I chose to be broke for a year

Want the 4 money rules that changed my life? Get it here: https://clickhubspot.com/fws Episode 783: Shaan Puri ( ⁠https://x.com/ShaanVP⁠ ) gets interviewed by his former intern about quitting a $120K/yr job in his 20s to become strategically broke and the other counter-intuitive decisions that made him successful. Show Notes: (0:00) Intro (1:56) Quitting a $120k job to be broke and live with 3 friends (Don’t linger on bad decisions) (10:26) Fear is what holds people back more so than anything else (13:17) How to get what you (actually) want. (16:37) Most people are not serious (28:21) Who is the most important voice in your life? (34:05) Why I decided to sell my company to Twitch & Amazon. (40:18) The biggest waste of time is doing something that needn’t been done at all (Elon) (41:52) “You can’t run an A/B test on life” (Act Accordingly) (52:37) There are no bonus points for making things harder for yourself (location) (58:23) The best people are 'down' (Buffett) — Links: • The Biography Podcast - https://www.youtube.com/@thebiographypod — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies! Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N. A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano /

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

• 0:00Shaan Puri?

  The biggest risk you have is spending your life trying to do a really good job at the wrong thing. Yeah. Adiocracy is the real. Yeah, yeah. For any person with high potential, because it'll sap you, sap your will, sap your time, sap your resources, sap your energy, sap your belief in yourself.

• 0:14Speaker 01

  This is Sean Proudie. He sold his company to Amazon and Twitch for millions, and he now runs one of the most successful business podcasts in the world with millions of listeners.

• 0:23Shaan Puri?

  I know this because I spent 10 years doing things only for like, ooh, if this worked, it'd be amazing. The work has to be the win. Yeah. The win can't be some future hypothetical payoff. Because you enjoy it, you do it all the time. Because you do it all the time, you get really good at it. Because you get really good at it, you do get the results. Right. That's the flywheel.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  In this episode, we talk about what it takes to be successful, how to work smarter, not harder, and how to live a good life.

• 0:47Shaan Puri?

  I think hard work is overrated. It's probably maybe the fourth or fifth most important variable. Mm hmm. You know, I think the very first one is.

• 0:54Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:02Shaan Puri?

  All right, today's a special episode because I'm the guest of today's episode. Normally, we have guests on and we ask them all about their life, their philosophies, how they work, how they did it, how they made it. But this time, I'm the guest because my former intern, Walter, created his own podcast. He used to work for me when he was, I don't know, 18, 19, 20 years old. He was in college and he's gone on to create a cool podcast and he asked me to come on. And so I went on. I'm one of the first episodes of his thing and I watched it and I was like, this is actually a really good interview. And the reason why is because it's a lot of information about before we ever made any money. So, um, you know, how I was thinking when I was in my early twenties, the ups, the downs, the indecisions, the uncertainty of, do I go this way or this way? And how I thought about it, I think it's going to help a lot of people, specifically people who are,

• 1:46Shaan Puri?

  you know, you haven't quite made it yet. Maybe you're young, maybe you just haven't, it hasn't all clicked for you yet. I think there's some very useful philosophies in here. So I hope you enjoy. This is an episode where I got interviewed by my former intern, Walter.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  You had a great life, seemingly. So why did you end up moving? And what was that year of being strategically broke, right?

• 2:05Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, strategically broke. That's what I called it. I think most people would just call it unemployed. You know, why not? I put a luxury brand on it. So basically what happened is I graduated from college and I get a great job. I got a job paying me $120,000 a year to go work in a boring industry that I knew nothing about, didn't really care about. Kind of stumbled into a job that I thought was too good of money to pass up.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:33Shaan Puri?

  So I go and I work for this guy. And sure enough, I'm like, pretty bored. Actually, I'm like, oh, you know what? Like, I can do this job, but I'm fairly bored. And it was a fork in the road because before I took that job, me and my friends had had this business idea. The idea was to create a sushi restaurant chain called Sabi Sushi. It was supposed to be the Chipotle of sushi. So the way you have Subway for sandwiches and Chipotle for burritos. The idea was we were going to do that for sushi. Okay. And we win this business plan competition. So on one hand, we get $25,000 of prize money that the three of us are going to live on. Or I could take this job for $120,000. So I take the job. Within a month, I'm like, this is lame.

• 3:16Shaan Puri?

  I just looked at my life and I was like, this is, I made a lame choice.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:22Shaan Puri?

  The good thing about me is I don't really make great decisions, but I make great reversals of decisions. Once I realize that I have made the wrong decision, I'm not one to linger in it.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:33Shaan Puri?

  Mostly because I just can't like tolerate it anymore. Like if I was dating somebody, I remember I was dating this girl and realized like, all right, she ain't the one. I like just called her and broke up with her. Oh, you know, 10 minutes later, after thinking about it, I was like, what am I supposed to do? If I go hang out with her now, this will be unbearable now that I, I know what, I can't unsee what I've seen. I can't unknow what I know. And so I'm pretty quick to cut things off when they're not working. So I I quit my job after a month and a half. I tell him, hey, I'm gonna go work on my sushi restaurant. He's like, but okay. So I fly back and I meet up with my friends. And so we got 25 grand, three people. So we're basically $8,000 each.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  For a year.

• 4:13Shaan Puri?

  For to live for a year. And I was like, I don't know that. I don't know how much. I don't even know how much life costs. I'm a college kid, right? When you're in college, everything's just provided for you, right? Like you swipe this thing, you get meals. Yeah, things just like happen. Uh, I like my parents paid for the for the dorm or something. You pay upfront. I just didn't understand. Like, you don't know what it's like to pay rent and bills and laundry and all that stuff. So I, um, I like how I threw laundry in there. It's like a dollar, $1.25 a week or something.

• 4:41Shaan Puri?

  So I don't really know even how much 8,000 is, but I know it's low, right? Cause all of my friends got good jobs and nobody's making eight grand a year. So I decided, okay, I'm either gonna every day wake up and feel worried and shitty about money. Or I'm gonna commit and say, I'm gonna try to spend this year strategically broke. So instead of being, I looked at my friends, like investment bankers, and they were money rich, time poor.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:04Shaan Puri?

  That's what I was when I had took that job. I was money rich, time poor. So I was like, okay, if I'm gonna be money poor, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna make a choice to be rich in other areas. So it's like, I need freedom and flexibility of my schedule. So I'm gonna be time rich. I'm gonna be adventure rich. Like, I'm gonna travel with my friends. We're gonna do fun stuff.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 5:22Shaan Puri?

  I'm gonna be learning rich. So it's like, how do I learn if I'm making 10 times less, 12 times less here? I gotta be learning 12 times more than I would on the job there.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:33Shaan Puri?

  Now, the good news is, that's not that hard of a bar. You don't learn that much on your like entry level jobs. You know, or if you learn, you learn kind of the same task.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:41Shaan Puri?

  You're not learning like a wide breadth of stuff, right? Whereas with the business that we were doing, I'm learning about sushi and restaurant operations and how margins work and what a P and L is. And I'm learning to pitch investors. Then we're negotiating a lease and I'm figuring out what, how the real estate works. I'm looking at learning, learning how, I remember we went to the city, like the city area. And we were looking up liquor licenses. And while I was there, I learned that if you have a liquor license, your lease is on file. So then I found the, I found. Where we were negotiating, I found one place with a liquor license. I knew how much they were paying. So then I went back to the negotiation. I was like, we're only going to pay this. She's like, no way. We could never do that. Like you're, you are doing that in these four locations. So I know you could do that for us. She was blown away. So we were just learning all these little things, little, uh, little like core skills.

• 6:26Shaan Puri?

  So sales, uh, marketing, brand building, design, we're editing videos, we were doing whatever it took. We're blogging. We were doing just random stuff, but high, high action. Yeah. And we just decided to have a shit ton of action and do DIY, just do it all ourselves, hiring, firing, learn as many lessons as I could. And so that year strategically broke was about learning how little you need to live on, like sleeping on air mattress. I put a photo. So you've seen. Yeah, we could, we could put one up there. Yeah. It's like, uh, like we didn't even have a garbage. Hammered a garbage bag onto the wall, like with a nail, like just hanging there. Uh, you know, we would just drink out of this Gatorade cooler that we had gotten for free from some gym. Um, you know, and then to make some side money, I would like coach basketball at this like school for autistic children.

• 7:11Shaan Puri?

  And I would tutor kids and, uh, tutor college students nearby in stats. And I was like, cool, I'm, I'm learning and then teaching them and I'm making, you know, 25, 30 bucks an hour. But I only, I, I calculated like the minimum amount I need to earn in order to have max freedom. Which like now that I look back,

• 7:31Shaan Puri?

  that was actually a very smart thing to do, even though I was very dumb at the time. And, uh, Dharmesh, who came on our podcast, the billionaire founder of HubSpot, he said the same thing about his first business. He goes, I did all this random stuff in my first business, not knowing anything. Then in my second business, I thought, well,

• 7:48Shaan Puri?

  now I know the proper ways to do things. And then he like screwed up that second business. And he's like, dude, the first business was more successful than the second. And he realized, he goes, just because I was ignorant, doesn't mean I was wrong. Right. So just because you don't know what you're doing, you're making it up as you go, doesn't mean you're always, it doesn't mean you're wrong on all of them. Right. And you might actually got a bunch of things right. And I think one thing I got right was realizing that money was some sort of tool for freedom. And instead of trying to just stack as many dollars in the bank account when you're young. The better thing to do is optimize for freedom, optimize for learning, optimize for adventure and fun.

