Our Best And Worst Investments of 2025

- December 18, 2025 (3 months ago) • 01:39:47

Transcript

Start Time	Speaker	Text
00:00	Shaan Puri	"Alright, so, Steph — welcome back. You've been on, thank you, 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."
00:22	Sam Parr	Well, I wish I actually would have recapped some of the numbers. But over the last twelve months, Sean — I don't know if you've known this — we've had something like 90 million views across everything: downloads and views. Amazing. Pretty wild. I... that always...
00:36	Shaan Puri	I believe — I think we're close to two million subscribers across YouTube, Spotify, and Apple, or whatever, which is bananas. I mean, that number — 90 million — that's a lot of view time. A lot of views.
00:50	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 where we told the story—maybe you told the story of Elon Musk—that got 30 million. So 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. Now we do this at the end of every year, and it's one of my favorite things we do. We use mostly the same categories each year. It's always so fun to go through your phone, look at old photos, and see what's going on 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?
01:27	Shaan Puri	"Best investment you made this year? Sam, you wanna kick this off?"
01:31	Sam Parr	Yeah, so if this just says "investment"—it doesn't say "best money investment." My best money investment is always boring because I just do the S&P 500 and bonds. But my best real investment 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. I went to the previous tenants and asked, "Do you guys just want to sell me all your furniture?" They itemized everything, and it added up to be about $80,000 or $90,000 worth of stuff. I said, "I'll give you 10%." They took it. So I ended up moving to the city into a furnished apartment. 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.
02:20	Shaan Puri	- Owning less stuff - Moving to the city - Being near your family
02:24	Sam Parr	Yeah.
02:24	Shaan Puri	Working in person, in an office, is actually a pretty big change overall.
02:27	Sam Parr	Huge change, and it's definitely made me a lot happier.
02:30	Shaan Puri	Questionable if it's an investment, but it is a huge change. I will give you that.</FormattedResponse>
02:33	Sam Parr	"It's an emotional investment. I'm emotionally invested in this city now."
02:37	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 answer. I'd 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."
02:49	Sam Parr	I... what am I gonna say? My net worth went up by 30% this year through boring stuff like... </FormattedResponse>
02:57	Shaan Puri	Steph, what have you got? Best—best investment of the year. Tell me it's an actual investment and not like...
03:01	Steph Smith	Sean the...
03:02	Shaan Puri	Best investment.
03:02	Sam Parr	Is I'm.
03:02	Steph Smith	About to disappoint you, man.
03:04	Shaan Puri	Oh my God.
03:04	Steph Smith	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 have to come up with something else. My "investment" is also not really an investment—it's Accutane. You guys know what Accutane is?
03:21	Shaan Puri	What? Yes, yes — is that like acne medicine? What is that?</FormattedResponse>
03:25	Steph Smith	Yes, yes — backstory real quick. I've had acne my whole life, like truly since I was 13. I'm 32 now, so that's nearly two decades of just unnecessary pain... time applied — just the worst. Anyone who's had acne knows it sucks. I spent forever thinking, "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 what podcast — but he just slipped it in one day. He said: > "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." First of all, yes — why don't more people talk about this? Second, I'm gonna 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, obviously your mileage may vary — go talk to a doctor — but this is the best thing ever. People, the internet can do the comparison. I always wear makeup, so if you go back to V1 of me on the My First Million [podcast], it's gonna look different right now.
04:37	Shaan Puri	"You should post a tweet of a true 'before and after.'" </FormattedResponse>
04:41	Sam Parr	Well, I think that's the thing.
04:42	Steph Smith	"People are so embarrassed to... If I were to actually take [photos], I'm sure I've got some images of me — no makeup during those periods. It's embarrassing."
04:51	Shaan Puri	So, well, we have another category called "biggest personal [loss] you took," and maybe... maybe there will be some.
04:56	Sam Parr	Photos of them might just be...
04:58	Shaan Puri	Shared during that time. Okay, so you also didn't do the category—we're off to a rough start here. Alright, so my investment... it is actually kinda funny. A year ago to the day—so this December 17 (today), I tweeted out on December 16 this tweet. I said, "I'm going Christmas shopping this morning. I'm xmas shopping assets this morning," and I tweeted it out. Basically, what I did that day was take something like $1,500,000 and spread it across these stocks, and I tweeted it out that day. I said, "I'm putting 20% into Shopify, 20% into Tesla, 20% into Eli Lilly, 20% into Bitcoin, 20% at Coinbase." The one I forgot to put on here is I also put 20% into Google—oh sorry, not 20% Google. I basically put $250,000 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 looked this morning because I haven't really been checking too aggressively. A couple were flat: Coinbase and Bitcoin are essentially flat—Coinbase is up 1%, Bitcoin is down 8% over that year span. But everything else: Shopify is up 53%, Tesla is up 17%, Eli Lilly is up 35%, Google is up 50%. So my public stock bet that I put out there is my best investment of the year, because I think the blended average here is... I thought I pulled it up somewhere. I think it's something like 35% for the year. So that was a good return on a one-day shopping spree.
06:50	Sam Parr	You use these words like "shopping spree" and things like that as if they apply here, which is hilarious.
06:58	Shaan Puri	I was supposed to be Christmas shopping—gifts for others. Instead, I bought stocks for myself.
07:02	Sam Parr	I thought you committed to the index path last year. I distinctly remember you saying that.
07:06	Shaan Puri	No, no. If I did, these are false promises. I'm—I'm—I'm part of this degenerate lifestyle for now and for always.</FormattedResponse>
07:14	Steph Smith	So, Sean, what do you do? Do you keep those five, or do you pick five new ones? </FormattedResponse>
07:17	Shaan Puri	The one part that's not—I'm not trading. These are like: what companies or assets do I want to own for a ten-year—ten years is sort of my default hold. That's basically what I've been doing since I graduated from college in 2010. I had one thing that I bought and held from 2010 to 2020. Then in 2020 I bought a bunch of stuff, which wasn't so great because that was when COVID was happening and 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.
07:46	Sam Parr	"Why Eli Lilly? Because I do Ozempic."
07:49	Shaan Puri	Because you told me that they had some drug that was incredible, and you were like [unclear: "retroditae"] — "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... it was literally only that. It was just you telling me that this drug is incredible and it puts Ozempic to shame, and it wasn't fully out yet or something. I don't know what, I don't know, you had some early...
08:11	Sam Parr	I got a guy.
08:11	Shaan Puri	Around this.
08:12	Sam Parr	Yeah — I had a guy, basically. I like to biohack, so 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, but yeah.
08:28	Shaan Puri	Your friend does all this. Your friend is also named Sam.</FormattedResponse>
08:32	Sam Parr	As well, 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... It's just that anytime something new comes out it's sort of like, "Oh, what's that—a DVD player? I gotta buy one." You know? That's what I do with drugs. It's like you learn about new technology. Yeah, it was amazing.
08:52	Shaan Puri	So you told me this, and then—since...
08:53	Sam Parr	Then, did you research those?
08:55	Shaan Puri	No, no, dude — you told me, I think, that day, and I was like, "You know what? I'm putting Lily."
08:59	Sam Parr	In 34%.
09:01	Shaan Puri	"That's up 34%. 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 a trillion-dollar company (it's the first pharmaceutical company to do that), he's explained all the incredible things they do differently from others and how they're using AI. I feel better about it now. There's more to like, but I can't say that 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 going to want... I just sort of thought people are gonna—Ozempic is like the best product ever, and Sam says they have a better Ozempic coming. Alright, great, that's enough."
09:44	Steph Smith	"Sean's investment thesis just says, 'Sam tried some drug.' That's it." </FormattedResponse>
09:48	Sam Parr	The history of me—that's been all right.
09:50	Shaan Puri	More of Sam's other ones, and so I thought, well, for once, I'll do this.
09:53	Sam Parr	"For example, do you remember when we invested in the mobility trend on Instagram?"
09:59	Shaan Puri	No payoff, but yeah.
10:01	Sam Parr	Like, there have been a few things we've invested in. We invested in Andrew Huberman early on. We've got a couple of investments, right? It just turns out this one was financial. That's cool.
10:09	Shaan Puri	"That's great, Steph. You have some offer for people who are listening. What is the—what is the offer? What is the thing that you're giving people if they go to the comments or the description and click? What is it?" </FormattedResponse>
10:18	Steph Smith	Oh yeah, HubSpot and you guys at My First Million were very kind and generous to offer. Internet Pipes is a project I've worked on for the last two years. You've 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 ten copies. If you enter, you get my Digits database — it's like 100-plus generation-defining trends that hopefully will mean something meaningful in the future. Things like: what did Elon Musk see? He saw that it was possible to exponentially decrease the cost to send a kilogram to space. What does that mean? Well, it means completely rethinking our communication system — Starlink.
10:58	Sam Parr	Right.
10:59	Shaan Puri	What does it go in? They definitely get the database, and then ten people will also get free access to Pipes.
11:06	Steph Smith	Exactly.
11:08	Shaan Puri	Alright — go get it. Okay, so does that mean that "Worst Investment of the Year" is also going to have no answers for you guys? Are we...?
11:14	Sam Parr	Yeah, well, I have one. 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 my position because it was making up too high a percentage of my net worth. I still kept some, though. I... I got my ass kicked on that one. How about you, Steph?
