Start This Business If Want To Survive The Ai Apocalypse

I think the theme of this episode today is basically anti-digital, anti-tech, anti-AI ideas. I have an idea for you, by the way.

What?

All right, so Hampton, you've got this community of CEOs in different cities and it's great and you're doing great. And it's mostly a— it started off online. I'm so glad you shifted to like in-person, which I'm sure was hard, but like painful, but, but necessary change. I've just been thinking about some of these like AI-proof ideas. I think it's just an interesting lens to be like, what doesn't really make sense for AI to like improve or, or, uh, disrupt. And, um, we joined a country club and wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I thought I could just keep going.

Hold on.

I didn't think the TSA agent would ask me for my passport there.

Who's we? Like you and your wife, your family? Or like, okay, you and your wife, like a golf, like a golf club, a golf country club, even though I don't play golf currently. Okay. Like, uh, the stereotype in my head of like a golf course and like chicken tenders.

I think it's a lot of that. There's a great pool.

Okay.

Great amenities, tennis court, pickleball, et cetera.

Okay.

Look, I don't want to talk too much about the country club. What I'm trying to say is from a business perspective, I'm pretty fast.

Did you have to interview? Did you have to interview? Did they Google you?

We have an interview scheduled in a few days. Yeah.

Oh my God.

The hardest part, by the way, is there's a dress code.

Is Under Armour on it? Are you allowed to wear Under Armour?

I was like, okay, I get full tank, but how about a muscle tank? You guys good with that? That's actually how I showed up to the first tour. So anyways, yeah, I'm a little fish out of water. Wait, what are they going to ask you at the interview?

Are they going to like, Are you gonna— you should— you can't tell them you host a podcast called My First Million. I mean, it's so tacky.

I can be honest. If they reject me.

Don't be honest. What? Are you insane? You have to lie.

Look, my wife really wants it. She knows a lot of the moms from the school go there, whatever. All right. So let me get to my point here. Yes. Yes to everything you're thinking and saying. All right. Let's just agree. Let's just agree on all of those things that are every thought in your head right now.

How much is it going to cost? What's your monthly—

what's the membership fees? Are something like you pay $7,500. So $7,500 just to like initiate, just to like get your foot in the door.

Okay.

That's not even the dues. That's like an app. Well, there's a $500 application fee. Then it's like a $7,500 like initial join the club fee. And then you pay something like, I don't know, $700 to $1,000 a month as a member. And that's to not even get to play golf. That's like pleb member. You don't get to play golf. If you play tennis, you got to like use your left hand or something. I don't know. It's not— you don't even get everything. So we're joining as like the basic member. But I was looking at the numbers. I was like, okay, so they're basically probably close to 2,000 members at this club. And so 2,000 members times, let's call it $10,000 a year average membership fee, which again doesn't even include the golf. Is a $20 million annual recurring revenue business to then have the right to go pay for food there and drinks, to just have the right to go shop there. And so everything else, I think, mostly operates breakeven. Um, I think they do events like weddings and, and birthday parties and stuff like that. That makes some money too. But I'm pretty sure this country club is pulling in something like $20 to $25 million a year in recurring revenue not including the, um, all of the, like, you know, whatever margin they have on food, beverage, golf, etc., which might be closer to like 10% or something. And I just thought, man, this is incredible business. And I've seen a few of these now. So I saw that one when I first moved to San Francisco. The guy I was working with, Michael Birch, he created The Battery in San Francisco, which was like San Francisco didn't have a Soho House, so he created The Battery.

And was that good? Was that a good business?

Well, I think he undercharges dramatically. You know, he didn't need the money per se. He sold, you know, he sold his company for like $800 million. So he, you know, he wasn't doing it for the money. He was doing it for the social. And I think he didn't want to like make it like an only rich tech guy thing. So he priced it initially at like $2,500 a year, like $200 a month. It's like, that's literally less than Equinox or something, you know? Now I think it's $3,000. This is a pretty, pretty low still.

One time I went there, I think with you, and I'm not exaggerating. This is the— I swear to God, this is the truth. There was a booth that had a pretty blond-haired lady, Snoop Dogg, and a monk wearing an orange, like, shawl sitting at the same booth. Like, it looked like the Dalai Lama, Snoop Dogg, and a hot blonde girl. And they— and they were like sitting like this, like leaning in, having a conversation. I don't know what it was about, but it could have been like world peace. But it was— it was crazy. I saw that in real life and I was like, this is the craziest thing I've ever seen.

Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, I've seen Elon there, I've seen Jay-Z there. It's crazy. So I saw that, that, that model. And Soho House, I don't know if you saw, just went private. Uh, private equity group just came and basically took it private at $2.7 billion. And they think that in 2025 it'll do something like $150 million of EBITDA. But it's a little confusing. They said not profitable currently, but the 2025 forecast is $100— is, uh, you know, like $150 million in EBITDA. And so I started thinking about these clubs and I was like, why doesn't Sam Parr do— get into this business with Hampton, right? Like, why not in your core 1, 2, 3 cities, get some real estate, create a physical space and top up on the members. And then anytime a member is traveling to New York, LA, Chicago, whatever, Austin, wherever you want to put your— wherever your hubs are, they have a physical place to go work. To eat, to meet, to do whatever.

So I have an answer. So for one, it's operationally, I think that it's silly for me to— my main business is creating wonderful core groups where people talk. And then this business that you are talking about is hospitality and real estate. I think the answer is there's a world where we will do it, but it needs to be its own business. You shouldn't mix them. So a company I was inspired by called Chief, it's, it's what we're doing, but mainly for women executives. They had a lot of real estate and it dragged down— it dragged them down significantly. But let me tell you something. So there's this weird surge going on, particularly in New York, where there's this— and over the last year or so, there's been something like 15 or 20 new social clubs or coworking spaces that have popped up. And so have you heard of like Zero Bond?

