Controversial Business Lessons From Napoleon, Edison & Hitler
That is what all, all of them did. That's what Napoleon did. That's what Hitler did. That's what Caesar did. Is this like taking tons of resources and focusing them on a very small point and taking lots of gravity and kind of narrowing the focus. Hey, My First Million fans, this is producer Ben. I'm subbing in this week because Sean is out with some family stuff. But for One Question Friday today, Sam and I sat down to discuss how to take over the world, some things that I have learned from studying lives of great achievers and conquerors throughout history. And, uh, Sam and I just got to talking about history and great people in our own lives and what we've learned from them. So, um, it's a little bit of a more random and less focused one question Friday, but I think there's some really good stuff in it, um, that I think you'll really enjoy.
So I asked you traits of conquerors, and the reason I'm thinking about that is I just finished this like epic book. It's like 1,400 pages long. It's called the, uh, what is it called? The— I think it's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Have you heard of that?
Yeah, so it's kind of one of the seminal texts on Hitler and Nazism.
Yes, and it's crazy. And I was reading it and I was like, this is nuts. That the reason I read it was I wanted to figure out why would a— why would like a country go, you know, be so complicit with such bad things. And I was like, what on earth was about this Hitler dude that like convinced all these people to do all these, these bad things? And so I learned and it was wild. And I started and basically it all kind of came down to like, he was in prison one time because he like tried to like, basically was a glorified protester. Like I do, he kind of like stormed the, it was like storming the Capitol kind of like type of thing. And he was arrested for it. And, uh, in prison he wrote his book called Mein Kampf. And in the book he wrote, like, I've, I've recently discovered that it is my obligation to lead the German people to greatness. And he, like, dedicated his life to that. And it was wild that there was, like, a decision to be made and, like, it was almost perfect execution. I mean, you know, it wasn't in the end because he, uh, didn't achieve his, whatever he was trying to achieve, but, like, he got so freaking far, so past what, like, What I ever would have thought. And at the time when Nazis came to power, right before they came to power, they were the freaks of Germany. Like, at the time they were like, they had a lot of homosexuals in their, in the crew, which was like not looked on nicely, you know, at that time. They had like a bunch of artists, a bunch of like oddballs, people who were like, had a lot of antisocial behavior. Like, they dressed funny. Like, people were like, who are these guys? They're a joke. No one's gonna take these idiots seriously. And it, you know, it changed quickly. And so anyway, I thought that was fascinating about conquerors and like these types of people and like how on earth they, they came to be. And so I wanted to ask you, like, what are some common traits amongst those?
Do you feel weird learning lessons from the life of Hitler?
No, because I— well, I'm not necessarily learning a lesson that I want to emulate. Like, but that said, I do think you can learn good lessons from bad people. Like, that's— you definitely can learn a good lesson from a bad person. Um, that there's no doubt about that. Like, you can look and, and like, I mean, everyone's bad in someone's eyes, but like, I can read about Napoleon and learn about like war and strategy and apply that to like business. So I, I can, I can always learn good lessons from bad people. But, uh, I do, I just wanted to learn like, why did we do this? Why did so many people go along with this crap?
So, uh, here, here's the thing. Here's a lesson I learned from Sean, MrBeast, and Hitler.
Okay, there's your headline. Oh my God.
But so here's the— this was so fascinating to me. So we're doing this Camp MFM thing and we're at Cameron Indoor Stadium and they decide to do a half-court shootout between Sean and MrBeast for $10,000. Right. And Sean basically—
MrBeast goes, Sean, if you make a shot at half-court, I'll give you $10,000. And Sean goes, Will you gimme 10 grand in Bitcoin?
He goes, sure, let's do it. So yeah, I think in the end told him that he'd give him 10 grand actually in pennies. I don't know if he ended up doing that or not, but so they're going to go start shooting at half court and Sean turns to the camera and does his cheesiest, like he's joking around MrBeast impression. And he goes, I'm about to shoot from half court with MrBeast and whichever one of us makes it first is gonna make $10,000, right? Totally hamming it up. Kind of poking fun at himself, right? The funny thing is when we post the video, it actually popped off and went viral on TikTok.
His little—
really?
Yeah. Yeah.