• 8:21Shaan Puri?

  And just calculate the minimum amount of money you need to be able to do that. And I'll still do that, like with my companies, I'll calculate the minimum amount of funding we need just to get to that next. Like get to that thousand customers who love us. Or, you know, there's a lot of things I could be doing right now to make more money, but I don't do them because. I'm not trying to optimize for that. I'm saying, what's the amount I need where I feel really good, but I get the most time I can have with my kids. And all my projects and working out and doing fun stuff I like to do.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:46Shaan Puri?

  And I think that principle has like really stuck with me. I've talked before about the way that I know how to make money, about how to build a money-making skill, about how to leverage your time and energy. And the team at HubSpot actually went through the video where I explained all that and turned it into a free downloadable cheat sheet. On my four rules of how to make money. Now, this is not, you know, give it to quick advice, it's just core principles, foundational principles about building wealth. Things that I wish I knew when I was, you know, just getting started. And so if you want to download it, it's in the description below, it's totally free. You can go get it. Thanks to the folks at HubSpot for doing the research, making this document and making it available to all you guys. All right, back to this episode.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  I love that so much. I think you, you mentioned a point where like you reverse decisions very easily. I think that's a very hard thing to do. I think. Most people consider like that there are two-way doors, and I think there actually aren't that many because. Of how hard most people, myself included, have it to actually reverse that decision. So figuring that out early on.

• 9:39Shaan Puri?

  What do you mean by that? Like what's?

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:41Shaan Puri?

  So have you found it hard to reverse decisions?

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely. I think so. Like, you know, if you commit to something.

• 9:45Shaan Puri?

  Give me an example.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  So I, I think, you know.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Moving, moving to a place, right? Like, so I, I lived in San Francisco for a month, a year ago. I know that I want to move out of Europe. I even know it now, deep down inside, but because I've got family, or these are the reasons I tell myself, right? Because I've got family at home, my friends are there, you know, it's, it's hard to get a visa, things like this to keep me sort of from, from moving. And now that I've got a place at, at in the Netherlands, you know, I'm renting, like, you know, it's, it's all of these. Reasons to not go that are really just excuses.

• 10:16Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  So I, I think, maybe I'm just speaking for myself here, but I think it's harder to, to reverse those decisions.

• 10:21Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Yeah, I think it is. I just wonder why, like, in your case. I don't think you're.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  This is a therapy session.

• 10:28Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, it doesn't seem like you're trying to reverse a decision. It seems like you have. Um, yeah, you've you, I think you probably have made the decision where you want to be. But you probably have just like some fears holding you back. I don't know what the fears are, but like, maybe it's fear of leaving family behind, or how are you going to afford to live in a really expensive city? Or not knowing, but I don't know what it is, but it's almost always fear.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:50Shaan Puri?

  Like, if you just ask why often enough, you'll end up with like, I'm afraid. We try not to say we're afraid, but we are, right? Adults have all these code words for fear, like stress. Like, you're allowed to, you're allowed to say, I'm stressed out.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:03Shaan Puri?

  Or that's really stressful.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:04Shaan Puri?

  But if you say, I'm afraid, it's like.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Like, what are you doing? You're growing up.

• 11:07Shaan Puri?

  Baby, what's going on? But of course, stress is just the code word for, for fear.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:12Shaan Puri?

  What do you, what are you stressed out about? Things going wrong, things not happening. Okay, then what?

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:16Shaan Puri?

  Then people won't like me. What? Then why? You're just, of all the reasons. You're afraid, you're afraid of rejection, you're afraid of embarrassment, you're afraid of humiliation, afraid of failure. It's one of those things is always underneath it. And so, um, I think, you know, that fear is what holds people back more so than anything else.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:35Shaan Puri?

  I think that's also why people don't reverse decisions, right? Because they're afraid of.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Looking stupid or?

• 11:39Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, looking stupid or like, you know, what if I quit this job and the other thing's not better?

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:43Shaan Puri?

  What if I break, break up with this girl, but there's nobody else? Or the next person's not better.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:48Shaan Puri?

  Right? Or then I'm alone and that's going to suck. And I don't want to feel that.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:51Shaan Puri?

  I'd rather live in pain than, than, uh, go, go towards an unknown. Uh, you know, and take a known pain versus an unknown.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:58Shaan Puri?

  I think people get trapped up in those too much. I'm happy that that's not one of my, like, weaknesses.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:05Shaan Puri?

  I got my own, but that's not one of them, for me at least.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  No, I love that. Yeah, I think Tim Ferriss has said, like, people would rather live in, uh, discomfort than uncertainty. Which I think is exactly what you just described. I, I think.

• 12:16Shaan Puri?

  And I'm the opposite, by the way. Like, and there might be others, which is just like, discomfort sucks. Like, oh, no, like, what if this sucks? Like, take me out of pain.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:23Shaan Puri?

  I'm not saying I'm tougher. I'm saying I'm actually less tough. Like, I have less tolerance for, for pain. And so then I just make a decision. I'd, all right, maybe the uncertainty is less pain and I go there.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  But you're just honest about it and that's hard. I, I think what's really interesting as well is with you moving to San Francisco, and this is something, the more I talk to people like yourself, who I think have made it. Because you know, you've set out in life, just like, what do I want out of life? And you're sort of just going for that. Like, I love that. I think the benefit of moving to a place like San Francisco is the proximity you get with other people and the blueprints you're seeing. Like, I think that's a big reason I want to do this, right? Like, selfishly, the reason I want to talk to you is like, you seem to have figured out in the way you want to, and I just want to steal and learn from you. And I think you've mentioned that proximity is something that can do that for you, right? It can give you these blueprints. So talk to me a little about that, about that. And I also want to hear you talk about a story about one of your classmates. You've said this before, whose father, you know, had a great job, but you know, never saw his daughter.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Tell me about like, how, how can we learn from other people? And, you know, under the idea of figuring out what you want to do in life, you know, like, what do you actually? What do you notice? Like, what, what, what do you get energy from? Like, how do you pick up on that?

• 13:30Shaan Puri?

  Well, I think what you're talking about is this phrase, proximity is power.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:34Shaan Puri?

  And I got this from Tony Robbins. I went to a Tony Robbins event. He said that. It clicked for me. And he was talking about for himself. He's like, um, we all heard these phrases, like, you know, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Very true, by the way. Like, you, let's say you hang out with a bunch of people who are super into working out.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:54Shaan Puri?

  It doesn't matter if you didn't work out before.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  You're gonna be.

• 13:56Shaan Puri?

  You're gonna end up working out, right? Like, or you're not gonna end up hanging out with them that much, right? Like, it is very hard to resist that flow. It's like in the, it's like in a biological cell, osmosis. It's like the water will just cross the membrane. It'll just go, it'll flow in that direction. So, so I like that. I like pull, not push. Push is hard. Push takes energy. I gotta motivate myself to go work out every day. I gotta, I gotta convince myself to go do this. Or I'm pulled into it because all the people I like and respect do this. We hang out all the time. This is what their normal schedule looks like. It's almost easier for me to just do it versus like resist everything. So that same principle is just true, no matter what your pursuit is. When I wanted to get good at playing poker.

• 14:40Shaan Puri?

  I looked around and the people who got good at playing poker, they all lived in a house with five other people who were equally obsessed with playing poker. Some were better, some were a little worse, but they just immersed themselves amongst five people, literally lived in a house with them. And then that's all they did. They eat, sleep and breathe poker. They would talk poker over dinner. They would review hands. They would do all of that all the time and they got better way faster than people who were not. It's like you can learn Spanish on Duolingo.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:04Shaan Puri?

  You can learn Spanish with a tutor or you can go move to, you know, Mexico and you could live there for three months. Like which one's going to work better? Total immersion.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:15Shaan Puri?

  And so proximity, getting near the thing you want is, is ironically an easier way to get what you want. It's like the easiest decision you can make. It's like, you know, to move the needle the furthest in your progress bar.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:28Shaan Puri?

  Is just get around other people who already are doing the thing you want or have the thing you want or also chasing the thing you want. That's that principle. That's why I moved to San Francisco. I wanted to do startups. I was living in Australia at the time.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  Not many startups.

• 15:41Shaan Puri?

  There's not a lot of startups there. And I asked the guy, I was like, hey, who's the most impressive founder you've met? They're like, this guy. But cool, can I meet him? Nah, he doesn't live here anymore. That happened three times. Hey, where, where are all those guys? Where'd they move to? They moved to San Francisco, of course. That's where the people who are serious about startups go.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:55Shaan Puri?

  Oh, but what the hell am I doing here?

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:57Shaan Puri?

  And it feels weird to move. I gotta break a lease. I gotta, I gotta, I don't know anyone there. Where am I gonna go? It's unknowns, right? But it's like, all right, well, am I serious about this or not?

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:08Shaan Puri?

