I chose to be broke for a year

0:00 The biggest risk you have is spending your life trying to do a really good job at the wrong thing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. For any person with high potential. 'Cause it'll sap you. Snap your will, sap your time, sap your resources, slap your energy, sap your belief in yourself. This is Sean Purie. 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. I know this because I spent ten years doing things only for like Ooh, if this work, it'd be amazing. The work has to be the win. Yeah.

0:31 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. 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. I think hard work is over and it's probably maybe the fourth or fifth most important variable. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I could be what I want to Alright, 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.

1:11 At this time. I'm the guest because my former intern, Walter, uh created his own podcast. He used to work for me when he was I don't know, eighteen, nineteen, twenty 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 on 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

1:33 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 gonna help a lot of people, specifically people who are 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. You had a great life.

2:00 Um seemingly. So why did you end up moving and what was that year of being strategically broke, right? Yeah. Strategically broke. That's what I called it. Yeah. I think most people just call it unemployed. Uh but why not? I I I put a luxury brand on it. So basically what happened is I graduate from college and I get a great job. I got a job paying me a hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year.

2:22 to go work in a boring industry that I knew nothing about, didn't really care about. Kind of Stumbled into a a a job that I thought was Too good of money to pass up. Yeah. So I go and I work for this guy.

2:35 And um 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 I th and it was a fork in the road because before I took that job, me and my friends had had this business idea. Uh, the idea was to create a sushi restaurant chain um called Sabi Sushi. It's the supposed to be the Chipotle of sushi. So

2:55 The way you have Subway for sandwiches and Chipotle for burritos. The idea was we were gonna do that for sushi. Okay. And we win this business plan competition. So on one hand, we get twenty five thousand dollars of prize money. that the three of us are gonna live on. Um

3:11 I could take this job for$120,000. So I take the job. Within a month, I'm like, this is lame. I just looked at my life and I was like, this is the I made a lame choice. Yeah. Um The good thing about me is I don't really make great decisions. But I make great reversals of decisions. Like once I realize that I have made the wrong decision, I'm not one to linger in it. Right. Um

3:33 Mostly because I just can't like tolerate it anymore. Like if I was dating somebody, I remember I was dating this girl and Realize like, all right, she ain't the one. Um I like just called her and broke up with a record. Oh, you know, ten minutes later after thinking about it. I was like I What am I supposed to do? If I go hang out with her now, this will be unbearable now that I've I know what I can't unsee what I've seen. I can't unknow what I know.

3:54 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, What? Uh, okay. So I fly back and I meet up with my friends and So we got twenty five grand, three people, so we're basically eight, eight thousand dollars each. Yeah. For to live for a year and um

4:16 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 and you get meals. Yeah, things just like happen. Uh I like my parents paid for the for the dorm or something. I pay up front. I just didn't understand. Like you don't know what it's like to pay rent bills and laundry and all that stuff. So I um I like how I threw laundry in there. It was like a dollar, dollar twenty five a week or something. So I don't really know even how much eight thousand is, but I know it's low, right? Because all of my friends got good jobs and nobody's making eight grand a year.

4:47 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. Yeah.

5:05 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. Yep.

5:22 I'm gonna be learning rich. So it's like how do I learn If I'm making ten times less, twelve times less here. I gotta be learning twelve times more than I would on the job there. Right. 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. Yeah. 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 L is, and I'm learning to pitch investors. Then we're negotiating a lease and I'm figuring out what how how real estate works. I'm looking at learning uh learning how

5:56 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 that 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 gonna pay this. She's like, No way. We we could never do that. You're all you are doing that in these four locations. So I know you could do that for us.

6:21 She was blown away. So we were just learning all these little things. Little uh little like core skills. So sales. Uh marketing. Brand building, design. We were editing videos. We were doing whatever it took. We're blogging. We were doing just random stuff, but

6:36 High high action. Yeah. And we just decided to have a shit ton of action and do it 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 up photo so you you see we can put one up there. Uh like we didn't even have a garbage hand. 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, and I would tutor kids and uh

7:14 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, twenty five, thirty bucks an hour. But I only were I I calculated like the minimum amount I need to earn. in order to have Max Freedom.

7:28 Which like now that I look back That was actually a very smart thing to do, even though I was very dumb at the time. And uh Darmesh, 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 I now I know the proper ways to do things. And he like screwed up that second business. 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 doesn't mean you're wrong on all of them, right? And you might actually got a bunch of things right. And I think

8:05 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.

8:15 The better thing to do is Optimized for freedom, optimized for learning, optimized for adventure and fun. Um 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

8:29 Like get to that thousand customers who love us. Or um 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, how what's the amount I need where I feel really good, but I get the most time I can have with my kids. And on my projects and working out and doing fun stuff I like to do. Yeah.

8:46 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 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 turn it into a free downloadable cheat sheet on my four rules of how to make money. Now. This is not, you know, get rich 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.

9:12 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. 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, to have it to actually reverse that decision. Um

9:38 So figuring that out early on that What do you mean by that? Like what's the have you found it hard to reverse decisions? Yeah, definitely. I think so. Like, you know, if you commit to something or example. So uh I I think, you know, um Uh moving moving to a place, right? Like so I I lived in San Francisco for a month a year ago. Um 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? Uh because I've got family at home, uh, my friends are there. uh, you know, it's it's hard to get a visa, things like this to keep me sort of from from moving. Uh 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. Yeah um So I I think uh may maybe I'm just speaking for myself here, but I think it's harder to to reverse those decisions. Yeah um Yeah, I think it is. I just wonder why. Like in your case.

