The Top 0.1% Of Ideas I've Stumbled Upon On The Internet

Well, let's do it. So part 2.

Okay.

Here's part 2 with George. If you wanted the business ideas, we did that. 5 banger business ideas. That was amazing. I got like goosebumps from it. This is part 2. We're going to do some of your frameworks. The biggest one, I think the one that went the most viral is about high agency.

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.

You did a thread about one idea. I think, I think you framed it like one idea. That has impacted my life the most is the concept of high agency. Can you talk about what is high agency, why it matters, and how you spot people with high agency?

My friend Jack Smith.

Uh, that's a tough one. I feel like I would just go for the richest person I know because I'm like, the money is going to be the most valuable tool versus like a MacGyver who's going to break me out of my cell.

So Steve Bartlett, Steve Bartlett answered that question with Prince William, which I think is not allowed. So it can't be somebody who's like a royal family member, but it has to be purely on merit.

Well, you know what, the meme you have in the tweet I think is a great visual of this. Sam, have you seen the tweet?

I don't know if you've seen the tweet, but he basically has the one where, uh, where he tells you, he's like, if someone says something's impossible, a high agency person will think, well, that's just a story you've told, now I'm going to overcome it, versus a low agency person will be like, Oh, that story's true.

I guess if I had to trim it down, like, think what's the advert for high agency that we spoke about last time, would be high agency people or low agency people. Are they happening to life or is life happening to them? It's a spectrum, right? Like, the circumstances, there's different things that go on, but you can immediately plot that x, y-axis. In your head of people that you know, of people that are like happening to life and people that life's happening to that.

And so why does the, why does the idea of high agency matter so much to you? You said you've been thinking about for 6 or 7 years. That's probably longer than your longest relationship. Tell me why you have, why you have had such a long relationship with this concept.

I think it's the most underdiscussed personality trait and it's the most probably important personality trait. And this most similar concept that I've seen online is Have you seen Paul Graham's Relentlessly Resourceful?

Yeah, well, he just says like, I've created YC, I've now seen thousands of founders, and if I think about the trait that is most valuable in founders, it's not intelligence, it's not charisma, it's not, uh, you know, engineering prowess. It's the, you know, the best founders are relentlessly resourceful and that, that phrase. And he also says like, can you describe, you know, a test is, would you describe this person as an animal? Would you say, yeah, he's an animal? And if you can say, man, that guy's an absolute animal, or she's an animal when it comes to this, that's the sign of a winner. And I think that's the, the output of a high agency person is how do you describe them? They're basically, they're an animal.

And that's, I think it's not changeable. It's sort of like telling people, um, they should have started a business before they had children. It's like, dude, like, we don't— I don't like talking about that because like you can't fucking change that. Like, you are what you are. Uh, you know what I mean? Um, it's not particularly fun to talk about because I think that you, you have that scale already set.

I disagree, I think.

Go on, tell me, change my mind.

There's definitely some truth to what you say. And also, that's quite a high agency reply, right? There's definitely some truth to what you say in that I think there is a little bit of a genetic component to it. But theoretically, I think you could make somebody, you could reduce somebody's agency. Therefore, if you can reduce somebody's agency, you could also increase their agency. It's probably like muscle building. There's a genetic like component to it, but I still think everybody can increase or decrease their agency depending on the inputs that they put into the system.

We on this podcast, it's a question I ask a bunch, is I say, you're awesome, like, I'm so inspired by this right now. Well, if I had met you or I've been able to observe you when you were 12, 13 years old, what would I have seen? Would I have had any clues that you would become this kind of outlier type of person? A couple people have said some pretty interesting answers. So, uh, Jess Ma, who came on, and Jess Ma is a super impressive entrepreneur. I think Paul Graham had said like, you know, the 5 most impressive, or if you had to bet on 5 people in YC, it would have been like Sam Altman, the Collisons, and like Jess Ma was one of the 5. And she said like, she's like, yeah, basically I was kind of a runt in school. I wasn't that good at class. I kind of got picked on and I was weird, but I created like, I liked gaming and I basically created a server farm for my favorite game. I started charging for it and I was making basically like tens of thousands of dollars renting out server space. For this game back when I was, you know, 14 years old. And we had Saeed Bulky come on. This guy's built basically a billion-dollar bootstrapped business, which is so unfathomable to be able to do. And somebody told me that, you know, they go ask Saeed about when he was a teenager and he hacked his school's system so he could just change his grade. Like he was willing to do the work to hack into his school system to like be able to change his grade versus just study for the thing and get a good grade. And guess what? That's also a guy who basically like found other growth hacks along the way to grow his business incredibly fast without needing any capital.

