Episode of My First Million with Sam Parr and Shaan Puri.
Transcript
Note: This transcript was auto-generated from YouTube captions. It may contain errors and lacks speaker identification. A full Gemini audio transcript will replace this.
Kind: captions Language: en so i haven’t seen any of these questions so um it started out from a tweet where someone said like here’s 10 questions to get to know people is that is that right yeah listener of the pod and i think your friend blake blake burge i think is his name uh he had tweeted out a thing like you know whatever there are many questions but few will change your life here’s ten questions that will change your life and you know thread goes viral so by the way you know normally it’s kind of like eye roll no it’s good there’s this thing ben you’ll have to look it up again no research here there’s this thing i remember years ago it was called like the new york times like 21 questions and it was like here ask these 21 questions on a first year right well on a first date i thought and it was like here’s how you get intimate with people and like as a single 21 year old i read that i was like oh like here so i can hook up with girls and i remember those questions and they’re very similar to what these guys questions are but it was like when did your father make you cry or like like it was like pretty deep questions like that um and so i’m down with these questions [Music] so i actually read these questions and i was like these are actually good questions but um the way he presented it i think uh you know no offense is how most people do twitter it’s like here’s some general advice or some general questions what’s interesting to me is not the quote like the question but it’s kind of seeing somebody struggle with their their answer to that question so for example um he would ask a question like and i’ll give you give you the first question which is which is going to come out here in a second so ben read question number one i’ll explain how he tweeted it and how i think we should answer instead read in what areas of my life am i settling okay so what area is my life am i settling that’s a powerful question it’s a good thought-provoking question now his the rest of his tweet was like you know just enough or just okay is not good enough identify the areas you like you’re just settling so to me that’s the part where it was like no no blake i want to hear your answer like you tell me like if you’re gonna put out one of these [ ] ass threads that’s like you know generic generic generic thread um to try to get likes i think that the next level of this like [ ] thread thing is people are gonna get a little more vulnerable they’re gonna put their actual answers in the thread rather than general advice who’s invented this this theme i’m seeing so like upworthy was like here’s ten things you’re not gonna believe number seven this new one that i’m seeing on twitter is there’s eight thousand of this thing here’s the four best eight billion humans on this earth not all of them are worth following here’s my eleven friends that are worth who created that well ben all right what’s the first one i just tried it it’s uh in what area of my life you go first okay so what areas of my life am i settling and by the way this is called the boys go to therapy because we got to open up a little bit we gotta we gotta see what the what this what the answer might be i would say two come to mind the first is fitness like i think i got kind of comfortable with my workout routine and diet and i was like oh okay like not as fat as i was i’m on my way to getting fit and i just kind of got okay with like i was kind of settling for like wow you’re much better than before but i’ve been like writing that for for like you know 12 months now and now the before is the same as the current because it’s like been a while like six months of like the same and so i just realized this recently and was like why did i settle here this isn’t the destination like i basically was on a road trip and i stopped at the gas station and then unpacked my bags instead of being like no no this is not the destination this is the pit stop i gotta get to the hotel where’s my suitcase open you made a lot of progress so in a relatively short amount of time you just gotta keep going yeah so i would say i’m settling there and the other one i’m settling i think is me and my wife like we have two little kids and there’s like you know this feeling of like you know what like we put a lot into work okay then you put you’re putting a lot into your fitness you’re putting a lot into your kids and it’s like oh whatever’s left over at the end of the day for each other like you know we take what we can get as the scraps uh of like you know the energy the kind of like um just the effort we put into kind of your relationship as i think we’ve both kind of settled on that which is like it’s fine they’re not they’re not leaving they’re not going anywhere it’s just fine we can hold you because we can always do this later when the kids grow up is she gonna listen to this no that’s the beauty of it you should never listen to this i think that that’s good that you you said that maybe uh maybe that will make her like you more yeah especially because i didn’t say that she is doing all this right he said we are doing it which is you know the key all right what about you what areas of your life do you think you’re settling um my a consistent diet needs to i think i could i like to improve that i looked at my goals over the last 10 years so i created a goal tracking thing 10 years ago when i was about 21 and i hit all of them except for wanting to weigh 190 pounds i’ve always struggled to lose 10 pounds and i just i’ve always wanted to do it i’ve never done it and so i’ve i’m sucking at that the second thing career-wise i’ve settled a bit so i i purposely set up a period where i was like one year the sale in plus one year i’m gonna chill i’m just gonna read i’m gonna learn and i still am not ready to like go all in on something i’m not there yet and so i’m kind of being a little bit lazy and i feel a little guilt around that and then i’ll do a relationship one dude i’m super dependent on sarah like uh if someone like wants me to come speak somewhere i’ll be like sarah can you just like handle this or like do you want me to go speak here like let me know like i’m only gonna and oftentimes because i don’t like to fly i’ll be like uh by the way i’m only going if you’re available like if you don’t go i don’t want to go because i enjoy being around her and i think i should learn to do a few things by myself a little bit more than i have been lately i just tend to rely on her so freaking much that i need to i need to go do stuff by myself give me one that’s give me one that’s uh a settle that you i feel like all those settles maybe that both of us said are settles that we’re kind of cool with what’s a settle you’re not cool with the weight thing yeah the weight thing i’m not cool with that like i get up like i’m pissed off i’m like why can’t i just be consistent if i was just consistent for like five months with in a certain amount of calories i’d be good i’m i would be good i would hit it but it is so freaking tempting and i just give in to that [ ] and that pisses me off um what else i don’t know what am i i do think that so tell me if this is a settling thing i create i’ve created a couple little small products in my free time and i get so excited about making like 500 100 a thousand dollars a day i get so much joy from that and i’m like dude i could crush this if i want to i can build i can build things that are huge why am i not why don’t i have the motivation to do this and so i feel like i feel soft and like i’m settling in that aspect yeah i think one uh one that i’ve seen in myself and by the way i don’t think that that was uh i forgot what you said you said tell me what you think about this like i agree with you so so i think that was good um i’m thinking more and more that the the settling thing the easiest way for me to pinpoint where i’m settling is when i see the contrast when i see somebody who’s not settled in this area and i’m like oh hmm they wow they’re really pushing it beyond beyond where i am