No.

So that's an example of one. And there are so many of these social clubs amongst like young, like, like 20-something Gen Z, this is a phenomenon that is just absolutely killing it. And it's not new. Social clubs have been around forever since the Gilded Age. People have been doing like social clubs since Ben Franklin doing Junto, where he would like meet up with his friends. But what I'm noticing is that there's a whole niche of coworking spaces that combine this social club kind of aesthetic. So let me give you a few examples. Google the Malin. So it's the word the and then M-A-L-I-N. Before I had my office here, I rented a space here and this is like a very niche coworking space. Absolutely beautiful on the inside with 3 locations. And whenever I was there, it was like buzzing and like the, the target demographic for these guys are like good-looking freelancers. Like, like everyone who worked there was like a hot freelancer.

They're like, good news and bad news. Good news, we like that you're a freelance designer. Bad news, there's one other requirement.

Yeah. I didn't fit the ICP, but they still let me in. But like, they let you in just to see why, why you don't belong.

Yeah.

They let me hang out. There's another guy, uh, in my core group. His name's James Street. So go to this website called thelighthouse. Thelighthouse.com. So thelighthouse.com, my friend owns this agency called Whaler, and it's a huge 9-figure-a-year digital agency and it's based in LA. So it's like all hip and cool and everything. And they created a little project called The Lighthouse. So thelighthouse.com and it's— I think they call it a creator's campus. In other words, it's basically a coworking space for creators, meaning instead of like just normal desks, they have like cool studios, kind of like the one I'm recording in where like someone can just like record. And in the first year of business, they've done 8 figures in revenue with one location. And I'm seeing this pop up like over and over and over. And then another one is Newhouse. Have you heard of Newhouse?

No.

Go click Newhouse and tell— so they, they call themselves the work and social home for creatives. And so these guys are selling— everyone that I've just named, they're basically just taking a sliver of what like WeWork is and who it's for. And then what you're talking about of social clubs and they're combining it because scaling cool is very challenging. That's what Soho struggled with. You can't scale exclusivity really well unless you own a variety of brands like you're Louis Vuitton and you own like Hermès and Louis Vuitton and this and that. And so each one, it's okay if they're like, don't grow aggressively, but scaling utility works wonderfully. And that's where positioning it as a coworking space works really well. But in New York in particular, but I'm seeing this in a lot of other places, these social clubs slash coworking spaces are thriving. And we were told that WeWork and all these other businesses like that are kind of silly. They're not. The economics can be great. It's not going to be like, right, an $80 billion company or whatever we were raised at, but it could still be an amazing company. All right. So a lot of people will talk about how you need $1 million and 3 years of experience to start a business. Nonsense. If you listen to at least one episode on this podcast, you know, that is completely not true. My last company, The Hustle, we grew it to something like $17 or $18 million in revenue. I started it with like $300. My current company Hampton does over $10 million in revenue. Started it with actually no money, maybe $29 or something like that. Nothing. And so you don't actually need investors to start a company. You don't need a fancy business plan, but what you do need is systems that actually work. And so my old company, The Hustle, they put together 5 proven business models that you could start right now today with under $1,000. These are models that if you do it correctly, it can make money this week. You can get it right now. You can scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Now back to the show.

There's two other interesting ones I want to show you. One is slightly related. So one is a SoHo house for families with kids. So I think it's called Beginning Clubhouse.

Dude, it's in, it's in, uh, it's in, uh, New York, right?

Yep. Dumbo. Wherever. What is Dumbo? Is that Brooklyn?

Yeah, Brooklyn. It's like, this is where like, um, yuppie parents who wear Carhartt—

exactly. So they're opening this up there, which is a SoHo house, but that's kid-friendly because, you know, all these private clubs tend to be only for like sort of like either single, you know, young people, or like people whose kids are grown up, and it's like a, you know, family's not welcome. But as somebody with like, you know, 4 or 5-year-old kids my entire life, basically. And the reason we got, you know, our membership for this thing is like, we just need a place to take the kids as like a reliable spot where they're going to have some fun and I can like have them fenced in, you know what I mean? Like they can, they have some stuff to do and I can just chill and like take care of, you know, whatever. Oh, you need food? We have food. You want to swim? You got swim. You know, like you want to just chill, you want to play some games, we could do that too. Like whatever, whatever you need. So I thought this is kind of interesting. The other one I thought was interesting, the guy who started wag.com has a new business. Have you seen this? He's starting this new thing in Denver that when I first heard it, I kind of laughed. I think his name is Jason Metzler. He's basically building multifamily housing. So just like a place to rent to live, but it's called like, I forgot what it's called, like Live Pet Play or something. Live Pet Work. And basically it's like what he realized was, you know, in Denver there's more pet owners than, than parents with kids. And he's like, there are. And I think this is true nationwide. I believe that there's more people with pets than there are people with kids. And for those people, housing often is like very limited. So like a lot of places don't let you have a pet. If they do have a pet, it's like this inconvenience where like nothing about it is built for life as a pet owner in a city. Whereas what these guys are doing, they're like, cool, you know, dog grooming, you know, you basically, you rent your place, you rent your unit. It's like the unit has like a doggy door. There's like grass areas at the bottom and on the rooftop to take your dog out. There's dog walkers in the building. So you get like, you know, 20 dog walks a month, you get 2, 2 nights of dog sitting and targeting specifically this like sort of demographic of person. I thought that's pretty interesting. It's basically like take normal multi, multifamily, but how do you charge like an extra 30 to 40% of rent every month? Well, if you make it like A+ for somebody who's like dog obsessed and, you know, dog owners, I think they spend something like $6,000 a year just on their pet alone. And the inconvenience of living in a place that's like not pet friendly is a daily, you know, a daily nuisance. So I think there might actually be something to this. That's interesting because all real estate is just a question of can you buy it where everybody thinks it's worth X, right? You buy it because everybody thinks it's going to generate X dollars of net income, but you know, you can, you can do 1.3x, 1.2x. And if you do that, you know, and you buy a $20 million building, you've increased the value of the building maybe by $10 million or $12 million if you're able to do that well. And so I just think this was smart because normally the way they do these value adds is you have to build more units. It's like that's how you're going to generate more income is I'm going to have to spend a bunch of money to build more units. This was like, no, I'm just going to like position it as being great for this type of customer. And I know that that type of customer is willing to pay a little more. For these additional perks and services and spaces.