I was with a guy this weekend and he's a friend and he told this story. He's a new friend though, but he told a story about how he got in trouble when he was a kid because he built this thing that allowed him to remote control a streetlight near his home. And then he goes on like a few hours later to talk about his new business idea. And I remember like him getting in trouble for controlling the streetlight near his house and how his mom like grounded him for 3 weeks. And I'm like, I'm in.

And by the way, YC has a one-page application and in there, so, so every question in the YC application has to have earned its right to be there. If you're on the one page, it's only like 7 questions. One of the 7 questions is tell us about a real-world system that you've hacked for your benefit, right? Not, not literally hacked, but like any real-world, any system in the real world that you have sort of gamed in order to do it. They, because, because that's a high predictor of relentlessly resourceful, as we talked about. George, what's the answer for you? Uh, like, did you have weird teenage hobbies?

Yeah, my, um, it might not translate as well to an American audience, but my dad bet me I couldn't do 10 kick-ups with a soccer ball. And puberty had just hit, so testosterone was in the system, by the way. Like, so a juggle with a soccer ball.

Okay, gotcha.

So my dad bet me I couldn't do that, uh, £10. And testosterone just hit, like, first bit of armpit hair. And I remember thinking, fuck that guy, I'll prove him wrong. So I trained and I trained and I trained. And he didn't— cool parenting hack, by the way— he didn't try and push me to do it. He just bet me whether I could do it. And he made sure that he had to see me do it. Anyway, I ended up doing it. And then I kept doing it more and more, and I ended up in an Adidas advert for a FIFA World Cup. I used to tour around doing tricks at different stadiums, held like 3 unofficial world records for different tricks and things like that. So then ultimately I decided I wanted to lose my virginity, so I stopped doing it. But it was, yeah, really fun.

Did it, did it work? Giving it up?

Still trying, but someday soon.

Yeah, tends to work out that way.

Sam, what about you? Did you have weird teenage hobbies?

Yeah, I basically like small predictable things. Like I had an eBay store when I was 12, or I remember in 4th grade—

Small or predictable?

Well, yeah, like, I mean, things that I think you would expect me to do knowing me. I also like in 4th grade when we had to pick a book to do a book report on, I did How to Win Friends and Influence People. Like, like I was like a weirdo. Like I liked, I enjoyed the stuff that I like now back when I was 12 years old. You're like, listen up class, Dale Carnegie said that your own name is the most beautiful word in the English language, so say it with me.

You know what I mean?

Like, yeah, I was into like that.

Were you into anything?

You know, when I first heard this, I felt really bad because I was like, I did— couldn't think of anything special that I did. Mohnish Pabrai was on the episode and he basically said there's a golden period. He studied like I went to his house. He has got this whole wall of books on science and brain chemistry and all that neuroscience. And he was basically like, there's a, like a golden decade basically between the ages of sort of like 10, um, and then about 19 years old where the brain is optimal for specialization during that time. And so if you look at the people who are great programmers, they usually started programming very early on or great musicians like age 6, he composed his first thing. It's like, wow, this is insane. And I felt really bad because I was like, oh shit, like too late for me, right? Like, well, what am I supposed to do now? I was just kind of a normal kid picking boogers in junior high. Like I didn't do that, but then I started thinking about it more and I'm really thinking like, was there anything? And the one thing I did think of was a unique experience I had was like, I was really into improv early on. I didn't do it a ton, but I did go to like our Texas State kind of finals with like group improv. It was basically me and my buddy and we were group improv, which is kind of a podcast without a microphone, right? Like that's what two people doing improv back and forth is. And then I was in a couple of movies as a kid. And so I kind of was doing this acting improv performing thing. I think if there's anything, that's what it was, but I wasn't a lemonade stand kind of like eBay flipper type of guy. The only other weird one I did was I used to play this game NBA 2K, which is common, but the uncommon thing was I never played the game. So I didn't go in and I wasn't like dunking and shooting. And like, all I did is I played franchise mode and I would simulate. I was basically only a general manager. So I would simulate the season. Then I would do the draft. I would scout all the prospects.

You wouldn't actually play like the, like the buttons.

