Shaan Challenges Sam to Ignore His Limits, Michael Rubin is the Billy of the Week, and More

People uh people DM us a lot of interesting ideas. My reply to all of them, they go, Well, what do you think about this? I always reply with two things. I always say it's an amazing idea. Uh and then I say, When are you launching? Feel like I could root Well I know I can be what I want to I'm putting my all in it like a day song on the road, let's travel, never look at it.

Um all right. What um I've got Actually two interesting things to tell you. The first This company reached out. It's a famous publication that you know of, and I don't want to say it out loud yet, but they want us to go to Baja, Mexico to ride motorcycles and film a series on like a weekend adventures. Are you interested in that? Uh what for? Like they yeah, uh what's what's the catch? You want me to come out here and surf and ride motorcycles? What's in it for you? Uh, I guess I could talk about it. I haven't asked if I could talk about it. It's just like it's a

Th without giving too much weight, they have a uh just a web series that goes in like on T V It gets for web and T V. They have a T V channel. And they have this whole series where they it's all about like nine to five workers, like normal yuppie jobs, and you have adventures Friday to Sunday. So like what all can you do on a weekend? Okay. All right.

Uh that seems super up your alley. And kind of up my alley too, but you know Um That's that's their suggestion. Do you have a better idea on like a weekend adventure? It's an adventure publication. Yeah, I don't do motorcycles. That's my only thing I don't do motorcycles and after Kobe I also don't do helicopters. But Uh I love surfing. Surfing's a cool thing. I suck at it, but It's fun. So I would do that. Well

If you come up with a better idea, then then pitch it. Um but they like it's all paid for and everything. Oh, okay, great. Yeah, let's do that. Why not? Ah, look at your fitness influence or life is already coming in handy. So you the what I wanted to talk about was you're getting really fit too. Do you and I think it's pretty inspiring. Coming from fitness influencer f coming from an influencer like you in the fitness world, that that means a lot to me. Th hardly. But do you so do you think it's do you have you has your body or I know your body has changed. Has your brain changed, do you think?

And your attitude. Of course. That changes first, right? Yeah. The attitude changes first. The brain changes first. The body changes, you know, slowly over time. But yeah, for sure. But I um like okay, if people if I took off my shirt, you know, nobody's gonna be super impressed with me just yet. But I'm pretty impressed with me and that's kind of m my own opinion I I hold in higher regard than anyone else's. So Yeah, I basically I went from like

Kinda like I don't know. I w I w was I would you be like She's Fat? Well fat if was I fat? I might have been fat.

I didn't think of myself like a fat guy photo. And I'll be like, What the hell? I look fat here. Then I'm like, every photo I look fat. Maybe I'm just fat. That's kind of what I what I reached the conclusion of at that time. You were getting overweight. I think that like I think that you know, there's like a like a like a definition of obese. Like, you know, it's a body fat percentage and and I guess if we use obese in fat. Yeah, I would say you're overweight, but I don't think you're overweight now. Yeah, so and and and so now I've been Training hard.

For like a year. I started off doing two days a week, three days a week, and I just cranked it up to five days a week now with the trainer. Um it was always supposed to be five days a week, but the the days I was supposed to be doing on my own, I was, you know, really half assing it or no assing it. So so I would say on average I was doing like three or four days a week before And now I'm doing five or six days a week. Pretty intense. And I gotta say

Um I don't know why you're bringing it up, so I don't know where you're going with this, but It's amazing. I could talk about it all day'cause it's like the best thing I've done all year. So you know, if you're if you're If you're listening to this and you whatever investment you're making right now in your health, I guarantee you that if you upped that investment, you would only thank yourself. And uh that's kind of where I'm coming from here is like, yeah, I'm I'm super happy with making this shift and it's totally great. I have this the reason I was bringing this up is I have this friend who is incredibly wealthy, like

I would have to imagine like thirty million dollars wealthy. And um he He was like, I want to get in shape. Uh, what routine are you using? And I'm like, That's a bad question. Who cares about the routine? If I was you, I would just hire a coach, it'll be like four hundred dollars a month. And he was like, Wow, that's expensive And I'm like

Dude. You've got one body and one life. Like I for me, my fear is when I see someone who's my age are forty, fifty, sixty and their body hurts so they can't walk and they can and they like struggle to sit down.

on the floor or something like that. I'm like, that's hell, right? Like you're just totally you're in this You're in this shitty home that's falling apart and you can't get out. And I was like, What you know, you just bought this fancy house. Why not also buy a fancy body? And not to like look good naked, but all but like feel good.

And so I was just thinking about it and I and I think we talk about investing and I'm like I I think that's that's gotta be the best investment. For sure. We have a f we have a mutual friend. I can't say the name on here'cause what they said is funny, but I'll share what they said. Uh so they're wealthy. They're probably like I think they have like, you know, a hundred million dollars Yeah, in the bank.

And um And and they said this thing, they were uh they're like always doing kinda like fitnessy stuff. They're not like it wouldn't look at them and say, Oh yeah, this person's clearly like you know, ripped out of their mind or they're not just like super jagged. That's that's not that. But they live a very healthy lifestyle. And whenever wherever they go, like in their day Their work out is like a key part of their day and they don't sacrifice it. They don't get they don't get too busy for it. And so I asked him about that and I said, you know

Um Man, it seems like you're really taking this seriously. He goes Uh yeah, you know, the way I look at it is If you're rich, you have no excuse to be fat. I go, what? He goes, look, if you don't have the money and you're all all your you're just you know you're trying to support your family, you gotta work two jobs, you gotta shop at d certain stores, you know, McDonald's, you know, you you gotta eat what you can afford sometimes.

Okay, fine. Like still that no not great. And you know, I I w I want you to not be in that situation, but like I definitely understand. Because If you're rich and you're fat, that's on you, bro. And uh and that's how I feel now is like when he said it, I was like, you know, that's actually so so true, which is if you had all the resources, but you didn't make the investment that matters, uh that's sort of silly, right? And so uh that kind of

Tri that that kind of was one little seed that got planted in my head. I'll tell you something else that's been funny. My trainer recently, um So you're ap you're absolutely right in what you said, which is it's not the work out routine. It's not the w it's not what you do. It's not the work out program, right? It's not like somebody has some secret formula. For most people, it really doesn't matter. Like for most people, even if you just walked fifteen thousand steps a day and you ate uh only maybe twenty three hundred calories, you're gonna like look pretty good. And you're gonna feel probably pretty good.

If you're not working out five days a week, that's your problem. It has nothing to do with the routine. Doesn't matter what you did in the routine, like just start with. doing any workout and then make it better over time. And like, yeah, when you're when your Sam status, then the actual routine does matter because You know, you're you're already at the kind of ninety ninth percentile. You're just trying to optimize at the end and you're trying to get certain details to to pop. So yeah, then your routine matters, but for most people it doesn't matter. But I'll tell you something my trainer told me that was counterintuitive. He goes Um

We were talking about like my body has really changed, my arms have changed, my chest has changed. But my stomach still looks like the stomach of a guy who's not super in shape. Like I'm I don't have like a six package. That's not in the kitchen, bro. And so so that's what I said. I was telling him I was like, Oh yeah, but that's all diet, right? And he goes. Because you know

Everybody says that. He goes, um, they say you can't out train your diet, all all the stuff. He goes, and I get what they mean. He goes, but I'll tell you what. Intensity over diet. All day.

I go, what? He goes. Intensity over diet. Watch. He goes, Don't even touch your diet right now. Don't worry about your diet. Uh, don't be feel guilty when you eat something. Don't like count every calorie. Don't go weigh out your chicken breast. Like don't do any of that shit. All I want you to do is commit to cranking up the intensity when we're here in this this part of the gym. So he's like if you're like let's say zero to ten.

What's the intensity of your work out today, like on average? I say, uh it's like an eight He's like, great, all we're gonna do is we're gonna take that to a nine. We're just gonna make every work out at least a nine on the intensity level. And some days we're gonna be hitting nine and a half. And some days we're gonna even hit a ten, but right now I just want you to focus on a nine. And he goes, Watch what happens. And he's been so right, which is that It was really hard to just change my diet.

But it was much easier to just crank up the intensity in working out. And it's not that the intensity will all of a sudden shed my fat. It's that when I put the intensity in here. Diet becomes a much easier decision. 'Cause I really like laid it all out. during the work out part. And so the desire to like throw it all away for, you know, this like pleasure, these chips or this whatever, like it's just not there.

And I now I am at first I thought he's full of shit. I did not believe him. But now that now that I'm actually trying it, I just said, Hey let me let me follow what you say, you're my coach. Uh I understand what he's saying. And this has now applied to many other things in my life. So now even in business We were I was talking to to Ben about one of our business plans. And it's like oh should we do this or this or this? It was all about the plan, the how, the root you know, what is the strategy.

