Encarta | Can You Get Rich with A Blue Collar Hustle?

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I went to school at Belmont University, and it was, like, a southern Christians Christian university that had low standards. Yeah. That's that is what it says on their website too.

00:10

Does it, like,

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home of mediocrity?

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Like mediocre people,

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exceptional prices,

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like,

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Alright. We're live.

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We're doing a q and a session. We decided this kinda last minute. It's like when a substitute teacher comes in and they roll out the TV on the Frawley.

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And they're like, hey, guys. Today, you know what? I decided

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I want a day off. Oh, no. No. Sorry. I wanted you guys to watch this movie.

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No. It works out because frankly, I think people like this. And we like the movie too. It works. It's a win win. And so yeah. We we have to do very little work and people like it. Let's just get right into it. We're gonna keep each question at around three minutes,

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which is not you don't have to worry about me going over. It's Sean.

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Let's do it. Ben, what do you got? Let's do a little q and a. So, basically, the background is we both tweeted out what questions do you have?

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And we got a bunch of them in the,

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on the tweets, and, we'll see where we go. We had we I think we have, like, a hundred hundreds of them, and we selected maybe ten ish of each,

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or of from each of our twitters, and we'll see which ones are interesting.

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Alright. Go. Okay.

01:34

From someone named Nubet, pretty basic one. What is your opinion on sweaty startups?

01:40

Alright. Here's my opinion. I think it's cool. I think any way you can get your nut, you get it.

01:46

That said.

01:47

That sounds So philosophy, you've had since you're a teenager or what? Yeah.

01:52

Get that nut.

01:53

I think if you can get it, it it doesn't matter which way you get it. Get it. And there's lots of examples of everyone succeeding in all different types of industry.

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Personally, I think making money digitally is significantly

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better because it requires close to no capital in some cases You can work from anywhere. There's been times I've sent an email from my phone and it's made a whole bunch of money. And I think that it's way hard way harder to make a million dollars a year from a brick and mortar business than it does, digitally. I also think that the lab cl laptop class, I saw Elon Musk call Tesla headquarter employs the lab tab laptop class. I think those types of people, of which

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most of you are, including myself, We wanna do stuff with our hands, and I think it's significantly better just to make money on the internet. And then all your free time, go get a hobby. Because if you go and talk to a blue collar worker, they sure as hell don't wanna be there.

02:45

So I'd rather be in the situation of, like, being able to choose to spend my time doing the other way versus

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So in this question, the guy said,

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Swendy startup makes great this is Nick, our buddy, Nick Huber. So Nick makes great points about not wanting to compete with Stanford grads, generating real cash flow and getting rich the slow way. I agree. This might be the best way to go. What do you guys think? So

03:07

I think this whole

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Nick is great. And Nick, and and I think you're totally right

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that

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however you wanna win, win, and there are many, many ways to win. Anything, if this podcast needs to do one thing, it's how many different ways there are to win.

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But given that, given that there are many ways to win, you better choose the one you really want. In me. I'm like, I might as well choose the one that is most ideal, the most

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intuitive lifestyle I want. I don't wanna go

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worry about the roof damage at my self storage facility

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or that the, you know, the the fifteen dollar an hour employee call it out sick and there's nobody at the front door now

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to take customers today. Like, I don't want those issues. I'm happy marrying a different set of issues.

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And so

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that, you know, I think you gotta choose how you wanna win. And I also think this whole idea of, like, you don't wanna compete against Stanford Kids.

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This is like, great sound bite, but it doesn't matter. It's one of these True, but not important. I used to say this all the time and it pissed everybody off in the office. I'd say, that's so true,

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and it doesn't matter.

04:09

Yeah. She would It's like, dude, I just wanna win, like, my high school conference championship. I don't need to worry about you saying things. Exactly. Exactly. You know what I mean? If I get there, I'll get there. Nobody who's doing digital cup, like, a internet company is like, god, these wretched Stanford kids keep keep beating me. It's like, dude, I haven't seen a Stanford. Even if I did see a Stanford kid, you seen those dorks. That's not problem. Like Yeah. Give them a wet suit and and push them out the way nerd. Like, you don't have to worry about these guys in most cases. Not supposed to still work. Nuggies are very effective. No. I'm just but, like, It's not the Stanford because of the problem. If you fail in the internet, it's because it's a noisy place and you couldn't get anyone's attention. Right? You die of starvation,

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not murder when it comes to startups, internet startups. And so if you're if you're failing, it's not because the Stanford kids beat you. It's because the market didn't want what you what you had to offer. And I don't know. I I like sitting behind my laptop.

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I haven't worn pants in, you know, four hundred and fifty days. This is the way to live. And by the way, you have

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or had, you know, you could talk about it whatever you want, but you've had an e commerce business, which is -- Have. -- twenty percent,

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brick and mortar. As in you have, like, people you gotta go see. And We have physical products. We have a warehouse. We have things like that. More than twenty percent. Yeah.

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Whatever it is. And then you also did Milk Road, which one was better.

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The newsletter that

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The newsletter that someone else wrote that we pushed one button to send to, you know, three hundred thousand people.

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And just printed profits from month one. Yeah. That's the one. That I think that was the one I liked, the best. The one that after a year, we were able to sell

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just like that because there was no

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none of that sweat. Right? They call it sweaty startups for a reason. So,

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I've done both the one thing I will say, though,

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Real Estate has some amazing tax perks. So that that he does have that going forward. And we'll wrap it up by saying, and this sounds like I'm making fun of Nick. And Cody, both of whom are my great friends, Cody Sanchez, so I'm not.

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But

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ask them which one's making more money? The digital stuff, or the brick and mortar stuff. Right. I don't actually know the truth. At least, what do you start up guys? You guys are pretty active on Twitter and, you sell them courses and these online courses,

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it could Which I do too.

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Revenue versus that laundromat revenue.

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Right. So I would I would ask them which one they think is better. But who knows? Alright. What do we got? Alright. Next up, we'll take it from the top. Someone named Blockmates asks, what's the most interesting business you've seen that didn't take off, and why do you think that was?

06:41

Go for it. So there was this app back in the day that I saw. And when I saw it, I was like, this is

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this is gonna hit. It was made by these Russian dudes,

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and it's called Povio.

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And what Povio used to do was every other social network

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was,

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like, I post photos. So Facebook was like, I go to a party. I post an album of photos. Then Instagram was like, yo, I'm on the go. I'm at a cafe. I'll take a photo of my cappuccino. And it all had this kinda like look at me.

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I'm kinda bragging about my life thing. And I've always said that social networks, when a social network hits, It's not because of a feature. It's because of a change in the the the privacy policy. Right? So, like, Facebook was the first time you used your real name on the internet because you would do it with other college kids who went to your same school. That's why Facebook got your real name, your real relationship status, your real courses, put you get you and put it online.

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Twitter was like, hey, you don't have to be my friend. You could just follow me. I can't even I don't even have to prove you. You just follow me. That's a change of privacy policy.

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Snapchat, change of privacy policy. It was like, yo, this is a disappearing photo that's private.

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So every great social network has a change in the privacy policy. And Povio had a genius one, which was you would request a photo from someone else. So I would ping you, and it would open up your phone, and it would go three two, one, and it would take a picture of where whatever you're doing or wherever you're at. And so you could kinda be like, yeah, it's a way of saying, what's up?

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But the person would default reply with a photo. And I was like, this is genius. They're getting people. They're giving people even more excuses

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to take random useless pictures. This shit's gonna fly. And sure enough, on the first college campus, it started to work, and it was growing.

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And then it just kinda faded away. It never really made it. And I I still believe in this mechanic of

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if somebody made this app where you would you would basically be you're basically saying what's up, and they're replying with a photo. And you're basically pulling the photo from them rather than pushing it online.

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I think that's kind of a game changer, but I was wrong. It never it never worked.

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I'm looking at their app description and their app page, in iTunes,

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and it says that it it only has, like, five reviews. So it never took off But the funny part is is that, you know, how there's, like, screenshots of the app. It's a very clearly, it looks like a kid on the Stanford campus taking a picture.

09:01

And the wait. Stanford and Palo Alto. This says Santa Clara. Yeah. I don't know what I don't know what's there, but, like, you don't gotta worry about those Stanford kids. See, it's no big deal. It doesn't work.

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But mine is,

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Dorothy. So it didn't work out. It's door, the word door, then s e y.

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But I've always wanted I've been looking to invest in companies that have a good chance of making buying a home online possible.

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I'm I'm, like, I'm a firm believer that

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people will end up buying close to everything online. And there's only a few categories, but that's not the case. It's, like, hardware. So, like, like, Home Depot still crushes it because, like, you you don't buy a screw on the internet. And then homes. It's another thing that people don't buy online. No one's figured it out yet. This company has not worked yet. And I still think there's an opportunity for a company to work in the space where you can buy, like, you'll make hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollar purchase on the internet. I think that's gonna be a thing. Do you remember when Mark Cuban bought a jet on eBay, and it was, like, all the rage that people freaked out. I didn't even know this.

