This episode of the My First Million podcast features a conversation between Sam Parr and Shaan Puri about their recent experience staying in an Airbnb with MrBeast and several other high-profile entrepreneurs. They discuss the valuable lessons learned from these successful individuals, the importance of networking, and the unique insights gained from spending time with people at the top of their respective fields.
Topics: Entrepreneurship, Networking, Business Lessons, MrBeast, Billionaires, Airbnb, Success, Personal Growth
An Insane Weekend [00:00]
Sam Parr: All right, Sam, we just had an insane weekend together. We got to talk about it. We just lived in a house for a weekend with 25 other founder entrepreneur types. Probably five to 10 of them were billionaires, a bunch of others were close, and we didn’t just like talk or hang out. We literally like slept under one roof, sat in saunas together, played basketball together, went to Walmart together a bunch of times.
Shaan Puri: My Airbnb had bunk beds, so we bunked, we bunk bed together. It’s as close as two men can get. So we had an experience, and I have in front of me several sticky notes of golden lessons learned. And I phrased each of them, I don’t know if you do this, but I phrased each of them to make it fun because nobody wants to hear your vacation story. That’s one of the great rules of storytelling is just never tell a vacation story because it’s so fun for you, but they weren’t there, nobody cares. But I think we should tell the the biggest lessons learned with the story that backs them up, so it’s real, not just a generic lesson. And I phrased all of mine like it’s Confucius, like, you know, Bruce Lee whispered this into your ear.
The Origin Story [01:18]
Sam Parr: Yeah, I dig that. And to give the background, basically, I think like three years ago, you tweeted out, “I want to play basketball with interesting people.” I think MrBeast like DM’d you and you’re like, “Wait, is this real?” You ended up phoning him and he was like, “Yeah, come to my place. I want to meet interesting people.” The first year, it was like you and Ben organized it. It was like 19 of us in an Airbnb and we were like, “What are we going to do?” So we played basketball. The second year, you organized it a little bit more and you had like an itinerary. This year, you guys killed it. It was awesome. It was an amazing event.
Why Conferences Suck [01:50]
Shaan Puri: I I do like meeting interesting people when I go to conferences or events. I just hate conferences or events. Like I get a pit in my stomach when I have to go. And I know it’s good for me and I know in the end I’ll meet some cool people. I just hate the format. I hate the structure. So it was like, well, what’s, you know, instead of just complaining about it, what’s the structure I would like? It’s like, well, I don’t know. What if it was just doing the thing I love, which is playing basketball with those people? We basically play ball all day and then we talk at night and that was the the core idea. It’s to use basketball as the icebreaker.
Sam Parr: And you broke your knee in the first two hours.
Shaan Puri: Yeah, yeah. So this was an event where, uh, you could tear, you could tear up your knee and be done in the first hour and I still had a good time. That means it must have been a good event because normally that’s pretty brutal. I I did have a little pity party for myself, but I feel better now.
Who Was There? [02:38]
Sam Parr: Are we allowed to say who was there?
Shaan Puri: Yeah, I think we can say some of the people that were there. Yeah, let’s go for it.
Sam Parr: So MrBeast, who, uh, like, you know, everyone knows him as the guy on YouTube with hundreds of millions of subscribers. I think he’s a paper billionaire. I think that’s public.
Shaan Puri: Yeah, and he’s one of the youngest billionaires in the world. I think he’s 26 years old and he’s worth a few billion dollars. He’s one of the most famous people also in the world, one of the most recognized entertainers in the world. And when you hang out with him, he’s also one of the like most intense, fun to be around, you know, just wants to play all in. Like somebody said this once about Elon, they go, he’s playing, he’s playing life as if the as if the simulation theory is true. You know, Elon has a simulation theory. This is not just be one of many simulations. And so he he therefore just goes all in because, okay, whatever. Let’s let’s make this the most entertaining version of that simulation. I think that’s how Jimmy plays, plays life too.
The Founder of Airbnb [03:28]
Shaan Puri: So we were with him. It was uh the one of the founders of Airbnb who like on paper, like according to Forbes, is like the 100th or 90th richest person in the world. It was uh another billionaire who was one of the first investors in Tesla and SpaceX. It was uh the founder of Reddit. It was Jesse Itzler, who’s on the podcast, you, me, Al Done, who runs like a quilting company that does nine figures a year. Tons of people. David Perell, Nick Huber, it was awesome. All right.
Side Hustles [03:55]
Shaan Puri: All right, so a lot of people watch and listen to the show because they want to hear us just tell them exactly what to do when it comes to starting or growing a business. And really, a lot of people who are listening, they have a full-time job and they want to start something on the side, a side hustle. Now, a lot of people message Sean and I and they say, “All right, I want to start something on the side. Is this a good idea? Is that a good idea?” And again, what they’re really just saying is, “Just give me the ideas.” Well, my friends, you’re in luck. So my old company, The Hustle, they put together 100 different side hustle ideas and they have appropriately called it the Side Hustle Idea Database. It’s a list of 100 pretty good ideas, frankly. I went through them. They’re awesome. And it gives you how to start them, how to grow them, things like that. Gives you a little bit of inspiration. So check it out. It’s called the Side Hustle Idea Database. It’s in the description below. You’ll see the link. Click it, check it out. Let me know in the comments what you think.
The “Fish Swim” Lesson [04:47]
Sam Parr: You want to start first?
Shaan Puri: Yeah, let’s do it. All right, I got one for you. Here’s one of the lessons I I picked up. And this is about the business ideas that these guys were thinking about. So, if you’re out there and you’re wondering kind of like, where’s the opportunity? What should I be working on? Here’s what I picked up from some of the most successful people in America. And it says, “Fish where the fish swim, not where the fishermen stand.” Confucius, aka me.
Sam Parr: Did you just make that up?
Shaan Puri: You saw me writing these five minutes before we were live. Well, I thought you had heard that. Did you hear that somewhere else? There’s a scratch out on it, right? But did you get like Chinese food last week and that was like a fortune cookie?
