How to Get Famous on Twitter and Other Listener Questions

I'm gonna paraphrase, but this was asked a ton of times, which is how would you start again from zero? I hate this question. I don't ever answer this question. I'm like that's an impossible thing to answer because you're just looking for like a spoon fed thing. Um and you're just not gonna do whatever we say. Does I mean if you're asking that question, you're probably not gonna do it. Okay, but still answer it. What what uh answer it the way you want, which is maybe you're not spoon feeding a specific answer. But like people what does a guy like Sam do in a day and age like this? Let's put it di differently. Well, and I also don't like this question because the answer is

I would do exactly the same thing again. Sean Murry is doing what I did. And how's it going? Is it working wonderfully? It's working amazing. It feels great to me, Sampar at age twenty-four, however you old you were when you started this. I would do the exact same thing. It totally works if you pick the right niche. You but here's the thing is like You care about this topic. I cared about my topic, which they were related but not the same. You don't mind writing every day. I didn't mind either. And so I would do the same thing. The only thing that you did differently was that you were already kind of famous and you had this huge Twitter following, which definitely helped. I had a ten thousand person email list from HustleCon. So I had a little bit of a base and we're both doing the exact same thing. You get make sure you have content market fit. And so which means you

See if you can uh uh uh uh create a newsletter every single day, which both of us have done. You cr uh find a way to get traffic. In my case it was by blogging. In your case, it's Twitter. And then once you realize that that works, then you I would buy ads, which you are now doing, I think, and I did do. And you scale and you figure out what your L T V is, and then you just figure out how much you want to spend and then you go and get advertisers, you're already making like a lot of money every month doing this. And you're like. F four months in, it took me two years to get to where you are.

Well, that's'cause I saw the blueprint, right? Like I wouldn't have even known this could even make I like when you first told me You're like, Yeah, email newsletter, um, I think you make a bunch of money and then I was like By doing what? Like email's free, what the f like what are you talking about? This was there wasn't like Substack didn't exist. There wasn't even I didn't know of any paid newsletter.

And I didn't even really real I didn't even realize there's like a newsletter advertising industry. And if you had told me that, I would be like, Oh, cool, like Might as well have said you're gonna go sell buttons at a flea market. Like d doesn't seem like that big of an idea. And then you were like, Yeah, you can make and I think you had told me at the time a hundred dollar CPM, which I don't think turned out to be true, but like No, I I I think I said fifty maybe, but that is true. I don't remember what I said, but whatever I said it was ridiculous. Yeah, you never said a hundred and then I was like, So wait a minute. So you're like a list of ten thousand people and like wait, what's a C PM? and I was like, Oh God, gotta do math and then I like but like and I'm in a number, I was like, So wait. If you sent that every day, you just make that much money every day. And I remember just being like

Well, okay, maybe this is actually an awesome idea instead of like, you know, a kind of a shitty idea. But that's only one of the ways that it can make money. Right. You're seeing that that's just the tip of the iceberg and you're only on the tip. Yeah. Yeah, just the tip, as we like to say business. Do you see how this could scale to a hundred million in sales? Maybe maybe not. This is, by the way, not a Q and A. We're just giving tips. And this is just the tip.

Just the tip. So we can only do just the tip. Uh do you see how this could scale to a hundred million in sales? Yeah, and I I think you know, probably m for more than just ads, but yeah, for for sure. And I think so okay, one general idea of what you're saying is basically If you are good at content. It is possible to build a large Cont content audience.

And then you that that is the door that opens more doors. So either you use that to like You know, like what what I did with my following at first was I launched a fund. I was like, Great, investing is a cool way to make money. First built an audience and then launched a fund. And the audience became my investors. I took zero meetings.

I did zero pitched calls or whatever. And raised a multi million dollar fund. from just the audience. So that's like the superpower of an audience. So I I think That's one thing you could do. Which is already a uh like potentially an eight figure thing for you.

Uh at worst maybe seven figures, but like that's like already monetizing. You don't get that today, but in the future. And the the other thing, uh, by the way, is that uh then by by the way, the next question is how well how how would you build an audience if you start from scratch? Like that's a that's the next that's the next question, which you probably it's like your second most hated question. Yeah, I hate that. Okay, so that's it's like don't ask a girl her weight or don't ask Sa Sampar what he would do to build an audience from scratch if he started over. Dude, you're asking me on Twitter, you see what I do.

Yeah. That's that's actually my meta lesson. Okay, so can I can I go do my rant for a second here? Yeah. Um which is kind of a buzz kill for the just the tip episode, but let me let me do it anyways. Most of the people who asked that question I don't want to answer, not because it's not a good question, but because If you're asking that question

That basically means you're not gonna do it. You know you do because the answer is so obvious. It's already out there. Everybody who's building an audience is doing it super publicly. So all you have to go do is be like, Oh, okay, so this guy does it this way and this girl does it that way, and this guy does it this way and like Then you sort of just bucket it, you're like, okay. Seems like you kinda need to just choose one medium, like maybe podcasting or Twitter or email. They all have different benefits. And then like on that medium, you need to like maybe pick a topic and that's your theme where you become the

The guy who always talks about frameworks or the guy who always talks about crypto or the guy who always talks about business ideas or whatever it is. And then you can expand once you already have a base. And exactly. And then like you should try to get the you should try to make viral content because it's gonna get shared a bunch. Kind of like get sponsors then turn that money into like buying out like it's so obvious what all of us are doing. That if you d if you if you don't know how to do it at this point, like you failed the IQ test. And I don't mean that to be mean, I just mean it like To me, you're not serious about the question.