11:32	Steph Smith	Sean's not going to like my answer, but it's not financial. I did get... it's
11:37	Shaan Puri	A vitamin — is it a vitamin, or a supplement of some kind?
11:40	Steph Smith	Worst investment — a vitamin? No. I did get a notice that a bubble tea company I invested in a few years ago during "peaksurp" [unclear] went under, unsurprisingly.
11:52	Sam Parr	Huge deal. I've got 20 of those franchisees this year.
11:56	Steph Smith	Wait — it was literally these founders who were on one of those crowdfunding sites, who just had no real evidence that they would make a great bubble tea company. But I was like, "Bubble tea is great," and invested in that. 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...
12:20	Shaan Puri	"Name names. Which conferences do you regret this year? Let's put them out there."
12:24	Steph Smith	All of them. Yeah, I think that's my worst investment: going to all these things that, beforehand, you know 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.
12:38	Shaan Puri	Were you required to go, or was it an optional attendance that you later regretted?
12:41	Steph Smith	It was — it was an optional attend. It was a lack of judgment.
12:44	Shaan Puri	Gotcha.
12:45	Sam Parr	What about you, Sean?
12:46	Shaan Puri	Okay, I like it, Sam. Anything you want to add to her networking-event answer?
12:53	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, or—sorry—your biggest loss? I went...
13:00	Shaan Puri	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 weren't trying; I was like, "Oh, 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 this event." I just remember thinking, "I don't know how she did that, but I like that."
13:19	Sam Parr	By the way, I had a 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... I guess I own... I
13:30	Shaan Puri	No, that sounds much better than the others. What? What? So you had a great... like, you?
13:37	Sam Parr	I like going to networking.
13:38	Shaan Puri	Good time.</FormattedResponse>
13:39	Sam Parr	Yeah — if I pick it, it's because I like seeing old friends. I've been in the industry long enough that it's the only time I see my old buddies.
13:45	Shaan Puri	That's fair. Yeah, that's true.
13:46	Sam Parr	"Like, did you go? Did you like going to the house?"
13:48	Shaan Puri	I didn't really go to anything this year.
13:50	Sam Parr	You went to Inbound? Well...
13:53	Shaan Puri	That was in San Francisco. I just showed up, gave my talk, and left. So it was... a very quick thing. Alright — I hung out with Darmesh at the event. That was, like, kind of the only thing I did.
14:02	Sam Parr	Yeah, that sounds awesome.
14:03	Shaan Puri	Okay. I'll give you my worst investment of the year. Once again, I took these literally, so here's mine... 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 you?" That was pretty bad. I've run into some trouble along the way; this year I didn't have any. But I will say this: I found out this year that I had passed on three different $10 billion startup investments that were right in my wheelhouse. Which ones? 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. My college GPA is, like, half a letter lower than it should be because I used to go gamble on riverboats in international waters and stuff instead of going to class. I was using Polymarket. I was VPNing to pretend I was in Morocco to place bets, allegedly. I loved the thing. The founder was in my DMs — he screenshotted his phone and posted one of my blog posts as the background of his phone. He said, "Thought you'd like this — this is the background of my phone this week." I was like, the ultimate in... and somehow didn't end up making an investment. I 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 — you know, the first winner was Polymarket — maybe I could've hit the second winner. I went back and checked 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: "How much would you—"
15:56	Sam Parr	Have made.
15:58	Shaan Puri	The valuations of those were probably sub-$100 million for sure 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.
16:27	Sam Parr	Dude, we talked about these guys in the pod too. You had a great spiel on them.
16:30	Shaan Puri	I talked about it on the pod. 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, "We're pretty oversubscribed." I said, "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 get back to him. 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, you know, there aren't a hundred people on earth who know that space better than I do, and I missed it.
17:10	Sam Parr	"How many of your investments went under this year? This was the year where I probably got ten emails from different angel companies—angel investments I made—that they went under. It took about three years." </FormattedResponse>
17:20	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.
17:28	Sam Parr	Like 2021.
17:29	Shaan Puri	The worst phase is going to be around year three or year four. The only companies that are exiting then are either small exits or just shutdowns. At this stage, your winners are going to ride for another five years. So it's like AngelList: you get a distribution, you check it, and it's like $3.41 from this company. Then the founder's bragging about their acquisition on Twitter, and you're like, "Just shoot me now."
17:50	Sam Parr	"Would you — going back — how many angel investments have you done, Steph?"
17:54	Steph Smith	I don't know... 15.
17:56	Sam Parr	Okay, so going back... First of all, let's look 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 — what IRR? I don't know how you want to measure it, but...
18:09	Shaan Puri	It's hard to say. I think it'll be three- to four-times basically over the ten-year span. So it'll be something like—well, a guess, you know. My personal guess would be something like a three- to four-times increase over that ten-year lifespan.
18:25	Sam Parr	"That does not seem worth it."
18:26	Steph Smith	"That doesn't even seem worth it for the K ones I have to deal with. 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."
18:40	Shaan Puri	Well, it depends. I use a conservative estimate just to avoid getting my hopes up or falsely promising myself. The thing with these is it depends basically on your bet. I did 100–110 deals. Yeah — it just depends on your top four deals. I have these four companies right now; they're doing amazing. They're, you know, getting 50x to 100x returns on each of them — or whatever, 100x returns. But 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 multi-100x or 1,000x-type returns, 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 right now — the breakouts — it's hard to know: can they sustain it? Will they time the exit? Will they actually IPO? What's going to happen? It's hard to know.
19:29	Sam Parr	I do. I've done 56. My first two or three were pretty great — maybe 10x or more. Then my last two were like 100x, or something crazy like that. Basically, I had to go through 50 of them to get the one or two winners, which is pretty, pretty wild. And so, it will be...
19:46	Shaan Puri	But that's the norm.
19:46	Sam Parr	It's the normal hit rate. It's normal, but it doesn't feel good when you're on number 48.
19:51	Shaan Puri	The trick isn't even, out of a hundred—can you get 12 instead of six? Are your six as big as the big winners in any given cohort of companies, right? And it's also hard to know. I invested in Replit, and 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, it's hard to know if that's sustainable: to keep growing as fast as they've been growing.
20:19	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 this group of people talking about being pregnant. This one lady — I couldn't even tell — I asked her when she was due.
20:43	Shaan Puri	I've done.
20:43	Steph Smith	That she wasn't due.
20:44	Sam Parr	She wasn't due, and I said...
20:49	Shaan Puri	I said, "What do you do? What—what, dude?"
20:51	Sam Parr	I spent.
20:52	Shaan Puri	Why are you looking at me like that?
20:53	Sam Parr	I spent 30 seconds looking for... Now—oh, I thought I did it in front of five other people. I just apologized. I said, "Sorry," and I walked away. I said, "I'm so sorry."
21:05	Shaan Puri	I tried.
21:08	Sam Parr	"I was like a guy falling off a cliff, grabbing at trees, and I couldn't grab a branch. I was like... 'I thought you said you were pregnant. I didn't see your kid with you, so I didn't know you had a kid and you left him behind.' And then eventually it just was... 'I'm sorry. I really—yeah, I just apologize to vlogging.'"
21:27	Shaan Puri	It's so funny because on podcasts, you know, self-deprecating is good. But, like, what's "deprecating"? Don't go full deprecating — you went full deprecating there. </FormattedResponse>
21:36	Sam Parr	I just, like, truly—I'm not joking. And then my nanny was with me. We went to a party, and she was like, "You really blew that one." I was like...
21:45	Shaan Puri	I could tell—I did that at a Christmas party in 2013. I could tell you the exact place and date.
21:49	Sam Parr	Everywhere. That's what happened to me once.</FormattedResponse>
21:51	Shaan Puri	And then it was like, "I've just never—it's never left me." How?
21:54	Sam Parr	I knew not to do that. I knew not to do that, but I just... I told.</FormattedResponse>
21:57	Shaan Puri	You about when I did it.
21:58	Sam Parr	I knew not to do it, but it's sort of like—I don't know—like when you instinctively stop at a red light. I just thought I heard her say that she was pregnant, and I just... wait. What do you do? I don't know. It was horrible, and it's one of those things that I'm going to remember for the next 50 years.
22:14	Steph Smith	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"?
22:23	Sam Parr	No — she rubbed it in my face. She basically just smiled, smugly. Like, "screw this lady, actually, because it's her fault." No — she looked at me and just acted disappointed in me.
22:38	Shaan Puri	Which she was.
22:40	Sam Parr	So, I don't know... I'm—she's...
22:42	Shaan Puri	"No acting."
22:42	Sam Parr	She looked pregnant. She looked like a normal person, just with a big belly.
22:46	Shaan Puri	Doubling down—wow, that's outrageous.
22:51	Sam Parr	Oh, boy.
22:52	Shaan Puri	Amazing. We should segment to a HubSpot ad.
22:56	Steph Smith	John, you go next.
22:57	Shaan Puri	Alright, so I have a — I have a bad one too. I got jury duty this year in April, and I was like, I've never had to go. They call—sometimes you call in because it's an every-year thing; it's like Russian roulette. You call in and they're like, "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 thing before—like, "I gotta be at work"—and I got out. So this year I expected it was gonna go swimmingly again. I show up and all of a sudden it's like, "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, right? The judge gives this big speech about civic duty, and there's a presentation—like, not even a presentation... remember Prezi? The judge had a Prezi going on.
