big deal, but they all had crazy high energy. Now here's the third thing that I found to be kind of interesting. A lot of the successful people that I'm learning about on this podcast, they eat very, very, very little. So like Edison would only drink milk sometimes for months. Steve Jobs.

• 4:19Shaan Puri?

  For months?

• 4:20Sam Parr?

  For months.

• 4:21Shaan Puri?

  What the?

• 4:22Sam Parr?

  Steve, dude, you remember Steve Jobs, how he had a fruit?

• 4:25Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I was gonna say he's a fruitatarian or whatever. It was the same thing. He used to only eat like lunch and it was just fruit. You know, or something like that for a period of time.

• 4:34Sam Parr?

  Rockefeller or Rockefeller and Vanderbilt were this way too. Like in their first, in like the, it was, it's all, when they're all described, they're like, look, he ate very little. Typically didn't eat breakfast, ate very little. They're all like physically hungry and that physical hungry hunger, some, it does actually seem like it leads to some type of like success. Does that?

• 4:52Shaan Puri?

  So, um, yeah. So let me give you my take on all three of these. So you said, uh, they really enjoy their work. Like their work feels like play is the way I would describe it where they didn't feel like they were forcing themselves to do something. They just couldn't wait to go keep doing it.

• 5:05Sam Parr?

  I would also say there's an obsession there. Now, like, is like, I'm obsessed with stuff. Like, is that, do I enjoy it? I don't know if I enjoy it, but like I, the OCD forces you, there's an obsession.

• 5:15Shaan Puri?

  So there's a Conor McGregor fight this Saturday and he has this great kind of like monologue from back when he was a nobody, but he was talking about it. He goes, he goes, I've lost my mind to this game. He goes, I think you must do that. I think you must become obsessed. You want to lose your mind to your craft. And, uh, I've seen that as like a common thing for a lot of people and, and that actually relates to the eight very little. A lot of time you get so engrossed in what you're doing, that you just forget to eat. You forget to go to the restroom. You forget what time it is. You forget to, you know, you should sleep or you forget to pay that bill because you become completely obsessed and engrossed in what you're doing and you get in a flow state really. And in a flow state, you, um, you sort of block out a lot of the other stuff that's going on.

• 5:58Shaan Puri?

  And so I think that's, that's, those two sort of go hand in hand. Um, and then the high energy, I'm curious what that means to you. So that's like.

• 6:06Sam Parr?

  It doesn't mean like you're bouncing off the walls.

• 6:08Shaan Puri?

  Right. Yeah, that's what I imagined. What did you mean?

• 6:10Sam Parr?

  No, it doesn't mean that you're bouncing off the walls. But for example, when I go and when I'm at a conference, um, like let's say it's my conference or let's say it's, uh, at our, at our talk that we did the other day. How did you feel at the end of that?

• 6:23Shaan Puri?

  The live shows?

• 6:24Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 6:25Shaan Puri?

  Uh, I felt kinda drained.

• 6:28Sam Parr?

  I felt drained. I felt exhausted.

• 6:30Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 6:31Sam Parr?

  But what I think, like, what I think high energy means is I felt just so worn out then. But I think that some people, they would feel good and they'd be like, alright, let's go like get some more deals done. Let's go invest like, like, like I invest a little bit of money, but if I was a full-time investor, you're doing deals all day. And for me, by like four or five o'clock, I'm like, oh, I can't talk to another person. I'm exhausted. I can't think about this anymore. But I've seen some people that can do it all day and they just aren't worn out and they can just keep going and going and going and going.

• 7:01Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 7:01Sam Parr?

  That's what I mean.

• 7:02Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I, I'm with you on that. Um, yeah, okay. I think this is cool and I like the, um, the study of, of the sort of study of greatness. And what I've also found is that like, we've talked about this before. It's like, would you want to be Elon Musk? Would you want to be like, basically this stuff comes at a, at a pretty big sacrifice, um, for other things in life. Family, often, um, you know, relationships, you know, it's hard to relate to people or spend time with friends or anything like that. If you're doing this. So when you, so I'm like you, I like digesting these. I like knowing it. But then over time, I've learned that like, the goal is not to be Steve Jobs or act like Steve Jobs or anything.

• 7:41Shaan Puri?

  I just kind of am fascinated by it in the same way that like, I'm fascinated about how, you know, a rhinoceros moves and eats. And I don't necessarily want to be a rhinoceros. I just find it interesting that it's this extreme creature.

• 7:53Sam Parr?

