My decision-making framework for which ideas to chase

0:00 Today's episode is about one word. Excellent. Whenever I hear these stories about people who are excellent, or what it took to become excellent, or what it took to make something happen that was truly excellent. It makes me want to run through a wall for the rest of the day. So that's the gift to a listener. If you're if you're listening to this in the morning. You're gonna want to run through a wall after you listen to this.

0:17 I feel like I can rule the world, I know I could be what I want to I put my all in it like my day's all on the roadless travel never left. It's morning time. Would you like some FOMO pancakes?'Cause I'm about to drizzle some FOMO pancakes right in front of you. For some reason when you say the word drizzle, I oughta I I'm out. You're out. Yeah. I've never been able to pull that word off. Yeah. I don't think anyone has. We um as you know, we're hosting our

0:45 Annual event. Me and Ben host this annual event called Hoop Group with Mr Beast and we're hosting it in about a week. And I was just Catching up with Ben. Ben takes the charge on on like Everything in your life. Yeah, yeah, doing doing the things. And I just like keep lobbing in ideas and then

1:02 I'm basically the most annoying guy. It's like he says, Hey, here's everything we got and I'm like, Can we just make it better? He's like, Okay, well how? I'm like, I don't know, just Just think big. And I say generic things like that. And I'll be like, you know I just got off the podcast with this guy. What would he do? And then he's like, I don't know. What did he tell you about? Like, I don't know. Go listen to that. You get inspired.

1:20 But by the way, you call it lobbying ideas. The the someone I said that to my coach the other day and she goes, That's called swooping and pooping. Yeah, would you fly it or do you just leave a bunch of crap? Exactly. They've been working hard and then you just swoop in and you poop. But I do it in the name of high standards. Uh and that's that's how you get away with anything. That's how you get away with being an asshole. You just say, No, I'm not an asshole. I have high standards. But

1:43 Yeah the my standards have been exceeded by what Ben has pulled off uh with this event. I just need to tell you some things about this event, okay? For those who don't know. For the last few years, every year we host a Basketball camp. So it's kinda like a basketball game for billionaires was the the idea, the dream.

1:58 There's lots of different conferences, there's lots of different networking events. And I hate conferences and I hate network events. And despite me talking a lot on this podcast, I'm actually kind of an introvert. I don't really enjoy going to events. And We wanted to do something, but the idea of just creating yet another thing that was very much like everything else that existed. was not appealing.

2:18 Were you guys just sitting around? Oh comfort is dub. Well it started with We should do one, man. We have a big audience. We know all these interesting people. What if we hosted an event? And it's like great, like a like a networking event. Yay. It's like no no, it could be like

2:32 I don't know, like people come and talk. And we're like, Oh, a conference. Yay. And so then I learned this from on my first business. This guy told me like irritation leads to innovation. So Back then it was a restaurant business and he was telling me I was saying how much I hate food delivery and he's like, Well, that's the opportunity. Make food delivery, that doesn't suck. And suddenly you'll take something that's really bad.

2:50 And just by like Making it not suck. the gap between where it normally is and where you are is really big. And so Similarly, the idea with this was Well what would be a conference we would want to go to?

3:04 And so we just started spitballing with like a you know childlike energy where it's like I don't know like Instead of Icebreakers. Like what if it was based around sports? We love sports. What if we combine two things we really love? Meeting interesting, inspiring business people, but then basketball.

3:20 And so the idea became We play basketball all day. What if we got an NBA trainer to come train us like a fantasy camp? And we invite people who are Really, you know, successful and interesting, but they love to hoop. And so we we all first we play basketball, it's the ultimate equalizer, icebreaker, people get to know each other. And then at night you talk shop in the kind of like we all stay in a in a couple of houses and we all talk shop there.

3:43 And you've been to two of these that we've we've thrown, so you you kinda get the idea. Yeah, it's great. Seventeen billionaires are coming to this event, which is pretty insane. So I just wanted to tell you about like the First just give you a little bit of FOMO because you couldn't make it this year. So I wanted to give you a little FOMO on who's in the room. I think the only two people that gave me true FOMO there

4:02 So well first of all actually wait, actually hold on, let me think. Jesse Itzler is awesome. So I I like him. I'm fortunate that I've been able to hang out with him, so I have less FOMO, but he is amazing. He was probably the best person I hung out with there last year. But uh Jesse Cole And uh the uh Nick Mulbray. Is that his name? Nick Mulbray? Yeah. Probably those two guys. Those two guys is who who I'd want to meet most. Yeah.

4:23 I also just want to see Shaq in person. I think that's just gonna be incredible. I don't understand. Shaq doesn't seem like a guy who goes the sleepovers. Well he's coming to ours, all right. Is he sleeping there or is he just popping in? Yeah, he's coming. He's he's an attendee. Okay. And so I bragged about how cool this event is, but there are a couple of downsides. The first is The event is not a roster of names.

4:47 It's a vibe. It's how you how it actually feels to be there. And I'm really worried this year that we might have screwed it up by inviting too many Kinda big name people who are used to being the center of attention. We got I think pretty lucky the first couple years that All the in most interesting people were also

5:04 Great hangs, just really down to earth, really fun to be around. Which I don't think is gonna be true for like Your average billionaire, your average celebrity, right? Like I think people Just used to being kind of the center of attention and being a little stand office. So I'm really worried about that. I hope we didn't screw it up. I might be coming back on here in a couple of weeks and say, Hey look, you know, it was it was fun, but

5:22 Lesson learned, you know, too much of anything is a problem. And the other thing is, you know For everybody we got. You know, Ben reached out to maybe ten there's twenty people who said no. And just the effort that it takes. To

5:35 Get people to come and to to feel comfortable and excited to come to the middle of nowhere with people they don't even know. You've never heard of me, you never heard of Ben. You don't know who any of us are. Um, so I appreciate the people who took a leap of faith, but also like It's you only ever hear about the hits and never the misses, but for every hit, there's nineteen misses um on on people that we wanted to come. So I thought just to counterbalance it, that would be

5:56 Fair. I'm eager to see where Shaq sleeps. What what does his bed look like? Bump beds, buddy. He's on top. I'm on bottom. He is the bad. All right, so this episode is all about excellence.

6:12 A while back, I shared my personal framework for building excellence in my own life. And the team at HubSpot turned it into a thirty day operating system you can check out right now. It breaks down the systems. It took me ten years to figure out. And shows how I actually use them day to day. These are systems that genuinely changed my life.

6:30 So if you want to build a good life Scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Now. Let's get back to the show. Alright, so I just want to tell you a couple of the

6:41 The philosophies. That I think. Other people could steal to make cool of cool um projects or events like this for themselves. Okay. So I kinda wrote down 'Cause I'm this is a point of pride for us. I was like, man, this thing started as a pretty wacky idea.

6:55 That we tweeted out. Really didn't know where it would go. And now this is your this is the fourth time we did we're doing it. And you were there the first year. I mean it was like mostly just our friends. Sleeping in bunk beds. No like programming or like idea of what we're supposed to do in the event.

7:12 Janky. But still very fun. And it was still very fun. It was like there was some there was a sauce of there's a seed of something special, but Yeah. It was pretty janky relative to like how it goes now. It's funny. The things that were unimportant were janky. So the uh combinations.

7:26 Uh a lot of people think the accommodations need to be nice. No, they weren't. It was I shared a room with four guys at a bunk bed. Perfectly adequate and fine. Yeah. So we're we uh so here's here's some of them. Okay. So the first one is what I said, irritation leads to innovation. So take something That bothers you or you think sucks.

7:43 And instead of just writing it off as I don't do that. I don't like that. Blah blah blah being close minded to it. Just get playful with like, Well, what version of this would it suck? Right. You just take that as a brainstorm and like I don't know, one out of every ten times you might actually come up with something interesting. The second is what I call the yes test.

8:00 So As you get older and more successful in life You go from Opportunity scarce. to opportunity abundant.

8:09 Meaning When you're y when you're young, you don't really have a lot of Cool opportunities or things you could say yes to. So you just need to be in the minds of saying yes to a lot of stuff. Oh, this um this person wants to get coffee? Yeah, I'll take a flyer on that.

