A Thanksgiving holiday special where Sam and Shaan share their best finds of the year across products, apps, and media. Topics range from fasting and breathwork apps to fat FIRE Reddit threads, home gym setups, YouTube rabbit holes, old-school direct sales seminars, and a 1930s Russian road-trip book about America. The episode is loose and conversational, structured as a back-and-forth gift guide of things the hosts genuinely love.
Speakers: Sam Parr (host, co-founder of The Hustle), Shaan Puri (host, founder of Milk Road)
Cold Open — The Boron Letters Tease [00:00:00]
Shaan: What is it about this writing style that’s so slippery that I just can’t get out of it? It’s like a TikTok feed. You know, and so I would say it’s like more like a door — where you kind of got to go knock and take a leap of faith that there is something on the other side. You can’t see exactly what you’re going to get until the door opens.
Opening — Putting Out Fires and Creating Space [00:00:30]
Sam: All right, we’re live. Cool sweatshirt. What’s going on?
Shaan: Oh dude, I already told you I couldn’t talk about it on air. But there are some days where there’s a fire on the third floor and you gotta grab the extinguisher and go put it out. That’s what I’ve been doing today. Putting out fires.
And I’m glad that I did this — we had a bunch of family coming in town for Thanksgiving. My wife was like, “Oh yeah, it’s great — my sister’s coming, this person’s coming, someone’s coming from India.” I’m like, “Oh god, okay.” She’s like, “We should host Thanksgiving.” I said, “You know I love the giving spirit, I love the idea, but we’re not hosting anything on Thanksgiving. Why? Because we have an e-commerce company and Black Friday is the biggest sales day of the year.”
She said, “Well, what are we gonna do? It’s just going to sell online — we’re not going to the warehouse.” I said, “Sometimes you gotta create space. You want to be available, you want buffer, you don’t want to be fully booked in case you need to pivot or something goes wrong.” Which is exactly what happened today.
Sam: I’m glad you did it, because you are not the man at creating space. That’s come with some gray hairs and wisdom.
Shaan: Yeah. So I’m here, I created space, and I’m reaching under the mattress for whatever good luck I’ve saved up. I need it today.
Sam: Okay. So today’s episode — we’re going to talk about products and media that we’ve consumed throughout the year that we think are cool. Gadgets, media, great finds. Whether it’s a product or a piece of content, these are things we’ve encountered this year.
Shaan: I think that’s in the Thanksgiving spirit. People have time over the holidays. This is a good chance to either buy something as a gift for yourself or someone else, or check out something you haven’t tried before.
Sam: All right. Let’s start. You name one, I’ll name one — or should we do it by category?
Shaan: Let’s do apps. I think we both have an app we really like. What’s a great find you had that’s an app this year?
Apps: Fasting, Journaling, and Breathwork [00:03:30]
Sam: Okay. Unfortunately a lot of what I might name is going to involve fitness. A lot will be money-related and some around mindset. The first one is Zero — it’s called Zero, I believe Kevin Rose started it. So I never thought I was intermittent fasting, but just to avoid overeating throughout the day, I wouldn’t eat breakfast. Turns out that’s called intermittent fasting.
This app called Zero — it’s free, there’s a paid version which I honestly don’t think does anything different. The free version: you say when you had your last meal, and it just tells you when to eat again. In my case it’s 16 hours. It’s awesome. I can’t believe how that one app actually makes me want to stick to it, as opposed to doing it on my own. That app has made a meaningful change for me.
Shaan: What are you fasting — 16-8?
Sam: 16-8. I’ll stop eating at 8 p.m. and eat again at noon. 16 hours not eating, 8 hours eating.
Shaan: And in those 8 hours, are you eating whatever you want?
Sam: I don’t eat whatever I want. I usually eat meat and vegetables. I try to hit 2,500 calories a day.
Shaan: All right, I’ve tried it as well. I like it. It’s a super clean interface — it just does one thing really well. Okay, here’s my app.
