The 2024 Milly Awards

0:00 Ladies and gentlemen, here we are. Four years in a row. The end of year Millie Awards where we get together and we recap the year. We make up a bunch of categories. We make up a bunch of answers. And we reflect on how the year has gone with uh with our awards ceremony. So, Sam.

0:19 Are you ready? I'm ready. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I'll put my all in it like a day's all the roll less track. I like your jacket. You gotta start wearing this stuff more often. It feels like a little suit of armor. Yeah, I I already got a compliment this morning inside the house, so I think maybe I should start uh dressing well. Maybe that's gonna be my change of the year. We'll see. It's uh December twenty sixth. You got a compliment this year. Probably

0:43 The only compliment you got all year. Yeah, the only looks compliment for sure. Men don't get compliments, so you should wear jackets more. All right, where do we want to start? All right, we're gonna start category. We have eleven eleven awards to give out. We're gonna start with number one. Best. investment of the year. And these are personal, by the way. These are our personal best investments, worst investments, that sort of thing. So Sam, what was your best investment of the year? What do you think I'm gonna say?

1:12 The S P five hundred. The S P five hundred. Up twenty eight percent. But That one's boring. I don't want to just say that. The best investment I ha we had this year, I'm do you remember Jason Cohen um we had on the pod? Jason Cohen started What's it called?

1:27 W P agent. No, uh I just couldn't remember the the company. Uh anyway, he made a comment, I think after the pod where he talked about tipping and I was like, I like to tip, you know. I was like I I just hate out fives and he goes Five. You should be handing out twenties. Like he goes, I tip like crazy. And I started doing that after the pod. And so I carry around about a thousand dollars of twenties at a any given point. And I am just Dishing that shit out like crazy. If you wanna know something, it's made me so happy. And so that's been a great investment. My but be and I wanted to bring that up'cause my investment strategies are pretty boring. But man, I'll tell you what, I'll go to a restaurant and it'll be like sixty dollars because we don't drink and like it's like a cheap for cheap dates.

2:11 I'll I'll easily leave And then you stick around to wait for the uh So the reaction to you're like, Did you Did you see that? I just want to make sure you get there. It's right under there. Listen. I thought it was tacky to do that.

2:23 But I say screw'em. I'm doing something nice. I wanna I wanna like a compliment. Like it makes me feel good too. I'm doing this for selfish reasons. It makes me feel good. So I don't mind it. As long as I'm not filming it, it's okay. That's what I think. Do you guys share these or is that all yours right there? No, all right. So but seriously, tipping has made me happier. But investment, but it's it's hard for me to say best investment because I am so boring, although I do have one angel investment and figure that's gonna pay a lot of money so far on paper. Okay, so Sam's favorite ice cream is vanilla. All right, here we go. What do you want me to say? Am I supposed to make something up? I will make up for your boring answer with I have two answers. I'll give you the first one. Okay, so Sam, best investment. When I think of

3:04 The perfect investment, right? What's my type? My type. would be you know, some people like blondes some people like Brunettes. Here's my type. My type is a passive investment. That is tax advantage. The beast market returns. that is uncorrelated to my the rest of my portfolio, tech, crypto.

3:21 Has low downside. And I'm betting on a beast of an operator who has an unfair advantage. It sounds like you're trying to sell me a timeshare. Close. It's real estate. You got it. I for the first time made some serious investment. I've invested a few million dollars into real estate this year. And it was

3:41 Great. I for a long time I had thought I should probably be doing real estate. I should probably take this magic internet money, put it in real estate. Um, so that I have kind of both. I have real world tangible assets that pay cash flow, and then I have this like kind of crazy upside tech stuff. And I never could figure out the way to do it. I was like, do I buy my own and manage it? That seems like a pain. Do I

4:02 Funds or whatever. But they're all just fee monsters. And uh The answer was sitting in my in my own wheelhouse. Uh my brother in law is an amazing real estate operator. The guy's built like a billion dollar real estate portfolio for himself. And so

4:15 I just started giving him money and um It's been amazing. I don't lift a finger and I'm getting like, you know, thirty, forty percent returns uh with all the tax advantages. So that was my best investment, and I'll be doubling down there. But I have a bonus answer for you. The bonus answer is I made a couple of stock trades. I know you don't approve. Not supposed to buy individual stocks, but I did.

4:35 But I did it in a very specific way that I Think you might dig. Which was I just have been trading against the all in podcast for like two years now. Are you kidding me? And it has been phenomenal.

4:49 And also like is this like casino gambling money or is this like like d in my opinion, anything above A hundred thousand dollars is like No, that's real bats then. Okay, it's like these are big these are big pets, but I just view them as as m safe. Like they're not like cr they're not like obscure pennies. Like Amazon or something.

5:09 So what will happen is All in podcast. Uh love listening to it. Very entertaining guys, very smart guys. I just don't think they're right a lot. And they're not right in one specific they have one specific leak, which is that they have like an agenda. Which is often, you know, either talking their own their own book or it's

5:28 anti-woke, anti-left, anti big money, big tech. They make money No. No, anti getting good gains. So like, you know, uh Jason Calcanis goes out and he says, the most likely case is Bitcoin Zero. He tweets this out and then on the All In Podcast they're talking about crypto and all the problems with it. Well guess what? I decided to buy Bitcoin that day. And then the and then Google releases its new AI model and it has this problem where you say, Show me a picture of George Washington and it shows you a black guy. Yeah. And they're like, Google's so woke, it's going down the drain. Well, your your year to date on Google is forty one percent.

6:06 Uh yeah, exactly. So easiest tra easiest money to make was just to trade against the all that podcast. So uh here's an example uh Shimoth. Tweets out the growing short case against Facebook. And he says regulation is a problem, taxes is a problem, antitrust is a problem, all this stuff I bet on Facebook I'm up five X. So I made five hundred percent on that trade. And so basically they went anti Bitcoin for a period of time and then they they swung back. They went anti meta.

6:32 And they made this case why Zuck was being an idiot. He was investing way too much capex into AR and VR. More money than had ever been invested in the development of the iPhone. This all sounds very, very smart. But my little simpleton brain Went back to like

6:48 Nah, I think I think Zuck's the man. I I know I spend a sh like I have an e commerce business. Every dollar I can spend on the Facebook ad engine, I spend. Yeah, you're invading them to take more money. Yeah. Oh IOS fourteen is it was a problem. No, no, I I still spend more than I spent. before that. Uh and that there's no better place to spend a dollar in advertising than on Facebook. The close second was Google, right? So when they went anti Google for being woke

7:14 I bought Google when they went anti Facebook. I went I bought Facebook anti Bitcoin. I bought And it's just been very, very profitable for me to do this. That's amazing. That's really funny. I think sort of like the in inverse Cramer or inverse Galloway. Indexes where they just

7:29 They just literally whatever this popular Popular figurehead says they just bet the opposite. I've basically been doing that for about two and a half years against the all in podcast. And only now was I willing to say it. Dude, by the way, I uh you we had this guy uh on the pod who became a great friend of mine named Val. Him and I, he was the main guy. I was a s very small investor. We bought a building in Brooklyn. I killed it on that. I think I had a twenty eight percent annual like return, not including the tax stuff, but my worst investment this year. Do you remember how I said I was remember how I bought a ranch?

8:00 Right. I sold it this year. So stupid. Maybe I l I lost money because I could have used that money to invest in something that made a lot more, but I basically s uh like kind of broke even. So it wasn't that huge of a loss. But it was so stressful and my learning is that

8:16 I had this issue where I sold a company, I made money, and I thought I was on top of the world. And I thought I could buy So I I fully bought pieces of real estate intending to like turn into projects. Not one of'em was great. Uh two were bad. One was break even.

8:32 And I that's been my biggest failure is like thinking like hubris and thinking that I'm amazing. And and and also Full buying real estate that you have to operate. It's just like starting a a small business that you have to work ten hours a week on. It sucks. It's hard. Yeah, it my rule is if it's active. It has to generate more than fifty percent. The bar is way different. If it's passive, it could be seven percent. It's fine. But um, if it's active, it's gotta be more than fifty percent. If it's active investment. And so that's why I gave you the traits. I said passive tax advantage beats the market, right? Like I had this list. If I can ever find an investment that does that. And finally found one.

