My First Million: Flying First Class, Grant Cardone, and How Sam Enraged Goldman Sachs

All right.

Quick break to tell you about another podcast that we're interested in right now, HubSpot

just launched a Shark Tank rewatch podcast called Another Bite.

Every week, the hosts relive the latest and greatest pitches from Shark Tank, from Squatty

Potty to the Mench on a Bench to Ring Doorbell, and they break down why these pitches were

winners or losers, and each company's go-to-market strategy, branding, pricing, valuation, everything.

Basically all the things you want to know about how to survive the tank and scale your

company on your own.

If you want to give it a listen, you can find Another Bite on whatever podcast app you listen

to, like Apple or Spotify or whatever you're using right now.

All right.

Back to the show.

You know, like I say, like cornrows and tattoos, or cornrows and sleeve tattoos, I respect

that others do it, but that ain't for me.

Not for me.

I have a question.

When was the last time that you have flown?

I just flew last week.

No, sorry, not last week.

Last month.

Hawaii.

Hawaii?

How about before that?

Yeah, I don't know.

When we went to Austin, Miami, something like that.

So like once a year at this point, or once every six months?

Yeah.

I'm not flying a ton right now.

When you flew to Hawaii, did you fly first class or coach?

Yeah, first.

So I went to Idaho this weekend with Ben, podcast Ben, and I spoke at an event, which

we have to talk about Convert Kids' New Thing.

And I don't like to travel.

You don't like to travel.

And this was work related.

So like they wanted me to speak at a conference, and whenever they want me to speak at a conference,

I say, yeah, that's cool.

I'll come and speak, but you have to pay for a first class flight for me and Sarah, my

wife.

I'm like, that's a fair trade.

You don't pay me to come because I like you, but like I do want you to pay for my flight

and it has to be first class because I don't like flying coach.

Well, my flights got screwed up for some reason, both ways.

And I had to fly like middle seat, like back row because like basically the flight got

canceled and they like fit me on these like last ones.

And I was flying on this and I started thinking, do you know that stereotype story of this

like rich billionaire?

And they say like, oh yeah, you know, even though he was a billionaire, he still flew

coach and like nothing changed.

Like I think the idea guys, but nothing changed.

And I think that is Amazon.

All their desks were old doors, which I tried to do.

I did that.

I did that to be cute at our office.

It cost more to do that door door expensive.

I bought this door and it was like, yeah, I bought like the shittiest door and it was

like $80.

And then we bought cinder blocks and it was like a pin in the ass of my dude.

Those things are like he had for 25 bucks.

This is way better.

Also doors aren't flat.

Doors, they're like those indents in them.

That's a stupid story.

It's like maybe like they had a door while they like folded t-shirts on that door like

for a day while they waited for the real supplies to come.

This whole like flying coach as a rich person thing.

And I'm not talking about like rich like millions or tens of millions.

I'm talking like you hear billionaires or hundreds of millions of dollars.

People say this.

I think that is total nonsense and I tweeted that I'm like, that is just a lie.

Any rich person that I'm talking like real rich who says they do that, they're lying

and I want to see proof if that's true.

And I had a bunch of really, really rich people holler at me and tell me they do it.

And so do you know who Palmer Lucky is?

So Palmer Lucky started, he created Oculus which he sold for is in the ballpark of billions

of dollars and he has a new company worth tens of billions.

So if he's not a billion, he's like, he's like right there basically, he tweeted back

out.

He's definitely a billionaire.

That guy's definitely a billionaire.

Dude, he tweeted back to me and he said, I only fly coach.

And then I had a other, I had, yeah, and I think that's crazy.

I had a other, some other people DM me, they go and who I know, the company's public and

they're like, I'm worth hundreds of millions.

And I fly first class no matter what internationally, but like I have no problem taking Southwest

if it's like a short flight and I understand that argument if it's like an hour.

If you're going from New York to LA or something, anything above three hours, I don't believe

it.

I think they're lying.

I just think they're full of it.

I asked Darmesh on HubSpot.

I'm like, do you do this?

He goes, no, that's a ridiculous thing.

Of course I don't do that.

And he like had this.

All I can say is if you're like us at the Buy First Million podcast where we are cultivating

that trillionaire mindset, that multi-trillionaire hashtag mindset, hashtag grindset, you have

to, even before you have multi-trillions, you better be flying private.

You better find private when you can't afford coach because if you can't afford your future,

can you afford your present?

And that's how I feel.

I just thought it was the most ridiculous thing when I was sitting in this seat.

I was just like, my back was sore and it was just terribly uncomfortable and it took forever

to get off the flight.

Just a vibe of the peasants that you're sitting next to is awful.

It sucked.

And I know I have a problem doing it.

I mean, I will do it.

But I'm just saying, if I'm worth hundreds of millions of dollars, what's the difference

between $1,500 and $500 ticket?

And anyone who lies and says otherwise, I think they're an idiot and they're lying.

Yeah.

So some people were like, oh, Bill Gates, I read that thread because it's pretty interesting.

They gave you a ton of examples.

They like slammed you with examples of it happening.

And I think the main thing was- They just told me fake stories.

Well, yeah.

So that's the thing.

I think the main thing that they were saying was like X person used to do this, which is

either simply just their PR team being like, hey, Bill, we need you to do a coach like

a flight here and like, you know, whatever, we'll keep your private jet and Epstein's

jet like off the radar, you know, just so we can kind of have this measure of austerity

here.

And so that, you know, I'm pretty sure it, because it works, by the way, like the fact

that so many people posted articles of billionaire flies coach, it's like, dude, that's not news,

by the way, but the fact that it's newsworthy is like more proof that this is likely a PR

scheme.

Because I've done it too.

I've been like, oh, you know, Bill, you know, Warren Buffett, you know, still drives an

old beat up, you know, 83, you know, Camry and like, oh, Sam Bankford Fried, he's the

newest young billionaire.

And did you know that he only eats bananas and sleeps on a beanbag and, you know, these

stories work.

They're like worth telling, which makes me think this is like a PR scheme.

But the other interpretation was they did it so that they could like tell the company,

okay, from the top down, we're all being frugal.

We're not wasteful.

So like, you know, mister, you know, senior director of business development is not like,

you know, flying first, you know, to every country.

I understand that.

But it's like, dude, you and your three kids are taking your vacation to France and you're

going to fly coach on Spirit Airlines.

Yeah.

Now that ain't that ain't going to happen.

Like that is you're lying.

You're lying.

It's an absolute lie.

Show me your Ryanair receipts.

If you're really doing this, like show me your Spirit Airlines frequent fire miles history.

If you expect me to believe this, like, dude, I've sat in Spirit Air and I've had the pilot

come out mid-flight and rearrange the seating because someone was too fat and had to like,

hey, we need to do a two for one trade.

You need to get to the left side of the plane and then two of y'all need to move to the

right.