Um because the answer is already like visible to you. And if and I think there's some like more nuanced questions, like Which platform would you pick today? Would you pick email or Twitter or whatever? Like I think there's different questions that might be slightly better questions. Um but the generic one is is pretty bad. And this is how I ran. So last night I'm watching TikTok. I tr open TikTok as I do.

For my TikTok's basically like my bedtime story. And um And I see this guy on there and he's like some like Sean Connery looking guy. And he's like this like Kinda like complete grey beard guy and he's cooking an egg.

So he's like The perfect cook the perfect egg. Let's do it. And he's like you know, he's like We got eggs, we got black salt. We have this like you know, he I don't know, he's got like what looks like just like a branch with leaves on it. I don't know, it's probably something like seasoning.

He's like, Yeah, we have these things. Okay, cool. Turn the pan to high heat. Crack the eggs. Put the eggs in. Now we're gonna like keep it on high, you know. You have your oil, you have the h you have it on high, and you're trying to get this crust. He's like, How do you know when there's a crust? Watch this, jiggle it, and like

So he's he's like literally teaching you in like a thirty second format. how to cook the perfect eggs and by the end. He like takes that out of the pan. You're like, dude, I just want to try that egg more than anything in my life right now. And it had ten million views. And like all the comments are like, you know, be my dad and like, you know, I'll marry you if you cook me these eggs every morning. And he like cuts into it, the egg yolk starts running and it's cr like it's crispy on the bottom and soft on top. It's like

Just looks amazing, right? And it got me thinking. I was like He made it look so simple. I saw the egg crack, right? So Um You know, I I saw what he did. It wasn't like that complicated. He explained every step of what he was doing. And there's like ten million likes on this video, which means like a lot of people have seen this video.

I thought People. are gonna cook an egg like this. So so how many people are even gonna try to cook an egg like this? How many people could actually cook the egg like this after watching it? And it just got me thinking, I was like, you know

But when I watch this video of this guy telling me how to do it. It seems all simple enough. But I know if I walk to my stove right now. And I took the two eggs and the salt and the the pan with the oil. My egg is not gonna turn out like that, right? Like I would need

A lot of reps. to be able to ever cook an egg the way the guy did it. And he showed me the exact formula. He told me the formula. And it got me thinking about business advice. I go This is the problem with Twitter. And even podcasts like this, which is that

Imagine now that I watch that video of that egg and then tomorrow I come on and there's another video of like this guy cooking eggs. And then there's like the next day there's another one and like maybe the next day the guys Then you gotta go make your own damn egg. Exactly. And like After six months I would kinda in my heart I would feel like dude I know how to cook eggs. But again, if I walk to a stove and I try to do it I would make a runny mess and it would be horrible. And like w problem with Twitter and the way the problem with the people way the way that people use Twitter and use podcasts is

They get on every day. And they just watch other people cook eggs. They watch guys like you and me cook eggs. Like we we we don't listen to that many podcasts, but we record our own, right? Like we are happy to take your attention. Well, it's like they uh they're they're just masturbating instead of having sex.

Exactly, exactly. And like But you convince yourself, like I could just imagine if I had done this for six months. I'd be like, dude, I know everything there is to know about cooking eggs. And that's that same person who's on Twitter. Who reads advice from every investor and founder who's tweeting out their You know

Three ways to you know, three of my the biggest mistakes I made before thirty, a thread. Yeah, my six hiring mistakes about managers, a thread. Um, you know, like all these things, right? Like It's like when I asked my daughter when we play the game, I say, Who's your best friend? She goes, The floor. That's how I feel about the thread. You know, like basically it's like Here, just I'm gonna say this arbitrary shit. And like I can imagine That if you

listen to that and read that every day, you would think You are learning how to cook eggs. But you have no idea how to cook eggs, even after eating all of that. In fact, you almost are worse off than somebody who just tried to cook eggs for two weeks straight. And then maybe In on the on the fourteenth day.

of cooking their eggs, they go on Twitter and they see something that's like oh That's how I I should change the way I'm cracking the egg because you know, how the heat is too high. Oh, that's it. Okay, let me go back and quick make an adjustment. And so My rant is basically Don't be the dude who just watches the video of cooking eggs like Go crack some eggs.

Make a bunch of mistakes and then come back to Twitter and podcasts like this for your just in time learning. Two Like just give you a tweak on the thing you're actually doing. Right. Right, right, right. I I I'm I'm on board. I completely agree with everything you said.