9:05 I thought it would be cool to like you know, that's like every you know, like That's like one of the five things that men love is like they always say they want to own a lot of land. And I did it. And I hated it. Like, dude, listen to this. Like I would drive up to I would I had a Tesla at the time. I would be in the country and I would have these like workers come to like decide uh to put in a bid. to pave the driveway. I would get a seventy thousand dollar quote.

9:27 And a three thousand dollar quote. Like that's the that was the delta, and it was all because of the way I looked, and they're like this guy doesn't know shit. You know, like It was crazy. I got taken advantage so many times. It sucked. So I I I don't think I'll be doing that anytime soon. And for that reason, I'm out. All right. What about worst investment? That was my worst investment was was Any fully owned real estate. Any real estate that I was a investor in. I loved it.

9:52 Anything that I fully owned and wanted to like make it my thing because of pride. I I failed miserably. All right. My worst investment, um This was a little bit hard. I did well this year, but I would say if I if I s I had to stretch back A couple of years and say what was the first worst over the last couple of years?

10:10 And I would say I made a general rookie mistake, which was I would buy on the upswing and I would sell during the panic times. Maybe I would I would try to hedge bets.

10:22 Try to time markets. So when Covid happened I thought, Oh my God, the whole economy's gonna shut down. And I was right for a month. And then right after that stocks exploded and I was sitting on the sidelines where m the stocks that I already owned started soaring and I had to buy back in at higher prices.

10:38 Crypto crash with FTX and other things. And when morale was at its lowest, my conviction was at its lowest. I I behaved I behave like a pleb. I'm not I'm not I'm not proud to say it. I'm ashamed to say it. I behave like a plant when things were bad, my conviction went low, when things were good, my conviction went high. This is the opposite way to make money. I kind of knew this. But in the moment, it was a lot harder than I expected to actually

11:02 master my own psychology as an investor. What is the word pleb? Are you thinking that means plebe? I say pleb. You say pleb. Really? Which one of us is wrong. I don't know which one though.

11:15 I don't have enough conviction, but th you might have taken another L there. Exactly. Such a pleb, I don't even know how to say it. Yeah, it's it sucks to be doing things that you know You would advise people not to do? In the moment. And then by the way, this is why information is not power. Knowledge is not power. So when Covid happened, uh I think it was

11:38 F February in San Francisco. And You know, we were all in our apartments thinking the world was literally going to end. And I remember I it's the only time I've ever done this. The

11:49 Market dropped, I think thirty percent. Literally the day it was its lowest. I sold one hundred percent of everything I owned. Exactly. I thought bodies are gonna pile up in New York. I thought the world's ending. And I had friends who did the opposite of me. And our returns were drastically different. That was the lesson that like that moment had to teach me. Do not do this. Do you know when Warren Buffett he says all these smart phrases and they sound cool and you're like, yeah, I'm in.

12:17 I'm in. When the tide goes low, I could see everyone swimming naked. I'm in, that's all you gotta do. I'll be a billionaire. But then when it actually happens It's hard. It's scary. It's emotional. And I fell victim to that. And it sounds like you did too, uh, at least once. A hundred percent. Also during that time I

12:35 was picking I remember between two stocks I was like, Okay I think the future is some version of AI, but also potentially VR and AR. And I plowed a bunch of money into Unity instead of NVIDIA. I was looking at the two and I was like, is it Unity or NVIDIA? So you know, sometimes you do that too. That's also a a way to lose. What did what did Unity become? I've lost like sixty percent of my investment on Unity. Unity's gone nowhere. Is there like a threshold of like for your what's your lowest trade dollar amount?

13:08 Is it like one thousand dollars or always above A hundred thousand. More like a hundred thousand. Got it. I don't have like an actual minimum, but I wouldn't

13:18 I mean, going and put in a thousand dollars is is not really like That exciting or wa it's kind of a waste of time, right? It depends how you look at it. Like, for example, I think s stock picking is stupid, but I think that you're like, Well, I spend like um five grand uh over the couple months just going to the casino. Like this could be an exciting thing. Like I remember for the when the AMC shit was going crazy, I thought it'd be fun if I was like I was like, All right, I'll do the thing and I'll put like only a grand in just as like And it w it was dumb. It was stupid. Yeah, yeah. I've done that with like Dogecoin and stuff like that, but but yeah, that that's that's the true gambling budget. All right, let's do the next one. Biggest L you took personally this year.

13:55 Dude, so my daughter was born uh fifteen months ago and I gave myself four months. to like just be kinda lazy and not be on top of like my time management. And that like, you know like on Thanksgiving, you're like, yes, the night before, like the cookies are being made, I could just It's kind of the same day as Thanksgiving. It's okay if I splurge, but then like Friday happens and you're like, Well, they're leftovers. I gotta eat'em. And then by Sunday, you're still kind of picking out a little bit. I basically did that for like six months where I was like pretty horrible with my time, and I wasted so much time this year. Um and it really bothered me. And so this year I've made some changes that I'll I'll talk about when we get to that category of like changes we're making next year.

14:33 But I wasted so much time when my daughter was born. And it wasn't and this isn't like people listening being like, Well, you should have downtime to hang out with her. It's like, Yeah, I did I did that. I was totally present. But six months down the line when she's at their nanny and I'm still kinda like moving slow and like you know what I mean? It was kinda w what do you mean by wasting time? What are you talking about here? I'll give you an example. So I would shift my schedule, like my workout schedule, so I could be with her in the morning. But and that and that actually meant that she actually wouldn't get out of bed until seven. The nanny would come at nine. And so between seven and nine I would hang out at home and then work out from, you know, nine to ten thirty, which is like a pretty lazy morning for me versus working out what I used to do at seven thirty. And so the nanny now comes at eight and I like, dude, I should have just switched to like I can now start my day a little bit earlier, but I didn't. So I was still going to the gym later and just lounging around the house for hours. Things like that. But like there was five things whereas like accumulated where it's like, dude, four hours, five hours a day which is wasted. It sounds like you've been hard on yourself, but okay. I'll I'll I'll accept your L.

15:33 Each man's L is his own to to carry. It's a it's a burry. You didn't have that where you wasted time when you had your kid? Like it's okay, I think, to like be lazy for a while. Like, Oh wait, so you You took care of your kid and worked out in the morning? That sounds great. Sounds like a great morning. I don't know what you're talking about. It was just like I just I d I didn't get after it at all and I found myself to be like you and also when you have a kid I I experience this where I'm like, Oh, nothing else matters. But you should still kinda pretend it does, so you could like

16:04 kinda be productive and I kind of like Acted like nothing else mattered. All right. The biggest L I took uh there were so many to choose from, to be honest. From Uh forgetting our anniversary.

16:18 And then uh trying to recover and guessing the date wrong, that was not great. Um and by the way, she didn't even care, which was like oh damn, I've lowered expectations to that to that level. Okay, gotcha. So that was a quick L I took. Um the whole I don't know if you guys do. Can you solve this for me? For are should anniversaries be the first time you dated or when you got married? And once you get married, it switches to the marriage anniversary. It should official stance. I have been trying to say that it should be dating the whole time.

16:46 You know what I mean? Like You could do nothing for the marriage? Fuck that. It should be when you start when you it should be your first date. That's what an anniversary should be, in my opinion. The first time we kissed with tongue. That's right. All right. So um So then another L I took was uh I was a c I was collateral damage to this whole I don't know if you know about the elf in the shelf fucking Insanity. Like I lost my wife. This month and uh you know, I went to like a widow thing and they were like what? And I was like, No, no, I just lost her to Elf on the Shelf. Like this has been crazy. She's up every night for four hours preparing this elaborate

17:22 You know, elf um You know, set up. And then she sleeps she has to sleep during the day. And I don't know what's happening. I don't know what who tricked women in America into doing this, but it is um It's like doing seventy five hard, except for you wake up at two in the morning to do it.

17:39 You do it for thirty days and what is it? So it's like a doll that stares on the shelves and like is omnipresent and watches your children so you could scare them into not doing bad stuff. So okay, so I think their original theory was like you get A Elf comes to your house and it sits on a shelf and in the morning it moves and you're like Oh my God, it moved. How what's up with that? But Women on the internet have taken this to a whole new level. It doesn't just move, it creates schemes and plots and tricks and

18:06 Treats. Like uh you know, my kids wake up, they come downstairs, the entire living room has been turned into the floor is lava. There's fire on the ground everywhere, the tree is covered and looks like a volcano now. The elves are hanging from the chandelier doing crazy stuff. Or they take all of the underwear that was in all of the draw of all of the house and they put it all over the roof of the house and you gotta go outside and be like, Oh my God, what did they do? So every night they create A whole I are we had to get our toilet replaced'cause they turned our toilet into a cereal bowl and then somebody flushed and now we use fruit loops just clog the toilet. You didn't break your shit? Yeah, you just do crazy stuff every every night you come up with like a giant episode of Punked by Ashton Putcher, a huge prank.

