What It’s Like to Spend 24hrs with a Billionaire Who Plays Full Out
I have felt like a little bit of a, like, pinch me moment where I've realized—
Don't say that.
Pinch me.
Just don't say that one.
Pinch me.
Yeah. I will pinch you if you ever say that again.
And I'll just say, ow.
Yeah. 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 look back. What's going on over there?
What has been going on? We haven't seen each other in 7 days and we've both talked to a bunch of interesting people. Have you enjoyed your time away?
I have. By the way, people are like, why do they do these separate? And it's like, dude, we live on the other side of the country. I live in California. Sam lives on the far East Coast. And so for us to do an in-person recording, it's like, hey, would you like to fly across the country for this day today just to record this podcast? And both of us have little kids. Neither of us want to do that. So if you see us doing one-on-one interviews with people, don't worry. Me and Sam are still good. We just, we live really far apart. Okay, so here's the deal. In the last 10 days, both you and I have gone and done podcasts that have not come out yet. I think this will come out before those with guests who are incredible. So I think all, I think all of them are either billionaires or soon-to-be billionaires. But that's the, the money is almost the least interesting thing about each one of them. Like what they did and how they, how they roll, how they live is more interesting. And we did them in person. So for example, I went to Las Vegas, I went to Tahoe, and I'm basically staying at the person's house and I'm hanging out with them all day. And then the podcast is just kind of like a 1 or 2 hour recording in the middle of that day. But I'm spending 12, 24 hours with this person. And when you do that, you pick up a lot. And neither you or I have talked, and both— but both you and I are kind of students of the game of life. And one of the ways you be a student of the game of life is you don't just try to do all the experiments on yourself, right? That's a pretty slow and painful way to do things. A faster, easier way is to go and get a little Costco sample of somebody else's life. I've never had a fig before.
Let me try.
Let's go try fig. Ah, almond butter. Is this something I like? Am I an almond butter guy? And so I went and sampled these people's lives, and you did too. And so what I wanted to do if you're down for it, is I think we each have 3 names of people we hung out with, and I want to take the one thing that stuck with you that was not in the podcast.
Man, we get to hang out with so many amazing people, and it, it absolutely wears off on you. Our world is business, but frankly, I find like just the money part to be a little bit empty. And I think you agree with life is more, more rich than just money. But it just so happens that We like being people who are experts at their field, and the field is business. And so we've— there's probably only 3,500 or 4,500 billionaires in the world. And I feel like every year we get to hang out with like 30 of them. And again, the, the money's not the important part, but the fact that it's just like, so if there's only 4,500 people of all the people on earth who are in this category, it's pretty exciting to be around someone who's the best at their field. And it 100% wears off to you, wears off on you. Where you start normalizing being in the, uh, 1% of whatever activity you're trying to be in.
Totally. Uh, yeah. And your money point is right, which is even if we were just like, if I ran into Kobayashi on the street, I'd be like, this guy's the great— I'd be like, honey, this guy's the greatest hot dog eater of all time. Now she wouldn't care, to be clear, but I would be like, it would be like meeting Kobe, right? He's the Kobe of eating hot dogs. And so, um, you know, Excellence in any form is interesting to me. And anybody who gets an outlier result in a field that many people go try to choose, because it's always interesting. How did you get that? Because if you're interested in becoming an outlier in your field, you can actually learn from it in any field. Anyways, so you're right that our quote unquote job gets us access to this. Now, the giving part here is we don't want to be selfish to just kind of keep for ourselves, you know, what we picked up. So let's, let's jump in. All right. So I go hang out with this guy, Hayes Barnard. Most people don't know who Hayes Barnard is, but his story is pretty crazy. So the short version of his story is, guy grows up, single mom, kind of, you know, from the dirt in, uh, actually in Missouri. And he ends up sort of hustling his way into a job, a sales job, then a tech sales job, then he ends up at Oracle. And he works for Oracle in the '90s when Larry Ellison was, you know, basically he was flip-flopping between Larry Ellison and Bill Gates as like the wealthiest man in the world. And, um, and he's— and so he becomes a basically a competitive salesman. And so he becomes a, a top sales guy at Oracle just by like working harder than everybody. So he's like, I would just get in earlier. I would stay later. I would work every weekend. Those guys, you know, most of the sales guys who were doing well by 3 PM, they would leave. They'd go play basketball or tennis or racquetball. And I would just stay the extra 3 hours and I'd stay the extra 4 hours. And I would just do that every single day. And it just added up. So he ends up becoming a top guy at Oracle, but he sees that some of the other top guys at Oracle go leave and start these huge companies. So Marc Benioff leaves and goes, starts Salesforce. This other guy leaves and goes, starts this other company. And so he starts to think, hmm, maybe I'm like them, right? And maybe I should go do that. And so he leaves and he starts a, um, a mortgage company where he's like, maybe the same way I could sell complicated enterprise software. Using a call center and some online ads. Uh, maybe I could sell a mortgage, right? Most people at the time felt that mortgages were too complicated. Like you needed an in-person, you know, a local bank branch with a local banker who's going to talk to you and hold your hand and all this stuff. And he's like, I don't know. I think with like radio ads and a call center in Sacramento, I think I could just sell mortgages over the phone the same way I've just been selling Oracle databases.
Did he know anything about mortgages or?
No, but his friend from childhood is like best friend from like 4th grade or something like that. He kind of knew a little about mortgages and Hayes knew a lot about selling. So they leave to go start this thing. In the '08 mortgage crash, he survives because they had been underwriting conservatively. So they were the one mortgage company that was like not giving out subprime loans. So they survived the mortgage crisis. But during that time he diversifies because he's like, instead of just selling mortgages, what if I go into the energy business? What if I, what if I branch? What if I diversify? Instead of just selling mortgages, could we sell solar? And help people with their utility bill. So if, uh, if like, what if I gave you a thing that's cleaner for the environment, saves you money on your electricity? So he starts a company that does that for solar. Now that solar company gets bought by SolarCity. Uh, it, it, he ends up driving, he's not actually installing the solar. So like, you know, SolarCity would actually go install the solar. If you don't know, SolarCity was started by Elon Musk and his cousin. And so he was selling the solar and then SolarCity would go install it. At one point, I think they made up like 50% of SolarCity's revenue. It was like insane. He was driving so much revenue for them. And so SolarCity acquires them. SolarCity then ends up getting acquired by Tesla for $2 or $3 billion. And, um, and then, you know, Tesla's gone on this crazy run and like, you know, whatever, 30x since then. So here's this guy Hayes, who is, you know, grew up nowhere in Missouri. He has dyslexia and a form of dyslexia where he ends up flunking out of the first grade because he can't read properly. Uh, you know, he works on a farm, he's a Subway sandwich artist, and somehow this guy's now one of the wealthiest men in America. Okay? He's a self-made billionaire now. So I go, I want to do a podcast with Hayes. So I hit him up. I'm like, Hayes, would you do this? I know you don't do a lot of these. Would you do this? He says, yeah, sure, no problem. Now, the thing about Hayes though is that Hayes does not do anything at like a chill level.
So like, um, he was the most unchill person I've ever been around.