10:26 I don't think you're a therapy session. 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. Um, but you probably have just like some fears holding it back. Like

10:41 I don't know what the fears are, but like maybe it's fear of leaving family behind or how you're gonna afford to live in a really expensive city or not know anybody I don't know what it is, but it's almost always fear. Right. Like if you just ask why often enough, you'll end up with like I'm afraid. Um, 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. Yeah. Or that's really stressful. Right. But if you say I'm afraid it's like what are you doing, you'll grow your baby, what's going on? But of course, stress is just the code word for for fear. Right. What do you what are you stressed out about? Things going wrong, things not happening. Okay, then what? Yeah. Then People won't like me. What? Then why you're just of ultimately you're afraid. You're afraid of rejection, you're afraid of embarrassing, you're afraid of humiliation, afraid of failure. It's one of those things. It's always underneath it.

11:29 And so Um I think you know, that r fear is what holds people back more so than anything else. Yeah. I think that's also why people don't reverse decisions, right? Because they're afraid of looking stupid or Yeah, looking stupid, or like, you know, what if I quit this job and the other thing's not better. Right. What if I break break up with this girl? But there's nobody else. The next person's not better.

11:47 Yeah. Or then I'm alone. And that's gonna suck. And I don't wanna feel that. Yeah. I'd rather live in pain than than uh go go towards an unknown. Yeah, you know, a take a known pain versus an unknown. Yeah um I think people get trapped up in those too much. I met Happy that that's not one of my

12:04 Like weaknesses. Yeah. I got my own, but that's not one of them. For me, at least. No, I love that. Yeah. I think Tim Ferris said like people would rather live in uh discomfort than un uncertainty. Um which I think is exactly what you just described. I I think And I'm the opposite, by the way. Yeah, there might be others, which is just like Discomfort sucks. Like oh no, like what if this sucks, like take me out of pain. Yeah. 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. But you're just honest about it. And that's hard. I I think what's really interesting as well is

12:37 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 sit 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. Um, I think the 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. Um So talk to me a little bit about that about that. And I also want to hear you talk about a story about one of your classmates. Uh you said this before, whose father, you know, had a great job, but you know, never saw saw his daughter. Yeah. Um 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?

13:31 Well, I think what you're talking about is this phrase proximity is power. Yeah. 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. Uh very true, by the way. Like you

13:50 L let's say you hang out with a bunch of people who are super into working out. Yeah. It doesn't matter if you didn't work out before. You're gonna be you're gonna end up working out. Right. 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 A biological cell osmosis. It's like the water will just cross the membrane. It'll just go, it'll flow in that direction.

14:11 Uh 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.

14:31 So That same principle is just true. No matter what your pursuit is. Um But I wanted to get

14:38 Good at playing poker. 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.

14:59 And they got better way faster than people who were not. It's like you can learn Spanish. On Duolingo. Right. You can learn Spanish. Um with a tutor. Or you can go move to You know, Mexico and you could live there for three months. Like which one's gonna work better? Total immersion. Yeah. And so proximity, getting near the thing you want.

15:19 Is um Is ironically an easier way to get what you want. It's like the the the easiest decision you can make. It's like, you know to move the needle the furthest in your progress bar is Just get around other people who already are doing the thing you want or have the thing you want or are also chasing the thing you want. That's that principle. That's why I moved to San Francisco.

15:37 I wanted to do startups. I was living in Australia at the time. Not many startups. There's not a lot of startups there. 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? No, he doesn't live here anymore. He's like, That happened three times. Hey, where where are all those guys? Where'd they move to? Yeah. They moved to San Francisco, of course. That's where the people who are serious about startups go. Right. Oh, the what the hell am I doing here? Right. And it feels weird to move. I was I gotta break a lease. I gotta I got I've I don't know anyone there, where am I gonna go? It's unknowns, right? But it's like all right, well

16:06 Am I serious about this or not? Yeah. And like I decided to be serious about it. Like, yeah, I want to do that. Okay. So I would literally change my phone number. Like a San Francisco area code. You mentally commit. Yeah. And I started telling people I'm moving to San Francisco. I had no plans yet. I didn't know anything. I moved to San Francisco. I started job hunting only in San Francisco.

16:25 I started looking up places, signed a lease, you know, 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. uh in order to make that happen. So I think that's the kind of proximity's power. um idea. Yeah. I I think you touched on something else as well as where Yeah.

16:42 If you want to go to San Francisco, like you know, you're both telling you like that's where all the serious people are who are interested in startups who actually want to do it. And you telling yourself like Or asking yourself that question, like, am I am I serious about this? Yeah. Like I think that's very underrated. Most people are not serious. No. This is actually like a really important point. Yeah. Most people are not serious. I'll tell you two stories around this. Um At that Tony Robbins event, they play this little game. They they do these little like kind of like warm ups before Tony comes out. Trying to get the crowd active, get you vibe so that you're ready to go.

17:10 So sometimes it's like uh the Hit a beach ball around, people are sometimes it's music, whatever. So they have this guy come out and he's like, We're gonna play a game. Uh uh Simon says. And

17:23 Just to set the scene. We're in an arena. There's ten thousand people in this arena. It's like a basketball, uh actual basketball arena. He has full. So ten thousand people all gonna play Simon Says. And he's Simon. So he says, stand up. All right, and he's like the winner is gonna come up on stage and get something special.