We need better balance.

Like that's, unless you've done that, you don't have that trillionaire energy.

Yeah.

You know that on pontoon boats, like where you have like, where you have people in the

back.

You're like, hey, you guys got so much seats.

Those boats go to little sideways, but I've never done that on the plane.

I didn't even think it was real.

I thought the pilot was joking and it wasn't a joke.

They literally were like, we need to rebalance.

I was like, Jesus Christ.

Let me tell you about one more interesting thing.

Another rich guy thing.

So you know who Grant Cardone is.

Of course.

I know Grant.

I met Grant.

So I'm not going to like even comment on if I like him or not, but I will.

I like him.

Okay.

That's cool.

I don't entirely dislike him.

I don't dislike him.

I don't really like.

I don't like everything he does and I like a lot of what he does.

And but I kind of paid him as this guy that was kind of like in the internet marketing

world, just selling like talking like cheat books and cheat courses and if you're so rich,

why are you selling a course?

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A question I've asked myself many times also.

Yes.

Speak it up.

And it's like a course available.

Sign up today, go to maven.com and sign up baby.

Markets down.

Daddy needs a new course.

I was thinking about that.

I'm like, all right, if this is this course guy and he has this like, he's wearing all

these nice suits.

Like, is that legit?

Is that real?

And I was reading an article in the New York Times and it was about these Malibu homes

and how like these crazy rich guys are coming in and buying these homes.

And Grant Cardone was one of the features and they didn't feature him as Grant Cardone.

They were like, another local buyer is motivational speaker and real estate entrepreneur Grant

Cardone.

And, you know, he was just like a guy they were interviewing, not like this internet.

And he recently bought a house in Malibu.

I think it was for $60 million.

And he was like, I'm going to spend another, I forget, tens of millions of dollars renovating

it.

And that's one of those things that when you see people, what they spend on their personal

real estate, you know, I mean, it's hard to fake that.

And I'm just thinking, who would have thought that those things that he's selling would

make that much wealth is that's pretty, that's pretty crazy, isn't it?

You know, it's even crazier.

So the one time I talked to Grant Cardone for an extended period of time, like we had

like, I don't know, a 40 minute conversation, 20 minutes of it was on why buying a house

is so stupid and why he rents everything.

And he was going off like people were like, oh, your penthouse is rented that you're in.

He's like, yeah, bro, your house is not an asset.

Why would I buy a house?

And he was like, I, he's like, I buy real estate that pays me brother.

And he's like, you know, um, yeah, I rent this penthouse.

I always rent, I rent everything.

I want to be able to move.

I want to live in the place I like.

And I take my money and I put it to work.

You see that over there?

That's my money working and you know, because he's a big time showman, right?

And so what is it like down the bills, like digging holes, I don't like what's he pointing

at?

He's like, he's like, hold on, brother, I can't hear you.

I got something in my ear.

It's a voice teller is asking me one question.

Who's got my money?

And that's what I got to ask every, every morning I wake up and I looked at the heavens

and I say, who's got my money?

And then I go and I get that money from them.

I was like, whoa, this is incredible.

Wait, where'd you, where'd you hang out with them for 45 minutes?

So he used to use blab, the same product that where I met Martin Shkreli, I've, it attracted

a whole bunch of grifters and a Grant Cardone was there and I was like, all right, who's

that?

I would go into all the rooms that had a big following.

I was like, okay, this guy's driving a bunch of growth and engagement.

Your power user.

Who are you?

And sure enough, like, you know, it was, it was often, you know, people who are, are

you know, somewhat controversial.

That's who people like to watch live stream.

And so Grant would go on there and he would do his 10 X meetups and he would just see

people come in.

They're like, I've got to keep doing my, it was so if you haven't gone into this world,

by the way, you need to spend three hours and I need you to love watching his videos.

He's got great videos.

Watch his, watch his community because you'll be like, wow, this is like the Kool-Aid drinker.

So they would come on.

They'd be like, Grant, they put up the uncle G. Uncle G. What's up, man?

What's up, brother?

And they'd be doing the 10 X, 10 X.

All right.

Thank you so much for all the content, man.

I was, I was broke and homeless.

I used to eat McDonald's wrappers instead of the food.

And now I just had, I got a Ruth Chris subscription membership and I just want to say thank you

and had a question for you, right?

So they would do this.

And then it'd be one after another of Grant, Grant, 10 X, 10 X brother.

Just want to thank you before I was thinking where the sky is the limit and now the sky

is the floor.

Am I right?

Amen, brother.

And so they were doing this stuff and I was like, wow, these people are like really like,

these are the converted, right?

So a lot of people really found value in this thing because this wasn't like a recorded

testimonial.

This is a live stream where random people are calling in and it'd be very hard to like

fake this.

And they're wearing the hat.

They're holding up the books.

They're like, they're really like to stuff.

And I had never heard of this guy.

He's like, in the tech world, you don't, you don't know who this character is, right?

Like in your, if you're in real estate, you know, if you're in the motivational self,

self-help thing, you know, but he's not even like, like, Tai Lopez crossed all boundaries.

People like all knew who he was.

Grant Cardin's like, not like that.

So that's the first thing you should watch.

The great thing is he does these deal breakdowns.

Very interesting to watch.

So he's sitting at a, at a table and it's like, you know, what's that guy Ramsey, Dave Ramsey,

who like you called in and you're like, Dave, I make $80,000 a year and I got student debt.

Like what should I do?

And he's like, save your money.

And so people do that with Grant.

They're like, Hey, Grant, I got $200,000.

I'm looking at a property.

The address is 3909, you know, West Boise Street in Idaho, whatever.

And then he'll go and he, he basically Googles it and he's got a whiteboard behind him.

And he basically, he's like talking to the guy.

He's like, all right.

So what are you putting down?

All right.

What terms are they giving you?

And he basically like workshops the deal with them.

He like kind of like, sort of like a speed version of underwriting the deal live.

And I've actually learned a bunch from it.

Like I'm sure somebody who's like, you know, a real estate master is probably like, oh,

this is all just like, this is the Jim Kramer of like real estate here where he's saying

things that make it sound smart, but he's actually not considering a XYZ.

But just from a like, if you're a beginner in real estate, which I am, you will learn

a bunch and you'll be entertained just in the style that he does things.

So I like that.

The last thing he's like, it's like the, he's, he's got like pro wrestling vibes.

Yeah, exactly.

And that's why I'm doing the personages because I'm like, why I said I like him, I like him

because he's entertaining.

Like I like him because I've learned some stuff and I've been very entertained through

the rest.

Like, have you seen these videos on YouTube where he just does sales calls for an hour?

I have.

I think I, they're so good.

I think they're fake.

Yeah.

It might be fake because he'll be like, he's always pulling a rabbit out of a hat and you're

like, oh, dude, it's like a pickup artist.

