How fortnite made me a millionaire

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/f8acb54aa62c5a24

I made my first million when I turned thirty years old, but I'm gonna walk you through every single business I tried.
before I made something that worked and Sam you can roast me for how bad my ideas were.
I feel like I can root
Well I know.
It be what I want to
I put my law in it like my day song on the road, let's travel in the You so I did this previously. You totally went up to me by having a presentation.
So that's a little unfair, but it's like uh in Mean Girls where she shows up to the Halloween party and she doesn't know that you're just supposed to dress slutty and she dresses scary. That's kinda how I feel right now. But that's okay. Uh I'm incredibly excited to see what what you have to do.
Business number one, I tried to create the Chipotle of Sushi.
So this was my first big harebrained idea.
It was called Sabi Sushi and
We
Even though I didn't know anything about sushi, I had just tried sushi for the first time a month prior.
I just thought
This is it.
This is the big idea. I can create the Chipotle of sushi. We partner with the food network chef.
We launched the thing.
I learned how to make, you know, spicy tuna and like all kinds of stuff. And that was the guy who uh what was your buddy's name who bought the uh bat company?
Dan. Yeah. So if you've seen the episode with Dan who Dan the Bagman where he bought a
a paperbag company now and is thriving.
He was right next to me in the sushi trenches.
Okay, so t you know, just kind of the summary of that whole venture. Restaurants suck as a business, you know, ten percent operating margins, you're working
morning, afternoon, and night to open on weekends. There's no let up. My hand smelled like tune all the time. It was just a a brutal business to be in. And
We literally did every dumb thing you could possibly think of. I sort of
Took a buffet tour of all the possible mistakes you could make in doing a business.
And then oh my grade for this, by the way.
A for effort, but this business was an F.
And I think in the end we made something like twenty thousand dollars a profit before we voluntarily shut down the business because it was so brutal.
But if you to look at that in terms of the one year of full time effort that it took us.
I was making a dollar and eighty two an hour. So that was my big big profit out of that business.
How much did it cost to start?
We got lucky it was gonna cost half a million dollars to build out the restaurant. That was a combination of signing the lease.
With a personal guarantee, by the way, which is bad because restaurants fail. And you had nothing to guarantee.
And I had nothing to back it up. So it was like you'll be on the hook for this for ten years unless you declare personal bankruptcy.
And then you have to buy all the equipment, you've got to do the build out, all the shit.
We hired the fancy oh we hired this architect.
Who
Built the Vidara?
He was the architect of the Vidara in Vegas. And we again, every dumb mistake you commit, we thought, Oh wow, he's the best. So he should design our restaurant.
And he came up with this plan that was gonna cost us half a million dollars.
Uh to build out. I mean, that's pretty ridiculous. That's like having like the guy who like developed the World Trade Center to like make your kids background play set.
Lego my play structure. Exactly. But we were like yo, this is so sick. We were really we're really just changing the game out here. Did you tell them that? Was that your pitch? We were crossing our I's and dotting our T's, but that's not what you're supposed to do. That's not how those letters look. So yeah, we were doing everything wrong in in with maximal effort.
So how much did it cost? We ended up, luckily
This m beautiful, beautiful man with a

Met us and was like hey guys, maybe
Test your concept before you commit 10 years and a personal guarantee to this thing.
And we were like, How do you test a restaurant? And so he convinced us to basically do a delivery only restaurant.
out of a commissary kitchen. What today is called a cloud kitchen. Yeah. It's very fancy today.
Back then there was no Uber Eats, no DoorDash.
And we just look like bums who couldn't afford a restaurant. And so we tested it that way. That's why it actually cost us almost nothing to start.
And we made twenty thousand dollars of profit in like, I don't know, one or two months.
But we also were like, this is a trap. Every day that this succeeds is another day we're gonna be in this business and I just want out. I'm only twenty one years old. It's not too late. I'm still a minor and I don't need to have a life sentence in this business. Get me out of here. All right. Which we we have to say this really quick.
Every so you gave yourself an F and you said it was horrible and you want to s escape.
We can give examples of every uh for every type of business and probably everything you're gonna mention of someone who actually did it. So for example, the chicken tenders guy, uh Todd Graves, who's now like
You know, the thirtieth richest band in America. And it sounds awesome. Obviously it sounds awesome because it's successful. But
Yeah, I'm sure Jimmy Johns is not like regretting it. You know what I mean? He's cool. He's got he likes it. Yeah. Um, but for us, it was not the right business to be in.
Uh so you know, I'm giving you a little bit of wisdom. So here we go. Sean the Elder
Now that w with my elder wisdom, Sean the Elder says
Lesson number one.
Your first business is your worst business, and that's okay. The most important thing of this entire business
Was just that I started
And I kinda got the itch.
And I kinda got some momentum and I saw, man, if I can
Make that much progress with something I knew nothing about.
Then you know, the next thing didn't scare me. So I think that was the only good thing out of this business, which is that, you know, all success requires a start and it was a start.
All right, number two.
Number two, I tried selling wristbands online.
Been there, done that, man. Live strong.
I saw the Live Strong ban trend.
What you
For those who don't know, Lance Armstrong had these yellow wristbands that were like all the age.
So
What happened? Everything I did wrong in the first business, I was like
Jerry, I'm doing the opposite now.
And I basically
We s we well here's what we did. We set a forty eight hour time constraint.
So we said
Last time we spent nine months planning.
And researching and planning and researching and no action. This time it's all action.
And so we gave ourselves and I said, Look
I feel like we've been playing dress up as entrepreneurs, we're just playing house, like my daughter does.
And instead
What we need to do is like do the real thing. So I said the rule is I don't care what business we do.
We gotta launch it and we gotta make a dollar of revenue from a real customer in forty eight hours. And that constraint
was actually pretty amazing. So what did we do? We were too dumb to really like do anything fancy online, but we're like it's make something online, no physical location.
And I had just discovered Alibaba. This was now in back in like twenty eleven. I was like, wow, it's amazing. You know, all the shit we buy comes from China. There's a website.
Where the factory is just like online. You just go talk to the factory and they will
They'll just ship it straight to the customer. You don't even need to buy the inventory. And I basically I stumbled into what is now obviously drop shipping.
So we did this drop shipping business and in forty eight hours, this one is actually
A pretty cool idea. The as you can see my website here.
It says
Thefatban.com
That was our our website. And then it says one inch silicone wristbands, free shipping, as seen on T V. So I was just lying. Yeah, this is a huge liar already. I don't even know what TV this would have been on at that time, but we d we went with as seen on TV.
And um and then we had this was what was hot at the time. You can see what was hot by the the three examples.
The London twenty twelve Olympics were coming up. So we thought maybe maybe people wanna wear that.
And we don't have the license, but let's just again if we're already lying, why not also steal?
Um, the next thing was GTL. Do you even know what that is?
Uh G T L.
No.
Get to it or I don't know, good fucking luck.
I'll give you a guess. Go ahead.
Okay, just make something.
T L
I God to love. I I don't know. Like this GTL.
