2025 Milly Awards LIVE ft. Steph Smith

- December 17, 2025 (3 months ago) • 01:44:53

Transcript

Start TimeSpeakerText
Shaan Puri
"Stay, which is a *great* choice, Sam. What's..."
Sam Parr
Let.
MFM
**Story** — Let me tell you about this sweater.
Shaan Puri
You've heard of a story.
Sam Parr
Very strange. This is from 2002, I think. Can you see it here? It says "Ralph Lauren 2002." This is a memorial sweater for Nine Eleven [9/11], which begs the question...
MFM
"Is a *sweater* really the right form to memorialize a terrorist? Yeah." </FormattedResponse>
Sam Parr
I guess, *like,* if...</FormattedResponse>
MFM
We could—if Ralph Orrick could pay tribute on a sweater—then, I guess, we can pay tribute on a variety of things.
Shaan Puri
You gotta, you gotta love that marketing meeting where they're like, "This is a tragedy in America and there are no words."</FormattedResponse>
MFM
Are but.
MFM
In America, we celebrate **capitalism**, so...
Sam Parr
That's what I'm wearing. I'm wearing my *9/11 Memorial* sweater for Christmas.
MFM
What a choice, Ethan, in the chat.</FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
**Never forget, Sam. Never forget.**
Sam Parr
"That's right — you won't, because I will be reminding you. But it'll be *on my sweater*."
Shaan Puri
"That's amazing. Alright, so, *Steph*, welcome back—you've been on..."
MFM
Thank you.
Shaan Puri
I don't know—a dozen times or so. You're a great friend of the pod; we wanted to do this with you. So we have categories—a bunch of categories for the year—and we're gonna go *rapid-fire* through them. We'll do it that way. Okay? **Steph**, you've been given the categories, but we don't know what you said. **Sam**, I don't know what you said—this will be a surprise for all of us. Okay, so category number one. Unless, Sam, did you have any other preamble? I feel like I'm rushing.
Sam Parr
**You're rushing.**
Shaan Puri
"I put a hand on the thigh, but forgot to introduce myself."
Sam Parr
Yeah, we've done this a few years now. I wish I actually would have recapped some of the numbers, but over the last 12 months, **Sean**, I don't know if you knew this, but we've had about **90 million** views across everything — downloads and views. Amazing. Pretty wild. Always, we crossed
Shaan Puri
I believe—I think we're close to **2 million** subscribers across **YouTube**, **Spotify**, and **Apple**, whatever, which is *bananas*. I mean, that number—**90 million**—that's a lot of view time, a lot of views.
Sam Parr
It's a lot. There are definitely one or two shorts that got around 10 million views. I think last year there was one — maybe you told the story of **Elon Musk** — that got about 30 million. Some go really heavy. It's been pretty crazy. We've reached tens of millions of people in the last 12 months, which is astounding. We do this at the end of every year, and it's one of my favorite things. We use mostly the same categories each year, but it's always so fun to go through your phone, look at old photos, and see what's changed from your trailer in 12 months. I'm excited to do this. So, **category number one: the best investment that you made this year** — is that right?
Shaan Puri
"Best investment you made this year? So, **Sam**, you wanna kick this off?"
Sam Parr
Yeah, so my prompt just says "investment"; it doesn't say "best money investment." My best money investment is always boring, because I just do **S&P 500 and bonds**. But my best real investment that I made was moving to New York City — let me tell you the story. I was living in the suburbs and decided to move to New York City. I found an apartment that I loved. It was furnished amazingly, so I went to the previous tenants and asked, "Do you guys just want to sell me all your furniture?" They itemized all of their furniture and it added up to be very expensive — $80,000 or $90,000 worth of stuff. I said, "I'll give you 10%." They took it. I ended up moving to the city into a furnished apartment where I get to see my in‑laws four days a week. I go to my office five days a week, and it's made me so happy. So that's been my **best investment**: moving to a furnished place. I sold all my cars. I don't own basically anything, and I love it.
Shaan Puri
- Owning less stuff - Moving to the city - Being near your family - Working in person in an office **That's actually a pretty big change overall.**
Sam Parr
"**Huge change**, and it's definitely made me a lot happier."
Shaan Puri
Questionable if it's an investment, but it is a **huge change**. I will give you that.
Sam Parr
"It's an emotional investment. I'm **emotionally invested** in this city now."
Shaan Puri
See, this is why I don't do index funds and bonds. Imagine one day I'm on a podcast and they ask me, "What's the best investment of the year?" and I can't — I have to start talking about seeing my mother-in-law. Like, that's just... that's why I don't. That's why I pick **stocks, baby**. That's why I do it.
Sam Parr
"Yeah, like, what am I going to say? My net worth went up by **30%** this year through boring stuff."</FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
"Steph, what do you got? **Best—best investment of the year.** Tell me it's an actual investment and not, like, a 'Sean investment' — 'my son.'"
MFM
I'm about to disappoint you, man.
Shaan Puri
Oh my God, you're...
MFM
Both — the only time I check the S&P is to gauge my husband's mood for the day. He invests all our money, so I gotta — I gotta come up with something else. My "investment" is also not really an investment, but it's *Accutane*. You guys know what Accutane is?
Sam Parr
What? Yeah.
Shaan Puri
Is that like *acne medicine*? What is that?
MFM
Yes, yes, yes. So backstory real quick: I've had acne my whole life — truly since I was 13. I'm 32 now, so that's nearly two decades of just unnecessary pain and time applied... just the worst. Anyone who's had acne knows it sucks. I spent forever just being like, "It'll go away, I'm getting older." Then I was influenced by the king influencer, *MrBeast*. He was on — I can't even remember which podcast — but he just slipped it in one day: > "Yeah, I took Accutane a few years ago, didn't really tell anyone, but one day my acne just disappeared overnight. I don't know why more people don't talk about this." I was like, first of all, yes — why don't more people talk about this? And second of all, I'm going to call up my dermatologist and ask why I'm not on *Accutane*. I took it for six months this year, and I'm clear. I think it's like, you know, *your mileage may vary* — go talk to a doctor — but I'm just like, this is the *best thing ever*. I don't know.
Sam Parr
Why, people? Your face—don't take this "zooming in with the camera."
MFM
"People on the internet will do the comparison. I mean, **I always wear makeup**, so take right now—go back to, like, version one of me on *My First Million*. It's going to look different." </FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
You should post a tweet of a true *before-and-after*.
MFM
Well, that's the thing — people are so embarrassed to... you know, if I were to actually take [photos], I'm sure I've got some images of me with no makeup during those periods. It's... it's *embarrassing*.
Shaan Puri
So we have another category called "biggest personal [unclear]" — you took. And maybe... maybe there will be some. I'll...
MFM
Take up a picture, just.
Shaan Puri
That time. Okay, so you also didn't do the category. We're off to a rough start here. Chat's saying, "Sean better."</FormattedResponse>
Sam Parr
Have a real... have a.</FormattedResponse>
MFM
Real, Sean — you gotta.
Shaan Puri
The people know I am here for you. I am here to actually provide the information that you guys pay nothing to have. My investment — and this is kind of funny — a year ago to the day (so December 17 today), I tweeted out on December 16. The tweet said: > "I'm going Christmas shopping this morning. I'm Xmas shopping assets this morning." What I did that day was take something like $1,500,000 and spread it across these stocks. I tweeted it out that day and basically put 20% into Shopify, 20% into Tesla, 20% into Eli Lilly, 20% into Bitcoin, and 20% into Coinbase. The one I forgot to put on here is Google. Or, sorry — not 20% Google. I basically put $2.5k into each one, so I think the total was $1,250,000 invested on the same day, on December 16. No dollar-cost averaging, no research, no nothing. I was just feeling like these are things I would like to gift myself for long-term ownership. If I look at the results now — I just checked this morning because I haven't been monitoring aggressively — a couple were essentially flat: Coinbase is up 1% and Bitcoin is down 8% for the year span. But everything else did well: - **Shopify:** up 53% - **Tesla:** up 17% - **Eli Lilly:** up 35% - **Google:** up 50% So my public stock bet that I put out there is my best investment of the year. I think the blended average is something like **35% for the year**, so that was a good return on a one-day shopping spree.
Sam Parr
I — you use these words, like *"shopping spree"* and *"things like that,"* as if they apply here, which I was...
Shaan Puri
I was supposed to be Christmas shopping—buying gifts for others—and instead I bought **stocks for myself**.
Sam Parr
"I thought you committed to the *index path* last year. I distinctly remember you saying that."
Shaan Puri
If I did, these are *false promises*. I'm... I'm part of this *degenerate lifestyle* for now and for always.
MFM
So, **Sean**, what do you do? Do you keep those five, or do you pick five new ones?
Shaan Puri
The one part that's different is I'm not trading these. These are the companies or assets I want to own for, like, a ten-year period. *Ten years* is my sort of default hold. That's basically what I've been doing since I graduated college in 2010. I had one thing that I bought from 2010 to 2020, and then in 2020 I bought a bunch of stuff, which wasn't so great because that was when COVID was happening — it was a really crazy time. But in general, when I buy things I try to hold them for ten years. That's the goal.
Sam Parr
**Why Eli Lilly?** Because they do *Ozempic*.
Shaan Puri
Because you told me that they had some drug that was incredible, and you were like, "*Vatruditide*—what is it?" You texted me something, and I was like, "Listen, I didn't listen when Sam said the Ozempic thing." But literally it was one thing. It was literally only that: you telling me this drug is incredible and that it puts Ozempic to shame. It wasn't fully out yet or something; I don't know. You had some early...
Sam Parr
I got a guy. Yeah, I had a guy, basically. So I like to *biohack* — I test all types of crazy stuff. A lot of times it's compound stuff, meaning it's stuff from China, and I don't know what I'm allowed to admit to right now. I don't want to go to jail.
MFM
But, yeah.
Shaan Puri
Your friend does.
Sam Parr
All, yeah.
Shaan Puri
Your friend, also named **Sam**, does what?
Sam Parr
And it did all of the stuff that **Ozempic** does, other than make your stomach feel sick. I started taking it, and *it's amazing* — it's so good. I mean, **don't take this stuff regularly**. Anytime something new comes out, it's sort of like, "Oh, what's a DVD player? I gotta buy one." That's what I do with drugs — you learn about new technology, and it was amazing.
Shaan Puri
"So you told me this, and then—since then?"
Sam Parr
"Did you research it, though?"
Shaan Puri
No, no, no. I did. You told me, I think, that day, and I was like, "You know what? I'm putting Lilly in here."
Sam Parr
It's up **34%**.
MFM
It's up **34%**.
Shaan Puri
"I didn't say I researched these, by the way. I operate on *gut and swagger.* Since then, the CEO of Eli Lilly has come on. Because Lilly has turned into, like, a trillion-dollar company—it's the first pharmaceutical company to do that—he's explained all the incredible things they do differently from the others and how they're using AI. I feel better about it now. There's more to like, but I can't say any of those were the reasons why I did it. They do seem to operate more like a tech company now, but I don't know. It just seemed like people were gonna want... I just sort of was like, "People are gonna—*Ozempic* is like the best product ever," and Sam says they have a better Ozempic coming. Alright, great. That's enough."
MFM
Don't need to. Sean's investment thesis just says, "Sam tried some drug that's..."
MFM
It historically... well, that's new — been all [unclear].</FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
Sam's other ones, and so I thought, "Well, once I'll do this."
Sam Parr
For example, do you remember when we invested in the *mobility trend* on Instagram? </FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
"No payoff, but yeah."
MFM
Yeah, there has been.</FormattedResponse>
Sam Parr
A few things: we invested in **Andrew Huberman** early on. We've got a couple of investments, right? It just turned out this one was financial. That's cool — congratulations. Those are great. About the biggest L — or sorry, worst investment...
Shaan Puri
"Chat, give us some feedback here on round one—whose answers do you like? I think I might take this one because I might be the only one who actually qualifies for the answer to this... wait. Oh yeah, I violated **'no public math.'** I'm sorry about that. Okay, so does that mean that **'worst investment of the year'** is also going to have no answers for you guys? Are we in trouble?"
Sam Parr
Yeah, I have one. Okay. My boy said that I was "the best on here." I got a few good ones—people voting for me. My worst one was... what?
MFM
It's the way you said it. *I don't know.*
Shaan Puri
"It's *just* amazing."
