Jack Smith: Selling A Company For $800M At 29, Million Dollar Businesses that Can Be Started Just From Reading a Manual, and More

Episode 470: Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) and Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) talk to entrepreneur Jack Smith (@_jacksmith) about selling his company for $800 million, how he's choosing to raise his child, his latest business idea, and more. Want to see more MFM? Subscribe to the MFM YouTube channel here. Check Out Shaan's Stuff: * Try Shepherd * Shaan's Personal Assistant System * Power Writing Course * Daily Newsletter Check Out Sam's Stuff: * Hampton * Ideation Bootcamp * Copy That ----- Show Notes: (02:50) - Jack's first company (08:25) - Early Retirement (18:30) - Business Ideas: Nomad Capitalist (26:30) - RTFM (34:20) - Why You Should Hack the Apple Vision Pro (40:25) - Law of Attraction (01:04:30) - Baby stuff (01:17:15) - Unschooling ------ Links: * Don't Tell Me I Can't: An Ambitious Homeschooler's Journey * Nomad Capitalist * Practical Law of Attraction * Portugal Nature Getaway * Tweet thread of Jack's favorite products * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. ------ 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  You wake up at something like three AM or five AM and the first two to three days, the only instruction they give you is, hey, uh, feel how the breath feels on your lips when you're breathing in and out. Okay, see you in three days. And you sit there. It's really extreme. What? This is my management style, too.

• 0:29Sam Parr?

  All right, we're live here. We have a guest, Jack Smith, one of my best friends in my wedding. And amazing person. I don't even know how to describe you, Jack. What you, I guess, like, the top line is you started a company that you sold for like eight hundred million dollars when you were twenty nine. That's like the, that's like the headline impressive stuff, but we have you here because you have done, you're just like one of the more interesting people I know.

• 0:52Speaker 00

  Okay, well, thanks for having me. I also thought kind of an interesting contrast coming after Rob. Um, because like he was describing himself as like the pinnacle of human optimization, right? Like he plans how long it takes him to go to the toilet each day. And then I was thinking, I may be an interesting contrast. So I'm like human procrastination, like the exact opposite of that. So.

• 1:15Sam Parr?

  Yeah, but you do optimize stuff like Sean, I don't know if you know this, but like Jack, one time we went to his birthday party and his wife made him a cake and it was in the shape of an Amazon box because he had this like, it was like a walk in closet, but it was basically a room in his home and it was full of Amazon boxes. And you're like, Jack, what is that? And he has this list, this Excel spreadsheet that he keeps. And anything that he buys, ranging from a book bag to baby apparel or baby accessories. Or one time he was obsessed with chocolate. He would literally buy fifty versions and test all of them and then rank them on this like attribute system and then have a, and so he had these

• 1:56Sam Parr?

  huge lists of everything that he's tested. And he's done this so much that we're, haven't you been banned from Amazon like multiple times?

• 2:04Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then also Bonobos had this policy for, I don't know if they still have, I think for many. Years had a policy where you could return any item, even if it was used up to three hundred and sixty five days after. And so I had a spreadsheet tracking when I bought everything. Basically, I got a new wardrobe every year. Because I just sent all my clothes back on three hundred and forty days. And then just got it all as like, uh, credit and just bought an entire new wardrobe every year. Um, so yeah, I got banned from Amazon a few times and but no both.

• 2:36Shaan Puri?

  So you would rather have more in common than you than you think. He's planted his poop and you're planting your returns in a giant spreadsheet. You, um, what you have this, uh, like Sam said, this kind of like personal wire cutter you create for yourself.

• 2:52Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 2:52Shaan Puri?

  Have you always done that? Or was that like, I got too much time on my hands. I'm gonna come up with a new hobby, like, you know, figuring out the best of everything. Were you doing that? Kind of when you were twenty one also?

• 3:04Speaker 00

  Um, well, I didn't have, um, any money when I was twenty one. I still bought stuff from Amazon. But I think it probably would connect like Sean, you've talked on the pod about, you know, having an inquisitive mindset. And I think for me, I like to go deep on something. So as Sam, um, Sam said about chocolate. When I was just interested in chocolate, I wanted to go deep. So I'm like, I want to, I, I bought my own beans. I roasted them in my house. I, I wanted to learn what's the entire process because I think it's kind of interesting. These crafts that go back centuries. And some people dedicate their whole life, right? Like fifty years, they're an expert chocolatier.

• 3:44Speaker 00

  And then for me, it's just kind of interesting. Just have a glimpse into that, um, and keeping that mindset about craft. But also maybe challenging the way things are done sometimes. Because if you've done chocolate for fifty years, you'll maybe like, that's the way it's always been done. But if you come from a fresh angle, you may be like, wait, what if you did it this way or something? But I think it's just I'm interested in general to go deep into topics.

• 4:08Shaan Puri?

  I, I call you, uh, when I describe you to other friends, I said, I think Jack is the most interesting man in the world. And I think, uh, there's this great quote, it's like, to be interesting, you need to be interested. And to me, that's the perfect description for you. You're the most interesting man in the world because you're interested. In the most things, at the most depth, you know, in the highest variety. And so I've talked to you about, you know, five different things. And you've gone down a rabbit hole in each one of them, it turns out. And because of that, you always have like a really interesting point of view. What's been the best find? Like you talk about this chocolate rabbit hole you went down. And you're like, you know, you, you, you, you may come out with a different conclusion than the experts or the people who've done this for a long time.

• 4:50Shaan Puri?

  What's an example where you, you kind of just got, you came to a different conclusion yourself?

• 4:55Speaker 00

  Well, it was actually, I was listening back to our last episode or maybe one of the previous episodes. And it was what we talked about there where it was like, I just looked, me and my co-founder at least, just researched how ad networks work for a week. And then we were like, all right, we think this is how it works. And Tomas, who runs AngelPad was like, dude, you're thinking you come into totally different conclusions in a week? I was working at Google for a decade and there's people with decades of experience in this. But we just thought from the principle of just very basics. And so the first bit, similar with app loving is we were like, why are these ad networks charging? Um, based on how many times someone watches a video?

• 5:40Speaker 00

  We, we built a video ad network. We were like, apps, they actually just care about the end action. So they actually only care how many people install their app or how much money these users are going to spend in their app. They don't actually care how many people watch the video. So why is it that the industry charges that way? And so we kind of made a bet and said, we will charge. It doesn't matter how many people watch your video. We'll just only charge you based on how many people install it. It was a bet. Luckily it worked out. Sometimes you have to kind of make a gamble, right? Like especially with an ad network, we had no idea if the business would work. Because the unit economics are kind of out of our hands, right? We don't know if these ad network, if it's going to work.

• 6:23Shaan Puri?

  Which by the way, we should like give a background. So basically your company was called Vungle. You, how, how old were you, 22?

• 6:30Speaker 00

  I'm 21, 20.

• 6:33Sam Parr?

  So basically, like, the story that you always tell is you had, like, you got into an accelerator, an incubator. I think you had one idea, but it wasn't working out. And then you just, like, mocked up, like, a PowerPoint. You went, and it was, like, on a mobile ad network. So basically, you would see an ad in between levels of games. You brought it to developers, and they're like, oh, yeah, this is way better. If you could actually build this, we're in. And you did that a bunch of times where you got maybe one or, I think, a million dollars of a commitment, some like, yeah, I guess if you build this, we would spend, like, this much money. And then you took that, and you actually hired a developer, Bryant, who's now the co-founder of Webflow. And you built that business, and then it, like, spiraled into this thing where I think you'd only

• 7:17Sam Parr?

  raised 10 or 15 million, maybe 17 million. And within seven years, I think, wherever it was when you sold, you guys were doing a million a day in revenue? Is that like the summary?

• 7:28Speaker 00

  It could be in that region, yeah, maybe. Yeah, around hundreds of millions in revenue.

• 7:32Sam Parr?

  And it was absolutely crazy. And then you sold it for, I forget, what, 800?

• 7:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, kind of in that region. And I mean, what's interesting as well is, obviously, Sean talks about having worked with Furqan at AppLovin. AppLovin launched about six to 12 months after us. So I think is another example, you don't have to be the first to market. Like, everyone's jumping on the AI trend, right, to be first to market. But actually, you don't have to be the first to market to be the biggest. AppLovin was one of the slower movers. And to give context, they, at their peak, have been multiple times bigger than Fungial. They went public and probably at their peak in the region of 10 billion market cap. Now they're a bit lower, it's market

• 8:15Shaan Puri?

  No, no, they're, they're 9 billion.

• 8:17Speaker 00

  Maybe more, 20?

• 8:18Shaan Puri?

  They're 9 billion now. They were 20 billion at its peak, something like 20, 25 billion at its peak. What do you think they did? Why did they have kind of a, let's call it, 10 to 20x bigger outcome if they started a year later? When you look back, what did you learn from that?

• 8:31Speaker 00

  And it was also interesting because one of our investors

• 8:35Shaan Puri?

  Besides Furqan being a beast?

• 8:36Speaker 00

  One of our investors came to us and said, like, oh, yeah, we're backing, we're looking, we're investing in this company. They do, like, video advertisements inside of mobile apps, etc. They're called AppLovin. And we're like, you're describing our company. What are you talking about? You're investing in? That's what we did, we do. And actually, so they're called, they're called Web

• 9:01Speaker 00

  Uh, Win, Web Investment Network, they invested in, I think they're the only investor, invested in Vungle and App Loving. Um, they're great guys, but at the time we were like, fuck. Um, so they have massive wins there. Uh, one bit we observed is actually App Loving, Vungle, we thought that like, at the time before Vungle, mobile ads were monetized through like banner ads, like kind of on the internet, you know, when the internet first opened, she had these crappy banner ads. And we were like, well, they obviously suck. So we're going to do video ads, which is 10x better. But a difference that App Loving did is they didn't only do video ads, they did everything. They did, they, they were like, we don't care what you want to spend money on, we'll just take your money.

• 9:44Speaker 00

  So they're like, one platform, you can do banner ads, video ads, everything. And so I think that, um, enabled them to capture a bit more market share and perhaps, um, the, uh, founding team being more technical. Like I'm saying that I'm a crappy engineer. Uh, like I could not build Vungle from scratch and Sean, listening to your story on, uh, one of the more recent episodes, you described Ferquin making that dashboard for Adam that he could just look at the apps and poach them. But we did similar bits. Um, but there's perhaps more technical. One of our hacks we did is we actually had a team of people in, about 10 people

• 10:28Speaker 00

  in Pakistan. And Pakistan is so cheap, so we had an entire office and they had one job to, and this is why it was really easy to recruit there. We said, just play mobile games all day. We, we just got them all on iPhone and we just played, play games all day. And whenever you see an ad, write down what the ad was advertising and what ad network was using it. And so they basically built us our lead gen database by playing all the games. So maybe we did it manually, they did it by looking at this SDK source code. Um, so, yeah.

• 11:04Sam Parr?