If you remember the hottest show in the world back in twenty eleven was The Jersey Shore. And they used to say G Tim Tan Laundry. We were like, Oh yeah, dude, Gym Tan laundry. That's the thing. Uh there's another one on here that says Bieber Fever. Back then you did gym, you were tan, you definitely probably weren't doing laundry. Over three.
But here's the good news. I give this business an A because in the 48 hours, we actually got two orders. We made$750.
I learned how to make a website, I learned how to take payments online, I learned how to use Alibaba.
And we did it like way faster than everything we had done before. So it was like actually way better of a business in two days.
than the previous year had been for me.
So I give it an A, although
I'm pretty sure one of the orders.
Like I did this with my buddy Trevor. I think he was just like hooking up with one of the girls who ordered and she wanted to like get back together with him or something, but hey like
A dub's a dub, we take what we can get. Uh, you know, beggars can't be choosers. So
Sean the Elder says, uh
He who studies success learns little.
He who studies failure learns truth.
I think the real lesson out of this one was basically the creativity loves constraints. The power of setting a time box constraint.
If we had said this will be our next big business, we would have again spent six months planning.
It was when we said.
Come hell or high water, we're doing it for real. We're gonna get revenue in 48 hours.
All our ideas then had to like fit in that box.
And so there's this lie in creativity, which is you're gonna think outside the box. No no no.
What the pros do is you put yourself in a tight box and then watch how you McGyver your way out.
And so that's really what this business was.
All right. So a lot of people watch it, listen to the show because they want to hear us just tell them exactly what to do when it comes to starting or growing a business.
And really a lot of people who are listening, they have a full time job and they want to start something on the side, a side hustle. Now a lot of people message Sean and I and they say, All right, I wanna start something on the side.
Is this a good idea? Is that a good idea?
And
Again, what they're really just saying is just give me the ideas.
Well, my friends.
You're in luck.
So my old company, The Hustle, they put together a hundred different side hustle ideas.
And they have appropriately called it the side hustle idea.
database. It's a list of a hundred
Pretty good ideas, frankly. I went through them. They're awesome.
And it gives you
How to start'em.
how to grow'em, things like that. Gives you a little bit of inspiration. So check it out. It's called the Side Hustle Idea Database. It's in the description below. You'll see the link. Click it. Check it out. Let me know in the comments what you think.
All right, next.
Alright, I tried to start a biotech company with this billionaire in Australia.
Um
Uh wait. Uh
Uh how old were you?
I was twenty two years uh twenty one years old, twenty two years old at the time?
Was he um
Uh like a criminal?
No, he was not a criminal. Stand up guy. Not a Elizabeth Holmes type of person.
No, no, no. He was super legit. He had just sold he wasn't a billionaire, actually. He had just sold his company for
Four hundred fifty million dollars and he had a non compete. So he had a lot of money.
It was his parents' company originally, so he had a chip on his shoulder, he wanted to prove that he could do it. So guy had
Cash, a chip on his shoulder.
And he was non competed out of the business he knew, so he had to do something new.
And biotech sounded really interesting.
And you were and I was I'm making it sound like you're a dummy, but you actually graduated from Duke and you were originally major. Yeah, you're okay, okay. So it's not like you're just like a uh dumb e commerce bro. You you actually I think there was some stupidity in this. So I thought I'm a bio major, I should do something in bio.
Honestly.
What you studied in college means
Very little here. It's not like I truly had a passion. Yeah, but you like
Took a class at least.
Yeah, I I f I used the wrong heuristic. What I really should have done, which was smart, was I got around smart people. So this guy was a really smart guy.
And working with him was actually really cool. So like that was actually much more important than the biotech link. Now
What did we try to do? We tried to create a biotech company where you could take coal that was too deep to mine, unminable coal.
I don't know if you know, like ninety percent of the world's coal is unminable. It's too deep, too uneconomic to mine. So the idea was
There was little microbes that would go down and eat the coal down there and they would like basically
far enough natural gas you could just collect the gas without mining coal.
Kind of a cool idea, unproven if it could actually work.
I got this opportunity because he was reading our blog. He he read our he met my dad and my dad he asked my dad what do your kids do.
And he went and checked out our blog and thought it was cool. He thought it w our hustle was cool.
And it was kind of the first time that content or building in public, like
Doing a portfolio mattered more than a resume.
And that has now become like very true in twenty twenty five.
Back then, like I didn't intentionally do that, but it really worked. I failed forward.
in that way and I used content to kind of create opportunities.
The second thing that happened was
When I got there I realized
Oh wow, I don't know anything about oil and gas industry. I don't have no experience.
And at first I tried to like catch up, but how are you gonna catch up to like twenty years of this guy's experience? It's very hard to do.
And so I had a different idea, which was
Instead of being
The worst in the room at the thing they're all good at.
How do I become the best in the room?
That's something they don't know how to do.
And so we started, uh, me and my buddy Trevor, we started learning to animate videos.
to take their ideas and turn it into like a one minute
video that they could show their, you know, investors or their prospects or whatever.
And they loved it. The owner was like, Oh, my video guys, yes, like because you're making me look cool. You have a new power.
You're g you guys are good with computers and shit.
So like
We found a way to like bring something to the table. So rather than like
focusing on our disadvantage, we try to figure out what's our advantage. So that was like a lesson that I, you know, took forward from that. But overall, I give this business a C because it didn't really work. The business didn't really work.
And uh
Yeah, made like a hundred and twenty grand a year as like a job essentially doing this. Where's he?
He's uh still in Australia, still doing his thing. I haven't talked to him l uh in a long time, but I hope he's hope he's doing well.
Lesson.
Earner spot at the table is kinda th the thing just said.
All right, making the next billion dollar app.
So I tried to basically this was a period of life where I tried to make the next billion dollar app. And so it's like twelve different apps I tried. I tried
We made this like clubhouse style app where people would get on and hang out in these rooms and talk all night and it got to four million users and we thought we were
Doing it. This is the next big thing, but we couldn't grow from there. It just kept
It just stayed at four million. Four million's a big number.
But a social app needs like a hundred million. So we're playing this like very difficult game and it wasn't really working. So I used to use Blab and uh for those listening, this was back when Martin Screlli was like in his first up and coming scandal. No, no, he had just gotten out of jail.
Had he? I thought that'd be a little bit more. He was on trial'cause I remember he did a blab from the courthouse back home and like
In the courthouse he had pled the fifth.
But then he got on Blab and just started talking shit and we were like this is incredible. This was like Yeah, this was pre prison and he was basically on the uprise in terms of notoriety because as farmer bro, that was when the photo of him like
Sitting back, like smoking a cigar.
And you could just hop on and talk to him. And it was kind of funny. It was kind of like the beginning of incel culture a little bit. My legacy. I mean, wasn't it? Uh I also tried to build a uh a beer app where you would check in new beers. This is a
giant mistake because a I I d I didn't even care about craft beer. So why am I trying to build something for other people who I don't even really it's not like scratching my own itch.
We built a messaging app.
That
got to number three in the worldwide charts, I remember, above Facebook, which was kind of incredible, but
had no retention, incredibly viral, but no retention.
Uh I think we got a million users.
In the first week or something like that. And then a month later we had like
I don't know.