right now in this like and it doesn’t mean i’m always going to just chase and do what others do necessarily but it kind of takes me seeing that for me to be like oh word like that’s this isn’t uh this isn’t the kind of the spot to just settle down and dig my heels in and so that’s happened to me with money like for example i’ve seen people’s lifestyle or i’ve seen people’s just people talking about stuff it’s like somebody will be like um yeah we you know we picked up this project and then we you know like a real estate deal we picked up this deal and we’re gonna flip it you know basically four months later and you know we should make one and a half million on that and i’m just sort of like oh okay so like their normal where they have settled for their normal is like what would have been let’s say an outstanding outcome for me but like to them that’s the normal course of business and then i just sort of check myself and i say all right do i care and usually i usually i do care usually i do care when i notice those things because that’s why they stood out to me in the first place and like sometimes they don’t stand out in this way that i’m saying where i’m saying it all calmly i’m just sort of like usually it’s like i’m jealous of them or i’m like um i find myself trying to come up with a reason why that’s not good and then i gotta hold my i gotta pull myself back like oh or maybe instead of coming up with reasons why that’s not good i should just admit that it’s probably good and something that i actually want for myself and i’m just trying to kind of like mentally in my own justification tear their [ ] down a little bit to make myself feel okay but in reality maybe i should just say oh cool they showed me something i want um and maybe i’ve i’ve i’ve actually just kind of settled here but i could go further than i than i currently have do do a journal do you have a history of journaling or goal-setting just like writing down like thoughts or targets that you want to achieve for different ages not ages uh but like do you like kind of have ideas in mind but it’s not it’s not based on how old i am like i i’ve done this no i don’t mean like in the future current age what i mean is like when you’re 21 where you’re like all right this year i want to accomplish this when i was 21 i did i said okay by 30 i i used to say by 30 i want to have a million dollars in the bank and i had a couple of goofy ones it’s like i got a million dollars in the bank i want to have gone on survivor and i want to like you know i had like two other like i don’t remember what they were at this point and then like as i got older i was like oh well that number needs to be bigger and then the second one time isn’t really a factor and like oh i don’t care about forbes 30 to 30 that’s actually all [ ] and like you know i kind of adjusted my like goals once i like wasn’t 21 anymore well i think it’s good to look at those things because i i’ll look at all my old journaling and writings and i’m like what what energy was i putting into there what was i bummed about what was i excited about and then oftentimes i do one of two things i either try to impress my past self or try to make my future self pumped where i’m like what what what will i be really excited that i did now um in 10 years so there’s this thing i don’t know if you’ve heard of it so chris sacca who is uh you know one of the kind of best investors of all time who’s one of the biggest investors in twitter and instagram and a couple other badass companies he um he had this thing which was like he he read out somewhere i think it was like on the tim ferriss podcast or something he like he read out a note that he had written to himself um a note that he had written written to himself when he was 20 years old and um and he goes i i actually i just found it while we were talking here this is perfect i found the transcript have you do do you know what i’m talking about do you know what about dick say yeah yeah i remember it i remember it what did he say i don’t remember exactly what he said but i remember this episode he goes uh he goes something about you know what do you want to be when you grow up he goes so here i am i’m 20 years old i’m living in cork ireland and we’d start the day drinking at 11 30 blah blah blah and i never heard of an investment banker i’ve never heard at that point i had never heard of a venture capitalist and so i just wrote in there i don’t know what the job is called but i know it’s going to involve a lot of talking on the phone a lot of negotiating a lot of yelling at people high risk high reward unbelievably high stakes and i’m going to do it part-time from the mountains part-time from the beach whatever it does whatever it is i’m going to be done with it before i’m 40. and then he’s like you know fast forward he this was you know just i think he was 40 41. and basically a billionaire accomplished is exactly that yeah so he’s like he’s now a billionaire who does exactly that makes deals he didn’t know what a vc was but he became a vc which is that deal he has a house and truckee and you know another one on the beach so he had the mountains in the beach thing and it was like literally it all played out and he retired from the game and he was like done with it and he moved on with his life and he started doing other things and so um so i always thought that was really cool and i thought it was cool because it wasn’t like these [ ] lame goals it was a description of his it was like a painting of his life it was like a movie scene of his life and i’ve noticed that the people who kind of do this like they kind of call their shot and manifest it they don’t really call their shot with like some like it doesn’t feel like excel it feels like imovie it’s not like a bullet point analytical thing it’s like a vision for how their life is gonna be and what life is gonna feel like and they don’t even know the words to describe it or the route to get there like but that’s it that thing at the end that’s how it’s going to feel that’s what it’s going to look like that’s what i’m going to do i’m doing this tonight i’m doing this is good i imovie not excel that’s a good one if you were going to do uh like let’s do a kind of off-the-cuff shitty version right again we do it for the entertainment uh we do it for the people what do you think would go into that what do you what’s your what comes to mind as your version of that um i like physical places as opposed to internet places so i like i it would really i want to have a i really want to own i want to have some type of physical land or pla or buildings throughout the country that i can entertain all of my friends all at one time by the way for all of us can i propose something here yeah can i propose we do a two-minute thing where we just jot down on our note here what we think it is and we’ll just cut that out no because i’m not prepared i’m not prepared what’s yours that’s what i’m saying we got to write it down we got to figure it out okay so i think i’m not ready all right look at that reaction this tells you that’s that’s what we call resistance when the boys go to therapy that’s we’ve identified some resistance i have to figure this out this is like such a hard thing to do next question ben [ ] are you guys ready for the next question okay let me let me give you my let me give you my scene right now okay my scene that i have in my head is you’re already living i’m living no dude my house is like this i already know the house it’s this big-ass house that everything’s [ ] white inside my i’m at this i have the same i have a chef like i have today but it’s like on this like giant area there’s people just coming in and out of my house because we’re like the [ ] lobby like my whole life and work is so integrated that like my trainer’s showing up they’re having brunch with us and then the you know i’m having this meeting with this other person but they’re also going to work out with us and the whole thing is just integrated into one big ass thing my mom’s over my sister’s over because we all live nearby because we all made it the second thing is i take a nap midday with no guilt so zero guilt midday nap i already know that that is like that is the that implies that the rest of