The 2024 Milly Awards

Ladies and gentlemen, here we are, 4 years in a row, the end of year Millie Awards, where we get together and we recap the year. We make up a bunch of categories, we make up a bunch of answers, and we reflect on how the year has gone with, uh, with our awards ceremony. So Sam, are you ready?

I'm ready.

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 try.

I like your jacket. Are you gonna start wearing this stuff more often. It feels like a little suit of armor.

Yeah, I already got a compliment this morning inside the house, so I think maybe I should start, uh, dressing well. Maybe that's gonna be my change of the year. We'll see.

It's, uh, December 26th. You got a compliment this year, probably the only compliment you got all year.

Yeah, the only looks compliment for sure.

Men don't get compliments, so you should wear jackets more. All right, where do we want to start?

All right, we're gonna start category— we have 11, 11 awards to give out. We're going to start with number 1. Best investment of the year. And these are personal, by the way. These are our personal best investments, worst investments, that sort of thing. So Sam, what was your best investment of the year?

What do you think I'm going to say?

The S&P 500.

The S&P 500. Up 28%. But that one's boring. I don't want to just say that. The best investment we had this year, I do remember Jason Cohen, uh, we had on the pod. Jason Cohen started What's it called? WP Engine. WP Engine.

Love that guy.

No, I just can't remember the company. Anyway, he made a comment, I think after the pod where he talked about tipping and I was like, I like to tip, you know, I was like, I just hand out fives and he goes, fives? You should be handing out twenties. Like he goes, I tip like crazy. And I started doing that after the pod. And so I carry around about $1,000 of twenties. At any given point. And I am just dishing that shit out like crazy. And you want to know something? It's made me so happy. And so that's been a great investment. My— but I wanted to bring that up because my investment strategies are pretty boring. But man, I'll tell you what, I'll go to a restaurant and it'll be like $60 because we don't drink and like it's like cheap for cheap dates. I'll easily leave $100.

And then you stick around to wait for the reaction too. You're like, did you? Did you see that? I just wanna make sure you get that.

It's right under there. Listen, I thought it was tacky to do that, but I say screw 'em. I'm doing something nice. I want like a compliment. Like it makes me feel good too. I'm doing this for selfish reasons. It makes me feel good. So I don't mind it. As long as I'm not filming it, it's okay. That's what I think.

Do you guys share these or is that all yours right there?

No, but seriously, tipping has made me happier. But investment, it's hard for me to say best investment because I am so boring. Although I do have one angel investment in FIGR that's going to pay a lot of money so far on paper.

Okay, so Sam's favorite ice cream is vanilla. All right, here we go.

What do you want me to say? Am I supposed to make something up?

It sounds like you're trying to sell me a timeshare.

Close. It's real estate.

You got it.

And so I, for the first time, made some serious investment. I've invested a few million dollars into real estate this year. And it was great. I, for a long time, I had thought I should probably be doing real estate. I should probably take this magic internet money, put it in real estate, um, so that I have kind of both. I have real-world tangible assets that pay cash flow, and then I have this like kind of crazy upside tech stuff. And I never could figure out the way to do it. I was like, do I buy my own and manage it? That seems like a pain. Do I use one of these kind of like funds or whatever? But they're all just fee monsters. And, uh, the answer was sitting in my, in my own wheelhouse. My brother-in-law is an amazing real estate operator. The guy's built like a billion-dollar real estate portfolio for himself. And so I just started giving him money and, um, it's been amazing. I don't lift a finger and I'm getting like, you know, 30, 40% returns, uh, with all the tax advantages. So that was my best investment and I'll be doubling down there. But I have a bonus answer for you. The bonus answer is I made a couple of stock trades. I know you don't approve. Not supposed to buy individual stocks, but I did. But I did it in a very specific way that I think you might dig, which was I just have been trading against the All-In podcast for like 2 years now.

Are you kidding me?

And it has been phenomenal.

Give me an example. And also, like, is this like casino gambling money or is this like, like, in my opinion, anything above $100,000 is like No, okay, real bets then.

Okay, these are big bets, but I just viewed them as, as safe. Like, they're not like, they're not like obscure, like Amazon or something. So what will happen is All In Podcast, uh, love listening to it, very entertaining guys, very smart guys. I just don't think they're right a lot. And they're not right in one specific— they have one specific leak, which is that they have like an agenda, which is often, you know, either talking their own, their own book, or it's anti-woke, anti-left, anti-big money tech. I make money. No, no, no. They like to make money.

No, anti getting good gains.

So like, you know, Jason Kalkanis goes out and he says the most likely case is Bitcoin zero. And he tweets this out. And then on the All In podcast, they're talking about crypto and all the problems with it. Well, guess what? I decided to buy Bitcoin that day. And then, and then Google releases its new AI model and it has this problem where you say, show me a picture of George Washington and it shows you a black guy. Yeah. And they're like, Google's so woke, it's going down the drain.

Well, your year-to-date on Google is 41%.

Yeah, you're like begging them to take more money.

Yeah. Oh, iOS 14 is— it was a problem? No, no, I, I still spend more than spent before that. Uh, and there's no better place to spend a dollar in advertising than on Facebook. The close second was Google, right? So when they went anti-Google for being woke, I bought Google. When they went anti-Facebook, I went— I bought Facebook. Anti-Bitcoin, I bought Bitcoin. And it's just been very, very profitable for me to do this.

That's amazing. That's really funny.

I think it's sort of like the inverse Cramer or inverse Galloway indexes where they just they just literally whatever this popular, popular figurehead says, they just bet the opposite. I've basically been doing that for about 2 and a half years against the All In podcast. Only now was I willing to say it.