8:21 Hey, th this person wants me to attend this, I'll take a flyer on there. I'll go speak at this event. I'll go do this. I'll go do this. And then the older you get, both whether for family reasons, your time gets a little more restricted or You just get more and more opportunities coming your way. And you have to go the opposite way. You basically have to practice saying no. And so

8:38 This creates what I call the yes test. And the yes test for me has become the following. Would I do this thing for no money or losing money? And the best projects in my life have been things where I've said yes to things that I would be willing to do for free. Or willing to lose money. This podcast is one of them.

8:56 When I started this podcast I wrote a Google Doc and I said the stated plan was Probably nobody will listen to this. And I'm probably gonna lose ten thousand dollars this year in production costs. But I'll have, you know, fifty interesting conversations with really interesting people back when it was more of a guest centric podcast.

9:13 And that was the stated plan. But I was willing to go in and lose money doing it, which is a good signal for like There's probably a lot of other intangible benefits of doing this if you're willing to do it. For a loss. This event We don't charge anybody anything.

9:27 We pay for it out of pocket. It's gonna cost Us maybe a couple hundred grand to throw this event. And so that's just cost we eat. And so The good thing of the bad thing is you lose money. The good thing is

9:41 The event has to be something you'd be willing to lose a couple hundred grand on. Like how good must that need to be for you to say yes to that? And it's sort of this forcing function of like, well, it's got like then we gotta have a lot of fun, meet a lot of really interesting people. It's gotta be a real core memory. It's gotta be something unique to our brand. Like, you know, you you have to get all these other benefits in order for it to be worth that. And so when I think about the thing the best things in my life that I've done It's been things that I would say yes to. Uh, even if I lost money. And so this year, for example

10:10 playing the piano was a m m a money loser, but it was one of the best decisions I made. coaching the high school basketball team has been, you know, food for my soul. I've loved doing it. And I have you know, I make no money, I lose money doing that. So I wanted to share the yes test with you. It's so funny because so many things in my life that I have

10:27 been thankful for doing I only did it because it made money. Or like I only did it because I wanted the end result. Like I don't I don't wanna lose weight. This sucks. I don't wanna eat this food. I don't wanna like exercise. And I just want the result. I call some of those win lose, especially not things like losing weight or exercise, because those are fully in your control. But let's say it's like a business, right? Those are what I call win lose, which is

10:51 Hey, if I get the result I wanted up front. Then this was worth it. It was a win. But if I didn't I'm gonna be kicking myself. Right. I'm gonna feel like I I lost. I w I wasted my time.

11:01 And I think there are other win win situations where you say, Well At the minimum I already win. Right, with the podcast I was like, at the minimum I'm gonna have an excuse to go have fifty Dop conversations with awesome people. I'm gonna learn so much. I'm gonna get to know them better. And um so it's already a win, even if nobody ever listened and I lost money.

11:18 But then in the long shot, which was people started listening to the podcast and it started to make some money maybe from advertisers. Well Then I I win double. Great. So my two options were I win w I win small or I win big. And I just think that that's generally a better place to be. When you actually are excited about the small win. Not like a moral victory or like uh

11:37 I guess, you know, could be worse, right? Not that. I'm saying you're you're genuinely excited even about the basic win. But then there you leave yourself room for the upside. So can you remind me, um the pod was started I think in July some type of like late summer of nineteen, right? Yeah. I'm almost positive. I don't think it made more than six figures for the first year and a half.

11:58 If I remember correctly. Yeah, probably not. I remember doing the first ad read and the first ad read was This brought episode is brought to you by Nobody.

12:06 But think about it. This could be you. You know to pay for I was renting a studio. So I was like, Can I pay for the studio time? A hundred dollars an hour. I don't remember. I think it was like it it didn't make any money for like a year and a half, and then it made kind of a lot of money and then a lot more. But uh which is pretty funny. Okay, and what are the second two? Okay. Actually I have three more. So one is the bigger you go, the easier it gets. So There's a fallacy that people have, which is that Going for big things is hard, is difficult.

12:35 So going for smaller things will be easier. But actually whenever you're doing something that is like a new product, an event. Anything that needs differentiation. If you think smaller or you play more reasonably You actually are less differentiated, you're less interesting. And the actually the harder it gets to people to get let's just take this event. Let's say this event was

12:55 Not about basketball. It was just a normal meetup or event. And let's say the guest list was a bunch of people you never heard of that were easier for me to get in. Well, it would just make it harder for me to do everything that I'm trying to do with this. It'd be harder to get the next guest. Ca? Why would I come? There's nothing special about this. This is true for business too, by the way. The bigger your idea, the better people you can recruit. Exactly. And then the better people you recruit, the easier it gets to do the thing, right? That's the third part, right? And so

13:21 having a bigger thing where it's like, Yeah, we're gonna get the most interesting people people that have like, you know, one name recognition. I'm only only able to get them because we're doing a unique thing. But because we're doing unique thing and we get some of them, it g makes it easier to get more of them, which makes it easier to do m a more unique thing because now you have all these really special people coming. And in your case, Sha or not Shaq, Mr. Beast was like kind of the the the Tent pole, uh the anchor, the initial anchor. Yeah, yeah. How did you get in touch with Shaquille O'Neal? Hold email. Really?

13:53 Uh actually sorry. Shaq was through uh kind of a c it was like a cold request. Ben saw Uh so the guy who started Ring doorbell is coming. And Ben uh doing Ben miracle things that only Ben does. He was like

14:07 Who are the investors in Ring? And so he goes and he looks at who's the first investors in Ring saw that Shaq was an early investor in Ring and Presumably made a bunch of money off of the ring investment. So he's like, Hey You think Shaq would want to come to this thing? The guy was like, Hey, let me go, let me find out. And so it kinda made the made the intro and then went from there. But Jamie had never been himself. So it's not like he could do like a hard vouch for it. But it ended up working out.

14:29 But he cold emailed a bunch of people that Like you know, the founder of Airbnb came because he cold emailed him. And he knew Hey, I know growing up you were a ballboy for an NBA team. So like I'm guessing you love hoops just like I do. I was a ball boy too. Dude, just check out this camp Ben. I mean, that's what this is. Good job, Ben.

14:45 That's one of the principles is basically The product is you pushed out. So uh my trainer told me this one time when I was like trying to figure out what to do. Should I start this company or this? Should I do this or this? And I was telling I was just mentioning it to my trainer in passing. And he goes he goes, What do you mean? You are the product. I go, What? He goes, You are the product. He goes, The product is just you pushed out. So Just do you

15:07 But like turn the volume knob up. And so he's like, Look at the podcast. What's the podcast? Do you have to think Before you go on the podcast like ooh, how should I act and what should I No, you just You're just being you.

15:17 Right, you and Sam, you just get on there and you hang out like you and Sam would normally. And he's like, So the product is you pushed out and that's what resonated with people, right? That's the one that that That clicked. And then he was showing me like in another project that we did, he's like, That's just that's like you pushed out again. And so with the camp, the camp is basically like

15:35 basketball, which something mean been obsessed over, but it's basically the mix of like On my end, it's like my version of like a TED conference'cause we do these little mini talks every night. And that's kinda like I even my Twitter bottle says I'm an idea dealer. Like that's the thing that I get off on the most is like the sharing of ideas and like wisdom and like picking up these nuggets from each other.

15:54 And the thing Ben loves to do is curate really interesting people and get'em in a room together. Like Ben is a He's not like a networker per se, but he just loves to meet interesting people and he just gets lit up when he meets somebody who's done something interesting, who's cool. And so um anyways I think the Finding something that's basically if you just look at the product and you say, That's me

16:12 Productised. I feel like the hustle for you was In many ways you productize. Big time in your writing voice. Uh but also the s sort of punk rock attitude, the hustle the name hustle, the the conference that you did, like

16:25 A lot of that was just Your DNA. But you want to know where I screwed it up? I built something I disliked. So which I think that have you ever done this with the company where you build a company or a project and then you grow to dislike the people and the culture. Like not that they're bad, but for example, if I when I started doing it, I was twenty four, twenty five, and then by the time I was twenty eight, twenty nine, thirty, I was like, Well, I'm a little bit different or I care about slightly different things or whatever And it's neither good or bad, but have you ever like built a project that was like your own prison?