And I basically said, Fuck the strategy. Let's just take our intensity up. He's like, What? I said, Whatever strategy we're doing, let's just agree that like right now we're probably executing any of our strategies. At a at a seven or eight. Let's just execute any of these bullshit at a nine and a half. Let's just see what happens. And this is just working in all areas of my life now, because now when you put a nine nine or a nine and a half intensity.

You kind of like Wanna figure out the right plan, right? It's like If I'm gonna put in this intensity, it better be on the right thing and your brain will solve the the which path should I choose problem. In a different way because of the intensity. I don't know if that makes sense, but it's a little bit more mind hack. Th this weekend I went to F one Formula One Racing in Austin. It was like the hot thing to do. And I went with this guy. Have you heard of um

What's it called? Jungle Scout. You know Jungle Scout? Yeah, yeah, we've talked about it. It's the tool that basically if you go on Amazon and you wanna see what products are selling, how much how much of this Instapot gets sold every week. Jungle Scouts this little extension you can click on. It'll tell you what pro how much sales the products on Amazon have. It's kind of expensive, but it's a cool product. So it's a big business. Like um you know if you just Google it, like I you'd you'd have to if you could

put the pieces together that they're not far from a hundred million in recurring revenue. Um big business. Yeah. And started as a Google P Chrome plugin, which is interesting. This guy, Greg, uh he's Neville's good buddy. My buddy's Neville, so that's why I got brought into this thing. I went with him and He's very nice, very kind, easy to talk to. But incredibly intense.

And here's just a tiny example of like when I see this and I'm like I I like I always see like whenever I'm around certain people, I always notice this. uh when when when when intense people do things like this. So for example, the race had just ended w uh some people, I don't know how they got onto it, but they got onto the track. I guess they just went on and took photos and he's like, Let's go. And he just starts walking over

And I'm like, Well, there's no like gate and like every and and imagine like huge stands and then you walk down the stands and there's like a fence that's quite tall, and he goes He's like, Well, let's go. I'm like, there's no there's no gate. And he goes, No, no, no, we're just gonna jump the fence. Everyone was staring at us. He just walks up without hesitation, puts his hands up there, climbs up on this fence, and just hop. He goes, Come on, let's go. And I wouldn't I'm I'm I don't like confrontation that much. I don't like doing a lot of things that like people stare at me. And I was like what you just did that like you you didn't even think twice. And I've been with people who are like really successful entrepreneurs and they'll be like a line and of course this is like jackass this is like a jackass move and they're like, No no no we're not waiting in line. We're we're just gonna we're gonna walk in and we're just gonna we're gonna do this. And uh

That's like an example of that intensity. Have you ever noticed like we probably have friends that do like Dude you you're like this. You're an intense dude. I've noticed this from you. And d the line example is perfect. When we were going to do our live show, remember in Miami. And the airport was just packed. I don't know why. It was like six in the morning. The airport was so packed. We got there early and we were still gonna miss our flight. Like the security line was like two miles long. And we waited and we waited we waited and then you were like You just like some switch flipped inside you that was just like

Okay, we have all the reasons to like do do like just to miss this flight, basically. It's like all right We got here early, look, it's just a long line, there's nothing we could do. Um, you know, the airport is packed, Covid just it's all That circumstance. And then I literally we didn't even you didn't even say anything. You were just like Okay, I'm gonna go. And then you just left the line, so you gave up your spot, which was like a risk. We waited for like an hour and a half. You gave up your spot. You go to TSA pre pre check. You're not TSA pre check.

And you just hand the guy your ticket and he's like, Bro, there's no pre check on this. And you were like, Oh yeah, my uh my wife precheck. It was she we th it didn't print. Or you're like you're like, I'm prechecked. He was like looking at you're like there's no pre-check you're like I'm pre-checked it just didn't print right And then he's like Your will just dominated his and then you just got through the line. And I'm still standing there. I'm like shit. If I go and say the exact same thing, that may work. And so I I was like, I need to crank my intensity up. So I went and I bought clear at that moment. I just went and spent 200 bucks buying clear.

And then I like the clear will they'll escort you to the front of the line and like take you through TSA. And then it was like you called me and you're like, dude, you gotta sprint because you were at the gate. You're like, you gotta sprint. So I didn't even have my shoes on. 'Cause of the security line or whatever. So I'm holding my shoes. Didn't even have time to put'em back on. I'm in my socks and I sprinted to the gate like I've never sprinted before. And I hate running. So I've hate I hate ran my way all the way there. But it was your contagious intensity. Another example. We wanted to build our podcast studio. And uh was like we had kind of been talking about it and it got to that dangerous point that happens where

You have an idea, a thing you want to do, and then you've talked about it. But you're not closing. You're just somewhere in the middle. And this is where dreams go to die. And I think most people it would just sort of like It would either fade and you just don't do it. Or you kinda half ass it.

And I remember like in a twenty four hour period, you just blew up my phone. You were like DMing me like pictures of every other podcaster. You're like, how about this? This this. Just tell me, of these three, which one do you want? I like number two. Number two? And I'm like, yeah, sure, number two. You're like, great, number two. Okay, I found the chair on Amazon. Actually, let's drive to these three places and like let's go pick it up today. What time are you free? Are you free in ten minutes? I'll be at your house. And you came, you picked me up, and we drove to IKEA, then we drove to another furniture spot, then we drove to this bootleg spot in Oakland. And then while we're at the bootleg spot in Oakland, it was like not really happening. And then And we went to another spot and then literally the sales lady recognized your intensity. She came up to us.

It was a big furniture store. She comes up, she goes You guys look like you're look you guys look like you're ready to buy. I don't know what she said. She said something like, You guys look like you know what you want. And you were like, Yes, I'm looking for this red chair because I have a show and I want it to pop in the thumbnail. And it's gotta look like this. And she like ran into the back and tried to find us one. And then you like got the whole thing done and somebody meanwhile, somebody was painting the whole wall. You were like, We need to paint the wall. So you like hired some guy to go paint the wall over the weekend.

And by Monday was a Friday. By Monday the studio was done. And I share this because That's a level of intensity. that you that I know you have that I've observed in all of my successful friends, they have this this trait or not all, I shouldn't say some people have doing style, but Very common that people who are success have this level of intensity when they do something massive action.

And um And it's contagious. It's contagious to the people around you. And like the lady in the store, um There's a there's this principle that's kinda like this. So I'm reading this book. Sorry to go on a tangent here, but I'm reading this book. Which book. You everybody's heard of it. You've heard of it. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Have you read have you actually read the book?

Yeah years ago. Uh but it's one of those books that you should reread every five years, probably. I should probably reread it. It's pretty amazing. I've had the book for like ten years. I never even opened it,'cause I was kinda like, Oh, I think I get the idea. Um and so I actually started reading it two nights ago, and he tells a story of this guy who Wanted to work with Thomas Edison. He's like, this guy had a clear idea. He's like, I want to work with Thomas Edison. He goes, Two notice two things. He said Yeah.

He knew exactly what he wanted, not just like I want a job in a lab. It's like no, I want to work with Thomas Edison. This guy is an amazing inventor. Because the second thing is I don't want to work for him. I wanna work with him as a business partner. And so he's like, you know, problem is I have no qualifications and I'm literally not even the same city, and I've never met the guy. I have no access to him. I don't know anyone who knows him. But he didn't let any of those limitations. Those limitations were sort of irrelevant to the guy. So um sure enough, he buys a a train ticket, he goes to where Thomas Edison is, he barges through the door and he says Yeah, Mr. Edison, uh I'm here to work with you. Like I I think you're great and I think uh you know we'll we'll do great work together. I'm here to work with you.

And uh Edison's like, What the fuck? Like you know, we're not even hiring, but uh like and he says something Edison has a quote in the book, which is like Even though this man had no qualifications and I had never seen this person he's a complete stranger There was something about the intensity of his presence That told me This person has their mind set on something and they're gonna make it happen.

And that sort of reminded me of this like common thing that's I've I've seen in a lot of people and in myself in situations, which is Once you get to that level of absolute certainty And you carry yourself, people will literally just start to respond to you differently'cause they just see This person is like on a mission. They are a man on a mission and like

I'm either I either need to get out of the way or I need to get behind them and help them do this. Um, and that has like served me I have one crazy story that served me well, but has that ever happened to you or have you ever seen that in yourself or others? Yeah, I call it being an animal. And like Paul Graham, I or he's the one who who said he goes basically, he's like a lot of people talk about who you should hire in your early stage startups. He goes, Basically the one word you want to use to describe them is are they an animal? And do they just get shit done? And I remember like Uh, I remember talking to my friend Jake, who went and worked at this company called Teespring, which grew very, very quickly. And I was like, What's it like the work for Walker, the guy who runs it? And he goes, He's an animal.