Let's go back to answering some questions from people who want to watch us crack some eggs. All right, you pick one. You pick one and then I'll pick one and so forth. Okay, sounds good. Uh let's do this first one. So uh what are the key traits you look for in a co founder and red flags so that your business is successful and you guys stay happy. And I think you've had like multiple co-founders, I think, right? I was always like the guy and then like I had uh first people that were More Batman than Robin.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um And but then with Joe Spiser for my font, it's fifty fifty. Uh the and what I've learned, number one, uh they have to be emotionally healthy and very emotionally stable. I would consider myself to be mostly stable on the big things, but my mood goes up and down. And for me to d be a good partner with someone, they need to be emotionally stable. And even if I was like really stable, it's really important because I've seen a lot of like it's just like the same way you ever have like a a friend that's got like a husband or a wife and they're just fucking crazy and it's like

I don't know how to advise you here, like this person is acting irrational, like it's really challenging. It's like you want to separate them be like you stop acting crazy and you stop acting crazy. That's my only advice to both of you guys. Yeah, it's like dude, this is this is just it's not gonna work out. And so I married a woman that was like very stable and even keel and I realized, oh, that's perfect. So when I look for in partners is people who are emotionally stable. Uh and and I also want a partner that's incredibly honest and undersells themselves. Um I also and if I find out that they lie at all, like Even on small shit.

It's game over for me. So really high integrity is important. Um and then finally having really high energy. So like who can just like who wants to push the pace. And uh Basically with my best partners

I feel intimidated and inspired by them. That's a g that's a great way of putting it. And I think it shows like I'm Pretty chill. Sarah's very chill.

Uh, I don't know Joe that well, but he seems also very chill like very clear. Your your partners basically and your ventures are like, you know, resting heart rate under forty, like it's hard to get a heart rate up. And like I think that's good. That's a good pair for you. Yeah, because I don't mind being the high energy like I'm typically the one that can be the catalyst and be the igniter. And then a person that that wants to be the guider I enjoy. Right. Yeah, that's a that's a great one. There's this book that I read called Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person.

You heard this. Yeah, it's by uh Tim Urban. No, no, no. Oh yeah, you're right, you're right. School of life. So the in it like the very first principle is like we marry the wrong person because Um you know, w one of the things it says like we don't even know how we are crazy.

Everybody's nuts. You just if you but if you don't recognize how you're nuts Um you're not gonna know how to pick a partner who can deal with your level your version of crazy. And then you're gonna have to deal with their version of crazy. And the idea that you're gonna change them to not be so crazy is like not a thing. Like Everybody's weird or you just don't know them well enough. So like you gotta have your you gotta know your weirdnesses and then be like, cool, is this person compatible, fundamentally compatible with my my type of weird. Uh that's kind of a version of what you just said.

So what what what are yours? So I kinda steal from like you know, Warren Buffett said this thing and then it evolved, I think paraphrased it as well, which is like Two things you just said. Energy. Integrity. And intelligence. So those those three.

So break'em down. Um Energy is the one I think most people overlook. I think everybody wants intelligence. They're like, Oh yeah, I want somebody who's like really s smart or really good. Right. It's like yeah, that's that's True.

You don't want somebody who's incompetent. It'll drive you nuts in the long run. I've had that problem before. You don't want somebody who's low integrity, right?'Cause a smart Person who's low integrity is a crook. It's just a matter of time until they screw you. And then the last one is Um energy. And the energy thing I think is the one that everybody overlooks. I put it as my number one. Which is like

Some people call it vibe, some people call it energy, some I call it mood, you know, whatever. It's basically does this person bring enthusiasm by default? Or are they always looking for some ex like do they need an excuse? to be high energy? Do they need an excuse to be motivated? Do they need an excuse to be optimistic and enthusiastic about what you're working on? 'Cause if they if they do, you're gonna I feel like I'm constantly like a doctor with the shock paddles like all right, clear, give me you know, give me give me twenty amps or whatever and like just trying to like

Get them to be like, Yo, wake up and I I've had this with like Ben, who's my business partner on all my different businesses. Ben's a very low key guy. He's very low low he comes across he's not actually low energy, but his speaking style is low energy.

And so sometimes we'll be in meetings and I'd just be like Guys, I just don't want to ever be in a meeting that feels like this right now. Like nobody's fighting, but like Also, nobody's saying anything like hello, wake up, like You know, do you care? Are you there? Do you have ideas or are you just creatively bankrupt? And like I just don't want to be in a room.

That's like low energy. So can we just shake that up right now? And they're like, Oh yeah, yeah, sorry. Um Let's fucking go. Give me some token thing. I'm like it's fine. Even a token thing is fine. It shows that you can you understand what matters. I was gonna say the two people I think do actually Have good Who show that it was both of our Ben. So Ben

Uh our Ben here, Ben Wilson. He has good energy and vibe because whenever I'm around him, I feel happier and I leave happier. Right. Uh and he does a good job of matching. And then Ben Levy is o whenever same thing, whenever I'm around him, I feel happier. And he also uh Yeah. a lot of energy talking to people, which

Exactly. Which I fucking hate doing. So I've Ben Ben Levy's a great partner. Yeah, he's he's amazing. Uh he he's really amazing. Um okay. So that's kind of what I guess the answer is that question. Um which one do you want to do next? Okay, let's do this one. Um, what did you tell your friend on Twitter? So okay the question is what it

What did you tell your friend on Twitter that resulted in his audience growth? to a hundred K in just a few hours. Um Strong or hockey player. So he tweeted I helped him write another one today. Did you see it? No, no, no. Is it c pop it off?

Oh yeah, right away it got like five or ten th it got Five or ten thousand likes in the first thirty minutes and it's already reached five million people he talking about. Okay, so explain the thought. How did you what advice did you give him that would help him do that? People hate this advice, but look, here it is. The guy made a hundred million dollars in the NHL. And he spent twenty years being a hockey player.

