Q&A: Gut punches, favorite guests, plus advice for life

All right, Sam, I was going through the mailbag. people email us questions and there was one that I had to Had to bring up we gotta start with this. So here's the he's the here's the email. What I want to

I put my lawn in it like a day zone on the roadless travel never lose Dear Sam, last month I sold my ecombiz and recently a startup that I invested went public. I'm in my thirties. I own very little. House, cars, nothing. I have fifty three million in cash sitting in my bank account, but I'm not sure what to do. If I do something, it needs to be big, I'm torn between a few options. Just put it in the SP 500 and move on, get into real estate, trying private equity, chasing a billion dollar idea. I've hit three major wins in a row. I exited my company, I invest in a winning startup, and I got really lucky on a real estate deal.

But I'm not entirely confident I can rebuild it from scratch if I lose it all. My life goals are pretty simple. Have five kids, a wife, and become a billionaire. I'm currently with someone I'm planning to marry. What do you got for me? Okay, so

Let's start let's answer this question and then there's some of good other mailbag questions uh that we have here. Alright, so let me tell what I told the guy. I basically said if you make fifty million dollars at the age of thirty five. That basically becomes a billion eventually. But that's kind of irrelevant. But

Like I I think that's a dumb goal to become a billionaire or want to become a billionaire. I think you should do what you love after af after you have that much money. But if you want to become a billionaire, you will. But what I told him was basically I think he should put most of it actually into a high yield savings account or Just like some type of like short term treasury note or something like that, and just sit.

For six to twelve months and do nothing except read and have conversations with interesting people. And that actually six to twelve months, that may take thirty six months. That might actually five or ten years. But whatever you want to do, I my opinion is you should Plot. and read and talk and only do something If you're obsessed with it. And oftentimes when you make a lot of money, you get bored and because of that you start kinda it's like it's like falling in love with someone when you're like really horny. It's like, dude, you don't actually love that person. You know what I mean? Uh like don't don't actually do it.

And so I think but you have to be really intentional about what's ne next project that you do. And you don't give yourself a timeline, but you sit and you read and you wait for it to happen. So with the money, I would do Some type of high yield savings account for like six months and then eventually I would do eighty, twenty S P bonds, I would try to live off three percent of that money and then I would just plot and wait until that one thing I find. And then I would take a percentage of the money, like for example, let's say that you're comfortable living off of a one point five million dollars a year. You take how much you need in the S and P to live off that and the rest you are willing to allocate towards your big dream and new adventure. Alright, I like the advice.

Here's an analogy. Here's what I would tell this person. Do we have a name for this person? They don't want their name out there. Let's call it Dare. Okay. All right, Chuck, uh here's the deal. Here's an analogy for you. You've got a beautiful Big screen TV. Beautiful. Ninety six inches. It's an enormous

beautiful plasma retina, whatever the display is. But it seems to me like behind the TV, you have what a lot of us have. You got the cables. All tangled up. And the reason I say this is because you asked one question that's actually five questions probably at one. So

Let's separate out. Let's start to pull the tangles on these cables that are stuck behind the TV. So one one cable is What do I do with this cash? Meaning I've got cash sitting accounts, should I just leave it there or do I do something with this money? There's another one, which is what do I do with my time? Those are two separate questions'cause when you get rich the

point of getting rich in a way is to separate the questions of what do I do with my money? What do I do for money and what do I do with my time? Those are now separate questions for you. But before When you have no money. They're the same. You work, you put your time in, that's how you get the money out.

Then you have a third g third question, which is What are my actual goals? So he said, My goals are to have five kids, have a wife, and have a billion dollars. And Have have have. I don't know very many happy people. Who got happy because they

Yeah. acquired things. They have things. They have caused. The kid thing might be different. I think you could acquire a kid to be happy actually. I don't think so. I think life is a lot more about uh figuring out what you love to do where you feel most useful and

And who you want to become, and more importantly than than the things that you end up Doing. I would I would ask a question, which is what are my actual goals? And I re use the word actual as a loaded word because Usually we have these

Goals that we just borrowed from others. Either from our parents, from society, from the movies, from newspapers. These goals that that are theirs that we make'em ours. It's a goal you had ten years ago, but you're not the same person you were ten years ago. When I did this episode of Mike Poser, he's like, dude, I I was in my twenties, all I wanted to do was Get rich, get famous, be successful, be respected.

He's like and then I was in my thirties and I was doing things That would get me those things, but that's not what I wanted anymore. I was living the dreams of twenty one year old me rather than than thirty one year old me who actually had new dreams and I sh I needed to update that. I needed to update the the sort of motivational thing on the on the poster.

There's another great question, which is it might he says something like I if I'm doing something, I it's gotta be huge. And uh anytime I hear that, there's usually like a chip on your shoulder you probably want to work on. A great question here is Are you being dr are you driven or are you being dragged? Uh, so it's like what what's the reason? Why do I feel the need to do that? Is it to prove something to other people? I talked to a guy who who uh We had dinner with a guy who's created a a fifty billion dollar plus company.