Like, for example, we wanted to do this partnership and we have been working for weeks and weeks on getting in touch with these folks. And he just Googled like their customer service number and then just right there in the meeting he goes, Guys, watch this. And he just calls them and goes, Hey, can I talk to this one person? Uh hey, this is Walker, I wanna make this happen. What do we gotta do? And he like and and that's an that's a very easy example. Dude I I have almost the same story. When I was in college, I had uh m I've talked a little bit about this before, but my fur very first business idea. was was to create the Chipotle for sushi. So the same kind of fast casual model, but for sushi.

He done it for sandwiches, for burritos, for Chinese food, but nobody had ever done it for sushi. So that was the idea. Problem was I know nothing about sushi. I know nothing about the food industry. I had in fact only tried sushi for the first time like a week before that. And that's why I even had this idea. I was like oh sushi's fucking amazing. How do I do more sushi in my life? And um And so one day I skipped class and me and my buddy Trevor we were sitting around in at our apartment

And I was like, you know and Trevor loves to watch food shows like chopped Iron Chef, he just loved watching this food shit. I never understood it. Cause again, I'm not a foodie. I was like, why do you want to watch other people eat food? That seems like crazy to me. Um, but you know, I got hooked because uh the shows are great, obviously. And We're watching a throw down with Bobby Flay and there's a sushi chef that comes on. And he's like

He know obviously he knows his shit about sushi, otherwise he wouldn't be on the food network. He says Uh his qualifications were like, you know, I'm in LA, I got my restaurant, but I also run the largest sushi academy for training chefs. So we were like, Oh, this guy runs the largest chef training thing for sushi chefs. And he had like this swag to him, and we had interviewed three chefs locally. And they were all like, you know, think about like a traditional Japanese sushi chef, like zero kind of outbo outward personality.

Very traditional conservative. And they just looked at us like you're like kind of like besmirching the name of sushi. Sushi, like how dare you even suggest this? Fast sushi. No, no, thank you. And so we I saw this guy and he had s he he had big personality, which is why he was on TV. And I said, We need a guy like this. I go

And he's like and Trevor's like, Yeah, where are we gonna find him? I go, He's right in front of us. We need this guy. He's like, Okay, um And it's just so w he's quiet for a second and Trevor just googles his number. He's like Sh turns his laptop in me, he goes.

Here's his number. And and that's like, you know, challenge accepted. Like if your friend shows you that, it's like or you're gonna it's like Hey that girl over there. You gotta go now. Now you gotta go approach that girl. So I pick up the phone and I call and I don't know why I said this. I didn't I didn't have this planned.

But it's exactly what you just said the guy Walker said. Uh he picks somebody picks up the phone and I'm so used to getting the run around that I didn't expect it to be him. So I go I need to talk to Philip Yee. How do I make that happen?

And then he he goes. Uh, so I didn't say, May I please speak to the T. Which by the way, that's the right way to ask, which is how do I make this happen? It just exactly because there's always a it just came out and it came out because I had already worked myself into a state of intensity and I was kind of nervous and so like I was just in this heightened state and so that's just what came out. He goes, Is Philip talk to me. And I hadn't planned what the fuck I would say after that. And I was like, Oh, um I said, Philip

Um You've never met me. But uh I'd like to start a business with you. And I know that sounds crazy, but if you give me ten minutes, um To hear me out, hear out my plans. I think you'll find it really interesting. It might be something that will will extend what you're doing in LA. It seems like you have a great thing going. I think this will really uh take that and and really blow it up.

And he goes he goes, What's the plan? Hold on at this time? Yeah, I I was a senior in college, so twenty twenty one. And I he goes, What's the plan? And now I didn't have a plan. So I go, I go, you know what? It's gonna be easier for me to email this to you. What's your email address? And I bought myself two days to like create a plan and send it to him.

And later on, you know, so he a bunch of stuff happens. He flies out to meet us. Uh in we're going to school in North Carolina. He flies to our college dorm basically and meets us. We fly to his I live on his couch in LA. He's g he like vets us, but he basically puts us through the grinder to see are we the type of people he wants to work with. Which I I don't know how the story's gonna end, but at that point to me that's a success. Already it's a success. Already we turn this joke of an idea. into like, well, it might be a funny idea to you when I say I'm starting a shoo sushi restaurant, but uh

Yo, this food network chef's on board, or he's like kind of on board. He's talking to me at least. Uh he's flying out here next week, so we're gotta prepare for that. I'm not going to class right now, I gotta prepare for my chef. And so Later, months later, when we we finally struck a deal with him, we closed the deal and he's like, dude, you don't know how many people he's like, because celebrities eat at my restaurant. He's like, You don't know how many rich celebrities come to me, they say, Oh, this restaurant's so small, you don't even have a liquor license. You need you need to expand. I'll put up the money. You need to expand. He goes, and I never did business with any of them. And here I am with three dipshits in college And I decided to go into business with you, and everyone thinks I'm crazy. But you know why? And I go, Why? He goes, You remember what you first said to me? And I was like, No. And he goes, He goes, You called and you said, I need to talk to Philippe. How do I make that happen? And he goes

That He's like, there was something in the way you said it that just told me This guy's gonna do something. This guy's gonna make something happen. And he goes he goes if you literally had not said that phrase I don't think I would have even ever heard you out because this is just another one of these people who say, Oh, I want to start a restaurant with you, I'd love to partner with you, blah, blah, blah.

And I was like, wow, I didn't realize these things make that big of a difference. And I don't think it's the words. I think it's the intensity that will bring you to do the right thing and say the right thing at the right time. That's great. I like that. How how did it end? We partner with him, we go live on his couch, we train in his restaurant in LA. And uh so you know, first first day I go there. He shows me um the process for making sushi. So I don't know if h have you ever seen how a sushi chef rolls a roll of sushi?

Just like the y yeah, I guess so. Like they use that like uh piece of wood. Yeah, a little bamboo. There's a bamboo roller basically. But before you do any of that, right? So the seaweed lays down. And you gotta put the rice on it. Now the rice is sticky rice. Uh if you've ever had Asian food. Sticky rice. So how do you use your hands, how do you grab the sticky rice? How do you so there's a little problem. I I didn't even realize it's a problem, right? I'm sitting there watching them for an hour. So I first he says, just shatter me, sit here and watch me. I said, okay, I'm watching him. And he's just making sushi. I'm kind of getting it, but I don't even know what I'm looking for, right? Like any amateur, when you look at something, you don't even know what you're looking for. You don't know what the details are that matter until you try something. And this is why he was a genius teacher. One hour in

He goes. The the next customer walked in and I'll tell you who it was in a second. He goes he goes, All right, Sean, you're up. And he moves out of the way and I get to go stand in that spot. wearing my stupid chef coat and I don't know w anything about anything. I've just been watching this guy. I thought it would be a long time because traditionally in sushi, if you've ever watched like What's that Giro Dreams of Sutherland?

Five decades. You spend five years just mopping the floor. You then you get to touch the veggies. Then you get to touch the fish. And the last thing you ever touch is the rice, because actually sushi means vinegared rice. It's sushi is really about the rice, not about the fish. So um So I didn't expect to be doing it and so one hour in he through me in the fire. And not only does he throw me in the fire, he throws me in the fire with this guy who sits down.

And I look up And it's Daryl from the Office. If you ever watch The Office, it's Daryl. And Daryl's a regular there. So he kinda knew like a Daryl from the Office is the warehouse guy. He's the black warehouse guy. Oh, black dude uh Ben Robinson, I think his name is. Uh, I don't know if that's his name maybe that's his name something like that. But Daryl, I know Daryl, of course. So so it's Daryl. So I'm like, Oh fuck, I gotta make sushi and I make it for Daryl. And sushi it's like the guy's staring at you, you're two feet away from each other, right? Like there's no hiding in the back of the kitchen to make it. I'm making it in this guy's face. And uh and so he Daryl Philbin. Sorry, nothing. Daryl Philbin, yeah. And so I so I first I just freeze. I'm just standing there and I'm looking down at the fucking bamboo. I have seaweed, bamboo, and rice. And I'm like, okay, how did he do this?

And then I'm freezing and then he walks away. I'm like, shit, okay, I gotta figure this out before he comes back. He comes back up to me. He hands me a shot. Of uh of sake. And he goes

Drink the fucking shot and roll the fucking roll, Sean. And I so I take a shot. And then I'm like, okay, um I grab the rice because I'm like I gotta spread the rice on the on the seaweed. I grab the rice and immediately I know I've done something wrong because the rice is so fucking sticky in my hand. That as I try to rub it onto the seaweed to place it on the seaweed It's like not gonna leave my hand. I just rip the seaweed and my hand is like a rice glove.