I got really into breathwork this year, so there are two apps. There are a lot of apps that distract you — Instagram, TikTok — and there are apps that’ll make you more productive but pull you from the real world. But there’s a third category: apps that actually center you and ground you. My phone had enough of the distraction apps. Where I was lacking was in the centering category.
I think of my phone as a magic wand. You install an app and it’s a spell that can do some magic thing. Well, this one gets me grounded. The first is the Five Minute Journal. I ended up meeting the guy who made this app — I thought it was just a notebook, but there’s also an app. It’s a paid app, I think it’s five bucks, which is so funny because my threshold for paying for something on a phone is so low. Five bucks and you get to use this app forever that some person created and coded. Meanwhile I’ll pay for parking without blinking.
What it does: you open it, it shows a quote while it loads — always a good one — and then it asks what three things you’re grateful for today. The act of writing them down is really powerful. You can’t be grateful and stressed at the same time. You can’t be grateful and afraid. You can’t be grateful and angry. So if you want to not be those bad things, focus on being grateful. Telling somebody “relax” when they’re pissed off doesn’t work. But shifting their focus to gratitude actually does.
Sam: What questions does it ask specifically?
Shaan: It asks: what three things happened today that you’re grateful for? Not “what three things in your life” — that just makes you monotonously say “my health, my family, my friends.” No, it’s what happened today. And it forces you to slow down. You’re like, what did I even do today? You kind of suck at it the first day. By the third day, something happens during the day and you’re like, I’m going to write this in the app tonight. And that’s the thing. It trains you during the day to take note of what you’re grateful for.
Sam: Let me jump in here. Andrew Huberman just put out a new video called “The Science of Gratitude.” He was on our podcast — he’s got this amazing YouTube channel where he talks about the science behind things. He says a lot of people do what you described and it works, but studies show there’s a slightly more effective way.
The most effective thing is to read something someone has actually written to you expressing gratitude. Obviously that’s not always practical. But there are two other options. First, you can think of a story of when someone was helpful to you, and if you focus hard enough it actually feels real. The second is what my wife and I do — every couple of days we sit down and say, “I’m thankful that you did this.”
Shaan: Or we do the opposite — we say everything we hate about each other. Get it off our chests.
Sam: She loves it. It’s called the Hateful Eight — eight minutes of just hating on each other.
Shaan: The second gratitude technique he mentions is “flooding.” You open a photo album and flip through it — your camera roll — and you just revisit photos from years ago. Even just 10 minutes of that. I’m not a big photo guy. I actually hate taking photos in the moment. But this flooding thing is amazing. It works. I literally love my wife more after we do it because I remember all these incredible times and I don’t have to imagine them — I just see the photo and it’s right there.
Sam: That’s what you need to do today, by the way. To get over your heartache and your money loss.
Shaan: We’ll get to it. One more app. The other app is called Othership. It just came out. I invested in this one because I’m a believer in it.
I struggled with meditation — it was very hard for me. Even though I was friends with the founders of Calm and they gave me a free account, I never really used it. I couldn’t get myself to enjoy it, and if I don’t enjoy something it’s hard for me to stick to it.
Breathwork became like a revelation to me. It’s a form of meditation — very similar — but the focus is on breath. I tried Wim Hof, loved it. Wim Hof has a great free app too. Othership is like a souped-up version of that. This guy Robbie created it — he guides a lot of the sessions himself. He was really early at Ethereum, like the first marketing guy at the Ethereum Foundation when it was whatever, 60 cents or something. So he made a bunch of money and built this incredible home setup — a cabin situation he converted from a garage. 20-person sauna, cold plunge, meditation room, greenhouse, the whole thing.
He got really into breathwork along this journey and said, I’m going to bring breathwork to the masses. He created this app. I do it every morning and it’s amazing. So — Othership.
Fat FIRE Reddit and the “Slowly Then Suddenly” Wealth Curve [00:16:00]
Sam: All right, I dig that. Let me give you one. So there’s this subreddit I love called Fat FIRE. The idea is people who want to retire relatively young with a lot of money, so they can live a fat life. The community leaders verify your net worth if you post a lot, so you know people are actually who they say they are.
