Announcing This Year's Episode of the Year: Camp MFM Recap

Hello and welcome to My First Million. This is producer Ben here with the episode of the year. We ran a highly unscientific poll on Twitter and the people have spoken and you chose the Camp MFM recap episode as the episode of the year. Shout out to our runner-ups and honorable mentions. A lot of people said that their favorite episodes were the Palmer Lucky episode, uh, the recent newsletter deep dive that we did with Austin Reef, The Peter Levels interview, Sam's Unpopular Opinions episode, the Sahil Bloom episode, Michael Girdley nominated himself, Andrew Wilkinson got a few shoutouts, the inside story of Ligma Johnson, the episode where Sam and Sean went super deep on AI, the Stonks Demo Day collaboration, and the University of Michigan pitch competition all got shoutouts. And I agree, those were some great episodes, but there can only be one winner. Vox Populi, Vox Dei, as Elon Musk is fond of saying.

So here we are.

If you're really upset about the winner, you can stop the episode right now, hit pause, go back and play one of those episodes and pretend like it won Episode of the Year. Um, but to be clear, it didn't. The winner was the MFM Recap episode. So that's what we're playing. We'll be back to your normally scheduled programming on Thursday, but until then, please enjoy this Episode of the Year winner, the Camp MFM Recap episode.

He goes, that usually does the trick.

Yeah.

I was like, how many times have you done this, bro? I feel like I could rule the world.

I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back. All right, so I guess we're all going to— we all want to talk about the same thing, right?

Yeah, this is going to be the Camp MFM recap episode.

I have a lot of things to say. Let me set the background because you're the one who organized it. So I think you need a third party here. So basically a month ago, Sean said, I'm going to organize a basketball weekend and I want you to come and I'm going to invite some other people. Please Venmo me $1,800 and show up at this address at this time. That's pretty much all I knew about. I didn't know anything else. And I think it was 3 weeks in advance, right? Yeah, something like that. So basically 3 weeks out, it just says, hey, come to North Carolina in Raleigh near Duke, and we're going to have a basketball camp. And just show up. That's all I knew. And then I get an email. I booked my flight. I sent you $1,800. A day before you sent out who's coming. And it was like me and you, both Bens, a couple HubSpot people like Jonathan. And then it was like Hasan Minhaj. It was MrBeast. And it was like 20 other really amazing entrepreneurs. And you rented out this farm basically, or it's like a winery. Yeah. Yeah. With like a lake and a zip line going into the lake. And it was like 24 entrepreneurs. And you hired this amazing basketball trainer who was also an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur, so he like fit in and was really insightful. You kind of half-assed the incredibly unimportant things. Like there is like when we went and played basketball, I was like, hey, is there any food here? And you're like, well, there's just a bunch of boxes of Clif Bars. And like, okay, that's okay. I'm okay with half-assing that thing. So anyway, we all stayed in these two Airbnbs and just played like board games and like acted like 12-year-olds for like two nights. And it was amazing. It was so cool.

I want to talk about Ben. I want to talk about Ben in the middle or the end, but I have a feeling— I told Ben before we recorded, I go, Ben, the next 6 months in your life are, I think, are gonna have the most change you've ever experienced in your life.

Totally agree. Totally agree with that. In fact, I was gonna text you something very, very similar, which is like, I don't know if you realize this yet, but your life is about to change because you can't just be surrounded by wildly ambitious people who like and believe in you and spend time, you know, seeing other people who have realized their dream come true and not go back to your house and look at yourself a little differently in the mirror. Like, you're gonna look at yourself and be like, all right, let's turn that ambition knob up two notches, right? Let's have— let's turn that faith and belief in myself up because I saw that these people are no smarter, better than me. They're just people like me. There's— they just went for it.

All those quote smarter, quote better, quote more successful people were looking up to Ben. Did you notice that?

Yeah, well, there was just a feeling of— I wouldn't even say looking up necessarily, it's more like equals. I think everybody, everybody there viewed themselves as an equal to everybody else. I'm sure everybody there had a moment where they were like, dude, I'm way out of place. Some people are like the basketball, they're like, oh, you know, I, I play basketball, but I'm not really like that into basketball. So some people maybe felt out of place there a little bit. Some people felt out of place in the house because they didn't know anybody. And then some people I bet felt out of place because they said, wow, I'm talking to this guy who's leaps and bounds further ahead in their business career. But everybody had to deal with that and then come to terms with that. I think that's part of the challenge.

There's just so much to say. It was one of the best weekends of my life. It was so amazing. Sean, I guess I would ask, there's a really special feeling that is very difficult to convey throughout the entire weekend. You guys touched on it a little bit of just no egos, even though people are at very different places. There was just this really feeling of openness and connection and like even though there were these really, really successful people in all these different domains, like everyone just on the same level learning from each other. It was very cool. Sean, like what do you think it was that went into this weekend that created that environment where people were able to like feel that way and be that way with each other?

I think it's 3 things. You actually mentioned 2 of them. First was the weekend felt very special. And I think that when people feel like they're a part of something bigger than themselves, when people have a little bit of awe or intrigue or curiosity or fear, even, they get out of their, out of their comfort zone. And so part of it was if you make something that, that feels special, that feels different, that inspires some awe or some, they, they, they don't know what's coming next. It brings everybody back to sort of like an equal footing of the sort of a childlike thing.

I remember.