16:54 Yeah, you can outgrow you can outgrow a project. I think it's generally usually an insecurity leads you to make a decision that's not in line with who you are. And therefore you end up You do that six times and you end up in a almost unrecognizable spot. And it's sort of like uh boiling water. Like you're you're you're in lukewarm water and it just is slow. You don't notice you don't notice. It's too late, right? Yeah.

17:16 And where did that poor decision where why did you start making those tur those turns like down the wrong roads? And usually the root of it is some insecurity. So for me, when I've done this this thing you're describing It's I'm so afraid for this thing to fail. And I so badly want it to win, I badly want to make money.

17:33 that I start just like trying to conform into like maybe that will work. Maybe this is the thing. Yeah. Maybe this is the thing. And then suddenly I've built a Live streaming app for Twitch streamers. I do not stream video games, I don't play video games, I don't even watch Twitch.

17:49 And yet here I am. How It's like Kids you might be wondering, how did this happen? That th that's that's where I ended up out of that insecurity of I just want to be successful so I don't think that's bad, by the way. Like you were a mercenary, right? And in a way, I felt like I started as like a missionary where I was like, This is my life, this is what I'm all about. And then it started working and I was like okay, well I have to hire some people and this person's good and you be sort of become a mercenary some some of the time. And so I still am envious of the people. So for example, one of the reasons why people are obsessed with Dyson, who you were you were joking about, why is everyone obsessed with Dyson is he and Brian Chesky, another guy Airbnb, they appear as though they started as a missionary and they have remained that way, where they are all they are down for the cause and they refuse to bend or in sacrifice.

18:31 But the thing is is that you can get mildly or very successful even by bending and sacrificing. You don't actually have to stick to your values all the time in order to be a commercial success. And oftentimes bending your values and and and and doing what you think is expected of you, not what you want to do, is actually significantly more profitable. And so there's been many times where I've made that sacrifice and I maybe got what I want wanted financially, but I was and I was pretty upset with how I what I gave into. And in turn, the reality is I probably would have been significantly more profitable had I stuck the whole time. It just would have been more painful. Does that make sense? Well, you're saying both things, right? You're saying

19:10 I built something that I didn't even love, which is s sort of a a painful feeling. So that's kind of like a bad outcome. But it was a commercial success. So it's a good outcome. Yeah. And so Can you make a commercial success? While

19:23 Um being mercenary about it? Absolutely. Can you also make a commercial success? While doing something in line with your mission or something that lights you up or something that you feel is like the type of thing that you you know, you sort of or it's organic to you. If you have good taste. If you have good taste. But to me I'm like if I can again, one is a win lose and the other is a win win. If win win is possible, then I'm gonna pursue that. But it's not always that, dude.

19:49 My point. My point is it's not always that I have so many I went to uh Belmont University to music school. Or it's a school that has a big music department. I knew so many people that were Uh like they're like, We're gonna be musicians, but this is the stuff we're gonna play and it's like Mildly interesting, but it's not like a pop hit or anything.

20:06 And now we're all the same age. I talk to them and they're kinda bums and they regret their decisions. They're like, I wish I would have chased the money. Casey Neistat has this funny thing. Casey Neistat uh did you know that so Casey Neistat got famous, I believe, when he started vlogging every single day, I think in 2015. He did not turn on ads on YouTube. He thought that that was ruining the art and he refused to do it. And then he did a talk recently about a year ago where he goes, Ah, how foolish of me. That would have added up to like fifteen million dollars or something insane like that. And he was like, Now my advice is the exact opposite. Take the money when you can take the money. And and so I guess this this constant tension between like doing art and doing what's cool versus taking the money. And so I think what you're saying is true, and also it's maybe not true for everyone.

20:51 So in that example you're giving, I think that um So what are these called? These are called dialectics. It's like two opposite Two Things at opposing ends of a spectrum, which can both be argued to be very true. And so you would think, How is that possible that two things on the opposite end of the spectrum, so for example, Uh patience is a virtue.

21:10 But at the same time a a lot of entrepreneurs would not be successful if they weren't Very impatient at the same time, saying. Six months? How do we do this in six days? Right. So like you have these opposite things. And then you find the way that they link together. So like

21:25 My favorite one with the patient's impatience comes from Naval where he says impatience with action. Patients with results. And you're like, ah, that's it. Exactly. Because if you're patient with your action, you just don't do shit. If you're impatient with your results.

21:38 You give up too easily, you get frustrated, it leads you to make uh short sighted decisions. And so that's the right combo. And I think there's a version of that here with like To what extent do I build a thing that I think is interesting. That I think is cool. That is more natural to what I want. And um

21:55 be mission driven maybe to the m impact I want or the type of thing I want to build, the type of company I wanna build, the type of product I wanna build. And also realizing that The more commercially successful it is, the more interesting people you're gonna be able to hire, which will make the product better, which will let you do this for longer, which like right. So there's a way where Like Disney said, like, you know, we don't make m make movies to make money, we make money so we can make great movies. Right. And so you wanna basically realize like, Oh, this is this

22:20 This money thing is important and we have to understand where it's gonna come from and how this is gonna work. We can't be blind to that at the same time. That can't be the North Star. If it is We're gonna build something that's You know.

22:32 compromised in a way. And I made that mistake. I think I made that mistake of compromising'cause I've now done both. You do the compromise first and That gives you the freedom to take a bunch of shots on goal or gives you the confidence or gives you the s or now you have the skills or whatever. I don't know. But If I could rewind it, I would go back and advise myself to just be like, Hey, you should just keep building

22:52 The things that you find most interesting. Were you not interested at all in I mean, it's so funny. You didn't play. I was interested in them because of their market potential. I was like, Oh. Map and math. This times this times this equals this. That's not that's not wrong. Yeah. I mean that's not fine. I do I don't think it is ideal, right? There's not right and wrong. There's like You know, there's good, better, best, right? There's different great.

23:16 I actually that's an interesting question. I don't know if he care does he care about making movies? Or does he care just like this was the game that was set and f set forth and now I wanna I wanna win? Well, he is interesting, right?'Cause it's kind of both. He was clearly he clearly loved to make content and wanted to be a YouTuber. Almost like at identity level, more than anything. That's why for Six years nobody's watching.

23:37 And he just keeps Making videos year after year, twelve years old, thirteen years old, fourteen years old, fifteen years old, sixteen years old, seven years old, eighteen years old. Nobody watched till he's nineteen. And so And even then it's not like it was huge or small even at that stage. But he kept going and he had said up front, like, Okay, I'm either gonna be a famous or I'm gonna die die making YouTube videos. Like I'm gonna try. I'd die trying.

23:57 And so you know, in that way he was pretty mission driven. And I don't think he was Yeah, there was a lot easier ways to make money if he needed to make money, right? Like over time he could have given up and and gone towards other things. And also the types of videos he made were videos that you know he obviously found interesting. At the same time, you know, I think His

24:14 I think more than being an artist about like What is the What is the most artistic video I can make. Right. I think he's basically saying I want to make the best YouTube videos and best is defined as what people wanna watch. I like making things that pe that entertain the masses that people want to watch. That's the

24:31 version he likes, you know. I think the video he did the other day got like a hundred million views in a few hours. And for some reason Mr. Beast videos never pop up in my feed, but this one, like it it had like all celebrities in it. I didn't realize he was doing that. Thirty celebrities fight for a million dollars. And it's like Paris Hilton and Kevin Hart and shit like that. Did you see that? Yeah, I watch that one. That's crazy.

24:55 Today's episode is brought to you by HubSpot. Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book but then tearing out four fifths of the pages. Point is you miss a lot. And unless you're using HubSpot, the customer platform that gives you access to the data you need to grow your business, the insights that are trapped in emails, call logs, transcripts, all that unstructured data makes all the difference because when you know more, you grow more. And so if you want to read the whole book instead of just reading part of it, visit hubspot.com. Did you have a third or a fourth? Yeah, I got two more quick ones. One is

25:25 Everybody it doesn't matter how rich you are, everybody's a little kid. So last year, for example You know, you got this room full of people who can buy anything that they want, but what can't they buy? Right, and so we rent out the stadium. for the final game of our tournament at the at the camp, and they walked in and there was jerseys

25:43 Printed with their names. And like everybody was so excited like a little kid. And so it's these little moments in between the big things. that actually create the feel of the event. And so for example, this year we're doing this little touch where We play basketball in the morning.