Dude, by the way, I, we had this guy on the pod who became a great friend of mine named Val. Him and I, he was the main guy. I was a very small investor. We bought a building in Brooklyn. I killed it on that. I think I had a 28% annual like return, not including the tax stuff. But my worst investment this year— do you remember how I said I was— remember how I bought a ranch, right? I sold it this year. So stupid. Maybe I lost money because I could have used that money to invest in something that made a lot more. But I basically, like, kind of broke even. So it wasn't that huge of a loss, but it was so stressful. And my learning is that I had this issue where I sold a company, I made money, and I thought I was on top of the world and I thought I could buy I, so I fully bought 3 different pieces of real estate intending to like turn into projects. Not one of them was great. 2 were bad. One was breakeven. And I, that's been my biggest failure is like thinking like hubris and thinking that I'm amazing. And also for buying real estate that you have to operate, it's just like starting a small business that you have to work 10 hours a week on. It sucks. It's hard.

I thought it would be cool to like, you know, that's like every, you know, like that's like one of the 5 things that men love is like they all say they want to own a lot of land. And I did it and I hated it. Like, dude, listen to this. Like, I would drive up to— I had a Tesla at the time. I would be in the country and I would have these like workers come to like decide to put in a bid to pave the driveway. I would get a $70,000 quote and a $3,000 quote.

Like, that's—

that was the delta. And it was all because of the way I looked. And they're like, this guy doesn't know shit. You know, like, it was crazy. I got taken advantage of so many times. It sucked. So I don't think I'll be doing that anytime soon.

And for that reason, I'm out. All right. What about worst investment?

That was my worst investment was, was any fully owned real estate, any real estate that I was an investor in. I loved it. Anything that I fully owned and wanted to like make it my thing because of pride, I failed miserably.

What is the word pleb? Are you thinking that means plebe?

I say pleb.

You say pleb. Wait, really? Which one of us is wrong? I don't know which one though. I don't have enough conviction, but you might have taken another L there.

Yeah, exactly. Such a pleb, I don't even know how to say it.

Yeah, it sucks to be doing things that you know you would advise people not to do?

In the moment.

In the moment.

By the way, this is why information is not power. Knowledge is not power.

So when COVID happened, I think it was February in San Francisco. And, you know, we were all in our apartments thinking the world was literally going to end. And I remember I— it's the only time I've ever done this. The market dropped, I think, 30%, literally the day it was its lowest. I sold 100% of everything I owned.

Exactly.

I thought bodies are going to pile up in New York. I thought the world's ending. And I had friends who did the opposite of me, and our returns were drastically different. And that was the lesson that, like, that moment had to teach me. Do not do this. You know, when Warren Buffett, he says all these smart phrases and they sound cool and you're like, yeah, I'm in, I'm in. When the tide goes low, I could see everyone swimming naked. I mean, that's all you got to do. I'll be a billionaire. But then when it actually happens, it's hard, it's scary, it's emotional. And I fell victim to that. And it sounds like you did too, at least once.

100%. Also, during that time I was picking, I remember, between two stocks. I was like, okay, I think the future is some version of AI, but also potentially VR and AR. And I, plowed a bunch of money into Unity instead of Nvidia. I was looking at the two and I was like, is it Unity or Nvidia? I should have just bet on both. But instead I picked Unity and Unity has done nothing and Nvidia became the most valuable company in the world. So, you know, sometimes you do that too. That's also a way to lose.

What did, what did Unity become?

I've lost like 60% of my investment on Unity. Unity's gone nowhere.

Is there like a threshold of like for your, what's your lowest trade dollar amount? Is it like $1,000 or always above? $100,000?

More like $100,000.

Got it.

So I don't have like an actual minimum, but I wouldn't— I'd be going to put in $1,000. It's not really like that exciting or it's kind of a waste of time, right?

It depends how you look at it. Like, for example, I think stock picking is stupid, but I think that you're like, well, I spend like $5,000 over the couple of months just going to the casino. Like, this could be an exciting thing. Like, I remember for that when the AMC shit was going crazy, I thought it'd be fun if I was like, I was like, all right, I'll do the thing and I'll put like only a grand in just as like just to play the game and maybe I'll talk about it on here. And it was dumb. It was stupid. It wasn't even fun.

Yeah, I've done that with like Dogecoin and stuff like that. But yeah, that's the true gambling budget. All right, let's do the next one. Biggest L you took personally this year.

Dude, so my daughter was born 15 months ago and I gave myself 4 months to like just be kind of lazy and not be on top of like my time management. And that like, you know, like on Thanksgiving, you're like, Yes, the night before, like, the cookies are being made. I could just— it's kind of the same day as Thanksgiving. It's okay if I splurge. But then, like, Friday happens and you're like, well, they're leftovers. I got to eat them. And then by Sunday, you're still kind of picking out a little bit. I basically did that for, like, 6 months where I was, like, pretty horrible with my time. And I wasted so much time this year. Um, and it really bothered me. And so this year I've made some changes that I'll talk about when we get to that category of, like, changes we're making next year. But I wasted so much time when my daughter was born. And it wasn't— and this isn't, like, people listening being like, well, you should have downtime to hang out with her. It's like, I was like, yeah, I did that. I was totally present. But 6 months down the line when she's at their nanny and I'm still kind of like moving slow and like, you know what I mean? It was kind of—

So what do you mean by wasting time? What are we talking about here?

I'll give you an example. So I would shift my schedule, like my workout schedule, so I could be with her in the morning. But, and that actually meant that she actually wouldn't get out of bed until 7. The nanny would come at 9. And so between 7 and 9, I would hang out at home and then work out from, you know, 9 to 10:30, which is like a pretty lazy morning for me. Versus working out what I used to do at 7:30. And so the nanny now comes at 8:00 and I like, dude, I should have just switched to like, I can now start my day a little bit earlier, but I didn't. So I was still going to the gym later and just lounging around the house for hours, things like that. But like there was 5 things where it was like accumulated, where it was like, dude, 4 hours, 5 hours a day was just wasted.

It sounds like you've been hard on yourself, but okay, I'll, I'll, I'll accept your L. Each man's L is his own to carry. It's a burden he carries.

You didn't have that where you wasted time when you had your kid? Like it's okay, I think, to like, be lazy for a while.