  That's amazing. You're like, last night, someone was asking me, I was at this dinner, they're like, have you ever met anyone who, um, created a business and sold it and was wealthy enough and they just retired? And I was like, not really. Basically, everyone I know who's started a company and had some type of success, usually after some amount of time, six months or three years, they usually get to something. Sometimes it's more intense, sometimes less intense, but they usually do something. You're actually the only person I think I know who was incredibly successful at a very young age, so thirty years old or whenever you sold it, and you actually have not ever started another business before. You do a lot of odd stuff. Like, for example, I'll be like, Jack, what are you doing now? You got any projects? You're like, yeah, I have like

• 11:46Sam Parr?

  a ton of pen pals in prison and I like set up this thing where it's this website where people inmates can order any book they want to and I like ask them to create like a book report on it. And I'm like, that's so interesting. Do you think A, you'll ever get back into business? And is the reason, do you just spend all your days just like seeking out all these interesting topics? Is that what you're doing now?

• 12:09Speaker 00

  So I would not say that I'm retired at the moment because when I think of being retired, I think about having no stress and just like sitting around reading books all day or something like that, you know? Actually, I am working on a bunch of stuff, but they're not just, it's not taking an approach of trying to build another billion dollar company. When I think back, a trait I notice in many entrepreneurs and I observed in myself is that I think I was successful early on because I had a chip on my shoulder. I had something to prove. And doing my first startup in London, it was really hard to do a startup.

• 12:49Speaker 00

  And I also felt like people kind of didn't respect me. I had they like people just kind of thought I was a joke or whatever. And I kind of felt inside, I thought I was like, I think that I can build something successful. I didn't want, I didn't aspire to be super rich or anything. I just wanted to build a big company. But I had that chip on my shoulder, something to prove. Now, when Vungle sold, when I kind of reflected, I was like, I don't think that I have that chip on my shoulder anymore. And I think if you're gonna try and build a billion dollar company, you or a really ventures backed company or something, you have to make a lot of sacrifices, right? And have a drive about why you're doing it. And when I sat, I'm like, I don't need more money now and I don't have this thing to

• 13:34Speaker 00

  prove anymore. So when I sat with it, I felt what is going to motivate me more now is where can I have an impact and kind of? Impact the world, not necessarily trying to impact a million people in the world. But even if I just deeply impact a few people in the world, I think that will be a driver to a reason why to work on this, because making more money is not enough of a driver for me. And all of us three, we're in this chat group, right, about founders that have sold their first company. And it seems that the majority of people have this crisis. I've sold my company, but I don't know what to do with myself.

• 14:16Speaker 00

  And I'm good at building companies. I don't really need more money, but shall I just do it? Because that's what I'm good at and I can't think of anything else to do. And also I don't want to just sit around. So it seems a challenge many others are facing. For me, the conclusion I came to was where can I add impact? And that looks like setting up some charities and a project that I'm working on at the moment. You guys have talked briefly about it before is move to Portugal to set up a kind of digital detox type place for people to switch off from technology and be in nature. So these are the kind of things that I'm doing. I mean, that one will hopefully make money. But money is not the core metric if it's been a success or not.

• 15:00Speaker 00

  Even if it doesn't, even if it breaks down or loses a bit of money. If just it can heal people, people say like, yo, that changed my life. It was super healing to me and people talk about it. That is success for me with that project.

• 15:16Sam Parr?

  Dude, you were the first person I've ever met who does a lot of things that are now more popular. So I remember one time Sean, Jack and I were hanging out and we were playing frisbee golf. It was just us. It was like 10am in the morning. We were playing frisbee golf in San Francisco and I was like, Jack, you're being a little quiet. What's wrong? And this was like after an hour of playing. He's like, oh, I am. I was doing ayahuasca for the last three days and I was like, what? What's ayahuasca? He's like, well, you go to this house and you like drink this thing and then you throw up and you're supposed to like, you know, find yourself or whatever and you have like a shaman guiding you. And I was like, when did that end? And he was like, oh, I came straight from there. I was there like, I was there like an hour and a half ago.

• 15:58Sam Parr?

  And so you would do that stuff like way before this type of psychedelic stuff was popular. Another thing that you would do, Jack would come and speak at HustleCon and he's like, hey, I gotta go. Like literally the next day, I was like, where are you going? He goes, oh, I'm going to Bali for three weeks for a silent retreat. And he would, I would see him leave. He would bring like basically no clothes and a massive bag, like a whole carry on or a whole checked bag of books from the library. And I was like, what are you doing? He's like, ah, I was just overwhelmed with all the people. I gotta go to Bali now. And he would go to the silent retreat for literally three weeks and not say a word. And now I'm talking to like my quote, normal, more normal friends, my friends who are doctors and lawyers, whatever. And now they're doing it. You do so many things that are so odd.

• 16:42Sam Parr?

  And now, now everyone's talking about psychedelics. Like these silent retreats are significantly more popular. You've been doing that since 2012. I remember you telling me about all this stuff. Like this is the craziest thing I've ever heard of and you've been doing all that now and it's way more popular.

• 16:55Speaker 00

  Vipassana is a, is a type of silent meditation. So if someone says they've done a silent retreat, often they're talking about this thing called vipassana. And yes, I think it has got more mainstream nowadays, but it has actually been pretty popular concept for a long time. But I've never done it and that is actually really extreme approach. Like many people I speak to who have done them say it's kind of like if you can't swim and you jump off an Olympic diving board. It's really extreme approach to switching off and feeling burned out. Some people, I think they're doing it because, well, I know people are telling me they did it because it sounded like a challenge. But it's not necessarily a good thing. So to give an example, you go for 10 days, right?

• 17:40Speaker 00

  My friend did it. His pillow is made, it's run by monks, so nonprofit. They have about three hundred locations around the world, run by monks. And it doesn't cost any money, you maybe pay small fee. His pillow was made out of concrete. You're not allowed to make eye contact with any other person there. Your meals are like rice. You wake up at something like three AM or five AM. And the first two to three days, the only instruction they give you is, hey, feel how the breath feels on your lips when you're breathing in and out. Okay, see you in three days. And you sit there, it's really extreme. What? This is my management style too.

• 18:19Speaker 00

  But this is really popular. But what I did, and I was inspired by Bill Gates. He had this thing called Think Week, where he just goes to a cabin in the middle of nowhere, and he just reads for a week. And I was like, oh, that's awesome. And I found this place in Indonesia, and it's just totally different to Vipassana, because they don't have any rules. Like, you can make eye, the only rule is don't talk to each other. But you can make eye contact, you can do whatever you want. You don't have to do any meditation at all. But, and then so for me, I just took loads of books. And I came out of that each time, getting all the benefits these people doing Vipassana retreats talk about. Like, I feel super re-energized. My mood feels off the charts, super happy. But I'm having an amazing time.

• 19:02Speaker 00

  I'm reading all these books I've wanted to read all year. And the food is amazing, it's grown on their own jungle slash farm. So I'm like, this is amazing experience, and I feel awesome and all these benefits. But since the other guys are like, oh, I spoke to one guy this morning, he's like, totally glad I did it. Would never want to go through that again, was one of the hardest experiences of my life. And I'm like, well, you can actually get a bunch of the same benefits, but you don't have to torture yourself. But I've never found a place like this place in Indonesia. And so for many years, I kind of felt that I just have to do this, which is expand their concept to other continents around the world. So I'm starting in Portugal, if that goes well, hopefully then expand to America, etc.

• 19:49Shaan Puri?

  That's awesome. You put a couple of things on the sheet that I want to do. You said business opportunities. So you're not, it sounds like you're not doing, you've, you've been able to resist the temptation to start another business, even though you're good at business and you see lots of opportunities. So, uh, share with us a couple of these like random ideas that you have on this list.

• 20:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, because, um, I know you guys like, I think the audience likes different business ideas and things that are also actionable with my first million white. So I was kind of thinking to myself and one business, I don't know if you guys have come across this, but it was kind of interesting to me. It's a company, not VC backed or anything, but it's called Nomad Capitalist. And, um, it's this guy and he's kind of made a name for himself as the leader for rich people that just want to go around the world. He organizes a conference for like family offices and he has a book and he has this brand called Nomad Capitalist. And if you look on Reddit, loads of people talk about it. I actually did a pre-screen call with them and I also read the reviews about it, et cetera.

• 20:54Speaker 00

  They're basically just a reseller for tax lawyers. Because tax lawyers just suck at marketing, you know? And he's got a podcast, he's got a book, he's just really great at marketing and he's got this like, he's like, oh, the best tax strategy is to like have free passports. I help you get multiple passports and set up a bank account in another country, et cetera. Did a call with them and they basically wanted $25,000 retainer.

• 21:21Speaker 00

  And then what they'll do is they'll just make you a report and they're like, all right, the $25,000, you can later put it towards whatever things we propose for you. But, um, I was like, okay, but then as I did more research, I kind of just myself found out like, wait, I can just cut out you and just find an awesome tax attorney myself and pay $3,000. I don't need to give you 25,000, but he, he had, he's, he's doing really well. And he also has this level, like if you pay him $75,000, you can like go and hang out with him on an island in person and he'll, he'll, he'll be your concierge. So some of these people, I think it's just like rich people having too much money and they don't want to do the research or reference checks to find good tax people.

• 22:06Speaker 00

  They're like, oh, well, this dude, his website looks really great. He must be thought leader. He's got this book. He's on all the podcasts. I'll just hire him because also I found tax attorneys, they don't give you a simple answer to the fricking question, you know? I'm just like, I, I, I want to do this, whatever. And then they're like, oh, it's really complicated. And they, they use all this jargon. They just suck at speaking plain English. He, um, so he's built a really good business. And I was thinking, I think a business opportunity is building a reseller layer on top of these industries that just suck at marketing or communicating what they do.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  You know, um, so he's doing it for tax, international tax for really rich people. And I was thinking, there's probably other industries where just make an amazing brand, website, write a book, go on all the podcasts and make a brand about yourself, hit really great name, right? Like Nomad Capitalist. Um, to do that for other industries, um, I thought was one idea.

• 23:10Shaan Puri?

  So what do you get? What do you get for the 25 grand?

• 23:13Speaker 00

  He's like, I'll make you a report. They'll make you a report, an eight page report telling you, we think that you should set up a trust in Bermuda. And that we's going to cost you, um, 30K. The 25K that you paid us, you can put that towards the trust in Bermuda. Um, but basically he's just taking a cut. He's just taking a, he's just taking a referral fee from the lawyer, you know? It only costs 5K to do the trust. So basically, and then if he gives you the report and you don't like it, um, he keeps the 25K.

• 23:49Shaan Puri?

  So this is, oh my god, this is the business model that, um, the Think and Grow Rich guy does and Dave Ramsey. I've come to realize. So what they did is I, uh, I know somebody who reached out to, uh, he, he got into Think and Grow Rich. Robert Kiyosaki's like, you know, book plus.

• 24:07Speaker 00

  No, um.

• 24:09Sam Parr?

  You're getting confused. Poor Dad, Rich Dad is the Robert Kawasaki guy, or whatever his name, Robert something. They can go rich as Napoleon Hill.