Well, he's fun to be around. He's actually extremely fun. Like, he's very funny. He's fun. But like, if he chooses to do something, he doesn't have to do anything. You know, he's only— and this is his thing. He says, he's like, we play full out. So Sam, normally when we book a guest, especially like, let's say one of the like more on the higher end of the range of success of guests, what is the normal prep experience like maybe a week before? Just walk, walk through that.
Well, so sometimes we want to do a call with them, but then other times if someone's really successful, you're like embarrassed to ask them like, can I spend like an hour of your time just brainstorming? And so sometimes Ari will call, sometimes one of us will call depending on how successful they are to not disrespect them. And so it's quite challenging. The more successful they are, it's like, can I waste an hour of your time? Like, just prepare? Or do I just show up with stories that I asked your friends and hopefully it goes great?
Yeah. And sometimes we send them a, like a doc, which is like, hey, here's some, can you fill this out? This will help us. And then I would say half the time they do fill it out, but half the time it's like they give us either nothing or half, half filled out, something like that. And we just show up, we say, all right, we got to make it happen.
We understand. We hope it works.
This experience was completely different. So, uh, Hayes not only calls me, he calls Ben 2 or 3 times before the podcast and he starts discussing, you know, What can we talk about? Tell me what, what's, what you think is going to be interesting. How do we make this amazing? He just keeps asking this question. How do we make this amazing? So instead of just saying, what are we going to talk about? That's the average question. His was, how do we make this amazing? And he keeps calling back and he's basically like, when he says this, he's like, I don't say yes to many things, but if I do say yes, I go all out. And so first in the pre-prod, the pre-pod prep, he's, you know, really active. And he keeps asking how's it going to be amazing. This idea he comes up with, he's like, you know, most of the time you sit down and people ask the same 5 questions about like, how'd you do it? Um, you know, what do you think about AI? Blah, blah, blah. Like these same questions. And you get these robotic tech answers from these like, you know, these tech people. And he's like, let's do it different. So he's like, why don't you just come out to Tahoe? Come to my house and let's spend the whole day together. Come do my morning routine with me. It's amazing. You're going to love it. It's going to be great.
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And so we go to Tahoe and we're like, cool. Uh, we'll, we'll be there Tuesday. We'll see you Wednesday for the recording. And he goes, awesome, be at my house at 5:00 AM. Oh my God. 5:00 AM. What are we doing here? So we show up at 5:00 AM and he's like, boys, good morning. He's already like, I'm like rubbing the like boogers out of my eye and he's like awake. And he goes, let's go down to the lake. Okay. So we go down to the boat and we take this boat out for 2 minutes into the middle of Lake Tahoe. It kills the engine. And we're like, okay, what's happening? It's completely dark out, by the way. Sun hasn't even rose yet. He's like, so we're going to do my morning routine. He's like, you're going to love it. He didn't just say, like, I hope you guys like this, or thanks for, you know, like, thanks for coming. Like, I hope you have a good time. He was just like, you're going to love this. This is going to be amazing. He basically brainwashed me before I'm even out there of like, I do love this. This is kind of amazing. He was so charismatic. He was just having a good— he was genuinely excited. That's the thing. He's not like trying to sell us on anything, right? Like, He's doing us a favor inviting us into his life, but he was genuinely excited for us. And he's like, my friends are out here. This is great. You're going to love this. So he kills the engine. He turns on, he's like, there's a little woo woo, but just, are you guys willing to play ball? Like, just let's do this today and you'll like this. So he puts on this breathwork routine and he's like, I met this guy, you know, on an island with, from the guy who, you know, the guy who started Cirque du Soleil, Gee or whatever his name is. He's like, I met this kind of breathwork guru on his island and he's amazing. I've been doing this for like 20 years since then or something like that. And so he— we do this 15-minute breathwork and then he's like, all right, boys, stand up, let's go. We jump in the lake and we're like, we do this kind of like cold plunge in the lake, basically.
And Lake Tahoe in the summertime is still freezing.
Yeah. So we jump in immediately, like, you know, lose all feeling in my body. And then he's like, okay, we're going to go down and do a breath hold down underwater and for a minute. And like, this is going to be great. It's going to feel like you're in space. Open your eyes. Like, I don't have goggles. He's like, open your eyes. I was like, okay. And so we go underwater. I open my eyes and it literally looks like you're floating in space. He's right, by the way. Can only hold my breath for, no joke, 7 seconds. I don't know what happened.
Yeah, well, when it's freezing, it's hard.
So I immediately go down and I'm like, Nope, I'm done. And I pop back up. He's underwater, so he comes up and he's like, okay, let's do that again. I was like, okay, yeah, yeah, I need a redo because that was pretty short. So we do it again. And then he's like, you know what? I heard this thing, this amazing thing. And it said basically that as you get older, you really want to make the most of your life. You guys are still a little bit younger than me. You'll feel this too. You get this sense of urgency about, like, you realize your friends start getting sick, your parents getting older. Realize, like, you know, this time is not, you know, time is, time is really precious. And there's a time hack. You guys wanna know the time hack? We're like, yeah, for sure. What's the time hack? And he's like, if you do something new every day, you sort of mark the day. Because like, you know, if I ask you, Sam, what'd you do 5 days ago? It's probably pretty hard to remember what you did 5 days ago. Even yesterday, it's pretty hard to remember. And that's because when we're in these routines, and routines do serve us, but they, it causes all the days to blend together. But if you do one new thing a day, it sort of marks the day. You're not going to remember every single day, but it makes that day more memorable. So he's like, let's figure out what we could do new today. And we're like, we're like back on the boat shivering. And he's like, you see those rocks? I always see those rocks when I do this routine, but I've never gone out there. You guys down to swim out there? Oh my God. Yeah, let's go. I'm not going to say no. So we jump in the water and we start swimming and he's swimming like you know, a shark basically out there. We are like, I'm like dying basically. And behind me I'm like, I don't even know if Ben can swim. I look back at Ben, like his glasses are like foggy. I'm like, well, I don't know what's going on. Diego has like shoulder dislocation problems. I'm like, Diego's for sure gonna dislocate his shoulder and just sink like a rock to the bottom of Tahoe. We're all dying. And then we're swimming from rock to rock like little kids. He's like, let's like playing tag basically. He's like, let's go over there. All right, race you to this one. And we go and he wants to get to the big, he's like, look at that big rock. Let's get to that big rock. And we go to the big rock. He ends up getting to the big rock. Jump off the big rock, have this great moment, come back to the boat. And this is all like before 8:00 AM. And he's like, I do this every day. And I remember just having this feeling, which is like, this guy basically lives his life at a level. He plays at a full-out level. He plays with a level of intensity on everything that he was doing, whether it was like the podcast, his morning routine. Each of the things I would do at a 7, he just does at a 10. And if you think about that, like, how does that stack every single day, right? Like that extra 3 units of intensity that he puts in. And by the way, it's not like he's— it's not like hard work in a sense. Like, he's just like, he just goes for it, right? He's having more fun. He's willing to play more than us. And we went and played pickleball with him. We did whatever we did that day. He was like this. And, um, he told the story during the podcast of this where, you know, he was a certain way, but he's like, once I worked for Elon and he worked for Elon for 10 years, he's like, it broke my frame of reference because I was telling him, I was like, you kind of broke my frame. Like, I have a morning routine, but it's not like this, right? Like, I have a— and I was like, by the way, it's not the money. Like, yes, you've got this beautiful—
was it a sick house?