Ten thousand users. Like they're all gone, basically.
Hm.
What was that one called?
Um that was called Bebo Messenger. Um so this business I would give a B and our profit was minus eight million dollars of investor capital. So we basically were burning.
Something like a million and a half dollars, maybe two million dollars for four or five years.
And that was called was this all under the umbrella of Monkey Inferno?
Yes.
So this was, you know.
Playing the wrong playing a very hard game. I I felt like I was running around with a bottle trying to catch lightning. Since then, I have done the exact opposite. I now look for the most straightforward
businesses um that are, you know, still fun to do, but I think have a high sh high shot of success because I was so scarred from this.
It was pretty magical experience, though. You m you met we met so many I mean, I met'em via you, but you met so many amazing people in Silicon Valley. Like
You know, we told the story ten thousand times. The Calm app founders were were at your office all the time. Yeah.
Moyes and and and Ryan Huver and Cieva, like it was amazing people.
Met amazing people and learned
A lot. So I've the my lesson here from Sean the Elder is
I asked the right question. I said, Where can I go that will give me twenty years of experience in the next four?
I basically took my twenties as a period for adventure and learning and not earning money.
I remember when I got this job.
They told me how many shares I had. They were like, Oh yeah, you got the I think I was making a hundred twenty K a year when I joined
And then they said
And it was something like forty thousand a year of stock in the Bunky Inferno like portfolio.
And he was about to tell he's like, that represents he was about to tell me what percent that was.
And I had already seen like kind of like
I'd seen in the tech industry if you join a startup you might earn like one percent or less of the
You don't you don't get more than one percent. You get like point four percent, point five percent, point six percent, point two percent.
of the company. And that just sounds like a minuscule number, but I wanted to go there and treat this like it was my own startup.
So I remember telling him on the phone I did the shh like finger to the lips and I was like
Don't tell me out of how many shares. I'd rather not know. I want to work like this is my company.
I own a hundred percent of this. That's how much I'm gonna care. And he was like good answer.
The the benefit that came out of the the kind of the takeaway was I never went and asked
For
Actually that's a lie. I asked one time, but I I didn't really go back and ask for more for a while.
And
If you pick the right people to work with
They will reward you based on what you're what the what value you're actually creating before without you needing to ask. And so
I went from
It turns out I had 0.4% at the time.
Then he bumped me to 10%. And then over time I got to twenty percent. I own twenty percent of the company.
By the by the end of the of the deal.
Or sorry, of that of the thing. It didn't end up mattering in because of the way the structure of how we sold the company.
But
I did take away that, uh of like
You know what, just go there, try to learn do as
Best work as you can and like let the chips fall where they may. Um, and I think that was the right approach. All right, what do you got now?
The last business before this is the one where I ended up, you know
uh actually making money, which was that at some point we were like
Fortnite had just come out and we were like, We should write a wave of something that's popular.
So we took Fortnite, which was popular, and we had this idea, which was hey, you know how
There's youth sports. Y you know, little league baseball, youth soccer, stuff like that. Like
You know more people play Fortnite than play basketball, right?
I was like, wow, that's kinda crazy. It's like so why isn't there like a league you can join as a as a teenager?
To play this with other people and have it live streamed and all that stuff. Like it should be just like youth sports. And so we created like our version of
youth esports, basically.
And it was an app. And then that was and we built the largest high school fortnight league in the country. And then we got acquired by Twitch. And then that was the kind of the big win. The I turned thirty, made you know, crossed the million dollar mark, made a few million dollars and was like
Yay. This is amazing. That ten years of
sucking was was worth it. And so that's my that's my story there.
You had so many uh more interesting like near near misses or near hits. So the stripe one was crazy.
When I was running so I r I had a I had a thing, a startup that wasn't working, and then we ended up getting like aqua hired.
And when it wasn't working, I went into I went and applied at jobs. I applied at Uber. I I applied at Google. It shockingly got like
Yeah.
An interview. I got one interview.
I applied at Facebook. Obviously they didn't call me back.
I applied at uh Zero Cater at Easy Cater. Do you remember those companies? Yeah, they were hot. Those were hot at the time. These were all the hot companies. I wanted to be an Uber launcher, it was called, like you go to City of City. Dude, you would have been so good at that.
That was a miss on their part.
Yeah. Screw you guys.
Yeah, I think maybe the the the recruiter did well to like kind of like I don't think you were the fit for that, but dude, if you worked at Uber and you were like a city launcher.
You would have crushed. I think so. And so it was fun. It's fun to look back at like all the j I I actually the way Jack Smith, one of my best friends, I applied at Vungel. That's why I met Jack. I applied at his company and they didn't he didn't hire me.
Uh the consolation was he's like I'll be your friend. Yeah, we became friends, but you did hire me. You're an idiot.
Wait, did Jack say why he didn't hire you, by the way?
Dude, his co founder was in charge. His co founder was like
But he was like, So you think you're good at sales?
Go around the office right now, leave our little room right now, and I want you to go and talk to every single person in that room right now and convince them why we should hire you. And it was so demeaning. And I did it.
And I did not get it. I did not I guess I did not convince them again. I had to do the same thing at Monkey Inferno.
To get the job to ever tell you this? No.
So they were like
Okay, you clearly don't know anything about technology. You're not an engineer, you're not a designer, you've never worked in tech.
So like
We really like you, but we don't really know what the hell you'll do. And we all just keeping like yeah, he's a real hustler.
And um so can you
Do some hustle. Like, how would you hustle today to add value to what we're doing? Hustle now. They're like, Can you show me that hustle thing? And I was like, We're just sitting in a conference room. And so I was like, Yeah, I got you.
So I was like, Dave, you have this app.
That you're working on.
I'm gonna go get you customer feedback. Like
Now.
And they're like, Okay, uh how you gonna do that? I was like and on my way in, I had flown into San Francisco for this, but I I was killing time before the interview.
And there was a Burlington Co Factory if you remember, right next to our office. And next to it next to that was the Westfield Mall.
I was like, there's a mall, right? Yeah. I was like, I'm gonna go to the mall.
So I go to the mall.
And the guy comes with me and he's like, I'm gonna observe.
And I was like, Oh my God. Was this Michael?
Just Paul waited. No, uh the the CTO came with me.
Uh so like the most introverted engineer was like, Let's see what this guy can do.
And so I go and I've never done this. I'm like, I'm I can't I don't even have a product to sell. I was like, I'm gonna get like feedback, I guess.
And so I was like, I'm gonna cold approach like a pickup artist at the mall.
random people and try to get them to come over to this table and give feedback on our app. I was like, How the hell am I gonna do this?
And then I realized the easiest hack. I just went to them and I go, Hey, I'm on a job interview right now. And I get the job if I can get people to come over to this desk and just give five minutes of feedback.
Would you do that just so I can get this job?
And they were like, Yeah, no problem. And I was like, that was so much better. The first three people I approached, I was like, Hey, have you ever been um
Have you ever had to plan a party and needed to use an online e bite planner? Like I have a new one coming out in six months and I would love your feedback. And they were like
You'd get away from me. They like give you their like Aunt Annie's like wrappers. Can you throw us away, please? Exactly. I should have been like the guy in the bathroom who like pulls the paper towel out and hands it to people. That would have got me more success than what I was trying.