And I'm just helping him craft some of the stories that he's already lived. So Step one is there's this massive unfair advantage, which is he's he's lived in he's he's lived an interesting life. Yeah. And I was talking to my friend Logan, who has this book called How to Not Die Alone. And she's like a dating coach and helps uh men and women find partners.

And I was talking to her about how I think men should find dates and I'm like You know the The best thing about being able to attract a woman is as long as you focus on yourself and live an interesting life and constantly improve yourself. That's what women really care about. And that's really it's be it goes beyond women. So with Chris it was like well, you just live an interesting life. Are you are you looking at his tweet? When you hear about X Player making thirty million over five years, six million dollars a year, you think, Wow, he made it.

However, that's not always the reality. In this thing, I'm gonna break down How much they take home and where the rest of it goes. Uh I'm curious. Tell me more. Yeah. What's the result so far? Uh, so it has ten thousand likes and it was posted five hours ago. Well so um so with Chris, what I do is I basically

uh talk to him on the phone and he's like, Hey, I've got this idea where I want to talk about like finances. And he'll well like he'll have a conversation with me for twenty minutes and I'll say He'll say, Yeah, you know, it's crazy about escrow and I'm like wait. Hold on. What the hell is escrow? He goes Yeah, so like basically when you get paid

thirty percent goes into escrow. And I was like, Oh, so when you get that money back, he goes, You actually never get that money back. That money is used to afford the lead the league and I'm like, Oh, that's interesting. He goes, Yeah, it's no big deal, and then like we'll keep talking. I'm like, No, no, no, no, no. That's the thing. That's the thing. And so when what you have to do is you have to find the big idea and you have to do this thing called the it's called like the knowledge complex, but b basically If you wanted to get good at Twitter, you've got to A live an interesting life and B understand that the interesting and unique experiences in your life, it's really not well known to a bunch of people. And you have to realize that like what seems boring to you isn't boring to most other people. And so you've got to figure out how to tweak that. And if you don't live an interesting life, go and live an interesting one or

Go and learn about a topic and just tweet everything you're learning. Exactly. Exactly. I think you said it perfectly. I'll only add One part to that which is

Um in in my power writing course I teach this uh exercise and um basically I I use this I explained it the exact same way you said. I said I said you have two choices, uh like fundamentally You can either be a generous expert, meaning You know something so well, you could just be sharing it with the audience. Or a curious novice, curious beginner. So it's like you just say, Yo, I don't know anything about this, but I'm curious. I'm gonna dig in and find out. If you want to learn what I learned, uh, you know, going from zero to

Understanding, you know, DeFi. Uh just follow this thread. A bunch of people are like, great, I'm also a dummy. If you're gonna do a bunch of work for this, I would love to hear what you what your takeaways are at the end. And so People r vastly underestimate the curious beginner path, which almost is a better path, really. Um Because they think you have to be a generous expert. You think they think you have to have played in the NHL and m$100 million in order to share this type of info.

Um there's other formats like you know, meme king, um, spicy analyst. Like I have all these like names for these like different lanes you can go down for content to win. But like those are the those are two of them. Let's say the other thing I say is there's exercise because most people are like, Well, you know, I haven't made a hundred million dollars, so what do I talk about? And so there's this exercise from the book Storyworthy that I stole.

Called first, last, best, worst. Have you have you ever done this? Yeah, you well, you did it with me, it was great. Oh, okay, cool. So we've done it before. But like basically l let's just play it again for people who don't Don't know it, but like and we can pick maybe even a different topic. So You take any

category of your life. So it could be relationships. It could be cars you've owned. It could be hustles. Yeah. It could be jobs. So let's take jobs. So what would be Sam Parr's first job? Janitor at a bakery.

Okay, great. Didn't know that. Um What was your um worst job? Um I uh uh st staining decks in the summer in St. Louis. Okay, great. Then uh what was your um what was your best job?

Being a podcast host. And then what was your um Like like say we the we used to say last job, but it means like most recent job. So like in that case, it's maybe. Great. And and oh also weirdest. What's the weirdest job you've ever had? What's the weird and it doesn't have to be a job. What's the weirdest way you've ever made money? I was a skateboard instructor at the YMCA.

That's a good one. Or the hot dog stand, I think is a great one also for that. Um so so you take that and you say, All right. And everybody has some version of this. Everybody has an answer to these questions. Then then you say, All right, within that, what's the story people don't know about staining decks? Or what's the people think people don't realize about s about those hot dog stands you see? And then they're like, Well, yeah, they don't and you're so it's kinda like you said, the knowledge complex or whatever. It's like you're so in the weeds.

You don't remember what it's like to not know? So you kinda gotta talk to somebody about it and just say it out loud and you see when they raise their eyebrows or when they get curious. Thank you. That's your hook. You need to know like, you know, how much do those hot dogs really cost or like

Where the heck do they go when the game is over? Right, like you know, okay, now I wanna know, like, you know, I yeah, I have always wanted that. So Oh wow, you put it in this area, whatever. Um And so so I think that's what you want to do to come up with great content ideas. You don't have to be Chris Ponger and NHL star who made a hundred million dollars. I bet you could have done

Maybe not as successful, maybe not like, you know, a hundred thousand followers and like one tweet or whatever you did for that guy. But like I bet if you worked for three months with somebody who's a Completely normal person, like You know, project manager uh Deloitte.