18:49 occurs and that you have to come up with every night and you buy Thousands of dollars of materials'cause the elves have their own sized stuff that you're like. If somebody had a knowing rodent in their home causing havoc, they wouldn't put it on the shelf and say hi to it. They would kill it. What? Exactly. If you don't know about this, you're just like what what are you talking about? Oh, this is a weird, strange behavior. But if you're in it, there's guys out there right now that are sort of like PTSD shakes are coming over their body because they've also been experiencing this. Um, and I don't know if I'm in the minority. I don't know if in I'm in the the slight minority or the majority. I don't know who I don't know how many people do this. I just know that my wife and her friends they do this and she's in these Facebook groups with

19:28 hundreds of thousands of women and every morning they post the elaborate things that they set up and then that spurs all of them. To go even crazier with it. So I'm gonna say that Elf on the Shelf was one of mine. Uh do you want to do coolest moment? All right. Uh you give me yours.

19:46 This year I had to go to LA. for uh a Hampton thing where I had to interview Br Rob Deerdick in front of a a bunch of people. Very randomly someone was like, Hey Uh, I'm going to back home to LA. I'm in Austin right now. I'm going tonight. Someone mentioned that in the morning you're going to LA. I'm with my wealthy famous friend who I'm not gonna say Uh they actually have a jet.

20:06 And they're going to LA tonight. And I got this text and I had committed to uh putting my baby to sleep. This was like in the first handful of months and I was like, I'm gonna be here every night. And I was like Dude, I don't want to sound like a douche and I want you know, that was this is the I'm so grateful you offered me, but I can't go because you want to leave at

20:24 Six and I said I'm gonna be here till eight thirty. And he was like, Oh we'll we'll go at eight thirty and I was like, Awesome I was like Shit. Again, I don't want to be a dick, but my friend Neville is coming with me. uh tomorrow morning. Which he was. And I was like I I could never bail on him and he was like

20:38 Great, we have room for him. And and and it totally accommodated me. And so my best friend Neville and I flew to LA on this very wealthy, famous person's private jet. And I got to spend like three hours like learning from this guy. It was so fun and so awesome. And that was like one of my not just because we are flying private, it was just awesome that like I got to do this adventure with my friend. That was that was the best moment I had all year. But if you flew southwest, would it have been the coolest moment of the year?

21:05 On the way back. Okay. That one didn't win the award, though. That one didn't win the award, but it was fun. It's like you know you know uh you know that meme where there's like a guy in the hoodie and says like Uh Nobody here knows, but I invested in Bitcoin in two thousand and twelve. That's like how I felt like in line in Southwest, like

21:30 You know, like they should ask me. On the way here. How'd you get here? Hey, you want to know how I got here on the way here? Somebody asked me. Oh, this is so different for me. Love that one. Um Okay, I'll do a quick one. I I kinda struggled with this one. I guess I'll give you a quick one. So for Thanksgiving this year We were gonna host it. I decided to Um

21:59 do a a f a full family vacation, so kind of like You know, how do I Okay, we if we've done well, we've had some success, how do I make sure that that like You know. makes everybody have a great time and and that that I care about in my little economy.

22:13 And so I rented out this um This really cool house in Tahoe. I brought my whole family up to Tahoe. hired a personal chef who would cook us the Thanksgiving meal live. And I just remember there was one morning where I woke up and it was just the best morning. Like I took my dog out in the snow and my dog was like Mind blown at what snow is. So I took my dog for a walk early in the morning. It was crisp. I didn't have my phone. I didn't even know where my phone was. Came inside.

22:37 My kids were all playing with their cousins and that was so cool to see. Um somebody was, you know, making breakfast in the other room and I could smell it. Me and my brother in law, we were playing uh we played a game of like horse on the little nerf hoop that was in the house. And I just had the best morning and I just remember being like this This was bliss. Yeah, it ticked all my boxes, right, like

22:58 Whole family living under one roof. Kids are having a blast. I'm playing a silly game on a nerf hoop. There's not a worry in the world. We're you know, we're not busy, we're not rushing. It was just a wonderful feeling. So I'm gonna give my t my Taha morning my coolest moment of the year. The takeaway, by the way, should the I've done that for two years now. I I did the first time, I think, last year.

23:17 I when I was doing Best Moments, I was like it was either what I just said or this thing. Taking family and just Paying for it. And it sounds like a ridiculous and it's very expensive and it's very challenging for a lot of people, but if you can pull it off, it is almost always one of the best moments. It feels if and and the second takeaway is the coolest moments that I think we've had for a lot of these things, it's always doing things that benefit

23:39 other people somehow. Do you know what I mean? Like accommodating other people into our lives is the it's the best feeling. It's usually not like some huge, like traditional career. Accomplishment. It's always like It's always doing something cool for other people. So I agree. That's a good one that you have. Although yours was

23:53 Somebody flying you private. I if no, the best part was uh doing it with my friend. Uh the fact that we got that we had this like shared experience together. That was that was great. Uh all right, I've got a quick one for LifeHack. Do you wanna know my you wanna know my my biggest life like life hack? Before that I started doing it, and this is so basic to people. But On Thursday. I did this on Thursday, not on Friday.

24:17 I print out. I'll sh I'll I print out everything that I have to do for the next week. And up top is my Q one focus and goals, and that's like you know, tell my wife how much I appreciate her every day, but also like traditional business goals and also fitness goals. And then I have what I did last week and any reflections on it. And then I have a category that says how my assistant can help me. And my assistant every morning prints this off at my house. And so it's ready for me on Monday morning. And I carry this piece of paper with me around everywhere, like during the work day, and that's what I use to make sure I'm getting shit done. I don't use Notion, I don't use Asana, I don't use any of that crap. And just having this printed out has been so much more helpful for me than any type of digital complicated shit.

25:00 Totally. I have one over here on the ground. It's like I s I bought these if you go buy like sketch pads, like you know, uh artists or architects have. It's really high quality paper. Large pads with nice pens. Um, such an easy win to go to go analog instead of digital with that stuff. By the way, I think you should level it up and you'd need like a seal of sort of some sort of coat of arms for your family. I feel like you would like that. And like either stamp

25:25 Waxiel. I feel like if you just made it more prestigious Honestly, it would be kind of amusing and it would be fun. And I feel like a presentation briefing. I completely agree. Exactly. Like just give it a little stamp and be like hell yeah, that's me. That's how I roll. And like this is usually official. So I I want you to do that too. That's a great idea. I actually uh completely agree. What's yours? Okay, life hack for me, um

25:48 The highs and lows channel. Have I told you about this? My highs and lows channel? Is that for work? Yeah, kinda. I mean it was for everything, but I have a Slack channel. For every company I have a Slack channel called Highs and Lows. And in it, anytime there's a high high in the moment of that business or a low low. So you know, for example

26:07 On Christmas Eve. The Mexican government decided to ban All imports into Mexico of textiles. Which Effectively shut down my entire warehouse on Christmas Eve.

26:21 And we can no longer like operate. Yeah, like two days ago. And so you're like, ah, here we are. Business can now not Uh Ecom business has no inventory.

26:33 For the foreseeable future. And I've got millions of dollars of inventory sitting in a warehouse there that now is, you know, uh blockaded. Thank you, Mexican government. And thank you, new president of Mexico, for this Christmas present. And so. In the moment where I'm feeling a low, something bad happened, a lawsuit, or a big client gets lost, or someone key quits, or whatever it is, right? I go into that channel and I just type what happened. But the beautiful thing is instead of addressing the current problem.

27:00 Or Basking in the glory of the current high. What when I go to the channel, I just see the last one that I had. Because it's right there, scrolled up. And I just see oh man. I had a huge low then.

27:13 That feels like nothing now. Right, or I had a huge high before that also feels like nothing now, and it is this stoic trick of the brain. To basically Just write down I'm having a high or I'm having a low right now, but in the place where I'm writing it, I see my last higher low and my the one before that and the one before that.

