My First Million: How to Get Famous on Twitter and Other Listener Questions

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.

There's no separation between the things you're most interested in and liking to do

and spending your nights kind of like learning about or experimenting with.

Find a way for money to be the byproduct, like the exhaust coming out the chimney of

that factory of interestingness.

What's going on?

What are we going to tell me that you had to wait?

You told me you were doing man work, and then you said you're painting, but I was going

to ask you.

I don't know how much you use TikTok, but there's this guy on TikTok that goes viral

every week.

It seems like he's this good-looking dude, but he doesn't look like a lumberjack.

He looks like maybe a guy you would see in this in New York City or something like that.

He takes a giant tree stump and he puts it on this whatever platform, and then he just

cuts it with an ax.

He just starts swinging his ax to chop it in half.

This huge tree stump or logger, I don't even know.

You can tell.

I don't even know what you call these things, but the reason it goes viral is because girls

basically do what is called a duet, so they go split screen with that video, and they're

just sitting there on their couch, just eating Cheetos, and then he starts, and they freeze,

and then they're just like, and they don't say anything.

The joke is just the girls are just like, oh my god, yes, to whatever's going on here.

Dude, what's his handle?

I have no idea.

I don't follow this guy.

In fact, he's one of my mortal enemies.

Oh, oh fuck him.

He represents everything I am not.

Dude, so I'm out here.

I've got guests coming tomorrow, and I have the final touches to do, and I tweeted.

It's in this town called Fredericksburg, but they don't have TaskRabbit, so I was struggling

to find someone to come out and help me do stuff, and I just tweeted out, like, I'll

be on my ranch.

Who wants to come help me?

And I've got a guy here who replied, and I was like, yeah, come on, hang out all day.

But there was like hundreds of people replying, and I deleted the tweet, and people DM'd me

messages of their flight to fly out here.

They're like, oh, I already bought the flight, and I was like, no, no, no, no, no, do not

do that.

And as much as I want to say, it's because the pod and everything, which maybe it's a

little bit of that, people, I think, just want to be out in the country doing man work.

I mean, little do they know, we're really just like assembly, like Ikea furniture, but

we are outside doing some stuff, and I think people just...

Maybe you need an Airbnb experience with your Airbnb.

You have the ranch, then you have man work with the man.

People just do man work with them.

Yeah, like we've got firewood, it's growing out of the ground, and we're going to go get

it.

By the way, I'm not joking.

You should literally offer this.

You should put an Airbnb experience.

I know.

It's you with a shirt off, and you're like, we will do a variety of man work.

You will feel like a man.

Yeah, we're going to call...

It's going to be called like daddy.

That's what we're going to call it, the daddy experience.

And you have to call my father.

It's pretty awesome.

We're going to do a Q&A episode.

I think that's what this one is.

Put out a tweet saying, what questions do you have for us?

So Ben was in Utah yesterday, and I called in.

You didn't call in, dude.

And I called in.

He did a meetup, and I asked him, and I FaceTimed his meetup, and I said, what do you guys want

more and less of?

And they go, all of them said, do more Q&A.

We like that.

Okay, interesting.

And what was the house of the meetup?

Was it popping or what?

It was...

I'll say this joke.

Ben was in Utah, and Ben's Mormon, and Ben is like a tall, good-looking, white guy,

very typical Mormon, and all of them looked just like him.

And I was like, oh my God, this looks like a white-pride pre-party.

This is crazy.

Like, when you got to go to Donald Trump protests, this is a pre-party.

It was all white, blonde hair, blue-eye Mormons.

And so it's pretty funny.

And I was like, you guys...

What was it supposed to be, a My First Million meetup, or a How to Take Over the World meetup,

or what was it?

Yeah.

Like, he was like...

Ben just tweeted out, like, hey, if you listen to My First Million and How to Take Over the

World, I'm going to be in Utah, and he just had people, and he bought pizza.

So...

Amazing.

That's one of the coolest things.

I don't do it at all, but when I see you do it, or Ben do it, I'm like, oh, this is

really cool.

I'm glad.

Yeah.

We actually should do it more.

Yeah.

We should do more of it.

Yeah, for sure.

Do you have any of the questions?

Yeah.

So I see the questions.

Let's...

Yeah, let's start getting started.

Let's run through them.

So I picked a couple of questions, but then also, there's a ton more.

There's like 100 or 200 replies on the Twitter.

Is there one that you want...

And I put the tweet at the very bottom.

Let's just get one out of the way.

So this happened...

I'm going to paraphrase, but this was asked a ton of times, which is, how would you start

again from zero?

I hate this question.

I don't ever answer this question.

I'm like, that's an impossible thing to answer because you're just looking for like a spoon-fed

thing and you're just not going to do whatever we say it does.

I mean, if you're asking that question, you're probably not going to do it.

Okay, but still answer it.

Answer it the way you want, which is maybe you're not spoon-feeding a specific answer.

But like, what does a guy like Sam do in a day and age like this?

Let's put it differently.

Well, and I also don't like this question because the answer is I would do exactly the

same thing.

Sean, Puri is doing what I did and how's it going?

Is it working wonderfully?

It's working amazing.

It feels great to be a Sam par at age 24, however you old you were when you started this.

I would do the exact same thing.

It totally works if you pick the right niche, but here's the thing is like, you care about

this topic.

I cared about my topic, which they were related, but not the same.

You don't mind writing every day.

I didn't mind either.

And so I would do the same thing.

The only thing that you did differently was that you were already kind of famous and you

had this huge Twitter following, which definitely helped.

I had a 10,000 person email list from HustleCon.

So I had a little bit of a base and we're both doing the exact same thing.

Make sure you have content market fit.

And so, which means you see if you can create a newsletter every single day, which both

of us have done.

You find a way to get traffic.

In my case, it was by blogging.

In your case, it's Twitter.

And then once you've realized that that works and then I would buy ads, which you are now

doing, I think, and I did do, and you scale and you find out what your LTV is, and then

you just figure out how much you want to spend and then you go and get advertisers.