It wasn't intentional. Like I thought, okay, first I'm going to build this great team. And so I was just like a CEO basically. I was like free agency and trades and scouting and finding diamonds in the rough. But I got so addicted to that. I never ended up playing with any of those players. I would just simulate. I would just do that for like 10 years in there. I was basically a fantasy GM, which I guess is kind of like, that's kind of what being a, like a CEO or a business person is like, you're just doing that part. You're not actually doing the work. So, but my honest answer was like, I was not like elite at any of those things. Whereas I think the people who really excel, they tend to show that brilliance early on and become like oddly good at something. Their obsession takes over them. I don't think I personally had that.

I love it. Do you want me to give you the rest of the checklist for the high agency people and you can see who in your life, you know?

Yeah. Weird teenage hobbies. What else you got?

Uh, Sam's like that for me. My buddy Suli is like that. Like, I can't I can't hang out with Suli and literally our hangout tends to be, we walk for like 4 hours talking because we almost have to burn off the energy. That's like the excitement of the ideas and the stories that we're sharing while we're doing it. That's how this podcast got created. It was on a 4-hour walk with him and I was like, you know what I really want? It was like hour 3. I was like, you know what I really want to do? It's not a company. I want to create a podcast. I want to be Tim Ferriss. I want to wake up and have a, be in a million people's earballs. And that was like a thing that came to me when I worked myself into that state. Ben is kind of like that, my business partner Ben, where he's like, I could just, I probably do call Ben, I think 8 times a day on average, you know? So we just talk 8 times in a day, which now that I say it sounds very weird, but it feels very normal. If I didn't have kids, it'd probably be 20 times a day.

Who are yours, George? Who are yours?

Probably 3, Chris Williamson from Modern Wisdom. We're like just out all night. We can just go and go and go.

And you guys are both similar, like where Chris is like an In a good way, he's like an academic where like he just like learns and then just teaches. And I like, I, you know, I feel that way listening to his podcast. So who's the second one?

David Senra from Founders. He's just fucking, if espresso was a human being, it'd be David fucking Senra. So that guy I'd add on there. And then the third one, my old boss, Steve Bartlett, who runs the Diary of a CEO podcast. I remember when Steve was running the business, he'd have an office in Manchester, London, New York, and I'd work in the Manchester office. And Steve was maybe there a quarter of the time in that office.

And what business is this? Is this the—

This was back at his marketing agency, Social Chain.

Yeah.

Okay. And I would open the door and I'd know if Steve was in that day without seeing him, just off the energy in the room of everybody else's vibe. So those, those 3 would be my 3.

That's a great compliment. How'd you get the job, by the way? Why, why did you join Social Chain?

He had a unique angle that essentially the UK— you mentioned earlier, the UK is the 6th largest economy in the world. It's not. London's the 6th largest economy in the world, and then there's a very, very poor list of cities and towns attached to it. So he based himself in Manchester and just marketed himself well and just sucked up all the talent that was in Manchester, which is, which is where I was. Do you want the next one?

Yeah, keep going.

You can never guess their opinions. So whether it's the boxer that writes poetry, the advertiser obsessed with the history of war, the beauty queen who reads Nietzsche, if their beliefs don't line up with their stereotypes, they've exercised agency. So when you give them an opinion on ABC, do they fit in a box or do they often surprise you that they've thought things through? Anybody who pop up?

What you're saying is basically they're non-cliché. So like, we just had Jack Smith on the podcast. I think Jack is one of these type of independent thinkers where he's like a successful, smart tech guy, you know, almost like has like a more of an engineer's brain. But then he came on and was talking about this like woo woo energy system. Healing and healing through energy using colors in a, in a room that he sat in and how it cured his like, whatever. I'm like, Jack, you're too smart for this.

And I never know how he's going to reply to certain stuff, right? Like I'll explain something to him and I'm like, I think you're going to be too smart to believe this, but you're open to learning more. That's, that's wild to me.

Or even what he's going to do his next move, right? Silicon Valley, you sell your company, there's two paths. I think they take you to a room and they're like, hey, here's two boxes. Would you like to become a VC? The vest, the vest is under this Box, or you're a founder and you're now, your next thing is going to be AI healthcare or whatever. Like, it's like cliché. Whereas Jack, after he sold his company, he was like, spent a year in his garage building like the most ergonomic chair he could think of. It's like, you couldn't guess what the guy's going to do next. He was total non-cliché in that sense.

I like it. The next, uh, one, uh, immigrant mentality. If they've moved from their hometown, that's a good sign. If they've moved from their home country, that's an even greater sign. Because it takes agency to spot you're in the wrong place, resourcefulness to operationalize a move, and a growth mindset to start from zero in a new location.