23:53	Sam Parr	It was like, "Is that the..."
23:54	Steph Smith	The judge is proud of his animations. He's like, "Check."
23:56	Shaan Puri	This is like the first time everybody uses Prezi — they're like, "Holy shit, this is better than Avatar." So the judge is doing a Prezi about the Founding Fathers and how jury duty is the bedrock of society and all this stuff. As you might guess, I'm completely unmoved. I'm completely unpatriotic in this way. I do not care. I'm just formulating 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 had a work trip. I'm in the row; there are 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 — so I go on my phone...
24:43	Sam Parr	You book a flight.</FormattedResponse>
24:44	Shaan Puri	Booking. So I book a flight, and person number two says, "Don't hear him—I'm booking a flight." Person three says, "I'm booking a flight." The judge has reviewed that person's booking and says, "This was booked today, and [unclear: 'you got your' or 'this was booked in the window'] after you reserved." Notice: the flight needed to be booked before that.
25:03	Sam Parr	Oy.
25:03	Shaan Puri	So now I've got a booking and my lie is gone. I'm like, "Okay, what am I going to do next?" The next person goes and they say, "I'm really important at work." I'm like, "I have this podcast," and I'm like, "That's..."
25:15	Sam Parr	Not going to work.
25:15	Shaan Puri	So I'm like, "That's not going to work—what do I do next?" Eventually he comes to me and I say, "I do have a baby at home. I need to be there to take care of the baby; my wife works." Then the judge asked, "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 to—can I muddy the waters a little bit? So I was like, "But, you know, she's..." and basically the only idea that comes to my mind is to... I'm like...
25:51	Sam Parr	I'm like, "yeah."
25:53	Shaan Puri	"I'm like, 'Do I?'"
25:53	Sam Parr	Just say, "she's."
25:54	Shaan Puri	"A bad mom... that's not going to work."
25:55	Sam Parr	Well, see, I'm like, "She's a caretaker."
25:58	Shaan Puri	"Sir, so I'm like, 'I'm the primary caretaker of this baby,' and then, like, you know, 'do you even remember the baby's middle name?' And then she's like—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'm like, 'Yeah, but I just wouldn't feel comfortable with it.' And then she's like, 'Why?'"
26:19	Sam Parr	"You're like, 'Look, Your Honor — what is it, noon? She's already about eight Xanax deep.' Okay."
26:24	Shaan Puri	I was like, "I basically made my wife sound like either a bad mom or like a drug addict or something." I—like—I said she's a drunk. So I was like, "You know what? I'll be fine. I'll be here. Can't wait... I'll be there." And so I just let it pass. The girl next to me—she goes, the lady asks, "Can you do it?" and she's like, "No." The judge says, "It's against my religion. I don't believe you should judge anyone." The judge asks, "What religion is that?" She cites a Bible passage, which was basically about "don't judge anyone; therefore they won't judge you," or something. And the judge was like, "Okay, thank you. You're dismissed."
27:02	Sam Parr	Yeah, couldn't.
27:02	Shaan Puri	You. Oh my God. Whoa. Couldn't... that was it. </FormattedResponse>
27:04	Sam Parr	Couldn't you have just told them, "You're racist," or something?
27:07	Shaan Puri	Yeah, I thought about that, but I was like—I was in a very diverse crowd. I thought, I still have to... in case I don't get off with that, I don't want to be around these people where I'm saying a lie that I'm racist. So, you know, it was tough in the moment. But the biggest L I had was just embarrassing myself. By the way, it was so fun. Jury Diddy [name unclear] was a great time, and I'm glad I got to do it. It was a great opportunity. Sorry.
27:32	Sam Parr	Did you make him guilty or innocent?
27:34	Shaan Puri	I didn't get picked in the end for the actual "eight in the box" or whatever—that is, the people who actually go sit there. I just didn't get dismissed early, so I...
27:42	Steph Smith	So, you spent the day?
27:43	Shaan Puri	I spent three days there.
27:45	Sam Parr	"You should wear a Purple Heart, man. Look at you — you're really just taking one for the country."
27:50	Shaan Puri	It was true. </FormattedResponse>
27:51	Sam Parr	"What's yours, Steph?"
27:53	Steph Smith	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...
28:02	Sam Parr	Sounds like a lot of shade.
28:04	Steph Smith	"No, no — I promise. No problem. I... I promise."
28:07	Shaan Puri	Sounds like.
28:07	Sam Parr	A canopy. I just...
28:10	Steph Smith	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.
28:31	Sam Parr	And it was a pretty prestigious job. I think a lot of people would have been drunk off that as well.
28:36	Steph Smith	Yeah, and so now I'm at Grock, working on growth. It's just, for me, way more fun.
28:41	Shaan Puri	And, Steph, did we not have a conversation about this? Did I not tell you?
28:45	Sam Parr	Did we...?
28:46	Shaan Puri	Did I not try to tell you: don't carry this guilt or this feeling that you need to prove something? That you're a superstar and you should be doing superstar things? I think I gave you that: "You're a superstar. You should be doing superstar things." Talk.
28:58	Steph Smith	You 100% did about a year in, and it took me two more years to make the call myself. </FormattedResponse>
29:02	Shaan Puri	It didn't land. Yeah — I'm not very persuasive. Alright, next category we have is...
29:09	Sam Parr	Coolest moment
29:10	Shaan Puri	"Coolest moment of the year."
29:12	Sam Parr	"I've got a good one."
29:12	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 Guest"? Which one do you want to do?
29:24	Sam Parr	Let's do "Billy of the Year."
29:27	Shaan Puri	Okay, Billy of the Year. Sam, you go first.
29:30	Sam Parr	Yes, I got it. I did this podcast with this 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 podcast I made a joke because we had talked about how he was a billionaire, but it seemed like his kids really loved him. I made an offhanded comment: "Yeah, man, I should come out and see how you manage your family—sometimes it's an inspiration." Without skipping a beat he was like, "How about in four weeks? We're going to be at our ski house. We have a room for you." I was like, "Alright," and I just said yes. Then I had to go downstairs with my wife and say, "Go pack your bags, Sarah, we'll go to Utah." She's like, "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 worked with his family—it was really amazing. It was pretty funny: they say money doesn't buy happiness, but I was very happy being in a 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, and he had another family there as well. It was such a fun experience. So Steve Houghton was my "Billy of the week, Billy of the year."
30:49	Shaan Puri	"Billy of the year — love it. Steph, who you got? Billy of the year?"
30:53	Steph Smith	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. It's kind of crazy when you actually think about it. I think that was maybe two or three years ago. 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: Waymos upon Waymos. I've been at intersections where there are eight Waymos.
31:39	Sam Parr	Does it make traffic faster?
31:42	Steph Smith	No, not necessarily. But I think if you could have all the cars on the road, it would make traffic faster, for sure. The person I chose—the billionaire (I don't know if he's actually a billionaire; I'm cheating a little bit)—is for sure worth hundreds of millions: Sebastian Thrun. He was one of the early... he's like the...
32:03	Shaan Puri	Father, godfather of self-driving.
32:05	Steph Smith	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 got him invested in trying to figure out the self-driving equation. In 2005 — so twenty years ago — DARPA had a Grand Challenge funded by the U.S. government. His team won. Then 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, of course, was one of the creators of Waymo way back when. He left in 2014, and he's also gone on to do some really cool 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 end up working out, but that's another example of him being super 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 is just continuing to build. Even though he was early to Waymo and is rich, he's still continuing to dabble.
33:32	Sam Parr	This guy's prolific. Good find.</FormattedResponse>
33:34	Shaan Puri	There's a lineage — think of people who worked under him. He had his initial lab, maybe at Stanford. Someone who was doing self-driving... I was describing, basically, all the modern self-driving leaders. If you trace their lineage, it's like he had six or seven people under him. That school of thought branched out and created all the different people in the industry today. He's very much like a sort of "grandfather" or "godfather" to the industry. </FormattedResponse>
34:04	Sam Parr	He's also... he's got some range. He created, you know, those flying-car things, which is, like, the most brilliant thing on earth. But then he also has a course business, and that's—I'm being a little silly a little bit—but that's, in my opinion, not in the same category as flying cars. But Udacity, to me, is a very respectable, amazing thing. So it's pretty cool how much range he has.
34:30	Steph Smith	Yeah, so all of us who create courses—we're just like these self-driving car guys, right?
34:34	Sam Parr	Yeah, you have to do the other half. </FormattedResponse>
34:35	Shaan Puri	Range. But usually range is more like wide. This is almost like up-and-down.
34:40	Sam Parr	Yeah, our barbell doesn't have the weight on the other side yet, so it's a little awkward to hold. We definitely have to go and add that. But that's pretty cool, though.
34:48	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 ten years ago that there would be someone who could make a minor league baseball team have more followers on social media than the Yankees — and, by the way, all other MLB teams combined — who would have a 3 million-person waitlist, be selling out 80,000-person stadiums, and who bootstrapped the business with his wife to 100 million+, I just think that is playing business on such hard mode. If you’re non-technical, that’s the equivalent 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 nobody’s ever heard of, and turn it into this incredible entertainment thing — the creativity and passion behind how he did it was just from the soul. There was a lot of creativity, a lot of hustle. He’s basically a modern-day P.T. Barnum in a way. He’s written four books, they do a show every weekend, they travel the world — he’s just doing everything. I thought, “Man, I would never, ever be able to do something like that.” And on top of everything else, he was such a sweetheart on the podcast — so genuine. Sammy told me they foster kids as well. I was just like, jeez, how good is this human being? I feel like we’re lucky that there’s someone this creative and this much of a force of creativity walking the earth. I think I even told him that on the podcast.
