if you didn't make progress in 2025, listen to the first 10 minutes
I want to show you something that's honestly changed my life. Have I showed you this?
5-year diary?
No. Okay, so let me explain how this works.
I'm so jealous that I did not invent this journal.
So basically, here's how my 5-year journal works. I, um, on every single page it says like, you know, December 1st, and then it has the first year, the second year, the third year, the fourth year, the fifth year.
Oh, yes. I'm interested. You took this journaling thing from like, oh great, the most boring topic ever, journaling, to, oh wait, that's pretty cool. I kind of want one.
I started doing this in November, like the week of Thanksgiving actually. And so ya boy's getting to last year's entries.
Like a week ago, you mean?
I started doing it a year ago last week.
Oh, last year.
Okay. I've talked about this 3 times now. This is the 3rd time. This is the first time it's clicking. But the reason it's been very special this week because I'm getting to my previous year's entries. And I purposely did not like look ahead to like see, to remind myself.
Right.
Do you wanna know something? The biggest takeaway? I don't change.
Like, what do you mean? Like your habits or what you're doing or how you feel?
I have complained about the same stuff for 10 or 15 years. And I have previous journals where I've, I look back and I'm like, I've complained about the same things.
Give me an example.
What do you mean? So like, is the way that I'm spending time right now, is it even worth it? Is working on this business even worth it? Do I want to go all in on being creating content or do I want to go all in on being behind the scenes?
Right.
Where should I live? Basically, I complain about the same things all the time. Why did I lose my temper today and make myself look stupid? Why didn't I pause for like 10 seconds and like reflect before I like snapped at like my wife or a kid or something. And I think I've concluded a few things. One, humans don't change. Actually, change is— let me rephrase that. I've concluded that change is unnatural. Change is not natural. Like, inertia is natural.
Yeah, right. Inertia is the default.
And so you can change. And I actually have changed like a lot of big things in my life. And I was thinking about what causes change. And I think a good representation of what causes change is In business, typically this happens at the $10 million mark. The difference between $10 million and $100 million a year business oftentimes is systems. So I think it typically comes down to hiring great people and creating great systems. And the reason why I love business is because it kind of teaches you a little bit about life. And what I'm learning about my own life is that the moments that I've changed most in my life is when I've had a system. And this— a good system, what it does, it makes it more predictable by taking away how you feel at the moment. The way that you feel on any moment should have nothing to do with the actions that you take to get you to the goals that you've set. So for example, the times that I've lost the most weight and gotten the most fit is when I had an accountability, uh, a nutritionist like holding me accountable, or I had a trainer who I had to see, or I was following a plan. The times that I've stagnated most of my life is when I've not had a plan and I let my feelings on that day dictate what I do during my schedule. When I have a good company, you, your salespeople have scripts that they follow. They have checklists for follow-ups. They spend the early morning doing outbound. The middle of the morning is doing follow-up emails. And it's like a system. And I just wanted to talk about like, A, do you have this? And B, we should talk about some of the systems that we've implemented in our lives that have actually made real change. Because I think the key to living a successful life, not just money, but like success defined as getting what you want, is creating a system.
I mean, you brought up a pretty amazing topic. I think you started with the journal, which again is just incredible. The year-over-year journal, which I think is incredible. It's basically a time machine because you get to see where you were. And so it like forces perspective, which you wouldn't normally get. The vulnerability of being like, dude, I don't change. I'm the same complaining, you know, motherfucker that I've been for the last, you know, 10 years. I think that's really funny and honest. And then you have the systems thing. Now, the best quote of this, I think, comes from James Clear, or whoever he got it from, in his book Atomic Habits, which is, you know, we don't rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems. You see this everywhere. Everywhere. I see it in my business. I see it when I'm coaching basketball. I see it in my fitness life. You see it everywhere, which is that you don't become what you want. You don't become your potential, that's for sure. You become what we regularly— you know, you become what you regularly do. The old, uh, I think the Aristotle quote, you know, we are what we do repeatedly. And so what do you do repeatedly? You do what's autopilot. You do what's defaulted. You do what you have on an automated basis and not what's based on how you're feeling in the moment, which is like if it was a graph, it'd be up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down. And so I think you're— I mean, you're spot on that this is inside the company and outside, outside of any of your work stuff.