  I love freaks. I like the freak show and these guys are freak shows. I also love bold people. I admire anyone who's bold. So for example, uh, I was reading a book about Steve McQueen. He was just an actor. Like he didn't change the world. He probably didn't work that hard, but he was like known for like saying his opinion and he like lived a very like free life. That, and it's like in the same field. I like these people. I like men who will, who'll, who'll do what they say and they say like things that are different than other people. But then also I love these freak shows like Napoleon. Now let's actually talk about each of these. Thomas Edison, like Elon, a bunch of divorces. One of his wives died from a morphine overdose. His kids didn't really like him or get to know him that well, even though he was like a kind guy, but he was never around. Napoleon died on an island because they kicked him out and he died basically with nothing alone in an island off the coast of Africa. Rothschild, um.

• 8:39Sam Parr?

  He, he, the, the, the, I mean, they were okay. They, they actually had good ideals, but um, with, with a lot of successful people like this, yeah, you don't actually want to be them necessarily.

• 8:49Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Um, okay. So what else? Uh, what else you got? So you consumed that. What else you consume?

• 8:53Sam Parr?

  Okay. Have you read, uh, Naval's Almanac?

• 8:56Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Shout out to, um,

• 8:58Sam Parr?

  Jack Butcher.

• 8:59Shaan Puri?

  No, no, uh, E- Eric, right? Eric Jorg- I think Jorgensen is the last name.

• 9:03Sam Parr?

  Yeah. He was the main guy and Jack, uh, animated it or whatever.

• 9:07Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 9:07Sam Parr?

  Oh, there it is. So Naval has, uh, so it's a two-part. I actually don't know how it came to be. Did Naval just do a bunch of podcasts and interviews and he summarized Naval's feelings?

• 9:18Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, basically. So Naval had been putting out his content for years, different podcasts and stuff like that. And a lot of people like me and Eric and others were big fans of it. And what he did was he said, all right, uh, you, I don't know if you've ever bought the book or have the book, Poor Char- Poor Charlie's Almanac. I think that's what this riffed off of, which is Charlie Munger, who's Warren Buffett's business partner. It was like about Charlie Munger. And so, uh, he tried to make, you know, if Naval is one of the good, great thinkers of our time, then he tried to make the compilation of all the shit Naval said. He took it from, all the times Naval talked about wealth and they pulled it all together and put it all in one place and distilled it down.

• 9:54Sam Parr?

  And this book, uh, is broken into two parts. The first is wealth. The second is happiness. I found the wealth stuff to be a little bit boring. Um, I don't even remember. I, I actually skipped over a lot of it. I, I don't even remember what he said about wealth. Do you?

• 10:07Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. I mean, I think it's, it's the same thing that, that we've talked about on here, but he has this tweet storm that went ultra, ultra viral, like maybe, I don't know, 50 to a hundred million people have seen it by now. And it's called how to get rich without getting lucky. And he talks about these four things. I, I mean, I can go into it or I can skip it if you want to.

• 10:23Sam Parr?

  Yeah. You can talk, go talk about it a little bit.

• 10:25Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Basically his summary is like, you know, here's some of the principles that over, you know, Naval's become very wealthy and over time he sort of learned for himself. He wanted to be wealthy as a kid because he grew up pretty poor and he wanted to be wealthy and he wanted to be wealthy, not in a way that required outlier luck. And he says this great thing, which is like, you know, I want to, if I lived life a hundred times, I want to end up wealthy, you know, 98, uh, 99 times, or like, if you took away all my wealth now and you drop me, you know, butt naked in, in the streets of, of Bangalore, I want to be able to again, in five, 10 years, end up rich again. And so that means I actually understand the principles of how this is done and I'm not relying on, on luck. And so he talks about those principles and he basically says,

• 11:06Shaan Puri?

  You know, you want to have these like three or four things. So first, stop renting out your time. You'll never get rich renting out your time, which is, you know, ninety something percent of people are employees somewhere. You are basically renting your time to an employer, and you'll never become wealthy, or you rarely will become wealthy with that path. You become wealthy by owning a piece of a business, either as an investor, or as a business owner, or as an employee who has shares, like employees at Google or Facebook who have seen, you know, gotten a lot of wealth by the appreciation of those shares. And so then he talks about, you know, how do you, how do you get to that point? Well, you need a few things. You want, you know, what he calls specific knowledge, which is basically like, like Sam, you know

• 11:50Shaan Puri?