Sam Parr: Dude, I’ve had my share of Kung Pao chicken. All right, let me just tell you some of the ideas that I heard from people who were in um at this event. So you mentioned you mentioned Jesse Itzler and I think one of the public things that he’s done is he got really into racing, like running running endurance races. So he just followed his curiosity. 100 mile races. 100 mile races. He started doing 100 mile races. While he’s doing 100 mile races, he notices that the runners that are trying to do these amazing physical feats are drinking coconut water. And coconut water was a big like a big part of that niche, super niche community. And he became a believer and spent time hunting down what he thought would be the best coconut water company, ends up finding Zico Coconut Water, partners with them and Zico now is a a big success. They ended up selling I think to Coke and you know, they’re they’re in Whole Foods, they’re they’re, you know, it’s one of the big coconut water brands. And he found it when he was small and just like just exploring these uncharted territories. So here’s some other ones that I heard. There was somebody there who’s making hundreds of millions of dollars a year selling board games. I never even had that on my bingo card. I didn’t even know that was an option. I did not even know that you could do that. There was somebody there that was investing millions of dollars into women’s sports. Like, you know, uh and not even just women’s sports, like they’re trying to do things now where you just buy a piece of a college program. I didn’t even know you could do that. Like that’s for sale? What the what is this? What is that for sale? Where is this listed? It’s not listed.
Shaan Puri: Dude, I I went to a talk recently with this billionaire who owned like the Timberwolves, Mark Lasry or something, and he was talking about the Bucks. And he was talking about how he’s trying to buy college, do you buy the rights? They’re going to like the University of Alabama or whatever and they’re just like, “Cool, we’ll give you $500 million for the Alabama sports program and we want to own 51%.” That’s what they’re trying to do.
Sam Parr: Do they buy the future earnings? Is that what it is?
Shaan Puri: They’re basically, I think what’s going to happen is again, it’s uncharted territory. You don’t know exactly how it’s going to play out, but I think the short version is the college will spin out the program, their their athletics program as its own business entity. They’ll sell equity in it. They’ll use that equity to finance all of their sports, like women’s lacrosse, like things that aren’t going to be the big revenue generators. So they use it to to fund all their programs and maybe even school stuff. And then those and then and the costs now are are borne by the the private equity person. But now it’s this asset that didn’t even exist before. Like these college programs can make a lot of money, media rights and all the stuff, but they weren’t even for sale. But somebody was doing that. There was some uh there was somebody there that was like, yeah, seven years ago, I just got really obsessed with water. I’m like, yeah, me too. I thought my whole life. He’s like, no, no, no. Like I got really obsessed. Like, do you know what kind of water you’re drinking? And I was like, uh no, like is this bad? Is it microplastics? What’s going on? And he was just like, yeah, like I got obsessed and so I just started studying where is the cleanest water from? Where’s the healthiest water from? And I realized that water was going to become like oil. That people were going to more and more be drinking not tap water, but they wanted they’re going to want basically bottled water, canned water, things like that. And that water is going to have to come from somewhere and I wanted to find the best sources of water. And so I went to West Virginia and I bought this aquifer, this this spring. I bought this giant water source. What? And he was like, you see that drink you’re drinking right there? It’s like some brand like popular brand. He’s like, that’s our water and they use our water. So that’s good water. And I was like, what? This was just a side quest that he went on. And again, it was curiosity driven.
Was this a Billionaire? [08:46]
Shaan Puri: Was this one of the billionaires?
Sam Parr: Yeah, basically. I mean, not not billionaire, but yeah, like whatever, close, close enough.
Shaan Puri: How do you There’s a guy there, Al, who started a quilting company with his mom. A Missouri Star Quilt Company and they sell fabrics for people who want to make quilts. His co-founder is his mom. I have a planned vacation to So he owns this thing. The the company is called Missouri Quilting Company and he basically bought, he did a podcast three years ago with us where he explained where he bought a town. Is it Hamilton? Is it Hamilton, Missouri? He bought like an 1800 person town where they own every building and they’re building the Disneyland for quilting. Dude, just the thought of that. So first to go into quilting. Smart guy, like, you know, could could have done any business. Goes into quilting. It’s like, what are you doing, what are you doing, man? You’re throwing it all the way on quilting? Yeah, does a business with his mom, right? Like, again, independent thinking, not just following the herd. So then starts the business, her his mom does the YouTube channel, he does the business side of it. Business keeps growing, and then it’s like, you know what we could do? We could create the Disneyland for quilting. And he literally goes and buys a town. Again, who’s is that for sale? Can you do that? How do you do that? And that that just kept happening, which was like people who were playing games that didn’t even seem uh popular. Another lesson there was there was a person there who had sold a piece of their company to Chernin. And Chernin is now kind of known. I first heard about it maybe like 10 years ago. And Chernin is this really interesting They’re most famous for uh ECG. Yeah, the the they’re they’re, you know, the Peter Chernin was the CEO of Fox, so he’s like a big swinging dick. He’s been a baller for years, but they’re most famous amongst like normal people because they bought Barstool when it was nothing and helped make it something. Correct. And they just had this, again, independent thinking where they were like, “Hey, I think these things that other people see as small, kind of toys, things that aren’t going to make a lot of money, you know, media brands, blogs, YouTube channels, I think these things are going to be big.” I think basically, and they had this thesis, which was uh content to commerce. It’s like, I think if you’re kicking ass at content, you’re going to be able to, instead of just making your money through ad revenue and sponsorships, you’re going to be able to sell stuff to those people. And they had this content to commerce thesis and they go and they buy Barstool. Content ends up being this juggernaut with commerce. They buy um uh they bought Exploding Kittens and they bought uh MeatEater and they bought Surfline, all these niche content brands. We had a guy on the pod, the Plant Daddy. I met with them uh a couple times. There was like early discussions, well, you know, three meetings with those that that I had with the the Hustle and I was like, “What the fuck do you guys know?” Didn’t get that one right.
Turns Out They Know a Lot [11:25]
Shaan Puri: Turns out they know a lot. They they know a lot.
Sam Parr: Did he just like slide a P&L across the table and he’s like, “I’ll leave you three minutes alone with this.”
Shaan Puri: Like they told me the story and I was like, “You’re full of shit. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Like, do you you know, you’re talking about my company, right? I was like, you you know, like Like, but they were right. I think what the the the premise was correct. Uh but I yeah, I I I I didn’t have that confidence that we’re talking about now.