I think what you just described as your unproductive day was sort of my productive day. So I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm like, oh wait, so you, you took care of your kid and worked out in the morning? That sounds great. It sounds like a great morning. I don't know what you're talking about.

It was just like, I just, I didn't get after it at all. And I found myself to be like, and also when you have a kid, I experienced this where I'm like, oh, nothing else matters. But you should still kind of pretend it does so you could like kind of be productive. And I kind of like acted like nothing else mattered.

All right, I, um, the biggest L I took— there were so many to choose from, to be honest. From, uh, forgetting our anniversary and then, uh, trying to recover and guessing the date wrong. That was not great. Um, and by the way, she didn't even care, which was like, oh damn, I've lowered expectations to that, to that level. Okay, gotcha. So that was a quick L I took. Um, the whole— I don't know if you guys—

wait, can you solve— can you solve this for me? For— or should anniversaries be the first time you dated or when you got married?

And once you get married, it switches to the marriage anniversary. Official stance.

I have been trying to say that it should be dating the whole time because, you know what I mean? Like, sometimes they'll date for 5 years.

You could do nothing for the marriage.

Fuck that. It should be when you start— when you— it should be your first date. That's what an anniversary should be, in my opinion.

The first time we kissed with tongue. That's it. All right, so, um, So then another L I took was, uh, I was collateral damage to this whole— I don't know if you know about the Elf on the Shelf fucking insanity. Like, I lost my wife this month, and I went to like a widow thing, and they were like, what? And I was like, no, no, I just lost her to Elf on the Shelf. Like, this has been crazy. She's up every night for 4 hours preparing this elaborate, you know, elf, um, you know, setup. And then she sleeps— she has to sleep during the day. And I don't know what's happening. I don't know what— who tricked women in America into doing this, but it is, um, it's like doing 75 Hard except for you wake up at 2 in the morning to do it, and you do it for 30 days.

What is it? So it's like a doll that stares on the shelves and like is omnipresent and watches your children so you could scare them into not doing bad stuff?

So, okay, so I think the original theory was like you get a elf comes to your house and it sits on a shelf, and in the morning it moves, and you're like, oh my God, it moved! How— what's up with that? But women on the internet have taken this to a whole new level. It doesn't just move, it creates schemes and plots and tricks and treats. Like, uh, you know, my kids wake up, they come downstairs, the entire living room has been turned into the floor is lava. There's fire on the ground everywhere. The tree is covered, it looks like a volcano now. The elves are hanging from the chandelier doing crazy stuff. Or they take all of the underwear that was in all of the drawers of all of the house and they put it all over the roof of the house.

You got to go outside and be like, oh my God, what did they do?

So every Every night they create a whole— are we to get our toilet replaced because they turned our toilet into a cereal bowl and then somebody flushed and now we use Froot Loops, just clogged the toilet. You just break your shit. Yeah, you just do crazy stuff every, every night. You come up with like a giant episode of Punk'd by Ashton Kutcher. A huge prank occurs and that you have to come up with every night and you buy thousands of dollars of materials because the elves have their own sized stuff.

Dude, if somebody had a knowing rodent in their home causing havoc, they they wouldn't put it on the shelf and say hi to it. They would kill it.

What? Exactly. And so if you don't know about this, you're just like, what are you talking about? This is a weird, strange behavior. But if you're in it, there's guys out there right now that are sort of like PTSD shakes are coming over their body because they've also been experiencing this. Um, and I don't know if I'm in the minority. I don't know if I'm in the slight minority or the majority. I don't know who— I don't know how many people do this. I just know that my wife and her friends, they do this, and she's in these Facebook groups with hundreds of thousands of women, and every morning they post the elaborate things that they set up, and then that spurs all of them to go even crazier with it. So I'm gonna say that Elf on the Shelf was one of mine.

Uh, do you wanna do coolest moment?

All right, uh, you give me yours.

This year I had to go to LA for a Hamptons thing where I had to interview Rob Dyrdek in front of a bunch of people. Very randomly, someone was like, hey, I'm going back home to LA. I'm in Austin right now. I'm going tonight. Someone mentioned that in the morning you're going to LA. I'm with my wealthy, famous friend who I'm not going to say. They actually have a jet and they're going to LA tonight. And I got this text and I had committed to putting my baby to sleep. This was like in the first handful of months and I was like, I'm going to be here every night. And I was like, dude, I don't want to sound like a douche. And I want, you know, that was— this is— I'm so grateful you offered me, but I can't go because you want to leave at 6, and I said, I'm going to be here till 8:30. And he was like, oh, well, we'll go at 8:30. And I was like, awesome. I was like, shit, again, I don't want to be a dick, but my friend Neville is coming with me tomorrow morning, which he was. And I was like, I can never bail on him. And he was like, great, we have room for him. And they totally accommodated me. And so my best friend Neville and I flew to LA on this very wealthy, famous person's private jet. And I got to spend like 3 hours like learning from this guy. It was so fun and so awesome.. And that was like one of my, not just because we were flying private, it was just awesome that like I got to do this adventure with my friend. That was, that was the best moment I had all year.

But if you flew Southwest, would it have been the coolest moment of the year?

On the way back? Because we had to change our flights, we flew Southwest next to the toilet. It was a very yin and yang situation and it was still fantastic.

Okay. That one didn't win the award though.

That one didn't win the award, but it was fun. It's like, You know, you know, you know that meme where there's like a guy in the hoodie says like, nobody here knows, but I invested in Bitcoin in 2012. That's like how I felt like in line at Southwest. Like, you know, like they should ask me.

They should wait here.

How'd you get here? Hey, you want to know how I got here on the way here? That's how it felt. I was like, somebody asked me, oh, this is so different for me. All right.