  how to grow a newsletter. You know how to write content. You know copywriting, right? You know certain things. And so you need specific knowledge. Then you pair that with accountability. So you want to do it in the name of The Hustle, or Sam, or some brand that accrues that reputation. So you want to put your name on the line, and say, I'm gonna do this thing, and so that when you do it, you get paid for it. You know, the people at The Hustle who write your daily newsletter, but are less well-known, they actually have certain skills. They have certain unique knowledge, specific knowledge, but they don't have the account, they're not putting up the accountability. They're not living and dying by the sword of this newsletter working or not. Maybe inside the company they are, but not externally. And then you have leverage. So, you know,

• 12:34Shaan Puri?

  back in the day, if you wrote something, you would maybe distribute it locally on your newspaper, or on a flyer, or something like that. But with the internet, you have leverage where you can put this in an email, and you could send it, you could put the same amount of work in to write the email once. You could send it to a hundred thousand people, a million people, or ten million people. It's the same amount of work, because you have tremendous leverage through technology. And so basically, he talks about, like, use these three things. Get specific knowledge, be accountable, put your name on the line. That way you get the risk and the reward. And lastly, apply leverage to maximize the value that you get out of the thing. That's kind of the basic formula.

• 13:09Sam Parr?

  And the whole book, basically, is broken down to this idea of, life is about health, wealth, and happiness. Or, sorry. Wealth, health, happiness. And he says, we actually pursue it. We go, we pursue wealth, then we do health, then we do happiness. And he's like, that's actually a fine way to pursue it. It's, that's a very practical and fine way to pursue it. The reality is, is that it's the reverse is true, like in terms of importance. So it's

• 13:35Shaan Puri?

  What matters the most, yeah.

• 13:37Sam Parr?

  Happiness, health, wealth. But it's whatever, it's fine to pursue that way. And he has this beautiful line in the book where he said something like, of course, once you get the wealth, you're gonna see that it's actually not nearly as important as you thought, but you're not gonna listen to me and you have to pretty much discover it on your own.

• 13:56Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, you're not gonna listen to me. I wouldn't have listened to me. You know, the type of person who's attracted to this content, you know, they're they're gonna go through the same thing. You have to learn that the hard way.

• 14:06Sam Parr?

  And so that was pretty interesting. So I liked that. But the second half is all about happiness. And there was a few things that kind of stuck out, stuck out to me. The first is that he basically acknowledged, he was like, look, don't worry. It, it, well, let me preface this by saying, Naval interests me because he's like, I mean, he's probably a billionaire, I have to imagine. He started Angelus, which is a multi-billion dollar company. He's an investor, like, he's in the game. And he acknowledges that I'm in the game. And so like, this is a little bit hypocritical. But basically, he was like, what I have found is that A, happiness must be a choice. Like, I've been unhappy for decades. And then I decided, you know, I'm going to be happy. And he steals a lot of

• 14:47Sam Parr?

  philosophy from Stoicism, and he steals a lot of it from Buddha, Buddhism. And the idea here is that like, your past is unimportant, and the future is unimportant. And to say that you want to do X, Y, and Z for legacy, that's bullshit. Because what's gonna happen is when you die, it's gonna be as if you were, you know, it's the same feeling that you had before you were born, which is like, nothing. So like, who cares about some bullshit legacy? Which is like, hard to fight against, right? But, and he's like, it only matters about the, about the present and where you are now. And that gets a little bit fluffy. But I still thought it was really useful. And oddly, did you, if you read the book, he talks about not working hard. He was like, you actually should only do work that feels like play.

• 15:29Sam Parr?

  And I thought that was kind of cool. And he's like, life's too short, by the way, just to grind and work your ass off. Which, again, I'm like, but Naval, you're like a billionaire. Like, is this like, what, you know, how do you, I have to like, kind of come to grasp it with this a little bit. But I thought it was cool. He also talks about, um, Very oddly gives diet advice. He's like, just don't eat sugar. Stay away from sugar. Do high intensity interval training and stretch a lot.

• 15:56Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. And he even says, he goes, I try not to, he's like, you know, I don't talk too much about health because I'm pretty good at health. I'm okay, but I'm not self actualized in that. Meaning like in wealth, he's done better than 99.9% of people. So, you know, for him to talk about it, well, he's self actualized it. He has actually done it for himself and seen it done by many other people. And so he feels comfortable putting out his whole philosophy on it. He's like, in terms of health, like I'll say some general things that you, you know, it's hard to argue against. But I try not to talk too much about it, even though it's very important because I myself, you know, for many years didn't have an exercise routine or wasn't, you know, the best eater. And now I'm better, but I'm still not the best. I'm not world class at that. I'm not 99.9% at, at that one.

• 16:41Sam Parr?

