We hit record on our private strategy session

0:00 Okay, so this was supposed to be private. But we decided to do it in public. As any good influencer would do. We said hey why do this if we're not gonna have the camera on? I feel like I can root

0:12 Well I know I can be what I want to I'm putting my law in it like my day's all on the road, less travel, never looking at it. I guess the setup here is Me and Sam are on camera, but you'll also see Ari. And Cassie? Doppelgangers.

0:28 And Cassie's the new She's the new uh the new girl on the team. And she came on and we were supposed to do kind of like a strategy meeting of like, oh what are we You're here to help with the podcast. What are we trying to do again? Wha what's the strategy? And we said, Why don't we actually just record it? And um We'll just do it live and see what comes out of the session. So that's that's what I'm here to do, Sam. Did I

0:52 Is that what you are expecting here? Yes, and we all filled out something in advance. You are the only one who did not submit yours already. Well, okay, yeah, that's right. I did but I'm like the I'm like the collateral okay. So I s What I what I like to do in these situations, and I think anybody should steal this. I stole this from Amazon when we got acquired there. I I learned this method, which is

1:14 You send um a little bit of pre work in advance and it makes The meetings so much more interesting and so much more valuable. Because there's Some people are fantastic at thinking on the spot. In coming up with

1:27 Insightful, accurate, true, honest things on the spot in front of a large group of people, but that's like one percent of people. Most people don't think very well that way. And so if you actually want to get to the right answer, a really good thing to do is to send out some questions or have people write in advance. What they're thinking. And then one person's like the the gatherer. You gather all the materials together and they use that to have a good discussion. And so

1:50 I asked you guys ten or so questions and there were questions like, What's working really well with the podcast right now? What's not working? What's your biggest pet peeve? What's something we're just stupid for not doing right now? Right. Like just very simple questions. And so I gathered all that, and we're not gonna use all of it. But I wanted to share some of the most interesting findings. Can I can we just start with the most interesting findings? The first one is Sam, you had a a bit on um Almost like the virtue of selfishness. You were basically like

2:19 I want to do the selfish thing. And w with the podcast. There's one way to look at this, which is it's all about What should we be doing to be more successful? How do we make this external thing work? And you were just like you said, I want to do the selfish thing and have fun and learn and improve myself. I think others will enjoy that a lot more than us trying appeal to them in an inauthentic way.

2:39 And um it reminded me of the Rick Rubin quote of the best way to serve your audience is to ignore them completely. I actually think I was like nervous to even put that on there because I'm like, Oh, we're gonna do a podcast on this and I'm just gonna go tell the audience to up to up themselves. Uh Uh I just think that so originally you sh you started this podcast, then I came on And

2:59 For the first three years, I don't think you and I ever Looked at the data. Um And I couldn't even tell you a bunch of the numbers. Frankly, I I still don't really look at the numbers. But every once in a while I get drawn and sucked into this thing where I look at the YouTube numbers'cause those are the those are the most uh public. And I start thinking in headlines. And I start thinking in what can get the highest click through rates. And then occasionally I suggest we do some of those episodes, and we do do some of those episodes. And I notice the night before I get the Sunday scaries out of Tuesday night because we record on Wednesdays. I notice that I dislike the most. And then I notice there are so many times

3:35 Like when you will tell me a story, or we will have a guest like Graham Weaver, who I think Graham Weaver is popular, so it's maybe not the best example, or Sarah Moore, who you did a podcast with, where we do these podcasts. And I leave with more energy than I came in on. and almost always That happens when it's not data driven and it's simply what am I curious about. Or if I read a book and I'm like, I'm so excited to tell Sean about this. Or Sean goes and does something and he goes and visits Austin. And I just want to hear his opinion of who he met and what was cool about it. I am more excited and energized at the end of those than I am uh the things where I've done based off of a headline that I think will be popular.

4:15 Right. That's so true. And I I think we should actually set the stage. Well, I forgot to do this. Set the stage on where we're at. So for those who don't know Started this podcast six years ago.

4:25 We're eight hundred and twenty two episodes in. I think we've done something like a hundred and fifteen million downloads of the podcast. And The entire podcast is based off of A stick.

4:38 Four words. It's an empire built on four words. Dude, have you seen this? And and that's that's it. And then it's basically Sam saying that to me, and I'm like, No, what is it? And he tells me something that makes me That kinda gets me excited, blows my mind, and then I try to do the same for them. And it's a A giving contest. Where me and you sit here and we try to do that.

4:55 That's how I see it. Six years into having a podcast. We are basically a media company. We have never We have never had a social media person. I didn't even know that we had like social media. You don't know how many times somebody from HubSpot has asked me like, Hey, does anybody have the Twitter login? Hey, can you can you can like Cassie yesterday was asking she's like, hey, there's like a LinkedIn page. Do you know who made that? I was like, I have no idea. We've got like

5:21 An Instagram account that for years nobody had the password to. We had to like request like a reset. Yeah, we're we're pretty comically like cartoonishly bad at some of these things. Hey, so when I was prepping for this meeting, I put all of our MFM numbers, our competitors our goals into a Claude prompt and it gave me a 60 day action plan for growing our channels. I wanna give it away to you as well. So if you head to the show notes below. Drop your email, we'll send you the prompt that you can use to grow your platforms as well.

5:52 Sean, what do you want to do? Are there any new initiatives that you want to do this year in the next twelve months? And is there anything that you want to do you don't want to do? Uh huh. I think most of the things are things I don't want to do. Um

6:05 Meaning I could come up with a list of like thirty possible things, but I think the real question is like what are the one or two things that might actually change things for the better? Yeah, the one I wrote right now is I think our core product is actually pretty good.