• 24:17Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, yeah, sorry. That's what I meant. Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

• 24:18Sam Parr?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 24:21Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, so he reaches out to the Rich Dad, Poor Dad guy, who I think is that Kawasaki guy, and he's basically that, like, he's got a philosophy. He's like, look, this is the way to get rich. And it makes sense. And you're like, cool, I want to do it. He's like, awesome. Reach out to one of our, you know, reach out to our headquarters and we'll do a call and we'll get to know you and we'll tell you what we think you should do. And it's just a layer reselling tax strategy. And so what he did was he paid 20K to these guys to get a connection to a tax strategy lawyer, a tax strategist and lawyer, who then saved him a bunch of money. He actually saved him like 80K or something like that. So he's like, oh yeah, that's a great deal. I put in 20, got 80. Then he introduced me to the tax guy. And the tax guy's like, cool, yeah, for all this, it'll be 6K.

• 25:04Shaan Puri?

  And I was like, oh, but like, I told my brother, I was like, you know, you paid 20, I paid 6. What do you mean? And he was like, well, yeah, like that. I was like, where did the other, you know, where were all the other money going? It's like, oh, that goes to like their central agency, like, that filters the deals. They don't just take a cut. It's not like we get a 10% referral fee. They mark up the whole service by 3X and keep 66% of the 3X markup in order to do this. And then Dave Ramsey does the same thing. So I was like, you see Dave Ramsey, right? Like, you know, America's, you know, favorite uncle or whatever. And he's doing this call in show. He does all this stuff. And I was like, how much? And we had done this feature on him on the pod that blew my mind. Sam,

• 25:46Shaan Puri?

  you knew a little bit about this, but he has like a huge campus of like, his office is like, it's in Tennessee. He's got like, you know, multiple buildings, hundreds of people on staff. I was like, dude, how big is this guy's podcast that he could pay for that? That sounds a little outrageous. Like, what's going on here? And it's basically the podcast, the books, all of that is just lead gen for people to come to him. And if you go to his website, it'll say, what do you, what do you need? You want insurance? You want a mortgage? You want to learn how to save money? You want tax help? Talk to people with the Ramsey Shield. And basically what he does is he goes and finds local people in your market. He they have to pay to apply, so they pay some number, some amount of money.

• 26:31Shaan Puri?

  And like, you know, a couple thousand dollars to get certified. And when they're certified, so he makes money off them. But then for them, it's a no brainer because they're going to get leads from his giant top of funnel. Like his website, if you go to like, whatever. The traffic, you know, analysis on similar web, it says it gets 10 million visits a month on his website. So he's getting a huge amount of traffic that he just funnels down to these providers. And he basically gets his cut and they and these advisors all have the shields. Like, what does the shield mean? It's like, our team has vetted them. And so you don't know if these guys are, you know, what are you actually doing out here? And I'm pretty sure this entire business is making like 300 million a year.

• 27:10Shaan Puri?

  And this is or more a combination of basically his, like, the Ramsey trusted advisors. And it's basically like, they follow the Ramsey rules. And it's like, what are the Ramsey rules? It's like, oh, you know, there's parts of his philosophy that they follow. And and so they can, they can either pay for the leads or they pay for the certification. And just off this lead gen, he's just generating just like tons and tons of cash. And then on top of that, he's got his like, his university, and then he's got his media ad stuff. So the combination of all those is sort of like a 300 million plus a year empire, which is pretty insane. And it's doing exactly what you described, Jack. It's a, it's a layer that I call it a router business.

• 27:53Shaan Puri?

  It's going to route you to the service you want.

• 27:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:56Shaan Puri?

  And, you know, I'm the router because I'm the trusted source. And if I do actually do a good job of curating or hand selecting and people get a good outcome from it, then this can be a sustainable business. And so, yeah, I think you're absolutely right on that.

• 28:07Speaker 00

  And what's the other one?

• 28:08Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, what says RTFM? What does that mean?

• 28:10Speaker 00

  Oh, RTFM, I just meant like read the fucking manual. So basically, I was talking to someone, have someone helping me with like mid journey and all this stuff just came out, right? And then I was just trying to figure out, like, I kind of just delegated to him, like, all right, we, let's just see if mid journey can help us. So I said, I'm building this like physical place and I'm like, Just see if it can make us some mockups. So take this image of a cabin and this image of the piece of land and just see if Mid Journey can blend them together. And we even hired people of Upwork to, uh, for favor, like mid journey experts to help us. And the results sucked. And then they was not doing what I asked. And then he had said he'd been playing around with it for a while. And then I was, at some point, I was just like, oh, fuck it. I should.

• 28:55Speaker 00

  This is going to be a valuable skill. I should learn how it works at least. The first step I did is I read the Mid Journey guidebook that they have. And it explains how to do it. And then within fifteen minutes, I saw like, hey, guys, um, we can do what I'm asking. You just have to use this certain command. Do you even, do you even read the fucking manual about how this works? I think most people don't read the manual. Like manuals are boring, right? They don't read the manual. They're just trying to figure it out themselves or look at YouTube. And then I was just like, just read the manual. It's pretty simple. And so I think if you just do the basics that most people don't, read the fucking manual about how Mid Journey works or ChatGPT or something.

• 29:38Speaker 00

  There's so many people that the AI is this merging trend, but they're fucking lazy. Going to read the twenty page manual and you can kind of just tell them like, oh, you want to do that? Um, I'll just do it for you. It maybe only takes you five seconds, but you can just charge them a premium, you know? Actually, um, my wife, she has a startup and she said there's this guy, um, he's going around, he's doing conferences in a different country, like every few days about AI. And he's teaching business leaders like, oh, Mid Journey, ChatGPT, this is how you use it. This is it. This is it. I asked my wife, I'm like, what's that guy's actual credentials? You know, and he's not, he's not, he's just a nobody, but he's saying that he's an AI expert because

• 30:21Speaker 00

  everybody is, it only just came out recently. And he's just running workshops and charging business leaders loads of money about how to implement this in your business. And so I think if you just. You know, if you just don't sleep and just learn mid journey, chat GPT, learn all of these things only came out recently. You can be a thought leader and write a book, launch it, launch on Amazon, a book. How to use chat GPT in your business and and launch it for each vertical, using chat GPT for lawyers and accounting and whatever. Um, you guys are in the group. I don't know if you saw, um, Sean is more active, Sam not, but.

• 31:01Speaker 00

  People were talking about this business, CaseText, just got acquired by Lexus Nexus for seven hundred and fifty million dollars. And actually, in the investor report, it's kind of embarrassing, but in the investor report, the Lexus Nexus said. The reason we pay seven hundred million dollars for this business is because they came up with eight prompts. For for OpenAI about how to make it give good responses to law questions. So they're kind of openly saying this business is just a layer on top of OpenAI. They just came up with eight prompt texts. And so we're buying them for seven hundred million.

• 31:38Shaan Puri?

  Tell me more about this company.

• 31:39Speaker 00

  I mean, I'm not an expert, but someone in the group who is in the industry said Lexus Nexus's competitor. Has just come out with some AI thing. And so Lexus Nexus, which is like multi-billion dollar company was like, oh shit, like we need to get up to speed. And we need to get up to speed fast. And so they just paid this ludicrous. Or what people are saying is ludicrous sum, um, because it needs to get up to speed. But literally in the investor report, they said, the reason we are buying this business is because they have eight proprietary prompts. And then anyone who's used chat GPT or anything knows that's like. Not very much intellectual property or whatever you're buying, you know?

• 32:18Shaan Puri?

  I think CaseText has been around for like ten years though. So whatever they were doing before, uh, you know, they were they were around. Uh, so like, I think they have like on the website, they're like, now it says ten thousand law firms use them. So, you know, it's not. Literally just eight prompts, but but I get I get your point. And definitely they got the uh, the AI premium. The exit here because uh, you know, became strategically immediately strategic and urgent for for Lexus Nexus. And I'm totally with you about the, the, you know, you could become an expert in mid journey and chat GPT and like.

• 32:51Shaan Puri?

  Nine days, nine days of like trying to do shit and then basically figuring out how that applies to certain vertical or job is uh is definitely like a thing that that can exist and should exist. I had the same thing. I was trying to use it in my business, my econ business. And I was like, how do I do this? And I just reached out to the guy at runway. And I was like, hey, I'm trying to take an image and make a very similar image. And I was like, it's not, I don't like, I can't do text to image. I can't describe this image. I have an image. I want another one like it. And I want actually 50 variations of it. Can you do that? He's like, oh, yeah, we have image damage. Just go over here. And I was like, oh, thank you. Like this would have, I didn't know even which tool to use. I wouldn't have known what it's called. I wouldn't have known how to do it. And then, oh, I did it. But there's one problem. He's like, oh, just change this setting, blah, blah, blah. And then it just fixed it.

• 33:36Shaan Puri?

  I was like, wow, that's uh, that's amazing. It saved me so much time. And you really do have to play with these things. And most people don't have the time or the patience to go play with these things to figure out how they actually work.

• 33:47Speaker 00

  As a business leader, you pay your lawyer a thousand, a thousand, five hundred dollars an hour to give you tax advice, right? Why would someone not pay that for a midterm person if they can answer their question in an hour? Um, for a world leader, a thought leader?

• 34:03Sam Parr?

  Mark Cuban has this great blog. I don't think he updates anymore, but he was writing it for maybe a couple of decades now. It's really old. And I used to go back and read his old posts. And a lot of people don't know this, but he actually got his first like two or three million dollars of wealth when he was 31 because he started this thing called MicroSolutions. It was basically, I forget how he described it, but it was basically like a, like a IT agency. So like, if a big ish or even a small company was like implementing Oracle or something like that, he would help install it on everyone's computer and then teach people how to use it. And he, uh, he goes, the reason my company was successful wasn't because I necessarily was an expert on this stuff. But he goes, I was the only one, and he used their same acronym. He goes, I was the only one who read the fucking manual.

• 34:48Sam Parr?

  He goes, I would stay up late at night and I would read the fucking manual. And I would just learn, how does this HP computer work? And the next day I could go and like talk to a business owner and explain how it works and say, yeah, we can install. That thing or this thing or that thing. And then I would go and read the manual on those other things. And that's all I did. And it was hard work and I stayed up all night reading these things. But that's how I became an expert in the stuff. I just read the manual, which no one does. And it's pretty funny because he used the exact, I think he has a blog post actually that has the exact same acronym that you have.

• 35:18Shaan Puri?

  Here's what he said exactly. It's a blog post called how to win at the sport of business. He goes, every night I would take home a different software manual and I would read it. Of course, the reading was captivating. I'm reading Peachtree Accounting, WordStar, Harvard Graphics, Lotus, Apex. At the, every night I would read some after getting home, no matter how late it was. It turns out not a lot of people ever bother to RTFM, read the fricking manual. And so it turned, so, so people really started thinking that I knew my stuff and that's all I was doing.

• 35:47Sam Parr?

  Yeah, it's hilarious. And he like talks and he talks about that in a ton of different blog posts where he talks about read the, read the freaking manual. It's, it's quite good. And he, and he attributes that to like a lot of his early success.