How much money did this guy raise?

I saw he's raising for the building itself, not for like the head co— like it's a real estate play, right? So he's like, we're buying this building already, it generates this, we're going to add these things and then it's going to, you know, it'll generate this once we have it rented. We, we have confidence it's going to be rented because, you know, here's all the demographic trends in our favor.

I always get nervous when tech people go into real estate, that, that always freaks me out. I tried to do the same, by the way. I had an internet company and I tried to like, I tiptoed into it and I, and I bought some real estate and I just want to like, I could put this on the record. My hit rate for anything that I've done on my own real estate-wise, it's, I'm 0 for 3. I have lost money on every single one of them. Yeah.

Well, operating yourself is always different, right? Like you, you tried to be the real estate developer, right? You try to do, execute project plan yourself, and you're just at the beginning of the learning curve. Like, I, I probably the last 12 months, my best investment across everything, and I, you know, like, I mean, all the AI stocks and all that, my best investment by far has been my real estate investments. But I'm not the one operating.

Yes, investing in other people's stuff.

I'm not operating.

Like, when I'm just an investor in someone else's work, it's been wonderful. I, I agree, that is wonderful. Any time that I have tried to operate it, 0 for 3, I've lost in every single one of them. And every single time I think, what am I doing? I can make a website for $0 and I can make money, more money than I've just made off of investing 7 figures and having to work really hard and stress over making significantly less or no money. Yeah. Have you seen any other of these like, social clubs that interest you?

No, but I just think it's going to be more and more popular. Like all of the trends seem to play in this favor, right? So it's like if you have remote work, which was like pretty niche before, then it became everybody, and now it's at some new normal, but it's still way bigger than it was before. So you have remote work, you have AI that's disrupting other types of businesses. You have like generational declines in like number of young men dating, number of people who are like married, number of virgins, uh, you know, people with social anxiety and depression. Like all of those numbers are just like going in the wrong direction. And so things like whether it's run clubs or social clubs, like it just seems like the core desires they tap into are not being met. And like those problems are, are being really seen. Like, I'm not surprised at some of the examples you had and some of the numbers. Like, I think it's really impressive, but I'm not entirely surprised because I think people do need this now.

If I'm a young person listening to this and I wanted to get into this, I've been playing around with like copywriting and an idea for this. It just doesn't work for Hampton. It's a little too aggressive. But I was reading this book called Bowling Alone, and it's all about in America up until roughly the '60s, the average American was a member of a variety of clubs like their PTA, Rotary Club, which most people don't even know what that is. I don't even know what that is, but I've heard it like the Elk Club, like all these clubs that like we've heard the name, but we're not entirely sure what they were. The average American was part of like 1.8 of them. Voter turnout for the Kennedy election was an all-time high. I think it was like 78%. And the trust that the average American had in a random other American was also at an all-time high. And since then, there's been this slow decline where club affiliation is really low. PTA is a good, like, kind of litmus test that it has very low participation. Voter turnout is low, and the amount that we trust one another is low. And there's all types of hypotheses as to why this is the case. One strong hypothesis is the suburbs. So when you are out out in the suburbs where— or you don't live in an urban environment, you have less interaction with your neighbor and you don't really get to know them as much. And it's a little bit more like, this is my land, this is my territory, everyone else stay out and let me worry about me. That type of energy versus if you live in a building or an urban environment, you sort of kind of have to understand we're in this together.

Right.

And that's one of the theories. And I was thinking if I was wanting to start a club in this space, my tagline would be join or die. And this idea that as AI and digital gets more popular, you, a young person, crave human interaction more than ever, and that you will literally live longer if you have a community of other people who you interact with on a regular basis.

Right.

And so I was thinking that like this line, join or die, has been sitting with me for like 3 or 4 weeks where you can do all types of campaigns around this idea of like you owe it to yourself to be part of a community and you have to get out from behind the screen. And I think that like the average 22-year-old is yearning for this so badly.

I have a few notes on your tagline, but we'll do that offline.

You're not a fan of Join or Die?

Didn't do it for me, but I'm sure there's others who will like it.

Dude, just imagine like some like pretty lady named Kaylee who's like serving chicken tenders and she like serves and says, thanks Sean, enjoy your tendies and fries. Join or die.

Join or die.

This is a greeting?

I think Brian Johnson's got Don't Die, so you're almost infringing there. So we gotta be a little careful. Okay, I have another idea that's, um, I think the theme of this episode today is basically anti-digital, anti-tech, anti-AI ideas. Okay, and so here's another one that our friend Trung, uh, was tweeting about. Did you see this thing that he was tweeting about? Yonder?

No, what's Yonder?

All right, so check this out. Have you ever been to a, like, maybe a stand-up comedy show or a music festival. Yeah, and they put your phone into a pouch.

Yes, Sieva, uh, our buddy, he used to date a girl like 10 years ago who worked at this company. Do you remember this? She like told us all about this company, and I was like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. And now it's huge.