You're already making like a lot of money every month doing this.

And you're like, four months in, it took me two years to get to where you are.

Well, that's because I saw the blueprint, right?

Like I wouldn't have even known this could even make money.

Like when you first told me, you're like, yeah, email newsletter, I think you make a

bunch of money.

And then I was like, by doing what, like emails free, what are you talking about?

This was there wasn't like substack didn't exist.

There wasn't even, I didn't know of any paid newsletter.

And I didn't even really realize there's like a newsletter advertising industry.

And if you had told me that, I would be like, oh, cool.

Like might as well have said, you're going to go sell buttons at a flea market.

Like, right.

It doesn't seem like that big of an idea.

And then you were like, yeah, you can make.

And I think you had told me at the time $100 CPM, which I don't think turned out to be

true.

But like, I think I said 50, maybe, but that is true.

I don't remember what I said, but whatever I said, it was ridiculous.

Yeah, you know, I was at 100 and then I was like, so wait a minute.

So you're like a list of 10,000 people and like, wait, what's the CPM?

And I was like, oh, God, gotta do math.

And then I like, but it ended up in a number.

I was like, so wait, if you sent that every day, you just make that much money every day.

And I remember just being like, well, okay, maybe this is actually an awesome idea instead

of like, you know, a kind of shitty idea.

But that's only one of the ways that it can make money, which is what you're seeing.

You're seeing that that's just the tip of the iceberg and you're only on the tip.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's just a tip business.

Do you see how this could scale to 100 million in sales?

Maybe, maybe not.

This is, by the way, not a Q&A.

We're just giving tips.

And this is just the tip.

Yeah.

It's a short podcast so we can only do just the tip.

Do you see how this could scale to 100 million in sales?

Yeah.

I think, you know, probably for more than just ads, but yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

I think so.

Okay.

One general idea of what you're saying is basically, if you are good at content,

it is possible to build a large content audience and then you, that is the door that opens

more doors.

So either you use that to like, you know, like what I did with my following at first

was I launched a fund.

I was like, great.

Investing is a cool way to make money.

First built an audience and then launched a fund and the audience became my investors.

I took zero meetings.

I did zero pitched calls or whatever and raised a multimillion dollar fund from just the audience.

So that's like the superpower of an audience.

So I think that's one thing you could do.

Which is already like potentially an eight figure thing for you.

At worst, maybe seven figures, but like that's like already monetizing.

You don't get that today, but in the future.

And the other thing, by the way, is that then by the way, the next question is how would

you build an audience?

We started from scratch.

Like that's, that's the next, that's the next question, which you probably is like your

second most hated question.

Yeah.

I hate that.

It's like, don't ask a girl her weight or don't ask a Sam Farr what he would do to build

an audience from scratch.

If you started over.

Just don't like it because it's like, dude, you're asking me on Twitter, you see what

I do.

Yeah.

That's, that's actually my meta lesson.

Okay.

So can I, can I do my rant for a second here?

Yeah.

Which is kind of a buzzkill for the, just the tip episode, but let me, let me do it anyways.

Most of the people who ask that question, I don't want to answer not because it's not

a good question, but because if you're asking that question, that basically means you're

not going to do it.

You're not going to do it because the answer is so obvious.

It's already out there.

Everybody who's building an audience is doing it super publicly.

So all you have to go do is be like, oh, okay.

So this guy does it this way and this girl does it that way and this guy does it this

way.

And like, then you sort of just bucket it, you're like, okay, seems like you kind of

need to just choose one medium, like maybe podcasting or Twitter or email.

They all have different benefits.

And then like on that medium, you need to like, maybe pick a topic and that's your theme.

You become the, the guy who always talks about frameworks or the guy who always talks about

crypto or the guy who always talks about business ideas or whatever it is.

And then you can expand once you already have a base.

Exactly.

And then like, you should try to get that.

You should try to make viral content because it's going to get shared a bunch.

You can kind of like get sponsors and turn that money into like buying it.

Like it's so obvious what all of us are doing that if you, if you, if you don't know how

to do it at this point, like you failed the IQ test and I don't mean that to be mean.

I just mean it like, to me, you're not serious about the question because the answer is already

like visible to you.

And if, and I think there's some like more nuanced questions, like which platform would

you pick today?

Would you pick email or Twitter or whatever?

Like, I think there's different questions that might be slightly better questions.

But the generic one is pretty bad.

And this is how I rant.

So last night I'm watching Tik Tok.

I turn open Tik Tok as I do for my, Tik Tok is basically like my bedtime story.

And I see this guy on there and he's like some like Sean Connery looking guy and he's

like this, like kind of like complete gray beard guy and he's cooking an egg.

So he's like the perfect, cook the perfect egg.

Let's do it.

And he's like, you know, he's like, we got eggs, we got black salt.

We have this like, you know, he's got like what looks like just like a branch with leaves

on it.

I don't know.

It's probably some like seasoning.

He's like, you know, we have these things.

Okay.

Cool.

Turn the pan to high heat.

Crack the eggs.

Put the eggs in.

Now we're going to like keep it on high.

You know, you have your oil, you have, you have it on high and you're trying to get this

crust.

He's like, how do you know when there's a crust?

Watch this.

Jiggle it.

He's literally teaching you in like a 30 second format how to cook the perfect eggs.

And by the end, he like takes that out of the pan.

You're like, dude, I just want to try that egg more than anything in my life right now.

And it had 10 million views had 10 million views and like all the comments are like,

you know, be my dad and like, you know, I'll marry you if you cook me these eggs every

morning.

And he like cuts into it.

The egg yolk starts running and it's crispy on the bottom and soft on top.

It's like, just looks amazing.

Right.

And it got me thinking.

I was like, he made it look so simple.

I saw the egg crack.

Right.

So, um, you know, I saw what he did.

It wasn't like that complicated.

He explained every step of what he was doing.

And there's like 10 million likes on this video, which means like a lot of people have

seen this video.

I thought, how many people are going to cook an egg like this?

So how many people are even going to try to cook an egg like this?