the [ ] worked itself all out and then the last piece is um all i get to do is just meet interesting people and uh be super curious about them and then i just either i don’t know record or type or something like kind of like what we’re doing right now i just take the interesting bits i put it out there and it’s in millions it’s in a million people’s ears or eyes you know the next day because they are following it um they love the content the like they love the content package that i put out and i never meet those people i don’t have to talk to them i’m not their consultant i’m not their motivational speaker i just kind of i’m taking little bits of what i’m curious about and i’m putting it into a million people’s ears every morning i think uh you’re almost i think you’re practically there i don’t know you got to get the house and the fancier chef dude you could take a nap now i’m sure dude the midday nap right now with kids that’s indulgent if you take it like two years that’s like that’s not giving the middle finger to your spouse i’m gonna take a nap right now what’s the next question by the way that million people’s ear things that was old i said that before we started this podcast i had told silly he was like what do you want to do next when i was selling the company and we were on like a [ ] 10 mile walk we just kept walking in the middle of the night and he was like tell me more what are you thinking i said dude i think what i want to do is i just want to have some way that i can just get my thoughts out there and it gets in a million people i remember calling it ear balls i said it’s in a million people’s ear balls in the morning i said i just think that that would be so cool if i could just be on people’s ears while they’re on their commute to work or whatever else and that was before the podcast now the podcast is getting close to that yeah you have that all right and you can go out of order ben pick pick the questions that are interesting to you um let’s go with question 10 you should choose your battles wisely what battles do i choose dude i choose so many petty battles like if i when i’m driving and i see someone behind me and they’re driving like an [ ] and cutting other people off i like go out of my way to slow down and purposely like block it so i’m going just as fast as the fast lane so they can’t get by me um also i reply you’re like i go to their destination yeah dude i don’t have to wear it it pisses me off at someone’s route i also uh reply to the just so many comments that i shouldn’t reply to um where i think someone has said something and it’s just kind of ridiculous and i reply to it and there’s no reason why i should be doing that so i pick a lot of really really really dumb battles your hoa battle that you had i would die on that one that would that would that this would not stand that’s what i would i mean i would go hard on that one what was the question though what battles do you pick that you shouldn’t it’s basically it says choose battles wisely what battle do i choose so which really which is saying what battle do you want to be choosing another way of looking at is what you said which is what are the shitty what battles am i stupidly choosing right now that i need to not be choosing dude i choose so much small stuff like i just for some reason i stay like hardcore in the dirt like for example i’m out at my ranch and i’ve got people here like setting up my airbnb and stuff and like people are like doing the stuff but like i just have to be here and i’m like putting [ ] together or like [ ] it i guess i’m gonna go rent a car go to costco it’s like no we’re already doing that i choose the smallest stuff as opposed to leveraging my my skill set and so that is an unwise battle that i should not be picking instead i need to be thinking about much bigger things and i just i simply don’t i think having kids might change that i think there’s a world where that where i’m praying that having a child is gonna like somehow like show me the way uh you guys could tell me if i’m wrong but dude i picked the smallest i focus on tiny tiny tiny issues that’s like i have a friend who the like they’re a couple they’re like kind of going through problems right now as a as a relationship and then she said something she was like i just feel like i need to have a kid and then that’s gonna like help us and i was like oh my god no that is not the answer like i understand why you do that that will make this relationship better but it is going to do the exact opposite i think it could be the answer to be honest having a dog is like two percent of having a child not in the sense of i’m taking care of it but it’s like i’ve got something that i need to protect and take care of and it makes me a little bit happier i imagine properly having a human being where you’re like oh i have to dedicate my my life to this person it’s beyond me at this point i have a feeling that is that can be very inspiring and that’s why i think a lot of like 35 and 40 year olds who are childless and are like getting messed up on psychedelics all the time and feel depressed i’m like dude just [ ] pop out some babies i bet like you won’t be asking yourself how do i find myself you’re going to say how do i just like make this kid happy and like when you dedicate yourself to others i think you’re happier uh can i read you something cool by the way uh that i just do you disagree with that um no i think you’re right in that in two ways so i think you’re right that having a kid definitely takes the focus off yourself so that that eliminates like a huge number of worries that you have but it replaces them with new worries if your habit is to worry guess what whatever situation i put you in you’re gonna find something to worry about it’s just better to worry about other people though it’s it’s more reasonable it is an improvement it is an improvement the other thing is that yeah some [ ] just gets thrown out the window because you don’t have that bandwidth you don’t have that extra time to think about stuff and do stuff and make that trip to costco because it’s just off the table you don’t have the time and so so that’s one thing but it doesn’t fundamentally change the nature of the problem the root cause of the problem um which would be you know like a focus on minor things because guess what then you’re going to start to focus on you know why your kids you know pinky toe is a little bit crooked and why they have this little rash on their knee and like why they’re not eating why they didn’t eat all you know a balanced lunch and like there’s a million there’s a zillion things you could worry about with a kid and you could even justify them further because it you’re i’m a martyr i’m a great parent for doing so so you got to be careful with that i don’t think it goes away but i do think it like changes the problem a little bit so what’s yours um okay i’ll answer the question i’m gonna read you this thing so the battles um the battles i should pick i should pick the battles i want to choose are health so being in the best health that i can be and having a healthy lifestyle for me and the people around me is your wife healthy does she eat healthy yeah she she uh she’s in and out she can be when she’s on it she’s super clean she doesn’t have the problem i have of discipline like once she flips the switch she’ll just never eat bad again until she flips the switch off and then she’ll eat oreos all day and so it’s like you know one or the other um and so but and same thing with working out she’s like hardcore intense about that and hardcore intense about her diet um and like she doesn’t waver at all so uh but it’s just a matter of what mood she’s in um like and the mood is like a year-long mood not like a daily daily fluctuation i think health is the first one because i’ve seen that once your health goes a little sideways nothing else actually meant none of the other battles have like any relevance anymore uh i think the second one is probably the probably the second battle to choose is like uh i don’t know probably something around parenting but i don’t even know how to phrase it like i don’t know being like not constantly um trying to like rush through parenting parenting and like getting the job