He's doing a new one. I was like, Why are you doing another company? Like stressful, hard. You just had kids. Why are you doing this? He goes, I just want to prove, you know, I need to prove that like it wasn't just a fluke the first time. Really? And in my head I'm laughing'cause I'm like, proof to who? You know, nobody doubts that you could do this. Like we all actually respect and admire you. We think you're amazing. Who who are you proven this to? Has you proven it to yourself? Why do you doubt it? You did it. then doing it to prove something wrong or prove something right is is sort of a a silly way, a silly reason to do something.

So anyways, my my final advice would be I would do nothing financially. You know, like you said, just put in a savings account for for a year. I would get a coach to help untangle some of these mental wires that are tangled up. I would get in shape. Cause when you're in shape all things start to look a little different. And I would spend a year with people that you really love.

helping people and hanging out with them. So I would find people who need help. I'd go help them. I'd find people who are free, I'd go hang out with them and I would start to hang out with people who maybe have gone through this season of life. And I think of it like a season, I'd be like, Oh, I had the season of achievement and now I got a season of wandering when I gotta figure out what I'm doing next. Call it that so you don't feel uncomfortable when you're like, Oh man, I'm so unproductive now.

Call the season what it is and go hang out with people and and make no decisions until, you know, the clarity will show up. The worst thing this person can do? Well One of the bad things this person could do. is go and buy a bunch of stuff.

Or um get himself into situations that can't easily be untied. So for example I mostly followed my own advice when I kinda uh had an acquisition. I did one dumb thing, which is I bought Some real state that I was like

Gotta turn into a business. And I did it like right away and A few months into it, I'm like, I don't know what the hell I'm doing and I don't like this. And it took

It took like a year to like unwind all of that. It consumed my brain and it really messed with me. And so I uh I regret doing that and I think a lot of people make the same Mistakes is a very common mistake is to go and like acquire a whole bunch of stuff which weighs you down and it ruins the whole seeking process. The the only alternative version of that is when you go and you

Do something for your parents. So like uh there's a great clip. We should put play this clip of You know who Stephen A. Smith is, the ESPN anchor? He talks about when he first got money and he drives to his mob's Where his mom worked. And he's like, I went into went into her office and I said, Mom, get up

Get your bag. We're leaving. And I told her boss She she ain't ever coming back. He talks about how he retired his mom on the spot. And I was like, that's a cool thing to do. Pay off your m your parents' mortgage or debt or something like that. If you're gonna do anything, do that.

It's a you know, sort of a a philanthropy in your own economy first. Uh that that's I think that's what I did, by the way. We we I flew my parents first class to Europe. And it was awesome. Um it was awesome. Uh and I have this video of them Uh my father stood up. And like you know how old people hold their phone with two hands? Uh and he like is holding his phone, like doing a circle of like and I and I like taking a picture of like his seat and I have a video of him doing that, and that brought me so much um

I feel happy that I got that video. That made me happy. By the way, I got a little hack on that. When when we sold the milk road, my mom was on uh vacation with her all of her siblings. She has like eight eight or nine siblings. And so I got them all like a Like I was like, Hey uh have the hotel call and be like your uh your you know your massage is ready and call all of the rooms at once and then they all went down

And basically I've got them all kind of like a day pass at the spa in Vegas. And j it wasn't even that expensive, probably a couple thousand dollars. But For my mom, it was like having a mortgage paid off in that she felt like, Oh, my son treated me to something, but also I got to brag. Yeah, I got to brag. My kid is so good. She felt good that it was good for everybody. It wasn't just good for her. And that, you know, doing something nice for her siblings made her feel so amazing.

Yeah, and she could brag that her kid has his shit together and uh maybe the other ones don't. Uh someone asked us this question and I'm it it's related to a topic that we're talking to. What's the number one thing that you've read or seen recently that's wowed you? I read this book. Called replay. It's a novel. Do you ever read novels?

Yeah I'm like big into novels now. I thought like I thought like growing up I was like Do you read novels? Like don't read any of them. Like I was scarred by like grade school or middle school of like having to read novels I don't like. And then I got into the business world and like, Oh, we only read like Peter Thiel books. We don't read thick we don't read this nonsense. And then now I've fallen in love with them. So I love novels. I read this great book called Replay. by Ken Grimwood. It's about uh this man who basically dies at the age of thirty five and he consistently relives his life. over and over and over again. And it's like all like it he does everything that you would do if you could replay your life, which is like, what would you do? You would like get rich by buying stocks. You'd probably like Get try to get a ton of girls, whatever.

But He is able to talk to his parents again when they were alive. And I read that book recently, right when I got to that part where he talks to his parents. who had died, now he's reliving his life again. He's able to see his parents. Mm. made me very emotional and I call my parents, I go, Hey, November like fourth, what are you doing?

Cool, clear schedule. And so We're taking a a big like lavish trip together. And so this's awesome. this book made a really big impact on me because it gave me this idea of like in thirty or forty years, however long it's gonna be, when my parents are no longer alive. Or whatever the situation is of like you cannot do in twenty years what you can do today. Well I have

Regretted, you know, not taking advantage of that period. And so I'm I'm trying to I had made a list. I'm like here's all the things that in twenty years I'm gonna regret. I'm and I'm gonna go go and just get it done now. And so that book had a big impact on me. Oh, that's great.