So just s switching to like, dude, there's like a camera following me right now and I'm screwed if I don't do this. I whenever I see reality TV, I'm like, why don't they just say that? That works way better. Anyways, that's But my point being my point being is for a lot of people in these situations where the things just not working, going to ask for a job, A, it's normal. B, it's incredibly mortifying because you're like
Shit.
supposed to be this guy who has this business. I put all my identity into it. Now I'm applying. It feels weird. It feels uncomfortable. But we've all done it. And you did it in one company
That uh well, it just adds to the list of screw ups.
So in twenty
Eleven or twelve, before the Moke Fire thing, I only applied to one other job and it was this company called Stripe.
That I thought was gonna be
Maybe a good company, maybe a good startup. And uh I think it was maybe valued
A hundred million or less at the time. Oh my God.
It's now almost I I don't know what it is now. It's a hundred billion. A hundred billion. So so you know, I did the math a few years ago and I was like, Wow, my entry level sales type of job
would have made me like twenty million dollars if I held. And that was then, it's probably doubled since then.
So
I did what you did. I applied to the job. I didn't know how to do it. It was my first job interview ever. Didn't know how to do it.
And um
I uh
I had a layup, dude.
'Cause my mentor, that guy John Pendergrass I mentioned from the sushi thing.
He was the mentor of the guy hiring me.
So I asked him, I was like, Yo, can you put in a word? He put in the strongest word. He was like, Yo, this guy's this kid's amazing. Yeah. Hire this kid. He's an entrepreneur. You're lucky he's even applying for a job. He gave me like such a strong intro. I don't remember what it was, but it was I remember thinking like
Like
Lay up like this is like so easy. Oh my god. And
That bit me in the ass, that attitude,'cause I got on the call and the guy was like, Hey, you know, he says great things, but I just want to
You know.
Ask you a few questions.
And I just started bombing the interview and to the point where he gave me the uh the sort of sell me this pen exercise.
And brother, I did not sell that pen.
You didn't buy that pen.
That pen stayed in my pocket. It did not fly off the shelf. What would your answer have well if you look I'm sure you like replayed it in your head ten thousand times. How would you uh No, I was so traumatized. You know, I'm like, I'm a little student of the game of life. I love to learn.
Not this one, dude. I just buried that shit deep down and moved on with life. I was like sometimes you just take the L on your soul and you just move on.
Uh, do you so I was thinking about this the other day. Do you do you agree with this where
You know, we we just summarized ten years of your life in thirty eight minutes.
And we laughed about it.
But A, it's not funny when you're going through it. Incredibly unfunny.
It feels like y the worst part is you're comparing yourself to your friends, right? And you're like, Why is this so much easier for them? Why are they getting this and that? And and that like eats you. That like you turn green with envy.
But the second thing is like you do it for ten years and then all of a sudden in like the tenth, eleventh to twelfth year, you look back and you're like
Oh, it's kinda working. And then it feels like slow progress, slow progress, a little bit better progress, then all of a sudden you snap your fingers and it's like, holy moly, like I've just grown so much. It's it's like I don't know if you ever like when you when you've been getting fit where it's like I feel nothing, I feel I feel nothing, I feel nothing, and then eight weeks pass and finally you're like
Oh man, I think I I feel my stomach. It definitely feels different today. And that's the new baseline.
And so and so it's w I guess what I'm getting at is it's months or years of hard work and then overnight you feel progress.
Yeah. Slowly and then out and then all at once. So I just gave you
I just gave you ten years. And I think in truth,'cause I I fast forwarded through some of the apps we tried. We tried many apps in that like app phase.
So I I think I did twelve different failed
companies in the ten years.
So
Over twelve.
Ten years.
Brutal.
In the I'm thirty seven now, in the seven years since
I think I've gone like five for five.
Everything has worked.
Right away. And
I don't know, the portfolio of the companion.
either majority or or or just a huge chunk as probably close to a hundred million in revenue now.
And I think it's seventy five million in revenue.
And
The feeling is so different.
Not just because it's successful, but because like
You just it's like a route you know how to drive, you just know what potholes to avoid much better.
Still hit some, right? Like it's not like you're you're foolproof, but like
Man, the hit rate going from oh for twelve to five for five in the last few years is so different. It's unbelievable.
What?
Allowed you to go from
Five to five and seventy five million in revenue.
So
Project selection is the first one.
Right,'cause I try little think about what I tried, a restaurant.
This like innovative biotechnology.
That's like a science project. I tried creating the next hit app, the next billion dollar app, the next Twitter, the next YouTube, the next
Facebook. Like we launched a messenger. We launched like a social network. We l like those are just
One in a million type of success ideas.
So the odds were against me, even if I was good at executing. And I wasn't. So I was like bad at executing and then trying these like moonshot
Things that I really didn't understand what the hell I was getting myself into.
Whereas since then
I chose projects that were like
Way less risky.
You know, like I kind of understood how to do them.
Uh high hit rate.
I just need to execute.
You know, so I did an e commerce company. I did
Um, you know, a services business. I did an um you know, we have somewhere.com. It's like a overseas staffing business. Like every company
Needs to hire people.
And I in my own businesses was hiring a ton of people overseas. It was like a no brainer. It was al it was a business I was already working. I bought into it and helped grow it.
Right? Like
That's just like a much more foolproof way to do things.
So I so project selection was number one. Stop chasing these like moonshots that if they work, you make
A trillion dollars and you get to have a movie about you, but most likely are not gonna work. So I stopped doing that. I stopped playing the like
Silicon Valley dream.
Um
The second thing was
More action, less planning.
So understanding like
What amount of research and planning is helpful?
And at what point
You need action because action produces information.
And I told you kind of in the first start, we spent nine months basically in the planning phase.
And that was a huge mistake. We didn't confront reality of the business.
I remember when you started Hampton, before you ever announced it.
You showed me your calendar and we called it the zebra calendar because it was just twenty minute stripes on the on your calendar on your day.
And it was just calls with founders and you were like personally selling. You could have offloaded that. You could have launched the business. You could have done uh any number of things, but you were like
hand to hand combat selling
to try to figure out like, yo, does this is this something people want? And what message, what version of this, what message of this actually like
Gets me that kind of like real quick yes reaction.
versus like people just being polite to me.
So going for action rather than planning and knowing knowing when to use which gear.
Was the second thing.
And third was just like
Pay attention to what works.
Uh get around really smart people.
And pay attention to what works because success leaves clues.
Do you think um
Okay, so you're thirty seven now. First of all, would you have predicted when did you sell um Blab?
Bebo?
Twenty nineteen, something like that.
So that was six years. Six years ago. So it was thirty one ish.
So let's just say that uh was six years ago
Let's uh round out to forty seven.
Well, first of all, d at thirty or thirty one, do you think you're gonna be here where you are at thirty seven?
No way.
Where did you think you were going to be?
I thought all right, I'm gonna earn out this deal.
You know, I get uh every year we've we've asked us. I was like, I'm gonna do two years of that deal, which is what I did. I did two years of the deal.