It's like, you watch their video, you're like, oh my God, you know, she was, uh, she was

like literally just, she was running, she was getting into her cab, but he said this

one thing and then she got out of the cab and started talking to him.

This guy's amazing.

And you're like, wait a minute, maybe he's just like edited like three really good ones

out of 500 failures into this video.

That's kind of what it feels like, but he's doing an hour of continuous sales calls and

so it might be scripted where the guy on the other line is like, yeah, I'll say yes.

Just call me.

Yeah.

We'll play.

We'll play here.

It's like the TV show Pawn Stars.

You're telling me like, holy shit.

In one day you had a guy come in with like a, like a civil war gun, a guy who had Napoleon's

hat and another guy that owns a Picasso all in Las Vegas coming into a pawn shop.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

It's like, dude, the undertaker was dead and then he came back to life and won the match.

It's like, yeah, you're falling for a scripted drama.

Right?

Like, so it might be that, but nonetheless, these sales calls are very entertaining to

listen to.

And like, they're, it's obviously like very Wolf of Wall Street style, like macho sales.

But I like to see it because I've never seen anything like that.

Like, first of all, I don't do phone sales.

That's not like, it's not even like in my life.

Secondly, I don't know people who are as ridiculous as Grant Cardone and are willing

to say things as ridiculous as Grant Cardone.

And third, like, this is not a style of communication or sales ship.

I've, I think you can read or study or into it.

And so it's just nice to like see it.

So anyways, I've, I've gone down these rabbit holes of Grant Cardone and I've come out the

other side being like, yeah, he is definitely self-promoting and he's making most of his

money, it seems like, on the like, the brand and not the like meat and bones of his business.

But you know, respect, he hustles really hard.

He's a good self-promoter and he is smart and like, you know, he does well.

So, you know, I don't think that, you know, you're not learning from somebody who's a

hack.

Like he's somebody.

I don't think he's a hack.

I don't think he's a hack at all.

I think maybe.

The criticism isn't that.

Well, I think maybe I just don't always agree in his values, but I don't think he's lying.

Right.

I think the criticism would not be this guy is dumb or lazy or anything like that.

The criticism would be he's just selling you, you know, a bag of dreams basically and like,

you know, he makes his money on people who want to be him and want to be like him and

they're not really going to be like him and he's sort of like, you know, promoting that

dream.

I would say that that's probably true, but I think that's true of a lot of things in

life.

Like that's true of Nike also, like when I go buy Nike sneakers, you know, because Michael

Jordan wore them.

Do I really think Michael Jordan's a scumbag for, you know, I'm not, he's not tricking

me into thinking I can, I can be like Mike, but yeah, that is actually what the commercial

literally says.

Dude, I'm, I'm working on this new thing and I want to tell you two things about it.

I'm working on this new business and I'm like, I'm still like MVPing it out and making sure

it's legit.

And I, I, I've got six figures in revenue now, six figures of cash in the bank.

And it was all from phones from calling, calling constantly, no website, a type form

and calling them and then setting a stripe link.

So what's if, what are you doing that's effective on the call?

Give me the, give me the strategy of the call without sharing.

So I'm not, I'm not really selling.

So basically the thing that I'm, I'm making like a community for a particular salesman

claim.

Yeah.

I'm not going to sell you anything.

Well, because, because here's, here's the thing, no offense, but of sales.

So the place where the business is at right now, which is like, I only want like, let's

say 50 people to join right now.

I don't want a lot of people to join cause I want to make sure that it's like legit

and good.

And also because it's an exclusive like private paid community, I need to make sure that like

each person actually can provide value for one another.

So I can't just let anyone in.

I can only let in the type of person who makes the next person feel, yeah, feel more value

right as they came in.

So in a way I'm like, no, like I'm, I really like, I don't know if I have space for you.

I don't know if we can make this work.

But we, we may be.

And that's why I'm here to interview you to see if this will be a good fit for you.

And that's basically what I'm doing.

And I also, you're using the bullshit line, but this time it's not actually bullshit.

It's real.

Yeah.

I guess that's true, but like, I don't know how to explain it.

It is true.

Like we only have a certain, I can only make it truly work for a few amount of people.

Otherwise it sucks.

And so remember how we interviewed the chief folks, she said that they had 60,000 people

apply, but they only have like 10 or 15,000 members.

So I kind of believe it.

But anyway, I'm working on it.

And I went to this, I'm starting it with my friend Joe and we did something interesting

the other day.

And when I had started companies in the past, I did, I partnered with the wrong people,

not every time, but sometimes.

And the mistake that I'm trying to not make this time is basically making sure I partner

with the right folks.

When we did this thing.

You're saying partner like business partner, not like an external partnership.

You're talking about like your co-founder type of thing.

Business partner, like someone who you give a substantial amount of equity to, which is

very similar to a marriage.

And I actually did this in my marriage, but I've never done this in a business partner.

But we basically like said, like, Hey, like separately, write down three things, write

down what like, what does success look like to you in 10 years?

What are you willing to give up in order to achieve that?

And like just your day to day, like what, what do you value and how do you want to get

there?

And so we each wrote that down and we came together and we're like, all right, here's

all the things that are important to me.

Let's look at what's important to you.

Oh, wow.

They actually align really nicely.

This thing doesn't align.

Is that a game breaker for you?

And then there was another thing that we went through scenarios where like, let's say your

Lance Armstrong, it's 1999.

You know that everyone's cheating and you have to cheat if you want to win.

What are you going to do?

Right.

Like how do you want to play?

Like what do you want to play?

I'm not going to write a wrong answer, but it's just like, let's just see how our values

align in different scenarios.

And so anyway, we've been doing this thing where we're like trying to figure out why

won't this partnership work?

Let's get all that out of the way at first.

And it has been awesome.

More people should do this.

Have you ever done this?

I have actually done that, which is so funny you say this.

We did something so similar.

We sort of stumbled upon it organically in our first business because the first business

I ever created was that sushi business.

And the idea was to create like a Chipotle like restaurant chain for sushi.

And so we're going about it.

We've been at this at this point, we've been doing it for, I don't know, six to nine months,

something like that.

So we're not like, it's not like, it's not like day one.

We've already already committed, we already have the equity splits and we're all best

friends.

We've known each other for four years.

So like, surely we know everything about each other, right?

And a smarter business person, kind of like a mentor type dude was like, at this time,

we were really big on mentors.

And he was like, oh, he was like, you know, how aligned are you guys?

He's like, if I, so it was the guy we wanted to partner with the chef.

He was like, he flew each of us out one by one to LA and hung out with us.

And he told us he was like, yeah, I feel like all of you guys say the same words, but they

mean different things.

And I was like, what do you mean?

He goes, like, you all be like, you know, oh man, this, what really matters is that we

do this like the right way.

He's like, but I think you all have a different definition of the right way.

Or like, we, yeah, we all want this to be a success.