25:59 We gotta tell. Shaq, cover your ears. So we play basketball in the morning and then we go to the house for lunch or whatever. And at the house you'll already see on the TV screen like photos from that morning's game, like little videos and and photos. Were you inspired by uh Steve Bartlett? I heard he I heard he does that where you record a podcast with him and then when you're done with the podcast, he hands you a book. It's a photo album of the podcast. Yeah, which is a very, very gr great touch.

26:27 We stole it from K Academy, Coach K does this and they they have that there and so we were like, Oh, that's a great idea. So little things like uh after the the final game this time. We were like, how do we make it f how do we give you that moment that you can't buy? Like, you know, what's the what what's the fun thing that like Would bring out the childlike energy in these people.

26:44 And so we were taking them to the locker room. And you know, like in sports like when you win a championship, do you like have champagne and like ski goggles in the locker room to do? So we have that set up. So it's like the winners are gonna get to go do that. Like, I don't know, just like have fun. I think caring about these little details last time after the event We made this custom magazine. It was cool. Uh, with like photos of everybody almost like Slam magazine back in the day.

27:07 And we sent it to each person. It took me a week to work on that. Like they were just like, What do you do you have a job? What do you do? You know, like you know me in life, I'm pretty not A man of the details. That's not where I'm from. But With this event, it's like pick and choose the few areas where you're not gonna eighty twenty in life. Pick and choose the areas where good enough is not good enough. Like

27:28 Okay, this is one project where we're like We're gonna try to go all out to a ridiculous degree. And they're gonna feel that. They're gonna know that we went all out. For our own amusement and for our own like Just to see what we could do if we really create something that's special. And so I'm I'm excited to do that.

27:45 Have you been working on this all year? No, this is like the last Six six weeks, let's say. Oh. That's a that's not a lot you get done in just in six weeks. Is this was this what you will focus on the whole time? The whole six weeks?

27:56 No, I'm not focused on it really at all. I just meet with Ben at the beginning, say here's like Here's some ideas. Here's what I thought was good last time, bad last time. Here's some ideas. Ben goes and does things. And then he he we brought on some event organizers to help us this time. And then every couple of weeks we just sort of check in on like

28:11 He's not doing it full time either, but like you know, a big chunk of his time. Well the hard part is just the inviting the right people and getting them to say yeah. What I was doing, so I told you I was trying to write that book. So I was like I've basically become that family guy meme. I don't know if you've ever seen that episode of Family Guy where Brian's been writing a novel. And Stewie's just trolling him, he's like, How's that how's that novel going? Yeah. Has got some pages? Chapters beginning, middle, end?

28:31 Little juxtaposition. And he's like Brian's like classic writer who's like just like stuck in the mud, like not making progress on this book. It's like too big of a thing. It's like intimidating him. And so I've had this idea to write this book, I've done all this research, but I was like slowly like I would draft chapters but I like I wasn't like writing the book. I was just like drafting chapters randomly. Yeah, I was like pretending. So two weeks ago I was like

28:53 All right. Who am I? Am I the kind of guys right? Who's talking about this book or am I gonna write the book? And so two weeks ago I decided I will have a prototype of the book. So like not the full book, but like a a cover opening intro, first chapter, second chapter.

29:08 Printed. Physical book. In the to show these people. In two weeks. And in the last two weeks I wrote it.

29:15 Print it's getting printed right now. It'll be printed the day the last day of printing will be the day. Is it any good? I threw myself into it and it's good because it was such a good forcing function and There's a lesson I was telling Ben, like Tony Robbins has this phrase, he goes, Peers aren't just the people around like near you, like just the guy you see to your right. A peer is somebody who has leverage over you.

29:35 And it's like, What do you mean, leverage over you? He's like A peer is somebody who you care about their opinion of you. So they have some leverage over you. And that can be a good thing or a bad thing, but like the good version of that is if you get the right people around you And you care about their opinion and they value the things that you value. Well you will sort of rise.

29:52 Um in accordance with wanting to be seen well by your peers. Like it's very hard to just become a monk and renounce be like, I don't care what anyone thinks of me. Right? Like everybody likes to say that shit. But then you're all on social media posting and trying to get likes. Like you know, come on. We all care what people think about us. The trick is to pick who's gonna care about you and

30:09 What those people care about. And so, you know, if you're a mom and you're around other Great moms, then You're not gonna wanna look like a bad mom and the the result is good. It helps you be a better mom. January is like the biggest month of the January two thousand twenty six might be the biggest month of your professional career in the last

30:26 Five years. Definitely the most productive. I mean, nobody tries to write a book. Well, I gave myself two weeks and then I went to the printer and they were like, Hey, yeah, you we need seven days. I was like, Oh good, I got seven days to write this. Fantastic. So I just pulled all nighters for seven days and and pulled her off. You wanna tell can I tell you a cool story about excellence that I think is actually related to this? Yes.

30:46 And it's probably the only time that The sports that I'm interested are going to overlap at the s well But sports in general. I mean you might be interested in. Let me guess. Doesn't sport not involve a ball or a goal of any kind? No, it's the only sports I'm into are are people beating each other up or running away from each other. It's either ch it's it's it's chasing someone or what you do when you catch them. So which one is this one? Is this a running or a fighting? It's a running one.

31:17 More boring, but way more inspirational. So I read this book a few years ago and I was watching a documentary on the same topic and and it last night and and I really wanted to bring it up with you because I think you maybe heard of it, but I don't know if you knew all the details. So uh in the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies there was this uh coach. Uh, his name is Bill. He was a track and field coach up in Oregon. And he was the man. He had served in the in the military in World War Two

31:40 And he was just like tough guy and kind of sort of had this like scientist uh way about him where he he was all about efficiency. He loved efficiency and He was like, What's the most What's the best way that I can get these kids that I'm teaching or uh coaching at the University of Oregon, how can I make'em run faster? Other than making them train more and he got really nerd like nerdy on shoes. And so he started taking apart different shoes and he started thinking, How can I make these shoes better? And originally

32:07 Like the the lore or or or the story is that he was like, Well if you're six feet tall, you're gonna take this many steps per mile. And if I can reduce the weight of the shoes by only one ounce, that's gonna save you fifty pounds per mile. That seems like a big deal. And so he's hanging out with his kids one day, and his kids at this point uh I think are in their twenties, but they came over for brunch and the wife, his wife, Bill's wife. It's making waffles for'em.

32:32 And he was like, I got it. I know exactly what to do. So he steals the waffle iron from his wife and he pours liquid rubber into it. Any folds it down, he folds it up, and he's like, This is it. And this was the sole for his new shoe. And so he used that and they called it the the waffle.

32:49 uh for the shoe and it kicked ass. And now I think you know who I'm talking about, right? Yeah, uh Nike. It must be Nike. Yeah, Bill Barman. And Bill Barman was the co founder of Nike. The more famous co founder was Phil Knight. Phil Knight was actually one of his athletes. uh at University of Oregon and Phil Knight had a class on an entrepreneurship class. Are they like age gapped by like twenty years or something? More. I believe, at least based off photos, I think he was probably in his late fifties and Phil Knight was in his mid twenties. He had created the idea of Nike as a college student. But at first

33:22 uh when he started the company in the sixties, he was basically just importing Japanese shoes and he knew Bill liked to tinker with shoes, but it wasn't until about five or six years in to did Nike actually start saying Bill make the shoes that you are already making, but they are partners. Oh, okay. So they were in parallel. Phil Knight is trying to start a shoe company. Yeah. And this is like what is it called, blue ribbon or what's it called? Yeah, they were basically importing Japanese shoes and he called it blue ribbon. So he importing other people's shoes and then Bill separately, his coach is Experimenting tinkering with shoes.