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Yeah. So when he sold his company broadcast dot com, he, you know, became in there, and he bought a fifty million dollar golf stream jet on eBay, and people were freaking out. Which it's not even that, like, that's not even that if you ask me. Well, it's only interesting that's a big purchase, but, like, you know, a jet, like, if it's the same model, you kinda know what you're gonna get. And, like, the condition is, like, fair. Excellent. You know what I mean? I just asked Google's AI. I think I said, what percentage of Home Depot sales are online? And it said twenty twenty two, sixty percent of its sales are online. So even Home Depot is selling the majority of products online versus -- Well, if it's if it's if it's revenue, then, yeah, I believe that because people will order grills. But, like, when you want, like, a five dollar, like, bolt, You usually just go there and you'll buy of, like, ten of all different sizes. You know what I mean? See, like, which ones actually fit?

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But,

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yeah, I'm into, like, things that can't be sold or aren't being sold online yet, that should be. And I think that homes are one of them. What else you got then?

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Alright. Here we go.

10:59

It's something we've talked a lot about recently, but what does enough look like for you?

11:04

You've got a much better answer than I do. It just just for reference, I put a bullet point in and I I wrote out what what my answer might be, like,

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a blur. And mine's this, like, long thoughtful thing. And then Sam's, like, I'll just answer yours for you. It just says, I don't think there's ever enough.

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Maybe you explained your point of view that I'll sound like a video. Here's why. I thought that there was, like, been multiple times in my life. It was, like, a hundred thousand dollars, five hundred thousand dollars, where I thought I won't worry.

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And I've hit a lot of different of these targets, and I still worry. There's times where I worry less for a little while, but it, like, have you ever heard the idea of, like,

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have you ever seen, you'd probably have But there's, like, stories and studies of people who lose a lose a limb, and they're pretty bummed for, like, six or yeah. They're bummed for, like, six or twelve months. And then they go right back to b and they're, like, Okay. I'm back at it. I feel fine.

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I I think it's the same with, like, a lot of money stuff where it's like,

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you make it the amount that you thought and then you go back to, like, where you were. And I believe that to be true. That's why I said never enough. Well, I'll say a couple of, other other ways I think about So Yeah. Come on, Indian guru. Yeah. Let me just That yeah. I mean,

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do you got your wisdom cups out, everybody? Because I'm about to fill you up.

12:16

Yeah. Are you gonna you need to sit, like, a Indian style to tell the story?

12:20

Yeah. Exactly.

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Let's just take a deep breath in first before I do this.

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Alright. So

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Vipassana. So so Paul Graham did this thing where he created Y Combinator, which is basically the most successful

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company in Silicon Valley besides like Google and Facebook.

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And,

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then he just retired.

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He just left. And he moved to, like, the woods in England.

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And he just writes code in his cabin with his kids and

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writes the poetry and paints and well, goes for walks.

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And I was like, this mother this motherfucker thinks he's got enough. And I was like,

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you know, dare he leave the rat race. All of the rats We were shaking our fist, being like, you get your ass back in here. And,

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and I got inspired by that. And I was like, okay. So what is the, like, what's the enough state?

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Not money, but, like, what would I what is my version? So instead of thinking what number would I feel like is enough? Because I I think that's a trap. I just thought about, like,

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If I felt like I had enough, what would I wanna go do? And then I thought maybe I could just go do that thing. So

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here's what I came up with, two things. I said,

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I heard this Naval quote, which was retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imagined tomorrow.

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And,

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that hit home. And he was, like, you know, what that means is that the the moment you do things in your day,

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that the act of doing them is the reward. Not like you're doing them today, sacrificing for some future payoffs that are gonna come. At that moment, you are free.

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And, and I was like, okay, that's the goal. The goal is to be free. Meaning, the goal is to, on a daily basis, do things that

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the act of doing them is the reward. I'm not doing them for some future rewards. And I said if I did that, what what what types of things would I wanna do? What types of things is the act of doing them? The reward itself. And here's what I came up with. I said, I think that having a big podcast is actually the best job in the world, and I'm obviously biased here, but I've also tried a bunch of things, and this is the best.

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If you have a big podcast, that means you're famous, but you're only famous amongst nerds, which is kind of the not annoying way to be famous. It's like all the good parts of being famous without the bad.

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You also get rich, but you didn't have to chase money.

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You get to create content, but you're not, like, the annoying twenty four seven vlogger who's got their phone out and ruins, like, their actual life trying to create content for some audience. Because with the podcast, like, we sit here for, like, two hours a week and recorder, three hours a week and record. And that's it. The other hundred sixty five hours in a week, we get to do whatever we want. We don't have to think about creating content. And we don't have to get hurt while we're doing it. Like, if you watch That'll be constantly one of myself and, like, like, they dumbass youTuber who crashed a plane on purpose for views and now is going to jail.

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You're not competing on an algorithm like TikTok where you get this hit of fame and then you're forever chasing it.

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You bet podcast is great. You just talk. You're unscripted. You're unedited. You're talking to a friend or somebody you admire, like, if it's a guest, that seems like the best job in the world. And then

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for fun, I would basically coach a basketball team, like Mighty Duck style,

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And I would wanna just shoot, like, chill out and just shoot the shit in a writer's room for, like, a TV show or a comedian,

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or teach at stand for week. I think those are the things that I would just do for the pure joy of doing them, not for some future rewards. And then to me,

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I'll have enough when my day is mostly shit like that.

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Why haven't you tried to get a teaching job or coaching job? I haven't put enough attention on it. Like, this question made me think about it and made me think, oh, why don't I just go do that now? And after life is that simple, like,

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It's not that there's actually any barrier in the way. It's just I didn't put my attention on. What do I actually want? Oh, yeah. Okay. I can probably just go get that.

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One good excuse is you have young kids. So it's like once they go to school, maybe, that would be it. Yeah. But I'm not a believer in that. I think it's really just a matter of, like,

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I didn't put my focus on. That's what I really want. Okay. Then go get it.

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By the way, there was a good Paul Graham thing. So this guy tweeted out There are very few second times founders because anyone smart enough to succeed the first time isn't dumb enough to do it all over again.

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Paul replied, he goes, anyone smart enough to succeed the first time is still running that company.

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And then our friend, Akita, go, yeah, wonder what happened with that washed up via web found what he's doing these days. That was Paul Graham's first thing.

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And he goes, touche.

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Paul, so, like, you know, even even the smart guys, like, Paul can can get things wrong once in a while. So he says he's got enough, but who knows? I actually do believe that he does. But,

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I think your answer's better than mine.

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It is about enjoying the experience more. And whenever I was, like, running my old company, the hustle, I look back at it. And I'm like, I wish I would have enjoyed that more during the process, but it's a very challenging thing to do. Well, I'll just ask you one thing. Are you okay with knowing that you'll never have enough before you answer that? Let me just put it the other way, which is if you feel like you'll never have enough, that sort of is to me, that means you're never really free. Like, the most fun interactions you know, this is, like, when you meet with somebody, you want nothing from them and you need nothing from them. Like, those are the best

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interactions with people. There is no for freeing feeling that just literally I don't need you, and I don't want anything from you. I can just be here just have have whatever experience I'm gonna have, versus the opposite when you want someone's approval or you need them to like you or you need them to hire you. Those are the most stressful interactions.

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And so to me, I think if you wanna be free, you gotta believe that there is such a thing as enough.

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I think we're you're thinking about it differently than I am. So let's say that you're an athlete, let's say that you're a weightlifter, or let's say that you're,

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a comedian, your Hassan Minhage, your your buddy,

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Is he ever gonna be like, I'm funny enough. I don't need to improve my craft anymore. I don't think so. I think he could find a a bit of contentment of being like, I'm on top of my game. I'm doing awesome.

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And I can always get better. And that's kind of when I say it's never enough, that's what I mean. If my craft is building if my craft is building companies,

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That means that there's always more that I can do to be better, but that doesn't mean that I'm unhappy or not

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satisfied with where I am. Fair enough. Fair enough. Alright, Ben. Let's go to the next one. If you could go back to your college days, what is the one thing you would have done differently? Knowing what you know now. That's from Sam Faber.

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So I was a huge idiot in college, and not even, like, the cool idiot that was, like, ah, man. I was, I was just being dumb. Just going parties having fun with my friends, late nights, you know. It's like, wait. Did you love it? Or are you saying it was bad? It's like, for me, I was just thinking I was just doing nothing. Wasn't doing nothing idiot. And,

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that's the worst kind. And to me now that I look back, I'm like, wow.