I think if I asked you what do you mean by success, like put a number, put a time frame

around it.

Like, I bet you it's all different.

And so we came on, we, he told, he gave us that feedback and we did it.

We did the same exercise we go.

I created a list of questions and we all went sat in our corner of the room silently and

we wrote our answers and then we came in, we compared and Jesus, they were so different.

Me and one guy were pretty aligned and the third guy, and we all thought we were all

totally aligned.

And the third guy, his was like, wait, different, and the biggest differences were like timescale.

Like how long do you, how long do you expect to work on this before we see any, like, any

like tangible success?

What are your expectations on that?

And then what would be a win for you?

And it was like, one guy was like, oh man, like if I could be making six figures and

like, you know, and, you know, I'll do this forever.

And then I was like, oh dude, I want to like, I want to make $10 million in, you know, three

years.

And the other guy was like somewhere in the middle.

And then we were like, oh wow, like we all have a, like you would be happy with one path

and I would be completely unhappy if that same thing, we both are, and if we didn't

talk about it, our definition of success would have been very different.

And the same thing with values of like what for one, for two of us, it was super important.

Like, look, I don't know if this business is going to work or not, but I want to do

it our way.

Like the thing that makes this fun for me, like there's a lot of shitty components to

doing this business.

The part that makes me like want to wake up and do it every day is that I feel like we're

putting our own stamp on this.

And for the other guy, he's like, yeah, that's cool, but like, I don't really care about

that.

And we're like, oh shoot, it's important to know how important it is because-

So did it work?

We were going to spend a bunch of energy doing it.

Yeah.

Well, it was clarifying.

Like we were sort of at the point of no return.

I mean, the partners, well, that's why I'm saying you got to do this early on because

this, in a way, a business partnership is actually more of a commitment than a marriage

because with the marriage, you can just like end it and be over with a business, screwing

up your cap table and someone owning a portion of your, I mean, that could be, it's just

a, it's just kind of an irreversible decision.

And the only way that you reverse it is by spending a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot,

a lot of money.

Yeah.

Like what we did, what was lucky for us was that we were all 21 years old, so we were

all like a blank slate.

It's like, dude, I don't know.

This was just my first thought.

I'm not like married to this, to this belief system, you know, like something, it was very

few things that we were like, no, I am certain and I'm stubborn on that point.

Now in my life, if I said something, if I made, if I answered 10 questions, eight out

of the 10 would be things I'm like, no, I stand by that.

Like that's really, that is what I've thought this through and that's what I believe.

Back then it was like, I don't know.

I hadn't really thought about it, but if you had, now you're asking me to articulate it.

So I'll just say these things.

So what happened in our thing was we kind of, we would all hear each other's answers and

then we would be like, oh, I like that.

That's right.

Let's all agree to align on that.

And we were like, yeah, yeah.

Like, sure, that sounds better.

I don't know what the fuck I was thinking it was that wasn't, I'm not married to that.

And so it worked for us because it got us to like get to a right answer versus who's

right.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

This exercise that I've been doing with Joe, we should publish this by the way, because

you know, we, I think we talked about this one time was like some New York Times article

that was like 17 questions.

You should ask your future spouse or something like that.

Like before it was like, it was like 27 questions to ask on the first date and like as a single

guy who just wanted to like meet girls, I was like, oh, I'm just going to ask or it was

like 27 questions to like make someone fall in love with you or something like that.

And it was like for like relationships.

And I was like, oh, I'm asking every woman out in this like, this is the first day question.

This is the first hour, first day question.

And I remember doing it like three times and like, let's fuckers at them.

New York Times.

I didn't know what the hell they're talking about.

None of these people like me.

Okay.

Yeah.

Maybe I misremembered something.

But I do think it would be useful.

Whatever you and Joe just did, because I did this like, I don't know, 10, 12 years ago

now, I think you did it just like last month.

So you should definitely like compile these so that more people can can do this because

it'll save, it'll straight up save people years of pain in their life if they like can identify

some of these things up front versus just rushing in to the co-founding.

Yeah.

I mean, I, I like, it was like, all right, so here's what I want just in my personal life.

And then I put like a net worth.

I said, I want, I want to have a seat at the big boys table and I want people to think

that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to business.

I want freedom.

I want to be able to live in different cities with my family.

I want to be present in my children's lives.

I want to own a bunch of real estate.

I want to have fun and adventure.

And I want to work like really hard for three or four weeks or for six or seven months.

And then I want to chill for like three months.

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And then it was like, all right, and ways I want to get there is I want to build this

particular business.

I don't want to boss.

I don't want to have any meetings.

I want to have few, if any, employees reporting to me.

And then it was the ways in which I'm going to approach this particular business.

I want to be incredibly aggressive about it.

I want to treat it like a job.

So we're working 40 hours a week on it.

I want to have close to no standing meetings, few employees.

And basically that's it.

Yeah.

Oh, and a revenue target of $100 million in five years.

I don't care if we actually hit that, but I want that to be the target.

And then he like answered similarly on a lot of those.

It's like, all right, there is like some alignment here.

Nice.

Nice.

Okay.

I like that.

And yeah.

Okay.

I think, yeah, I think you should, I think you should publish some of those things.

Also the Lance Armstrong things.

I think those are, if nothing else, like it doesn't, it doesn't really matter, but it's

like at least knowing how the other person is wired and being like, am I okay with this?

Am I okay with the weird psychology of this person?

I think it's not so much that do all of our answers match just like in a marriage.

It's not, do we believe, do we think the same way about everything?

It's like, do we think the same way about the really important things?

All right.

So what did you say?

Would you, would you, if you're in the Lance situation, what do you do?

For sure.

Cheat.

You basically have two options.

You either exit the sport or you cheat, right?

Like it's not even cheating at that point.

When everybody is doing it, it's just the new normal, right?

Like there's not a, it'd be one thing if it's like, is if one person's cheating and

they're winning and everybody else is clean, would you, would you cheat to try to win or

would you stay clean?

It was like, my belief is that all these Olympic sports plus pretty much all professional

sports are full of PDs and like, you know, it's just a, it's just a naiveness test,

whether you believe that people are clean or not.

It's like, in the same way it's like, oh my God, what percentage of NBA players you think

cheat on their wife?

It's like, like, you know, I don't know.

But yeah, the answer is yes, not a, not a number.

And so like, there might be one outlier and like, cool, you know, credit to that person

for, for being the, the, you know, the, the outlier, the AC green of this, but, but I

think the same thing with cheating.

So yeah, that one's an easy one for me.

Dude, you want to, you've got some, you want to like quickly go through some of your topics

or do you want to talk about a company that I had listed that, what do you want to do?

Let's do one of yours and then we'll be one of mine, we'll finish up.

All right.

Have you heard of this company called N2 Publishing?

No.

What do they do?