done uh that’s probably the second one is like the battle of enjoying being patient with my kids uh and then the last one is probably like i do too many projects i have so many [ ] projects at once and they’re all good projects but they’re probably collectively together a bad number of projects that’s probably the worst one i know i always say it but how many people criticize you about that uh i don’t know if my friends and people who actually care about me like i don’t know like the people who know me and care about me they do they do the people are like oh that’s cool you do so many things and my friends are like that’s not cool all these things could be cool but you got to do them you got to do them right and if you’re not going to do them you got to figure out how to like hire somebody who’s going to do that thing for you dude i would if i was you i would only do three things i would do the podcast because that’s not that hard and it kind of drives the other thing i would do milk road and i would do investing yeah the problem is i’m too deep in on e-commerce and so i gotta like either hire my way out or sell this thing or i don’t know what i don’t know what the other option you got to sell it i think you sell it or something i think everyone talks about hiring someone to run [ ] you’re still like involved somehow like you’re not actually i think that that’s actually really hard to do i don’t know when you did it for the hustle you were pretty good about it right yeah but i thought about it all i mean i still felt like i was working there but yeah i i didn’t do other projects though um i want to read something to you real quick there’s a thing from duvall that’s i don’t know you said something that reminded me of this there’s a little i have a slack channel called wisdom and this is in there so he goes uh he says the only true test of intelligence is if you get what you want out of life it’s the only true test of intelligence is if you’re getting what you want out of life it goes there’s two parts to this one is are you able to hack reality to get what you want and the more important one was were you smart enough to figure out what you should want in the first place that’s the hardest part that’s the hard part exactly and like you know you read this and you nod and then it’s like have i been smart enough to figure this out in the first one what do i even want and then do i do i like both you and i we have developed the skills of hacking reality but we get a little loose easier remembering what what we actually want and what doesn’t matter what we don’t care about and like remembering which game to actually play yeah bending reality is in my opinion the easy part what knowing what you want is the way way harder i don’t know one other part that i really liked he goes um you live in a society which has a bunch of people in it so that will train you to play the the bunch of people game the multiplayer game but only only as an individual do you get to stumble on the hidden game the single player game and that is the real game and he goes he says a couple things he he goes uh if you had no adversity it would be a very boring game so remember you got to play the game it’s your game you get to design the board design the challenge you get to design the victory condition and that is the creativity that is like you know sort of you get to decide the purpose of your own life and in the same way you get to decide what game you’re going to play what the rules are and what the victory condition is and if you where did you write this intentionally done that you’re uh you know you’re not you’re not playing it you know you haven’t actually started playing that game uh consciously yet where do you write that i know he he said this on like a twitter spaces or something like that this guy’s zach zach pogrobb uh tweeted it out i liked it that’s good ben let’s do another question what’s another one all right i think this is an interesting one um what are you letting in so in other words like uh he says turn off the news don’t read the comments interacting with negativity think of it as mental fitness like what what things are you letting in what noise you’re letting in that you shouldn’t let in oh that you shouldn’t i have a yeah what are you letting through through the window or the door that actually you know you shouldn’t be should be getting through that what are yours well i had you had written something on the doc that i think is interesting it’s about feedback so let’s just zoom it in to feedback what was your question around feedback i have a few ways that i go about doing this but you could do this when building a product or when um just asking people about your personality which i think you should do like what do i where do i suck where do i rock and what you’ll notice and it’s very clear i tweeted out what do you like about the podcast what do you want more of what do you want less of and for every person who says they want a longer podcast there’s an equal amount of people who say they want a shorter one there are some people who say more guests there are some people who say no guest and that makes things really hard to figure out feedback and so i was gonna ask you uh how do you decide which feedback to listen to and which to ignore so i started off like i used to the way i used to think about this was dude feedback is the key you need a feedback loop you need to talk to your customers you need to know your audience and there was all these like you know books written about how important that stuff is and so i became [ ] mr feedback i would you know if i had a project idea i’m taking the designs out to a mall and i’m stopping people saying hey will you give me feedback on this idea and you know every co-worker i was like hey i would love some feedback what do you like about me what do you hate about me what’s good about me to work with etc i was [ ] mr feedback and then i started to get what you what you just described which is information whiplash which is it’s like information overload but it’s not just an overload it’s the contradictory information yeah and so then i’m like oh [ ] what to do so i got paralyzed so then i went to steve jobs mode [ ] feedback people don’t know what they want why would i ask them what they want they don’t they don’t even know what they want for breakfast how can they tell me what they want out of this out of this app they’ve never heard of how could they tell me how to be a better boss blah blah people don’t know what they want and i became mr steve jobs in the turtleneck then i sort of realize well that’s not good either right because now i’ve isolated myself from actually getting feedback so i have no signal to go off of and so now i’ve come up with a better balance i think between the two which is i seek out feedback from people who i think are going to give me relevant feedback so i don’t just ask everybody and then the last piece is the feedback is not the answer it’s the question when i hear feedback i’m not looking for the answer to what we should do more of what we should do less of how i can be better how i can be worse i’m just looking for the feedback to just surface a couple of questions so if they uh if the feedback said you know longer podcast some people say oh i want longer pockets some people said i want shorter podcasts it’s just a question that comes up which is what do i think is the right length of the podcast what podcasts are great when they’re long what podcasts are great when they’re short you know what would be the what would be a great short version of our podcast so i use the feedback to ask myself a better question and then it’s my job to come to the answer it’s their job to just give me their opinion which which gives me a question that that can ask and so same thing with what goes with products which is when i ask for feedback we both like this book called the mom test and the central principle is i only get to ask them about their problems they i don’t get to ask them what solution they want um and so similarly when i go ask for feedback now i’m just looking for them to say things that’s going to get me to ask a better question that will get me to to come up then it’s my job to come up with the answer