I Did Nothing For 2 Weeks. It Made Me Better At Everything.

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/8fb2a7027229fc1d

You know, I I have a soft spot in my heart for immigrants. You do love immigrants, dude. Yeah, like Korean store owner energy. So it's almost racist how much you love immigrants. I feel like I can rule the world and know I could be what I want to.
Dude, what's going on? Um I haven't seen you in about two weeks. Uh I had a baby.
And so I took about two weeks off. You were doing some family stuff. What's going on?
Uh let's talk about your baby first,'cause it's much happier. I went to uh my grandpa's funeral, so let's not start with the the saddest news possible. Tell me about the baby. You uh
Like we were due, I think on the twentieth, on the thirteenth.
Or the twelfth or something like that, my wife uh was like, I don't want to freak you out. And it was ten PM at night. She's like, My water just broke. Dude, what an unbelievable sentence. She didn't want to freak you out. She's so considerate as her water broke. That's unbelievable. That's the most Sarah thing I've ever heard.
Uh and so we went to the hospital, we gave birth.
She gave birth. Uh it was don't put don't bring that we shit in here, okay? This is a space for realness. Uh it was great for me. No big deal. Uh I mean I was exhausted and I complained about it for a week.
But uh I took I I took two weeks off and it got me thinking before we even get that, I need to know birthing uh situation. What's what's your role? What are you doing? Are you a handholder, are you a coacher, are you off to the side, are you the cameraman? What w what are you doing?
She had to get a C section. So like I don't do anything.
Yeah. So I I eventually came in the room and she was like they give they give her medication that like makes her shake or whatever. And so I was basically just like rubbing her face and calming her down. But my wife is very stoic. So I've been I've been lucky. I don't even know how to do things like that.
Like sometimes I'm put in this situation, I'm like, Oh, I need this is where I'm supposed to be comforting and I'm like
I realize I've never once done that. And so then you know like the
It's like when you swing a tennis racket, your the pressure's all off. You don't really know like how much force to apply, how much not to. Like why is my hand so sticky right now? It's terrible. When I got engaged, I was like I like started to put my knee down to the ground. Uh a bound on the back will be fine.
It's like the little things that you've never practiced that lunge and then talk giving a speech upwards. It's like a very strange thing. Hey, put her there.
Yeah. We did a pinky promise and that's held true. My brother in law, uh when my sister was giving birth, she like had like a longer labor. Like it was like
So it's like taking a while.
And then you know.
She like looks over at one point and he's like as like napping on the couch in the room. And she was like, Hey
He's like oh sorry, I'm just so like so tired so stressed and tired. And she was like You're so stressed and just the like the venom pure venom in that situation. It was too much for him.
Yeah, there's this funny joke. It's like
I'm so happy that women have to go through hours and hours of labor and pain so they can finally experience the pain that a man feels when he has a cold. But like I've we have two children now. I've experienced this that basically uh
You know, we are all built for things and uh sometimes we rise to the occasion and women just somehow like can fight like being tired and in pain. Whereas I'm just gonna complain if I get anything less than seven hours uh a night of sleep. So like women kinda become like superheroes during that uh those moments and
And I'm happy that she did that. So everyone's healthy and happy. I'm feeling great.
I took two weeks off.
And I was like chomping at the bit to get back to it after like honestly four days.

Like I need a Zoom call. Someone hit me with a Zoom call today. What were we chomping at the bit to do exactly? Like, you know, the you're
A newborn child doesn't do anything. They just sleep. And I'm so happy. You're bored, yeah. Yeah, like I'm so happy I get the experience for their but then in this particular case we have an uh a a two year old. And so I I get to spend time with her, taking her to her classes and being like just so you know I love you so much and like you're important even though all this new stuff is happening. And so that like touched my heart and I'm so happy I had that.
But I didn't need more than two weeks. Two weeks is more than enough. Did you agree?
Yeah, 100%. Here's uh again, this is a this is a zone of truth. So here's Yeah, let's let's let's clip this. This is gonna be uh a rage bait clip that's gonna go viral on uh uh a tech bro's opinion on maternity leave. Go. Let me tell you how it actually is. Childbirth from the man's perspective.
First of all
I would say a couple of things.
There's seems like there's two groups of people. There's the people who touch their baby, hold their baby with for the first time, and the life just change, and the endorphins kick in, and there's like this entire like
you know, inner spiritual awakening.
Didn't happen for me. It doesn't happen for a lot of people. Took it takes me like fifteen months to love a baby. I care for the baby before then. I wish the baby well. I want no harm to be done to the baby, but do I crave like holding and touching and like, you know.
Doing the things my wife loves about a baby. She's like, Oh the smell. I'm like the smell? I don't even smell the baby. What do you mean? Why are you smelling sniffing the baby? Can I save you? You love your baby, but you may not be in love with them.
I mean, that I might be a little generous. All right. I was just trying to get like I cared for the baby. I wanted to love the baby, but I didn't actually feel anything for like fifteen months. But then by the way, like
After that.
It's all in. It's an incredible experience. And like my kids are
I have a w one and a half year old, four year old four year old and a six year old and like you know
I can't get enough now. But but that same like can't get enough feeling I didn't have that as an important.
But kinda normal from the man's perspective, I I think.
The second thing is
Paternity leave. A little bit confusing.
What I actually think is useful
Take the week off before birth.

Do little stuff around the house, just be there, be a calming presence.
And like kinda like
I don't know, take the take the load of everyday life off of
You know, your your your partner.
before birth. I think that's actually really useful.
Then you know, the first week or so, the first few days just you wanna have the calendar clear because you never know what's gonna happen in a birth, like you never you never know what's going on.
After that, you're really kind of like not that not particularly useful, I would say. Or like I felt this way. I wasn't particularly useful.
And kinda wish, and and I I ended up doing this with my other kids, like, you know, plan time that's like more intermittent.
i other intervals. So there's like let's say the two weeks kinda week before the birth, week after the birth. That's a good window.
Then there's kinda like two weeks, let's say around
Month uh month three or four, where sometimes you get a sleep regression, or you get other things. And so spreading out the paternity, I think is very useful. When you just sit there sort of like
At this well, the baby's an inanimate object at the beginning and um doesn't really do a lot.
Napsoton.
And like assuming health went well, knock on wood, there's not a whole lot to do. So I kind of agree with you. That initial paternity leave.
is a lot of like nervous energy and not a lot of like
Productive.
Help.
Yeah, and it made me realize that like
Taking time off.
And like vacationing and going somewhere.
is kind of like lame compared to taking time off and just sitting at home and walking around your town. Like that's actually kind of like a special feeling. It honestly felt like a like a w uh a week mini retirement because I was like I will like putt around in the morning and not rush. Right.
All right, I read a ton. I would say almost a book a week. And the reason I read so much is because my philosophy towards reading is I want to see what works for the winners that I love and what strategies they use. And then I wanna see
What mistakes were uh did they all make? What were the common flaws that they all had, and I just want to avoid that.
And so HubSpot asked me to put together a list of the books that have changed my life so far in two thousand twenty five, and I did that. And so I list it out
Seven books that made a meaningful difference in my life and I explained
What the differences that they had on me or what
actions I took because of the book.
And then also I list it out my very particular ways of reading because I'm
pretty strategic about how I read and how I read so much and how I remember what I read and things like that. And so I put this together in a very simple guide. It's seven books that had a huge impact on my life.
And you can scan the QR code below if you want to read it. Or there's a link. You guys know what to do. There's a link in the description. Just go ahead and click it.
And you'll see the guide that I made. So it's the seven books that had a massive
change in my life this year so far.
And then also
how I'm able to read so much. So check it out below.
Dude, have you ever read have I told you about Aristotle? Like how I've been interested in some of his work lately.
You haven't told me about Aristotle. Go go go on. So stoicism gets a lot of the credit right now.
Stoicism's quite popular.
Yeah. So hot right now.