The reason I like this story is because they're succeeding wonderfully in a place that everyone

thought that it was impossible to succeed.

So it's called N2 Publishing.

They just rebranded it like last week to stroll and it's basically neighborhood magazines.

So magazines and like upscale neighborhoods and I'm almost positive they have like 800

of these or 650 of them, but they're all print.

So it's like in your, in, in like Danville or in like the nice suburb, I don't even know

what the, like the very specific neighborhood you're in, what it would be called.

I don't live there, but Blackhawks.

Are you in Black?

No, no, but Blackhawks is an example of a nice neighborhood in Danville.

So what they do is they send you a magazine like once a month and it's just a magazine.

It's like a bulletin.

It's like a, it's like a newsletter.

I don't know what you want to call it, but it's literally physically a magazine and

the company has like 250 employees.

Most all the employees are ad sales people and they hire someone and not exactly hire.

They frant, it's a franchise.

So someone who lives in Blackhawk pays like five or 10 grand to become the official publisher

of that area.

And that person has to gather a couple of stories every single month, but like the stories really

are like, they're not that good, but it's just like people, there's this old like idea

with local publishing where like, dude, people don't care about the writing.

They literally just want to see people they know and their friends and places they know

in a newspaper and you could just list all their names and they would like that.

And that's kind of what they do.

And it's just like a magazine every month and it says, here's what's going on.

Like, you know, the local high school had their graduation and like eight people went

to Stanford.

Like this new restaurant opened and the guy's a Greek immigrant and he's bringing some of

his Greek like taste to the area and like the Fed is amazing.

And like that, it just like goes from thing to thing.

So anyway, it's a bootstrap business that's been around for like 18 years and they announced

that they're doing like $150 million a year in revenue and they've been profitable every

single year and they don't have a website.

So like, or the HQ has a website, but each individual magazine, there's no website.

It's 100% done through, through paper and everything that they're doing is something

that you would say like it can't be done and it's kind of killing it.

It's kind of it's kind of a major business.

Isn't this why?

So how did you get these numbers today?

Is it something public that like, do they have all their numbers?

Yeah.

So if you Google stroll Axios, they just did a big announcement on Axios last week where

the founder and the CEO kind of get he gave the revenue.

So we do $130 million in revenue.

We have 18,000 plus advertisers.

We've been profitable every single year.

We expect revenue to double every four years.

That wasn't, I believe an exact quote.

And we're just expanding to all these cities and we changed our name from N2 to stroll.

It's kind of a really fascinating story.

I guess if it's doubling every five years, that means it's growing what like 10 or 15%

a year.

So it's not like killing it, but it's doing pretty good.

Yeah.

That's 14% a year.

Wow.

This is, I mean, you've done it again.

A Sampar special, like how do you find these businesses?

This is amazing.

It's pretty wild.

No, literally.

That's a real question.

How did you find this business?

I just read like, there's this blog I read called flash and flames.

There's this blog I read called flash and flames.

If you Google flash and flames, it's just some guy named Colin in England who just writes

about cool B2B media companies.

And I just read like loads of trade publications like trade publications that has like literally

500 website visits a day, like the most niche stuff I read it.

And if you Google it, it's hard to even find their website.

The only way you find it is you type, the CEO's name is Dwayne Hixon.

And so you have to type in like N2 because there's like 10 or 20 companies called N2.

N2 and then Dwayne Hixon.

And that's how I found it.

And when I did a little research on him, I think it's heavily rooted in Christian stuff

because their mission is like to bring, like to create jobs and value people and to bring

glory to God.

And we're just so happened to be doing it through like creating this like newspaper

thing.

That's our podcast mission or the stairs?

Both.

So anyway, like it's just kind of an interesting guy outside of our world.

Really fascinating.

This is great.

I wonder how many more of these there are.

Like I could imagine somebody doing fricking doctor's office daily or doctor's office monthly

or whatever doctor's office magazine and you just go to every doctor's office and you're

like, Hey, here's, you know, this awesome magazine for whatever for doctors who run

their practices.

And you just, if you eat the cost of the print, then you're like, you could basically go to

advertisers and pharmaceutical companies and be like, Hey, yeah, we have 15,000 doctors

offices that read and subscribe to our thing and, you know, you should advertise.

Here's the thing.

Like selling local ads.

So they're selling like the advertisers, advertisers are like local dentists, local

realtors selling ads to those types of people is really hard because you're selling like

$500 ads.

That's a hard business.

You just have to be like, smile and dial, you know, you got to do it constantly.

So like maybe they threw that whole God stick in there because they're like, but you're

doing it for the will of God, therefore you have to be like, that's the only way

that you can motivate someone in order to like be on the phone all day selling a $500

ad to Kathy in Scottsdale, Arizona about coming to her open house.

That's a hard sell.

That's a grind.

That's a grind.

Ben did it for two years.

He probably wouldn't want to do it for three or four more years.

It's a hard job.

But what I'm saying is if you did this for other, just say other like subgroups, right?

So like doctors office, you wouldn't then need to advertise locally because you could

advertise like to all the companies that sell to medical professionals.

Or like if I created, you know, Ecom, you know, Shopify mag, right?

And I sell, I send this to every Shopify owner's home and I'm just putting out like

awesome case studies about e-commerce and just cool like stories of brands or whatever.

And then I just go tell Klaviyo and PostScript and like every e-commerce company, every company

that sells to Ecom stores, like every Shopify app, I'm like, yeah, you should advertise

in this thing.

Like, you know, pretty like, pretty like hyper targeted distribution.

Basically, the question is, is this better than a newsletter?

Like, you know, you know, both spaces.

We know that Andrew's doing this local news thing, but for not neighborhoods, but it's

for like local cities and he's doing it through newsletter, right?

His company Overstory.

What's better, this magazine idea or newsletters in your opinion?

So I actually think that's the wrong question because what's quite interesting is that they're

selling a franchise, which is very weird for a media company.

That is actually the more interesting thing.

Do I think that this, I think this is an awesome business.

Do I think it's better than a newsletter?

No, I would probably do that, the newsletter, but I would consider doing it this way where

you're like, you're like, Hey, like we have 10,000 people already pre signed up for this

small neighborhood in Arizona.

If you want to, you want to buy this list from us as a publisher, it's a $10,000 buy-in

and we'll monetize it for you and you get 15% of all the revenue that we sell, but you

got to make sure that you put it out all the time.

That's kind of an intriguing business model.

Do I think that it's better because it's in print?

I definitely think it's potentially more interesting.

I think the ad rates could potentially be higher because I think that like it is actually

quite cool to hold and see something.

I think it's a very fascinating business model.

I think you could also do this with a lot of different things.

What is the, do they say anything about the cost of actually the print and the delivery?

You have to print in mail magazines, which is kind of cost you something.

That's like the biggest difference from, like a newsletter, you get the tracked clicks and

you get, no, you have no hard costs for the shipping and the printing of the magazine.