Um I'll give you a couple. Uh Chris Williamson. Put a little screenshot essay up. That I really liked. And he called I've got to be s exactly what he called it, but he goes

Type A people have type B problems. And type B people have type A problems. So what is he describing? So type A is like the achiever, the obsessor, the kind of like High functioning ADHD or high functioning high anxiety person, which is a lot of people who we know, a lot probably a lot of people who listen to this podcast. It serves you really well. You get great grades or you'll b you know be successful in your career'cause you're so like

Type A about it. But You suck at just relaxing, chilling, enjoying, slowing down, being grateful, you know, the mo being in the moment and not thinking constantly about planning for the future or assessing the past. And just being there. And he goes, then then you have the type B person who we all characterize as like

The guy who's just they're just walking around wandering through life sniffing flowers. Like, dude, you're you're not getting ahead. Where's your savings account? What's your plan? How are you gonna get ahead? You don't have all your ducks in a row. What you're missing out. Um Yeah, society basically We reward the type A's.

Who E even if you're high type A. And you you you suck at type B, it's like okay. Uh you alwa it feels like you could always catch up, even though in reality You can't.

And the type B person, we sort of look down they almost seem lazy in a way. It's like Why aren't you getting your act together? Yeah, what do you okay, you're you're you're prioritizing your happiness too much, almost. You should be you should be productive right now. And I thought it was so true that people fall into these buckets as a c as a cliche, as a as an oversimplification.

And It really highlighted to me how undervalued type B people are. And I have a few type B people in my life. Where if you look at their resume or you look at their

series of accomplishments or how they spend their day and it just feels Like, wow, you're behind. And then when you hang out with them, you're like, wow, you're ahead. You you're the one who's got this this thing figured out. And I think that one of the big mispriced assets It is. Do you know how to chill?

Dude, that's such a 10 thing you'll do to say. Did you just call it uh calmness a mispriced asset? Sure did. Sure did. Maybe the lessons of your own advice, brother. Good call. I call cold plunge people and hot tub people, right? Cold plunge is like you're trying to optimize everything. You're trying to get like shock your nervous system and like get your adrenaline pumping in the morning. And hot time people are trying to hang out, have a beer and it's you know take it with friends and they're they're happier than the than the cold plunge people.

And I think one of the things to to really do is to uh Take pride in being able to do both well. Like instead of trying to be a h a higher high achiever You know, working on being able to shift gears and be able to have both gears and be able to do both well. Where when did you see this post? Because w like a lot of times people ask us these questions.

And the most recent thing. It's always the most recent thing. This was last night. Oh wait, really? Yeah, yeah. What you read recently that wowed you. Recently, last night. Yeah, which is f uh'cause I I I try Like you do something interesting. So whenever you go like to some conference or anything, you're you're always like I I took these notes on like lessons lessons I learned. Yeah. And I suck at that. And so I was curious if this is something that you like

um saved from a year ago and you're still contemplating. Dude, I have a Slack channel called Golden Nuggets that is like It's a conversation with me, myself, and Irene, dude. It is the longest conversation. It is all just little tiny nuggets that I pick up from from people. When Gary Tan was on the podcast, for example, I go here and I write. Yeah, that's great line, he goes. At some point you realize it's all made up.

But you get to make it up. I was like, that's just such a powerful simple way of explaining a lot of life. It's all made up. These are all stories we tell ourselves. The rules are made up. But like you get to make it up. You get to make up your s story you tell yourself about yourself, about the world, about how how your life's gonna go. I think Gary Tan was a top

ten, maybe top five person we've ever talked to. Yeah, um I uh well, that's a good question because one of these in here, let me find it. Here we go. Jason from Detroit wants to know a similar thing. He says Fellows I was looking at the numbers recently.

You've hit six hundred plus episodes, a hundred plus guests. I have to ask you, who is on the Mount Rushmore for MFM? The number one thing you learn from them and PS, I don't wanna hear. I love them all, I can't pick favorites. I need you to Deion Sanders it. P. S. P P S.

Did you know that Deion Sanders publicly ranks his kids? Check it out. And he linked us to a article where Deion Sanders is ranking his kids. Dude, Deion Sanders Junior is number one. Yeah. That's insane. Uh DeAndre Sanders, number five. Yeah. What Shador Sanders, who's the quarterback of his uh of his team, number four on the uh number four out of five.

Not doing so hot. What a weirdo. Okay. Well um I guarantee up there, but that's like a recent one, so I try actually to stay away. I'll go I'll go uh let me tell you mine really quick. Dude, they're all brown dudes, I just realized. Darmesh, Malish, and um Sayed. Uh, I guess Syed's not uh uh Indian, but it two out of the three are Indian, which is uh pretty funny. Darmesh is amazing to me. Darmesh proves that you can be aggressive while still being calm and nice. Darmesh is like shockingly aggressive towards life. Do you know that about it? Darmesh, he's the co founder of HubSpot.

Cut to the end. Alright. We're back. Darmesh is a uh a billionaire, maybe a multi-billionaire, I don't know. He started HubSpot, which is like a thirty billion dollar company. And he's been on two to three times. I think he's coming on next week or in a few weeks. He's super aggressive about life, but he comes off like a really nice guy and calm and easygoing and like he is calm and easy going, but he's very aggressive about life. And I love that. That's a wor that's a phrase.