33:54 And then they come together some what's the come together story? Do you know? Well Phil Knight was uh was his athlete. And so Phil Knight wore some of Bill's prototypes. Prototypes. But they were really rough. Like people used to complain that they were kinda rough, but they did work, but I think they would only work for like two races. It's the shape of a circle from the wall. Yeah, it was it was weird, but it was really effective. And then so they teamed up and he was like, Let's import these shoes and then Bill, you give them to the Nike guys or to the uh organ team. And we're gonna go track meet to track meet. It was a company, but it's almost like

34:26 It was almost like if I started a honey company. Uh, and I started going to like farmers markets. Like and somehow that turns into Burt B's, but it you know, it takes it it does it it doesn't Uh cap it overnight. Okay, so that's not the story that I want to actually bring up. What I really want to talk about was Steve Prefontaine. Do you know who Steve Prefontaine was? So he was a runner also.

34:47 Was he like The first athlete, he broke some record, he's wearing Nike's is that his story? Sort of, kinda. You're in the you're in the ball. You lost a leg or that's the Canadian guy? Yeah, that's Terry Fox, who I made fun of once uh in Canada and they booed me on stage. Basically Terry Terry Fox was this guy who ran across Canada with one leg that he lost to cancer and I saw a sign or like a statue for him like all over like Canada and Sean and I did a live COD fast.

35:15 Slide podcast, I was like, Who the hell is this Terry Fox guy? He's everywhere. It did not land. The definition of punching down. Yeah. So Google Steve Prefontaine. We were talking about like kind of like punk rock and not compromising. Guy's a honk. He's a honk, right? Is this guy the hunkiest of hunks? So Steve, by the way.

35:34 Hunk? Pretty underutilized. I think we can Is that what you want to be known for? Is uh bringing back the version. Amongst a few things. Steve Prefontaine, he was born in like a small fishing town called Cous Bay, and he uh was badass. He was badass in high school where he just like crushed everyone. And at the time when he was uh this was in the late nineteen sixties, Bill Bowerman actually

35:58 basically pioneer the word jogging in America. So running was not even a thing. Bill Barman was like, Everyone, you should run, it's good for your health. And that is when like housewives started running. Because previously people would see someone running in the street. This blows my mind, by the way. This is not that long ago. What did you say? It was like in the sixties or something, wasn't it? Like the the jogging revolution was in the sixties, and that's when Steve and then That's crazy. You know, my dad is like a teenager or something. That's a

36:23 V jogging seems like it's just been around since prehistoric time. It wasn't a thing. To me, that's an incredible marketing story, how they got like America to jog. Do you know wanna know what inspired Bill was he was in World War Two and he um They were surrounded by Germans at one point, and Bill was in was an outdoorsman, he was into physical fitness and hiking, and he noticed that the more fit soldiers who he was around, they were able to survive longer. And he eventually like overcame this German um they were surrounded by Germans and they somehow he conquered them and made them surrender, but it was at that time where he's like, I I realized how important fitness was. And jogging is a really good example of how to get fit. And so he's popularized jogging. He wrote a book called Jogging and it went viral. It was on the cover of uh Sports Illustrated in the sixties. That's how jogging it's seen a newspaper article that was like

37:09 The strange phenomenon taking place in the suburbs of America. Yeah. And Running. Like people something's come over these people, like an alien uh invasion has happened and and people are doing the strange behavior now. That was Bill. So Bill popularized this, and that's one of the many reasons why

37:28 uh when Steve Prefontaine was in high school, running obviously not very popular now, unless occasionally you get like a freak like you say in bolt and you're like, that's really cool. Well Uh, Bill Bauerman was sort of that guy in the sixties and seventies where people like, this guy invented jogging, how cool, he's kinda neat. But then it wasn't like a cool thing, but it was like a a neat thing. But then this kid named Steve Prefontaine And he was the exact opposite of Bill, and I'll explain in a minute, but he just crushed all these kids in high school and then he got recruit to the University of Oregon to run for Bill. Now Bill is a very methodical scientific guy. And what that means is that he hated

38:04 Front running. His whole idea was it's your goal to win the race. Your goal is not to look cool. It's not to lead the whole time. It's to do the least amount of work to get the desired result. Which is to win. That is not what Steve Free Fantine was about. He said, he has this famous quote, he goes, If I'm gonna do something

38:20 I'm gonna do it with style. And his whole shtick was that he would run the race from begin to end as hard as you could. He was short and he used to say that he wasn't gifted. He was very gifted, but he would kinda joke that he wasn't gifted and he would say to give anything less than the less than your best is to sacrifice the gift. And he also he had this other quote where he said, Um, a lot of people want to race to see who's fastest. I wanna race to see who has the most guts. And that's what he was famous for, was running all out as hard as he could. Hunk.

38:47 Hunk, right? Like in the book. Hunk like attitude. Dude, it gets even hunkier. In the book that I've read about him, they used to talk about his gaze. I don't know if you could Google like Steve Prefontaine. Google Well, hold on. Google Steve this is important. It's actually about branding. Google Steve Prefontaine posters. And he's famous for this like gaze. He would like stare really hard at things. And that poster is one of the most famous posters if you are like a nerdy high school kid who cares about running, like you have this poster. This guy was the boss. And turns out uh in the nineteen seventy two Olympics in Munich, he did his front running thing where with like three or four laps to go, which there's still a lot left to go, he takes hold and he leads the Olympic race for the five thousand meters. And it doesn't work out and at the very end the other guys out kick him and he gets fourth and tragically he dies like A year and a half later in a car crash. He was drinking and driving. But

39:37 He was Nike's first sponsored athlete. And what Phil Knight says is uh the the the even though that Jordan kind of made Nike most famous, that's how people uh know Nike now. They say that Steve Prefontaine was the soul of Nike. This idea of like fierce independence of competitiveness. He goes Phil was like I didn't really have that. That was Steve. Everything Steve was about, I took it from him and I made it into a brand called Nike.

40:02 That's sick. It's like if if the man was a brand and then they basically built Mikey in that in that image, right? Like that attitude. It's badass. Yeah. So before Nike was Nike, it was called uh Blue Ribbs. Then they changed it to Nike, and they were like, Steve is the brand that we're trying to be like. And the reason I I think this interests me is I love like these punk rock like Maverick Renegades guys renegade guys. But I also am interested in like stealing from the past. So like finding good ideas. And so yeah, I was thinking about Bill Bauerman and he has this famous book called The Men of Oregon and Steve Pierre Fonte, and I was like, what can I steal about his branding? He has a bunch of really cool branding. So for example When he was at his peak, he was kicking everyone's ass. Someone made a shirt that said Go Steve Go or said or sorry, it said Go pre.

40:46 And he made a different shirt that said stop pre. Yeah, I'm looking at that right now. And he put it on a stop sign, and these t shirts got really popular. Stop pre. Wait, why why did he make the opposite?'Cause the first one's supporting him, but he just was like, No. It was a joke, but it was just kind of like like I'm so good that people have to stop me. And it's pretty cool. And so like that actually that T shirt is really cool. I love that T shirt. And then if you look at these quotes, look at this quote. No matter how hard you train, somebody will train harder.

41:14 No matter how hard you run, somebody will run harder. No matter how hard you want it, somebody will want it more. I am somebody. How good is that? So he's got so many of these quotes.

41:25 When you get this combo like athlete poet. And you get Ali or you get McGregor, or you get, you know This like Steve Pro Prefontaine. Is the best. And I think that you can ha and so like a lot of times

41:37 People don't realize this, but there exists certain personality types and attributes that supersede A sport or genre or niche. I love this guy I I don't even care about running. You don't care about running. But I would buy this guy's shirt. Yeah, or like

41:51 Lance Armstrong was another one. Like Lance Armstrong, you're telling me this guy's gonna be the most famous Athlete on earth for a couple of years, for a handful of years via cycling? Are you kidding me? Right. And even frankly, I don't remember exactly, but when I was a kid Golf was a loser sport until Tiger Woods. Like it wasn't like that big of a deal. Same with Serena Williams and uh Venus Williams. It was like kind of oak interesting. But uh but then like that movie Marty Supreme came out and it's about table tennis. And I remember watching that table tennis sport, like I'm like, Oh my God, this guy's punk rock. I love table tennis now.