Oh my God, dude. Unbelievable. To the point where he was like, he's like, yeah, I prefer not to film this. You know, I'm not trying to show off. I'm like, yeah, the people who try not to show off have the things worth showing off, of course. And so I'm like, um, it's— even if I had that house, would I act like— this is an honest question I had. I was like, even if I had this house and I had that boat and I had this little, like, you get in this, like, freaking, like, Willy Wonka elevator to get down from the house to the boat. And I'm like, would I wake up at 5 AM every day and do this? No chance. I'd be cuddled up. In bed with, you know, like I would be the little burrito tucked in with my, just my eyes peeking out of the covers at 5 in the morning. But he does it right. That's like kind of the difference between him and me is that he, he plays full out. And so that was just the big takeaway for me from that whole experience was, do you want to live like that?
Like, I, like, I think so. When I'm around, I've been around people like this, like they're crazy people. And I think I admire so much about this and I want to take little bits, but I don't, I don't want to replicate that. Like, I'm not a high-energy person like that all the time. I'm only a high-energy person like that some of the time. Hayes was like that all the time I was around him.
He's energy rich. Yes, I do want to be like that because I think that, because I think that, well, first, the feeling I had by 8 a.m., I was like, oh, so I've conquered the world already. Like, What, what, what can you do to me today that's gonna make me feel bad? Right? Is anything really gonna mess with my mood or my, you know, myself today? Like, it's pretty hard to do that when you like conquer the morning like that. But like, forget the morning routine and like waking up at 5:00 AM. Like, that's sort of secondary. It's the point was if you're gonna do something, like just actually like do it fully. And the thing you, the prerequisite for that is to be energy rich, to not be energy poor. Like, I went there because I'm like, oh, this guy's so successful. He's money rich.. And when I walked away, I was like, the money rich thing is a byproduct and a complete secondary footnote to being incredibly energy rich. And two of the guys said the same thing. I don't know if you remember this. I said this when we went hung out with MrBeast. I was like, this guy's like the Energizer Bunny. And we were talking about like, literally when he walks, his walking pace is faster than the average human being by like, you know, two notches. The two of the guys that came with us, they're like, did you see how fast Hayes walked? God, it was like hard to keep up with him. He's like, just literally has a pep in his step. Um, and I think just, I think being energy rich is one of the more attractive things. Like you see people who are contact rich, it's like, oh wow, they know all these famous people. You see people who are money rich. Oh wow, they got all these dollars in the bank account. To me, energy rich is very, very appealing.
To give like an example of this guy Hayes, he's not talked about at all. He's very under the radar for how big, uh, big of a big shot he is. We are with you and me and a bunch of people were with Jesse Itzler, who is a very gregarious, loud personality in a great way. Like, he is also energy rich. And I remember being in this room with these guys in a sauna, actually, and Hayes took over the room because of his stories and his energy. And one thing led to another. And they are apparently Hayes's hobby is that he used to be into hip hop and he loves to freestyle rap. Which is a very strange thing because this guy is like a— he looks like me, but like 55. He's just like a blonde-haired Missouri guy. And he is an amazing freestyle rapper. They went and freestyle rapped and he was beatboxing for like 6 or 7 minutes. And they went at— they went and did this thing. It was so good. And I remember talking to him and being around him. And I don't think I've ever met someone whose oven burns that hot. Like he was on fire the whole time.
Yeah, exactly. Uh, he's an incredible dude. The other amazing thing, by the way, hung out with him maybe 12 hours straight. And, um, did he work at all?
Was he taking the day off?
So he was like, he's like, I, cause I was like, dude, Hayes, you don't got to do this, man. Like, I appreciate it, but like, you don't have to, you know, it's not like normal for a podcast to do this. He's like, no, you guys came all the way out here. I want to make the time. You know, I know, I know you guys took time. I want to make the time. He's like, I thought this would be— I thought that would be so rude if I just show up, we record, and then you leave. Like, no, I want to make the time. One thing that he— that stood out, he did not check his phone a single time in 12 hours. And I told him at the end, I was like, is that normal? Like, I know you're getting emails. I know you're getting Slack messages. Like, just like all of us, right? Like 10 times more than all of us. You run a $10 billion company. He's the CEO of a $10 billion company and he did not check his phone a single time. And he's just like, well, you know, like, if I'm with you guys, I want to be with you guys. And if I'm working, I'm going to be working. And I was like, well, if you say it like that, then yeah, I guess I'm a little bitch for— yeah, let me put this away then.
Dude, no amount of people or stories that I can tell, or probably you also can tell from that, is going to beat the Hayes-Carl hang session. That was really good. Did Ben and Diego have a great time too?
Oh, I think Ben is at home making Valentine's cards for his right now. He's just like, I love that man. I was like, I do too. Honestly, I do too.
What a guy. I think he, if you Google his name too, this is all public. He like his side hobby was, there's a famous hotel in Tahoe or maybe Reno. I forget exactly where it is. And he owns it. And he was telling me about the renovation and everything like that. And it was like an epic, thing.
I forget exactly what the story is. So the story is this. He's in the lake doing the morning routine every day. And he's like, he's like, I didn't think about like manifesting. I don't even know what that word really means. But he's like, I was in the lake and I was thinking about my life and like, you know, what I wanted. I was full. I was just filling up with kind of like the feelings that I wanted. He's like, and I see this hotel and there's this hotel that was kind of like on the, you know, over the hill a little bit. It was on the, on the other side of it. He's like, and it's two, it's literally like one minute from his house. And he sees that hotel while he's in the, while he's doing his cold plunge in Lake Tahoe. And he just decides, looking at it, he goes, I'm going to buy that hotel. I don't know how, but I'm going to buy that hotel. And then he starts working on it. He finds out it's owned by Larry Ellison, his old boss, right? His old boss's boss's boss or whatever. And he goes and he purchases the hotel and they're turning it into a proper hotel in Tahoe. And he walked us through the construction of it or whatever. And even that, you know, he's architecting his life. It's not like he's doing it to make money. He was like, we're going to put pickleball career, pool here, this here, this here, all these activities. It's like, I want a place to do activities. I want a place for my friends to come and stay during the summers. Like, this will just make my life so much better if we, if we, if we generate this, if we make this happen. Incredibly generative guy.
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All right, let's do the next one. All right.
Man, this is gonna, that you, you, you started off really strong there. It's hard to follow. All right, this person I actually just hung out with. I didn't do a pod with them yet because they refused to come on. So I'm gonna say a little bit of information about them, enough to make it awesome, not enough that I would totally blow up their spot. But have you heard of the company Buck Mason?
Buck Mason? I've heard of it. What do they do? Is that a jeans company? No.