to that um that’s the main principle when in doubt there’s one final thing which is at the end of the day i gotta like trust myself and i got to know that ultimately if i just do the thing i think is right over and over and over again i will happen to i might some people might not like it but i will ultimately attract the people who love what i do so that comes back to that saying my trainer gave me which is who are my customers the people that love what i do and it became that simple for me so that that’s when i that’s what i fall back to so it’s like if it was like an if-else statement it’s like if the if their feedback gives me a clear question and an answer that i know what to do with great i’ll make an adjustment but if not then i’m just going to do what i do and i know that that will attract the type person who loves what i do i think that i i think you can i always call it like excel sheet your way to creating a big business so i think that like you could just say where’s the opportunity based off of like traffic demand and uh i just hired these people and you could create wealth that way so i i and i and i don’t like when people say you have to be passionate you don’t really have to you can just excel your weight to this but what i’ve learned throughout the years is like it’s a lot more fun just to do things that you think is are cool and typically i can that’s more the feedback that i’ll listen to is just like do i think this is cool and the second thing when i get feedback is i don’t actually care like you said what they’re saying uh i i care more about why they’re saying it and so for example when people say make the podcast shorter they’re not saying make it shorter they’re saying it’s not always that interesting and exactly and and so the ques because if something’s you know really long it doesn’t matter as long as it’s badass or if i did a made a three hour movie about sean you’re sean’s gonna watch it and so it’s really not about listening to the actual feedback but why do i think they’re saying it so that’s what i listen to all right this one you guys get to talk about some other people um this one is am i surrounding myself with the right people who are the five i want to spend time with whoo powerful question that is a powerful question so let’s just we’ll make it i think it’s a heavy question so let’s make it light tell me right now who are the five if you just said i spend my time the most with these five people who are the five people you currently just spend the most time with wife sarah uh neville medora my best friend and lives next next door to me uh ramon who you a lot of people know ramon van meer and then um jack smith that’s four you got one more i wouldn’t put anyone else in those categories no that’s it your dog well you know i i like you guys kind of like that’s pretty in depth but i would say that that’s no i would edit there and all right so then let’s let’s let’s just add one more who’s somebody you wish was in that five that is that you’re not spending as much time as as you like in an ideal world you would be uh steph smith i would add steph smith though yeah nice i think smith is is amazing just like what i was like just like our podcast listeners they also want more every time i talk to her i like damn she’s brilliant she’s a very special person uh so maybe her uh anyone else like uh i sometimes i do wish like i had like some baller baller baller friends a lot of my friends are like pretty great but like [ ] hanging out with like a russian oligarch just to see how like some of these crazy people think who are like extreme i would like i like extreme people so even though i may think they’re a bad person i would like to hang out with some of these extreme people who are just on extreme ends of success or it could even be an athlete like what’s it like to hang out with like the person who holds the world record in the marathon so it would be nice to to be around more extreme people that’s a good that’s a really good actually twist to this which is i think a lot of people have heard this idea of you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with and that’s true but there’s two other groups of people that i think really matter one is like the equivalent of a bender it’s like you don’t want to go on a bender every day or every weekend but twice a year a bender is a lot of fun and if you don’t do a bender twice a year if you’re not really having one amazing party or you know just an all-nighter or some kind of experience that’s like a little out there you kind of are leaving a little bit of life on the table and um and so there’s some people that are amazing in that capacity that you just you would never want in your uh your everyday but they’re amazing twice a year uh do i see your hangs with uh and i think there’s some people that are like that the other one is who have you just not even encountered yet like who is just outside of your bubble that it’s like you don’t even know what you don’t know yet because you just don’t hang out with anybody like that and so you you have zero exposure and therefore you know it’s just like it’s not part of your world view it’s not part of your mental model yet so i think that’s yours two categories who are on the five or the those two two categories do the five and then the other all right so my five would be sonia my wife and my kids i’ll just put it all together my mom is the next one uh so i spend my mom comes over one week out of every month she stays with us uh ben who’s kind of like my my right hand man my my business partner across milk road across in the fund he helps with the podcast he does a bunch of things so i talked to ben hours a day um andre who i don’t think you’ve met andre right no no andre is like kind of like the new ben he’s like the next ben um so he’s a new guy in the fold on that level and andre is kind of amazing because andre’s got this story um that he had some illness that he had something he caught some bug he got us some infection that like he gave him like kind of like chronic fatigue syndrome or something like that like he basically like couldn’t get out of bed for like i don’t know like two years or something like that like he was in a wheelchair and nobody nobody knew what it was and it was just like and then he kind of like recovered from it but it was like this multi-year thing and so this [ ] is the most like grateful person you’ll ever meet because he’s like dude i walked today and i’m like you know like it doesn’t take much for andre to be like high on life and because andre’s around me all the time i’m s i get that secondary high you know the contact high right off of andre and like you know because he he kind of like was just battling and got out of it and so now he’s like every day he like you could tell he’s just savoring every day like as if you you haven’t eaten in like two weeks and you’re having your first meal that’s how andre’s like and so i love that about andre who and who are the other two uh the other one is suli uh who’s our mutual buddy i don’t hang out with him that much because he moved but he’s a partner in one of my businesses and so i talked to him you know because that but the one downside is now that he’s like an official business partner we don’t really just like talk to shoot the [ ] anymore it’s like we kind of anytime i’m talking to him i’m sort of talking to him always as he’s as if he’s my investor or business partner instead of just catching up you know so i guess that’s probably the downside and then so those are the those are the five that i’m currently hanging out with the most i would put you next as we hang out you know two three hours a week doing this so that’s more than most people and then the one i wish i hung out with more was ramon because ramon is like the best human on earth so you know the more ramon in my life the better human i would be just you know by default i completely agree when he teaches me a lot he uh he’s a very thoughtful person i learned a lot from him and then the the category that i was saying that people i have no exposure to is like i basically have no exposure anymore to people that are in high school in college which is like actually pretty important as an investor and