That was one of our videos that is, uh, I think in the millions of views, if not, it's in the hundreds of thousands of views on, uh, on Reels and on TikTok. And what it realized in my mind, what clicked in my mind when I saw that is, oh, like it's actually not that hard to figure out what you're supposed to do to be successful in this kind of stuff. Just very few people are willing to commit to the bit fully, right? Like MrBeast fully commits to the bit. Like he actually does that every time he looks at the camera. I'm about to give $100,000 away to these people if they eat a cockroach or whatever he says, right? And he fully commits to it. And Hitler is the same thing. Like you go and you watch those speeches. And he's ridiculous, right? He's gesticulating, he's yelling, he's screaming. But he like fully committed to being Hitler, to like representing, you know, German greatness and the Aryan race or whatever. But like, he didn't care. Everyone thought he looked ridiculous outside of Germany, right? Like tons of people mocked and made fun of Hitler. He was very mockable, very easy to make fun of. And you can easily make fun of MrBeast and the thing he does. Sorry, MrBeast, for comparing you to Hitler. But like, that idea of just like, throw away your shame and embarrassment, whatever you're trying to do, just fully commit to the bit and you're going to be really successful. I think that's very true.
Dude, I, uh, and I want to talk about like other people and what they had in common, but like the, like I was like emotional reading this thing. So basically Joseph Goebbels, is it Goebbels?
Goebbels is how you pronounce it.
Goebbels. He was like head of propaganda. And this guy, like, if you Google him, he looks like the most evil person on earth. And, uh, he, he's, he was a horrible guy. And he wrote in a journal throughout this whole process. Like he was journaling like crazy. And so this book cited his journal and they tell the story of basically Hitler has just killed himself and Joseph Goebbels and his wife have, I think, 5 or 6 kids. And they write in their diary and tell people, they're like, well, We're gonna go and kill our kids right now, then we're gonna kill ourselves because us and our children belong to the Führer, to the Third Reich. And if the Third Reich won't exist, we do not deserve to exist either. And I like, I was like, that's just like the worst crime. I mean, I don't know about the worst because they did so many horrible things, but I mean, they just went and killed their, their children, 6 of them, all below 12 years old. And I was like, This is the power that charisma or whatever it was had over people that like they went committed. I mean, obviously we killed— or not we, but they killed 5 or 6 million people. It was horrible. But like that act is even more intimate in some regards. And I remember reading that and I'm like, holy crap, I cannot believe that this person, this evil guy, got all these people to do this crazy shit. It was— that was one of the more emotional periods of that book.
Yeah, that's tough.
That's tough.
Okay. Let's talk a little bit like kind of military strategy and good strategy. Like let's, let's pivot from the darkness a little bit. So common attributes of great conquerors. So one of the things that I think is interesting, have you heard of Blitzkrieg?
It basically is a, it's a German thing where it says like when they attacked, they, they kind of go all out for short Periods, right? Like, uh, the opposite of what World War I was, wasn't it?
Yes. So, uh, it means lightning attacks or lightning strikes. And, uh, the idea is it's these short, quick, like, uh, attacks, uh, before, you know, you shock the enemy and, and, um, go, go faster than they expect. What's interesting to me is that Blitzkrieg is, was sort of a marketing stunt. It wasn't anything that the Nazis talked about internally. It's really something of like an American invention to explain German success. What the Germans actually talked about was this word— oh, I can't remember the word in German, but it essentially means gravity. Looking it up, Schwerpunkt, and it means gravity. And so it wasn't just that the attacks were fast, although they were, but it was actually like mass strikes. So they attacked fast. Yes. But they were able to sustain that attack and follow up on it for a long time, which is actually the same thing that Napoleon did. So in the Napoleonic Wars, before he came along, people were stretching out their troops further and further to try and flank their enemies. And then he's like, well, if everyone's going to do that, I'm actually just going to pack all my troops in the middle and then like punch a hole in the middle of their lines. And I think like to go back to the Amazon example, like, I think that has big applications in business as well of—
Well, haven't you heard the phrase blitzscale?
There you go. That's Reid Hoffman, right?
Yeah.
Yeah. Of, uh, it's not just going fast, although fast is important, but it's that like focusing tons of resources on a small focal point. So like to go back to the Amazon example, It's starting with bookstores, right? It's starting with just books. Like, I'm gonna take tons of resources and just focus on this tiny place and then follow up on that victory. I'm gonna win books first, and then I'm gonna follow up on that with, with other marginal victories. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, uh, so that was interesting to me that, like, that is what all, all of them did. That's what Napoleon did. That's what Hitler did. Uh, that's what Caesar did is this, like, taking tons of resources and focusing them on a very small point and taking lots of gravity and kind of narrowing the focus. So I, that was one interesting takeaway for me.