36:40	Sam Parr	Like, yeah... [inaudible] I'm great.
36:41	Shaan Puri	Glad you are walking the earth, which I've never... felt the need to say to another man, but I did that day.
36:46	Sam Parr	We used to joke and have this concept of the "Total Man." We would ask, "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—like, I said to him, "You are a very special human being, and you are the epitome of what it means to be a man."
37:03	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.
37:16	Sam Parr	I think that—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 he is one of the richest people we've ever had on the podcast in terms of a holistic rich life. He felt very special. 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's almost kind of intimidating.
37:47	Shaan Puri	The one little nugget that stood out was that they don't charge sales tax on ticket prices — they eat the sales tax. They offer a flat "$25 for a ticket" price, and they cover the tax so the customer isn't hit with it at checkout. At the scale they operate, that adds up to millions of dollars a year, just so the average customer feels taken care of when checking out. That contrasts with Ticketmaster and other Live Nation services, where you get hit with a service fee, convenience fee, parking fee, etc., and the price can triple at checkout. That small detail — putting money back on the table instead of leaving it there — says a lot about actions versus words. Everybody says they're "customer friendly," but this shows how a company actually behaves.</FormattedResponse>
38:46	Sam Parr	He also.
38:47	Shaan Puri	Who actually—who actually does that? Very few people.
38:49	Sam Parr	We talked to him. He made a comment: "Whatever you see — the predictions you've seen for 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. But yeah, he didn't talk about numbers at all other than that one comment, and I thought that was really cool.
39:08	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 the biggest personal..." [question unfinished]
39:18	Sam Parr	Coolest moment of life.
39:20	Shaan Puri	"Coolest moment I've got one." </FormattedResponse>
39:21	Sam Parr	I've got one. Yeah — 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 ninetieth 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 were trying to be cool, a little bit in posture, and MrBeast was saying the most ridiculous things you could imagine. For example, he described a scenario where a guy lives in a home for a whole year and can't leave until he loses 100 pounds. He was like, “I spent this much money on this studio,” and kept describing these over-the-top things. 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 and kept 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 was the most sane person there — not insulting MrBeast, but very reasonable. I think Jesse Itzler 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 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 — better than he appears on the internet. He was very inspirational and kept saying, “Can we acknowledge that this is just insane and ridiculous? It's cool, but this is insane.” There was a funny moment where MrBeast parked his car in front of the entrance of the building — drove over the parking lot — and Jesse made fun of him: “Dude, there's an open spot right there. What are you doing?” I just thought it was funny that he was teasing him.
41:13	Shaan Puri	"He didn't get swept up in it like the rest."
41:15	Sam Parr	None of us... it was so funny. We were talking about some ridiculous stuff. We had a billionaire there who was talking about how "aliens are real," and he knows this because he hangs out with White House people. It was pretty funny stuff. It felt like—did you?
41:25	Steph Smith	See that new documentary about that topic?
41:28	Shaan Puri	I've been wanting to watch this. Yeah, there's, like, a documentary. What is it called? Do you remember the... [trails off]</FormattedResponse>
41:34	Steph Smith	"Me, pull it."
41:34	Sam Parr	Up when we were there.
41:35	Shaan Puri	Figuring out.
41:36	Sam Parr	I don't know — I won't say who it was, but it was a very powerful person. He said, "Tomorrow you're gonna see a news story about aliens. I know all about it, and they're real." He was talking about it.
41:46	Steph Smith	Yeah, it's called The Age of Disclosure. Watched? Yeah. Color me not fully convinced, but you know—you should watch it. </FormattedResponse>
41:55	Shaan Puri	Partially convinced.
41:56	Sam Parr	"Did you agree that Jesse Isler was just the man?"
42:00	Shaan Puri	Yeah, so—my coolest moment's also Jesse Isler. We didn't plan this.
42:03	Steph Smith	But no.
42:04	Sam Parr	Sam, I...
42:04	Shaan Puri	I was at his house yesterday. I flew there and spent the entire day with him. My coolest moment has to do with that.
42:13	Sam Parr	"So what were you doing with him? Recording a podcast?"
42:15	Steph Smith	You know, Sam's jealous.
42:17	Shaan Puri	Sam, you knew we were doing...
42:18	Sam Parr	Sam's coolest moment was meeting the guy and you.
42:21	Steph Smith	Just dunked on him, being like, "I hung out with him yesterday." </FormattedResponse>
42:23	Sam Parr	Well, he did a—he did a talk in Manhattan just the other day, but I already had plans, so I didn't even get to go. So it just shows how much I really care... But no, he was so...
42:34	Shaan Puri	So I just flew to his [unclear: "assets of"]. So, the coolest moment of the year. Alright, so last year — this time last year, Jesse came on the podcast and he 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 the 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? Whereas what he does is he picks a misogi, which is a Japanese ritual — a challenge, a hard, year-defining thing. So you'll always remember: "Oh, that was the year 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. 2015 — "That's the year 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 pod, I was pretty inspired. I was like, "What am I going to do?" Jesse's really adventurous; he's big into these endurance races. That's never 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 I saw this recommended video. I don't even know why I clicked it. It was this dude playing the piano — this Italian composer who's basically the most famous piano player in the world at this...
44:05	Shaan Puri	He's like a modern-day composer, and 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 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?" I can't dance, I can't sing, and I've never played a musical instrument. I don't have that innate talent, but what if that 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. </FormattedResponse>
44:40	Sam Parr	I love the Instagram stuff.
44:42	Shaan Puri	I've been learning to play piano, but the one thing I didn't do was follow Jesse's philosophy. His idea 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 going to run this race on this day' or 'I'm going to take my kids here on this day.' It's on the calendar; it's a thing you're working toward." That was the part I never did. I didn't know what to plan — a piano recital? I'm not seven years old. So yesterday I'm at his house. He's giving us a tour; I'm there to record a podcast and do another annual planning thing. We're walking by and he says, "Oh, this is my favorite thing in the house. This is a piano my mother gave me before she died." I asked, "You play?" He said, "No. Nobody's ever played this piano since we got it. It's here, but I love it." In my head I thought, this might be the perfect thing. That was my misogi last year when we did our annual planning; we're doing it again this year. He doesn't know that he kind of triggered me to actually go do something, so I decided, I'm going to do this. When we were talking about it I said, "Can I show you mine — my misogi?" He asked, "What do you mean?" I said, "Let's walk over here," and then I played a song. It's not a singing thing; it's just a piano piece. I've been playing this every day at home, upstairs in my room. 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. My kids don't really care about classical piano music. My wife doesn't really care. I have never really played for anybody else. This was my first time ever playing for people. When I finished, it was the craziest thing. Jesse was there — he was crying. His head of strategy was there; she was crying and holding her phone. Sarah, his wife (whom I'd never met and who is the founder of Spanx), came downstairs because she heard someone playing the piano; she was weeping. It was all on camera too — I happened to have a camera guy there because we recorded the podcast. So basically, there's this full-circle moment: last year he planted the seed, and I worked hard on it all year. </FormattedResponse>
46:52	Sam Parr	That's awesome.</FormattedResponse>
46:52	Shaan Puri	No — there was no real payoff for it. 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 they appreciated it. They were like, "That was amazing." I'd never felt that... ever. 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, and it was totally serendipitous. I didn't plan for any of that to happen. It's this song — I don't even know how you say it properly. It's like Italian, but it's "nuvol beyond shadowed" [song title uncertain; spelling/pronunciation unknown]. It's pronounced the second word, but I'll put it in the description. That's awesome — this is a great song.
47:36	Sam Parr	And I was like this. I was like, "I..."
47:38	Shaan Puri	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.
47:46	Steph Smith	That is so cool.
47:48	Sam Parr	What did they say afterwards?
47:50	Shaan Puri	"Dude, he couldn't even continue the pod for, like, twenty seconds. He's like, 'I'm blown away.' He's like, 'I— I need, like, a minute.' He was like, 'That is so cool.' He's like, 'You know, you're 37 years old. You pick up an instrument, you can do that in a year.' He was saying, 'If you could 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, dude, you could do anything. Anything is on the table for you.'" He was really inspired by it. 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, all these adventurous trips with his friends, in great shape, runs 100-mile marathons, had incredible business success, a great content creator — he's just a prolific guy. 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? This guy's done — he's played the game in a way that I would love to play the game of life. So to get that moment with someone I kind of admire — that was definitely my coolest moment of the year.
49:05	Sam Parr	That's really great. That's very... yeah.</FormattedResponse>
49:07	Steph Smith	"Sean, I gotta say — when I first saw that you were learning piano, I thought that was the coolest thing I had ever heard about you. I genuinely think there's something about that. It'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 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. I might not even be sure exactly why, but I'm gonna go do it' — it's not what people expect. And then to do what you just did? I actually think that is so cool."
49:46	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."
49:54	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 he was like, "Alright, Brandon — good luck, buddy." There were only seven-year-olds there; their parents were there, looking around like, "Where's your kid?" I'm like, "No, no — it was me. I was the one getting the piano lesson." It was kind of an odd thing to be doing pretty regularly. But I trusted my gut and went with it. I just leaned into it. Now it's like, 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 validated it: "Yeah, just keep doing that. Good things do happen when you keep doing it." 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.