6:20 I think I you know, I would like listening to this podcast. And that's a good test. I don't know if I would listen to the pod ta podcast by default,'cause I might not even know it exists or know what what's in it. You know, what would hook me in to doing it in the first place? And ironically, like some of the things that would hook me in might be like a

6:38 Bigger name guest that I Oh, I'm curious to hear what this person has to say about this. Or oh There's an interview with this person. I haven't seen what that person's saying. Or the top they say is gonna be interesting. But that isn't exactly what the main podcast is, or it doesn't give me like

6:54 uh feel for what the the next episode might be totally different than what that one was, for example. It seems like the main way that podcasts work today. Is you have the loyal listeners and then you have the samplers. And the samplers are basically clips that you put in places where people already are. that give somebody a bite size Taste of what the real podcast is like.

7:16 So for example. I love this podcast basement yard. I've never even listened to the a full episode of it, but I've watched Probably. Two hundred clips. And if you tell me uh what do you think about that podcast? Oh my God, I love those guys. That podcast is amazing.

7:29 Never even listened to it, right? But I've listened to so many clips that I feel like I know those guys. I feel like I know the show. And every one of the clips gives me the same feeling, most importantly, right? Like It's not like One is a really deep intellectual thing and the other one's funny. No, every clip is hilarious. I think those guys are hilarious. They seem super likable. Those guys are awesome. And that show is funny. If I ever wanted a funny show, like that's where I would go.

7:52 And so I don't think we're doing a good job of giving out the samples of what's in M FM. to give people that frame break or give people that that that inspiration or give people that story or the banter or whatever. in a good enough way where people already are. So on on I think a lot of our communities on X, for example. And and it and they can do amazing things. Like I was on Christmas.

8:12 Ten or twenty clips a day. Which is fine. That that sounds like a combat. I don't think that's that's probably high. Let's take a normal episode in an hour. The challenge would be how do you take Um Three to four moments from that podcast.

8:27 That are Like M FM in a shot version. And give that to people. And architect those clips in a way that

8:35 That you we me and you would want to share. Oh yeah, that was That was a great bit that we talked about. It's edited tightly enough where people would understand what it what it is right away. And they would be hooked and they would get the payoff.

8:46 And if we do that and we share it where People already are. Consistently. I think that's the number one thing that we don't do a good job of. That seems to be the smart thing that every other podcaster does. Like I was on Chris Williamson's podcast.

8:59 We did an episode. And not the service. Fine, like good. You know, if you looked at his YouTube channel, it wasn't like a ten X outlier. It was probably on the lower side of his normal episodes. But for three weeks his team has just been clipping from that episode little stories, little nuggets.

9:13 From that episode. You put one up on on X. And Elon replied to the some story I told on there. That same thing could happen maybe twenty times from MFM and it doesn't happen. And you just d'cause like the dog's not barking. We don't know what we're missing because it's not obvious. It's invisible to us.

9:30 Okay. That sounds good. That's a great idea. Awesome clips posted on social media where people already are. Instagram Yeah. TikTok. And an X. And LinkedIn. Sure.

9:43 Is this the My First Million First Fire Alarm going off? F Well, he was pretty quick to act there. The dad instincts kicked. How do we go viral? What if Sam's apartment catches fire during the episode and he saves it? I think we should

10:00 Make this more Meeting like. What do you think, Sean? You saying it's boring as an episode, or what do you say? You're so different in Strategy meetings.

10:11 I'm being different now. You're being you're being Podcast Sean. I wasn't aware of that, but you're probably right. What's the main difference? You're more um

10:22 You're not harsher, but you're just more like Blunt and more of a dick. Please in too. This is great. Yeah, just make it more how we talk when we're talking and you give an impression of how I am. Of Uh

10:39 Okay. Why are we doing this? This is stupid. Yeah, we're doing three things. Like why are we doing that? Yeah. Sean chastised someone on the team and he gave his answer and he goes

10:57 That's a stupid answer. Uh give a better answer. Okay, but his his last point is good. Basically, we do need more clips. We need'em to be on X and we need it to be on Instagram. You know what's one of the things that we grew most from was when we made this bounty where we just said, We're gonna give five grand to the person who clips the most that we like. And we got twenty million impressions in one month, the first month, which interestingly There's all these like things called clipper armies now. That was like one of the That was like one of the first examples of doing that. I wouldn't even know what we were doing and it was incredibly successful.

11:29 We stumbled ass backwards into that. Where we were just like, Hey, what if we Honestly, by the way, the reason we did that, we didn't trust ourselves to be doing a good job of this. It's like I don't think our own team's gonna do a good job of this. How about The crowd anybody who does this will give you a prize and two th two very interesting things happen. First It was awesome. We got so so much spread from it. The second w the guy who had the most viral clips Ended up creating a company doing short form content, sold it to Morning Brew, and like, you know, had a sort of successful business come out of the whole thing.

11:58 And then by the way. In h hilarious news. We then immediately stopped doing what was working, forgot about it, and uh Haven't talked about it since since then. So my opinion is we should A, on our internal team, we should post way more on all platforms. And B, we should do another one of those things and we can either do the exact same thing or we could just pay a CPM. So for example, if you have a video that gets a hundred thousand views, you get I don't know what the going rates are, but I think it's cheap. I think it's like a dollar per thousand views. Um something like that. But basically it's like all right, you got you got a hundred thousand views, you get a grand. Or I can't do the math, but you guys understand what I'm saying.

12:32 So Ari told me that I should be more Mm. Blunt and direct as I am, uh, in not this podcast format, so I'll do that. Chassis. Welcome to the team.