The Market Overlooked These Brands [11:33]
Sam Parr: And dude, they made a fortune because the market overlooked these brands. These brands were not valued like high-flying tech companies, but they became, you know, multi-hundred million, billion dollar brands. It’s it’s I really admire what TCG did because Yeah, they’re the best. There’s so many investors that all love to sound like they’re smart and contrarian and they’re all just What’s your thesis? AI, the you know, AI is going to be the future of everything, right? It’s like, okay, you’re not wrong in that, but like there’s something really impressive about somebody who looked at just like this magazine or this blog or this YouTube channel They did it with Duck of Tomorrow, who was on our pod. We’ve had a bunch, we’ve actually probably had three or four people who sold their company on the pod to to those guys. Right, right. And and they’ve been right and they’ve been right in a very, very big way. Um so I’m very impressed by them. So to me, that that’s the principle. Fish where the fish swim. So fish where the real opportunity is, not where the fishermen are standing, not where everybody all the entrepreneurs are are huddled up.
Man Does Not Sell Chocolate [12:45]
Sam Parr: This this fortune cookie says, “Man does not sell chocolate, he must become chocolate.” Okay, so what does this mean? Three years ago, when we did the first version of this event, Jimmy, aka MrBeast, had launched his chocolate brand, Feastables. And it was like, okay, selling chocolate to little kids. I had the opportunity to invest. I think at a $40 million valuation was like the the Series A. And I passed. I just In uh in like the Beast Empire or chocolate? No, in Feastables itself. So, um, it’s kind of thought about it. I was like, I don’t really get it. I didn’t really know much about the chocolate industry. I thought his involvement was going to be like this. Normal influencer brand is, “I’m doing my thing, I create my content. Oh, my manager hands me this. Hey, uh buy this. Smile. Ding.” Yeah. Put it down, move on with life. So I thought he’s just going to influence it. I thought he’s just going to hold it up and buy it. I didn’t what I didn’t realize is that this guy was going to go so deep into the world of chocolate and end up knowing everything about chocolate, end up running this company like an absolute maniac founder. If I had known that, if I had known he was going to bring his his full intensity at this, I probably would have thought about it differently. I thought he was just going to hold up the chocolate bar and see how many people clicked the link. Um, I was dead wrong. So I want to tell a a quick story. You were there for for one of the Walmart runs, right?
Walmart Runs [14:05]
Shaan Puri: No, but I have a bunch of Walmart stories.
Sam Parr: So we’re sitting there, we’re about to record, he walks in, he’s like, “Hey, before we do this, you guys want to go to Walmart?” Which I realized like at the time sounded like a sort of a strange request. Nobody’s ever asked me on a on a mandate to Walmart. We walk in and um he takes us to the chocolate aisle and basically gives a like 10-minute masterclass on the chocolate industry right there in the aisle. And while he’s doing it, he’s not just like explaining like, “Well, this is how it works, this is how we do, this is our revenues, this whatever.” He’s also simultaneously restocking the entire aisle. Like he pulled the cartons up to the front because they were like three inches recessed, they were pushed back too far. Some of the bars had fallen over, they were crooked. He straightens every single one of them out. He puts the right flavors in the right spots. If a bar was crinkly or broken, he’s like, he’d throw it to a staff and be like, “Hey, can you buy this? I want to have like we should only have good bars, no broken bars up front.” And he would basically restock the thing, but his hands were moving at a speed which showed you this is not the first time this guy’s done this. So he he restocks it and one of the popular flavors was out and so he takes out his phone and he’s like, “Oh, I have a badge.” And so he just badges in to the back of Walmart and goes and gets the box himself and restocks it. And I was like, “Does any vendor get to do that?” And he was like, “No, not not exactly, but they know like I like I just do this. I care, I really care.” And it kind of two things stood out to me. The first was obvious, which was when high-intensity obsessive people want to win, they do the same things that the rest of us do with the knob dialed up to 12. Like they just they just take the knob and they just crank it past even where you think it could go. And and for example, he was like, I think you were there, he was telling the story about like missing a flight or something like this. He like told the story about how apparently he flew to DC and had a connecting flight to North Carolina or something wherever he lived and he was like, “You know what? Screw it. I’m driving from DC to Greenville, North Carolina. It’s normally like, I don’t know, a three-hour drive or something, but I noticed that there’s 14 Walmarts in between on that route. I’m going to stop at every single one of them to learn.” And it turned like a three-hour drive into like, you know, a 20-hour drive. And he told me at one point, he goes, “I have scanned,” I guess he’s got some app where you scan things in Walmart and it teaches you about each SKU. He said he scanned every single product in Walmart. And I don’t know if he was like if someone said, “Oh no, I’ve scanned all of them,” you’d be like, “Oh, so it’s like saying it’s 1,000 degrees outside, you’re just exaggerating.” But with him, I was like, “Oh, I bet you you literally have scanned every single one of them.” In the podcast we did, he was like, “Yeah, like you know, we want to do a thing where you buy every item in Walmart for somebody in a video,” and he’s like, “You know, but it’s $16.2 million.” It’s like, he knew the actual cost of the total total inventory if he bought one of everything in Walmart, like what it cost. I forgot what the number was. But so, but I don’t want to make this just a Jimmy love fest because there was another guy who was a top seller in Target.
The Target Guy [16:48]
Shaan Puri: Yeah, man. I heard him nerding out. It was wild.
Sam Parr: He took us to this shelf and he was like, “This shelf right here,” he’s giving us a tour of Target and it shows you how the store works. He’s like, “This shelf right here is the high most profitable shelf in Target. It’s the highest profit per square inch,” which is how Target measures, you know, success. And he’s giving us this Target masterclass and we were like, “Are you also in Walmart?” He’s like, “Yeah, we’re in Walmart, but we’re not doing so well.” And uh I asked him, “What’s exciting for you coming up?” And this guy runs a billion dollar plus company. I assumed he was just going to say, “I’ve got some board meetings to line up, or I’m going I’m taking the family to to Aspen.” And he goes, “Actually, I’m working the next three weeks um as a Walmart associate.” I was like, “What?” And he goes, “Yeah, I’m I’m going to be uh he’s like, “Our sales in Walmart are not the same as in Target and I’ve been trying to figure out why. What I found remarkable is that you expect the people who are the most busy, the most accomplished, the most high net worth to be above these tasks. Jimmy restocking the SKUs himself. This other guy going to be a Walmart associate for three weeks. You know, they don’t have to do any of this, but they’re going to do it anyways. They’re not just doing it now, now that they’re successful. That’s how they got here. And so that was the first really big takeaway from this whole thing was the intensity with which certain people play the game of business and how that leads to success.