Sam Parr
You know, when I sold my company I got a bunch of **HubSpot** stock and I held onto a lot of it. Then I saw how multiples were getting crazy, and I had to even out because it was making up too high a percentage of my net worth. I still kept some of it, and it's been **obliterated** this year — HubSpot stock just got totally obliterated this year. Did your stuff — you owned, or do you still own yours? Oh man.
MFM
I don't know how much Cal does. </FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
"She looks like she's about to go put on the *9/11 sweater*. She's thinking about it right now."
Sam Parr
HubSpot stock just got *totally obliterated* this year, so I lost a lot there. And for Ari listening, basically I think this year it's down — it was at $800 earlier this year; today it's $370 or something like that. So I got my ass kicked on that one. How about you, Steph?
MFM
Sean's not going to like my answer, but it's **not financial**. I did.
Shaan Puri
"It's a vitamin. Is it a vitamin?" </FormattedResponse>
MFM
*No, no.*
Shaan Puri
"Like a supplement of some kind."
MFM
**"Worst investment?"** A vitamin. No — I did get a notice that a bubble tea company I invested in a few years ago during "peakserp" [unclear term] went under, *unsurprisingly*.
Sam Parr
Like, no, dude — I've got like twenty of those.
MFM
Did you?
MFM
It was literally these founders who were on one of those crowdfunding sites who, like, just had no real evidence that they would make a great bubble tea company. I was like, "Bubble tea's great," and invested in that. But my actual answer for worst investment that is not financial is just **networking events**. I feel like you guys already know this, but it's taken me way too long to...
Shaan Puri
**Name names.** Which conferences do you regret this year? Let's put them out there. </FormattedResponse>
MFM
All of them. Yeah, I think that's — that's my **worst investment**: going to all these things that, you know, beforehand are going to suck. You're not going to like them, but there's some sliver of you that thinks there might be something good there... and then are... </FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
Were you required to go, or was attendance optional? And then you regretted it?
MFM
It was optional attendance. It was a lack of judgment.
Shaan Puri
Gotcha. What about you, Sam? Anything you want to add to her networking event? No.
Sam Parr
"No, I mean, what am I gonna... No, I agree with you. But yeah, I'm on board. What about yours, **Sean**? What's your biggest—*hell, sorry*—biggest loss?"
Shaan Puri
I went to one networking event with you, and I thought you did great. I was like, "Wow — *she's such a natural* at these events." Not because you were trying; people just seem to gravitate toward her. They want to hang out with her. She seems like a safe space for everybody who's exhausted from the networking part of the event. I just remember thinking, "I don't know how she did that, but I liked that — that was good."
MFM
By the way, I had a...
Sam Parr
**Great year** at networking events. I went to an email newsletter conference. We went to Sean's basketball thing. I went to the HubSpot conference somewhat recently. I had a great year. Did you have, like... I guess much? I only...
Shaan Puri
Better than the others. What? What? So you had a great... like, you...</FormattedResponse>
Sam Parr
I like going to network. Yeah — like, if I pick it, yeah, because I like seeing old friends. I've been in the industry for long enough, but it's the **only time** that I see old buddies.
Shaan Puri
That's fair. Yeah, that's true.
Sam Parr
Like, did you go? I *really* go.
Shaan Puri
I didn't really go to anything this year.
Sam Parr
You went to inbound.
Shaan Puri
Well, that was in San Francisco. I just showed up, I gave my talk, and I left. So it was a very quick thing. I hung out with Dartmash at the event — that was kind of the only thing I did. But that's okay. I'll give you my **worst investment of the year**. Once again, I took these literally. So here's my... this wasn't — okay, so I guess this is a little less literal. I didn't lose much money in any investments this year, which was nice. In prior years, if you go back and watch these awards, it's like, "Hey, invested in this crypto ponzi scheme — what's up with that?" That was pretty bad. I've run into some trouble along the way. This year I didn't have any, but I will say I found out that I had passed on three different $10 billion startup investments that were right in my wheelhouse and unbelievable. The first one was Polymarket. I was one of the early users — probably among the first 5,000 users of Polymarket. I'm a degenerate gambler. I, you know... my college GPA is like half a.
Shaan Puri
Lower than it should be, because I used to go gamble on riverboats in international waters and stuff instead of going to class. I am a degenerate gambler. I was using *Polymarket*. I was VPN-ing to pretend I was in Morocco to place bets, allegedly. So, you know, I'm using *Polymarket*—I love the thing. The founder is in my DMs. He screenshotted his phone and posted one of my blog posts as the background of his phone. He said, "I thought you'd like this. This is my background of my phone this week." I was like, *the ultimate*, and didn't somehow end up making an investment—just didn't actively try to do it until it was too late. *Kalshi*, same thing—another prediction market, same product. If I didn't hit the winner on *Polymarket* the first time, maybe I could've hit the second winner. I go back and check my DMs. They've been DMing me since 2020: "Hey, huge fans of the pod, would love to do something with you." All I needed to do was answer. And guess what? I did answer, and here's what my great answer was—so pretty similar to *Polymarket*. Then that was my son of a gun answer. And so how much... guess?
Sam Parr
Do have made.</FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
The valuations of those were probably below **$100 million** at that stage. Now they're both above **10 billion**. No public math, but somebody in the chat can tell me how much money I lost. The last one was... whatnot. So I get acquired by **Twitch**, the number one live-streaming platform. When I'm at Twitch, guess what I do? I tell Twitch, "Hey, we're losing the battlefield on mobile." I become the **leader of mobile** at Twitch to do mobile live streaming.
Sam Parr
"Dude, we talked about these guys in the pod, too. You had a *great spiel* on them."
Shaan Puri
I talked about them on the podcast. I actually met with them. I tried — I asked to invest. I said, "Guys, I could help you." "I know this space inside and out. I know all the talent you need to recruit. I know the best people from Twitch — we'll go poach them, we'll raid the pantry. This is gonna be amazing." They were like — he was like, "Yeah, you know, we're pretty oversubscribed." I was like, "But it's me. Make some space." He said, "Alright, let me get back to you." He did not get back to me, and I did not follow up. I did not invest in **Whatnot**'s first round. And now it's a $10 billion company. It was literally the thing I was doing — the thing I know. Probably there aren't 100 people on earth who know that space better than I do.
Sam Parr
That.
Shaan Puri
Sucks, you know, and missed it.
Sam Parr
How many of your investments went under this year? This was the year where I probably got *10 emails* from different angel companies I had invested in, telling me they went under. It took about *three years*.
Shaan Puri
Well, it's the *worst phase*, right? So we're probably both—since we started angel investing—you had a syndicate, and I had a fund.
Sam Parr
Like 21.</FormattedResponse>
MFM
The
Shaan Puri
The worst phase is going to be around **year three or year four**. At that stage, the only companies that are exiting are either small exits or just shutdowns. Your winners are going to ride for another five years. It's like AngelList: you get a distribution and you check — it's $3.41 from this company. Then the founders are bragging about their acquisition on Twitter, and you're like, "Just shoot me now."
Sam Parr
Going back — how many angel investments have you done, **Steph**?
MFM
I don't know... 15.
Sam Parr
Okay, so going back... First of all, looking forward five years from now: let's say you invested **$100**. What do you think that **$100** is going to turn into for both of you? Or what—**IRR**? I don't know how you want to measure it, but...
Shaan Puri
It's hard to say. I think it'll **three to four times** over the ten-year period. So it'll be something like—it's a guess—my personal estimate would be roughly **three to four times** over the ten-year lifespan.
Sam Parr
"That does not seem worth it, right?" </FormattedResponse>
MFM
That doesn't even seem worth it for the K-1s I have to deal with [K-1 tax forms]. Honestly, I don't know if you guys are different. My learning from Peak Zurp was: **I never want to angel invest again**, *unless* it's a company that I want to be involved with actively.
Shaan Puri
It depends. I use a conservative estimate just to avoid getting my hopes up or making false promises to myself. The thing with these [investments] is it basically depends on your bet. I did 110 deals. It just depends on your **top four deals**. If you have four companies right now that are doing amazing—say, **50x to 100x** returns on each—will they last? Will they exit? Are they going to go up another order of magnitude from here? That's what you need in angel investing: to get this sort of **multi‑100x or 1,000x** type of return, and then you look like a genius. But you don't really know for a while, to be honest. Even the companies that are kicking ass now—the breakouts—it's hard to know if they can sustain it, whether they'll time the exit, whether they'll actually IPO. What's going to happen? You know, it's hard to know.
Sam Parr
I've done 56. My first two or three were pretty great—like, you know, maybe *10x* or more. Then my last two were like *100x* or something, crazy like that. So basically I had to go through 50 of them to get the one or two winners, which is pretty wild... and so it will
Shaan Puri
But it's the normal hit rate.
Sam Parr
It's normal, but it doesn't feel good when you're on number 48.
Shaan Puri
The trick isn't even: *out of a hundred, can you get 12 instead of six?* It's: are your six as big as the big winners in any given cohort of companies? It's also hard to know. I invested in Replit when it had about 2 million in revenue; it now has about 250 million in annual revenue. It's growing like crazy—it's unbelievable. But where does this all go? It's hard to know whether that's sustainable, whether they can keep growing as fast as they've been growing.
Sam Parr
Alright, so next category is the **biggest personal L** that we took. Okay—I'm gonna tell you what mine is, and it's gonna make you guys all just, like, *cringe*. So basically, I was at a party about six months ago, and I overheard a group of people talking about being pregnant. This one lady—I couldn't even tell you—so I asked her when she was due.
Shaan Puri
"I've done that one."
MFM
"She wasn't due."
Sam Parr
She wasn't due.
MFM
And I said.</FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
"What do you do?"
MFM
Dude, I spent...</FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
Why are you looking at me like that?
MFM
I spent 30 seconds looking for an out. Oh — I thought I... I, in front of five other people, just apologized. I said, "Sorry."
Sam Parr
And I walked away. I said, "I'm so sorry. I... I tried." I was like a guy falling off a cliff, grabbing for trees and I couldn't grab a branch. And I was like, "I... I thought you said you were pregnant."</FormattedResponse>
MFM
And I didn't see your kid with you, so I didn't know you had a kid.
Sam Parr
And you left him behind, and then eventually it just was, "I'm sorry."
MFM
It's just.
Sam Parr
I'm really... I just *apologize*. It's so...
Shaan Puri
"Funny—because on podcasts, you know, self-deprecating is good. But **don't go full deprecating**. You went full deprecating there."
MFM
I just... *I'm not joking.*
Sam Parr
And then my nanny was with me. We went to a party, and she said, "You really blew that one." *I was like...*
Shaan Puri
I could tell — I did that at a **Christmas party in 2013**. I could tell you the exact place and date where that was. And then it was like... I've just never — it's never left me. How? How?
MFM
"I knew not to do that. I knew not to do that, but I just..."
Shaan Puri
When I did it, and then...
MFM
You — I knew not to do it, but it's sort of like... I...
Sam Parr
Don't know... like when you instinctively stop at a red light. "I just thought I heard her say that she was *pregnant*..."
MFM
I just said, "Wait—what do you do?" I don't know... It was *horrible*.
Sam Parr
"And... it's one of those things that I'm going to remember for the next **50 years**."
MFM
Wait — *I'm so curious*: what do these women say when you apologize? Are they like, "Oh, it's okay, people do this to me all the time," or are they like, "You're an asshole"?
MFM
No—she rubbed it in my face. She basically just smiled, *smugly*, like, "screw this lady"—actually, because it was her fault. No, she looked at me and just...
Sam Parr
She *like* acted disappointed in me.
Shaan Puri
Which she was.
MFM
So, I don't know.
Shaan Puri
She's acting.
Sam Parr
"She looked pregnant. She looked like a normal person who just had a big belly."
Shaan Puri
Doubling down, she looked.
MFM
Wow, that's outrageous — *amazing.* We should, we should segment it with **HubSpot**. [The speaker said "at it"; possibly meant "add it".]
Shaan Puri
"I'll just have one."
Sam Parr
"What's up? What's up?"
MFM
"Up, Sean. You go next. Alright?"