17:39 All right, cool. Winner out of ten thousand people. So He starts. That was the first one. He's like, All right, everybody. You know, stand up. Everybody stands up. You're out.

17:51 And he's just eliminating like tons of people really quickly. And by the you know, within ten 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, you are the the final five. He's like, You're the five out of ten thousand people who are at the end here. Yeah.

18:10 And he g 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. I really wanted to win. Yeah, I thought I was gonna win. Um No, I wouldn't have imagined it, but you know, here here I am, one one guy was like that, right?

18:27 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 y he asked the question, then he goes to the audience, he goes Raise your hand if you actually believed you were gonna win.

18:42 Almost nobody raises their hand. Like maybe fifty people out of ten thousand. Yeah. Nothing. And he goes. You know The five people on stage, it looks like you're competing with 10,000 people.

18:52 You're not. You were actually only competing with these fifty. You got a one in ten chance of getting on stage, not a one in ten thousand. And um

19:01 I I remember that really stuck with me. By the way, there's like loser YouTube comment type of people who are like 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. Yeah. Most people are not trying to seriously do anything. And if you are serious, you're already in that final like

19:25 We know five out of fifty type of type of format. And you got a one in ten chance. And so like your odds are much better than you think. I'll give you a second story that supports us. We've become friends with um 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 a studio.

19:44 All these YouTubers just come like almost like a Mecca, like a pilgrimage to just like honor him. They just come just to see it, right? And they come and they and they're always Jimmy, you know, like, hey, you got a few minutes? I'd love to just talk talk to you about my channel. If you give me any advice. Yeah. How to grow my channel. Any advice on how I can be successful on 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. Anything in secret, right? So everything he's doing is visible for you. Every single video is public. Yeah.

20:12 Uh, but okay, beyond that, um, and by the way, that's from the beginning of time. Like you can see all of his videos. Yeah, 10 years ago, you can see his videos. Um And so we said, Well, and he says the same thing to him every time. And he goes Here's what you wanna you wanna be you wanna win? Yeah. You wanna be successful on the YouTube? Yeah, absolutely.

20:29 Okay, here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna make a hundred videos. The like hundred videos? Yeah, you're gonna make a hundred 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.

20:41 A better caption. A better outro, better music, better pacing, better editing, better whatever. Um One thing every time for a hundred videos. Just do that.

20:51 And when you're done with the hundred Come talk to me. I'm gonna tell you exactly what you need to do next. 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.

21:01 W what do you mean? He's like Well, he's like nobody is willing to do a hundred videos. Right. They all wanna be Mr. V's. I don't want to They don't want to be Jimmy who started doing videos when he was twelve. Yeah. And at thirteen, nobody, fourteen, nobody watched, fifteen, nobody watched, fifteen, nobody watched. Sixteen. Is anyone ever gonna watch? Seventeen, still nobody watching, eighteen, oh my God, a couple of people watched, 19, finally somebody watched.

21:22 Seven years. Through hell, right? Like so it's like Nobody's willing to do Even a hundred videos, let alone seven years. And he's like

21:30 And by the way. For the very few people, the kind of that one percent of people who are serious and do it. It's like By the time they get to 100, they don't need me, dude. They're flying. They they forgot about 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 a hundred. It applies to basically any pursuit, not just YouTube.

21:53 And the funny thing Nobody's serious. So nobody does it. Yeah. And so like, you know, you just all you have to just 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 gonna approach this, they're not gonna take this very simple idea seriously.

22:08 Um you're already ahead of the game. Yeah. You're only competing with those fifty people. Today 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. Pull from examples from how you did this, right? So I think proximity is one thing where if you're just seeing more

22:44 lifestyles or activities that people are doing in and around the subject that you find interesting, you'll be able to f follow more blueprints and sort of figure out what you're actually going to do a hundred times over. But In in someone's like daily, regular life, like what things can people do, or what things did you do to sort of figure out how can I lean more into my inner nerd? Well, one thing is other people are very good at spotting it before you are. Uh I remember Naval, who's like one of my favorite people to Learn from, follow, whatever.

23:09 He says a great story. He's like, um when I was a kid, I wanted to be a physicist. I thought like In the apex of like Awesome people фізиціс уп. Фізис, сієнтист, інвентор. And he's like, That's what I'm gonna be. And he was telling everybody'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.

23:31 She's like No, you're naturally a business guy. He's like, What? I 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, but you're always thinking about business. It's like when we used to walk by

23:46 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 or how to improve a business.

23:59 It comes very naturally to you. She's like, Does physics come naturally to you? And he's like, No, he's like, No. He's like, 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's 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

24:18 Um Other pe if you just talk to other people who know you well. You know, you can ask him a couple of questions that I think are good at sussing this out. One such question is Um

24:28 What's my superpower? Like what do you see that comes easy to me, naturally to me, that does is harder for other people? Is there anything like that that you that you've seen? Podcasting. Yeah, so like, you know, telling stories, podcasting, whatever it is. Uh another thing that you might do is um you might say Where is it that um you might ask yourself Where do I spend time doing things that

24:48 For me, feel fun, but to others would feel like a grind. Yeah. So it's play to you, work to others. For me, it's like I'll be up at eleven, twelve 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 about the um the the revenues and and expenses of the casinos on the Las Vegas strip for twenty twenty four compared to twenty twenty three. Yeah. Like who's doing that for fun? Yeah, nobody doing that for fun. I was doing it for fun. I was really curious. I was like, Are we in a recession? I wonder

25:18 There's like this thing where the the 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 pride, my assigned assignment, but I'd always been like that. Yeah.