Did you have a goal like that — a specific number or age?
Shaan: Yeah. I wanted to have $20 million by age 30. I created that goal when I was 19 or 20. I can’t confirm or deny whether I hit it, but let’s say — mission accomplished, achieved at 31. I sold my company at 31.
I made that goal because I asked a rich person I knew how much money they spent a month. They told me $60,000 a month. I thought that was crazy, but I asked about eight people and this person had the highest number, so I said I’ll just use that. And if you withdraw only 3% of $20 million, that gives you about $600,000 a year to spend. That’s the FIRE philosophy — Financially Independent Retire Early. The amount you have invested, compounding in something like the S&P 500, covers your burn rate.
That’s why a lot of FIRE people move to the middle of nowhere and do the whole get-rid-of-everything-I-own thing. Fat FIRE is different. Fat FIRE is like: I want to ball out. I’m not trying to skimp on my lifestyle, so what do I actually need to build?
Sam: Right. And there’s a post on that subreddit that I saw — it was from a user posting their company revenues from the first seven years. Zero, then twenty thousand, then fifty thousand, then one fifty, then three fifty, then seven million, then twenty-one million or something like that. A slow build and then suddenly things really take off. I think they sold the company for over $100 million. It was a soap company, I believe — Chris Cantino, right?
Shaan: Yeah, he tweets great stuff.
Sam: That post got me thinking: is this true in my own life? And I started writing it down — how much money I made from age 20 to 31. Zero, then negative $30,000 with the first startup, then a job that paid $120K, then it stayed there for a bit, then went to $160K. And then I totaled it and realized: at age 31 I made more than the entire previous eleven years combined.
And my advice to young people has always been: if you’re taking a non-traditional path — entrepreneurship, content creator, betting on yourself — don’t check the scoreboard at 22 or 23 or 24. You’re going to lose, lose, lose, lose, win big. Give it a decade. Total it up in ten years. That’s when you count.
Shaan: I can share some of mine. From age 22 to 26 or 27, I paid myself roughly $2,000 a month. First year of business, maybe $20K. Then $40K. Then $70K. In the year we sold, I paid myself close to $300K. And I had some angel investments and weird things that paid off.
But the way I rigged it was: in San Francisco, my rent was only $400 a month because I rented out this big house and got people to subsidize it. I spent all $25K I had to rent out and furnish the place, then rented rooms to people. So I was living like a poor person but like a wealthy person at the same time.
Sam: That’s actually a great example because people say “I want to move to San Francisco but I can’t afford it.” All you’re really saying is you lack creativity and resourcefulness. What you did is available to everybody. You cut a deal with the landlord?
Shaan: I showed up at 22. It was a $4,500-a-month four-bedroom house. The landlord says, “Is it just you?” I said, “It’s just me right now, but I’m gonna get friends to move in. I’ll sign subleases with them, you can approve it. And the preferred relationship you and I have is: I never see you again. Is that okay?” He said, “Don’t be late.” Deal.
Seven years. I never saw him once. If he showed up at the house I wouldn’t even recognize him. I think his name was Chris. We replaced the toilet ourselves when I accidentally broke it — I shot a BB gun into it once to see what would happen. Just went to Home Depot and bought a new one.
Sam: I feel like that is so on-brand for you.
Shaan: So yeah. At this point — I’m 32 now, started at 20 — I’ll make more this year from a couple side investments and a real estate deal than all of my salaries combined while working at The Hustle.
Sam: Same exact case for me. And I think that’s really common. When this path of entrepreneurship works, that’s commonly what it looks like. Don’t be surprised. Don’t question whether you’re on the right path when you’re in year three and not making money. The scoreboard looks wrong for a long time and then suddenly it doesn’t.
Shaan: I was always envious of my friends who got jobs at Google making $150K with benefits. I’d come into your office and be like, “This is your office?” Looking at the espresso machine — “What is this? There’s a women’s bathroom? You guys have an espresso machine?”