And he goes, he's laughing and he st he's he goes. You know, every time before I roll the roll, I dip my hand in this water and I clap. He goes, that clap is not for show. That clap is you wet your hand, then you clap and that removes all the moisture that like kinda like splashes the moisture off your hand, so you just just enough so that when you touch the rice, it's not gonna stick to your hand. And so I was like, oh shit. And then he kinda showed me how to do the first one or whatever. And so that was kinda like my first experience was feeding him. And like that same day, if you ever watch Lost, the guy Hugo from Lost. Uh w came in and he ordered food or whatever.

It's crazy. Anyway, so that's that's part of how that story ended. Have you heard of um I wanna talk about intensity in in Billy of the Week because I w came across this guy that is incredibly fascinating and one of the most intense people I've ever read about. Have you ever heard of Michael Rubin? Michael Rubin. Is that the Fanatics guy? Yes. So he's interesting because he's a young guy. He's Probably not yet fifty, but if he is fifty, he's early fifties.

And his name's Michael Rubin. He's been a baller for years and years and years. And so this guy is incredibly fascinating, but not a lot of people know who he is. I think he's worth like ten billion dollars. Like, you know, he's worth a a ton of money, you know, like Jack Dorsey money, and yet he's like pretty under talked about. And so this guy, listen to his story. So I was reading uh reading about him. So basically he's in the news now, but I'm gonna t explain his background. So at the age of twelve, he started uh a ski tuning bit shop in his in his parents' basement. And then two years later, at fourteen, he got uh twenty five hundred dollars in bar mitzvah gifts and he leased a uh an office or a a shop near his parents' house. And by age 16, he was already in$120,000 in debt and had to settle with creditors, and his dad had a Uh pay him uh g give him th bail him out for thirty seven thousand dollars and he was basically said, like I'll bail you out, but you have to go to college and you gotta stop this nonsense. So he goes to college, but then after a couple of semester he drops out and he already has five new ski shops and it kinda kicks ass and he eventually sells it. And then at the age of twenty one He starts this business called KPR Sports. It's an equip uh an equipment closeout company.

By age twenty one, it has a million dollars in sales. Two years later, age twenty three, fifty million dollars in sales. At the age of twenty Uh at twenty three, uh nineteen ninety five, he purchased it purchased forty percent of the uh women's shoe company Raika. Have you heard of Rika? It was around in like the the nineties and early two thousands. And then eventually he started this company called GSI Commerce. He kind of pivoted into this thing where it was called GSA GSI Commerce and they would buy brands and they would kind of be the logistics and backend that make these brands amazing. And he sold that. At uh age uh like twenty. A for two point four billion dollars, netting him a hundred and fifty million dollars personally. Then a few years later he bought the business back and he formed three different companies. The first was Shop Runner. Have you heard of Shoprunner? No.

Shoprunner basically was kind of like Amazon Prime, but for all non-Amazon stores. So you could spend$100 and get free shipping on loads of different stores. He started Rulala, which you probably wouldn't have heard of, but I bet your wife has. And then he has and then he started Fanatics. He sold Shop Runner recently for$228 million. Fanatics ends up becoming this massive business. And so basically if you buy like a Rams jersey Um It's made by fanatics and they've basically work with the NFL make it. They're like the official merchandiser, basically, of like all major sports. But here's where s shit gets really br really wild. So Fanatics turns it now at this point, I believe it's three different large businesses. So there's the main Fanatics business, which is they basically have licenses with an NFL, MBA, MLB. They make shirts and stuff like that and and just normal merchandise.

I think I believe if it's not publicly traded, it's nearly publicly traded and worth eighteen billion dollars. The second thing that he did was he spun out this trading car division. Have you seen that? What is what is it called? He raised it's called Fanatics Trading Cards. And so basically he raised three hundred fifty million dollars at a ten point four billion billion dollar valuation. And so basically there's companies like Tops, everyone knows tops, they make cards. I think they also make a bunch of other stuff like gum and random things. But tops plus the other three big dogs in the space. I forget what they are, but I'm if you're listening into baseball cards, you totally. So collectively those make like two billion dollars a year in Ebida. Like so it's a fairly big business and so you're like

10 billion dollar trading card company? It is pretty frothy, but like it it could Can it be a billion dollar a year in profit business? Totally. And so he raised money for that. And then he has a second thing called Candy Digital, which is making NFTs for sports. And they just raised a hundred million dollars at one point five billion dollar valuation. And so he spun all of these off. And now he's also the owner the seventy sixers and the New Jersey Devils, the sports team. Pretty freaking wild. And if you follow him on Instagram, which I just started following him, he's homies with Meek Mill. Uh and he like helped get him out of prison and he's uh spends a lot of his time, Michael Rubin spends a lot of his time with prison reform. Incredibly incredibly prolific, very, very, very confident, very fast moving, very intense. Incredibly interesting guy. Seems like a good guy. Um

And the door is open for for him to come on the pod. This guy this guy's cool. I've seen a lot of his interviews. And uh and I like him a lot. And I think what he did with Fanatics is like I always view doing things in sports. It's like if you want to do sports and music, it's like actually so hard to win because It's like, Oh yeah, I'm passionate about sports. Great. You and you know, two point two billion other people. And so it's really, really hard to do what I'll call obvious ideas in sports. Like Yeah, selling the merch, selling jerseys, sell selling shirts.

So for him to build such a large business in what would be such a competitive Space. is really impressive to me. It's very impressive. And what I when I was watching interviews with him, so Gary Vee is a partner on this, um on a couple of his things. Like I don't know if he's an investor or if he gets a small stake. I don't know what how the how the thing is, but he's he's mentioned in a lot of the articles as like either a co founder or a founding team member, something like that. And basically I've hung out with Gary maybe only three or four times, including the time we had him on the podcast. I've hung out with him in person, and he has the same energy that I've noticed Michael Rubin has, where there's basically like this thing that I have, and I think every human being, even these guys, they just don't have a lot of it, where it's like a self limiting belief where it's like, well

you know, I can't do this because of this, this, and this. And I've noticed with Gary, he's talk like one time he told me he's like, I wanna my next thing, he's like, I'm gonna create all these restaurants and they're actually gonna be completely free. And the way they're gonna make money is Amex or whoever's gonna sponsor it. Um like he was just brainstorming. He's like, But I'm gonna do that. And in my head I'm like Well that's really dumb. I mean a free restaurant, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of.

Um But I feel like nine out of ten things he does I would say that's a really dumb idea and They work. You know, he said he's gonna come out with these what's his N F T thing? It's uh V Friends.

V friends. Like if he told me I'm like, Gary, this is really dumb. Or uh you know, like that's not gonna work. And it's in been incredibly lucrative and and very successful. And they don't have this limiting belief where it's like this won't work for this reason or this reason. It was just like, Well, why not? Like it it it logically, it makes sense. I think this can work. Anyway, this is this is very uh timely, so let me tell you why. By the way, I've noticed a lot of these coincidences happening in my life where

I'm thinking about something or I'm doing something and then somebody who's like Uh like minded They're almost experiencing the same thing and just in a different way. We trade these stories. So same exact thing. All right. So I told you I'm reading Think and Grow Rich. There's a section in there that I uh remember uh you know, it's just like stuck in my head. He goes.

He goes. To be successful. One needs to be success conscious. And I was like, I don't even know what that means. I don't think most people would know what that means. But the s the interesting part is the second line. It's what he says after that. He goes, He goes And people who fail.

All fail for the same reason. They take their current limitations as real limitations. Right. They're they take the perceived limitations that are that they're perceived that they're feeling now. And they treat them as real. And what you're saying is exactly that, which is that

Everybody. Yeah, oh I need to do this, but I don't have the time, but I don't have the money, but I don't have the experience. But this person said they would get back to me and they haven't got back to me yet. Uh, but this but you know, the port is closed right now and so the shipment's gonna be delayed. It's like there's always these limitations that feel very real in the moment. And then what's what successful people do really, really well is they sort of just ignore all those limitations. They ignore all the limitations about themselves and even the thing when somebody says no to them.