The Quietest Person [18:08]
Shaan Puri: That guy who you’re referring to was the quietest person there, or one of. And there was a point where I was hanging out with him, he goes, “Can I get you guys’s opinion? You know, I think in I’m thinking about potentially like making some type of business move which would value us at this valuation.” And we were like, “What valuation?” And it was like in the billions. And we were like, “Do you do you know who we are? Why are you asking us this question?” Like, what like what are you what are you talking about, man? Like, you I don’t know who you asked this question to, but not like he was the most uh like humble person there and he was crazy successful. It was pretty wild uh that that guy who you’re talking about. Um all right, I have one. Confidence beats IQ.
Confidence Beats IQ [18:48]
Shaan Puri: So, you know, there are a lot of like really successful people out there. Like when I read Warren Buffett’s biography, he he does the opposite where he is like, “Oh, you know, I’m just this guy.” It’s like, dude, you’re you’re a bonafide. Oh, shucks downplaying them their IQ. Yeah, it’s like, you’re a baby genius. Like he was like when he was like four, he was like making 10 grand a month selling Pepsi. Um, but in general, the group of people who we had there, there were some people for sure who are genius. Uh I think Jimmy is one of them actually. I I think when you talk to him, you know, he’s like uh brilliant. But and like Mario from Oscar was one of them. Mario uh co-founded a company called Oscar, which is a health insurance company, which is one of the hardest things ever to do. It’s worth publicly traded $4 billion. So he’s like the man and he doesn’t even speak English or or he does. That’s a second language. So like you know, he’s from Germany. So imagine He speaks genius. Dude, imagine going to Germany and revolutionizing the German healthcare market. You know what I mean? Like it’s it’s pretty wild. Extra degree of difficulty. Like just go to someone else’s motherland and fix their shit. Yeah, which is wild. But you know, he was a genius. But in general, dude, the wealthiest people there, I noticed we’re not even close to the smartest. And here’s an example. One of the billionaire guys was there. He goes, “Man, AI is just going to change the world. You guys, I don’t think you guys get it. Like, I use it every day.” And I was like, “How do you how do you use it?” He goes, “I could show you right now.” And he pulls out his phone and he talks to ChatGBT and he goes, “Hey, ChatGBT, you know, I have a question.” And he like starts like reading a question to it and then he’s like, “Now watch how amazing it is.” And he like it repeats the answer and I’m like, “Oh, so you’re saying that you just use ChatGBT like all the time.” Like, yeah. And I was like, “Well, like have you like trained it?” He goes, “Train, you can train it?” Like, like he didn’t know that you could do these things and this particular guy ran a company doing billions a year in revenue. I guess what I mean is like the the the the the percentage of intelligence greater than me or you or someone else there versus impact or net worth was not like that. It wasn’t Totally. Totally, totally agree with that, which is that when you sit in a room like this, two things happen. One, you just get to sample like it’s Costco and it’s noon at Costco and you’re just getting to sample different lifestyles. Oh, what do you do? Oh wow, you seem kind of stressed out. Gotcha. Like, not interested in going down that aisle. Yeah. Hey, you seem like you’re having a lot of fun. What do you do? How do you think about this? Uh you got kids too. How are you doing both, right? And you get to sample people’s lifestyle when you hang out with them like this for like, you know, 48 hours straight. Um on top of that, you also get to do the measuring stick thing, which kind of sucks because you’re measuring yourself against like some of the most creative, successful, ambitious people in the world. But a big part of it is you’re trying to figure out the diff, right? It’s like those see those little children’s games, these two pictures, what’s the difference between these two pictures? And on one side is me and the other side is them. And I’m always looking at what’s the difference. And sometimes if it’s like a Mario or whatever, it’s like, oh cool, like his brain has an extra library in it. There’s an extra wing that somebody donated to that brain. All right, cool. Like I can I can live with that. I can sleep easy. But there were other people where it was like, oh, it just seems like they didn’t limit themselves. That’s what I mean. They just kind of went for it or they have their courage was just on a little bit higher supply than mine. And you’re right that when you look at the diff, very very rarely was the diff, these people are smarter than me or they had some advantages I didn’t have coming up, right? It’s like, in fact, it was usually the opposite. It’s like, damn, they had this huge chip on their shoulder because their dad wasn’t around and because of this happened and they were dyslexic. There’s a bunch of people there that were dyslexic. Dude, I wish I was dyslexic. And I met all these guys. Yeah, I know. I thought autism was the goal. It’s dyslexic. Dude, every dyslexic guy there somehow was a good freestyle rapper. Did you know that? Like not only rich, but also cool in a group of of men huddled around together, right? Like Yeah. Like I wish I was charismatic like a dyslexic guy. Like that’s crazy. It’s like if you’re if you’re if it’s like if you’re blind, you’re a good like piano player and if you’re dyslexic, you’re like the most charismatic guy on earth. Yeah, exactly. I have a related point, which is I just wrote these two words. I don’t know if you can read this. I am. I am. So my trainer has a like a clothing brand that he creates. It’s called Superconscious Co. So one of the shirts he gave me that from Superconscious, my favorite shirt, it just on the side, it just says, “I am.” And then it’s after and underneath it says, “The two most important words in the English language. For whatever comes after them will define your life.” If you think you are destined for greatness, if you think you belong at that table, you will make different decisions along the way. And then it becomes sort of self-fulfilling, right? You’ll work at a different speed, you’ll take different risks, you will you will go for it in a different way. Several conversations I had at this event where I realized, damn, a lot of the a lot of the downstream decisions start with the little voice in your head, the little director of your movie who’s deciding like, what kind of movie is this? Is this like an indie budget? Is this a tragedy? Is this a comedy? Are you a joke? Or is this a hero? Is this a Marvel movie? Are you the hero saving the world, right? And like, I’m not saying one is better than the other, but you get to decide what that little voice in your head is going to tell you because the director says, you know, what happens in the story, where you stand, what what you say, all of those things. And I thought, damn, a lot of what I’m seeing in how people are living their lives and what they’re doing differently comes from the little voice in their head just has a different script in mind for that what their life is all about, that I am statement. Or like here’s a small example. How about Jesse bringing his