Dude, that's a great point. That's a great point. And I've moved around to like 9 different countries. So I think I win.

And that's kind of like what you're saying about America, about, you know, sometimes we, we started out as a, as a country of immigrants. And that's maybe one of the reasons why we kind of have, uh, yeah, the coverage a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah. What's, what's the Keith Rabois, like the, the The people you hire are the company you build. So same thing for countries. It's like if the initial seed population was a bunch of crazy risk takers who were willing to get on a boat and go to a new land to like establish it from scratch, you're going to create a population of, you know, people who have that, that same mentality.

The way I've thought about America, the way I've narrowed it down is if you look at what makes human beings special, if you have one human being in a jungle, it's the one of the worst animals. Ever. And we're just going to get destroyed. If you put 500 of us, we've— you've just introduced a master predator that the world, that forest, that jungle has never seen before because we can cooperate. And America is that on steroids because when you go there, the enthusiasm, the energy, the agency, sometimes the IQ isn't there. I'd probably argue us Brits might be slightly smarter, no offense. However, you've got those things. It means you come up with an idea and it's like, Yeah, great idea. Let's do it. But just the bias to optimism, the bias to action. Whereas you have the Brit who's, uh, I don't think that'll work because of ABC. That's why America's the best, because you can cooperate faster than any country, in my opinion.

The Doritos Locos Taco did not come from pessimism, right? That is only an— that is a uniquely American idea. You would never— that idea could not have been born in any other country.

I love it. Last two, last two. Uh, they send you niche content. So low agency people look at the social engagement of content before deeming its quality. High agency people just look at the content. They spot upcoming trends very early. And the final one, mean to your face but nice behind your back. So the social incentives are to be nice to people's faces and gossip behind their backs, whereas the high agency people, they do the opposite.

Where'd you get that one from?

You're very philosophical, which I think is cool. And it's almost like you have a business just to justify the read, just to pay, just to give you an excuse to spend time reading and thinking.

You're like your own patron, basically. You're like, cool, can I fund myself to sit in a room and, and think of ideas and then invert them? And then think about them again and then, you know, write them down and share them with the world.

Like, do you even like capitalism?

I love— well, I love compressing ideas, so which is why then I like advertising, because I can use that skill that I have to compress things down. I always loved Arnold Schwarzenegger's biography where he made all his money from real estate so he could do whatever the fuck he wanted with his acting career. And I think it's slightly underrated doing that.

Sam, did you know I offered to invest in George's business and I was like, I'll invest fair terms. I'll blow this thing up. We grow this baby like crazy. And he was like, that's all good, but there's one problem. If this grows, I'm going to have to, like, it's going to suck me more towards that. And I actually want to be all in the business of ideas. I don't want this to become, you know, bigger and more, which made you want it so much more. That made me respect him so much more. Right. I was like, again, it's, that's a high agency thing to do, right? To be able to, can you say no to money? Like, can you say no to money? Might be like another thing to just add on your list. How many times have you said no to money? Jared, I've told the story on the podcast before, but you may not have heard it. The highest agency moment of my life was I was in 6th grade, I think. I got put in detention after school and our detention was you go to the lunchroom, school's out, everybody leaves. It's just the 20 kids who got in trouble that day and you have to sit in silence and do nothing. And they, they seat you kind of like every other chair diagonal. So that you can't really, you could talk to somebody, but you, it's not very easy to, you can't whisper. You have to be a little bit loud. And it's me and it's the weirdest kid in our school. There's a kid who had hair down to his waist and he always wore these like weird tattered shirts and he was just a weirdo. And I saw, and people used to pick on him. And so I'm sitting there and I'm kind of a bully and I wanted to pick on him a little bit and I just want to mess with him. I was bored, right? I'm in D hall. You have 2 hours to do nothing. And I see on the floor of the lunchroom, there's like a grape, that was like from lunch hours earlier and it's like nasty. It's on the floor of a kid's lunchroom and it's like got hair on it or whatever. And I just whispered to him and I was just like, yo, I'll give you a dollar if you eat that grape. And he looks down and he's like, a dollar? I was like, yeah. And then he reaches down and I'm like, oh my God, he's fell for it. He's going for it. This is insane. He picks it up and he eats the grape and I'm like grossed out. My mind is blown. I can't believe you did it. I'm like, all right, deal's a deal. I get out my wallet. I take a dollar. I hand it to him. And then he took the dollar and he ate it. I could not believe it. Damn. This was like 22 years ago or something. I still remember it vividly. And I just thought that was the biggest no fucks given moment I have ever, probably still to this day in my life. Of like, you know, fuck you, fuck your money, fuck the grape. I am going to like, he just ate the dollar. I couldn't believe it. No upside in it, but he sent an absolute message to my core.

