I Did Nothing For 2 Weeks. It Made Me Better At Everything.

You know, I have a soft spot in my heart for immigrants.

You do love immigrants, dude.

Yeah, like Korean store owner energy.

So it's almost racist how much you love immigrants.

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.

Dude, what's going on? I haven't seen you in about 2 weeks. I had a baby, and so I took about 2 weeks off. You were doing some family stuff. What's going on?

Let's talk about your baby first, 'cause it's much happier. I went to my grandpa's funeral, so let's not start with the saddest news possible. Tell me about the baby.

Yeah, so like we were due, I think on the 20th. On the 13th or the 12th or something like that, my wife was like, I don't want to freak you out. And it was 10:00 PM at night. She's like, my water just broke.

Dude, what an unbelievable sentence. She didn't want to freak you out. She's so considerate as her water broke. That's unbelievable. That's the most Sarah thing I've ever heard.

And so we went to the hospital, we gave birth, she gave birth. It was—

Don't put, don't bring that we shit in here, okay? This is a space for realness.

It was great for me. No big deal. I mean, I was exhausted and I complained about it for a week, but I took, I took 2 weeks off and it got me thinking.

But wait, before we even get there, I need to know birthing situation. What's your role? What are you doing? Are you a hand holder? Are you a coacher? Are you off to the side? Are you the cameraman? What are you doing?

She had to get a C-section. So like, I don't do anything.

So you're out of the room.

Yeah. So I eventually came in the room and she was like, they give her medication that like makes her shake or whatever. And so I was basically just like rubbing her face and calming her down. But my wife is very stoic. So I've been lucky.

I don't even know how to do things like that. Like sometimes I'm put in a situation, I'm like, oh, I need, this is where I'm supposed to be comforting. And I'm like, I realized I've never once done that. And so then, you know, like the— it's like when you swing a tennis racket, you're— the pressure's all off. You don't really know like how much force to apply, how much not to. Like, why is my hand so sticky right now?

Like, it's terrible. When I got engaged, I was like— I like started to put my knee down to the ground. I'm bad on the back, we'll be fine.

It's like the little things that you've never practiced, that, that lunge, and then giving a speech upwards. It's like a very strange thing.

Yeah, like, can we just hand shake.

Hey, put her there. Yeah, we did a pinky promise and that's held true. My brother-in-law, uh, when my sister was giving birth, she like had like a longer labor, like it was like— so it was like taking a while. And then, you know, she like looks over at one point and he's like asleep, he's like napping on the couch in the room. And she was like, hey, hey, get your ass up. He's like, oh sorry, I'm just like so, so stressed and tired. And she was like, you're so stressed. And just the like the venom, pure venom in situation. It was too much for him.

Yeah. There's this funny joke. It's like, I'm so happy that women have to go through hours and hours of labor and pain so they can finally experience the pain that a man feels when he has a cold. But like, I've— we have two children now. I've experienced this, that basically, you know, we are all built for things and sometimes we rise to the occasion and women just somehow like can fight like being tired and in pain, whereas I'm just gonna complain if I get anything less than 7 hours, uh, a night of sleep. So like, yeah, women kind of become like superheroes during that, uh, those moments. And, and I'm happy that she did that. So everyone's healthy and happy. I'm feeling great. I took 2 weeks off and I was like chomping at the bit to get back to it after like honestly 4 days.

Like I need a Zoom call. Someone hit me with a Zoom call today. What were we chomping at the bit to do exactly?

Like, you know, a newborn child doesn't do anything. They just sleep.

And I'm so happy you're bored. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, I'm so happy I get to experience with her. But then in this particular case, we have a 2-year-old, and so I get to spend time with her, taking her to her classes and being like, just so you know, I love you so much and like, you're important even though all this new stuff is happening. And so that like touched my heart and I'm so happy I had that. But I didn't need more than 2 weeks. 2 weeks is more than enough. Did you agree?

Yeah, 100%. Here's again, this is a zone of truth.

So here's— yeah, let's, let's, let's clip this. This is going to be a ragebait clip that's going to go viral on a tech bro's opinion on maternity leave. Go.

Let me tell you how it actually is. Childbirth from the man's perspective. First of all, I would say a couple of things. There's— seems like there's two groups of people. There's the people who touch their baby, hold their baby for the first time, and their life is changed and the endorphins kick in. And there's like this entire, like, you know, inner spiritual awakening. Didn't happen for me. It doesn't happen for a lot of people. Took— it takes me like 15 months to love a baby. I care for the baby before then. I wish the baby well. I want no harm to be done to the baby. But do I crave like holding and touching and like, you know, doing the things my wife loves about a baby? She's like, oh, the smell. I'm like, the smell? I don't even smell the baby. What do you mean? Why are you sniffing the baby?

Can I save you? You love your baby, but you may not be in love with them.

I mean, that might be a little generous.

All right.

I was just trying to toss you a lifeline. I cared for the baby. I wanted to love the baby, but I didn't actually feel anything for like 15 months. But then, by the way, like, after that, it's— I'm all in. It's an incredible experience. And like, my kids are— I have a 1.5-year-old, 4-year-old, and a 6-year-old. And like, you know, I can't get enough now. But that same, like, can't get enough feeling, I didn't have that as a newborn. But kind of normal from the man's perspective, I think. The second thing is paternity leave. A little bit confusing. What I actually think is useful, take the week off before birth. To like do little stuff around the house, just be there, be a calming presence, and like kind of like, I don't know, take the load of everyday life off of, you know, your partner before birth. I think that's actually really useful. Then, you know, the first week or so, the first few days, just you wanna have a calendar clear 'cause you never know what's gonna happen in a birth. Like, you never know what's going on. After that, you're really kind of like not that, not particularly useful, I would say, or like I felt this way, I wasn't particularly useful and kind of wish, and I ended up doing this with my other kids, like, you know, plan time that's like more intermittent at other intervals. So there's like, let's say the 2 weeks, kind of week before the birth, week after the birth, that's a good window. Then there's kind of like 2 weeks, let's say around month 3 or 4, where sometimes you get a sleep regression or you get other things. And so spreading out the paternity, I think is very useful. When you just sit there sort of like at this, the baby's an inanimate object at the beginning and doesn't really do a lot. Naps a ton, and like, assuming, you know, health went well, knock on wood, there's not a whole lot to do. So I kind of agree with you that initial paternity leave is a lot of like nervous energy and not a lot of like productive help.