They're crushing. According to Trung, which I couldn't verify elsewhere, according to Trung, downpasted like $300 million this year in revenue, just putting people's phones in pouches. And, you know, it's this great example of one of my frameworks, which is like, anytime the pendulum swings too far in one direction, it creates the demand for the opposite, right? Like, you know, Newton's physics, it's like, you know, every force or whatever has like an equal— every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction. So it's like every trend creates an equal and opposite trend. And I think as we all have just become completely addicted to our phones, you know, 6 to 8 hours a day of screen time. I don't know how many times I open my phone, but it's got to be like, you know, 300+ times a day or something. Something just really embarrassing. This has become a huge business. It started off— so the story here is this guy started this in San Francisco, and he's a former soccer player. And I guess the way the story goes is which you never know with these startup origin stories how much of this is made up. But he was at a music festival and somebody was taking pictures of somebody else who was intoxicated, having a good time, but like, you know, shared without their consent or whatever. And he was just like, man, it's like messed up. There's just like phones everywhere now. And he's like, we should be able to go to a concert like this and feel like, you know, be present, feel free, you know, blah, blah. So he goes to his, like, in a lab, he starts sewing. He thinks about like, should I do lockers? Should I do, you know, bags? And he comes up with this idea of a magnetic pouch. So it's a small pouch about the size of a phone. And it can only be un— has a magnet seal and it can only be unlocked by this like base. You know, you have to tap it on the base to get the thing off. It's sort of like when you shop at a store and they have the like anti-theft thing on it and the cashier has to take that off so you don't like, you know, spray yourself with ink or whatever. It's basically that for phones. and he starts hustling it and he's like, all right, who needs this the most? He's trying to do music festivals. He's going door to door and in San Francisco. And then he finds out that Dave Chappelle has been talking about how he just hates that people are like, you know, on their phone, they're recording his, his sets where he's working on material and his business is to have these specials, but the whole thing would get leaked on YouTube. And so he asks a comedy booker in, in, uh, San Francisco. He's like, hey, can you connect me with Dave's team? And he goes and he demos it to Dave and Dave's like, I'll try this. He tries it at one show and he loves it. People are way more present. They're not on their phones and his stuff doesn't get leaked. So Dave starts using it. Other musicians—

which was a huge— that was a huge deal. I remember when that happened in San Francisco. Dave Chappelle is making everyone lock their phones in a bag.

Yeah.

It sounds like a headline. And it sounds extreme. Yeah.

And anytime an idea sounds extreme, it's what Seth Godin would call remarkable, meaning worth remarking. It's a, unusual thing. And so it continues to grow there. But that was going to be a small business, right? Because like, how many stand-up comedy shows are there? How much, how much these comedians even make? What can you charge? And then the big break came with schools. And now 70% of their revenue comes from schools. So like, a Minnesota school district pays $500,000 to get these for all the schools so that schools become a cell phone-free zone. Where students come, they lock, they have to lock up their phone to enter or leave it in their car. And then, you know, now they're focused during the day. Now they don't have that distraction. They don't, they're not texting each other. They're not bored in class doing that stuff. And the stats bear this out where like kids are happier, their, uh, grades go up and the teachers are happier. They have a better environment. And so they started doing this, you know, schools all around the world. And so isn't this crazy that this little business, putting your cell phone in a pouch is now this $300 million juggernaut. Like, how cool is that?

It's, for one, like, I would have— I would have thought this would never in a million years work. Now it seems obvious. But back then, I like— it's one of these ideas where it's like, dude, maybe you should go get a job and like, not fool around with like sewing these bags. Two, have you used one?

Yeah, because at comedy shows they always make us do it. I hate it. But you know what?

What emotion do you feel?

Rage. And anxiety.

I feel rage and anxiety.

Because I can't get to my phone.

It's dreep. Like, I remember one time when my wife was pregnant, I went to a Dave Chappelle show and the lady handed me one and I was like, look, lady, my wife's like 3 weeks pregnant. I'm not giving you my phone. And I tried to hide it and sneak by and she ran me down and she goes, you'll be fine, dude. Or sorry, 3 weeks away from giving birth. And I was like, I have to have my phone. And she goes, and she turns sideways. She goes, yeah, me too. And she was super pregnant and she was like, and she was really pregnant. The lady working at the counter, she goes, I'm pregnant too. Put the phone in the bag. And I was like, I was like, yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. But I felt extreme anxiety, which, which means I need to use it more than I thought. Yeah, exactly. In my school district where I was living before, They were going to, uh, they, the board, I was paying attention. They were going to vote whether, um, they should use this. And you want to know something crazy? It lost. Most parents wanted their kids to have their phone. Yeah.

Yeah. There's like an argument about whether it's safety or like personal property. There's arguments against it, but I, I mean, it seems like the market reaction is that it's working overall.

Obviously. Yeah.

And, uh, I just think it's such a, such a simple idea also. I was watching something the other day and Ed Sheeran was like, I haven't had a phone for 5 years. Isn't that crazy?

He was like, what does that mean?

He was just like, I don't own a phone. He's like, when I had a phone, people were just like calling me or texting me all the time, or I was just using social media all the time. He's like, it was really hard to like make music. So I just got rid of my phone. He's like, if someone needs to reach me, you know, I have a manager that'll come find me if you really got to get to me. But I haven't had a phone in 5 years. I was like, wow, that might be like You know, when you read like David Goggins, like pull-up record, I thought like the Ed Sheeran not having a phone for 5 years is like up there with any sort of like ultra race or pull-up record.

Can I propose an— okay, so last—

oh shit.

Yeah, listen, last summer we did, uh, what do we call it? What do we do? The summer bod challenge? My First Muscle. I have to think of a, of a, of a good name for this. But the challenge is we're going to—

we got it.

We should pick a Saturday or Sunday or just one week where you can do it. You have to go on a 12-hour walk and you can't bring your phone or have a conversation with someone.

24 hours. 24-hour phone fast.

No, a 12-hour— 12, dude. I'm not just easy things, dude. I promise you it's not easy. I would bet so much money.

A 12-hour walk. How far are you going to go?

