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 you’re good at doing this which is you identify these lifestyle trends you like pick up pretty quickly on like there’s a group of people that are deciding to like live under a different paradigm or different motto or creed and actually that’s always like one of the best ways to build a business around that lifestyle because you can speak to that audience you can differentiate a product super easily to that crowd [Music] dude have you ever been inside factories you probably have but i think most people have have you been inside like any kind of why do you think that i’ve been in the factory you’re going to be like i don’t know like my [ ] cousin bubba has like a bubble gum factory and you’re going to be like i went fishing for i went fishing recently with my father-in-law and he’s like hey so how do i set this hook up what do i do i’m like dude i don’t know i’ve never gone fishing he’s like why don’t you just assume that i know how to do this dude you look like a guy you just look like you seem for sure like a guy who’s gonna i’ve watched documentaries on it do you or do you not have a favorite place to fish no of course i don’t have a fishing hole that i go to um but no i’ve i’ve i don’t think i’ve been to a factory not really like what type of factory it doesn’t matter any factory whatever factory you go into it’s [ ] mind-blowing how like even to go to a warehouse like go to every you’ve been inside like an amazon warehouse or like a yeah like a food warehouse like how the food gets to restaurants um it’s insane in the same way that like going to a farm is like slightly crazy and you’re like whoa i eat these these i eat these animals like oh wow uh you know that doesn’t seem right but like basically a factory it is kind of stunning like if you take any object on like okay i am holding this microphone this is sitting on my this is the foam cover of a microphone there’s some like huge factory that like is churning them out if you just go back trace the process of how this got to my desk so okay i just go on amazon i just microphone uh i don’t know maybe this one i click that i buy it right so it goes from an amazon warehouse onto a like amazon warehouse packs it into a carrier carrier brings it to my house puts the package on my doorstep okay great how did it get to the amazon warehouse well first it was in probably like another warehouse before it even got sent to amazon before that warehouse it was in a factory being made by human beings all right so actually before that before it got to the warehouse it was on a boat in a container like sailing from [ ] china on a boat with human beings just living on the boat as it sails for months you know two months to to the coast and then it gets like un you know like docked and separated out of a container ship and like humans beings are there in the factory there’s human beings you know i don’t know how how many you know small children died making this foam cover but it’s like the amount of work that goes into everything that’s sitting in our house just arriving there is insane to me like just the materials so where did the material for this foam come from right there’s like a you know if you have cotton right that starts in a field somewhere it gets puck it gets plucked and it’s pulled and it gets processed then it gets shipped and then it gets manufactured then it gets printed then it gets manufactured again it’s like that is insane yeah to the point where i’m kind of like we’re kind of ruining the earth and also people’s lives like you know like to get i can’t feel my t-shirt well i cancelled my amazon prime membership i was like man i feel guilty i order something and it’s like so much energy behind the scenes when to ship this of course i only see they ship a dongle to a computer a small ass thing with bubble wrap in a huge box and i’m like oh this is horrible and then i have to pay money to pay a truck to come pick it up because i it’s too much you know by constant yeah yeah then the truck you know burns gas and then takes it somewhere else and [ ] dumps it somewhere and then someone else’s problem right like so it’s just kind of like on one hand i’m amazed that the system even works like the fact that the package gets from the factory in vietnam to the warehouse and then you go to the warehouse and there’s like an unbelievable number of boxes and then they get sort of picked and packed into the package and that gets shipped and you if you ever go to the post office like if you go to the post office and you you should just ask them be like hey can i see what it’s like behind the the door there they’d be like what why i just never seen a post office they’ll open the door it is like santa’s like you know elves factory basically it’s like the most unbelievable number of packages and you’re like where’s the system like aren’t there conveyor belts and they’re like no we just got these like trolleys and then we just kind of keep them like you know the ones going over there they stay over in this area then we hope we don’t lose them it’s like wow this is insane that this system even works it is pretty crazy it’s like an incredible achievement it’s crazy you can mail something from california to new york for like 45 cents and it gets there in like four days yeah that’s what i’m saying pretty reliably so i’m like it is on one hand amazing and on the other hand is horrifying the amount of like i forget the environmental side right i’m not even that environmentally conscious it’s not like something that i think about all the time or i feel super guilty about i actually feel more like the human energy and labor and just the amount of effort and resources it took to get this thing to me it makes me think like you know we had that guy david friedberg come on the pod you you weren’t there for that one but the thing he’s doing which is basically like hey he’s doing the same thing in the drink industry which is like instead of you know putting 20 liters of water to grow grapes then crush the grapes turn it into wine add sugar add alcohol pack it up put it to a you know send it to a bottling factory then send it to a warehouse then put it on a shelf and a store and then drive it home and put it on a shelf in your home like he’s like why don’t you just like manufacture it in your home using this little printer that’ll print a drink for you and um and it’s like oh yeah that cuts out like 90 percent of like the the you know this like energy and like kind of resources and time and effort that goes into bringing this drink to my you know you know to be able to drink this drink so i just feel like more than ever that was like that was the big wake-up call that was my going into space moment was realizing for every single product every shirt