50:38	Sam Parr	Next podcast: I want to know all, all, all of what it was about — hanging out with him.
50:42	Shaan Puri	Yeah, will do.
50:44	Sam Parr	About you, sir.
50:45	Steph Smith	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 done.
50:55	Shaan Puri	"Gorilla trekking." "What did you say?" "Trekking." "Yes."
50:58	Steph Smith	Yeah — trekking? Tracking? You do both, basically, right?
51:01	Shaan Puri	"Tracking down a gorilla, or are you doing something... well, you're..." </FormattedResponse>
51:03	Steph Smith	There's gorilla trekking — we did it in Rwanda. They also have it in Uganda, but not many countries other than that. The gorillas are wild; they move every night. So there are trackers who go out every day to locate them. Then you trek through the rainforest. It's truly intense — there are points where the mud is up to your knees as you try to find them.
51:28	Shaan Puri	Which place?
51:29	Steph Smith	In Rwanda — super cool experience — but my actual answer is I'm going to see the World Series with my dad. He's been a Blue Jays fan since...
51:39	Sam Parr	Pretty sick.
51:39	Steph Smith	Before I was born, the last time they won the World Series was in '93. They had back-to-back years in '92 and '93, and then I was born and ruined it all. He kind of makes fun of me for that every year. He's also the person who goes, "It's their year, it's their year." He made these trades, watches every game — you know, 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 him tickets for Game Six when they had their first chance to win. They didn't win, then I bought tickets for Game Seven. Totally worth it. I can't really think of a better way.
52:21	Sam Parr	"Oh, you did two in a row. That's awesome."
52:23	Steph Smith	Yeah, I mean... I wish they had won either of them, because they lost, but...
52:28	Shaan Puri	Yeah, that's amazing. That's a — that's a — that's a great thing to do. That's a really great thing to do. I could see why all NBA players' first thing is, "I bought my mama a house." I think there are probably very few things you could do that feel as good as taking your dad or your mom to do something they would love to do but would never do for themselves. And you get to do that with them when you're a grown-up. </FormattedResponse>
52:49	Sam Parr	Do you guys want to combine "Frame Breaking Person" and "Favorite Guest"?
52:54	Shaan Puri	Okay, what have you got?
52:55	Sam Parr	So... well, do you have a favorite guest?
52:58	Shaan Puri	Well, let's explain what "frame breaking" is. Okay — Sam and I use this term a lot: frame breaking. Everybody walks around with some frame. A frame is like a border, right? Everything that's inside the border is what you sort of expect: I'm used to that; I've seen that; that's what's in the picture. That's how wide my lens goes. Then occasionally you'll meet people who completely break your frame. 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 they're really intentional about their time. There are things people do that make you realize you thought you knew what level 10 looked like in that category — and then you realize, "Oh, what I thought was a 10 is a seven, and now I know what a 10 looks like." Somebody'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?
53:55	Sam Parr	So there's this Aristotle quote that I've been thinking about for like a year now. I think last time when we did this I said I was trying to use my phone less. This Aristotle quote says: > "Excellence is never an accident. It is 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 making me go mad. So I've been working really hard on being intentional about my attention and focusing on excellence — but in a very few number of things. Just picking a couple things and being great at them. We had this guy, I don't think you were here, Sean, but we had this guy named Will Guidara who wrote a book called Unreasonable Hospitality [book]. The story is, if you guys have seen The Bear [TV show], it's one of the inspirations for the show. Basically, he owned this very famous restaurant in New York called Eleven Madison Park [restaurant], and they are famous for going above and beyond. For example, someone was trapped...
55:00	Shaan Puri	Wasn't it the top-rated restaurant in the country? Or what's the claim to fame, right?
55:05	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 another part was that they were known for being unreasonably hospitable. I'll give you an example. They had this couple—or a family—from Europe come to the restaurant. They had planned for months to attend. 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 who they called the Dream Weaver. His only job was to make dreams come true for their customers. So this guy ran outside and bought a street hot dog—or a couple of them. They chopped them up and put a cute garnish on them so it sort of looked like it was fancy restaurant food, but it was actually a street hot dog, and they said
55:47	Shaan Puri	Right.
55:47	Sam Parr	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 said, "We are going to go above and beyond, and we are going to be excellent." I found that to be kind of overflowing my cup, not just in the business category but in life — pursuing excellence for the sake of trying to be great at a couple of things. I found that to be a very inspirational book, and I find him to be a very inspirational person. It kind of broke my frame. </FormattedResponse>
56:31	Shaan Puri	That was awesome. That was an awesome rant and summary of it, too. I love that.
56:35	Sam Parr	Thank you. It was awesome.
56:36	Shaan Puri	That scene in The Bear is the best. They recreated that idea in The Bear, and it was like peak television.
56:43	Sam Parr	It was the best, and then my favorite guest — Sean Frank. So, Sean Frank is the CEO of Ridge Wallet, which is a popular wallet company. Guys, this guy's so funny and so interesting. He's kind of like you and me: he can be silly, but that silliness belies that he's actually a very serious person. I found a blog he wrote last year. Listen to this: > "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 they're going to come back down — hopefully by 2025. Then, by 2026 or '27, I'm going to sell this company." I thought it was hilarious that he called his shot like that. If you listen to the podcast we had with him, he was very direct, which I found incredibly refreshing. So, I think Sean Frank was my favorite guest.
57:32	Shaan Puri	He's a great follow on Twitter as well.
57:35	Sam Parr	Dude, he's a wholesome guy, but he's very blunt, and I find that to be a very cool combination.
57:39	Shaan Puri	Yeah, yeah — he's funny.
57:40	Sam Parr	So that's my favorite guest, and my favorite frame-breaking people. How about you? </FormattedResponse>
57:43	Shaan Puri	"Steph, you want to go next, or...?"
57:46	Steph Smith	Sure. Have you guys heard of Fiona Oaks?
57:50	Shaan Puri	No — who is that?
57:51	Steph Smith	Frame-breaking person. Okay, so I discovered her because I've gotten into running lately, and I watched this spell.
57:59	Sam Parr	Her name.
58:00	Steph Smith	Fiona Oakes (O-A-K-E-S). This documentary was about her—it's called "Running for Good". Get this: she's 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 farming area in England and just runs a huge number of miles. Doctors tell other patients who have lost their kneecaps that "you can't even walk downhill," and she's running marathons. She holds 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 competing—she wasn't on cross country. One day she 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 mind-blowing. She runs 2:48 marathons (2 hours 48 minutes), which is about 6 minutes 24 seconds per mile. She kept a low profile until someone discovered her and they started making documentaries about her. She's a world record holder.
59:23	Shaan Puri	"Did she run marathons before she lost her kneecap, or did she start this hobby after?"
59:29	Steph Smith	I don't know how much running she was doing before the kneecap, but all of the records... [sentence incomplete] </FormattedResponse>
59:35	Sam Parr	She lost the marathon weight at the age of 16. [The final word "post" in the original transcript is unclear.]</FormattedResponse>
59:38	Steph Smith	Yeah — post-kneecap.
59:41	Sam Parr	And she's 56 now, and she's doing this shit — it's pretty wild.
59:44	Steph Smith	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."
01:00:04	Sam Parr	"I don't know how these guys run so much. The more I run, the more hurt I get... like she." </FormattedResponse>
01:00:10	Shaan Puri	Doesn't have the kneecap. That's the trick. Are you... are you not... are you not willing?
01:00:15	Sam Parr	"Dude, remember that guy with the fake legs who ran the 400-meter in the Olympics?" "Yeah—Oscar Pistorius. Is that legal?" "Yeah."
01:00:22	Steph Smith	Oscar—he also went to jail for killing.
01:00:25	Sam Parr	He's, yeah, killed his wife, yeah. I always thought that was nonsense. Why do these guys... he...
01:00:29	Shaan Puri	"Broke a frame or two."
01:00:30	Sam Parr	Well, yeah... why do they get to be in the Olympics? They don't have any...
01:00:35	Shaan Puri	He's in the normal Olympics—he...
01:00:37	Sam Parr	"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. Like, why does he get to go? You know what I mean? It seems ridiculous." </FormattedResponse>
01:00:45	Shaan Puri	"That is ridiculous."
01:00:46	Sam Parr	It's ridiculous. I'm enraged. Yeah—it's ridiculous. Fiona Oaks, what's the documentary called?
01:00:53	Steph Smith	It is called Running for Good — the Fiona Oaks documentary. Really crazy.
01:00:57	Shaan Puri	"You have a favorite guest, also, or do you want to just use her for both?"
01:01:00	Steph Smith	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, there was Eric Ryan, and there was Schiele.
01:01:15	Sam Parr	Like all of those people I went into.
01:01:17	Steph Smith	I went into this episode expecting to not like John Morgan, right? And he just was incredible. The number of businesses he's gone into—whether it's his attraction stuff, apartments, an ad agency, or a tech company—is insane. But it was his one-liners that got me. I was 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."
01:01:53	Sam Parr	Yeah. He was, like, basically...
01:01:55	Steph Smith	I was worried people couldn't spell "justice," so...
01:01:59	Sam Parr	For the people.