What is it? Sorta, sorta. So they started in 2013 and they started in 2013 selling something very simple, a t-shirt. And their goal was just to make the best t-shirt. I'm actually wearing one of them right now. And they didn't, they tried to raise money. He was like, I tried to raise as much money as I could that I got lucky because I was horrible at fundraising and I could raise no money. And so they bootstrapped this company. I think it actually started with like a Kickstarter or some type of auction like that, like a pay and then we'll make it type of vibe. And they build this company and Over time, they've grown it and grown it and grown it. And I suspect— he didn't tell me, but I suspect they do somewhere in the $150 million a year range. And he has 42 stores now. So when you go to buckmason.com, what do you see?
Yes, well, I see this is like this nostalgic— I see, I see this like video of these guys from what is maybe like the '80s or what? I don't know what era this is.
It's like a California cowboy '80s vibe. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. And I see a bunch of t-shirts and collared shirts and jeans, pants.
So I love this brand and I became friendly with him because I've DM'd him to get him to come on the podcast and he refuses to come on. And I ask him why. And he says, I just want the brand to be the face. I don't want to like get too popular. I don't want to be the face of the brand. I want the brand to be the brand, which is always like whenever I hear someone say that, I'm like, oh, you're the best.
You're, you're going to win. You're amazing.
Yeah, like, oh, so you're— yeah, whenever you hear someone say that, it's like, okay, so you're absolutely going to win and you have the right attitude. And so he started this company in 2013, and clothing companies are a pain in the butt. You and I know people in this industry, we know e-com guys. It's really, really hard and it takes a long time, I think, to figure it out. But basically they got to the point in 10 or 15 years now, it's 2013, so 12 years. Where it's really starting to fire on all cylinders. He's grown it to 52 stores. And I started talking to him about the history and everything like that. And I started realizing it's not that crazy to do this. Like, it's really hard. But I was thinking about every project that I've started since 2013. So in 2013, I had just graduated college. Do you remember where you were? It was 2013 sushi era.
No, no, that's when I moved to San Francisco. Monkey Inferno.
So what was Sushi Era? 2011?
Yeah, 2010, 2011.
So imagine you starting a sushi store in 2011 and you just— you were chained to that company and you just had to stick with it. You had no other options. You just had to. I have a feeling it would be a huge success. And I have a feeling that if I had done the same with whatever I was doing, that there's definitely a world where I would be 5 or 10 times more successful than I am now. Because of just compounding, of sticking with something. And I, I sort of felt, first of all, 12 years, it sounds like not a long time, but when I thought about, well, where was I in 2012, 2013, and what all, what all have I jumped from thing to thing to thing? And should I have just stuck to one thing and done that the entire time? And where would I be now? Because he was telling me his story and I love where this guy Sasha, his name's Sasha Cohen. I love to hear the story where he is now, which is like, I've got this amazing team, we're firing on cylinders. I just get to like work on the really exciting projects and it's just going great. Cash flow's not an issue, whatever, et cetera. It doesn't feel like that leading up to it. Obviously it's really, really hard. And the majority of the time I would think you'd wanna quit. And the majority of the time I would think a guy like him, he didn't say this, I'm guessing if someone offered to buy the company from him at different weeks throughout the year, I bet he would've said yes just because it's, it's really freaking hard. And, but I just remember thinking like, I wish I had the foresight to stick with this. Yes. Like, I wish I would have. I regret that a little bit when I see where I'm like, I don't, I don't exactly want to pay the price that you had to pay because that was really hard. But when I see where you are now, it seems very attractive.
Yeah, that's a great one. Honestly, actually, that was pretty common amongst all the people I've met with. Actually, two of them even said this. They go, I have very high pain tolerance. And what they were— the reason why they were saying it was actually not as a brag. They were like, you know, one of the problems is I have a really high pain tolerance, so I will keep doing something even when it's not, you know, quite right or not obvious. There probably was a better way or a better idea I could have done. I don't know. I'm just— that's who I am. I just keep going. Uh, Hayes even said this kind of off the record. I was like, dude, what do you— what do you think is the difference about like you and a bunch of other people are like, you know, what I was really interested in was, and I probably didn't say this right, but when we were talking about the morning routine, he said he has a different friend come and do it with him every morning. And so he was like, yeah, yes, whatever. He's like, Tony Gonzalez did this with me yesterday, the Hall of Fame tight end. And then he was like, oh yeah, over the week, he's like, oh, he had this thing on his knee. And I was like, what happened to your knee? Like, you got cut up there? He's like, yeah, I was mountain biking with, I think his name was Lyndon, like the The Elon's cousin from SolarCity. He's like, we were mountain biking yesterday. We went, you see that mountain? We went all the way over there. I was like, God, this guy's so active. He's unbelievably active, this man. But I also like, he's hanging out with Hall of Famers. Like he was talking about Elon and his son went and worked at SpaceX and he's like, I was like, oh, you didn't have him come work with you? And he's like, no, I wanted him to go see what it's like to work with Elon. He's like, I just wanted him to go. Like, it took me a while to go see what the the hardest working person who tackles the biggest problems on earth. You know, I worked 10 years of my career, 15 years of my career before that happened. I wanted my son to see it like right away. But yeah, just incredible stick-to-it-ness for all of them because I'll do my next one. Yeah. So next one is Hormozy. So I go to Las Vegas and I hang out with Alex Hormozy and a lot of people know Hormozy because he's so, he makes so much content.
I don't think, I actually think Alex Hormozy doesn't get enough credit. Every time I hang out with him, I think Dude, you're, you're really wise. Like, this is—
Yeah, he's actually very legit.
Yeah.
So, okay, so I have a bunch of things that I could say as my takeaway, but I promised one. So here's my one of Hormozy. Student of the game. Okay, so what does this mean? We're talking and I ask him, I said, you know, I get a lot of emails, but you put out so much more content. You have a much bigger audience. You must be getting 100 emails a day from entrepreneurs who want some advice from you or want some help or want you to invest. And then he does these workshops every weekend with 100 entrepreneurs. So I was like, so you're seeing another maybe 500 plus, maybe 1,000 plus entrepreneurs in your workshops that are in person. And then you have all the deals that you look at, maybe another few thousand deals that you look at, probably looking— he's probably meeting, I don't know, 5,000 entrepreneurs a year at the minimum. And I was like, what do you think is the mistake, the biggest mistake you see them make? I ask him this and he says, they're only studying their business. They're not a student of the game of business. So what do you mean? He goes, well, when you start a company, you're very like narrowly focused on your business, your industry, your business model. So he's like, you know, Sam, you were doing a, you were doing the Hustle newsletter. You probably knew a ton about newsletters, right? You knew everything about other newsletters and you knew everything about, um, maybe the media industry as a whole. And I think you're very good about being a student of the game. But I would say most people were probably, you know, even 1/10 as curious as you. But then you might also have gone and looked at the events business and then the SaaS business and other businesses to try to understand like, oh, is that a better business to be in? And actually you started in the events business, then you went into the media blogging business, and then you found your way into the newsletter business and you were like, that's a better business to be in. And now you're in a paid community business is actually a better business to be in than even the one, one we were before. And the reason why is because you're a student of the game of business, not just your business. And Alex basically was like, I made this mistake. You know, I was basically a gym operator. I had one gym and then I had two gyms, I had three gyms, and I was going to own and operate gyms. And I got really good at owner-operating a gym. But the best thing he did was he went to this mastermind, and I think Russell Brunson was there, and they basically were like, You're a 10 out of 10 entrepreneur going after a 2 out of 10 opportunity. Like, forget opening and running gyms. It sounds like you're amazing at getting a gym to have no members to go to, like, a ton of members. Why don't you sell that? Create a— sell the, sell the ability for any gym to fill up their, uh, to get more members. And so then he's like, ah, okay, that's smart. And he goes and he learns about other business models. He realizes that he should do this thing called Gym Launch where he would fly to a gym and he would basically say, hey, look, if I can get you 500 more members, can I keep the first month of their membership? And then you are, you know, the 6 weeks of pay that they're going to pay upfront and you get to keep all the recurring membership behind that. They're like, all right, sure. He's like, no risk to you. You pay me nothing. I'll run my own ads. Uh, but I get to keep what I kill. And so that became Gym Launch and that became the thing that was really, really successful. And now he's in a better business, you know, like let's say private equity, and he's buying SaaS companies. So he's gotten into an even better business than that, right? Private equity is a better business. And so he's like, I think most people are in the game, a student of the game of business. And so, and at the end of, we basically talk for, I don't know, 2.5 hours. We do like a two-part episode. And he had, before that, he had done two podcasts. So this guy's done like, you know, basically 8 hours straight of talking. And where I think most people would be like, passed out on the floor or just ready to go home or just want to go eat or like just be like, can you guys get out of my office now? He was super curious still, and he's asking me a ton of questions after the pod. And he asked me a question. He's like, you know, what would you do differently if you were me? And you know me, I can't like hold my tongue. So I'm like, yeah, honestly, like, I think this— and I gave him a very blunt and honest answer of like, I think you're amazing at this, but I think this part of what you do doesn't do you justice. I think it actually makes you look— it's like bad for your brand. And I think you shouldn't be doing that.