• 35:57Shaan Puri?

  You have a few others that I gotta ask you about. Okay. So you wrote on this little cheat sheet, you wrote a hack, you know, non-obvious barriers to entry for business. And then you said hacking the iPhone to record scream. Uh, what are you talking about here? Non-obvious barriers, barriers to entry for business?

• 36:13Speaker 00

  Sure. And I mean, as I said, you don't have to be the first mover to market, uh, to be successful in business. But when an entirely new product comes out, there are opportunities to the product. That's why I was able to hack LinkedIn ads, the hack we've talked about before. Because LinkedIn just launched it. So it was not properly bug checked and all that stuff, you know? Now, the idea I was saying, or it's not necessarily a business idea, but where you could discover opportunities for me. And to give an example is that you might have a wedge or like a business, you might have a, you might have a hack. It's not a business, but maybe it can go somewhere from that initial kind of hack, you know?

• 36:57Speaker 00

  So to give an example with fungal, um, back in like 2010, um, the business I had before, we were making educational videos like how to use Adobe Photoshop and stuff like this. So like videos about desktop, like computer applications. And, um, fairly around that time, I think a year before.

• 37:19Speaker 00

  The iPhone App Store had launched and I was reading this Gartner report like, all right, iPhone apps are gonna blow up. And then I was kind of feeling like, wait, so we're doing this for desktop and apps on your computer. Why could we not do the same on your iPhone? Now that nowadays is very easy to record your screen on the iPhone, right? Like you just pull down and tap record screen. At the time, you could not record the iPhone screen. Now, I read a little bit online and I kind of felt like, hey, I think I've looked up these different pieces of hardware. It's like a camcorder mixed with like this cable you plug in with the iPhone, but you have to jailbreak the iPhone, et cetera, et cetera. I was like, I reckon, or I

• 38:00Speaker 00

  just have a hunch that if we put these together, I might be able to figure out how to record the iPhone screen. Now, my co-founder, he was like, dude, this fucking waste of time. Like, you've got forty eight hours to try this out, otherwise we need to move on, all right? Now, not that many people know this, but actually the Apple Store lets you buy a product and you can return it within fourteen days, even if you used it. A MacBook, an iPhone, an iPad, you can return it used. So we had an intern, it was his first day there, and I basically said, our company, we have about a thousand dollars in the bank account. And I told him like, take this credit bank credit card. And I told him, just spend our entire budget at the Apple Store. I want you

• 38:43Speaker 00

  to buy the latest iPhone and latest iPad. And your first task as the intern is jailbreak this. And we have forty eight hours to figure out if we can record the screen from this. Because my co-founder thinks it's a waste of time. I think it's not. And and we and then we're gonna return it within fourteen days. So we have a time time buffer because we don't have a thousand dollars to just throw around. So we're gonna play around with this iPhone, max fourteen days, then we're gonna send it back. We managed to record this. We managed to record the screen. It was a free, it was taking like a camcorder cable, you had to jailbreak the iPhone, et cetera, et cetera. But we managed to get this unique thing where we could record the screen of the iPhone. At that time, we didn't have anything useful to do with it.

• 39:27Speaker 00

  It's like, okay, great, we can record the screen in the iPhone. What can we do this? But later on, when we built the video ad network, when we came up with the idea about the video ad network that Vungle is today.

• 39:40Speaker 00

  Obviously, if you're going to run a video ad, an app needs to have an advertisement to run, right? And we were the only, because we had just started with this, we actually just had an in-house production studio. That's how we initially made money by charging $500 to make a video for your app. But $500, that kind of sucks. But what we did is we parlayed that idea. And at some point, we made the best videos of anyone. Like AppLovin or whoever, they couldn't make a video. So what they'd have to do is you'd have to spend thousands of dollars hiring a creative ad agency who probably used a camera to record the iPhone screen. Or you had to do loads of work as the app developer and send them all your image assets. We could literally record the screen of the iPhone that others could not.

• 40:25Speaker 00

  And so what we said is like, hey, guys, we're no longer, you can't buy a video from us anymore. People loved our videos, the best quality videos. But we're like, even if you offer us $2,000, we don't make videos anymore. But if you spend more than $25,000 on our advertising network, we'll make you the video for free.

• 40:46Speaker 00

  And our videos are the best, so they're going to convert amazingly as well. But you can, you can use the video on your website and stuff, but you cannot use this video on AppLovin or any other network. It's proprietary to us. So that was a hack that worked for Vungle. And what I would say, obviously, you have to have a credit card that had this limit and check that Apple actually allows this. But what I would do is if I am 20 years old and I have a credit card, because America gives different credit cards, I would go to the Apple Store the first day the Apple Vision Pro comes out. And I would try and hack it and jailbreak it and play around with it. Look up on the app to jailbreak it. And I would try and find hacks like how to record the screen of the Apple Vision Pro.

• 41:30Speaker 00

  That's not going to be a feature at day one. No one needs to do that. If you can hack it and do- Do that. You have something proprietary. You could launch a business off the back of that. And I would return it within fourteen days and maybe go to another Apple store and buy it and do it. Get my friends buy it or something. But that is one opportunity of like, you know, it's a hack. It's not a business. But that unique hack that no one else has can lead you to have a barrier to entry to be successful and build a billion dollar business in a tangential industry from there.

• 42:00Shaan Puri?

  I love that. I love that. You you also have a couple on here. You said, why I believe in the law of attraction and practice applications. This is interesting to me because I think there's like people who believe in the law of attraction. And they also, you know, believe in horoscopes and crystals and other stuff too, probably. And then there's people who are, you know, hyper logical, rational problem solver types that typically don't believe in something like the law of attraction. I would have pegged you as more of the practical, uh, logical problem solver type, but you're saying you believe in this. So tell me why you believe in this and what do you mean by practical applications?

• 42:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, people that are really rational, um, like my brother in law is a bit hard to talk about this topic because they're so rational. I'm pretty rational, but I'm also open minded to stuff. Now, law of attraction, the interpretation many people with the crystals take. And I kind of, it was kind of funny because I went to somebody that did this alternative kind of, uh, kind of like massage therapy, but like alternative. And then she was doing it at her house. Um, but then on the bookshelf was like a book, like how to manifest wealth. To be like a billionaire, so maybe, but then I'm like, um, well, you're in this like really crappy studio. So how's that going? Well, you know, like on the extreme alternative side that you're talking about, Sean, like doing horoscopes or whatever.

• 43:19Speaker 00

  I'm somewhere in the middle where I'm like, law of attraction, so popularized by the book called The Secret. Um, if you just do it at the basic level, it's just like, oh, just like think about what you want and it will manifest and appear to you. But actually, there's a book that I like called Practical Law of Attraction. And what it's kind of saying, to be honest, it basically, I didn't know about this stuff when I was launching my business, but it kind of actually reaffirmed the stuff I was already doing in my life, to be honest, which is like. Clearly feeling and defining what you want and then taking steps to get there. Now, why I think there's a practical application and why I do believe in it.

• 44:02Speaker 00

  I don't believe that you just think of it and then nothing happens. I think now to give a, um, let me give, let me just give an example story that reaffirms this. I was, I was living with my roommate and at this time my business was going pretty good. But he was trying to launch a business off the ground and he was thirty five. And he was trying to fundraise, raise a C round and he could not raise any money at all. And his mindset was just stuck about feeling sorry for himself. Like he was like, oh, I read on TechCrunch about eighteen year olds getting into Y Combinator. But nobody respects me like I have way more experience than him, but investors, they must just, they don't value me. They, they blah, blah, blah. He's feeling sorry for himself. He's having negative energy.

• 44:47Speaker 00

  I mean, a prime example of it was like one day he called me and like, uh, really like anxious. And he's like, oh, my God, Jack, like, um, a, a letter from the IRS arrived for you. And I'm like, uh, dude, I'm sure it's not that big of a deal, but he's like, dude, what, what the fuck? But he's freaking out, right? And, uh, lo and behold, it actually was a refund check. They were giving me a refund. But he had this negative mindset and I feel

• 45:13Speaker 00

  that obviously people study body language and all this stuff, but I feel that law of attraction works because there is so many micro signals and body language we're projecting to people all around us that we're not in control of and don't even know. And so I feel for me, I and my co-founder, we were convinced we're going to raise funding and we're the shit. And I think that investors and stuff can tell, you know, you can tell if someone's bluffing. So he's going into this meeting and he's got a hundred rejections and he's feeling sorry for himself. He's already going in with the idea that these people, um, are not going to invest in me. And so they are just sensing that this guy's a loser, right? Um, versus me.

• 45:55Speaker 00

  I'm just like, we're gonna raise funding. And so when I say something, like an investor one time asked us, like, how's your fundraising going? We had no investors, but we told him like, oh, it's going amazing. We're just, we got a bunch of top tier people interested. We're just deciding who's gonna be the best fit for our business. And the guy kind of freaked out and it actually gave us a term sheet because I think he could tell that we believed it. We were not lying because we actually believed it. Now, what was amazing with my friend is at just at some point, I just noticed him adopt a mindset shift. Just one day, basically. And at some point, he basically just said like, all right, look, what I've been doing thus far, it hasn't worked.

• 46:37Speaker 00

  And, and he also was saying that he looked at me a bit as a bit inspiration because Jack just, he doesn't not worry about this stuff, you know? And he's like, I realized that I haven't been going all in. Because I'm scared that if I don't raise funding, I'm gonna look like a failure to my network. And so if I try and do a business again, then they'll think like, oh, well, he failed at the last one. I'm not gonna do it again. But he's like, from this day forward, I'm adopting a mindset that if I do not raise funding for this business, I'm never going to try and raise funding for a business ever again. This is my one shot and I'm gonna go all in.

• 47:17Speaker 00

  And he looked up all his connections on LinkedIn and he was not embarrassed about rejection or that he would look stupid to them in future. He's like, I'm going to ask every single person in my network for investor intros. Literally within a month or so, he raised amazing seed round. Business now has raised over $25 million because he just went all in. And I think that people could tell that he had the conviction, you know? He's telling them now, he's not feeling sorry for himself, like I can't raise funding. He's like, I'm gonna raise funding. And this business is gonna be fucking huge. And just, it was amazing to see him adopt that mindset shift. And so that is an example for me of law of attraction.

• 47:58Speaker 00

  It's like, yes, you're manifesting it and whatever shit, but you're actually believing it and you're projecting it to others. Now think, he's adopted that new mindset, right? So if an investor rejects him. In his original view, that would have reaffirmed his original view, right? Like, oh, all the investors hate me and I'm never gonna raise funding because I just got rejected. If with this new mindset, actually, it doesn't necessarily have to change every single outcome in every interaction you have, but it also changes how you view them. If one investor rejects him, now you'll just be like, oh, well, I'm gonna raise funding. So I guess this guy was just not fit. I'll just move on to the next one. You wouldn't see it as reaffirming that you suck. You would just be like, oh, this investor's an idiot. Like, I'm still gonna raise funding. It doesn't distract you from the path.