01:02:00	Steph Smith	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, and he's just like, "Look, I treat my people good. You know, I share the profits." Yeah... so he got bombs crazy number. [unclear: "so he got bombs crazy number"]
01:02:21	Sam Parr	Chad and I — 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 went into it like, "We'll see." The first sentence he says, "I got these attractions, this upside-down museum," and he goes, "and let me tell you, it prints money." No — he didn't say "prints money," he said the F-word so hard. We don't really say the F-word on this show, and our eyes went wide. We were like, "Buckle up, baby — we are going on a roller coaster." This was something. There were 20 lines, and I showed it to my dad because Morgan & Morgan — I think they have an office in Missouri, so that's where the commercials are. 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." I showed up and he said the F-word literally 15 times. Another time he goes, "Do you know why we win? Our competitors — they're lawyers, they're shit." Then he says, "When we win, we go into a case, they don't want to settle, but six weeks in they see how serious we are and they want to settle, and I go, 'Fuck you,' and I take them for everything they're worth." He was a very vulgar guy, but...
01:03:45	Shaan Puri	If I were a Netflix showrunner, I'd just be like, "I need to follow him around, because I'm going to build Ari Gold–like characters around this guy's personality and the way he rolls."
01:03:55	Sam Parr	And we go, "Why are you even—?" We said, "Why are you doing this?" He goes, "Because it's good for business." Yeah.
01:04:02	Steph Smith	I also love that he's not... I mean, he built a tech company, but he's not in our tech world. So he'd be like, "I was on the Business Insider," or he'd be like, "Sean, are you aware of this thing called first-principles thinking?"
01:04:15	Sam Parr	I was like, "This guy's a G." He's like, "whole is thesis" [unclear].
01:04:18	Shaan Puri	In valley.
01:04:18	Sam Parr	"Was 'What would Google do?' Yeah — that was awesome, Sean. What about yours?
01:04:28	Shaan Puri	Yeah — he, I mean, he was amazing. Also, I would say one other thing about him, which is: I had this opinion — I don't know where it came from — but just by default I never even thought about it again. It was that personal injury lawyers are sleazy, ambulance chasers, blah blah blah. And it's like, wait a minute. So what's the actual story? His brother gets basically paralyzed on the job and has poor representation. He gets mad about that and decides, "I'm going to 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, you know, 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 to it; I get why it gets that bad rep. But, like, I don't know — I think it's over. I think public opinion is far overrated in its negativity toward this profession.
01:05:22	Sam Parr	I totally agree, man. Have you ever known someone who got hurt at work and you're like, "this is a travesty — these insurance companies should be paying you so much more"? Like, there's nothing you could do... no? Have you ever tried... have you ever, like, got it? I've been in that situation with a car. 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.
01:05:40	Shaan Puri	Exactly. Yeah, I think most of his cases are against companies like insurance companies, right? 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, and Kristen is someone I met at an event. I went to one event this year—that's why I lied: I did go to one event. I went to the Dialogue Conference, and honestly, I didn't love the conference overall. But there was one conversation I thought was really great, and Kristen was there. She is partners with Dan Ariely, so if you've ever read the book "Predictably Irrational," he's one of the famous behavioral economists in the world.
01:06:18	Sam Parr	Partners or married?
01:06:20	Shaan Puri	They run Irrational Labs [a behavioral consulting firm]. Companies come to them. For example, Panda Express might say, "Hey, we want to provide healthy options, but how do we frame this so people make the choices we want?" Or: "How do we get people to choose to insulate their water heater? It's good for the environment and it saves money, but we can't seem to get them to do it. What are ways we could do that?" So they'll go to them 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 that she made some money. Let's just—I don't know—I'll make up some numbers: she made a couple million dollars, let's say. At the time, she and her husband—and I think maybe a kid—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, whatever. Sooner or later you're talking about 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.
01:07:52	Sam Parr	Like, they rented—she rented it at a...
01:07:54	Shaan Puri	"For below-market rent," she said, "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." 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. 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 when they're in, they're part of our life; we see them all the time. It's been amazing. She wasn't even really preaching about this, but I was kind of like, "Wait a minute—this sounds simple. 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?
01:08:42	Sam Parr	Well, I kind of did that. Neville and I bought homes together.
01:08:45	Shaan Puri	"Bro, you moved away."
01:08:46	Sam Parr	I had... yeah, I moved away.
01:08:47	Shaan Puri	I'm positive of doing that.
01:08:48	Sam Parr	I moved away to be closer to family, but I will say we were intentional about it and it was freaking awesome.
01:08:54	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 the marble and the way 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 bigger and bigger 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 a place where other people are used to not talking to each other — it's like isolationism. 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. Number two, as a measuring stick to measure your self-worth. It's so easy to get caught in the "money as a measuring stick" thing. But money as a tool to improve your life means you have to learn how to spend it just as much as you have to learn how to make it. This was an example of how to actually spend money to improve the quality of your life.
01:10:05	Sam Parr	We should have her on this. Sounds great.
01:10:07	Shaan Puri	Yeah, we totally should. She was awesome.
01:10:10	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 it her or Dan?
01:10:17	Shaan Puri	Pretty rational was kind of like 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.
01:10:24	Sam Parr	"And what's your favorite guest?"
01:10:26	Shaan Puri	My favorite guest was Nick Mowbray. This is basically the closest person to Elon Musk that I've ever met — not "closest" as in friends, but in the sense of people saying, "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 he did, he does very few podcasts. When I was researching, the only interview I could find was from about fifteen years ago. It took around thirty emails to get him to come on. He was amazing — such a good dude — and his story is like a movie. He talked about "sleeping in a bush" in China, trying to make it happen. He had 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 among the wealthiest men in New Zealand — self-made billionaires who own the whole thing. Not only did they build one of the biggest toy companies in the world (probably top three) based in New Zealand, they also built a top-three diaper company and a top shampoo company. This guy is insane. He said that living off a dollar a day in China — eating McDonald's off the dollar menu type of thing — eventually caught up to him and he had to have part of his small intestine removed. He said, "When I was in recovery, sitting in the hospital, I was watching TikTok and I decided, 'I'm gonna 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.
01:12:03	Shaan Puri	After the pod — I don't think we caught this on the episode — he said something like: > "I asked him, 'Dude, you're like Elon — have you ever met Elon?' > 'No, I've never met him. I would love to have met him.' > 'At one point, me and my brother were the largest shareholders in the world of Tesla stock. I'm a big fan.' > 'I think we owned — I forgot, he said 1% or 4% of Tesla personally. They owned it.' > 'But then when COVID hit and the world stopped and the factories had to shut down, we didn't know we were at such a huge position. We reduced during that time. Huge mistake. We left about $15,000,000,000 ($15 billion) on the table by not holding for the next five years.' > 'To the point where his brother flew to California and installed cameras on buildings that had an angle on the Fremont factory, because they were like, "This is such a huge position — we should monitor the factory production."'" </FormattedResponse>
01:12:55	Sam Parr	And I was like, "This is the..."
01:12:56	Shaan Puri	The most high-agency person I've ever met in my life. I was very, very inspired by Nick Mowbray.
01:13:03	Sam Parr	It says on Wikipedia that they're worth collectively $20 billion. I didn't realize — I thought he was a billionaire, like $1 billion. That's incredible.
01:13:12	Shaan Puri	No, and now they're 3D-printing houses. They're doing crazy, crazy, crazy stuff.
01:13:18	Sam Parr	And the base is just the toy company. That was the foundation of the wealth.
01:13:23	Steph Smith	Yeah, it's so insane when you hear people who have side quests that are like orders of magnitude bigger and better than anything you've ever built. Yeah... it's—it's wow.
01:13:36	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 that we're going to do. Which ones do you want to do?
01:13:48	Shaan Puri	"Like — what's the biggest change you're making? And then the meme of the year, maybe?"
01:13:51	Sam Parr	Well, yeah. What's yours? What's your biggest change?
01:13:54	Shaan Puri	Alright. After hanging out with Jesse, I was like, what's my new masogi going to be? We were both talking about it. He's written 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. I have something I really feel like I should change." I've thought about this very similarly, and I was like, you know what? Alright. So I took my phone and I just deleted X [formerly Twitter], YouTube, and Reddit. I was basically like, "I think I can give myself back 10 to 15 hours a week of time and mind space." I'm just going to not consume any social [media] this year. I'm going to get off social completely. I'll still post—I'll have my team post stuff I create for social—I just can't consume. I call this the Luka Dončić trade. It's like, what if I could get the best thing back, which would be reading some of the best books of all time, and I'll give up some crappy assets? I'll give up some problem-riddled assets—like all these different social media apps. So that's the trade I'm making for this year.
01:15:05	Steph Smith	Damn. How—when did you make the change? Delete the...
01:15:08	Shaan Puri	Apps on the flight back.
01:15:11	Steph Smith	Yesterday — how many days ago?
01:15:12	Sam Parr	I was like, "How's it going so far?"
01:15:15	Steph Smith	Too early.
01:15:15	Shaan Puri	Yeah, okay. So I started early — it's not...
01:15:17	Sam Parr	Like you do, I used to use social media just like you guys [yesterday]. I know exactly how you feel.
01:15:24	Shaan Puri	"Oh, I can't wait to look down upon people who use social media. Imagine how self-righteous I can be."