Tell me what that means. So if you ask him about his background, he grew up poor in India and he was like I wanted to be the best because I wanted to prove that I was capable of achieving and I also didn't want to have nothing, which is what I originally had. So he's like, I wanted to be great at ping pong. And so I studied ping pong and I was the best at the school I went to. Or he was like, Someone told me that when I moved to America, that apparently what these people do is they go play golf in order to meet clients and take care of clients. And he's like, I'm a 23 year old guy who moved here from India. I don't know even know what golf is, but then I someone else said, Well, if you can't do that, just buy everyone's dinner as much as possible. And so He has paid for one hundred percent of the dinners that he's ever gone out to for everyone. Did I tell you that story?

No. Dude, he paid. Sure enough. I went out to dinner with him and it was me, Nick Ray, Neville and uh Darmesh Uh Darmesh walks to the bathroom at the end. Nick Gray goes, Watch this. He runs and he pays for it. Darmesh sits down and Nick goes, My treat. Darmesh stands up, he goes, This is unacceptable. I'm sorry. I can't well hold on. I'll tell you in a minute. And he runs to the back of the kitchen. He makes him refund Nick Gray's credit card and he gives his credit card and he comes back. He goes, Let me tell you a story. You know, when I came here uh from India, uh I didn't know how to play golf, someone told me to buy dinners. So I committed at that age of 22.

to one hundred percent of the time I pay for everyone's dinner. And I have done this So he maybe he's fifty five now. He has he goes, I've done it for twenty five plus years. And so by you paying for dinner, I will not allow you to break that uh thing. And I go, Have you really done it? He goes, dude, I've done it so much. That one time. Uh we went out to I went out to eat with just like me and Brian of of HubSpot and like apparently there was a company there at a company outing who saw us and bought our dinner as like a thank you because we use HubSpot, whatever. And so Dar Mesh was like

I didn't have a lot that much money, but we were kind of new, but we paid their next morning. He goes, dude, he goes, We paid their fifteen thousand dollar dinner bill because I refuse to have that streak broken. And so Darmech is very aggressive about life. He started he wanna teach his kid how to program, so they made a online video game that, you know, makes a million dollars a year or something crazy, like it's like a hugely popular, he's very aggressive about life, but if you go and hang out with him, He's gentle. He's soft. He'll let you do all the talking. And so uh I would say Darmesh is one of my biggest inspirations. What what about yours? Classic Gentle Giant. Um

Hard to pick. My it's funny though, my Mount Rushmore of guests has really nothing to do with their episode. And it's just what impression they left on me or what I took away from them that It's may not have even been a remarkable episode. Maybe they didn't tell the best stories or have the the best uh ideas right up the right off the bat.

So here's a couple of mine. Mine mine all fall into the bucket of people who are playing their own game. So I really, really admire probably more than anything else somebody who takes the time To define How they want to play the game of life.

what their rules are, what their goals are, what their code is that they live by. And then Of course, succeed in doing it and and the result is that they are both happy and successful. 'Cause you know, one without the other is sort of the ultimate failure.

Ryan Holiday comes to mind. I don't even remember. I couldn't tell you one thing he said when he was on the podcast. Dude, full shit. I've uh since then I followed Ryan, I was like, Man, I really appreciate this dude. He seems He was I I think the only thing I remember on the podcast I told him I go You are one of the uh call the like mentally well or something. I was like, You seem like one of the most well balanced, like uh grounded people that's ever come on this podcast. You just seem like genuinely happy and content.

And it just comes through in his vibe. You know, for example, instead of getting money and being like Now how do I like The the question we had earlier, how do I parlay this into a private equity thing and make more money off of it? He did the thing that he really wanted. He bought his own bookstore and made an awesome bookstore.

And he's like a bookstore is a terrible investment, but like He bought a bookstore. At the top, he built his office. At the bottom, he's got a bookstore. Why? Because he absolutely loves books. He loves the vibe of a bookstore. So every day. He gets to bask in the glory, the vibe of his investment. Whereas I put something in the stock market, it's just a number on a screen somewhere. And there's these clips of every time he has somebody come on the podcast.

They record upstairs and on the way out. He gives he just starts handing them books. He's like, Have you read this? They're like, No. He's like, Oh my God, you got to read this. Here, let me earmark the page where you're gonna love. This book, okay, this is their famous book, but actually this book is better. And he just leaves them. They walk out like it's a library and they got like you know six books. And I just love Ryan Holliday's approach. He did that with me and I l I think it was literally a thousand dollars of books. Right. It was like a y a year's worth of reading, but he's the man.