27:32 And It just like thermoregulates my brain. My brain says, Oh, okay, it's not as bad as it seems, nor's as good as it seems. It humbles me. Or it keeps my morale high, whatever I need in that moment. And um it's so effective just to have this little simple channel. Have you ever heard of negative visualization? Yeah, like sort of imagining what the worst that could happen is the worst case scenarios. It's a

27:53 a tool that I I think it was popularized by the Sto the the famous stoics, but basically you sit down for about five minutes and you instead of meditating, you just imagine the worst things on earth are true. Your kid is dying of cancer, your wife has already died, you're broke, like you're You know, hurt whatever. And then if you actually visualize that for like five or you know, so minutes, it kinda almost feels weird. It's really strange. And then you wake up. And you open your eyes and you go, Oh, sick. None of that's true. How grateful uh I feel right now. And it's like a pretty useful tool. Um and what you're describing is very similar to that. Yeah, except for this is these were real moments that I remember and like I have evidence of versus Trying to do this exercise.

28:32 I'm saving people thousands of dollars in therapy. If you just create a little highs and lows channel, you'll therapy yourself. Because you'll go in and it'll you'll remember I've been high before, I've been low before and Either way, I walk out I it's it's that That Richard Kipling poem I treat triumph

28:48 And disaster. I treat those two impostors the same. And uh this is the the fastest, most effective way to do it. Dude, that reminds you know one of my I think Connor McGregor has taken a fall from Grace. I really don't like him anymore. But he has a lot of like amazing things that he says that I buy into and he's got this one thing, do you remember have you ever seen what he says uh about having the same attitude in victory or defeat?

29:08 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Wha what is it what does he say? Well do you know the exact line? Um he s he basically says um I forgot what it was. It was like, you know, humble in victory and something you know, something in defeat, which is By the way, not what he does at all anymore. But yeah, yeah, that was his original original thesis. Uh yeah, like

29:28 I think last time he lost he in the octagon, he was telling the humble in victory, humble in defeat. And actually last time he lost He was telling the wife that he like she was cheating on him. Your your wife is in my DMs. Your wife is in my DMs. He should learn for some Con McGreyer quotes. I really want to create a compilation and just show it to him and be like, dude, you'll you'll love this guy and just see if it see if I reach it. So this is McGregor back when we both loved him. I am cocky in prediction.

30:02 I'm confident in preparation, but I am always humble in victory or defeat. It's the best, right? There you go, right? So We did life act. Let's do now number eight, only four left. Number eight. Billy of the year. Who is our Billy of the Year? We do this segment called Billy of the Week where we

30:18 profile just a big baller shot collar, somebody who is either a billionaire or just making big moves. Who do you think was making the biggest of the big moves this year. So my pick This is not.

30:30 Um Do you know I don't know if this ever happened to you, but in high school Sophomore year. And everybody has their place in the social hierarchy.

30:41 You know who the nerds are, you know who the jocks are, you know who the theater kids are, you know who's the glue guys that can fit in with everybody. And then you all leave for the summer. But then there's always that one kid who leaves for the summer And they get that little second puberty bump. They get that extra, you know, four inches of height.

30:57 They start growing a little facial hair. They they start working out all summer because their cousin came into town and taught them how to work out. You know, they picked up a hobby. They learn the guitar or they start, you know, doing MA or something like that. And then And they start dressing differently. And you hear rumors that they hooked up with like a college girl during the summer and they had like a fling and then they come back and they're just a whole new guy. And there's like a conversation, like

31:19 It's Is great cool now? Yeah. And undeniably, Greg is cool. Mark Zuckerberg pulled a Greg this year. So here's the case for Zuck.

31:28 His stock is up five hundred five hundred percent in the last twenty four months. He's gained a hundred billion dollars of net worth. He is now the third richest man in the world. But more than that, he's not just one of the rich guys, right? Cause that that criteria would apply to Elon, it'd probably Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, there's other guys who are super rich. He found a hobby that he loves and it got him into tremendous shape. Zach started doing MMA Jiu Jitsu. Uh striking. And now Zach is fit.

31:54 He's ripped, he's got a hobby that he loves that takes his mind off of work. Hm. is playing the world's most competitive game, which is the AI game. And I don't know how much you followed this, but Zuck had a a a A judo flip, basically. He had a differentiated way to win. Uh, you know, open AI was in front and Google had deep mind.

32:11 And Zuck came out and open sourced all of their their models and created an open source competitor to basically compete in this market. And he's doing extremely well there. He went from a robot to a cool guy. He's like dresses like a cool guy now and has like a cool guy haircut. So he he did like a personal style upgrade. He you know, he he's not like you know, Elon's on his uh you know Third or fourth failed marriage, you know, eleven kids from three different women. Since college. Zuck's got his college sweetheart.

32:38 Got his daughters, appear you know, s appears to be a really great dad by all accounts. And I just respect that. I just respect that he's had this all around game. Agreed. Right? He's just had this s really strong floor game where he's just covered all the bases of what I consider to be a really good life. He's doing what he loves on and off the court and um You know, it's just lame to say Mark Zuckerberg, but I gotta say Mark Zuckerberg. He uh

33:02 Have you s like you you don't know about running, but he ran a five K time. Uh he ran a five K recently and he ran it in nineteen minutes. That's really fit. He's like really fit. Did you see that? Post where he talked about his Murph? His Murph time? Yeah, the Murph he did an insane Murph time. It would really seem like he's w he's not he's not like one of these like

33:22 You know, like Vince McMahon is like eighty years old, like w weirdly like old jacked, or like you know, Joe Rogan has this too, where they have this like really weird body'cause they're taking like TRT like crazy. It's like people have these weird Oh, Zempic bodies or TRT bodies. No, he's he just like out a lot and ate good. Yeah, he like eats an apple and chicken. Like he he looks great. You know what I mean? He looks great. Yeah, that's a great one. And he's um

33:46 I really like his wife. She's turned into like this kind of uh I don't know, like Thought leader, Michelle Obama y, like you know, like she's kinda hip and cool, and I care about her opinion a lot. Like she's kind of like a a little bit of a tasteman. How do you even know this? Because I what I love about her is that she's not out there trying to get limelight. She's not doing anything that's public, right? She does a lot of stuff. I've seen her talk at Zach's been going to UFC and they'll show her in the background uh at and then one of the fighters is like

34:17 She or she'll be like, Hey that choke was cool and he'll be like Do you want to learn it? And she'll be like, Yeah. And so she like comes to like puts the guy in a choke Like she just kinda like in it and it and she just doesn't seem you know how like people love Princess Die'cause she was like a you know, woman of the people. It's she kinda has that vibe a little bit and I I I appreciate that. I have not seen that. Uh but I have seen like they There was like an interview recently where somebody was like following him around for the day. And she was there and she was just so down to earth and cool and was like making fun of him, but in a like, you know, like

34:46 You know, when couples are together and it's like You could tell that they have fun together. But you can also tell they don't they don't hate each other. It's like you can make fun of somebody without being like really bitter on the inside. Yeah. I just thought like The vibe I got was great. But the vibe I got was Yeah it was great.

35:01 Um so mine was uh Do you remember Meetup dot com's founder, Scott? Is it hiferman? The heifer. Heifer. So the the uh the short of it is the story is basically this guy named Scott, he started um a a digital ad company that he sold for like fifteen million dollars, enough to get like very wealthy as a twenty eight year old.

35:23 He leaves tech and he goes and he joins McDonald's and he works at McDonald as uh, you know, a cashier or something like that. And people like actually noticed him and someone wrote I think Fast Company wrote an article and they're like, What the hell are you doing? He's like, dude, I've been around ad executives for the last ten years or fifty or you know, five years. I've been around tech people. I needed to get out of my bubble. And so I just went and worked at McDonald's and I learned it's really hard work and I'm so thankful that I am where I am And I'm gonna go back he didn't just do it for like a day. Well this wasn't like a field trip. Like he he actually worked there for like Months and months. Yeah, and he worked there and then he left and he started Meetup.com, which I think eventually was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Sold it.

36:03 And as of late, if you go to his LinkedIn, he has not made an ordeal out of this. This is all other people like us talking about it, making an ordeal out of uh uh of it. But now he's an Amazon warehouse worker. And he's working in the Amazon warehouse and he kinda is doing the exact same thing. And I think that's so baller that he's doing that and so baller that he is not doing it for PR. It's like some soul searching thing and I think it's fantastic and I think it's pretty badass. So he was kind of I don't he's not actually a billionaire but he's quite wealthy out I would imagine it's that bill it's that Billy mindset. It's that bill he's got that he's got B energy. Living life on your own terms, he he is doing that. Um Love it. Okay. That that's a good one. That's a good poll.