What else did they, did they have that they did a lot of like conquerors, which I don't, I don't know, even know how we would define a conqueror, but there's like the stereotypes of like a Napoleon. Uh, I don't know, like what would a good American, uh, leader example of this would be, but like whoever we describe it as, what, what else do they have in common? Or even the business people, like, uh, Edison or something.
Yeah, I mean, so for me, the number one, you know, you mentioned Edison and the one I think, I think of is total obsession, right? Um, with Edison, the big thing that clicked for me was he was inventing so much that, uh, he was basically not eating. He's super skinny, super gaunt. He wasn't washing his clothes. He smelled bad. He was barely sleeping. He would like invent and tinker until he fell asleep at his workbench. And then he would like wake up in the morning and like start inventing again. His family was worried about him. And I was like, oh man, like substitute inventing for meth or heroin. And it'd be very clear that this guy was an addict, that he was a junkie. And I— that's when it clicked for me. Oh, all of these people who are super successful have addictive personalities. It just so happens that they're addicted to something that is considered positive.
Was he born that way, you think? Realized people, are they born this way?
I think so. And if you look at the numbers, people who achieve a lot, CEOs, uh, you'd think that like they don't have problems with substance abuse, right? Because these are highly functioning people. But it actually turns out that they have higher rates of addiction and substance abuse than the general population when they study it. And so I think they are born with this propensity to addiction. And they're the kinds of people that like, they could end up, you know, conquering a vast European empire, or they get hooked on laudanum when they're like a teenager and end up a junkie on the streets, right? Like, they're gonna end up addicted to something. Let's just hope it's something positive.
Dude, have you read— have you ever heard of this book called The First Rate Madness? I think it's called.
No.
So this author has this premise where he was like, in times of like stability, a non-mental ill— mentally ill leader is needed. But in times of turmoil, which includes like the American Civil War or includes like someone who's like trying to dominate and conquer, or it includes like MLK, you know, trying to like during the civil rights movement is like a non— or sorry, a mentally ill leader during those periods is actually ideal and they tend to be better. And the author explains like, well, first let's define mentally ill. And it's like a propensity to like be addicted to drugs and alcohol or like huge bouts of depression. Or in Lincoln's case, he actually tried to kill himself like 2 or 3 times before he became president. Or Churchill. Churchill was like, I've thought about killing myself a ton, but I'm just too big of a sissy in order to do it. But like, I, I am. And so, and he became an out, he was an alcoholic. Uh, and so like they basically just talk about how the great, great leaders during, uh, troubled periods, majority of them have mental illness.
Yeah. And, um, this is something again to go back to MrBeast that, uh, I actually don't know if I, I'll just say this and we'll see if I should cut it or not, but I was talking with him. And he was like, yeah, I can't really gamble because I'm kind of a gambling addict. And, uh, he talked about like, um, I don't know, say the name of the game, highly addicting, uh, uh, crypto gambling site that he would be wagering like tens of thousands of dollars on.
Yeah, man, I, I, that's no secret though. Like people who are, who get there They are.
And that's what I realized is that for, for him, YouTube is another form of gambling, right? Because like you put out the video and who knows how it's going to do, and then you get that dopamine hit of like, oh, this got 50 million views. Like it's very similar, that variability, the way that the algorithm can pick it up, make anything go viral. Um, it's just, it's just his gambling addiction put into something positive, right? And so I think that's very much exactly what you're saying, that for a lot of these people, in normal circumstances, they can't just chill and be happy and be normal. Um, they have to be like running at such a high, uh, level. They have to be running at a 10 at all times, and that's good circumstances, but not in normal circumstances.
I don't even want to talk about MrBeast that much because we've like kind of like done that plenty, but, uh, I remember at like 11 PM at night Someone mentioned basketball and how excited he was to play basketball. And Jimmy, he goes, let's just go right now. And we were like, what, dude? It's like 11 o'clock. No one— he goes, yeah, yeah, let's figure it out. And as he said that, his assistants were calling high school gyms trying to wake up like the principals and being like, hey, I'll give you $5 grand if we can come play basketball right now. And I was like, what? No, dude, I don't want to do that. It sounds like hell. But, but he was serious. He wanted to go do it.