  And like, I decided to be serious about it. Like, yeah, I want to do that. Okay. So I literally changed my phone number to a, like a San Francisco area code.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  You committed.

• 16:17Shaan Puri?

  Mentally commit.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:18Shaan Puri?

  And I started telling people, I'm moving to San Francisco. I had no plans yet. I didn't know anything. I'm moving to San Francisco. I started job hunting only in San Francisco. I started looking at places, signed a lease. I found a place to live and then I just flew here on a one-way ticket. And I said, this is where I want to be in order to make that happen. So I think that's the kind of proximity's power idea.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Principle, yeah. I think you touched on something else as well as where, you know, if you want to go to San Francisco, like, you know, your boss telling you like, that's where all the serious people are who are interested in startups to actually want to do it. And you telling yourself like, or asking yourself that question, like, am I, am I serious about this?

• 16:52Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Like, I think that's very underrated.

• 16:53Shaan Puri?

  Most people are not serious.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  No.

• 16:55Shaan Puri?

  This is actually like a really important point.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:57Shaan Puri?

  Most people are not serious. I'll tell you two stories around this. At that Tony Robbins event, they play this little game. They do these little like, kind of like, warmups before Tony comes out. Mm hmm. Trying to get the crowd active, get you vibed it so that you're ready to go. So sometimes it's like, uh, they'll hit a beach ball around, people are bouncing it. Sometimes it's music, whatever. So then this guy come out and he's like, we're gonna play a game of, uh, Simon Says. And just to set the scene, we're in an arena. There's 10,000 people in this arena. It's like a basketball, an actual basketball arena. He is full. So 10,000 people all gonna play Simon Says. And he's Simon. So he says, stand up, and he's like, the winner is gonna come up on stage and get something special.

• 17:39Shaan Puri?

  All right, cool. Winner out of 10,000 people. So he starts, does the first one. He's like, all right, everybody, you know, stand up. Everybody stands up. He's like, you're off. And he's like, uh, he's like, keeps going. And he's just eliminating like, tons of people really quickly. And by, you know, within 10 minutes, it's down to like, the last five people. And he's like, uh, come up on stage. And he says, um, he gets the winner and he's basically like, all right, the, the final five. And he's like, you're the five out of 10,000 people who are at the end here. Yeah. And he, and he's like, did you think that you were gonna win? And, um, they were like, you know, I didn't, I, their honest answer was like, you know, I didn't, I didn't know if I was gonna win, but I was definitely gonna try. I really wanted to win. He's like, I really wanted to win. Yeah, I thought I was gonna win. Um, no, I

• 18:23Shaan Puri?

  wouldn't have imagined it, but you know, here, here I am. One, one guy was like that, right? But four of them were like, yeah, I actually like, I really wanted to win. Uh, and so I was like, I'm gonna try. And he goes, um, on one hand, it looked like, so he asked a question that he goes to the audience. He goes, raise your hand if you actually believed you were gonna win. Almost nobody raises their hand. Like, maybe 50 people out of 10,000. Yeah, nothing. And he goes, you know, the five people on stage, it looks like you're competing with 10,000 people. You're not. You were actually only competing with these 50. You had a one in 10 chance of getting on stage, not a one in 10,000. And, um, I, I remember that really stuck with me. By the way, there's like loser YouTube comment type of people who are like,

• 19:07Shaan Puri?

  but actually, forget it. It's a story. It's a point. Shut up. The point is, a lot of life is like that. Things seem really hard, really unlikely, really challenging. But most people are not serious. Most people are not trying to seriously do anything. And if you are serious, you're already in that final, like, you know, five out of 50 type of, type of format. You got a one in 10 chance. And so like, your odds are much better than you think. I'll give you a second story that supports this. We've become friends with Jimmy Donaldson, who's Mr. Beast on YouTube. And Jimmy, like, when you're hanging out with him, he meets a lot of people. In fact, just like at his headquarters, at his studio, all these YouTubers just come like, almost like a mecca, like a pilgrimage, to just like honor him. They just come just to see him, right?

• 19:50Shaan Puri?

  And they come and they, and they're always, Jimmy, you know, like, hey, you got a few minutes? Love to talk to you about my channel, just if you can give me any advice, how to grow my channel, any advice on how I could be successful YouTube. Please, Jimmy, please tell me how I can be successful on YouTube. And it's so funny, because first of all, all of his videos are public. You can see what he does. Anything in secret, right? So everything he's doing is visible for you. Every single video is public. Yeah. But okay, beyond that. And by the way, that's from the beginning of time. Like, you see all of his videos. Yeah, 10 years ago, you can see his videos.

• 20:21Shaan Puri?

  And so we said, well, and he says the same thing to him every time. And he goes, here's what you want to, you want to be, you want to win? Yeah. You want to be successful on YouTube? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna make 100 videos. They're like, 100 videos? Yeah, you're gonna make 100 videos, one at a time, right? Make a video. Then when you make the next video, pick one thing you're gonna do better. A better intro, a better caption, a better outro, better music, better pacing, better editing, better whatever.

• 20:47Shaan Puri?

  One thing every time for 100 videos. Just do that. And when you're done with the 100, come talk to me. I'm gonna tell you exactly what you need to do next. Like, okay, great. I'm like, Jimmy, does anybody ever come back to you? What do you tell them when they come back? It's like, they never come back. What do you mean? He's like, well, he's like, nobody is willing to do 100 videos.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:07Shaan Puri?

  They all want to be Mr. Beast.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  They don't want to.

• 21:09Shaan Puri?

  They don't want to be Jimmy, who started doing videos when he was 12.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:13Shaan Puri?

  And at 13, nobody watched, 14, nobody watched, 15, nobody watched, 15, nobody watched, 16. Is anyone ever going to watch 17, still nobody watching 18? Oh, my God, a couple of people watched 19, finally, somebody watched. Seven years through hell, right? Like, so it's like, nobody's willing to do even 100 videos, let alone seven years. And he's like, by the way, for the very few people, the kind of that 1% of people who are serious and do it, he's like, by the time they get to 100, they don't need me, dude. They're flying. They forgot all about me. They are, they're so full of stuff to do because they have so much momentum. Because they made 100 videos and they tried to make one thing better every single time. That idea, that rule of 100, it applies to basically any pursuit, not just YouTube. And the funny thing is, nobody's serious. So nobody does it.

• 21:56Shaan Puri?

  And so like, you know, you just, all you have to do, like, if you just decide, I'm serious about this, I will be serious. I'm a serious person, not like, not like other people, how they're not going to approach this, they're not going to take this very simple idea seriously. You're already ahead of the game.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're only committing with us 50 people.

• 22:13Shaan Puri?

  Today's episode is brought to you by HubSpot. Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book, but then tearing out four fifths of the pages. Point is, you miss a lot. And unless you're using HubSpot, the customer platform that gives you access to the data you need to grow your business, the insights that are trapped in emails, call logs, transcripts, all that unstructured data makes all the difference. Because when you know more, you grow more. And so if you want to read the whole book, instead of just reading part of it, visit hubspot.com.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Pull from examples from how you did this, right? So I think proximity is one thing where if you're just seeing more lifestyles or activities that people are doing in and around the subject that you find interesting, you'll be able to follow more blueprints and sort of figure out what you're actually going to do 100 times over. But in someone's like daily, regular life, like what things can people do, what things did you do to sort of figure out, how can I lean more into my inner nerd?

• 23:01Shaan Puri?

  Well, one thing is other people are very good at spotting it before you are. I remember Naval, who's like one of my favorite people to learn from, follow, whatever. He says a great story. He's like, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a physicist. I thought like in the apex of like awesome people, physicists were on top. Physicists, scientists, inventors. And he's like, that's what I'm gonna be. And he was telling everybody he's gonna be that. And his mom was like, nah, you're gonna be a business person. He's like, what are you talking about? Like, business is cool, but like, I wanna be a physicist. She's like, no, you're naturally a business guy. And he's like, what? I'd never talked about business. Like, I never told you that. What do you mean? And she goes, well, you're always talking about it, just you never say, I wanna be a business guy.

• 23:43Shaan Puri?

  But you're always thinking about business. He's like, when we used to walk by that restaurant, you would always point out things that they're doing, that they should be doing to like make more revenue or be more profitable, or like how they should change their menu. You're always doing that. You're always trying to figure out how to fix a business, how to improve a business. It like comes very naturally to you. And she's like, does physics come naturally to you? And he's like, no, it's like brutal. Like, I want it because I, I think they're so cool. Yeah. But he wasn't naturally as inclined. And then when he, so he realized that and he's like leaned into, he leaned into business more. So I've seen this many, many times where other, if you just talk to other people who know you well, you know, you can ask them a couple of questions that I think are good at sussing this out.

• 24:25Shaan Puri?