Yeah, so uh yeah. Marcus Aurelius is is is the iticai at the moment. But
Aristotle is uh one of the folks who influenced uh a lot of these guys. Uh and I'm probably gonna get a lot of it wrong, so uh
Spare me in the comments. But basically like
What I've been obsessed with this idea that he has is this idea of flourishing. And so I think the Greek word of it is Udemy.
Uh and it's this idea that like there's like twelve or fourteen virtues. And so like in order to be courageous, which is one of his virtues, on the right hand side is uh reckless, like being reckless, and then on the left hand side is basically being like a pussy. I don't know the right word, uh but like being soft.
Yeah. Being timid. And the middle part is courageous. And then there's like fourteen of them, which is like to be charitable, you want to you there's pentacle. So it has the extremes where
the the virtue becomes a vice on either side, right? The over overdoing it and then underdoing it. Okay. Yeah. And then there's like charitable on one side is like being like ostentatious and like giving too much and actually hurting people.
uh which is like what like a lot of like rich rappers would do, like give all their friends like money. Like enable your posse. Yeah. And then the other one is like being like, you know, the left and so according to Aristotle, uh one of the ways to live a uh harmonious life that's full of flourishing, which is
Yeah, not trying to be happy, but to flourish.
you have to like have these like fourteen virtues. And also he talks about leisure time and how a lot of times people think of leisure time as a way to recoup from work. But according a perfect life, a happy life, a flourishing life, it needs to have some leisure time where you get to reflect. And the reflection is the goal, not the time that you take to like
uh refuel. And I have been really obsessed with a lot of his his work because it's incredibly it's an incredibly practical philosophy. A lot of flop flo uh like philosophical stuff. It's not particularly practical, but I was like experiencing work recently and I was going I was so happy to go home to see my family. I was happy to get up in the morning to work out and I was like
Why do I feel this way? What's going on? And I was like, I'm flourishing. I'm fucking flourishing. That's how I felt. I'm like, this is a this is this is it's like I don't feel happy necessarily. Like I feel like I'm working hard, but at the moment, stress does not equal pain.
Uh stress equals growth.
Um and so I felt wonderful. And so taking my two weeks off has just added to that where I was like, I feel I feel refreshed, but I I had so much time to reflect and to like think about things. And I love that and the importance of being leisure and the importance of having unscheduled time, which I know you do.
Uh I think you said
twenty days a year.
Um, and so what's interesting is that you you it seems as though you have come to a similar conclusion that Aristotle has come to, which is the idea of like leisure time just to reflect and just to think. And we've heard Bill Gates talk about that. He has one week a year, I think a week or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Uh I really like that.
I
I think I'm pretty
Poor at one thing you said in there, which is
Just making time to think.
Like if I look at my
Calendar. I do have a lot of leisure time. I play the piano, I'll go do a tennis lesson, I'll go play basketball, I'll do my workout, I'll play with my kids. I do a lot of other stuff besides work. So I get this kind of like
You know.
Fun life.
maybe a harmonious life, maybe a balanced life. But what I don't do is I don't actually spend a lot of time
In silence and
Like dedicated think time.
And I've been trying to get better at this, but in in trying to get you know when you try to get better at something?
You actually the first realization is how far you have to go. Like how how poor you actually are. It's sort of like flexibility. You know, it's not really top of mind.
Until somebody says, Oh, can you do this test? And then you realize like, Oh my God, no, I'm not even close.
That's how I am about think time.
I don't know about you, but like
I would say for the in the past decade.
The amount of dedicated time
That I
plan to think. Like I'm like, oh, I'm not I'm just actively not gonna do something right now. And I'm not gonna fill it with something else.
That was like zero. I honestly think it was zero for like a day the last decade of my life. I don't think I ever actually consciously spent uh think time. Now
I would think when I was driving
I would think of something in the shower.
But this is like an ac it's a happy accident. Uh my my brain was probably like, Oh, dude, we've got these thouged up. We've been waiting to have a moment here.
Where you're not stuffing in new stuff into your brain through your phone, through your TV, through your computer, through a meeting, through a
through doing something, uh through reading whatever it was.
And so dedicated think time I think is is extremely underrated. I've
I'm s I think I'm at the beginning part of that curve where I'm just starting to do it and I'm just realizing
Oh man, this is like so obvious and I really didn't wasn't doing this before.
I remember when we met Tim Ferris.
I asked him something, I'm like, what does Tim first do day to day? He's like, Oh, dude, this is like the question I get a lot. Like, what is my daily routine?
And he's like, I think people expect like a really awesome answer. He's like, I've been actually been asked
Like for like a writer from some magazine, like, hey, we want to follow you for a day and write a profile, or if we want to film like a one day documentary of Tim Ferris, Day in the Life, and he's like,
I've always said no.
Not just'cause I like privacy. Not he's like but because it would be incredibly boring. He's like I he's like, you know, I wake up and I
I sort of I stretch, I'll drink some tea, I'll you know, I sit down.
He's like I kinda putter around for quite a l quite a while and I have like long periods of time of inaction where I'm just trying to think of
What is it that I really want to do? And what is it that I actually should do in this situation? How do I want to approach this? Do I really want to do this? And I actually like spend time with my thoughts.
I remember hearing that and being like, Oh, I don't do none of that stuff. It's like when you hear like a really productive manager talk about how they like
All the thoughtful things they do to manage their employees and you're like, Ooh, I just had up
Pizza party w like a month ago. I thought that was good. I thought that was enough.
I think that you said something funny about shower thoughts. I don't think a lot of people realize that
You can help engineer breakthroughs.
I think that there's things in your life that you could do to
Yeah, engineer breakthroughs. And I've been thinking about what that is. For me, it's been slow mornings.
So I I try my hardest to get up earlier than I actually have to,'cause I like just to like walk around and drink coffee and then I'll wake children up or then I'll exercise. But like literally just thirty minutes just to poke around. Uh, I like working out. So I have breakthroughs on working outs. I have breakthroughs when I'm journaling.
I have breakthroughs when I'm reading and I have breakthroughs when I have organized times of talking with people, but without an agenda. So like I'll like have someone like interesting at my office because they're in town. I'm like
I don't know, man, just like let's just ref for thirty minutes. What's your story?
And or like what you've done, you had a breakthrough when you started the Milk Road after you went to a conference on a topic that had nothing to do with your interest. Yeah. But like this is why conferences are great. This is why I hope Hampton is great. This is why sometimes people like
They get us a little bit through listening to our podcast where they like kinda feel like they're around us. But like talking to other people and just listening to their opinion without an agenda, I think is oh another great way to have a breakthrough.
Yeah, th I've been w I told you I was writing this book and
The premise of the book was I I got really it it it it happened accidentally. I s started
It's almost embarrassing.
I was trying to be funnier as therefore I started studying comedy, which is like not really what I think any funny person has ever done. So probably not the best way to do it.
But I got really into Seinfeld and then through that I I was like, wow, this guy's not just about comedy, but like this guy's got like
A way of working.
that is really interesting, an approach, a mindset and a day literally like a set of daily habits that are
Pretty admirable. And I started studying other great people. Like how do all the great ones work? How do all of them actually like what are the habits of the great people who've done great things? Because I want to be a great person who does great things.
Anyways, along the way
One of the things that surprised me, right, which I think when you're researching anything, it's the surprises that you look for.
Um
One of the things surprised me was
How
Much engineered rest.
Matters.
So I'll just give you like three like quick ones on this. So Aaron Sorkin, who wrote West Wing and the Social Network, like this.
Great, you know, Hollywood script writer or whatever.
When he's writing a script, he takes eight showers a day, he says
Like he will just keep showering. He's like,'Cause I have my best sh thoughts in the shower. There's all the science about why warm water and the relaxed environment and no distractions, why this is actually like quite a good way to like let your brain
sort of um, you know, uh let the muscles relax a little bit and how you come up with more out of the box ideas.
It's also just a reset. Like every time he gets stuck, he goes and showers and it gets it quickly gets through the plateau because he does that.
Um Einstein used to do do you know about Einstein's boat?
No.
No, I I I wouldn't have uh paid Einstein as a boater.