sauna? Jesse Itzler brought his sauna and he had two guys and I was like, “What do you guys do?” He’s like, “Oh, we bring these saunas.” Like whenever he wants to go somewhere. He keeps the sauna hot. Yeah, he’s like, “Whenever we go, when he wants to go to like a conference or something, like this sauna is like a really cool way to like create a bonding experience,” which it was by the way. Just chilling in the sauna was freaking awesome. And I was like, “Wait, Jesse, you got these two guys whose just like job is to like trail around this like sauna like across the country to bring to events. That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard of.” He’s like, “Yeah, isn’t it great? We get to hang in this sauna.” I was like, “Yes.” And that’s like another example of like intensity, but like on a more relatable scale. Right. All right, I have one. Confidence beats IQ. So, you know, there are a lot of like really successful people out there. Like when I read Warren Buffett’s biography, he he does the opposite where he is like, “Oh, you know, I’m just this guy.” It’s like, dude, you’re you’re a bonafide. Oh, shucks downplaying them their IQ. Yeah, it’s like, you’re a baby genius. Like he was like when he was like four, he was like making 10 grand a month selling Pepsi. Um, but in general, the group of people who we had there, there were some people for sure who are genius. Uh I think Jimmy is one of them actually. I I think when you talk to him, you know, he’s like uh brilliant. But and like Mario from Oscar was one of them. Mario uh co-founded a company called Oscar, which is a health insurance company, which is one of the hardest things ever to do. It’s worth publicly traded $4 billion. So he’s like the man and he doesn’t even speak English or or he does. That’s a second language. So like you know, he’s from Germany. So imagine He speaks genius. Dude, imagine going to Germany and revolutionizing the German healthcare market. You know what I mean? Like it’s it’s pretty wild. Extra degree of difficulty. Like just go to someone else’s motherland and fix their shit. Yeah, which is wild. But you know, he was a genius. But in general, dude, the wealthiest people there, I noticed we’re not even close to the smartest. And here’s an example. One of the billionaire guys was there. He goes, “Man, AI is just going to change the world. You guys, I don’t think you guys get it. Like, I use it every day.” And I was like, “How do you how do you use it?” He goes, “I could show you right now.” And he pulls out his phone and he talks to ChatGBT and he goes, “Hey, ChatGBT, you know, I have a question.” And he like starts like reading a question to it and then he’s like, “Now watch how amazing it is.” And he like it repeats the answer and I’m like, “Oh, so you’re saying that you just use ChatGBT like all the time.” Like, yeah. And I was like, “Well, like have you like trained it?” He goes, “Train, you can train it?” Like, like he didn’t know that you could do these things and this particular guy ran a company doing billions a year in revenue. I guess what I mean is like the the the the the percentage of intelligence greater than me or you or someone else there versus impact or net worth was not like that. It wasn’t Totally. Totally, totally agree with that, which is that when you sit in a room like this, two things happen. One, you just get to sample like it’s Costco and it’s noon at Costco and you’re just getting to sample different lifestyles. Oh, what do you do? Oh wow, you seem kind of stressed out. Gotcha. Like, not interested in going down that aisle. Yeah. Hey, you seem like you’re having a lot of fun. What do you do? How do you think about this? Uh you got kids too. How are you doing both, right? And you get to sample people’s lifestyle when you hang out with them like this for like, you know, 48 hours straight. Um on top of that, you also get to do the measuring stick thing, which kind of sucks because you’re measuring yourself against like some of the most creative, successful, ambitious people in the world. But a big part of it is you’re trying to figure out the diff, right? It’s like those see those little children’s games, these two pictures, what’s the difference between these two pictures? And on one side is me and the other side is them. And I’m always looking at what’s the difference. And sometimes if it’s like a Mario or whatever, it’s like, oh cool, like his brain has an extra library in it. There’s an extra wing that somebody donated to that brain. All right, cool. Like I can I can live with that. I can sleep easy. But there were other people where it was like, oh, it just seems like they didn’t limit themselves. That’s what I mean. They just kind of went for it or they have their courage was just on a little bit higher supply than mine. And you’re right that when you look at the diff, very very rarely was the diff, these people are smarter than me or they had some advantages I didn’t have coming up, right? It’s like, in fact, it was usually the opposite. It’s like, damn, they had this huge chip on their shoulder because their dad wasn’t around and because of this happened and they were dyslexic. There’s a bunch of people there that were dyslexic. Dude, I wish I was dyslexic. And I met all these guys. Yeah, I know. I thought autism was the goal. It’s dyslexic. Dude, every dyslexic guy there somehow was a good freestyle rapper. Did you know that? Like not only rich, but also cool in a group of of men huddled around together, right? Like Yeah. Like I wish I was charismatic like a dyslexic guy. Like that’s crazy. It’s like if you’re if you’re if it’s like if you’re blind, you’re a good like piano player and if you’re dyslexic, you’re like the most charismatic guy on earth. Yeah, exactly. I have a related point, which is I just wrote these two words. I don’t know if you can read this. I am. I am. So my trainer has a like a clothing brand that he creates. It’s called Superconscious Co. So one of the shirts he gave me that from Superconscious, my favorite shirt, it just on the side, it just says, “I am.” And then it’s after and underneath it says, “The two most important words in the English language. For whatever comes after them will define your life.” If you think you are destined for greatness, if you think you belong at that table, you will make different decisions along the way. And then it becomes sort of self-fulfilling, right? You’ll work at a different speed, you’ll take different risks, you will you will go for it in a different way. Several conversations I had at this event where I realized, damn, a lot of the a lot of the downstream decisions start with the little voice in your head, the little director of your movie who’s deciding like, what kind of movie is this? Is this like an indie budget? Is this a tragedy? Is this a comedy? Are you a joke? Or is this a hero? Is this a Marvel movie? Are you the hero saving the world, right? And like, I’m not saying one is better than the other, but you get to decide what that little voice in your head is going to tell you because the director says, you know, what happens in the story, where you stand, what what you say, all of those things. And I thought, damn, a lot of what I’m seeing in how people are living their lives and what they’re doing differently comes from the little voice in their head just has a different script in mind for that what their life is all about, that I am statement. Or like here’s a small