Yeah, and it made me realize that like taking time off and like vacationing and going somewhere is kind of like lame compared to taking time off and just sitting at home and walking around your town. Like that's actually kind of like a special feeling. It honestly felt like a, like a, a week mini retirement. Because I was like, I really like putt around in the morning and not rush, right? All right. I read a ton. I would say almost a book a week. And the reason I read so much is because my philosophy towards reading is I want to see what worked for the winners that I love and what strategies they use. And then I want to see what mistakes did they all make? What were the common flaws that they all had? And I just want to avoid that. And so HubSpot asked me to put together a list of the books that have changed my life so far in 2025, and I did that. And so I listed out 7 books that made a meaningful difference in my life, and I explained what the differences that they had on me or what actions I took because of the book. And then also I listed out my very particular ways of reading because I'm pretty strategic about how I read and how I read so much and how I remember what I read and things like that. And so I put this together in a very simple guide. It's 7 books that had a huge impact on my life, and you can scan the QR code below if you wanna read it, or there's a link. You guys know what to do. There's a link in the description. Just go ahead and click it and you'll see the guide that I made. So it's the 7 books that had a massive change in my life this year so far, and then also how I'm able to read so much. So check it out below. Dude, have you ever read— have I told you about Aristotle? Like, I've been interested in some of his work lately.

You haven't told me about Aristotle. Go, go, go on.

So Stoicism gets a lot of the credit right now. Stoicism's quite popular. Yeah.

So hot right now.

Yeah, so Marcus Aurelius is the edekai at the moment, but Aristotle is one of the folks who influenced a lot of these guys. And I'm probably gonna get a lot of it wrong, so spare me in the comments. But basically, like, what I've been obsessed with, this idea that he has, is this idea of flourishing. And so I think the Greek word of it is eudaimonia, and it's this idea of that, like, there's like 12 or 14 virtues. And so like, in order to be courageous, which is one of his virtues, on the right-hand side is, uh, reckless, like being reckless. And then on the left-hand side is basically being like a pussy. I don't know the right word, uh, but like being soft. Timid. Yeah. Being timid. And the middle part is courageous. And then there's like 14 of them, which is like to be charitable, you want to, you, there's like—

Oh, that's kind of cool. So it has the extremes where the virtue becomes a vice on either side, right? Like the overdoing it and then underdoing it.

or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I really like that. I, I think I'm pretty poor at one thing you said in there, which is just making time to think. Like, if I look at my calendar, I do have a lot of leisure time. I play the piano, go do a tennis lesson, I'll go play basketball, I'll do my workout, I'll play with my kids. I do a lot of other stuff besides work. So I get this kind of like, you know, fun life, maybe harmonious life, maybe a balanced life. But what I don't do is I don't actually spend a lot of time in silence and like dedicated think time. And I've been trying to get better at this, but in trying to get, you know, when you try to get better at something, you actually, the first realization is how far you have to go, like how, how poor you actually are. It's sort of like flexibility, you know, it's not really top of mind until somebody says, oh, can you do this test? And then you realize like, oh my God, no, I'm not even close. That's how I am about think time. I don't know about you, but like I would say in the past decade, The amount of dedicated time that I plan to think, like, I'm like, oh, I'm not, I'm just actively not going to do something right now. I'm not going to fill it with something else. That was like zero. I honestly think it was zero for like a de— the last decade of my life. I don't think I ever actually consciously spent, uh, think time. Now, I would think when I was driving, I would think of something in the shower, but this is like an accident. It's a happy accident. Uh, my brain was probably like, oh dude, we've got these thoughts queued up. We've been waiting to have a moment here. Where you're not stuffing in new stuff into your brain through your phone, through your TV, through your computer, through a meeting, through a— through doing something, through reading, whatever it was. And so dedicated think time, I think, is extremely underrated. I, I'm, I think I'm at the beginning part of that curve where I'm just starting to do it and I'm just realizing, oh man, this is like so obvious. And I really didn't— wasn't doing this before. I remember when we met Tim Ferriss, I asked him something. I was like, what does Tim Ferriss do day to day? He's like, oh dude, this is like the question I get a lot. Like, what is my daily routine? And he's like, I think people expect like a really awesome answer. He's like, I've actually been asked like for like a writer from some magazine, like, hey, we want to follow you for a day and write a profile, or if we want to film like a one-day documentary of Tim Ferriss day in the life. And he's like, I've always said no. Not just because I like privacy. He's like, but because it would be incredibly boring. He's like, I, he's like, you know, I wake up and I I sort of, I stretch, I'll drink some tea, you know, I sit down. He's like, I kind of putter around for quite a while, and I have like long periods of time of inaction where I'm just trying to think of what is it that I really want to do and what is it that I actually should do in this situation? How do I want to approach this? Do I really want to do this? And I actually like spend time with my thoughts. I remember hearing that and being like, I don't do none of that stuff. It's like when you hear like a really productive manager talk about how they like all the thoughtful things they do to manage their employees. And you're like, ooh, I just had a pizza party like a month ago. I thought that was good. I thought that was enough.

I think that you said something funny about shower thoughts. I don't think a lot of people realize that you can help engineer breakthroughs. I think that there's things in your life that you could do to, yeah, engineer breakthroughs. And I've been thinking about what that is. For me, it's been slow mornings. So I try my hardest to get up earlier than I actually have to because I like just to like walk around and drink coffee and then I'll wake children up or then I'll exercise. But like literally just 30 minutes just to poke around. I like working out, so I have breakthroughs on working out. I have breakthroughs when I'm journaling, I have breakthroughs when I'm reading, and I have breakthroughs when I have organized times of talking with people but without an agenda. So like, I'll like have someone like interesting at my office because they're in town. I'm like, I don't know, man. Just like, let's just riff for 30 minutes. What's your story? And or like what you've done, you had a breakthrough when you started the Milk Road after you went to a conference on a topic that had nothing to do with your interest. Yeah, but like, this is why conferences are great. This is why I hope Hampton is great. This is why sometimes people like, they get this a little bit through listening to our podcast where they like kind of feel like they're around us, but like talking to other people and just listening to their opinion without an agenda, I think is another great way to have a breakthrough.