Yeah. Yeah.
It was weird. It was crazy. Who have you met besides him that you'd put in that category of these like obsessed, like almost conqueror types, whatever we're calling this personality type, who have you met that kind of has that gene other than him?
You, I think you kind of have a screw loose in that way. Like look at the way you approach fitness. Like you have trouble dipping your toes into things.
Yeah, that's for sure.
And you've talked about your, your, you have an addictive personality as well. I do.
But yeah, I think I definitely am crazy. I think though that I don't have the drive, like I, I am a little bit more self-aware where I'm like, uh, no, I don't wanna do that. That sounds too hard. Uh, but yeah, I, I'm definitely crazy, uh, in, in that obsession regard.
Yeah, yeah.
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Do you know who Tucker Max is?
Yeah.
So Tucker Max is this author. He's my friend, and Um, I haven't talked to him in a while, but I used to be buddies with him and he's an author. He wrote, uh, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. Now he has a company and lately he's taken kind of like a fairly right turn, or I don't know what you want to call it, where he like writes these articles predicting that the world's going to end. And I don't agree with anything that he says about that type of thing. I mean, I agree that like, okay, cool, prepare and be like self-sufficient, but I don't think the world's going to end. And I disagree with so many of his point of views. But whenever I hang out with him and I hear him talk, in my head I'm like, I think you are wrong. I think you are wrong. I think you are wrong. And yet I find myself buying, like, like fighting myself from buying into what you are saying, even though logically I'm like, no, that's— I don't believe that that's true for these following reasons. But when I get around him, I'm like, dude, you like are so confident. You are such a good storyteller. You have such strong energy driving you into one direction. It's sucking me in. And so I would find myself having to like pinch myself to like, like, dude, you gotta snap out of it. And Tucker Max has that hardcore. And if you read his writing, it even, it comes through in his writing. You'll read something and you'll say, oh, this guy's totally right. And then I've gotta go and like read something that's the opposite. Be like, oh, well there are counterpoints.
Yeah. Yeah. I, I, so I just thought of one that's a little like, uh, I guess off the wall. His name's Dallin H. Oaks. Uh, he was, uh, on Circuit Court of Appeal. He was one of the highest judges in the United States, was on the shortlist to be on the Supreme Court for Reagan. Um, but then didn't become a Supreme Court Justice, ended up becoming an apostle for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is now the number 2 person in the church, uh, is set to take over the church probably in a few years. What I found interesting is I think that was the first time I met him when I was like 16. That I encountered true charisma. And it felt different than I thought it would feel. Because when I talked to him, he talked to me for like 10 minutes, unbelievably charmed me, like I couldn't believe it. But the impression I had coming away was, wow, I'm so smart. Because he was so good at— I don't want to say manipulating, but like, at playing on my feelings and just being like, wow, that's really interesting. What made— you know, and just kind of like getting me to feel comfortable and divulge information about myself and like focusing all his attention on me that I came away and I was like, man, I'm super special. And I think that's what truly charismatic people do. People think that it's like inward magnetism, but it almost goes the opposite direction of like somehow they're able to make you feel like you're the special one. And, and then you like get like drunk on that almost.
Totally. I've been— I used to work for this guy named John Cobb. John ran this company called Apartment List. They bought my other business and I don't know how big they are now. Maybe it's like 100— they've raised maybe $100 or $200 million in funding and like they're probably going to go public or I imagine that's what they have to do. And this guy, I was only 22 when I worked there and he would give these talks at the office and I'm like, oh my gosh, I believe that I am. And we weren't even doing anything interesting. It was just like a Zillow competitor. Which was like, not exactly the most sexy thing. We're not saving the earth. We're not going to the moon. Like there's nothing like, it's just a cool money-making scheme and a slightly better way to maybe find an apartment in some cities. And I remember like hearing him talk and I'm like, I am so— we are, we are democratizing housing. And like, we are like, I am so on board with this. We are making people's lives so much better. And like it, we owe it to the world. To do this, and he has just shown me that it is possible. And you begin to think that rules don't apply to you, and you say it's us versus everyone, which is a common tactic in a cult. And you should always do this in a good company, which is you have you and then you have the enemy, and everyone's out to, to, uh, on the enemy's side, and it's us versus them. And you have to create that dynamic. And also I felt with him, whenever he would give these talks on a Friday, we used, we used to have this thing where Friday at 4, he would give a talk.. And I remember thinking like, rules don't apply to us. Like what? And I, um, and I've heard stories about Travis Kalanick at Uber. And I remember people, it was like the same thing. They were like breaking laws and they're like, there, it wasn't these laws, we shouldn't be breaking them. It was these laws shouldn't exist and they are wrong and we need to prove to them that they are wrong. You know what I mean? And I remember hearing that and you just get intoxicated with it.