He was a prolific boater to the point where the coast guard had a lot of problems with Einstein. So what Einstein would do is in the middle of the day, Einstein would basically get on like a tiny little boat.
And he would just float.
It was a no motor boat. He would just uh like float away into the in into the s to the sea.
And he would stay there for hours. And he would stay there because he's like I do my best thinking.
Um out here in the sea.
And I would and he would do it aimlessly in the afternoons. And the coast guard was really worried'cause they're like, dude, you don't have a motor.
attached to your boat. How are you gonna get back if the tide like pulls you too far?
And he's like the you know, the further the better was basically like his quote around uh what he wanted to do. And that that's where he did most of his quality thinking.
I was telling my wife this and she goes, Oh yeah, at work we had this lady come in, this neuroscientist, and she told us, you do your best thinking.
in motion or in water. This is why so many people walk and why they swim.
Pavel Durov was on Lex Freedom and talks about how he goes for four hour swims'cause he does his best thinking when he's swimming.
He would that's one of his routines. Like it's great. I get fitness and I get thinking all at the same time. He's like, Guess what? You can't be on your phone when you're in the middle of a lake for four hours. Like you know, you're just you're out there.
Another one, Darwin. Darwin used to go for these walks. And whenever he was noodling on a problem. Oh, I got a problem.
Go for a walk. Which is I think not really how most people in today's age
solve their problems. I think they stare at their screen and like sit there and kind of
Just sit in a s in a stationary position, try to like get through it.
And you produce pretty low quality ideas when you do that. Well what Darwin would do is he would get up, he would go for a walk and he used to uh walk these laps and every lap he would
like kick a stone at the at the same spot. He would like knock one stone off the bridge. His starting point was
And he would talk about his problems as like four stone problems.
five stone problems. Like he could measure the difficulty of the problem by how many stones it took, how many laps it took of him walking.
Before he felt like he had like kind of like
made headway on the problem.
And so this idea of engineered rest, which looks incredibly unproductive when you're doing it, right? Like taking a nap. You know, somebody so many of the great inventors and artists.
Did these like quick mini twenty minute naps. There's all this s s science behind why that works.
And so you know, these mini naps or going for walks or going for a swim, it literally looks like you're not working. It looks like you're being a lazy bastard. But like if you look at how the great ones actually work.
This is part of their product routine and it looks completely unproductive.
Six or twelve months ago, you were debating on
like a big project. You're like, I'm being pulled in a variety of directions and I can't decide what I want to do, but my heart is telling me to do something creative, almost like a play. And I was like,
Oh that sounds pretty badass. That sounds amazing. And it sounds like
Uh, I don't think a book on creativity was even on the list, but that actually sounds even more badass than all these because you're describing this and I'm like, I want this book, I need this. Not only do I want this, I'm like I have problems. Uh I should go for a f a three stone walk and like give me more tips and tricks on how to solve uh my problems and how I can think better.
Tell me about the book. So how many pages like uh I is it is this gonna be like a two and three or four hundred page book, or is this like no So the premise of the th the premise of what I'm doing, uh I guess this will be my my
Announcement. Uh no. We'll we'll do a whole podcast dedicated to the advantage. No, no, but I guess like I what I mean is like I can just go ahead and share. So what I'm doing is um I've created this uh a little bit like a franchise, like a series.
And you know, I have this problem with books where I buy a ton of books.
And I want to read a ton of books. And I don't really read a ton of books. And if you look at like one of the reasons why
Books are long and slow.
And books are long and slow, not because
a three hundred page book needed to be three hundred pages, it's really a relic of the publishing industry. So like if you go talk to publishers and I've done this.
And you wanna publish a thinner book, they're like, Ooh, but it's not gonna sell as well.
And they're like, because people when they want to spend whatever fifteen bucks, they need to feel like they're getting value. Like they literally need to hold a heavier object. And that was why.
Whatever your w whatever the size of your idea was.
Guess what? We need 250 pages, right? Because we want to sell this book and it needs to have this sort of weight to it.
And I actually understand that. I think there's a like a cool physical component of that. But also
How many books have you read? We're like, that could have been a blog post. Yeah. It's like how many meetings could have been an email? Like there's a lot of books that actually are not.
There, you know, a couple of great ideas and then there's like two hundred pages of fluff and you're like, Okay, I got it, I get it.
So it's one of my m bet biggest pet peeves. And uh when I studied
This uh these how the great creatives work. One of the things they do really well is they pay a lot of attention to their irritation.
Uh Seinfeld said irritation is what breeds innovation. So he said he used to hate, he used to get invited to go on late night talk shows like Jimmy Fallon or whatever.
He's like, dude, I hate it. It was so formulaic. It was so cookie cutter. It was so like the same thing.
So that's why he created comedians and cars getting coffee. Right. But it's like what's the exact opposite of that talk show? It's like
Me and my friend in a car driving go get coffee, like the no audience, no applause sign, no any of that stuff. Like my I'll take all my irritations of this.
And I'm just gonna do the opposite. And then that's what I'm gonna cr I'm gonna use that as the like
the the force and the energy to create something better.
And so I decided to create this series called One Hour Books. And the idea is
Can I create books that are you know
If you read it, it's a life changing book, but you can read it in one hour. A single sitting. So like
If you buy the book and you decide to read it.
And one sitting on a couch you'll actually like
Consume the whole book and you'll get everything you needed out of the book.
Uh the whatever the book's promise was.
And so I'm creating this
series called one hour books and I'm doing it on different topic that I've been
And a topic that I've gotten obsessed with. And so you know, like
If I have a period of time where I'm really obsessed about value investing or you know, Warren Buffett and how these gu how these great investors think.
I want to basically take
the most powerful ideas, the best ideas that I got in my research, the things that surprised me that I actually like then started to use in my life. And so like, for example, with this creativity book, like
It changed the way I'm approaching being a creator, right? Like I'm trying I work completely differently than I did.
Twelve months ago.
And it's because I basically stole shit from Seinfeld and Disney and P R Rubin and B Pixar, like all these people that I went and w went and studied and actually tried to figure out, you know, um
A better way to work.
And so
Yeah, the book's only gonna be like, I don't know, seventy five pages. It's gonna be it's gonna be enough for you. It's gonna be the size of a book you can read in one sitting. Actually, if anybody from the podcast wants to check out the book early and kind of get to see a behind the scenes thing, uh just go to onehourbooks.co. I'll put it on the screen and in the description.
Uh, but if you go to onehourbooks.co, I'm just gonna let anybody sign up. And if you're a fan of the pod, I kinda wanna show you how I'm making the book.
the behind the scenes stuff and give you a free gift when it launches. So
Go there if you wanna check that out.
And is it are you gonna go through a publisher or self publish?
I don't know yet. Uh doesn't really matter. All that matters right now is make one amazing book. Like can't really like d anything else doesn't really matter. It's like one book that I am like, Oh man, if I read this
This would go in my like kind of top shelf. This would be like my one of my favorite books because it actually like, you know, resonated with me and the stories were really dope.
Uh made me laugh. You know, that that's those are some of the goals with with how I do this.
If I had to bet, this is gonna be the most successful thing you've ever done because
My instinct, and I don't want to do this right now, but is to like
Oh, can you just tell me all of the things that you learned from Rick Ruby and all these people? Like I'd like I want to apply this immediately.
Yeah. Yeah. I I mean I I could and I will uh tell you all those things. But yeah, I think it's gonna be great. Like I honestly, like I the way I the I have this really s I try to when I do a project
I try to find
Like
A kinda three word.
Almost like
North Star or campaign slogan for myself.
Just like as I wander through the idea and you start to go down different little
rabbit holes and you hit little bumps and bruises. You sort of need something to come back to
And mine for this is create
Create the TED for books.
So like I don't Ted today is not as cool as it was, but when I was younger
Ted was the shit. Like it was the best. Ted Talks, Ted Videos, like those were amazing. And going to a Ted event. Going to a Ted event was like uh like I just imagined myself like I'm gonna be hobnobbing with like the president of America, I'm gonna be like with Bill Gates. Like it was like an honor. And what they did was they created a format. So they're like, Yo, here's what we're gonna do. Eighteen minute talks.