I don't know too well, but he's got his ranch, he's got his family, he's got he spends his days doing what he loves, which is reading and writing and you know, exploring ideas. He's um tremendous you know, everybody I know who's met him respects him. And it just seems like he's living life on his own terms, he's not playing somebody else's game. Do you know how many books he's uh written, by the way? How many books he's published? I guess like

Seven or eight. Fifteen. Yeah, he's prolific. And he writes a daily email. I don't know how he's like this prolific. He's the my buddy Billy works for him, and you can get a good sense of how somebody is when you talk to somebody who works under them and has for years, and he's got, you know, nothing but good things to say. So anyways, Ryan Holiday's up there. Jesse Itzler was kinda like that. I really admire this dude's variety. So

Doing uh you know, from Rapper. to starting a jingle company and selling that, to starting a private jet share company and selling that to Warren Buffett. to creating a coconut water brand, to creating now a pickles brand, creating a running brand. Um But he just takes the things he loves. It's he is

His business is him pushed out. He loves running. He creates the running club. He creates the Everest Where you run up and down this mountain until you've ran as many miles as Everest. He just seems to have taken his passion. Instead of wearing a s heart on a sleeve, he just like

manifested it through the world of business. I think that's really cool. Creative dude seems like a lot of fun. And I like some of his other things, like having a Masogi for the year or how he His little three Cs thing that I stole where he's like, Yeah, every day I take ten minutes and it's uh A compliment.

a congratulations or a Uh What's it called when like console c consolation for somebody when they when they've gone through something. Yeah. He just thinks of who in my life deserves one of those right now. Who deserves some congratulations, a compliment, or a Uh or being controlled.

And he uh he takes that out. It's a very easy way to build amazing relationships in life. I'm doing his um Twenty it's called twenty nine oh twenty nine. It's the uh Everest it's ever since Yeah, I uh I I I was invited to go his partner I became friends with and he was like pick which one you want to go and so I got Sarah signed up for it. And we're gonna have to we have to pick the date. But yeah, it sounds awesome. Dude, it's really popular, by the way. They're it's also really expensive and they're all always sold out.

As it should be. Uh the last one I had is Mike Poster on my little Mount Rushbore, which I I don't think that episode's come out yet, but he said uh a couple of things that stood out to be the but the biggest one. is just a operating philosophy for for any creator. Um you know He b he his first song was a hit. Whatever. Five time five X platinum.

His second song. Was a little disappointing. Only three times platinum. His third song Only one X platinum felt like total failures. And every time he went to the studio trying to make a hit He goes, I only succeeded in making something that I hated and nobody else loved. Uh, when I when I went in trying to make a hit that everybody would love, all I made was something that everybody else hated.

uh or something that I hated and also because I hated it, everybody else hated it too. And he goes, Now my philosophy is very simple. I just do what's cool to me. And every once in a while the whole world agrees. I don't think that's that is a wonderful

Banner cry for a creator, an artist. is to say, I just make what's cool to me and sometimes the whole world agrees. Yeah, he um That documentary he has where he walks across the country. That was or it's like a music video, actually. Is it a music video? It's like a ten minute video.

So good. He's very inspiring. Yeah, go watch the music video for Move On. Is that is that the It feels like a documentary, uh, because like there's so much talking in it, but or you know, a ten minute one. That's pretty badass. Alright, which one should we do?

Let's go to this one. Isaac from Maryland says. I just started training boxing, thanks for the inspiration, and I took my first liver shot. Wow. Son of a gun. Uh, it feels like somebody hit the off button on my body. And I thought about it later and I started thinking, what's the equivalent of a liver shot in business? We all know that a punch to the jaw is a thing that's supposed to knock you out, but sometimes it's the sneaky liver shot that gets you.

I told my wife about this idea and she says, That sounds like something stupid that your f my friends on that stupid podcast would talk about. So Let's have it, boys. What's the liver shot of business? Tell me if you've felt this before. You're having a problem in your company and you think, I have found this one person that's gonna change everything. Everything's gonna be better because I've hired this one person.

I think in Have I ever had a situ Okay, so maybe that could happen. I don't think I've ever had a situation where my expectations have been lived up to. And what did you just say you've never had a situation where your expectations have been lived up to? No. When my expectation is that this person is gonna be the silver bullet. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. They're never lived up to. And it's not their fault. They could be fantastic, but like Whenever I like I'll buy into someone so much.

And they'll do like one thing that like kind of is a bummer to me and then I'm like What else is there that you're gonna do? And then like this is homeathic medicine? Yeah. You get yeah, it's like I have to try. Uh it's so Yeah, I have felt that so many times and I've always made I make that mistake consistently where I buy into someone you know, like when you're you're like in high school and you're like,

seen a girl or like a girl you got to crush on so much and like she finally gives you the like the chance and you're like every life is perfect. I have crossed the threshold and like the elbows. Yeah, and or like her like her ring toe is like bigger than like her Big toe. You know what I mean? Like uh I hate that for all I know it's out of their control and I think like thirty percent of the population has that thing where one toe is longer than the other. But it's disgusting to me. Have you seen Shallow How where like he uh it's like This ugly dude dates like the ten out of ten model. But her toe is like that, so he breaks up with her. Only on this podcast will you get a Warren Buffett quote and a Shallow Hal quote at the same time within five minutes. Do you know who makes an appearance in Shallow Hal is uh

Tony Robbins. T Tony Robbins. He's like the whole point in the movie. Like he convinces Jack Black to only see people's inner beauty. So now he only sees people It's pretty funny. I love that movie. I think it's a great movie. Um Getting it my gut punches. Like being let down by people, which is frankly, I'm one hundred percent to blame for that.

Right, right. Uh mine is Actually just having a health issue. Either you or someone, you know, really close to you when you're running a startup.'Cause The day before?