12:41 Yeah. You have lots of good ideas. About community and this and that. Here's what we want to do. In the next ninety days, I need you to raise a clipper army. Get this shit going and we should, you know, y you have twenty four hours to basically set a target.

12:56 That makes sense. Like you picked you picked your goal. But what we fundamentally are trying to do is copy a a working playbook. That you know, has worked for everyone from Andrew Tate to, you know, whoever else, you know, on the on the clipping side. And we want to use money to incentivise These like sixteen to twenty two year old kids who are just awesome at editing and making clips.

13:18 to post clips about our stuff on social, not on our own brand account necessarily. We'll take the best and we'll put it there. But we want to um set a very str aggressive stretch goal and aggressively raise this army of clippers and we'll do that for ninety days. And then we'll check in and and at the end of the ninety days and decide whether we continue or not. But you could be Basically stupidly aggressive for ninety days so we get a clear answer. Versus

13:41 tiptoing into it, and then we won't really know in ninety days because oh we're just we just we're just getting started. We haven't really found out yet. Like go go all out. Spend more money than you think you need. Um be a little bit looser with the controls about it and go you know go for more scale uh and let's see what happens. Okay, so in my opinion, let's make a list of only like one or two things. Big Rock One Clipper Army. Um Uh okay, let me g let me give you a couple um one thing that I don't know one hundred percent, Sean, if I want to do it, but we should consider it. We've been talking about events for forever.

14:12 I think I would be open to like a two or three venue tour. Um, I would want it to make I would have to figure out if family can come or not and if we can make that happen. But I would be open, but the shtick that we have Needs to be easy. Because and I don't mean easy like in a lazy way, but easy where we could kick ass at it because performing in front of two thousand people like we have before. It's kinda hard to make it entertaining. And I've been to a lot of live podcast tapings with a lot of people. Almost all of them suck.

14:41 And so we would have to like really hone in on a format. So I would say I would be open to an event, but let me give you a a few more uh ideas. Wait, hang on, before we do that, let's stick to events. Like what would Sean, what would you do if you could if it was worth driving An hour for what would you do? I think here's what here's my interest in it event. I don't want to do an event for money.

15:00 I don't wanna do an event. For the ego hit. I got that. You would like to get paid for it. Sure, sure. Making money's fine, but that wouldn't be the motivation to do it.

15:10 Same thing with like it's awesome to walk into like a theater or an arena or whatever the thing is and be like, wow, all these people are here for us. This is awesome. And like there's a line of people trying to take selfies and like showing my wife like look it's real like this is a thing and like yeah like you know my kids do you is this am I cool to you yet? And they're like no can we go Um so so that wouldn't be the main motivation. The my only motivation with an event is I wanna know who the top one percent

15:34 Of M FM listeners are. And this is uh extremely selfish request. Which is Over time. Actually not through me, but through my business partner, Ben Levy.

15:44 People go to Ben and they're just like, dude, I love MFM. And so he'll be like, Oh, you know this the founder of that really cool thing we we eat, that that place we go, that product we use? Yeah, he loves M FM. And then I get to meet him on text, I'm like I'm like it's insane. That we don't know.

15:59 who the most interesting listeners are. That's who I want to do the event with and for. It's just purely out of selfishness because I want to meet them. And also it'd be cool, I think, if they met each other. And I think that would just be the fun version of doing an event that I'm most interested in. So if we could figure out what I call the MFM one percent event. That's what I want to do.

16:19 Okay, got it. So one percent means like a one percenter and that most interesting. So that means curated. That means okay, so you're thinking cured like hundred or hundreds or dozens. Curated people. And let's make it an awesome retreat, hangout, whatever. Let's invite some friends of the pod who are guests. Like let's get Andrew and Steph Smith. Let's get other people that they they would also want to meet. Okay. But again, like you if you if you curate it

16:43 To me, that's a room I wanna be in because I know I would have a fun time. I would go meet I could in one day meet a bunch of awesome people who are like minded, who are fans of the show. That would be the no stress versus get on stage, like travel somewhere. already bad. Get on stage, have to perform a l like some live show. For what?

17:01 Yeah, I'm I'm I'm sure what I what do I want out of that? I don't I don't really want anything out of that. All right, let's take a quick break and I got a question for you. When a buyer asks AI for a solution like yours, does your business come up? Most companies have no idea. And by the time they found out, they've already lost the deal to another company that did. HubSpot has AEO, which helps you show up in the moments when the right buyers are looking for a company like yours before the first click, before they fill in the form. That is the moment. HubSpot AEO is built for. Check out HubSpot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. Here's another version that I find interesting.

17:36 So I I I like always brainstorming like what's the opposite. So what's the opposite of the live tour, the the big show? And My brain went to Tiny Desk. So you know like the NPR Tiny Desk series that they created on YouTube? Like the vibe is immaculate.

17:50 It's cool because it's kind of small and in intimate rather than mega mega. And you get to see the artist cook. And so I've actually Be would be curious, like, if we did our version of Tiny Desk. So you've seen like Hormozy does a lot of these where he's He's doing his like workshops and somebody stands up and says, I have this problem, I'm I'm this guy, you know, here's my business, here's what I do, blah, blah, blah. And he's supposed to give him the right answer as the kind of guru on the stage.

18:12 And it's it's good, but it's very like A bit sterile, right? Like the vibe of it is like We're in a cold conference room. And um, you know, we're here for for some some tactics. Whereas Tiny Desk has like a different aura to it, a different vibe to it. So I would if we had a cool venue.