• 48:43Speaker 00

  So that is what I was thinking about when it comes to law of attraction.

• 48:47Sam Parr?

  And I've, we've been friends for a while, but I remember very distinctly, and you might need to fill in some of the details, and I'll try to be vague and you could decide what you wanna share. But I remember distinctly, I think we were, I think we were at my apartment in Soma, in Soma, when you came over, or we could have been at my house in Glen Park. But I remember like distinctly hanging out with you. And you had just, Vungle hadn't sold yet, but you had sold some shares to live off of, because you were basically, you didn't have a lot of money. You sold some shares and you, you got maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars, but you lived off that for like three years and it was at the very end of that money. And you had, you didn't even tell me. I, I asked like how things are going.

• 49:32Sam Parr?

  Do you have enough money to last until you think the company's gonna sell? And you're like, yeah, I think it's gonna sell for a whole lot of money, for hundreds of millions of dollars. And I'll be fine when that happens. And I was like, but how are you now? And for some reason, I remember I saw your Robinhood account or I saw one of your accounts. And I don't know if you remember this, but I, I think there was single digit thousand dollars left because you had made like a really dumb trade. Do you remember that? And you were like totally calm. And I remember like being around you and it was like, you're, you're one of my like three best friends. And I remember thinking like, oh, like you're my family now. Like you have inspired me because you actually were living what you're talking about now. Do you remember that? Do you remember when that happened?

• 50:12Speaker 00

  And I mean, in line with that, basically, yeah, I got a bit of money, like as you said, a secondary, right? And I was living and then the money was running out. It doesn't last forever. I think that I, I saw from the previous episode, people like talking about specific numbers, right? So I think that when I I think, yeah, I think that when I left fungal, um, and then tried doing ship and it didn't work out, et cetera. But I didn't have any many savings at fungal. I think I got a hundred and twenty thousand dollar salary. We paid us after we raised funding, but prior to that, we've never taken any money. And then just to help me out, because I was like, hey dude, I don't actually have any money.

• 50:52Speaker 00

  Um, my co-founder at fungal helped give me an introduction to um, some people that bought a secondary of, of, of some of my stock. Now, I think that, I, I can't remember that. I think it was five hundred thousand. And I hadn't held the stock for five years, so it was not qualified this thing called QSBS yet. So I basically had to pay a bunch, you probably have to pay the half of that in tax being in California, right? So I had like, let's say two hundred and fifty K left. That's not a load of, that's not a lot of money in San Francisco to pay your rent, food, if you have no other income. Now, I was advising companies and stuff, but they don't give you, they give you equity. They're not giving you money. And my money was running out and Sam, like you said, I didn't have much money left.

• 51:37Speaker 00

  And people were saying to me like, hey dude, what are you gonna do if you like run out of money? And I was like, oh, I guess I will have to get a job, but I'm not really contemplating that right now. I don't have a timeline for when business is gonna exit, but I kind of feel something is telling me that is, I'm gonna be all right. I'm not freaking out about it, even worst case scenario, I'll move back in where my parents, whatever. But I was not making a plan B.

• 52:02Shaan Puri?

  What was the dumb trade?

• 52:04Speaker 00

  I was day trading, like options trading and all this shit and kind of funny.

• 52:10Shaan Puri?

  You're like, two hundred and fifty K is not a lot of money in San Francisco for food, rent and my day trading business.

• 52:18Speaker 00

  I, and with hindsight is, is, is very stupid, but like, I was day trading and stuff to try and. Make some money. When I look back in hindsight, I actually was spending like a few hours a day because I just got interested in trading. So learned options, trading and all this. Spending a few hours a day, I actually would have made more money if I had just put it in the Vanguard V T I, if it's S and P 500. As I wasted all this time and yes, lost a load of money. Um, yeah. So that was just a negative trait of experiment.

• 52:49Shaan Puri?

  The way you described it, uh, I've heard described differently. So Tony Robbins did this. Uh, this is a video on YouTube of him talking about this. Where he says like, you know, you've ever heard of the phrase like a vicious cycle? And if, uh, you know, vicious cycle is kind of like what you described your friend was initially doing, which is he draws these three circles. He says, first one's belief, second one's action, third is results. He goes, uh, like, what do you do when you like, let's say you're, you're supposed to do something, but you don't really think it's going to work. Um, it doesn't even matter what it is. Like, you know, you're, you're looking for the salt and, uh, you know, your girlfriend says it's in the cabinet, but you already looked there. You don't think it's there. So you kind of, you go. You don't really rummage around too much because you don't believe it's there. Right? So basically low belief typically creates we, you know, lower, weak action.

• 53:31Shaan Puri?

  And lower, weak action almost always creates bad results. And then the, the message, the story we tell ourselves is, see, I knew it. I knew it wouldn't work. And then it just reinforces the low belief and that's the vicious cycle that happens for people. Uh, you know, it could be. Uh, I don't really believe that I'm going to stick to this diet. And so therefore I'm not really that hardcore, but I start to slip and then my results say, nah, you, you never stick to what you say. And then you reinforce a low belief, right? It could be on the end, it could be business, it could be personal, it could be whatever. And then there's the exact opposite, which is the, the virtuous cycle. The virtuous cycle is massive belief. This is going to work. What happens when you believe something's really going to work? You wake up before the alarm clock, you get out of bed, you start doing it immediately. You can't wait.

• 54:15Shaan Puri?

  And you take massive action. What happens when you take massive action for a while? You start to get good results or massive results. When you get massive results and reinforces the belief, see, I knew this shit was going to work. And so that, and it's basically the, that's the difference between winners and losers is which side of that cycle do you go down? And like the, the core thing is. There's some people who just wait for a result to happen to to inform their belief. And what that basically means, I'm gonna sort of wait to hope to get lucky and then I'll start to believe. And I think anybody who's in this kind of entrepreneurial bucket, the the prereq for any result is the belief. And and you have to have that sort of massive conviction or massive belief in yourself and in what you're doing. And that part is the that's the law of attraction part. That's the part where it's faith. It hasn't happened yet. You believe it will happen.

• 55:00Shaan Puri?

  And because you believe it will happen, you're right. It's not like law of not like the secret where they're just like, close your eyes and you say, I'm not, you know, there are no weeds in the backyard. There are no weeds in the backyard. You look, oh, there's still weeds in the backyard. Well, you didn't take any action. You didn't go and get rid of the weeds is is, you know, the action is a is a requirement to actually do this. You you also mentioned one other thing on that, which said you have to feel it versus just say it. Is there a difference there? Because I when I talk to people who who kind of really believe in this, they over emphasize this feeling feeling it part versus just saying it or or try to believe it in your head.

• 55:35Speaker 00

  So my wife is totally not into this at all, and maybe it just doesn't work for her, but she's like, dude, I can't just feel that I'm gonna can't just feel it's gonna work. It doesn't work for her. But for me, maybe I'm just delusional or I just have conviction in something, but I just sometimes just feel it's gonna work. And I guess one bit that is related to this a bit is like perhaps adopting different mindset personas. So I saw this interview with Beyonce and they were asking her about like she has her thing like Sasha Fierce, right? Her nickname. And they were like, when does when do you become Sasha Fierce? And when you just Beyonce that they're saying it was a joke.

• 56:15Speaker 00

  But she's like, I literally become Sasha Fierce before I'm going to go on the stage. Because when I'm Beyonce, I'm nervous. I think people are gonna hate me or whatever. And I just adopt this alternative persona that I am Sasha Fierce and I'm going to kill this performance. People are gonna love it. It's amazing because they're adopting. She's adopting some persona and she's really feeling it. I don't necessarily adopt this other persona, but that is the feeling that I think would be insane.

• 56:43Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I do the same thing. And I also think that who do you become? I have this persona that I created.

• 56:51Sam Parr?

  Angry Patel, like, what are you? Who are you going to become?

• 56:54Shaan Puri?

  And again, this is another one that came out of Tony Robbins. He goes, he goes, we all, we all have a version of our personality. Like, you know, raise your hand if you've ever been super kind to others. Yeah, yeah, everybody raises their hand. Raise your hand if you ever made selfish choices and been a selfish asshole. Everybody raises their hands. He's like, we all have all these features of our personalities. Like, the question is, who's driving the car right now? And he's like, you know, people think that they come to this, this weekend workshop and I'm going to, oh, Tony Robbins, he changed your life. In fact, when you go home, people sort of mock you like, oh, so what happened? You're a whole new guy now? And he's like, you know, obviously you don't, you know, you don't become a whole new person after 35 years in one weekend.

• 57:37Shaan Puri?

  But he's like, you know, one thing we will do is he's like, I'm going to take the most badass version of you. And that's who gets to drive this weekend. And if you, if it's only for this weekend, you decide after this weekend, I don't want that person to be the one who's making decisions from now on. All right, fine, fair, fair play. But for these next two days, that's who's in charge. We all have a version of ourselves that is the more badass version of ourselves. The one that, that does believe it's going to happen, that one, that one that is decisive versus indecisive, all these traits. He's like, and what do you call, he's like, what do you call when you, I forgot what he says. Like, he's like, we're going to make that, that, he's like, we're going to make that personality our bitch. And he's like, what do you, what do you do? When you train a dog, you give it a name and you train it to come when you call it. And he's like, so you're going to give it a name? You're going to figure out how you're going to be able to adopt that state when you want to be in that state.

• 58:22Shaan Puri?

  He's like, that takes practice reps and we're going to get a bunch of reps at it this weekend. And you sort of, you have to figure out, all right, what is the version of me that does have those traits? That does walk that way, that does make those decisions? And then can you call it on command? Or are you only going to do it when you feel good? Are you only going to do it when the weather's nice? Like, no, no, you want to be able to have that. On demand when you want it. He says the same thing. Like, I think his real name is not Tony Robbins either. It's like, his original name was like Anthony. He's got some other last name. He's like, people see me now and they're seeing me on stage and all this stuff. They think, oh, man, Tony, you're, you're, you're amazing. You, you, you're just special. He's like, no, I was Anthony, blah, blah, blah. I was broke. I was fat. I was all these things.

• 59:04Shaan Puri?

  He's like, I created this Tony Robbins motherfucker. I created him. And I was just like, I like that part of the, the thing that he was talking about, cause it's, I think, more empowering. If you feel like, oh, you just are the way you are and that's it. You're a fixed quantity and it was, you know, it's based on your genetics. It's based on your childhood, things you didn't have control of versus this idea that I actually have multiple versions of my personality. There's some that I would want to be in charge more often than others.

• 59:31Shaan Puri?

  And I can craft that. I can create that version of me that I want. That's a different mindset. Some people don't believe it. Some people are like really married to their kind of like their upbringing and their past traumas and their, their DNA. That's not, uh, that's not how I look at the world at least.

• 59:45Sam Parr?

  Dude, this is getting me. This is getting me amped. I feel good. I feel like I need to go, I need to go create my version of Sasha Fierce.

• 59:53Sam Parr?