Yeah, I've been writing. I told you I was writing this book and the premise of the book was I got really— it happened accidentally. I started— it was embarrassing. I was trying to be funnier as therefore I started studying comedy, which is like not really What I think any funny person has ever done. So probably not the best way to do it. But I got really into Seinfeld. And then through that, I was like, wow, this guy's not just about comedy, but like, this guy's got like a way of working that is really interesting. An approach, a mindset, and a day, literally like a set of daily habits that are pretty admirable. And I started studying other great people. Like, how do all the great ones work? How do all of them actually, like, what are the habits of the great people who've done great things? Because I want to be a great person who does great things. Anyways, along the way, one of the things that surprised me, right, which I think when you're researching anything, it's the surprises that you look for. Um, one of the things that surprised me was how much engineered rest matters. So I'll just give you like 3 like quick ones on this. So Aaron Sorkin, who wrote, you know, West Wing and The Social Network, like this great, you know, Hollywood scriptwriter or whatever, when he's writing a script, he takes 8 showers a day. He says like he will just keep showering. He's like, because I have my best thoughts in the shower. There's all the science about why warm water and relaxed environment, no reactions, why this is actually, like, quite a good way to, like, let your brain sort of, um, you know, let the muscles relax a little bit and how you come up with more out-of-the-box ideas. It's also just a reset. Like, every time he gets stuck, he goes and showers, and it gets— he quickly gets through the plateau because he does that. Um, Einstein used to— do you know about Einstein's boat?

No, no, I, I wouldn't have, uh, pegged Einstein as a boater.

He was a prolific boater to the point where the Coast Guard had a lot of problems with Einstein. So what Einstein would do is in the middle of the day, Einstein would basically get on, like, a tiny little boat and he would just float. It was a no-motor boat. He would just like float away into the, into the, to the sea. And he would stay there for hours and he would stay there because he's like, I do my best thinking out here in the sea. And I would, and he would do it aimlessly in the afternoons. And the Coast Guard was really worried because they're like, dude, you don't have a motor attached to your boat. How are you going to get back if the tide like pulls you too far? And he's like, you know, the further the better was basically like his quote around what he wanted to do. And that's where he did most of his quality thinking. I was telling my wife this, and she goes, oh yeah, at work we had this lady come in, this neuroscientist, and she told us you do your best thinking in motion or in water. This is why so many people walk and why they swim. Pavel Durov was on Lex Fridman, talks about how he goes for 4-hour swims because he does his best thinking when he's swimming. And that's one of his routines. Like, it's great. I get fitness and I get thinking at the same time. He's like, guess what? You can't be on your phone when you're in the middle of a lake for 4 hours. Like, you know, you're just— you're out there. Another one, Darwin. Darwin used to go for these walks, and whenever he was noodling on a problem, Oh, I got a problem. Go for a walk, which is, I think, not really how most people in today's age solve their problems. I think they stare at their screen and like sit there and kind of just sit in a stationary position, try to like get through it. And you produce pretty low quality ideas when you do that. But what Darwin would do is he would get up, he would go for a walk, and he used to walk these laps. And every lap he would like kick a stone at the same spot. He would like knock one stone off where his starting point was. And he would talk about his problems as like four stone problems. 5-stone problems. Like, he could measure—

difficulty of the problem by how many stones it took, how many laps it took of him walking before he felt like he had like kind of like made headway on the problem. And so this idea of engineered rest, which looks incredibly unproductive when you're doing it, right? Like taking a nap, you know, somebody, so many of the great inventors and artists did these like quick mini 20-minute naps. There's all this science behind why that works. And so, you know, these mini naps or going for walks or going for a swim, it literally looks like you're not working. It looks like you're being a lazy bastard. But like, if you look at how the great ones actually work, this is part of their productivity routine and it looks completely unproductive.

6 or 12 months ago, you were debating on like a big project. You're like, I'm being pulled in a variety of directions and I can't decide what I want to do, but my heart is telling me to do something creative, almost like a play. And I was like, oh, that sounds pretty badass. That sounds amazing. And it sounds like, uh, I don't think a book on creativity was even on the list, but that actually sounds even more badass than all these because you're describing this and I'm like, I want this book. I need this. Not only do I want this, I'm like, I have problems. Uh, I should go for a 3-stone walk and like, give me more tips and tricks on how to solve, uh, my problems and how I can think better. Tell me about the book. So how many pages, like, is this going to be like a 200 and 300 or 400 page book? Or is this like a—

So the premise of what I'm doing, I guess this will be my announcement.

No, we'll do a whole podcast dedicated to the announcement.

And is it, are you going to go through a publisher or self-publish?

I don't know yet. Uh, it doesn't really matter. All that matters right now is make one amazing book. Like, can't really, like, anything else doesn't really matter. It's like one book that I am like, oh man, if I read this, this would go in my like kind of top shelf. This would be like my, one of my favorite books because it actually like, you know, resonated with me and the stories were really dope. Made me laugh. You know, that's— those are some of the goals with, with how I do this.

If I had to bet, this is going to be the most successful thing you've ever done, because my instinct— and I don't want to do this right now— but is to like, oh, can you just tell me all of the things that you learned from Rick Rubin, all these people? Like, it's like I want to apply this immediately. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I could and I will tell you all those things. But yeah, I think it's going to be great. Like, I honestly, like the way I have this really— I try to when I do a project, I try to find like a kind of 3-word, almost like North Star or campaign slogan for myself. Just like as I wander through the idea and you start to go down different little rabbit holes and you hit little bumps and bruises, you sort of need something to come back to. And mine for this is create the TED for books. So like, I don't know, TED today is not as cool as it was, but when I was younger, TED was the shit. Like TED Talks, TED videos, like those were amazing. And what they did—

You go into a TED event? Going to a TED event was like, like I just imagined myself like, I'm going to be hobnobbing with like the president of America. I'm going to be like Bill Gates. Like, it was like an honor.