  I could tell one story. So I called a friend and, and this is almost like stuff I've read or listened to in the last like four days, which is a lot, but I, I, I had a friend and this is all related to what we, this is related to what we were talking about earlier about crazy people. I love freaks. And I had a friend call and tell me about their best friend. And let me tell you this story. So there's this guy. I'm gonna change some details. I don't want to reveal it. He was an accountant. And on some large deals that he was working on at the age of like 30, he was able to save up one to $2 million. I think it was $2 million at the age of 30. He was single.

• 17:21Sam Parr?

  He lived relatively frugally, but he worked on some, he worked at a big company who was just an employee, but he worked on such a deal that he was able to capture like some of the commissions and he made like $2 million bucks. With that $2 million, he angel invested a little bit. And one of his angel investments made like half a million dollars. And so here he is sitting with like two and a half to $3 million at the age of mid 30s. Okay. So about last.

• 17:47Sam Parr?

  Twenty months ago, when was Bitcoin $6,000?

• 17:50Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, about about a year and a half, two years ago.

• 17:52Sam Parr?

  Or no, sorry, when it was three thou- whatever it was, he put $3 million into Bitcoin.

• 17:58Shaan Puri?

  Everything he had.

• 17:59Sam Parr?

  Everything, 100% of everything he had, to the point of like, I think he like saved like $10,000 or $20,000 for living expenses. He put most everything he had, and also, he borrowed money. I don't, I'm, uh, he was able to borrow money, uh, somehow, like, through, like, like, as simple as, like, Robin Hood gives you a little bit of margin, but he was able to borrow money to the point of, like, he was in debt a significant amount of money, and he bought a ton of Bitcoin. Well, last December, when it hit 65 or 63,000 dollars, his $3 million turned into around $100 million, and he sold about half of it, so he's got like this cushion, and then he up and left and moved to another country.

• 18:43Sam Parr?

  And he lives there because he's like, you know, I'm just, I believe that, like, this country is the future. And the point of this story is, I'm not like this crazy person. I don't think you are either. You have a family, you're not gonna up and move them, although you will take interesting bets. But, and I recognize I'm not this human being, I am so thankful that crazy people like this exist.

• 19:08Shaan Puri?

  For our amusement.

• 19:10Sam Parr?

  Not for our amusement necessarily, but like, the world need, like, his boldness was like rooted in some type of selfishness. He wants to get risk, uh, get rich. But that type of boldness, even though this may not be the best example, but that personality type is what pushes society forward and actually does weird, crazy stuff that ends up becoming normal and common for us.

• 19:31Shaan Puri?

  Right. Dude, I don't know if, I, I don't think this is uncommon, but I feel special the way, I feel special that I'm this way, but I know this is actually most people, I think. But I- Fucking love greatness in any field like you could just be like, hey,

• 19:50Shaan Puri?

  you play billiards? I'm like, no. Check this out. This person is the best in the world at billiards. Tell me more. I saw watching them. I'll watch them for eight hours straight. I'll then go watch the documentary about them. And then I'll go find like, you know, the book about them and I'll just keep going deep because there's something about greatness. That is just so like attractive to me. And so recently, uh, do you watch the TV show Dave?

• 20:13Sam Parr?

  Of course. I like, uh, what's the guy's name? The rapper?

• 20:16Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, Lil Dicky. So Dave is a show that I started watching. And I love Dave. Dave is like a hilarious show to me and it's a very unique show, right? Uh, and it's not like most TV shows, not made like most TV shows. It uses like everybody's real names. It's like kind of set in Hollywood. It's this guy's story of trying to be a big rapper, which is his real story. And then it's kind of like, he's not like, it's not Entourage where he's just like cool and cool shit keeps happening. Models keep throwing themselves at him. It's like the opposite. Uh, he's kind of like a nerdy Jewish guy who happens to be an aspiring rapper and you know, things happen to him that are not so great all the time. And so, um,

• 20:54Shaan Puri?

  I just love this dude. This dude is like, he's so talented. He's very talented as a rapper. If you haven't listened to the Lil Dicky sway freestyle, we should put that whole freestyle at the end of this episode. Dan, do that. Just grab the whole audio for that freestyle and put it at the end of this.

• 21:07Sam Parr?

  One where he gives the girl flowers.

• 21:09Shaan Puri?

  Where he gives her flowers. Exactly. Um, that freestyle is amazing. Although, I mean, obviously it's not an actual freestyle. And then, um, you know, to be, to then go into like how he marketed himself. So he's a former ad agency guy. Who got his job at an agency and was like writing a rap song for like Doritos to like win the client, win the gig, win the account. Then leaves to go become an actual rapper. He, his story is kind of like he, uh, he works for a long time on his album, doesn't show anyone, has no results to show for it. Kind of like runs out of time and money doing this. And then like launches his first music video and it like goes viral and because he had put so much work into his craft. Of like making this work and he's completely authentic, right? So like back to a Navalism.