I bet you could get them to thirty or forty thousand. Followers on Twitter. Within a month. And if you look at Well look it

So you didn't have a following on Twitter. Uh like uh three years ago you started, right? Two two years ago, yeah. Two years ago, now you've got t over two hundred thousand. Trunk fam, the guy who worked for me for a long time When we when he started working at my company, I think we helped or he signed up for Twitter. Now he's got what, three or four or something. Yeah. Five hundred thousand. And then there's like

loads of employees at my company that have done it. Like it's very easy to do. Yeah, exactly. All right, let's do a different one. Um Yeah. With a very I'm a lawyer with a very good salary. What would you say to you? I've got a great answer. To motivate me to leave my cushy but soul sucking job and jump into entrepreneurship.

If my boss asked, I'm asking for a friend. Dot dot dot. I would say don't jump into entrepreneurship and get happy with your job. If you're someone that needs another person to give you motivation to bail. You're you shouldn't bail. You're only doing it because you think that Yeah, the people think that it's cool because people they admire do it. I would say don't do it.

I don't think that you're the personality type that this will that will be happy doing this if you need someone to motivate you. Yeah. Exactly. Uh And by the way, there's a trick there. Which is if that pisses you off and makes you want to do it. Cool.

You are an entrepreneur. Go ahead. You know, you may pass go, you may collect your two hundred dollars. If that like if that answer feels so wrong for you, it doesn't sit well with you and it annoys you that Sam even said it. And you get this like random chip on your shoulder for no reason, like you kind of are that's that actually did get you in going on the right path. And also if you're a if you're a lawyer, I do think that the hours lawyer works lawyers work are ridiculous, but You could make a lot of money and I bet there's a world where you could do like a nine to five legal business or be a lawyer and have a really good life. So like why bail if you If if if you're not compelled to do it enough that you're just gonna do it, maybe don't just don't bail be happy.

Yeah. Sure. Um all right. Pick another one. Um, would you

Uh would you Consider buying an existing business and growing it, or would you only want to start things from scratch? Frankly, I don't know why I haven't done that. Like it's pretty clear to me now that that is a better path for entrepreneurship. Um Unless you really just have the killer idea. Um

But for some reason I haven't done it yet. I just keep starting new things from scratch. I think there's some fun in that. And uh It's not really the logical decision, it's more of the emotional decision. But I I for sure would and in fact think I should. Um be doing that because

I know how to run a good business and I know how to grow businesses. And taking something that's already doing five, ten, fifteen million dollars a year. And getting it to fifty. Would be a lot easier for me than Getting something from zero to fifty and um

So why not? Yeah, I see it makes makes sense. I just don't get it. I don't maybe I'll do it one day. I I I know people talk about this all the time. I agree that it is actually easier And I agree that the likelihood is better. And your life would in most cases be better.

I can't I just don't Give a shit about something. that someone else made. I j I I enjoy starting it. I I think that to me building a business is like my art and I I like doing it from the ground level. And what about okay, I got a question for you from uh from the Twitter here. So John Williams

Ask. How hard should I should you be willing to work to create a successful business? Is it an eighty hour a week job? Is expecting to only work 40 hours a week unrealistic? And by the way, his tagline is John Williams. Fuck work, let's play. Um I think we know what he what he's trying to do here. Um let me just say this. When I started my company the first two or three years I was working Constantly, all the time.

And Like you're in the office, you're thinking about it. I would get to the office at eight or nine AM and I would go home at Seven or eight PM. Um and I

I would dick around at the office and hang out my employees, but I it was really important to me that I was the first to arrive and last to leave. And I wouldn't know. I didn't expect no. Uh I would work Sunday evening. But not Saturday. So that's like

Just let's take that. You know, as as uh Like literally what you said. So let's say twelve hours a day. Five days a week, that's sixty hours a week. Plus maybe a couple hours at the weekend.

So maybe sixty four hours or something like that in a week. Yeah, but I couldn't sustain that. So I only did that for like the first two years and to get to like profitability and hiring people. And then I was able to to where it was like some weeks it was eighty, other weeks it was pretty chill, it was forty. Um And uh so I was able to relax a little bit more. Um

One time I took a month off. So I was able to like But that was we were making like eight million dollars that year. So um I was able to chill a little bit.

Um if I had to start something again, I would expect that I would work forty or fifty hours a week getting it going. But here's the thing. Whenever even now, even though I I'm not like actively involved in building a business, I I think about this type of stuff twenty four hours a day. Uh people ask us, Sean, if we prepare all the time and I'm like Yeah, kinda, but also not kinda, but like We're like everything we read.

It's like we're relating it back to this trade of I don't know what you call this thing, improving ourselves and Sometimes making money by doing it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like what's that? Um I I wanna keep referencing this as like douchey uh the story that makes me sound like a douche. It's like Picasso's at a restaurant.

And somebody comes up and they're like, will you make a piece of art for me? And he grabs a napkin and he scribbles on it. And he's like, Yeah, that'll be thirty thousand dollars or whatever. She's like, But you just you just made that in two seconds. And he's like, No, this this man, like, yeah, this took me twenty years or whatever to make this scribble. Um, and that's how I feel about the podcast. Like There are days while I will show up And it's like Wait, are you you know, what are you guys about like be right before the pod, my w I'll be like, Hey I'm gonna go record my wife will be like, What are you guys gonna talk about today?