example. How about Jesse bringing his sauna? Jesse Itzler brought his sauna and he had two guys and I was like, “What do you guys do?” He’s like, “Oh, we bring these saunas.” Like whenever he wants to go somewhere. He keeps the sauna hot. Yeah, he’s like, “Whenever we go, when he wants to go to like a conference or something, like this sauna is like a really cool way to like create a bonding experience,” which it was by the way. Just chilling in the sauna was freaking awesome. And I was like, “Wait, Jesse, you got these two guys whose just like job is to like trail around this like sauna like across the country to bring to events. That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard of.” He’s like, “Yeah, isn’t it great? We get to hang in this sauna.” I was like, “Yes.” And that’s like another example of like intensity, but like on a more relatable scale. Right. All right, I have one. You could take your billions and shove it up your ass. Just Seneca? Put yeah, put that on a on one of those inspirational posters that you see in your office. There is this one guy who was one of the first investors in a variety of Elon companies. And presumably a a a billionaire. Like you know, investing in Tesla at a $60 million valuation I or $100 million valuation, you know, I don’t know what that Is that like a I is that like a 100,000 times? So something like that. Yeah, we don’t do public math. Yeah, like a lot. It’s now it’s now a trillion dollar company. Yeah, so it’s a big deal. Um You know, there was this funny story where this guy was telling a story about working really hard and like he uh was grinding and his kid was sick and he’s like, “I had to take a week off to like go and help my kid.” And you know, I that was a big deal because I was working so hard. And then this other guy came and he goes, “You know how you guys are all talking about working 16 hours weeks, 16 hours a day on your companies? Um right now, I’m doing that as well, but my company is my family and I have retired from business and I work 16 hours a day as the CEO of my family.” And when he said that, I was like, this is awesome. Um and I imagine he was exaggerating a little bit because I imagine he still does some type of uh uh deal making or something like that. Um you know, I don’t know him well enough to know, but I thought it was so cool when he said that and I thought like you have it figured out. Same with Jesse Itzler. These two guys who I don’t want I can’t say the first guy’s name, but Jesse also had the same energy where I was like, this is this is the way. And this is all personal preference, you know, Jimmy wanted to be Elon, cool. Go do that. But when I heard these this other way of talking, I was like, you know, after this is easy to say because everyone was wealthy, but after some number, I don’t know what that number is, 10, 20, 30, some millions of numbers, not a lot of it really matters and just like having a good time with your family is something I really admired and I and I thought it was really cool that that guy said that and it made me realize that I was getting sucked in this vortex of like money, money, money and achievement, achievement, whatever. But when I saw these guys talk and their energy, I was more drawn to that than anyone else there. Do you agree? Yeah, 100%. I think when when I go to events like this, my instinct is to figure out, oh, how do you win? Oh, how do you win? How do you win? What tactics, what techniques, what strategies, what approaches work? And instead, the better question almost every single time is, what game are you even playing? And picking the right game matters way more than figuring out how to win the wrong game. Dude, there was people there who were like mini Genghis Khans, where it’s like they want to dominate. Like they get joy out of war and domination. They want to build cities, they want to dominate industries, they want to do that. That’s a that’s one game you could play. And by the way, no judgment. Great. Do whatever game you want to play. I just want to know what the games are so I can pick. And then other people were like, I want to be CEO of my family full-time and I’m like, eh, I’ve done a four-hour stretch with my kids like I think I’m more of a 45 minutes a day, 45 minutes at a time, four times a day. That’s that’s my ideal. So okay, I’m not going to be CEO of my family because I I would actually be miserable if I was a full-time stay-at-home dad personally. But I but okay, that’s a game I could play. Then uh I talked to Jesse and I was like, Jesse, what do you do? Like what do you do every day now? I’m training for races and I’m coaching my kids sports things. I do public speaking because I feel like it keeps me sharp and I get excited and get up on stage and say some shit that lights people up. He’s like, “I’m selling calendars.” He’s like, “It’s not going to make He’s like, “I’m not making a fortune.” Like these guys, you know, they they’ll do that in a in a day or two a week, what we’ll do in a year, but I I I don’t know. I like doing it. I’m doing what I want to be doing. And he was very at ease with that. He’s at peace with that. And I think obviously some of that comes from maturity, but a lot of it comes from it’s easy to be at peace when you’re actually doing the thing that puts you at peace, when you’re doing the thing you like. And if you’re kind of I don’t know, like masquerading around trying to just do what you think you should be doing, I think that becomes very exhausting. And so I’m with you that figuring out what game to play seems like the much much more important question at every phase of your life. And the game I wanted to play in my 20s is different than the one I’m I’m playing currently in my 30s, and it’s probably going to be different than what I play in my 40s and 50s. And I just got to kind of reinvent myself. Dude, there was one guy there, he said he worked with Elon and apparently he had to do a meeting or something with Elon and like the secretary told him like, “All right, you’re going to do this meeting, but I need you to know that Elon makes his companies make $20 million every one hour. So this better be a $20 million meeting.” I heard a similar thing from a guy who worked with them that he was like, uh Elon would have a meeting, but he would there would be like 40 or 50 people in the meeting. And the reason why was not because that makes for a more effective meeting, but because it was like, if the right if the person who we need to talk to is not in this room, it’s such a colossal waste of his time that we’ll just fly everybody here and we’re going to have this, you know, 45-minute block and that way everybody’s here because all of your time collectively is not worth as much as his his hour. Which is like such a such an absurd power move. Is that like it’s hard to it’s hard to fathom this. Uh let me tell you a really quick one, which is hard work amongst this group, not universal. So there was one guy, I you weren’t there, you were Sean like busted his knee in the second hour or something like that and had to stay at home for like this whole one whole session. And there was this guy there who was explaining how hard he grinds. And then there was this other guy who was uh one of the more successful guys there. He was like, “I work like 20 hours a week.” He’s like, “Once my companies got to be like some type of like predictable, stable, like, all right, if we just keep doing this for 10 