It's the same thing. Let me give an example. Here's what I wrote about on 12/5 of last year. I said, I'm one text message away from going Amish. I'm so sick of digital distractions. It's a drug. When I— and then I wrote, I had this other section. I'm like, when I hang out with all these like successful people, I have to remember my roots. I'm just a punk rock skateboarding redneck from Missouri, and I shouldn't get caught up in this fancy stuff or wanting to achieve all this fancy stuff. That's an example. And the reason I'm bringing up the digital stuff and being distracted is I wrote about that 3 weeks ago in the same thing.
Right. So there's one thing I think that goes underneath that comes before the system, right? Because you're basically saying like you need a plan, you need a goal, and then you need a system that's going to get you to the goal reliably, right? A system that if you just follow that, you know, it's sort of the mechanics, the physics of the system leads you to a certain outcome. And I think that's very true. But there does seem to be like a couple things underneath that. One is the blueprint. So figuring out what to want, because if you set up your systems towards getting some— to get a goal that wasn't the goal that actually would change the feeling that you want, you will be perpetually on the hamster wheel. This happens a lot in business, right? We get a promotion and then you immediately are like, I still feel kind of the same stressed, anxious, you know, version of myself. So, you know, I just need a little more and that'll be the solution, right? So like figuring out the right thing to want, because then it says, cool, let me build my systems in that direction. And I think that's a very uncomfortable place to be, is figuring out what you actually want in life, because it sounds like it should be so simple.
That's the hardest part, right? You can't optimize for a goal without a goal. And we spend most of our time worrying about the optimization.
Yeah. Or like, you know, the goal— like, did you pick a goal that's actually going to get you again, like, You never want the thing. You want the feeling you think the thing is going to get you, right? You don't want to have the fancy watch or the car. You don't want to have the promotion. You don't want to have the relationship. You want the feeling you think you'll have if you were in a great relationship. You want the feeling you think you'll have if your team wins the game. You want the feeling you think you'll have if you are driving that car instead of this piece of junk, right? And so it's the feeling that you're chasing. And if you're not very good at understanding your own feelings and and practicing having the feelings that you want, you're not just going to have them when the thing happens. We just adapt too quickly, and your, your base nature, your emotional home, is too strong. So when you say, I'm, I'm complaining about the same things, I would guess that it's not that you're literally complaining about the same things, it's that you're having the same feelings about some variety of problem, uh, you know, some, some same genre of problem, but it's the same— the feeling is almost identical.
Yeah, exactly.
So what do you think you should do about that?
I think a few things. I think that the way that I'm feeling now— correct me if I'm wrong— do you feel this exact same way or have you had the same issue?
I've had the same issue.
I don't know what you're feeling right now, but yeah, I mean, like this, this, this, this, um, uh, I don't change fast enough or I'm not coaching myself fast enough and I'm not adapting. I think more often than not, the listener and you and me We don't need to be taught new stuff. We just need to be reminded of the same thing that we already know. I think that we don't give enough credit to reminders. So let me give you an example. I read, or when I'm not, when I don't have a newborn, I read a book a week probably. I read a lot. I love reading. It's great. It's so like, I get so much joy out of it. Now, there's been so many times that I've read a book and it'll be on like something, a president or something, and then you ask me a year later, I really just can't remember much about that president. I can't tell you about the thing. And I think that, I think that a lot of times we go too wide and we consume too much stuff versus the same thing over and over and over again to master and be reminded of the same thing over and over and over again. And so like another example could be when you're training an employee on like a sales process. I think the majority of the time You have to repeat yourself like 7, 8, 9, 10 times in a sales meeting. So you have to do it like if you have like a daily sales standup, you have to have phrases that people can remember constantly because I don't think they need to be taught what to do. I just think they need to be reminded constantly. So I think reminders are important. I also think that, um, a system of accountability. So when you hire employees for your business, or at least when I do, I'm like, oh, I don't want to do that. I could just do this on my own. But I've noticed that when I hire employees for my company, I then feel like, well, now I have to keep feeding this system because now I'm held accountable and it's very painful, but I get significantly better results. And so when I back myself into a corner where I must perform and otherwise I'm going to let others down, that's when I get the best results. If you want to hit your goals, you need a system. And so I worked with HubSpot to put together a step-by-step process showing you how I use ChatGPT as a life coach. So I uploaded my personal finances, my net worth, my goals, And the output is that I have this GPT that I can ask questions that I'm having issues with in my life, like how should I respond to this email? What's the right decision? Things like that. And it's literally changed my life. And so if you want that, it's free. We will send you everything you need to know to set this up in just about 20 minutes, and I'll show you how I use it. So check it out. The link is below in the description. Back to the episode.