That are on this
Kind of beautiful.
And it's gonna be a certain quality of person who comes at you with one big idea, one kind of like either counterintuitive idea or one powerful idea, and then their mission was ideas worth sharing, right?
Yeah, like
I actually fuck with that. I think that's actually like incredible. And although Ted has kinda fallen off.
It did help me because as I'm doing this, I'm like, all right, well, I'm trying to find the best ideas worth sharing, and I want to create a format that's consistent and like a v a proposition. I'm gonna spend
Literally ten thousand hours researching this and I'm gonna give you all of the best stories and ideas structure together in a one hour book. Like
Ten thousand hours of my time for one hour of your time is like just an incredible trade that I think anybody should make. Um,'cause I'm like going all in on this. And so I've been working on this for like a year now. And um
It's tough, man. It's just it's a hard thing to do, but I think it's coming up.
Pretty good.
What makes so I always hear people say writing a book is hard.
Uh Tim Ferris was like I don't wish it on my worst enemy and I'm like, Really? I mean, I've never done it. Uh, but I'm like
This sounds pretty great. You just spend all this time thinking and writing and wh and you get like two years to do it. That sounds lovely.
But what are the downsides?
Well oh the I mean there's a ton of downsides. I you do you don't do this if you're looking for anything quick. You don't do this if you're looking for high chance of success. So like the two things I think most people want. It's like a high chance of success.
And um
For it to happen fast.
I mean books are
Yeah.
They go the exact opposite way.
It's
Typically a one to two year process.
Uh sometimes five.
you know, George R Martin sitting there still trying to write a book for like thirteen years.
Um
So you know these books are are they take a long time.
very low odds of success. And even when they do succeed, it's nothing compared to like if I went and built a company or like
In my portfolio right now, there's things that are far more far easier, far more valuable to do. Podcasts far easier, far more valuable to do than
than to write a book. You don't write the book for other people. You write the book for yourself, I think is the only way to do it. And I think
One of the great things that happen when I talk to some people who who you know, I've talked to people for advice.
is they go, look, a hundred people come to me because oh you wrote a bestseller, people want to ask you about a book, and they say
Everybody wants to have written a book. Nobody wants to write a book.
And so the very first thing is you gotta figure out like do you want to have written a book or do you want to write a book?
That's why I chose a subject that basically is like
currently fascinating to me and applies to my I get to be the lab rat of doing the things that are in the book, like using the actual principles. Cause it's like what I needed. It's the book I needed right now, even though it's probably not the thing I know the most about or the most relevant or the most marketable or any of those other
Possible factors.
This is badass. This is so exciting and it feels
I don't think you I've heard you light up about a project for a while.
Well, I was I was looking for a challenge. You know that. I was looking for a challenge. I was looking for something that's new, that's something that's hard for me. This is like the opposite of my I'm an improv guy. I'm a quick guy. I'm an unscheduled guy. I'm like that's what I've known and that's what I've done well with.
So this is like very different. It's like requires consistency, requires sitting down every single day and like don't miss a day type of mentality, which is good. It's also what I needed to get in shape. It's also what I need to do to learn the piano. Like all the things I'm trying to do right now.
They all require the same set of muscles internally to go and actually succeed in them.
Al also the other thing that's that's hard about it is um
When you do things that are like
I'm gonna make a hundred of these. Any one doesn't matter, but with a book, you're like, I'm gonna make one, I'm gonna make this one book, and it's gonna be what it's gonna be.
the level of internal pressure you put on yourself to make it great and to be like, No, no, I gotta get this right.
I don't get uh
It's not like oh I'll just get started and then we'll iterate from there. It doesn't really work that way. You want to put one great thing out. There's a craftsman like nature to that.
And um there's something cool about that constraint.
That you're only gonna make like you're only gonna really write
This thing once.
So you better do it the best you possibly could,'cause it's not something where you're gonna get a hundred shots on goal at the same idea.
I could never do this, or maybe I would one day, but like one I the best books that I read, like I think Ron Chernow is one of my favorite uh authors. He wrote Titan, which is the story of John Rockefeller. He wrote
Hamilton, which became Hamilton, uh and he's written one on Mark Twain and a and a couple of others.
And it's these bi their biographies. He's a bio biographist. Same with Robert Green, if you ever read Robert Green. It's like every sentence.
is packed with like every sentence is very purposeful and
It's not even the it's
But
And
All those.
Those two authors. They're not particularly easy to read, but every sentence is full of stuff and it's like a thousand or eight hundred pages.
And I'm just like in awe. It's sort of like when you go to Yosemite for the first time and you see like half dome and you're like, I can't believe that something is this big and beautiful and I don't even like the outdoors. And when I read like there every once in a while there I've read a book where I'm like, This is like a religious experience, not necessarily because of the content, but because of how much effort this person put into it. And it's just a
It's a marvel. When I think about Harry Potter.
I'm like, how on earth did this one lady invent this world? She literally invented a language. And I don't even like Harry Potter, but I'm like in awe of this. That's another example of you get your best ideas in motion or in water. The idea for Har Harry Potter sort of drops into her head when she's on a train ride.
Uh, she's like in motion and sitting there and idle and doesn't have internet access and can't do ten other things. There's nothing else you could do. And you sit on a train except for think.
And that's when your brain is open for for, you know.
Creative inspiration. Do you think that doing deep work is good is harder today than it was before the internet? Because when you're talking about writing a book, I'm like,
I struggle to get people to quit messaging me and I like and I'm absolutely addicted to my notifications. Like I can't have an unread text message, but then I have Text, Slack, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, email. Well let me give you let me give you
one of the quotes I I think this is gonna be at the in the in one of the the first few pages of the book. So
Shawna Rhymes, who is
You know, a a prolific creator. Right. So she's, you know.
Netflix gave her a hundred million dollars, not for stuff she's already made.
But just to make new things. Like you're getting paid a hundred million dollars for your reputation, your ability to
Create great great stuff in the future.
And she knows she created
Bridgeton and Gray's Anatomy and a bunch of other hit shows. Okay. Similar to my little uh town of Westport.
Really. Well, she was talking about her process. She was like, Okay, like, you know, they're like, How does your creative process work? How do you work? Again, the same idea. How do the great ones actually work?
And
Here's what here's how she described like her morning.
And so she goes.
Imagine a door five miles away.
And those five miles to go the five miles, that's you writing crap.
And doodling and just trying to have an idea.
And then you sometimes are surfing the internet and you're hoping like hell you're not gonna get so distracted that you give up. And worse, those five miles that you've got to run.
They're lined with cupcakes and episodes of Game of Thrones and Idris Alba wants to talk to you and there's really great books you could go read.
And every time I sit down to write, I mentally have to run those five miles past all that shit to get to the door.
It's a long, hard five mile run. And sometimes I'm almost dead by the time I get to the door. And that's why I keep doing it.
Because the more often I run the five miles, the fitter I become, and the fitter I become, the easier it does run. And the less fresh and exciting all that stuff on the side of the road starts to seem. I mean, how long have those brownies even been sitting there? And more importantly, the fitter I run, the faster I run, the faster I run, I get to the door. And behind the door is where all the good shit is. That's where the great ideas lie is behind the door.
It gives me goose fumes.
I know, right? And so like when I sit down every day so every day I wake up and I spend two hours
Um I call eating shit for breakfast. It's like
You're gonna make something that ki probably sucks today, but you're gonna sit down and you're gonna make it. You're gonna do your five mile run. You're gonna go and you're gonna ignore the distractions of the world.
You're gonna do deep work.
on the one thing that matters, the main project your Mount Everest in your mind of that you're trying to create.
And all it takes is two hours, first thing in the morning without any other distraction.
So I'm focused on doing that and this idea that like
You at the beginning when you sit down and you start to do the thing
Your initial work kind of sucks. Your the first few sentences you write suck. Your first few ideas for that marketing campaign kind of suck.