When— so we invited Alex Bazile, who's a trainer to, to a bunch of NBA stars like Kyrie Irving and Trae Young. And this guy's like, you know, he's like the top of his craft. He trains like— he came from training like, you know, Kevin Durant to us. He sent us a clip. He's like, here's what I was doing today. Tomorrow I'll be seeing you schmucks. And like, right, like, you know, but that first 5 minutes, I would say, when he had us doing very simple like drills, everybody was spread throughout this whole private gym that we had rented and we're all literally dribbling the ball almost accidentally in unison like that old Nike commercial. There was little pockets, little moments like that where it just felt special. And, you know, so, so I think that's the first piece is you got to give people a feeling that they're part of something bigger than themselves. Number 2, you invite people who are inherently curious. So everybody there, I would say, actually has an ego. Everybody there has an ego, otherwise they wouldn't get to where they were. But bigger than their ego is their curiosity.. And so as long as you can create the curiosity factor where, who's this person? Oh, they're interesting. Oh, they're interesting. They're interesting. Then again, the attention go— they're so used to attention being on them. They're so used to being the most interesting person in the room. So you want people who are naturally curious about the people around them. So even the sort of quote unquote celebrities or kind of the big hitters that we had in the house that were maybe the, the wealthiest or the most popular people that were there, I picked specifically people that in my limited interaction with them, they were very curious. Like, for example, when you had first met MrBeast, you met him before we did. You were like, yeah, he just called me and he was like, yeah, I'm on this walk. I do this every night. I just call somebody and say, yo, teach me something. And I was like, already I know everything I need to know about this person. Same thing when Hasan came on the podcast. He asked me more questions than I asked him. I felt bad afterwards. I was like, dude, I just blew the podcast because he was asking me questions I'm supposed to ask him. Nobody gives a shit about me. They wanted to know from him. But that showed me like he would fit into this group because He would be curious about, oh, what's this real estate guy doing? What's this guy doing who's rolling up like those claw machines at amusement parks and pinball machines? And like, that's what this guy does. And he's building a little mini empire doing that, right? You need somebody who's curious. Otherwise they would just be like, that's weird. I don't know, stay away from me, right? You're different. I would say the third was the immersion. So yeah, it wasn't like you couldn't get away for better or for worse. Like normally you go to a dinner, you sit there for 3 hours, it's sort of a safe space, you know the routine. And then you leave and you get to go back to your place. So you can, you can stay surface level with a lot of people. With this, it's like, dude, I'm sleeping in the same room as somebody else sometimes. I'm definitely under one roof for the house. We're eating breakfast together, lunch together, dinner together. We're figuring out logistics. Oh, you wanna shower first or me? And at some point you're gonna just be your real self cuz you can only fake the funk for so long. You can do it for 2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours. By hour 5, you're just gonna be sitting there, you know, tired and cranky and you're going to be your real self. And like, that's just the way it was. So I think those are the 3 things I would say that like created that environment.

He goes, that usually does the trick. I was like, how many times have you done this, bro?

He just didn't pay attention to rules. I thought that was interesting. Now, I'm going to contrast that with this other person. I'm not going to say his name, but he might have been the wealthiest person there. And he wholly owned a business that was worth probably $500 to $800 million. And it made tens of millions a year in profit. And he basically told me that he worked really hard to get it going, but now he works one week a month and then the other week a month he likes to travel. And then the other two weeks of the month he's just kind of searching. So his company, he owns a bunch of companies. The other two weeks he's just online. Searching for other deals and companies to buy, but at a fairly casual pace. And I thought this was interesting because these two guys were the exact opposite of when you met them. One guy, you'd be like, oh, you're easy to be around, you're well-balanced. The other guy, Jimmy, not well-balanced at all. But both of them had this laser-focused intensity of when they're on, they're on. And they played their game at a really, really high— highly levered. So lots of leverage and that type of scale where it was just like, anytime if I make a decision, the outcome is potentially big. And I don't always have to make a lot of decisions.

I agree with everything you just said. And in fact, I think we could probably do a 2-episode series literally just on MrBeast. And, and I don't mean that 'cause I'm a fan. Like, in fact, I've watched a couple of his videos. It's not like I went in being like, ooh, this guy's my favorite. You know, like it's not that, right? Like he, I've watched a couple of his videos. It's like, oh, okay, I get it. That's cool. I get why that works. It's good, good fun. And so it's not that, but I am now a much bigger fan of him after seeing how he operates. I'm gonna tell you a couple stories. So you didn't go for this, but a couple of us who arrived the day before, we got to go visit his studios and we got to go tour his production facility, which is like, I don't know, Ben, how big is that place? Like 50,000 square feet or something like that?

Like basically an airplane hangar, right?

Imagine a giant airplane hangar. And on one end they're like, oh, we're building this set over here. It's like a Hollywood production thing. So there's 4 production teams and you're like in rural North Carolina. We're in, yeah, like people make this pilgrimage out to go see Warren Buffett and they call him the Oracle of Omaha. But I was like, where are we and where are we going for this pilgrimage? And so we get out there, but it's like, had that same thing. Very special. You go there and it's like this group of people who are all singularly focused on one mission, which was to create the best videos possible, to create the best videos that get the biggest reactions that, you know, like, and that's all they were all doing 24/7. They were all just working on that. So I'm gonna tell you a couple of, of kind of amazing stories from that. We were like, so what is your, like, what's your model, dude? And his model is basically this. He started off making videos with no money, just him in his bedroom doing dumb stuff. Like, I'm gonna say Logan Paul's name 100,000 times. I'm gonna take this plastic knife and I'm gonna cut through, I'm gonna saw through this plastic table in the next 48 hours. He just sat there. He would just do stuff like that. No budget, no whatever. But he knew, he understood even at that time, like, Okay, what would get somebody's attention? What would make them laugh? What would make them watch? What's a bit of a spectacle? Low-budget spectacles. Now he's doing high-budget spectacles. Like, we get there, there's a camera flying above us, there's fireworks and smoke bombs, and there's crazy stuff going on, right? Because now he's investing, I think on average, Ben, what is it, like half a million or a million dollars per video or something?