Sam: I remember you taking food to go. Like putting cheese in your pocket.
Shaan: That cheese was from Whole Foods. Expensive cheese.
Sam: Anyway — so there’s a series on the Fat FIRE subreddit called Confessions of a Hecto Millionaire. The mods have verified this person’s net worth. It’s eight parts. In the first thread, he says he’s worth north of $100 million, got wealthy originally as a tech employee that paid him $30 million, and then invested and compounded from there. He answers questions about work and purpose, daily routine, keeping a low profile, complicated relationships, what he spends monthly, his investment portfolio — all of it. I love this kind of stuff where you get behind the scenes of people you’d normally never have access to. Great series, great thread.
Archive.Today and the Paywall Workaround [00:30:00]
Sam: Okay, let me do a quick one. There’s a company called Web Archive and they have this side project called archive.today. Have you seen this?
Shaan: Yes. It’s awesome.
Sam: So there are a bunch of products out there for reading paywalled articles. There’s outline.com, there’s this one called 12-Foot Ladder — the tagline is: “Show me a 10-foot paywall, I’ll show you a 12-foot ladder.” Brilliant. But it doesn’t always work.
Shaan: That’s the problem with 12-Foot.
Sam: Archive.today works. I’ve never used it and had it not work. If you want to read an article and don’t feel like paying, archive.today is the best thing I’ve found.
Shaan: And the Internet Archive itself is just a treasure. It’s a nonprofit. You can go to the Wayback Machine, type in airbnb.com, go back in time and see what the original Airbnb site looked like — when it was called Air Bed and Breakfast and was geared toward conferences. They also bought our friend Xavier’s book company to scan all the books and make them available. They’re based in the Inner Sunset, actually, right where your office was.
Home Gym, Saunas, and Wearable Failures [00:33:00]
Sam: Okay, so I made a pretty big investment in fitness this year, at the risk of us sounding overly obsessed with it.
Shaan: You’re pretty ripped, so you can get away with it.
Sam: Not ripped yet. But I basically gained 40 or 50 pounds over the course of my last startup and never lost it. I’d see a photo of myself and think “that’s a bad photo of me” — and after three years I’m like, wait, maybe I’m just actually out of shape.
So I invested in a few things. First, home gym — so there’s no commute. But even that didn’t solve it. You can put a Peloton right next to me and that doesn’t mean I’m going to ride it. So the biggest change: I got a trainer to come to my house. If some dude shows up, I’m not just going to ignore him. I’m going to do the workout.
I have a friend — wealthy guy, four-million-dollar house — who asked me what to do about fitness. I said, get a coach for $250 a month and just do what they say. He said that’s expensive. I’m like, your body is your house. You’re not going to spend $300 to fix it?
Shaan: My dad does that. He found a trainer in India on Zoom for $4 an hour. He wanted $6 but Dad got him down to $4.
Sam: And how often does he actually do it?
Shaan: He’s like, “It’s only four bucks, so I don’t even mind if I skip it.” Exactly. You literally don’t do it.
Sam: So I took a burn-the-boats approach. I talked about it publicly, which means I’m humiliated if I don’t follow through. I made it super convenient — home gym, trainer at the house. Then I made the space actually nice. I saw your gym and thought, wow, this feels great. So I got rubber floor tiles, a sound system, all that stuff. Made the environment one where I actually want to be there, not dread it.
And one of the best purchases of the year I just set up yesterday: a sauna. I got a Clearlight infrared sauna. Did my first session in it yesterday. Already one of my best purchases of the year.
Shaan: It’s amazing.
Sam: Some people debate dry sauna vs. infrared. From what I can tell, both are totally fine. Importantly, the infrared one fit into my life — the other would have required major electrical work and a bigger space.
Now here’s the worst stuff. Anything I’ve attached to my wrist has failed. Apple Watch — lost it. Fitbit — lost it. Whoop band — battery dead, don’t charge it enough to be useful. Oura ring — lost that too. I’ve failed on like five wearables this year. Can’t count myself in for those.
Shaan: You don’t even wear your wedding ring.