How many people could actually cook the egg like this after watching it?

And it's got me thinking.

I was like, you know, when I watched this video of this guy telling me how to do it,

it seems all simple enough.

But I know if I walked to my stove right now and I took the two eggs and the salt and the

pan with the oil, my egg is not going to turn out like that.

Right.

Like I would need a lot of reps to be able to ever cook an egg the way the guy did it.

And he showed me the exact formula.

He told me the formula and it got me thinking about business advice.

I go, this is the problem with Twitter and even podcasts like this, which is that imagine

now that I've watched that video of that egg and then tomorrow I come on and there's

another video of like this guy cooking eggs.

And then there's like the next day there's another one and like maybe the next day the

guys when are you going to go make your own damn eggs?

Exactly.

And like after six months, I would kind of in my heart, I would feel like, dude, I know

how to cook eggs.

But again, if I walked to a stove and I tried to do it, I would make a runny mess and it

would be horrible.

And like the problem with Twitter and the problem with the people, the way that people

use Twitter and use podcasts is they get on every day and they just watch other people

cook eggs.

They watch guys like you and me cook eggs.

We don't listen to them like as though we record our own, right?

Right.

Like we are happy to take your attention.

Well, it's like they they're just masturbating instead of having sex.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And like, but you can vent yourself like I could just imagine if I had done this for

six months, I'd be like, dude, I know everything there is to know about cooking eggs.

And that's that same person who's on Twitter who reads advice from every investor and founder

who's tweeting out there, you know, three ways to, you know, three of the biggest mistakes

I've made before 30, a thread.

You know, my six hiring mistakes about managers, a thread, you know, like all these things,

right?

Like it's like when I asked my daughter when we played this game, I say, who's your best

friend?

She goes, the floor.

That's how I feel about the thread.

You know, like basically it's like, here, just I'm going to say this arbitrary shit.

And like I can imagine that if you listen to that and read that every day, you would

think you are learning how to cook eggs, but you have no idea how to cook eggs, even after

reading all of that.

In fact, you almost have a worse off than somebody who just tried to cook eggs for two

weeks straight.

And then maybe in on the 14th day of cooking their eggs, they go on Twitter and they see

something that's like, oh, that's how I should change the way I'm cracking the egg, but are

like, you know, how the heat is too high.

Oh, that's it.

Okay.

Let me go back and quick make an adjustment.

My rant is basically don't be the dude who just watches the video of cooking eggs, like

go crack some eggs, make a bunch of mistakes and then come back to Twitter and podcasts

like this for your just in time learning to like just give you a tweak on the thing you're

actually doing.

Right.

Right.

Right.

Right.

I am on board.

I completely agree with everything you said.

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Let's go back to answering some questions.

Yeah.

For people who want to watch us crack some eggs.

All right.

You pick one.

You pick one and then I'll pick one and so forth.

Okay.

Sounds good.

Let's do this first one.

So what are the key traits you look for in a co-founder and red flags so that your business

is successful and you guys stay happy?

And I think you've had multiple co-founders, I think, right?

It ish.

I was always like the guy and then like I had first people that were more Batman Robin.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And but then with Joe Spicer for my fund, it's 50 50 the and what I've learned.

Number one, they have to be emotionally healthy and very emotionally stable.

I would consider myself to be mostly stable on the big things, but my mood goes up and

down and for me to be a good partner with someone, they need to be emotionally stable.

And even if I was like really stable, it's really important because I've seen a lot of

like, it's just like the same way you ever have like a friend that's got like a husband

or a wife and they're just fucking crazy and it's like, I don't know how to advise you

here.

Like this person is acting irrational.

Like it's really challenging.

It's like, you want to separate them?

Like you stop acting crazy and you stop acting crazy.

That's my only advice to both of you guys.

Yeah.

It's like, dude, this is, this is just, it's not going to work out.

So I married a woman that was like very stable and even to keel and I realized, oh, that's

perfect.

So what I look for in partners is people who are emotionally stable.

And I also want a partner that's incredibly honest and undersells themselves.

I also, and if I find out that they lie at all, like even on small shit, it's game over

for me.

So really high integrity is important.

And then finally having really high energy.

So like who can just like, who wants to push the pace and basically with my best partners,

I feel intimidated and inspired by them.

That's a great way of putting it.

And I think it shows like I'm pretty chill.

Sarah is very chill.

I don't know Joe that well, but he seems also very chill, very chill, you know, your, your

partners basically and your ventures are like, you know, resting heart rate under 40.

Like it's hard to get a heart rate up.

And like, I think that's good.

That's a good pair for you.

Yeah.

Because I don't mind being the high energy.

Like I'm typically the one that can be the catalyst and be the igniter.

And then a person that wants to be the guide or I enjoy.

Right.

Yeah.

That's a great one.

There's this book that I read called Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person.

Have you read this book?

Yeah.

It's by Tim Urban.

No, no.

It's the school of life.

He has a blog post called that.

Oh, yeah.

You're right.

You're right.

School of life.

So in it, like the very first principle is like we marry the wrong person because, um,

you know, one of the things that says like, we don't even know how we are crazy.

Everybody's nuts.

You just, if you, but if you don't recognize how you're nuts, um, you're not going to

know how to pick a partner who can deal with your level, your version of crazy and you're

going to have to deal with their version of crazy.

And the idea that you're going to change them to not be so crazy is like not a thing.

Like everybody's weird or you just don't know them well enough.

So like you got to have your, you got to know your weirdnesses and then be like, cool, is

this person compatible, fundamentally compatible with my, my type of weird.

That's kind of a version of what you just said.

So what, what, what are yours?

So I kind of steal from like, you know, Warren Buffett said this thing and then of all, I

think paraphrase it as well, which is like two things you just said, energy, integrity

and intelligence.

So those, those three.

So break them down.

Um, energy is the one I think most people overlook.

I think everybody wants intelligence.

They're like, oh yeah, I want somebody who's like really smart or really good.

Right.

And it's like, yeah, that's, that's true.

