In this episode, Sam Parr and Shaan Puri explore the daily habits and mindset of Hayes Barnard, a billionaire entrepreneur who emphasizes the power of unconventional routines and intentional living. They discuss the importance of breaking out of ruts, the benefits of breathwork, and the value of taking time for oneself to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Topics: Entrepreneurship, Routine, Breathwork, Wealth, Mindset, Work-Life Balance
Introduction [00:00]
Sam Parr: And I’m like, “Wow, why am I so stressed out all the time? Why am I anxious about this?” Shaan Puri: This is Hayes Barnard. Most of the time, you see guys like this on the cover of Forbes magazine. You see, Hayes has got an incredible story. He flunked out of the first grade and is now one of the wealthiest people in the world. But what I love about Hayes, he thinks big and he plays big. I’m Shaan, and I want to take you behind the pod.
A Morning Routine with Hayes [00:25]
Shaan Puri: Should we show up early? Should we show up early in a real power move? Sam Parr: I think if he gets there and we’re already in the water, he’ll have no idea what to do with that. Shaan Puri: Hayes has invited us down here. We just wanted to do a podcast, and he said, “No, no, no. Come out here, live a day in my life. I want you to wake up at 5:00 in the morning, meet me at the lake, freezing cold water.” He’s got apparently a crazy breathwork routine. He does this every day. I do the—I’m willing to do this one day today. He does this every single day. I think that’s the difference between me and a billionaire.
Breaking the Routine [00:56]
Shaan Puri: As we drove over to his house, I started feeling weirdly anxious. You know, I’ve done like 500 of these episodes, but for some reason, it’s different to just do them remotely, see a little face on a screen, versus actually go to their house and see what they’re really like. But I wanted to do it because I have this feeling that I’m just doing the same things with the same people all the time. Our routines can become ruts, as Hayes says. So today, I wanted to break my frame. I wanted to go sample a day in the life of someone that I really admire. And even more pressure, we decided to film it. I’m not a vlogger, I’ve never done this before, but I wanted to take you with me so you can see this firsthand, just the way I did.
The “Barnacle” [01:30]
Sam Parr: That’s a lot. Shaan Puri: What’s up, man? You good? Sam Parr: Yeah, I’m good. I’m good. You good? Shaan Puri: All right, let’s do it. Sam Parr: This is going to be super fun, man. This is ideas every morning. There’s a different friend that comes over every morning to join me. Shaan Puri: Nice. Sam Parr: It’s just a great way to start the day. So, I’m super grateful you guys are here. Shaan Puri: I did some breathwork with him one morning, and it was really weird. It made me very uncomfortable. And then I was like, “I’ll try it a second day.” But the third day, I was like, “I feel really amazing. I feel great about my life. This is incredible.” So now I do it, and it—it makes a big difference. Sam Parr: I don’t have a name for it. You want to call it something? Shaan Puri: I have one for you. Sam Parr: Oh, you do? Shaan Puri: The Barnacle.
The Power of Horizontal Light [02:09]
Sam Parr: There’s there’s something I’m curious. Like when you do this today, I’m thinking about this right now for myself. I haven’t thought about it, but is there something that you want to get out of it? Like is there something you’re really focused on in business or or family? Hayes Barnard: There’s two things that are top of mind for me. One is the kind of like life career stuff. So basically, I’ve hit this point where I kind of did everything I wanted to do for the things I wanted to do 10 years ago. What I don’t want to do is just continue doing those things due to lack of imagination. So I’m trying to kind of imagine, all right, what would the next five, seven years be like that would more like tap into my potential, what I can do. Shaan Puri: What’s the thing you want out of this session? Like what are you thinking about? Hayes Barnard: Man, I I’m trying to really think through the balance of my life right now. I don’t have a ton of balance from a time perspective. Just pulled in a lot of directions where sometimes I don’t feel like I’m a good enough friend. I don’t think I’m a good enough dad. I don’t think I’m a good enough husband. I’m not a good enough CEO. Um, understanding that there’s a balance between various times types of um happiness. And and I’m trying to show people like, look, take time for yourself. Space. Space is okay. When you’re a workaholic like me and you grind all the time and you’re like addicted to success, you’re addicted to productivity, it’s hard to just take a moment and watch the sunrise and drop in. And so I’m forcing myself to say, “It’s okay. Like take space. Like it’s okay, man. Like it’s good for you. This is your opportunity to kind of just think.” We all have our little demons, you know? That little devil on our shoulder that says, “I’m not enough.”
The Cold Plunge [04:51]
Shaan Puri: Okay, you ready? One, two, three. Let’s go, big dog. Sam Parr: Good morning. Shaan Puri: Good morning. Let’s go. Sam Parr: This is miserable. This is not pain. Shaan Puri: I don’t know if it’s the breathwork or— Sam Parr: It’s the breathwork. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, your body’s awake. Shaan Puri: I feel like my body was primed. Sam Parr: Yeah, you’re totally. Your your your whole all your blood’s in your in your chest and your you’re just like, dude, I’m like literally relaxed right now. Shaan Puri: Yeah, that’s a very So this is the deepest part of the lake. It’s around 2,000 ft deep. You know, Huberman’s done a bunch of studies about the power of horizontal light. Sam Parr: Oh, really? What is that? Hayes Barnard: Oh, yeah. It’s like amazing for your circadian rhythm. You want to watch the sunrise and you want to watch the sunset because it’s really great for your happy factor. It’s really great for your brain. I love this view that you’re about to get in this lake with the horizontal light shooting through the water at us. It’s almost like you’re in space. So on the count of three, we’re going to go down. Ready? Hold your breath as long as you can and just open your eyes. Look at each other. Open your eyes, man. One, two, three.