25:43 Before I didn't really notice that that was a thing. I didn't really see how that could be special or useful. Just seem like I don't know, I just want 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.

26:01 Of little factoids and stories and and nuggets and this knowledge. That was very, very useful on the podcast. So I found a fit for it uh 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.

26:23 A non person. It's gotta either look like a work or a grind to other people. Or it's gotta look like oh Like Yeah, I like video games too, but Your

26:32 Like practicing your aim on this aim simulation. For four hours a day. Yeah. 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 MBA two K. You're playing two? Of course.

26:46 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 Of 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

27:10 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 Uh, what superpower does that give me? Where does that let me thrive? What in what scenario would this be extremely useful or valuable? Yeah. You know. Yeah.

27:31 Well it turns out the one you're in right now. I'll give you another example. My wife. Yeah. My wife's kind of O C D and Artsy Crafty. 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 it just like I'm

27:54 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 Sarasu crystals. She started trying to arrange them perfectly. She started seeing if other people do this, how she can make a better design.

28:12 Suddenly celebrities started hitting her up when she's in college. She's a freshman in college. The celebrities are hitting her up. Asking for them to make custom things for their parties in Hollywood and whatever. And she's making thousands of dollars a month as a college student. That wasn't an option if you had ask people. Right. That's the pro that's her pushed out. Yeah. 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 other than it was fun for her. So she found a way to make that useful over time.

28:41 That's an amazing story. I love that so much. I think That kind of goes back to w 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

28:56 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 in a inner voice and really be True to yourself. Like I think that takes time. I don't I don't think most people are well at least took me time. I don't think most people could do that right away. Yeah. You know, you gotta ask yourself a question. Who's the most important voice in my life? Is it my mom?

29:25 Is it my teachers? Is it my boss? Is it Society is it the media. Um Whose voice do I care about? Who says who's number one? Yeah. And

29:37 The in reality, the voice that is Both You know, 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.

29:48 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. Um, you know, like

30:07 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? Mm-hmm. And how do I tune that voice in my head? So that's what I meant by that that comment. Yeah, and that's I think what what works when you go internal, which is like you

30:24 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. Um

30:36 Do I believe that the most valuable opinion of my life is my own opinion? All right. Well, what is my opinion on? What do I admire? What do I think is not cool? Um Yeah, and how how do I develop that taste for how I want to be and then Practice.

30:49 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. Right. And like, you know, you just do that over a number of years. 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.

31:13 Um definitely Quitting to go to a sushi restaurant thing. I remember that was W were your parents not on board with that or when you it was I mean, all your friends are getting a high paying jobs like I mean, everybody thought it was like a little bit silly, but you know, they don't care. They don't really care. It's not their life. So they're like, Whatever. Yeah, do it. Yeah, put your foot in put your foot in there. Like, you know, whatever. Just wanna see somebody like, you know, wreck themselves. You want their own entertainment. Of the people who cared, like my parents My dad to his credit was very Um

31:43 It was a great bad 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.

31:51 Why do you think I should do it? Because look at you, like you're so switched on now. Yeah. He's like, You know, I've seen you your whole life. You never used to be this way. He never used to just wake up. He never used to just like Have this like This drive, this motivation, this like burst of energy, like

32:06 Look at you. You're like working all the time now. 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 can 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 wanna get to paradise, but you don't know where it is. You can't see

32:36 You can't see through the fog. 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.

32:49 And as you get out there You might see it. You might see it's over 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. Yeah. Like People think it's really hard to change direction. No, you have momentum. You can actually shift course.

33:03 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 gonna create the next Chipotle. 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. Mike. At some point. At some point. It's better off than standing. Yeah, he was totally right. That was like a a really wise thing for him to do. Yeah. That's a beautiful phrase. I think most people probably.

33:30 Um I think I I think actually in life the scariest thing is standing there and then realizing like eighty, ninety yeah, you're like shit, I didn't move at all. Yeah, yeah, I'm just I I just sat down, actually. And like, you know, I just stayed here. So enjoyed the sand. Yeah. Yeah. 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.

34:07 Uh, 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. Bank the services are provided through Choice Financial Group, call MNA, and Evolve Bank and Trust members, FDIC.

34:33 When you when you were selling your company when you when you were selling Bivo Was that a like you know? When you that was sort of a little bit of a change well, not a 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 you know you maybe you realize you don't wanna be doing

34:53 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 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? Well, I was lucky I have a very good friend. My buddy Sulli. He uh we were out at a casino down here in South San Francisco. You go to like

35:14 Chinese casino basically. It's like a bunch of like degenerate Asian 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. We're just sitting at the buffet like one A. And he'd said to me something, he was like, um He just said like He 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 he knows 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 just don't get the whole thing. I was like, What?

35:50 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 like one of those like inner voice versus external perception. We had probably the nicest office in San Francisco'cause my Main Funder like the guy who

36:07 Basically, was funding the lab. was like a billionaire. So we 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. We had Everything that you would want. It was designed by this guy, Ken Falk, 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 co workers were super smart, so I had a great team. Great office.

36:29 Great team. Well, you must be constrained or not been letting your you know, your wings fly. No no. Total freedom. Well, you must not have the resources the funding you're you're strapped, right? No, no, no. Blank check. 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

36:49 You've been there for six years. You and your 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. It's also not gonna fail. Where you would be like, This is an obvious failure. It's like okay.