  One such question is, what's my superpower? Like, what do you see that comes easy to me, naturally to me, that is harder for other people? Is there anything like that that you've seen? Podcasting? Yeah, so like, you know, telling stories, podcasts, whatever it is. Another thing that you might do is you might say, where is it that, you might ask yourself, where do I spend time doing things that for me feel fun, but to others would feel like a grind? So it's play to you, work to others. For me, it's like, I'll be up at 11, 12 at night, and I'll be Google searching and randomly reading like today, I was, I literally, before we got here, I was reading the annual report from the state of Nevada

• 25:05Shaan Puri?

  about the, the revenues and expenses of the casinos on the Las Vegas Strip for 2024 compared to 2023. Yeah. Like Who's doing that for fun? Yeah, nobody's doing that for fun. I was doing it for fun. I was really curious. I was like, are we in a recession? I wonder, there's this thing where the Vegas strippers know first. Do they know first? Well, I should probably be able to check Vegas revenues, uh, last year versus this year. And that might be a leading indicator. Oh, wow. This is cool. This is a PDF. Download PDF, searching through the things, making my notes. For what? Dude, nobody asked me the question. You know, like the teacher didn't call on me. This wasn't my, my project, my assigned assignment. But I'd always been like that. I've always been doing things like that. And before I didn't really notice that that was a thing. I didn't really see how that could be special or useful.

• 25:48Shaan Puri?

  It just seemed like, I don't know, I just go on these random little business rabbit hole, these little detours. But then when I did the podcast and the podcast is us shooting the shit about business. Suddenly I had this like giant library in my head of little factoids and stories and nuggets and this knowledge. That was very, very useful on the podcast. So I found a fit for it later. And so I think other people are good mirrors. I think looking at what you do in your five to nine. Like you have your nine to five. That's your job. What's your five to nine? What do you do? And specifically in your five to nine, what do you do beyond what's rational? A normal person. It's gotta either look like a work or a grind to other people.

• 26:27Shaan Puri?

  Or it's gotta look like, oh, like, yeah, I like video games too, but you're like practicing your aim on this aim simulation. For four hours a day, like that's different. That's, you know, now you're in this other territory. Or like, you're not just like, you know, for example, I used to play this game NBA 2K. You ever played? Yeah, of course. I never played the, I never actually played the games. I just went to the franchise mode. And I started simulating, I'm the GM and I'm scouting players and I'm building this franchise and like, I was literally like, this, since I was a kid, sixth grade, fifth grade, I was doing this. And it's like, well, guess what that is? That's being a manager. Like I was literally like practicing being a CEO. It's like, I'm like upping the concessions prices and I'm scouting these like the guys, I'm making these trades and I'm,

• 27:10Shaan Puri?

  I got more joy out of the management of the franchise than playing the game. Yeah. So like, you know, you start to notice these oddities about yourself. But instead of pointing at them or hiding them or trying to like fix them because they're broken, saying, oh, interesting, like. What superpower does that give me? Where does that let me thrive? What in what scenario would this be extremely useful or valuable?

• 27:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:30Shaan Puri?

  You know?

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, it turns out the one you're in right now.

• 27:33Shaan Puri?

  I'll give you another example. My wife.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:35Shaan Puri?

  My wife's kind of OCD and artsy craftsy.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:37Shaan Puri?

  Since a kid, loved arts and crafts. Also OCD drives me nuts. Like that wire is out and crooked. Like she needs to, she can't do this podcast. She has to get up and go fix that wire. Right? So she, um, she started like for herself. She started like, I don't like as a, just like a boredom girly thing to do, like bedazzling her, you know, phone when she was in high school or whatever. And she, but she got really good at it, right? She like leaned in. She didn't like shy away from it. She got curious about it. She started buying Serati crystals. She started trying to arrange them perfectly. She started seeing if other people do this, how she can make a better design. Suddenly celebrities started hitting her up when she's in college. She's a freshman in college and celebrities are hitting her up, asking for them to make custom things for their parties in Hollywood and whatever.

• 28:20Shaan Puri?

  And she's making thousands of dollars a month as a college student.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  That wasn't an option if you had asked people.

• 28:26Shaan Puri?

  Right? That's the, that's her pushed out.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:28Shaan Puri?

  Right? So that is, um, it didn't even seem like a thing. In fact, it seemed like this, like kind of useless waste of time, but for her it wasn't. It looked like a grind to others, but it was fun for her. So she found a way to make that useful over time.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  That's an amazing story. I love that so much. I think that kind of goes back to what you mentioned earlier on in terms of just leaning into your own curiosities. And I, I think, I think you said this somewhere where the only voice that actually matters is the one inside your head. And talk, talk to me a little bit about how do you block that out? When, you know, you're going through life, you know, you have this sushi restaurant, you're, you're picking things up, you know, you're, you're working at this job in Australia before that. How do you pick things up as you're going along when you're super unclear on that aspect? And, you know, how, how do you sort of focus on that inner, inner voice and really be true to yourself? Like.

• 29:13Shaan Puri?

  I think that takes time.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:15Shaan Puri?

  I don't think most people are, at least it took me time. I don't think most people could do that right away.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:20Shaan Puri?

  You know, you gotta ask yourself a question. Who's the most important voice in my life? Is it my mom? Is it my teachers? Is it my boss? Is it? Society, is it the media? Whose voice do I care about? Who's who's number one? And in reality, the voice that is most shaping you is the little voice in your head, the one nobody else can hear. It is the director of your life's movie. It's the one that tells you where to stand, what to say, what to do next, how to react in this situation. That's what the director does. And you have a little director in your in your head right now. And so, once you realize that, you say, okay, I want to like, I want Spielberg up there, right? Like, I want Scorsese, I want Tarantino, like, I want I want this to be a great movie.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:06Shaan Puri?

  Um, you know, like, and what type of movie? Is this gonna be like a tragedy? Is it gonna be a thriller? Is this gonna be like a romantic comedy? Like, what what kind of movie am I trying to have right now? And how do I tune that voice in my head? So that's what I meant by that that comment. And that's, I think, what what works when you go internal is like you. You decide that, look, my opinion of myself matters more than anyone else's opinion of me. Easier said than done, for sure. But if it's true, that's something that's worth that's a weak muscle that's worth working on, you know? Do I believe that the most valuable opinion of my life is my own opinion? All right, well, what what is my opinion on? What do I admire? What do I think is not cool? You know, and how do I develop that taste for how I want to be?

• 30:47Shaan Puri?

  And then practice doing it and like, notice those moments where other voices say X, but my voice says Y, I'm gonna go with Y. I'm gonna do it here. It might be uncomfortable, but I'm gonna do it. And that's me getting stronger. That's me becoming that dude for whom that is the default.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:03Shaan Puri?

  And like, you know, you just do that over a number of years.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Did you remember anything specifically, like, any moments in time? There was a lot of resistance in what that inner voice was saying and what the outside voices were telling you?

• 31:13Shaan Puri?

  Um, definitely quitting to go do a sushi restaurant thing. I remember that was.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Were your parents not on board with that? Or when you was, I mean, all your friends are getting a high paying jobs, like?

• 31:22Shaan Puri?

  I mean, everybody thought it was like a little bit silly, but, you know, they don't they don't really care. It's not their life, so they're like, whatever. Yeah, do it, huh? It's like, she's a friend at a party, like, yeah, put your foot in there, like, you know, whatever. You just wanna see somebody like, you know, wreck themselves.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  You want their own entertainment.

• 31:38Shaan Puri?

  Of the people who care, like my parents, my dad, to his credit, was very, um, it was a great dad moment. He was like, uh, I think you should do it. I'm like, you think the sushi thing's a good idea? He's like, I think it's a terrible idea. Why do you think I should do it? He goes, because look at you like you're so switched on now.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:55Shaan Puri?

  He's like, you know, I've seen you your whole life. You never used to be this way. You never used to just wake up. You never used to just like have this like this drive, this motivation, this like burst of energy. Like, look at you. You're like, working all the time now. You used to be lazy. You know, you're really excited about this. I could see you developing your speaking skills. Like, I could see you developing skills. I could see you like really switched on. You seem energized like. And he had this great phrase. He goes, um, a lot of times in life, we want to have the right direction first. Wouldn't it be nice if we knew exactly which way to go? But life is not like that. It's like you're standing on a beach. It's foggy outside. You want to get to paradise, but you don't know where it is. You can't see, you can't see through the fog.

• 32:37Shaan Puri?

  So he's like, you have two options. Either you just stand there and wait for the fog to magically clear. And then suddenly you could see is paradise that way or that way? Or you take your little crappy boat and you start paddling and as you get out there, you might see it. You might see it's oh, it's not this way. It's actually that way. He's like, and guess what? Once you're in motion, it's a lot easier to change direction.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:58Shaan Puri?

  Like, people think it's really hard to change direction. No, you have momentum. You can actually shift course very easily if you see a better place to go. So he said, um, you know, sometimes life is about motion, not direction. And he goes, I don't think this is the right direction per se. Like, I don't think you're going to create the next Chipotle.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  You're getting in that boat.

• 33:15Shaan Puri?

  I don't think you should be going into the restaurant industry. But I can see so much motion that I'm sure you'll figure out the direction like.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  At some point.

• 33:23Shaan Puri?

  At some point.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  It's better off than standing on the beach.

• 33:25Shaan Puri?

  Totally right. That was like a really wise thing for him to do.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a beautiful phrase. I think most people probably, um, I think, I think actually in life, the scariest thing is standing there. And then realizing like 80, 90 years later, like shit, I didn't move at all.

• 33:37Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, yeah, I'm just, I just sat down actually. And like, you know, I just stayed here.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, so enjoyed the sand.

• 33:43Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 33:45Shaan Puri?