18:28 That was like almost Compact. And we had twenty people who are You know. Entrepreneurs, w entrepreneurs, whatever. People who listen to the podcast who are entrepreneurial.

18:37 And then we just kinda spit spitball with him. Like I think both me and you are pretty good at doing this with people. Like I've done this at a couple of events where I got paid to go do this talk and I threw I just on the drive there, I just threw out my deck and I was like, I you know what I'm gonna do? I'm just gonna stand up and be like, Who's got a bus you're here for you're here to get better and improve your business. But you want some value out of this? Tell me what you're doing. Tell me your biggest problem. Let me try to help you right here on the spot. And I did that with like twenty people. And I felt like a magician'cause you get to do a magic trick of like

19:04 They're stuck and you get them unstuck. Which talk are you referring to? The Mercury one? The Mercury one, yeah. Uh'cause I watched that. That was good. Okay. So me and you doing that together I think would be pretty fire. Yeah, I agree. That could be cool. We could have like a cool set. We do one in New York, we do one in San Francisco, we do one in wherever else.

19:20 And we take our family, we hang and Yeah, it's It's like a curated event. But that becomes r the the trick is The live event is a Experience but really

19:30 It's the content you create off that, meaning like you shi Like What Hormozy's doing is pretty smart, right? Like Hm. chops that up into a thousand question and answer clips.

19:39 Um where somebody has a problem and then he helps them solve it and then they're like, Wow, thank you so much. Like, Oh my God. Yeah, you're right. That becomes like good clip content. And so I think for us, we could do that and I think it would be interested. Pretty easy for us to do much easier.

19:54 than like going on stage and like performing comedy or essentially like live entertainment. I'm more interested in that than like hanging out with really successful people. Like I for some reason I don't love like hanging out with like a like ballers in these type of settings because A, I don't feel like Googling everyone in advance is seeing if they're on the Epstein list, but also uh it just feels like a it just feels like a pissing match. Uh and I and I just like being with like the nobodies. But uh yeah, I'm interested in that.

20:23 Okay, Bernie Sanders of Business over here. I don't like Poor people. Okay, so maybe we do different events. You do the everybody event in in venue A, and I'll be with all the cool successful people in venue B. It'd be great. Something I want to do less of. Um a few things I want to do less of.

20:52 Do do you like doing s uh solo episodes? I hate doing solo episodes. I hate recording to and like looking at a bare screen. Do you? I I don't mind it. I sometimes I like to teach if I have something, but um Well, there's two types of solo. One is solo just talking to the camera, the other is like a w when There's a guest in New York and it's makes sense for you to hang out with them in person and do the in person pod and I'm not there or or vice versa. I I find those to be l way less fun because I'm like, Oh, okay, this feels a little bit like well like work, but when we do'em together, it feels more

21:24 Fun. It feels way more fun because it feels like'cause it's sort of like whenever you're around brothers and they egg each other on. I love the egg each other on mentality. I don't love solo interviews or occasionally if it's someone who I know that you don't like or you don't care about their topic, but it's super interesting to me, I'm like all right, I would like the solo time just to go really deep on this one thing.

21:47 But In general, I prefer duo versus s solo. For both interviews and talking about stuff. Me too. The only caveat would be There is something cool about in person.

22:00 You pick up so much more than just doing a remote podcast where they pop on and they pop off at the end of the hour and there's there's not a lot in between. So so I think the hanging out in person is pretty cool and I think the production value I I do like I I I prefer to watch podcasts that are like that when people are together versus when they're doing a Zoom. And then lastly, like sometimes you know, I like you you were pretty sacred about like what times you're gonna record. Whereas I'm like

22:24 You know already if you ask me like hey This person wants to record on the moon at two AM. I'm like, Yeah, that's cool. Like, right. Like, have I ever said no? I'm basically like, Yeah, sure. What does it matter to me if it's nine a.m or nine P. I don't really care. Whereas I think Sam for you're like that throws my whole day off. I have a more structured day. I think that's the only other times where we where we do solo is where you can't make it. What do you guys feel about newsletter? I know Sean.

22:46 You you both, Sean and Sam, have experience in this realm, but curious what your thoughts are on a branded newsletter, too. There has to be some type of way. Yes. Interesting. There has to be some type of way where it never become where it doesn't become a liability and it only becomes an asset. Or at least is a liability a small amount of times. Because the problem with a because have time to write it. The problem with saying yes to that is that you're gonna say something dumb You're gonna say something, it doesn't fit our taste. Or it's just gonna be factually incorrect. And if one of those three things happens and it hurts our reputation, to me, I go, never do it again. And so as long as you we could de risk it, which it will never be one hundred percent, but as long as there's some type of trust there, it it is interesting. But that's a huge

23:29 thing to solve for, right? Yeah. Well, what what to you guys would be interesting too? Like what would you read or what newsletters do you currently read that you're like, Hey, this is something we Wanna Pull from or

23:41 At least get inspired by takeaways from our episodes. Like I want that. Yeah, exactly. Just like I don't want to watch listen to everything like there's so many episodes that we have done where I'm like I need a reminder of that. We have eight hundred and fifty, just pull out like cool learnings. Yeah, I think basically if it's Here's what we just did. Here's who's coming up. And if the just did, you know, here's like the three or four most interesting stories just in plain speak. Like, oh you know, he shared the numbers of how fast they grew. It turns out year one was this, year two was this, year three was this. No gatekeeping, like just

24:09 Here's the best stuff. If you don't have time. Like Great. Here's the here's a quick summary, but like that would make me want to go listen or watch an episode. And then if I knew oh, Thursday they have this person coming on, that's cool.