42:23 Yeah so good. Uh I love when people Like you said, transcend the sport. Like uh I've told the story before, but I've always r I always remember it. We used to at our company, we used to always like

42:35 take breaks and just play FIFA or like any kind of video game really. But like a lot of it was FIFA. And I've told you that Steve Bartlett used to used to work for us and he used to always play my CTO for con like in FIFA all night. Like We used to play for an hour as a break. They would play for an hour as a break. You'd go back to work. And then starting at like nine or ten.

42:53 They would start playing FIFA again and they would play till two or three in the morning, every night. And um Steve, I think was getting the better of uh for Khan a lot. And he used to talk so much trash and the biggest like trash talk was he would say He's like, even when I leave

43:08 Even when I go back to the UK, you're gonna remember me. Cause I'm not a man, I'm a concept. I'm a concept, I'm just a concept. And he just kept saying, I'm just a concept. And I remember just laughing because I had no idea what he was even talking about has nothing to do with FIFA, but I've always remembered that, like Actually, that is the highest things when you're a concept. You're not even a you're not even in your physical form anymore. To me, I'm like I see Prefontaine, I'm like Prefrontane is a concept.

43:32 And it's also it's kinda messed up, but it's kinda For the story, it's better that he I think he was twenty six or twenty five when he died. And there's a bunch of these guys who die at a very young age, and I'm like because they died so young, it makes them significantly more the mysteriousness of it makes it way more compelling. And so Steve Vontain, I don't know if we have we have a Billy of the Week. I guess that would be Bill Bowerman. Uh but uh Steve would be uh in that category. Legend legend of the week.

44:01 All right, let's take a quick break because I gotta tell you a story. Let me tell you about the first time I tried to run payroll for my team. I was using a traditional bank and you know the type. It's got a janky interface. It's built like a 2002 tax form. And it was open only during business hours. And I hit send. And it froze. They flagged the transaction, they locked my account, they put me on hold for 45 minutes, and then they told me I gotta visit my local branch. And that was the day I started looking for a new banking solution. Uh after asking a few founders what they were using, I found out about Mercury.

44:26 And so now my payroll is two clicks. I can wire money, I can pay invoices, I can reimburse the team. All from one clean dashboard. That's why I use it for all of my companies. And so do two hundred thousand other startup founders. And so if you're looking to level up your banking, head to Mercury.com and apply in minutes.

44:42 Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group, Column NA, and Evolve Bank and Trust members FDIC. So why does Phil Knight get all the props? Is it because Bill Barman's not around anymore or or he took it over? Or what what's the deal? Bill was never particularly active. He was um sort of like uh The Steve Wozniak of How much did he own of Nike? Did he like get to keep a chunk of it or Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's yeah.

45:09 They uh they're multi mul multi billionaires. But he uh he he was much older. So look at when he died. Did he die In the eighties, I think. Ninety nine. Oh oh he made it that long. Okay. I didn't even know he died in ninety nine. Uh no he um But he was out of the picture starting in the eighties, I believe. At his passing his stake was worth Three hundred ninety million.

45:27 He sold most of his shares during the nineteen eighties, but stayed involved. He was like the genius who Phil and Phil was the commercialization guy. What's the genius of Phil Knight and what's his what's more of his story? I haven't read Shoe Dog, by the way, which I know is like supposed to be mandatory. I started it and I was like Yeah.

45:44 So I've only read Shoe Dog and I've read Bill Bauerman's book. So I've never read too much about Phil and I other than that one Shoe Dog. No, I think that um I think Phil Knight was a dog. I think he was just like kept at it. I think like he did not he he was he was relentless. You know, Nike, the book Shoe Dog It only goes for the first ten years of Nike. And the first ten years of Nike was from like nineteen sixty eight to like nineteen seventy eight.

46:08 The Jordan shit didn't happen until the nineties. I believe Jordan was picking between Converse and Rebok, and those were the Nikes uh of the era. And so I my guess from reading about him, Phil Knight was pretty good at operating. He was very scrappy. He was good at hiring people, letting them do and letting them do their thing. Have you seen Air? The movie about the Jordan signing. Yeah, and in that In that movie, they made Phil Knight kind of look stupid, which I think was very unfair. I don't know if they've sensational like I don't know how accurate that movie is to to reality, but But yeah, they they they made it seem like he wasn't, you know, particularly involved or particularly helpful in

46:43 From what I remember in in the Jordan signing. I think that also like to think of like a lot of the people don't Realize this because of like Air Force Ones and shit like that. Nike was Explicitly a running Company.

46:54 Like it started in the in the not popular or cool niche. I mean, I guess basketball wasn't particularly popular in the seventies either, but it was a running company. And so I guess it took like Phil Knight to say, I guess let's go after basketball, but I don't particularly think he was the most creative guy ever.

47:10 Who have you seen that does the Nike playbook? So What made Nike's such a powerful brand. And then who's applied that in another space? What comes to mind? What would you say the Nike Playbook is is is sponsoring All our athletes uh I think I think they did uh obviously

47:26 It takes a thousand things and y you sort of over over Estimate the credit to a to a small number of things. But okay, what What seem to be the big levers. Okay. So they fundamentally have like, you know, a a simple brand that can be You know, international. So the check mark.

47:40 Small name, like that's the the you know, the the foundation of the brand puzzle is your actual brand identity. Okay, then what comes next? So then they basically went down the athlete route where they were like Let's get the greatest athletes. The athlete is aspirational, and if the best athletes wear Nike's

47:57 That will sort of trickle down and then suddenly you have, you know the dad bods walking around the neighborhood wearing Nike's. Like that's where you make your money. You don't make your money off of The top prep athletes buying Nike's you make your money off of. Everybody buying Nike's. And so how do you get them to do that?

48:13 And you know, what they did brilliantly was They don't talk about the shoes. Right. So it's like counterintuitive, right? The ads are never about the product. They don't tell you how many How many uh Whatever squishes are in the air bubble and how many ounces are on the toe and how how many millimeters wide the heel is. Like they don't do any of that.

48:32 And so They Focus on the feeling, the emotion, the storytelling. And the th the simple fact that Nike celebrates greatness, the great athletes use Nike. And if you want if you consider yourself who's you know trying to be great.

48:46 Mikey will become a default for you. And so who's applied that in other areas is kind of interesting right like Apple, I think famously. tried to do this with the think different campaign. It worked. Right. And it worked and he was like, you know, there's that great Steve Jobs speech where he's he's talking at some university or or maybe it's a Apple brand meeting or something.

49:04 And he basically he's the unveiling the campaign. I think Apple was sort of on the Uh on a bit of a downswing and they you know, Steve comes back and He simplifies the product line, but then he also launches this brand campaign, which was like The think different campaign where it's like Einstein and Gandhi and like you know all these like

49:20 kind of rebellious, mis mischievous, like world changers. Um the people who changed the the world. And he's like, If they they you know, they didn't have computers, but if they did They would use Apple. And it was like oh okay, yeah, I get it. You know, they sort he sort of funny, right? That's like the greatest influencer campaign ever. I'm just gonna find people who are dead who can't say no.

49:40 Yeah. Make them a deal they literally can't refuse. And it's not even a deal. I'm just gonna say. And so um you know, I think Apple obviously did a great, but those are sort of cliche. You know, I'm seeing this a little bit in like the health space. You know, I think like I invest in this company Superpower, and I think Superpower is gonna try to do this. I think you know, uh Other companies probably in like protein space have have tried to do this where it's like

50:04 How do you create like a Like a Gymshark athlete. Right. Where you basically sponsor all these Instagram famous people,'cause maybe that's where the attention is now.

50:15 And they don't have to tell you why that Sweatpants is the best or whatever. But you just know they are a it's not like Hey, buy these pants. It's I am a Gymshark athlete. I am a whatever, right? It's like identity based. Uh Nick Bear. You know do you remember Nick Bear?