Shaan Puri
I have a bad one, too. I got jury duty this year in April. I was like, I've never had to go. You know, sometimes you call in because it's an every-year thing, but it's like *Russian roulette*. You call in and they'll say, "You don't need to come in," or you go in and right away they're like, "Hey, you're good to go." I've used a hardship excuse before — like, "I gotta be at work" — and I got out. So this year I expected it to go swimmingly again. I show up and all of a sudden they're like, "No, no, no — you're definitely gonna be needed. You're definitely gonna be seen. There's a really big case." I'm like, "What? I don't want a big case. This is bad." So I get into the jury duty area where they're vetting people [jury selection], and the judge gives this big speech about *civic duty*. There was even a presentation — not even a presentation, remember Prezi? The judge had a Prezi going on; it was like...
MFM
Zooming in, the judge is like, "Proud of his animations." He's like...
Shaan Puri
Check it: the first time people use **Prezi**, they're like, "Holy shit — this is better than *Avatar*," and so on. So the judge is doing a Prezi about the Founding Fathers and how jury duty is the bedrock of society and all this shit. As you might guess, I'm completely unmoved. I'm completely unpatriotic in this way — I do not care. I'm just formulating my idea of how I'm going to get out of this. I'm like, "Oh, I'll just say I have a work trip — easy." They gave the dates; funny enough, I actually have a work trip. I'm in the row; there are about seven people ahead of me. The first person stands up and says, "Your honor, I have a work trip; I'm not going to be able to attend." The judge asks, "Do you have the booking information? Can you please show it to me?" And I'm like, what... So that guy starts to — and I go on my phone.
Sam Parr
"And book a flight."
Shaan Puri
So I book a flight, and person number two goes, "Don't hear him—I'm booking a flight." Person three goes, "I'm booking a flight." The judge has reviewed that person's booking and says, "This was booked today," and then, "This was booked in the window after you reserved — the flight needed to be booked before that." So now I've got a booking and my *lie* is gone. I'm like, "Okay, what am I gonna do next?" The next person goes and they say, "I'm really important at work." So I'm like, "I have this podcast," and I'm like, "That's not gonna work." So I'm like, "That's not gonna work. What do I do next?" Eventually it comes to me and I'm like, "I do have a baby at home. I need to be there to take care of the baby — my wife works." The judge is like, "Does your wife work at home?" And I'm like, "It's a personal question." So I'm like, do I lie, do I not lie? I'm like, "She is at home," but I'm trying to figure out, how do I—can I muddy the waters a little bit? Basically the only idea that comes to mind is... I'm like, "Should—"
Sam Parr
"I insult her."
Shaan Puri
Yeah, I'm like, "Do I just say she's a bad mom?" Like... that's not going to work.
Sam Parr
"Like, I'm the *caretaker*. She's a *drunk*, sir."
Shaan Puri
So I'm like, "I'm the *primary* caretaker of this baby," and... I don't even remember the baby's middle name at this? Then she's like, "So could your wife take care of the baby?" I'm like, "Oh God—I'm going way deeper in than I thought I was gonna go." So I say, "Yeah, but I just wouldn't feel comfortable with it." Then she's like, "Why?"
Sam Parr
"You're like, 'Look, your honor—what is it, noon? She's already about eight Xanax deep.' Okay."
Shaan Puri
I basically made my wife sound like either a bad mom or like a drug addict or something. I—like, she's a drunk. So I was like, “You know what? I'll be fine. I'll be here. Can't wait, dude. Can't wait. I'll be—I'll be there.” And so I just let it pass. The girl next to me—the lady asks her, “Can you do it?” She's like, “No.” The judge goes, “Why not?” She says, “It's against my religion. I don't believe you should judge anyone.” The judge asks, “What religion is that?” She goes—and she cited a Bible passage which was basically about, “Don't judge anyone; therefore they don't judge you,” or something. The judge was like, “Okay, thank you. You're dismissed.” I was like, “Oh my…”
MFM
"God, what?"
Shaan Puri
What was it?
Sam Parr
Couldn't you have just told them, "You're racist," or something?
Shaan Puri
Yeah, I thought about that, but I was in a *very diverse crowd*. I still have to... in case I don't get away with that, I didn't want to be around those people where I'm accused of being racist. So, you know, it was tough in the moment.
Sam Parr
But it.
Shaan Puri
That was the biggest thing — all I did was embarrass myself. By the way, it was so fun. Jury duty was a great time, and I'm glad I got to do it. It was a great opportunity.
Sam Parr
So, did you make him guilty or innocent?</FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
I didn't get picked in the end for the actual "eight in the box"—you know, the people who actually go sit there. I just didn't get dismissed early, so I...
MFM
So, you spent the day?
Shaan Puri
I spent three days there.
Sam Parr
"You should wear a **Purple Heart**, man."
MFM
You look at you — you're really...
Sam Parr
Just taking one for the country.
Shaan Puri
It was true.
Sam Parr
What's yours, Steph?
MFM
Guys, I swear my answers get better from here. My biggest personal **L** was staying in a job too long. No shade to my previous employer, but I think it sounds like a lot.
Sam Parr
Of shade.
MFM
No, no. *I promise. I promise.*
Shaan Puri
"It's like a canopy."
MFM
I just—so you guys know—I was working on a podcast for three years. It was a really cool opportunity. But I think it's the epitome of when other people think you should be good at something, and you think, "therefore you should be good at something" and that you should figure it out, versus driving full force toward something you *love* doing.
Sam Parr
And it was pretty prestigious. I think a lot of people would have been drunk off that as well.</FormattedResponse>
MFM
Yeah, and so now I'm at Grock, working on growth. It's just, for me, *way more fun*.
Shaan Puri
"Steph, did we not have a conversation about this? Did I not tell you—did we—that this was the case? Did I not try to tell you that? Don't carry this guilt or this feeling like you need to prove whatever. That you're a superstar and you should be doing superstar things. I think I gave you that: 'You're a superstar and you should be doing superstar things.' Talk."
MFM
You **100%** did about a year in, and it took me two more years.
Shaan Puri
To make the call myself. Yeah, I'm *not very persuasive*. Alright — next category we have is...
Sam Parr
**Coolest moment.**
Shaan Puri
coolest moment of the year
Sam Parr
"I've got a **good one**."
Shaan Puri
Actually, can we skip to—let's do a couple of the non-personal stories. We'll come back to that one. So, do you want to do **"Billy of the Year"** or **"Favorite"**? Which one do you want to do?
Sam Parr
Let's do **"Billy of the Year."**
Shaan Puri
Okay, **Billy of the Year**. Sam, you go first.
Sam Parr
Yes. I did this podcast with a guy named **Steve Houghton**. Steve Houghton is a billionaire via real estate and oil and gas, which is very vague, but I can explain. At the end of the pod I made a joke because we'd talked the whole time about how he was a billionaire, but it seemed like his kids really loved him. I made an offhand comment: "Yeah, man, I should come out and see how you manage your family. Sometimes it's an inspiration." Without skipping a beat he said, "How about in four weeks? We're going to be at our ski house. We have a room for you." I just said yes. I went downstairs to my wife and said, "Pack your bags, Sarah—we're going to Utah." She asked, "With who?" I said, "I met this guy. I just did a podcast with him. I've only known him for 60 minutes. I don't know anything about him, but we're going to his house." I got to his house and it was amazing for a bunch of reasons. I got to see how he interacted with his family—it was really amazing. People say **"money doesn't buy happiness,"** but I was very happy being in the 17,000-square-foot home with his entire family. I mean, this sounds like I'm being a d-bag, but this is the truth: I do think that wealthy people see their grown kids more than non-wealthy people, simply because there was room for all of us to be there and be comfortable. It was amazing. I've since stayed in touch with his kids. He had another family there as well, and it was such a fun experience. Steve Houghton was my "billy of the week," "billy of the year."
Shaan Puri
"Billy of the year — love it. Steph, who you got, Billy of the Year?"
MFM
Alright, so I tried to start from the perspective of: what is a piece of technology that I think is just incredible and mattered this year? That piece of technology for me was **Waymo**. A lot of people are familiar with it. I got to interview their chief product officer a few years ago at Waymo, and it's kind of crazy when you actually think about it. I think that was maybe two years ago, maybe three. When we were riding in that car in San Francisco, people at that time were still peering into the windows, like, "Oh my god, look at that crazy thing." In the last few years—at least in San Francisco, Phoenix, and a few other cities—it has become so normal. There are Waymos upon Waymos. I've been at intersections where there are eight Waymos at that intersection.
Sam Parr
Does it make traffic faster?
MFM
No, not necessarily. But I think if you could have all the cars on the road, it would make traffic faster for sure. But the person I chose—the billionaire. I don't know if he's actually a billionaire, so I'm cheating a little bit. But he's for sure worth hundreds of millions: **Sebastian Thrun**. He was one of the early...
Shaan Puri
He's like the founders' godfather of self-driving.</FormattedResponse>
MFM
Exactly. Let me throw out a few pieces of his timeline. He was motivated by **personal tragedy**: his childhood friend was killed in a car accident when he was 18. That pushed him to try to figure out the self-driving equation. In 2005, **DARPA** had a Grand Challenge funded by the U.S. government. His team won. In 2007, he joined **Google**. He didn't just create **Waymo**—he also co-founded and led **Google X**, their "moonshot factory." He co-developed **Google Street View** and was one of the creators of Waymo way back when. He left in 2014 and has gone on to do some notable things. In 2011, he put out an introduction to artificial intelligence course online for free; **160,000** students enrolled because he saw how people could learn online—you don't need to be at Stanford to learn about AI. He created **Udacity** in 2011. Since then he's also led the **Kitty Hawk** corporation. They were building electric flying cars; it didn't ultimately work out, but it's another example of him being early to trends. We're now seeing these **eVTOL** companies get off the ground. I just think this guy is super cool: he's been early to all of these trends and continues to build. Even though he was early to Waymo and is wealthy, he's still continuing to dabble.
Sam Parr
This guy's prolific. Good find.
Shaan Puri
There's a lineage of people under him. He had his initial lab, maybe at Stanford, and someone who was working on self-driving described that basically all the modern self-driving leaders—if you trace their lineage—came from that group. He had six or seven people under him; that school of thought branched out and created many of the people in the industry today. He's very much like a sort of **"grandfather" or "godfather"** to the industry.
Sam Parr
He's also—he's got some range. He created these "car things," which I think are *the most brilliant thing on earth*. But he also has a course business. I'm being a little silly, but that's, in my opinion, not in the same category as flying cars. **Udacity**, to me, is a very respectable, amazing thing. So it's pretty cool how much range he has.
MFM
Yeah, so, all of us who create courses—we're just like these **self-driving car** guys, right?
Sam Parr
Have to do the other same range.
Shaan Puri
Usually, range is like wide. His is almost up and down.
Sam Parr
"Yeah, our barbell doesn't have the weight on the other side yet."
MFM
So it's a little awkward to hold. We definitely have to go and do that.
Sam Parr
But that's *pretty cool*, though.
Shaan Puri
Alright, mine came down to a coin flip between John Morgan and **Jesse Cole**. I went with Jesse Cole, so we did an episode with him on the podcast and I was incredibly inspired by this guy. He's done what I think is basically impossible. If somebody had told me that ten years ago—like, “hey, there's gonna be somebody who is gonna make a minor league baseball team have more followers on social media than the Yankees and, by the way, all other MLB teams combined”—they're gonna have a 3,000,000-person waitlist and be selling out 80,000-person stadiums, and that he bootstrapped the business with his wife to 100,000,000+... I just think that is playing business on such hard mode. It's the equivalent, if you're nontechnical, of rockets that land themselves. To take a minor league baseball team that nobody gives a shit about, in a league that nobody gives a shit about, with players that nobody's ever heard of, and turn it into this incredible entertainment thing—it's amazing. The way he did it was so, I don't know, from the soul and passionate. There's a lot of creativity in being basically a modern-day P.T. Barnum. There was a lot of passion and soul to the hustle. Like, he's on the podcast, he's written four books, they do a show every weekend, they're traveling the world—he's just doing everything. It's just like, man, I would never ever be able to do something like that. And then the last thing was, I don't know, he was just a sweetheart when he was on the podcast. He's such a nice guy—so genuine. I think Samby told me they foster kids as well; I was just like, jeez, how good is this human being? I feel like we are lucky that there's somebody as creative and such a force of creativity as this guy walking the earth. I think I even told him that on the podcast: "I'm glad you are walking the earth," which I've never felt the need to say to another man, but I did that day.