How did he receive that?
Extremely well. And this is kind of like kudos to him for A, being curious, and then B, being not defensive. And so he texts me the next morning. I didn't even give him my number, but he gets my number from somebody. And he says this, he goes, I just want to say thanks again for the pod. I've been thinking a lot about what we talked about at the end. Then he goes, it's Hormozy, by the way. And then he goes, um, I'm gonna make some change, some content changes. I appreciate you caring enough to say something. I thought that was just like a, a really kind message, but also like, you know, a testament to him for, for being extremely open-minded and being a student of the game and being like, having that mindset of I'm here, I'm gonna try to learn something from every single person I meet. That's just such a positive attribute to have in general.
I'm good friends with a guy who bought one of Alex's companies. So Alex started this thing called Allen Software. My friend was the buyer of it. And that is an interesting place to be in. So the person who you buy, the buyer of your company, they know all of your, they know the truth.
They know all your dirty secrets. Yeah.
They know all the dirty, they know everything. And I was like, Lloyd, this is when Alex first started getting popping before we ever even had him on the pod. I was like, Lloyd, is this guy legit? Like, this seems too good to be true. And to this day, Lloyd is like, he's the smartest person I know about business. Like he like knows everything about Alex. That's, that's what due diligence is. And he knows everything and he still is like, this guy's the best. When I need advice, he's my guy.
It's like your doctor's given you a colonoscopy. He's like, yeah, he's got a great gut.
Yeah. He, he, he, and, and so that like tells a lot about him. And what's funny is Alex comes off as a very serious guy. And he is a pretty serious guy, but he's a lot more fun. Like, I'm able to have fun with him whenever I'm with him. He's way more fun than he gives off.
That was one of the things I told him. I was like, you come off so serious, but you're actually— you have a great sense of humor. You should show that and show yourself having fun and not just like, I paint the windows black and I grind, right? That is part of you. But there is another part of you, and I think you don't really do yourself justice in like not showing that side.
This is so funny. As we were texting, my friend Lloyd just texted me about Alex, a compliment about Alex, the same guy referring to this.
Just out of the blue just now?
Out of the blue at 12:49. This is— it's 12:52 right now. He just— he just texted me a thing about how Alex just gave him some great advice, which is pretty funny. That's hilarious. That's pretty awesome. Did you— their seminar business. So basically, well, a lot of people don't know this, but Acquisition.com either buys or invests in companies, whatever, pretty normal. But they also have like a seminar business, which is like on paper, if you were to think about it, like the worst business to be in.
Oh, you, you're selling your time for money.
Yeah. Yeah. They own UFC's old headquarters and people spend $5,000 or $10,000 to come for a 3-day like seminar. And, uh, according to Alex, but also I just like ran the math and you could like see like the schedule, how full it is. I think that thing is killing it.
So that was my runner-up takeaway, which is turn your— there's a business, a more practical business lesson. Turn your cost centers into profit centers. So he said two things about this. The first is the, on the workshops that you're talking about or the seminars. So he was like, well, we're doing acquisition.com and we're, because of that, we're talking to all these companies and we're diligencing all these deals. And I'm basically, that's a big cost to me, right? I'm paying— I have a team of people that's diligencing all these businesses. We meet the entrepreneur, we ask them a bunch of questions, we dig into their business, and, you know, we're only doing one deal out of every so many, right? So he's like, all the others are just the cost of doing business, and it's costing me a few million dollars a year. So he has the idea, like, how do I turn my cost center into a profit center? So he's like, well, let me just try this. So he says, all right, I'm going to invite whatever, 50 entrepreneurs out to our headquarters, come spend 2 days with us. We will dig into your business. We'll learn what's working, what's not working, and we'll help you sort of unblock. And like, you know, maybe if you're a great fit, like, you know, we should have a conversation. But like, this is really about understanding what's going on in your business, how to unblock you. Okay. So that's what they did. And basically he turned a thing that was losing him a few million dollars a year of people cost into, I think, like $10 million plus of free cash flow. And he said the same thing about content. He goes, he goes, I don't make content because I enjoy it. I make content because it builds my brand. And I was like, I really, I do it because I enjoy, like, I like doing this. He's like, well, he's like, the way I think about it is this. The old, in the old world, let's say the TV era or the radio era, you had to spend millions of dollars of your money to build your brand in the consumer's mind. The crazy thing about social media is you get paid to build your brand. So he's like, yeah, like I make all this content. I'm building my brand, but I'm making money doing that. So he again, he turned a cost center into a profit center on the content side too.
And he loves it, by the way. He absolutely loves it. I think you and Alex actually have very similar attributes, which is you both like teaching. Yeah. And so like I've been talking to him, I've been buddies with him for a little while and we'll just be talking about what's up, what are you doing? And he's like, oh, I'm making a Google document for my staff on how to sell better or how to do this. Like he loves process and he loves teaching.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, and the part I think he really loves is writing. Um, like I actually like writing out the stuff, like almost in textbook style. All right. Uh, you want to do another one or you want me to go?
Yeah, I do.