50:31 Yeah, of course. I don't remember if you were on the times that we talked to him. I was, yeah, yeah. Um that was years ago, d I think pandemic time. Um and He uh there's uh a joke in his fitness world, which is like this thing called the hybrid athlete, which is basically like a big ripped yoked meat head looking guy who also is really good at running. And he sort of in a lot of people's minds kind of invented that. And there's like this joke on Instagram, like, Don't forget your hybrid athlete kit and it's like they're all wearing the same hat, you know, like The same shorts and their whatever. He's his he appears to have done that quite well with this hybrid athlete thing. And Nick's own company called BPN that sells protein. And very rarely is he like promoting the protein or electrolytes, but always promoting the lifestyle of

51:14 Lifting weights and running far. Yeah, being a hybrid athlete and maybe even more like You know, sort of the grind culture of workouts where they're like Yeah. I didn't want to wake up today, but I do it. You know, that that sort of thing where it's like

51:27 You know, I got it in today. under these circumstances. Raining doesn't matter. Cold doesn't matter, you know. Uh, I wasn't feeling good. Doesn't matter. That that sort of attitude, right? So you can g you can kinda elevate not just Hey, we're athletes, but like Well, what kind of athletes? It's like, Well, we're more in that David Goggins sort of like

51:44 No excuses, athletes. And you could take something like that, right? Like what prefontaine data, you could do it in other spaces. I'm surprised this doesn't happen more. I think it's hard to pull off. Like for example like the people who you but not just hard. I mean it's um hard emotionally. So for example You told the story, where you're like with my company

52:03 With your e commerce company, my business partner or or my friend Sully told me Don't do anything except for spend this much money on Facebook ads. He didn't tell you to like do cool shit, like sponsor, you know, cool people. He said, just do this because the ROI is instantaneous and you know within uh twelve hours what's working and what's not, and you're gonna make small incremental changes. And you are willing to do that because you have bills to pay and it will pay the bills. But then just turning that off and doing stuff that doesn't make sense on paper, but feels right potentially, but also feels like a huge bet, that's a scary thing to do. Yeah.

52:37 Yeah, it's true. I think it's hard and scary and but it you know it's it's the big prize. Brand is always the big prize. Right, because brand is you living in the person's head rent free. rather than you paying for every impression that you get on Facebook or a billboard or a display ad or anywhere else. Right. So Like I think Seth Godin has this great thing where he talks about like um

52:57 If I told you that. Um Hilton Hotels was making a shoe. Do you even Could you even imagine what that would look like? But if I told you Nike made a hotel.

53:07 You could probably actually imagine what that might look like. He goes, that's brand. And I thought that was always a great like differentiator, which is They own a piece of real estate. They own a meaning in your head. Whether it's of quality, it's of design, it's of greatness, it's of excellence, it's of health, it's of wellness, it's of recovery, whatever it is. Like different brands can be about different things.

53:26 But a a simple test about the strength of the brand could be. Well, what if they went into an adjacent space? Could you imagine what they would do? And would you be excited about what they did with it? That's actually really hard to think about and how to actually pull that off. All right. So if you think about how to pull it off, well, you have tons of employees Like for example, my company, let's say we have twenty five employees, like how do I get everyone to be consistent with the marketing?

53:49 It's actually really hard versus just following what's profitable. So like for example, at your company, at my company, if we're buying ads, you meet once a week or every day and you'd be like, let's change this image to this other image. Because the click through rate will be higher. Because we know this other company is running a very similar image. And you just are iterating your there iter iterating yourself there to wherever it is you're trying to go. But at no point do you say

54:14 But wouldn't it be cool if we did this other thing that is just cool? Well that's kind of what I'm saying. Remember the thing at the beginning of like the opposites, right? So it's like On one hand you have this extremely data driven Measurable. Scientific.

54:28 Small iterations, let the data decide approach to building to marketing to acquiring customers. And on the other hand, you have the exact opposite. It's emotional, not data driven. There's no f scorecard immediately. There's no immediate payoffs. There's only long term payoffs. And yeah.

54:43 There's obviously examples of people who have been able to do one or the other. Or both. The best companies obviously have been have been able to do both. But you know what's cool is you were just so you're using Nike and um We were using some other upscale brands. You know what's funny is speaking of Shaq, Shaq does uh General insurance. Is that what it's called? 1 eight hundred the ch you know what I'm talking about? I don't know. So Shaq is a spokesperson for an insurance company called uh Uh the the spokesperson is a general. It's a little general. You know the the jingle?

55:13 It's called the General. Is it the general? That's what I thought. Yeah. Okay. So if I if I I'm almost Yeah, he's he's standing next to this like mustach general. Okay. And so that little general, that company, I think it's like a low cost provider. Mm-hmm. And We've only been using fancy stuff, but actually Shaq is a great brand. Because Shaq actually he's famous for I think he as a Walmart spokesperson. He it's like for like Icy hot Yeah, like people who don't have a lot of money that wanna like

55:40 acquire certain things, like Shaq's like the guy. Like And that's pretty cool that he's able to pull that off. So I guess it's not just examples of of Nike or Ferrari or whatever. That's who I was thinking of. But Shaq does a good job. Here's another one. Airbnb I think did a a great job of So Airbnb spends Yeah, or spent at least in the past. I don't know what they're doing now, but they spent a lot of money on Google ads and things that you would

56:00 need to do if you're in the travel space, right? Like somebody wants to go on a trip, you need to be showing up as like a place to stay. Fantastic. You're competing against booking and expedia and all those other things. But booking in Expedia and those other kayak, you know. I feel nothing. Still nothing. Numb.

56:15 I recognize the name. So it's not like they've done nothing. They've built a brand, right? I can tell you those names off the top of my head. Could I tell you what's different between expedia and booking and kayak? No chance. Could I tell you anything about them? Any thing about their story, but what they represent, about If I told somebody else that I use kayak, does that somehow A crew status or value to me? No. Right.

56:36 Airbnb did an interesting thing which was Airbnb could have been couch surfing. They could have been Here's the cheap way. To get a place to stay, sleep on someone's couch, their bed, their air mattress. Literally it started A or B and B as air mattress.

56:50 Uh bed and breakfast type of thing. And over the years they actually built the brand around Traveling like a local. And they made a hotel, which is Nicer.

57:00 Provides more service. is usually in a better location, right? If you just look at a hotel, right? Like they have somebody who comes and cleans your your room. And tucks the sheets in so tight that you're gonna have to like kick'em out. And they do that for free every day. And um

57:15 You know, it's in a better location, it's safer. Um it's a more known quantity. It's standardized. It's a there's a commitment to a certain quality that you're gonna get. And somehow Airbnb Made them. Seem like

57:27 The generic choice. Like the the the sort of like, well, you could, you know, just choose to go stay in a box. Or you could authentically travel. Live like a local.

57:37 Right. And they they lean into like in the way that food does this too. It's like you can eat from a chain. Yeah. Yeah. Fast food chain. Or You can eat from this like local. You know, this local joint. And

57:48 Airbnb did a great job of basically like Leaning into not the low cost sleep on a couch thing. But travel and living like a local when you travel and actually experiencing the city versus just being in the city. And I thought that that was like a kind of a genius emotional thing'cause it

58:05 Travel is escape. But you know, either it's to A place where everything is handed to you, or it's a place of authenticity. Right to actually experiencing the place you're going to. It's like clean your own shit, pay an extra fee. You don't know what you're gonna get. There's like all these downsides, but they make that seem like the upside. Like I talked to a guy who who ran events and he goes, Dude, the best thing Burning Man ever did

58:26 Well something called Radical what is it called? Radical self reliance. He goes, You know how smart that is from an event point point of view? It means we're gonna do nothing for you. Oh, you you got lost?

58:36 Radical radical self reliance, baby. It's not our fault. Right. We don't have lighting over here? Radical stuff for Lions. Oh we don't have water fountains? You gotta figure out how to get it from the community. Come on, this is what it's all about. This is the experience you paid for. Is that what to get nothing? I'm still I'm stealing that for Hampton. Like oh you office, bro. Dude, we're doing this thing. Uh so we're moving into this new office, I think uh February twentieth or something. And uh I'm implementing a new rule uh every uh Tuesday at three o'clock, between three o'clock and three twenty.