Do you know at all what that costs?

No, I don't.

They didn't reveal too much, but they basically said that their national team has editorial

oversight on what's published to ensure editorial, editorial standards are nonpartisan and community

focused news.

They keep a cut of all ad revenue.

They have local operators.

So the people who run the local papers, the local magazine use Stroll's national printing,

copy editing and operational resources and the company distributes the magazine for free

in readers mail.

Right.

It's pretty, it's pretty fascinating.

It's an interesting business.

You know what else is kind of interesting?

I do hear what ConvertKit, so ConvertKit is like a mail chip competitor.

I went to the conference this weekend.

It's a email platform.

I think you use them, right?

Yeah, I use them.

Do you see the thing they low key announced something that's kind of amazing.

So and the reason this is actually quite fascinating.

They launched this thing where they now hired an ad sales team and they're going to go out

and sell ads and they're going to give you, Sean, the user, 85% of the revenue that they

go and sell.

Yeah, this is smart.

I was always wondering why the like email platforms don't do this because once you start

your newsletter, you're like, all right, cool.

You get people being like, Hey, can I sponsor it?

You're like, yeah.

And then you de facto become ad sales.

And guess what?

You're like, not great at it because you're not doing it full time.

It sucks.

And you would happily pay somebody a 15% commission for filling your ad spots and doing it well.

And I was always thinking like, you know, a sort of a mail champ, a beehive ConvertKit,

like, why aren't they just making this their business model?

Like in addition to their SaaS revenue of like paying for the email stuff, like couldn't

they, you know, ConvertKit's at pretty significant scale.

Like I wonder how big this is going to be for them.

Dude, listen to this.

The hustle, there was a period of time where Trung was on fire and he was our only writer.

We had like people that would kind of fill in when he was sick, but basically he wrote

the email by himself every day for like eight months.

And we were doing over a million dollars a month in revenue.

And there was one Trung and there was like 20 ad sales people.

That's ridiculous.

That is crazy.

It was pretty crazy.

And then we had like Adam, so we had like four, uh, like growth marketers.

So like, but that business could have been Trung and like four growth marketers and it

could have been making over a million dollars a month.

And but it had, we had like eight or 10 or five, I don't remember exactly ad sales people.

And then each like four ad sales person needs an operations person.

And then like, uh, uh, editors to edit the ad, it was like, uh, like Morning Brew, I

think has 250 people.

I don't know for a fact.

I would bet you that Morning Brew has 30 editorial people and 220 ad sales or ad sales related

people.

Well, this doesn't matter to overhead, but like, so with your ad sales, yeah, made it

to me the set, the sellers, when you, when you had your ad team, you had, you probably

had like some commission structure or whatever, right?

Like, um, hey, yeah, 4% yeah.

So, so how did you come up with them and basically what, well, so what was your comp model?

And then what is, what was like the overhead?

So the fact that you employed them versus them just being, let's say like with Convert

Kit, for example, if I write a newsletter, I'm not paying for the overhead, I'm only

paying for the placement.

I'm not paying this 15% placement fee once they, once they get me an ad, right?

That's their commission.

Well, Convert Kit.

Did you spend more or less than that in overall ad sales for the hustle, do you think?

So we basically, when we kind of were getting going, we had two salaries, like the entry

level people.

So the people who were like, um, two or three years, uh, of experience.

And then we had the higher people, which for us was like five or six years experience.

So still not a lot of experience, but I was only 24 when I started.

So it was basically like a 22 year old and like a 27 year old.

Like those are like, do you get my jokes or do you not get my jokes?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, uh, the, the earlier ones, uh, the younger guys, it was like around, it ranged

from like 50 to $70,000 a year in base salary.

And then the upper guys got like a hundred to like 120,000 a year in base salary.

And the upper guys there, it was expected that they would sell, I forget exactly, but

between one to $1.5 million a year and ad revenue, and they would get four, either four

or four and a half percent of that, uh, the younger guys, their expectations was that

they were going to sell between 500 and like 900.

We had some sellers like this woman, Katie, who would sell, I believe the year we sold,

she was going into the year with like 2.5 million booked 2.5 million.

So, but, um, so basically, but then they had to get 75% of their quota.

So if their quota was $1 million, if they hit only $600,000, they only got their base

salary.

If they hit 75% of their quota, that's when the 4% started kicking in.

And then if they got 101%, then the kickers would go up and they would start making a

lot of money.

So the highest paid person at our company oftentimes was a ad seller.

And do you remember like, did you just look at like, uh, what is our percent of revenue

that we're paying out in commissions?

Like did you have like, cause let's just say the easy apples to apples math is, let's

say ConvertKit launches this thing.

It's 15% as that's your, that's your cost of ad sales, basically, um, if, if they placed

all your ads, do you remember what you did over simplify it?

Yeah.

You could oversimplify it by saying, uh, 4.4% of total ad revenue and then just assume

$100,000 ahead plus.

So let's say that you've got 10 sellers doing 10 million.

So that's, uh, uh, 100,000 per salary for 10 people.

That's $1 million.

And then the commissions would be 4% of 10 million.

So 400,000.

So 1.4 million people, $1.4 million for 10 ad sales people for 10 million in revenue.

Um, but then of course there was like, uh, some account executives who would help with

that and then like, uh, operations people.

But yeah, that's basically it.

Bro, you just did a shitload of public math and, um, I forgive you.

Um, because you're my friend, um, you know, we don't do public math, but that's easy.

So for you to just do that, listen, it's just not who we are.

It's not what we do.

Did you follow?

I, I, I tried to follow, but it's like you're speaking another language.

You, you, you did it right.

10 million in revenue.

You did it right too.

10 million in revenue.

Right.

Which is about the same as theirs.

Right.

So you, for all that headache of employing all those people, you saved like 1% let's

say of like the commission rate.

Now maybe you would feel higher or maybe, maybe you'd do a better job than like the

centralized service would probably, I would guess, but, um,

But here's why it's also a better model.

One time we had like Goldman Sachs or something as an advertiser and we had a story on fuck

Jerry and how fuck Jerry fuck Jerry is like this meme Instagram account that says like

funny stuff.

They like launched like fuck Jerry news or something like that.

And I was like, Oh, well, let's, for this email, by the way, every single sentence,

let's use the word fucking it.

And then like another time we talked about Donald Trump and we're like this entire email,

let's write it in the voice of Donald Trump.

So like if you read it to yourself, it sounds like Donald Trump and Goldman Sachs got really

mad at us and they're like, you said fuck like literally 84 times in this email.

Like we were not sponsoring you anymore.

And I was like, well, good fuck off.

Like I don't care about you.

Like, you know, screw your fuck you, but Katie sold the ad and her commission was going to

get lost.

Like, okay, I don't want to hurt you.

So I'm willing to like not say certain stuff just because I don't want you to experience

the pain.