Zapier was founded in 2011. Another company, by the way, that was founded way, it's way older than I thought. So Zapier is a company that, um, They now, they're basically an AI company. Like they make ways for you to connect different AI stuff. So like if you're ChatGPT, you could be like, you know, make a, whenever I get a calendar invite, do this and use ChatGPT to do it, whatever. They started in 2011. Now I think they do something like $400 or $500 million a year in revenue and they've only raised $1 million of funding and they founded the company out of Jefferson City, Missouri, which is the capital of Missouri near where I'm from. Smallest town you could think of. It's like nothing. It's like when you think of in the middle of nowhere, Missouri, you're going to think of Jeff City. And I met Wade because years ago I used to host this event called HustleCon. And you spoke there. A bunch of other people spoke there. And Wade showed up. Wade wasn't supposed to speak until like 2 o'clock, and he showed up at like 8 a.m. and him and I sat backstage the entire time. And we— for 2 days, actually, it was a 2-day event. He sat with me the whole time. And the reason he sat with me is I would have all of the speakers come to the green room 2 hours in advance. And I always lied to them. And I think, you know, the story where I would say you have to come for mic check, but of course there is no mic check. The mic works perfectly, but we just wanted to hang out. Like there's no mic check for a conference. Like you just put the lapel on and it works. It works. I would tell people, oh, you have to speak at 3. Make sure you're here at 1 for mic check. The reality was, is I just wanted to hang out with them backstage. And there was one time, like I distinctly remember, it was like Casey Neistat, the founder of WeWork. It was Wade from Zapier and then like the founder of ClassPass and Tucker Max, if you know Tucker Max. And we were like all in a room and I was like, how wild is this? And I wouldn't say a word. I would just listen to all these conversations people were having. And Wade was the one guy who stayed the entire time with me and we just sat and listened to people talking and it was so fun. And that's how I got to know Wade. I had him on the pod last week. Because I wanted to see how he's using AI. And it was crazy, this guy, because he's— Wade's a billionaire. So Wade is probably 35 years old. I think he started the company when he was a senior in college, and I think he graduated college in 2011. Zapier, they did a funding round, I think, 3 years ago at a $6 or $7 billion valuation. I asked them where do they think they're going to be in 5 years? He told me $1 billion in revenue. So the I don't know what that means the company's worth, but I know that it means that on paper he's a billionaire. And I was like, why are you living in Jeff City, Missouri? He was like, well, it's where my family lives and I like it here. And I was like, wait, does anyone know how big of a big shot you are there? He was like, no, the people here don't use Zapier. Why would— like, so they have no idea. And I was like, well, do you have like a fancy house? Like, do you stick out? He's like, no, like no one has any idea. Like, I'm just like a guy. And I thought that it was so cool to see because I was hanging out with Sasha, this guy who started Buck Mason, a very cool brand. I was hanging out with Eric who has founded Ramp and is the hottest thing going. And everyone knows in the tech world what Ramp is, and it's one of the fastest growing companies. And people know Zapier and everything, but they don't know Wade, the founder. And it was so interesting how he was just a guy. It was, and he was just, he was just a guy. That's all he was. And he very had that everyman mentality. Or everyman vibe. And he came on the pod to talk about AI, and he was just like Dharmesh. He was a nerd, like he was in the weeds and he loved it and he was incredibly passionate. And his— he didn't have a fancy webcam. It was him in— it looked like a small, very small office in his house. And it was just totally unassuming. And I loved it. And so I think my biggest takeaway with him was how passionate he was about this game that he turned into a career. And how inspired I was that he was not flexing and he truly like— it was the opposite of Hayes, where— not that Hayes flexes, I mean, where Hayes is just full of energy and he's like, I want to manifest, I want to do this. This was the opposite. It was an introvert, nerdy guy who just did what he loved and it just, it worked out. And he just was really happy-go-lucky. And it was really fun because I'm used to these Hayes guys. I'm not quite, but like these, like alpha, like, let's get it, let's get after life, let's manifest, let's have fun, let's do this. And it's awesome to get the opposite of that because I think when people listen to this podcast, I hope one of the takeaways is that there's a million ways to get done what you want to get done. There's a million ways to achieve your dreams. There's a million ways to get rich. There's a million ways to go to where you want to go and where you want to go can be anywhere. And there's, there are maybe some best practices, but I can give you tons of examples of people doing the exact opposite and they're just as happy and just as effective. So that was my big takeaway with Wade.
I like that. Yeah, there's a, you know, you get to create your own little heaven on earth. And that's one of the cool things when you go and you meet these people, you get to sample what they chose for themselves and you pick up like, ooh, I really want that. Or in some cases, ooh, I really wouldn't want that. You know, there was one guy who won't be, won't be named, not in this trip, but in previous one where this huge house and fancy cars and all this stuff., but also huge headaches with all of that. Oh, I got to get this repaired and this, and then that car got a scratch and then this has this. And it was like, man, you own these things and then they own you. And it's like, oh wow. Definitely for me, that would be a total trap to fall into. Good. I'm glad I saw it firsthand so I can avoid that. Whereas with other people, for them, that is their heaven on earth. They want that. They actually prefer that trade-off of, and so you want to, it's good to sample the different sort of styles so you can get, you know, get a feel for what, what you think is going to work for you. Because I think people have this idea of like, oh, you just got to do what you want. The reality is you don't know exactly what you want until you're even exposed to certain things. And then you sort of develop taste about what it is that you like and what it is that you, how you want to be. Um, you can sort of, you can modify yourself based on, you know, what you're, what you're exposed to.
So you guys know this, but I have a company called Hampton. Joinhampton.com. It's a vetted community for founders and CEOs. Well, we have this member named Lavon, and Lavon saw a bunch of members talking about the same problem within Hampton, which is that they spent hours manually moving data into a PDF. It's tedious, it's annoying, and it's a waste of time. And so Levon, like any great entrepreneur, he built a solution, and that solution is called Moku. Moku uses AI to automatically transfer data from any document into a PDF. And so if you need to turn a supplier invoice into a customer quote or move info from an application into a contract, you just put a file into Moku and it auto-fills the output PDF in seconds. And a little backstory for all the tech nerds out there. Slavon built the entire web app without using a line of code. He used something called Bubble.io. They've added AI tools that can generate an entire app from one prompt. It's pretty amazing, and it means you can build tools like Molkku very fast without knowing how to code. And so if you're tired of copying and pasting between documents or paying people to do that for you, check out Molkku.ai. M-O-L-K-U.ai. All right, back to the pod. Uh, all right, so let's do, um, I'll do Eric Leinman's. So for those who don't know, uh, Ramp is a company that does credit— it's like a basically a credit card for startups. Uh, they're worth something like $10 billion, and I think they do $800 million in revenue. Eric, who's the founder and CEO, is 35 years old, and it's just absolutely breathtaking how fast they've built this company, because I think the company is only 4 or 5 years old. Like, it's brand new still, and my biggest takeaway— I had two takeaways. The first is that he was so nice. So if you Google Eric Lyman nice, there's all these posts that talk about how nice this guy is. But it's very—
you go home and do that. Did you Google Eric Lyman nice?