Have I told you what I've been doing lately? I texted you something this morning.
Uh, so it's 12:15. At 11:55, when I log in, I got this text from Sean, and it was this really good, like, Instagram Reel, but it wasn't on Instagram. And it was Sean telling the story about how he has quit being a business person and is now fully focused on coaching a basketball team. Is that right?
So here's the story of how I stepped down as CEO in my companies, and I'm now an unpaid high school assistant basketball coach. This is a decision I've made. They were high school kids.
Kids. These guys look like they had beards. They're high school kids.
So I love basketball, as you know. Uh, one thing you probably don't know is that growing up, I didn't watch cartoons. So you know how you're like, you'll mention like Dolly Parton and I couldn't tell you who she is, or you'll be like, yeah, you know that Elvis song? I'm like, no, I don't really know. Well, that's also true if you ask me about Sesame Street or Rugrats. As a kid, I never watched cartoons.
What did you watch? World Series of Poker?
I watched two movies on loop. Home Alone great movie, and I watched Mighty Ducks 2, specifically D2. And, um, you know, these things you do as a kid, they sort of imprint on you, right? And so this idea of— in the movie Mighty Ducks, Gordon Bombay, he's this hotshot lawyer who actually gets in like a DUI but gets assigned this like community service thing where he ends up coaching this hockey team.
He rolls up into his limo, uh, in New York City or some city, and he's coaching You know, like the street kids that somehow also play hockey.
Exactly. The business guy who grew up playing hockey but has given it up now has to go back into the world of sport, and he ends up being the coach to this shitty, uh, ragtag group of kids, these underdogs. And then they, you know, they go on a run and they sort of make it to the top, and he, you know, finds, you know, his love, his passion. He realizes like, oh my God, like, you know, this fills his cup. So I watched that movie a lot of times., and I had always said, I don't know if I'd ever told you this, but I had said, like, you know, like, bucket list item, my retirement plan was to go coach a high school basketball team, at least for a year. And I tried convincing my brother-in-law, I was like, hey, what if we got, like, an AAU team? Could we do that? And I've been kind of, like, poking around, like, is there a way to do this? I think it would be really good for the soul. And, um, the opportunity presented itself about a month ago where, um, the— I hired a coach. I'm big on coaches. I hired a coach to train me in basketball just as, like, a workout.. And so this guy used to train NBA players before the draft, things like that. And so I worked with him for like, you know, over the summer.
Did you get better?
Yeah. I mean, of course you better. You practice, you get better, right? Systems. So like I showed up 3, 2, 3 times a week. We practiced the same things every time, the fundamentals. And guess what? Like you get better.
Was it good exercise or did it hurt you?
Oh dude, it's great exercise. It was good. Um, like, you know, you're drenched with sweat, like, which I would never get in the weight room type of thing.
Same.
I imagine it's like, you know, it's like your full body, right? Cause you can't make them like a move without like rotation and you're doing like lateral movements and stuff. Yeah, things you want to do in a stationary machine or barbell. So he tells me, he's like, hey, um, you know, I don't think I'll be able to coach you anymore. I got this job. I'm now the— like, school starts in a week. I'm the head basketball coach at this high school. It's like small Division 5 high school. I didn't know the divisions go to 5, right? D1, D2, D3, all the way D5.
So 5 is small.