37:02 And he's like, I just don't get why you're working on something that's okay. And so we um 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.

37:20 Uh, in physics is this concept of inertia. Like the object in motion will stay in motion unless there's a force to resist it. She 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 yeah, you will keep doing it because you're already doing it. Thought experiment.

37:38 If the lab close tomorrow. Would you Is this business oper idea so good that you would tomorrow Pick up the phone, call these 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.

37:58 And I was like, no way. Right. I would 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?

38:10 And so um And you know, this is not a perfect test, like you know, you might not 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 my life that's a little overwhelming. But if you know like

38:23 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 you, Quick at cutting things off. Next day I go and I talk to my co founder and I say, I think we should 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?

38:47 I don't know. Something else. I need to shake it up. I was like I I didn't know anything more. I just knew I needed to shake it up. Long time ago by six years. I gave it like a a long run. We've done 10 different products. Some of them were doing good. Some of them were doing bad.

38:59 But like I had like a lot of time trying this model with these people in this space. And I told him, I said, this idea that we're doing, we're only here'cause 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 eleventh time. Like I'd rather just get a clean slate.

39:17 I went to the investor and I said, Hey Give me uh forty five days to try to sell this company. Oh, sorry, I said give me thirty days to try to sell this company. Um Or you could just like have it. I'll walk away. You can take all my equity. You can decide what you want to do with it.

39:32 It's like okay. Um And then we ended up selling the company forty fase later, which was like absurd. Like you don't you don't sell you know. Well there was still diligence afterwards, but I Forty five days to a sign definitive agreement.

39:46 is pretty pretty fast. But kind of once I had that that intention, you know. I really went for it. I think that's, you know, I think Steve Jobs famously asked himself every day, like looks himself in the mirror and says, Do I want to if this was 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? Yeah, yeah. Why w would you be doing this if you weren't already doing this? Yeah. I think that's just like a very simple way of looking at it. Yeah. Yeah. And I think if that answers not a

40:15 I think it should be a hell yes, as the the ideal. And maybe you say, Maybe you're just a couple of tweaks away. Like, yeah, it would be a hell yes. But I hate my commute, or it would be a hell yes, but I wanna stretch my wings and start growing in this other way too. Right. That's fine.

40:29 Does it tweak. Well whatever the answer is, it's the answer. 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

40:44 Giant super GPU clusters blah blah blah. 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. Yeah.

41:01 Thing you don't even want to be doing or you shouldn't be doing in the first place. Yeah. That's that's that's sort of brings 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 kinda 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 you'd rather Flame out than burn out. You would rather go all in, go for the thing you really want to do than than burning out. Um

41:26 How did you you know you've you've talked a little bit about mediocrity is the real thing. Yeah, yeah. For any person with high potential Failure is not the risk. The risk is you get stuck in something that's just okay for too long because it'll sap you, sap your will, sap your time, sap your resources, sap your energy, sap your belief in yourself over time. Failing. It's a bit of a quick and pain painful uh thing, but it's over and you bounce back. It's

41:48 And it keeps your most precious asset, your time still at your disposal. It's the thing that's just okay. that is gonna take all your time away. Yeah. You don't want that. Yeah. No, it's again to your point, like for inertia, like you know, usually the thing that is mediocre, you're in it just because you're doing it. Yeah, or put differently, some I forgot who said this some some Whatever, someone said uh For anybody who's sufficiently smart, the biggest cost is opportunity cost. Right.

42:13 So Once you know that, that your biggest cost is not your taxes or your expenses, it's your opportunity cost. Um Then you gotta think about that. Yeah. Yeah. When you're

42:23 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 costs? Like what do you look at now? Um And yeah.

42:35 I have a very simple rule now. Um Am I doing this for a result or am I doing this because I like doing it? Mm-hmm. So I no longer will do something for an ex for some future payoff.

42:45 Mm-hmm. Uh 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.

42:58 reward is doing the thing. Yeah. Right. The work has to be the win. Yeah. The win can't be some future m future hypothetical payoff of some work that I wouldn't have otherwise wanted to do. Yeah. Because if you do it that way, then you win win, right? You for sure win by doing it. And he might win double, triple, ten X.

43:15 From some result. But if you do it the other way, we're You're just doing things opportunistically. I know this because I spent ten years doing Things only for like Ooh, if this worked, it'd be amazing.

43:26 But then when it doesn't work, which most of the time things don't work. Damn, that's kind of a Not a waste. Totally, but like that. I wasn't you know, I I was basically

43:36 Not enjoying myself uh to the extent that I could have been. Again, the opportunity costs. The opportunity cost, I could have just been working on something. That The work itself was super rewarding. The act of doing it was the was the reward and not the future payoff. 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 then it ended up ends up not working out, but then you pick something else. Um consistently each time we're like I don't care what any of us things like this just a project I'm doing'cause it seems curious, but it it might not make any money or things like that. Do you still think you'd be in this position or Yeah, I think I'd be further ahead.

44:09 Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Just'cause you would have figured out. It's impossible to say. Can run the A B test on my own. But uh good maybe that's the way it's supposed to be. Yeah, I just I mean, I think I still would be the guy I am today. I think I would just be uh I think I would have found the things that are more uh enjoyable to me.

44:29 Um 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. Right. 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.