Like, okay, cool, but like What does your boss think about that? How about I talk to them? Let me see what they have to say. How about I go to your competitor, let me see what they have to say. How about I ask you again, but this time I'm gonna ask more playfully and later on at night out over a glass of wine. Now you're gonna have a different answer. They don't take no for an answer on any front. Uh you know, on their own limitations from they don't take no from themselves and they also don't take no from the world. And um So I noticed that. And so I yesterday we were uh finishing up our workout. And uh and we have a kind of like you know like

It's we train the body, but we train the mind at the same at the same time. And so we were talking about this. I said, Man, I read this great thing. And I know I could share it with him'cause he's he's the type too that like to eat this stuff up and he goes, Oh, that's great. And I go, but you know what? I don't wanna just sit here and say that's great, because what what really means when I say this and we're like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, that that's true. is we kind of do this thing where we're like, yeah, that's true. Uh other people fuck that up, but you know, not me. Yeah. Um there's like this inherent like, yeah, other people really need to get this, but they don't get it. I get it.

So I said, No no, screw that. Just like we just did reps in the gym on our, you know, shoulders and and lats and whatever else. I said, Let's get a rep right here. I say well. What's a let's get a rep right now. What's something that you want that you just have some random limitation that you it's not even like you haven't been able to overcome it. Honestly, you're just not even aware of it. You're not even like saying it out loud. Once you say it out loud, you probably find a solution to it.

But you don't really do it. I said, I'll go first. I said, Man, I I ever since I went and worked out at Sam's gym I want my garage gym to feel like that. I already had the weights. I'm already doing the workout. But he doesn't feel the same. His gym feels amazing to be in. He's got the floor finished properly. He's got this, he's got the fan on the wall, he's got the music system. It just feels great. I want my gym to feel like that.

And I said, I want that. And then what's my limitation? I hired this one contractor, he's been really slow getting back to me with a quote. Like well. I could think of ten ways to solve that problem right now.

But like I just kinda hadn't put my awareness on what was What was a random limitation that was standing in the way of me and something I wanted? And I challenge I told my trainer, I said, You gotta do one now. What's the what's a what's something you want that you have a limitation? I said, Let's get a rep. And this is a very powerful way of thinking, which is when you get advice. Don't just be like yeah. Advice.

Let me write that quote down. Let me tweet that quote out. It's like no no no. Apply it in the moment. Get a get a rep doing the thing. And so uh so let me ask you. Let's do it live. What's a thing you want?

In your life and then uh what's the thing you want that you're not kind of like is not being realized fully right now. It could be anything. Could be something like a relationship, work wise, money wise, fitness wise, whatever. Something small, something in your house, whatever. Um what's the thing you want? And then try to shine that light on

What's the limiting th what's something you've just let limit you for no reason? That Gary Vee wouldn't, that Michael Rubin wouldn't. Um, okay, this sounds silly. It should sound silly. It's perfect. It's usually the silly things. I've had a fear of camping for a long time and I wanna spend more time in the wilderness'cause I like the idea of it, but like I'm kind of afraid of like being out at nighttime in the woods by myself or with like a small group. Okay, great. So you you want to camp and then you're afraid. And then so if you shine the light, what's the what's the limited what's the thought that goes in your head?

Is it I don't have X or I'm afraid of Y? What is it? I've just not I've just I've not bought Like uh camping equipment. I've not looked at where to go. I've not told a buddy or two that I want to go do it and that and that I've I've not taken I've just not Planned anything. Make it more personal. Why haven't you planned anything?

Uh fear. Fear of what fear of being out at night in the wilderness by myself. And that's the perfect stopping point,'cause whenever you say the fear out loud, it sounds really fucking stupid. It's like I'm afraid of being outside at night by myself. Like first of all, I'm not gonna be I'm not gonna be by myself. I'm gonna be with somebody'cause more fun with friends. Secondly, like Whatever. It's not that scary. I could do it. Uh right. So like that's the best part of like when you finally find the thing and you say it out loud, it just sort of dissolves because it's like, Well, that sounds silly. Like, yeah. It doesn't have it's it doesn't have as much power once I say it out loud. Once I shine the light on it, it's like scurries away. Well, you gotta get your gym set up then. It's not that hard. I sent you the link.

I know. Yeah, I have everything. The the limiting thing was I don't know how to do home improvement projects. Like I've never I'm not handy. Dude, do you know how to cut like a slice of bread? That's all you have to do when you lay down floor. You just gotta be a little bit more. I could pay this guy to do it. Okay, that'll solve my problem. Oh, the guy's not responding. Okay. And then I just let it fizzle there. It's like what no, I want this. Why I want this. Why would I s why would I just let this wait? And we we all agree that the one common deniator in most of the things you want is you've come up with an excuse to wait.

Um like I'll give you another example. I hope he doesn't mind me saying this, but I had this guy who kinda was like an apprentice for me for A few months. And I I basically was like, Hey, he was like, Hey, I want to learn about content and stuff like that. And I said, Cool. You come help me research and write stuff, and I'll teach you some things. And after a few months, uh he went on his way and was like

Cool, go out there in the world. And since then He I think I could say his name. So is this guy is this guy Chris I don't even know how you say his last name. Chris Hasluk. I don't know, it's crazy last name. Red head guy who works at Goldman. Redhead guy, exactly. So he was a college student at the time. So when I was talking to his student at Yale And uh

Nice guy, I've talked to him. Super nice guy. After he did the apprenticeship, he grew his Twitter following. From I think like two thousand followers. He just hit a hundred thousand followers yesterday or two days ago. And he text me, he's like, dude, I hit a hundred thousand. Like thank you. You know, I I learned a bunch of stuff. You showed me kinda like what good writing looks like. And I was like, dude, that's honestly it's

Fucking amazing. Like you're a college kid and you did that, like that's that's super impressive. Um And he's like, you know, but I'm thinking about like where do I go from here? I said, Well it's real simple, like What do you want? Like I'm not I'm not gonna tell you what to do next. Like what do you want to do next? And then go do that thing. It's really that simple.

And he's like, Oh, you know, I want to start a company. And I said, Okay, cool. So did you take that banking job that I was telling you not to take? He's like, Yeah, and you know, I've been here for a little bit. I I don't think that might that might not be the long thing long term thing for me. I think I wanna start a company someday. I said, Oh, you're waiting. He's like, Yeah, yeah, I've just you know, like I said, Okay, why don't you just quit your job and go do that? He's like, Well, you know and he gave me another reason for waiting.

I said Okay, so why don't you just go do it? And he goes. Well, I you know, if I did do it, I'd want to do it with my friend. He's really, really smart, super smart guy. But he has to wait a year'cause he's graduating. He's not graduated yet. So, you know, I thought I'd just wait, you know, a year. I said, wait a year, huh? Ten ten percent of your twenties you're just gonna give away?

Ow. With precious asset, just pissing it away, huh? Uh just waiting, huh? Wait. Wow. And I was just like And he's like, Yeah, you know, and then also, you know, I wanna I I I'm making good money right now. I wanna save up so I have enough runway. You know, money money is always like, you know, it it it does matter at the end of the day. I said, How about this? How about instead of telling me a bunch of reasons why you're not gonna do the thing you wanna do?

You just start telling me some reasons you are gonna do the thing you're gonna you wanna do. Try that. It works much better. Trust me. And I was like kind of a dick about it, but It's really that fucking simple. And I notice and it's not just him. Ever I know this because I do this. I'm guilty of waiting for bullshit or coming up with reasons to wait. And so whoever's listening to this that needs to hear this Don't wait. My trainer says weight is a weight. Weight is a weight on your back and stop waiting.

So uh I had a friend who and and we can move on after this, but I don't know if people I think people will like this, but I had a friend who on um I do this all the time. So if I have friends or people who I care about And on April fifth. I'm at the point where I've saved enough money to move forward with the prototyping process. I feel like I found the right engineer to partner with. It's a decent amount of money, but I think I could do it. I want to know what your thoughts are on. How to launch this. I text it back, I go.

Uh if I was you I would do this, this and this. Right. I s I texted him. This was April fifth. I texted him today. How'd the idea turn out? He said Too expensive for me to commit my life savings. The costs in manufacturing and marketing of a physical product were way big and much bigger compared to starting a software or internet company.

Oh wow. So you started a software company. L O L I know. I love it. I was about to say I'm figuring out what to do and what I'm gonna stop being a worker be, and then I'll probably um I can't say I'll I'll probably quit. After blank IPOs. Don't even know what city I'll be in next year. And It's never gonna happen. It's never gonna happen. It will never happen. Oh no. It will never happen. Let's imagine lovingly for this guy. It is gonna happen. It's gonna happen once he stops thinking that way, right? Once he stops being that way. Once he changes, that'll change. And so

Or a she, I don't know I don't know what it is. But This person, yeah. There's a um There's a funny thing with that and it Yeah, I I I I always wonder like

Do you be a dick or do you kind of like Empathize. If you care, you be a dick. And why is that? If you care Well, like look, it's like

Look, do you want this or not? And and oftentimes I say to people, I'm like, Do you really want this? I don't know if you actually want this. And I think that you just think it's cool to want this and I don't think it's cool to want this. You want to talk about it. You either do or you don't. Right. You want to talk about it. Like if you just want to talk about it, just tell me you just want to brainstorm. Right. Or you just want to shoot the shit. But if you're telling me that you want this Then I'll I'll hold you accountable, actually. I'll I'll say, Why haven't you done this? Right.