Love that one. Um, okay. I'll do a quick one. I kind of struggled with this one. I guess I'll give you a quick one. So for Thanksgiving this year, we were going to host it. I decided to, um, do a full family vacation. So kind of like, you know, how do I, okay, if we've done well, we've had some success, how do I make sure that that like, you know, makes everybody have a great time and that I care about in my little economy?. And so I rented out this, this really cool house in Tahoe. I brought my whole family up to Tahoe, hired a personal chef who would cook us the Thanksgiving meal live. And I just remember there was one morning where I woke up and it was just the best morning. Like, I took my dog out in the snow. My dog was like mind blown at what snow is. So I took my dog for a walk early in the morning. It was crisp. I didn't have my phone. I didn't even know where my phone was. Came inside. My kids were all playing with their cousins, and that was so cool to see. Um, somebody was, you know, making breakfast in the other room and I could smell it. Me and my brother-in-law, we were playing, uh, we played a game of like horse on the little Nerf hoop that was in the house. And I just had the best morning. And I just remember being like, this, this was bliss. Uh, like if I could catch it, it helped. Yeah. It ticked all my boxes, right? Like whole family living under one roof. Kids are having a blast. I'm playing a silly game on a Nerf hoop. There's not a worry in the world. We're, you know, we're not busy. We're not rushing. It was just a wonderful feeling. So I'm going to give my Tahoe morning my coolest moment of the year.

Totally. I have one over here on the ground. It's like I bought these— if you go buy like sketchpads, like, you know, uh, artists or architects have, it's really high quality paper, large pads with nice pens. Um, such an easy win to go, to go analog instead of digital with that stuff. By the way, I think you should level it up and you need like a seal of sort of some sort of coat of arms for your family. I feel like you would like that. And like either stamp, wax seal. I feel like if you just made it more prestigious, honestly, it would be kind of amusing and it would be fun.

And I, like a presidential briefing.

I completely agree.

Yeah, exactly.

Like just give it a little stamp and be like, hell yeah, that's me. That's how I roll. And like, this is us.

I completely agree.

This is the official. So I want you to do that.

That's a great idea. I actually completely agree. What's yours? Okay.

Life hack for me. Um, the Highs and Lows channel. Have I told you about this? My Highs and Lows channel.

Is that for work?

Have you ever heard of negative visualization?

Yeah, like sort of imagining what the worst that could happen is.

Yeah, it's a, a tool that I think it was popularized by the Stoics, the famous Stoics. But basically you sit down for about 5 minutes and you, instead of meditating, you just imagine the worst things on earth are true. Your kid is dying of cancer, your wife has already died, you're broke, like you're, you know, hurt, whatever. And then if you actually visualize that for like 5 or, you know, so minutes, it kind of almost feels weird. It's really strange. And then you wake up and you open your eyes, you go, oh, sick, none of that's true. How grateful I feel right now. And it's like a pretty useful tool. And what you're describing is very similar to that.

Yeah, except for this is— these were real moments that I remember and like I have evidence of versus trying to do this exercise. I mean, this I'm saving people thousands of dollars in therapy. If you just create a little highs and lows channel, you'll therapy yourself because you'll go in and it'll— you'll remember, I've been high before, I've been low before, and either way I walk out, I— it's, it's that, that Richard Kipling poem. I treat triumph and disaster. I treat those two imposters the same. And this is the fastest, most effective way to do it.

Dude, that reminds, you know, one of my— I think Conor McGregor has taken a fall from grace. I really don't like him anymore. But he has a lot of like amazing things that he says that I buy into. And he's got this one thing. Do you remember? Have you ever seen what he says about having the same attitude in victory or defeat?

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

What is it? What does he say? Would you know the exact line?

Um, he, he basically says, um, I forgot what it was. It was like, you know, humble in victory and something, you know, something in defeat, which is, by the way, not what he does at all anymore. But yeah, yeah, that was his original, original thesis.

Oh, look it up. Uh, yeah, like, I think last time he lost, he— in the octagon, he was telling the opponent, humble in victory, humble in defeat. And, and actually, last time he lost, he was telling the man's wife that he, like, you know, she was cheating on him.

Your wife is in my DMs. Your wife is in my DMs. So he says, dude, he should layer for some Conor McGregor quotes. I really want to create a compilation and just show it to him and be like, dude, you'll, you'll love this guy. And just see if it, see if it reaches. So this is McGregor back when we both loved him. I am cocky in prediction. I am confident in preparation, but I am always humble in victory or defeat.

It's the best, right?

Same woman since college.

Zuck's got his college sweetheart. Got his daughters, you know, appears to be a really great dad by all accounts. And I just respect that. I just respect that he's had this all-around game. Agreed. Right? He's just had this really strong floor game where he just covered all the bases of what I consider to be a really good life. He's doing what he loves on and off the court. And, um, you know, is this lame to say Mark Zuckerberg? But I gotta say Mark Zuckerberg.

He, uh, have you, like, you, you don't know about running, but he ran a 5K time Uh, he ran a 5K recently and he ran it in 19 minutes. That's really fit. He's like really fit. Did you see that post where he talked about his Murph? His Murph time?

Yeah, the Murph. He did an insane Murph, dude. It was really fast. Like he's, he's not like one of these, like, you know, like Vince McMahon is like 80 years old, like weirdly like old jacked or like, you know, Joe Rogan has this too where they have this like really weird body 'cause they're taking like TRT like crazy. It's like, oh, these people have this weird Olympic bodies or TRT bodies. No, he's— he just like worked out a lot and ate good.

Yeah, he like eats an apple and chicken. Like, he looks great. You know what I mean? He looks great. Yeah, that's a great one. And he's— I really like his wife. She's turned into like this kind of, I don't know, like thought leader, Michelle Obama-y. Like, you know, like she's kind of hip and cool and I care about her opinion a lot. Like, she's kind of like a little bit of a tastemaker.

How do you even know this? Because what I love about her is that she's not out there trying to get limelight. She's not doing anything that's public, right? She does a lot of stuff. I just like— with their foundation, but I've seen her talk at, at, at, uh, uh, conferences.