It's all gonna kinda suck.
You just have to g keep going to get to the door. Behind the door is where the good stuff is. And like
If you have that mentality, what ends up happening is
You push past where the sort of the amateur will give up. The amateur will
Sit down.
And um
You know, they'll start to do something and it kinda sucks, and then they'll seek a reason to stop. Whether it's a distraction or it's talking themselves out of it or it's settling. One of many things you could do.
And uh, you know, what I thought was different about the pros versus the amateurs is the pros just have better talent. You know, when they sit down, they make good shit. When I sit down, I make bad shit. And it's like no no no.
Actually the difference is when the pro sits down, they make the same type of bad shit you do. They just keep going and they go they go through the five thousand door. Yeah, they sit down more and they stick with it. They're able to face their own mediocrity and tolerate it.
Much longer than you can.
Paul Graham's got this amazing article on procrastination that kinda changed my life. And so according to Paul Graham, who's the founder of Y C one of the most successful business incubators of all time, maybe the most successful, he said there's three types of procrastination. The first type of procrastination is you just don't do the thing that you're supposed to do, which is like the most common.
The second type of procrastination is incredibly common amongst ambitious people, which is they say to themselves, I'm researching, or I'm writing a to-do list, or I'm doing these things that are have professional sounding words, but in reality it's procrastination. You know, it's completely worthless. And then the third type of procrastination.
That's the best type of procrastination. That's a good type of pr procrastination. And he goes, I'll explain what it is, but first
Everyone has this idea of like the forgetful scientist, the Albert Einstein who has two socks that are like different colors, or he hasn't showered and he's looks kind of dirty. That type of procrastination, that's actually the good type of procrastination because if you do your life's task, if you do the work that you're supposed to be doing, that means
you have to ignore other things. And sometimes that means we have to ignore things that the world thinks is really important, like having two socks that matches and like thinking like, Oh, I have to do laundry so I can look a certain way. He goes, But the reason people would make fun of like Bill Gates or Marcus Zuckerberg when they're young because they would wear hoodies all the time and wear pajama bottoms all the time and be like, Well, why aren't you wearing a suit? Why aren't your clothes nicer? And
They didn't have a good answer at the time, but the reality was is that they were focused on your their life's work. They weren't focused on how to look good, how to appease other people, uh, but they were actually doing the best type of procrastination. And that's what it requires to be great is you have to do that you have to avoid the first two types and you have to focus on the third type of procrastination. And that's gonna be annoying to a lot of people, it's gonna piss off a lot of people, but that's the way you do your life's work.
I love that. I mean this type of stuff just fires me up. So uh like that's great. I love that.
It's great, man. I like when I read that, I was like so good. I was like You just might have got yourself quoted in the book, my friend. Yeah. I was like, Hey if you actually Google Sam Py procrastination, I wrote a uh I wrote an article about it, but I was like
To my wife, I was like, Yeah, Sarah.
Like on my back. Doing my life's work over here. She's like, You're on Twitter. Repeat after me, Sarah. Life's work. Not take trash out. Uh didn't land. Just I just printed off his article and I slid out her way during dinner out of like read that.
That's amazing.
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I did want to share a thing that I think you'll appreciate. I didn't plan to share this, but I I think you'll you'll appreciate it. So I'll I'll say it. So as you know, my grandfather died at ninety eight years old.
Was he uh in America?
In America, he lives in DC and so I flew to D C and we go to the funeral and funeral, sorry.
They are what they are. They're they're sad. But you know, I think
Ninety ears old. He had a great life. He was healthy for almost all almost till the very end.
Um
Are Indian funerals like traditional American funerals or do you guys like ham it up like you do your weddings? They do cremation.
Um and there's also some like, I don't know, parts that you're like, is this what we're supposed to be doing right now? Like they basically have like the casket. This is kind of too much info, but like they have the casket or whatever. And
I think like an American I don't know really exactly what happens at American funerals, but I would assume like you sort of
You go, you sort of give your thoughts and prayers, whatever, you maybe put a flower down or something like that.
And in front of right before they they have the kind of the send off, the the final thing right before cremation.
Guy like breaks out like a gallon of milk, a bunch of like food, and like you basically pour all the stuff on top of the body. It's like feels like completely blasphemous. And I was I like put like a drop. He's like, No, no, the whole gallon and I was like grandpa's thirsty shot. Pouring milk all over this man, this is ridiculous. So that part was a little bit strange, but the rest was I would say
Uh, you know, normal and people gave sp you know, their eulogies and whatnot. So my dad goes up there and he gives a he gives a speech.
And my dad had told me the story before, and I th you you just had a kid and
So this is kinda for all the dads out there. So
The best thing my grandpa ever did as a dad.
Um, which I'm gonna steal and I think others should steal it too.
Um, so my my dad and my family my my par my dad's family grew up like
Dirt, dirt poor India. Like
Middle of nowhere.
It's like mm
You know, you go on Google Maps, you gotta like zoom in, pinch to zoom three times to even see the little town that my dad grew up in.
And like somehow my dad like you know was born there.
And now like sixty something years later, he's got like a mansion in San Francisco and like an iPhone in his pocket. It's like kinda like crazy that like that.
That kid ends up doing this, this doesn't really make a lot of sense, okay?
And like imagine your dad being like
My son is going to be a famous YouTuber in America. You know what I mean? Like all right, he's gonna be writing books on creativity. It's it's a wild journey. It doesn't make any sense.
So
How do you get from there to there? And so he was t he was telling the story. He's like, you know, we grew up like c we couldn't afford anything. Like, you know, we he's like, I hadn't seen a movie till you know movies existed. I hadn't seen one until I was sixteen. And you know, the day we went
We got one bottle of Coca-Cola and split it amongst like the, you know, four kids type of deal. Like it was like it that was like a highlight of my childhood. Like I still remember that memory today.
Anyways, one of the things that he says that his dad did for him. He goes my dad gave me he goes he didn't have money, couldn't give me
Fancy anything, right?
Couldn't send me to a fancy school.
He didn't ha we didn't have a lot of toys. He didn't give me anything in that area, right?
'Cause but the one thing he did give me was he gave me this belief from the very beginning. He brainwashed me.
That I was special.
And he goes, There was no evidence. I didn't do anything special, but he just felt like I'm special. And he just kept saying it. He's like, he would say it in public.
So he's like he would take me to his job. My my grandfather worked I think at like um
Kind of like a government like almost like a um uh
A w like a weapons factory, basically, for the government. And uh he would take'em there.
And like the boss.
His boss, the manager of the factory would be like, Oh, like there's the little one, there's my guy, hey, here we're the hard hat. Like, you know, someday you'll you can be here, you you can run this, you know, the this this place.
And um my grandfather to would be like to go to his boss and be like, No way
He goes, This this boy, my boy?
He's not gonna work in a factory?
This boy's special. You don't know. This boy's special. He's gonna do incredible things. He's gonna be in America. He's gonna be doing incredible things someday. He's not gonna work in a factory.
And so just like he kind of breathed this uh this belief into him. And he just he's like he always said it.
He never had he never explained why he believed it or what what how it would happen, but he was just so sure that I became kinda sure.
And I just started to believe that about myself. And so like
Because that was like almost like
In Jack, he gave me like a magic bean.
And this being was like my belief myself. And I see this all the time with my kids, where it's very easy
Two
criticize kids'cause kids do dub stuff all the time. It's very easy to like tell them off for not doing things the right way.
It's very easy to, you know, like mix sort of this praise and criticism.
But um
My brother in law has been doing the same thing with his daughter.
Who showed a little bit of talent in soccer. And then he like went all in and was like he created a Instagram account called Raising Ronaldo. When he's like, I'm raising Ronaldo right now. I'm not this is not my daughter. This is the next Ronaldo. And he's puts posters up and he just continues Oh, you when you're playing pro, I'm gonna be in the crowd, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. Is this Aaron?
Aaron, yeah, he's been saying this for like
Eight years now.
She's ten. You know, like it she's like, you know, she's young.