24:21 And then if there was like a little just kind of bullet point section where we can be like oh yeah like Check this out. Sam uh went viral for this. We're doing this thing. Uh, check out this product we bought. Like, you know, whatever. I'm I'm cool with like a little bit of extra. So it's not purely an AI summary.

24:37 Of like The episode. I think that would be great. And I I would be happy to like do the work on this, not not write it myself, but like Diego, who's my head of content, was my lead writer for Milk Road, so like You know, I basically trained him how to write my style. He did it for two years for Milk Road.

24:52 And was excellent. You know, he's really, really good at this. That's a lift that like I think I could have Diego take on that would be worth it. If we could drive enough people to it. I think right now there's this conflict which is We tell people, hey, go to HubSpot to go get this like offer.

25:07 So then That's where they would go. So this would need to become the main place we're directing people to. And I think, by the way, like way more people would subscribe because they would know, like, oh. I'm just gonna be getting value from this all the time. That's that's great. Today's podcast is brought to you by my friends at Mercury. Uh they make the world's best banking product. I think you know this already. I use Mercury for all my businesses. I think I have like maybe seven or eight businesses. We use Mercury as our business banking across all of them. And now they actually just launched a personal banking account. So I have my personal account there. I moved off of Wells Fargo and Chase.

25:37 I'm just all in on Mercury. Why uh I like products that are easy to use. I like products that get me and the problems that I have. So like very easy to make a joint account with my wife, very easy to spin up virtual cards. Uh one click and I get savings yield. It's just has all the stuff that I need in one place. So

25:53 If you're looking for the best banking product on the market, it's definitely Mercury. I will fist bite anybody who disagrees with me on that. Go to Mercury.com/slash personal and learn more. Mercury is a FinTech, not an FDIC insured bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group and column NA, members FDIC. Um have you guys seen All right, do Sam, do you remember when they were doing those like river community meetup type things? Yes.

26:18 So like That was kinda cool for a little bit. People were going uh and now the reason I say it was cool is because when I met people who like the podcast. They told me like Oh, I'm part of the MFM Denver. Meetup. And I'm like what?

26:31 And they're like, Yeah, we meet up once a month, and it's like nine of us, and uh, whatever, nineteen of us, whatever the number is. It's not like a huge group. But they all got to know each other. And like we were the common like Glue or bond. Well that platform has pivoted to becoming like a supper club.

26:46 Like a dinner club? And so it's like a decentralized way to just have like fans of the show. opt in to going and getting dinner with like six other people who also like the show. And Yeah, this selfishly does nothing for us in terms of like I'm not

27:01 No, there's no growth hack. It's not money. It's not any of those things. We're not even gonna be there. It's kinda the the barbell approach, right? There's some things that I wanna get I wanna do things that reach everybody. And then it's like what are the th things that would just change somebody's life because they would meet a co founder or they would make a great connection, or they would find like friends in their city that they don't otherwise have that are like

27:19 The unique level of business dork that they are. So I don't know if we should do this. There's like a lot of liability of like Well We're not w in our heads we're like oh this is just You opt in and you it's not our experience, but I think fundamentally they'll attribute the experience to us. That's the downside.

27:35 But the upside would be I think this would be really cool for people to meet other awesome people in their city and that would Good karma for the world. What do you guys think of this? We can call it just the other ninety nine percent. Yeah.

27:52 I love this idea. Personally. I think it's pretty cool. I think it's pretty cool. I I didn't I loved it. And then you were like, Oh yeah, it is not out of our it is out of our control and yet they'll blame us if it sucks. I I what I would be on board with is if we just said Newsletter, clips, and meetups. If we just did those three things for the next six months, I'd probably be fine with that. Yeah.

28:12 I I love this idea. It would be cool too, what if you guys like showed up to one every once in a while and surprised I did. The the dinner groups, yeah. I have. I've shown up every once in a while. It's great content too. I know it's a little different, but Uh, the Vader X team was doing this with Gary Vee for a bit, where they were doing these branded dinners in different cities and capturing content and just having these really organic conversations and people loved it. Dude, you what what Vader does is hilarious. One time.

28:42 Gary Vaderchuck his handle. He DM'd me and goes, Hey Sam, haven't talked to you in forever, which we're we are friendly. But not like buddies, but he was like, Do you want to come to dinner with me? And I was like Yeah, that sounds cool. And I show up And there's like fifty other people there. And I was like, Where's Gary? And they're like

28:59 Oh well he doesn't actually come to these. It's just me, Nick. I host them on his behalf. Oh my God. Really? So uh that's pretty funny. But yes, I'm going to Um Yeah that sounds cool. Basically uh the and the last thing I think that we should focus on guest wise, Sean, is I think that we should I think We don't Aim high enough. I think that our guests

29:27 Should probably be super mega popular people. And we get them to talk about new stuff that they've not talked about, like Ideas. Yeah.

29:37 Someone no one knows. So like my mother in law, like Sarah Moore, like um a bunch of different people, but it should be almost a little barbelly. Where we sh'cause I don't think we've done a good job of going after the one out of ten, like, popular person. And I don't like having those people just because they're popular, but I do like having them and t if they talk about something new. And then also I loved I've loved having someone who I had like this was a nobody and they're the the most insightful person we've I've ever talked to. So is the thing you're saying we should aim higher?