I love it.

That's ridiculous. Where do you want to go from here, Sean?

You got a couple other cool like lifestyle things you do. So do you want to talk about the Kale Phone? Because I think this is like something that might be helpful for people. What is the Kale Phone method that you do?

What is the actual other phone? Is it just like an Android phone? What did you do for the other phone? Is it just two iPhones?

Just another iPhone.

But do you have two SIM cards?

How do you do the number?

Yeah. I have two SIM cards. So I have a different number in the Kailh phone than the cocaine phone.

Oh, got it. Okay.

Only drawback is that they basically have to have a second phone line and people have to know to reach you there when you need it.

But it's only your mom, wife, maybe. That's the only people who really need that. And it's just for the peace of mind. And most of the time they won't. And the only time they're going to do is when somebody's in hospital. But it's having that peace of mind that therefore I don't need to check the cocaine phone for that incident.

Sean, let me ask you a question. Be honest about this and I'll answer it and I'll be honest too. Are you— do your parents still pay for your cell phone bill?

I pay them back. All right. My dad tells me the amount. It's a family plan. We've been on it for a long time. I, this is the same, dude. Can I change it with keeping my number? That's too much work.

Same. I am also on my family plan. And so George, when you're talking about getting a new cell phone, I'm like, holy cow.

Shout out to everybody who's on their family plan right now. Shout out to everybody whose dad is paying their phone bill. It's all we have. That's our last connection. That's the last cord that gets cut between you and your parents is the phone plan.

I don't even know how to, like, I've never gotten like a, like a, like I've always had to call my mother like, hey, my phone broke, I'm gonna go buy one. Will you tell AT&T they gotta put it on like the plan?

So when you sold the hostel, she didn't go, go get your own fucking phone plan? She carried on going?

It's not a money thing.

Fair play. Well, there we go.

It's not fair play. I don't know. I don't think you're using that word like I think it should be used.

Especially if you text your mum saying I need to get a cocaine phone, it's probably not gonna go down too well as well.

So I thought, Sean, I thought you would have also been on yours.

Yeah, for sure. Dude, my wife feels it's like almost like a sign of disrespect that I didn't create like a new family plan with us as the core family unit. And I'm like, look, it's just a, it's just a hassle. Okay. I'm not, don't read more into it than what it is. I'm just lazy. Okay.

There's this episode on, uh, on like Ellen DeGeneres where she's asking Bill Gates, like, let's see if you know how much a gallon of milk costs. Like, cause you know, you're, you're so out of touch. And so when you talk to me about a cell phone plan, I'm like, I don't I don't know, $5, $100. I have no idea.

That's like $23, right?

Yeah.

Same with the boat plane. I'm like, I don't know, $1,000.

Uh, I don't know.

I have no idea.

So George, are there any drawbacks or like in practice, let's say I wanted to go do this because the idea is really sticky. It's really viral. Even if you never did it, it's just like, sounds cool. But you actually, let me verify, you actually live this way?

Yeah.

Before you get there, I gotta run. I gotta run. I'll leave my, I'll leave all my stuff up. I had a 1:30. I'll see you soon.

So you actually live this way. You actually have the two phones.

Yeah, I've done it for 3 and a bit years. And whenever I doubt it, so I've had incidents where I've lost one phone or had an issue with signal in a certain country. And when you go back to that lifestyle of waking up and downloading social media as your first input into your brain. Or messaging apps, you, you realize you only realize it by a contrast of how destructive I think that is for the creative, particularly for people who are creative people or ideas, people like downloading whatever the worst news headline is immediately into your consciousness. And particularly if you then use your phone as your alarm clock as well. It's, I think it's, I've experienced it by contrast. It's so toxic. I can't deal with it.

I want to ask you about Lee Kuan Yew. Somebody who's been on my list of people I want to go deep dive into. Sounds like you've read a bit about him or studied him a little bit. What is the learnings from Lee Kuan Yew?

If you try to get an Uber in an American airport, you're treated like a criminal. It's like, oh, if you're going to do a drug deal, then go to the 3rd parking garage, 4th floor behind the fence. That's where you can go get picked up if you're going to be an asshole.

Yeah, I remember being there going, Lee Kuan Yew would fucking hate this. And I remember going, that's a weird— I go, I bet not many people have had that thought walking through Austin Airport.