He goes, uh he goes. You know I treat people the way they told me they want to be. So you wanna be fit, right? So then w if you're gonna complain about doing this sets, well the guy who's fit does this. So I'm gonna treat you.

from the place you told me you want to be. And hey you at any given time you could come and say, I don't want it anymore. I change my mind. I want this instead. Cool. I'm happy to change My treat I'm happy to treat you differently when you tell me that you have changed your mind. That you don't want to you don't want this anymore. You want something else. You are totally in your right to that. But Let's be clear. I'm I'm always gonna ask you, did you change what you wanted?

'Cause if you still want that thing, then I'm gonna keep treating you like the person who gets that thing. And that person doesn't do or say these things. And so I'm not gonna entertain it. I'm not gonna be the shoulder to cry on. I'm not gonna be the one who sympathizes and pats you on the head and says, I understand why it's tough for you, why it's so hard, because it's not so hard for that guy. And so be that kind of thing. People uh people DM us a lot of interesting ideas. My reply to all of them, they go, Well, what do you think about this? I always reply with two things. I think that's an amazing idea. And I always say it's an amazing idea. Uh and then I say, When are you launching?

It's always amazing. Like you're just asking for permit you're just asking for permission. So I'm gonna give you permission. Amazing. There's no reason why this can't work. Oftentimes there's a lot of reasons, but it doesn't matter. When are you launching? And uh mine says Sounds cool. Right.

But I I have this idea. What do you think? I would love to hear your feedback, your thoughts. Happy to jump on a call. I don't even reply to any of that. I just say Sounds cool. Let me know when you launch it so I can check it out. Yeah, I always say the same thing. And sometimes I I I'll reply months later.

Like I'll save certain conversations and I reply. Do you wanna um Talk about one more interesting thing uh on the list. I have one thing from this De Beers thing that I just Yeah, I've been dying to hear it. Okay, so okay, so let me tell you the story. This kind of blew my mind. I gotta open up my notes for this because I I did you know proper proper research for this. Um So why don't you put your notes in this document so I can see that. Oh, it's just really long. It's like two pages of notes, so I didn't want to blow it up for this, but uh let me just tell you this story. I got your full and undivided attention. You can't even read the thing. You gotta listen to me say it. All right, so Somebody in my family is uh was thinking about getting engaged soon. And so the whole like engagement ring process was going on and

They were asking like, you know, all the questions you have,'cause you don't usually you don't most people don't buy a ton of diamond rings or some things like that. So they're kinda like, you know, what's the budget? Uh, you know, the I see there's these four Cs cut clarity, you know, sh which one should I care more about? Um blah blah blah. So And and and then they did this thing. They went to a jewelry shop and they tried some. I said, just go try some on. See what you see what you've what you like. And uh said, You don't you're not gonna buy it from there, but go to a nice shop to try things on. So you could see what shape you like, what color you like, what different prices will get you, that sort of thing. And uh they go and they came back and they said, Hey, you ever heard about this lab grown diamond thing? And uh had you heard of this? Uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically they're it I mean, that's all it is. It's diamonds grown in a lab, right? So just the way that like now you have um you know

uh for for many different types of products. For meat, they're trying lab grown meat. So what if instead of farming animals and killing them and you know contributing to a lot of you know global warming, you could just take a stem cell from a cow's shoulder and grow a filet mignon, right? That's the promise. And there's a company called Memphis Meats that's doing it And it tastes it looks identical to the meat to a steak. It tastes identical because it is identical. Cellularly, molecularly, it is identical to a normal steak. Now the problem right now for meat is that it costs like ten thousand dollars a pound or something crazy. So, you know, it's not economically feasible yet. And um and then there's this company I was looking at potentially investing in called Vitro Labs, and they're doing this with leather. They're saying, Hey, instead of killing animals for leather, uh, what if we could have a cruelty free leather? Let's just grow the skin in a lab. And they're signing deals with, you know, big big big name luxury brands. You know, the the sort of uh who's who luxury brands that They want to offer a a vegan product, but they don't want to sacrifice the quality of the material. So they said, Hey, let's get you an identical material, molecularly matching material.

For that. Okay. So I've been interested in this lab grown trend and diamonds was the latest one. So I said, Oh, interesting. Diamond it's not the new it's not new. It's actually much more commercially forward. It's like out there and people buy the stuff. It's growing in popularity compared to meats and leather, which are kind of like still in development. So Um So I started looking into it and I was like I was like, is this kinda like bullshit or what's going on? And here's what I found. The diamond industry itself is mostly bullshit and a lot of people know this, but

I dug into some of the history and I here's what here's what I found that kind of interests me. So Before eighteen seventy, like diamonds. Uh weren't even like a they're they were not even a uh uh uh a r considered rare. So uh very plentiful. Sorry, but before eighteen seventy they were rare because we didn't know where to find them. So like you know the Maharaja in India would would have it in his crown or You know, some Egyptian person would have it in their in their garment, but it was it was so rare that you didn't even see it around. It wasn't even a thing. There wasn't even businesses around it.

But then in eighteen seventy they find this huge deposit. In um I think South Africa. And so now diamonds become this like they realize oh diamonds are actually not in short supply. There's tons of diamonds. They found this huge thing. And so all these miners go in like a gold rush, basically, and they start mine, they start establishing diamond mines in South Africa. And then like six months later, a year later, they all realize like shit There's now too much supply. We're flooding the market with this stuff and it's all we're all going out of business. Nobody can afford um

Nobody can afford uh to to run the mine because we're s we're flooding so much supply. So the miners um the but no so the miners like damn it if everybody else just stopped I could make a bunch of money but it's like the prisoner's dilemma. Nobody wants to be the one that stops. So they all keep going and they all put each other out of business. And so there's this guy Cecil Rhodes who comes around And Cecil Rhodes starts buying up the mines. He's like, I need to aggregate all this supply in South Africa. So he starts aggregating it all. He basically buys mines from at one of the farms is called something something the the brothers were called De Beers. That was their last name. So it becomes the De Beers like mining and exploration group or something like that. Some name like that. So that's where De Beers, the diamond company, uh comes from. And so De Beers became this Over the next hundred years, De Beers becomes this monopoly. They control ninety percent of the supply. And the reason diamonds are considered rare is because De Beers owns all the supply and they just limit how much they produce from the mines. They could produce ten times more, but instead they intentionally restrict supply at the mining level.

Then they this is so monopolistic as crazy. So then they created this group of two hundred people only two hundred people were allowed to buy from them called site holders. And they said, Oh, you're invited. So so we control all the supply. So we decide who we sell to and we only are gonna sell these two hundred, and then you can go sell to merchants. Now we're gonna as though they could kinda hold these two hundred people accountable and say Hey, why is this person over here selling at this low price? Cut'em off. And like they just cut you off. And if a new mind popped up, they would go like the mafia and they'll go and just sort of like through violence, intimidation, or like

even just like market tactics, they would basically like put the mine out of business and take it over. So like let's say you discovered a mine that had a bunch of yellow diamonds, they would flood the market with yellow diamond supply, crush your economics, you'd go out of business and then they take over your mind. And so they they would just find whatever you produce and they would just flood you. And so um so All the way up until about the year two thousand, they owned ninety percent of this thing. But I was like I was like why is this so if it's not rare, where does the value come from? And so the story is basically

Diamond mining wasn't big business right away. It was like an okay business, good business. And then it started to like kind of like plateau and pee it wasn't really growing that fast. So nineteen thirty six they say, We gotta do something. We got all this diamond production, but we there's not enough demand now for the diamond production. So they go down Madison Avenue And they find this ad agency. And they find this one guy. So everybody who loves diamonds today, and every girl who's demanding a diamond engagement ring, it's because of this guy, George Locke, back in the day. And they hire this guy and they say, look, we need you to create demand for diamonds. And at that time, before 1936, People were not even giving diamonds as an engagement ring. It wasn't even like rings weren't even a an engagement process. It was like very rare that people would do that. Most people just kind of uh did an engagement as sort of a a different sort of agreement. And so he does a big study and he says, Okay, look

Um What we need to do is this. We need to get men to buy the diamonds. For women. And we need the women to believe that diamonds are the way that your man can show you so for women it's like

If you want the man to say he loves you, we need diamond to represent love. Diamond equals love. That's like one side of the board. They said on the other side, men. The bigger the better. The more expensive the diamond, the more of a man you are. So it became diamonds. And they came out worth. And it was it was like some like ridiculously obvious statement that they came out with, right? So they they had a bunch. So they've done like um Uh Diamonds are Forever is w was named, I think, one of the most uh I think it was named the marketing slogan of the century or something like that. Diamonds of Forever was the best marketing hook. Created because it created this like demand for diamonds. So why is that? So there's a bunch of like aspects to this. So first, how did they build demand? Well, it was basically in old school influencer marketing. So they decided, all right, we're gonna make diamonds look like the gift of love.