Sam: Lost that too. First week after the honeymoon. I had a feeling I was never going to be a ring guy. Sure enough.
Media: Canceled Comedians and “Life Rips” [00:42:00]
Shaan: All right, let’s shift to media — podcasts, articles, YouTube channels, whatever. I have a whole category I’d call canceled comedians. There’s a bunch of people I find funny who have been canceled by society, but I still find them just as funny as before. There’s this guy Cristela — or I may be getting the name slightly off — who got canceled about a year ago. I found him really funny before, I still find him really funny now.
He has this video called “Life Rips.” All he’s saying is: this stuff was happening in my day, or whatever — and he has this phrase “life rips,” meaning life is awesome. He tells a story about a moment and then says, “Life rips.” He’s a great storyteller.
And he does this thing in his podcast where if something goes wrong — the computer crashes, someone kicks out the power cord — instead of getting mad, he just says, “Yes.” Like, “Yes, the cord ripped out of the wall.” Or “Yes, we absolutely cannot show the thing I was trying to show.” And instead of letting that little inconvenience ruin his mood, he replaces the frustrated response with something almost ironic that then actually becomes real by the time you do it.
Sam: I kind of stole that in my daily life. My wife hates it.
Shaan: Jocko does the same thing on Joe Rogan. Jocko’s this ex-Navy SEAL type, hardcore — his whole thing is around pain being good. He’ll be like, “You got shin splints? Good.” Like, “Your Uber didn’t show up? Good — time to hike.” It’s almost comedic how extreme he is with it, but it actually works.
YouTube: Primitive Technology and Rose Namajunas [00:47:00]
Sam: Do you have any cardio machine at your house?
Shaan: A rower — a rinky-dink $120 Costco one.
Sam: I’ve been doing these things where I’ll tweet: “Tomorrow — 60-minute row, post your results.” Do a 90-minute any-type-of-steady cardio session. Even a brisk walk with your heart rate around 140 works. Go through some pain before getting thankful.
Let me give you four or five media things, going fast.
First — there’s this amazing video of Rose Namajunas, this UFC fighter. She’s really quiet and introspective and seems like a sweetheart, not a fighter. In this video she’s about to fight this terrifying woman from China who looks like the Terminator. And Rose is just repeating to herself: “I’m the best. I’m the best. I’m the best.” When I first saw that, I teared up. The greatest.
Shaan: Can I add context for people who don’t follow UFC? If you just stumble on that video, it might not hit the same way. But if you know Rose’s backstory — she struggles with anxiety, she’s not a bravado type — then for her to say “I’m the best” is not trash talk. It’s genuine self-talk so she can perform and not let anxiety take over. The context makes it land completely differently.
And I think everybody should have a stash of those. Inspiring moments you were there for, where you know the backstory. Like that flooding technique — you can go back to them instantly and get that feeling. I do it too. I’ll think, how would this person I admire react to this situation? Or I’ll think of some UFC fighter who just got punched in the face and got back up.
Sam: Second — Primitive Technology. Have you heard of this?
Shaan: No, what’s that?
Sam: This guy has 10 million subscribers on YouTube. Maybe 20 videos. His first video has 31 million views from six years ago. In it, he goes into the woods and builds a hut — from nothing, without saying a single word. No power tools, no bought materials. He builds a kiln. He builds a tiled roof. He makes rope, then uses the rope and a rock to make a hammer.
Shaan: He doesn’t say anything the whole time?
Sam: Not a word. The camera just pans to a patch of ground in the middle of the forest — like, I’m going to build a little hut here. By the end he’s got a clay hut with a fireplace and a chimney. And his YouTube About page says: “I own this land in Queensland, Australia. I do not live in the wild but I love going out onto the land to do these projects.”
Shaan: One billion total channel views and all he’s doing is building things with his bare hands. There’s another video where he makes fire by rubbing a stick between his palms. He just made a fire while you were talking.
Sam: It’s so relaxing.
Shaan: Do you actually sit and watch it?