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College is a gold mine. You can make lifelong friends. You can meet future business partners.

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Even just, you know, I'm a business junkie now. I wish that when I was in college, I had been launching businesses. I got captive market of students who I understand who I can reach that are just living literally living in this bubble, waiting to be sold products.

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And I could've been working on my skills then versus I started working on my skills after college.

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You know, there was alumni

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that, like, I didn't even realize how powerful it is just to be like, hey. I'm I'm also I also go to Duke. You went to Duke thirty five years ago. I go there now, and they're like, cool. You wanna hang out? And so it, like, it's that easy to connect. And so now I look back and I would say I would mine that gold mine. I was just sitting there eating Chick fil a on top of a gold mine. I didn't even really look down and realize what I was sitting on.

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The only smart thing I did was I studied abroad, which is kind of a thing you really wanna do at that point in time. I went to Australia.

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What when you you didn't go to Sydney, did you? I did. Yeah. Yeah, man. Sunny, I think Sydney, I'll show you. It's the greatest city on Earth. It's the greatest place to be. It's the best place to be, like, a nineteen year old. It's the greatest place on earth. My biggest regret is that I didn't take high school seriously enough to get into some of these amazing schools. So I went to school at Belmont University,

20:14

And it was, like, a Southern Christians Christian university

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that had low standards.

20:19

Yeah. That's that is what it says on their website too.

20:23

Does it, like,

20:24

a home of mediocrity? Like, mediocre people, exceptional price

20:32

like,

20:34

back then, it was very expensive. It was very expensive, and it was like a such a mediocre thing. I, like, when you say you went to Duke, Like, I I I envy you so much because at least you got, like, even the the basketball guys were, like, the best. And then a lot of your peers were very, very smart. And I bet you met, like, a lot of people from even though it was in the south, I bet you still met, like, tons of different, like, foreigners

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people from New York City, people from California. I didn't get to meet any of those people. So I regret that. The first, like, Jewish person I met was when I moved to San Francisco at the age of, like, twenty two. Like, I didn't know, like, it was just, like, pretty much just white people. And so I wish I was, like, around more of a, like, a global,

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group of people.

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And so that was one of my big regrets. I also wish that I

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took seriously

21:18

the idea that the things that you do in college aren't that important They don't have to be, like, the thing that you do. But if you take your hobbies seriously,

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it's a really fun time to try on different personalities and things like that. So I wish I had a little I took I I wish I took more seriously.

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I I totally agree with that college part, which was I thought in college, the thing is your classes, and the result is your grades.

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But actually, that's completely backwards. Like, the thing is the people in the environment, that's the one thing you're never getting it back. And then if you really wanted a result, you wanted to, like, you know, take it seriously. The way to take it seriously wasn't to get a pluses or, like, you know,

21:56

be an amazing chemistry major, it was actually be like, hey, this is four years. And after this, I'm supposed to figure out I'm supposed to be, like, doing a job and a pick a career.

22:04

I should dabble. I should go and, like, sample, like, it's Costco and it's noon. And I should go sample a bunch of different way things that you could do. Meet a bunch of people who do that thing. And I should take this time to figure out what do I actually like to do.

22:18

And I wish colleges were oriented like that because colleges are oriented around the opposite assumption. It's like pick what you want. That means you must know, and then put your head down and focus. And it's, like, that's the wrong time to focus. You should be dabbling at that stage.

22:32

Do you have good credit?

22:33

Hi. Okay. Credit. I've like, I have good enough credit.

22:37

Dude, I wish I would have,

22:39

I didn't, like, get a credit card until I was, like, twenty four. And then I started my company, and I would max it out constantly. And then I would, and I would always, like, pay pay it off, like, before I had to. So my credit card utilization was always, like, a hundred percent.

22:53

And I didn't have a long credit history And so I wish I had there's a very practical thing. I wish I had a credit card at the age of eighteen and I used it for everything and always paid it off so I could build credit history. I don't have, like, the most the best credit because of that. Well, would did that come back to bite you? Where why do you need your credit so bad? You're trying to get loans or something? What do what you're trying What when I tried to buy the house that I'm living in now, I couldn't buy it. My wife had to buy it. One, because my credit history wasn't long enough, which is crazy.

23:20

And it wasn't, like, fantastic. I think every once in a while, it's in the six hundreds. And then,

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b, because you're a business owner buying a a house and give you a mortgage is really, really challenging. So I couldn't I couldn't buy it. Fair enough. Alright. What do we got? Alright. This next one is

23:35

Have you had a deal not go through when close to finishing it? If so, what did you learn to do better? How did your mentality regroup to start the process over? Not for sure, but I feel like the sellers are trying to tank this business acquisition, which is supposed to close on May thirty first. That's from Mackenzie Reed.

23:51

This is a great question. And the the I inter accidentally interrupted you, but he said,

23:56

I feel like sellers are trying to tank this biz acquisition, which is supposed to close on five thirty one. I wanna address that. But first, I had a deal go through. I think my NDA is up, but there's a recent media company that went bankrupt

24:10

that tried to buy the hustle, and we got to a term sheet, and it completely fell through, or we got to an LOI, and it completely fell through. And there was, like, three others that I'd lined up also felt through, and I was devastated. So I changed my opinion to,

24:25

this, like, any deal that I have, it's going to happen to it will not happen but I will act as if it's going to, but just assume it's not going to. And then if it does, I will be happy because most fall through. But to address that last question of, I think the seller to try to tank this biz acquisition. I had that exact same attitude when I sold the HubSpot.

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And I and then one day I just told him. I got to know the woman, who is I was working with that Hub spot. And she was like, look, you don't understand.

24:52

We're worth twenty billion dollars. This deal is really not a big deal to us. Like, this ain't gonna do anything for us. I mean, it'll do a little something, but just so you know, we already got like board approval to do it, which means I told my boss And that boss told their boss, and then that boss reported it to twelve people who are like billionaires and shit. And so if this deal doesn't go through, that means all twelve of those people have to, like, change something. And and then more so, I'm gonna look stupid, and my boss is gonna look stupid, and this other boss is gonna look stupid. Because we're a big publicly traded company, if we say we're gonna do something, we're gonna do it. Not necessarily because of it's it's a logical good deal, but because I don't wanna look dumb in front of all my bosses. So we're going to do this versus when you sell to a smaller company

25:35

or, like, an individual who's got money, I do feel they will always try or not always. A lot of times, they will nickel and dime you, or they will try to dock you. But I don't necessarily think a lot of times they're trying to ruin something, but I do think they will have ulterior motives, which is, like, I'm trying to learn a little bit of information about this company so I could start up my own or do all these other things. But when you sell to a big publicly traded company, I think nine out of ten times It's not in their best interest to screw you.

26:00

That's a great answer. I'm the same way. I go into every single deal, assuming the deal is not gonna go through because,

26:06

as Emmett said to me,

26:09

birds fly, fish swim, and deals fall through, that's what they do. Deals fall through. It is not a Is it not a, you know, outlier or exception or, like,

26:19

disaster when that happened? Oh, a deal did what it does. Deals well through. That's what they do, baby. Like, what what you're worried about?

26:26

Get your ass down while you're crying. That's how that's my that's how I talk to myself when I when I get like, emotionally attached to a deal. So the emotional detachment is key. Alright. Well, how do you do that? Part of it, you gotta yeah. You needed to be having a bulletproof mindset before you get into an MNA transaction. It's too late when you're in the M and A transaction to be like, alright, guys. I'm a toughen up this here brain to be able to, like, operate in a very, like, tricky circumstance where I might get life changing money. It might all fall through. And, like, yo, that's a that's hard to do then. You gotta train before that.

26:57

You, you know, that's the first thing. Second thing is

27:01

I not only do they fall through debts, I'm also not fatal when they do.

27:05

In fact, every deal I've done has had a fall through moment, if not two. And so that is my my rule of thumb, which is that every deal that does close,

27:15

Both there's gonna be two walkaways

27:18

along the way. You're gonna walk away or they're gonna walk away. That's gonna probably happen twice. You're gonna hit a wall twice

27:24

before this deal actually happens where it feels like this deal is dead or it's simply not happening or there's just a very, very low chance that we get over this this hurdle.

27:32

Have you announced

27:34

or have you said have you ever mentioned I'm not sure if it's an NDA. The other two people you almost sold to, but instead of Twitch,

27:40

I think I said before. Like, we got pretty far down the road with Facebook, and that we also had a couple others that were Facebook. We had that we're at we're like, out one hour away from accepting the deal and finishing it.

27:52

And one of the good things that they did tell me was same thing you just said about HubSpot.

27:56

So twitch is owned by Amazon, and the Corpdev guy was like, look, I'm sorry. We've been so slow.