And then I also, Zuck's been going to UFC and they'll show her in the background, uh, at, and then one of the fighters is like, she, or she'll be like, hey, that choke was cool. And he'll be like, do you want to learn it? And she'll be like, yeah. And so she like comes in, like puts the guy in a choke, like she just kind of like in it. And she just doesn't seem, you know how like people love Princess Di because she was like, you know, a woman of the people. It's, she kind of has that vibe a little bit. And I, I appreciate that.

I have not seen that, uh, but I have seen like the— there was like an interview recently where somebody was like following him around for the day and she was there and she was just so down to earth and cool and was like making fun of him, but in a like, you know, like, you know, when couples are together and it's like you could tell that they have fun together, but you could also tell they don't hate each other. It's like you can make fun of somebody without being like really bitter on the inside. Yeah, I just thought like the vibe I got, you know, it was just a little clip, but the vibe I got was Uh, it was great.

Um, so mine was, uh, do you remember meetup.com's founder Scott? Is it Heiferman?

The Heifer.

Heifer.

Let's call him the Heifer.

So the, the, the short of it is the story is basically this guy named Scott. He started, um, a digital ad company that he sold for like $15 million, enough to get like very wealthy as a 28-year-old. He leaves tech and he goes and he joins McDonald's and he works at McDonald's as a, you know, a cashier or something like that. And people like actually noticed him. And someone wrote, I think Fast Company wrote an article and they're like, what the hell are you doing? He's like, dude, I've been around ad executives for the last 10 years or 50 or, you know, 5 years. I've been around tech people. I needed to get out of my bubble. And so I just went and worked at McDonald's and I learned it's really hard work. And I'm so thankful that I am where I am. And I'm going to go back.

By the way, he didn't just do it for like a day. This wasn't like a field trip. Like he, he actually worked there for like months and months. Yeah.

It's that Billy mindset.

It's that Billy— he's got that— he's got B energy.

Living life on your own terms. He is doing that. Um, love it. Okay. That's a good one. That's a good pull.

All right. Uh, what's next?

Now this one, this one is frame-breaking person. So we should explain this one. So both you and I love one specific thing that I don't even think other people have a word for. We call it frame-breaking. It's somebody who breaks your frame. Scott is a great example of this. It's somebody who lives their life or acts in a way that sort of defies your expectation, breaks your frame on what's either normal, what's acceptable, what's possible, what's cool. It's somebody who just lives differently in a way that just shatters your, your, your norm, your worldview norm. And I wanted to make a category for this because this is one of my favorite things when I meet somebody who's like this. So frame-breaking person, who did you have this year?

That's an amazing answer. Um, I love that he did that. Just all the things you just said, making a list of the 15 most influential, most impactful or influential people ever. What a, what a list. I think I want to go do that just to even see what that list is.

It was like, it was like, um, it was like Orville, it was the Wright brothers. It was the, the Gutenberg press. It was Magellan. Like there was like 10 of them. He was like, these changed the world forever. And he's like, do you know how many of them are like rich people? None. Uh, they were just like inventors or something like that.

I thought you were going to say Orville Redenbacher. And I was like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to complain if that's the, if he's on the list. Okay. So my answer for frame-breaking person is Nick Gray.

And yeah, I could see that.

This is going to be an answer, but, it's my true answer. This is my truth and I'm going to speak my truth. Uh, is it not? It's not Elon Musk. It's somebody I met, I hung out with. I had a, uh, a flight. So I went and spoke at this event and they, they were like, hey, we'll fly you private. And I was like, okay, cool. And Nick was going to the same place as I was. He's like, hey, can I come with you? And I was like, yeah, no problem. That'd be great. And so I got off.

Nick was the same in that situation.

Yeah, exactly. So I was like one-on-one with him for like 5 hours or something. I don't know, you know, which is, that's a long time. That's a long conversation. That's like more time than I spend talking to most people. Right. And I walked away and I'm just going to read you my, um, text to my sister after I hung out with Nick. So I hung out with Nick. I tried to play cool. And afterwards I get off the plane. I go, I just hung out with a guy who has, has such a zest for life. I go, I've hung out with a lot of rich people, but this guy's rich in a different way. He is rich in social wealth. He's got tons of friends. He is rich in amusement. I feel like everything he does in a way, everything he does in a day amuses him and he's doing it on his terms. I go, he is corny and totally himself in the best way possible. And I just want to tell you a couple of the things that just stood out to me, like prolific things this guy did this year. So we've talked about the Tokyo blind date where he says, I want to go to Tokyo, but I don't want to go alone. Fill out this Google form and I want to take one person on a blind date with me to Tokyo. And he gets thousands of responses. He picks a girl. He almost falls in love on this date. He does the whole thing publicly and it goes viral. This guy's having fun. The next thing he does, he goes to India. He stays in India for like a month. And I'm like, what are you doing in India? I'm Indian. I haven't been to India for a month in like 10 years. And he's like, oh, I just love the culture. I just wanted to go. I know I have a couple of friends that I've met in other travels. I just want to go visit their hometown. And so he goes to these like remote towns in India and he's learning their way of life and their foods and all this stuff. And he's blogging about it. And he knows that in India, one of the ways that people, like they don't have Hinge or Tinder in the same way. Like, the old school way in India is you run what's called a matrimonial ad in the newspaper. So this is how my mom met my dad, which was, uh, my dad runs an ad. It says, you know, um, 21 years old, 6 feet tall, you know, have a bachelor's degree in engineering, um, you know, good head of hair, comes from a good family, that sort of thing. And Nick finds this so amusing, he's like, I gotta do this. So he runs a matrimonial ad. And actually he starts A/B testing different matrimonial ads and he's showing them to me. It's like 5'9", full set of teeth. It's like, you know, like he was— has a blog.

You know, at one point he was like, how do I make sure that she's like fit and like not like crazy overweight? And I was like, we were like, like, could you like put like, I have to be able to lift you on my— like, I want to be able to lift you on my shoulders. Like, I'm not strong.