So Lee Kuan Yew is rolling over in his grave right now. So that's interesting because I remember when I was in my teens, I went to the Singapore— we went to Singapore. And if you haven't been, the Singaporean airport is like a mall. It's like an experience. They have a fitness facility. They have a movie theater. It is just a beautiful place. Everything is clean. There's tons of comfortable seating. It is not like a pain the way that most airport experiences are. And I remember just noting that and being like, oh, that's weird. Why is Singapore's airport so good? So it's very interesting that he thought about it as a first impression onboarding experience. Now, like, is that just a cool story? Did that pay off in some way? Like, did the immigration rate go up? Or like, what, what changed from that? Or what are the things that he did to actually like, you know, turn the country around? You know, what were the big levers that he pulled? So onboarding is one. What really worked?

Attracting talented immigration is the single biggest, the single biggest thing from my understanding of Singapore's story that they did. And part of that obviously is the onboarding. And if you look at it, Singapore has essentially no natural resources. So it's not blessed with Saudi Arabia's oil or like LA's beauty necessarily, but just attracting as many talented immigrants, the specifics around the economics as well. I don't know as much on, but around taxation and things like that. But it's just a wild case study. I know Charlie Munger is obsessed with Lee Kuan Yew. He has the story of Lee Kuan Yew. So we were talking about mating earlier. Lee Kuan Yew, rather than marrying the hottest girl in his class, picked the only girl in his class that performed better than him. And he was at the most like elite university at Singapore. He married the lady who's the only one who was smarter than him. So very odd, peculiar individual.

There's another thing he did was around air conditioning, right? Didn't he do like an ace, a big push for having AC in the country?

Yeah, I saw that recently. I think it was supposed to be Peter Levels on Twitter that was breaking that down. Yeah, he was obsessed with getting air conditioning because he was convinced it was key to the economic success.

Just second and third order consequences everywhere you look.

It's crazy. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Do you have any other of the like kind of key frameworks that really I don't know, shifted the way you think or you keep seeing pop up that you don't think most people appreciate?

I'd say there's two. One is probably mine and yours' favorite meme, Charles, of the Midwit meme, which just refuses to die. It just, it's like a fine wine. It gets better with age. And realizing how often I've been the guy in the middle over the years, and then trying to come up with solutions to not be the guy in the middle and then realizing—

Do you have any, uh, canonical examples of the midwit meme of you in the middle, um, that you can think of? Like, just personal attacks on your psyche?

That's a great one. I think one of the studies about what makes people unhappy or depressed or suicidal, like, one of the strongest signals is this idea of rumination, which is like almost like an obsessive thought loop about yourself and your thoughts. And so once you get in that thought loop, it is very, very difficult to get out. It's also why one of the easiest hacks to feeling better about yourself is to simply just go help other people. Like it is the overfocus on yourself and your own condition is what creates your own poor conditions. And, you know, it's the same reason my trainer says this thing. He goes, whatever you feel you lack, that's exactly what you got to give. You feel you lack respect, you got disrespected, go give respect. You feel like you lack money, go give money. And literally just flipping the mindset of like, I lack to like, I have enough that I can give. Breaks this thought loop of like worry and anxiety around certain topics. And sleep is the same way. Health is the same way where you could literally become like manic about your own health and you're stressing yourself out, which decreases your health. And I think a lot of people fall into this trap with therapy and with self-improvement where they get addicted to the medicine and it creates too much thoughts about yourself. You know, the happiest people are the ones who are, you know, that are not doing this extreme introspection all the time?

Yes. The single, the single, cause I noticed that when it came to decisions, let's say people probably got this right now, like big decision. Do I move to the city or stay in the city? Do I quit this thing or carry on doing this thing? I would have this thing in my head where it would play the, if I thought about moving to the city, it would play the worst case scenario of that in my head. Like the amygdala would fire., and then I'd think about the other thing and the amygdala would fire and play the worst case scenario. And as a result, paralysis analysis just kicked the cat. I'd make the decision to not make the decision. And one of the biggest bits of advice I got was stop thinking about making decisions and start thinking about making experiments. Because I realized there was decisions I was procrastinating on for 2 years that I could have done both of them 10 times over in the time spent thinking about the thing.

100%. One guy who's completely changed my thinking, and you should have him on the show, like absolute machine of a founder that goes under the radar. You know Element, the electrolyte company?