Post-Plunge Reflection [06:16]
Shaan Puri: Forgot to breathe. I forgot to breathe before I went down. Oh man. So good. Sam Parr: Shaan, how you feeling? Shaan Puri: Amazing. Sam Parr: Well, you’re saying yesterday, don’t start the day with two coffees. Shaan Puri: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this is how you start the day. Sam Parr: Yeah. This is it, you know? Shaan Puri: I never drink coffee. People stimulate themselves, all this caffeine, all this sugar. Your your body is used to these patterns, these rhythms, these rituals and recipes, right? Yeah. And so you get into these rhythms that become ruts. And so one of the one of the things that I’ve learned is try to do something every single day that you’ve never done before. Then you remember the day, you mark the day. You’re like, “Oh yeah, that day I did that crazy thing,” you know? So what can we do that could be like different? Because I’ve done this before.
Exploring the Rocks [07:09]
Shaan Puri: All right, we’ll zip around the corner. There’s these rocks around the corner. And they just look fun. Almost like an adult jungle gym. All right, so we’re jumping back in. Jumping back in. Do something you’ve never done before. All right, so here are these rocks. You guys see these rocks right here? And so we’re going to do something we’ve never done before. Why not, right? Today is the day. We got to we got to make it happen. Shaan Puri: Dude, what a life-changing attitude. Every day I’m going to do something I haven’t done before. Just find find one moment. Childlike energy, right? Let’s go. Three, two, one, let’s go. Sam Parr: Oh man, come on. Dude, we’re living. We’re living right now. Man, that was amazing. How you feeling? Oh, so good. It’s like I feel so alive. That’s tough. How you feeling? Amazing. Awake. Not bad for a Wednesday.
The Gift [08:32]
Sam Parr: All right, that’s for sure. Okay, thanks. Shaan Puri: You’re right, everybody. Cut. Oh, wow. What? What? We took a speech. Oh my god. That was amazing. Oh man. We wanted to get it framed up for you. Picture with your mom with the bottle, so Oh, wow, man. I wanted you to have that because that was that was awesome. Oh, dude, you guys are amazing. Thank you so much. Dude, that’s so cool that you guys did that. You guys are so thoughtful. Wow. Wow, wow, wow, man. Whoa. And so I think that’s Oh, that’s literally in our room. Yeah. And then uh when you’re building the thing, sometimes you get so caught up building the thing that you forget to look back and look at the picture. Oh, dude, that’s crazy. So, so That’s crazy, man. It’s a good reminder of all the good. Oh, wow. Where where did you find all this stuff? Uh, Instagram.
Pod Done [09:26]
Shaan Puri: Pod done. You never really know how a podcast went until like two days later. You got to think about, what do you remember two days later? If you don’t remember anything two days later, it’s not a very good pod, but for this, I think I’ll have at least four or five big ideas that I’ll remember two days later. So now we go feast. Sam Parr: How did you feel swimming? Shaan Puri: Honestly, unbelievable. I was like, “Man, this is amazing, but we are done, right?” He’s like, “No, this next one is so good that I almost feel like we could just stop here on this rock.” We’re just supposed to chill. Dude, I was telling you yesterday, one of my worst fears is dislocating both of them at the same time. And I was like, “Oh my god, this would be the worst possible place for that to happen.”
The Webinar [10:07]
Shaan Puri: After hanging with Hayes, we had to head back to the house, do a webinar for one of our portfolio companies, Beehive. I don’t normally do webinars, but sometimes you got to do what you got to do. Sam Parr: Live and interactive. Let’s go. Ed, you have a great name and a great character. Dude, you should be in Hollywood. What are you doing here? You wrapped the lamp, I popped out. You’re like, “What the hell? The genie’s Indian?” And you’re like, “Yeah, I don’t do public math, but 5% of 10,000 is not that many people to get to your app.” So the first question is, if you got something like After we wrapped up the webinar, we headed back to meet up with Hayes. He wanted to give us a tour of the proper hotel he’s building in Tahoe. And the story is that Hayes was in the lake doing his morning routine, and he saw the building and decided, “One day, I’m going to buy that hotel and rebuild it into something great.” I don’t know if I believe in manifestation, but shoot, here we are. He’s giving us a tour of that hotel, rebuilding it, and telling us some really fun stories.
The Casino License [10:58]
Hayes Barnard: So this was the first licensed casino in the entire United States. And we had one slot machine that we kept running for many, many years just to keep the the casino license. Yeah. And so we’re not going to do a lot of slots. It’s going to be more like, you know, poker games and and some of the card games and things like that. You guys going to have Uno? You guys going to have Uno? Yeah, Uno. We’ll probably have Uno. Yeah. Power hungry pets. Uh, you know, exploding kittens, those types of things, right? Yeah.
Pickleball [12:05]
Shaan Puri: Time to play some pickleball. The real reason why we came out here. Sam Parr: All right, let’s go 110. Hayes, what would you rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10? Hayes Barnard: I’m like a a seven and a half. Shaan Puri: That’s a downplaying eight. He already told us off the record, he’s a nine. The cameras come on, he becomes Humble Hayes. All right, we know how it is. Go on, man. Go on. All right, play pickleball three times in my life maybe, but I am a natural born athlete. Peak Indian genetics that you’re about to see in action. You thought we were good at math. Pickleball has a component of math. Oh, stay safe, Diego. 5-8. Got to let it bounce right here. 1-4, 10-8. One. All right, man. What a day. Thank you. Appreciate you. Great hanging. See you later. I’ll bring you some pork ribs. Yeah. Have fun. We got to win in there. We got to win in there. Yeah, we did. There we go. Okay, guys. I’ll bring you some pork ribs next time. Yeah. Work out and get some pork ribs. Let’s go. I’ll see you in Austin soon, huh? All right, man. All right.