like you know person of the world to know what it’s like oh i forgot i used to think about these stupid things and they were the most important things in my life or like oh wow you know we didn’t have phones so we couldn’t do these things you know that they’re doing now in high school or college so i have like zero exposure to you know like people in third world countries like you know when i went down to mexico i was like oh wow like i kind of forgot like just how simple and like different life is for most people on earth and like you know i used to live in indonesia in china and stuff like that so like i definitely was in it every day but now you know i’m just sitting in the burbs in california so it’s easy to forget that so i think i have a lot like my bubble is pretty tight right now i think i should pop that intentionally once a while do you want to do one more question ben yeah we’re doing five questions five questions seems like a nice uh round number and you bet you can remix it because some of these are sort of the same so you could just ask a different question you’re a good question ask her in general i’ve been thinking about uh one of these so let’s go with this one in what ways am i in my own way ugh i can say that one easy i lose my temper follow my i get very emotional where i’m like no [ ] this this is wrong we have to do it this way uh and i have lost a lot of money for doing that for like uh uh let’s just say like it’s an employee who i think like has uh maybe underperformed uh even though they talk like they’re hot [ ] i would just fire them as opposed like well we could definitely salvage this like there’s lots of ways to salvage things and make things better it’s just a net positive but more often than not be like well no i just i’m out i don’t want to deal with the headache i’m over it or and that is a very emotional decision i make so many emotional decisions oftentimes it’s sometimes it’s ego oftentimes it’s temper or but mostly if it’s like oh i think this person is trying to get one over them on me like [ ] them i want to crush them no i’m not doing you know what i mean yes i make a ton of emotional decisions as opposed to practical decisions that’s interesting uh all right i got two i have one that’s real but but is that true have you seen that with me yeah for sure you’ve been mad at me sometimes and i’m like because you think i’m trying to like get one over on you and i’m like dude i’m really not and then once you realize i’m not like your whole perspective changed right away and i was like oh that’s what you thought like oh i had no idea because i wouldn’t like it’s so different than the way i think so i i didn’t i just never i couldn’t understand it basically it’s not like we can give a real example i got mad at you for being late and i’m like in my head i’m like he doesn’t care he doesn’t care about this he thinks he’s better and it was reality was like no dude my baby was sick or like you know i like she was in the bath and it took forever to get her out uh and that’s like a legitimately good excuse even a bad excuse which was just like dude i just i literally like i was sitting here i just lost track of time i’m not doing anything i’m not more important i’m not like a diva i’m not uh trying to do that like i feel horrible every time i do like i sometimes i literally don’t even have a good excuse uh but but even that was fine with you it was just like as long as you know i was sort of like actively doing it it didn’t bother you you know what i mean or another thing that i do all the time and i think everyone should learn from me and i’m working hard at it and i made this mistake is resp replying really quickly to text based messages so whether that’s an email uh anything where it’s like dude it’s okay if you sit on this for an hour or even a day or even five days sometimes i’ll get [ ] like a text or an email and i’m like oh no fva and i quickly reply and i’m like oh i should have just sat on that for like three hours what was i thinking yeah i’m that’s actually a great one that’s a great answer for me too i’m massively disorganized um which affects everything so it’s like replying like there are so many emails and text messages that people are either like offering me something they’re trying to help me and i’m just not replying and people take it very personally um as you know maybe i would too if i felt like i was getting blown off by this person or i’ll just miss a deal that like it’s just like a clear win for me because i just don’t reply i don’t see it i would say [ ] them you know i actually don’t think you should i i’ve been struggling with that too i had and lately i’m just like i’m just not going to feel bad about replying to these people like and it’s the most wait listen here’s the most douchiest thing i could say but just subtract this by like a lot and that’s the reality imagine you’re justin timberlake and people like are always presenting you with stuff you’re just like dude i don’t care i’m gonna do what i want to do of course we are not that big a deal but like a much much smaller version where there’s like lots of opportunities and i’m just like i’m just gonna adore all them i don’t expect jt to reply to a dm do i yeah that’s true but uh i’m talking about like people who i’m doing business with her but they’re my friends or something like that like those are people i do intend to be replying to or i’ve asked them for something then they give it to me and i forget to do something with it but don’t you say jokes what do you think laziness there like imagine my children imagine you’re joe rogers how much is that i don’t want to share the check on on screen but this is a 13 000 check that’s just been sitting here for like six months and then it expired and so now i just had to go like get a new check and then i got this is the new check after the other one expired and i still haven’t deposited this one another month has gone by like that’s how shitty i am and it’s just sitting here because i’m just disoriented for no reason or same thing with like my company’s book so here’s the bad way it plays out which is i don’t like i’ve never hired a bookkeeper and so i’m like oh yeah like i don’t know like aren’t the transactions just like on the credit card no they gotta ask you they’re gonna end the year i’ll just i’ll just cram for my taxes final and just figure this out and so now i’m like learning oh how do people do this oh they hire bookkeepers and then they okay gotcha so like there was just things that are just messy in my world that’s me getting in my own way um you know it cost me a lot of money to to have messy books or not reply to certain certain emails um so i think that’s me getting in my own way the other one was just staying up late which is again this is so boring cliche almost embarrassed to even say it on the podcast because how late do you stay up nobody gives a [ ] like on average i was staying up until two or three in the morning and then i’d wake up at nine i just started like last week i was just like [ ] i’m just asleep early and it solved like five of my biggest problems it’s like my diet cleaned up because i no longer late night snack or eat like junk which is all i would do right if i had dinner at seven and now it’s one am and i’m hungry like guess what i’m not good yeah exactly it’s like my sleep was shitty my work was shitty i was editing the milk road at night now i just i sleep at like 10 30 or 11. i wake up at 6 30 or 7 in the morning i write the real road and it’s our head at the milk road and it’s done but and like by the time the kids wake up like i’ve already like finished my work day almost and so i just cleaned that up and it cleaned up like five other things but again so [ ] cliche to say sleeping early that i just bleep this whole thing out make it mysterious instead do you remember uh how regimented rob dyrdek was about tracking his time and like waking up at 6 00 a.m or 5 a.m or whatever he did i actually like like i i if that’s what makes him happy do it and i also respect how crazy he’s about that i think i like extreme people part of me was like oh but that’s like you don’t need to do that but then the other part is like that would be kind of cool to do for like two or