28:02

And I'm sorry. We're not the, like, we can't just give you everything you want in terms price.

28:07

But here's the good news. We will not retrade this deal, which is what it's called when you come back. Are you trying to get that? That's what they told me too. Negotiation once everybody fully emotionally invested and you're like, but, actually, now I wanna change this.

28:19

But then you think, like, oh, you're just a doctor. You tell everyone that their kids are, like, Doing great or, like, they look they look cute. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you're just you're bullshit. I had my, and I don't think that's true. Who's helping me help me get through it? And he confirmed that. He was a investment banker. He'd done a hundred plus transaction. He's like, yep. These guys are the the both of them, Facebook and Amazon. If they give you an offer, they're solid on that. That will be the deal that goes There will be if they doesn't close this because you didn't disclose something that you then come out later with or you change your mind. It's not gonna be because of them. That's the good news of these big companies. The bad news is deals get hung up or delayed for all kinds of terrible reasons.

28:56

So so, you know, I I just sort of expect a deal is always gonna go slower than you want is most likely gonna fall through. And even when a deal happens, it's gonna break up twice before it happens. That is the rule of thumb. And so I gotta do I got some great advice umbology when I was doing, the milk road sale.

29:11

We had a couple offers.

29:13

And one offer was higher on the money,

29:15

and the other offer was a little lower on the or, like, you know, would say, what was it, like, twenty five percent lower on money or something like that, let's say. And he goes, okay.

29:23

Well, you're saying you're, you know, you wanna take the higher deal. That makes sense. Let me ask you one question. And he goes,

29:31

are both of these deals at the same point? Meaning, have they both been have you been talking about the same amount of time? Have they done the same amount of diligence so far? Have you gone back and forth the same amount of times with them? I said, I don't know. The the lower deal we've gone all the way through, and this higher deal where it he just came on super know, they came on super fast and and they were really eager and and we got the deal done fast. I was kind of excited. Like, these guys seem really committed because they're they're they're they're they're moving really quickly here. And he goes, okay. So you need to apply a discount then. Because the offer is not twenty five percent higher. In fact, it's probably half as high. Once you apply the discount of

30:06

this deal doesn't doesn't close or falls through, you're gonna turn down an offer that's solid

30:12

for an offer that might be slightly higher, but hasn't done the two fall throughs yet. And so he's like, you need to apply discount. He's like, if I if I'm honest, if I'm discounted this, it's at least fifty percent.

30:23

Based off of just the normal way that M and A deals work. This deal will not be the exact deal that closes. If it closes at all, And that was very sage advice. And it ended up it ended up playing exactly out. We tried to go with the higher offer. And then sure enough, more stuff came out of the woodwork, where that gave us hesitation.

30:41

And then we were like, look, this is not as solid as we initially thought or like, you know, the we can't just take the headline numbers. We have to take it to consideration

30:49

the ability to close and the credibility to close, and, that changed the calculus.

30:55

And the way you get around that is you say the bad things upfront, I think.

31:00

As best as you can, you say anything that will ruin it as early in the process versus as late in the process. This was great advice. You gave me. You gave me this advice when we're going through the mill grid process. You go

31:10

here's what you're gonna do because I was going to dinner with them. And I said, you said, here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna go there and you're gonna say the following. You're gonna say,

31:18

Awesome. Sounds like we're all excited.

31:20

Now I'm gonna tell you every reason you should not buy this company. I'm gonna tell you every skeleton in the closet now to save ourselves some pain later. And if anything that you're scares you, I'm happy to either explain it, or if it just doesn't work, then, you know, you we can know now. And I was like, well, that's the opposite of how I would have naturally approached it. So so tell me more. And then I did exactly that. And after the deal went so we we did that. And then after the deal went through, we did a postmortem. Like, hey, that's how you know these buyers are smart. They're like, what could we have done differently in our buy?

31:49

And I said, saying, what could we have done differently in the sale? And they were like, one of the best things you did was at that dinner. Would you just told us anything that was bad about the company, and you just proactively

31:59

said, here's all the skeletons in our closet or anything that might look ugly to you. It goes, that built so much trust it for us that And he's like, from there, we we weren't even, like, we weren't worried about those things because it built so much trust. And,

32:14

It's a very selfish thing you say. Do it in a non manipulative way. You can't actually do that and then leave out the real skeleton. That that shit's like the opposite of trust.

32:22

So so that definitely worked. It got confirmed on the But it's a it's a it's a it's a win win scenario, which is you,

32:29

get the deal done hopefully faster than than slower, and also it makes them trust you, which Or the third option, which is you find out earlier that the shit's not gonna work and you move on. You don't waste three months of time, you know, dragging it out when you would've you could've known that upfront if if both has been more honest.

32:47

I agree.

32:51

Our software is the worst. Have you heard of HubSpot?

32:54

See, most CRMs are a cobbled together mess, but spot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous. I think I love our new CRM. Our software is the best. Hubspot.

33:05

Growbetter.

33:06

Alright, Ben. What do you say? Alright. Next question is, do you have any updates to Sarah's list or any new additions?

33:12

So Sarah's list It's this list. It's standard for my my wife because

33:17

it's at this point, it's just its own name. But basically, we made a list of companies

33:22

where you could join and have a safe job, meaning you're hopefully not gonna get laid off like you would at a ten person startup or go out of business. You can still get paid a lot in salary and then still have, like, maternity, paternity leave and have a lot of these perks and benefits. And also your stock, I think our requirement is good ten x. Is it? So basically

33:43

So basically,

33:44

it's based off your real real stories. Sarah joined Facebook. She joined Airbnb, she joined Airbnb, and she joined them not like super early when they were just still in their, you know, their apartment trying to figure it out. It was like, it was it was working. This is a business that was already valued at you know, let's say a billion dollars or more. And,

34:01

so a multi it was a multi billion dollar company already.

34:04

You get the fat salary

34:06

You get the oat milk unlimited oat milk on tap in the in in the break room. You get the maternity leave. You get everything you would want, but also you get a stock package that even if you're not even like a a AI engineer. Like, let's say you're getting

34:20

a seventy k a year of stock.

34:24

If that thing, five x's, you could become a millionaire

34:27

without ever having done the the the startup route, just in a four year vest cycle. And so and that was your your wife's story inspiring to me and to you is, like, I feel like nobody talks about this, but you have to correctly identify the companies

34:40

that can four or five x in the next four years.

34:43

And, so we have this list. So anyways, they want an update on that list.

34:48

About there's a YouTube video of of the last time we did Sarah's list. And we think we've done it twice. So we actually updated that, hey, a bunch of the companies we said the first time. Sure enough. I think the average multiple was, like, you know, in in exactly the range that we had talked about. So

35:01

Now I actually think it's the opposite. I'm calling it Sarah's exodus.

35:05

Basically, there's a whole bunch of companies that raised money in twenty twenty, twenty twenty one.

35:10

That were at valuations that worked when the economy was different. The stock market was different. Inflation was different.

35:17

Interest rates were different.

35:19

And now those companies,

35:21

it'll take years to get back to that same valuation if that. And so now I think it's Sarah's Exidence, which is what are the companies where you just have zombie equity. You are so far underwater

35:31

on the value of your shares that not only will it not four or five x. It's not even good at one x. You won't even get what you think it's worth today, you're gonna sit there for four years earning that useless stock. And so I actually think you have to make the opposite list. What companies raise too much at the wrong time at the wrong valuation

35:47

that are basically upside down. And,

35:50

And you basically will go to TechCrunch and you put year what when did the Bulmarts start? Say twenty twenty and twenty twenty one as the peak, maybe even a little twenty nineteen.

35:59

And go through tech crunch and do sort by, like, year and anything unicorn.

36:05

Yeah. Yeah. And anything that became a unicorn in that era,

36:09

assume that the likelihood is is split. Until proven otherwise.

36:14

Right? Go to your go to your CEO and say, hey, What is the fair amount market value? What is the actual fair market value of this company right now?

36:22

What's the last what is the last money we raised at? How much total money have we raised? Oh, we've raised six hundred million dollars. Okay. So we'd have to sell the first six hundred million if we sold would just go back to the investors. It goes into nothing to to employees.

36:34

And how much secondary did you take and

36:38

what type of g wackin do you have?

36:43

Yeah. You figure out those things. Did I ever tell you the create so you're talking about, like, going to these big companies and you can get, like, all you could eat food and shit like that. I tell you about the craziest thing at Airbnb. So if you go to their they have like a cafeteria,

36:55

their whole shtick was that every single thing from the ketchup and mayonnaise

37:01

to the Coca Cola, to the

37:04

all the condiments, the trail mix, everything was made in house on premises, what, when there was an office. All the food was made right there in the spot, and it was amazing. There was a that that's amazing. I remember the same thing happened at,

37:19

What's it called? Zinga. I went to Zinga. I met the head chef at Zinga. He ran the chef

37:24

was a manager of, like, forty people. That was the culinary tea the internal culinary team was forty people at Zinga. You show up at Zinga. First of all, there's, like, ninety four dogs running around insane amount of dogs. Their their logo's a dog and ever there's two dogs for every one employee there. Secondly,

37:41

forty person sh That's like a dog fighting pit in the middle.