every pair of boxers every sock that i own how much goddamn like effort labor travel resources goes into it and realizing that that’s not gonna be the way um that’s not gonna be the way forever and like this kind of like 3d printing you know like sort of basically manufacturing just in time at the end point and cutting out a whole bunch of these like factories and warehouses and all that other stuff that needs to happen was my big wake-up call i want to ask you about then what else is there that you can do that for but before that have you ever gotten into the buy it for life movement you have i told you about that um no but i think i understand it from that what is it it’s like an eco-friendly way of like buying yeah well i don’t it doesn’t have to be rooted in eco-friendly uh it’s not for me but it’s a perk there’s a subreddit that i subscribe to it’s called buy it for life and what you do is the the idea is just how do you just consume less stuff and how do you just buy the best of something that hopefully can last forever so an example uh do you remember as a kid did your mom ever have a kitchenaid mixer yes okay so kitchenaid mixer kitchenaid’s a brand the mixer like it’s the thing with the bowl underneath it and like the arm that goes above it and spins those are like six hundred dollars they’re really expensive but they’re famous for lasting like a lifetime like you can use an antique one and it works just as good and another example is if you’re gonna buy like a a coat like there’s like um you can maybe buy a really fancy leather coat and you’re willing to spend two thousand dollars as opposed to buying a 300 one because it could like last forever as long as you fit in it or patagonia it actually does that too they’ll fix your stuff forever or um there’s like a bunch of furniture there’s a bunch of shoes like different types of shoes you can buy it instead of them whenever they wear down instead of throwing throwing them away you can just get them fixed and so it’s the idea of like how do you buy one thing forever and it hopefully can last forever or buy one thing one time and it’ll last forever i feel like you do stuff like this ben do you do you have like objects that you uh stuff that you buy that’s like meant to to sort of last i don’t know why my hunch just tells me you do the funny thing is my dad does this but not out of like um like environmental justice ideas but just like because he’s crazy that way of like he drove the same car for 22 years and just like couldn’t bring himself to buy a new car and always shines his shoes because he’s owned the same shoes for like 40 years and so that like kind of got ingrained in me as like a good way to live and so i do do this a little bit it’s awesome it’s fun and also like some of your [ ] as you wear it patinas it actually looks cooler right now you’re good at doing this which is you identify these like lifestyle trends it’s like do you know there’s some people that are like you know not eating food anymore they’re just drinking whatever uh soylent or you know like you know there’s people that just micro dose lsd every day and like these are kind of famous examples now but i feel like you’ve told me about like 30 of these in the time that we’ve been friends and they’re like dude have you seen this like you know subreddit called you know fat fire or whatever it’s like you always have these like you you like pick up pretty quickly on like there’s this weird not even weird it’s just like there’s a like live under a different sort of like paradigm or different motto or creed and actually that i think you just like because it’s interesting but that also is like one of the best ways to build a business around that lifestyle because you can speak to that audience you could differentiate differentiate a product super easily to that crowd and i i seek the i seek those things out so there’s a bunch of things that i i don’t agree with or i don’t i don’t want to live my life that way but i love just like seeing it i like seeing how basically i love freaks i like weirdos i consider myself a weirdo and i love a good freak show i just love i’ll see it like i remember the first time like three years ago i went to my friend’s house and he didn’t have a microwave i’m like what you know microwave he’s like well it’s bad for this reasons and i was like you’re a freak like mike we all have microwaves you’re the weirdo and then you start thinking about i’m like well okay tell me why why do you think you might be right and i’m like okay maybe there’s a point there or like uh my friends a lot of my friends now refuse to use plastic tupperware or plastic anything that you eat with and i’m like well why i just put my thing in microwave who cares and so like there’s a bunch of little things like that that i love learning about yeah i remember when justin mirrors came on you you were like let me guess you don’t have a microwave in your house he’s like yep and i was like that’s a [ ] weird spot-on question to ask somebody that i don’t think you knew the answer to ahead of time and then that got me thinking about that this this exact lifestyle you’re talking about in fact moyes um so moyes started native deodorant which was around one of these trends which was people wanted an all-natural paraben-free aluminum-free deodorant and he saw that on etsy that was like a really high selling item but it was like in the etsy kind of handmade artisan goods like bubble and his bet was that people once you kind of speak to that value system of like not having x they might be willing to pay more and be become a like switch deodorant brands if you like built a brand around it he recently tweeted something he goes billion dollar idea water that has not touched plastic so it’s a water brand that has only been like in glass containers or like you know basically like from the whatever the mountain that this was gotten it hasn’t touched plastic until it’s reached your lips and i thought that was funny it’s like this this plastic thing is is uh real a lot of people are anti plastics uh yeah so that means like for every product where plastic is core there’s going to be a alt product where plastic is not not like not used so whether it’s tupperware or like for me i drink water out of you know we get those big five gallon jugs or whatever delivered the house out of a dispenser that that’s a plastic container it’s sitting in the whole time until i drink it right so it’s just a giant water bottle and so there’s like there’s there’s these trends where you can look at okay where is there like if there’s an anti-plastic tran where is there plastic and can i create an alternative if there’s a plant-based vegan trend how do i make alt milks alt meat alt whatever right that becomes like a blueprint to building a great