She believes and she works like somebody who is the next like
Like she's training like you know, seven days a week, no days off on vacation. They take the ball, they go do a hundred, you know, uh like when they keep the ball their juggles, like a hundred juggles in a row. Like they don't do breakfast before that. Like it's incredible.
And it reminded me of I'm gonna read you the story. Is she into it? Is the d is uh is Aaron's uh daughter into it? And by the way, like she's into it, which makes it sound like oh that's easy, my kid wouldn't be into it. Well, I was there and like
It's not as black or white with a kid, like
Some days they're into it.
Some days they're tired and cranky. Some days they have a hard you know, he puts her she only plays basically against boys.
And so
It's harder to play against boys, boys that are a year or two older than her.
Uh, and sometimes she doesn't get to dominate and she, you know, has a tough game or whatever. And like on those days, guess what? She doesn't want to go do it again the next day.
He doesn't force her to do anything, but he like never w he never wavers in his conviction. And that like has over time it has overwhelmed her, it is completely brainwashed or in the positive direction.
I want to read you this story from uh
The soccer player Marcello.
So this mar this guy Marcello.
basically told a story about his grandfather. And he goes, um
They were talking about like what does it feel like? You're the star player for I think you played for Real Madrid, like
One of the biggest soccer clubs in the world, you're making dollars, you're adored by fans everywhere. Like, you know, how does it feel? He goes,
This is the quote. He goes, You have to understand where I come from, brother. He goes
I can see the scene like it's a movie in my head still.
Uh, I'm eight years old. My family had no money in uh Brazil.
We couldn't even afford gasoline in our car to make it to practice.
So my grandfather, I didn't know this, but he made a sacrifice to change my life.
His sold his car.
just to get like, you know, in a bad deal. Got a little bit of money, but that was enough to take the bus every day. So he takes me to training every day on the public bus, side by side, every day on the crowded four ten in the heat, side by side, all the way across Rio de Janeiro.
And every day, no matter how I play it, he tells, you're the best.
You are Marcelinho. One day you're gonna be playing for Brazil. One day I will see you in the stadium.
He goes.
I can still see this
That that talk like every day in four K in my head. I can smell the inside of that bus.
He goes, My grandfather gave his whole life for my dream.
His friends used to tease him that he was broke, and he would tell his friends he would take out his pocket, show that it's empty.
And say, Hey, look at me, man. I don't have a single penny, but I'm the happiest mother ever in the world.
He believed in me. We were partners in this endeavor.
And he talks about like in his village, how there was his grandfather who did this for him, but also
The shopkeeper. He couldn't afford a a ball.
And so he goes to the local shop and he asks him, he's like, Hey, can I have a ball? And the guy's like, Yeah, sure. Cost as much. He goes, I don't have the money.
But when I'm a professional player when I grow up, I'll come back and I'll pay you.
He's like eight years old, seven years old at the time. The guy just laughs. He's like, All right, take a ball. He's like, Make sure you pay me when you when you become pro, right? Like just
Yeah, he it kinda pulls on the heartstrings.
And so when he became a pro, he came back and basically like bought like
Unlimited balls for every kid in the town, like forever growing up. And was just like and no kid will have that, you know, that problem now.
And so I hear these stories and it just kinda reminds me of like
The power that either a father or grandfather can have
in the the kind of shaping
Of a kid and actually like
The best thing you can give'em.
Is like fundamentally a belief.
that they're gonna be great. And
People will rise to your assumption if they don't have a strong assumption about themselves. And kids don't have strong assumptions about themselves yet.
And so you can give'em a stronger frame that they will they will live up to.
Where did your grandpa uh for we got we'll we'll have the link to this one, but Sean has this amazing story about his mother coming to America and like seeing a plane for the first time. It's like uh I think about that story uh weekly, actually.
It's it's pretty amazing. Um
Where did your grandpa end up? Like so he made it to America with his family. Did did your father come first and then your grandfather? So he gets my my my dad. So he gets his son.
To go.
In like kind of a crazy set of circumstances. You know what I AT is?
Yeah. It's like the Indian uh institute. It's like the Indian uh technical college, right? Or the important university in India. But then didn't your dad go to Berkeley?
No, so he so he went to IT and India, which is basically like I don't know, hard it's like Harvard for India. It's even harder to get into it's because there's like a billion people trying to get into the one like
Top top brand.
Um
He gets in there by happenstance. Again.
When you believe something about yourself, you'll take chances that the other people wouldn't. So he he doesn't even know what IT is. He doesn't even know he's you're supposed to be taking entrance exams.
He sees a guy, his friend is on a scooter, he's like, Hey, you wanna come play? And the guy's like, No, no, I gotta go take this test.
And he's like, What test? And he's like, I'm gonna try to get into IT. It's the best. And that's how you get if I get and he's like, Why you who why do you care? It's so far away. Why would you want to go to school there? Go to school here.
He said,'Cause if I get in there I can go to America. Again, his grandfather told him, You're gonna be in America someday.
So he's looking for it he hears that and he says
So he literally hops on the back of this dude's scooter and goes and takes the test blind.
Now my dad was a pretty like good student,'cause again, like when you don't have anything else, you don't have TV, you don't have anything. Like all he had was just books for from textbooks from school.
So he's a good student. So he ended up
getting it to IT, I think you ranked like thirty ninth in all of India, like something crazy like that.
And so he goes through IT and gets a scholarship to come to study at um Boulder University in Colorado.
Arrives in the dead of the night.
Becomes a pothead a week later.
Yeah, well could've easily because he rises at the dead of the night.
He had a scholarship. That's the only way he could go there. And and when you come from India, I don't think people realize this. You're not allowed to bring in like assets. Not that my grand my family had assets, but you can only bring in like s some crazy small amount of money, like six dollars or something like that. So my my dad had six bucks.
And he came to America, basically had to figure out he's like, Oh, don't worry, like I have housing and tuition paid by the school.
But he arrives in December, like the admissions office is closed for winter break.
So he's literally just like outside in the cold in winter in Colorado. He's like, Uh what like what do I do?
Again, never been on a plane before. Like everything's new.
Some French dude see some d student there who's a French guy, uh, another international student who wasn't home for holidays, sees him and he's like, Dude, what are you doing? He's like, um
Trying to
Get into this place. Yeah. So that guy just takes him in. He's like, Come stay with me. So he just lives with this guy, so again, somebody somebody helps him out along the way.
Anyways, my dad brings my grandfather over. When he gets here
How old wait, hold on. So your father was like.
And he okay, so he was only twenty one and he brought his father over.
Brings his a over t over the next few years, he brings his father over, brings his brother over, but g gets everybody over, right? That's like the the goal the the the role of that kind of the eldest son is to like get So your dad was the shit.
Well, yeah, I mean what he did, yeah, it changed like the direction of kind of his tribe, you know.
And so my grandfather and I remember when I was a kid, like we used to go with him to his vending he had like a vending machine side hustle. We would go collect all the quarters out of like four vending machines that he was like running at the time. Then he opened and then he upgraded. He got a like a little snack shop in the in the s in the office building. And we used to sit at the cashier there doing that all day. Like
He basically just kinda had some hustles.
But you know, the other thing I I thought was kind of admirable was
Um when he was like in his seventies or eighties, like whenever the computer came out and like I don't know if you remember, we had like a computer room in our house, like one desktop computer for the whole family.
He would come in and he would try to learn how to type. Now, like imagine like a seventy five year old, eighty year old guy. Doing like this. You know, and but he's not just like trying to use the computer. He's literally just saying, I wanna learn how to type like a skill.
I I was like, What do you plan? What are you gonna do with all this typing? And he didn't care. He's like, No, this is the new thing, I'm not gonna
He basically never gave up on himself.
He's like never too like too old where you know like most old people just literally are like
Ah, that's too much. That's too complicated. That's for young people. And like he never had that attitude. It was like if it exists, like it's for me.