  All right, let's take a quick break because I gotta tell you a story. Let me tell you about the first time I tried to run payroll for my team. I was using a traditional bank and you know the type. It's got a janky interface. It's built like a 2002 tax form and it was open only during business hours. And I hit send and it froze. They flagged the transaction, they locked my account, they put me on hold for 45 minutes. And then they told me I gotta visit my local branch. And that was the day I started looking for a new banking solution. After asking a few founders what they were using, I found out about Mercury. And so now my payroll is two clicks. I can wire money, I can pay invoices, I can reimburse the team, all from one clean dashboard. That's why I use it for all of my companies and so do 200,000 other startup founders. And so if you're looking to level up your banking, head to mercury.com and apply in minutes. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank.

• 34:28Shaan Puri?

  Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group, call them NA and Evolve Bank and Trust, members FDIC.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  When you, when you were selling your company, when you, when you were selling Bebo, was that like, you know, when you, that was sort of a little bit of a change, not a big change in direction, right? How did you go about in that process? I imagine that would be quite hard. You know, you're, you're making a pretty big decision to try and sell this company. You know, maybe you realize you don't want to be doing this specific project anymore. Sort of when you're working on a project and you're starting to feel like, okay, it's time to change direction to get to that path, like what was that process like for you? And what sort of things happened to, to make you come to that realization?

• 35:08Shaan Puri?

  Well, I was lucky to have a very good friend, my buddy Suli. He, we were out at a casino down here in South San Francisco, it was like Chinese casino, basically. It's like a bunch of like Degeneration playing like Pai Gao or something. And then, and then there was us. And we're playing and then you're like, whatever, this is, we're done. We go to the like buffet area or whatever, just sitting at the buffet like 1 a.m. And he'd said to me something, he was like, um,

• 35:34Shaan Puri?

  he just said like, I forgot how we got there, but he goes, I don't get what you're doing. And I was like, what do you mean? It's pretty clear. He's my very good friend. Like, you know, you know exactly what I'm doing. I talk to you about this all the time. He's like, no, I just, I just don't get it. Yeah. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, no, I still get the whole thing. I was like, what? What, like, you know, not just like at one part of our strategy, like the whole thing? And on the surface, what I had looked really great. Which is kind of one of those like inner voice versus external perception. We had probably the nicest office in San Francisco, because my main funder, like the guy who basically was funding the lab, was like a billionaire. So he had like the nicest office in San Francisco. We had a private chef. We had a masseuse on Fridays. We had a bar built into the office.

• 36:15Shaan Puri?

  We had everything that you would want. It was designed by this guy, Ken Folk, who's like this fancy guy. So if you walked in, you'd be like, wow, these guys are super successful. This is going great. Who wouldn't want to work here? It's paradise. All my coworkers were super smart. So I had a great team, great office, great team. Well, you must be constrained or not letting your, you know, your wings fly. No, no, total freedom. Well, you must not have the resources to fund your strap, right? No, no, no. Blank check. Yeah. Fund as much as you want. Well, what's the problem? And so I'm like, what do you mean you don't get it? I have paradise. Yeah. Well, what don't you get? And he's like, well, like, you've been there for six years. And you're the project you're working on right now, it just seems like it's not like gonna hit in the way you want it to hit.

• 36:57Shaan Puri?

  It's also not gonna fail, where you'd be like, this is an obvious failure. It's like, okay. And he's like, I just don't get why you're working on something that's okay. And so we, as we started talking, he was basically just like, you know, I think you, you came into this wanting one thing, and now you're so far in, you're doing this other thing? And I don't think you would be doing that thing had you not already be doing it. So what do you mean? He said, in physics, there's this concept of inertia, like the object in motion will stay in motion unless there's a force to resist it. He was that force that night. And I had just been this object in motion, staying in motion. And he goes, inertia's a bitch, dude. Like, you know, you will keep doing it because you're already doing it. Thought experiment.

• 37:38Shaan Puri?

  If the lab closed tomorrow, would you, is this business idea so good that you would tomorrow, pick up the phone, call the same people you're working with and say, let's do this same thing? Yeah. Of course, we're going to keep doing this. This is the best thing we could be doing. It's perfect for us. It's the juiciest opportunity. I don't want to be doing anything else. Yeah. And I was like, no way, right? I would call the same people, like I like the people, but we would definitely not work on this. Yeah. So then why are you doing it? Cause you're already doing it. It's like, oh, this is silly, right? And so, um, and you know, this is not a perfect test. Like, you know, you might always be like, this is, it's not saying this is the best opportunity out of all the trillions of possible things I could be doing in life. That's a little overwhelming.

• 38:22Shaan Puri?

  But if you know, like, no, I would probably say no, and I'd probably try to find something else. Then you know you're doing the wrong thing. Right. And so I realized I was doing the wrong thing. So how did we get to sell the company? So the next day I told him, quick at cutting this off. Next day I go and I talked to my co-founder, I say,

• 38:36Shaan Puri?

  I think we should

• 38:38Shaan Puri?

  call it. I was like, I think we should try to sell the company. And if you can't sell it, I think we should end the company. He's like, end the company? What are you talking about? I'm like, I just think we should be doing something else. What? I don't know. Something else. I need to shake it up. I was like, I didn't know anything more. I just knew I needed to shake it up. Long time had gone by, six years. I gave it like a long run. We'd done 10 different products. Some of them were doing good, some of them were doing bad. But like, I had like a lot of time trying this model with these people and this space. And I told him, I said, this idea that we're doing, we're only here because we just pivoted, pivoted, pivoted. I don't think this is the idea I would do tomorrow if I wasn't already doing it. Right. So I don't feel right about it. And I don't want to just pivot again for the 11th time. Like, I'd rather just get a clean slate. I went to the investor and I said, hey, give me 45 days to try to sell this company.

• 39:22Shaan Puri?

  Oh, sorry. I said, give me 30 days to try to sell this company.

• 39:27Shaan Puri?

  Or you could just like have it. I'll walk away. You could take all my equity. You could decide what you want to do with it. He's like, okay.

• 39:34Shaan Puri?

  And then we ended up selling the company 45 days later, which was like absurd. Like you don't, you don't sell. Well, there was still diligence afterwards, but like 45 days to a signed definitive agreement.

• 39:46Shaan Puri?

  Is pretty, pretty fast, but kind of once I had that, that intention, you know, I really went for it.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  I think that's, you know, I think Steve Jobs famously asks himself every day, like looks himself in the mirror and says, do I want to, this is my last day, would I still be doing? And if there's enough days in a row where he said, no, like he'd make a change. It's sort of similar to the question Sully asked you like, what, you know, what are you doing?

• 40:05Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Yeah. Would you be doing this if you weren't already doing that?

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:09Shaan Puri?

  I think that's just like a very simple way of looking at it.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:11Shaan Puri?

  You know, and I think if that answer is not a, I think it should be a hell. Yes. As the ideal. And maybe you say, maybe you're just a couple tweaks away. Like, yeah, it would be a hell. Yes. But I hate my commute or it would be a hell. Yes. But I want to stretch my wings and start growing in this other way, too.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:28Shaan Puri?

  That's fine.

• 40:29Speaker 01

  Those are tweaks.

• 40:30Shaan Puri?

  Whatever the answer is, it's the answer.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:32Shaan Puri?

  But, you know, I think asking the question is the more important thing, you know? Elon has this thing about like, how do you do it, dude? How do you, what's your engineering process? How do you build such rockets and electric cars and giant super GPU clusters, blah, blah, blah? And one of his core principles is the biggest waste of time is doing something well that needn't have been done at all. And I think that's true for everybody's life. Like you're the biggest risk you have is spending your life trying to do a really good job at the wrong thing.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:01Shaan Puri?

  Thing you don't even want to be doing, or you shouldn't be doing in the first place.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's, that's sort of bringing me to this thing where, you know, being okay, or having this place in life, right? Where you've got this business where it's, it's okay. It's kind of like not where you'd want it to be, but it's, it's not the end of the world. Like that's potentially more dangerous than anything else. Like I talked to Ben Wilson about this, you know, you'd rather blame out than burnout. You would rather go all in, go for the thing you really want to do than, than burning out. How did you, you know, you've, you've talked a little bit about it.

• 41:28Shaan Puri?

  Mediocrity is the real.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 41:29Shaan Puri?

  For any person with high potential, failure is not the risk. The risk is you get stuck in something that's just okay.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:36Shaan Puri?

  For too long, because it'll sap you, sap your will, sap your time, sap your resources, slap your energy, sap your belief in yourself.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:42Shaan Puri?

  Over time, failing, it's a bit of a quick and painful thing, but it's over and you bounce back. It's, and it keeps your most precious asset, your time.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:51Shaan Puri?

  Still at your disposal. It's the thing that's just okay. That is going to take all your time away.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:57Shaan Puri?

  You don't want that.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, it's against your point, like for inertia, like, you know, usually the thing that is mediocre, you're in it just because you're doing it.

• 42:03Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Or put differently, some, I forgot who said this, some, whatever, someone said. For anybody who's sufficiently smart, the biggest cost is opportunity cost.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:13Shaan Puri?