business so there’s a few companies out right now you might know their names i’m going to try and look them up but basically uh there’s this trend amongst products that you use daily that you run out of so like toothpaste laundry detergent uh advil bottles things where the bottle isn’t is just like a way to get it to you but it’s kind of [ ] that you have to throw it away and so they’re making all these products where they send you one package and then they send you like whenever you need it just a re something to refill it like lit or like literally something you pour into it um do you know what they’re called you know what i’m talking about but i’ve seen this for toothpaste um and i think it’s a great idea i think this is incredible i love it there’s this idea um and i at first i thought it was small i think moyes was the one who told me i’m pretty sure he said it’s like killing it um you don’t know what i’m talking about i forget what it is uh no i don’t know the name uh i’ll have to look up what it is but they’re crushing it i know there’s like um four cleaners i think there’s one called blue land i think doesn’t blue land do this is it blue yeah i know you’re talking about yeah and it’s like chemical free containers and then they send you one container and then they you you order something and they i don’t know exactly how they send it to you but you just like pour it into the thing send you a plastic pouch that you throw away yeah yeah i think it’s like less less bad um by the way speaking of these kind of like niche crazy people i got two for you so one is we talked i think about um anti-r anti-work did we talk about that on the podcast i don’t know i don’t think we talked about it but it pisses me off so there’s r anti-work which you should explain that and then i have another one that’s the the counter to it so first explain anti-work i don’t even entirely know how to explain it it was i’ll tell you the background from what if i remember correctly it was started eight years ago but uh like in the last three years since the pandemic is when it really got popular it was made up of a lot of people who were waiters and waitresses and they were pissed off at how they were being treated and it started out as like a labor movement thing like we need higher wages we need this now it’s like got 8 million 10 million subscribers on the subreddit and it’s people complaining about like you know my manager said that like they fired me because i told them i was busy when i needed to come in and they just basically [ ] on anything where it’s like demanding of of workers and so i think so so here’s their here’s i think their stated thing ben you tell me if i’m being too harsh on it if you find a more generous explanation but here’s what it says it is a subreddit for those who want to end work are curious about ending work and want to get the most out of a work-free life the subreddit has cracked over 1.4 million members by the end of 2019 which has got to be a lot more than that by now it’s eight million now and it went it was one point oh my god i think one went viral after a warehouse worker posted a screenshot of a text that they sent their boss and then that basically made other workers the other workers like kind of like saw that where inspired did the same and it was part of this like you know the great resignation that people were talking about and there was like this funny clip where they put they took a mod from arsenal’s anti-work and they went on fox news i don’t know have you seen it yeah and this the person got destroyed it was embarrassing it’s like anti-work person gets destroyed by you know fox anchors like the video which i didn’t like i hate when they do that this person clearly like is not that smart i think and like it’s very easy to set them up to look silly in that in those cases the subreddit also didn’t like it because they were like dude horrible representation of us on tv um did not articulate our points and um you know why did you go on there like this movement is not about you getting your personal fame you know to like do this we kind of i think they had some rules around like we’re not going to do appearances or speak to the media unless we kind of agree on what the message is um and so this person went rogue i guess and did that but but they basically embarrassed themselves but they were like yeah i just don’t want to work and then guys like okay cool so like you know you don’t want to work at all or like no i like i want to be able to do what i want to do so what do you want to do it’s like i want to teach people i is going to be i want to be a teacher and he’s like you want to be you want to be a teacher you know should we let you teach basically was kind of like the the end point that they were kind of making but anyway so this there’s anti-work which went viral then there’s have you seen r overworked no what’s that it’s the exact opposite it’s people who are using the pandemic that kind of remote work lifestyle to be like they call it having the multiple jobs at once so um like their lingo is like oh yeah my j1 which is like my job one it’s like j1 has great benefits and so i’m just picking up my j2 and j2 i’m just going to do 10 hours a week with this this and this and i’m going to use that to invest in these things right so it’s people scheming together about how to work multiple jobs at once and as remote workers oftentimes it seems like without the employers knowing that there are other jobs so they’re like being simultaneously employed without being super overt about i think that’s the message i could be wrong on that and um it’s people who are trying to get to financial freedom faster by saying like yeah like actually i have the capacity to do like multiple jobs um you know instead of sort of spending 40 hours a week on one job it’s like i can actually do a good job in 20 hours a week on two jobs and get paid that’s the optimistic way to look at it the probably realistic way like i’m looking at the top title and it says j my j3 job forgot about me today and they say i started my j3 yesterday if i started i mean i was giving an orientation on zoom and no one showed up so now i’m just sitting here on the payroll right yeah yeah there’s other people are like yeah let’s beat the system and so there’s like basically a counter movement but that kind of always happens there’s like a there’s like the movement and then there’s the counter movement that comes shortly after and like it kind of polarizes and then there’s a mainstream which just does things the way they’ve been doing them and they don’t really pay too much attention to this stuff and so um you know that that’s kind of common for for many many uh many many of these movements i think subreddits are a great place to look for that you