years, we’re going to grow 50% a year, hopefully, like it’s going to whatever.” He was like, “I started working 20 hours a week.” And he’s like, “I wouldn’t work Fridays.” Uh and it was really interesting to see that not everyone worked hard. Did you get that sense from people? The thing I pulled from it was some people were basically operating like monopolies and other people were not. Uh meaning there were some people playing a game where the competition is so vicious. Like, you know, like it’s easy, his example is YouTube. If you stop uploading, the the game stop, the music stops. There’s literally a million other businesses in that same exact space doing the exact same exact thing who are ready to eat you on. Exactly. And and every idea you put out there in a video, somebody else is going to copy and a lot of people do copy the the exact videos that he does and the exact script. It’s all public information. It’s all super competitive. There’s no gatekeeping. And then there’s other people who were like, “Yeah, all we had to do was get to this, like we just had to get this shelf space.” Like there was one guy who was showing us a shelf at Target and he was like, basically seven years of the company was just dedicated was just like hard work dedicated to getting on the shelf. But once you’re on the shelf, it’s almost impossible for anybody else to get on the shelf. All we have to do now is stay on the shelf. By the way, this shelf right here, like this little rack you’re looking at, this is $300 million a year. And you’re just looking at it, you’re like, “Oh damn, like wow, one shelf in Walmart, one shelf in uh in Target is a is like the entire revenue streams of like these online only companies. But you’re extremely defensible compared to other businesses where the moment you take a take a break, you have the entire internet competing with you on that same thing, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. That that was an interesting thing. Do you have um I have a quick one. Health is wealth. Uh in a room full of very wealthy people, how many fancy clothes did you see? How many fancy watches did you see? How many fancy cars did you hear people bragging about? Everyone but Joe Gebbia looked schleppy. Joe Gebbia looked great, even in like workout gear. Even in workout gear. He was wearing some nice shit. Dude, he looks like he should be in like a Taylor Sheridan show. Like if if he made an if he made an appearance on Landman, I wouldn’t even I wouldn’t even blink. Everyone besides him. Dude, do you know he’s on the board of Tesla? I didn’t know that either. Like he he does a lot of interesting stuff. Um everyone besides him looked like we’re like we’re like at a slumber party. Well, we were we were also. Yeah, but during the day. Yeah. That should be the title list. Slumber party with billionaires. So, but the health is wealth thing was very real. There was a lot of flexing on stuff you’re doing for your health. What you’re eating and not eating, how much who’s your doctor? Who’s your what’s your protocol? What’s your Dude, no one was like that jacked or ripped or anything. Where were they? Other than Joe? Uh yeah, I thought people were in pretty good shape. If you go to other industries, non kind of like tech, internet, not our bubble, right? But like go to like a conference with the wealthiest people in finance or oil or whatever, like pick any industry, their body shape looks a lot different. No, everyone they looked like a healthy 55-year-old. Dude, after basically our day was go play basketball for three hours, like an intense basketball game, come home, go into a 250 degree sauna. Then when you’re tired of the sauna, go into this pond that was like freezing cold in North Carolina and go plunge for three minutes, then go back into the sauna, then go back into the plunge. Then there’s like a masseuse doing bodywork and myofascial release for you. Then you’re eating and everybody’s eating clean. Every single person’s eating clean while we’re there, right? Like it’s like dude, that was the norm. Like that is not normal. You know, if you were drinking something out of a plastic bottle, it’s like basically doing heroin at this event. Dude, me and Nick Huber got Taco Bell at midnight. We we we we wanted to It’s it’s secrecy. Yeah, like we didn’t want to tell anyone. Secrecy. You got like a feastable bar in my like I like hid it in my hoodie and I crutched over to my bedroom and ate it like in shame over there because what am I going to do? Sit here and eat a chocolate bar in front of these men? Hey, this is 52 years old and ripped. Yeah, he looked great. I was like, wow, this guy is, you know, on the Forbes, you know, self-made billionaires list. And also, also just ripped for fun as a side quest. Dude, yeah, yeah. I mean, he looked great. Uh and then Jesse’s 56 and runs 100 100 mile races. How many 50-year-olds are ripped and run 100 mile races? Nobody does that shit. Especially successful guys. Jimmy wanted to do like a taste test. He had everyone like gather around to do a taste test of like Hershey’s versus his stuff. And like I like pretended like, “Oh, wow, Jimmy, your stuff is great. I’ve never had this before.” But like at every Airbnb in the kitchen, did you see this? At every Airbnb, it was like literally 100 candy bars. And I literally had 2,000 calories per night of his candy. I ate so much of I could tell you about all of it. Like I could I could I did I I didn’t need a taste test. I could tell I’m already an expert on I could tell you about all all the flavors, the peanut butter ones, the dark chocolate ones, the He’s like, “You don’t have to lick the wrapper for the taste test.” I like, “No, no, no. This is this is how I’m thorough.” Like I’ve already I’m like, “Jimmy, I already know. Like I’ve I’ve eaten all of them and I I had M&M’s and uh Hershey bars on the plane on the way here. Like I already I could tell you about all of them.” The hilarious thing is when he’s when he’s like hanging out with like the uh like the the the the upper echelon of the group, he’s just like, “You just try a piece of this one. You don’t have to eat the whole thing.” But like, you know, it’s more for younger people, but like whatever. That’s when he goes, he goes, “It’s for kids.” It’s for kids. And he’s like, he gives you he’ll give you like the dark chocolate flavor. Yeah, I was like, dude. And I’m sitting there with like cookies and cream all over my face and I’m like, “I like it. I like the cookies and cream one.” Yeah. It’s like my daughter just learned It’s my favorite, Jimmy. You have more of this one? Yeah, my daughter just learned how to say more and but I feel like this more. More. More, more, more this one. I was doing this all the time. More, more, more. Can I give you some some of the negative ones? How about the guy who goes, “At that point, I was broke. I think I only had like $20 million.” Yeah, he’s telling some story. Well, there’s a there was a hilarious conversation about prenups, which is, you know, nothing more can be said except for there was an incredible conversation about prenups. I was about to go outside, me and uh me and someone else were going to go outside to the sauna and someone said, “Hey, can I ask you guys about predup?” And we were like, “Uh, uh, let’s just sit right here. I just want to listen.” Let’s just listen. It was one of the most that like next three hours was one of the most entertaining three hours of my life. Like I