01:15:31	Sam Parr	That's a great move. I used it last year — I used the Brick for it, or I think it's called Brick or The Brick. It was really helpful. I don't actually have social media on my phone, but I do use it on my computer, so it's not good either. But that's a good move. </FormattedResponse>
01:15:45	Shaan Puri	Yeah, you already do this. You read, like, 25 books a year, and I think you're very, like...
01:15:50	Sam Parr	Do a lot of books lately?
01:15:52	Shaan Puri	Breaking your phone, 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, you know.
01:16:02	Sam Parr	Having a second kid has reduced my reading to close to nothing. I get up extra early and go to bed, and I'm like... I </FormattedResponse>
01:16:08	Shaan Puri	Have that.
01:16:08	Sam Parr	"Makes me feel better. I have to go to sleep — no. So, I haven't read a full book in months. It's only, like, 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 six, and by ten I'm like, I have to go to sleep — I'm so exhausted. So, having kids has basically ruined my reading. A second kid has ruined my reading. Wait — what are we doing, habit or change? Change."
01:16:31	Shaan Puri	For next year.
01:16:33	Sam Parr	I—you're not gonna see this, Sean, but lately I've been going a lot harder on Instagram. Hampton is... 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. The other day I did a video and I was recording, and I said, "So I talk about this on my page," and I was like, "Oh my God, that's... sexual? Like a boomer. I can't believe I just..." [trails off]
01:17:05	Shaan Puri	But said.
01:17:07	Sam Parr	I'm going to go a lot harder on content, and it's going to start with me writing. </FormattedResponse>
01:17:12	Shaan Puri	Are you doing this to grow Hampton, or are you doing this because you're like, "I want to be influential," or "I love creating content"? What's the true why on this one?
01:17:21	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. After some time I realized the best way to grow my company was to do this again. I started treating it like a job, and lately I've been doing it and thinking, "I love this." I love writing and figuring this out. I've been posting on Instagram for only about 3 or 4 weeks and I've already gotten millions of views. It's actually a fun little game to figure out—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: for the past month, to prepare for the new year, I've been finishing my workout by 7:00 a.m. I'm done by 7am. 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 my time.
01:18:21	Shaan Puri	Yeah — Saul 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 kind of true, right? Have you ever met a loser who does that?
01:18:31	Sam Parr	No — being at the gym at 6 a.m. and done by 7 a.m., you're like, it feels amazing. It's so hard to do, though.
01:18:39	Shaan Puri	Do you think you can sustain that one?
01:18:41	Sam Parr	Well, I have to, because it's my job to 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...
01:18:56	Shaan Puri	Super early.
01:18:57	Sam Parr	You have to go to bed at ten. If you're in bed by ten, this is easy. That's — that's challenging to do, but you have to be in bed by ten.
01:19:03	Steph Smith	Right. 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, you know, a year later, it happens again. My biggest change is maybe kids... we'll see. I'm feeling nervous about it. Do you guys?
01:19:20	Sam Parr	"Is this an announcement? Are you announcing it?" "No, no, no, Sam." </FormattedResponse>
01:19:23	Steph Smith	Are you gonna ask me if...?
01:19:24	Sam Parr	"I'm pregnant, Steph."
01:19:26	Steph Smith	No — to be clear, I am not currently pregnant. We have not started trying, but it's on the radar.
01:19:31	Sam Parr	Do you want us to give you tips—like tips on how not to be pregnant? </FormattedResponse>
01:19:37	Steph Smith	"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 have to actually grow the kid and then provide for the child 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."
01:20:05	Sam Parr	"Sean, how do you talk about this without saying the most cheesy advice?"
01:20:09	Shaan Puri	"That's the problem: it's every cliché — everything you've already heard — but it's actually true. So that's why it's hard. You feel lame even saying it, because it's so obvious to you when you're in it. I thought life 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, a higher level of love, a stronger sense of purpose. The good thing about little kids is... Sam and I both have little kids. Sam's [kids] are a little younger than mine, so he might not even be fully in this phase yet."
01:20:47	Sam Parr	My eldest is two.
01:20:49	Shaan Puri	By the time your kids are three or four, they're talking, they're walking, and they have a personality — it's a whole deal. They're just 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. You get to experience everything for the first time with them. They're 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 a product, the truth is the ultimate product is this little kid you made. You get to shape it, see it grow, and watch all the amazing things happen. Take any of the feelings you've had about entrepreneurship, creativity, or creating, and now add something like 3,000 of biological hardwiring to love all those aspects at a much higher level.
01:21:48	Sam Parr	At this stage, when I see Instagram stuff—like the dad coming home from the military and hugging the kid—I cry. I get so emotional by it. I hold my eldest to bed at night and she lays on my stomach. I think, you ever think about when your parents die? Like, will they go to heaven, or 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've never felt this good. I get to experience it every single day, and it's very special. I think for a lot of men, you don't love your kid right away—it takes a little warming up. I'm at the phase of my life now where, and I say this as a joke but it's sort of real, 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 really good to know I'm willing to dedicate everything I can to this thing. </FormattedResponse>
01:23:05	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, and stuff we want to go do—suddenly it's like, "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 terms of normal life. But the best part is that it's not about you anymore. All the problems in your life—the bad feelings you had—were just an over-importance of the self. With kids, that's great: it's about them now. You get the highs from that, and you don't really get the same amount of lows because you don't have that self-rumination or self-indulgence over all the little things that bother you in your world. It's really not about you anymore, you know?
01:23:59	Steph Smith	Totally. 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 she could see all the things that could, you know, maybe harm her child. But at the same time, like you're saying, it's a new set of emotions. It's 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 — at least, that's my sense. I haven't had them, but I find that.
01:24:35	Shaan Puri	"A good way of putting it is: 'Oh, there's three new colors you didn't know about. There's this whole other thing you get to see.'"
01:24:42	Sam Parr	I hate saying that — I hate saying that because when people don't have children, it's not a reversible decision. I don't ever want to make someone feel bad, you know? So I don't love talking about that. But I do feel like it's sort of the first time I've ever felt like my purpose in life is being fulfilled. I don't think that way about work sometimes. And then we had it. I don't — I hate being high and mighty and shit, but you have a kid and you're like, "Oh, this is like... this is the—" because this is why I tried to impress a girl so she would like me and then I could reproduce with her. And now I have this thing, and it's like I am now connected to the twenty fifty billion people before me, and it feels kind of special. It feels very strange, but it's special.
01:25:23	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 you're asked, you say, "Oh, I think I want them; I'm kind of on the fence." You want to hear about it, then, like, okay.
01:25:35	Sam Parr	Yeah, yeah.
01:25:36	Shaan Puri	Yeah. Permission to be, permission to cheese. 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.
01:25:47	Steph Smith	Guys, mine is boring, but I just loved the "May I meet you" meme. It was so good — it was so good. What is this activist investor doing, giving dating advice? And just the versatility.
01:26:01	Shaan Puri	"A woman who's also in business attacked you. You get on Twitter and see this happening — what was going through your mind?"
01:26:07	Steph Smith	I thought it was truly hilarious, because I think — I don't know — as a woman, there are so many times when men think they know what women want. I'm sure Bill Ackman is a catch; I'm sure he's also, like, six.
01:26:22	Sam Parr	"Doge feet."
01:26:24	Steph Smith	Right. He's got a bunch of money, and you're neutralized now. He's going up to these women saying, "May I meet you?" He's gathering that—that is what, you know, the defining action the women are liking.
01:26:40	Shaan Puri	Steph, so you saw that advice. What would your advice have been? And Bill Eckman — he meant well, right? He was like, "I heard that it's tough out there for young guys; here's a little bit of advice." If he was wrong, what's the right advice?
01:26:52	Sam Parr	I feel like... well, I
01:26:53	Steph Smith	I mean, he's right: you just gotta approach a girl. Girls like confidence. But I also think girls 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 pickup line," can work. The important part is that you walked up to her. That's something probably nine out of ten guys will not do. If you happen to say, "May I meet you?" that's probably fine. I don't know—just be natural.
01:27:27	Shaan Puri	I forgot what it is, but 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, "I have the perfect pickup line." He would go up to a woman and say, "What's your availability as far as being hit on right now?" She would laugh, she'd know his intentions, and then he'd... give her it out and give her it in [unclear phrasing]. You know, he's like, "It works every time." </FormattedResponse>
01:27:52	Sam Parr	Do you remember when you guys—Sean or whoever—was screen sharing? I just sent an example of one. 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 can—well, 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?
01:28:16	Shaan Puri	"I've seen this because it stands out, right?"
01:28:17	Sam Parr	In the feed, "Oh my God" stands out.</FormattedResponse>
01:28:19	Shaan Puri	This is, like, a hostage negotiation situation.
01:28:22	Sam Parr	And so we've talked about cinematic content. We talked about this company called Tradivcamp, and I'm noticing that if you follow these creators, there's a bunch of 22- to 25-year-old kids making content that is not just the talking-head videos. It's beautiful. 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—where there's a beautiful background and it's not just, you know, your phone—is way more popular, and I love it. I'm loving internet content at the moment because of this trend.
01:29:01	Shaan Puri	So, not.</FormattedResponse>
01:29:02	Steph Smith	You treat... or a...
01:29:04	Sam Parr	Said, "Yeah, you're right — you did say meme of the year."
01:29:09	Shaan Puri	But I think it's cool, and you're right.
01:29:11	Sam Parr	Dude, I don't know. Do you pay attention to memes? "I don't pay attention to memes."