• 21:52Shaan Puri?

  Escape competition through authenticity. Uh, most of the things you want to occur in very competitive spaces. And the answer is not to try to out compete everybody by being better because everybody's trying to be better. The way to do it is to be different. The way to be different, the easiest way to be different is to be completely you. Because nobody can be better at you than you. You've been you your whole life. You have a lifetime of experience at it. And so similarly for Dave, uh, he, his niche in rapping is like being, you know, an awkward white guy rapper. Just kind of growing through life, um, trying to get with women and failing sometimes and sometimes succeeding and et cetera, et cetera. And so I think this guy is so impressive to me. And so I love finding these like, you know,

• 22:36Shaan Puri?

  whether it's in, in the UFC, that's why I love Conor McGregor and his rise because early on I was like, this guy seems like he's full of greatness and then you see it play out and you're like, wow, that was amazing. Uh, Dave and the rap scene. So this, and you're talking about this with Edison and some of the books that you can Naval, like some of the, the content you're consuming. Um, I don't know, like, what do you think? Are we kind of like, are we unique in this or is this, I feel like everybody loves greatness, right? But is there something?

• 23:03Sam Parr?

  No, I don't think it's the same. I, I, I think that, I think it's because of, we have a privilege. We've been privileged in that you and I have seen people who have, we have seen like dozens of people accomplish things that A, most people like, like hear rumors about or movies about like, like, no, I know this person. They, and a lot of them, it's financial, but you know, they sold their company. They made $500 million. Like we know many people have done that. And so we like, we firsthand know like, man, greatness is real and you could self actualize. We know it's real. The second thing is we know people that have created or invented or worked on things that everyone else takes for granted. And you're like, dude, you have no idea what it takes to like, uh, to have like made that a reality.

• 23:47Sam Parr?

  It just, it's so impressive. And I think that, um, because of that, yeah, we like appreciate bold people who are also capable. And so I, I think a lot of people. Are like that, but not that many people. For example, when I go to a convenience store and there's like a sign taped to the door, I'm like, do you have any fucking pride? Fix that shit. Like, put a proper frame. Like, do this the right way. It like, be the best. That's why-

• 24:10Shaan Puri?

  You detest, you detest lack of greatness.

• 24:13Sam Parr?

  I, I can't stand that. But like, but you know, there's a reason why, like, we're not the only ones. There's a reason why Jiro, what's that Jiro loves sushi or Jiro's-

• 24:20Shaan Puri?

  Jiro's sushi, yeah.

• 24:22Sam Parr?

  Yeah, like-

• 24:22Shaan Puri?

  Or like Nike. Nike's whole marketing is not about the rubber in their shoes. It's about like great athletes. Cause everybody loves great athletes. Uh, that's an easy one that everybody loves.

• 24:30Sam Parr?

  No, I, I, but I like it. Like when I look at, like, I don't care about weightlifting, but a weightlifter, I'm like, dude, the gay, look at this guy's like weighing his food every single day and getting up at 5:30 like, just for the, like, I just, I, I, I love that. Um, so we'll, um, let me move on to one more thing, but I, yeah, I do. I love greatness. And I'll tell you these last two things that I've read.

• 24:50Shaan Puri?

  Can I leave one point on that? I would say, definitely a lot of good has come, has come from being a fan of greatness. Um, but I would say try to be a fan of greatness, not a fan of the people. Um, and the reason I say that is because what often happens is when people get really into greatness, they go study these people and then they, their, and their net conclusion is, wow, they're great and they're different than me. And I, they sort of like separate. It's almost like, oh, that's a different species. And there's a, there's a way to do this that's better, which is basically, you take, you get entertainment and inspiration from them and education from them of the things that they do, but like, don't count yourself as something different.

• 25:30Shaan Puri?

  Treat yourself like that's, that's you. You're them. You're, you are no different than them. They are just like you. They are just, you know, made of the same things as you, had the same doubts as you, had the same insecurities as you, had the same struggles as you. And, uh, and so like, don't like create this divide of the great people and then you, because then it's counterproductive. Then every time you, you learn about their greatness, it reinforces this kind of like negative perception of yourself. Instead, if you think about yourself just like them, then every time you learn about them, it creates a positive reinforcement about what you can also do.

• 25:59Sam Parr?

  And I'll tell you just the last few things that I consumed this week that made a difference. The first is not, or the, the last couple, nonviolent communication. It's real touchy feely. You know what nonviolent communication is?