37:44

Like, people, like When times get all the Facebook made the outfit change. Yeah. There was a little dog fighting ring that that brewed up in in the second floor.

37:51

And I went into the kitchen, and I was walking around. He's like,

37:56

yeah. We do our own butchering, and he opens this like, fridge that was like a forty foot, you know, like, fridge. And there was just, like, one of the dogs there. Cows hanging upside down. I was like, you're gonna break that down. He's like, yes. Break that down every morning.

38:09

Oh, what's this on tap? There's no label. He's like, that's my homemade kombucha. Like, we make her own

38:14

we brew our own drinks.

38:16

We make our own food. The veggies that you see, that mushroom, it grows on the roof here.

38:21

And then, during the tour, I got a little hungry reaching out of the pocket. Had some cheez its. I opened up the bag,

38:27

dude,

38:28

they heard

38:30

the crinkling of a of a packaged good in that kitchen.

38:35

The whole kitchen froze. It's like it was like I said bomb on a plane, dude. I was like, I'm so sorry. I don't know how this got here.

38:43

I don't know what this is. Put this in my pocket.

38:48

Do do they still have it you think? Of course, they don't now, but Although.

38:52

If they were have the building. Here the whole building got sold.

38:55

I think the building sold for more than the company was worth at the time. If you Google a Zenga building, they owned this building in San Francisco, and I think they sold it for two hundred fifty million dollars at the time when the market cap of the company was two hundred million dollars. Yeah. That was either that or more profit than they've ever generated. It was one of those two. And, yeah, now it's owned by, take two who who makes Grand Theft Auto and NBA two k. They own Zinca now. Yeah. I like those those chef companies. So, like, Sarah's list, I I think you gotta go get get get yourself. It's nice. Dating somebody who works at a tech company with all you can eat food,

39:29

What are you doing? What's the point? No perks, bro. What are the perks? You need to add? Yeah. What are the attributes of this relationship You know what I mean?

39:37

You need to bring some attributes. You better be, you know, the, like, starving artists, extra hot, or have a company that has all you have. Seen how many Cliff bars. I was like a, like, I was the Pablo Escobar of smuggling Cliff bars out of tech companies for, like, a three year period.

39:54

I had free prosciutto for a year. I used to, like, I used to I used to call it proscutto. I didn't even know what it was. I was like, dude, I find this proscutto in all the land.

40:02

Dude. I use this center to work with tupperware containers. It's on a break. Make sure you stay till six. Why are you home

40:11

so early? I know that Facebook dinner didn't start until five thirty. It takes you now to get home. Where's my pursuit?

40:20

Ben, what do you say? What do we got? Do you have any frameworks for maintaining healthy friendships, especially when you're separated by distance? Mind simple. I'm in the phase of life right now. I have got one simple phrase when it comes to friends. No new friends.

40:32

If you're in, you're in. It's a mental problem for you.

40:35

Yeah. Here's your mental model. Everything.

40:41

If you win, you win, if you ain't, you ain't. What's yours? Yeah. I'm I'm the same. My second this I apologize to my friends. I I'm a shitty friend to them. They know it. I I do feel bad about it.

40:51

But you could only try to be great at at so many things at once. And, okay, I got kids. So Wait. What are you still picking which thing you're gonna be great at?

41:00

Which which ones you gotta be?

41:02

Try to be a great dad. Try to make a bunch of money, and then try to get into incredible shape. Those are the things I've prioritized right now. And so,

41:11

you know, friends had to take a little bit of a hit there.

41:14

Alright. You loser. What do you say, Ben? What do we got? If you were to start a business based on quirkiest or most ridiculous idea that you've ever had, what would it be and why?

41:23

Yours is actually good, Sean. Yeah. Did you have an answer for this?

41:27

No. Because I'm not like that quirky of a person. Say yours.

41:32

The IQ test is actually a good idea.

41:34

Alright. So I so

41:37

I remember I met a guy who would sell stars,

41:40

like, literally, like, a star in the solar system for twenty five dollars. He would name it after you. And I think he would just name it in his own database.

41:48

And then there then I saw this there's this guy who's just been crushing on TikTok. I don't know if you see these TikTok ads.

41:54

Where you he will they own a small piece of land in, like, Dublin or something, something like that, and you will officially be knighted as a sir.

42:04

Like, you'll get official title as sir, and you will own a piece, like, a a plant on this land. I got one foot by one foot's, you know, like, plot of land.

42:13

So when I saw things like that, you know, there's really two reactions. There's most people who I roll and say this is what's wrong with the world. And then there's me who's, like, what's wrong with me? Why haven't I done this? And, that's kinda where I'm at. So I would love to just take time to do some of these stupid things. Like, I wanna be the pet rock guy. Like, the million dollar homepage guy. I think I think that would just be a lot of fun as a challenge. I have an idea, which is, I wanna create a new IQ test

42:39

because, like, doesn't wanna seem like they have high, you know, like, a high IQ. I'd so I think you could build, like, a DTC IQ test that people would pay to see how what how they score.

42:48

Or just go all in on something super woo woo, like,

42:52

horoscopes,

42:54

crystals, something like that. I actually launched a DSC crystal brand, like an e commerce brand, for a month.

42:59

And,

43:01

now that I look back, now that I know what actually how e commerce works, that brand was actually working. I was just too big of a noob to even understand, like, Is this good or bad? Like Why is it good? Because people can't return it? No. No. I just mean, like, it was working. Like, I was acquiring customers at a good rate. Like, the, I mean, the all e commerce is basically CAC versus LTV. It's just what's the lifetime value of a customer, the LTV compared to the CAC, the cost of acquiring that customer?

43:26

And, and, actually, my my LTV, the CAC was actually good. I just didn't really understand it enough at the time. I didn't trust it enough at the time, but my first ecomm before the one I made was a crystal one. Like, in my garage right now, I have, like, four thousand rose quartz

43:40

coasters still, just because I didn't sell again, I didn't move the that inventory. I shut it down. How much did it cost for you to buy and to sell?

43:48

Oh, dude. These are very cheap to buy. Like,

43:51

you know,

43:52

the gross margins are like seventy five, eighty percent. So, you know, you buy it for two bucks, you sell for ten. It's just like round math. Right? But, like, in reality, you're selling it for twenty four, and you're buying it for whatever that math turns out to. Dude, that's wild. But, like, also you don't wanna be a fraud, which

44:08

Hey. If you're selling crystals,

44:10

I mean For us in the eye of the believer, as I say. And,

44:14

there are a lot of people who believe that crystals are good and help them like, the reason I had this idea one of them was I But I'll tell it to him. I went and I read I opened up a magazine like, you know, Cosmo or one of these magazines. Okay, I'm gonna go look outside of my normal box for new ideas. So I went opened up like Cosmo,

44:31

and there's, like, this two four two page spread about crystals And it was basically, like, Adele

44:38

will not go on stage until she, like, uses her rose quartz crystal thing. Kim Kardashian after she got mugged for her four million dollar,

44:46

diamond ring. I don't know if you remember this. She claims that crystals are one of the, like, Only things that kept her anxiety down and soothe her. She keeps one in her bag at all times. Gwyneth paltrow from goop.

44:57

I mean, obviously,

44:58

huge into crystals. They do I even need to explain? So there was, like, this huge number of, like, celebrities email influencers.

45:05

Well, and there's the Adam Sandler movie with Kevin Garnett where he, like, buys that you know, million dollar black crystal. That's right. Yeah. That's right. That came out late after I'd done that. But but, yeah, I basically saw I was like, oh, if if Kardashian, Adele,

45:17

And, like, whatever Jennifer Aniston or whoever these people are, like, if they're all into crystals, like, trust me.

45:23

The you know, the perfect e commerce customer, A woman in the Midwest

45:27

is going to buy this stuff. And it was actually more some chick named Kenzie.

45:32

Yeah. So,

45:33

you know, Kenzie in Idaho.

45:36

She wants to buy that shit out of your rocks.

45:40

Yeah. Like, If you have if you have, like, a sign that says simplify or I love us,

45:46

you're you're gonna be one of my customers.

45:50

Alright, Ben. What do you say? Where are we at? Alright. That one was mostly for Sean. This one is mostly for

45:56

Sam. Which is what were the first five big boy moves you made at Hampton?