01:29:15	Steph Smith	Anything's a meme these days, guys.
01:29:17	Sam Parr	But it's always a meme. It's not a long-lasting thing—it's just whatever was trending, like "the Drake video." Or like all the trends on Instagram: it's cool for a week and I love it, and then you just move on.
01:29:29	Shaan Puri	I'll give you two. The first I'll give you a funny one first. Alright — can you put that by a funny one? This one wasn't the most hilarious, but I have to say it's affected every day of my life. The tweet was a reminder that: > "Tapping your credit card is a spiritually passive and feminine behavior, and men should pay via a confident and penetrative thrust into the chip reader." I read this and laughed. Now, every time I pay for something I can't help but think about it, and I've been thrusting, my friends. I've been thrusting.
01:30:00	Steph Smith	You gotta walk around with that wad of cash. That's the most manly thing.
01:30:04	Sam Parr	You can do.
01:30:05	Shaan Puri	That would.
01:30:05	Sam Parr	"Be John, you do need a wad."
01:30:08	Shaan Puri	"That would be John Morgan right there, you know what I mean?"
01:30:10	Sam Parr	Well, having pulled out a lot of...
01:30:12	Shaan Puri	"Get a finger lick before I start unfolding some bills."
01:30:15	Sam Parr	Dude—just... that's.
01:30:17	Steph Smith	"How do you pick up girls? Just count your bills in the corner."
01:30:19	Sam Parr	They'll come. My father-in-law did that: he had, like, $1,000 in twenties. It was in—one time he had it wrapped with 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 tens and twenties. That just... </FormattedResponse>
01:30:37	Shaan Puri	Looks weird in the pocket, though.
01:30:38	Sam Parr	They know.
01:30:41	Shaan Puri	They know something.
01:30:43	Sam Parr	They know.
01:30:45	Shaan Puri	And then I have a wholesome tweet, and this is from Jay Yang, a young guy who said something very wise.
01:30:52	Sam Parr	Is that the "you could just do things" guy?
01:30:55	Shaan Puri	He's the "you could just do things" guy. 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, like, the north star. Of all this, what is the measure of success? I think that's the best metric.
01:31:13	Sam Parr	Can I say something that I've noticed, Sean, with you and me? 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... [thought trails off]
01:31:23	Shaan Puri	Know what? So, back.
01:31:25	Sam Parr	I don't know if it's called the bell curve — it's like an upside-down bell. You're in the middle of it or 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." After that, you get past that phase and you're a little bit on the highest level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and it's... [unclear: "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?
01:32:03	Shaan Puri	Love me a good quote. Love 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've actually realized that most smart people look down upon classic quotes or clichés or motivation or inspiration. More for me—more for me. I'm all in on that. That is the "index funds of content" for me. I put me in. I want it all.
01:32:32	Sam Parr	Same — I'm bored with that.
01:32:33	Steph Smith	You're the... you guys are into "Live, Laugh, Love"?
01:32:36	Sam Parr	Yeah, yeah.
01:32:37	Shaan Puri	Exactly.
01:32:38	Sam Parr	I was gonna—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... oh, their...
01:32:47	Shaan Puri	I know.
01:32:47	Steph Smith	"I know I'm just two years away. I see it coming."
01:32:50	Shaan Puri	Yeah. Are you, Steph? Are you, like, "I don't like fortune-cookie stuff right now—you're like, 'I want...'"
01:32:56	Steph Smith	Yeah, I've spent years reading personal development books, and 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."
01:33:11	Sam Parr	"Look, Steph. I'm going to be patronizing to you. You're young; you'll figure it out. You'll get there."
01:33:18	Shaan Puri	I felt that way, yeah.
01:33:19	Steph Smith	Two years older than me... something like that.
01:33:22	Sam Parr	"You'll get there. You'll understand once you have a few kids, Steph. It's how old?"
01:33:27	Shaan Puri	We now, Steph.
01:33:28	Sam Parr	And then, when you have one—when you have one kid, we're gonna say, "Wait till you..." [sentence trails off]
01:33:33	Shaan Puri	Have two — "wait till they have two." That's the most patronizing thing. </FormattedResponse>
01:33:39	Steph Smith	"Wait, Sean, you've got one."
01:33:40	Shaan Puri	"That's easy... in, like, the deep."
01:33:42	Sam Parr	Sean's got a gaggle.
01:33:44	Steph Smith	I got three. You going for more?
01:33:46	Shaan Puri	So I get to do it to Sam. Sam's got two, so I'm like, "Oh—two."
01:33:49	Sam Parr	I don't.
01:33:49	Shaan Puri	"Oh, so you're on vacation. Oh, that must be nice."
01:33:52	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."
01:34:08	Shaan Puri	She went to a kid's school performance today. A mom came over to her and said, "I just gotta say—I live for your story right now." The mom continued, "Every day I'm checking, 'When is she gonna post it?'" She added, "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."
01:34:27	Sam Parr	The other day, she used a huge wall—imagine a one-bedroom wall—and, using Post-it notes (I think they're Post-it notes), she outlined the Grinch. Imagine the Grinch's face, but the artwork is made entirely of Post-it notes.
01:34:40	Steph Smith	That is so sick.
01:34:41	Sam Parr	"It was like a Monet."
01:34:43	Shaan Puri	It's still up. We're not taking that down.
01:34:45	Sam Parr	I don't think you can. That looks like... she must have used string to make the grid, right? It looks like a pretty intense project.
01:34:54	Shaan Puri	It was 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 good at things, and I'm a "good enough is good enough" kinda guy. So it was 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... </FormattedResponse>
01:35:19	Sam Parr	It's like putting together furniture with your girlfriend. It's just... it doesn't end well.
01:35:23	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 there was this one‑millimeter gap, and she had to fix it.
01:35:34	Sam Parr	She must have listened to the Will Gudera podcast that I did. That was her inspiration for sure. She must be a listener.
01:35:45	Steph Smith	Wait — I want to hear from you guys. We didn't do "Best New Habit." Did you guys have a good one for that? I also partially just want to brag.
01:35:51	Sam Parr	"What is... you're a runner now, Steph? We get."
01:35:53	Shaan Puri	It this year.</FormattedResponse>
01:35:55	Steph Smith	Yes, we missed that one.
01:35:56	Sam Parr	You're a runner, and you're fast.</FormattedResponse>
01:35:58	Steph Smith	Sam's like, "We missed it intentionally."
01:36:01	Sam Parr	"No, I think you're running. You've been running a lot. I assume you're gonna say 'running,' right? Because your times are actually incredibly fast. "Yes. I'm like, I can finally talk about it... Go for it."
01:36:12	Steph Smith	"What am I running all these miles for?" No—yeah. My best life hack / new habit (category: running): I started running about 14 to 16 months ago, and I've run two marathons. I'm mentioning it because it seems like everyone runs now, but there are still a lot of people who've never done it because they think it sucks. It's actually awesome. I think anyone can get to the point where they're running marathons. Start small—running three miles a day. That's how I started. I feel pretty good about it.
01:36:45	Sam Parr	"What was your—wasn't your time like sub-eight-minute miles?"
01:36:49	Steph Smith	Yeah, I just ran my second marathon — 3:30, so just under 8 [minutes per mile].</FormattedResponse>
01:36:53	Sam Parr	"That's incredible, Sean. That's fast." "Why?" "Yeah — just said it."
01:36:58	Shaan Puri	There—just, why do people do this? Why do all of you who are doing this do this, dude? I feel... about running marathons. </FormattedResponse>
01:37:06	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 any type of 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.
01:37:20	Steph Smith	It's because you can — I mean, you can do this with weightlifting, but you can measure your progress so clearly. You can also progress really quickly, I think, compared to other sports or athletics.</FormattedResponse>
01:37:32	Shaan Puri	"It's gonna be one of those things for me: mustard, pickles, runny things. I don't like that—other people seem to love them. I just can't do it."
01:37:39	Sam Parr	I don't know, man. Twenty minutes into, like, a fifty-minute run, you go into, like, a little bit of a cave, and it is... it is kind of special. It's cool. You should try it. </FormattedResponse>
01:37:48	Steph Smith	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?
01:37:58	Shaan Puri	Love walking. Huge.
01:37:59	Steph Smith	Driver—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 do 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, okay.
01:38:49	Sam Parr	Nice try.
01:38:50	Shaan Puri	Yeah, the jury will consider what you said and...
01:38:55	Sam Parr	And he might be out for a flight — I don't know.
01:38:57	Shaan Puri	"Guilty. Alright, that's it. Did you have a habit you wanted to do, or no?"
01:39:03	Sam Parr	No waking up early, alright.
01:39:05	Shaan Puri	Well, Steph, I hope you got that in. That's great. Alright, guys—peace. God.
01:39:11	Sam Parr	Bless America. God bless this podcast. Sean — good, good year.
01:39:16	Steph Smith	"Oh, also."
01:39:16	Shaan Puri	The Blucks' brother.
01:39:17	Sam Parr	"You guys didn't even."
01:39:19	Steph Smith	Catch this.
01:39:20	Shaan Puri	I can't see. What does it say I'm on?
01:39:21	Sam Parr	A small.
01:39:21	Steph Smith	"Screen backwards, you say?"
01:39:23	Sam Parr	It just noodles.
01:39:27	Steph Smith	"That's a wrap."

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