You have to be outside of the house and your phone has to be in your bedroom or whatever, and you can't be with your wife. You got to be by yourself. You have to be by yourself. You can't have a conversation. You can't talk to a stranger. You just have to be outside by yourself, walking around wherever you live. It doesn't matter. Just go sit in a park, but you have to be by yourself for 12 hours. I would bet my life that you can't do that.

I'm not trying to kill you, Doug, but I think I could do that.

I don't think you can. I, I, I, you would cheat. There's 100%. I believe with Dude, you cannot go and just walk around and not have a conversation with someone without your phone for 12 hours.

You don't understand. My kids are on my phone at least half the day because I use it to like sedate them and like subdue them like a tranquilizer dart. So my kids are already on my phone all the time. I don't have my phone with me most of the time, but I, a challenge accepted. I think we should do this. The phone fast. It's, I think, I mean, 12 hours just sounds like child's play to me, but like, you know, I, I, you can't have a conversation.

So you can't, oh, you, by the way, you can't use your like laptop.

No screen.

Yeah, no device and no conversations. You got to be— but you got to be by yourself.

So another— as I'm scrolling TikTok late at night, I see this other video of this guy who goes— he went 6 weeks, I think, without looking at a screen. So no computer, no TV, no phone. 6 weeks this guy did. And he, he was, you know, normally you'd be like, what do people say? They're just like, oh, I felt so much better, more present. You're like, yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I know, but whatever. This guy had one other interesting thing, which he goes, I tested my memory before and after. And he goes, I was 50th percentile roughly in memory memorization. I'm now 99th percentile. He goes, and I did, it's not like I practiced memory. He's like, I was just like not looking at, not distracted all the time. And I've learned to be more present. And now my memory is 99th percentile.

I had a, I had to write a bunch of copy. And so like basically from like after dinner, so like 9 PM to like midnight, I basically like, you put your headphones on, you plug in, and you just have to like write and get the work done. And it's a really fun way to get in the flow. And I hadn't done that in years. And it is incredible how hard it is to focus. When was the last time that you focused and you shut out all the distractions? You turned off Slack, you turned off this. It's really, really, really rare that I do that.

Very rare.

And when I was in college, I would do that every single night. And it was awesome. Like, that's when I would do my homework or like my paper writing or whatever. Like from, you know, Monday to Thursday, like 8 PM to 1 AM, that was like work time. And it was a very rewarding experience to do it.

What was the, what was the GPA?

Dude, I swear to God, I graduated college with a 4.0.

Did you really?

I got a D in entrepreneurship class because I missed like a presentation, but I got, I got virtually A's in 100% of everything. I took college seriously.

That's amazing.

In high school, I grad— yeah, I worked really hard. I went to a bad school. I went to Belmont University. Like, you never even heard of that. But in high school, I graduated with a 2.3. And then when I got to college, I was like, I'm going to take this seriously. And my nighttime work sessions were holy for me. It was like I felt— it felt marvelous. And I never experienced that anymore. Do you ever experience that?

That absolute focus? Phoneless focus?

Yes.

So what I started doing, and I would say my hit rate right now is maybe 1 out of every 3 days I do this legit, like totally legit, which is I wake up and I do it first thing in the morning. So I go no input. So I don't look at my phone. I don't open up my computer. I grab a pencil and a pad and I'll do one of two things. Either I go for a walk first. So I'll take, if my dog's like up, I'll take my dog for a walk and come back and then do this. Or I'll just sit at this chair over here in this room and I just write my, it's like morning pages, right? Like, uh, and so I'll try to create something pre-input and I'll do different things. So it doesn't matter what I create, what I write. It's a, yeah, I stole this from Tim Ferriss. He told me something about like, he said something like a creative gym session, just like the way you'll go to the gym and like, you know, if I go to the gym, I don't use my phone most of the time. Like I'm off my phone for the majority of it. Um, and you're just doing something for an hour, right? Doing that at a creative level. And so I've done it where I write jokes, like, because I learned this, this is how Seinfeld started his day for 45 years. And so I was like, okay, did that. I'll sometimes just write my food plan for the day. Like, what am I going to eat? When am I going to work out? Just kind of get that, make that front and center. Sometimes I'll write like a blog post or I'll just write, you know, stuff that I'm like thinking about, like little loose ends about each of the businesses, about like, oh, you know, I should probably do that. Or, you know what, we're being stupid about the way we're doing this. Or, you know, wait, this is working. We're not doubling down on that. What? I need to have a conversation. Right. And so I'll try to do that. But the biggest thing for me isn't just the focus. It's being pre-input to any Slack, Twitter, whatever, email, nothing, text.

What, what time in the morning?

Usually starts at 7. Now that school came back on, I go at 8 and do a drop-off and then like ride my bike, drop them off, come back. So that's, that's kind of cut it now where it's like basically only 1 hour instead of the 90 minutes.

Yeah, I think we should do, uh, the MFM challenge needs to either be the walk thing or morning pages. I think that's quite helpful.

All right, so in the YouTube comments, settle the debate. 12 hours or 24? Just write 12 or 24 of a no phone, a phone fast. Just like people do juice cleanses, they do other, you know, like silent meditation retreats, whatever. Ours is just a phone fast. And then Sam has this requirement that somewhere in that window, you gotta go be by yourself. What's the famous quote like?

Yeah. All of your problems, all of man's problems are because he can't sit in a room by himself for 30 minutes. That's what I'm suggesting. But 12 hours, who said that?

We'll name it after them.

I don't know. Abe Lincoln.

Pascal. This is the new Pascal's wager. Blaise Pascal said this. So the new Pascal's wager is, can you do this?

I think just sitting for 30 minutes though, and writing on with pen, with a pen and paper is probably even more beneficial. I think that. Like you have mentioned wanting to write a book. And in my head I'm like, man, writing a book that would require like 3 hours a day of just not talking to anyone and being zoned out. That is what is, that is what is holding me. Or I mean, I don't really want to write a book, but like if I were to write a book, that is what's holding me back is not in a good idea, not can I write it, but that requires 3 hours a day of silence.