I was like, I have no idea. And it's not that I have no idea. Long list of things that throughout the week I'm writing down here. Because I'm doing calls with all these interesting people and I'm researching this thing. And if I'm watching a documentary, I'm taking notes. It's like I'm doing things that the average person doesn't do. In order to generate a bunch of ideas so that when I show up

It can just be natural. I can just speak naturally. about interesting topics because I've already put in the whole week Of trying to learn interesting things. and have interesting conversations and all that stuff. So um

And I would say like if if the you know a lot of this these questions are like career advice If you can find a way to do that in your career, you've won. Which is basically

There's no separation. There's no separation between the things you're most interested in and liking to do and spending your nights kind of like learning about or or experimenting with Like find a way for money to be the byproduct, like the exhaust coming out the chimney. Of that factory of interestingness. And like I had heard that before. Yeah, that's pretty good, right? That was that was that was that was great. That was really good. Yeah. And so I'm a little in awe of that.

Oh hell yeah. All right, great. Put it on a T shirt. Um Yeah, I had heard things like that before. But again, it was just cracking egg, uh watching other people crack eggs advice. Finally, when I did it, it's like This is the way. This is for sure the way, which is Just go for the most interesting things and then

Learn core business skills so that you can turn You just doing what's most interesting to you on a daily basis. into a profitable m money making advent uh like venture. And then you basically you're funding yourself to live exactly the life you want. And how long were you working when you uh at Bebo?

Six, seven years, something like that. But uh sorry, I meant early on, how many hours Oh I was I would work a lot, but it was more like I I don't necessarily know if that was productive, like

I was at the office every day from let's call I would get there like nine, nine thirty usually. And then I would leave either like Eight PM. Or I would sleep there'cause there was like a apartment built into the office. And I was a single guy. It didn't matter like who cares if I go home to my apartment or I sleep in this apartment, like

Sleeping here saves me time and I could just keep, you know, working on stuff. And basically what I would do, the way I thought about my day was like I had decided when I took the job, I go, I'm gonna work here. Instead of starting my own company, I'm gonna work here. I'm gonna pack like twenty years of experience into the next four years. That was my goal. Right. Um

And then I say, Okay, well, how am I gonna do that? I said, All right, well, my day job needs to get me reps. working on startups and like trying to build them and grow them because that's the thing I like to do. And then basically as soon as like everybody would leave the office around five, I would walk out, I would go get like Like you know, Westfield Mall was like right there. I'd walk to Westfield Mall, I walk to the food court. I'd be like Tired, super hungry, I go eat some shitty food in the food court.

I come back to the office. And then I would like Like I'd have my night job, and my night job was basically like What are the most interesting companies and who are the most interesting people? How do I like learn about what they're doing? How do I meet them? How do I invite them over for a beer right now at the office or a dinner right now?

At my office. And like pick their brain on what they're doing. And basically I would build my network and I'd build my knowledge at night. Or I would like Build my skills so I'd like teach myself SQL overnight about, okay, I'm tired of asking the developers to run queries for me. I'm gonna learn how to write my own queries.

And like you know, so I would like spend two weeks just trying to learn Secretary and then I would spend two weeks really s like steading up on like, you know, how MLMs grow. And like just like I just picked these like intensives and I was just go down them. So now I kinda have a whole bunch of obscure knowledge. But because I like dedicated a period of my life to really only learning about those things. I didn't and didn't do other stuff. But I it's okay. I was like, you know Happy as a clam just to do those things. That's badass. I think that's a really good answer.

Um All right, let me pick one. What are your biggest regrets in What? Do you

Sorry. All right. What are your biggest regrets in business and life? What past time in your life do you miss most? What future time do you most look forward to? So I'll I'll answer really quick. My biggest regret I wish I would have taken my work, my school, my sports more seriously as a young person. So like in grade school, high school, and college. I kinda dismissed it.

I wish I would have like Taking it. Why? Yeah. Because I think that like I Well, when you're in high school and college, like there's a time where all you have to do is acquire skills and like get good at stuff. And I like would just

I didn't like eat well. Uh I didn't like sleep as much as I should have for when it was as relates to sports. I didn't train w as hard as I could have trained. And that's just like a period of time when you're young, from like the ages of twelve to like twenty or twenty two, if you're a college athlete, which I was for a little while, where it's like you can just get good at a sport. Also with school, I kinda dicked off in high school and I actually regret that. I wish I would have like took the time to learn. You know, I'm s I'm getting paid to read books now or or I'm I'm sorry, I have all my free time to read books. Now I read in my free time. So I wish I would have taken my my schooling and my um athletics a lot more seriously'cause that's like the only time you have to do that.

And uh I Uh w I'm most looking forward to having children. Nice. All right. Uh

It's great. That's a great answer. What's your isn't this question really hard to answer, like this regret question, like I feel stuck when I try to answer this question. What do you think about all the time and you're like, Man, I wish I would have Hey, I wish I would have behaved differently during that period of my life.

So I kinda let me break it up into two different groups. There's like Knowing what I know now, oh wow, like I could have Done so much better. maybe m made more of the opportunity. Whether that's like You know.