30:07 Or or are you saying? Hey, we do a lot of these ones in the middle and we'll stop doing those. Is that what you're saying? Like are you just saying, hey, let's invest more on the the ends, or are you saying let's avoid the middle? I'm mostly saying the first thing that you just said. Yeah, another one of those memorable episodes was when Sean brought his former These your former

30:26 Chief of Staff. Who is Sean? Yeah, when he was like twenty two. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that felt like yeah, it was like a

30:36 Totally unique. Like no other podcast was gonna have It's like Theo Vaughn bringing on like The Amish Kid Trash Man. Yeah, the Amish Kid was my favorite episode. I love the Amish Kid. So I would like to go a little bit h uh higher and lower. You know, like

30:51 Um, I think I take a lot of pride that I am like this and our podcast is like this, where I enjoy hanging out with the with you know, world leaders and movers and shakers. And also I I enjoy equally enjoy hanging out with someone who has done something not impressive at all, but is very insightful and has some wisdom that I want to learn from Um, and interesting related to that, what I have noticed I have found I've get the most joy out of is when we have old people. I don't know a better way to s say that, but I love having old people on. I'm talking like seventy year plus

31:22 I have loved learning from those types of people. I like it. Um we've done so many different episode types. Is there one type we should be doing a lot more of? Is there one type we should be doing less of? Is there a new type you're itching to do? Like

31:37 Does anyone have ideas on content types that we want to double down? D abandan or try. For some reason I'm I I think I'm a I think I'm a much softer person than you and I like I I enjoy some sometimes less hard hitting stuff, but

31:51 Let's just say we talked about like raise uh ch raising children. Or like finding your passion or be or finding happiness, which is like Arthur Brooks. Um Or parenting, which I don't think we've ever talked about here. Does that stuff interest you, Sean, on learning those things? Sure.

32:06 I think we should do more of those, because when we had Grand Weaver on the right. We do n well, it we we only do it when it's inadvertent, but Graham Weaver was a good example of that, where to me, he's an inspirational guy who has all these cool ways to live a wonderful life. And it just so happens to be that he was really successful at business. But I think that we could For sure have some of these. I I don't know what else to describe it, but like I I've listened to Arthur Brooks, you know who that is?

32:32 Yeah. Like I would love to talk to people like that, but also there's like a variety of people in that category. Some of them are totally unknown. But like they've done some cool research paper or some like data driven way to like raise better children or be happier or find your passion or die thinking I lived a full life and I'm happy. Like things like that. Right. Uh okay, down for that for sure.

32:54 Um format I love is You guys are Constantly Consuming interesting things. Sean, not so much books for you, but we're working we're working on that. Yeah, but you haven't turned the bigger pages. Debunked.

33:16 And you're professional explainers. And it's like basically like if my best friend can explain like this book he or she has read in like twenty minutes. Like that's way more that's just a much more fun way of getting the information. Sam, I wanted to hear what you thought about this'cause you read a lot. You read a lot more than me. Uh you read different stuff than me, so I don't know exactly how this works. I'm not trying to create a book club. But I do want to find excuses where the reading I'm doing Coincides with my M FM prep.

33:49 Right? Like two for one. And so Is there a format where we could both like either whether you read the same book and we break it down? Or we each bring a book and like I tell you what you would get out of it. Like I basically tell you what's in it. You tell me what's in this and we kinda like rate it ourselves and so we know which books to skip, which books to definitely go go check out.

34:09 Um are you interested in that? Yeah, I think it should be quarterly. So like the bat the the things that shaped my quarter. Like I'm reading a vr like I'm reading this Maverick. I almost haven't finished with this. It's about a Brazilian business guy who like runs his business via democracy, which is strange. Didn't hook me right away. Did that one hook you?

34:27 No, uh but'cause I've only I've But it's highly recommended, so I just it's in that weird category of like it's probably good, but I don't like it. I'm still b judging my opinion on it. I just finished Barack Obama's biography. Uh the biggest takeaway is that he seems like a nice guy, but total psychopath, just like every other president. He was like Uh he was telling Michelle, like, hey, I'm gonna run for president, and she was like, Honey, please don't do this. We're happy. I don't want this. And he goes,

34:51 You're gonna not only go along with it, but I'm putting you on stage and you're gonna start traveling and you're gonna campaign for me. If she was like, Please don't do this, and he goes, Look, Michelle, and then he turns it on and he goes For every young brown kid out there. I could be the beacon of hope. I can let them know that they can do anything they they set their mind to. And she was like You

35:11 Fine. That was my big takeaway, that story. That was my favorite part from this book. And then I'm reading an informal guy. Guide to workwear, which is a style of clothing. So long story short, I love reading lots of books and I can for sure come with stories once a quarter on books that I and like what the big stories and takeaways are that I've learned. Patrick O'Shaughnessy does this great thing at the end of every episode where you ask them, What's the kindest thing anyone's ever done to you? And it's like this softening question for every successful person where they give a love hard question. Um, like either we steal that s exact question or we come up with our version of those questions. I think one like tradition or ritual question.

35:48 would be great and like Such a small thing, but would add to what we do. Uh Dyer of his CEO he did a similar thing where at the end of every episode he would have the guest Write a question for the next guest and then he would tell them, Hey, we have a I guess that's it. You know, Barack Obama was here last week and he wrote this question for you. And it's just like this cool mechanic.

36:06 So I think one ritualistic question would be awesome. So like I don't know if you have ideas, but like I kinda wanna like Put that in your court and I feel like you might help us come up with something there. The other one I was thinking about

36:19 Like acquired. But for every man businesses? So I get really into studying the backstories of random Products that I see, right? Little businesses. So it's like you know that sauce, bitchin sauce that's like in Whole Foods. It's like a whatever some sauce brand called bitchin sauce. It's like you know there's gotta be a story behind some sauce called bitchin sauce that ended up on the shelf of a whole foods in the last five years.