Right.

And I think that that's pretty messed up that that is the reason why people can't do their best work.

I met up with Tim Urban in Austin and, you know, big fan of his blog and he was writing a book at the time and I was asking him and he goes, he just made it sound so simple. He goes, all I do, he, he said the same thing. I wake up and for 2 hours all I do is write. I don't need a perfect day. I don't need 8 hours a day. He goes, I need 2 hours. That's it. And in those 2 hours I might write 2 paragraphs, 2 sentences, or 2 measly pages. But if I just do that every single day for the year, It just stacks, right? You do that for 300 straight days, you've written a 600-page book. And he's like, I can just sit down and write the equivalent of 2 pages, right? It's not even like a, you know, like a book page is even smaller than like a, you know, Google Doc page. And he's like, 2 hours. Like, if you don't have 2 hours, like, then you're not serious about this. And, uh, that really stuck with me. So I started, that's, you know, part of the inspiration.

Do you know who, um, Robert Caro is?

Yeah. What did he write?

So Robert Caro, I think he originally was a journalist, and then his first big piece of writing was a 3-book series on Lyndon Johnson, the president after JFK. And each book was like 800 pages, but then his big world-famous bit of writing was called "The Power Broker," and it was on a New York politician called Robert Moses. And Obama has since written like the foreword for the most recent edition of "The Power Broker," just to give an idea of how influential this book is. Many people regard The Power Broker as the greatest biography of all time. It doesn't matter if you're interested in Robert Moses, the guy, or not. The fact that this man packed every single sentence with like the best research for like, I think it's 1,400 pages. That's— it's like a— it's like a modern marvel. That's what like— that's like the clout of this book. And he did like funny things. Like he would go to like, if he's writing about a location, he would go there and count the amount of people coming in and out of the location. So when he wrote about it, he'd be like, 58 people came that day. You know, like he was— it's like very specific. But anyway, there's a museum exhibit that I went to this past weekend where it was a whole exhibit written about or on Robert Carle writing the book The Power Broker. And one of the main parts of the exhibit was his process for writing. And what he said that he did was he had, you know, how like a lot of our parents or teachers used to have a desk calendar where it's a big calendar where it has all 30 days on a piece of paper. And so his goal was, he goes, all I need to do is write 1,000 words every single day. They don't have to be good words. They can— I can throw them away. But what I have to do no matter what, and to write this book over the next 3 years, 1,000 words every single day, and I will achieve my mission. And they have the original notepad, uh, his like calendar in the museum exhibit. And he writes on it, he says, 1,243 words today. 1300, this many words, and he writes it and you see a big X on it.

Right.

And when it's like an X on the, on the block and then how many words and they showed August and it was like he missed one because he was like had flu or something like that. But it was like, it looks like a chain of like, you know, X's, which I think Jerry Seinfeld once referenced. And it was incredibly inspiring that greatness, this book being the great thing, which is one of the best biographies I've ever read. But greatness comes from a very simple process of 1,000 words every single day. Of course, he's a genius and there's all this amazing, amazing stuff. But that was probably the cornerstone of actually going from idea to a great work, was sticking to that 1,000 words per day. And that is a very attainable thing. It's hard to do, but that is a very bite-sized way of looking at an epic project, which I found very inspirational.

I love that. There's another great one that is like that. Have you heard the Steve Martin banjo story?

No, what's that?

Okay, so the Steve Martin banjo—

he crushes, he crushes on the banjo.

So Steve Martin tells the story, I got like a coach or a teacher or tutor, and the teacher or tutor was sort of like honest with him and was like, um, yeah, you don't have like a ton of natural banjo talent, just so you know, right? Like, he was pretty frustrated with his progress, and what he did was he zoomed out and I just thought this is like so such a powerful, simple mental trick where he just goes, all right, look, I suck today and I'm probably going to suck tomorrow. I'm probably going to suck for the next 3 months and 6 months or whatever. He goes, but here's the thing. I really want to play the banjo. He goes, what if instead I just committed to playing the banjo for 40 years? Because if you, anybody who plays the banjo for 40 years, you can't suck. And it just took all the pressure of being good off his shoulders and let him just be like, yeah, I'm just committed. I'm just going to do this for 40 years. And of course I'll get good. Like, you know, then I don't have to have these like daily doubts or questions or hesitations or moments where I want to, you know, give up because I reset my expectations. And I love that story. And by the way, he like wins a Grammy for a song where he's playing the banjo, like, you know, 5 or 7 years later. So, you know, it obviously worked out really well, but I love that kind of 40-year mindset because it applies to basically everything. Like, I felt this with, like, diet or fitness. It's, like, easy to get frustrated. Oh, I, you know, I was doing well, then I sort of traveled, I fell off the wagon for 2 days or whatever. And it's like, 2 zoom-outs have helped me there. One is like, look, it took me 37 years to get in this shape. Like, it's okay if it takes a couple for me to fix it, you know what I mean? Like, it's all right. And then the zoom-out being like, instead of just doubting, like, can I do it? Will it happen? It's like, so I'm just going to keep trying this for the next decade. Do I really think it's not going to happen if I just keep, like, giving this my all for a decade? Like, no, of course it's going to happen. Of course I'm going to fix all these habits. I'm going to get this good workout routine. I'm going to do all the things that I know I need to do. And I think it's very helpful because most people will quit early, but they don't quit early because they're weak. They quit early because they're beating themselves up and they have the wrong expectation. Of how long something takes or how easy it'll be or how, like, you know, whether they deserve it or not, whether it'll happen for them or not. Right? Like, if you knew it was going to happen, when your Uber says it's 9 minutes away, you don't get panicked that it's 9 minutes away. You just sort of accept that it's 9 minutes away. You see it coming towards you versus if you're doing some project and you have no idea if it even is going to happen, right? Like then every day you have this sort of, am I in or am I out doubts.