Sam Parr
We used to joke and have this concept of *"the total man."* It was like, what does it mean to be a great man? He is one of maybe three people we've had on the podcast that I would put in that category. I felt—I was like, "You are a very special human being, and you are the epitome of what it means to be a man."
Shaan Puri
"We should have just been like, 'Can you lift your shirt up? If you've got a visible ab...' If you have visible abs, you are in the club, my friend." That's the only thing. It's like the fitness side is the only other part of the *Total Man* franchise that we don't know about him yet.
Sam Parr
I think that, you know, we've talked about this podcast on *living a rich life*, which means there's business, there's family, there's having a good life, and there's treating people wonderfully. I think that he is one of the richest people we've ever had on the podcast in terms of a holistic rich life. He felt like a very special person. If you look through his Instagram, he pays tribute to his wife, he talks about his team, and you see him giving inspirational talks to the players. I was just like, "this guy's got no flaws" — it almost was kind of intimidating.
Shaan Puri
The one little nugget that stood out was: they don't charge sales tax — **they eat the sales tax on ticket prices**. They're like, "it's $25 per ticket flat." So, you know, there's always tax... he's like, "no, no, no — we pay that; we eat the cost of that." At the scale they operate at, that's just millions and millions a year, simply so the average customer, when they're checking out, feels like they were taken care of. Versus, you know, being stuck at double the price, which is how Ticketmaster and these other [live-event] companies do it. When you buy from them, you just feel like you're being mugged at the checkout counter: "oh, and then here's the service fee, convenience fee, parking fee," and now it's triple the cost. That little nugget — how they don't just leave money on the table but put money back on the table — said a lot about actions versus words. Everybody says they're customer-friendly; very few actually do that.
Sam Parr
We talked to him. He made a comment where he said, **"Whatever you see—your predictions on how big our business is—it's much bigger."** I thought that was really cool. He didn't even say it as a flex; I think we teased it out of him. He didn't talk about numbers at all other than that one comment, and I thought that was really cool.
Shaan Puri
Yeah, that was amazing. Alright, the next category we'll do is the one we were about to do, which was... what was it—*biggest personal*?
Sam Parr
**Coolest moment in life.**
Shaan Puri
**Coolest moment.**
Sam Parr
I've got one. I've got one. So Sean recognizes this thing where we go to MrBeast's house or his town and we tour his property and play basketball with a bunch of successful people. Last year he had someone who was the 90th richest person in the world. He had all these powerful people. MrBeast was giving us a tour of his campus, so it felt like a movie studio. All of these guys there were trying to kind of be cool in their posture. MrBeast was saying the most ridiculous things you could imagine — like having this guy live in a home for one whole year and he can't leave the home until he loses 100 pounds. He was saying things like, "I spent this much money on this studio," and just ridiculous stuff. Everyone was trying to be cool, like, "Yep, this is what it takes to be the best. Totally get it." Jesse Itzler, who was there, was in the back saying, "This is the craziest thing. Why isn't anyone calling this guy out? This is the most ridiculous stuff I've ever seen. I can't believe this. How does one person live this way? This is just insane." Jesse Itzler was the most sane person there. He wasn't insulting MrBeast, but he was very reasonable. I think Jesse and his family are billionaires or near-billionaires. He's very successful. We've met a lot of people on the internet who appear a certain way, and when you meet them in real life there's often a gap. Sometimes if you do meet them in real life you think, "I don't want to be like you." Meeting Jesse Itzler was one of the coolest moments of my life because he was exactly — he was better than he appears on the internet. He was very inspirational to me. I felt he was someone I aspire to be very similar to, and he was like that when he was there.
Shaan Puri
I totally agree, but I don't think he did it justice. He wasn't saying, "This is bad — what Jimmy is doing." </FormattedResponse>
Sam Parr
> "No. I'm sorry. Don't."
Shaan Puri
Well, like—say the thing again about what *actually stood out*, because I don't think... no.
Sam Parr
He wasn't saying it badly; he was *in awe*. He said, "Can we acknowledge that this is just *insane and ridiculous*? It's cool, but it's just... this is insane." There was a funny moment where Mr. Beast parked his car in front of the entrance of the building—he drove his car across the parking lot—and Jesse made fun [of him].
MFM
Of him, he's like, "Dude, there's an open spot right there… what are—"
Sam Parr
You doing? I just thought it was funny that he was, like, teasing him, but he didn't.
Shaan Puri
"Get swept up in it like the rest."
MFM
Of his? No—no, and it...
Sam Parr
It was so funny. We were talking about some ridiculous stuff. We had a billionaire there who was saying that "*aliens are real*," and he claims to know this because he hangs out with White House people. It was pretty funny.
MFM
Did see that new documentary, *by the way*, about that?
Shaan Puri
Topic in particular: there's, like, a *documentary*. What is it called? Do you remember the name? Let...
MFM
Let me pull it up.
Sam Parr
When we were there, it was... I don't know if I — I won't say who it was, but it was a *very powerful person* who said: > "Tomorrow you're going to see a news story about aliens. I know all about it, and they're real." He was talking about it.
MFM
Yeah, it's called *The Age of Disclosure*. I watched it. Color me not fully convinced, but, you know, you should watch it.
Shaan Puri
**Partially convinced.**
Sam Parr
Did you agree that **Jesse Isler** was *just the man*?
Shaan Puri
Yeah, so my **coolest moment** was just yesterday. We didn't plan this, but no—Sam didn't know I was at his house yesterday. I flew to his house and spent all yesterday with him. My coolest moment has to do with that.
Sam Parr
So, what were you doing with him—recording a podcast?
MFM
Sam's jealous.
Shaan Puri
"You knew we were doing..."
MFM
You just — Sam's coolest moment was meeting the guy, and you dunked on him by saying, *"I hung out with him yesterday."*
Sam Parr
Well, he did a talk in *Manhattan* just the other day, but I already had plans. I didn't even get to go. So it just shows how much I really care. But no — he was...
Shaan Puri
So I just flew to his house. The coolest moment of the year. Last year—this time last year—Jesse came on the podcast and explained his New Year's planning process and philosophy: how he attacks the new year. Sam, I don't know if you remember, but we were both pretty inspired by it. One of his core concepts is this concept of a **"misogi."** He says the years fly by. If you ask me right now, "What did you do in 2018?" I don't know; I'd have to really think—how old was I, where was I living, what was I doing? What he does is pick a misogi, which is a **Japanese** ritual: a challenge, a hard, year-defining thing. That way you'll always remember: "Oh, that was the year I hiked X"—"I hiked Everest"—"That was the year I did my first Ironman"—"That was the year I did X, Y, Z." He could tell you 2015, 2016, 2017. For example: 2015—that's the year that David Goggins lived in my house and I trained with Goggins; 2016—that was the year I lived with the monks; 2017—that was the year I did my first whatever. After the podcast I was pretty inspired. I was like, what am I going to do? Jesse's really adventurous and big into these endurance races. That's never been something I've been drawn to. I had the will, but I didn't have the idea. That night, before I went to bed, I was on YouTube and saw a recommended video. I don't even know why I clicked it. It was this dude playing the piano—an Italian composer who's basically one of the most famous pianists in the world. </FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
He's like a modern-day composer. He was playing the song — a performance he did at the Steve Jobs Theater, which is about ten minutes away from where I was. I was at my sister's house that night, about ten minutes away from the theater, and I saw it. I was like, "What if I did this this year? *Forget business* — what if this was the year I learned?" You know, I can't dance, I can't sing, I've never played a musical instrument. I don't have that innate talent. But what if this was something I picked up? What if I could just jam out on the piano specifically? What if I could play this song? And so, as you know, Sam, I've been practicing all year and I've... [sentence trails off]
Sam Parr
I love the **Instagram** stuff.
Shaan Puri
I've been learning to play, but the one thing I didn't do was... The way **Jesse's** philosophy is: when you decide you're going to do something, you don't just make it a wish or a goal—you **plan a date**. It's like, "I'm gonna run this race on this day. I'm gonna take my kids here on this day." It's on the calendar. It's a thing you're working towards. That was the one part I never did. I was like, "I don't know—what am I gonna do, a piano recital? I'm not seven years old. I don't know what to do." So yesterday I'm at his house. He's giving us a tour and I'm there to do a podcast with him—another annual planning thing. We're walking by and he's like, "Oh, this is my favorite thing in the house. This is a piano my mother gave me before she died." I was like, "Do you play?" He's like, "No. Nobody's ever played this piano since we got it. It's here, but I love it." In my head I'm like, "Oh, this might be the perfect thing." That was my *misogi* last year when we did our annual planning. We're doing it this year; he doesn't know that he kinda triggered me to actually go do something. So I'm like, "I'm gonna do this." When we were talking about it I go, "Can I show you mine—my misogi?" He's like, "Well, what do you mean?" I was like, "Let's walk over here," and so we go and I play this song. Now I'm playing this—...
Sam Parr
You sing?
Shaan Puri
No — it's not a singing thing. It's just a piano song. I've been playing this every day in my house. I play upstairs in my room and, honestly, nobody particularly gives a fuck. My wife is like, "Good for you, but can you come help with dinner?" She's in the middle of three little kids. It's not like I'm getting a pat on the back for this. My kids don't really care about classical piano music. My wife doesn't really care. I had never really played for anybody else. This was my first time ever playing for anybody. When I finished, I turned around and it was the craziest thing. Jesse was there — he was crying. His head of strategy was there; she's crying and holding her phone. Sarah, his wife (whom I'd never met), who is the founder of Spanx, had come downstairs because she heard somebody playing the piano. She was crying; she was weeping and saying, "We have this — it's gonna be crazy." It's all on camera too. I happened to have a camera guy there because we were recording the podcast. There was this **full-circle moment**: last year he planted the seed, I worked hard on it all year. At first there was no real payoff; there was no purpose for doing it — I just wanted to do it. Then there was this **amazing payoff moment** where they actually gave a shit about what I was doing and appreciated it. That was amazing. I'd never felt that before. For me, it was not only the coolest moment of the year — it's one of the coolest moments of my life, if I'm being perfectly honest. I'm a little embarrassed to say it, but it really was this incredible high. It was totally serendipitous; I didn't plan any of it. The song is called... I don't even know how to say it properly. It's Italian, but it's "nuvol bianci" [uncertain spelling/pronunciation]. I'll put it in the description or whatever.
Sam Parr
That's awesome.
Shaan Puri
It's this great song, and I was like: > "I don't know what's happening. I don't know why everyone's crying. I don't know what's going on." But I feel like my *parking pass* just got extremely validated just now. Thank you guys for that.
MFM
That is *so* cool.
Sam Parr
"What did they say afterwards?"
Shaan Puri
Dude, he couldn't even continue the pod for, like, twenty [seconds]. He was like, "Dude, I'm blown away." He said, "I... I need, like, a minute." He was like, "That is so cool. You know, you're 37 years old, you pick up an instrument—you can do that in a year." His son had come down to listen while we were doing it, and he said, "I'm just so happy my son saw and heard that, because I hope it planted a seed with him of, like, 'Yo, you can—if he can do that in eleven months or whatever... dude, you could do anything. Anything is on the table for you.'" He was really inspired by it, and I was like, "Here's a guy who I admire." You and I both talked about this: he's our kind of *entrepreneurial north star*—a guy who lives a life well lived all around. Four kids, a beautiful relationship with his wife, adventurous trips with his friends, in great shape, runs 100-mile marathons, incredible business success, a great content creator—he's just prolific. He's built brands like Zico coconut water and sold a company to Warren Buffett. It's like, what more do you want out of life, right? The guy's done. He's played the game in a way I would love to have played the game—the game of life. To get that moment with somebody I admire was definitely **my coolest moment of the year**.
MFM
That's really great. I gotta say, when I first saw that you were learning piano, I thought that was the *coolest* thing I'd ever heard about you. I think there's something—no, *genuinely*—like... that's not to dismiss any of the other stuff, but I was just like, you know: when you're a creator online, as we talked about earlier, people make these assumptions about you. They sometimes dictate what is in your orbit. For you to be like, "No, no, no — this is something I want to learn," even if you might not be sure exactly why, and to just go do it — that's not what people expect. And then to do what you just did... I actually think that is *so cool*.
Sam Parr
Yeah, I commented on this podcast. I was like, "You know, all this business stuff is great, but the piano thing—it's, for some reason, *oddly inspiring*."