three weeks just to see what would happen just what would happen if you do get up at 6 00 a.m and you are like you have a very strict schedule i i actually do think that that sounds kind of fun to try it once in a while what time do you sleep and wake up typically last night i couldn’t go to bed i went to bed at one or two and i got out of bed at seven i you normally always get out of bed at seven are you like super regimented with your schedule i’m not productive though usually i’m not productive until about nine or ten my uh yeah so my baby wakes up at six in the morning usually so that’s when i’m up i try and go to bed around like 10 10 30 and then once or twice a month i’ll go to bed at like 3am because i need to get something done that’s why you go to bed at 3am you’re not like going on doing [ ] wait do you do drink do you drink or do drugs no well it’s usually like i god this is the lamest trio ever when i when i do how to take over the world episodes i usually do a bunch of it in one sitting that i’ll do from like 9 00 p.m to like three or four a.m i’ll do that twice a month sean do you so let me recap these five parts i drink if like the occasion calls for it but not with any regularity no but do you get drunk i i used to but no like last five years i have not been getting drunk and did you do any drugs no god that’s crazy what a bunch of fruits dude i just drink green smoothies bro i don’t even drink coffee we are so lame all right go ahead all right i’m gonna recap the five questions so the five questions were in what areas of my life am i settling right now the next one was um am i surrounded oh no that’s not it oh choose your battles wisely what battles am i choosing right now and what what do i want to choose so what areas of my choose your battles wisely what battles do you want to choose number three what am i letting in that i need to shut out that’s noise and information and opinions from the outside world and then people who are the five people i want to spend the most time with and what was the fifth one did we do five yeah question five was in what ways am i in my own way oh yeah in what way is am i in my way what are the things you’re doing that gets in your own way those are the five ben which one of those questions when we set them did you go off on a tangent think it for yourself what your answer is which one shook you one of these questions um i i the first question shook me in what areas of my that okay so okay you guys are looking at me i i thought maybe i’d get away with not actually giving you the answer because like that’s like that’s one that penetrates your soul but you both were just like you’re gonna answer right now and like for you both of you talked about like health and fitness stuff one area in which i settle a lot in my life is like i get super concerned about environmental pollutants especially like plastics and microplastics and like stuff like that and i always feel like a psychopath when i talk about it because everyone else is like oh what what like plastics and i feel crazy because i’m like no actually like this isn’t a conspiracy theory like the research is out there that like all these microplastics are like crashing our testosterone levels and like disrupting our endocrine systems and stuff like i’m not crazy but the fact that everyone else is like yeah whatever makes me feel even crazier and so a lot of times it’s a weird obsession i just like settle i compromise and i’m like look at my baby like putting this plastic toy in her mouth and like a part of me dies and i’m just like ugh whatever i i settle i’m not going to fight this fight right now but it is something that you have plastic tupperware we have plastic tupperware that i wish we would just like throw away so just do it dude that is not at all where i thought you were going with that answer when you first said it because you were like so it was like weighing so heavy on your heart and that’s what it was it matters a lot to me sean most [ ] random answer are is is is rubber it’s like a like what they call like a binky with a pacifier thing the pacifier what what is that rubber i don’t even know what that is that plastic uh yeah so most of the time no they won’t do plastic in pacifiers so they’ll either do silicone uh which is better or they’ll do rubber yeah which is also better and rubber okay right silicone i like have my doubts about um but it does not have like the same proven track record of disrupting your endocrine systems the way plastics do do you do use water bottles um no in fact i try not to use disposable water bottles because a lot of times they leach what do i go watch or read that’s gonna scare the [ ] out of me there’s a joe rogan episode that i’ll link up in the show notes where he talks with she’s a the harvard researcher who does a bunch of this stuff and she’s really good uh and it will it will scare you a lot yeah dude plastic’s pretty bad then like i you don’t know that sean do you mind you microwave plastic don’t you only on this podcast yeah i i microwave everything and i everything’s in plastic in my house so i’m like oh [ ] okay um so i’ve heard this but i’ve like never i never got shook yet where i’m like oh take action in this but that’s why i ask what do i need to go watch that’s gonna like trigger me where i’m gonna need to i need to be like i i will go and you know make it like dramatic change i’ll link it up but like the short of it is basically like our testosterone levels are decreasing at one percent per year fertility levels are just like crashing and it’s not just people who want to have children less like people who are trying to have children are able to have them at much lower rates than in the past to the point where it’s like and our plastic use is increasing so much that they’re like in 50 years we’re not sure that anyone is going to be able to have uh unassisted uh children anymore but how do they know plastics cause that right you know versus just because they do studies of with rats and uh they’re able to demonstrate it the the correlation good answer that was a very good answer and um what do you what’s what’s an example of something you swap out that’s like a big culprit for plastic like most people are doing this but if you swap this that solves like you know twenty percent right well so the biggest thing that she said was never heat plastic that is like if you can do one thing it’s never heat up plastic so like if you have a water bottle uh with water in it like yes that will leach some plastic into your system it’s not great but if you leave it out in the sun that heats up to 100 degrees you’re gonna get like 10 times as much plastic so it’s it’s not eating things hot from plastic but how do you reconcile that fact with the fact that you smoke you told me that you smoke a pack of cigarettes a day [Laughter] uh yeah noted chainsmoker uh ben wilson that’s what people know me for how do you do both well and how do you how can you have how do you have 24 newports a day do you tell me not to microwave plastic you know it’s just one of those mysteries sam i don’t know how to explain it and how do you um can you test to see how much i don’t know that’s a good question i would love to do it if you can i don’t know that you can i got a new business that we’re gonna talk about on monday that’s gonna address that by the way i was all prepared for it today really did you say i don’t wanna what is it it’s called float uh did you see it in the dock it’s called float dot is what is it what’s the url is it called float bend where’s my [ ] reap it’s called no it’s called fount uh font found sorry fount dot bio fount it’s basically a five thousand dollar a month concierge service where they test your blood and tell you all about your body it’s very expensive but sounds incredibly cool for five thousand dollars a month you better be touching my body well we’ll see maybe maybe it’ll make women to actually want to touch your body maybe that’s maybe maybe we’ll do one better we’re getting tested over here five grand a month why five grand a month that’s such an absurd number you’re doing this no i’m not doing it but i think it’s close to beta uh five grand a month would i do it i would sign up for three months for sure i