Everything felt level 10 important. And this is the most important thing in the world. We're on a mission. We're at war. This is this is everything. And then as soon as you have a health Hel a real health issue. Um There's that phrase, you know, a man has a thousand problems until he has a health problem, then he only has one problem.

And that's so true. Like uh the liver punch in business is when you have a a real life scare and you're like Wow. I feel so stupid for having just spent Like caring so much about these stupid KPIs and metrics and dialing the knobs and optimizing this funnel. It's like Dude, honestly, who gives a shit?

Um so it it is the the the one thing that really just shook me out of the delusion of like Business felt like everything to me until that happened. That was my love my liver punch. I always feel that way whenever I have a nurse treat me. Like you know, like nurses like the real job. Dude, they're like the tugboats of World War you know, like tugboats like are uh like have s like helped us win World War Two. Like the tugboats work their asses off to get these ships out there, but they're the unsung heroes. You know, no one like gave tugboats love. Tugboats the tugboats do, I don't know this.

So uh during World War Two, we were like building ships like crazy. Or I'll give you a better analogy. Uh nine eleven. During nine eleven, uh you know what tugboat is? Like it uh a tugboat's like a tiny boat that pulls so when you let let's say you have a a cruise ship when a cruise ship comes into a relatively small place like for example when a cruise ship is gonna dock in San Francisco, you need a tug boat to go out and get it and like drag it and place it Perfectly. where it goes. But they've been the unsug heroes for many occasions. So for example, during World War Two, we were building ships like crazy and getting them out there. These fucking tugboats were working their asses off and they like and like the tugboat operators were like performing miracles. Same with on nine eleven. On nine eleven it was like the tug boats that were getting people off the island of Manhattan uh to like Brooklyn or whatever. And uh nurses are like tug boats. Like you forget about a nurse, like or you think you kinda dismiss a nurse as like the doctor. It's the doctor who's the most important. And then you like a nurse will come and like give you Advil or like give you a popsicle and like soothe you and you're like you're you're so much more important. A, you're more important than the doctor, maybe. And B, you're more important than my fucking job.

Like it's it's not even closed. A hundred percent All right, let's do another one. You you pick one off here. If you could shadow anyone for a week to learn how they operate. Who would it be and why?

All right. I would split it between Either somebody who's hyper productive. Which is Might as well go for Elon,'cause there's all these myths about Elon and I d I just want to see it for myself. I want to see what's the real deal. How is this guy running four companies and playing Diablo at night and got eleven kids and like I wanna actually follow this guy and see what's going on.

What's Diablo? What is Diablo's a game video game. Oh okay. He's like Streaming on on X at night. Like the same night, you know, they catch the the starship.

Right, the catch the heaviest Rocket ever with like these chopsticks. Then the same night he's playing Diablo for like four hours on stream and he's like doing like a high level raid. Um it's pretty wild. In the same way that Do you know this LeBron James recently screenshotted this thing out that he was a top r a top one hundred ranked Madden player or like he reached rank one hundred, which is like the top rank. No way. And that's gonna be one of the most played games in the world, right?

Yeah, it doesn't mean he's a top hundred player, but it means he he still reached the top rank. of the people who are playing competitively at that moment. That's still impressive. It doesn't matter. Still impressive. Or like, you know, we've told the story about Travis Kalanick being the number two or three we tennis player in the world. Luka Doncic, who's like one of the best basketball players in the world. He's a he's a top one hundred Overwatch player. I play a lot of Overwatch. This is insane. It's insane that this guy's.

It's a first person shooter, um I don't know what you would call it's like a team first person shooter or whatever. And he's the best, or one of the things. He's he's a he's a grandmaster player, top and he reached top five I think he was top five hundred, which is the the the they don't do h top hundred, they do top five hundred. And Luca was in the top five hundred.

It's insane. Like I I I can't believe it. And people are like, Oh, well, these guys are their athletes. They have a lot of time to play video games, a lot of downtime when their body's just ridiculous. I don't give a shit, dude. I was playing Overwatch three hours a day for like, you know, two years, I couldn't even break, you know, bronze. This is incredible, uh how he did that. Um, I think I wanna do all right, so did you read that New York Times article on Alex Carp? I didn't read it actually, but a bunch of people recommended it. What did it say? So he's the CEO of Palantir. What did it say?

Alex Carp is the CEO of Palantir. Palantir is like a almost a hundred billion dollar company and they're kind of controversial because they typically have a libertarian to Republican lean culture in Silicon Valley. That's like not common. And he's also like a freak. And so he's a freak because he grew up like in Germany, I believe. Uh and he says uh and he says ridiculous stuff. So he's like Uh I've got Some he I think he said I got a Jewish mom and a black dad. Uh, I can get away with anything. Like he says like silly things like that. Or he'll be like, uh the only time I'm not he said this on like a um

Like a quarterly earnings call. He's like the only time I'm not thinking about Palantir is when I'm out cross country skiing or having sex. Like he just like kinda like says like ridiculous stuff like that. But he's just like a weirdo and the and and and I I really like this. He uh Was raised in Germany. He went to school as a philosophy major. Peter Thiel and him used to argue all the time and debate Peter Thiel's uh

right of center, Alex Carp is left of center. And so they had opposite politics. And he said in the article that they would argue like ravenous animals. And because of that they fell in love with each other. And Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale came to carp with this idea for Palantir, and he was the perfect person to uh r lead and run the company. And so he just tells like twenty five years of stories in the New York Times article because this is his moment. The company's twenty five years old, but they are finally like the top dog. And he tells all these crazy stories and he's just quirky and weird. And I love that. The the article starts Alex Carp never learned to drive. His quote I was too poor and then I was too rich. The picture is him wearing pink socks. At his new New Hampshire home, just like sort of sitting in his own. Everything about him is weird. Everything you just said about that is like different and strange. Keep going. I'm I'm Jewish, racially ambiguous, dyslexic, so I can say anything. Yes.