Shaan Puri
Well, the funny thing is, in the moment it never feels that way, right? I was walking out of my piano teacher's class and it's like, "Alright, Brandon, good luck, buddy." There were only seven-year-olds there; their parents were looking around like, "Where's your kid?" I'm like, "No, no — it was me." Was I the one getting the lesson? The piano lesson? It was kind of an odd thing to be doing pretty regularly. But I trusted my gut, went with it, and just leaned into it. I'm having fun, so what? I'm not forcing myself to do something I don't want to do. Why does everything have to be with an agenda? This kind of validates it: "Yeah, just keep doing that." Good things do happen as you keep doing that. Don't worry — you'll also get the rewards you seek in life, even when you're doing stuff that seems like it has no rewards. You're just doing it because you like it.
Sam Parr
Next podcast, I want to know—*all, all, all*—what it was about: hanging out with him.
Shaan Puri
Yeah. Will do.
Sam Parr
What about you, *Steph*?
MFM
By the way, there's a bunch of people in the chat who don't think we're live. **We are live for sure**, so keep posting your messages. My coolest moment... I was in between two. I did a big trip to Africa, and if you haven't done *gorilla trekking*, it is one of the most incredible things I've ever...
Shaan Puri
"Gorilla trekking? What did you say?"
MFM
*Trekking, tracking?* Yes — yeah. *Trekking, tracking* — you do both, basically.
Shaan Puri
"You're — they're trekking down a gorilla? Or you're something... What, your families?"
MFM
Of gorillas that live... We did it in Rwanda. They have it in Uganda. Not many countries other than that, and they're wild. So, every night—what does that say?
Shaan Puri
This was the date we went live. There's people in the chat who think this is *fake*, yeah.
MFM
So yeah, they live in the wild, and they move every night. They have trackers who go out every day to try to locate them. Then you trek through the rainforest—*truly*, there's mud up to your knees at points. You trek to where the trackers found them.
Shaan Puri
Which... which place?
MFM
In Rwanda.
Shaan Puri
Wow.
MFM
But super cool experience. My actual answer is: going to see the *World Series* with my dad. He's been a *Blue Jays* fan since I...
Sam Parr
"That's good to say."
MFM
Before I was born, the last time they won the World Series was in 1993. They had a double year—1992 and 1993—and then I was born and ruined it all. He kind of makes fun of me for that every year and is like... also he's the person who goes, "It's their year, it's their year." He made those trades, watches every game, [unclear: "160+"], and he's also where I get every ounce of my cheapness from. He would never, ever buy tickets for himself. So yeah, once they hit the World Series I flew home and bought them tickets for Game Six when they had their first chance to win. They didn't win, then [unclear: "yoed it"] for Game Seven. *Totally worth it.* I can't really think of a better way.
Sam Parr
Oh — did *two in a row*! Awesome.
MFM
Yeah, I mean, I wish either of them had won, because they...
Shaan Puri
Yeah, *that's amazing*. That's a really great thing to do. I can see why all NBA players' first thought is, "I bought my mama a house." I think there are very few things that will feel as good as taking your dad or your mom to do something they would love but would never do for themselves — and getting to do that with them when you're grown up. </FormattedResponse>
Sam Parr
Exactly. Do you guys want to combine **Frame-Breaking Person** and **Favorite Guest**?
Shaan Puri
Okay, what have you got?
Sam Parr
So... well — you have a *favorite guest*?
Shaan Puri
Well, let's explain what **frame breaking** is.
Sam Parr
"Dude, go for it."
Shaan Puri
Okay, so Sam and I use this term a lot: **frame-breaking**. Everybody walks around with some *frame*. Frame is like a border—everything inside the border is what you're used to, what you've seen, what you expect. That's what's in the picture; that's how wide your lens goes. Occasionally you'll meet people who completely break your frame. It's like... I didn't—it's like imagine a painting where somebody just starts drawing past the frame onto the wall. You're like, "What? You can't go out there." This might be somebody with extreme ambition, or someone who lives life to the fullest in a way you don't, or who is very intentional about their time. There are things people do that make you realize what you thought was a ten in that category is actually a seven. Now you know what a ten looks like. Someone's broken my frame—they've turned the volume knob up further than I thought it could go in that aspect of their life. So that's the setup: who is your frame-breaking person?
Sam Parr
So there's this Aristotle quote that I've been thinking about for like a year now. Last time we did this, I was saying I was trying to use my phone less. > "Excellence is never an accident. It's always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution." The reason I think about that all the time is because... I don't know about you guys, but if I'm on a Zoom meeting I'm probably browsing the internet. If I'm watching TV I probably have my phone up and I'm doing something. There's this constant pattern of interruption and never focusing on something, and it's kind of been tearing me apart — it's kind of driving me mad. So I've been working so hard on being intentional about my attention and focusing on excellence, but in a very few amount of things. Just picking a couple things and being great. We had this guy — I don't think you were here, Sean — named Will Guidara who wrote the book *Unreasonable Hospitality*. The story is, if you guys have seen *The Bear*, it was one of the inspirations for that TV show. Basically, he owned this very famous restaurant in New York called Eleven Madison [Park], and they're famous for going above and beyond. For example, someone was it...
Shaan Puri
The *top-rated* restaurant in the country — or what's the claim to fame, right?
Sam Parr
It was the top-rated restaurant in the country, in part because the food was special. It was a **Michelin-star** place, so it was fancy, but the other part was that they were known for being *unreasonably hospitable*. I'll give you an example. They had a couple — or a family — from Europe come to the restaurant, which they had planned for months to attend. Will [a waiter] overheard them say, "We're leaving tomorrow, but the one thing we didn't get to experience was a New York street hot dog." Will has a guy at his company they called the *Dream Weaver*. His only job was to make dreams come true for their customers. So this guy ran outside, bought a street hot dog — or a couple of them — and they chopped them up and put a cute garnish on them so it sort of looked like fancy restaurant food, but it was actually a street hot dog. They said, "We heard you talk about wanting a hot dog. Here you go — your dreams have become a reality." That's rooted in *unreasonable hospitality*, but the reality is it's about being excellent. He gave this amazing spiel. It's crazy — I think this hit on Spotify, but it did not hit on YouTube. This was the best podcast I'd ever recorded, based just on what he told me: he was like, "We are gonna go above and beyond, and we are going to be excellent." I found that to be kinda overfilling my cup, not just in the business category but in life — of pursuing excellence for the sake of trying to be great at a couple things. I found that to be a very inspirational book, and I find him to be a very inspirational person. It kinda broke my frame.
Shaan Puri
That was awesome. That was an *awesome rant and summary* of it, too. I love that.
Sam Parr
**Thank you. It was awesome.**
Shaan Puri
That scene in *The Bear* is the best. They recreated that idea in *The Bear*, and it was like *peak, peak television*.
Sam Parr
It was the best, and my favorite guest: **Sean Frank**. Sean Frank is the CEO of **Ridge Wallet**, which is a popular wallet company. I wanted—guys, this guy is so funny and so interesting. Sean is kind of like you and me: he can be silly and everything, but his silliness masks that I think he's actually a very serious person. I found this blog he wrote last year. Listen to this. He said, "My goal is to sell Ridge for a billion dollars in the next three years. I have to time it right because we're coming out of a bubble and interest rates are going to go up and then come back down—hopefully by 2025—and then by 2026 or '27 I'm going to sell this company." I just thought it was hilarious that this guy called his shot like that. If you listen to the podcast we had with him, he was a very direct person, and I find that to be incredibly refreshing. So I think Sean Frank was my favorite guest.
Shaan Puri
He's a great follow on Twitter as well.
Sam Parr
"Dude, he's like a *wholesome* guy. He's very *blunt*, and I find that to be a very cool combination."
Shaan Puri
Yeah, yeah—he's *funny*.
Sam Parr
So that's my favorite guest and my favorite *frame‑breaking* people. How about you? </FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
"Steph, you want to go next, or...?"
MFM
Sure, have you guys heard of **Fiona Oaks**?
Shaan Puri
No. Who is that?</FormattedResponse>
MFM
Frame-breaking person. Okay, so I discovered her because I've gotten into running lately, and I watched this spell...
Sam Parr
"Her name."
MFM
Fiona Oakes (O-A-K-E-S). This documentary was about her — it's called **"Running for Good"**, the Fiona Oakes documentary. Get this: she has been a vegan since she was six. She lost her kneecap at age 17 due to an injury and medical complications, yet she is this crazy marathon woman. She lives in a rural farm area in England and just runs a crazy number of miles. Doctors tell other patients who have lost their kneecaps, "You can't even walk downhill," but she's running these marathons. She has multiple world records. The craziest part is she does all of this because she just loves animals so much. She didn't grow up running or entering competitions — she wasn't on cross country. She just one day realized, "Oh, I'm pretty fast," and then started entering marathons to win money so she could fund her farm business and take better care of her animals. This woman was just like the most frame-breaking — who is this and how is she running 2:48 marathons? That's about **6:24 minutes per mile**, and she just does it. No one knew who she was until someone discovered her and they started making documentaries about her. She's just the craziest combination of things, and she's a world record holder.
Shaan Puri
She ran marathons before she lost her kneecap, or she started this hobby after?
MFM
I don't know how much running she was doing before the kneecap [injury]. But all of the records... all of—she lost the marathon on me; *wins at* [unclear].
Sam Parr
The age of 16.
MFM
Fourteen post. Yeah, post-kneecap.
Sam Parr
"And she's 56 now, and she's doing this shit. It's pretty wild."
MFM
Yeah, it's crazy. The documentary is funny too, because they start out and they don't share any of her times. They're kind of hyping her up, and you see her—she looks kind of old—and you're like, "Okay, sure. She might be fast for a 50-year-old, but she's not… no way she can be that fast." Then you actually look up her times and you're like, "Holy shit — this woman is a legend."
Sam Parr
I don't know how these guys run *so much*. The more I run, the more hurt I get. Like... I get.</FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
"She doesn't have the kneecap. That's the trick. Are you... are you not willing?"
Sam Parr
"Dude, remember that guy with the fake legs who ran the 400-meter in the Olympics?" "Yes, Oscar. Legal." </FormattedResponse>
MFM
Yeah, he also went to jail for... killing his...
Sam Parr
Yeah—he killed his wife? Yeah, I always thought that was *nonsense*. Why do these guys...
Shaan Puri
A frame or two.
Sam Parr
Well, yeah... why do they get to be in the Olympics? They don't... they don't have any.
Shaan Puri
He, in the normal Olympics or the...
Sam Parr
Yes — he was in the normal Olympics, which is *nonsense*. He doesn't have any legs that can get full of lactic acid; they're *metal legs*. Why does he get to go? You know what I mean? It seems ridiculous.
Shaan Puri
That is ridiculous.
Sam Parr
"It's ridiculous. I'm enraged. Yeah — it's ridiculous. Fiona Oaks, what's the documentary called?"
MFM
"It's called *Running for Good: The Fiona Oaks Documentary*."
Shaan Puri
"Did you have a favorite guest, also? Or do you want to just use her for both?"
MFM
No, I've got a favorite guest. You mentioned him before, so maybe he's your favorite guest. He's recent — John Morgan. I listened to a bunch of the episodes, and there were people like the Exploding Kittens guy, Eric Ryan, Sheel — all of those people. I went into the episode expecting to—like, I went into this episode expecting to not like John Morgan, right? And he just was incredible. The number of businesses that he's gone into — whether it's his attraction stuff, apartments, ad agency, or a tech company — is insane. But it was his one-liners that I was just like, *dude*, this guy simplifies all of this shit that us tech-company people overcomplicate into just the best lines. He's like, "I don't hunt deer; I hunt money." When he's talking about his URL, he's like, "I went for 'justice for all'." Yeah, he was like, basically, I was worried people couldn't spell *justice*, so for...
Shaan Puri
*The people, or something.*
MFM
Yeah. He went with "for the people." He also had this line where he's like, "I'm good at sharing the profits." I was like, "You know what? There's actually something to that." So many people are so bad at spreading the wealth. He's just like, "Look, I treat my people good. I share the profits." Yeah — "bullets before bombs." Crazy number.
Sam Parr
He got on, and Sean and I— I think, I don't know who booked him. We didn't know. I don't think we entirely knew what we were getting into, because he's now on this tour, but there wasn't a lot of information about him. I don't think we knew what we were getting into. I know I was going into it like, "We'll see." The first sentence he says is, "I got these attractions — this upside-down museum," and then he goes, "and let..." </FormattedResponse>
MFM
Let me tell you, it *fucking* prints money.