And what they did was they created a format. So they're like, yo, here's what we're going to do. 18-minute talks that are on this kind of beautiful stage. And it's going to be a certain quality of person who comes at you with one big idea, one kind of like either counterintuitive idea or one powerful idea. And then the mission was ideas worth sharing, right? And like, I actually fuck with that. I think that's actually like incredible. And although TED has kind of fallen off, it did help me because as I'm doing this, I'm like, all right, well, I'm trying to find the best ideas worth sharing and I want to create a format that's consistent and like a proposition. I'm going to spend literally 10,000 hours researching this and I'm going to give you all of the best stories and ideas structured together in a 1-hour book. Like 10,000 hours of my time for 1 hour of your time is like just an incredible trade that I think anybody should make. 'Cause I'm like going all in on this. And so I've been working on this for like a year now and it's tough, man. It's a hard thing to do, but I think it's coming out pretty good.

What makes— so I always hear people say writing a book is hard. Tim Ferriss was like, I don't wish it on my worst enemy. And I'm like, really? I mean, I've never done it, but I'm like, this sounds pretty great. You just spend all this time thinking and writing and you get like 2 years to do it. That sounds lovely. But what are the downsides?

Well, I mean, there's a ton of downsides. You do— you don't do this if you're looking for anything quick. You don't do this if you're looking for a high chance of success. So like the two things I think most people want, it's like a high chance of success and for it to happen fast. I mean, books are, you know, they go the exact opposite way. It's typically a 1 to 2 year process, sometimes 5. You know, George R.R. Martin sitting there still trying to write a book for like 13 years. So, you know, these books are— they take a long time, very low odds of success. And even when they do succeed, it's nothing compared to like if I went and built a company or like in my portfolio right now, there's things that are far more, far easier, far more valuable to do. Podcasts, far easier, far more valuable to do than, than to write a book. You don't write the book for other people. You write the book for yourself, I think is the only way to do it. And I think one of the great things that happened when I talked to some people who, who, you know, I've talked to people for advice. Is they go, look, 100 people come to me because, oh, you wrote a bestseller, people want to ask you about a book. And they say, everybody wants to have written a book, nobody wants to write a book. And so the very first thing is you got to figure out, like, do you want to have written a book or do you want to write a book? That's why I chose a subject that basically is like currently fascinating to me and applies to my— I get to be the lab rat of doing the things that are in the book, like using the actual principles, because it's like what I needed. It's the book I needed right now, even though it's probably not the thing I know the most about or it's the most relevant or the most marketable or any those other possible factors.

Dude, this is badass. This is so exciting. And it feels— I don't think you— I've heard you light up about a project for a while.

Well, I was, I was looking for a challenge. You know that. I was looking for a challenge. I was looking for something that's new. That's something that's hard for me. This is like the opposite of my— I'm an improv guy. I'm a quick guy. I'm an unscheduled guy. I'm like, that's what I've known and that's what I've done well with. So this is like very different. It's like requires consistency, requires sitting down every single day and like don't miss a day. Type of mentality, which is good. It's also what I needed to get in shape. It's also what I need to do to learn the piano. Like all the things I'm trying to do right now, they all require the same set of muscles internally to go and actually succeed in them. Also, the other thing that's, that's hard about it is when you do things that are like, I'm going to make 100 of these, any one doesn't matter. But with a book, you're like, I'm going to make one. I'm going to make this one book and it's going to be what it's going to be. The level of internal pressure you put on yourself to make it great and to be like, no, no, I got to get this right. I don't get to— it's not like, oh, I'll just get started and then we'll iterate from there. It doesn't really work that way. You want to put one great thing out. There's a craftsman-like nature to that. And there's something cool about that constraint that you're only going to make— like, you're only going to really write this thing once. So you better do it the best you possibly could because it's not something where you're going to get 100 shots on goal at the same idea.

I could never do this, or maybe I would one day, but like, when I— the best books that I read, like, I think Ron Chernow is one of my favorite authors. He wrote Titan, which is the story of John Rockefeller. He wrote Hamilton, which became Hamilton, and he's written one on Mark Twain and a couple others. And it's these biographies. He's a biographer. Same with Robert Greene. If you ever read Robert Greene, it's like every sentence is packed with like every sentence is very purposeful. And it's not even the—

it's—

and all those, those two authors, they're not particularly easy to read, but every sentence is full of stuff. And it's like 1,000 or 800 pages and I'm just like in awe. It's sort of like when you go to Yosemite for the first time and you see like Half Dome and you're like, I can't believe that something is this big and beautiful. And I don't even like the outdoors. And when I read like every once in a while, I've read a book where I'm like, this is like a religious experience, not necessarily because of the content, but because of how much effort this person put into it. And it's just, it's a marvel. When I think about Harry Potter, I'm like, How on earth did this one lady invent this world? She literally invented a language. And I don't even like Harry Potter, but I'm like, in awe of this.

That's another example of you get your best ideas in motion or in water. The idea for Harry Potter sort of drops into her head when she's on a train ride. She's like in motion and sitting there and idle and doesn't have internet access and can't do 10 other things. There's nothing else you could do when you sit on a train except for think. And that's when your brain is open for, for, you know, creative inspiration.

Do you think that doing deep work is good— is harder today than it was before the internet? Because when you're talking about writing a book, I'm like, I struggle to get people to quit messaging me, and I like— and I'm absolutely addicted to my notifications. Like, I can't have an unread text message, but then I have text, Slack, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, email.

Well, let me give you— let me give you one of the quotes. I think there's going to be at the— in, in one of the, the first few pages of the book. So Shonda Rhimes who is, you know, a prolific creator, right? So she's, you know, Netflix gave her $100 million, not for stuff she's already made, but just to make new things. Like, you're getting paid $100 million for your reputation, your ability to create great, great stuff in the future. And so, you know, she created Bridgerton and Grey's Anatomy and a bunch of other hit shows. Okay.