I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in uh five, 10 years. Like I I was literally like belly laugh crying. Some shocking setup setups. People ask them Billionaires are not like you and me. If you’re listening to this, billionaires exist and they are not like you. They are not like you. I would say is the midwit meme was in full effect. I’ll give you one example. So, the way we played our basketball tournament was three teams uh and we played and then it was supposed to be the, you know, the top two teams play for the finals. But ever but all the teams finished the same record. One like we all had one win, one loss after everybody played each other. So it was like, okay, well which two teams advance to the finals? And so I but everybody’s getting tired, so I had to make something up. So I was like, “All right, we’re going to do a like a penalty kick shootout.” So what’s the most exciting, you know, like thing in sports? It’s in hockey or soccer where they do the shootout. Um and it’s not going to take up a bunch of energy because like we’re old guys and people are getting hurt. We got to like we can’t play an extra game to figure out who’s going to go. So we said, “All right, everybody step up to pick five every each team pick five guys, they’re going to shoot a free throw and then the team that makes the least, like pressure’s on, everybody’s watching you.” So it was interesting. One team, my team was like, “This is a dictatorship. Like, yell all the five best to the other guys, they’re better than you. These five are shooting.” Who was the dictator? What I I was the dictator. I didn’t even think there was another way. I was like, “Of course, we’re just going to pick our five best and do this.” Like, honestly, I didn’t even consider another method. And I was the coach of my team because I had gotten injured. I’m on crutches, so I was like doing that. The second guy, uh the second team did it merit-based. And then the third was like kind of like a volunteer voting system or whatever. And in the merit-based thing, what a funny thing that happened was one of the guys who was probably less good at basketball overall, made it in the practice shot. And one of the guys who was one of their better players on the team just happened to miss. So it was like, “Damn, are you all really going to not have one of your best players shoot and have this other guy shoot?” And I was just watching. I’m like, “I just want to see what happens here.” I want to see what happens with the egos. I just need to know. I need to see this. The guy was like, “You sure? You want to do it?” He’s like, “No, no, no, you should do it. You made it. You made it.” If you want to, I’ll do it. And then the guy’s like, “No, I mean, I don’t know. I think I’m going to do it.” He’s like, “Okay, go ahead and do it.” So, so the guy steps up and he shoots and he makes it. The guy who’s probably like, you know, a weaker basketball players, makes it, clutched it up and has this awesome moment and his team advances to the finals. And I feel so happy for this guy and I’m like, “That was amazing.” I’m like, “I’m like, I’m glad that they kind of honored it.” A real Rudy moment. He had a Rudy moment. He honored it, he made it, good for him. That was awesome under pressure. I love I wanted everybody to have like golden moments during the during the event. But then, after the finals, and this their team goes on, wins the finals, happy, they’re holding the trophy, it’s all good. Afterwards, we’re all like packing up to leave and he’s like, he goes up to that guy, the other guy who sat out. He’s like, “Hey, I want can you and me go shoot free throws? I want to know if that was the correct like EV decision, statistically.” And the guy’s like, “No, man, you already made it. Like you already you already made it. We already won. Like you’re good, dude, you did it.” He’s like, “No, no, no, I can I need to know.” I need to know. And he’s like, “No, like it’s like honestly, it’s done. You I’m glad you did it, you made it.” He’s like, “I need to know.” And he’s like, “All right, so they go and they shoot. And of course, the guy who’s played basketball his whole life makes more of the free throws and like the with the larger sample size. And then the other guy was like kind of head down for like he’s kind of bummed out about it for a second. And I was like, “What a what an intelligently stupid thing to do, right? Like he wanted to know like, was this a positive EV decision? Was this statistically the correct move? Dude, what does EV mean? Expected value. It’s like if you’re playing poker, you can you bet your chips and even if you lose, you’re still happy because you made the right decision even if the result didn’t pan out. That’s so funny. There’s chances. And so, you know, I was like, “Way to snatch like way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.” And there was so many of these little moments where like there’s this guy there who’s like, he’s a total catch. He’s like smart, he’s good-looking, he’s ripped, he’s uh successful, all these things. And he I I just thought a guy like this could walk into a coffee shop and like the cute barista would want him to talk to her. There’s a I’ve always wanted to be that guy. You know, like this guy could have been that guy. He could have been It could be so easy for him to just meet someone amazing. And instead, you want to describe like So, all right. I think what he did was did he scrape He built a program that scraped LinkedIn. He starts with the desired result. He’s like, “I want a beautiful, intelligent, successful woman,” or something like that. I was there for the whole thing. Whatever. Someone who fit his like heritage. And so he was like, “Cool.” So he built an AI bot to crawl LinkedIn to then scrape all the like successful, beautiful women, like trained on images of women that he thought were beautiful. Like every woman who was like of a certain like look in New York who was between, you know, whatever, 22 and 30 or whatever, he had like a database. He had he had binders of women. Yeah, he had binders full of women. It was hilarious. And then he had this like whole system for how he could reach out to them with like a it was amazing. I don’t I don’t want to go into all the details, but like Dude, he had a dedicated iPhone there. He goes, “This is my iPhone.” And I he goes, “I have two full-time engineers who have built this program that auto-DMs them this particular DM on Instagram. Let me uh send her a voice note.” I go, “You send voice notes?” He goes, “I have found that voice notes convert better.” And like he like showed me the voice note. And as he told this whole system, it’s like, what’s that thing called? The Rorschach test or whatever where you see the blot and it’s like you either see like, you know, a killer or an angel or whatever. His it was like some people were like, “This is the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen.” And then some people like the married guys who were like, you know, 50, 40s and 50s were like, “Brother, you’re you’re it’s too much. You’re doing too much here. You got to just like just see a cute girl and go talk to her. It’s okay. Let it let it roll organically, baby. It’s going to work better that way.” And I just thought it was hilarious. Um I’m really late. I got to go. I’m supposed to be speaking at something right now. I got to I got to jet. I just realized I’m I’m way over. That’s it. That’s the pod.