• 26:09Shaan Puri?

  I've never read it, but I've heard about it. Yeah.

• 26:11Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 26:11Shaan Puri?

  It's a way to speak, uh, in a way, I guess, I don't know. How would you explain it?

• 26:15Sam Parr?

  Basically, I have a problem. Like, I suck at dealing with people. Like, my emotions get the best of me. I get angry at people and I communicate stuff and I'm like, why am I getting angry? Like, this is so counterproductive. I do this with Sarah. I've done it with you before. I've done it with all my coworkers. I just communicate horribly, so I'm actually trying to learn a better way to communicate, a more effective way to communicate. And this is like giving you a toolkit. So it's basically like, it just gives you like, a better way to talk to people, so you-

• 26:41Shaan Puri?

  Give us one nugget from it. So, what's one tweak?

• 26:45Sam Parr?

  Dude, it's really hard. It's like, like, it's so opposite of how I do things. So, for example, like, like, there's like a, like a, okay, so the, there's a lot, someone who's an expert on this is gonna like criticize me on how I'm explaining it, but it's quite complicated for me because it's so not normal. But basically, the idea here is like, look, I'm not gonna judge you for you telling me this. I'm not gonna get angry. I'm not gonna judge you, but I actually just wanna clarify, like, so you feel like this, correct? Okay. Well, what I need from you is X, Y, and Z. Are you able to, like, are we able to, can I get that from you or no? And then, it's like that type of like, very like, crystal clear. And then, like, you'll say things like, look, can you repeat back what you thought I said?

• 27:27Sam Parr?

  So, for example, um, I'll tell you to do something and I'll say, and you'll say, okay, fine. I'll be like, can you repeat back? Well, you said if you, you don't do this, you're gonna yell at, or you, let me find a better example. Okay, uh, my wife and I, we got into like an argument over, uh, I forget what we got into an argument over. But I said, um, can you repeat back to me what you thought I said? Well, you said it's, it's gonna piss you off if you, if I do this again. And I was like, no, I actually didn't mean to express the idea of I'm gonna be angry at you. It was just like, it hurts my feelings when this happens. You know what I mean? So it's a different, it's a different way to communicate. I'm not good at it. This is why I'm reading this fucking book. Clearly, I can barely describe the damn thing.

• 28:07Sam Parr?

  The last thing, or the second to last thing, The Courage to be Disliked. Great book. I started getting into it. Because after Naval and it's just like, there's a few takeaways here. I'll read the, my four takeaways. The first is, it's dangerous to believe that your past is your future. I know, it's fluffy. If you focus on what's wrong with you, you might be looking for reasons to hate yourself on purpose. Again, fluffy. Third, most of what we think is competition is just made up and is hurting your happiness. And four, this is like crazy woo woo. Basically, life is just a bunch of like sounds and lights and like the emotion, we assign emotion to it. And so you don't actually, like you can assign a happy emotion or not. So that's the last one. And then the last article I read that made a big difference.

• 28:51Sam Parr?

  There's this New Yorker article written in 2014 about Sam Altman. Have you ever read this?

• 28:56Shaan Puri?

  Maybe. I like to study Sam Altman, but I haven't, I don't remember this one.

• 29:01Sam Parr?

  It's written in 2016 on New Yorker. It's called Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny. And I was rereading this and I want to tell you a few reasons. First, in 2016, he talks about this. They ask him what his hobbies are and what he does when he's not working. He goes, uh, I like racing cars. I like renting planes and flying them. Oh, and I've got one odd thing that I like. I like to prep for, prep for survival. Seeing their bewilderment, he explained, my problem, uh, sorry, I'm butchering this. The problem is when my friends get drunk, they talk about ways the world will end. After a Dutch lab modified H5N1 bird flu viruses five years ago, making it super contagious. The chance of lethal virus being released in the next 20 years will become, well, non-zero.

• 29:47Sam Parr?

  So I have a plot of land in Big Sur that I can fly to. I have antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks made by Israel Defense Force, all ready to go. This was in 2016. That's kind of cool, right?

• 30:03Sam Parr?

  He also talks about basically, he sold his company and he, uh, he goes, he profited five million and he invested all of it in startups, which I thought was pretty crazy because we're talking about like crazy freaks.

• 30:15Sam Parr?

  It's just a really good article. I think people should read this because Sam Altman is like a freak weirdo and that's like a compliment. Because we're talking about extreme personalities and I think it's like a really cool insight. And it's one of the only article, long form articles I've ever seen written about him. So I've been rereading that this week.

• 30:30Shaan Puri?