I think he said $1.5.

Okay.

Maybe 70. Who here can think about that vision and can honestly say that it is wildly ambitious? Like MrBeast's ambition is to be, you know, a billionaire YouTube creator to get to a billion followers and make billions of dollars. He has told me that he wants to be one of the richest men on the planet, the most famous person on the planet, and president. So, okay, that's his ambition. Yeah. What's yours? Right? So, How many could just say in their own right that I'm thinking really big, I'm thinking wildly ambitious? So we're at 60%. Where are we at now?

Maybe 20. Okay, we're down to that.

He might be the only one. And I would say, well, it's also because he was the youngest, but that could just, you know, it could play out where even if he's not the youngest, he still would've behave that way.

He would be the only one. And that's not just about that house. I could go down into San Francisco. I could say, hey, gather around every venture-backed founder here. I could go into every— I can go to a gymnasium full of people who all say they want to be a big YouTuber, all say they want to be a comedian.

Which, by the way, this isn't necessarily a good thing. It could be a good thing. It could also, I think, be his downfall.

There's a reason most people don't do it, I think, is what you're saying, which is like there's a price that comes with that. And that price is a price that most of us will not pay. What do you think, Ben?

I just think there's a couple things he said throughout the weekend that I was like, oh, this guy is so successful. But to Sam's point, like, he's on a knife's edge. If you play out his life 100 times, I think in like 25 or 30 of them, he literally ends up on the street as just like an addict because he does have that obsessive personality. And if he had ended up for whatever reason obsessed with not the right thing, that's the way it would have gone.

I have a list of like 3 things that might be his downfall. Keep in mind, the guy is like 24, so he's going to evolve quickly. But one, he was incredibly naive about business, which is actually a pro, I think, in a lot of cases. But in his case, I think that like you have to get a little bit less naive and learn a little bit more about business. You know, the thing you said about him cutting through a table with a plastic knife, that's kind of how he's done his life. He's just like, you know what I mean? Like he's just like brute forces way. And I think that's great. That can get you a long way. But in order to last and be as big as he wants to be, like a Bezos, you got to have a little bit more sophistication as you grow. He's got plenty of time, though. The second thing is hiring. I think that he kind of told stories that it made me seem— it made it seem like he just hired his friends and it's like, hey, you're fun, you want to do this? That— I don't think that's going to cut it either. And then the third thing is company building. We asked him on the pod about like work hours and about like meetings. And he— I actually don't remember if he did it. I don't think he did a great job of answering it. But the vibe that I got was it was like a little bit like just whatever Jimmy wants, Jimmy gets. And I think that's okay for a little while. But in order to be as big as he wants to be, you got to have a little bit more company building, a little more process-oriented things like that that are kind of the antithesis of like being a cool YouTuber in many regards.

So I'll disagree with you on a couple of those. I think that first of all, I think he's 24. So I remember when I was 24, I became a CEO for the first time of like a real company, a company that had revenue and employees. Employees that were not like my two best friends from college. And where he's at at 24 and where I was at at 24 is like if me and Usain Bolt go and run a race, it's like there, there is such a, like on one hand he's sitting in a room, I think the, you know, the oldest person in our, in our group was maybe 43. And the, you know, I would say the average age was maybe like 34, 35, something like that.

Probably something like that. Yeah. By the way, I'm not insulting him. I'm incredibly impressed.

Right. So I just think where he's at on the learning curve, like yeah, there is no shortcut to the learning curve. You gotta learn all these lessons. But where he's at is actually pretty far along. And the brute force approach actually works. Like you said, there is a strength to that. And I, and I think that if you're just what he's, if you're doing what he's doing, which is you're just like, eff it, I'm doing it. I'm holding nothing back. I'm gonna go all in and I'm gonna repeatedly go all in until this, like, just, I just find a way to make this work. I think that overcomes a lot of the mistakes you're gonna make. Right?

Because maybe for the first, maybe for the first billion or two.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I, I, I think that that is a great attitude and what he proved is that you could have that attitude for a, like, late stage in, in your career. Even though he's 24, like, he's got late stage in terms of results, even though he's probably in 10%— 100% in most cases, he's late, he's late stage. But in order to get as big as he wants— he said he wanted to build multiple, uh, $10 billion, even I think he said $100 billion company, you know, that's— we're talking Walmart, you know, like, you, you, you, you can't always bet the farm at that size.

And I'm gonna be honest with you, I had an initial reaction to him that was sort of— there was a part of me that was like, ah, fuck this guy, right? And not because he did anything bad, he's totally nice, but his ambition is almost uncomfortable to where it's uncomfortable, where you're like, I'm not talking to somebody who's re— who— they don't live in the same reality that I live in. And so my initial reaction was like, okay, you're saying things that don't— either they don't make sense, or it's like too like one-sided, or it's like just like pure, unadulterated, like raw ambition. And there's something uncomfortable about that because I kind of like people that are like, like one of the things I admire is people who are well-balanced. So I told him this when I was talking to him. I was like, he was basically like, I admire Elon, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos. Like, these are the people that I admire. I'm like them. I'm wired like them. And I like to hang out with people like them. And I go, yeah, I'm not like them. And we're on the phone and now there's like, you know, like a 10-second uncomfortable silence. Because it was true. I was like, what am I going to do, pretend I am? No, I could just, you know, I'm going to say what's real. And I was like, you know, I was like, that doesn't mean I'm not ambitious. I just point my ambition at a different outcome. Those guys all became the wealthiest men on Earth. They created, like, you know, world-changing, like, spectacles, like landing rockets on, you know, self-landing rockets, self-driving cars, electric cars, all this crazy stuff, right? Created the iPhone. So those people, they were wildly ambitious in that way. There are other people that are wildly ambitious in other ways. I said, You know, like somebody I look up to, I model myself after is like Naval. I think he's really successful in business, but also he's revered because of his wisdom, not because he created the iPhone, right? Like, you know, he hasn't gone through 5 marriages and breakups and like, you know, he hasn't like been bankrupt and then back to the top and then is depressed, but he's super successful. I was like, to me, that's not winning. But I get it that for other people there is winning. I'm glad there's people who think that's winning 'cause they're the ones who are gonna create the next iPhone and create the next Tesla. And, but I just was explaining that to him and I think that, that was the only, I don't actually think he's naive about business. I don't actually think he's about anything. I just think like when you, when you have your play style, it's very sexy to be like, my play style is the play style. My, my play style is the one, is the cool one. And all the other ones are weak for these other reasons. And I think as people get older, they really start to respect other people's play styles. I think this has happened for most of the people I, I really get along with where they're like, they can admire a billionaire as much as they can admire a single mother because they're like, dude, these are just different games. But I really— I can—