Yeah. You know who's, uh, who's pretty good at this? Uh, I found, uh, from Camp MFM is Suli.
Yeah. Just like when I was talking to him, I think he kind of brain raped me a little bit. Like why? At the end. I don't know. I just, at the end, he just was like so interested in me. And then I was just like, did I just tell Suli like everything about my life and like everything?
He does that. Yeah. And like, and he won't tell you a thing about his.
No. Yeah. I was like, how is it that like you're the multimillionaire? Like you have this successful business that you sold, like you've done all this impressive stuff. And like, we just spent 20 minutes talking about me and like, you know everything about me and I don't know anything about you at the end of this. How did this happen? He's so good at it. I don't know.
Yeah, he's good at it. So is Ben Levy, Sean's partner. Sean, he's really good at that, man. Ben, I always call Ben a shark, uh, but he's not actually a shark because he doesn't mean he's not going to like harm you probably. Well, maybe, I don't know. I don't think so. But he, uh, like he's so good where I'll have to stop myself. I'm like, dude, shut the fuck up. I don't, you don't need to tell this guy all this shit. Like it's good to be private about some stuff. And he's so good at getting stuff out of, getting stuff out of you. Um, he's really good at that. Yeah. So yeah, those people, they, they are good at that. They, um, another guy is, um, who I find myself getting like intoxicated with. There's a couple people. Uh, uh, Sam Bankman-Fried, you know, the guy from, uh, uh, what's his, what, what the, the, you know, Bitcoin, what's his company called? Um, FTX. FTX. What is it? FTX. And there's another one, I think. Anyway, FTX. When I hear him talk, I just think like, oh, you're right about everything. Like, I don't want to— I like, I can't have an— it's hard for me to understand anything other than what you believe because you've just logically shown to me that this is all true. Even though I'm like, you have to remind— I have to remind myself like, this guy's just a 29-year-old smart guy, which is cool and all, but like, he's just a guy. He's, he's just a dude. He's still figuring out just like I am, but I will hear him talk and I'm, I buy into everything he's saying. And another good person is Malcolm Gladwell. If you ever read a Malcolm Gladwell book, you'll think, oh, everything you're saying is facts. In reality, a lot of it's just theories. And he'll say, this is just my, this is just a theory based off of the data. Who knows if I'm right or wrong? This is just an idea. But I'll read his stuff and I think, oh, this is, this is just how the world is. And my takeaway from that is storytelling is so important. It's so important.
I think that Malcolm Gladwell is full of crap. Most of his stuff is like of little to no value. Anyone who asks me how to do storytelling, I'm like, just go listen to Malcolm Gladwell's podcast and analyze every single sentence. Like it doesn't matter what you think of what he has to say. I think he is this generation's most gifted storyteller and it's like not close. Dude, he's so good.
He's so good.
He's unbelievable. He's unbelievable.
He gets you intoxicated is what he does. You You feel like this intoxication and you feel like, of course, th— this is the answer. What you were saying is true. And I have to purposely go and seek out like other opinions to be like, oh, well, you know, I gotta remind myself this isn't necessarily true. It might be, but maybe not.
Ogilvy has this good quote, uh, David Ogilvy, like, uh, very famous copywriter and advertiser, uh, that the job of the first sentence is to get you to read the second sentence. And the job of the second sentence is to get you to read the third sentence.. And if you read Gladwell with that lens, uh, that framework in mind, he's such a master. Like the first sentence of every podcast is independently extremely engaging and interesting, and it gets you to listen to the second sentence, which is itself extremely engage— and like every single sentence is a masterpiece that gets you to go into the next sentence. Um, everyone should read it. Um, Everyone should read and listen to as much Gladwell as they can.
What's the name of his pod? I forget. It's called something history.
Um, Revisionist History.