Um Okay, wow. He's just quirky, man. He's really funky. So you want to follow this guy'cause you think he's a genius, or you just think this guy's a f a weird weirdo and you just want to see it up close? All the above. And he's living in his own world. I have friends that who uh report to him at Palantir And they love him. Like this is one of those stories where you said similarly to Ryan Holiday where you talk to people who work for him.

They all love them. They have jokes. And they I think they reference it in the article. They call them Papa Carp or Daddy Carp. Like they like revere him like this wise, like sage guy. Yeah, okay, this guy's pretty fascinating. Um okay, so Alex Carp would be your pick? Easy.

Nice. The other I I would either do someone super productive like Elon or somebody super creative like the The creators of South Park. That documentary, uh, Six Days to Air, is one of those things to watch. How hard is that like I don't want to be either of them. Both of them play the game on absolute hard mode. But if you're good you know

If I wanna break my frame I'm not gonna hang out with people who have exactly kind of like what I feel comfortable with. It's I wanna hang out with people who play the game at level twelve so I know what the hell level twelve is. And then I'll dial it back to eight or nine, which is where I like to I like to stay in that range, but I don't you won't you don't even know what an eight or nine is unless you've seen what the extreme is. I want to see the extreme of productivity in the extreme of creativity. Yeah, man, that documentary is amazing. Basically, for those who haven't seen it, I think it's on YouTube for free. South Park, which has been around for twenty five years. It's basically two guys, Matt and Trey. They come up with an uh an entire thirty minute episode.

In six days. So from idea to it being live is six days and they do that every single season and they've done for twenty five years. Which is which is unheard of. That that timeline is unheard of. Most A animated shows would be like, you know. Sort of like a it's like a family die is nine months. Six six to nine months, twelve months, that's like normal. Six days.

Just breaks your brain of how do you do that. And the way they do that is they're like They're you know. M it's like Monday, we're pitching ideas and then we grab the idea, the animators start start drawing, we go into the studio, we start doing the voices so that the animators have the dialogue, we're working out the jokes as we go. It's crazy. They also do that uh with S and L. By the way, I saw this interview with him recently, so

D uh you won't I don't know if you will know this, but I lived in Denver. And that's where they're from. And there's this restaurant that's famous there called Casa Bonita. Do you know about this Casa Bonita story? Dude, they bought it. And it's amazing. Do you know what it is, first? Was it like I know it's in this TV show, I watch it the show all the time, it was a joke in the show where it was like Cartman wanted to go there and there's like it's like is it Mexican, I guess, and there's people jumping off like cliffs into pools and there's like all you can eat Mexican food. Imagine you walk in.

To the biggest rainforest cafe you've ever seen. So you walk in and it feels like you're in a cave or some kind of like treasure hunt sort of situation. But you're says part Rainforest Cafe on steroids. Part? School lunch.

'Cause you just grab a tray and you Walk down this it's like a it's like I hear you walk down this path and then there's like These lunch ladies just putting slop on your tray. And the slop is the worst Mexican food you ever had in your life. And then you Get out till you finally exit the maze where you got your slop on your trade. You sit down

And now you're at like This table. And there's this it's this huge restaurant. That has these like a giant indoor waterfall And then there's a whole show that happens with cliff divers and they're diving into the water. There's like a

It's like a little play that's happening. So then you get Broadway. So you get Broadway at the Rainforest Cafe and like Yeah. Craziest prison lunch you've ever had. It's like an experience.

It was dying and I guess you know they're it's like a staple for anybody who lives in that area. It's like it's like a thing. And you knew if it ever died, no it would never come back.'Cause the whole idea didn't even make sense in the first place. So they bought it. For like I think a couple million bucks.

And the guy said They go he goes, So you've since had to invest in like kind of turning it around. I saw this. And he's like, Uh yeah, I invest a lot of money. He goes, How much do you invest? he goes We put in about forty million dollars to rescue this restaurant, which is just insane. And they along the way they filmed it as they were trying to rescue this thing. That turned into its own documentary. And so just a crazy, crazy story. Is the food better? The the reviews on it are like still not good.