right, right, right.

That's a great way to put it. The way that I also put it is I say I don't care about money. I care about people who, like, actualize their dreams. And their dream could be to be the best parent. Their dream could be to be a billionaire. It could be to be an athlete, to be strong, to be skinny. I don't care what exactly your dream is. I just want to see you achieve it. And that makes me happy when I see someone going places. And it just so happens that money and traditional success is a very practical way to measure that or to, like, achieve it. Like, it just says, like, well, I just do this business thing as opposed to being the best parent. It's a little bit more challenging. But yeah, I completely agree with you.

We have another friend, or I have a friend. You've met him. I don't know if you love the guy or hate the guy because he also is uncomfortably ambitious. Remember, he came to a dinner with us. I don't want to say his name, but he came to a dinner with us once, and you could describe your impression of him, but he's also this type.

I was embarrassed to be around him.

I met him when he was 19, 20, something like that. And he at that time was basically like, yeah, I'm like, I'm going to be a billionaire, multibillionaire. Just a matter of, is it at 25 or 26, 27? I don't know when. And I was like, so do you date? He's like, no, I'm just going to wait till I'm a billionaire, then I'm going to date the hottest woman on earth who's also loves me and is like the heir to the throne somewhere, right? He's like, I'm just going for a 12. And he's like, so first I'm going to become a multibillionaire, then I'm going to date this 12 and marry her, and then I'm going to have all these children, and then my children are going to do this. And if somebody else was really excited about their thing, that's like kind of small, he'd be like, well, that's kind of a waste of time, right? Like you could just, why not just do something bigger that would make you more money? And like, he's just so matter of fact, so black and white about it. Like not in a way that's, not in a way that's rude. Like he's not trying to be rude, but he just genuinely only obsesses over his thing, which is in his case, like investing and being like a better investor than Warren Buffett. He's like, you know, I've, I've, I've watched every video, read every book, by Warren Buffett, Ray Dalio, all the greatest investors. I've studied them. I'm just as good as them. Yeah, I'm younger than them, but I'm just as good at them. In fact, I think I'll be better than them. But you know, by the time I'm— they're 90, I'll be better than them by now.

How's it going?

I mean, who knows? I don't know. I can only— I literally can only check in with them so often because if you talk to 'em too much, it's just like, oh dude, like I get my, I get a headache. Like A, I feel insecure 'cause I'm not as ambitious. And then B, I just get frustrated 'cause I'm like, dude, come back to reality. Like you're floating away in your own bubble somewhere. But I like people like that. They— those people also are like, they serve a real place in my life.

Amazing.

What was it called? He goes, oh, I can't tell you, I'll dox myself. And I was like, oh, and I got back and I like remembered we are anonymous. And I thought that was so fascinating.

What did you think about it? I don't know. I didn't find it that fascinating, but now that you say it, I'm like, yeah, that was kind of crazy.

Like you see, it didn't feel crazy. It didn't feel crazy.

You people who have theirs, you see people who have their like handle online and that's their persona, but you're right. I've never actually just met one of those people in real life and have them just be like, Yeah, that's just, that's my identity. I've just given up. I don't use my, my birth identity, my legal identity. I use my online identity as my main identity. And everybody was like, all right, what's up Commodore?

I called him Commodore the whole time.

I thought that was his real name for the first 24 hours. Every time he walked in the room, people like, ah, Commodore. Hey, where's Commodore? Is he ready to go? And it's like, that's not like, who is this guy? Nobody here knows who this guy is and we're all okay with it. That was kind of, yeah, you're right. That was kind of amazing.

And I was like, can I just take a picture of you and like reverse search this? He goes, you can, but you won't. I was like, you're right, I'm not going to.

Yeah, but like there was sort of a respect at some point. It's like, I'm not going to try to know this because you're cool and I don't need to. Why would I do something you don't—

you're not comfortable with?

You don't want that? All right, I'm your friend. I'm not going to do that to you, dude.

That was— it was so weird at first and then it became completely normal. And now I totally get this Anon thing. And I asked him, I go, do your friends know who you are? And he's, no, he's like, they— a lot of them have just don't know what I do for work.

So there was a group of people there that are pretty interesting. So one guy who we both loved, who we did a pod with. So I guess I'll explain the rest of the setup. So we did a couple other cool things. I thought we had a chef who was there at the house just making all the meals. That was great. So nobody had to think about anything. And then we had Kevin Durant basically sent us like 30 pairs of his shoe. So everybody, everybody who got there, they got a pair of his shoes. We got a custom, like, shirt, jersey that said Camp MFM with your name on the back and your number. So people kind of had their like jersey for the weekend. We got like, they also sent like Nike sent bags for us. So there was a couple things that were like cool. You know why I was talking about the moments in between the moments? We tried to have some moments in between the moments.