You don't want to, you don't want somebody who's incompetent.

It'll drive you nuts in the long run.

I've had that problem before.

You don't want somebody who's low integrity, right?

Cause a smart person is low integrity is a crook.

It's just a matter of time until they screw you.

And then the last one is, um, energy and the energy thing I think is the one that everybody

overlooks.

I put it as my number one, which is like, some people call it vibe.

Some people call it energy.

I call it mood, you know, whatever it's basically, does this person bring enthusiasm by default

or are they always looking for some like, do they need an excuse to be high energy?

Do they need an excuse to be motivated?

Do they need an excuse to be optimistic and enthusiastic about what you're working on?

Cause if they, if they do, you're going to, I feel like I'm constantly like a doctor with

the shock paddles.

Like, all right, clear.

Give me, you know, give me, give me 20 amps or whatever.

And like just trying to like get them to be like, you know, wake up.

And I've had this with like business meetings because Ben, who's my business partner on

all my different businesses, Ben's a very low key guy.

He's very low.

He comes across.

He's not actually low energy, but his speaking style is low energy.

And so sometimes we'll be in meetings and I'll just be like, guys, I just don't want

to ever be in a meeting that feels like this right now.

Like nobody's fighting, but like also nobody's saying anything like, hello, wake up.

Like, you know, do you care?

Are you there?

Do you have ideas?

Or are you just creatively bankrupt?

And like, I just don't want to be in a room that's like low energy.

So can we just shake that up right now?

And they're like, oh, yeah, sorry.

Let's fucking go.

All right.

Like they give me some token thing.

I'm like, it's fine.

Even a token thing is fine.

It shows that you can you understand what matters to me.

I was going to say the two people I think do actually have good who show that was both

of our Ben.

So Ben, our Ben here, Ben Wilson, he has good energy and vibe because whenever I'm around

him, I feel happier and I leave happier.

And he does a good job of matching.

And then Ben Levy is whenever it's same thing, whenever I'm around him, I feel happier.

And he also gets a lot of energy talking to people, which is which I fucking hate doing.

Ben Levy is a great partner.

Yeah.

He's amazing.

He's really amazing.

Okay.

So that's kind of what I guess answers that question.

Which one do you want to do next?

Okay.

Let's do this one.

What did you tell your friend on Twitter?

So, okay.

The question is, what did what did you tell your friend on Twitter that resulted in his

audience growth to a hundred K in just a few hours?

It's just stronger.

All right.

He player.

So he tweeted.

I helped him write another one today.

Did you see it?

No.

Oh, yeah.

Right away.

It got like five or 10.

It got five or 10,000 likes in the first 30 minutes and it's already reached five million

people.

Okay.

So explain the thought process.

How did you?

All right.

What advice did you give him that would help him do that?

People hate this advice.

But look, here it is.

The guy made a hundred million dollars in the NHL and he spent 20 years being a hockey

player and I'm just helping him craft some of the stories that he's already lived.

So step one is there's this massive unfair advantage, which is he's he's lived in.

Interesting life.

Yeah.

And I was talking to my friend Logan, who has this book called how to not die alone.

And she's like a dating coach and helps men and women find partners.

And I was talking to her about how I think men should find dates and I'm like, you know,

the best thing about being able to attract a woman is as long as you focus on yourself

and live an interesting life and constantly improve yourself, that's what women really

care about.

And that's really it goes beyond women.

So with Chris, it was like, well, you just live an interesting life.

Are you looking at his tweet?

I'm looking right now.

So it says first tweet is when you hear about X player making 30 million over five years,

six million dollars a year, you think, wow, he made it.

However, that's not always the reality.

And this is that I'm going to break down how much they take home and where the rest of

it goes.

I'm curious.

Tell me more.

Yeah.

What's the result so far?

So it has 10,000 likes and it was posted five hours ago.

So so with Chris, what I do is I basically talk to him on the phone and he's like, hey,

I've got this idea where I want to talk about like finances and he'll like, he'll have a

conversation with me for 20 minutes and I'll say, he'll say, yeah, you know, it's crazy

about escrow.

And I'm like, wait, hold on.

What the hell is escrow?

He goes, yeah.

So like basically when you get paid, 30% goes into escrow.

And I was like, oh, so when you get that money back, he goes, you actually never get that

money back.

That money is used to afford the lead, the league.

And I'm like, oh, that's interesting because yeah, it's no big deal.

So anyway, and then like, we'll keep talking.

I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's the thing.

That's the thing.

And so when, what you have to do is you have to find a big idea and you have to do this

thing called the, it's called like the knowledge complex, but basically if you wanted to get

good at Twitter, you've got to A, live an interesting life and B, understand that the

interesting and unique experiences in your life, it's really not well known to a bunch

of people and you have to realize that like what seems boring to you, is it boring to

most other people?

And so you've got to figure out how to tweet that.

And if you don't live an interesting life, go and live an interesting one or go and learn

about a topic and just tweet everything you're learning.

Exactly.

Exactly.

I think you said it perfectly.

I'll only add one part to that, which is in my power writing course, I teach this exercise

and basically I use this, I explain to the exact same way you said, I said, you have

two choices.

Like fundamentally, you can either be a generous expert, meaning you know something so well,

you could just be sharing it with the audience or a curious novice, curious beginner.

So it's like, you just say, yo, I don't know anything about this, but I'm curious.

I'm going to dig in and find out if you want to learn what I learned, you know, going

from zero to understanding, you know, DeFi, just follow this thread and a bunch of people

like, great.

I'm also a dummy.

If you're going to do a bunch of work for this, I would love to hear what your takeaways

are at the end.

And so people vastly underestimate the curious beginner path, which almost is a better path

really, because they think you have to be a generous expert.

You think they think you have to have played in the NHL made a hundred million dollars in

order to share this type of info.

There's other formats like, you know, meme king, spicy analyst, like I have all these

like names for these like different, different like lanes you can go down for content to

win.

But like those are, those are two of them.

Let's say.

The other thing I say is there's exercise because most people are like, well, you know,

I haven't made a hundred million dollars.