Shaan Puri
He didn't say "money" — it *fucking* prints.
MFM
"Yeah, he goes, '**We're fucking prints**,' he said."
Sam Parr
The "F" word's so hard. We don't say the "F".</FormattedResponse>
MFM
Word. Really. On this show, our eyes went wide open, and we were like, "Buckle up, baby — we're going on a roller coaster." This was something, and there...
Sam Parr
It was twenty lines, and I showed it to my dad because Morgan & Morgan [law firm]—I think they have an office in Missouri, so that's where the commercials were. He was like, "You can't air this. This is gonna ruin this guy's reputation." I was like, "I don't know, man. I think he knows what he's doing," because when I showed up he... he said the F-word literally fifteen times. Another time he goes, "Do you know why we win? Our competitors—they're lawyers, they're shit." And then he goes, "They're..." And then, when we go into a case and they don't want to settle, but six weeks in they see how serious we are and they want to settle, I go, "Fuck you."
MFM
I take them for *everything they're worth*. He—he was a very vulgar guy, but... </FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
If I was, like, a Netflix showrunner, I'd just be like, "I need to follow him around, 'cause I'm gonna build, you know, **Ari Gold–like** characters around this guy's personality and the way he rolls."
Sam Parr
And we go, "Why are you even...?" We said, "Why are you doing this?" He goes, "Because it's *good for business.*"
MFM
Also, I love that he's not— I mean, he built a tech company, but he's not in our tech world. He'd be like, "I was on Business Insider," or he'd say, "Sean, are you aware of this thing called *first principles banking*?" And I was like, "This guy's a G."
MFM
He said, "My whole stone best was what would Google do so." </FormattedResponse>
Sam Parr
That was *awesome*, **Sean**. What about yours?
Shaan Puri
Yeah. I mean, he was amazing. Also, I would say one other thing about him: I had this opinion — I don't know where it came from, but it was my default and I never even thought about it again — that *personal injury lawyers* are sleazy "ambulance chasers," blah blah blah. And then I thought, wait a minute. What's his actual story? His brother basically gets paralyzed on the job and has poor representation. He gets mad about that and decides, "I'm gonna go to law school, become a personal injury lawyer to fight for..." you know, to fight for that. And it's like, wait — yes. It's basically people who are fighting for the common man against large corporations, for the most part. I wonder why this isn't seen as a more noble profession. Obviously there are aspects that give it a bad rep — I get that — but I think the public opinion is overly negative toward this profession.
Sam Parr
Totally agree, man. Have you ever known someone who got hurt at work and thought, "**This is a travesty—these insurance companies should be paying you so much more**"? There's nothing you could do, you know? Have you ever... been in a car? I've been in a car where my car got messed up, and I was like, "This car is worth way more than you guys are telling me," but I just had to take it. Now imagine if this was *your mom* who got hurt. You know what I mean?
Shaan Puri
Yeah. I think most of his cases are against companies, like insurance companies. So it's a little weird that they have that reputation. Alright — I have a frame-breaking person that you guys probably don't know. Her name is **Kristen Berman**. Kristen is somebody I met at an event. I — I lied: I did go to one event this year. I went to the Dialogue Conference, and honestly didn't love the conference overall. But there was one conversation I thought was really great, and Kristen was part of it. She is a partner of Dan Ariely, so if you've ever read the book *Predictably Irrational*, he's one of the famous behavioral economists in the world.
Sam Parr
Like business partners, or married?
Shaan Puri
They run **Irrational Labs**, which I think is like a consulting firm. Companies come to them — you know, *Panda Express* will come to them and be like, "Hey, we want to provide healthy options, but how do we frame this in a way that people will choose them?" Or: "How do we get people to choose to insulate their water heater? It's good for the environment, and it'll save them money, but we can't seem to get them to do it. What are ways we could do that?" So they'll go to Irrational Labs and say, "You guys understand how consumers' brains work — what are ways to do this?" Anyway, she's telling this story, and the reason it's a frame-breaking story is she made some money. Let's just say she made a couple million dollars. At the time, she and her husband — I think maybe [unclear name] — were living in, let's call it, a two-bedroom apartment. What everybody I know does is: you make money and then you upgrade your lifestyle. You go from a two-bed to a three-bed to a four-bed to a five-bed, and then soon you're at the same... talk about like a 17,000-square-foot mansion. The more you keep going, that's how people use their money to improve their life. She, being a *behavioral economist*, had a very different perspective. It wasn't out of trying to be a good person or do something different — she was just like, "Well, this is what the data tells us matters." So what she did was keep the same apartment she was in, but she bought the three or four units right around her and created a basic compound. Then she invited people they really liked — people who would be amazing neighbors. They basically built their own little micro-community.
Sam Parr
Like, they rented... She rented it at a—she would rent it at a rate.
Shaan Puri
For below-market rent.
Sam Parr
Yeah.
Shaan Puri
And she's like, "You know, I just... it didn't even matter. We're not trying to make a rental property and get this cash flow. I'm not trying to upgrade my own lifestyle and live in this baller place." "No. Basically, the data says that the people you have around you—your **close-knit community**—is the number one thing that will improve your happiness. So we did that." "So we bought these other units. We now have people—kind of friends or friends-adjacent—apply to come in. We're really rigorous about who gets in. And then, when they're in, they're part of our life. We see them all the time, and it's been amazing." "She wasn't even really preaching about this, but I was kind of like, 'Wait a minute... this sounds simple. Sounds simple to do. I don't know anyone who's done that. Do you know anybody?'" "We know a lot of rich people. Do you know anybody who's actually done that?"
Sam Parr
Well, I *kind of* did that. Neville and I bought homes together.
Shaan Puri
"Bro, you moved away."
Sam Parr
I had, yeah, moved away. You're the opposite of doing that. I moved away to be closer to family. But I will say we were intentional about it, and it was **freaking awesome**.
Shaan Puri
Yeah, you might be the only person I know who's also kind of been like, "I'm going to live on the same block as this person," and that's more important than getting the bathrooms with marble and the other things we want. You know how most people pick and choose what they're going to do? In fact, most people I know who make money isolate themselves. They move into more private communities—bigger and bigger places with larger lots—and they basically create a pocket of loneliness. Maybe their family can't afford to live right next to them, or their friends aren't in the same category or looking to move at the same time. They move into places where people are used to not talking to each other. It's isolationist. I just thought this was amazing. It kind of broke my frame, but it was very inspiring. As much as I'm inspired to learn how to make money, I think Morgan Housel said it best: > "You can either use money in one of two ways: number one, as a *tool to improve your life*; or number two, as a *measuring stick* to measure your self-worth." It's so easy to get caught in money as a measuring stick. But money as a tool to improve your life means you've got to learn how to spend it just as much as you've got to learn how to make it. This was an example of how to actually spend money to improve the quality of your life.
Sam Parr
We should have her on this. Sounds great.
Shaan Puri
Yeah, we totally should. *She was awesome.*
Sam Parr
That's cool. That's a great one. I never heard of this person — that sounds *badass*. Does she have a book or anything, or is...</FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
Her—well, I think *"irrational"* was kind of part of their thing. I don't know... I don't know... I don't know too much. But yeah, let's have her on. She's gonna be great.
Sam Parr
"And what's your favorite guest?"
Shaan Puri
**Favorite guest was Nick Mobray.** This is basically the closest person to Elon Musk that I've ever met—not like closest as in friends, but closest in the sense of *"Oh wow, you're basically like Elon."* Elon was born in South Africa; this guy's in New Zealand and he went into the toy industry. If you haven't heard the podcast episode he did, he does very few podcasts. When I was doing research, there was one interview from 15 years ago—the only thing I could find—and it took about 30 emails to get him to come on. He was amazing: such a good dude, and his story is like a movie. He literally slept in a bush in China trying to make it happen. It was unbelievable—the "sleeping on the factory floor" mentality, the level of grit, living off a dollar a day until they made it. Now the brothers are the wealthiest men in New Zealand: self-made billionaires who own the whole thing. They not only built one of the biggest toy companies—probably top three in the world—based in New Zealand, but they also built a top-three diaper company and a top shampoo company. The guy is insane. He said that living off a dollar a day in China—eating McDonald's off the dollar menu—caught up to him and he had to have part of his small intestine removed. While he was in recovery in the hospital, he was watching TikTok and decided, *"I'm going to build one of the biggest brands on TikTok."* He built the biggest diaper brand as a side quest using TikTok. I'm like, this guy is an animal... to the?
Shaan Puri
After the pod — I don't think we caught this on the episode — he said something like this. I asked him, "Dude, have you ever met Elon?" He said, "No, never met him. I would love to have met him." Then he said, "You know, me and my brother, we were the largest shareholders in the world of Tesla stock. I'm a big fan." I asked, "What do you mean?" He replied, "Yeah, well, I think we owned — I forgot, he said 1% or 4% of Tesla — just personally. They owned it." He said that when COVID hit and the world stopped and the factories had to shut down, they didn't realize how huge their position was. "We reduced during that time," he said. "Huge mistake. We left $15,000,000,000 ($15 billion) on the table by not holding for the next five years." He also said his brother flew to California and installed cameras on buildings that had an angle on the Fremont factory because they thought, "This is such a huge position; we should monitor the factory production." I was like, "This is the most high-agency person I've ever met in my life." I was very, very inspired by Nick Mowbray. </FormattedResponse>
Sam Parr
It says on *Wikipedia* that they're worth collectively **$20,000,000,000**. I didn't realize. I thought that he was a billionaire, like **$1,000,000,000**. That's incredible. No.
Shaan Puri
And now they're 3D-printing houses. They're doing *crazy, crazy, crazy* stuff.
Sam Parr
And the base is just the toy company that was the foundation of the wealth.
MFM
"Yeah, that is so insane. When you hear these people who have *side quests* that are orders of magnitude bigger and better than anything you've ever built... it's *wow*."
Sam Parr
**Wow**, that was awesome. I knew the story, but I didn't realize how successful they were — that's *really amazing*. Okay, we probably only have a couple more we're gonna do. Yeah... do you wanna do — which one do you do?
Shaan Puri
"Biggest change you're making, and then the *meme of the year*, maybe?"
Sam Parr
Well, yeah. What's yours? **What's your biggest change?**
Shaan Puri
Alright. After hanging out with Jesse, I asked, "What's my new *masogi* gonna be?" We were both talking about reading a lot of books, but he said, "Dude, honestly, I feel bad. I don't read that many books. I don't even read five books in a year. I can't believe it—it's something I really feel like I should change." I felt similarly. So I took my phone and deleted X [Twitter], YouTube, and Reddit. I basically figured I could give myself back **10 to 15 hours a week** of time and mental space. I'm going to not consume any social media this year—get off social completely. I'll still post. I'll have my team post stuff. I can create for social, I just can't consume it. I call this the **"Luka Dončić trade."** It's like: what if I could get the best thing back—reading some of the best books of all time—and give up some crappy, problem-riddled assets, i.e., all these different social media apps. That's the trade I'm making for this year.
MFM
Damn. How—when did you make the change? Delete the apps.
Sam Parr
On the flight back.</FormattedResponse>
MFM
How many days ago? I was like— I was like, "How's it going?" So... **too early**.
Shaan Puri
I started early. It's not that huge.
Sam Parr
Shots like I do. I used to use social media just like you guys. Yesterday, I know exactly how you feel.
Shaan Puri
Oh, I can't wait to look down upon people who use social media. Imagine how *self-righteous* I could be.
Sam Parr
That's a great move. I used it last year. I used something called "Brick" for it — or I think it's called "Brick", "brick", or "The Brick" [not sure of the exact name]. It was really helpful. I don't actually have social media on my phone, but I do use it on my computer, which is not good either. But that's a good move.
Shaan Puri
"Yeah, you already do this. You read about **25 books** a year, and I think you're very *diligent*." </FormattedResponse>
Sam Parr
I've read a lot of books lately.
Shaan Puri
Putting your phone in a box—I think you're very *self-actualized* in that. Whereas I'm still like the mouse or the rat, pushing the pedal, trying to get a pellet of cocaine out of the thing...