And then I'm gonna go start another company and this time I'm gonna start like a
You know, if this one sold for tens of millions, the next one I'm gonna do is gonna be a hundreds of millions or a billion dollar company. I still didn't really understand what to do.
But the beauty of the situation was because I was earning out my deal, I couldn't go start another tech company. It would be like
They'd look at me and be like, What the hell are you doing?
So I was forced to do
things that were that didn't look competitive. That didn't they I for I was forced out of my comfort zone. So like all I knew was
start a tech company, raise venture capital type of type of deal and go for the big shot.
when I was earning out the deal at Twitch, I couldn't do that. So I started this podcast. I was like, I'll do this for fun.
And this podcast has turned into a phenomenal business and opened up all these doors.
Then doing the podcast taught me about all these other types of businesses.
That I then went and was able to be like, Oh, that's a great indust that's a great way to do a business that doesn't require like
getting super fucking lucky. That doesn't require like being the w most competitive
Yeah, like most hardcore person, like you just do the obvious and it works.
Um so like that was one. I did the e commerce business because I knew that that would not be seen as competitive.
Um you know, by people at Twitch. It's like, Oh, is it there's a business like you know, it's just kind of this like cute little like
physical product selling, you know, it's it's like I created a brand, right? And I I don't talk too much about what that brand is on here yet.
I think I'll buy probably by the way, I think I'll do the reveal of that maybe this year.
You sell uh pro
Prosthetic legs.

Is that what it is?
Something like that.
Yeah. So basically I started doing other types of businesses not by choice, but out of force because I was earning out the deal and I I couldn't do another tech startup at the time.
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Okay.
Next question.
At forty seven.
What do you think what do you think have you made predictions on where you'll be?
I think I'm just gonna be doing creative projects. I think I'm gonna be
writing books and making movies and doing this doing content and I'm gonna just be all in as a creative person and like
business will be
Secondary to me.
When will that shift happen?
Now it's already happening. It's already happened. Yeah. So that's what I've been doing the last year. Um
And so like that happened.
Now I would say there's still like some vestiges of it'cause I still invest in businesses.
But I don't run them. I don't start them and run them myself.
So that shift has already happened. So you think you're done starting businesses?
I think so. I mean so I've I basically only said like
Only if something like really just slaps me in the face, something that I can't like I'm not looking for a business to start, which has been the mode I was in for fifteen years. And is that because you feel financially secure or because you feel emotionally secure?
Uh
I don't know.
Like is it because I lay down on the couch for this part? I don't know. No, I'm not going to be able to do it.
Yeah, yeah, it's that.
This makes me happy.
Uh, I think I'm better at this. I think I'm a B plus entrepreneur, but I think I'm A plus at content.
Uh so like why not do your A plus thing?
I think doing content is now like an incredible way to make money.
So like
You know, like we make great money here. Like you look at other content creators, they make a ton of money. So it's like
You don't have to do a
company and then do content on the side. Like you could just do content as your main thing and make you make all the money you want, don't worry.
And the last thing is
It's kinda like the test of what would twenty year old me think is dope. And I remember thinking this at the time. It's like I think a cool version of a career is like these five
five year arc, seven year arc type type of chapters.
Where you just go do like really creative endeavors and you're like, Oh, I'm gonna like
I'm gonna go and try to like do stand up for a few years. I'm gonna do I'm gonna go try to make a TV show that I think is cool.
That version of life, if I look back at my resume, I'm like
Either I just kept
Starting.
Businesses
Like tech companies and our businesses and
I already have more money than I need. I've made even more money that I didn't need.
versus like, no, I started going and trying to make dope stuff. Like I had the creative challenge of that and I yeah, I actually made that show and I made this musical and I made this book and I
That to me seems more of an interesting life and so I'm just more attracted to it.
I think every
Not every. I think many entrepreneurs go through this.
Period. I mean I've I've I'm I'm in the thick of it too, where you you
You try to get
Paid. You try to feel secure.
You try to feel accepted.
You get a little bit of that, or maybe you get a lot of that.
And then you go through the phase of what I call the second mountain.
Which is like what else is there? You know, and that's when you see a lot of people get obsessed with like beautiful things or art. In your case content, which is basically art, or uh
Just like interesting ideas. Where before you're like ideas, ideas are worthless. And then you're like, I don't know, man. Just talk about ideas. That is actually exciting. Or being around like pretty things. That's exciting.
Can I give you an example of someone who I think is is a has done did both. So
Joe Gabby.
Friend of the pod.
One of our one of our our our
uh guys that we were a big fan of. So he started Airbnb.
Obviously colossal success, you know, like
Grand slam type of success. He's the ninety sixth richest man in America.
Yeah.
And uh household name, blah, blah, blah. Great.
Did that.
Still pretty young, right? So he's like, All right, I see I'm I'm not like dead. No, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do now?
And so he was like, What's the second mountain?
So I remember going out to dinner with him once.
And he was telling me about um what he was doing next. Do you even know what he did next after Airbnb? Do you know the next thing he did?
Was at the museum.
The architecture thing?
No, no, no.
He um has a company. He has another startup. Do you know what? The um ADU thing.
Exactly. So he created this company, I don't know how you pronounce it, is it Samara or Samsara? I think Samara. Yeah, it's basically they raised forty million dollars, and I believe what it is is
You can spend
fifty to a hundred thousand dollars and they will give you an ADU, meaning a uh
Guest house basically in the in your backyard.
Backyard, guest house, in law unit, ADU, whatever you call it.
And
Beautifully designed'cause he's a designer. So like
You know, a lot of times these ADUs look very cookie cutter, cheap materials, like poorly made.
He made like a really nice one. Like one you would
that like adds value to your house aside from whatever rental income you might be able to get out of it.
So he creates his company and he's doing it and when we went to dinner I was like
Dude, the product looks awesome. I want one of these in my backyard.
But at the same time, like, dude, why are you doing this? You have all the m like
You've all the money you'll ever need.
Um You made it.
Like why do the grind again?'Cause he was like, you know, having to think about SEO again and
How do we s how do I how are we gonna grow this thing? And I was like, Oh dude, all the pain
doing a company. Why are you doing that?
And
You know, he said something at the time. He said a you know, he said he said a good answer, but one of the things he said was like, You know, I wanna prove that it wasn't luck. I wanna prove that I could do it.
And I remember in my head, I didn't have the guts to say it, but I was like, Man, what a dumb answer. Like
There's nobody out there who's like
You know what, Joe, you just got lucky. You know like and even if there were people who said that, who cares? But
Dude, nobody thinks that. Everybody only thinks
Airbnb is incredible. What you guys did is absolutely incredible.
But he had this kind of like maybe I need to
Prove it again?
Because
What else do I do?
I'm motivation, right? I I did I've totally I think most people have that feeling. I had that feeling. So I remember s hearing that be like, Oh man, like I wish I could like
go into his brain and find that line of code and be like, Oh, you have a bug here. Let me just pick bug fix patch. Boom. You're better now.
Um
But I did yeah, whatever. So he but now what is he doing? So he basically is
So he did that and somewhere in the middle he got pretty inspired by Doge, he's friends with Elon, like all that stuff.