  That's a cool one. I'm going to check that out. I remember Paul Graham had once said something and Paul Graham is obviously a fan of Sam Altman because he. Paul Graham started Y Combinator and then he put Sam Altman in charge of it. And Sam Altman was by no means the most successful YC alumni at the time. I think his company sold for thirty million, but it was kind of like many ways of failure. It didn't succeed.

• 30:51Sam Parr?

  It it raised forty and it sold for thirty.

• 30:54Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, exactly. And so I think he got some out of it, but you know, whatever. But Paul Graham once said like, he's like, when I was talking to Sam Altman, I think maybe for the first time or second time, he's like, I had this thought, oh, this is what it would have been like to talk to Bill Gates at twenty one. And like, that's like pretty high praise for somebody. So I thought that was like pretty cool.

• 31:14Shaan Puri?

  I don't know, pretty cool description, pretty cool.

• 31:15Sam Parr?

  Yeah, and there's the there's a lot of weird things about Altman that I love. I should come up with a better word than weird, but peculiar things. So for example, listen to the sentence, "In a class that Altman taught at Stanford in two thousand and fourteen." So which, by the way, in two thousand and fourteen, he must have been like twenty eight. He remarked that "The formula for estimating a startup's chance of success is something like idea times product, times execution, times team, times luck, where luck is a random number between zero and ten thousand." And like, like little lines like that. I just think it's crazy that someone thinks like that. And it's just, it's peculiar, it's exciting, it's really neat. There's another story where he, he's working with the with Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb, and they're about to pitch in front of everyone at YC.

• 32:00Sam Parr?

  And there's this great line where he says, Brian Chesky goes, "I attribute a lot of our success to Sam Altman and YC." And they're like, well, why? He was like, well, right before our deck, they, we had a limited, we had our deck, it was all built out. We had limited our projected revenue on the deck to thirty million dollars, Chesky said. Sam stopped us and looked at us and goes, "Do me a favor, take all those Ms., you know, the thirty million, and change them to Bs." Altman recalls telling them, either you don't believe everything you said in the rest of the deck about how how big this is gonna be, or you're ashamed, or I just can't do math.

• 32:34Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 32:35Sam Parr?

  And he just said, "Change all the Ms. to Bs." And I think like that weird type of thinking is actually pretty interesting.

• 32:40Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, people who can cut through the noise and just like get get straight to the heart of it. All right, this is cool. This is kind of like stuff that Sam's been reading and listening to, stuff we've been consuming.

• 32:51Sam Parr?

  I don't know. Is this interesting? Is this gonna be good?

• 32:54Shaan Puri?

  I enjoyed the conversation. Dan, what do you think? Is this gonna be a good pod?

• 32:58Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I think it's cool. I think it'd be a fun thing to check in every couple of weeks or a month. Alright, well, let's see. But that's the episode.

• 33:04Speaker 03

  Lil Dicky, go turn the rock, wonder, drop a beat on him.

• 33:10Speaker 03

  Sway in the morning, shade four five. Turn that beat up, huh, in your headphones. Get that headphones, okay? Turn it up, turn it up, OQ.

• 33:19Speaker 03

  Okay, you're not gonna do it. Get serious, here we go. Lil old dick and I'm back in this bitch, I know y'all know when I rap what it is. All facts don't fib, got a gang full of hits, in touch with the kids like a pedo. Uh, I'ma jam like Shaq, I'ma bang when I wish. Up in this bitch like a feeder, say no timelines, we're in Utime list. Hold up, MJ, 96 million, I'm back on my bullshit. You know I come hard like a full dick. Suburban and white, stay with the bread like some cool whip dough. Look how it spread, cool whip flow. I can make 'em riot with a IG live, and my girl got bombs on her baji hot. And between her legs is looking right, hypotenuse. Uh, bring it all down, hold up, sway, let me bring it all down. Been out here, citizenship, look at how I got everybody tuned in right now. They would probably watch this for an hour. Tracy, I brought you flowers.

• 34:05Speaker 03

  Gas out the ass like flatulence. I was slept on like mattresses, I got my head right aspirin. I'm cashing in, I'm cashing in, I'm not about to hold a paper and display it like a thumbtack. No touchback, they about to run us back. And if you ever met me, you root for me, sharp shit, come on, I'm a dome, I'm a unicorn. Pardon my breath, only perky said I fuck with his breasts. Elevated kissing hoes at the ritz, freaky Friday, I get in them like Chris, wait. Sway, pass me the rock, get it, post, jab, up fake. Huh, jumping in them, two shots at the line. I got them like a mime, Odell, beggar might cut on a dime. Glow in the dark, see me anytime. Used to put the Xbox controller on my dick and let it vibrate. How I jerked off as a child, came a long way, now I'm like, ay, girl, you, me, fuck? And this shit work, hey, her brother looking at me like, hey, fuck it, bro. Sway, her brother looking at me like, hey, fuck it, bro.