But I don't give a shit about that brand.

If they want to like, you know, muzzle us screw them.

So now with this new with this new setup, it actually could be a lot more advantageous

for the creator.

Yeah.

Katie's amazing.

By the way, we, we work with her too.

She's really good.

So so what are the, do we want to do another one or are we going to wrap it?

We can do one more maybe.

Let's do.

Okay.

Let me just do a.

Do you have an idea or a life hack?

A life hack.

All right.

So, so Ben, business partner, Ben, not podcast, Ben, um, you know, Ben, I might just refer

to you as God's Ben and the other Ben, I'm going to have to say is it's not God's Ben.

So not God's Ben was, it was in town way, he's, you got to come, come Yahweh and Jesus.

So, so he's visiting and I was like, um, and so, you know, it's always interesting, right?

Like in one way, you know, he, he came, you know, basically stays in my house.

We hang out for the week and we get a bunch of stuff done.

So he gets to see a bunch of stuff in my world about how I live life.

And I'm sure that's, you know, somewhat interesting to him where he sees some things.

He's like, oh, wow.

Thank God I don't do them that way.

And other things he's probably like, oh, that's cool.

Like maybe I should be more like that.

And the, but the same thing happened for me because Ben, um, on the last day I see Ben

and he's like, I'm like, oh yeah, you know, you're just packing up.

What are you doing?

Oh, what are you writing down?

Cause he's like hunched over his table and he's right.

He's like, got a pen out and he's writing something by hand, which is not like, you

know, we do everything on our computer.

So I was like, what are you writing out?

And I noticed he's not holding the pen.

He's holding a marker and he's drawing.

And I was like, Ben, what are you doing, man?

What are you drawing?

And he's, he's drawing like a birthday card, basically on a giant piece of paper.

And he's got six of them and he's drawn all these cards.

And I'm like, what is this?

It's like my daughter's birthday.

What are you doing?

He's like, no, it's my dad's birthday.

And he's like, ah, it's that family tradition we have.

He goes, every time it's someone in our family's birthday, we all get out of, get out like

paper and markers and we draw them like birthday cards and it'll be like, you know, inside

jokes or like, uh, dad, you're the man for this reason that, you know, I, we always say

that you got the best, whatever, you know, just, you got the best calves and so he draws

a picture of him with like huge calves or whatever, right?

You love this.

You love the sons.

Here's a picture of Chris Paul holding a birthday cake for you, singing you happy birthday,

like this player on the sons.

And so it's just like, whatever, it's just goofy.

And I saw it and I was like, this is amazing.

And like everything he's told me about his dad, by the way, his dad listens a lot.

So shout out to, shout out to Andy.

His dad's amazing.

And like, I'll tell you one thing is amazing about his dad is he's like, so his dad's

a huge Phoenix sons fan.

So has been, I'm like, Oh, did you get it from your dad?

Like your dad, you know, growing up as a huge fan.

So that's why you are.

He's like, no, it's the opposite.

Growing up, my dad didn't really care about basketball or the sons.

And I got super into it.

And he's like, my dad just does this thing where like whatever each of his kids is into,

he like, he's like, all right, I'm into it too.

And like, not just like that's great dad move, great dad move, right?

And so I was like, holy shit, I didn't even think I'm a dad now.

So I'm like, I didn't even think about that.

He's like, he's not just supportive because I think that's, that's normal.

The common would be your supportive.

Oh, you like this?

Great.

Good.

Yeah.

Go on.

Do your thing.

I'll, I'll show up at your game and I'll kind of be, you know, doing the crossword on

my, on my, you know, in my lap because I'm bored.

It's not my thing.

His dad's the opposite.

He's like, oh, we like that.

You like the sun?

No, we like the suns and we, we love everything about the suns now and we eat, live and breathe

the suns.

And so for his other kid, his other son is does real estate and he's like, oh, you do

real estate?

No, no, no.

We do real estate.

And so he works for his son for free.

Just helping him sell real estate 40 hours a week because he's like, oh yeah, we got

to sell some real estate.

I'm in.

And so he's like a free employee who's like hitting up LinkedIn.

He doesn't pay him.

Like he loves this podcast because he'll hear growth ideas and he'll be like, oh, so I'm

going to do that for my son's real estate business.

Wait, that's it.

That's an amazing bat.

Amazing dad and a horrible son.

Pay your dad, dog.

He says he doesn't want the money.

He's that creative of dad.

And then the other son, like he does this like comedy thing and he's like, oh, comedy.

All right.

I'm in the comedy scene now and I was like, wow, I'm going to do this.

So on the dad side, I was like, hold it like Ben, Ben works with me and he basically works

with me too.

He's like, he listens to every episode of the podcast.

He responds to every email that we put out, he'll like, he's not trying to get special

treatment.

He replies like a fan.

Like he'd be like, oh, yeah, I do my five to Tuesday.

He's like, I love number three.

Or he's like the podcast.

Oh, I love the way you and Sam did this.

And I'm like, dude, how sick is that to have your dad become your wingman for your favorite

hobby or your passion?

Like I'm going to do that.

So that was the first learning.

The second was this birthday thing.

He's like, yeah, my mom, like she came up with this early on, like, you know, love's

not about the gifts.

And like, this is just a fun thing we do for each other.

And we always do it.

We did it.

You did what?

This birthday poster.

So when you wake up, is this like a white person thing I just don't know about?

I don't know.

But I mean, in my house, when you wake up on your birthday, you wait.

My mom would put puts like posters all over the house that all the other kids like threw

out.

Wow.

Okay.

I don't know, man.

What did you do?

We don't.

Where did you get this?

No, this is this is new to me as well.

No, no, no.

Sam.

Yeah, we had it as well.

And honestly, it made my day.

It was like, I would be so eager to walk upstairs.

It's kind of like when you walk upstairs and you see like stuff around the Christmas tree,

it was like, I felt that same joy.

I walk up on the stairs.

I see my signs all over the place and I know that like that I get the breakfast that I want

that day.

It's pretty cool.

This.

So, so I basically like, I don't even care about my birthday anymore because it's always

like the same thing.

And I hate the same.

I hate the sameness of life.

There's so many things that are just the same all the time.

Like when Facebook came out with it, you can write happy, it'll remind you of happy birthday.

And then your wall becomes a thousand people who don't really care about you writing happy

birthday.

I hate that because then I feel guilty.

Like I got to reply.

Yeah.

I never reply.

And like, you know, and, but it's just the same thing, right?

Or what other people do is, oh, let me throw money at the problem, which becomes a different

kind of burden.

It's like, oh, I got to get you a gift.

I got to think of something.

Let's say I go buy you a nice card.

It's like, dude, the birthday poster is so much better than a Hallmark card because it's

like, a, it's like actually thoughtful.

B is like kind of goofy and funny.

It's like more entertaining and it's a kind of personal touch, right?