He goes and he joins the administration and he's uh he starts with a very simple project which was like
The retirement process.
for government workers was like a six six month to one eighteen month process. Like you could just
You couldn't just retire, get your papers, and move on with life.
It was like
Hold on, a guy needs to go into this cave and find your f paperwork and like
It'll be a year.
And we'll get back to you. And so he was like, I'm gonna just solve this problem.
And I'm gonna solve it well, I'm gonna design a product, gonna make the government pro product stuff work well.
And somehow that's turned into he's now the chief design officer
Of the United States of America.
And I'm like, wow, what a inspired second mountain.
Like creative endeavor.
has an impact grand scale
Um, so cool. Like you created a role that didn't even exist.
But it's so perfect for you.
You know like he's proud
Uh and he's he wants to serve, he's proud.
And he's extremely talented design. I'm like, that's the type of second mountain that's awesome. I think his ADU company is cool, we'll be successful. I want one of them in my backyard.
But I just felt like
more inspired personally by the kind of the new thing that he's doing, more so than when I fur heard
Oh, I'm just gonna gonna do another business and try to create another billion dollar company. Well the other thing that he did was there's these famous um
designers, Charles and Ray Ames or Eames, is it Eames? You know, they make the famous chair, the Eams change. Yeah. Yeah.
Uh, it was a husband and wife couple and they were prolific designers. And I think they lived in Arizona and they had like their home, which was famous, and it was full of like
their prototyped furniture and things like that. And I think he also bought all of it and restored it.
Just as a uh preservation uh thing.
And so he's done a bunch he's done a bunch of stuff. Uh and uh don't call me uh you guys will have to Google this to get everything right, but something like that, where he's like uh preserving history of these two designers.
And so he's done a bunch of this like second mountain stuff that I think really I I admire. I I'm um
I'm a very thoughtful guy. I really admire like a lot of the way he approaches work and life. Uh I think he's he's a very
Kind of like
Principle and thoughtful person.
And I think I like that because I I find I I'm less
principled and thoughtful than I I wish I was. And so when you see somebody who's like very on that end of the spectrum, it stands out.
This is for the folks out there who have a business that does at least three million dollars a year in revenue. Because around this point, that's when you're able to look up after being heads down for years building your company.
And you realize two things.
One, you've done something great.
But you're still a long way from your final destination. And two, you look around and you realize
I am all alone.
I've outrun my peers.
Which means you're now making ten million dollar decisions alone by yourself. And that is when mediocrity can creep in.
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I think that this is I personally am quite inspired by this thing that you're saying. Now
I uh will be extra inspired if you actually follow through on this for uh a couple of years because it because it sounds like amazing now. And if you follow through on this,
You will be my hero.
And the idea being
Yeah.
Kind of in other words saying you're
retiring a little bit from business and focused on purely on creative, which that's not entirely true because the creative things you do will make money.
But you're not like seeking money for money money's sake, which is what most people do when they go into business. And I think that that's really, really cool. And I think it's inspiring. And when you say these things, you sound A more confident and B more happy than you have in the past. Does that sound right?
Hundred percent. Um
I uh I have this framework called Your Last Dollar. Have I told you this? Yeah is that the one where you have that really cool line of um you've already l earned the last dollar that you're gonna spend.
Yeah. You've already earned the last dollar you're ever you're ever gonna spend.
So there comes a point'cause people
Think about these ideas like I want to be rich. How rich? What's rich?
What's risk to you?
I wanna be wealthy. What's wealthy?
I wanna be um
I wanna be financially free. For you to do what?
What are you not free to do today? So I think people are
Money's this like very big motivator.
You're ashamed to talk about it.
And then you actually don't put a lot of thought into it.
And man, that's a sh what a shame'cause it's driving a lot of your decisions.
I'm gonna ask you a question and you don't have don't say a number. Only say what you're comfortable with. But like for example, for me, Rich is I define it as two ways. One, your your ability to spend three percent of your liquid net worth.
So if you have ten million dollars you could spend three hundred thousand dollars a year.
Uh another way I define rich is your passive income, so just from your investments, pays for your life. So do you have a definition for yourself on what rich is?
Yeah, similar. So basically I said if I wanna spend half a million dollars a year burn rate, which I wasn't when I came up with this number, I was spending maybe
Five times less than that. But I was just like
I talk talk to them all the way, What do you spend? What do you spend? What's
Kinda like if I went crazy.
Okay, no, I I don't care about boats and planes, so don't worry about that side of things.
You know but just like give me a sense.
I do care about this type of shit and I don't wanna have to worry about this.
And like
If we go to Disneyland, I wanna do what's that thing you do where you don't have to wait in line? I like that. I wanna go to the uh you know, like I just don't want to be able to do all that.
And I don't care about some of these other things for now. Let's just assume that to be true.
And I wanted to live in California, so I rounded all the way up and I said
If I'm spending half a million dollars a year, is that my like personal life burn rate?
What do I need to be making in passive income or the passive gains of my investments?
To where that's like um not an issue at all. Like m as long as my passive
uh earnings.
Are higher than my active burn.
I'm free.
Yeah. I don't have to I don't have to prioritize money.
And then you apply even some factor on top of that of like
Safety net, cushion, big swings, whatever. And I I came up with a number that was like
Cool, that's the last dollar I ever need to make.
And actually this came because I
Mm.
You know, other people. I did an episode of this podcast with my brother in law. You can go see it. Sanjeev Chopra, he's a a real estate guy.
And he's done incredibly well. I'm sit I was sitting in his like Vegas like mega mansion type of thing.
And you know, he had just come home from driving to go see a property he owns in like Idaho or something. And he drove back and he got back at eleven, and then he was like
up at six AM the next day to like take his kids to school and I was like, dude, you're really like grinding
And he he had this goal of like I wanna, you know, make all this money and I wanna be able to buy the Raiders, I wanna do all this cool dreams, right? But I was like
The truth is
Uh and at one point he was talking about like oh I wanna leave you know, my my dad didn't kinda leave me he didn't support me when I wanted to go do a business. I wanna leave each of my kids
Like I think you said some crazy number, like twenty million dollars and I was like, dude, your kids
don't need twenty million dollars when they're twenty one years old to go start a business. You'll
actually like poison their entrepreneurial career if you do that. But like
I get the ethos. You want to support your kids. I like that. Okay. I I I totally get what you're saying.
And he wasn't like
It's not like he was fixed on those of these are just things that were bubbling up in his thoughts. And I just remember telling him, dude, you've already earned the last dollar you're ever gonna spend and your kids are ever gonna spend.
So
You're now throwing good hours.
After bad dollars.
And that stuck with me. I was like,'Cause I'm trading good hours. I'm trading good energy right now. Yeah, life energy, right? I'm trading good hours for bad dollars because I don't need that dollar. It has zero utility in my life at this point.
And so
That thoughts there.
Now am I perfect? Am I a monk? Have I like
Do I just not invest in things?
Do I not have the itch sometimes like oh we could make this? No, I have that itch, I have that thought, I do make investments.