Like he worked at Circuit City in the D V D section when he was like eighty years old. And they were like, Dude, do you know anything about movies or music, American movies or music? He's like, No. And he's like he would joke, like they can't fire me though because I'm so old. Like it would be discrimination. It's hilarious. They're too afraid to fire me, even though I don't know anything about this job.
And uh like Circuit City had to go up bankrupt before they could get rid of him. Like you know, he's he was kind of good stubborn in that way. He was like never take medicine, like
Even at the end he last month he broke his femur'cause he fell.
And like breaking your femur is the big the biggest bone in your body. It's a pretty rough break.
But like even when he was in the hospital, he was like immobilized.
He would be doing like arm exercises'cause he's like, Oh, I'm gonna be back and when I be I gotta keep my body active, you know, like that was always his mentality. So yeah, a lot of things that I kind of admire that uh you know, I'll always remember about him.
How did you get to DC?
When they came over, it's like where are we gonna live? They lived with us for a while in Colorado.
Um and then
When it was like okay, that's enough living with us now. Thank you. Uh it was like here's D C like where s some of the other siblings live, so that we got them a house there. They live there.
I've been thinking about um
Like we've been thinking about like some logos or not logos, like slogans and stuff for Hampton.
And I've been obsessed with this idea of building what outlives you.
And so like build what out outlives you is like the this phrase that I've been obsessed with.
And um
That doesn't mean business, necessarily. It could mean.
But what's interesting is that your grandfather so far has been the best example of building what outlives you.
And so like
telling you the story about how like he gave his father this or his son this attitude, which then my father gave that to me. You you know, you speak it, my father gave it to me. And I'm like, that's the best example of building something that outlives you was just a positive attitude.
Is what outlived him.
And I find that to be very fascinating. And frankly I find that to be the most admirable thing a man can do.
is to build what outlives you and it's legacy and not legacy in the sense of your name is gonna be on the building or whatever. It's just that
I live a certain way because this guy lived a certain way because this l this guy lived a certain way. And because this grandfather lived a certain way, I now treat people wonderfully. And that's the that's the most beautiful example of building what outlives you.
Yeah, do you do you know like your family history? Like I've heard this sometimes when people are like my great great grandfather did this, or we were we were actually warriors.
And therefore and then people really take that as like, so that's in my blood.
And it really gives him a lot of belief. I don't even know.
Like I didn't know half the shit about my grandfather
Until the funeral when they were telling the stories about like his upbringing. No, frankly, I did not have this. And where I'm from, um, in the Midwest, like it's just like my people have been here for forever in Saint Louis.
All my grandparents are dead by the age of three for me. And so I lacked a massive sense of belonging. And so I remember meeting a Jewish guy and like him him telling like the traditions of like Judaism and like going to like uh uh like having this Friday night meal. And I'm like, oh my God, I crave this tribe. I was like, I crave this so much. Or like I remember like
moving to San Francisco and walking around on the Stanford, uh the Stanford campus. And I'm like, Oh my God, I would love to have the Stanford logo on my LinkedIn or whatever, just so I can meet other people who share these values. Like I've been desperate my whole life for like a sense of belonging because I never had that as a as a as a kid.
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Can I tell you uh we talked about books earlier, can I tell you this idea that this like very interesting business that I had never heard of?
So
Have you ever heard of little blue books?
No, what is it? Okay, so check out what I have in my hand.
You see this?
This is a little blue book. It's not blue by the way, just but it is tiny.
So for the people listening, I Googled it and Sean just showed it. It almost looks like you pulled the cover off of a book. Yeah. It's a little paperback. I mean, not even paperback, it's just paper.
Like stapled together. Literally says a staple on the side.
And it's like a three inch
High book. And these were called little black books. Little blue books.
Guess how many copies of
Little blue book sold.
I have no idea. Uh just take a guess.
Oh my God, I just saw the number. Oh my God Oh my God. Really?
Okay.
So there there's been something like
Low end estimate is two hundred million, high end estimate is five hundred million copies.
of these books were sold.
Did you

Like your idea and you're not going to be able to do it. I was telling Craig Clements about my idea.
For one hour books and he was like
Do you know about little blue books? I was like, No. He's like, Oh, dude, you gotta check this out. Oh my gosh. And the titles are the best.
Yeah, so like this one right now I'm holding, by the way, just for reference, like you know, Harry Potter.
sold like something like six hundred million copies. So this is like a Harry Potter level phenomenon that existed.
You know, a long time ago. So this one the title is The Gentle Art of Making Enemies.
Oh my gosh. You're telling me the subtle art of not giving an F didn't didn't steal from that. Right. Or it'll just be like this one. Proverbs of Turkey. They're about
Popular Shakespearean quotes.
A rapid calculator, how to make rapid arithmetical arithmetic calculations in your head.
There's one called uh book about doing mental math. How to dress on a small s salary. The psychology of leadership, the puzzle of personality, man and his ancestors.
Yes. So there
F they have they're good at titles. They're good at copywriting. The the books themselves, by the way?
Not actually.
Good. I I spent like an afternoon trying to read these because I was like, Ooh, I found this hidden pearl of wisdom from the past.
personally didn't really love any of the books. But
Did Craig like this because of the marketing?
Yeah, he was just like, This was a I mean, this was like a phenomenon. You should study this and just steal something from this thing that happened, you know, such a long time ago.
The reason I bring this up is and why this is related to what you talked about. So why did these things succeed? Because I thought, Well
Maybe they were just incredible, popular, well well written, whatever. No, they're not really, right? Like this today seems like
Yeah, this could be an Instagram account, maybe, or you know, something something so simple.
The reason this worked was bas basically back in the day, before this was like before there were like public libraries. So books were actually rare.
They were not something that the average person could afford or had access to.
And so you had an access problem.
And they were in low supply. And so they came out with these and these things would cost nothing. They would be like a nickel to buy.
The book.
So you could buy this for five cents.
You could carry it around in your pocket because it was so small. So it was portable, it was affordable.
And it became ubiquitous. They would sell it at like, you know, every newspaper stand, the corner store, anywhere. You could sell put this thing anywhere. It's so small. It's basically a podcast episode.
Exactly. It's it's like YouTube videos. And so um
What I found interesting was man, in a time where that's scarce.
This can sell five hundred million copies because information was scarce back then. It was actually hard to get information. You couldn't go on Google or YouTube, couldn't even get a book from a library.
couldn't afford a lot of this information. So where would you get that information about how to dress on a small salary? Or, you know, the quotes from Shakespeare or proverbs of of Aristotle. Right. I would hope that your dad would tell you.
Correct, but like you know, uh most people don't. So
that became incredibly valuable. Now today, fast forward today, information is ubiquitous. It's like running water. You can get it anywhere. You get all the information you'll ever want instantaneously
in whatever style you want. And then sometimes it's even if you go to your feed like Instagram or TikTok, you'll get information you didn't even ask for, but might be interesting to you.
curated by this sort of all knowing algorithm. Okay. So information is now
abundant. So something like this I don't think could ever work today.
Now
What's scarce today?
It's became like it became the co interesting question in my head.
Because if information was scarce then and then there was a need for little blue books, what's scarce today? And I think it's what you just said. Now this is
I hate even saying the word belonging, but
Basically bl you know, g being a part of a tribe.
I think is incredibly scarce today, in America, at least, or in the in the life that I see around me, me and my the life around me.
Um, and I think this is, you know, organized religion did this for a lot of people. I think group exercise classes like CrossFit and Soul Cycle.
Did this job for a lot of people.
Uh, now run clubs are incredibly popular. Book clubs are getting more and more popular, which seems really counterintuitive to the trend.
I think people need
This sort of in person
Tribe with rituals.
And a tribe leader and a banner.
And rituals that you you attend.
I think that is what is scarce today, and I think
People are
People crave it and those who properly build that are gonna prosper in the future.
And I think you're doing it with Hampton, by the way. Yeah, I'm trying to do it. I met this guy, he came to my office the other day, um Pomp, Anthony Pompaliano introduced me to this guy and he was like
Did you just drop that?