46:02

The first thing I did By the way, Ben, you gotta send you guys names. For people who ask these questions, just Joe watkins.

46:07

Yeah. Joe Joachin, he asked about Hampton.

46:11

I don't know about the first five, but, I didn't buy a domain name. It was just Hampton at tampon dot square space dot com, and I sent the link to a bunch of friends. And then they sent to a a handful of other friends, and then I just reached out to tons of people. People would sign up on that page, which it was just a type form. And then I called every single person, and I interviewed them. And and me and Joe Joe did like the back end stuff, but I did the front end stuff of, like, calling all the potential customers. And I must have interviewed a hundred to two hundred people

46:40

And, I was the one that sold and got us the first million dollars of of sales. And so I called it, I told I would joke and tell Sean my calendar looked like a zebra. It was just like constant stripes of, like, these thirty minute meetings with the ten minute break, thirty minute meetings, ten minute break, and I did hundreds of them. I got us to a million dollars in sales.

47:01

That's a good question. Probably just laid on the couch and think I hate this and I'm so excited when it'll be over one day.

47:07

Like, I mean, it's it's really hard work. It's very challenging.

47:11

And then another big thing I did was I hired a CEO because very early on, I thought this thing is gonna be bigger than I'm the the this thing will be

47:18

exceed my personal capabilities and skill sets very soon, so I should hire a CEO. But getting the first million dollars in sales is what I did for, like, two months. I would say the other thing you did is you,

47:28

you nailed the brand and the name,

47:31

which is

47:34

Jessart, that's talent, but I think that, you know,

47:37

a a name won't break you, but it can make you. I think Hampton is a perfect name because you borrowed the prestige the actual Hamptons,

47:44

and you hired a agency to

47:47

do like a nice job with the branding or whatever.

47:49

So I think that was also that agency

47:52

I hired was fifteen thousand dollars. And basically what I did was I sent him a whole bunch of really old real Rolex ads.

47:58

And I also said my favorite color is British racing green because it because I that's like my I I love that color. It's like a lot of old cars are also.

48:07

No. It's brit British racing grade. I love like, I I've had motorcycles in that color. I I have all types of, like, toys in that color. I like that color. I go make it look like an old Rolex ad and make it and use British racing green. And that's kinda how it came to be. And fifteen thousand dollars, for you to spend fifteen thousand dollars, like, give give people a sense of, like,

48:25

is that just nothing for you? Or you just, like Let's just say this. You sweat that? Last Saturday,

48:31

I drove

48:32

twenty minutes to return a spatula to Target for seven dollars.

48:39

So, yeah, I I'm I'm a tight one. It was the kind of guy that licks his finger before he, you know, gets gets out of one to

48:49

Make sure there's not a second one stuck on there.

48:52

It's

48:54

hilarious.

48:55

Alright. What do we got? Alright.

48:57

Next up is,

48:59

this is from Josh Red who wants to know what are the three most common small boy moves that you see?

49:05

Alright. So we have this phrase. No no small boy stuff. Okay. What what is small boy stuff? Alright. The first rule obviously is if you think it might be small boy stuff, it is. But besides that, I would say there's the the three big ones, the three big buckets are the three w's

49:20

waiting,

49:21

worrying,

49:22

and wanting.

49:24

Anytime you find yourself waiting to do something that you actually wanna do, that's a small boy move. That's a small boy mentality. You're focused on the wrong things.

49:32

Worrying same way. Woring hasn't done anyone a lot a lot of good. You gotta know how to do worry. I think Sam's worried time is a fantastic framework for that. So go go look up Sam, worry time.

49:42

And wanting, wanting, meaning, like, wanting what other people have,

49:47

and really, like,

49:48

you people are their happiest when they're grateful, meaning they want what they have versus,

49:54

versus, you know, wanting what they don't have.

49:56

And so I think that if you find yourself

49:59

in a state of mind, you don't wanna be in in that small voice state of mind, it's because you're probably waiting to do the thing you actually wanna do.

50:06

You're worrying about something that might might happen. That might be bad. Or you're wanting something that you don't have that other people have. You're being bitter. You're being jealous or or or or so on and so forth. So to me, the three w's kinda capture most of the things that there are small boy activities.

50:21

Have you ever heard of this phrase? This is we're gonna get a little Sigma Freud on your ass.

50:26

External locusts of control. Do you know what that means? I've heard this phrase many times, and never have any idea what this means.

50:35

Locust is a bug. That's where I started. And,

50:39

you tell me where to go from there.

50:41

Yeah. You're totally wrong.

50:43

But, so in internal locust and control means that,

50:47

well, let's say an external locus of control, meaning is means the way that you feel and the position that you are in your life, it's because of everyone else.

50:57

So if you have an external locus of control, you think I am in a bad mood because the traffic is bad, and it's their fault. Or I am,

51:06

I'm poor because,

51:08

the the government won't help me or everyone's out to get me. Internal is the which is I control how I feel and what I do and where I am in life. And so I think that there's a direct correlation between, like,

51:20

like, what I consider, like, a small boy thing of that internal versus external locus of control. So anything that is when you say I am the way I am because I choose to be or I I put myself in this position. I think oftentimes that's a when you're more on that spec I think it's better than when you are when you're focused on external. So anything where it's like, I have to wait until,

51:40

this is ready or or I have to

51:44

please these types of people or whatever. That's typically, I think, a loser mentality.

51:49

Yeah. A hundred percent. I I use I was actually telling somebody this yesterday and,

51:54

I was like, where where do you think the power lives in this scenario? Let's say there's a plant

51:58

that's not growing.

52:02

Where where where where's the problem?

52:04

And, you know, where where do you suspect the problem is? They're like, well, I mean, it could be the soil.

52:09

Alright. So soil. So it's the environment. That's the reason that, that's the plant cyclone.

52:14

No. No. Maybe it was just a bad seed.

52:16

So it was kinda like the genetics of of the seed that that you would blame for for the outcome.

52:21

No. No. No. It's just not getting enough sunlight because there's other plants blocking it. Oh, so it's others. It's competitors that are taking the finite resource that you you can't have.

52:31

What what is it? What is it that where is the where is the problem? And,

52:34

And the answer is really there is no problem. You are the plant just fucking grow. Like, don't don't blame anything. Don't don't feel lack in any one of those areas.

52:44

Like, you wanna be ultimately, you wanna be the plant that can grow in any any one of those. Any under any conditions, from any seed in any soil, with any with any sunlight in any competition.

52:54

And so,

52:55

what I find is that I get along least with people who

52:58

really, like, over index on

53:01

they always blame the soil. It's always the it's always the the city's fault. It's always the school's fault. It's always the department's fault or people who oh, it's genetics. I'm fixed. It is the way it is. Alright? Or, oh, it's the competition. They're always taking my things. Right? It's like Those are the people that get along with the least and even in myself when I find myself thinking that way. I get along with myself the least. I hate myself the most. When I think that way. See, you you didn't know what it meant, but you you came to the same conclusion that, you know, hundreds and of of years worth of psychologists. It took them to figured out to be already there. Thousands of years of wisdom, I just sort of on an afternoon. Can't just come up with a better version myself. And then I then

53:40

I find the words to describe it.

53:43

And you used a better analogy.

53:45

Alright, Ben. What do you say? Where are we at? Alright. We got an emotional one. Ladies gentlemen, grab your tissues.

53:51

Sam,

53:52

What is, in your opinion, the greatest quality that Sean has in Sean? Same question. What what is the greatest quality that Sam has? It's a question from Griffin Humphrey.

54:01

Griffin.

54:02

Good question.

54:03

Sean's greatest quality,

54:06

54:07

it is,

54:08

feel like I don't wanna look you in the eye right now. So I just closed his eyes. Should I close my eyes too?

54:13

It's like

54:15

it's like There's a ton of ways that I could take this analogy. I'm not It's like when you're sitting up table and somebody puts their palms out like this, and then you're supposed to put your hands in

54:24

Yes.

54:27

Yeah.

54:28

That's weird. You don't look people to be angry to do that. Just like,

54:31

complimenting each other and going to the bathroom. I contacted it doesn't exist.

54:38

Need to say it side by side. No. No. No. There we go.

54:43

Yeah. Just the conversation when you go have your notice when you go to the bathroom with someone, even if you're walking to the bathroom together, as soon as the fly goes down, the conversation

54:51

stops.

54:52

Yeah.

54:54

The the fly or zippers like the off button.

54:59

And then you shake and you go back and the fly goes up.

55:02

Yeah. You're just right back to the conversation.

55:06

That's what this is like. Sean best attribute is that his attitude is always,

55:12

positive. So I don't think I've ever been able to that I've done it on purpose, but I've he's I've never gotten him rattled,

55:18

and he's very, very, very pleasant.