I think that like there's like a list of people So this is like a business show. So we talk about business and money a lot, but there's like a list of people who I learn more from that have nothing to do with any of that. And I think like a Steve Martin type is one of those people. I think that when, when I hear that story, so like I have a few like bad habits which are strengths and weaknesses, one of them being I put time limits on goals. So I have a milestone for where I want to be like every 5 years and that helps me stay focused. But also I feel immense pressure of like, I have to hurry up and I got to get it. And so it's cool to hear a story like this of something where you're like, you change the frame to where I'm going to do this now for 40 years instead of 5. Because if you do something for 5 years that like changes, I can break 5 years down quarterly, and then if I could break it down quarterly, I could break down monthly. If I could break down monthly, then I could break it down daily. And that is where both structure and anxiety comes into play.

Well, I think I used to be like, well, which one is it? Because I know the deadlines and the time constraints help me. But I know they also feel bad. And I know when I go over them or I don't have the results in time, feels bad, man. What do I do? And then the Naval quote kind of cleared it up for me, which is impatience with action, patience with results. So the 40-year story isn't I want this to take 40 years and I'm going to spread my workout over 40 years. It's the result is inevitable over a 40-year span. Now, the day-to-day actions I'm going to be quite impatient about. I'm not going to let myself be super patient about taking steps and moving forward and trying, you know, so you have to be able to hold both those polar ideas in your head at the same time. And this is so common. Almost everything you have in life, like all the sort of best things, come when you have to hold two truths that are polar opposites in your head at the same time. And so I think this is one of them.

I think I, I think I heard you say that on a podcast recently.

I learned that from Joe Lonsdale. I forgot what he calls it, like dialectics or something like that. I don't know, maybe that's like Scientology, but Um, he—

that sounds a little too— I think that is, uh, that sounds a little too philosophical, uh, like a philosophy class stuff for me. But I think I'd prefer the Sean way.

Here, let me, let me read this to you because I learned this when I was researching for Joe's podcast. So he goes, I'm not by any means a philosopher, but I've worked, worked with some talented people who, who, you know, are in that discipline. There's an idea of opposing truths at extremes. It's a powerful concept that I've learned to appreciate in my 20s. So he goes, my personality has sometimes been called a little intense. And when I spend a lot of time reading, discussing, or thinking about an area, I'll often appreciate why a strong viewpoint is true and come to very firm conclusions. Then later I'm exposed to an opposite strong view, and I find this countervailing view also very persuasive. And I found this confusing. How could both extreme contradictory viewpoints be true? And then this great thinker G.W.F. Hegel said, truth exists at different extremes, and the actual truth is a complex interaction between the two. So like, you know, he goes, most people are sloppy thinkers and opt for a middle of the road when they're faced with two opposing extremes. That compromise is less accurate than if you had just picked one of the extreme poles that were quite persuasive. But the wisest stance will incorporate both of the opposites within itself.

Do you have an example of like two opposites that you tend to buy into?

The example we just gave of like patience versus impatience, like, oh, it served me so well to be impatient and like, I don't know any successful people that consider themselves super patient. But then at the same time, you go talk to those people and they're like, yeah, I was working on this for 9 years before we had a breakthrough. It's like, damn, these people take pretty long-term time horizons also. So how is it true? How can they be impatient and have a very long-term time horizon? It's because both things are true, just in slightly different ways. What's another example?

Yeah, I've got a couple of them. One of them is capitalism. So like, I'm super pro-capitalism. Like, I love making money. I think building businesses is great. I think kind of a little bit everyone on their own is awesome. And then other times in my private life, I'm like, I want to be like a socialist. I just want to share with everyone. Like, I feel bad that my— I don't want my cleaning lady to ever want to go without. I want to make sure that she is paid above and beyond, even if it's not what the market demands. And I get angry at capitalism. And I feel like this kind of like this polar, like, one, I'm like so pro-capitalism, and two, it's like, oh man, I just want everyone to like get paid more than they do and to be wealthy. And those— but you can't have both of those. Do you ever experience that?

Yeah, yeah, totally. You know, you have the, the sort of head and the heart, you know, differences in that, in that way. Another, another one that he gives as an example that that's true for me is like the difference between depth depth and width. So it's like, do you be a generalist and you're able to like kind of go pretty broad, or do you go for depth? You know, and it's like, well, there's no one answer and there's obviously virtues to either path and you want to do both, but you can't do both at the same time. It wouldn't be like, it wouldn't be true. You wouldn't be sort of defying physics if you're going to try to do that, do both those at the same time. And so you could see the value in either end of the extreme. What you probably don't want to do is the middle. Where you only have a handful of subjects and you're not very deep in any of them.

Here's one that I think you probably struggle with as well. I struggle with this all the time, which is creating legacy. So like if I go to a museum and I see someone's name on the museum, like wall or someone who has a business that's lasted for 200 years, I think I want that legacy. I want to do something great that everyone knows my name. And on the other end, nothing matters. You're going to die. You will be forgotten.

Totally.

And like, I would say 50% of the time I think this is all irrelevant. All that matters is that I hang out with my children and spend time with them because I'm going to die very soon and no one will remember me. On the other end, create something that matters. Do something that's great. You know, like, do you feel that way? I think every entrepreneur, by the way, even no matter how successful they are, even like the billionaires we've had on, I bet a nice chunk of the time they think, eff this, like, I'm out.

Also, it's like if you go down that road and you're like, all right, you know, either none of it matters or this matters the most, you get— you're so— you're the most persuasive person you know. And so you know exactly how to convince yourself of either one of those arguments at the time that it justifies doing whatever it is that you want to do, you know? So you can't trust yourself in that way either.