36:43 All right, uh what's next? Now this one well this one is frame breaking person, so we should explain this one. So both you and I Love one specific thing that I I don't even think other people have a word for. We call it frame breaking. It's somebody who breaks your frame. Scott is a great example of this. It's somebody who Lives their life or acts in a way.

37:01 that sort of defies your expectation. breaks your frame on what's either normal, what's acceptable, what's possible, what's cool. It's somebody who just lives differently in a way that just shat shatters your your your norm, your worldview norm. And I I wanted to make a category for this because this is one of my favorite things when I meet somebody who's like this. So Frame breaking person, who did you have this year? I'll uh I'll say frame breaking w is this guy

37:26 Brian Johnson. So Brian Johnson is the guy who wants the live forever guy. And he's frame breaking, not because of the he wants to live forever, uh shit, which is definitely cool, but I hung out with him And so for those who don't know, Brian Johnson is a guy who started a company uh that kind of turned into Venmo and a bunch of other things. He sold it for five hundred million dollars and now he's spending a lot of money to try to live forever. And you see him on Instagram all the time. He said something to me, I was like, Why are you doing this?

37:51 Um you know, and we were just talking about stuff and he goes, You know I read this book on Magellan. And Magellan was a a sailor and the explorer in the fifteen hundreds or fourteen hundreds, and he basically sailed around the globe and he proved all this amazing stuff. And I just thought it was so amazing. And I was starting to and I made a list of like the top ten, top fifteen people to ever live and what their contributions were, you know.

38:14 Uh the Wright brothers with flight, the person who invented electricity or discovered electricity, like People like that. And he's like, none of them were like rich. Like it like money didn't impact people, uh, it didn't impact the world as much. And I just thought that if I could solve like a really hard problem and contribute to the world, I thought that that would be a life worth living. And I just decided that I'm gonna try and do everything in my day.

38:36 to be renowned in the year two thousand five hundred. He's like in two thousand five hundred, I hope to create like and contribute to the re to society in such a way that in two thousand five hundred They talk about me. And I thought That was absolutely bananas. I don't know if I want to do that, but I thought it was so cool that he was like, I don't care about money because money and I was like He's like that. He's like, Who was the richest person five hundred years ago? I was like, I don't I don't I don't know. He's like, Yeah, that's my point, but you've heard of Magellan. Uh and so I thought it was such a frame breaking moment. Um

39:08 for me to to like hear his reasoning as to why he's trying to do what he's do, which is prolong death or solve for death. And he's like, If I solve that, would you say that will I'll be remembered. It's like Yeah, yeah, you you will. And he's like that's how I want to spend my day. That's an amazing answer. Um

39:24 I love that he did that. Just all the things you just said, making a list of the fifteen most influent most impactful or influential people ever. What a what a list. I think I I wanna go do that just to even see what that was. He should be like. It was like it was like um it was like Orville, it was the Wright brothers, it was the the Gutenberg press, it was Magellan. Like there was like ten of them. He was like, these changed the world forever. And he's like, Do you know how many of them are like rich people? None. Uh, they were just like adventures or something like that. I thought you were gonna say Orville Redenbacher and I was like

39:53 I'm not gonna complain if that's the if he if he's on the list. Okay, so my answer for frame breaking person Is Nick Gray. And this is gonna be a uh answer, but

40:06 It's my true answer. This is my truth and I'm gonna speak my truth. Uh is it not it's not Elon Musk. It's somebody I met and hung out with I had a uh a flight, so I went and spoke at this event. And they they were like hey, we'll f we'll fly you private and I was like, Okay, cool. And Nick was going to the same place as I was, he's like, Hey, can I

40:23 Come with you. And I was like, Yeah, no problem. That'd be great. And so I was the Nick was the same in that situation. Yeah, exactly. So I was like one on one with him for like five hours or something. Oh no, you know. Which is That's a long time that's a long conversation. That's like more time than I spend talking to most people, right?

40:40 And I walked away and I'm just gonna read you my um Text to my sister. after I hung out with Nick. So I hung out with Nick. I try to play cool and afterwards I get off the plane and I go

40:50 I just hang out with a guy. Who has it has such a zest for life, I go I've hung out with a lot of rich people, but this guy's rich in a different way. He is rich in social wealth. He's got tons of friends. He is rich in amusement. I feel like everything he does in a way, everything he does in a day.

41:08 amuses him and he's doing it on his term. I go, he is corny and totally himself in the best way possible. And I was I just want to tell you a couple of the things that just stood out to me, like prolific things this guy did this year. So we've talked about the Tokyo blind date where he says, I want to go to Tokyo, but I don't want to go alone. I fill out this Google form and I wanna take one person on a blind date with me to Tokyo and he gets thousands of responses. He picks a girl, he almost falls in love on this date. He does the whole thing publicly and it goes viral. This guy's having fun. The next thing he does, he goes to India. He stays in India for like a month. And I'm like, What are you doing in India for? I'm Indian. I haven't been to India for a month in like 10 years.

41:42 And he's like, Oh, I just love the culture. I just wanted to go. I know I have a couple of friends that I've met in other travels. I just want to go visit their hometown. So he goes to these like remote towns in India and he's learning their way of life and their foods and all this stuff and he's blogging about it. And he knows that in India, one of the ways that people like they don't have hinge or tinder in the same way, like the tr the old school way in India is you run what's called a matrimonial ad in the newspaper. So this is how my mom met my dad, which was Uh my dad runs an ad, it says

42:09 You know. Um twenty one years old, six feet tall. You know, have a bachelor's degree in engineering. Um Yeah, good head of hair, comes from a good family, that sort of thing.

42:20 And Nick finds this so amusing, he's like I gotta do this. So he runs A matrimonial ad. And actually, he starts A V testing different matrimonial ads and he's showing them to me. It's like five nine. full set of teeth. At one point he was like, How do I make sure that she's like fit and like not like crazy overweight? And I was like we were like uh like could you like but like Mm. I have to be able to lift you on my like I want to be able to lift you on my shoulders like I'm not strong. But he's not running it like as a prank. He was genuinely curious and interested to see what and he just he just over and over again had these little life experiments and just followed

43:03 He just I uh the way I chuck text my sister, I go, I feel like he's just taking the bounce of the ball of life. He's just going with it. So for example I'm like, dude, you should like start a YouTube channel or something. He goes, Oh, I have one. I go, Well, I've never seen it. And he shows me his YouTube channel. Do you know what his YouTube channel is? I've watched the videos, but what do you mean what is what it is? It's reviews of like cruise ships. Yeah. Of which bedrooms he likes on cruise ships, because he likes cruises. And guess what? All his followers are old people who retire and go on cruises, and they're like, Thanks, I'm going on its cruise next year. I've retired. I'm 74. I I was wondering if the bathrooms come with a vanity kit. And like

43:39 Sure enough, that's what but he's so into it that he just I've always said the best product is you pushed out. And that to me is Nick Gray. Nick Gray, he just took it himself and flipped himself inside out. He's just pushing himself out in the world. And if you love it, if you hate it. He Really could care less, it seems like

43:56 And I just found it I don't know, very like eye opening to see somebody who is their own corny self on on full blast. And I really admire that. F for example He's I'm interested in stocks, he's interested in stocks, but the way he's interested in stocks is different. He is a huge fan.

44:12 Of one stock, you know the one. Uh Cloudflare. Cloudflare. He hosts his birthday party at Cloudflare. He creates a WhatsApp group of other Cloudflare b believers at every earnings call. He texts a group and he says, Like, you know, I hope the earnings gods are with us today. I'm feeling lucky. I'm wearing this and I'm just I I I I'm ready for all that this Q two call brings us and he's what his whole group He w he you know, I I met Nick Gray'cause we were all bloggers like ten years ago.

44:43 And he, you know, there's like thirty of us friends who are bloggers. He went to each of us and he goes, I noticed your website is hosted on whatever, GoDaddy, this or that. Would it be okay if my assistant transferred your account from GoDaddy to Cloudflare? We'll do it completely for free. And in fact, the hosting property or the hosting thing that you have, they're charging you a hundred dollars a month. Cloudflare was gonna charge you forty dollars a month. I went and got a deal. I was like, why are you doing this? He goes,'Cause I'm a shareholder of Cloudflare and I need you guys to start using it because I think you're gonna love it even more. Dude, I swear to God, he switched my blog to Cloudflare for free. And now I'm I'm saving uh uh six hundred dollars a year. He's like a shareholder of his own life in a way that I am not. He's like a activist shareholder. It's like

45:27 She It was like what are the best gyms that have swimming pools and saunas in New York? And he found them and they were super busy. But what he realized was that All the gym had poor SEO.