And so they went to Hollywood and they went to all the producers and they said, We will give you producers, here's a beautiful diamond for you to give your wife. Here's a diamond for your for your for you on your your bracelet or your necklace or your earrings or whatever. And they basically said, Hey Um We will give you these diamonds for free, producer, but you need to have a scene in your movie, the climax of your movie where the man professes his love for the woman. He needs to open up a box with a diamond ring inside. And then she needs to have an amazing reaction. Like she needs to be one over because the guy did that.

And so they went to all these movie producers and the movies now all have these scenes and you can go back and watch this montage of Before this, nobody was doing this in movies. All of a sudden, every movie, this was the key scene. The guy pronounces his love for his wife for the woman and gives her a diamond and she says, Oh my God, I love you too, and kisses him back. And so they like use that kind of inception. Then they went to fashion designers and said, Hey. Wouldn't it be a shame if um if if you didn't say that the trend next year, the big trend is that diamonds are in what let's call it the trend to diamonds. So they created this thing called the trend to diamonds, and they just got all these fashioners to ambiguously say There's a trend to diamonds. So now you have the the the high art people saying this, and then you have Hollywood showing it. And that was like the main sort of brainwashing mechanism of of the world at the time. No social media, no nothing. And so then they s so then the you know the ad agency starts getting uh you know clever. They're like, All right

Um How do we make the diamond proportionate to the man's success? What if it was you have to spend one month's salary on this. And they went with one month salary and then they update to two months salary. And then they had an advertising campaign that said Um

How do you make two months of salary last forever? Buy a diamond. Oh man. Amazing, right? And then and then they were like, Okay, look, but hey, we all know that diamonds are actually not that rare, right? So we can't have people reselling these. So they said, Oh Uh First of all, if you make it the the the the ultimate gift of love The woman won't want to sell it, the guy won't want to sell it. And then even if they do, here's what we'll do. Dealers, the you the the merchants who sell this, you cannot take diamonds back.

'Cause diamonds, even though they are like seen in the world as like a store of value, it's like oh well it's jewelry. It's like, you know, jewelry's kinda like a safe way to store your wealth. It's like a car. If you take a diamond out of the shop, it's lost fifty percent of its resale value. And the dealer doesn't want you to know that. So they won't even make you an offer to buy it back. So m they banned merchants from like making offers to buy it back because they didn't want the merchant to tell the customer. Hey, once you buy this thing, it's worth half. Uh and so they said don't even make an offer. And um And so they they kinda like killed the resale market and then they created this diamonds are forever campaign so that you would not want to sell your diamond.

And they did this country by country. So like you can look in any country, you can see this chart. So it's like the US goes through this curve where no one's buying diamonds to like seventy five percent of engagements are all through diamonds. And then uh ninety percent. It gets to like ninety f something percent our our engagements are done through diamonds. Is in Japan. They they're like, Oh, we we have no market share in Japan. They go, they do they do the same marketing playbook there. It goes from five percent of brides have a ring to sixty percent in twenty year in a twenty year period, and De Beers owns seventy percent of that market share, right? And then they started creating other marketing gimmicks like the right hand ring. It's like if you're an independent woman, you you know, you don't want this ring on your left hand that shows that you're kind of owned by this man. Wear a right hand ring. You need a diamond on your right hand that's that's the right hand ring, the twenty-fifth anniversary ring, the upgrade ring. Like, you know, just show that you were doing better than you were before. And so they created all this, like they literally fucking created the demand.

And they restricted the supply. It's kind of unbelievable. Um so th that's kinda like the the the core of it. There's some other stuff like you know, there's like sort of the blood diamonds thing, which is like the bad PR around it, which is that These diamond mines were A kind of shitty conditions to be in. Um but B They were like

Basically using profits from the mind to fund like war in the area, like militia war in the area. So that's kinda like you're basically funding conflict in a way. And so the the diamond industry tried to like after that movie Blood Diamond came out, they tried to like clean up their image. But then lab grown diamonds started coming out. And um And so the lab grow diamonds come out, it's like oh shit. So first they create a marketing campaign that says real is rare. And they basically were like

If it's real, that's what makes it rare, which is what makes it valuable. So if it's a lab grown thing Uh that's nothing. And then they refuse to acknowledge it, they refuse to sell it, they refuse to care about it. But customers were like, dude it it's indistinguishable from a diamond. The naked eye cannot tell what's a real diamond, like mine from the earth or m or made in a lab. Because materially, again, the composition is the same. It's not like a fake

It's not like a fake diamond. It's the same material. It was just grown in a lab rather than grown in the earth. And so I always get the the Shank commercials. Right. And they say like you don't want to get'em from a lab. From a lab. It's it's it's just like every other one. Right, all the time. Exactly. Exactly. It's not special. And so the problem is it's still growing in popularity because they sell for about thirty percent of the price. So you could get like a way bigger ring that looks identical to a diamond ring that is made of a diamond, um, but it was just happened to have been like it's like, do I want my coffee sourced from

You know, Canada or from Philippines or from Africa? Like it's kinda like where's it sourced? So some people care, but it's growing in popularity. So then De Beers. And the diamond industry, they like did the last kind of like Stone Cold Killer Move. For years they were like lab grown as Fake.

It's bullshit. Don't buy it. They but they but it was just growing in popularity anyways. So they were like, all right, shit, we gotta do something else. So then they create a called Lightbox. And they start producing lab grunt diamonds, everyone's like, Oh my god, uh does this mean that lab is legit? And they're like No Lab is for people who can't afford diamonds. So we're gonna sell ours. So they undercut the price like crazy. So normally a lab gun diamond will cost like thirty or forty percent the cost. So it's like a fifty, sixty percent discount. And

But they started pricing theirs at like a ninety percent discount of a real diamond just to ruin the market value of the pr brand perception of Labor Diamonds. And they said This is for they say they came out in a statement, they said this is for emotionally shallow events like a sweet sixteen or like a quincenar party. Buy the buy the lab grun for that. Don't you know so the this is their latest tactic to try to like Keep up this big myth this big lie that Diamonds are this rare, valuable, precious gem. And it's like absolute complete bullshit. This is amazing research. This is a good one. This is a very good story and Well but here's the thing where we are, uh maybe it will change is us in our thirties, we all do the same thing, which is

Right before we get engaged, we say, This is bullsh. I will not stand for this. I will not pay this amount of money. Right. Uh my budget, I'm gonna set it really low. I'm gonna get a fake one or I'm gonna get a lab growth. Like I will not buy into this. And then you get into it and you say, She wants it gonna make her happy. I'm gonna do it. Yeah. And we all refuse to buy into it.

Well well more and more people are starting to to go the other way. Um But But yeah, it's it's amazing that this is still the majority, right? Given Now that lab grown is visibly identical and you can get a way better d better looking diamond.

for for a cheaper price. Uh it's amazing that that like the real the utility doesn't overwhelm, but like the branding is that embedded. It's that strong after so long. And and actually there's one other part which is that eventually, you know, the diamonds do um The d they the De Beers did lose their monopoly, I should say. So like in the year two thousand, they basically broke up the monopoly because they're getting a lot of public pressure as a monopoly. The the buyers were kind of sick of being like constantly threatened uh by De Beers. And then people found new mines in Australia and all these other places where they couldn't like You can kinda just in Africa you can kinda like coerce people, but in Australia it's a lot harder to like go coerce some a minor in public to like Just fucking give you their mind. And so, um and so they've changed their business strategy. So ba and the last f factor, by the way, is there's this guy, the family that kind of like

created the real monopoly is the Oppenheimer family. And they've run this thing for years. First guy Oppenheimer, he's the one. Uh they're they're very wealthy. So the b the business, I think, is like a ten billion dollar business. I think they sold half the stake for four or five billion uh recently. And I also think they own like fifty percent of Louis Vuitton or something like that. They they own some other stuff too. But um

But anyways, they couldn't f the then the the in the family, there's no one to take it over anymore. Uh no one wants to run the business. Nobody none of the young generation, they don't want they don't want the business. There's nobody there's no heir. And so they're like shit, there's no air. Business is still good, but it's getting harder and we don't have somebody to fight it. And so they actually switched strategies. So they broke up the monopoly and now they shifted from like ninety percent market share to thirty percent. Uh and then they started rolling out their own retail stores and profits have gone up, but they're kind of like Their um you know, their their control has gone down. The power has gone down fine. And I would have to If I had to bet

You know, I'm a I'm a very amateur historian and so I've read a lot of these stories. If I had to bet, I would bet that Once you break up a monopoly for a family owned business, I would argue that the odds that the the odds are that the family are now actually going to get richer. It seems like Well, so for example, standard oil, this is the same thing. In the nineteen twenties, Teddy Roosevelt said nope. Standard oil, you are the beers of America. You own eighty percent of oil production.