Um, it felt like Christmas morning, like with all these shoes here and we all like got there and like unwrapped 'em. It was really cool.

Yeah. We all turned into little kids. We're like unboxing our thing and be like, ah, yeah, I got it. Like, you know, all these people could afford 1,000 shoes 1,000 times over. Over, but like, it just, it's still great to just get a free cool thing that somebody sends you.

Can I say one cool thing you did, Sean, was that it wasn't all KDs. It was like KDs and a couple Kyries and some LeBrons. So it was fun to open up to be like, oh, which shoes did I get?

Yeah, that was true. Some other great moments. So we, um, we had gotten connected with the guys at Duke because we're in North Carolina, and we had said, hey, can we come like get a tour of the place? They did. So basically some of the former players who are now coaches, some of the current players basically came together and they, they took us on a tour of the practice facility. What did you think of that, by the way? You're not like a— like, I went to Duke. That to me was obviously cool.

Dude, it was so cool. It was so awesome. So I don't know anything about basketball. I even made a joke when we walked in. I go, Ben, who's that dude? And it was Coach K. Uh, I was like, yeah. So like, I don't really know anything about basketball, but it was inspirational because the assistant coaches now, I think they are, they told stories about working with Coach K, who's like known for, you know, 30 years of excellence and tradition and like perfection. And he told— they told some amazing stories. And it felt— I did feel like I was in a, I don't know, holy place when I was there.

So I want to say something about that too. So one of the players there, Emile Jefferson, who he was on the championship team maybe 7 years ago, or was he the—

was he like the coach, like the guy leading the tour?

Yeah, he was the guy kind of telling the most stories. And I just want to give him a shout out because Basically, they didn't know what the hell was going on.

Neither did our group.

All of a sudden, 30 people are standing face to face in this practice facility. It's like, so, uh, okay, who are you guys? And, uh, like, what am I supposed to show you? What are we doing here? And like, I don't think anybody totally winged it.

He did good. It also helped that we had MrBeast here and, uh, Hasan. So everyone thought that like, oh, everyone else here must be famous too.

I just don't recognize— Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like they didn't know we're all just prolific newsletter creators, you know? Yeah, podcasters and newsletter creators and a couple actually famous people.

Yeah. They ball, we blog.

I told you this like 3 times, you pulled this off perfectly and you nailed the important stuff and you failed and ignored the non-important stuff. The non-important stuff is the nice to haves. That— but here's the thing. Most people would spend time on that. So you had no website, you had no like invitation. You just DM people and you said Venmo me money. And I didn't know what I was getting into, but I just trusted you. You last minute sent us the address. So basically like on the way to the airport, you told me the address of where I had to go to. I didn't know what time dinner was. I just know I had just some time throughout the day. Hopefully I show up at this address and I, and I, and like hopefully there's a place to sleep. All I did was I sent you money and I told you my shoe size. That's all I did. And I showed up and there was all these amazing people there and you nailed it and you did it quickly. And the Airbnb was perfect. We had a chef there that was perfect. The house, pretty messy, kind of just not, not messy horribly, but almost borderline. Like, this is disgusting. We go and play basketball all day and you had this amazing trainer at this awesome high school gym that was also perfect. And I'm like, all right, is there any, like, drinks here? Like, what do we— what do we do? It's like, well, there's just a water fountain and some Clif Bars. And I was like, okay, that's less than ideal. But you know what?

That—

Yeah.

Yeah.

You, I think you were 100% right. Nailed the execution. Just everything about it was perfect. Sean, do you think it's something, could you just copy and paste it or does it need to be different every time in order to create that feeling of it being special?

I think you could copy paste 80% of it and you would change 20%. And so I think that that would be the plan. I, I, I wanna basically, so I just bought a domain. I'm putting up a website today, mfmcamp.com, and I'm gonna put the pictures from this one. I just kind of wanna make a blog of where this was, but I'm also gonna put a form on there for people who want to come to this in the future. Half the people who came to this, I didn't know. They had reached out when I had first said the idea.

I think you should let people apply, but I don't think— you gotta keep it just like 20, 25 people. Well, I'm gonna like, you know, really exclusive.

Yeah.

That is, it's not the D, it's more like the B, the B league, right? It's like that. I wanna do like a thousand person or 500 person or something bigger. Maybe not 500, maybe not that big. Maybe it's 200, but that'll be like a retreat somewhere. It's less intimate, less exclusive, but it's still people who are, they're all entrepreneurs. They're all, they've all made their first million, right? According to the podcast. They all listen to the pod. They get the jokes, they get the humor, they get the style. So when they show up, they know the vibe. The vibe, the vibe should be immaculate from day one. And that's what I, that's what I want to do. So that's what I'm thinking of doing out of this. What do you think of that idea?

Yeah, I told Kip, the CMO of HubSpot, I go, Sean just did this on his own. Like, you gotta carve out some budget and just let us, let us or let him have this money and, and we gotta make this happen. This is magical. And he's like, dude, I followed all your guys' picture and Instagram from this. This is amazing. We're in. And, uh, yeah, I think that's a really good idea. You should do a bigger one. That bigger one, the bigger one will be fricking exhausting, but, uh, it'd be fun.