45:41 And when he was Googling for best gym and sauna, like nothing was really coming up. And so what he did was He started Writing blogs about other gyms as if they had the best pool in sauna, not the one that was near him that actually did. So that it would go down in the rankings and be less busy, so that he would have it more to himself. And these are just like little life experiments he was doing. And he made millions of dollars doing this too because He loved museums.

46:05 So he created a business about m renegade the museum tours where he would take you on his own tour, because museums are boring and he's not boring, and he would take you on his own tour. unofficially not a part of the museum ended up selling that for millions of dollars. Yeah. Like w he he we did the thing about his gag at the party. We're on the way out. He's like, Hey Sean Call my phone, I've got a gag. Gag?

46:28 He's like, Yeah, I got wanna do a a little bit. Like a bit? Are you comedian? What's going on? And then I call his phone and he whips out This phone case that's uh looks like a butcher's knife, like a machete. And he puts it up to his ear and goes, Hello?

46:40 And he just wanted to make us laugh. And I'm like This guy Just goes through life trying to make himself la a laugh. I the the The last text I sent my sister, I go. It's like he you know the movie Limitless? It's like it's like he took the limitless pill, but instead of it getting he didn't give him any superpowers

46:56 He just is using that pill to enjoy his life in a way that's w the rest of us are not. And so he broke my frame. our friend Sahel Sahel Bloom um He's got this new shtick where he shares like Text. Like

47:09 He's like in these group chats and I guess he'll say like some inspirational shit and then he'll like He'll tweet it out. He's like, Here's what I shared with this chat. And it's like a realization this morning. First of all, we have my biggest enemy. I have to say I love Sahil, so I'm saying this with love, but he'll say some like yeah, like live, laugh, love for dudes type of shit. And uh like you know, like you know, the thing about wisdom is that you only earn it through like hardship. Like, you know, whatever. And then some guy retweeted and he goes Bro, if a dude that said this in my group chat, he's getting kicked out right away. Uh and uh your sister's reply to that is like She went to his she went to his blog and was just like he looks funny and then moved on with life. I was like, Yeah, I just typed you like an essay about how this man changed my life. I Google image searched him. You're like, dude, do you like Oprah?'Cause I'm doing some Oprah level shit right here. And she just like dismissed you. Uh that's pretty funny.

48:04 Nick Ray is the man. Are we gonna do favorite guests now? Yeah, let's do uh Best guest and then we'll do best idea best business idea that we had on the podcast. So let's do best guest first. Who you got? This is I worked really hard not to have recency bias, but I'm Jod, uh, from Replit.

48:24 We barely even talked about like the financials of his business, but I'm pretty sure it's like a billion dollar company, right? Or like last round was like Right under a billion dollars. So like right, he know he built this huge company. I think he's only thirty six or thirty seven. Crazy smart. Like his blog is so good. He's not just smart like you talk to him, like you he like is prolific. He writes all this amazing stuff. She He said one little small line that

48:46 Like I could have dismissed as like a fortune cookie thing, but he was like telling how he makes the decisions based off of what will be a a better movie, but he gave like eight examples of that and I totally bought in and I thought that he was amazing and one of the reasons was because of that like live life to That'd be a good movie. I thought it was fantastic. Yeah, he he said whenever whenever I'm at a fork in the road on a decision of what to do in life, I just ask, Well, we'll make the better story. Yeah. And then I just do that one. It was great. Uh he was so fascinating. Uh that episode I on YouTube, I think it has two hundred thousand views. It was it was a huge hit. And it was one of those things where we were recording it.

49:20 And he's like he's low energy and oftentimes high energy people will do better because that's just uh whatever how people are. But And I was like I Yeah. enthralled by this podcast. Like a lot of times if you spend an hour and a half on Zoom, you get tired. I was

49:35 totally excited at the end of that pod and he was a very low mellow uh low energy mellow guy and I was like I don't know if this is gonna hit or not, but I I love it. And so it totally hit. So a lot of people thought he was amazing as well. Yeah, there's there's almost half a million Downloads across YouTube and and audio on that one. Oh, really? Um Yeah, it's at three thirty on YouTube. All right, so Mine I have

49:57 Two. One is the highest viewed episode of the year and one is the lowest viewed episode of the year. So I'll start with the obvious one, the highest V episode. This is the episode I did with Monish Pabry. It's at two and a half million on YouTube alone. Wow. So it's the first first ep first podcast episode. We've doing this for four or five years now. First podcast podcast episode that crossed Like a million on on YouTube. So that was cool to see.

50:20 But In the moment I knew it was a banger. Like it was the I I felt like it was the best Best best podcast I've ever done. I remember preparing for it for two weeks. I flew out there, we hired a film crew, we went to his house. I went to his house the day before and hung out with him to like kinda warm up and prep him. Like I g I gave it my absolute all for that interview and it And it paid off.

50:39 He told he said two things that stu are there's three things that stood out to me about him. Uh, he gave this story on the podcast about Well I was like, so what All right. You've told me about Buffett, you've told me about yourself, you've told me about

50:50 You you know, your friendship with Charlie Munger Like what makes a great investor? And he basically was He gave me the keys. He was like um Yeah, people think the money's made in the buyer buying and the selling, it's made in the waiting. And he basically told the story about you ever watch Seinfeld, you know that episode where Elaine

51:07 Goes on a Uh, she gets this new boyfriend and it's going great and Elaine loves this guy and he's he seems so perfect. And then they go on vacation together and on the flight. She's got like snacks and a movie and like all the stuff to like entertain her. He just sits there.

51:20 He's just staring at the seat in front of him, just raw dogging it. And she's like, Are you sure you don't want like to watch this or read a book or do you want to stack? And he's like, No, I'm I'm fine. And she's like, By the end of the flight, she's like, I gotta break up with this guy, like this guy's a maniac. Uh, for just sitting there staring at the seat back of them and what a brilliant A brilliant episode idea. How do you come up with that? Just like he's perfect. Except he stares at the seat in front of him on a flight. I can't do it. And he's like, that guy would make a great investment. If you can have fun watching the patriot, you can be a great investor.

51:55 And it my takeaway was like, Oh, I'm probably not gonna be a great investor. Got it, got it. It's not me, uh but at least I I knew what the formula was. The other things were By I I've the life hack of going to these people's houses for the podcast. Hold on. That was a really good comment. I know what the form uh that ain't for me, but I know what the formula is. That's actually pretty cool. Yeah, I know the answer. Same thing with Omjad. Omjad goes I've realized you know my advantage my advantage is that I persist.

52:20 I I can push the boulder up the mountain for a long time. Like I'm just willing to endure. And I was like, Oh, okay, cool. Not gonna compete with you. I can't do that. You're like uh I'm happy I know what it takes and I'm happy to know I don't have it. The girl, oh, she's really into a guy who's, you know, got these traits. All right, it's not me. Nice to meet you. See you later. Um So Going to these people's houses, I think, is just this life act where you pick up so much of their energy and their lifestyle and their way of being. Like I did Monish right before I did Joe Lonsdale. Joe Lonsdale You go to his house.

52:53 It's this Oh, it's this elaborate mansion, beautiful. Beautiful mansion, you know. statues that are shooting water out of their mouth and and he's got like an old

53:05 gun from the Victorian age. And that's like what he's into. He's got a full staff that's serving us breakfast and just like full staff that just operates in his house. And he's like a high performance machine. And right after we left, Elon Musk was coming over for a a lunch with the you know, the senators of uh of Mm. of uh of the area and I was like wow this is A lifestyle that I just it

53:27 Yeah, broke my frame. Then I go to Monisha's house and we're like, Hey, can we come over? He's like, Yeah, sure, stop by. I'm like, Is it okay if we come between four and four twenty? And he's like, come whenever you want. And we go over and he's hanging out. He's wearing basketball shorts and his his flip flops. And he just took a nap, which he does every day, and he shows us his nap room. And he's like, Yeah, like my whole job is to make

53:47 You know, a couple of great decisions a year. So I just read and I think and I just try to have a great calm state of mind and I I meet interesting people and That's all I do. I don't have to like go go go go go. And I don't have to beat the senators and I don't have to have And he shows me his library where we record the podcast. He's got thousands of books. He's read all of them. And um It was just so interesting to see these different these different ways to win.