But so far so good as far as like I'm gonna do projects now where the main criteria cannot be because I think it will be successful or it'll make money.
It's like I'm only gonna do it because I think it's fun and interesting and a challenge to do.
if I'm actively the one building it, working on it.
That um
I think that's a massive turn that you have made.
because um I think that like I've known you for this whole time.
And there was this period of like you wanting to be the man, which we all wanted to be the man.
you know, in Silicon Valley, that was like the point of us being there. It was like going to Hollywood and seeing like who's gonna get a role. Right, right. And uh then there was the period of like, Okay, I like
have a hit, but like I still don't necessarily feel not why am I not prominent.
Like you know, like why like I I I I've gotten some wealth, but why am I not king?
You know, or you also see
that there's so many more levels. And you get on this treadmill, which I I think I compare myself to others way more than you, and so I'm far more guilty of this of like more, more, more. You know, someone says, um
Uh
I think it was in the movie Wall Street where they're like, How much is enough? And and the guy's like, Oh, I know how much is enough.
It's more.
That's how much that's how much it's enough it's enough. But then you come with this other side of it where you're like, Nope, it is I know what it is is is enough and I have enough. And now I need to pursue like truth and happiness and all this wonderful stuff. And I think that's like
A beautiful message.
I think that's an amazing message. And I think
Frankly, I think I need to hear it.
And I think if I need to hear it, I think so many other people do need to hear it. Because I think I'm far more
a normie in terms of c self comparison or comparison to others and jealousy and all that stuff. And so I it's very refreshing to hear you say that and you sort of
I think your Uncle Sean.
Shtick is kinda lame.
But in this case you are my uncle Sean. Like this is the this is straight to the heart. You're you're thirty six, you're thirty seven years old. But you gotta be at least forty five to be an uncle. Okay. I'm trying to grow this gray beard. No You're you're thirty seven. You're still like you're still like a child.
I'm too young to be a cool old uncle. You're not an uncle. What am I supposed to be doing right now? Yeah, you're you're you're in the the awkward middle.
But in this case, I do feel like you are like frankly teaching me. I feel I feel like this is a bit of a mentor menti uh situation. And and for that I'm I'm very thankful because I do think this is quite magical. And I think if you're listening to this and I think if you're twenty four years old, you think
Sean
You're an idiot.
What do you know? I need to get rich. I need to do this. You're so fortunate that you get to this. Like what the hell?
And to that I say go and find it out for yourself. But I do think that I've seen
You know, both of us have seen a lot of wealthy people, a lot of successful people.
What you are saying is one hundred percent the best path.
of like get what you can.
And then reflect on do you actually need more and pursue what truly makes you happy versus more, more, more, more, more. Because I'm telling you for a fact that virtually one hundred percent of the people that go down that
That route are unhappy.
Things that I'm sure of and things that I'm not sure of. Here's my list. Things that I'm sure of.
In your twenties, if you're smart and ambitious
Just prioritize getting around the smartest
And most ambitious people you can.
That you like to hang out with, right? You're gonna like'em too.
Um prioritize things that sound more interesting rather than things that sound more likely to succeed.
Um, and be cool if something gives you a lot of learning and not a lot of earning because don't worry, you got time.
That's one that's one thing I know about my twenties. I th I think it's pretty
Universal advice. It wasn't just for me.
Another piece of universal advice I think that's in your you know, the early entrepreneur phases is like, dude if it
It's okay if it takes ten years'cause you only got to get rich once.
And at the time, sure, I do, I wish it happened earlier and I w did not enjoy going over twelve and I did not enjoy that it took ten years.
But like
That's fine to get rich at thirty actually was like no problem. I actually
That that works really well and it's
You're very it's very hard to predict if you're gonna get your first business idea to work or get rich in when you're twenty four years old.
But if you commit and you're gonna iterate and you're gonna be good at learning, you will probably get there.
But you you flip your odds from like ten percent chance of success to eighty, ninety percent chance of success, which is as good as you're gonna get. Yeah, as long as the timeline is is long enough, at least ten years it will work.
Exactly. So I'm pretty sure of those two things. I'm also pretty sure
That you should be more thought.
And more honest with yourself.
About money and what you're actually gonna prioritize and where if there is ever a stopping point or uh not a stopping point where you just stop trying stop making money, but you stop prioritizing that.
As like
the decision making thing of what what what you're gonna do next with your time and energy.
So I think people should definitely think more about it. I find very few people that are actually thoughtful about this.
And have done the kind of like
The asking themselves enough questions.
To be clear.
Um now will everybody land at the same answer as me? No. I think there's tons of people who actually want more. They're gonna affect change. They do wanna own the Raiders. They do wanna like
be a Titan, and that is the thing that's gonna make them happiest. It's just not what it was gonna make me the happiest.
I had to ask myself like
It's like I'd been ordering this burger and it was like, Yo
Fight.
Do I even like pickles? Like who why do I keep ordering this burger with pickles? Like I actually don't like pickles. Get this stuff off.
And so I had kind of like
Kinda just borrowed off the shelf goals.
And getting more clear about like w what actually would be a dope life to me.
And for me it's this like every five, seven years I do a bunch of creative endeavors, I make shit.
I'm gonna go try to like succeed in these different areas, the variety is the spice of life type of shit. That's me. But like
That wouldn't be it for someone else. So I that part is not universal and like
Making art is not universal. So like you know, that part I I wouldn't really put on anybody else.
I kinda feel bad that I m gave you a hard time with the Uncle thing. I didn't mean it that way. I was only teasing. But I I thought I wanna I' I wanna
Don't worry, no offense. I'm wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt, bro. No, the re let me let me say serious. The reason I want to take that back is basically if you want to get rich, go listen to Sean's previous episode that that was titled How to Get Rich Without Getting Lucky. That's virtually
Perfect for everyone who has less than a million dollars. But if you have more than let's say$500,000, if you make more than$250,000 a year and you want to be happy, the last the second half of this episode is the number one thing you have to listen to because I am going through exactly what you were discussing now. And this made me feel better and this has inspired me. And so the second half of this episode.
is probably one of the best things that I think you've said all all year.
And I I don't know if you made up this second mountain thing or that's a book or something like that. I think I've been feeling that way and I heard it via I heard that phrase I think via a book. I think there's a book called Second Mountain, which
Uh everyone has said is great.
Yeah, so I think what w what me and you were talking about is like second mountain stuff. This wouldn't have been the right message for us when we were on our first mountain.
Um like you're saying. So you're when it was twenty three, it was how do I make two thousand dollars per month?
That's all I need. Just tell me what to do.
You know I saw you come to my office and you did a copyrighting
one day workshop with Neville.
And you guys made ten thousand dollars, and I thought I just watched Oceans thirteen. I thought I saw a man rob the bank.
And I could not believe what just happened in front of me. And I felt like such a loser that Sunday that I was like
Dude, that guy just came in here and just
Talked to like thirty people.
About copywriting. It was cool. They were happy.
And he made ten grand for that this Saturday?
And I just looked at myself like you're a little piece of shit. If you what are you doing? You don't even have the an idea of how to do it.