So what do I talk about?

And so there's exercise from the book story worthy that I stole called first, last, best,

worst.

Have you ever done this?

Yeah.

Well, you did it with me.

Cool.

So we've done it before, but like basically let's play it again for people who don't don't

know it.

But like, and we can pick maybe even a different topic.

So you take any category of your life.

So it could be relationships.

It could be cars.

Like it could.

Versus.

Hustles.

Yeah.

It could be jobs.

So let's take jobs.

So what would be Sam Parr's first job?

First time you've ever been at a janitor at a bakery.

Okay.

Great.

Didn't know that.

What was your worst job?

I staining decks in the summer in St. Louis.

Totally miserable doing.

Okay.

Great.

Then what was your, what was your best job?

Being a podcast host.

And then what was your like, like say, we usually say last job, but it means like most

recent jobs.

So like in that case, I was CEO of a media company that was making tens of millions of

dollars.

Great.

That's also weirdest.

What's the weirdest job you've ever had?

What's the weird?

And it doesn't have to be a job.

What's the weirdest way you've ever made money?

I was a skateboard instructor at the YMCA.

That's a good one.

Or the hot dog stand.

I think it's a great one also for that.

All right.

A hot dog stand.

Yeah.

So, so you take that and you say, all right, and everybody has some version of this.

Everybody has an answer to these questions.

Then you say, all right, within that, what's the story people don't know about staining

decks?

Or what's the people think people don't realize about, about those hot dog stands you see?

And then they're like, well, you know, they don't, and you're so, it's kind of like you

said, the knowledge complex, whatever it's like, you're so in the weeds, you don't remember

what it's like to not know.

So you kind of got to talk to somebody about it and just say it all out.

And you see when they raise their eyebrows or when they get curious, it's like, that's

your hook.

You need to know like, you know, how much those hot dogs really cost or like, where the heck

do they go when the game is over?

All right.

Like, you know, okay, now I want to know, like, you know, I have always wanted that.

So, oh, wow, you put it in this area, whatever.

And so, so I think that's what you want to do to come up with great content ideas.

You don't have to be Chris Ponger and NHL star who made a hundred million dollars.

I bet you could have done maybe not as successful, maybe not like, you know, a hundred thousand

followers and like one tweet or whatever you did for that guy.

But like, I bet if you worked for three months with somebody who's a completely normal person,

like, you know, project manager at Deloitte, I bet you could get them to 30 or 40,000 followers

on Twitter within a month.

And if you look at, well, look at, so you didn't have a following on Twitter.

Like three years ago, you started, right?

Two years ago.

Yeah.

Two years ago.

Now you've got over 200,000 trunk fam, the guy who worked for me for a long time.

When we, when he started working at my company, I think we helped or he signed up for Twitter.

Now he's got what, three or four hundred thousand or something.

Yeah.

500,000.

And then there's like loads of employees at my company that have done it.

Like it's very easy to do.

Yeah.

Exactly.

All right.

Let's do a different one.

You're right.

What would you say to a lawyer with a very, I'm a lawyer with a very good salary.

What would you say to motivate me to leave my cushy but soul sucking job and jump into

entrepreneurship?

If my boss asks, I'm asking for a friend dot, dot, dot.

I would say don't jump into entrepreneurship and get happy with your job.

If you're someone that needs another person to give you motivation to bail, you're, you

shouldn't bail.

You're only doing it because you think that people think that it's cool because people

they admire do it.

I would say don't do it.

I don't think that you're the personality type that this will, that will be happy doing

this.

If you need someone to motivate you.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And by the way, there's a trick there, which is if that pisses you off and makes you want

to do it.

Cool.

You are an entrepreneur.

Go ahead.

You know, you may pass go.

You may collect your $200.

If that like, if that answer feels so wrong for you, it doesn't sit low with you and it

annoys you that Sam even said it and you get this like random chip on your shoulder for

no reason.

Like, you kind of, that's, that actually didn't get you going on the right path.

And also if you're, if you're a lawyer, I do think that the hours lawyer works, lawyers

work are ridiculous, but you could make a lot of money and I bet there's a world where

you could do like a nine to five legal business or be a lawyer and have a really good life.

So like why bail if you, if you're not compelled to do it enough that you're just going to

do it, maybe don't just don't bail be happy.

Yeah.

For sure.

All right.

Pick another one.

Would you, would you consider buying an existing business and growing it or would you only

want to start things from scratch?

Frankly, I don't know why I haven't done that.

Like it's pretty clear to me now that that is a better path for entrepreneurship unless

you really just have the killer idea.

But for some reason I haven't done it yet.

I just keep starting new things from scratch.

I think there's some fun in that.

And it's not really the logical decision.

It's more of the emotional decision.

But I for sure would and in fact think I should be doing that because I know how to run a

good business and I know how to grow businesses and taking something that's already doing

five, 10, 15 million dollars a year and getting it to 50 would be a lot easier for me than

getting something from zero to 50.

So why not?

Yeah.

I just don't get.

I don't.

Maybe I'll do it one day.

I know people talk about this all the time.

I agree that it is actually easier and I agree that the likelihood is better and your life

would in most cases be better.

I can't.

I just don't give a shit about something that someone else made.

I enjoy starting it.

I think that to me building a business is like my art and I like doing it from the ground

level.

And what about?

Okay.

I got a question for you from from Twitter here.

So John Williams asks, how hard should I should you be willing to work to create a

successful business?

Is it an 80 hour a week job is expecting to only work 40 hours a week on realistic?

And by the way, his tagline is John Williams, fuck work.

Let's play.

I think we know what he's trying to do here.

So let me just say this.

When I started my company, the first two or three years, I was working constantly all

the time and people would be like, what does that mean?

Like you're in the office.

You're thinking about it.

Obviously, I would get to the office at eight or nine a.m. and I would go home at seven

or eight p.m.

And I would dick around at the office and hang out my employees, but it was really important

to me that I was the first to arrive and last to leave.

And I didn't expect.