55:21

I think almost one hundred percent of the time. I've never seen him get up set about stuff. And that is actually frustrating about him, is that he doesn't get frustrated sometimes. But at the same time, I would rather have that because I'm fairly emotional, and I get frustrated easily. He never gets frustrated.

55:38

And so I would say that's his,

55:40

best characteristic. Internal locust of control, baby.

55:44

Yeah. You you control your You're gonna look mindset.

55:47

Yeah.

55:49

Yeah. The locust is inside of you all the time. It never goes outside of you. You have e you you you it it's in you. So, I would say that's easily your best attribute is the ability to stay calm and happy no matter what. Mine for you would be intensity

56:05

I think you do a great job cranking the knob up whenever you are into something. I admire that. And when I look at all the things that I admire about you, like,

56:15

the way you're self actualized in terms of fitness

56:18

or the way you built the hustle or the way you're building Hampton right now.

56:23

The common denominator is the level of intensity you bring to it. So,

56:27

I don't think

56:29

there's really anything else. Like, it's not like I'm like, oh,

56:33

You know, the reason Sam again, it's like internal locus of control. It's not like I'm like, Sam's Sam got lucky because of this, where he's got people helping him, and that's why he's winning or He's just born with some talents that others don't have. It's like, I think you just have a better job at cranking the intensity to twelve when it's time to. If you're like, I'm gonna get in shape, you're like, great. Enject my butt with TRT,

56:54

build a home gym,

56:55

hire hire a personal trainer, hire a coach, buy the best equipment, do the wake up every day, do the program. When I'm doing the workout, I'm pushing myself to my actual max. And then I'm doing this. I'm measuring everything. I'm posting publicly so I'm ashamed if I don't do it. You go the full way, and it's, like, the same thing with Hampton. I told you this. Like, I had had a very similar idea for a peer group thing years ago. I kinda dabbled with it, tried it, created one. It was actually going pretty well, but I was like, alright. Sign the object over here, got kinda bored, decided, didn't really think it was the right thing, didn't really see the big picture. To see you take that same idea,

57:29

and do it at level twelve intensity is such a gift for me because it's like,

57:33

I get to see a without intensity approach to the same idea, and a with intensity, perhaps the same idea. And it just shows what the difference is. Like, that is the difference. And so to me, that and I also wrote

57:46

Sam's got a code and he lives by it. I think you're a lot more,

57:50

honorable,

57:52

than than most and definitely than me. And so I kind of admire that too. What what code? I I don't I don't view myself as having a code necessarily.

58:00

Do you feel like when you give someone your word that it's done

58:04

Yeah. It's for life. I Do you feel like that if someone's your friend, they should fight for you and die for you. And any small slight is a, like,

58:12

like a a a loyal stab to the heart.

58:16

I feel like if we're in public

58:18

and

58:19

you get in a fight with someone and you throw a punch, even though it's your fault. We got in a fight. Yeah. The the the the the person's

58:26

it it is over. And then afterwards, I'll be like, You're an idiot. That was really inappropriate. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel I I disagree privately, publicly.

58:34

Like, we we die together. Yeah. The same thing showing up on time. Like, I don't feel like you have a code. I don't even agree with your whole code. I think you're crazy with some things when you go chase down people that broke in because you're like, no. You broke in. Now we fight. We duel. I'm like, that's stupid, Sam. You should not do that. Or you're like, this guy's trying to charge me an extra hundred dollars because of whatever,

58:54

No. We've we're taking him to petty court. And I'm like, Sam's not worth it, man. Let it go. So I disagree with your code, but I love that you have a code because I don't think I really have a code to live by. Alright. What do we got?

59:05

Alright. Really quick. Let me just tell you guys the last questions and you say what what you wanna do, what you don't. So we got

59:11

creator maneuvers you're paying attention to. We got pros and cons of building in public.

59:17

Let let's do a creative one really quick. Yes. Who are the creative,

59:20

creator perneurs? That's kind of a weird one. Crater perneurs, you are paying attention to and why. I like Isaac French, because the that's the name. Creator producer someone who's like creating content, but they're also an entrepreneur. They're building a business around their podcast or their YouTube or their Twitter or whatever. That's what it is. I like Isaac French. I hung out with him. And I was like, why are you so purposeful with everything you do? He goes, that's just part of our religion. We feel that, like, we just have to be and that's how we show that god's great. And I was like, oh, okay. So, like, you're I'm not gonna put against that. Yeah. The yeah.

59:53

I like Jasmine Star. There's just she's the woman who has us. She's got a a software company. I've met her through Hampton, and I've whenever I hang out with her, I feel like

01:00:02

I'm gonna cry. Like, she's it's so intense.

01:00:05

And she's, like, she describes herself as, like, a a Latino woman from, like, I think East LA, and she's, like, so, like, I'm gonna, like, crush all these tech nerds, and I love that attitude.

01:00:16

And I like Jason Janowitz and Austin Reef. Jason Yanowitz runs Blackworks, a crypto company that just raised some money. I would never bet against them, and then Austin Reef. As I've gotten no Austin Reef, the founder of Morningbrew,

01:00:27

Do you agree with me? That guy's a straight stone cold killer. I would never bet against Austin. I would never He's really impressive. And, actually, my opinion of morning brew because I was friends with you. So same, you know, the loyalty test. I was friends with you, therefore, your enemies are my enemies. And when you were doing the hustle, I was like, okay. So who are the other newsletters?

01:00:46

Those are my enemies. Someone go look up their founders, and they're on my shit with. And now Austin is a friend, and I actually really think that guy's awesome. And he's

01:00:56

super clever. And,

01:00:59

There's a bunch of people that are, like, successful, but stupid. He's not one of them. He's smart. He is not one of them. He's he's he's real.

01:01:06

So he's, you know, I give him my my And he's young. I always forget this. I think he's only twenty seven still.

01:01:13

I think he'll have north of a hundred million dollars before he's thirty years old is my guess. And he's got a mean lefty hook shot. Alright. So,

01:01:21

my creator perneurs I'm looking So I try to look at people that are in different bubbles because I think if I just look at other

01:01:27

business content creator entrepreneur

01:01:30

people,

01:01:30

I will become the the lame,

01:01:33

the lame Twitter thread boy copycat

01:01:35

wannabe bitch boy. That's, you know, the when I tell myself my head. So where do I go look instead?

01:01:40

I look at creators in other categories. So I'll give you a quick example. We had,

01:01:44

Danny Austin on the pod recently,

01:01:47

and actually a bunch of people who were listening to it. I saw a bunch of, like, feedback that was like, oh, this episode wasn't for me, Instagram influencer, who cares. And I was like, you guys are missing the point. Like, Yeah. She's way more sophisticated. Yeah. I was like,

01:02:00

the gold there was a good there was golden nuggets there. So at first, I subscribed to her content. Because when you look at what mommy influencers on Instagram do, it's a whole different style of content that you can kinda steal ideas from and get inspiration from. That's the first thing. The second thing was

01:02:15

every other mom influencer created, like,

01:02:17

my fashion brand is here, buy my dresses for the summer, buy my swimsuits, but whatever. Same same, same, same, same merch and fashion apparel.

01:02:25

She picked an incredible business,

01:02:27

which is this, scalp care thing that perfectly aligned with her story of why she's famous in the first place and why people connect with her. It's this high margin thing with, like, only a couple of skews. Doesn't have any of the headaches of fashion.

01:02:38

It's

01:02:39

a beautiful business and it's crushing. Does, you know, forty million dollars last year in revenue without even, you know, pretty significant without even, like, a a lot of ad spend. And so

01:02:49

to me, there was a nugget of gold, which is what happens when you align the perfect project selection? Like, that's an example of perfect project selection.

01:02:56

Paired with awesome content creator. What what could that business sell for? That should be a multi hundred million dollar business. Like, that should be a two hundred fifty million dollar business if they just carry on.

01:03:07

That that is a it's perfect project selection. I couldn't admire it more. Perfectly aligned with her, and it's a beautiful business on its own. Alright. Others,

01:03:17

that are more in our niche. So pump. I'm inspired by his level of output.

01:03:21

The guy's a machine. I'm super weak and inconsistent with output, and he is super regimented. Like, I think his ex military too. So, like, he is super, like, regimented with with output. And I'm also interested in how he's, like, redefining himself. He's rebranding himself outside of Bitcoin right now, and that's something cool to watch. So I wanna see what he does and what works and what doesn't there.

01:03:41

Tim Ferris also very different than me. He's ultra thoughtful about his brand, which is the opposite of me. Like, he's measured. He's thoughtful. He cites his sources. He is, like, He does not say yes to a lot of things. He's very picky and choosy. He's the opposite of me in every way. So I like to see what he does because I wanna, like

01:03:59

you know,

01:04:00

I wanna learn through learn from people with different play styles. And then Steve Bartlett, same thing. He's high style.