36:40 Part of me is like, would it be interesting if we Picked. He's like businesses that are in everybody knows them, but you don't know the story of them. You don't know how they really took off. And we We already do this.

36:52 During episodes where it's like, Oh dude, I've ha do you know the real story behind like the Stanley mug? It used to be for construction workers and then like it died pretty much and then these moms in Utah picked it up. And the it was all about like mom staying hydrated and it became the status symbol and blah blah blah blah blah blah. And like the guy who we used to run Crocs now runs Stanley and he's using the Crocs playbook there, right? Like there's like interesting stuff there. And so I wonder if we did a qu like kind of the acquired thing where we both pick a business turn out on. It's just that one business.

37:19 Uh it's kinda like how I built this, but it's just Sam and John riffing on what we thought was cool from the story. for recognizable everyday businesses. That We think have cool backstories. That sounds great. I just think that we do that.

37:31 I don't think we do it in a way that would be a standalone package. So what would the standalone pack uh I guess the standalone package would be like the title and thumbnail basically make you a promise? That like you're gonna learn this? And then we both have Studied it enough.

37:46 versus today, typically one of us knows a lot more about it than the other. Which is okay. It's okay to do that, but like Uh and then we start the episode and we end the episode and we've delivered on that promise that like You're gonna hear about this thing. And we're gonna tell you the story, the ups, the downs, the the how they how they m how they made it happen.

38:04 Um the coolest stuff from this brand. Okay. Yeah, I think that's great. I just I don't know how to make it um actionable, but that sounds awesome. Like what you'd want to do for now. I think maybe for now we just put our put it on our radar so that the next time you or I think of a business like that, or we see one, or we h start to hear the backstory of it. We say, Hey, hey, let's try that thing, and then we like use the The authentic

38:26 Uh Interest in that thing that like in the moment before it perishes. And we decide to like Try this like a focused episode on that one thing. And it's like What can we reference this? Uh so C N B C does this thing on YouTube that's called like make it.

38:41 It's like they're making it. I love it. Dude, I love it. And they do an amazing job of these, right? So like they're They'll do one on like what's a what's a popular one they did? Like they did one on the Yeezys. It's like Uh the story of how Kaime built Yeezy.

38:56 Right. And all right, so that's like easy. I'm l you know, I maybe I see somebody wearing the slides, I'm like, What the hell was actual story? And by the way, I think I actually recently heard there's a very interesting story about this. The there's a guy who built У Билта Факторі Ферст.

39:10 And had this game plan and then went to Kanye and then like you know figured it out from there. I don't know the full story, but like sounds like there was something interesting there that it didn't start from Kanye, it actually started from Some guy who bought a shoe factory. Yeah. So okay, well I don't know, maybe we so we maybe we can as codename for ourselves call it these like make it. Like a make it style episode. Do you want to do you like when we do screen chairs? Yes, in theory. Like I love to see when somebody pops up on a screen shot. It's sort of exciting, like somebody took their shirt off or something. I wanna do more artifact episodes or something like that, where they like share their screen. It could be if this would only work if the person was particularly interesting, but it could be like

39:45 If we're talking about someone's day, it's like Show me your calendar. Right now. Or if we're talking about A question that you ask or I you asked once and I stole it.

39:55 uh is how do you invest your money of like Show me a let's do a pie chart right now. Prepare. Have them send us a screenshot of their calendar. Maybe they're like home screen of their phone, like what apps they have on their phone. Yes. Yes. And um like maybe Chrome plugins they use. Like for example No, I'm being serious. I love looking at people's Chrome plugins. Or I love looking like is their desktop clean or dirty?

40:23 And like how do they organize it? Right. Like I love like they can just like tell me how you organized your workflows. It could be from Chrome plugins to the website that you that that that you use on a regular basis. I love that stuff because I'm just looking for I hate using this word, but every bit of alpha. So it's like oh you use this like you, Sean, use a Chrome plugin or used to where it will remind you of your goals. But I'm like Show me that.

40:45 Yeah, I like it. Uh I also just think even if it's not like alpha. It's just like Takes them out of whatever routine they were in. And we get we're gonna find something personal that nobody's ever asked them about or said, you know, something something that's idiosyncratic to them. Right, like how they how they roll. You know, if you if I see somebody's desk, I learn a lot.

41:05 You know what I mean? Like I remember sitting at in Monisha's house and I'm doing the episode with him and on his desk he's got this name this like This sign that says, Trouble is opportunity. And it's like wow, there's gotta be a story behind that. That didn't just land there by default. That's a philosophy, that's a story, that's important to you. If you look at Warren Buffett's desk, he has a box called the too hard pile. Like what's that one? What is the too hard pile and then You know, you wouldn't otherwise know those things. I think if we can get like whether it's their calendar or their desk or their iPhone home screen.

41:33 Something like that I think will unlock a different angle with guests than anybody else is doing. And then the last thing that I wanna bring up. There we ha this has only happened a handful of times. But one thing that we have to try to do, and I think Ari, this is gonna fall on you.

41:49 Is making sure so Whenever we have someone on who has a chequered pass For example, Martin Screlle. I do feel a sense of responsibility that we have to ask him about his behavior. And

42:02 With him it was okay, but there's been times where I didn't know someone had a checkered past and I'm like oh I don't feel like becoming a show that confronts people. I don't want that energy right now. But it's like I both I feel c if we have that person on, I'm like uh I have we have to mention it. And also I don't wanna Uh-huh. Yeah, there's a responsibility and then also

42:23 This is not what I want to be doing. So you don't want to do it. What was the request to Ari? Oh like somehow you have to like just make sure that there's nothing like crazy that you're That we that we are aware. Like, for example, we had the guy who dealt in with um uh the guy in Italy, Thomas, and his story was amazing. And then out of nowhere we found out that he was got in trouble for fraud and I'm like You looked up the headline like mid recording and you were just like, It's not good. I was like uh I have to call this out. I don't want to. I don't want to. We were getting a log so well. But it you have to. You have to say something. And I just want to minimize that.