54:09 And then you see them up close in person, and that's it's just a very different style of shadowing'em for a day. Like with Joe Lonsdale, I went in the morning at eight AM. And I did the morning workout with him and then I had breakfast with him. Then we jumped to the cold plunge. All of that before the podcast. hanging out with these people was the real win. The podcast was just a cherry on top. So that was that was my favorite And then I'll also give a shout out.

54:29 to the lowest viewed episode of the year that I thought was amazing. Which was the episode I did with Mike Posner. Also went to his house. And um They said the lowest views'cause you know, he's a rapper, musician, maybe it's not a fit with our audience I think this guy was amazing. He was he was s uh an incredibly positive guy.

54:46 And he had all these little micro lessons. that were amazing. Two of them that stood out to me. One was He has this phrase where he was talking about how he he made this hit song. His first song went like quadruple platinum. And then he was always chasing that high in his twenties to do it again. And the next song went double platinum, but it felt like a failure in comparison. Next song, single platinum. Oh my God, he's on this downswing. And then the next one didn't even go platinum.

55:09 And he's like the mistake I was making was I would go to the studio try to make a hit. I I went there to try to make a hit song. And I my mind that wasn't w how I made my first hit song. First hit song I just did what I thought was dope. And then then I just started trying to play the game too much, trying to make hits, and I would I all like succeeded was making something I hated.

55:28 And I just thought this is such a applicable thing for business, especially for people out there who have not Tasted their first big win. And all they want is a big win, or they have a big win, and then they need they feel the need to top that with their next one. And they start going to the studio to try to make a hit. And he said, at the end of the day, I figured out. I'm just gonna make what's cool to me. And sometimes

55:46 The whole world will agree. And I just thought that was such a dope philosophy as a creator. to to take, which is I'm just gonna make what's done for me and then once in a while the whole world will agree with me. Which by the way, uh like very meta example here, the the I don't know how the audio did, but the YouTube on this did. Thirteen thousand.

56:03 That's like one of the lower in the past year. I listened to it and I loved it. I thought it was so good. And then the comments are um This is the best episode ever. Uh the second comment, this was the best episode M F M episode ever. Like People

56:17 Loved it in the comments, and for some reason it didn't get views. That's insane. It's also good not to chase those views, I think, because this is I thought it was fantastic. It's weird. Why do you think it didn't hit? To take his approach. Doesn't matter. I just do what's cool to me and sometimes the whole world agrees. And sometimes they don't. Most of the time they don't. That's okay. And so the the you know the two examples I gave and the Monish one, okay, it gets three million plays. In that case, the whole world agreed. But I felt the same way about the Mike Poser one and I'm proud of both of them the same because

56:48 I thought they were both dope. All right, last two categories. Best product. What do you have? I have a lame answer, I'll go quick. Chat GPT. Uh pretty dope. It's the same product.

56:59 I would have picked last year, but it got way better. Like the same product. It's the same name, but it's a totally better product. I and and I also have found new ways to use it. It's almost like You got onto Hogwarts and you're learning new like, oh you're learning how to use your wand. It's like oh wow, I got I could do that spell with it, I could do this with it.

57:16 That's how AI feels to me and I just wrote chat GPT as my my quick way of saying it. Dude, I had a friend over, uh some family friends over yesterday for Christmas and he's worked at ch uh open AI for four years. Uh I cornered him. Strapped him down. I just cornered him. And he's a lot smaller than me and I w I had my hand on his shoulder. I was like Here you go. Have a seat. Have a seat. Sit down. There's a computer and here's a list of questions. You wanna start from the top? Let's get let's get after it. Yeah, we'll eat turkey later, but have a seat.

57:48 Pep with questions. Uh I think that was a uh Chat GPT is a good one. Um What was yours? Best product. This thing. It says well the focus the focus is off. It's the brick.

58:00 This is a twenty nine dollar thing. It has some type of I don't know what it's it called the R F I D or for the audio audio listener, Sam's holding up a little s tiny square. It's like you know One inch by one inch. And this is a thing that just nukes your phone. It's basically it's the size of an a AirPod case and it's a piece of plastic with some type of chip in there. You download their app. I think this thing is twenty five dollars.

58:21 Every morning. when I'm getting ready to go to the gym, I walk by my door and I brick my phone, which means it's completely unusable other than making phone calls so my wife can call me for an emergency Spotify. And uh

58:35 My workout app. And so I will keep it like that until noon, usually. So I can't answer texts. I can't use Slack. Can't use email, no Wikipedia, no Chrome. All I could use is true coach, which is where I have my workouts. A phone call for emergency and uh Spotify.

58:50 And it is awesome. It makes my life a l just a little bit better every morning. Uh I I'm I'm a big fan of these guys. Uh have you ever used one? I've not used it. Um Maybe I should. That's a good case.

59:02 It's awesome, man. You can like y I have like a workout setting and then you could have like um driving settings so you could just make it like YouTube and Like I I listen to podcasts on YouTube. Uh so you have YouTube and maps available. Like that's it. And so it's pretty cool. And I can't uh unbrick my phone unless I come home and I scan it again. And so it's a

59:22 It's pretty amazing. So that's been my best product. And is there like an emergency o like oh for real, for real, I need Google Maps right now? Like is there a way to override it if you needed to? Yeah, but I think you only get three times to do that. And the third time you do it, this brick that you've Purchased. It's uh useless. And so

59:40 It's just like, Oh, but I bought that thing for thirty dollars, I want it to work. Like that type of like uh Uh Resistance is is just enough. Yeah, I don't know if I'm built for that level of self discipline. You know, back in the day I bought that um wristband called Pavlok, which is basically like Pavlovian training for yourself. So

59:57 It's a wristband where You electrocute yourself? Uh you get a s a slight uh you get a you get a small electric shock. Not actually that small, but you get an electric shock in your arm. It kinda hurts. But uh you know, I was using it for my diet and it's like okay, I'm gonna eat

1:00:13 this piece of pizza and then I gotta like voluntarily push this button to like shock myself. And I just Steven? And instead all I used it for was just a conversation piece. Like I'd be somewhere, What's that? I'd be like, Oh, try this on, watch this. And it became my party trick to be cool instead of having anything to do. Check it out. I'm I'm a freak.

1:00:30 I'm unique. Exactly. I'm like no, no, no, no. Does it work? I have no idea. Don't even try. Yeah, you gotta you should try this. the change that you're gonna make next year. Uh mine's mine's fast. Um I'm getting an office. Uh I'm sick of like working from home all the time. Yeah, like I I I it's it's cool a few days a week, uh I guess, but it's cool when you have to do it. Uh

1:00:58 But Yeah, I uh we're getting an office. I'm getting an office. Uh I need to be around people. It's just like You know, even when business is going well, you're like, Yeah, let's get on a Zoom and uh Company is remote. So you're gonna get an office and then there's local people or what do you think? We have twenty employees and like eleven of them are in New York City.

1:01:17 So we have enough. Uh and so we're gonna New York, so what are you gonna do? I live an hour away, so I'll just go three days a week. Oh my God, what a horrible decision. Do I have to talk my friend out of signing up for a voluntary two hours of commuting a day? Do I need to show him the statistics that show how much You hate your life. Dude, but what's the like the alternative is that I'm just like in my kitchen and it's like I celebrate with an emoji. You know, it's just lame. I let you break your phone. I let you Care about dressing up. I let you do all these things that's you know, they're they're self harm, but I let you do it'cause there's some greater good.

1:01:51 Commuting two hours a day is a Horrible idea. You're good with how often do you s when was the last time you saw a co worker? I guess you worked with your wife. That doesn't count. Here's what I did, which was way more genius. Diego, who's on this call right now, who helps me with all my content.