Sam Parr
Having a second kid has reduced my reading to, like, close to nothing. I get up extra early and I go to bed — that makes me feel better. I have to go to sleep. So I haven't read a full book in months. I'll get through something and I'm like, "It's taken me a month to read this thing," because I basically have to get up at 6 and, by 10, I have to go to sleep. I'm so exhausted. So yeah, having kids has basically ruined — a second kid has ruined — my reading. Wait, what are we doing: *habit* or *change*?
Shaan Puri
For next year.
Sam Parr
I—you're not gonna see this, **Sean**, but lately I've been going a lot harder on **Instagram**. **Hampton** is going to be... we have this YouTube channel called *Moneywise*, and we're going to rebrand it and call it *Hampton*. We just rented a new office down the street from my current office. It has seats for 60 people and a big studio, so I'll be recording from that new studio. We're going to be creating a new YouTube channel, and I'm going to be doing a lot more Instagram content. I feel like the other day I did a video and I was recording and I was like... (trailing off)
MFM
Oh my God, that's, like, such...
Sam Parr
A boomer... I can't believe I just said that, but I'm going to go a lot harder on content. It's going to start with me **writing**.
Shaan Puri
Are you doing this to grow Hampton? Are you doing this because you want to be influential, or because you love creating content? What's the **true why** on this one?
Sam Parr
Well, I started my career because I enjoyed creating content. Then, when it became a little bit of a job, I disliked it as much, so I put it away for a while. Then I was like, "Look, the best way to grow my company is just to do this thing," and I started doing it as a job. Lately I've been doing it and I'm like, **I love this** — I love writing and figuring this out. I've been doing this stuff on Instagram now for only about three or four weeks, and I've got millions of views. I'm like, "This is actually a fun little game to figure out," and I enjoy — can I grow *Hampton* via content that isn't slop? I've enjoyed that, so that's my big change this year. Another simple change: I've been doing this past month to prepare for the new year. I get my workout finished at 7:00 a.m. — I'm done by 7:00 a.m. And I know that, again, we're doing *self-righteous* stuff here, but I hate getting up early and I love having gotten up early. It's been a huge difference in just my time.
Shaan Puri
Yeah, Saul Hill had this great quote. He's like, "I don't know any loser who wakes up at 5 a.m. to work out." And it's like—that's kind of true, right? Have you ever met a loser who does that?
Sam Parr
No — like, being at the gym at 6 a.m. and done at 7 a.m., you're like, *"It feels amazing."* It's so hard to...</FormattedResponse>
MFM
Do, though.
Shaan Puri
"Do you think you can *sustain* that one?"
Sam Parr
Well, I have to, because it's my job. My eldest kid—I get her out of bed at 7:30. So, if I'm going to exercise, it has to be done by 7:00 or 7:10. I've been doing it now for 30 days, and I think I can say: "The secret is very dumb." The secret is: **you have to go to bed by 10:00**. If you're in bed by 10:00, this is easy. That's challenging to do, but you have to be in bed by 10:00.
Shaan Puri
Right.
MFM
Every time I wake up at *5 a.m.*, I'm like, "This is amazing — I get so much done; why don't I do this every day?" And then... a year later, it happens again. My biggest change is *maybe kids* — we'll see. I'm feeling nervous about it. Do you?
Shaan Puri
Guys.
Sam Parr
Are you announcing anything?
MFM
**No. No.**
MFM
"Sam, are you?"
MFM
"Going to ask me?"
Shaan Puri
If I'm pregnant.
Sam Parr
Are you pregnant, *Steph*?
MFM
No — *to be clear*, I am not currently pregnant. We have not started trying, but it's on the radar.
Sam Parr
Do you want us to give you tips... like, **tips** on how to be a pregnant woman?
MFM
No, not tips. More like — *what do you feel great about with kids?* What makes you... I don't know. I think there's a lot, *especially when you're a woman*. You actually have to grow the kid, and then you have to provide for the kid for the first few years in ways that men don't. It's a little daunting. But I love hearing from both men and women about the best parts of having kids, because I feel like I don't hear those.
Shaan Puri
Enough.
Sam Parr
Sean, how do you talk about this without saying the most *cheesy* advice?
Shaan Puri
It's *every cliché* — everything you've already heard — but it's actually true. That's why it's hard to say. You feel lame even saying it because it's so obvious when you're in it. Whatever I thought life was before this was just pregame material for the real game. That's kind of how it feels in many ways: a higher level of intensity, of love, and of a sense of purpose. I would say the good thing about little kids — Sam and I both have little kids. Sam's are a little younger than mine, so he might not even be fully in this phase yet.
Sam Parr
My eldest is two.</FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
By the time your kids are kind of like three or four, they're talking, they're walking, they have a personality—it's a whole deal. They're just like a **little joy machine**. Imagine having a jukebox in your house: every time you go, you push the button and your mood lifts. The reason is that kids are experiencing everything for the first time, so you get to experience everything for the first time with them. They become the excuse for you to actually indulge it, to care, and to be your own version of a little kid. There are also incredibly satisfying moments because, whatever you feel about building a company or building a product, the truth is the *ultimate product* is those little kids you made. You get to shape them, see them grow, and watch all the amazing things happen. Take any of the feelings you've had from entrepreneurship, creativity, or creating, and now add some 3,000 years of biological hardwiring to love all those aspects at a much higher level.
Sam Parr
At this stage, when I see Instagram posts of a dad coming home from the military and hugging his child, I cry. I get so emotional by it. I put my eldest to bed at night and she lies on my stomach. I'm like, *this is—* have you ever thought about when your parents die? Do they go to heaven? At what age will you remember them? With my little girl, every night I'm like, "This is perfect. I will remember this forever." It's so important to be present. When I feel her stomach on my chest, I'm like, *this is peak happiness.* I have never felt this good, and I get to experience it every single day. It's very special. I think that for a lot of men, you don't love your child right away; it takes a little warming up. I'm at a phase in my life now where—this is a joke but it's sort of real—I remember when I got married I felt like, "I'll kill someone to protect you." Then when I had a kid it was like, "I will die for you." It's a weird way to think of it, but it feels so good to know I'm willing to dedicate everything I can to this, and it feels really great to feel that way.
Shaan Puri
The downside and the upside are both the same. The downside is: "Oh my God, this is a lot of work, and I don't have control over my time or my schedule the way I used to." For people like us—who always have more projects we want to do, things we want to learn, places we want to go—suddenly it's like, "Oh, I can't. I don't get to do that. It's not my schedule anymore." That's the worst part of it for me, at least, unless there's a health issue or whatever. That's the worst part in just normal life. But the best part is that *it's not about you anymore*. Actually, all the problems in your life—the bad feelings you had—were largely due to an over-importance of the self. The thing that's great with kids is: it's about them now. You get the highs from them, and you don't get the same amount of lows because you don't have that sort of self-rumination and self-indulgence over all the little things that bother you in your world, since it's really not about you anymore.
MFM
Yeah. I had a friend who had a kid recently, and I visited her. She was just like, *"Your emotional spectrum is just stretched — but in the most beautiful ways,"* because you're responsible for this being. When she was walking out with her kids for the first time, she said, *"I've never felt more stressed, because I just saw all the things that could maybe harm my child."* But at the same time, as you're saying, it's a new set of emotions — maybe not as self-centered. It's just a more interesting aspect of life that, if you don't have kids, you're never going to get to experience, in my sense. I haven't had them, but... I find that.
Shaan Puri
Good way of putting it. Like, "Oh, there's *three new colors* you didn't know about." You know—it's like this whole other thing you get to see.
Sam Parr
I *hate* saying that — I agree with you. I hate saying that because when people don't have children, it's not a reversible decision, and I don't ever want to make someone feel bad. I don't love talking about that. But I do feel like it's the first time I've ever felt like my purpose in life is being fulfilled. You think that way about work sometimes, and then we had it. I hate being high and mighty and shit, but you have a kid and you're like, "Oh — this is it." This is why I tried to impress a girl so she would like me and then I could reproduce with her. Now I have this thing, and it's like I am connected to the 20–50 billion people before me. It feels kind of special — very strange, but special.
Shaan Puri
"Yeah, it's hard to talk about it because... you feel *lame and cheesy*, and you don't want to — it's just your personal experience. You don't want to influence others. But when someone asks, you're like, 'Oh, I think I want them. I'm kind of on the fence. I want to hear about it,' and then... okay."
MFM
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Shaan Puri
Permission. Be permission to cheese.
MFM
Well, thank you — and *sorry* for forcing you guys to do that. Someone in the chat was like, "Well, this just got serious, so we can move on."
Shaan Puri
"Well, we'll end on a light note. We have a favorite tweet/meme of the year — what do you have? Let's start with **Steph**."
MFM
Guys, mine is boring, but I just loved the **"May I meet you"** meme. It was *so good* — so good. Like, what is this activist investor doing, giving dating advice and just the...
Shaan Puri
You, as *Versatility* — a woman who's also in business and tech — you get on Twitter and you see this happening. What was going through your mind? Give me the range of this cycle you went through.
MFM
I thought it was truly hilarious. I think... I don't know — *as a woman*, there are so many times when men think they know what women want. And I'm sure Bill Ackman is a catch; I'm sure he's also six.
MFM
"Do it."
MFM
Feet, right? He's got a bunch of money, and, like, you know, he's going up to these women saying, "May I meet you?" He's gathering that—that is the **defining action** the women are liking. I don't know; I just thought it was so funny because of the memes that came from that...
MFM
You get.</FormattedResponse>
Sam Parr
Hit on a lot, *Steph*, like in work events.
MFM
*Not too explicitly,* I mean.
Sam Parr
But it could, maybe, occasionally.
MFM
Occasionally, but I think I've been able to stay. *I don't know* if it's just my vibe, or if I'm, like, not that much of a catch...
Sam Parr
I've—no, definitely heard.
MFM
"No, I'm saying I've heard many women who have it **way worse** — where, basically, anywhere they go they just can't live normally."
Sam Parr
"That's crazy, Steph. So you saw...?"
Shaan Puri
That advice—what would your advice have been? If **Bill Ackman**—he meant well—he was like, "I heard that it's tough out there for young guys. Here's a little bit of advice." If "may I meet you" was wrong, what's the right advice?
MFM
I feel like—well, I mean, he's right: you just gotta approach a girl. Girls like **confidence**, but I also think they like **humor** and you being **authentic**. Even just going up to a girl and saying, "Hey, I'm really nervous, but I gotta talk to you"—this is not the best pick-up line—but I feel like walking up to a girl is something that probably nine out of ten guys will not do. If you happen to say, "May I meet you?" it's probably fine. I don't know... just be natural.
Sam Parr
"**Sean**, are you sharing right now? Is that your screen?"
Shaan Puri
No, that's not me. But—I forgot what it is—Lil Dicky has one that's great. I wish I had this back when I was single; it would've helped me. He's like, "Oh, I have the perfect pickup line," and we can play the video to get it right. But the summary of it was: he would go up to a woman and he'd say, "What's your availability as far as being hit on right now?" She would laugh and she would know his intentions. And then, like, [unclear: "I gave her it out and I gave her it in"]. You know, he's like, **"It works every time."**
Sam Parr
"That's."
MFM
Pretty good. Someone in the chat just says, **"Hey, I need you."**
Shaan Puri
"Oh yes. I need you — a **higher-intensity** version of Angie. Yes? Do you?"
Sam Parr
Remember when you guys—Sean or whoever—was screen sharing? I just sent an example of one. But the best content on social that I'm following this year... do you remember, Sean, when we talked about *cinematic content*? I think we talked about *Creator Camp*. Is that what we discussed? So, here's just one example of a podcast. I'll send you a few more examples, but that's just one example of a podcast. Who is this—Mark Brazil? Have you seen this guy's podcast? I've... </FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
I've seen this because it *stands out* right in the feed.
Sam Parr
Oh my God—what's that?</FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
It's like a hostage negotiation situation.
Sam Parr
And so we've talked about **cinematic content**. We talked about this company called *Creative Camp*, and I'm noticing that—if you guys follow these—there's a bunch of 22–25‑year‑old kids making content that is not just the typical talking‑head videos. It's beautiful, and it's starting to transfer over into podcasting, which normally they don't do. Chris Williamson has done this with his sets for Matthew McConaughey. I'm noticing that this type of cinematic content—with a beautiful background and not just... your phone—is way more popular. I love it. I love this stuff. I'm loving internet content at the moment because of this trend.