Yeah, totally. I hate events, but the fact that I still want to do this, even though I hate events, shows me that it's like a good thing to do. Okay. So those were a couple of the things. Can I share a couple of the other kind of like takeaways or anecdotes? So one takeaway, a lot of people there were pretty I'll call it like straight and narrow now. It's like a lot of the conversations were like about their kids. So Nick, who's Sweaty Startup on Twitter, he wrote a blog post. Did you read this thing? He goes, I spent the weekend with multimillionaires. Here's what I learned. And he goes, we organized this thing, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, he texted his wife after he put a screenshot up. He goes, I'm very inspired by a lot of the guys here. Had some incredible deep conversations with some spectacular people. A few things I am ready to change right away. Number one, I want a therapist. Number 2, I want to bring energy to the kids. I think I need to disconnect from the phone to do that. Number 3, I want to drink less alcohol. Number 4, I'm ready to bring a positive mindset to being a family man and a dad and nurture that garden in the same way that I've nurtured business and social. Number 5, I want to start honoring you, like treating you like the queen that you are. I'm so lucky to have you, right? It's like, whoa, like, you know, those are some, you know, come to Jesus, uh, you know, sort of thoughts. And I'm glad that, you know, uh, he had that impression. And so he said something, he goes, he goes, here's my takeaways. He goes, we're all dorks.. He goes, I was expecting a room full of giants, people with charisma, blah, blah, blah. He's like, don't get me wrong, some people could tell great stories, but for the most part, everyone was just normal and had like overcome odds. They were just smart storytellers who were really obsessed with their thing. Now, number 2, he goes, we all suffer with insecurity, fear of failure, and a general emptiness at times. He goes, I talked to a few guys who enjoyed their success more than 5 years ago, have been worth 20+ million for a long time, and they spoke about business as an unhealthy addiction, how it leaves them searching for more and empty feeling after an exit. Others, others talked about their nagging ego and need for more and bigger. Others discussed a constant fear that their career, about their career, that they weren't worthy or didn't have, have what it took and just general insecurity. Another one, they had lots of kids. A lot of guys spend a lot of time talking about their kids and, and, and how they spend a lot of energy in this area. Most of the folks spent a lot of time talking about how they're trying to raise good kids and how they're trying to help their kids embrace the struggle rather than protecting them from it. He goes, very few of them had, had new groundbreaking businesses. Most started normal businesses that already existed. Not revolutionary technologies. They saw a need and just went after it better than anyone else. Good old-fashioned boring stuff. He talked about the humility is astounding. Most of the people— money has not turned these people into jerks. They're still mentally tough, still willing to, you know, to slum it. They are humble. They're searching for ways to improve, blah, blah, blah. Most didn't drink alcohol. You know, a couple of us had one or two drinks, but I'm surprised that, you know, this many people were able to, you know, socialize, hang out without using alcohol. It inspired me to do more. Yeah, basically he's like, the big question for most people in the room is, what am I going to do with my life? He goes, one last quote, he goes, I talked to somebody who said this, I walk around my house in my office sometimes just acting like I'm doing things. Then I just go outside, walk around, or I cut wood. And he's like, everybody is kind of, you know, on some kind of search. So I thought it was a really good recap.

To add to that, most people were really transparent. And so like, we would be like, if we would ask them money questions, like, and they would just say, this is what I have, this is where I put it, this is what I do. And they would be fairly specific, or they would say, no, like, I don't have enough to do this, this, and this. Like, we're talking about flying private. Like, no, I'm not wealthy enough. I can't do that. I can't afford it. And it was like, oh, okay. Uh, or I am wealthy enough to do that. And here's how much I spend, but I didn't do it until I hit this number. Or, you know, like my wife and I argue about X, Y, and Z, or, uh, I'm nervous about my children for these reasons. Or like people were really transparent.

Can I tell you a few more MrBeast nuggets real quick? Because I think he was the most, like, alien of— he was the alien amongst aliens, basically. Yeah. So he's got a runner. Do you know what I mean when I say this?

No, wait, what?

He was outside our house the whole time.

And he's outside the studio. Wherever he goes, these two people are there. 12-hour shifts each. So 24 hours a day, he's got somebody just watching his back, ready to go do anything. Like, that's a real— that's like a really funny— and so he's talking to me, he's like, he's like, yeah, he's like, I don't get it. He's like, all these people here are wealthy, but like nobody here had that. He's like, why don't you guys do that? It's like, It's a waste of your time to go do those things, right? Like, if you value your time, why would, why would you? And I was like, I was like, he's like, why do you think that is? And I was like, honestly, I don't think any of us had even thought about it. Like, I was like, I was like, I had never considered this possibility. I didn't know that was a thing. And so it's actually like a, a, a trait commonly found with greatness, which is a very matter-of-fact, simple way of looking at things that is unafraid of like how that looks, how that sounds, or like what it costs. So for example, he reinvests everything into every video. And I was like, okay, so you know, what's the game plan here? He's like, well, just, you know, like make the best videos possible. Just put it all in, keep growing it, make this the biggest thing ever. And like, you know, that's my goal. And I was like, okay, but like, you know, what about XYZ? It's like, I told you my goal, so why would I consider XYZ? Like, yeah, were you not listening to the first part where I said, so I call it, I started to think about this cuz again, The stunning thing for me was I had never really met anybody who puts every hour, every dollar, and every ounce of their soul into their wild ambition. That's what I took away from him. It doesn't matter if he was a YouTuber or an athlete. In fact, the trainer there used to train with Kobe and Kobe's daughter Gigi before they passed away. And I was, you know, I was like, dude, I hate to be the guy who asks you for a Kobe story, but like, you gotta tell me a Kobe Bryant story. Like, what, what you got? And he started telling me, I was like, you know, is the work ethic thing legit? 'Cause like, I don't know if you follow this, but like on Reddit there's these stories where it's like, no dude.

Yeah. I, I sat and listened to that guy talk. He was, he was, that was, that was probably the best storytelling.