Paid my parents basically paid a bunch of money for me to go to Duke. It's like an expensive ass school and it's got like Tons of like, you know, opportunity. I think there was like this thing that came out which was like In the in what in like two thousand and seven on Duke's campus, there was founders of like I think seven or eight like billion dollar companies.

Um so like I was there. Um I didn't know any of these people. I didn't even think about entrepreneurship. I didn't think about like meeting I didn't even think about like wow. I'm on this campus with a bunch of really awesome people. Like I should go not just try to make friends and party, but like Who are the people who are actually

Working like Trying to do something c interesting. You know, who are those people who Okay, I'm just like focused on my classes and passing them, but like Why don't I actually focus on figuring out what classes are interesting to me, right? There's a whole bunch of ways I would do college differently if I like had the wisdom I have today. It's not really like a regret though. Like when I hear the word regret, I think about like

That word you said behavior. Where did I f I don't feel like I kinda let myself down in my behavior. And the only things that come to mind are like any time that I've Been like lower integrity. So like either lying to somebody

Exaggerating to somebody, um Kind of making a selfish move where like I got some benefit and other people didn't really get a benefit. There's not like a big one that comes to mind, but there's like really small ones that come to mind. I think those are my only regrets. Like Mm-hmm. The the ones that you don't sleep well and you're not proud of, like

A t a simple test I do is like If everybody knew about this move I was making When I Would that be a thing I'm excited about? Like

If I could magically get distribution and everybody knew this about me, would this be something I'd be proud of or embarrassed of? Um or neutral. And it's like basically anything that's in neutral, I'm like, Well, why don't I just do it more interestingly? You know, like let me just take the common and make it more uncommon. Like that would be all that and so that's helped me a lot. And the things that I'm embarrassed of, it's like That's just a sign I shouldn't be doing this and I need to like bite the bullet and like reverse course on this. And like I think before I used to definitely be like an exaggerator.

White liar like kind of like Not like Nothing that harmed people, but like definitely things that like benefit me. And like over time I've like tried to stamp those out. Um so I would say like Just s little stupid things like that would be the only things that I actually regret. Whereas everything else it's like, I don't know, like

Yeah, I was dumb. I didn't I didn't know things at that time and whatever, you know, who cares. I learned them by doing the d thing the wrong way, I learned the right way. There was one time when I was eighteen and like Uh a limo or I was like in a shuttle from the hotel to like on a college visit or something like that.

And the man driving the bus was r uh the little you know, it's like a van when you're at the Marriott and they take you around. And He was like, All right, you're at your stop and I you you're supposed to tip him sometimes and I tipped five dollars. He goes, Oh no, it's okay and I said, Oh no, you need this And I meant to say like you earned it or something. And I said you need this. And that's one of those things.

Then I look back. And I'm like, I cannot believe that was so condescending of me. I cannot believe it. That's something I think about all the time. And I'm like, I can't believe I said that. I cannot believe that's that's one of my big regrets. Dude how many ten of those that Have I told the Orlando Bloom story on here? No. Pe people make fun of me'cause I I tell the story so often. If I haven't told anything, I'm gonna tell you now. Okay, here's one of my biggest regrets. So

Uh I'm in London. I'm twenty One years old, maybe. And my buddy comes to visit

Uh, for college. And so I I was living in London at the time because my par my parents lived there. And like So I'm like, okay, let's go out. Now I hadn't really gone out in London. So I didn't kind of know where to go. I didn't know the protocols, the etiquettes. I've just been kinda hanging out with my parents at their house. I wasn't drinking, didn't have a big tolerance at this time. Um, you know, like I basically hadn't drunk. Yeah, still don't have big tolerance back then, still don't have it.

My buddy comes to visit and I'm like, all right, I wanna be cool with m with his buddy. Uh shout out to my buddy Goops. If he's listening, he he he'll know this is him. So we go out in London. I'm trying to act cool because I'm like he thinks I live in the center of London. He thinks I still kinda like go out like I did in college. He doesn't know I've just been in my mom's apartment, you know, like doing nothing for like three months, you know, just like I don't know, watching reruns of Lost. And so uh so I'm like, Oh, let's go over here, let's go over here. And I'm like, Oh, this place is popping because I see a place just with a line outside. I'm like, This is the place, we're going here. He's like, You sure we can just go to this bar. I'm like, No, no, we're going over here. So we go to this place

Line outside and he's like, I don't think this is like a bar or club and it turns out it's a theater. And I'm like, oh shit. But I'm like kind of pot committed to my like plan of like no no no this place is the the the best. I've now picked a theater like a pl with this plays, but the plan just ended, people were waiting outside. I'm like And there's this group of girls, they're all visiting for the University of Georgia. And uh Duke University has like Uh kind of notoriously like um

Not the hottest college girls. And so these girls to me were like a fourteen out of ten. And so um it's like if and they probably didn't have the hottest guys either. I I was a strong seven at Duke. I'm a three at public school seven. I'm a private school seven, public school three. I'm a state school three. So so basically um I'm like, okay, I'm trying to still try to recover from goops of being like, Why are you telling me to go to this theater? And I'm like,'Cause I wanna talk to these girls. And so now I'm like trying to act cool in front of these girls, which was I was already failing in acting cool in front of my dude brown friend. Now I'm trying to act fool in front of this girl. So there I'm like

I mean you're like the tinder swindler man of your friend group. So I'm like what are we doing here? What are we waiting for? And they're like oh the other you know The play just ended and Orlando Bloom did a drop in. At the show. And so he's coming out. And like we're all just waiting for his autograph based to take a picture of him. And I'm like in my head, I'm like

Like you okay, do you know who Orlando Bloom is if I say that? Do you know the Who who that is? Could you have a picture in your head? I know exactly who he is. Okay. I didn't. So I'm like I've heard the name, but I'm like, I have no idea who this guy is. Or why he's famous. But like clearly he's famous. There's a crowd here waiting for him.