And so, so I love this idea.

When we came home from that farming conference, my daughter had drawn a poster that says welcome

home data.

And it's still the first post like in my bathroom, it's a poster on the wall.

Every day I go to the bathroom, I see welcome home data, like the bathroom is my home, which

is, you know, a little bit true.

And so I'm like, this personal poster thing is a great life hack.

And it got me thinking, I'm going to start stealing everybody's favorite family tradition.

And so that's my new question for people is like, yo, what are these family traditions

you got?

Like, what are the things that y'all do?

And like people don't even know that they're so like baked into their operating life.

They don't even know them.

And then you kind of keep digging and you'll find them.

And if it's like, if it's a family tradition that's lasted like, you know, 20 years of

your life, it's probably awesome.

And like I should steal that for my own family.

What do you think?

I, yeah, I think that's good.

I'm trying to think of what if I even have like my family, we're all atheists, but we

still pray before every time we eat dinner.

Like you don't eat until you pray, even like no one believes in God.

That's like an interesting tradition.

We do do birthday posters.

I don't think we have any other traditions like that.

I wonder, I bet Ben has a ton.

A bunch.

But the one that we start, I think I talked about this.

So we started doing our end of year reviews where we like do product reviews and preview

the year to come.

That's our newest tradition.

I like that one a lot.

Yeah.

But that, that's some new age.

Shit.

The product reviews, like actual product views, like I love this microphone or what do you

mean?

No, I don't know.

Just like just reviewing like the year that what was Ben's 2021 or whatever.

And then previewing.

Yeah.

But no, the other like, we have a bunch of traditions, we do have a bunch of traditions.

Like one of the simple ones is we eat waffles like every Sunday morning.

And I just like, I think I know I can look forward to every week.

My wife makes really good waffles with like strawberries, just like goes all out.

Yeah.

It's just one over the top.

It's one meal a week that I know I can always look forward to and I love it.

You don't have any, Sean?

No, I do.

I have some.

And now I'm like, and I give credit to my dad.

My dad was really the one who was bringing the like, the fun factor with some of these,

whereas my mom's more like practical, whereas my dad would be like, like once a week he

would do the same, like the, whatever, like the Monday night dinner as I, oh, dad's making

dinner.

Oh, sweet.

It's not cause he's a better cook, but he would like, he would just add some showmanship

to it.

So he would like make, he would like get this tray and so everybody had their own circular

tray with like four dishes in it.

And then he would add a quarter and we were all like, yeah, the coin's there.

Like I got a quarter.

It was like, it was like a equivalent of a McDonald's Happy Meal, but like with a quarter

and like, and there would be just like some flourish.

There was always something that was like a little extra that he would do and, um, and

like, you know, or like these little things, he would come home and he put his wallet down,

but the game was, I would always steal the wallet and I'd have to, he'd run and chase

me and I'd have to hide it.

And like the game was like, can he get his wallet back?

And it was like, how do you turn that like two minutes of coming home from like, oh,

hey, how's it going?

Like autopilot into like something that's actually like fun and breaks everybody's

kind of like mood for a second.

So he used to do that's a great question to ask someone what family, what's a really

good family tradition?

Yeah, I'm going to steal him too.

Good idea.

I had a buddy actually that just came to mind.

I don't even, I don't think I want to steal this because I don't think I can convince

my family to do it, but his family did it.

And I remember because he started dating this girl and I was like, ah, how's it going?

You know, date Mike or whatever.

And she was, I think maybe the other way around.

I was like, how's it going?

Dating, dating this girl.

She's like, they got the, she's like, they got this weirdest tradition they kiss on

the lips.

Yeah.

Basically.

Like that.

He was like, yeah, they go to, he's like, I went on the, they're like annual, like annual

family like vacation to Tahoe or whatever they went to a cabin and I'm expecting skiing

and all this other stuff.

And there was, but at night they did this thing.

I'm like, oh, shit.

What did they do?

It's like blood cult.

Like what's going on?

And he's like, yeah, they all read Harry Potter, but like they read it aloud and they read

it like in the voices.

And he's like, oh my God, that's a bit much in the circle.

Exactly.

But I was like, but to them, it was like their thing.

And I was like, you know what, like as, as cringe as I would feel doing that, and I love

Harry Potter, by the way, but as cringe as I would feel like doing, you know, Dumbledore's

voice as I read the book, that would be a lot for me and definitely a lot for me.

If I'm the visiting boyfriend into that family, that was like a lot, but like, you know, respect

to have a family that's like willing, willing to be a little silly, even as everybody gets

old.

Like I really respect that.

And like, if that's your thing, that's your thing.

Whatever.

Like, you know, let me go ahead and, and read, you know, order the phoenix like in, in the

voice.

Like let's do this.

You know, like I say, like cornrows and tattoos or cornrows and sleeve tattoos, I respect

that others do it, but that ain't for me.

Not for me.

You know, I don't know my new line.

I tweeted this out yesterday.

I just bother people, but I, I called, I was like, product managers are the bottled water

of tech.

And it's just a funny backhanded slide.

Like nobody, nobody knows what to make of it.

It's a compliment, but it's clearly kind of an insult, like I like bottled water, but

I guess bottled water is a waste for a useless, and then somebody won up to it and I'm like,

Oh, that's my new shit.

He goes, he goes, they're more like the throw pillows.

And I was like, dude, throw pillows, there's such a good disc because it's like, it's like,

you know, girls love them.

They look good, but they're completely fucking useless and annoying and like annoying when

you actually need to go to sleep.

And so calling something the throw pillow of X is just an awesome slam that I'm like

saving up in my back pocket to use.

I met people at this conference that I went to and there was like a lot of listeners there

and someone came up to me and goes, so, um, like, when did you guys decide to make the

switch to go from talking about business to just being like 12 year olds and, uh, are

you happy with that switch?

And I was like, huh, A, I don't remember and B, yeah, I think so, but I was like, yeah,

there definitely was like a decision.

Uh, thank you and fuck, but he wasn't trying to like roast me.

He was like, it was Steph's fiance, Steph's miss fiance and he goes, he's like, I love

the pod.

Um, but like, when was that switch made where you were going to like go for like talking

about actual business to being 12 when I was 12?

We had a question like this, which was, um, I was like, what was it?

You probably know it.

It's like, um, when did you tell your dad you were gay?

And it was like, it was like the viral question that went through our middle school like COVID.

It was like, someone said this and people realized like, oh my God, it's a hilarious

trap question.

There's no good answer to this question and everybody in every school in the school district

of Texas was saying this question for like three months and then it went away.

That's what that question is.

Like, oh, when did you guys decide to like switch the podcast up to being like 12 year

old idiot?

And it's like, totally like alphaed me and I was like, oh, I don't remember Calvin.

It was pretty good and I'm like, no, we're all right, all right, we're out too.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.