I would work Sunday evening, but not Saturday.

So that's like just take that, you know, as as literally what you said.

So let's say 12 hours a day, five days a week, that's 60 hours a week, plus maybe a couple

hours at the weekend.

So maybe 64 hours or something like that in a week.

Yeah.

But I couldn't sustain that.

So I only did that for like the first two years and to get to like profitability and

hiring people.

And then I was able to to where it was like some weeks, it was 80 other weeks.

It was pretty chills 40.

And so I was able to relax a little bit more one time I took a month off.

So I was able to like, but that was we were making like eight million dollars that year.

So I was able to chill a little bit.

If I had to start something again, I would expect that I would work 40 or 50 hours a

week getting it going.

But here's the thing, whenever even now, even though I'm not like actively involved in building

a business, I think about this type of stuff 24 hours a day.

People ask us, Sean, if we prepare all the time and I'm like, yeah, kind of, but also

not kind of, but like, we're like everything we read, it's like we are relating it back

to this trade of, I don't know what you call this thing, improving ourselves and sometimes

making money by doing it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like, what's that?

I want to keep referencing this like douchey, the story that makes me sound like a douche.

It's like Picasso's at a restaurant and somebody comes up and they're like, Picasso, will you

make a piece of art for me?

And he grabs an African and he scribbles on it and he's like, you know, that'll be $30,000

or whatever.

She's like, but you just, you just made that in two seconds and he's like, no, this, this

man, like, yeah, this took me 20 years or whatever to make this scribble.

And that's how I feel about the podcast.

Like there are days where I will show up and it's like, wait, or, you know, what are you

guys talking about?

Like right before the pod, I'll be like, I'm going to go record my wife and be like, what

are you guys going to talk about today?

I was like, I have no idea and it's not that I have no idea.

Cause I have a long list of things that throughout the week I'm writing down here because I'm

doing calls with all these interesting people and I'm researching this thing.

And if I'm watching a documentary, I'm taking notes.

It's like I'm doing things that the average person doesn't do in order to generate a bunch

of ideas so that when I show up, it can just be natural.

I could just speak naturally about interesting topics because I've already put in the whole

week of trying to learn interesting things and have interesting conversations and all

that stuff.

So, um, and I would say like if, if, you know, a lot of this, these questions are like career

advice, if you can find a way to do that in your career, you've won.

Which is basically, there's no separation.

There's no separation between the things you're most interested in and liking to do and spending

your nights kind of like learning about or, or experimenting with, like find a way for

money to be the byproduct, like the exhaust coming out the chimney of that factory of

interestingness and like, I heard that before.

Yeah.

That's pretty good.

Right.

That was, that was, that was great.

That's really good.

Yeah.

And so, I'm a little in awe of that.

Good job.

Hell yeah.

All right.

Great.

Put it on a t-shirt.

Um, yeah, I had heard things like that before, but again, it was just cracking egg, watching

other people crack eggs advice.

Finally when I did it, it's like, this is the way.

This is for sure the way, which is just go for the most interesting things.

And then learn core business skills so that you can turn you just doing what's most interesting

to you on a daily basis into a profitable, money-making event, like venture.

And then you basically, you're funding yourself to live exactly the life you want.

And how long were you working when you, uh, at Bebo?

Six, seven years, something like that.

But, uh, sorry, I meant early on how many hours?

Oh, I was, I would work a lot, but it was more like, I don't necessarily know if that

was productive.

Like I was at the office every day from let's call, I would get there like nine, nine, 30

usually.

And then I would leave either like eight PM or I would sleep there because there was

like an apartment built into the office and I was a single guy.

I didn't matter.

Like who cares if I go home to my apartment or I sleep in this apartment, like sleep in

here saves me time and I could just keep, you know, working on stuff.

And basically what I would do, the way I thought about my day was like, I had decided when I

took the job, I go, I'm going to work here instead of starting my own company.

I'm going to work here.

I'm going to pack like 20 years of experience into the next four years.

That was my goal.

Right.

Um, and then I said, okay, well, how am I going to do that?

I said, all right, well, my day job needs to get me reps working on startups and like

trying to build them and grow them because that's the thing I like to do.

And then basically as soon as like everybody would leave the officer on five, I would walk

out, I would go get like, they're like, you know, Westfield malls, like right there and

walk to Westfield mall, walk to the food court is why I gained a bunch of weight.

Like walk to the food court, I'd be like tired, super hungry.

I'd go eat some shitty food in the food court.

I'd come back to the office and then I would like, like I'd have my night job and my night

job was basically like, what are the most interesting companies and who are the most

interesting people?

How do I like learn about what they're doing?

How do I meet them?

How do I invite them over for a beer right now at the office or dinner right now at my

office and like pick their brain on what they're doing.

And basically I would build my network and I'd build my knowledge at night or I would

like build my skills.

So I'd like teach myself SQL overnight, okay, I'm tired of asking the developers to run

queries for me.

I'm going to learn how to write my own queries and like, you know, so I would like spend

two weeks just trying to learn SQL and then I would spend two weeks really like studying

up on like, you know, how MLMs grow and like just like, I just picked these like intensives

and I would just go down them.

So now I have a whole bunch of obscure knowledge, but because I like dedicated a period of my

life to really only learning about those things, I didn't do other stuff, but it's okay.

I was like, you know, happy as a clam just to do those things.

That's badass.

I think that's a really good answer.

All right, let me pick one.

What are your biggest regrets in business and life?

What pastime in your life do you miss most?

What future time do you most look forward to?

So I'll answer really quick.

My biggest regret, I wish I would have taken my work, my school, my sports more seriously

as a young person.

So like in grade school, high school and college, I kind of dismissed it.

I wish I would have like taken it.

Why?

Yeah.

Because I think that like I, well, when you're in high school and college, like there's a

time where all you have to do is acquire skills and like get good at stuff.

And I like would just, I didn't like eat well.

I didn't like sleep as much as I should have for when it was as relates to a sports.

I didn't train as hard as I could have trained.