So there's these stories about Kobe that you don't know if they're marketing or if they're real, where it's like Kobe would wake up, like there's a story like Dwyane Wade, who's another, you know, Hall of Fame basketball player. He's like, yeah, I, we went to the Olympics. That's my first time I got to see how Kobe works. 'Cause he was a competitor before that. Now we're on the same Olympic team. He's like, we got to the gym at 6:00 AM. Kobe was already there, like, fully sweating. We're like, what are you doing? We just got here for the 6:00 AM practice. What are you doing? And he's like, oh, this is like, yeah, yeah, I'm ready. I'll be ready in a minute. They're like, well, why are you sweating so much? He's like, oh, I had my first workout at 4:00. I'm just finishing up. I'm going to join you guys in a second. I'm going to go get my ankles retaped and then go back. And the guys, so he's got this legendary workout thing. So I was asking the guy, I was like, is it real? He's like, he's like, dude, I thought it was bullshit too. He's like, so I started texting him at 4:00. He's like, he'd hit me back right away. The guy was awake, he was at the gym. He's like, it was insane. He's like, I, he's like, and then I was like, okay, so he's got the crazy work ethic. What else? He's like, he had this ability where if you were in the room with him, he's like, most of the guys I work with, the famous athletes, they're like kind of like ADD. They're like, if they don't know, if you're not like a bullseye of what they're interested in, they don't think that, they don't look at you as someone they can learn something from always.

Yeah. Just normal people.

He's like, so, you know, they'll check their phone, they'll look around, they'll talk to you, they'll talk to their manager, they'll talk to this person. They're just, uh, whatever. They're all over the place. He's like, Kobe, if he got in a room with you, you would feel like there's only you in the room. He would lock eyes. He would not look at his phone. He would not move away. He would ask you questions. He would remember your name. And the name thing was fascinating. Did you hear that story where—

Yeah. Did you? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The other guy, Luke, tells the story. So he goes, we're at the gym and I, he's like, this is the first time I ever met Kobe. He's like, we're playing pickup and I was playing with, I jumped in. He's like a trainer. He's like, I jumped in the game and I missed like 6 or 7 shots. And Kobe just doesn't say anything to me. He's like, after the game, he goes, Damn, you damn, damn, man, you come make a shot or what? And the guy goes, I'm a volume shooter, bro. Like you should know. And Kobe, like, I mean, he tried to like kind of basically make fun of Kobe. Kobe's like, oh, only volume I know is 5, like 5 rings. He's like that, whatever. They had that one interaction, takes 5 seconds. They just laugh, move on with life. 3 weeks later, he comes back to the gym and the guy walks into the gym and Kobe goes, what up, volume? And just like remembered who he was, remembered his nickname. And so then the guy was like already impressed with that. He's like, but I, he's like, I had never talked to Kobe besides I never told him my name, nothing. He had asked somebody what my name is. So that 3 weeks later he goes, he's like, I was leaving. And Kobe goes, damn Luke, you're not gonna say bye? And he's like, wait, you know my name? And secondly, you're stopping? I just didn't wanna bother you.

Like, and the guy was like sneaking out, like just casually trying to leave. Right. And Kobe just saw him walking around. I was like, dude, what the hell? Aren't you gonna say goodbye to me?

He did an even crazier story where Alex had mentioned like a few weeks prior that his mom's birthday was on a particular date. And on that particular date, Kobe texted Alex, the trainer, goes, what's your mom's cell number? And he FaceTimed the mom, goes, what's up, mom? You know, I just wanna say I hope you have a wonderful birthday today. And Alex is like, I didn't even FaceTime my mom and tell her happy birthday.

Yeah, exactly. So Those stories were amazing. Again, those are the moments in between the moments, right? You can't plan for that, but you put a bunch of people in the room and serendipity like that can happen. But the other story that was like that, so, so, so the, the trait, uh, the thing I was calling MrBeast, I was like, he has a level of commitment that I call kamikaze commitment. He has a kamikaze level commitment.

That's a good one. That's a great one.

To winning. Kobe had that too.

That's a, that's a, that's our new phrase, bro.

I'm not willing to do it. I got kids. I'm, I don't know what what it is.

I don't know what the factors are. It's really that I just, I don't need to— it's like, it's like I said before, like, I think being Olympian, being an Olympian is a trap. Like, I don't need to be a gold medalist. I don't want to be Michael Phelps and give up like 20 years of my life to train every single moment of every single day to become that. Like, that's okay.

I don't think, I don't think his lifestyle is fitting for happiness and maybe, maybe even being fulfilled.

But, and by the way, he would agree. I'm happy. Like he said that himself.

Yeah, he said that. And I'm happy that he exists. And I know I am not that.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Those are the two certainties that I have on that. You know, before, before we went on that trip, I'm pumped you are real and I, and I, and I, and I am not it.

Face tattoos and cornrows, right?

Yeah. Face tattoos and cornrows. I'm cool. They, other people have them. Not for me.

Yeah. Before I went there, I was like, maybe we should really like double down on YouTube. Maybe we should triple down on YouTube. I was like, I think I could become like the biggest business creator on YouTube. Do I want that? I don't know. And then I, whether when we were there, there was like a 30-minute shoot where he was like a photo shoot for the thumbnail of one of his videos. And I was like, yeah, I don't think I want to do this. Like, I don't think in my day, these are the things I want to spend my energy on. And I think we don't, I think somebody is willing to do that. Of course somebody's willing to do that. Many people are willing to do that to win that game. And I was like, I'd rather do a game where I'm willing to pay the price that it takes to get the outcome that I want rather than try not to do it.

You and we, we could play that game, but you don't have to play it his way. You know, his way is a reckless way and it works. There are, there are lots of different examples of people succeeding in different ways. You know, the wealthiest guy there, keep in mind, was basically, he was the wealthiest guy there by a lot. I think, and he played the game totally different than, than Jimmy did.