Sam: I’ve watched all of them. I’ll put it on the TV and watch 30 minutes of this guy. My version of TV is YouTube — first thing on the couch, I go straight there.
Shaan: Maybe it’s background. Like cooking or talking to someone.
Sam: Sometimes. But I do actually pay attention to him.
Articles: Steph Smith, More Plates More Dates, and a 1930s Soviet Road Trip [00:54:00]
Sam: Third — “How to Be Great? Just Be Good, Repeatedly.” This is an article by Steph Smith, who works for me. Two reasons I love it: first, that is one of the best headlines I’ve ever read. And the article is about how great things rarely come from trying to be great — it’s more about being kind of good and doing it consistently. I’ve found that true with this podcast, with a bunch of other stuff. Sometimes I don’t want to do it. I’m like, fine, I’ll do it anyway even though I know today I’m not going to do a great job. And she articulates really well why that works.
Sam: Fourth — More Plates More Dates. You know this guy?
Shaan: Yes. He’s amazing. He analyzes pro athletes and actors and tells you what he thinks they’re on.
Sam: I watch it every time and I always regret it. I’m like, what a waste of my brain. But then he comes up in my feed and I’m like, “Oh — are they on steroids?” And 30 minutes later I can’t believe I just did that.
Shaan: It’s kind of interesting though because it’s scientific. He’ll say, “A lot of people think this athlete is on EPO, but you wouldn’t do EPO because of how your body works.” He’s like a gossip columnist but with firsthand knowledge of doping, not necessarily of the people.
Sam: Fifth — and this is my favorite of the bunch — I found this book. It has two reviews on Amazon. Two. And it’s amazing. In the foreword they say it was one of the most popular books in Russia, then it got translated into English.
Two Soviet journalists in 1933 made a deal with the U.S. government: let us come in, spend three months doing a road trip, and we’ll write about it. They saved up some money, came here, bought a camper van, spent three months traveling America, talking to people. They just wanted to understand America from the outside.
And it’s fascinating because we take so much for granted. They criticize America — this is the 1930s, so the racial stuff, in particular, is striking to them. But there’s a lot of good. Including this observation they’d never seen anywhere else: Americans always believe they’re going to overcome any adversity. They’re just optimistic. And oddly, people are friendly with their bosses — they work together toward something rather than resenting them. It’s a wonderful book. Written in the ’30s.
Shaan: What’s it called?
Sam: Little Golden America. I’m finishing it up now. I posted a link on my Twitter where it’s free as a PDF.
More Apps: Everyday Habit Tracker and Camo Webcam [01:01:00]
Shaan: Okay, I have a couple quick ones. First — a Chrome extension called Everyday. It’s a habit tracker. You go to everyday.app and set up whatever habits you want to track. For me: morning routine, clean lunch, clean dinner, workout, gratitude. And then it just lets you build a streak. You mark: yes I did it, I intentionally skipped it, or I missed. It creates this green grid as you do your habits — really satisfying to see that completion.
The reason I love it: it’s a Chrome extension, so it’s in your face. Every time you open a new tab, it reminds you. The challenge for most people isn’t not knowing what to do — it’s not doing the things you know you should do. This is just a nudge every time you open a browser.
I actually had my own Chrome extension before and replaced it with this one. That’s how good it is.
Sam: Downloading it now.
Shaan: Second — Camo. It’s an app for your iPhone. We’ve both spent a lot of money and time trying to get good video quality. You buy a Canon, you need a capture card, a tripod, a dummy battery, a whole setup. Thousands of dollars and it’s still a pain. And then you were like, “Dude, I’m just using this iPhone app called Camo. It uses the native portrait mode and I look just as good.”
Sam: Yeah, I was using the 2000-dollar camera setup and you were using your phone. And you looked the same.
Shaan: It’s only 30 or 40 bucks. And when I travel, I just bring my phone. I think actually in a new iOS update, something like this might get baked into the native camera — so you may not even need the app soon. But for now, Camo is amazing.
The analogy someone made: having Camo in 2020 is like showing up to a meeting in a nice suit in the ’80s. It just signals you’re professional.