43:02 Amount or it has to be worth it. Where um like I think Martin Squirely is worth it. I think he's an interesting person and he's done stuff I don't like, and we will say you have done stuff we don't like and also you're interesting. So it just has to be worth it. Yeah,'cause I don't think the answer is we don't have anyone on who has liability. It's just like you have to mention it or ask about it. And we have to make sure that that is the the it's worth it.

43:27 Yeah, I just don't know what the solution you're suggesting really is. Like what what do you want to change? Is there a change you want? Or you just want us to know how you feel,'cause that's also okay. Well, a little bit is yeah, I'm covering my ass. No. Uh it's mostly just like Ari just like in the way in the same way that Ari protects us, like for example, she'll be like, Hey, you said something here and that came off really bad. You like

43:48 Like one time I made friend of Simone Biles or something and she was like Uh The joke didn't land. Like when you said John Morgan was smoking weed, which I don't think he said. He did. He did. I'm gonna double check that. By the way, it's really funny. Ninety nine percent of the time or he's like, Hey, yeah, that part, we should take that out, right? And Sam's like, What? No, he feels awesome. We've been there with that. You almost never strike it, and I'm like, dude, are you sure? That was funny. I guess I don't know. Just like keep an eye out, is all I'm saying. Um I don't think I have anything else to say, but basically like Sean, the takeaway for me is like

44:22 Newsletter's cool. I'm on board. Clips on board. Meetups on board. And talking about like happiness and parenting and some of that other stuff we're open to. Yeah, so I th I think if we were gonna say, What are the three we're gonna do, here's the rocks I see. Cassie's gonna raise a clipper army.

44:39 And Cassie, I'm specifically saying this to you as a challenge, which is like you're joining the team. You're here to kick butt. This is the butt you we want kicked. And to the extent that we learn how much of a butt kicker you are We'll be you'll be judged on how good you do at doing this one thing. Even if you did five other Really fantastic, wonderful other things.

44:57 This is the thing we're asking you to do because we think this is the biggest thing and is It's not easy either to do this. Like this takes some figuring out, this takes some cleverness, this takes some like You know, you're gonna have to I don't know, get in some Discords and uh, you know, go have some conversations with people to figure out how the hell this all all this stuff works. So that's the Clipper Army. That's number one. Then in terms of guests. I think

45:18 Sam, you brought up like Go higher, go unknown, and go into the areas of life that we Are important to us, but we traditionally haven't done on the podcast, which is sometimes it's Kids stu like, you know, raising kids, it's happiness, it's like you know, whatever. Topics that are about the human condition.

45:35 Yeah, like w is there anything, Sean, that you want to add to that? I I think there's probably just gonna be some others that come up when they come up. Like I would say Actually investing has fall uh investing probably started in that category. Right. Like we were talking about business ideas and whatnot and like You and I both also want to become smarter as investors. So we started asking questions there. Well, now we're dads. We wanna get better at that.

45:54 And like not in the boring sort of cliche way, but like What's the non obvious stuff that matters? By the way, I also think we should ask our guests who've got kids, like What's something parenting wise you do that's pretty like A typical or a non traditional?

46:07 That you believe in. For example, a bunch of entrepreneurs I know s have told me the same exact thing, which is they take A one on one trip with each kid. Um When they become like six, seven, eight years old and that becomes like a sacred like core memory with them and that kid and it's a totally different dynamic because you're always with the the full group.

46:25 And the dynamic changes where you go one on one. I've heard that like seven times. Okay, I gotta be a dummy at some point not to just go do that. Um, if they all keep saying it. But uh you know, you wouldn't know otherwise unless you asked that question. Let's pair uh let's add a third one, a third third rock, which is these like Guest prep other angles. So we talked about Asking them for their

46:43 their st their screenshots of their their their space, their desk, their computer, whatever. As well as like asking them questions, you know, maybe a our version of the what's the kindest thing anyone has ever done to you like A a great closer question that we can just do ritualistically and build a tradition off that. I would say for now we

47:00 don't also try to add meetups. Like I think we should do this and like spend ninety days like Actually doing these things. And then come up for air and if we've actually done these well, then we've earned the right to go try new more things. Awesome.

47:12 Uh no comment. Um I think. Yes. I think that was great. Thanks for agreeing to do that in public, guys. And uh For people who listen to that, I don't know. Hopefully that was interesting for you guys. We th we thought we would do it in public. Maybe you get to see how the sausage is made a little bit.

47:28 All right. Sam, send'em away. All right. God bless. That's the part. Wait, no, what did I say last time? Cup.

47:35 Oh, you're a blessing. You're a blessing. I feel like I could rule the world of nowhere. Maybe But I want to I'll put my lawn in it like a day's off. On the road, let's travel, never looking at it. 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 Robert. He was the founding CRO of HubSpot, and he's a guest lecturer at Harvard Business School. The guy's smart. And he sits down every week with different sales leaders from cool companies like Clavio and Vanta and OpenAI. And he's asking about their strategies, their tactics, and how they're growing their companies as you know head of sales or chief revenue officer. If you're looking to scale a company up, if you're a CRO or a head of sales, just looking to level up in your career,

48:18 I think a podcast like this could be great for you. Listen to the science of scaling wherever you get your podcast.

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