  So, once you know that, that your biggest cost is not your taxes or your expenses, it's your opportunity cost, then you gotta think about that.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. When you're, when you're choosing to do a project now, you know, you're optimizing it for a lot of, a lot more different things than earlier on. What sort of trade offs to your point, like opportunity cost, like what do you look at now? And yeah.

• 42:35Shaan Puri?

  I have a very simple rule now. Am I doing this for a result or am I doing this because I like doing it? So I no longer will do something for an X, for some future payoff. Not saying I don't want to make money in the future or that those things can't happen. It's that, am I doing it? Am I suffering today for some better future? Or am I doing today where the, the reward is doing?

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Thing.

• 42:58Shaan Puri?

  Reward is doing the thing.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:00Shaan Puri?

  Right? The work has to be the win.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:02Shaan Puri?

  The win can't be some future, future hypothetical payoff of some work that I wouldn't have otherwise wanted to do.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:08Shaan Puri?

  Because if you do it that way, then you win-win, right? You for sure win by doing it. And you might win double, triple, 10x from some result. But if you do it the other way, where you're just doing things opportunistically, and I know this because I spent 10 years doing things only for like, ooh, if this worked, it'd be amazing. But then when it doesn't work, which most of the time, things don't work, it's like, damn, that's kind of a, not a waste totally, but like.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  But it feels like that.

• 43:34Shaan Puri?

  I wasn't, you know, I was basically not enjoying myself to the extent that I could have been. Again, the opportunity cost. The opportunity cost, I could have just been working on something that the work itself was super rewarding. The act of doing it was, was the reward and not the future payoff.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  Do you think if you had a focus on that earlier on, you still would have gotten to the point where you are now? Where like, say you're, you're, you know, you're doing the sushi restaurant and it ends up not working out, but then you pick something else consistently each time where like, I don't care what any of those things, like this is just a project I'm doing because it seems curious, but it might not make any money or things like that. Do you still think you'd be in this position or?

• 44:08Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I think I'd be further ahead.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Yeah?

• 44:10Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  That's awesome. Just because you would have figured out.

• 44:12Shaan Puri?

  You never know, right?

• 44:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:13Shaan Puri?

  It's impossible to say. You don't, you don't have the, the, you can't run the A B test on life. But

• 44:18Speaker 01

  Maybe for a good, maybe that's the way it's supposed to be.

• 44:21Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I just, I mean, I think I still would be the guy I am today. I think I would just be, I think I would have found the things that are more enjoyable to me.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  Earlier.

• 44:30Shaan Puri?

  Which would have made, it's a very, it's a flywheel, right? Because you enjoy it, you do it all the time. Because you do it all the time, you get really good at it. Because you get really good at it, you do get the results.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:39Shaan Puri?

  That's the flywheel. So, you know, but if you don't really enjoy the thing, then you only work on it to the extent that you have the motivation or willpower to do it, or energy that you force yourself to do it. Then you only get so good at it. And because you're only so, so good at it,

• 44:54Shaan Puri?

  you know, you get it, you get a so, so result.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. There's no flywheel.

• 44:57Shaan Puri?

  There's no flywheel.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  No.

• 44:58Shaan Puri?

  So I'm a believer in that flywheel. And I think if I just started doing that when I was, you know, I did it at points of time, not, not like I did it none. I didn't do it zero, but if I had been all in on that, I think it would have been, yeah, further ahead.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. You, you've written a blog about not working hard. Like, that's actually working hard is overrated. Do you think applying that principle back? I know, I know we can't A B test life, like just looking back. Do you think if you had applied that principle, you would have found those things quicker? Like the things that were you pushed out?

• 45:27Shaan Puri?

  There's a few different ideas.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:29Shaan Puri?

  Working hard is overrated.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 45:30Shaan Puri?

  That doesn't mean it's useless.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:32Shaan Puri?

  All right. Okay. It's a big difference. So overrated means when successful people talk and like, what's the key? Like hard work. Why do they say that?

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Sounds good.

• 45:41Shaan Puri?

  Sounds good. It also sounds like we all had an equal shot. I just worked harder. Right? It's a decision that you made. They, yeah, my dad was a billionaire, but like it was hard work. They got me there, right? Like, you can, you can use hard work gives you a lot of air cover.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:55Shaan Puri?

  It's the can't, can't disagree. Who can disagree with that?

• 45:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:59Shaan Puri?

  Me, basically, I'm the only guy who disagrees with that. So, so I think hard work is overrated. Probably maybe the fourth or fifth most important variable. You know, I think the very first one is project selection and choosing what you, what you work on is far more important than how hard you work. I know this because I've worked in the restaurant industry. And picking the restaurant industry, it doesn't matter how hard you work, you're quite limited and, and like, you know, your, your results, your outcomes and, and what your life is going to be like.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:25Shaan Puri?

  So what you work on matters a lot. Who you work with matters a ton. Then I would say there's like, you know, sort of the third, fourth, fifth, right? Timing, luck, there's other, other variables of which hard work is one of those. So maybe it's three, maybe it's four, maybe it's five.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:39Shaan Puri?

  That's what I've seen.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's awesome.

• 46:42Shaan Puri?

  I do think, by the way, the one thing hard work's good at is it's good at developing skill.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:46Shaan Puri?

  And it's good about being serious. So like when you're in your twenties, it's easy to throw hours at the problem. You don't have good judgment, so whatever, spend more time.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:57Shaan Puri?

  As you get, as you have less time, because you get older, you have more, you have kids, you have less energy, whatever. Your judgment's got to make up for your lack of time that you're willing to throw at the problem now. So I think early on, like, I wouldn't have, it's not like I would have just like done nothing. That's not what I would, that's not what I mean by like, you know, hard work's overrated. I would have just been really intentional with project selection, about people selection, who I work with. And then lastly, like, you know, I would work hard and I'd focus on the skill building part of working hard. Cause most projects fail, but the skills stick with you.

• 47:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:27Shaan Puri?

  Like my sushi thing failed, but randomly while we were doing that, we were blogging and making like video content. Like I learned, I learned After Effects, I learned iMovie, I learned Photoshop, just enough to be dangerous. I'm not great at it, but those served me really well when I went into Silicon Valley and I could actually like mock things up myself, send it to the designer.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:43Shaan Puri?

  Like the skill stuck with me, the project had left me behind.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:46Shaan Puri?

  So I think skill building is really important.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  And also in that case, you can apply the skills to things that you would have been more naturally interested in doing anyway, right? Like I think, you know, you mentioned those skills you've built up.

• 47:56Shaan Puri?

  Once I pick a better project.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:58Shaan Puri?

  I still got that skill.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Exactly. And you did this, you did this exact same thing when you applied to Monkey Inferno. Like you probably applied a lot of those skills in the way you actually got that job.

• 48:06Shaan Puri?

  Totally, totally. And like, you know, I think, so I think that's the, I forgot, somebody said this, I think it was, who was it that said the, the skill, uh, mash, oh, Derek Sivers said this, he goes, I think skills are the most valuable thing because they can't be inherited. They can't be bought. They can't be taken away from you.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:25Shaan Puri?

  Like it can only be earned and um. Seinfeld kind of says the same thing, basically like skill is really the thing worth having.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:32Shaan Puri?

  Of all the things like the skill is the thing.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Like what could you choose?

• 48:34Shaan Puri?

  You want. Yeah, like what could you choose? You can choose like more resources. You could choose whatever you could choose achievements, but like skill is the thing. It's mastery of a thing is is the thing you really want.

• 48:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:44Shaan Puri?

  It's the key that unlocks infinite number of doors.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  Right, right. I think this is also something to be said for going that extra mile and trying to acquire the skills. Like there is such a surface area of luck that increases when you do that. Like, you know, you can open up an ability to do something else. You didn't even know was an option just because you've unlocked this skill and interest.

• 49:03Shaan Puri?

  Totally. We have this company we invested in.

• 49:07Shaan Puri?

  I don't know if I should say the name, maybe I shouldn't. I won't say the name.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:09Shaan Puri?

  The founder used to work in like a e-commerce, D to C brands. Small DC brands you've never heard of. Just kind of like, there's like two worlds, like tech, Silicon Valley, where you raise millions in venture capital. And you hire the best people and you you go for a billion dollar outcome. And then there's like e-commerce dudes who like basically you like you're on Alibaba. And then you have like a where your mom is your warehouse at the beginning and you're like dropshipping. And you're trying to figure out like Google ads and Facebook ads and TikTok. So like usually those two worlds are very separate.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:39Shaan Puri?

  This guy hopped from one to the other, like, you know, like, this is how COVID started, like from the bat to like humans or whatever. That's what that's what he did. So what he did was he developed in e-comm. This like marketing skill around paid ads. When he went to um, when he started this venture backed company, that's a B to B software company. Most of the guys in there are like a somewhere between a zero out of 10 to a six out of 10 at paid ads.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:04Shaan Puri?

  Like, you know, who like people who are great at paid ads, there are people who are like, you know, affiliate marketers and e-comm people. They are dialed in. They know how to do that.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 50:13Shaan Puri?