Yeah, but I think the YouTube game that, you know, like, there is a— I think there is a default path, and you'd have to really be saying, I'm gonna go try to be an outlier, right? I'm not gonna be on— I'm not gonna do XYZ.

If you want to be—

to be the top, I'm not gonna be—

yes, if you wanted to be the top mainstream type of guy, I agree, right?

But there's like, we wanted a sweet lifestyle where we're making a few million dollars a year doing it, like, you're right, there's many ways to do that. But if you want to be the top, I'm okay with that. Right.

And that's the question I was asking myself. Yeah, I agree.

Do I want to try to go for that?

No, I don't. But I would, I, I would, I, I'd be okay with pretty good.

And doesn't that feel weird when you spend time with people who, who are like, they hear that sentence and they're sort of repulsed. Isn't there a part of you that's sort of like embarrassed to say, I'm okay with just good enough. There's a part of me that's for sure embarrassed to feel that way.

There. Yeah. And I used to feel so, I used to feel embarrassed about that. And then I realized I started like reading about stoicism and I got— went into this Ryan Holiday, like, deep rabbit hole. And I'm like, oh yeah, we're all going to die and we're all going to be bullshit and like just ashes. Like, what? I'm not going to play other people's games. But here's the thing I want to wrap up with. I left that weekend a little angry at myself because I experienced envy pretty hardcore and I experienced like inadequacy of like— you know, a lot of places where I go, I'm the big shot. There, we were the low— we were probably below average in terms of traditional success. For sure. And I remember being there and I'm like, I am nothing and I should want more and I should achieve more. And I remember feeling that way and I felt guilty that I felt that way. I was like, why? Why am I like, you know, why am I feeling envy? This is— envy is like one of the worst feelings you should— you can have. Envy is in some regards worse and hate, right? And so like, I remember feeling envy and I was like, I'm falling down the traps. I'm falling, I'm doing it. I'm doing what everyone says you do. And we all know you're not supposed to do. And I said forever, I wouldn't feel that way. I made the number that I made and I thought I won't want any more after that. And I am wanting more and I'm, I'm giving into it. And I felt really guilty about that.

I know exactly what you mean. I'll tell you what worked for me to like it's like a hunger pang, right? You can't prevent yourself from feeling hungry, but you can choose how you're gonna satisfy that, right? How you're gonna address it. And I had come on the pod before when I had visited that person's house that like, they had like a $20 million house and I was like, wow, this is just incredible. And I wasted the first 2 days just kind of like being envious and/or like bullshitting about why this, like, yeah, but you know, I wanna focus on family. Like, you know, coming up with these like other things that like, yeah, This is actually bad for these reasons.

Yeah. Just cognitive dissonance. Yeah.

Yeah. I remember I felt the exact same way. And I was like, I am nothing. It's so— here it kind of made me feel better when people who I didn't know told me about my life and I'm like, ah, fucker, you listen, got you. Like, you know what I mean?

So I got to tell you this story.

That was a little better.

Totally unrelated story, but you just reminded me of it. It's so hilarious. Once upon a time, back in the day, me and my buddies used to go gamble a lot. We didn't have much money. We were fresh out of college. We basically had won a business plan competition and we were extending the runway by going and playing poker and trying to win a few extra thousand dollars doing it. But sometimes we would lose. And so who knows, we probably netted out slightly down. Anyways, one of the guys, he would play table games where you have no edge, you're going to lose. And so he'd go play craps, whatever. And when he would lose, we'd be like, all right, man, we should cut it off. And he's like, hold on, let me just go get a coffee to go to the ATM and get more money to come back. And we're like, ah, dude, he's a degenerate. We gotta stop him. But we didn't. So we came back up to the hotel room and he's gone for like another 5 hours. 5 AM, he comes back into the room and I wake up because I hear the noise and he doesn't know that I'm awake. We're asleep. He doesn't know that I'm awake. And he comes up to the— he stands in front of the mirror in the hotel room. Actually, first he goes to the bathroom, changes into the robe, which is always the sign of somebody trying to get their value out of the hotel room because they lost a bunch of money in the casino. Little tip for degenerates, it's when they start using all the shampoos and stuff, they're trying to get back at the casino. So he goes, comes out in a robe, he's looking at the mirror, and he just goes, you suck, you suck. And he just goes, you fat fuck, you suck. He's just dissing himself. And he just goes, and he just holds up his hand, he goes, 5. 5 iPhones. You lost 5 iPhones.

He's telling him something.

And dude, I started laughing so hard. He realizes that we're awake, and then it was like It totally lightened the mood just 'cause of how funny the situation was. And we always reference 5 iPhones. We always like, how, if I go gambling, he's like, how many iPhones? I'm like, 3 iPhones. I lost 3.

I lost 3 iPhones. Like, you know, stack of phones.

Rappers use like racks. Like how many racks did you lose? Or how many racks did you win? We use iPhones. And, uh, dude, I'll never forget that story. It was so funny.

And that's what, that's what I was telling myself. Uh, a million subscribers. You only have a million subscribers.

I remember, uh, delete your account.

And yeah, we were like, we just hit 100,000. He goes, nice.

Today. Yeah. I remember that's how I felt. I was like, Oh, we suck. We suck so hard. Uh, I felt that way. Um, Ben, are people—

is this—

I— is this gonna be a great episode? I, I, I got so much energy from this.

This is definitely self-indulgent, but like, who cares? I needed to debrief this. And, and I would say like, me too, you know, some parts about this, patting ourselves in the back. Some parts were making fun of us ourselves, sometimes making fun of other people. I hope we weren't hard on anybody. Uh, you know, Uh, that was a lot of fun. And, uh, yeah, let's do it again.

All right, that's the app. I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back.