Oh, LMNT, like the—

So like, great. Like they're in 5 years, they're growing like banana numbers, like hundreds of millions. Met James, the founder. Talk about high agency. We were camping and there was bears nearby. And I'm terrified of bears as you wouldn't be as a fucking human being. But no, James is there. I'm like, oh, if James is there, like, he'll handle it. It's fine. Like, he'll deal with that. And his way, like, they've managed to scale the way they have. And he's wrote about this publicly. He does 3 weeks on, 1 week off, 3 weeks on, 1 week off. So, you know, the whole, one of your aphorisms or Naval aphorisms of sprint like a, sprint like a lion, don't graze like a cow. And I realized with his philosophy, what he's doing there is he has that 1-week assessment period to because I noticed that when I went on holiday, the first 3 days I would be, um, it would take me to the 4th day to switch off. And I think he's baked on his schedule, first 3 days have fun, then the following 3 days he's assessing the OKRs, reviewing the numbers, looking at the experiments, plotting out the next 3 weeks. And then that following 3 weeks is just a hardcore sprint and he's completely redone the work. And it makes sense that we just downloaded this workweek philosophy from industrial age versus really thinking about it. And he's managed to do that for himself and his whole leadership team. Whilst the company's growing like bananas and it's factoring in that worry time. It makes so much more sense.

I love that. Yeah, I think that's great. Actually makes me think, you know, Monday through Friday, you know, 8 AM to 5 PM. Why? Right. Even though I'm my own boss, I'm in my own house and my schedule is a little bit different. I suppose I believe, I suspect that it is not as different as it should be to what actually would be the most beneficial to me in my life, to both my creativity, but also my enjoyment of my life. 'Cause I probably just, I started with the normal, you know, 52 weeks in a year, you're going to work Monday through Friday, you're going to take your weekends off, and then you're going to have 2 weeks, 3 weeks of vacation somewhere in the between. And then I just tweaked that versus first principles. Like, okay, what if I didn't even know that? What would I have designed? How would I be working? And I bet there's probably even more I can do on that front, which obviously is a, you know, a bit of a luxury to have, but it's also, an intentional thing. Like some people's goal was to have fancy cars and, and, you know, go to festivals and all this stuff. That wasn't my dream. My dream was total control of my time, have a lifestyle that I truly enjoy that is like, you know, super fun. So that's, that's the luxury I want to keep funding, uh, you know, is, is that.

And the realization I had from his schedule of that 3 to 1 is the rewards of working like a lion. Have never been higher with leverage and code and internet businesses. The ease of grazing like a cow has never been easier. Goes back to the cocaine kale phone, like so much shit going on. Like there's always the busy trap you can end up in and you've got this weird period of time right now where the rewards of this have never been higher, but the actual act of doing it has never been harder. And his philosophy of 3-week-on, 1-week-off, I would encourage everybody to just search Elon Musk 3-to-1. He wrote an essay on it. You should have him on the show. He's phenomenal. And the fact they've done it whilst also growing as aggressively as they have for the whole leadership team, and they all take a week out to be creative and come up with new ideas when they come back, is phenomenal.

Yeah, that's pretty awesome. By the way, the thing you just said about the lion versus the cow. So the people haven't heard it, the phrase is, you know, you want to work like a lion, not a cow. The way a lion works is they first just wait and they look for prey. Right? They're just observing. They're looking for an opportunity. They're not just going to run around randomly or chase like small insects. They look for a worthy, a worthy challenge, a worthy prey. And when they see the gazelle, then they sprint as hard as they can. They don't walk. They take massive action. They move with speed. They catch it. They feast, they celebrate, and then they rest and reassess and wait for the next challenge. Whereas a cow stands in the field slowly walking around all day grazing on this low nutritional density grass all day. Of course, they're animals. That's how they, that's what they need to eat. That's fine. But in terms of working, a lot of us work more like the cow. We sit at our desk 8 hours a day, minimal, you know, kind of like some low simmer of productivity. And then we don't have the juice to sprint, nor do we feel confident and secure enough to rest, reassess, to celebrate. We just sort of feel this anxiety to be constantly, you know, sort of on and sort of on is a problem. You're a UFC guy, right? Did you ever see that interview with Conor McGregor after he lost his fight to Nate Diaz? Do you remember this era where he was on his rise? He's going to fight Nate Diaz. And this was probably the first opponent that he was favored against. So he was supposed to get crushed by Aldo. But he beats Aldo. He's supposed to get beat by Mendez, a wrestler. That's his kryptonite. He beats Mendez. And then it's Nate Diaz. Oh, here's a guy. He's lost half his fights, won half his fights. You know, he's not a champion. McGregor has proven everybody wrong. You're certainly gonna beat Diaz. And instead he goes and he loses. And the one reason he lost was his cardio was really poor. He had miscalculated his training and he, he ran outta gas. And so when he went back to the lab and he's rested and reassessed and tried to figure out what to do next, he said this great line. He goes, yeah, I hired this coach. And they go, so you're training a lot more now, right? To have more cardio, like you're doing more, more, more. He goes, no, actually it was about doing less. He goes, the thing was I was never resting my body. The analogy my trainer gave me was you're like a light bulb that's always flickering. You're just at a dim level and you're never turning off and you're never really bright because you're never resting. You're always doing stuff, you're overtraining and you're never giving your body a chance to recuperate. And so because of that, your training is never peaking. You're never actually shining really bright. Nor is the switch ever going off. So that's what they changed. Then he came back and he ended up winning the next fight just a couple months later and his cardio had improved in that, that most people thought in that 2 months you can't really improve your cardio that much, but he did and he was able to win that fight. I always thought that was a wonderful example of this kind of like 3-2-1 sort of philosophy, but not in business, but in sports.