44:49 Then you only get so good at it. And because you're only so so good at it. Um You know, you get a you get a social result. Yeah. There's no flywheel. There's no flywheel. No, it's just a little bit. I'm a believer in that flywheel and I think if I just started doing that

45:02 When I was tw you know. I did it at points in 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. 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 y 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?

45:25 Um Like the things that were you push. I think there's a few different ideas. Yeah. Working hard is overrated. That doesn't mean it's useless. Right. All right, okay, it's a big difference. So overrated means When successful people talk and they're like, What's the key? Like hard work. Why do they say that?

45:41 Sounds good. Sounds good. It also sounds like We all had an equal shot. I just worked harder. Right. It is a decision that you made. Yeah, my dad was a billionaire, but like it was hard work that got me there, right? Like you can you can use hard work, gives you a lot of air cover. Yeah it's the can't can't disagree. Who can disagree with that? Yeah.

45:58 Um Me, basically. I'm the only guy disagree with that. So so I think hard work is over. It's probably maybe the fourth or fifth most important variable. You know, I think the very first one is project selection, 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. Picking the restaurant industry, it doesn't matter how hard you work, you're quite limited in in like, you know, your your results, your outcomes and

46:21 And what your life is gonna be like. Um So what you work on matters a lot. Who you work with matters a ton. Um

46:30 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. Yeah. Um, that's what I've seen. Yeah, that's awesome. I I I do think, by the way, the one thing hard work's good at is it's good at developing skill. Right. And it's good about being serious. So like

46:48 When you're in your twenties It's easy to um for hours at the problem. You don't have good judgment. So whatever. Spend more time. Yeah. As you get b as you have less time'cause you get older, you have more

47:01 You have kids, you have less energy, whatever. Your judgment's gotta 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 have that's not what I mean by like, you know, hard work's overrated. I would've just been really intentional about 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. Because

47:23 Most projects fail, but the skills stick with you. Right. Like my sushi thing failed but randomly while we were doing that, we were blogging and making like video content. I learned I I learned I 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 to Silicon Valley and I could actually like mock things up myself, send it to the designer. Yeah. Like the skill stuck with me. The project has had left me behind, right? So I think skill building It's really important.

47:50 And o 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. I pick a better project. Right. I still got that skill. Exactly. And you did this you did this exact same thing when you applied to Monkey Inferno. Like you you probably applied a lot of those skills in the way you actually got that job. Totally, totally. And like, you know, I think so I think that's the Um, I forgot somebody said this. I I think it was um Who's the said the the skill uh mass oh Derek Sivers said this. He goes, um

48:18 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. Yeah. Like it can only be earned. And um Seinfeld kind of says the same thing, basically, like skill is really the thing worth having. Yeah. All the things, like the skill is the thing. Like what could you choose? You want to what could you choose? You could choose like more resources, you could choose whatever, you could choose achievements, but like skill is the thing. It's the mastery of a of a thing. is the thing you really want. Yeah. It's the key that unlocks

48:45 Infinite number of doors. Right. Right. I think that's also something to be said for going that extra mile and trying to acquire the skills like there's Such a service area of luck that increases when you do that. Like You know, you 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. Totally. We have this uh company we invest in.

49:06 Um I don't know if I should say the name. Maybe I should I won't say the name. Uh the founder used to work in like a e commerce D to C brands. Small DC brands you've never heard of.

49:17 Just kinda 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 drop shipping and you're trying to figure out like Google ads and Facebook ads and TikTok. So th usually those two worlds are very separate. Right. 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 ecom this like marketing skill around paid ads.

49:52 When he went to um when he started this Venture back company. That's a B to B software company. Most of the guys in there are like a Somewhere between a zero out of ten to a six out of ten at paid ads. Right. Like you know who love like people who are great at paying ads, they're people who are like, you know.

50:08 Affiliate marketers and ecom people. They are dialed in. They know how to do that. Yep. So he took that and he did it there. He took that skill and he transferred it. Like just today they raised basically like three hundred, four hundred million dollar valuation. Within two years, and the reason why they're growing so fast Is because

50:26 He cut his teeth doing e com you know uh uh like digital ads, m Google Facebook ads. And he took that over here and he's like this 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 twenty bucks an e com, I'm selling like a twenty thousand dollar Yeah.

50:44 But it's the same thing and and nobody here knows how to do paid ads at the level I do. Right. So this is great. Uh and so s I you know, that skill can like Once you apply it to a better project can be a huge multiplier. Right. Do you think project selection as a skill is also something that that builds over time? If you're intentional about it, yeah, like of course. Um Most people don't, right? Most like

51:05 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? Yeah, probably zero. Um People think about industries, they think about careers, but like Just Atomic unit is a project. That's like the thing you're gonna do.

51:20 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 few people know anything about how to pick pick good projects, but you can, of course, do those well. Those are skills. And pay attention to it and learn. If you're intentional about it, yeah. I want to talk about two things that are really interesting. One, um well, interesting to me. I hope they're interesting. Um on the project selection side of things.

51:43 I You you once called me um when I went to go work for you again instead of taking a sales job um 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 the sales job, you know, earn like twelve grand a month, which, you know, I'm like twenty-two, I'm twenty one. I'm like, that 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 uh you said, you know, do you do you just want to be another sales guy? And that I heard that I was like No. You know, like I don't want to be that and spitting on you. Yeah. It's like how dare you. Spit on you through slack. I felt it. I felt it. Um

52:25 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. um project selection that I think are so important. How How do you lean Was I right, by the way? Did that work out for you? Yeah, dude I'm happy with that. I'm loving it. Like, you know, I still don't know exactly where I'm going, but like I'm in such a your gut tells you I've moved in the right direction. Doesn't mean it has to have paid played out yet. Right. But it's growing. Your gut is very strong at telling you that. Yeah. I feel like I would have been at that beach.