And that's just like a period of time when you're young from like the ages of 12 to like

20 or 22, if you're a college athlete, which I was for a little while, where it's like,

you can just get good at a sport.

Also with school, I kind of dicked off in high school and I actually regret that.

I wish I would have like took the time to learn, you know, I'm, I'm getting paid to

read books now or I'm, I'm sorry, I have all my free times to read books.

Now I read my free time.

So I wish I would have taken my, my schooling and my athletics a lot more seriously because

that's like the only time you have to do that.

And I, I'm most looking forward to having children.

Nice.

All right.

It's great.

It was a great answer.

What's your regret?

Isn't this question really hard to answer like the regret question?

Like I feel stuck when I try to answer this question.

Well, what do you think about all the time and you're like, man, I wish I would have

had, I wish I would have behaved differently during that period of my life.

So I kind of, let me break it up into two different groups.

There's like, knowing what I know now, oh wow, like I could have done so much better,

maybe made more of the opportunity, whether that's like, you know, paid, my parents basically

paid a bunch of money for me to go to Duke.

It's like an expensive ass school and it's got like tons of like, you know, opportunities.

I think there was like this thing that came out, which was like in the, in what, in like

2007 on, on Duke's campus, there was founders of like, I think seven or eight, like billion

dollar companies.

I was like, I was there.

I didn't know any of these people.

I didn't even think about entrepreneurship.

I didn't think about like meeting, I didn't even think about like, wow, I'm on this campus

with a bunch of really awesome people.

Like I should go, not just try to make friends and party, but like, who are the people who

are actually working, like trying to do something interesting, you know, who are those people

who?

Okay.

I'm just like focused on my classes and passing them.

But like, why don't I actually focus on figuring out what classes are interesting to me, right?

There's a whole bunch of ways I would do college differently if I had like had the wisdom

I have today.

It's not really like a regret though.

Like when I hear the word regret, I think about like that word you said, behavior.

Where did I, where do I feel like I kind of let myself down in my behavior and the only

things that come to mind are like any time that I've been like lower integrity.

So like either lying to somebody, exaggerating to somebody, kind of making a selfish move

or like I got some benefit and other people didn't really get a benefit.

There's not like a big one that comes to mind, but there's like really small ones that come

to mind.

There's only regrets like the ones that you don't sleep well and you're not proud of like

a simple test I do is like, if everybody knew about this move I was making, would I, would

that be a thing I'm excited about?

Like if I could magically get distribution and everybody knew this about me, would this

be something I'd be proud of or embarrassed of or neutral?

And it's like basically anything that's in neutral, I'm like, well, why don't I just

do it more interestingly?

You know, like, let me just take the comment and make it more uncommon.

Like that would be all that and so that's helped me a lot and the things that I'm embarrassed

of it's like, that's just a sign I shouldn't be doing this and I need to like bite the

bullet and like reverse course on this and like, I think before I used to definitely

be like an exaggerator, white liar, like kind of like not like nothing that harmed people

but like definitely things that like benefited me and like over time I've like tried to stamp

those out.

So I would say like just little stupid things like that would be the only things that I

actually regret, whereas everything else, it's like, I don't know, like, yeah, I was

dumb.

I didn't know things at that time and whatever, you know, who cares?

I learned them by doing the thing the wrong way, I learned the right way.

There was one time when I was 18 and like a limo or I was like in a shuttle from the

hotel to like on a college visit or something like that.

And the man driving the bus was the little, you know, it's like a van when you're at the

Marriott and they take you around.

And he was like, all right, you're at your stop and you're supposed to tip him sometimes

and I tipped him $5.

He goes, oh, no, it's okay.

And I said, oh, no, you need this.

And I meant to say like you earned it or something and I said, you need this and that's one of

those things that I look back and I'm like, I cannot believe that was so condescending

of me.

I cannot believe it.

That's something I think about all the time and I'm like, I can't believe I said that.

I cannot believe that.

That's that's one of my big regrets.

Have I told the Orlando Bloom story on here?

No.

People make fun of me because I tell the story so often.

If I haven't told you, I'm telling you now, okay, here's one of my biggest regrets.

So I'm in London, I'm 21 years old, maybe, and my buddy comes to visit for college.

And so I was living in London at the time my parents lived there.

And like, so I'm like, okay, let's go out.

Now I hadn't really gone out in London.

So I didn't kind of know where to go.

I didn't know the protocols, the etiquettes.

I just been kind of hanging out with my parents at their house.

I wasn't drinking.

I didn't have big tolerance at this time.

You know, like I basically hadn't drank.

Still don't.

Yeah.

Still don't.

Didn't have big tolerance back then.

Still don't have it.

My buddy comes to visit and I'm like, all right, I want to be cool with this buddy.

Shout out to my buddy Goops.

If he's listening, he'll know this is him.

So we go out in London.

I'm trying to act cool because I'm like, he thinks I live in the center of London.

He thinks I still kind of like go out like I did in college.

He doesn't know.

I've just been in my mom's apartment, you know, like doing nothing for like three

months, you know, just like, I don't know, watching reruns of Lost.

And so, so I'm like, oh, let's go over here, let's go over here.

And I'm like, oh, this place is popping because I see a place just with a line outside.

I'm like, this is the place we're going here.

He's like, you sure we can just go to this bar?

I'm like, no, no, we're going over here.

So we go to this place, line outside, and he's like, I don't think this is like a bar

or club.

It turns out it's a theater.

And I'm like, oh, shit.

But I'm like kind of like committed to my like plan of like, no, no, no, this place

is the best.

I've now picked a theater like a place, but the plan just ended and people were waiting

outside.

I'm like, and there's this group of girls that are all visiting for the University of

Georgia.

And Duke University has like kind of notoriously like, not the hottest college girls.

And so these girls to me were like a 14 out of 10.

And so it's like, and they probably didn't have the hottest guys either.

Right.

Like, I was a strong seven at Duke.

I'm a three public school, so I'm a private school, seven public school, three state school,

three.

So so basically, I'm like, okay, I'm trying to still try to recover from Goops mean, like,

why are you telling me to go to this theater?