And so we're waiting. Twenty minutes and I'm just chopping it up with these girls. And so what year was this? This would have been uh I don't know, thirteen, fourteen years ago. So like so Orlando was like peak Orlando Bloom, like Exactly. And I couldn't ask because I'd already again Told groups we gotta go here. Told these girls I'm waiting for Orlando Bloom. They don't know that I don't know who he is. But anyways, we're just gonna shoot the shit because I have this captive audience. These girls can't leave. They're waiting for Orlando Bloom, so they gotta talk to me, basically, at this point. So we're we're having fun, we're flirting with these girls. Things are going well now. So my night has turned around.

But Problem is People are coming out from the play and I don't know who Orlando Blum is, so I'm just sort of waiting to see where the reaction comes from. I'm expecting like I don't know. Brad Pitt in his prime. I'm expecting like, you know, Bruce Willis. I'm expecting just like some like

J some hunk to come out'cause like clearly all these women are waiting for him. Lando's pretty pretty hunky, man. He's a lot more like um Petite. Petite, exactly the word I'm looking for. So this guy walks out

And he's just this kind of small guy. And he's got this w wispy body and this wispy mustache. And I'm like, This is the fucking guy. And so like I I'm just sort of like and I'm a little bit drunk. I'm pretty drunk at this point. I'm just like, Oh my God. So he's facing the least exciting autographs for the other people. He's like about to get into this car, this limo. And like there w wasn't a lot of space, you know, like the difference between me and my Kinda like like you know, this window in front of me is two feet away. That's how far he was away.

And he's just not turning around to like sign our autographs or whatever. I don't want his autograph, but tap him on the shoulder. Orlando! Orlando. And like I'm screaming his name. And so I said it like kind of like medium and then he doesn't turn. And so then I'm just drunk, so I'm like I'm just gonna say it as loud as I can. So I'm yelling and Americans are already like 40% louder than Europeans.

And now I'm trying to be loud and so I'm like he's he's not American. I know, but I'm in London. And so most people are civilized. So he probably doesn't like that either. Nobody liked it. Nobody liked it. Trust me. Like these girls who I was shot, they're like, Oh my God, this is so off putting. Why is this command so loud right now? And so um it sounds like I'm just screaming and I am screaming. He turns around and I just go, Orlando, and he turns, I go. And I'd see his face for the first time. I'd only seen his petite body from behind, which was just basically a woman's body. So he turns around and I see his his mustache and I go What's with the stash? And then he's like And he doesn't know what to make of it. Like, what do you mean? How do you answer that? What's with the stash?

And I'm like I thought it was from the play. I thought he had left it on because it looked so ridiculous to me. And so he's like, and he just sort of rolls his eyes and the girls are like, You're the most uncool dude on the planet now. You've annoyed Orlando Blue. And he just like w he starts walking into he just he just sort of aborts and the girls are pissed because he didn't like acknowledge them now either. The whole section got black list. So he gets in the car So th trust me, that's not the worst of it. He gets on the car, this is where the story ends in the in the the the final crescendo. And I'm like And something comes over me. I'm like, you know, I'm like a

entrepreneur, I'm I'm action oriented. I'm a go-getter. So I decided to be a go-getter with Orlando Bloom. And I go to the car and there's no security because again, nobody expects a buffoon to just like Open up the car door. So I I reach through the window. He's waving. Bye to the fans through the through the back seat. I reached through the passenger front seat. Into the backseat while he's waving and my hand just

Wraps around his thumb. Like I was going for like a high five, but I'm he's waving, so it's a moving target. I only catch his thumb. Have you ever had another man's thumb inside your full hand? Yes. One of the most uncomfortable feelings to work. I immediately sober up. He looks at me like yo, bro, like Why are you like gr why are you grabbing my thumb? And I'm just like I so grab I'm just like I was like, dude, I'm so sorry. And I just I let it go and I let go the whole night and I basically it's the most embarrassing thing that I've done. Um, you know, since then. It's never done my never topped that moment. That's my biggest regret. Oh my God, that's awesome. Grabbing Orlando Bloom's thumb as he drove away after making fun of his mustache. If Orlando, if you if you're listening to this, if if your cousin is listening to this, send this to Orlando. Let him know.

That guy, you know, he was just He was just trying to impress his friend Yeah, he was just trying to be I don't know what he was trying to do, but it was an accident. I didn't know. No, we know you're trying to do it. You're doing it for the tail. Whatever. Everyone's been there. He would he would empath empathize with that. Um Do it. I don't think we should do any more. I think we have to end on that. That was awesome. That was the best story I've heard in a long time.

All right, fantastic. Good uh good QA. Just the tips uh from your boys. That's what we're gonna call it. Just the tips. All right, we're out of here.

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