I I don't know. I don't wanna hear any bad things about it. I d I love those guys. I love Casa Badita. I have a lot of memories for there as a kid. And I love that these guys tried to Basically the same thing that the Fertitas did with the UFC where they bought it for two million bucks and then lost forty million trying to like build the brand. They did that, but just with Casapanitos Dude, but

Yeah, I don't know if the outcome's gonna be the same, but that's pretty wild. I mean, they're like epically rich, those guys. They they're rich guys in restaurants, name a better combo. I shit. Yeah. Um all right, wanna do one more, or or is that it? Let's do this fatherhood one. So Jeremy from Austin, okay, that's uh maybe somebody you know. He says, I'm assumed to be dad. I've read all the books, I've listened to the podcast.

But I gotta hear from the boys. What advice was actually useful underline? For when you became a dad. So We all get advice what was actually useful. Dude, mine's so much easier.

Um Uh yours is gonna be like insightful and philosophical. Here's mine mine was like so easy. So you s it's it was called like the five S's, but it really could just be like two. So when a baby's crying zero to three months, you swaddle them super tight. I was shocked at how tight you need to be. Yeah. You turn them tighter than you think you're supposed to be doing. Yeah. Like you're putting this thing in a straitjacket. Like like child protective services need to be called. Like that's how like tight it feels like when you swaddle these kids. And then you hold them on their side when they're crying and you lift them up in your ear and you shush at them. But when you shush

It's super loud. Like I they when they taught me how to do it, I'm like that's gonna hurt the baby ear. And they're like, No, they this I don't know how it works. This is what they're used to hearing. You shush Really loud in their ear. And they quit crying after like twenty seconds. So it was like the swaddle sideways shush. That was very productive. All right, that's good. Um I'll tell you what doesn't help first. So when I when we got pregnant for the first time, it was like Oh, better get some sleep now.

That's not how sleep works and that doesn't do anything. Don't don't tell me that. Well, you can build it up with a bank. If they wanted to say what could you actually do before the kid comes, which is not much. It'd be like T uh hey just Take this fifteen pound dumbbell and curl it. Just hold it in the curl.

And then try to do the rest of your life. So now operate, you know, do your computer and like make food and do everything while curling this thing. Cause that's actually the only prep that would I that would have actually helped. Yeah. I I think the bigger prep is mental, uh, for at least for the dad. Here's what I think are the the three phases of fatherhood. This is my bit. I'm working on it. I'm working on a bit here, all right?

The three phases of fatherhood are I want kids. That's phrase one. I want kids, yeah. I want kids. Hell yeah.

And then phase two. Which is when you're pregnant and the baby's coming. I want kids. Right? Yeah, now that's phase two.

And then phase three, which comes A pro you think it's supposed to come when the baby's born, but it will not for most people. It comes like twelve to eighteen months later is I can't live without kids. And then that's where that's where you will get to. That's the third phase. It does come. Have faith. And so uh totally normal to have the the initial I want this.

Then the questioning and the doubt and the the panic, the freak out. Then the initial anti climatic thing where the baby's an inanimate object and you're kind of useless as a dad, you're kind of just helping the mom. Uh, you don't feel too much. That was at least my was my experience. And um That's you're kind of concerned. You're like, wait, do I not have a soul? Why why don't I feel what I'm supposed to feel about this kid? And then at sort of twelve to eighteen months, once they start to like smile and laugh or

You know, crawl, like do things like that, then you're able to Then then it turns around and you're like, I can't imagine life without without kids after that. I probably spoke to thirty guys before I had my kid and I was like what should I expect? Uh and I asked all of them a very like Blunt question, but they all understood what I meant, which was Did you love her right away, or did you love the baby right away? And of the probably seventy percent of them.

Said No, I had love. But I wasn't in love. Cared about the wall. I cared, but like there I wasn't in love. Until let's say Eight or ten months, something like that.

Um, I personally was into it because I had animals. Like it kinda replaced like a dog for me, if I'm being honest. Like or where like I love dogs and I was I I like that uh I like that type of shit. So I was into it, but I was preparing not to be into it. right away. Lowered expectations. The key to life.

I think most men aren't into their kids for You know what I mean? When when I say into, uh in love for like eight month eight months. I had a hilarious dinner with this guy and he was like, Yeah, I um Yeah, if I'm honest, it's hard I I I can't same same description I I care, but I I I guess I wouldn't say I'm like totally like head over heels, like, you know, can't live without'em type of things. It's like a roommate that you enjoy. I was like oh totally, totally normal. Turns around at you know, twelve, eighteen months.

Th Yeah, they're three. Oh, you're broken. You know what also shocked me? Like every w all of my friends after they have kids, they all Most of'em have said similar things, which is I wish I started sooner. And that shocked me. I it was always the opposite, I thought.

I I always thought it was the opposite. But I I don't waste that. I'm like I I I I'm glad I got in all the the stuff that you can only do when you're, you know, young, wild, and free. I'm glad I got that in because it's a one-way door. Once you do it, you can't there is no There's no breaks. There's no mulligans that you know, at least for me. So you know, it just seems like it's Uh

I'm glad I took the time. All right, that's this episode. We we're gonna call this mailbag. Mailbags are fun. Um questions again like this. Go to MFMPod.com and we're gonna add a contact button and you could ask questions there. Yeah, we'll add a mailbag button.

Drop'em in there. Make'em entertaining. Make'em fun. We like'em. Alright, that's it, that's the part. I feel like I can rule the world of nowhere To be what I want to

I'm putting my all in it like my day's off On the roadless travel never looking back

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