59:09 We're cleaning. Well we're all I saw you post this. You uh who was it? The Japanese The Racketton. Yeah, Racketen did it and I wanted to do it and I did it in my last company. People freaked and it just did not stick. But now we're moving into a new office because I hate clutter. I hate clutter so much. Yeah. It like makes me anxious when when there's shit all over and particularly in an open office plan. Uh And so I'm gonna like hold myself accountable to like stick to this hardcore.

59:34 Dude, nobody is giving more thought to like their c their office and their culture than you right now. I feel like you are Really planting some seeds and I'm very curious. Either in two years from now you're gonna be like I overindexed on that. You know, some of it was helpful. A lot of it was wasted energy. I should have been focused on this. Or You're gonna be like It was the best thing for me. I was

59:54 I wasn't sure, but I felt it in my gut. I trusted it. Because I've refused to become it made no sense. And in two years you're gonna be like that was the best thing we ever did. It's gonna be one of those two. I just don't wanna make the same mistakes that I've done before where I created my own prison. Do you know what I mean? I don't want to do that. And so culture is just an example or just a an Yeah, but you're not being specific. What was the prison? What was bad? Like what are you gonna r change this time? For example I had a team I guess someone who worked for me and they wanted to lay off someone who worked for them. But they only wanted to give like

1:00:25 to uh week severance or something for this person that worked with us for a long time. And they were like, Well, that's like normal. Like that's like a fine that's fine. Like that's just it's was expected. And I was like, but this person has worked here for two years and like they're a good guy. They're just not getting results and this doesn't feel right to me. And I went along with it. I did the two weeks and it I remember that feeling it. I hated it. And so we got this value called build with pride, which basically the idea is like if I'm gonna lay someone off and I do it actually for two reasons. One, so I don't feel guilty. And two, like if you just have like this like halo effect of like you treat people well. And I I'm just gonna shower you with significantly more severance than I think is actually

1:01:03 The the industry standard. And so that's one example. Okay. All right. I like it. Yeah, I'm very curious to see how

1:01:10 What I I I think it it will definitely be good. It's just a question maybe of two things. Which bets? Have the biggest payoff? I think you're gonna come out with a bunch of learnings on that. Like maybe it'll be the small things. Maybe it'll be the ten minutes of cleaning a day. Maybe it'll be, you know

1:01:25 this off site you do every year. But whatever. I don't know. I don't know which bets are gonna have the biggest return, but they're not all gonna be even. So I'm that so I think you're gonna get a good learning from that. And then the other thing is um proportion. So like Seinfeld has this great quote where he says, um They're like, Why didn't you uh do that one last season'cause he he holds the record for most money turned down. Yeah TV. The the I think yeah, whatever the last season was gonna be is a hundred and ten million. He turned it down and they're like, Jerry, one more season, why didn't you do it?

1:01:55 He's like Because in art it's all about proportion. He gives too much of anything. Too much cake. Too much jokes, too much anything, too much anything too much of anything is a bad is is a bad thing. And he's like the secret

1:02:07 Um, to making anything great is proportion. And um it's so true. Ever since I've read that, like I now see it everywhere. It's'cause you know, you I was More simplistic, just black and white. This is good and that is bad. But like Too much affection.

1:02:21 Is clinginess, is smothering. Right? Like in a relationship. Too much space is distant, is cold. So it's not a question of is affection good or bad. It's How much.

1:02:31 And you can use that in any anything. If you're cooking a dish. It's the proportion that matters. And so I think I'm interested to see. Did you get the proportion right of how much time energy you're spending on You know, the the leadership and the culture and the environment that you're putting together here. There there also is a world where you think I'm spending more time than I really am on it just because I'm vocal about it.

1:02:54 But but you could be right. Yeah. I mean, uh we'll be we'll be interesting to see. You know what be funny is to see um All these companies who we think have crazy cultures Like the big guys. We should go talk to I I've al I've always been curious to go talk to like the middle management or like the new staff. It's like Are you drinking the Kool Aid? What's the deal?

1:03:12 You know, like uh like a like Patagonia or something like that. Right. I had the same idea yesterday. I was in a restaurant and I was walking out and I saw the value I saw the values. I I had like a a a not so great experience at the restaurant and I was walking out and it was like Don't just serve delight was on the wall. And I was like, I just had the opposite of delight in this restaurant, like, you know. Ordered something gluten free for somebody who's allergic to gluten.

1:03:35 They mess it up and then they are like refusing to like Just give us a the gluten free version. Uh you know, wanted us to like pay again for that one. I was like, What? What's going on? Um, you almost killed somebody just now. Like what are you talking about? And

1:03:48 I was thinking, I was like it would be so funny to just go to A hundred companies. I guarantee you go to a hundred companies. And at every company you just stand outside. The office. And you take a random sample, the first fifty people that come out of the building or walk into the building in the morning and you just say, Hey

1:04:04 We're doing a little game, a little test. I'll give you fifty dollars for every Um one of the values of the company you can name. Like but you gotta get word for word what the word what the actual phrase is. And I was like, I'm just curious how many people will know.

1:04:20 Annie. Of the values. And I think it's gonna be this histogram or like this this chart that's like Most people know zero or one. Almost nobody knows two and nobody knows three or more.

1:04:32 And I just want to have that for like a hundred different companies'cause I just think values are probably the most overrated Exercise that companies do because If it's not in the people's heads. What do you think? Like.

1:04:44 Then what was the point? They're not doing it. You want what's funny is have you seen um you know how Netflix is famous for values? I've heard I've seen their culture deck, yeah. I was looking up what the I was like what actually are the values? You should uh look up. It's like I know one is like we're a team, not a family, right? Like, that's not even a like no, like I mean like they literally have written out the values and it's like eighteen of'em and it's like kindness.

1:05:07 It it's like everything. Curiosity, courage, candor. Selflessness, judgment, creativity, inclusion. Resilience. Mm. It's just a l it's pretty funny. It's just a list of stuff.

1:05:21 Like a derogatory term in there and just see if anyone ever notices. Nobody would know. Read Reed Hastings seems like a pretty big baller. He um He he the CEO of Netflix or former CEO of Netflix and he was talking about the culture and I was listening to this podcast with Patrick O'Shaughnessy about him and he was just You know, he was saying the coolest shit ever. And then I go I was like, Well, he's talking about all about values. Let's go see what they are. And I go to the website and I see like This. And I was like, Huh? Like do what? Like that's that's way less intense than he sounded.

1:05:56 Yeah, exactly. It's only about actions, right? Not words. So the question really is what actions do you take that are any different than anybody else? What actions do you take that are any different than what my default behavior would have been? If I switched over from a Adjacent company to yours.

1:06:10 Right. So like your severance example's a good one, for example. Right. Like If your value is treat people like family or treat people well, whatever it is. And you're like Cool, here's an action. Here's the here's it default actions. Our default actions are different than the other default actions.

1:06:24 Um so maybe they're maybe these companies do have great like default actions or they're I don't know. Part of me thinks it's impossible to do that when you get past a certain point. We should actually ask Darmesh about this. Darmesh wrote the culture code or the They all have to drink the Kool Aid. Nobody can be honest about this. When they're in their company. Who's gonna get on here and say it's all shit. Nobody knows, dude. It's just a bunch of bodies to me. We come in and we look at revenue and we try to figure out what's happening. That's what we do. Uh right. Like nobody's gonna ever be honest about that sort of thing until they're out and then they're like disillusioned. And then they're seen as like crazy. They went crazy if they were to talk about it. Well What do we get from here? Is that it? Is that the pod?

1:07:05 Yeah, our value is the Irish goodbye. And we talk, he laugh, and then we suddenly decide, I think I've said enough today. All right, that's it. That's a pop. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I could be what I want to I'm putting my all in it like a day's all on the road, less travel, never looking back. Alright, my friends, I have a new podcast for you guys to check out. It's called Content Is Profit. And it's hosted by Luis and Fonzi Cameo. After years of building content teams and frameworks for companies like Red Bull and Orange Theory Fitness, Louise and Fonsey are on a mission to bridge the gap between content and revenue. In each episode you're gonna hear from top entrepreneurs and creators, and you're gonna hear them share their secrets and strategies to turn their content into profit.

1:07:50 So you can check out content is profit wherever you get your podcasts.

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