She lived in my little town of Westport.

It gives me goosebumps.

They just keep going and they go, they go through the 5 miles and get to the door.

Yeah, they sit down more and they stick with it. They're able to face their own mediocrity and tolerate it much longer than you can.

I love that. I mean, this type of stuff just fires me up. So that's great. I love that.

It's great, man. I like when I read that, I was like, so good.

I was like, you just might have got yourself quoted in the book, my friend.

Yeah. I was like, hey, if you You actually Google Sam Parker, Crowdstonation. I wrote, I wrote an article about it, but I was like, to my wife, I was like, yeah, Sarah, like, get off my back.

Doing my life's work over here. She's like, you're on Twitter.

Repeat after me, Sarah. Life's work. Not take trash out. It didn't land. Just, I just printed off this article. I slid it her way during dinner and I'm like, read that.

That's amazing. Today's episode is brought to you by HubSpot because using only 20% of your business data is like dating somebody who only texts you in emojis. First of all, that's annoying. And second, you're missing a lot of the context. But that's how most businesses are operating today. They're only using 20% of their data unless you use HubSpot. That's when all your emails, your call logs, your chat messages, they turn into insights to help you grow your business because all that data makes all the difference. Learn more at hubspot.com. I do wanna share a thing that I think you'll appreciate. I didn't plan to share this, but I think you'll appreciate it. So I'll say it. So as you know, my grandfather died. He's 98 years old.

Was he in America?

In America. He lives in D.C. And so I flew to D.C. and we go to the funeral and, you know, funerals are— they are what they are. They're sad. But, you know, I think 98 years old, he had a great life. He was healthy for almost all— almost to the very end.

Are Indian funerals like traditional American funerals, or do you guys like ham it up like you do your weddings?

They do cremation. And there's also some, like, I don't know, parts that you're like, is this what we're supposed to be doing right now? Like, they basically have, like, the casket. This is kind of too much info, but, like, they have the casket or whatever. And I think, like, an American— I don't know really exactly what happens at American funerals, but I would assume, like, you sort of, you go, you sort of give your thoughts and prayers, whatever. You maybe put a flower down or something like that. At any funeral, right before they have the kind of the send-off, the final thing right before cremation, The guy like breaks out like a gallon of milk, a bunch of like food, and like you basically pour all this stuff on top of the body. It's like, feels like completely blasphemous. And I was, I like put like a drop. He's like, no, no, no, the whole gallon. And I was like, what?

Grandpa's thirsty, Sean.

Pouring milk all over this man? This is ridiculous. So that part was a little bit strange, but the rest was, I would say, you know, normal. And people gave, you know, their eulogies and whatnot. So my dad goes up there and gives a speech. And my dad had told me this story before, and you just had a kid. And so this is kind of for all the dads out there. So the best thing my grandpa ever did as a dad, um, which I'm going to steal and I think others should steal it too. Um, so my dad and my family, my dad's family grew up like dirt, dirt poor India, like middle of nowhere. It's like, you know, you go on Google Maps, you gotta like zoom in, pinch to zoom 3 times to even see the little town that my dad grew up in. And like somehow my dad, like, you know, was born there and now like 60-something years later, he's got like a mansion in San Francisco and like an iPhone in his pocket. It's like kind of like crazy that like that, that kid ends up doing this. This doesn't really make a lot of sense.

Okay. So like imagine your dad being like, my son is going to be a famous YouTuber in America. You know what I mean? Like, all right, he's going to be writing books on creativity. It's a wild journey.

He's going to get paid millions of dollars to talk. It doesn't make any sense. So how do you get from there to there? And so he was, he was telling the story. He's like, you know, we grew up like we couldn't afford anything. Like, you know, we, he's like, I hadn't seen a movie till, you know, movies existed. I hadn't seen one until I was 16. And you know, the day we went, we got one bottle of Coca-Cola and split it amongst like the, you know, 4 kids type of deal. Like it was like, that was like a highlight of my childhood. Like I still remember that memory today. Anyways, one of the things that he says that his dad did for him, he goes, my dad gave me, he goes, he didn't have money, couldn't give me fancy anything, right? Couldn't send me to a fancy school. He didn't have— we didn't have a lot of toys. He didn't give me anything in that area, right? He goes, but the one thing he did give me was he gave me this belief from the very beginning. He brainwashed me that I was special. And he goes, there was no evidence. I didn't do anything special, but he just felt like I'm special. And he just kept saying it. He would say it in public. So he's like, he would take me to his job. My grandfather worked, I think, at like, um, kind of like a government, like almost like a, a, like a weapons factory basically for the government. And, uh, he would take him there and like the boss, his boss, the manager of the factory would be like, oh, like there's the little one, there's my guy, hey, here wear the hard hat, like, you know, someday you'll, you can be here, you, you can run this, you know, this, this place. And, uh, my grandfather would be like to go to his boss and be like, no way. He goes, this, this boy, my boy, He's not going to work in a factory. This boy's special. You don't know. This boy's special. He's going to do incredible things. He's going to be in America. He's going to be doing incredible things someday. He's not going to work in a factory. And so just like he kind of breathed this, this belief into him and he just, he's like, he always said it. He never had, he never explained why he believed it or what, what, how it would happen. But he was just so sure that I became kind of sure. And I just started to believe that about myself. And so like, he goes, that was like almost like inject— he gave me like a magic bean. And this bean was like my belief in myself. And I see this all the time with my kids where it's very easy to criticize kids because kids do dumb stuff all the time. It's very easy to like tell them off for not doing things the right way. It's very easy to, you know, like mix sort of this praise and criticism. But my brother-in-law has been doing the same thing with his daughter. Who showed a little bit of talent in soccer, and then he like went all in and was like, he created an Instagram account called Raising Ronaldo when he's like, I'm raising Ronaldo right now. I'm not— this is not my daughter. This is the next Ronaldo. And he puts posters up and he just continues, oh, when you're playing pro, I'm going to be in the crowd. I'm going to do this.