Yeah, it's good, man. And he does, he does a really good job of, uh, voice inflections. It doesn't sound like it. My voice is fairly aggressive. His voice is like soft and welcoming and like warming. And so his inflections aren't like when Sean and I talk and then we like get down low and then we, and we come right back up. It's way more subtle. Yeah. But in everything he says is like a kind of a whisper, but he's, but, but he like knows how to use empty space and silence. And then he knows how to come back in and lead you down and get you to come a little bit more. And then he'll break it to you. You know what I mean? Like he does these things and I like, I'm tripping. It's called the slippery slope. That's what I call it. Same in the slippery slope is my name for, uh, that copywriting concept of the first sentence is to get you to read the second. Which is get you to read a third. That's the slippery slope. I wanna pull you down that slope because the further I pull you along, the more bought in you get. And if you read like a Tony Robbins book, he'll say like, I'm about to tell you about one thing that's gonna change your life. And he'll spend the rest of that chapter saying, we're, we're, we're about to get to it. We're getting to it soon, but before we do, I need to tell you why it's important. And then like there's a reveal at the end and oftentimes that reveal's a little bit anticlimactic. But you're so deep down the slippery slope that you just, you're, you're bought in. And so that's what Malcolm Gladwell does wonderfully. He gets me to go down this slope and he pulls me down. And a lot of the great, um, dictators and CEOs and these like leaders, both good and bad, they were awesome at, uh, being orators, which is something we don't really talk about anymore. But like Obama was like that where I was like, I heard Obama talk and I'm like, Dude, whatever you say. Yes. I like this.
It's seductive almost.
It like really is seductive. It, it's seductive, which the, the root of all this is learning how to write well and how to storytell. And then if possible, how to speak, how to speak it.
Can, can I talk about one more attribute that actually you and Sean have done a good job with recently on getting me on me about is, um, this idea of like bias to action. So for me, my favorite story about this is Napoleon comes into command of the French army in Italy, and it's just been sitting there for months. And the reason is they have— they don't have enough guns, they don't have enough ammunition, they don't have enough shoes, they don't have enough clothes. They're like horribly undersupplied. The morale is low. And so the general before Napoleon is like, we cannot— they're fighting the Austrians. We cannot go give battle to the Austrians like this. We're in a horrible state. And Napoleon comes in and he's like, okay, so today I'm going to take account of everything that's happening in this army. You're going to give me an accounting of exactly how many shoes we have, the status of everything. And tomorrow we're going to march to go fight the Austrians. And they're like, this is a horrible idea. You should not do this. This army is in no shape to fight. And he's basically like, yeah, Isaac Newton, an object at rest stays at rest, an object in motion stays in motion. And so I don't care. We're going to go attack. And so they go out, they attack, they score a cheap, easy victory, and then they're just rolling, right? And then they roll through Italy and kick the crap out of the Austrians in like a matter of weeks. And so I've been talking to you and Sean about doing better with How to Take Over the World and getting bigger. And I'm just like, man, I have all these problems. I need more researchers, I need more writers because I have to do all this research. And both of you were just kind of like, bullshit. Like, no, you don't. Just put stuff out, like just put out more episodes. What's wrong with you? Just put out more episodes. And, and so that's something I've been focusing on is like, it's so easy to focus on all the inputs on like getting everything ready, on planning, on preparing, and this bias to action of like, no, no, no, no, no. Every single day you need to be taking steps that have measurable outcomes that advance your goals forward. You need to be doing and you need to have a bias towards doing those things rather than planning and preparing, dude.
And a good example of that is like only 6 months ago or something. So we were fairly popular. Sean, for some reason, cuz he's always a little disorganized, his microphone wasn't working and he is like, fuck it, I'm just gonna use my AirPods. And we're like, all right, fine. And he puts his AirPods in and only one of them worked and the other one didn't even work. It was for some reason it was outta battery. He goes, we were just like, screw it. We're gonna record this Sean with just your webcam and your one AirPod. So that AirPod is gonna be your microphone and your like how you could hear me talk. He's like, yeah, let's do it. Versus waiting 20 minutes for it to get charged. We're like, no, we can't wait. We have to do it right now. We have to go. And, uh, I think that that is the way to go. I think that the world wants you to be vanilla. The world wants to make everyone vanilla and they want you to be safe. And that means planning, planning. And so, so many people write on their goals for the day. I bet you there's a lot of people listening. They have one task today, which says, plan workout or plan, you know, like business, like what, how I'm gonna launch this bus— like plan something. It's like, that's their to-do. And that's really just kind of a self-masturbation. Uh, like it's a, uh, uh, it's a bullshit way to make you think that you actually are doing something when instead you should just start and figure it out along the way because virtually everything, not everything, but almost everything related to a project is reversible. And so you should always start. And so you should always just like, just make it happen and always have a bias to action because it also is intoxicating.