52:55 Uh had I said no and like stayed in that job. And now I'm like, you know, out here doing things. I'm I'm blessed enough to be able to talk to you guys here. Right. So that's not something that would have happened otherwise. That's cool. Yeah. So I appreciate that. Yeah. Um You mentioned Do you know project collection is really important, but the other most important thing is who you're doing things with. Yeah. Um

53:14 That was the mistake you made. I offered you a role. Yeah. I was like, You should come work for me. You're gonna learn a lot more. You're gonna do bullish shit. You went on your own, which is always good for skill building. You'd probably I would say built. A wider set of skills. Right. Because when you're on your own, you gotta do everything. Right. But You didn't opt into a network. Right. This is the other thing I've been learning a lot. Uh not to hijack your question, but it's great.

53:34 We just did a podcast with um James Career. Did you know him? Yeah. Network of the maybe explain to Sure. James is like a Silicon Valley OG. He runs his phone NFX, like a one point two billion dollar fund.

53:47 Um has sold m has built multiple companies, sold them, uh basically like never lost a dollar for investors like in thirty years. Yep. So it's like all right, great. Um He's somebody I learned a lot from. And he's like somebody I consider like a mentor to me.

54:00 And he He's big on networks. Everything he talks about is networks, networks. It's like it's like annoying. It's like, dude, James, I get it. Like, you know, hey, can you pass the cheese? It's like, is it part of the network? It's like all right, dude, just give me the cheese. So he um he talks about this like with with the very simple example is like, you know, where you choose to go to college. That's a network you're joining. Right. Not just joining a college you're joining the alumni and Harvard alumni network, or and some networks are really powerful and some network are pretty weak. When you uh 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. Right. And some of those nodes will lead to more opportunities.

54:34 And so you might say, I don't want to move to San Francisco. It's the rent is two thousand dollars 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 tax is the worst forest decision. Because yeah, you saved ten percent. Well you lost out on a tenx.

54:53 tenx more money you would have made just by staying in the like The white hot center of the tech. An AI network is so much more valuable. If you're good. Yeah. If you're bad, you're not gonna get any value out of it. But if you're good, you should be in good networks. Yeah and so um I think this is something that people uh I did wrong. I think other people do it wrong, which I think you did it wrong in this situation, which is

55:13 Um, if you have a chance to opt into a better network, it's almost always worth more than the incremental dollar, especially the earlier in your career, because you're gonna have more. time for that to compound. Right. 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. Yeah. I mean I'm that to our early conversation is probably a mistake I'm making now, even just being in Europe still. No offense to to Europe, but you know, it is much worse. Um

55:44 Uh uh let's let's stay on this a little bit actually before going into to find like co founders and things like that, because that's like a little bit more by the way, we should say one thing. Yeah. You can win anywhere. Right. You can win on your own. You can win in any industry. You can win in the restaurant industry. You can win it Any time we're knocking these it's not because that thing is so fatally flawed. It's just You wanna make things Easier, not harder. You want to increase your probabilities of success, not decrease them. That's what we mean with when it's better or worse. Yeah. Uh it's generally just like either it's

56:09 More fun. It's easier or it increases your probability. Of course, there's always outliers and exceptions, and you could be one of them and more power to you. But it's those trade offs, right? And that's to your point earlier, where like if you're surrounded by five people who go to the gym. Chances are you're gonna get rich. Increase your odds. It's not a guarantee. Right. And you could have of course done it. Surrounded by other people, why not increase your odds? Why not make things easier on yourself? Like there's no bonus points.

56:30 For doing everything the hard way. For making your odds worse. You know, like why? Good for you, but Yeah. What what's the point? Yeah. What what other things w 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 E 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, uh 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 that you can self select too.

57:10 I mean you just named it, your info diet. Right. I know a lot of people that aren't on Twitter. Are you opt out of that network or they're not on TikTok, whatever. These are networks you're opting into. Within them, they're subnetworks, 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

57:29 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 gonna average in, you're gonna dollar cost average into the thoughts of That w that that network that you're in. Whether it's the content you consume.

57:45 If you consume the same con as everybody else, you're probably gonna have the same thought as everybody else. If you hang out with the same people, you're gonna end up with the same people, right? Like You wanna make some changes. Or you want to have some differentiation of some kind. Should probably differentiate your info diet. Um, 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.

58:08 Right. Just the network selection. Yeah. Yeah. That's yeah. That's a that's a tough one. Why is that? I I feel like there's 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

58:30 You know, if if you stop that example maybe, right? You 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, like, oh I I don't watch TikTok, man. I d 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 because otherwise uh you're you're gonna 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. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. I mean I'm and it look, if you love a thing, do it great. But it's like if you don't, or you're just like you're open minded, yeah, maybe you like Reading books more, right? Maybe you like doing certain th other things, right? Like maybe you just pick up a different hobby that ops you into a different network. Yeah. Um, right. Like I know a lot of people that do jujitsu.