There's no such thing as overworking. There's only under-resting. What do you do to rest besides sleep?

I'm trying to think of anything that's non-basic.

Well, that's okay if it's basic. I'm into simple things that work. If it's just I go for walks, that's great.

I mean, honest answer would be KFON in the morning. Goodbye. So I'm detached from immediate inputs coming through, having a bit of intentionality.

Soreness. So resting is not just napping. Resting is not having 1,000 inputs coming into your brain at all hours of the day.

Exactly. Like having time to process things. Like it's that Christopher Nolan thing of him not having a smartphone. I think there's probably, whilst if everybody's addicted to their smartphones right now, there's probably a little bit of alpha in not being as addicted to your smartphone.

Yeah, I started doing Silent Sundays where basically I just, I put the phone in a box on Saturday and I won't touch it all Sunday, which is a very small step. But when you do it, you realize the depth of the addiction because you start to have, you know, you're patting your pocket every 3 seconds or you're going to the bathroom and you're like, what am I going to do? How am I going to entertain myself in this like 6-second walk to the restroom? That's literally how extreme it is for me.

Yeah, that's crazy. It's crazy that we've— that that's happening societal-wide. And we've all— it's like caffeine. It's what— the real drugs are the real addictions, the one that's probably just going completely under the radar because we never want to kick that thing.

Yeah, the, the real— the dangerous addictions are the ones that are socially acceptable.

Yes. Well, Louis CK has a cocaine— he has a kale laptop apparently. He has one laptop, writing laptop, that has no internet, and it's just a It's just a text. It's a text, right? It's smart. Because you're not going to beat, you're not going to beat the world's best data scientist when it comes to who have run all these A/B tests. Meanwhile, you've woken up on 5 hours sleep with a little bit of a hangover and you think you're going to win. You're not going to win.

Yeah. We'll finish with this. What's the, what's the how to source your values? This is an idea I've never heard from you. What is that?

So I called this Buffett coin. It may need a stickier idea or a stickier meme behind it. But there's this incredible talk. I think it's Warren Buffett at the University of Georgia. It's my favorite idea of his that very few people have discussed.

It's on YouTube. How'd you see it?

And I think the key asterisk, the key asterisk setting he gives as well, is it has to be merit-based. So like you can't just pick the person with the billionaire dad or the ridiculous ab genetic Francis Ngannou style, the better the returns. If you almost look at like a company, like the better returns on their start position that you would bet on is probably the person to study the most. Like if it's the super skinny guy that you go, I'd still bet on his fitness coin, or if it's the guy from the worst background, but you'd still bet on his finance coin. Those are the real values you can learn from.

I love it, dude. George, as I knew, this was amazing. Two parts. So good. So fun to talk to you, dude. This is why when I launched my new Good Friday, the email series that I started doing on my website, you were the first guy I reached out to because I love trading ideas with you and you are a just absolute fountain of insightful, interesting things that I think can help people's lives. So thanks for coming on, man. Where should people follow you? Is Twitter the best place?

Yeah, thank you for having me. Twitter, go to George Mack, George__Mack. Newsletter, georgemack.com. And we've helped 3 different billion-dollar companies get their best-performing ads. So if you need help with advertising as well, go to adprofessor.com. And yeah, thank you for having us, Sean.

Awesome. See you soon, man.

I feel like I can 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.