Yeah, it's like being hungry at the grocery store. It's like, well, I'm feeling down today, therefore nothing matters. Therefore I'm going to let it push down.

Exactly.

But like that, that is like the dichotomy that I face. Probably I am, I am more often than not on— more often than not do I feel uncertainty around those two than I do feel certainty.

By the way, can I also just give you some props? I think your Robert Caro museum visit that you did, your, you know, these, these clubs, these housing things. Did you— you have a crazy bag of knowledge and interest that's just like really insane to me. Like, that's really, I don't know, inspiring and interesting. Like, I just can't believe, like, I don't know what is your filter for what you get like interested in, but the result of it fascinates me, you know, which is why we've been able to do whatever, 700 episodes of this podcast.

Well, and by the way, the props advice go both ways. When I hear like you tell a story, I'm like, how did you know this? But basically what it comes down like, I, I, I, I tend to find something that interests me and then I'll create a semester around it. So where I'm like, this interests me, I'm going to follow my nose and I will like pretty systematically read about it from like 9 to 10 and I just follow what interests me. Right now I'm oddly interested in like beauty and art. And so I can give you an example. I, I live in New York City now on the Upper West Side. And I purposely moved into a building from the Gilded Age because that's my favorite era. And my neighborhood is— it's very weird. There's a little bit of the autism coming out, but I am in awe of all these buildings that were built between like 1895 and 1920. And so I have been using ChatGPT and I've been going from building to building to building. Like, I'll just walk around at night and like, learn about the building and ask the doorman. I'm like, tell me everything about this building. I want to know all about the architecture. I find it so fascinating. And the other day I started watching this guy. I'm going to say this in a crude way. And if he makes it to him, I just want to say, guy, I'm sorry, but I've got to say it this way. But do you know the Indian guy from Mean Girls? His name's Rajiv. Do you remember that? Maybe.

Yeah, kind of.

Yeah. First of all, I want to say I'm a huge fan of his. I'm only saying it in a crude way because this is how what most people will remember him as.

Oh yeah, the rapper, the rapper guy. Yeah.

Yes. His name's Rajiv. So R-A-J-I-V. J-I-V. Um, he has a YouTube channel right now, uh, that I love. He's basically like Bob Ross, but he's been talking about, um, um, pottery and calligraphy and like kind of beautiful things, things that don't typically do well on YouTube, things that are really fast, uh, or the opposite of fast. So it's not fast-paced, it's very slow. And he's been talking about architecture. Now that's like one of his latest things, buildings. And I realized in one of the videos that he lives down the street from where I now live. And last week, or on Sunday, I was at a coffee shop and I saw him and I go, hey, are you Rajiv? I just want to let you know, I love your YouTube channel. It is so good. What are you doing? He's like, I'm just getting coffee. I was like, well, I have a seat right here. Me and my daughter are going to have coffee. Would you like to hang out with me? So I sat with an hour with this guy. And he told me all about the neighborhood and all about the beauty of like the architecture. And that is like where I'll learn and like get stories is I'll just go up and like talk to him or find another person who I love. And, uh, it's, it's been a blast, like following my nose of like what interests me.

That's hilarious. That's amazing. Hey, I have—

I spent an hour with this guy.

I have an extra baby seat here if you want to.

No, well, I had— there was like, I had the best seat in the house and I go, Do you wanna sit down and just like talk and hang out with me? And he's like, oh great, you made it work.

You're like, no, no, with me.

But anyway, I've been, uh, that, that's usually what I, what I do to like learn is I like get up.

That's usually what I do. I meet a former actor turned like cultural expert at a coffee shop. That's not what you usually do, right?

No, I immerse myself, like I get interested in like a topic and I'll immerse myself and then I go out and I talk to people about it. So I do field trips. This was a lucky field trip, but I would do field trips all the time where it's like, I'll hear about a museum doing a thing or I'll fly somewhere. Uh, that, that's how I like to learn.

That's cool. Yeah. You should, um, publish more of that. I think that's great.

Well, that's cool. I guess I should. I never really thought of it as particularly unique. How do you, when you read a book or a topic, what do you do?

Um, yeah, like kind of a similar thing, just a little less structured as in like, I think my attention span's a little shorter. Meaning like once I, once the idea clicks, I get this extreme high of feeling like I just learned something cool or know something now. And then I want to go do it and I don't want to keep researching. And then also, and also it'll lead me to the next thing, which is totally unrelated. You know, like I had this whole phase on the creative process, which I was reading about Seinfeld and the banjo story and all this stuff, like super, super into that. And then it'll be like old school marketers and then it'll be, you know, the posterior chain and like why my hamstrings are so tight and what should posture actually be and how do I fix that? You know, like it'll just be like random stuff like that where I'll get, you know, a similar season. But I think mine are shorter because I am less diligent about doing it.

Yeah, I— my preferred way of doing it is if I think I'm going to be interested in a topic, I try to research like roughly 3 to 6 books on the topic and I commit to going deep on that because I don't want to be persuaded when it gets Like, I don't, I want to make my decision in advance that I'm going to consume and study.

Yeah, because otherwise you have the problem I have, which is like anytime you hit a lull where you just like are not getting like amazing feedback loop of learning new things or, you know, finding something interesting, it's easy to eject because this was a voluntary thing anyways. It wasn't like for a specific outcome or result. Whereas I think I would be better served if I did it your way where I like pre-commit the time and it's like, look, I can't do anything else during that time. I'm just going to keep, keep wandering around here. Because I bet I'm giving up at the first lull, but there's still like a lot more gold to find if I just carry on, you know, if I, if I just want to keep wandering for a little bit longer.

And oftentimes what people tend to do is they think that researching what to research next or researching what to do next is actually productivity when it's not. Productivity is actually doing the thing. But yeah, hey, Renaissance Sam, what can I say? The Renaissance.

All right, that's it. Go ahead, hit them with your line.

That's it, that's the part.