I'm going to do that. Is this Aaron?

Aaron?

Yeah.

He's been saying this for like 8 years now. She's 10, you know, like she's like, you know, she's young. She believes and she works like somebody who is the next, like, like, like she's training, she's like, you know, 7 days a week, no days off. On vacation, they take the ball, they go do 100, you know, uh, like when they keep the ball, their juggles, like 100 juggles in a row. Like, they don't do breakfast before that. Like, it's incredible. And it reminded me of— I'm gonna read you this story.

Into it is the— is, uh, is Brother Aaron's, uh, daughter into it?

Where did your grandpa, uh, for— we got— we'll, we'll have the link to this one, but Sean has this amazing story about his mother coming to America and like seeing a plane for the first time. It's like, I think about that story weekly, actually. It's pretty amazing. Where did your grandpa end up? Like, so he made it to America with his family. Did, did your father come first and then your grandpa?

So he gets my, my dad, he gets his son to go in like kind of a crazy set of circumstances. You know what IIT is?

It's like the Indian Institute. It's like the Indian Technical College, right? Or the important university in India. But then didn't your dad go to Berkeley?

No. So, so he went to IIT in India, which is basically like, I don't know, it's like Harvard for India. It's even harder to get into because there's like a billion people trying to get get into the one, like, top, top brand. Um, he gets in there by happenstance. Again, when you believe something about yourself, you'll take chances that other people wouldn't. So he doesn't even know what IIT is. He doesn't even know he's— you're supposed to be taking entrance exams. He sees a guy, his friend is on a scooter. He's like, hey, you want to come play? And the guy's like, no, no, I gotta go take this test. And he's like, what test? And he's like, I'm trying to get into IIT. It's the best. And that's how you get— if I get— and he's like, why do you care? It's so far away. Why would you want to go to school there? Go to school here. He said, because if I get in there, I can go to America again. His grandfather told him, you're going to be in America someday. So he's looking for it. He hears that and he says, so he literally hops on the back of this dude's scooter and goes and takes the test blind. Now, my dad was a pretty, like, good student because, again, like, when you don't have anything else, you don't have TV, you don't have anything. Like, all he had was his books for textbooks from school. So he's a good student. So he ended up getting into IT. I think he ranked like 39th in all of India, like something crazy like that. And so he goes through IT, gets a scholarship to come to study at Boulder University in Colorado. Arrives in the dead of the night, becomes a pothead a week later. Yeah, well, could have easily because he arrives at night. He had a scholarship. That's the only way he could go there. And when you come from India, I don't think people realize this. You're not allowed to bring in like assets. Not that my grand— my family had assets, but you could only bring in like some crazy small amount of money, like $6 or something like that. So my dad had $6 and he came to America basically and had to figure it out. But he's like, oh, don't worry. Like I have housing and tuition paid by the school., but he arrives in December, like the admissions office is closed for winter break. So he's literally just like outside in the cold in winter in Colorado. He's like, uh, what, like, what do I do? Again, never been on a plane before. Like everything's new. Some French dude, some student there who's a French guy, another international student who wasn't home for holidays, sees him and he's like, dude, what are you doing? He's like, I'm trying to get into this place.

He's trying to go to school.

Yeah. So that guy just takes him in. He's like, come stay with me. So he just lives with this guy. So, you know, again, somebody, somebody helps him out along the way. Anyways, my dad brings my grandfather over. When he gets here—

How old? So wait, wait, hold on. So your father was like— College age.

21, 22.

And he— okay, so he was only 21 and he brought his father over.

Brings his— over the next few years, he brings his father over, brings his brother over, gets everybody over, right? That's like the goal. The role of that kind of the eldest son is to like—

So your dad was the shit.

How did you get to DC?

When they came over, it's like, where are we going to live? They lived with us for a while in Colorado. And then when it was like, okay, that's enough living with us now, thank you. It was like, here's DC, like where some of the other siblings live so that we got them a house there, they live there.

I've been thinking about, like we've been thinking about like some logos or not logos, like slogans and stuff for Hampton. And I've been obsessed with this idea of building what outlives you. And so like build what outlives you, it's like this phrase that I've been obsessed with. That doesn't mean business necessarily. It could mean. But what's interesting is that your grandfather so far has been the best example of building what outlives you. And so like telling the story about how, like, he gave his father this or his son this attitude, which then my father gave that to me. You know, you speak in my family to me and I'm like, that's the best example of building something that outlives you, which is just a positive attitude is what outlived him. And I find that to be very fascinating. And frankly, I find that to be the most admirable thing a man can do. Is to build what outlives you. And it's legacy. And not legacy in the sense of your name is going to be on the building or whatever. It's just that I live a certain way because this guy lived a certain way and because this, this guy lived a certain way and because this grandfather lived a certain way, I now treat people wonderfully. And that's the, that's the most beautiful example of building what outlives you.

Yeah. Do you, do you know, like, your family history? Like, I've heard this sometimes where people are like, my great-great-grandfather did this, or we were, we were actually warriors. And therefore, and then people really take that as like, so that's in my blood. And it really gives them a lot of belief. I don't even know, like, I didn't know half the shit about my grandfather until the funeral when they were telling the stories about like his upbringing.