Yeah, exactly. So starts running these ads, but he's not running it like as a prank. He was genuinely curious and interested to see what would— and he just, he just over and over again had these little life experiments and just followed. He just— I, the way I text my sister, I go, I feel like he's just taking the bounce of the ball of life and he's just going with it. So for example, I'm like, dude, you should like start a YouTube channel or something. He goes, oh, I have one. I go, what? I've never seen it. And he shows me his YouTube channel. Do you know what his YouTube channel is?

I've watched the videos, but what do you mean what it is?

It's reviews of like cruise ships, of which bedrooms he likes on cruise ships because he likes cruises. And guess what? All his followers are old people who retire and go on cruises and they're like, thanks, I'm going on this cruise next year. I retired, I'm 74. I was wondering if the bathrooms come with the vanity kit and like, sure enough, that's what— but he's so into it that he just— I've always said the best product is you pushed out. And that to me is Nick Gray. Nick Gray, he just took himself and flipped himself inside out. He was pushing himself out in the world. And if you love it, if you hate it, he really could care less, it seems like. And I just found it, I don't know, very like eye-opening to see somebody who is their own corny self on, on full blast. And I really admire that. For example, he's— I'm interested in stocks, he's into stocks, but the way he's interested in stocks is different. He is a huge fan of one stock. You know the one.

Uh, Cloudflare. Cloudflare.

He hosts his birthday party at Cloudflare. He creates a WhatsApp group of other Cloudflare believers. At every earnings call, he texts the group and he says like, You know, I hope the earnings gods are with us today. I'm feeling lucky. I'm wearing this and I'm just, I, I, I'm ready for all that this Q2 call brings us.

And he's, dude, listen to one of these whole group. He, he, you know, I met Nick Gray cause we were all bloggers like 10 years ago. And he, you know, there's like 30 of us friends who are bloggers. He went to each of us and he goes, I noticed your website is hosted on whatever GoDaddy, this or that. Would it be okay if my assistant transferred your account from GoDaddy to Cloudflare? We'll do it completely for free. And in fact, the hosting property or the hosting thing that you have, they're charging you $100 a month. Cloudflare was going to charge you $40 a month. I went and got a deal. I was like, why are you doing this? He goes, because I'm a shareholder of Cloudflare and I need you guys to start using it because I think you're going to love it even more. Dude, I swear to God, he switched my blog to Cloudflare for free and now I'm saving, uh, $600 a year.

Our friend Sahil, Sahil Bloom, um, he's got this new shtick where he shares like texts, like he's like in these group chats and I guess he'll say like some inspirational shit. That he'll like, he'll tweet it out. He's like, here's what I shared with this chat.

And it's like, like a realization this morning. First of all, I am my own biggest enemy.

I have to say, I love Sahil. So I'm saying this with love, but he'll say stuff like, yeah, like live, laugh, love for dudes type of shit. Yeah. And like, you know, like, you know, the thing about wisdom is that you only earn it through like hardship, like, you know, whatever. And then some guy retweeted, he goes, bro, if a dude said this in my group chat, he's getting kicked out right away.

And your sister's reply to that is like, like, yeah, she went to it, she went to his blog and was just like, he looks funny, and then moved on with life. I was like, yo, I just typed you like an essay about how this man changed my life. She's like, I Google image searched him.

So you're like, dude, do you like Oprah? Because I'm doing some Oprah-level shit right here. And she just like dismissed you. Uh, that's pretty funny.

Nick Gray is the man.

Nick Gray is the man. Are we gonna do favorite Guess now?

Yeah, let's do, uh, best guest and then we'll do best idea, best business idea that we had on the podcast. So let's do best guest first.

Who do you got? This is, I worked really hard not to have recency bias, but Amjad, uh, from Replit. We barely even talked about like the financials of his business, but I'm pretty sure it's like a billion dollar company, right?

Or like in that— Yeah, last, last round was like right under a billion dollars.

So like, right, you know, built this huge company. I think he's only 36 or 37. Crazy smart. Like his blog is so good. He's not just smart. Like you talk to him, like you, he like is prolific. He writes all this amazing stuff. He, he said one little small line that like I could have dismissed as like a fortune cookie thing, but he was like telling how he makes the decisions based off of what will be a better movie. But he gave like 8 examples of that. And I totally bought in. And I thought that he was amazing. And one of the reasons was because of that, like live life to be a good movie. I thought it was fantastic.

Yeah. He said, whenever, whenever I'm at a fork in the road on a decision of what to do in life, I just ask, what will make the better story? Yeah. And then I just do that one.

It was great. He was so fascinating. Uh, that episode on YouTube, I think it has 200,000 views. It was, it was a huge hit. And it was one of those things where we were recording it and he's like, he's low energy and oftentimes high energy people will do better because that's just whatever how people are. But, and I was like, I am enthralled by this podcast. Like a lot of times if you spend an hour and a half on Zoom, you get tired. I was totally excited at the end of that pod. And he was a very low, mellow, low energy, mellow guy. And I was like, I don't know if this is going to hit or not, but I, I love it. And so it totally hit. So a lot of people thought he was amazing as well.

Yeah. There's almost half a million downloads across YouTube and audio on that one.

Oh, really?

Um, yeah, it's at 330 on YouTube. All right, so mine, I have two. One is the highest viewed episode of the year and one is the lowest viewed episode of the year. So I'll start with the obvious one, the highest viewed episode. This is the episode I did with Manish Papri.

Does that have 2 million?

By the way, what a brilliant, a brilliant episode idea.

I know, right?

How do you come up with that? Just like, he's perfect, except stares at the seat in front of him on a flight.

Yeah, she's just like, I can't do it. I can't do it. And he's like, that guy would make a great investor. If you can have fun watching the paint dry, you can be a great investor. And my takeaway was like, oh, I'm probably not going to be a great investor. Got it. Got it. It's not me. But at least I knew what the formula was. The other things were by— I've— the life hack of going to these people's houses for the podcast.

Hold on. That was a really good comment. I know what the— that ain't for me, but I know what the formula is. That's actually pretty cool. Yeah. You know, you know the answer.