01:04:07

So everything Steve Bartlett does is cool.

01:04:09

I buy a hat. He buys a hat. Mine looks shitty. This looks awesome.

01:04:13

You know, he Well, he's also like a six one, like, pretty ripped looking black guy I'm meeting. Of course, he looks awesome. Everything he does in his style the way he talks is in style, the way his his podcast British. Trailers are done in style. His live podcast show. He's got a gospel choir singing as he's talking or some shit like that. I don't know. I don't even understand it, but I just know that what this guy does, he does his style. I think there's very few people, just like, I think there's very few people in business who are funny. I think there's very few people in business that have style. And so I kind of am looking and watching what they're doing and picking little pieces from their game. Dude, I always look at Steve McQueen. You know who Steve McQueen is? He's like this actor that he's dead now, but he called him, like, the king of cool. And I, like, look at clothes that of he wore. And then everyone wants to dress like him. And then you see, like, on Reddit like, oh, I tried I bought the Steve McQueen outfit and you look at them and you're like, oh, you look like you look like store brand Steve McQueen. Like, you know, like, that ain't good.

01:05:06

Sometimes people just look like, I look at Brad Pitt, and I look at his clothes. And then I, like, see people try to dress like him. I'm like, dude, you just don't got it. You know what I mean? Like, no matter what I do, I will never you're just better looking than me. You just you got you got the bod. That's sometimes that's how I feel feel about some of these guys. And I guess we'll put in the category. When you're when you got that bod and you got that face and you're that tall, you know, you're you're gonna look good no matter what.

01:05:30

Fair enough. Here's a really quick one. Someone said,

01:05:33

They they asked a different question, but I'm gonna phrase it. They they asked one question. I'm gonna phrase it differently, which is who do you wanna live with? Gary Vaynerchuk, Elon Musk, and mister Beast. And I wanted to say something.

01:05:43

I think they all would be horrible to live with. Those all three of those guys would be the worst roommates. Yeah. Totally.

01:05:49

Oh, only Elon, because he'll just never be there. Actually, that's the best for me. The guy who's just got the empty room and he actually got a you're you're you're living in a double, but it's all yours. It's like, that that's that's actually a pretty good Good deal. I've lived with a, a handful of highly successful people, and I've, like, hung out with them. I hate going to their house.

01:06:05

Their helms are usually a wreck. I hate it. I would've heard these guys. Around in this office right now.

01:06:12

Like, like, people would unsubscribe. The gentleman agreement would be over.

01:06:16

People will be like, I never wanna hear from this guy again. If somebody lives like this, like, think of your worst episode of hoarders. That's currently what my office looks like. It's It's an absolute mess.

01:06:27

That's disgusting to me. How do you live that way?

01:06:30

I just do, bro. I just do. I don't know. I I I don't know how I live with myself like is crazy. I don't wanna be my owner. Your room your your room's like a mullet man. It looks great, like, from this angle, but you got all this party nonsense in the back. Well, after I re record this, I just leave this room. So I never come back and clean it. I can't stand that. That's filth to me. I would not I could not be around that.

01:06:50

Is that it? Are we done, Ben? Did we do one test? I wanna ask one more. I wanna ask one more. Alright? Because why not?

01:06:55

Kevin Newman asked, who are the three folks? ESS m v three, but who are the people that are having the most fun?

01:07:02

I love this question. I think about it all the time because you could ask, like, who's the most successful? Who's the smartest? Who's the most

01:07:10

popular?

01:07:11

I'm interested in having a lot of fun with my life. My only have so much time on this little planet. I wanna have fun with it. I wanna enjoy it. And so think this is a great question to ask. I got a couple answers, but I I would be really curious to hear yours because I think yours would be very different than than mine. Do you does anybody come to mind off top your head?

01:07:26

Rob Dyrdick.

01:07:27

And say a few more words about that.

01:07:31

Rob Dyrdick, when I think of what I want my life to be, it's basically to have a fantasy factory. So Rob Dyrdick,

01:07:37

by the way, he talked a lot about his wife. Not only does she seem awesome?

01:07:42

Former playmate model.

01:07:44

Not only does she seem awesome. She looks awesome.

01:07:47

Yeah.

01:07:49

No. Rob Dierdick. He,

01:07:51

I think he has a ton of fun. I think that he I think he views I like people who view business a little bit like an art instead of, like, a McKinsey, like, spreadsheet, dork. And I think that this is his art. This is how he expresses himself, and I think he has a shitload of fun. And the way that he's broke all he had an episode on Fantasy Factory where he, like, broke nine world records or something like that just because I love people who do just dumb stuff just because it seems fun. So I think Rob Dyrdick is up there. You have a Joe rogan He seems like he's living his life by his own. If you take Joe really, you know, like, alright. What are the five things you you most enjoy doing? He's like, oh, I love comedy.

01:08:25

Love UFC.

01:08:26

I love talking to smart people and learning new shit.

01:08:29

I love hunting. You know, and then he's just like, cool. That's my life. It built he integrated his his career,

01:08:37

his life, and his friends to be the same thing. Like, his friends are other comedians.

01:08:41

And,

01:08:42

and that is, like,

01:08:43

and and and people in the UFC, his career, he's like, oh, well, I'll just be the top broadcaster in the UFC, the top podcaster,

01:08:50

and then I'll be one of the top touring comedians. Like, that sounds Like, then I'll make a bunch of money, and I'll get to do my art. Like, that sounds fun. And then, and he he drew boundaries. He's like,

01:09:01

Yeah. I love the UFC, but I'm not traveling to, like, Senegal for this pay per view. Like, I only do the ones. Yeah. We're not gonna do it. But, like, within a two hour flight of me, or, that's it. Like, that's my rule, and I'm just gonna do that. And I'm okay with not doing the rest. And I love that. You you said he's, yeah, he's not divorced. It seems like he's got his head on straight. Like, I really think he's having a lot of fun. I admire that Bill Simmons is kinda the same way. He's basically that for sports.

01:09:24

And then my uncle Vinnie. I got a uncle Vinnie who's literally his nickname that was given given to him. Was smiley. So he he signs all his signatures.

01:09:32

Vinnie, quote,

01:09:34

smiley.

01:09:35

And he's just or he'll just sign it smiley. And and, like, this was the thing we just met. In the banks, like,

01:09:40

sir, I don't think you could do that. He's, I don't know, seventy something years old, And if you hear him, he's like, I'm getting younger every day. He's like, I'm so excited. He wakes up at four in the morning with no alarm because he's so excited about the day. And, like, even even though the things he was he's doing, like, he's, like, I'm so excited I'm doing this webinar about multifamily real estate right now. It's, like, it's not what I would enjoy doing. And it's not even something that to the outside sounds super glamorous, but the point is he is he is excited about it. He is having the most fun in his life. Like, he He wears what he wants. He dresses what he the way he wants. He talks the way he wants. He does what he wants with his time. He travels the way he wants. And I just feel like,

01:10:19

that guy, his joy meter is, like, you know, permanently stuck on on, like, Max. And so I kind of admire that because with Joe rogan, it's easy to say, man, yeah, if I if I also had

01:10:31

the best podcast and UFC and all these hobbies and great friends. Like, yeah, I I would be having a lot of fun too. And my uncle Vinny is a great example because doesn't have anything that, like, is the he doesn't have a lifestyle that's, like, you know, some celebrity

01:10:43

or something like that. And he's having all the fun, like, now. I think that's great because he's not waiting to achieve all this shit to have fun. He's having it now.

01:10:52

What type of Indian guy has the name of Vinny? Is that a Well, his real name is Vignasa. He's real name is Vignasa. Then then he went Vinnie

01:10:59

to, like, make it more, like, acceptable in America when he moved here. And then they just were like, bro, this guy's never stopped smiling. So his whole company just called him smiley.

01:11:07

And then, you know, that was, like, that was the whole thing.

01:11:10

We we named one time in Austin, we had this really bad office that had rats, and we and we had them, and we nicknamed Vinnie

01:11:18

And Vinny was an Italian guy, like,

01:11:21

and they would come in at night, like, oh, hey. The fat guy left us some cheese.

01:11:28

And that was the name of our office rat. It was Vinnie, and he Vinnie Vinnie from New York.

01:11:33

And, that's what I think of. You haven't named an office rat or mouse? Okay. You you haven't grinded. Have you lived?

01:11:41

You're not on that grind.

01:11:44

Alright. Q and a. This is the easiest stuff ever to talk about. So maybe we just do this every time. Now I know why Gary Vaynerchuk did that the whole show was ask Gary V. All you have to do is just, like,

01:11:55

answer dumb questions.

01:11:57

Yeah. This is fun. We should do more. Alright, that's the pod.

00:00 01:12:19