No, frankly, I did not have this. And where I'm from in the Midwest, like, it's just like my people have been here for forever in St. Louis. All my grandparents are dead by the age of 3 for me. And so I lacked a massive sense of belonging. And so I remember meeting a Jewish guy and like him telling like the traditions of like Judaism and like going to like like having this Friday night meal. I'm like, oh my God, I crave this tribe. I was like, I crave this so much. Or like, I remember like moving to San Francisco and walking around on the Stanford, the Stanford campus. And I'm like, oh my God, I would love to have this Stanford logo on my LinkedIn or whatever, just so I can meet other people who share these values. Like, I've been desperate my whole life for like a sense of belonging because I never had that as a, as a, as a kid. This is for the folks out there who have a business that does at least $3 million a year in revenue. Because around this point, that's when you're able to look up after being heads down for years building your company and you realize two things. One, you've done something great, but you're still a long way from your final destination. And two, you look around and you realize, I am all alone. I've outrun my peers, which means you're now making $10 million decisions alone by yourself. And that is when mediocrity can creep in. My company, Hampton, we solve this problem by giving you a room of vetted peers, of other entrepreneurs who are going to hold you accountable, call you out on your nonsense, and help show you the way. Because the fact is, is that there's only a tiny number of people in your town who know what you're going through and who have been there, and they're hard to find. The biggest risk is not failing. You have a company and it's working. You're going to be fine. But the biggest risk is waking up 10 years from now and saying, shit, I barely grew in business and in life. And for people like you who are ambitious, wasted potential and regret is what we want to help you to avoid. We have made so many of these groups and we have 1,000+ members. And I know this stuff actually works. It can change your life. It changed mine and I know it will change yours. So check it out. Joinhampton.com.

Can I tell you, we talked about books earlier. Can I tell you this idea that this like very interesting business that I had never heard of. So have you ever heard of Little Blue Books?

No. What is it? Little—

okay, so check out what I have in my hand. You see this? This is a Little Blue Book. It's not blue, by the way, but it is tiny.

So for the people listening, I Googled it and Sean just showed it. It almost looks like you pulled the COVID off of a book.

Yeah, it's a little paperback. I mean, not even paperback, it's just paper, like stapled together. Literally, there's a staple on the side. And it's like a 3-inch high book. And these were called Little Black Book— Little Blue Books. Guess how many copies of Little Blue Books sold?

I have no idea.

Just take a guess.

Oh my God, I just saw the number. Oh my God. Oh my God. Really?

Did you take your idea from this, or did you, like, come up with your idea and you realized—

I was telling Craig Clements about my idea for one-hour books, and he was like, do you know about Little Blue Books? And I was like, no. He's like, oh dude, you got to check this out.

Oh my gosh. And the titles are the best.

Yeah. So like this one right now I'm holding, by the way, just for reference, like, you know, Harry Potter sold like something like 600 million copies. So this is like a Harry Potter level phenomenon that existed You know, a long time ago. So this one, the title is The Gentle Art of Making Enemies.

Oh my gosh.

You're telling me The Subtle Art of Not Giving an F didn't steal from that, right? Or it'll just be like this one, Proverbs of Turkey. They're about popular Shakespearean quotes. A Rapid Calculator, how to make rapid arithmetic calculations in your head. Here's one called a book about doing mental math.

How to Dress on a Small Salary. The Psychology of Leadership. The Puzzle of Personality. Man and His Ancestors.

Yes. So they have, they have, they're good at titles. They're good at copywriting. The books themselves, by the way, not actually good. I spent like an afternoon trying to read these because I was like, ooh, I found this hidden pearl of wisdom from the past. Personally, didn't really love any of the books, but—

Did Craig like this because of the marketing?

Yeah, he was just like, this was a, I mean, this was like a phenomenon. You should study this and just steal something from this thing that happened, you know, such a long time ago. The reason I bring this up is, and why this is related to what you talked about. So why did these things succeed? Because I thought, well, maybe they were just incredible, incredibly popular, which are well written, whatever. No, they're not really, right? Like this today seems like, you know, this could be an Instagram account maybe, or, you know, something, something so simple. The reason this worked was basically back in the day before, this was like before there were like public libraries. So books were actually rare. They were not something that the average person could afford or had access to. And so you had an access problem and they were in low supply. And so they came out with these and these things would cost nothing. They would be like a nickel to buy the book. So you could buy this for 5 cents. You could carry it around in your pocket because it was so small. So it was portable, it was affordable, and it became ubiquitous. They would sell it at like, you know, every newspaper stand, corner store, anywhere. You could still put this thing anywhere. It's so small.

It's basically a podcast episode.

Exactly. It's like YouTube videos. And so, um, What I found interesting was, man, in a time where that's scarce, this can sell 500 million copies because information was scarce back then. It was actually hard to get information. You couldn't go on Google or YouTube, couldn't even get a book from a library, couldn't afford a lot of this information. So where would you get that information about how to dress on a small salary or, you know, the quotes from Shakespeare or Proverbs of Aristotle, right?

You hope that your dad would tell you. Correct.

Yeah, I'm trying to do it. I met this guy. He came to my office the other day. Pomp, Anthony Pompliano introduced me to this guy and he was like, you had—

did you just drop that? Just like that?

Is there a name you need to pick up? Because I just dropped— did I just drop that?

Your Democratic president?

Anthony was like, you got to— I call him Anthony, by the way. It's like on All In sometimes, like they were referring to the SEC chairman and they're like, Yeah, look, Tim's doing a great job. So my version of that is Anthony.

Anthony.

Yeah. So he was like, you got to meet this guy. I said, yeah, whatever.

Set up in the— like, if you're in town, come to my office, man. I met him and I was like, what's your deal? He's this Italian guy with a thick Italian accent and he's got this company that's basically making $100 million a year curing loneliness. So it's called— but they're doing it in a very unique way. So if you go to weRoad.com, The business is crazy. So the company— let me tell you what the product is. The product is basically, it's traveling for 20, 30, and 40-year-old professionals. And so what they do is if you want to travel, the issue with a lot of young people is like they want to travel alone, but they don't literally want to be alone when they travel. Like they don't want to team up with their friends. They want to go do what they want to do, but with other people who want to do it with them. And so it's basically 80% women, 20% men is like their customer base. And so they have categories. So it's like adventure, it's nature, it's historical. They got a bunch of categories and you pick a trip that you want to go on. And then 7 to maybe 15 other young people like you are going to go on that exact same trip and you're going to have a tour guide leading you along each trip.