Same thing with Amjad. Amjad goes, I've realized, you know, my advantage, my advantage is that I persist. I can push the boulder up the mountain for a long time. Like, I'm just willing to endure. And I was like, oh, okay, cool. Not going to compete with you. Yeah, I can't do that.

You're like, I'm happy I know what it takes and I'm happy to know I don't have it.

Which by the way, uh, like very meta example here, the, the, I don't know how the audio did, but the YouTube on this did 13,000. That's like one of the lower in the past year. I listened to it and I loved it. I thought it was so good. And then the comments are, um, this is the best episode ever. Uh, the second comment, this was the best episode, MFM episode ever. Like people loved it in the comments. And for some reason it didn't get views. That's insane. It's also good not to chase those views, I think, because this is— I thought it was fantastic. It's weird. Why do you think it didn't hit?

To take his approach. Doesn't matter. I just do what's cool to me. And sometimes the whole world agrees and sometimes they don't. Most of the time they don't. That's okay. And so the, you know, the two examples I gave in the Monish one, okay, it gets 3 million plays. In that case, the whole world agreed. But I felt the same way about the Mike Poser one. I'm proud of both of them the same because I thought they were both dope.

All right. Last two categories. Best product. What do you have?

I have a lame answer. I'll go quick. It's just ChatGPT.

Uh, it's pretty dope.

It's the same product I would have picked last year, but it got way better. Like the same product. It's the same name, but it's a totally better product. I, and I also have found new ways to use it. It's almost like you got onto Hogwarts and you're learning new, like, oh, you're learning how to use your wand. It's like, oh wow, I got, I could do that spell with it. I could do this with it. That's how AI feels to me. And I just wrote ChatGPT as my quick way of saying it.

Dude, I had a friend over, some family friends over yesterday for Christmas, and he's worked at OpenAI for 4 years.

I cornered him, strapped him down, cornered him.

And he's a lot smaller than me. And I had my hand on his shoulder. I was like, here you go. Have a seat.

Have a seat.

Sit down. Here's the computer and here's a list of questions. You want to start from the top? Let's get— let's get after it. Yeah, we'll eat turkey later, but have a seat. It was just Paprika with questions. Uh, I think that was a, uh, ChatGPT is a good one.

Um, what was yours?

Best product? This thing. It says, well, the focus is off. It's the brick. This is a $29 thing. It has some type of, I don't know what it's called, the RFID, whatever.

For the audio, audio listeners, Sam's holding up a little tiny square. It's like, you know, 1 inch by 1 inch. And this is a thing that just nukes your phone.

I've not used it. Um, maybe I should. That was a good case.

It's awesome, man. You can like, I have like a workout setting and then you could have like, um, driving settings so you could just make it like YouTube and Like I listen to podcasts on YouTube. Uh, so you can have YouTube and Maps available. Like that's it. And so it's pretty cool. And I can't, uh, unbrick my phone unless I come home and I scan it again. And so it's, uh, it's pretty amazing. So that's been my best product.

And is there like an emergency, like, oh, for real, for real, I need Google Maps right now. Like, is there a way to override it if you needed to?

Yeah. But I think you only get 3 times to do that. And the 3rd time you do it, this brick that you've you purchased, it's, uh, useless. And so it's just like, oh, but I bought that thing for $30, I want it to work. Like, that type of, like, uh, uh, resistance is just enough.

Yeah, I don't know if I'm built for that level of self-discipline. You know, back in the day, I bought that, um, wristband called Pavlok, which is basically like Pavlovian training for yourself. So it's a wristband where you electrocute yourself, uh, you get a slight— you get a small electric shock Not actually that small, but you get an electric shock in your arm. It kind of hurt when you do something. It was like, oh, but you know, I was using it for my diet and it's like, okay, I'm going to eat this piece of pizza and then I got to like voluntarily push this button to like shock myself. And I just didn't. And instead all I used it for was just a conversation piece. Like I'd be somewhere, be like, what's that? I'd be like, oh, try this on, watch this. And it became my party trick. Yeah. To be cool instead of really having anything to do.

Check it out. I'm a freak. I'm unique.

Yeah, exactly. Like, so you use it? I'm like, no, no, no, no. Does it work? I have no idea. Don't even try. What's, um— The hell if I know.

Yeah, you should try this. It's pretty awesome. And then the change that you're gonna make next year. Mine's fast. I'm getting an office. I'm sick of like working from home all the time. Yeah, like it's cool a few days a week, I guess. And it's cool when you have to do it. But yeah, we're getting an office. I'm getting an office. I need to be around people. It's just like, you know, even when business is going well, you're like, yeah, let's get on a Zoom and—

But your company is remote, so you're going to get an office and then there's local people or what?

We have 20 employees and like 11 of them are in New York City. So we have enough. And so we're going to—

But you're not in New York. So what are you going to do?

I live an hour away, so I'll just go 3 days a week.

Oh my God, what a horrible decision. Do I have to talk my friend out of signing up for a voluntary 2 hours of commuting a day? Do I need to show him the statistics that show how much you hate your life?

Dude, but what's the— like, the alternative is that I'm just like in my kitchen and it's like I celebrate with an emoji, you know? Like, just—

I let you break your phone, I let you care about dressing up, I let you do all these things that's, you know, they're, they're self-harm, but I let you do it because there's some greater good. Commuting 2 hours a day is a horrible idea. You go to your office.

How often do you— when was the last time you saw a coworker? I guess you work with your wife. That doesn't count.

Here's what I did, which is way more genius. Diego, who's on this call right now, who helps me with all my content, he lived in Baltimore as of a month ago. And then I called Diego and I said, hey Diego, how would you like to live within 10 minutes of me? And he's like, I'd be down. And I go, cool. How do we do that in the next 2 weeks? He's like, I guess I'd have to figure out a way to transport my dog. And then he quit his job, or not quit his job, his wife quit her job. He broke his lease. He rented an RV and drove across the country in 7 days. And now he lives within 10 minutes of me and we see each other every day. We transformed my garage into an office for ourselves. And, um, it's great. And that's the way to do it.