  Jack, I, um, you inspire me. I'm happy. I feel thankful. We're friends. I feel thankful that you came here. You're a very inspiring person. I just feel, I feel you, you're, you do have, it's like you're, you're almost not inspiring because you're not this like crazy intimidating person. Or I guess you're the right type of inspiring, cause you're not this like crazy intimidating person, but you have, and you have a, you're very mild manner. I'll be with you and, um, other friends and I'd be like, uh, Jack, like I already know, you know, all about this topic that they're talking about. You, but you're just sitting here asking questions. Why aren't you like pumping your chest more? Or like, you are dressed like this bum right now at this thing. All these people think that you're just like one of my loser friends, but you're like,

• 1:00:37Sam Parr?

  you know, successful, not in terms of just financial finances, but you've got like this awesome marriage.

• 1:00:41Shaan Puri?

  Friend, dude, can you, uh, help me out here a little bit?

• 1:00:44Sam Parr?

  Well, I'll be like, you're like successful in like all attributes. Like I know you're like really insightful. I know that you're successful. Traditionally, you've got all these like amazing things, but you're, you don't even like, you want me to brag about you? That's like, I feel like I've got to like, sometimes like put you on a pedestal and, and, but that's one of the things I love about you is like, you're just very, very. Meek is a bad word because that almost sounds insulting, but you're very humble. Uh, and you're very mild mannered. And that's one of the reasons why I love when you come on here and you like, explain some of these stories because you never ever brag about yourself and I like hearing you do that every once in a while. Check.

• 1:01:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, thanks for having me on again. I mean, uh, picking up on that. I mean, what it is very important for me just to, I, I guess just from my childhood and stuff, but I've always tried to be humble and I'm not judging any, it doesn't matter. I will have an in-depth conversation with like, to give you an example, I'm here in Portugal, right? And there's a guy, I pay a guy to come and pick up my recycling. I'll, uh, my cardboard is taking the cardboard to the trash. So trash man. I'll have an in-depth conversation with him about how his life is going and stuff like that. And I think it is good to remember that you can be successful and still be humble and not judge people about where they're at now.

• 1:02:01Speaker 00

  Sam, like your father-in-law lives with like a celebrity and he said like, the celebrity just fucking, he lives in the same apartment complex and treats everyone like shit and ignores him each day. And he, and he's, they're both rich. And the thing to remember, I think, is where people are in their life now is not where they're going to be in 10 years. And people, if you treat them like shit, they're going to remember. Like I, when I was 19, 20, we pitched a VC in London, a venture capitalist. And we'd been speaking to the associates, we had a few meetings with them. And yes, we had nothing and our idea was terrible, but, um, the associate said like, hey, the partners agreed to have a meeting with you, just like come by here at like 6:00 PM to come by the office.

• 1:02:45Speaker 00

  And we're like, okay, it's been a weird time to come by, but sure, whatever. And we had no money, like spent the money. But my business partner especially was in a lot of debt. We spent the money, got an underground ticket, went there, et cetera. In within 10 to 15 minutes of the meeting getting started, because the guy was asking us questions is like, you guys don't have a business. This is just like shit. And at like 6:15, he's just like, yo, I've got to go to dinner. So this meeting's over.

• 1:03:12Speaker 00

  10 years, 15, however many years, it's been more than 10 years later. We still remember that meeting. And that guy treated us like shit. He's still got a VC fund. If he asks me for deal flow, I'm not going to give it. I'm not going to pretend that never happened. I'm like, dude, I remember how you treated me when I was shit.

• 1:03:32Sam Parr?

  You, you always do weird stuff like this that makes sense, but I'm like, no, why, why would you ever do that? So, um, like, for example, you named your child. So Jack has a two-year-old now. Uh, you named your child baby.

• 1:03:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:50Sam Parr?

  For the, you told me, you're like, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna name her baby for the first 12 months, because I want to get to know her. And I was like, dude, like, everything about your life is weird. Can you just, just do, do something normal for the kid? And you're like, no, I think, I think this actually makes more sense. And then I got to know her and I like, and then you, you, you should talk about the naming ceremony, but you did this thing where you named her after a year and you're like, this name, like, it fit her more. And I had to get to know her a little bit. And I was like, after a year, I was like, that actually is, makes so much sense, but it's so not normal. But you're always doing these weird things that actually appear to be, well, you've done a lot of stupid stuff, but you've done a lot of things that actually like are

• 1:04:32Sam Parr?

  pretty amazing, but are not normal at all. Yeah. And, and I, that's one of my favorite parts about you. You know what I mean?

• 1:04:38Speaker 00

  Cool. Thanks. And I mean, also, because I listened to the pod a lot, I noticed that you guys hadn't talked about, Sam had made a massive announcement on all his social that now he's gonna be having a baby. Um, and so notice you guys hadn't talked about that. So I, I had some of the different wackier things I've done with my baby, if you wanted to talk about them. A naming ceremony was one of them.

• 1:04:59Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. You know, me and Sam just, we're just like guys. We're just like, yeah, um, nice job with the thing. All right. Uh, let's move on. You know, girls are like, oh my God, congratulations. I'm so excited for you. Wow. How, oh my God, you look, you're glowing, Sam. You look amazing. And I was like, hey dude, um, good shit about the, you know, you know. All right. Let's talk about business.

• 1:05:22Sam Parr?

  The, the, your stuff's working. Congratulations. We, uh, well, I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure like what I wanted to put on the internet. And I haven't actually made my decision. What, uh,

• 1:05:32Shaan Puri?

  Oh, you made your decision. Sam posted a shirtless picture of himself to celebrate the baby. I was like, oh, wow. That is, that is unbelievable combination there. Like that's a, what an upsell you created in this photo. I always bet a bump announcement. Sam with his shirt off flexing.

• 1:05:49Sam Parr?

  Yeah, eight bumps in the middle of my stomach.

• 1:05:51Shaan Puri?

  She's like half cropped out of the photo. It's like, oh yeah. By the way, there's a baby over there.

• 1:05:58Sam Parr?

  Hey, that's the only reason why we did the whole thing. Uh, do you, uh, do you put your, do you put your kid's face on the, I don't think you have. Maybe on Facebook, Sean. Have you, Jack? No, I haven't. But you only do it on Facebook, right? Where it's just like friends?

• 1:06:11Shaan Puri?

  Well, my wife does on her own Instagram. So, you know, that's like, but, you know, it's just her friends. So.

• 1:06:16Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I'm trying to decide what to do. I think I don't mind, but I don't know. I, anyway, I'm still like working through that.

• 1:06:20Shaan Puri?

  Let's go through some of the things you did on the parenting side, Jack. So the naming thing, Sam talked about it. Yeah, let's do that. Let's finish that one. So how'd you come up with that idea? Do you think it was a good idea? And eventually, how did you actually end up naming her besides baby?

• 1:06:34Speaker 00

  Um, so basically, again, coming like, basically, I think one of my values maybe is I don't like being told what to do. And relating to what we were just talking about, I also like to question norms. So preparing to give birth, um, uh, or maybe even, yeah, yeah, preparing to give birth. What I read online and the midwife etc. was saying is you have to pick a baby's name before you leave the hospital. So we can put it on her birth certificate and health stuff. And so, and I was like, uh, why? Do you have to do that? Like, that's quite a short deadline that you have to pick a name before you leave the hospital?

• 1:07:11Shaan Puri?

  After you go through this traumatic experience.

• 1:07:14Speaker 00

  Yeah. I was like, I don't really like being told to do that. Like, does she really need a name or he or she like, just being born, like, do you really need a name? You don't really need it. And so basically I researched and it varies state by state. But I found that. As long as both parents consent, uh, this was in Hawaii where I was, as long as both parents consent, within the first twelve months, you can change a baby's name without having to go to court or anything like that. You just fill out a form and as long as both parents consent, we just had like a notary come to our house, you can change the name pretty easily. So I was like, okay, well, um, I'll, I mean, the first conclusion was I don't want to have to pick a name

• 1:07:56Speaker 00

  before leaving the hospital. There's too much rush for me and it's also telling me what to do. So, um, my wife, the last name was more important to my wife because, um, she's Korean and in their culture, they have like a book of last names and whatever. And so, and we kind of made a deal. Okay. The baby can have your last name, but I get to take a lead on the first name. I wouldn't pick it by myself, but I get to take a lead on what is it? And so then I was like, okay, well, we'll just have the first name as baby. And so, um, that is what we did at the hospital, like, uh, on the birth certificate, et cetera. So submitted it and then I did get a call from the Department of Health or whatever, like a week later.

• 1:08:41Speaker 00

  And they're like, okay, we just want to confirm, um, I understand you've had a, a recent birth. Just want to confirm the, uh, name. And I, and I was like, yes, it is, um, B A B Y. And they're like, okay, so just clarify, it's baby, the, the name of your baby is. And then it kind of surprised me was I was like, yeah, that's correct. And then the guy was like, okay, that's cool. I mean, actually I've worked here 10 years and there had been one or two other people who've done this before as well, actually. And I was pretty surprised by that. But anyway, and then I also thought like, um, in Southeast Asian culture, like China, Korea, maybe some other places, they have this kind of,

• 1:09:23Speaker 00

  just for fun, they have this, uh, ritual when the baby is, um, a year old or so, they put it, the baby on the floor and on the other end of the room, they put down like a stethoscope, a law book, stuff like this, and they just let the baby crawl and whatever it picked is like, oh, it picked a stethoscope. That means you're going to be a doctor. And then it's just fun, like they just do this.

• 1:09:48Shaan Puri?

  Indians do that too, but it's just three stethoscopes.

• 1:09:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:09:53Speaker 00

  Or you're, you're supposed to pick up all of them.

• 1:09:55Shaan Puri?

  Exactly.

• 1:09:56Sam Parr?

  Yeah, except like 50 years ago, they started adding like little motels that you could pick. You know, they're like, oh, nice. An Eka Lodge.

• 1:10:07Speaker 00

  And for my bit, then I was like, oh, all right, what if we actually did that? But we just have different names. So then she can pick her own name. So I also remembered that when I was when when I first joined in high school, like the first day of school, they were like, all right, everyone go around the room and say an interesting fact about yourself. And I remember I couldn't really think about an interesting fact about myself. And I was like, oh, well, if I do this, then she's always going to have an interesting fact about herself. Right? Like I picked my own name. Uh, it's pretty interesting. So I was like, that's pretty cool.

• 1:10:43Sam Parr?

  And this like product obsession, you've done this with babies. So Jack's actually the best gift giver of all time. So what he does is, uh, like for my big, my big life events, he'll, um, like one time when we got married, he sent me this, maybe like three really big boxes. I bet you there was like three or $4,000 worth of products in there. And he'll send me like a variety of products. And then he sends you a list of a paper that's like three pages long. And it's a detailed description that says like, this is blank. The reason why it's the best and he like explains it. And it's like, sometimes it's really random. For example, he was like, these are the best bath towels because they have a little bit of copper in them, which prevents molding. Or he even like, my wife uses lotion all the time.

• 1:11:28Sam Parr?