Just like that. Is there a name you need to pick up because I just dropped? Did I just drop that? Your democratic president. Uh the Anthony was like, You gotta and I call him Anthony, by the way. It's like uh on all ends sometimes like they they're referring to the SEC chairman and they're like, Yeah, look, Tim's doing a great job.
Uh
My version of that is A3.
So uh he was like to me this guy. I said, Well yeah, whatever, sure. It's had been the like if you're in town, come to my office, man. I met him
And I was like, What's your deal? He's this Italian guy with a thick Italian accent.
And he's got this company that's basically making a hundred million dollars a year curing loneliness. So it's called but but they're doing it in a very unique way. So if you go to We Road.com, the business is crazy.
So the comp yeah let me tell you what the product is. The product is basically uh it's
Traveling for 20, 30, and 40 year old professionals. And so what they do is if you want to travel, the issue with a lot of young people is like they want to travel alone, but they don't literally want to be alone when they travel. Like they don't want to team team up with their friends. They want to go do what they want to do, but with other people who want to do it with them. And so it's basically 80% women, 20% men is like their customer base. And so it'll they have categories.
categories. So it's like um adventure, it's nature, it's historical. They got a bunch of categories and you pick a trip that you want to go on, and then seven to maybe fifteen other young people like you are going to go on that exact same trip and you're gonna have a tour guide leading you along each trip.
So this was for example, I clicked Patagonia, trekking through Argentina and Chile. There's beautiful photos, like I don't this just looks
Like unbelievable.
And then it's a thirteen day trip. You pay three grand and you're gonna go with a group of eight to fifteen people.
You know, twelve nights in a hotel or guest house.
Your breakfasts are included.
And you get a domestic flight to Buenos Aires. Uh from from Buenos Aires if you get to Buenos Aires from there to the like start of the
of the adventure and it's and then they have like day day one, here's what we do, day two, here's what we do. All the way to day thirteen.
This company, I think it was started in two thousand and twenty. It's only about five or six years old.
Uh, this year they're gonna do a hundred and sixteen million in revenue.
Last year they did a hundred million in revenue. And their gross margins, he said I could say all this, are thirty percent. I've never heard of this game. Amazing, right? I've never heard of it either. So on a hundred million in revenue, after they pay the hotels and the the kind the person leading the tour guide, they keep thirty percent. So a hundred and sixty million in revenue, what's that? That's uh
like fifty million bucks in like net revenue to their company. Absolutely
Astounding that this company exists. It's one of these ideas that you told me about it and I'm like
Yeah, that sounds like a cute little hobby.
They've totally crushed it. And I've been and I was asking him, I'm like, Why why do people like this? He's like, Well, because people uh
are lonely and they don't want to be alone and
were just one example of how you can solve loneliness because you go along this trip with strangers and you're gonna come home best friends. And he was like, And in a lot of cases, sometimes people come home as boyfriend and girlfriend. That happens a lot. Uh and so I thought that this was an absolutely amazing product to solve like it's it's like
There's these macro trends. So you talked about this macro trends of like physical experiences, things like that, uh, and loneliness. And then there's like how do you package that into a solution that you could sell? I'm trying to do it with Hampton in one way. This is a a totally other way of doing it.
It's
Crushing me. Uh so that was probably this is a this is a uh a very a very nice way to package it. Uh it would be nice if I could have my company do it 160 million in revenue in five years. But isn't this pretty cool?
And they do something that looks way more fun and they like hook up. So it's like basically better in every dimension that I care about. I mean my parents do this, uh my mom does this with uh
Like s seniors do this as well. So her and her siblings two to three times a year
Take
These guided tours but it's basically groups of seniors.
You know, it's just all'cause they're like, we don't have to think, right? They're gonna organize all the sightseeing, all the hotels, all the food, all the everything.
They keep you safe, they have the insurance, like they do all that stuff. And then you're with a group. So you know, you can grow with a group or you can kinda make friends inside the group.
'Cause you know, traveling when you're young and your friends maybe not all not all being able to synchronize a trip together or you don't have enough friends, like that's one thing. And the other is, you know, your empty nesters
your seniors and like you got w way more time and money on your hands.
uh but travel is you know still
You know, a little bit difficult and daunting. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Um
Like I did it when I was in college or high school, maybe, uh like an EF tour. Is that what it's called? Uh educational tour. It's like the company's called EF Tours. It's like a multi billion dollar company that they do that for students. Everyone knows
Uh that you can do it. Are they the ones who have like an incredible on campus marketing like m machine where they basically have like
kind of affiliates and then they do events. It's like an MLM, basically. Yeah, it's an MLM. It's like started by like a Swedish guy who's like a recluse, but he like owns the whole bill uh business and he does like five billion in revenue. It's like one of these things where you like you don't realize how big it is.
I was I was too dumb at the time to like pay attention to what was happening, but now that I look back
with like my business lens now.
That thing was brilliant.
So uh EF tours.
Does eleven billion a year in revenue.
Uh if I'm if I'm one of these like who's like the travel YouTuber that's popular?
If I'm the travel YouTuber that's popular, I'm like the ad kind of fun adventure type of YouTuber.
I would create something like this. You know, I I mean this is very hard to create to be clear, but like
I would steal operators from these companies and be like, You're gonna build this, you but you're gonna use my my brand, my face.
to like spin up'cause these are these don't really have a strong brand.
And th these are oh way overdue.
Interestingly, this this guy actually has a SF connection. So the guy who started EF Tours, I I didn't research this in advance, so um I'm just gonna look at Wikipedia. He started EF Tours and in nineteen sixty five, they now have fifty two thousand employees and his last name is Holt, H U L T, the Holt International School of Business. That's the uh Holt school in SF.
Uh, which was I think down by Fisherman's Wharf.
But anyway.
Crazy way of solving loneliness. So um
Dude, this was a fun episode. I'm happy we got to like catch up, but I'm also I I I think that um there's times on this podcast sometimes where like maybe you don't want to talk about something personal because you're like, I don't know if people are gonna like enjoy this or be like if they can get like entertainment or education from like my little personal story, but I gotta say that I'm actually like
incredibly impacted by that story of your grandfather. You know, I I have a soft spot in my heart for immigrants. And so I love hearing the story of your mother. I've never heard the story of your father but I love immigrants, dude. You love immigrants. I love immigrants. Like I I you know I kind of categorize like s uh firstborn in America, you know, son of immigrants as immigrants as well. And in that regard
Every one of my friends is a is an immigrant.
It's almost racist how much you love immigrants. But seriously. Shut up about it. I married into an immigrant family. That's one of your like phrases that stuff. Like a lot of people will when they email me like for an opportunity to be like, I got that Korean
Uh what is it? Korean restaurant Korean corner store owner energy or something like that? Like I got that immigrant mentality. Yeah, like Kore Korean store owner energy. So because in New York, you basically there's like the corner
Like markets.
And they are all owned by Asian families. So it's typically like a um
V to me's.
uh family and I I like to go and I like to talk to these families and I literally just like ask them what's their story. Uh and then the smaller ones are usually owned by uh it's a lot of Indian families, but it's also a lot of like Arabic families. And it's very interesting how and then you go to like Dunkin' Donuts and that's always Indian.
Uh and so like I love going to these like
Or you go to a motel, always Indian. And I love going and I like just like I'm like I want to learn like what's going on. And so I love like
Like learning about this stuff, I think it's so fascinating because immigrants have this like us versus them mentality, which I've always craved.
You know, I always want to be the us.
Uh turns out uh turns out uh turns on on the them. I'm the on the against them.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, like I'm Iceland and the muddy ducks. Like I'm the bad guy or I'm like the bad guys. Uh like you know like Gunter Stahl over here. Yeah. I'm the them. I wanted to be the us, I'm the them. That's weird.
All right, that's a good spot for us.
I feel like I can rule the world a no way
Could be
But I want to
I'm putting my all in it like my day's off On the roadless travel never looking back
Hey, let's take a quick break. I want to tell you about a podcast that you could check out. It is called The Science of Scaling by Mark Roberts. He was the founding CO of HubSpot, and he's a guest lecturer at Harvard Business School.
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