Well, I was like, surely everyone talks about like— like, he was the kindest person I've ever met. Like, when he looked at me, it was like I was the only one in the world that mattered at that moment. And like, I talked to Ari, I go, Ari, who Ari only talked to him on the cell phone. And I go, Ari, was this guy the nicest guy you've ever met? And he goes, when he talked to me, I fell in love. Like, I, like, I wanted to keep talking to him. He felt— it felt like I was the only one that mattered to him at that moment. And he did such a good job. And like, he wrote a follow-up email and he wrote like, I was truly blessed with— by our conversation. I am so thankful, whatever. He was so nice, but What I found strange was you don't meet people who are nice and intense. And so I asked him a question about something. He goes, look, Ramp is 2,053 days old and we're only just now. And I was like, wait, what did you just say? He goes, yeah, Ramp is 2,053 days old. And I was like, you know exactly to the day how old Ramp is? He goes, yeah, of course. Like, I'm trying to get this done by this amount of time. Like, I know exactly to the day. And I just found it very strange that you can be both incredibly intense at having a company and intense about life and also a very generous, kind, nice person. Those two things typically are not in the same package. And so my big takeaway with Eric was how you can be not a jerk. You don't have to be, you know, a big, like, pumping your chest, big ego, highly confident guy. You can be very soft. You can be really kind., but also a complete killer and savage. It's a weird dichotomy, but you can be both.
Yeah, I talked to him before. I think I've told the story before. I met him many years ago before he ever started Ramp and also super sweet guy. And then what they— the other thing I've said before is I can't believe Ramp won in that same way because at the time I remember that Brex was— Brex looked like the runaway winner. It was the YC company. It was based in Silicon Valley. It had raised a bunch of money. I think it launched earlier than Ramp. And it just seemed like Ramp, this company out of New York, just seemed like the natural second place winner. And, um, instead Ramp has crushed it. And actually Brex is the second place winner in that space or third or whatever.
And he had a whole answer to that. So most people when they start a company, it's like, it was cool, or I had this problem or whatever. He had a 4-point list where it was like, well, uh, 'cause I asked the, I asked the same question. I was like, you know, Brex was already around, this was already around, whatever. And he's like, Well, the Frank Dodd Act or something like that was passed, which meant this, this and this. And that also meant— and then he had like it was a 4-point list and it was incredibly intentional. And he's like, I saw at Capital One it took this many days to approve an account. I figured if we could reduce that to only 7.3 days, and since there's this many potential businesses in the world, if we do that and we do this many businesses per day, it was like incredibly detailed and exact and precise way. Which isn't typically how I think about building a company. A lot of times it's like off energy or like vibes, like this feels a certain way. He did not have that at all. It felt like everything was like, and it was very intense.
Amazing. All right, let me do one now. This is a more practical business one, I'll say.
Was this with your brother-in-law?
Yeah, this is my brother-in-law, Sanjeev. Okay, so this episode, I think this one will have come out already, but in the middle of it, he tells the story where Okay, so the headline of this is this guy, basically my brother-in-law, has built a real estate portfolio. He owns basically over $1 billion of real estate that he accumulated in about 10 years with no outside money. And so, no, like, he had, like, lenders, but no, no investors at the time. He's incredible. He's just, like, an absolute animal at what he does. And I always knew he was smart, and I always knew he was, like, really, uh, like, ambitious and was like, you know, he's just a winner. I— that part I know. I've known the guy for 10-plus years.
So, like, how about the fact that You're as successful as you are and you're, you're, you're second place in your own family.
Maybe third. I think my wife's dad is a pretty amazing guy, too. So, you know, he wins. And not, not, not just the success, but the guy's a saint. So, you know, he wins it in his own way. All right. So what is it about this guy that I picked up? So the, the short version of this story is he, he goes to law school, gets his MBA, first interns with a lawyer. So he's like working on actually the Scott Peterson case, like the Laci Peterson, whatever. And then he meets, but he also interned, he has two internships. So that's one internship. He has a second internship with a real estate guy. He's like, the real estate guy is always, you know, he's, he's at home at a good time. He's in his kid's life. He's got passive income. Like, this seems like the better model. I'll go towards that. So he goes to real estate. Um, he has no money and so he can't buy any real estate. So he starts off as a broker. Um, you know, he does his first deal, makes $60K, but by the time he's like 25, 26, 27, he's making millions of dollars a year as a broker. He would like, he'd be like, cool, you got this empty space? Uh, let me lease it for you. You want to sell this? Let me buy, let me be your buy side broker and your sell side broker and I'll lease it for you. I'll get all three. I'll bag all three commissions. Somewhere along the way, he basically makes a mistake and he's like, yep, this is where, you know, youth catches up, youth and like, you know, ego catches up with you. So there's this one guy who's like expand, he's like a Jack in the Box franchiser. So he's, he's got like, I don't know, 30 Jack in the Boxes or something like that. And so my brother-in-law Sanjeev is doing deal after deal with him. And so finally the guy's just like, or at some point, instead of just leasing the place to him, the guy would say, I want to be over there. So he'd say, okay, cool. I'll buy it. I'll build it for you. And then I'll sell it to you. So I'll buy, I'll develop it and I'll sell it to you. And the guy's like, cool. I want these 20 locations. So he goes and he, he takes out $15 million of debt to go buy 20 locations., like, you know, 3 days after it closes, you know, that guy gets popped for like, he didn't pay his payroll taxes or something. He goes to jail. And so now my brother-in-law's on the hook. He bought, he borrowed $15 million and, uh, now has these like 20 locations or whatever that need to be Jack in the Boxes that the deed is tied to that guy's name. That guy's now in jail. He can't develop them. So he's basically kind of screwed. And, um, you know, he doesn't want to declare bankruptcy. So he decides he's going to try to pay off $15 million, even though he has nothing. And so he's like, okay, how do I do this? So he's, he's just like depressed. And his wife is like, you know what? Like, I don't know. I've never seen you like this. You need to go to the gym. I don't know what we're going to do in business, but just go to the gym so that you, you know, get out of this funk. And he goes to the gym and when he's there, he, um, this guy he always used to see working out there at night. He used to work out at like 11 or midnight at night. Cause like after work he would go there, but today he went there in the daytime. Because he doesn't have shit else to do. And the guy who he always sees working out is like behind the desk. He's like, yo, you work here? He's like, yeah, dude, I own the place. He's like, what? He's like, yeah, come check out the office. And when he's there, the guy tells him like he's ready to sell. He actually wants to sell the business. And my brother-in-law works out a deal to basically buy the business from the guy with no money down because, or a little bit of money down. He pawns his wife's wedding ring and they go all in. At this point, they're living in their like parents' like his old childhood bedroom, and they owe $15 million. And they're like, I don't know how we're going to get out of this pickle, but I'm going to basically— I'll use the cash flow from this gym to just pay the monthly thing we owe, and then we'll try to open up a second gym maybe, and we'll figure out how we do this. Anyways, he ends up building like the largest private gym chain, 82 gyms in California.
By the way, is your brother-in-law like really— is he jacked?