  So he took that and he did it there. He took that skill and he transferred it like just today, they raised basically like. 300, 400 million dollar valuation within two years. And the reason why they're growing so fast is because he cut his teeth doing e-comm, you know, like digital ads, Google, Facebook ads. And he took that over here and he's like, this is like shooting fish in a barrel. Like now I have the super sticky product with a high price point. You know, instead of selling a widget for 20 bucks in e-comm, I'm selling a $20,000 recurring revenue contract.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:44Shaan Puri?

  But it's the same thing and nobody here knows how to do paid ads at the level I do.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:48Shaan Puri?

  So this is great.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:50Shaan Puri?

  And so, you know, that skill can like, once you apply it to a better project can be a huge multiplier.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  Right. Do you think project selection as a skill is also something that that builds over time?

• 51:00Shaan Puri?

  If you're intentional about it, yeah, like, of course. Most people don't, right? Most like, I don't think most people really even know the word project selection, to be honest. Like, how many times have you even said that to yourself?

• 51:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:10Shaan Puri?

  Probably zero. People think about industries, they think about careers, but like, just atomic unit is a project. That's like, yeah, thing you're gonna do. And I think picking projects and picking partners both have this huge like change in like your outcome. And very few people know anything about how to pick good partners. Very people know anything about how to pick good projects, but you can, of course, do those well. Those are our skills.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  And pay attention to and learn.

• 51:36Shaan Puri?

  If you're intentional about it.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. I want to talk about two things that are really interesting. One, well, interesting to me, I hope they're interesting. On the project selection side things, I, you, you once called me when I went to go work with you again, instead of taking a sales job to go help you guys with clips for MFM and things like that. And it didn't end up panning out, but you know, the decision I had at the time was like, hey, go, go do this sales job, you know, earn like 12 grand a month, which, you know, I'm like 22, I'm 21, I'm like, that's insane amount of money, but I don't need that money. And you said something to me that I still remember to this day. I was, I was outside because I'm eight, nine hours ahead and it was dark. And you said, you know, dude, you just want to be another sales guy. And I heard that I was like, no, you know, like, I don't want to be that.

• 52:16Shaan Puri?

  Spitting on you.

• 52:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's like, how dare you?

• 52:20Shaan Puri?

  Spit on you through Slack.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. I felt it. I felt it. You know, because of that, like, I don't know if we'd ever even be here now because of that decision, right? So there's so many things downstream of that project selection that I think are so important. How? How do you lean?

• 52:36Shaan Puri?

  Was I right, by the way? Did that work out for you?

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude, I'm.

• 52:39Shaan Puri?

  Happy with that?

• 52:39Speaker 01

  I'm loving it. Like, you know, I still don't know exactly where I'm going, but like, I'm in such a better spot.

• 52:43Shaan Puri?

  Your gut tells you I've moved in the right direction.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 52:46Shaan Puri?

  Doesn't mean it has to have played out yet.

• 52:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:48Shaan Puri?

  But this was right, right? You know, like, your gut is very strong at telling you that.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel like I would have been at that beach had I said no and like stayed on that job. And now I'm like, you know, out here doing things, I'm less enough to be able to talk to you guys here, right? So that's not something that would have happened otherwise.

• 53:03Shaan Puri?

  That's cool.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I appreciate that.

• 53:05Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 53:07Speaker 01

  You mentioned, you know, project selection is really important, but the other most important thing is who you're doing things with.

• 53:13Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  Right?

• 53:14Shaan Puri?

  That was a mistake you made. I offered you a role.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:16Shaan Puri?

  I was like, you should come work with me. You're gonna learn a lot more. You're gonna do some shit.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:20Shaan Puri?

  You went on your own, which is always good for skill building. You'd probably, I would say, built a wider set of skills.

• 53:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:25Shaan Puri?

  Because when you're on your own, you gotta do everything.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:28Shaan Puri?

  But you didn't opt into a network.

• 53:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:31Shaan Puri?

  This is the other thing I've been learning a lot.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:32Shaan Puri?

  Not to hijack your question.

• 53:33Speaker 01

  No, it's great.

• 53:34Shaan Puri?

  We just did a podcast with James Creer. Do you know him?

• 53:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:37Shaan Puri?

  Network of.

• 53:37Speaker 01

  Maybe explain to.

• 53:39Shaan Puri?

  Sure, James is like a Silicon Valley OG. He runs this fund called NFX, like a 1.2 billion dollar fund.

• 53:48Shaan Puri?

  Has sold, has built multiple companies, sold them, basically like never lost a dollar for investors like in 30 years.

• 53:53Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 53:54Shaan Puri?

  So it's like, all right, great. He's somebody I learned a lot from and he's like somebody I consider like a mentor to me. And he, he's big on networks. Everything he talks about is networks, networks. I was like, it's like annoying. He's like, dude, James, I get it. Like, you know, hey, can you pass the cheese? He's like, is it part of the network? It's like, all right, dude, just give me the cheese. So he, he talks about this like with, with very simple example is like, you know, where you choose to go to college. That's a network you're joining.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:18Shaan Puri?

  You're not just joining a college, you're joining.

• 54:20Speaker 01

  The alumni and.

• 54:21Shaan Puri?

  Harvard alumni network. Or and some networks are really powerful and some networks are pretty weak. When you move to San Francisco, you're joining the San Francisco network and you'll start to network in there and you'll connect with a bunch of nodes.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:31Shaan Puri?

  And some of those nodes will lead to more opportunities. And so you might say, I don't want to move to San Francisco. The rent is $2,000 more. But that one, but being in that network is worth much more than that rent, right? Or the taxes, right? He talks about how like moving away just for taxes.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  It's the worst reason.

• 54:47Shaan Puri?

  Decision because yeah, you saved 10%. Well, you lost out on a 10x, 10x more money you would have made just by staying in the like. The white hot center of the tech and AI network is so much more valuable. If you're good.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:02Shaan Puri?

  If you're bad, you're not going to get any value out of it. But if you're good, you should be in good networks.

• 55:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:06Shaan Puri?

  And so I think this is something that people, I did wrong. I think other people do it wrong, which I think you did it wrong in this situation, which is if you have a chance to opt into a better network.

• 55:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 55:17Shaan Puri?

  It's almost always worth more than the incremental dollar, especially the earlier in your career. Cause you're going to have more time for that to compound.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 55:24Shaan Puri?

  Uh, right. Like the, the actual network value to compound. And so I think that that's a mistake that I probably made early on that I didn't really recognize. And as I've talked to James, I've recognized that more and more, how valuable that is.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, that to our early conversations, probably a mistake I'm making now, even just being in Europe still. No, no, no offense to, to Europe, but you know, it is much worse. Um, I, I, let's, let's stay on this a little bit actually before going into, to find like co-founders and things like that. Cause that's like a little bit more.

• 55:49Shaan Puri?

  By the way, we should say one thing.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:50Shaan Puri?

  You can win anywhere.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 55:51Shaan Puri?

  You can win on your own. You can win in any industry. You can win in the restaurant industry. You could win it anytime we're knocking these, it's not because that thing is so fatally flawed. It's just, you want to make things easier, not harder. You want to increase your probabilities of success, not decrease them.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:04Shaan Puri?

  That's what we mean with one, it's better or worse.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:06Shaan Puri?

  Uh, it's generally just like, either it's more fun, it's easier, or it increases your probability.

• 56:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:12Shaan Puri?

  Of course there's always outliers and exceptions and you can be one of them and more power to you.

• 56:15Speaker 01

  But it's, it's trade-offs, right? And it's to your point earlier, where like, if you're surrounded by five people who go to the gym, chances are you're going to get ripped.

• 56:21Shaan Puri?

  Increase your odds.

• 56:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:22Shaan Puri?

  It's not a guarantee.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:24Shaan Puri?

  And you could have, of course, done it surrounded by other people.

• 56:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:26Shaan Puri?

  But why not increase your odds?

• 56:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:27Shaan Puri?

  Why not make things easier on yourself?

• 56:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:29Shaan Puri?

  There's no bonus points for doing everything the hard way.

• 56:32Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 56:32Shaan Puri?

  For, for making your odds worse, you know, like why?

• 56:35Speaker 01

  I could, good for you, but.

• 56:37Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. What's the point?

• 56:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. What, what other things were being in a network and just in general, like I, I think being in a network as well and self-selecting for that. It's like a function where, you know, if, if you're, even a small bad example, maybe like if, if there's a subreddit for a specific basketball team and you join that and you're very active then, you're self-selecting for a community. Sort of the same thing, um, on Twitter or, you know, what content you're listening to and following, as well as which city you go to. What, what are some like other examples of that outside of like moving proximity wise? Like that you can, they can self-select to.

• 57:10Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. I mean, you just named it, your info diet.

• 57:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 57:13Shaan Puri?

  I know a lot of people that aren't on Twitter. Are you opted out of that network or they're not on TikTok, whatever.

• 57:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:18Shaan Puri?

  These are networks you're opting into within them, there's sub-networks, right? Subclusters. So your info diet, right? Like the same way, you know, there's these economic studies, right? Your income will end up being roughly the average of the five people you hang out with the most. Well, it's the same thing for ideas or thoughts, right? Like you're, you're going to average in, you're going to dollar cost average into the thoughts of that, that, that network that you're in.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 57:41Shaan Puri?