And I'm like, because I want to talk to these girls.

And so now I'm like trying to act cool for these girls, which was I was already failing

and acting cool in front of my dude, brown friend.

Now I'm trying to fool those girls.

So I'm like, you're like the Tinder swindler, man, of your friend group.

So I'm like, what are we doing here?

What are we waiting for?

And they're like, oh, the other, you know, the play just ended and Orlando Bloom did

a drop in at the show.

And so he's coming out.

And like, we're all just waiting for his autograph face to take a picture of him.

And I'm like, I might have, I'm like, like, okay, do you know who Orlando Bloom is if

I say that?

Do you know who that is?

Do you have a picture in your head?

I know exactly who he is.

Okay.

I didn't.

So I'm like, I've heard the name, but I'm like, I've no idea who this guy is or why

he's famous.

So like clearly he's famous as a crowd here waiting for him.

And so we're waiting 20 minutes and I'm just chopping it up with these girls.

What year was this?

This would have been, I don't know, 13, 14 years ago.

So like,

Dude, so Orlando was like peak Orlando Bloom.

Exactly.

He was just inspired to the Caribbean.

I didn't know how to connect it and I couldn't ask because I'd already, again, told Coops

we got to go here, told these girls I'm waiting for Orlando Bloom.

They don't know that.

I don't know who he is.

But anyways, we're just going to shoot the shit because I have this captive audience.

These girls can't leave.

They're waiting for Orlando Bloom.

So they got to talk to me basically at this point.

So we're having forward flirting with these girls.

Things are going well now.

So my night has turned around.

But problem is people are coming out from the play and I don't know who Orlando Bloom

is.

So I'm just sort of waiting to see where the reaction comes from.

I'm expecting like, I don't know, Brad Pitt and his prime.

I'm expecting like, you know, Bruce Willis.

I'm expecting just like some like, just some hunk to come out because like clearly all

these women are waiting for him.

He was pretty, pretty hunky, man, he's a lot more like petite, petite, exactly the word

I'm looking for.

So this guy walks out and he's just this kind of small guy and he's got this wispy body

in this wispy mustache.

And I'm like, this is the fucking guy.

And so like, I'm just sort of like, I'm a little bit drunk.

I'm pretty drunk at this point.

I'm just like, oh my God.

So he's facing the least exciting autographs for the other people.

He's about to get into this car, this limo, and like there wasn't a lot of space, you

know, like the distance between me and like kind of like, like, you know, this window

in front of me is two feet away.

That's how far he was away.

And he's just not turning around to like sign our autographs or whatever.

I don't want his autograph.

But he doesn't want to just tap him on the shoulder skill Orlando, Orlando, and like I'm

screaming his name.

And so I said it like kind of like medium and then he doesn't turn.

And so then I'm just drunk.

So I'm like, I'm just going to say this loud as I can.

So I'm yelling and Americans are already like 40 percent louder than Europeans.

And now I'm trying to be loud.

And so he's, he's, he's not American.

Right.

No, but I'm in London.

And so most people are being very civilized.

So he probably doesn't like that either.

Nobody liked it.

Nobody liked it.

Trust me.

Like these girls who I was talking to, they're like, oh my God, this is so off-putting.

Why is this man so loud right now?

And so it sounds like I'm just screaming and I am screaming.

He turns around and I just go, Orlando, and he turns, I go, and I'd see his face for

the first time.

And I see this petite body from behind, which was just basically a woman's body.

So he turns around and I see his, his mustache and I go, what's with the stash?

And then he's like, he doesn't know what to make of it.

Like, what do you mean?

How do you answer that?

What's with the stash?

And I'm thinking, I thought it was from the play.

I thought he had left it on because it looked so ridiculous to me.

And so he's like, and he just sort of rolls his eyes and the girls are like, you're the

most uncool dude on the planet now.

You've annoyed Orlando Bloom.

And he just like, he starts walking into, he just, he just sort of aborts and the girls

are pissed because he didn't like acknowledge them now either.

The whole section got blacklisted.

So he gets in the car.

Trust me, that's not the worst of it.

He gets in the car.

This is where the story ends in the, in the, the final crescendo.

And I'm like, and something comes over me.

I'm like, you know, I'm like a entrepreneur.

I'm action oriented.

I'm a go getter.

And so I decided to be a go getter with Orlando Bloom and I go to the car and there's no security

because again, nobody expects a buffoon to just like open up the car door.

So I, I reached through the window.

He's waving by to the fans through the, through the backseat.

I reached through the passenger front seat into the backseat while he's waving and my

hand just wraps around his.

I was going for like a high five, but I'm, he's waving.

So it's a moving target.

I only catch his thumb.

And if you've ever had another man's thumb inside your whole hand, yes, one of the most

uncomfortable feelings.

Yeah.

I immediately sober up.

He looks at me like, yo, bro, like, why are you like, why are you grabbing my thumb?

And I'm just like, I sober up.

I'm just like, I was like, dude, I'm so sorry and I let it go and I let go the whole night

and I basically, it's the most embarrassing thing that I've done, um, you know, since

then it's never done.

It's never topped that moment.

So that's my biggest regret.

Oh my God.

That's awesome.

Grabbing Orlando Bloom's thumb as he drove away after making fun of his mustache.

If Orlando, if you, if you're listening to this, if, if your cousin is listening to this,

send this to Orlando, let him know that guy, you know, he was just, he was just trying

to impress his friend.

Yeah.

He was just trying to be, I don't know what he was trying to do, but it was an accident.

I didn't know what you're trying to do.

You're doing it for the tail, whatever everyone's been there.

He would, he would empathize with that.

Um, do, I don't think we should do any more.

I think we have to end on that.

That was awesome.

That was the best story I've heard in a long time.

All right.

Fantastic.

Good, uh, good kid.

I just, the tips, uh, from your boys, that's what we're going to call it.

Just the tips.

All right.

We're out of here.

We got him back.

We can hear it.

We can hear it.

All right, we're out of here.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.