YouTube Rabbit Holes: Old-School Direct Sales and Copywriting Seminars [01:06:00]
Sam: I’ve got one more. My YouTube binge has been a little embarrassing. I’ve been watching old-school direct sales seminars. I’m not even in direct sales — there’s nothing I sell that’s direct sales. But I’m fascinated with the art of persuasion.
Search “Tony Robbins rare” or “Tony Robbins original seminar” or “Tony Robbins direct sales.” There’s one where he explains how he got his career started — selling audio cassettes door-to-door. He walks through step-by-step: here’s what I would say, and here’s why I’m saying it, here’s what I know about how people buy. He even says in the video, “Would I do this now? No, I think it’s a little too pushy.” But I always want to know the most potent version of something. The borderline version. And then I can decide where to set the dial myself. But I don’t want to be at level six because I was too afraid to find out what level twelve looks like.
Shaan: What’s the channel?
Sam: There’s not one channel — just individual videos. Search “Gary Halbert rare” or “Gary Halbert 1980s” or “Gary Halbert original seminar.” Search “Tony Robbins young” or “Tony Robbins infomercial.” I’ll find the material and just deconstruct it myself.
We had Craig Clemens on the podcast — a friend of ours. He runs Goldenhi — it’s a holding company that’s done over a billion dollars in product sales. He got his start doing sales for a dating coach, working with a guy named Eben Pagan. So I find these old interviews or seminars Craig did with Eben and I watch them. He’ll be talking about a headline he wrote, why he thinks it worked, and another one that completely didn’t and what he learned. It’s like puppy chow to me. I can’t stop consuming it even though I have no direct use for it.
And Gary Halbert — he died somewhat recently, probably a heart attack. He was an amazing copywriter who also went to prison for mail fraud — sold something and didn’t fulfill it. But you can learn so much from him. He has these things called the Boron Letters — letters he wrote his son Bond from prison, teaching him everything he knows about life and selling. They’re all free. Search “Gary Halbert Boron Letters.”
He wrote them all by hand. You’ll start reading and be like, “Why do I want to keep reading this?” You can’t put it down. It’s not called “how to write copy” — there are no lists of five techniques. He just writes letters to his son and then shows you great writing and sprinkles in lessons as he goes. And you’re hooked and you don’t know why. That’s the technique.
Shaan: That’s what I was talking about at the top — what makes this writing so slippery you can’t get out of it? It’s like a TikTok feed. It’s not a window — it’s a door. A window lets you look in and see exactly what you’re getting. A door, you have to go knock, take a leap of faith, and you can’t see what’s on the other side until it opens. That’s the Boron Letters.
Wrap-Up [01:14:00]
Sam: All right, I think we just laid out a ton of interesting stuff. Ben, are you there? Can we put links to all of these in the show notes? I’m also going to send a newsletter out summarizing these — at shaan.com or wherever — because most people listening are probably thinking, what am I supposed to do, write all this down and Google it?
Ben: Yeah, it’s gonna be great. We’ll just put a long list of all the links at the bottom of the show notes.
Sam: Awesome. And I still have like five things I didn’t get to, and I know you have like ten.
Shaan: We should do another one of these if people like it.
Sam: I think so. The point of this is it’s a Thanksgiving special — you’ve got some time, you’re sitting on the couch full of turkey, just start clicking through. Check out these things. Buy some stuff, watch some things. And a lot of it is actually free or very cheap.
Ben: I love that sales pitch.
Sam: Who have you been watching, Ben — are we sharing YouTube accounts?
Ben: I just had to step up my game after you were talking about all this copywriting and sales stuff.
Shaan: That’s the Mormon in you. You guys are natural salespeople. The world’s greatest.
Sam: Mormon jokes — will they ever get old?
Shaan: Probably not. We have so few stereotypes we’re allowed to use these days. When there’s one that feels okay, you’ve just got to hit it over and over.
Sam: Fair. All right, thank you all. Happy Thanksgiving. I’m out.
Shaan: See ya.