Right, right.
Dude, have you ever sold anything on the internet? No. So like, people talk to me about like, how do I do this? How do I do that? I'm like, dude, just whatever you do, build it so you can get it live tomorrow. And so then you can get just $1 in revenue in the first 5 days because the second your phone goes ka-ching, because like I have this thing on Shopify that goes ka-ching every sale I get, the first time you hear that, you're like, oh, I need to feel that again. Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. Like it gets you amped up when you hear that. And so that's why whenever people talk to me, they're like, which platform should I use? For my new blog. I'm like, it doesn't matter. Just go to Substack right now and get— and make your blog post live tomorrow. And then the second you see traffic on the analytics, you're like, oh, I like that. That tastes good. I like how that feels. I gotta do it again. I need more. I need to take another bite. And that's why whenever people talk about anything they wanna do, I'm like, if you're a noob, launch right away. Immediately. Immediately. If you're like, I have this guy named Brett Adcock who sold a company for $2 or $3 billion and his next company, it's like a robot business and he's investing $200 million in like 5 years of research. I'm like, all right, that's cool. You're a proven hitmaker, like take your time and like perfect this thing. But if you're like a rookie, you got to jump right in and get that taste of dopamine immediately. Otherwise it will never happen or just fades and you just aren't interested anymore.
So it's interesting. What you're saying reminds me a little bit of, uh, like the difference between the Greeks and the Romans. So the Greeks, like masters of the Mediterranean, the old Greeks and Romans.
Okay.
Okay. Okay. Hear me out though. Cause here's the thing, the Greeks were like much better academics than the Romans. They knew geometry, they knew algebra, they knew like philosophy, right? And the Romans were basically dumb jocks.
Okay.
They didn't know any of this stuff. And it turns out that Roman construction and bridges were actually much better than Greek ones. Why is it? Cause the Greeks would sit down and try and figure out the geometry of the best way to build a bridge. The Romans did not. The Romans just went out and built a bridge and then it kind of crumbled. And then they're like, oh, what if we did this? And then they rebuilt it and then that didn't work out so well. And then over the generations they just went out and did stuff until eventually they had like the perfect way to build a bridge that would stand forever. Did they ever know the math behind it? They literally never did. They just went and tried stuff until they found the thing that worked best. And that was what let them take over the world. And so that just like backs up what you're saying. Of like, you actually don't need to know why this stuff is working. You don't need to know the math behind it. You don't need to do the research. You just literally need to try stuff until you find out what works.
Well, John, what I was going to say, I think, you know, two things I just heard was one, and this is all kind of wrapping this back up to how this applies to like podcasting. I heard bias towards action, which is just like, go, go, go. And I also heard like, be very methodical with how you tell stories. Like Malcolm Gladwell-esque. So like, let's just say you're starting a podcast today, 0 to 25,000 downloads, bias towards action, 25 to 100,000. Let's just say you're really dialing in the storytelling component of it. And then, but it sounds like you're flipping back to, okay, just bias towards action, go, go, go. So like, I don't know, I think it could be helpful to go from like, at this stage you want to focus on just making shit happen versus being more methodical with how to actually level the podcast up, that kind of stuff.
Can I use an example like Danny Miranda? You were on his podcast a few days ago, Sam, and I don't think he's figured out his niche very well. He needs to work on that. He hasn't figured it out yet. But guess what? He's in a really good position to figure it out because he just got started. He's been doing great interviews. He's super action-oriented and he's going to figure it out. The data. And he's got the data right. And now he can pivot and he can try different stuff. He can think about different ways to position it. Versus the person who is just like, no, no, no, Danny's not doing it the right way. I need to position my podcast perfectly. No, just start with action. You can figure out your niche and exactly how to position your podcast later.
Dude, it's because it's way better to execute a bad plan than it is to execute no plan. And because you can change it, you can change a bad plan into a good plan in most cases as you go, but you can't, you know, you're up shit creek if you're doing nothing all day.
Yep.