• 34:51Speaker 03

  I'm like Kareem Abdul, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. These hooks got me scoring, see me coming from afar. Rapping in France, I never need an advance. I'm switching it up like I'm trans. Although I'm the Trojan man, I'm eating the pussy like cervical cancer. I know where I'm going, but shit if my GPS died, I sleep in my sedan. I can't do the schmurda dance, I get caught up, looking awkward.

• 35:12Speaker 02

  Does it work for you?

• 35:14Speaker 03

  Sometimes I'll catch it for a minute. OJ with it, y'all wonder how I did it. My mom hit me once, she luggage ensued, but I'll stomp y'all out like endemic in Sue. All the shoe brands wanted me to sign, I remember they thought I was Lonely Island. There will not be another like me. I could go viral if I put out a snippet. I'm sick like a coda, you really could get it. I'll always be playing, just like I'm embedded. I got a leg up like ottomans though, and my television show is coming, but that is irrelevant. Right now I'm rapping like President Skid. How did I get here? I got big, rapping like Diddy, I'm prevalent. Hold up, let me find the melody. All my fans are getting mad at me. They just wanna hear me spazzing now, but I just had to put a couple smashes out. How is this shit a pop star? Rap name is a dick joke. How did he make it that far? Good pussy at the crib like a house cat. They waiting on my buzz like the Outback. In and out with the bag like I make tea.

• 35:58Speaker 03

  When I do shopping, it's freeze. Eyebrows long like AD. Girls get wet like Navy puller, like I'm Stefan shoe cream. Players in the NBA text me. If I wanna diet coke, someone brings me diet coke. All my live shows nuts, like I expose testicles. Hold up, wait, let me ad lib my shit. Look at my penmanship, I write this, I'm a Cars Junior model, for real. Just on the side like soccer moms. I could've sold you stocking bonds. Happen so fast like Ramadan, the autobahn, the shaman running down the bomb. From Carson's arm, I'm off the farm, I'm on the court. The jumbotron is on the boy, they playing my song, LeBron is nodding. Am I James Worthy? Look at my bars, I'm met up like Bernie.

• 36:36Speaker 03

  Oh, we having fun. Girls see me and start blushing just because I'm around. I used to always get a boner at my physical sway. If this is cultural appropriation, what can I say? What would you have me do? You know I gotta rap. But the times now are scary. Hold up, wait, take a step back, Dave, think about this shit. Internet is a permanent place, this is gonna live forever. Breed, analyze, think about everything. I'm such an idiot. I used to cover R. Kelly songs at my shows without even knowing it was problematic. I feel the pressure, under more scrutiny. What I do, act more Jewishly. Come on, Sway, write my eulogy. Am I looking like I need to get a job, or looking like I need a bodyguard? I play tennis with Leonardo, how y'all train on track like cargo? I go dumb, don't dumb it up. Don't fuck on planes, but I'm coming up.

• 37:19Speaker 03

  Add up my views to sum it up, I was just on SportsCenter, dun-dun-dun. I think this is good, I've done enough. My haters look mad like Sonova. Now let me go and finish on my album, Jesse Smollett, you know I'mma fuck it up.

• 37:30Speaker 02

  Ohhhhh.

• 37:32Speaker 04

  And I'm out.

• 37:33Speaker 02

  That's it?

• 37:34Speaker 04

  And I'm gone.

• 37:35Speaker 02

  You gonna in on that?

• 37:36Speaker 04

  And I leave.

• 37:37Speaker 02

  You gonna walk out?

• 37:38Speaker 04

  And I'm out.

• 37:38Speaker 02

  You gonna drop out and walk out?

• 37:40Speaker 04

  Gone, and I gotta catch a flight. Thank you.

• 37:43Speaker 02

  Little Dicky, ladies and gentlemen, ohhhhh.

• 37:47Speaker 04

  Dicky. Yo.

• 37:53Speaker 02

  One done and out, Kel, you see how that man did that right there? That last line, he only does a line that gets to me, man. Oh my god.

• 38:01Speaker 04

  End it on Jesse.

• 38:02Speaker 02

  The one and only, Little Dicky, ladies and gentlemen.

• 38:06Speaker 02

  Your man or your word?

• 38:16Speaker 05

  I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to. I put my all in it like my days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back.