  He's like, this is the best lotion. It's the best because it uses this vitamin or whatever. And it was like crazy, or it was even like, these are the best, um, gummy bears because they're low in sugar, but they still taste sweet, but they only use stevia. And you did it with like, maybe 50 items. And then when I told you we were pregnant, you sent me this box. But it was all baby stuff and you're like, this baby formula, it's meant for babies that are three months old. But I actually think it's best for newborns because it's the same thing. It's a newborn one, but like there's this small, very, I forget exactly everything, but it's like this massive list. And you're doing now, are you doing that now with all the baby stuff where you're just literally analyzing every product?

• 1:12:06Speaker 00

  Um yeah, I test out quite a bit. I mean, the reason that I gave it to you as a gift is because you and Sarah had told me like, oh, you should create a business like Jack's Box of like your favorite stuff. I didn't actually want to do it as a business because I don't think it would make that much money and quite a bit of effort. But I wanted to do for you guys because you kind of come up with the idea. Um, I research different products now.

• 1:12:30Shaan Puri?

  Do you publish your, your research?

• 1:12:32Speaker 00

  Well, um, not for baby products yet. I was actually thinking maybe to make like a baby, a baby book or ebook. Um, just with different recommendations. You've seen um, on my, as my pinned tweet on Twitter. I have my favorite products, um, just random products. So I have whatever favorite. I don't know what I've got on there, but I've got like 20 products I shared as my favorites on Twitter.

• 1:12:57Shaan Puri?

  And you're underscore Jack Smith. That's your thing. Uh, let's talk about some of the other crazy things you're doing. So. You have a guy uh, watching your baby on baby camera in Pakistan or something like that. What's going on? So you, what, what are you doing with this baby sleep monitor thing?

• 1:13:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, um, I kind of feel bad because, you know, when, when speaking to new parents or if someone says like, are you having a baby? Like people say like, oh, prepare to like never sleep again. You're never gonna be able to sleep. I kind of don't say anything, but inside I'm like, dude, I'm sleeping better now than I was before having a baby. Um, and that's due to setting up various things, but um, one of those is that. I mean, you have to have a house big enough for this, but basically we put um, my daughter a few doors down. And so um, initially if she would wake up and cry in the night, we found that, you know, she would wake up, cry for like five minutes, then often go back to sleep.

• 1:13:54Speaker 00

  So she only really needed help if she's crying like longer than that. And I actually got the idea from um, Jonathan Swanson, who's the founder of Thumbtack. And he called it like digital night nanny. I called it like deep sentinel for babies. Um, I know Sam invested in deep sentinel. Um, and basically what it's doing is having a virtual assistant. Uh, I have in India and basically he just watches my baby cam uh, all night. And he basically has specific instructions like, okay, if the baby wakes up and starts crying, you start a timer. And if she just cries for like three minutes and goes back to sleep, don't do anything. But if she cries for like more than seven minutes, then um call me and wake me up.

• 1:14:38Speaker 00

  And we have like, you know, I have a special phone for that and we have a backup phone in case that one broke or something. So um basically, we only get woken up if our daughter is crying longer than seven minutes. And then so now I would say only have to tend to her. She's two and three months, two years, three months. She now only wakes up maybe once every two months. We have to go to her. Otherwise, we don't have to do anything. So that was one Jonathan Swanson came up with. It had been really good for me.

• 1:15:07Sam Parr?

  What does that assistant say? Uh that Indian person say like when you're like, yeah, here's the job. Um, I mean, are they uh that's a pretty odd request, yeah?

• 1:15:18Speaker 00

  Um, well, one of the guys, actually, it was um, I'd been working with this guy as a virtual assistant. And then he's he's like, oh, my brother's in India. He speaks a little bit of English, but not perfect English. He's looking for a job. Do you have any tasks that I can give him? And then so I was just like, all right, just do this. So I think for him, pretty awesome job because he can be multitask. He can be doing whatever else. Um, I mean, the downside is that I I don't know how they're working this, but he actually doesn't take off a single day in in the year. He's working three hundred and sixty five days a year now. So I guess he's having like Thanksgiving and Christmas and the baby monitor is on loudspeaker with his family. I don't know. So he doesn't take any time off.

• 1:16:01Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, he's just not there, Jack. He he hasn't looked at the camera in months.

• 1:16:07Shaan Puri?

  He's like, this baby's two years old.

• 1:16:10Sam Parr?

  He's gonna, and your baby's gonna have some horrible separation anxiety. He's like, I've been crying for like fifteen, thirty minutes and like nothing ever happens.

• 1:16:17Shaan Puri?

  Your baby's like his Twitch stream. So um, what about some of these other things? So you said, uh, I don't think that universities will exist in twenty years and don't plan to send my daughter to school, let alone college. Okay, a bunch there. Say more.

• 1:16:30Speaker 00

  So why I'd read this book, somebody on Twitter had um recommended it. And um it's called like, Don't Tell Me I Can't. And it's written by this guy, a kid who was like fourteen. And he, it's it's this trend at the moment, it's it's trendy now, but he. He's talking from his perspective that he was doing this since three years old or something, how he was brought up. That he was not homeschooled, like homeschooling has been around a long time, right? He was what they're calling unschooled. And this is actually a trend at the moment. And he described how it worked for him. But see how it worked for him is like his family was super poor. And also his dad was an army veteran, like injured in the army.

• 1:17:13Speaker 00

  And so was in a wheelchair and stuff. And so he was always kind of having to help out his dad and be self sufficient. And so um and the local school was like the worst in the country or something, and they didn't want to send him there. So initially they were like, all right, we'll just try homeschooling you. And so he was homeschooled for like six to twelve months, but it didn't go that that well. And one day his dad, um he said normally they were more encouraging, but for whatever reason, one day. He just asked his dad like, hey dad, how do people um how do people get rich? And his parents were like really poor, so maybe also touched on an insecurity. His dad is just like, oh, why don't you just figure it out yourself? You know, why don't you just watch some videos of Warren Buffett? Because I don't know, we're not rich.

• 1:17:56Speaker 00

  And then he did that. He went and listened to loads of Warren Buffett stuff. And it actually spiraled from there. So unschooling is the concept that.

• 1:18:08Speaker 00

  Homeschooling is trying to rep replicate the school curriculum, right? Like, all right, math, science, and you still have to do the tests and all that. Unschooling is, there is no, there is no curriculum. The kid just learns whatever they want to learn and whatever is useful. So he was saying from around an age of like five to seven years old. He was repairing their car and doing things like this. And he'd grown up in a poor family, but he actually started his own business. And by the time he was thirteen. He like parlayed it like so initially he bought a tiny piece of land. And got some animals on it and like sell the produce in his local town and stuff.

• 1:18:51Speaker 00

  Then he got he built he bought a super rundown um house that was falling apart. And the seller they'd built the house themselves and so they didn't want to sell it just for money. But he's like, hey, look, I'll buy your shack that's falling down. And I'm a kid and I'm gonna put all dedicate all my time to repairing it. So it's it's restoring your legacy. And so they really liked that and they sold it to him for cheap. He repaired it and then flipped the house. By the time he was thirteen, he had something like hundreds of acres of land he was managing. And he said one time when he was about twelve, he went out with some friends and they were complaining about what they were learning at school. They're like, oh, we had to learn the names of the planets in alphabetical order.

• 1:19:36Speaker 00

  When the hell are we gonna learn that? We would need to use that in life, you know? And they ask him, they're like, hey, Cole, what were you learning at the moment? And it's like, oh, yeah, well, I've just been looking into recently found it kind of interesting how rich people generally have like a pass through LLC and then a C corp. And then they can deduct this from their taxes on this. And the other kids are like, what the fuck is he talking about? Do you know? But he got so, not like crazy rich, but he got, he was only hundred they can decide. He actually was like loaning money to his parents. He's like, they never asked me for money and I never asked them for stuff, but like in tough times, like I loaned money to my parents. I bought our car from them just to help them out, you know, stuff like that.

• 1:20:17Speaker 00

  And then for me, I was thinking back in school, like I learned piano in school, I had some piano lessons. And then at some point had to do like gray, you you had to do, you know, playing chords and I had an exam. And then it was just so shitty, you know, it was not fun. Like, I don't want to learn how to play these chords and music theory and stuff to pass an exam. I'm like, this sucks. And then I'm just looking now, especially nowadays, kids learning piano, they'll do it by just seeing what's their favorite song. And they'll just learn to play the song and that's just really fun. And I think that exams and stuff just ruin the fun and curiosity of learning skills.

• 1:20:59Speaker 00

  And so for me, my daughter, I'm just like, how can I ensure that she's just having fun for as long as possible? And um and like this kid said. That was unschooled. He said like he didn't learn traditional math, but just when it seemed that he had a need to learn a school, a skill, obviously he would then learn it like he's doing his taxes. So he has to learn math to do his taxes, but it's not because they're like, oh, learn the Pythagoras theorem and you have no idea when you're gonna use it. He identified himself. I need to do my taxes. So I need to figure out how to do math. And I think that's just a philosophy that I subscribe to a lot. I mean, is wacky, obviously, but when you look

• 1:21:41Speaker 00

  like Elon Musk, he created his own school for his kids. Jeff Bezos created his own school for his kids. I think he only has like seven kids. I think that um, you don't have to be billionaire to take this approach. Like billionaires seem to be thinking the school system is kind of fucked up. You don't have to be a billionaire. You could make it poor.

• 1:22:01Sam Parr?

  What are you gonna do then? So, so fast forward, she's six or eight years old. What are you gonna do?

• 1:22:07Speaker 00

  Well, at the moment, she goes to this thing. It's called, is that another trend? It's called forest school. It's actually nothing to do with school. Basically, they just go to a forest, a bunch of kids, and you're just playing all day. Like, you have a fake mud kitchen and you are like picking oranges and turning it to orange juice and you shear sheep and shit. I'm, I'm planning to just create my own thing like that, but going to a bigger age. I'm just like, let's just bring a bunch of kids. Anyone in a local school thing can come around. And also, I feel like instead of teaching them like how to write and studying whatever, I'm like, wouldn't it just be awesome? Like whatever topic, they, they can pick the topic, I can

• 1:22:49Speaker 00

  suggest some. Wouldn't it be awesome if I just ping my buddy and be like, hey, Sam, could you just teach the class a lesson on copywriting?

• 1:23:00Speaker 00

  Or I kind of feel if they just ping someone on Twitter, if someone ping, if someone, if a ten year old kid pinged me, like, hey, I underschooled myself and I've decided I want to learn business, would you mind doing a lecture to my class? And we'll, we'll, my parents will bring us to you. I would totally do it. Yeah, so I'm kind of thinking stuff like that.

• 1:23:23Shaan Puri?