59:15 And jujitsu it's exercise, but it's different than the elliptical. You're gonna work out a different way. You're gonna develop a skill, you're gonna be in a part of a community, you're gonna build your toughness, you're gonna learn the mental resilience, you're gonna learn about like leverage, you're gonna learn so many things out of that same hour of exercise. Yeah. Like So some people will could should try that because It's gonna get you a different result than maybe uh you know the hour on the elliptical at you know in level seven. In yourself, uh just do you and yourself. Yeah, yes, you and yourself. Yeah. Um let's let's talk about the final thing in terms of network. You've mentioned Part, you know, project selection we've talked about is very important, but also people selection and partner selection. Uh

59:52 You've 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 company A and B that are the exact same, but they've got different people working there, like how do you figure out what types of people you want to be around? Um talk to me about, you know, your selection framework for that. Yeah. Um okay, so You know, Buffett has a great one on this, which is you know, you select for energy, intelligence, and integrity. Right.

1:00:19 Those are the three legs of the stool. Right. If they uh have the energy and intelligence, but no integrity. Right. They're a smart crook. And you're the stool falls over, right? If if you have the energy and the integrity, but no intelligence, you're not gonna really get anywhere. Right. So you get the idea. Um 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 I that's the way I would describe them. Like

1:00:44 It's great, he's down. He's and down meant a couple of different things. It's uh 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. Right.

1:00:57 I think they're down for adventure. So like when they we could choose a safe path or a more interesting story path. They're down for they're down for that and they'll lean that way with me. Yeah. I think they're um They're down to like buckle down and just grind and just do something that's hard for a while. Like they're not gonna run away from pain or difficulty. Um 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. I for me that's almost the the sort of the highest priority bit.

1:01:24 Uh everything else is sort of secondary to that. Yeah. You've talked about when you met Ben. uh you're you know, your your ultimate partner right now, where he had a SAS that was doing I think a million dollars a year in profit. He had a you know a objectively great position and he sort of Took He was down enough to go on this random side project with you. Um Is there anything you can tell you know talk to us about Ben and sort of uh bring those three aspects you just mentioned to life?

1:01:48 Yeah, Ben's the most down, right? Like he's uh you you said it perfectly. He had a Business is doing a million dollars a year of profit at the time. And I was like, Hey, you wanna spend your time doing like this random unknown thing with me that I think must I think is gonna be pretty fun. I think it could be interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I'm down. All right. Okay, cool.

1:02:04 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 ha I don't need it all figured out. Right. Okay, cool. We ended up doing this thing that for 90 days was like really intense. Like this is full on. I'm down, right? He just carried on. Then we switched. We did the next thing, the next thing.

1:02:21 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. 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 twenty twenty five. Um, on the podcast, you guys have talked about this this thing called Misoji. Uh

1:02:42 Can you explain what that is and then tell me, do you have one for twenty twenty five? Yeah, yeah, sure. Misogi Masogi, I think is this concept. Jesse Itzer came on the podcast and talked about it. It's uh 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.

1:03:03 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 gonna happen by default. If you want anything else to happen, you gotta do something about it. I agree with him.

1:03:17 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 uh one of the central things is this idea of a misogee, one grand challenge for the year, a year defining thing that you will do. Yeah that is both. hard and rewarding and um memorable for you and meaningful to you. And so for some people that's like do a Iron Man or climb Everest or whatever whatever their thing is.

1:03:44 Um so That's the idea. That's the concept. Mine this year is too not doesn't sound like Everest, but it is important to me. Um 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, um I wanna be able to jam out, meaning I wanna be able to play the songs I want. I'm gonna 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.

1:04:10 Um And I want my life to be fun and I want it to be interesting and I thought Look, I'm never gonna ha just have the time magically to do this. But I was like, Yeah, 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.

1:04:23 I can't do when you're all eight I can be eighty years old, I could be playing the piano. And so I thought, oh yeah, that'll be year defined. That'll be the year I decided to do that and I made it happen. Yeah. Is it is going well? Yeah, it's going great so far. I'm doing my thing. 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 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, Oh th that was pretty cool I did that. Right. Um I think that's a great way to choose your misogee as well. Like, you know.

1:04:55 I think he says like let interestingness be the filter. Yes. 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. Yeah. But also interesting in this like what's interesting to you is not interesting. Universally. Right. So he talks about like It's also a good strategy because nobody can copy your taste profile. 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.

1:05:22 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. Therefore, you're therefore you're gonna get good at it. When you're good at it, you're gonna get a good result. Yep. So it's like That's why he says let that be the guide. Um, because that that will lead you to the most interesting place you can. And if the first one doesn't work, it doesn't matter.

1:05:40 They'll be you'll have so much fun doing it, you'll just keep keep doing that, it'll eventually land in a good spot. Yeah, it and in in in of in and of itself, it'll still be fun. Right. Yeah. I love it. I I think that's it. I 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. All right, let's do it. Awesome. All right, thanks Sean, appreciate it, man.

1:06:04 I feel like I can rule the world, I know I could be what I want to I'm putting my law in it like a day song. On the road, less travel, never looking back. Alright, my friends, I have a new podcast for you guys to check out. It's called Content is Profit. And it's hosted by Luis and Fonzi Cameo. After years of building content teams and frameworks for companies like Red Bull and Orange Theory Fitness, Louise and Fonzi are on a mission to bridge the gap between content and revenue. In each episode, you're gonna hear from top entrepreneurs and creators, and you're gonna hear them share their secrets and strategies to turn their content into profit. So you can check out content is profit wherever you get your podcasts.

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