Yeah, he was one of the first like Indian bodybuilders basically in college. He was going to go pro and then like You know, he decided not to, like, go full on. But yeah, he was, he was huge before. He's big now, but he's like, oh, this is, this is the deflated version of me. And I was like, wow, that's, that's crazy. So again, whatever this guy chooses, he does with, like, crazy intensity. So with real estate, I was like, so how did you— okay, all that you told me so far is the gym business. Like, how did you do the real estate side? So this is the business lesson. So he's like, you know, along the way, when I would go lease these gyms, I realized I had a little bit of leverage, right? I'm coming in. I'm as the, like, the big tenant in the shopping center. And so I just added to the lease an option to buy. And he's like, I just added a no-risk option where I have the option to buy within 5 years or whatever. I can buy this at $4 million. And at the time that sounded like a high price for the guy. So the guy had no problem putting it in, free option. And he's like, and by the way, I have no money and no plans of how I would ever buy this place, but why not? Why not take an asymmetric bet where I have no downside, but I have possible upside. And so his start in real estate was he's working at the gym and a guy comes in to buy the building and the guy assumes that he owns the building, which he didn't. And he's like, we would make an offer somewhere around the ballpark of $7 million.
Oh, got it.
And so he's like, oh, amazing. And he's like, cool, I have an option to buy this for 4, but I don't have any money, so I actually cannot physically buy this, but I'll do a double escrow. So if you agree to buy it on this date, It basically is like, I'll sell this to you for 7. I'll take the 7. I'll give this guy 4. So I'll own the place and then I'll buy this and then I'll sell you this thing and I'll keep $3 million as my profit.
It's the old, uh, hey, uh, mom says I can go if you say yes, or she'll say yes if you say yes.
Right? Exactly. And so he got his, the entire empire that he built was because he baked in one asymmetric bet, one no-risk option. I thought that was kind of inspiring. Like, you know, and he, by the way, he probably had 10 of these that didn't pan out. But the one that did got him his start. He took that $3 million and then he used that to buy and buy and flip, buy and flip, buy and flip, buy and flip. But he compounded that over 10 years into $1 billion of real estate from that one option. And I just thought that was just like an incredible lesson or takeaway to have. And by the way, now, so I invest with him now. So, um, I'm able to like, it's probably my biggest investment of the past 2 years has been investing in his deals. And I'm just getting incredible returns. And one of the reasons why is because he keeps doing the same model. So he just— he's the master of de-risking. So he goes into a— let's say there's a shopping center with like, you know, 2 big vacancies. So he'll— while he's putting it under purchase contract, he already has leased it. He has a signed lease and a signed purchase contract. So the same day we buy, he has the tenant in place and he sells the thing. And so we get these incredible returns because he's de-risking all these properties so far in advance. It's like a such a like the same. It's like, you know, you find one unfair advantage and then you just keep playing it.
Does he have an awesome house?
Oh, he's got a crazy house. His house is crazy.
Real estate guys always have obviously amazing houses.
There's one other little hack that he had that I liked. I think there's another tidbit I think people can take. So I was like, when he's doing these things, I'm like, dude, how do you do this? Like, you were buying these properties there, you know, maybe there's a vacancy or whatever. And like, how are you cutting these deals beforehand to get them, you know? Oh, I know the buyer at Trader Joe's. I know the buyer at whatever, Chipotle. I know the buyer, the real estate guy at this place, and I'll get it under contract. And he's like, oh, it's just relationships. He always just said this vague word. Oh, it's, you know, real estate's a relationship business. And I hate answers like that that sound like general. And so I dug in with him and I was like, I was like, tell me how you approach this idea of relationships. And he said this great thing. He was like, you know, if you think about the word commercial real estate, it sounds like this vast universe, like this huge industry, right? He's like, the trick is how do you make a big thing feel small? Like, how do you break it down into an achievement, like into a chunk that you could actually you know, you could actually digest. So he's like, kind of— he's like, one day I sat down with a piece of paper and I realized, all right, who do I— who's my ideal person to know? He's like, well, it's a national retailer who's still expanding and growing, and they don't want to own their own real estate because I'm a developer. I want to own the real estate. I want to lease it to them. And he's like, once I did that, I realized there's actually like, I don't know, 150 names. And he's like, I took this big idea of commercial real estate, which felt like an ocean. And he's like, I turned it into like a little goldfish pond. 150. He's like, I could, I could fit 150 people in this room. I could meet 150 people over the next 2 years if I tried. And I could form a relationship with them and I could, they could, I could get so that they know me and I know them and they'll call me and I'll call them when we have something that fits. And that's literally what he did. And I just thought that was like a great, like, I don't know how, I don't know where else you could do that in other businesses, but I suspect that that idea of taking something big but then reframing it and realizing it's actually much smaller and more achievable than you think is, is probably something that applies to a lot of businesses.
Is he a billionaire or billionaire-ish?
I would say like ish, not, not, not there himself. Right. Because, you know, if you own $1 billion of real estate, in his case, I think like 40 or 50% is equity and the other half is like debt. So, you know, on paper, you know, that's whatever, that's, let's say, $500 million. I don't know. I'm just— I don't know his actual thing, to be clear, but like hundreds of millions of dollars net worth.
Of the 6 people that we talked about, 5 of them are there or give or take, give or take there. And I just think that that's— I think it's crazy. I think it's crazy. I don't know how many billionaires are in the world, 5 or 10,000. I'm not sure. Whatever is like Forbes has, I would like multiply it by like some number. And it's crazy that over the past 10 days we hung out with 5 of them or something like that and get to learn from these people. And again, I don't, I'm almost embarrassed when I say the name My First Million because what I tell people, I'm like, you know, it's actually, it's not always about money. It's actually about like things greater than that. And because I do think life's richer than just money, but it is interesting to be able to rub shoulders with people who are in the 0.001% of their field. And it's it's— we're lucky.
Yeah. And also, like, I think now we're a little bit like, oh, you know, it's not about the money. But like, us 10 years ago, very much—
it is about the money.
One of the main goals was like, yo, get that money, get that money, and then figure out that money doesn't make you happy. You know, sure, I believe you. It's not the end-all be-all, but I still want it. I'm still going to try to get it. I'm still going to try to make it happen. It's definitely awesome. It's definitely— yeah, exactly. It definitely seems pretty great to have. I'd rather have it than not have it. And, uh, so, you know, I think as much as we're like, oh, you know, like, I think both are true. Like, it is true that there's a lot more to life, but also to these people and like, you know, you pick up a bunch of different things, but also it is kind of crazy to, to, to make that happen. And, um, it's fun also to make that happen. You know, if, if, if business is your sport, well, how are points tallied? They're tallied in dollars, right?
There's a guy, um, I don't pay attention to golf, but I'm sure you do. But do you know Scottie? Is it Schaefer? Scheffler?
Scheffler.
He won. What did he win this weekend? The US Open or something?
The US Open.
Yeah. I don't know anything about sports, but I know that I saw like his 1-year-old kid, like crawling up the green to give him a hug and a kiss after he won. So I guess Scottie, like, won. He set the trophy on the ground and his kid crawls up to, to, to play with the trophy. And Nike took out this amazing ad.
So good.
The best ad ever. It was a 2-page ad or 2 like swipes on Instagram. The first one, It says a picture of Scotty holding his son and it says, you've already won. And then the second slide is, but another major doesn't hurt. Doesn't hurt. And I think that's, that's kind of like the takeaway here is like, yeah, it feels good to like, I've won already. Like I have a loving family. I feel secure. It doesn't hurt to, you know, succeed a little more. And I thought that was such a great ad. And I thought that was kind of a representation of this episode. That was a beautiful ad, wasn't it?
Uh, it was pretty good. Um, all right. That was a good episode. That's it. 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.
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