Wait, so is, is the expectation that he's going to live in an RV for an extended period of time or is he going to rent a house?

He got an apartment nearby. And, uh, lives in a cool place. And I told him, I said, hey, you're moving to California, so here's a pay raise to cover the cost of your move and the, and the higher cost of living out here, and come live in California. Who wants to be in Baltimore, bro? And, uh, come, come hang out with me. It's gonna be way more fun.

And yeah, that's a good idea.

We agreed to do it.

Was it weird after not doing that for 3 years or whatever?

Well, the weird part is like I realized how how distracted my schedule is, cuz like he'll come over and we're supposed to work and then it'll be like, oh, but I gotta like go drop off my kid at school. Then I gotta come back. Then my trainer comes over and then I work again. And then like my kid wants to play like Jenga for a second. So like, be right back. And I realize like, oh, you know, when somebody else is there, you're acutely aware that like, wait, hold on, I'm taking a break right here. And how many of those mini breaks I had. So I had to kind of rejigger that to be a little more focused time., but honestly it was like, well, it's just bet— it's like all, all the times we would be doing calls, us being in person during those, even if it's not perfect. So, so, you know, for example, sometimes he just comes and works out of the office even before I'm there. I'm dropping my kids off, but he's just there. He just treats it like an office. And then we just happen to be there together a bunch of times. But the key for me is I don't have 20 people, right? So I could do this with, because I have 2 people on my team and that's all I need.

Yeah. Yeah. I, I might do it in Westport where I live. But I, you know, where I work out most days is the library, dude. I'm in the library and it's just like me and then like 16-year-old girls. Exercise? No, like, like type on my computer. Like, it's like I freaking love the library. I work out of the library all the time and libraries have a great vibe, dude. It's so much better than like a coffee shop or a WeWork. Libraries are great. Yeah, there's a— there you and I were in Entrepreneur magazine last year and they have a copy of it like they have like a magazine section and, uh, you know, I definitely move that magazine to the front and every once in a while I'll read it.

I'm like, but we're not on the COVID right? Are we on the inside? Do you have to open it up?

I got to open up and when people walk by, I got to be like, who's that guy in the magazine? Is he right there? Oh, what?

It's him from page 16. Yeah.

Whoa, did you, did you just ask me if that— yeah, it is, uh, No, I like the library. What's yours?

Okay, library is a great one. Um, what category are we even on?

Uh, change you're making.

Oh, change I'm making. Uh, this is gonna sound stupid, but, um, it's not for me. I'm all in on music this year. I decided that, um, I want to be— I want to do more music stuff. And so I picked up piano again. Oh, playing. And I— so I basically hired somebody to come teach me piano. Because I did it like in 7th grade and I can play like Fur Elise and that's it.

How many lessons are you in?

I'm starting next week. And the second one is I hired a guy because I've always like, you can now make like most music is now made on a computer and I'm like, okay, I know computers, but I don't know how to make music on a computer. And I kind of want to see what's like the latest and greatest of that. So I hired somebody who's like, you know, those people that know how to like make songs on a computer.

Are you talking about like, I'm hiring one of them, like beats? Or like you're gonna like record a cover? Whole songs. Whole songs. You wanna write or you wanna cover?

Dude, that's so good. I think that's fantastic. You know, you know, Sarah takes— my wife, she takes piano and singing class— classes, like lessons. And she's on top of it. You guys can, can vibe out. But what I'm trying to encourage her to do is sign up for some type of open mic night or just like something where it's like you can have like a recital.

Uh, well, dude, I got inspired by my cousin. He did this. So I was like, oh, I'm gonna do this. And then it's so funny when you put it out there, people start just giving you clues on how to win. So my sister was like, oh yeah, do you know our cousin Neil? He does that. He's hired a piano coach. He's doing it all the time. And then he went to an old folks home and he performs there once a week as his recital. That's great. And it gives them so much joy. And I'm like, wow, what a great win. A low stakes way to have a performance. Yeah, that brings other people joy and it's just like so wholesome. I was like, what a great idea.

Yeah. The other thing I'm doing is I'm taking the Jesse Itzler 2025, like how to plan your year. And I'm actually doing it. So like yesterday I was doing his get light part where I'm cleaning out. I'm just getting rid of stuff. I'm getting light before the end of the year and closing out the year properly. I did my thanks. Stuff and I started writing my thank you notes, like I'm buying in and I'm actually doing it. So if you want to hear it, go listen to the Jesse Itzler episode. I was pretty inspired by that.

Same.

We have the calendar. A good idea.

We have the calendar. Uh, I, we use the calendar. So like, uh, I sit in our little area where we have the calendar. I totally use it. I think it's fantastic. Isn't it crazy how some of these things, maybe 26 and 27-year-old Sam and Sean would have made fun of these things as whack?

100%.

And now it's sort of like, even like, you'd be like, what is this? This is stupid. It's awesome.

Isn't that funny how we're like, I'm like going to bed early is so awesome. Like, I used to tell myself all kinds of stories about why I was a night owl, how that was more fun, how, you know, it'd be lame to go to bed. And if a friend was going to bed at 9:30, I'd be like, lame. Now I'm like jealous. If I hear about a friend that goes to bed at 9:30, I'm like, oh fuck, how does he do that? I need, I need to learn.

This was a great pod. What do you think?

I think it's great. It's one of my favorite traditions. Thank you, everybody, for listening. Another great year in the books. The greatest podcast ever created.

We did something. We had to do this, like, ad for Spotify. And when we did it, Sean was like, you know, Spotify told us to thank you guys, but in actuality, you should be thanking us because we're the one who just did all the work to, like, make this content for you. But I am pretty thankful of everyone who works on the pod. I'm also thankful for the people who actually listen to this shit. Like, it, like, it shocks me sometimes when people come up to me still and they're like, yeah, you said this thing and this thing and like it made a difference to me. And I feel so much gratitude when like people do those things and I'm so happy that we're able to do this.

All right. And on that note, that's the pod. 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.