So this, for example, I click Patagonia trekking through Argentina and Chile. There's beautiful photos of like, I don't know, this just looks like unbelievable. And then it's a 13-day trip. You pay $3,000 and you're going to go with a group of 8 to 15 people, you know, 12 nights in a hotel or guesthouse. Your breakfasts are included and you get a domestic flight to Buenos Aires from, from Buenos— if you get to Buenos Aires, from there to the, like, start of the, of the adventure. And it's— and then they have like day 1, here's what we do. Day 2, here's what we do. All the way to day 13.

I've never heard of this.

Amazing, right? I've never heard of it either. So on $100 million in revenue, after they pay the hotels and the, the, the person leading the tour guide, they keep 30%. So $160 million in revenue. What's that? That's like $50 million in like net revenue to their company. Absolutely astounding that this company exists. It's one of these ideas that you told me about it and I'm like, yeah, that sounds like a cute little hobby. They've totally crushed it. And I've been— and I was asking him, I'm like, why? Why do people like this? He's like, well, because people are lonely and they don't want to be alone. And we're just one example of how you can solve loneliness because you go along this trip with strangers and you're going to come home best friends. And he was like, and in a lot of cases, sometimes people come home as boyfriend and girlfriend. That happens a lot. And so I thought that this was an absolutely amazing product to solve. Like, it's like there's these macro trends. So you talk about this macro trends of like physical experiences, things like that. And loneliness. And then there's like, how do you package that into a solution that you could sell? I'm trying to do it with Hampton in one way. This is a totally other way of doing it. It's crushing me. So that was probably— this is a, this is a very, a very nice way to package it. It would be nice if I could have my company do $160 million in revenue in 5 years. But isn't this pretty cool?

And they do something that looks way more fun and they like hook up. Basically better in every dimension that I care about. Yeah.

Yeah.

This is cool. I mean, my parents do this. Uh, my mom does this with, uh, like seniors do this as well. So her and her siblings, 2 to 3 times a year, take these guided tours. It's basically groups of seniors. You know, it's just all, and because they're like, we don't have to think, right? They're going to organize all the sightseeing, all the hotels, all the food, all the everything. They keep you safe, they have the insurance, like they do all that stuff. And then you're with a group. So, you know, you can grow with a group or you can kind of make friends inside the group because, you know, traveling when you're young and your friends maybe not all, not all being able to synchronize a trip together or you don't have enough friends, like that's one thing. The other is, you know, you're empty nesters, you're seniors, and like you have way more time and money on your hands. But travel is, you know, still, you know, a little bit difficult and daunting.

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Like I did it when I was in college or high school, maybe like an EF tour. Is that what it's called? Educational tour. It's like the company is called EF Tours. It's like a multibillion-dollar company that they do that for students. Everyone knows that you can do this.

Are they the ones who have like an incredible on-campus marketing like machine where they basically have like kind of affiliates and then they do events?

It's like an MLM basically. Yeah, it's an MLM. It's like started by like a Swedish guy who's like a recluse, but he like owns the whole business and he does like $5 billion in revenue. It's like one of these things where you like, you don't realize how big it is.

I was, I was too dumb at the time to like pay attention to what was happening. But now that I look back with like my business lens now, that thing was brilliant.

Interestingly, this, this guy actually has an SF connection. So the guy who started EF Tours, I didn't research this in advance, so I'm just kind of looking at Wikipedia. He started EF Tours in 1965. They now have 52,000 employees and his last name is Holt, H-U-L-T. The whole International School of Business. That's the whole school in SF, which was, I think, down by Fisherman's Wharf. But anyway, crazy way of solving loneliness. So, um, dude, this was a fun episode. I'm happy we got to, like, catch up. But I'm also— I think that, um, there's times on this podcast sometimes where, like, maybe you don't want to talk about something personal because you're like, I don't know if people are going to, like, enjoy this or be like, if they can get, like, entertainment or education from, like, my little personal story. But I got to say that I'm actually like incredibly impacted by that story of your grandfather. You know, I have a soft spot in my heart for immigrants. And so I love hearing the story of your mother. I've never heard the story of your father.

You love immigrants, dude. You love immigrants.

I love immigrants. Like, I, you know, I kind of categorize like firstborn in America, you know, son of immigrants as immigrants as well. And in that regard, every one of my friends is an immigrant.

It's almost racist how much you love immigrants.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm just playing.

But seriously, shut up about it. Dude, I married into an immigrant family.

By the way, that's one of your like phrases that stuck. Like a lot of people will, when they email me like for an opportunity, they'll be like, I got that Korean, uh, what is it? Korean restaurant? What is it? Korean corner store owner energy or something like that? Like I got that immigrant mentality.

Yeah. Like Korean store owner energy. So, because in New York you basically, there's like the corner, like markets and they are all owned by Asian families. So it's typically like a, um, Vietnamese family. And I like to go and I like to talk to these families and I literally just like ask them what's their story. And then the smaller ones are usually owned by— it's a lot of Indian families, but it's also a lot of like Arabic families. And it's very interesting how— and then you go to like Dunkin' Donuts and that's always Indian. And so like, I love going to these like— or you go to Motel, always Indian. And I love going and I like just like, I'm like, I want to learn like what's going on. And so I love like, like learning about this stuff. I think it's so fascinating. Because immigrants have this like us versus them mentality, which I've always craved. You know, I always want to be the us. Turns out, turns out, turns out I'm the them. I'm the against them. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like I'm Iceland in The Mighty Ducks. Like I'm the bad— or I'm like the bad guys. Like, you know, like—

Gunner Stahl over here.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm the them. I wanted to be the us. I'm the them. That's hilarious.

All right. That's a good spot for us.

All right. 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. Hey, let's take a quick break. I want to tell you about a podcast that you could check out. It is called The Science of Scaling by Mark Roberge. He was the founding CRO of HubSpot, and he's a guest lecturer at Harvard Business School. The guy's smart and he sits down every week with different sales leaders from cool companies like Klaviyo and Vanta and OpenAI, and he's asking about their strategies, their tactics, and how they're growing their companies as, you know, head of sales or chief revenue officer. If you're looking to scale a company up, if you're a CRO or head of sales that's looking to level up in your career, I think a podcast like this could be great for you. Listen to The Science of Scaling wherever you get your podcasts.