Shaan Puri
So, *not* a tweet.
MFM
Alright.
Shaan Puri
"Or a meme."
Sam Parr
You said, "Yeah, you're right. You did say 'meme in the ear.'"
Shaan Puri
But I think it's *cool*, and you're right.
Sam Parr
Dude, don't know — you pay attention to memes? *I don't pay attention to memes.*
MFM
Anything's a *meme* these days, guys.</FormattedResponse>
Sam Parr
But it's always... a meme. It's not a long-lasting thing; it's just...
MFM
Whatever — it was like the Drake video. It's hard... like...
Sam Parr
"Drake video, or all the trends on Instagram — yeah, it's cool for a week and I love it, and then it's like, *'move on.'*"
Shaan Puri
I'll give you two. The first — I'll give you a funny one first. Alright? Put it by a funny one. This one's just... it wasn't the most funny thing, but I gotta say it's affected every day of my life. The tweet is a reminder that tapping your credit card is a *spiritually passive and feminine behavior*, and men should pay via confident and a penetrative thrust into the chip reader. I read this, I laughed, and now every time I pay for something I can't help but think about this. I've been thrusting, friends — I've been thrusting.
MFM
You gotta walk around with that wad of cash. That's the **most manly thing**.
Sam Parr
You can do that was right. </FormattedResponse>
MFM
John, you do need a wad.
Shaan Puri
Look at **John Morgan** right there.
MFM
You know.
MFM
What I mean.
MFM
Haven't pulled out a lot of you.
Shaan Puri
Finger lick before I start unfolding some bills.
MFM
Dude... so.
MFM
Because that's how.
MFM
You pick up girls, just count your bills, just turn the corner.
Sam Parr
My father-in-law did that. He had, like, a thousand dollars in twenties. One time he had it wrapped in a rubber band and I was like, "I'm in." So when I bring a wallet, I definitely like to have $500 or $1,000 in $10s and $20s... that it just
Shaan Puri
It looks weird in the pocket, though.
MFM
They know.
Shaan Puri
I know something.
MFM
"They know."
Shaan Puri
And then I have a **wholesome tweet**. This is from **Jay Yang**, a young guy who said something very wise. </FormattedResponse>
Sam Parr
Is that the "*you could just do things*" guy?
Shaan Puri
He's the "you could just do things" guy, and he said, "Here's the hill I'm willing to die on." He says, "Real success is how many people thank you for theirs." I thought, "Wow—that's actually really profound." I think I'm going to steal that as, of all this, what's the north star as far as success goes. I was like, I think that's the best metric.
Sam Parr
I say something that I've noticed, **Sean** — with you and me — and I'm wondering if this is true for everyone or a lot of people. So *inspirational, motivational, cheesy content*... there's, like, I don't know what...
Shaan Puri
It's the back.
Sam Parr
It's... I don't know if it's called a *bell curve*. It's like an upside-down bell—where you're in the middle; it's a curve. You're in the middle of your... or you're at the beginning of your career and you use it like crazy. I read so many self-help books and I would listen to **Tony Robbins'** audiobooks constantly. Then you start getting in the thick of it and you're like, "I just gotta get this thing done. I gotta spend five or ten years doing it." Then you get past that and you're a little bit on **Maslow's** highest hierarchy of needs [self-actualization], and it's so back. I listen to so many **Jordan Peterson** or **Alex Hormozi** compilation clips where it's just yelling at me or reading inspirational stuff. Are you guys doing that same thing right now?
Shaan Puri
*Love me a...*
Sam Parr
"Good love."
Shaan Puri
Me a good little—like, I don't know... *give me some metallics.* I need some *metallics* in my life, you know? That's how I feel. I love a good quote. I actually realized that most smart people look down upon classic quotes or clichés or motivation or inspiration. Good — more for me, more for me. I'm all in on that. That is the **"index funds of content"** for me. Put me in; I want it all.
Sam Parr
Same. I'm on board with that.
MFM
You're—you guys are into "Live, Laugh, Love."
Sam Parr
Yeah, yeah—exactly. I was gonna say that: this is the *"Live Laugh Love"* version. But you know what, Steph, there's a reason why millions of basic Oklahoma and Missouri women have this on their walls.
MFM
Oh no. I know. I'm just *two years away*. I see it coming.
Shaan Puri
"Yeah, you, Steph — are you, like, 'I don't like fortune-cookie stuff right now; you're like, *I want...*'?"
MFM
"Yeah, I spent years reading personal development books. Now I'm at that point where I'm like, *I know it all.* I read a new personal development book and I've seen it before. But I know — I hear what you're saying — in a few years it's going to come back and I'm going to be like, *these people were so wise.*"
Sam Parr
"Look, Steph. I'm going to be... I'm going to be *patronizing* to you. You're *young*; you'll figure it out."
MFM
You'll get... I really...
Shaan Puri
"Like that."
MFM
Two years older than me — *something like that.*
Sam Parr
You'll get there. You'll understand once you have some kids' stuff. How old?</FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
Are now and...
Sam Parr
Then, when you have one...
MFM
When you...
Sam Parr
Have one kid? When you have one kid, we're going to say, "Wait till you have two."</FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
Wait till you have two. That's— that's the most *patronizing* thing.
MFM
Which one have you got?</FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
That's easy while somebody's in the deep.
Sam Parr
Sean's got a *gaggle*.
Shaan Puri
I got three. </FormattedResponse>
MFM
"You going for more?"
Shaan Puri
So I get to do it, too. Sam's got two, so I'm like, "Oh—two? I don't work on vacation. Oh, that must be nice."
Sam Parr
"I'm not gonna blow up her spot. I'll let you decide, Sean. But Sean's wife on Instagram is a great follow right now. She does some wild *Elf on the Shelf* stuff, and it is a great find. Sarah and I will be like, 'Look at what she did today — it's incredible.'"
Shaan Puri
I went to, like, a kid's school performance today. This mom came over to her and said: > "I just gotta say, *I live for your story right now.* Every day I'm checking—when is she gonna post it? I'm not gonna do any of that stuff, but I love that you do it." I was like, "Oh God... you never want to be in that position."
Sam Parr
The other day she took a huge wall—like, imagine a one-bedroom wall—and, using **Post-it notes** (I think they were Post-it notes), she outlined *the Grinch*. So imagine the Grinch's face, but the art is made entirely from Post-it notes.
Shaan Puri
I gotta show you.
MFM
Off the not as time last. So sick.
Sam Parr
It was like a *Monet*.
Shaan Puri
It's still up. We're not taking it down.
Sam Parr
I don't think you can. That looks like... she must have *used string to make the grid*, right? It looks pretty intense.
Shaan Puri
It's hilarious, because it was the only one of the season I did with her. It was such a big one to do, and we needed some bonding time, so I was like, "Okay, let's do this." But she's a *perfectionist* and is good at things, and I'm a **"good enough is good enough"** kind of guy. So it was just an awful experience for both of us to try to do that together, because she's trying to create a grid, and if something was off she'd...
Sam Parr
Have — it's like putting together furniture with your girlfriend. It's just like... it doesn't — *I'm done.*
Shaan Puri
They're four years old; they're not going to know. They can't even see this high, so they will never know that there was a *one millimeter gap*, and she had to fix it.</FormattedResponse>
Sam Parr
She must have listened to the Will Gudera podcast that I did.
MFM
She was her inspiration, for sure.
Sam Parr
"Must be a listener."
MFM
Wait, I want to hear you guys... We...
MFM
Didn't do "best new habit." Did you guys have a good one for that? I also, partially, just want to brag.</FormattedResponse>
Sam Parr
What, you're a runner now, Steph? We get it.</FormattedResponse>
MFM
This year, we missed that one.
Sam Parr
You're a **runner**, and you're **fast**.
MFM
Got Sam's like, "We missed it intentionally."
Sam Parr
No, I have... I think you've— you've been running, really. I assume you're gonna say "running," right? Because your times are actually *incredibly fast*.
Shaan Puri
Yes, yes.
MFM
I'm like, "I didn't run."
Shaan Puri
All these miles. </FormattedResponse>
MFM
For now... now we can finally talk about it.</FormattedResponse>
MFM
"Go for it."
MFM
What am I running all these miles for? No... yeah. My best life hack/new habit—*the category was running*—and I just wanted to say that I started running about **14 to 16 months ago**, and I've run **two marathons**. I'm mentioning it because I feel like everyone runs now, but there are a ton of people who have never done it because they think it sucks. It's awesome, and I think anyone can get to the point where they're running marathons or running **three miles a day**. That's how I started, and yeah—I feel pretty good.
Sam Parr
About it—what was your... wasn't your time, like, sub-eight-minute miles?</FormattedResponse>
MFM
Yeah, I just ran my second marathon — **3:30**, so just under that.
Sam Parr
That's **incredible**, Sean — that's fast. Why?
MFM
Yeah, I just said it there.
Shaan Puri
"Why do people do this?"
MFM
Why do all of you who are doing this do this?
Shaan Puri
"That's how I feel about *running marathons*."
Sam Parr
It is awesome. It is awesome. I like to run. I'm horrible at it. I get more joy out of running than from weightlifting or any other exercise. I think it's less good for you than the other stuff, but *it's the most enjoyable when it hits.*
MFM
It's because you can... I mean, you can do this with weightlifting, but you can *measure your progress so clearly*, and you can also progress really quickly, I think, compared to other sports or...
Shaan Puri
I think it's just going to be...
Sam Parr
One of...
Shaan Puri
Those things for me: **mustard**, **pickles**, **running**.
MFM
Just things I don't like.
Shaan Puri
"That other people seem to love, I just *can't* do it."
Sam Parr
I don't know, man. Twenty minutes into a fifty-minute run, you go into a little cave. It's kind of *special* — it's cool. You should try it.
MFM
Here's my pitch: everyone talks about this *"running high."* Don't chase the running high because it's far away. Think about it — do you like walking?
Shaan Puri
Love walking. Huge walker.
MFM
Great. So the feeling you get when you're walking is not, "I can't wait for this to end." It's more like, "I'm outside—look at this beautiful thing; my body feels good." There is a **spectrum**, not a binary difference, between walking and running. People talk about them like they're two separate things, but there is some version of running that might be really slow right now, where you feel like you're walking. If you start there—which is not where we're taught to start—and you just run at that pace for a mile a day, then two miles a day, and keep doing that for a while, you will get to a point where your body becomes more efficient. Over time you're going to be running ten‑minute miles at that *walking‑feeling pace*, and you're going to love running. I'm telling you.
Shaan Puri
"You okay?"
Sam Parr
**"Nice try."**
Shaan Puri
Yeah, the jury will consider what you said, and...
MFM
And he might be out for a flight — *I don't know.*
Shaan Puri
Guilty. Alright, that's it.</FormattedResponse>
Sam Parr
Do you?
Shaan Puri
"A habit you wanted to do, or no?"
Sam Parr
*No waking up early.*
Shaan Puri
Alright, well, Steph — I hope you got that in. That's great, Steph. You have some **offer** for people who are listening. What is the offer? What is the thing that you're giving people if they go in the **comments** or the **description** and click? What is it?
MFM
Oh yeah. **HubSpot** and you guys at **My First Million** were very kind and generous to offer **Internet Pipes**, a project I've worked on for the last two years. You probably heard about it on the podcast before. If you go to the link in the show notes, you can enter to get one of 10 copies. There's also an **MFM** code you can use if you don't want to wait for that. If you end up winning, we'll refund you. And if you enter, you get my Digits database — it's like **100+ digits**. These are generation-defining trends that hopefully will mean something meaningful in the future. We talked about some of these really impressive people before. But what did Elon see? He saw that it was possible to exponentially decrease the cost to send a kilogram to space. What does that mean? It means completely rethinking our communication system — Starlink, so... </FormattedResponse>
Shaan Puri
They go in, they **definitely** get the database. Then ten people will also get free access to *Pipes*.
MFM
Exactly.
Shaan Puri
Alright. Go get it. Alright, guys—peace. </FormattedResponse>
Sam Parr
God bless. God bless this podcast, Sean. Good, good year.
MFM
One of those things, you guys didn't even...
Shaan Puri
Catch—can't see. What does it say? I'm on a small screen.
MFM
It is backwards.
Sam Parr
How about those noodles?
MFM
Those *damn* noodles. That's a wrap.