  So whether it's the content you consume, if you consume the same content as everybody else, you're probably going to have the same thoughts as everybody else. If you hang out with the same people, you're going to end up with the same people, right? Like, if you want to make some changes or you want to have differentiation of some kind, you should probably differentiate your info diet. You should probably differentiate, you know, the people you hang out with or your, what you do with your free time. Like, those are the simplest, you know, thing, those are the things that are upstream of a bunch of the results people want downstream.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  Right. To the network selection.

• 58:10Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 58:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's, yeah, that's, that's a tough one.

• 58:15Shaan Puri?

  Why is that?

• 58:16Speaker 01

  I, I feel like this, back to your point earlier of like what your role, like you're going in this direction inertia, you know, you're only doing it because you're doing it. Like, if you're really honest with yourself, like which networks do you want to select into? And I, I think probably, you know, if you stop, bad example, right? You, you stop listening to TikTok, you stop watching TikTok, right? And everyone you know is telling you like, hey, Sean, I just saw this new TikTok. You're like, oh, I, I don't watch TikTok, man. I don't know about that. Like, I think that plays into lots of other aspects of your life where you have to be very intentional about it. Cause otherwise you're, you're going to get overwhelmed and sort of not make that decision. So I think it's, it, it plays into your life more, in more ways than, than one might think, like even your info diet.

• 58:55Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's true. I mean, I'm, and look, if you love a thing, do it. It's like, if you don't, or you're just like, you're open minded.

• 59:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:03Shaan Puri?

  Maybe you like reading books more, right? Maybe you like doing certain, certain other things, right? Like, maybe you just pick up a different hobby that opts you into a different network.

• 59:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:12Shaan Puri?

  Right? Like, I know a lot of people that do jiu jitsu. And jiu jitsu is, it's exercise, but it's different than the elliptical. You're going to work out a different way. You're going to develop a skill. You're going to be in a part of a community. You're going to build your toughness.

• 59:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 59:22Shaan Puri?

  You're going to learn the mental resilience. You're going to learn about like leverage. You're going to learn so many things.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:27Shaan Puri?

  Out of that same hour of exercise.

• 59:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:28Shaan Puri?

  Like, so some people will try that because it's going to get you a different result than maybe, you know, that hour on the elliptical at, you know, level seven.

• 59:37Speaker 01

  In yourself, just do you and yourself.

• 59:39Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, yes, you and yourself, exactly.

• 59:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, let's, let's talk about the final thing in terms of network. You've mentioned.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  Project selection, we've talked about is very important, but also people selection and partner selection. You've often talked about Warren Buffett's sort of framework for it, and you've got a good one for it as well in terms of choosing who to work with and potentially even just doing project with, right? Like, so if you've got a company A and B that are the exact same, but they've got different people working, they're like, how do you figure out what types of people you want to be around? Talk to me about your selection framework for that.

• 1:00:10Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Okay. So Buffett has a great one on this, which is you select for energy, intelligence and integrity. Right? Those are the three legs of the stool.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:20Shaan Puri?

  If they have the energy and intelligence, but no integrity, great, they're a smart crook. The stool falls over, right? If you have the energy and the integrity, but no intelligence, you're not going to really get anywhere, right? So you get the idea.

• 1:00:34Shaan Puri?

  I learned for myself, there's a fourth thing that really, really mattered, which is that having somebody who's down. And I don't know a better word for this. I just called it down because that's the way I would describe them. Like, it's great. He's down. And down meant a couple of different things. It's a, they're down to try it. So they'll take a half baked idea and be like, yeah, let's give it a shot. I need that. And I think great things come from being around people who are down.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:57Shaan Puri?

  I think they're down for adventure. So like when we could choose a safe path or a more interesting story path, they're down for that and they'll lean that way with me.

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:06Shaan Puri?

  I think they're, they're down to like buckle down and just grind and just do something that's hard for a while. Like they're not going to run away from pain or difficulty. So down means a bunch of different things to me. And that's the best way I can explain it is having somebody who's down. For me, that's almost the sort of the highest priority bit. Everything else is sort of secondary to that.

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. You've talked about when you met Ben, you know, your ultimate partner right now, where he had a SaaS that was doing, I think a million dollars a year in profit. He had an objectively great position and he sort of took, he was down enough to go on this random side project with you. Is there anything you can tell, you know, talk to us about Ben and sort of bring those three aspects you just mentioned to life?

• 1:01:48Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, Ben's the most down, right? Like he's, you said it perfectly. He had a business doing a million dollars a year in profit at the time. And I was like, hey, you want to spend your time doing like this random unknown thing with me that I think, I think it's gonna be pretty fun. I think it could be interesting.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:02Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I'm down. All right. Okay, cool. I don't really know exactly what it is. I have this rough idea. You down with that? Yeah, I'm down. Like I'm down to not, I don't need it all figured out.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:02:11Shaan Puri?

  Okay, cool. We ended up doing this thing that for 90 days was like really intense. This is full on, I'm down, right? And he just carried on. Then we switched and we did the next thing, the next thing. And we've done probably five or six different things together, maybe more seven at this point. Every single one of them has been super fun. Every one of them has worked. It's been a pleasure to work with them and that's a big reason why.

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's so amazing. Let's, let's go and start wrapping this up a little bit in terms of your story. Let's talk about 2025. On the podcast, you guys have talked about this, this thing called Misoji. Can you explain what that is and then tell me, do you have one for 2025?

• 1:02:45Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, sure. Misoji, Misoji, I think is this concept, Jesse Itzler came on the podcast and talked about it. It's a every year be a little, be intentional with your time. So it's very easy for one year to blend into the next. Time flies, time flies because you're in a routine and that routine is often filled.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  Inertia.

• 1:03:03Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, inertia. It's just filled with Zoom calls and errands and, you know, weekly stand ups with your, with, with random people. So that's going to happen by default. If you want anything else to happen, you got to do something about it. I agree with him and he has this like intense like way of planning out your year. We did a podcast with him, you can go see it on YouTube, Jesse Itzler, how to have a big 2025. And one, one of the central things, this idea of a Misoji, one grand challenge for the year. A year defining thing that you will do. That is both hard and rewarding and memorable for you and meaningful to you. And so for some people, that's like do an Ironman or climb Everest or whatever, whatever their thing is. So that's the idea, that's the concept.

• 1:03:47Shaan Puri?

  Mine this year is to, it's not, doesn't sound like Everest, but it is important to me. I wanted to learn how to jam out on the piano. So I was like, I want to learn a new skill. I want to learn the piano. More specifically, I want to be able to jam out, meaning I want to be able to play the songs I want. I want to be able to play in like a dad band with other people. Like, I just think that would be a really fun aspect of my life to, to work in. And I want my life to be fun and I want it to be interesting. And I thought, look, I'm never gonna just have the time magically to do this. But I was like, yeah, well, yeah, that was the year that I like, I learned how to play the piano and I could do that for the rest of my life. I can be 80 years old, I could be playing the piano. And so, I thought, oh yeah, that'll be year defining. That'll be the year I decided to do that and I made it happen.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is going well.

• 1:04:32Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, it's going great so far. I'm doing my thing.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  That's amazing. I think I want to wrap it up by saying there's, I recently reread Paul Graham's How to Do Great Work and he says, no, it's similar to his phrasing for finding startup ideas. Like, don't, don't look for it. Um, just do things you're naturally interested in and, you know, do something where at the end of it, you'd say, that was pretty cool. I did that.

• 1:04:52Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  Um, I think that's a great way to choose your misogy as well. Like, you know.

• 1:04:55Shaan Puri?

  And I think he says, like, let interestingness be the filter.

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:04:58Shaan Puri?

  So is it interesting to you? And if it's interesting to you, then it's worth doing. You'll, you'll be excited while you're doing it. It'll be, it'll be worth doing just because it was interesting.

• 1:05:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:06Shaan Puri?

  But also interestingness, like what's interesting to you is not interesting universally.

• 1:05:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:05:10Shaan Puri?

  So he talks about like, it's also a good strategy because nobody can copy your taste profile.

• 1:05:15Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:05:15Shaan Puri?

  So if it's interesting to you, that's not gonna be interesting to everybody. So it's already gonna self-select out a bunch of other, filter out a bunch of other people. And secondly, um, if it's interesting to you, you're gonna do it all the time. Same, same, that flywheel I talked about, you're gonna do it all the time.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  Rule of a hundred.

• 1:05:29Shaan Puri?

  Therefore, therefore you're gonna get good at it. When you're good at it, you're gonna get a good result.

• 1:05:32Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:05:32Shaan Puri?

  So it's like, that's why he says, let that be the guide.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:35Shaan Puri?

  Because that, that will lead you to the most interesting place you can. And if the first one doesn't work, doesn't matter. You'll be, you'll have so much fun doing it. You'll just keep, you keep doing that. It'll eventually land in a good spot.

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it in, in, in and of itself, it'll still be fun.

• 1:05:47Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love it. I, I think that's it. I, I had a couple of hot fire ones, but I think, honestly, like leaving it on this such, such a high note, I think this, if I were to listen to this, I'm gonna keep listening to this on repeat. I think people are gonna be jacked up and, you know, ready to change their life after, after hearing that.

• 1:06:01Shaan Puri?

  All right, let's do it.

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  Awesome. All right. Thanks, Sean. Appreciate it, man.

• 1:06:14Sam Parr?

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