  So I, I love this. My sister actually runs a school like this called Nature Kids. They're basically just outside all day, just walk around, they go on trails. If they find something, they like learn about it. And if they want to go climb trees, they climb trees, whatever. And it's basically has two, two things. One, so she has a traditional school and she has this nature school. And the nature school, the kids are like, by the end of the day, the traditional school kids are like dead, they have like no energy, they're like ready to go home. And they kind of like want to just watch YouTube and whatever. And the nature kids, kids, even though they've been out walking around all day outside, they have like way more energy, which is like kind of counterintuitive. That's the first thing I've noticed. The second thing is, yeah, like they know a bunch of things that are interesting to them

• 1:24:06Shaan Puri?

  versus like in school, it's sort of like, you know, you're forced to learn something that's not that interesting to you. And you sort of begin to associate learning with boredom, learning with sort of like, you know, being forced to do things versus on the other side, you know, with self-driven, it's great.

• 1:24:22Speaker 00

  And exams, right?

• 1:24:24Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, the pressure of that. Now, the, and I love the story you told about that guy, but my question would be, I think, I think unschooling or sort of self, self-driven learning is awesome when you're driven. So what happens if your kid is not trying to like, you know, flip a house and learn through, learn about, pass through LLCs? Like, I guess like the fear I would have, and I think most people would have is your kid doesn't really have any interest. They kind of just want to, you know, sit around and do nothing or, you know, they're, and so now you, you're unschooled, but you're not really having this kind of like awesome, you know, self-driven curiosity. Do you like, are you worried about that? Or do you think like, no, I can create that or this situation will, will, will mold a person to be more that way?

• 1:25:08Sam Parr?

  And also on the other side, what if she wants to be a doctor or a lawyer where you need, you need-

• 1:25:14Shaan Puri?

  You need to learn how to write?

• 1:25:15Sam Parr?

  Credentials. Yeah, and you need credentials.

• 1:25:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, great questions. I mean, the first side, I definitely agree with you, Sean. And it's one bit my wife has said, like, you know, some kids are not like you, Jack, wanting to. I was trying to make money when I was really little and stuff and might not take that approach. I think just have to see how it goes as we go along. Uh, one other bit that was interesting is, um, I visited a local Montessori school. And, um, so Montessori, studying a bit, we're learning these different things, just my wife and I just out of interest. Um, but one bit they had, which is awesome, is exactly as you said, Sean, school finished. And we went there at the end of the day. So whenever school finishes, four P M. Or something. Actually, there was a bunch of kids still there and they have a farm outside.

• 1:26:05Speaker 00

  And the head teacher was giving us a tour, just because my wife made friends with them, with her. And she was walking around, speaking to the kids about what's going on in the farm. But she was not telling them anything to do. The kids were just giving her an update. So she's like, oh, I see the rabbit cage is broken. Like, what's going on with that? And the kid was giving her like a detailed plan, like, oh, yeah, we've seen this broken. And we've come up with a new roofing methods that we're going to implement, et cetera. The kids run the farm. And I was like, that's awesome. What if you just have that, but just scrap the school part? And this school is also quite religious. So like, what if you just scrap the religion part as well? Um, Sam, about a bit, if she wants to be a doctor, um, I mean, yeah, I guess one approach is that.

• 1:26:48Speaker 00

  Could just like go, yeah, shit out of luck or take the total opposite approach and just hire loads of tutors. And be like, all right, if that's the approach you want to take, then okay, I guess we're gonna have to get you up to speed faster than other kids. Um, and I don't know how much you actually learn when you're five in school anyway. So maybe just like, all right, you've got, if you want to do that, you're gonna have to be super smart and skip a bunch of grades then. Uh, we'll help you do it, but.

• 1:27:17Sam Parr?

  I just, I love hearing your stories. I mean, we could, we could do this all day. I don't know. What do you think, Sean? How do you feel?

• 1:27:24Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I've had a few times, Jack, where I just call Jack randomly and I just ask him about something and

• 1:27:30Shaan Puri?

  I think you are kind of more of a one of one, at least in my life, of people who are very like, I don't know, independent minded is kind of like the best way I would put it. Like, I think you choose to lead your life how you want. I think that's inspiring. I also think that you are extremely, like Sam said, sort of curious and like, I think you're a great competitor when you need to compete in something, but you're not constantly trying to compete when unasked for. And that's a very Silicon Valley trait. People are trying to compete in times that are, what are you competing on? Why are you trying to, you know, show that you're the smartest, you're the richest, you're the most whatever. It's an annoying trait and I think it's great that you don't have that. So, uh, it's good to, good to talk to you as always. Do you leave us with either a book or product recommendation, one of Jack's finds that you think people should check out that you're passionate about, something you think is awesome?

• 1:28:15Speaker 00

  Um, well, the book that I mentioned, I guess the book that I talked about unschooling is like, don't tell me that I can't. Um, and two, uh, I guess like, uh, um, spoiler alert, like the kid, it really sucks because this kid was building something amazing. He actually drowned and died right after he wrote the book. Kind of sucks, but it's a really short book.

• 1:28:37Shaan Puri?

  You probably should have listened to the lifeguard on that one. Sure, I should have told him not to go in there.

• 1:28:43Sam Parr?

  Yes, sick, sick way to end it. Good job to end the pod, you moron.

• 1:28:51Sam Parr?

  So what's the name of it?

• 1:28:52Speaker 00

  Uh, Don't Tell Me I Can't. Um, and then it's just a short book. You can read it in two, three hours and challenges a lot of assumptions you might have about education and stuff. And so for me was like really inspiring seeing this book.

• 1:29:05Shaan Puri?

  I'm looking at your products on your Twitter thing, by the way.

• 1:29:07Sam Parr?

  Wait, Sean, did you just say? You should have learned, you should have listened to the

• 1:29:12Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, the lifeguard was telling him, don't go in. He's like, have you read my book? I'm going in.

• 1:29:18Sam Parr?

  You're an asshole.

• 1:29:20Shaan Puri?

  Jack, I'm looking at your Twitter list of products and you have this buckwheat pillow. I think I bought one of these. Are these like hard as a rock? Like, aren't they just like super, super dense?

• 1:29:28Speaker 00

  You, you can adjust how much buckwheat is in it. And then I also have a pillowcase that divides into three sections. So you can adjust.

• 1:29:36Shaan Puri?

  Why do people love these so much? They

• 1:29:38Speaker 00

  You need to get used to it a little bit, but actually it cured my neck pain and I can't sleep on another pillow. And I think Sam, you said as well, some of your friends even ship the pillow to the hotel before they arrive.

• 1:29:50Sam Parr?

  Nick Gray does. Nick Gray is, have you heard of this? Nick Gray, our buddy Nick Gray. Literally every time he goes to a hotel, he has his assistant send this pillow to the hotel. And then he just leaves it there when he's done. Every single time. And sometimes if he's going to stay at a place for more than, I think, like four days, he ships him a mattress.

• 1:30:11Speaker 00

  A mattress?

• 1:30:13Sam Parr?

  I swear to God, you could, if, if you Google Nick Gray.

• 1:30:19Shaan Puri?

  I have a message from the hotel.

• 1:30:20Sam Parr?

  Google Nick Gray pillow and he'll tell you the story. And I have been to like, whenever, if I'm in a city and he's visiting, I've go to his hotel room and he always has that pillow. He gets it shipped there every time.

• 1:30:32Speaker 00

  How would you get rid of the mattress?

• 1:30:33Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:34Sam Parr?

  Well, I don't, but I don't know what he does about the mattress, but if you Google it, I think he has a blog post on it, but I, but it's not just talk. I've like, I'll, whenever he's staying somewhere, I'll go to his hotel and just hang out with him. And, uh, the pillow's there every time.

• 1:30:46Shaan Puri?

  This is so funny. Wow.

• 1:30:49Speaker 00

  So, so basically it's the best for neck pain. A pillow normally is like, you know, it's a rectangle. And then, but ideally you actually want your head to have less support than your neck. Because otherwise you puts your head at a weird angle, you know? So with this, you can pull the buckwheat to one end. And so it's giving a lot more support to your neck, whereas your head is a bit lower. And so it allows you to kind of be laying completely flat. And so you're not kind of cranking your neck and waking up with like neck pain the next day.

• 1:31:18Shaan Puri?

  I was listening to this podcast, Derek Sivers on Tim Ferriss and Derek Sivers, he's an interesting guy. He was, they're like, oh, you do this one, he has this one business. I think it's like web hosting or something like that. And, um,

• 1:31:30Shaan Puri?

  He was describing it and Tim was like, why did you decide to do this? He goes, um, you know, sometimes I'll pick a project. I'm paraphrasing here. He's like, sometimes I'll pick a project because I think about who's my customer and do I want to? Are those my kind of people? And he goes, this is a business that lets you host your own personal website. And I just realized that people who have their own personal website for no reason, like just their own name.com. Those are my kind of people. And I was like, oh, that's really great to figure out your filter for like, well, it's a simple heuristic where like, not everybody you like does this, but everybody who does this, you kind of like. And, um, I think this like, try every product to try to find the best quality of life levers. I think this might be one of those things because everybody who I've met that does this, I like that person.

• 1:32:14Shaan Puri?

  And, uh, you're, you do this, Nick Gray does this and, uh, it's kind of amazing.

• 1:32:19Sam Parr?

  Do you still have a sheet? Are you still tracking everything?

• 1:32:21Speaker 00

  I'm not really a spreadsheet, no. I mean, for example, with the ba- baby box I sent you, I just looked around my house at like, like I just kind of anecdotally buy a bunch of stuff, try them all out and then send back ones I don't like and then just keep the best. So I wrote it down for you. So I don't have a fixed sheet. As I said, maybe I might turn it into a baby book, um, but haven't yet.

• 1:32:43Sam Parr?

  He had this closet at one of his houses that I used to go to. And it was like, again, a walk-in closet and it literally had, I bet you it had $30,000 worth of supplements in there. Like it looked like a, it looked like a pharmacy. It was like, um, any bottle you could imagine. And I was like, does any of this do anything? He was like, nah, not really. You can't really feel, he goes, except this one thing. And he had like a Ziploc bag and it had like tar in it. It looked like it was like, I was like, is this like heroin? What the hell is this? And he was like,

• 1:33:11Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, it works.

• 1:33:14Sam Parr?

  Yeah. It was like, he's like, this is like Himalayan something. And if you just take a little dab of this, it gives you some, what was that?

• 1:33:21Speaker 00

  It's called chili chat. Um, have them consistently found it repeatedly amazing, but yeah, Himalayan shimmy chat. It's like an extract from a volcano or some crap.

• 1:33:34Sam Parr?

  Dude, it was like, I swear to God, it looked like a pharmacy.

• 1:33:37Shaan Puri?

  It consistently impresses anybody that you tell about it. That's what it does.

• 1:33:42Sam Parr?

  He had like scales and it had like white powders on it. I mean, it looked like a drug dealer. And I was like, does any of this do anything? I don't know how much money you spent on all that. It was tens of thousands and you were like, this one thing is the only thing that like is amazing. And it was like a Ziploc bag of just this like tar.

• 1:33:58Speaker 00

  Amazing. All right, Jack, we gotta wrap it up. This was fun. Uh, thanks for coming on. We should do this again. Thanks so much for having me. Love the podcast. Listen to it. And uh, don't listen to any other podcasts, to be honest. I just listen to it in the car. So thanks again so much. Thank you.

• 1:34:12Speaker 03

  I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back.