You can't do it anymore. So they broke it up into five or eight different companies, and some of those companies are Exxon. uh mobile um B P Right. Um and like five or six other companies that you probably know of Um and it made Rockefeller get significantly richer because he owned a small stake into each one and they all competed with each other and they boost their revenue, boost their profits.

And they all made and he made significantly more money because of that. And that was uh the big source of his wealth is when they broke up the company. And I would say that if Facebook and Instagram had to compete with each other, um it would actually make Zuckerberg richer. Same with YouTube and Google. If they had to compete, it would probably make them better and thus the owners a little bit more rich. Exactly. I I I agree. That's why when people talk about breaking up Facebook, it's like well, you know what this is gonna do, right? Like they're all gonna become more valuable and the services will become better, but it does open up more room for competition. Whereas when they have a Absolute stranglehold then

You know, it may not be as as lucrative and it may not be as good of a product, but it's very hard to break break in. Um Yeah. Well there's also like an opportunity here, right? Like as I learned this, I was like, Okay, I know this is not new But if I just sample the population. It's like on one hand you you do two surveys. One survey they did was

Hey, did you know about lab grown? Blah blah blah. Here's what here's like look, you can't tell the difference. Look, it's made of it's actually the same material composite. It's the same material as diamond. It's just grown from lab rather than mine in the earth. And hey, you don't have to worry about the like ethics of the mining because it's not not mine from the earth. Seventy percent of like millennials are like, Yeah, I'm totally open to that. That sounds great. But then at the same time, the market share hasn't caught up yet. And so I think that even though this is not a brand new thing, I think that people could create really valuable brand. Like I'm curious if somebody listening to this that wants to go and basically take an education based approach to selling this. Cause I think

The more you educate people. The more they wanna like the more willing they are to buy. And if you're the one who educates them, you get that first right of refusal to sell them. sell them their first lap grown uh diamond so that's the same. I would bet that Millennials won't do this, but what's the generation after that? Z

I believe they would and the eighteen'cause you know, they're so um politically correct and they're very they they they they have a high bullshit detector, I believe. And For me and my friends, a lot of us were like, This is not the battle I'm going to choose. Right. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna you know, buy my way out of this and and and we'll fight a different battle with them. I don't I would argue that there's a good chance that something like that could happen. I don't think it will happen now, but I think in ten years when the eighteen year olds to get in their twenties and thirties.

Uh and I would bet money I I I would bet my money I think that that could work as well. So I'm bullish on this too. Yeah, it's great. Um all right, do we want to do it again? Yeah. Yeah, we um that that this has gotta be our our our YouTube clip. That was a very well researched and very good story.

So that's the episode. We'll see. Let's see if this one's a hit. I think it was kind of interesting. What do you think, Ben? I thought it was great. Um The Debir stuff is super, super interesting. Um

And uh and the intensity stuff. Uh the the sushi story was great. Loved it. Speaking of intensity, you dunked on somebody this week, you said? Did you really Can you dunk? How tall are you? He's Mormon, of course he can dunk. So I'm six more.

Apparently. It's like the bas isn't isn't it isn't it the basketball of uh of the like I whenever all my Mormon friends They it seems like they always are playing basketball on Sunday. All of our churches have Uh basketball courts in'em. And so uh even like non Mormons play

Basketball in our church as well. Now are we talking about you could do windmills or we're barely scraping the dunk through or what's the So, you know, like when I was younger, when I was in high school, I could do like Tomahawks and and one eighties and like pretty good dunks. But you know, over the pandemic I didn't I didn't play basketball for like almost a year and a half. So I didn't know if I still had it. And last night I just drove, I was going down the lane, actually a buddy of mine jumped with me and I wasn't planning on doing him like that, but I was just I was there and I had to do it. I dunked on him.

Can you please send me a video of something like this and I would share it? I'll be evident. I don't think you're a guy that would lie at all, but I would love to see this. I don't think that you're a guy that would even exaggerate a little bit. Yeah, not at all. I would love to see this. I don't have the video of me dunking on the guy, but I sure I have video of me dunking, so I can yeah. Can can uh send me it to me. I would share that in a heartbeat. I would love to brag about that. I I are you you're six four. We've never seen Ben in real life, by the way. You're six four? Yeah, last company I worked for was all remote.

And uh we had a off site, we all met each other for the first time and everyone was blown away. They were like, Whoa, I didn't know you were so tall. And one Like I if I'm gonna be able to do it. One person at the company told me she's like, You have short energy. I can't believe you're tall. Wow. I know. Dude, I saw this really hilarious TikTok yesterday where this girl just goes Oh, I'm I go around on live streams and I just Uh give people compliments for I I call it I I go.

Uh we love our short kings. And she goes to tall guys streams, like normal height or taller guy streams, and she goes, We yeah, we stand our short king. We love our short king with kissy face. And the guy and she clip together their reaction and they're just they're all like we love our short king. And they get excited and like, wait, what? I'm six I'm six and I'm six and a quarter. Like I don't know who you're calling short king and then like and then everybody gets like super butthurt about it right away. It like really fucks up their brain and she goes, It's hilarious. Just just call them like my short king. Ben, please send me a video of you dunking on fools. I would love that. That would make that would make my day.

I'll send it to you right now. Sean, Sam, how how tall are both of you? I'm six four. I'm six one. Yeah, we're uh we're both uh we're both uh uh of similar height and weight, I think. I mean w I like when when when people meet both of us, they say, You guys are much bigger than we thought. And I would say that when we're together we look Big and tall and Sean, you look taller than you are, I think, too. Oh good. I don't know what that means, but I'll take it. It's better than being called a short king. Well, I think it's'cause you got big hair. That's right.

You know what I don't get do you do you guys feel tall at six foot and six foot one? No. If you feel average height, right? Like to me that's like six foot six. But like if you look at global averages or even American average, like the American male height is like Only five to nine, right? Yeah, yeah, it's like it's short. You guys are super tall, which I don't know. There's a disconnect. Then you're a giant.

I guess so. Yeah, by that logic. Um no, I don't I don't feel atta I feel Uh I feel thicker than the average person, that's for sure. And you are. So Ben, uh when you dunked on the guy, did you like scream? What did it feel like? I mean, I've never dunked on anyone. I've only I've dunked a volleyball once. That's the closest I ever got. It was like actually not even a volleyball, like something smaller than a volleyball. I mean that's pretty good. That is pretty good. No, it was like a high school.

Wasn't great. The guy was a friend of mine. I had we we'd been playing some pickup at a Mormon church, actually, and I just won like four games in a row. And I think peop like morale is pretty low, so I just played it cool. I didn't say anything, I just kinda randomly By the way, I'm not being prejudiced. It's a thing that Mormons like you i it's like uh I've always known that there was basketball courts at the church and it's like your church is like A community event, right? You hang out there after church. Yeah, we have weekday events there sometimes, uh, especially for like youth and like yeah, people play basketball there. Yeah.

Yeah, so it's a thing. It is a thing. Sam such a Mormon thing to go dunk on someone politely, as you did. Like it's such a Mormon thing to politely dunk on someone. And then like d drink a Coke. Yeah. I do too, right? Uh many Latter day Saints, many many members of the church do drink a lot of soda because they don't drink coffee or tea.

Um, but I don't. Yeah, whenever I go to Utah, like I'll go to the drive thru at these like soda places and they've got the best sodas, like the weirdest combinations. I love it. I'm I'm T Mormon, man. I'm an honorary member, I hope. Sam, are you a coke or Pepsi Guy? Coke. Coke zero all the way, all day. Bad Coke or Pepsi.

I've I've actually never had either in my entire life. What? How amazing. That's amazing. Okay, great. I I saw this great Reddit thread that was like brands, uh if their slogans were true, like truthful brand brand slogans and the Pepsi one was um Is Pepsi okay? It's like the thing at the restaurant you order a Coke and then they hit you with the is Pepsi okay?

Um all right. That's the episode. Let's see uh we we gotta cut those into clips. We had a bunch of good ones. See ya. I feel like I can rule the world a no way I want to

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