A decade later. Later I was like, Oh yeah, that's a substantial amount more uh in a weekend. Uh so it kinda like came became full circle. But like you're right. The first mountain mindset is so different, right? Uh and it should be. It's supposed to be, I think.
Oh, can I ask you one thing? Have you ever met a young person
That tries to do all the whys.
Like Yoda shit.
But like
I'm already past.
success and money and status and I'm like on this and uh it honestly kinda disgusts me.
I'm like so.
I'm like, can you go get drunk and try to pick up a girl? Exactly. Like pay your dues. You don't just get to you don't just get to skip all that stuff and be enlightened. Like I
You know, th that comes later. Uh you can I I have this I there's a kid who I know that like
I like the kid. He's awesome and it's
I don't know why. It's probably a good thing that he's already like wizened up.
But there's something about it that like
It pisses me off inside. And I can't I'm just like, dude, you can't skip that.
Go be stupid. You can't be smart before you're stupid. You gotta be stupid before you're smart. Like the there's an order of the universe here, and I feel like he's like kind of spitting on that order or that way of doing things.
Yeah, man. I I do meet people like that.
Can we, uh before we leave, can I create a new segment real quick called Life Happens.
Yeah. What is it?
So I wanted to know what you did for Halloween. Did you
Uh, I just was a quick life quarter. I was just thinking, did you do Halloween and did you dress up?
And uh this year.
And then I also wanted to know
I just have this hunch that you are
Great at Halloween.
And that you've had some epic Halloween either traditions or costumes in the past. And I just needed to answer that question. So uh what did you do for this Halloween? This Halloween, I have a two year old uh a two year old and a three week old kid
And we went to my mother in law's apartment building in New York City. They probably have four hundred units in the apartment building. I wore suspenders. Indoor trick or treating. Dude, it was the best. You go from floor to floor. Uh literally we hit you could hit four hundred houses. You know what I mean? Just like Halloween is meant to be. And it's a very fancy, it's a very fancy
building and I didn't even have cars. But no shirt and uh
One of one of my cowboy hats. I already owned it. I wore my overalls, but no shirt, but cowboy boots and colour. How'd you get it to look so used? So pre pre worn. And my little girl was a mermaid and we went from door to door and
It just looked fantastic. Do you have a a philosophy, a framework of Halloween? Like, for example, I have one, which is like Halloween is about looking cute, not looking realistic. So you know.
I I remember one time somebody dressed up uh
when we were twenty one, like we went on a booze cruise for Halloween and they dressed up as a bushel of grapes.
And they were it was a great costume. Looked super realistic. They had balloons all over their body, but it was
They had such a bad time. And I remember just learning that lesson like never ever
Try to be realistic. We're gonna our future it w it was hard this year because my wife had just given birth and so she wasn't like we're not gonna like do a bunch of crazy stuff, but our future costumes are gonna be group costumes. And so my wife has big hair. And so next year she's gonna be Slash and I'll be Axel Rose and like my kids will look like little rock stars.
Nice.
Uh, we're gonna do themes because I think they're just darling. And we trick or treated in New York City. That's how New York kids do it, building the building, which is absolutely insane. Do you remember growing up as a kid watching movies of like twelve year olds like Richie Rich or whatever, like in the inner city and like they think like, Oh my God, that's crazy. I was around those kids. It was awesome. And my kid is gonna be one of those kids, which is crazy. Uh what did you do?
Uh we dressed up. We were astronauts, uh, which was the first first good good year in a while because my wife does the matching thing.
Um, and she always like stiff me with like your um
Yeah, my daughter wants to be Elsa, so you're
Like
Christoph. I'm like who the hell is Christoph? Or like, you know, you're like you're Olaf and I'm just a giant like snowman. It's like I don't want to do all this. So so I've been getting screwed lately. Uh this year was better.
But I oh I dodged a bullet.
I gotta I'm not gonna lie, I dodge the bullet. So
Uh
I was gonna come up with a costume and I was like, you know what, maybe I'll do Fireman this year. My kid loves fire trucks, he wanted to be a truck.
So I was like, Oh, you could be the truck and I'll be the, you know.
semi sexy firemen. And I was like, I'm gonna do that.
And I'm so glad I didn't do it because you know why?
When we were out.
We bumped into my kids friends from soccer.
And they're
T dads are one dad is a fireman and then the other kid's dad is a police officer, actually. And they wore their c their suits.
No, but but like
He was he wasn't even dressed up'cause he's like, I'm a man, I don't do this.
And I was like
If I had dressed up as a little goofy fireman and I met this real fireman who's a friend
I was like, that's like the biggest L I could have taken. Just man to man. That's the biggest L you could take. I'm gonna dress up as like.
The loser version of you. The wanted version of you. I saw the It's like if he dressed up as a podcaster
And jumped and met bumped into me, I'd be like, Oh well, that's cool. It's uh I saw it to the pod, by the way. I hope he hears this.
Uh dude, also that guy, you may be a cop and thank you for your service. You may be a fireman, but thank you for your service, but if you don't dress up, come on, bruh.
Like that's lame.
I saw the video or I saw a photo of what your wife gave to your children, uh like a gift basket.
Like a like they woke up one morning and they had like a presence. She's a good mom. Great mom She goes over the top, man. She's on top of it.
That was wild.
Yeah.
Does she she does that for every holiday, doesn't she?
Yeah, she does. Which is that lo that looked like it took like eight hours.
Yeah, she like just sacrifices like full nights of sleep, like pulls an all nighter and gives them something. And her you know, she loves arts and crafts anyway, so it's like you know, it's not like it's
Terrible for her, but
Um
She just wants them to have these like kinda like magical moments and like like the spirit of holidays, which growing up I didn't have, which kind of explains why I also don't
feel the same way she does about holidays. And your eldest is just now old enough where she's probably or no, your your boy your middle is old enough now. He's probably like understanding traditions.
Oh yeah, yeah. They they they they get it, they like it, they anticipate it, they're excited for it. So
It's it works. Dude, that's awesome.
Alright, well
Great wholesome episode.
Oh, by the way, we're about to enter Elf in the Shelf season, so like
Which is
It's like uh what's the thing called for Navy SEALs? Buds.
This is like my wife's version of Bud's training or what Buds Hell Week is a hell month for her.
I will never do Elf on the Shelf.
I I it's so weird. You are a wise and smart individual. You're telling me and of course it's eas easy for me to say now. Let's see if I actually uh stick with it. But you're telling me that this elf is supposed to be watching the children at all times. Big brother.
You know let's just call it Palantir. That's what it's gonna be. It's I'm just gonna carp on the shelf. Yeah, carp on the shelf. Peter Teal's in the house.
He knows exactly what you did. Better be contrarian this year. Yeah. Fuck out the elf on the show. I just want a little s like a little doll of p uh
Peter Teal and it just you click a button and it like says well um uh well um uh
Oh, it comes with the authentic stutter? That's incredible.
Alright that's it, that's the pod.
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 song On the road less travel never looking back
Hey, let's take a quick break. I want to tell you about a podcast that you could check out. It is called The Science of Scaling by Mark Roberts. He was the founding 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.
I think a podcast like this could be great for you. Listen to the science of scaling wherever you get your podcast.