think you could do it in three months in increments i for fifteen thousand dollars yeah i would try that dude i had a concierge doctor one time for like a year when i was really sick and it was 25 grand for a year and it was mostly amazing also i understand why rich people and how rich people can get access to so many drugs because like if i wanted to i could just like text the doctor and be like hey can you refill this uh this xanax for me or like hey i need some more oxy like is like and you’re paying them so much money that it seems like they’re willing to do that it is kind of crazy this took a turn hey all right can i do we have to we’re way over time do i have time to ask you guys one more question as long as it’s five minutes okay i think it can be five minutes or less i’m just curious about this i don’t know why this i thought of this as we were asking the five questions but if you were to like simulate your life a thousand what do you think the ceiling is and what do you think the floor is in other words like are there a few little things if they broke in the wrong way like sam parr is working at a mcdonald’s in missouri right now or like a few breaks where if things had broken the wrong way you would uh be like a worth a hundred billion dollars one of the richest men in the world like what do you think your floor is what do you think your ceiling is and do you think you ended up about what your average is i think in my case i could tell you i think it’s my favorite is that the ground rules the ground rules are same genetics and same like family not like i’m born in a different country like yeah it’s just like a few little random variables get changed you make a few different decisions as you go through life but same family same situation same person i think i was not far from being like homeless alcoholic drug addict like i think that was actually potentially in the cards or just like in jail because i would con people and steal i think a lot of people honestly could say that though like if they like if they like gotta if you ever like do certain drugs like oh man like the it’s actually i could see myself uh living on the streets uh the best of like the limit um i think like a really attainable thing is i could have not sold my company and i think it could have been worth hundreds of millions of dollars and i could have been worth many hundreds of millions of dollars by the time i was 50. i think that could have done that i think i could have pulled that off if i was willing to put it in put the work in yeah but you’ll probably end up there now anyways you’re 30 now that’s 20 more years yeah given where you’re at now it’s pretty likely that you end up over 100 million dollars it’s very likely that i’ll be working 20 more years it’s almost guaranteed it’ll be worth nine years i mean it’s almost certain yeah so then [ ] it i don’t know exactly so you peeked you got one of the good good rolls of the dice um i don’t think i mean obviously there’s some scenarios where yeah i end up you know in jail drug addict whatever but i don’t think that’s like the realistic floor for me i think the realistic floor for me is was probably like um working on twitch forever you know no not even like you know working at uh working as a lab assistant at [ ] you know greenville universities like biology department or some [ __ ] like that like you know basically some some job that was like i got on some track that didn’t really have a merit-based system it was a time-based system um so like you know you basically just get rewarded for how long you’ve been in the game and not like how much impact you’ve been able to make and um and it might have been in a very kind of like complete i was very close to a complete non-business field right i was like about to go to med school so you know i was very likely going to be in a different thing but like even if i hadn’t done the med school path you know just being a engineer somewhere or being a you know project manager somewhere was extremely likely for me had i just made one or two different decisions kind of at some point the more interesting question is like how far off the peak am i and i think i’m pretty far off the peak to be honest with you and in fact you know uh ben you were there when we had uh david friedberg on the on the podcast and i told him sam i was trying to butter him up i was like dude so you’ve created not one not two but pretty much three billion dollar companies um if you know he created climate which is a billion dollar company he created metro mile which is basically a billion dollar company and he created the production board’s a billion dollar company and i said you’ve done that and you know if i went back to you at age kind of 18 19 20 you were in college and i told you hey man this is how it all shakes out you’re gonna create three billion dollar company three separate billion dollar companies uh in like the in this like kind of space science space uh what would you have said would that have been unbelievable to you would you could you have believed that because honestly i’d probably have been disappointed and i was like what why because i think two things like one is he wasn’t really like money wasn’t the like the driving force and then the second piece is like i don’t think he feels like he’s had a big impact on the world yet like okay metro mile exists and okay climate exists but like you know what he’s trying to do now with like canada and other stuff like that is like he’s like trying to find it like be the way we produce food is gonna change or like the way we produce pharmaceuticals in a change like that’s about now the like the type of swing he goes for which is like the world used to produce things in factories and farming and blah blah and now we do it in a laboratory blah blah blah like that he’s trying to fundamentally change the means of production and so i think that’s what he meant but i was kind of blown away by that answer and that’s the type of thing when i remember i said like you hang out with that x factor person who like just sort of like stuns you into a different like what i said when do i realize i’m settling is when a guy who’s created three billion dollar company says i probably would have been disappointed if i knew this was the this was the outcome um it makes me think wait what is this guy even going what is this guy scoreboard if he doesn’t think this is a win and then what does that make me think about my scoreboard how could i update my scoreboard not to match his but to like let’s let’s definitely question it right like let’s see keep it the same as it’s been for 10 is he a billionaire now he’s personally a billionaire probably like 500 in that ballpark i i think he said on the podcast that he that he hasn’t hit a billion so i think close but i don’t think he’s hit it yeah isn’t that funny how you can achieve just what most every single person on earth would consider like the top of the top at the top of the top and you’re like yeah that’s funny once i googled my uh my mentor and kind of business my investors net worth and i remember being like and then i googled a whole bunch of celebrities like so i think i think at that time like his his kind of like my ballpark approximate like my triangulated net worth for them was like 700 800 million and then i googled like britney spears and it was like 25 or 50. and then i was like wait brit i was like he’s like more than 10 times richer than britney spears i was like okay alex rodriguez i remember when he signed the biggest mlb contract ever was a 10-year 225 million contract or 250 million contract at that time and i remember being like oh my god he’s getting three he already has three times a rock’s contract and it’s just like i just googled every celebrity i could think of like more than all of them did you know that you’re richer than ryan sheckler i think i literally said that i was like you’re 15 000 germaine dupri’s dude he’s probably even richer than denzel washington this guy’s amazing oh easily watch you know denzel networth dude i bet you denzel’s gotta be worth like uh a hundred at least been in the game for a while piss poor 280. he’s a double denzel you know like come on man that’s awesome all right i’m out you