1:02:08 He lived in Baltimore. As of a month ago. And then I called Diego and I said, Hey Diego. How would you like to live within 10 minutes of me? And he's like, I'd be down. And I go, Cool. How do we do that in the next two weeks? He's like, I guess I'd have to figure out a way to transport my dog. And then he

1:02:23 quit his job or you're not quit his job. His wife quit his her job He g broke his lease. He rented an RV and drove across the country in seven days. And now he lives within ten minutes of me and we see each other every day. We transformed my garage. Into an office for ourselves. And um

1:02:39 It's great. And that's the way to do it. Wait, so Is is the expectation that he's gonna live in an R V for an extended period of time or is he gonna rent a house? He got an apartment nearby. And uh lives in a cool place. And I told him, I said, Hey, you're moving to California, so here's a pay raise to cover the cost of your move and uh

1:02:58 And the higher cost of living out here. And come live in California. Who wants to be at Baltimore, bro? And uh come come hang out with me. It's gonna be way more fun. And agreed to do it. Was it weird after not doing that for three years or whatever? Well, the weird part is like I I realized how how distracted my schedule is'cause like he'll come over and we're supposed to work.

1:03:20 And then it'll be like, Oh, but I gotta like go drop off my kid at school, then I gotta come back. Then my trainer comes over. And then I work again and then like my kid wants to play like Jenga for a second. So like be right back and I realize like oh you know, when somebody else is there, you're acutely aware that like wait, hold on, I'm taking a break right here. And how many of those mini breaks I had. So I had to kinda rejigger that to be a little more Focus time. But honestly it was like well.

1:03:43 It's just better it's like all All the times we would be doing calls. Us being in person during those, even if it's not perfect. So so you know, for example, sometimes he just comes and works out of the office even before I'm there. I'm dropping my kids up, but he's just there. He just treats it like an office. And then we just happen to be there together a bunch of times. But the the key for me is I don't have twenty people, right? So I could do this with

1:04:02 'Cause I have two people on my team and that's all I need. Yeah. Yeah. I w I might do it in Westport where I live. But I uh

1:04:09 You know where I work out most days is the library. Dude, I'm in the library and it's just like me and then like sixteen year old girls. Exercise No, like ta like type on my computer like it's like I I I freaking love the library. I work out of the library all the time and uh libraries have a great vibe. Dude, it's so much better than like a coffee shop or a we work. Uh library's a great. Um there's a there you and I were in Entrepreneur magazine last year and they have a copy of it, like they have like a magazine section. And uh You know, I definitely move that magazine to the front and every once in a while I'll read it. I'm like

1:04:44 But we're not on the cover, right? No inside too. I gotta open it up. And when people walk, I gotta be like Who's that guy in the magazine? Oh, did you add did you just ask me if I Yeah, it is. Uh No, I like the library. What what's yours? Okay, library's a great one. Um What category are we even on? Uh change you're making.

1:05:13 Oh, change I'm making. Uh this is gonna sound stupid, but um it's not for me. I'm all in on music this year. I decided that um I wanna

1:05:24 Yeah, I wanna do more music stuff. And so I picked up the piano again. Playing and I hi so I basically hired somebody to come teach me piano. 'Cause I did it like in seventh grade and I can play like for release and that's it. How many lessons are you in? Up I'm starting next week. And the second one is I I hired a guy'cause I've always Like you can now make

1:05:43 Like most music is now made on a computer. And I'm like, Okay, I know computers, but I don't know how to make music on a computer. And I kinda wanna see what's Like the latest and greatest of that. So I hired somebody who's like, you know those people that know how to like make songs on a computer. Are you talking about like beats or like are you gonna like record a cover? You wanna write or you wanna cover. Original start with covers. Yeah, start with covers always and then

1:06:06 And then learn to make an original song. And I think that that'll be really fun. And so I w and the reason why is Um Well, the reason why is'cause it's fun. Uh, but two, I

1:06:17 Uh two things are happening. One AI is making it easier and easier to make art. And software and things that I things that were previously off limits or to would take a lot of skill to be able to do something cool. Now a little bit of coding skill lets you do a lot. And a little bit of music skill can do a lot using

1:06:34 Using these new tools. Um But also I Just like I have a f a gym I go to for my physical body, I want a creative gym.

1:06:44 And I got this idea from Tim Ferris. He was talking about how One of the ways he he keeps his mind right and stays in a like an awesome state of mind and is able to produce great content and be really creative. He works out his creativity. He's like and it doesn't have to be in the thing I'm doing. So if I'm writing a book, it doesn't have to be that I have to Just practice writing.

1:07:01 He's like I might paint or do drawing or calligraphy or archery or anything that is sort of like a a creative gym session. Yeah. And I do that in the morning and he's like it's like when you go to the gym and then suddenly you have more energy and you're performing better at at work Why is that? Same thing with a creative gym session. So I I like that idea. And I thought, Oh yeah, this is something I could see more people doing in the future.

1:07:24 It makes sense to me. I'm gonna start doing this just the way I I I go to the gym in the morning. I'm gonna go to the creative gym, you know, two or three times a week. And start doing something that's highly creative. Dude, that's so good. I think that's fantastic. You know, um You know, Sarah takes my wife, she takes piano and singing class classes, like lessons. And you guys can can vibe out. But what I'm trying to encourage her to do is sign up for some type of open mic night or just like something where it's like a per you can have like a recital. Uh well dude, I got inspired by my cousin. He did this, so I was like, Oh, I'm gonna do this.

1:07:55 And then it's so funny, when you put it out there, people start just giving you clues on how to win. So My sister was like, Oh yeah, do you know our cousin Neil? He does that. He's hired a piano coach, he's doing it all the time. And then he went to an old folks' home and he performs there once a week as his recital. And it gives them so much joy. And I'm like, wow, what a great win. A low stakes way.

1:08:15 To have a performance that brings other people joy and it's just like so wholesome. I was like, wow, what a great idea. When you're in my opinion, when you're doing these new things, you need like um a capstone. You need like an essay, you need some type of Uh beginning, middle, and end of like all right, I have now achieved level one. It's like that's kinda like karate's kind of cool because there's belts like you need some type of like break the woodboard at the end. Well, there's like a it's like a belt like where it's like, all right, I am working towards this. Nice, I crossed the threshold. Next. Like a that framework is I think a very helpful you know, with writing. It's like I want to publish a book. It is published. Like, you know, there's some type of like uh uh destination. I think that that would be cool. That would be cool for you. And I think it's by the way, great. Like you you get you you and other people tease me for I I like clothing. It's it's the same shit. It's just like some type of creative like there's no money, there's

1:09:08 Like it's about the journey. that type of like vibe and it is exciting to like, you know, beauty and art. Like that shit feels good on the soul. I think it's great that you're doing this. I think that it would be really fun if you had some type of Capstone project thing. Yeah, the other thing I'm doing is I'm taking the Jesse Itzler twenty twenty five, like how to plan your year. And I'm actually doing it. So like yesterday I was doing his Git light part where I'm cleaning out

1:09:30 I'm just getting rid of stuff. I'm getting light before the end of the year and closing out the year properly. I did my thanks stuff and I started writing my thank you notes like I'm I'm buying in and I'm actually doing it. So if you want to hear it, go listen to the Jesse Util episode. I was pretty inspired by that. This is we have the good idea. We we have the calendar. Uh I we use the calendar. So like uh I sit in our little area where we have the calendar. I I totally use it. I think it's fantastic. Isn't it crazy how Maybe twenty six and twenty seven year old Sam and Sean would have made fun of these things as whack. Hundred percent. And now it it's sort of like even

1:10:04 Like You'd be like, this is stupid. It's awesome. Isn't it funny how we're like I'm like going to bed early is so Awesome. I used to tell myself all kinds of stories about why I was a night owl, how that was more fun, how you know it'd be lame to go to bed at n if a friend was going to bed at 930, I'd be like lame. Now I'm like jealous if I hear about my friend that goes to bed at nine thirty.

1:10:27 Oh fuck, how does he do that? I need I need to learn. This was a great pod. What do you think? I think it's great. It's one of my favorite traditions. Thank you everybody for listening. Another great year in the books. The greatest podcast ever created. We did something, um we had to do this like ad for Spotify and

1:10:42 when we did it, Sean was like, You know, Spotify told us to thank you guys. But in actuality you should be thanking us because we're the one who just did all the work to like make this content for you. But uh I am pretty thankful uh uh um of everyone uh who works on the pod. I'm also thankful for the people who actually listen to this shit. Like it it like It shocks me sometimes when people come up to me still and they're like, Yeah, you said this thing and this thing and like it made a difference to me. And I feel so much gratitude when like people do those things and I'm so happy that we're able to do this. That's the pod.

1:11:15 I feel like I can rule the world, I know I could be what I want to I put my law in it like my day song On the road less travel never looking back

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