5 is very small. And so I was like, okay. And I was like, so you need an assistant? I just said it jokingly. And he's like, yeah, actually, like, I don't have any— like, there's no staff. So yeah, I'm a first-time coach. I would love an assistant. So I told him, I was like, dude, I'd love to show up maybe once a week. And I just thought this would be something I would do just the way I do everything. Half-ass, baby. I thought that I would make a fun commitment in the moment and then sort of back away over time. Things that I've done many times with many cool ideas in my life. But this year I'm trying to be a different guy, right? I said I'm going to play the piano. And guess what? I sit there and I practice scales and I play the piano 4 times a week and I'm getting good at it and I'm doing the boring things and I'm sticking with it. I'm not giving up. And so I did the same thing with this. I was like, I'm going to show up. And dude, when I tell you that this is the most fun thing I've ever done in my life, I am not lying. This is incredible. So now I'm spending like 15 hours a week doing this. I'm basically going to practice 4 days a week. I commute, which I would— you know me, I would never commute. It's like, I didn't even know you had a driver's license. It's a 30-40 minute drive, and I'm basically coaching these kids from, you know, the beginning of the season, tryouts. We just had our first game last night, uh, first like official game. And, um, I— the video I showed you was our first preseason game. We got smashed by 30. And then, you know, 4 days later we had our first real game and we actually just won. We won by 30 last night and we like did a Gatorade dump on the coach because it was his first win. And here I am, this assistant basketball coach. You know, in The Office when Dwight's like, I'm assistant regional manager, they're like, no, no, you're assistant to the regional manager. That's what I am. I'm assistant to the head coach is really the more, more accurate way of saying this. And I'm so emotionally invested in the entire process, you would not believe. Like, me, I'm so invested in these kids. I'm so invested in getting them better day by day, system by system, habit by habit. I'm breaking down game film of like, you know, other high school teams that we're going to play. I'm sending clips. I'm— we have a kid who was struggling in school and got kicked off the team, and I'm helping him with his math homework, trying to get him back on the team. Like, I am so in. It's not even funny.
So are you— I don't know much about sports, or at least basketball. I don't know much about basketball. Can you tell a player to make minor changes and it actually impacts the game? Or is it just like, if you're 7-foot tall, you're going to win?
Well, this is why I brought this up. So you were talking about repetition, reminders, habits, systems. Well, sports are of course the great teacher of life. It's this little petri dish. It's like a simulation of life, right? You, you as an individual, you working with a team, you going up against competition, you facing defeat regularly, and you getting to go to practice and then seeing if that translates into the real world, right? And there have been so many things where we would tell the kids something and then the first scrimmage would happen and we would just get our butt kicked. And it's like, we told them this. We— that's the exact thing we've been telling them. And then we had to be— take a step back as coaches and be like, oh, that's because the job is to drill this 50 times. Yeah, we did 1 of 50, and our perspective was wrong, which is that, oh, I'll tell them once and then they'll get it, and then they'll just do it live in action when the moment happens. Like, no, you won't. You will default. Inertia, baby. You will default to the thing that you already do, the old you. And so I, so now we took, we took, you know, as coaches, we're basically giving this mindset of like, all right, we're, if this matters, there's only like, you can only tell them 2 or 3 things that matter. You can't give them 15 things to change at once. So like pick 1 to 3 things and then let's be honest, we're going to need to say this 50 times with the same level of enthusiasm and we're not going to get discouraged if it doesn't happen at number, you know, 42 because it takes 50. And that's like the mindset as a coach. But it's the same thing in your own life, which is like you seek progress, not perfection. And reminders matter a hell of a lot more than some new strategy, some new play, some new thing that nobody's ever done before. You want that. You want some new answer because you're like, maybe I was just missing the thing. And actually, no, it's because I didn't internalize the thing, the answer that was already on my plate. Right. And that reminders, like you said, are extremely undervalued. To the point where not only are reminders undervalued, they're sort of discriminated against. Reminders are like, you know, the minority class of, of self-help, right? Because when you tell somebody something that they already know, what's their reaction? It's not like, oh, that's helpful. It's, I know, I know that, right? It's defensive. It's like, that's— that clearly can't be important because I already know it. And it's like, no, no, it's coming back up again because it's that important.
Dude, this is— is— hey, this is hilarious. This has happened. I don't know if the listener can tell this. This has happened so many times where you and I come with the same exact thing, not even realizing it. If you're an entrepreneur listening to this, you are going to be nodding your head. But how many times have you said— come up with a brilliant idea and gone to your company and in all hands that says, this is what we are doing now and is new and is different? So many times, right?
Yeah.
And I've come to the conclusion that a company can basically only do one new project, maybe per quarter, but definitely— but it could be every 6 months. And when I say project, I mean something relatively small. Like for us, we had never advertised before. Now we're starting to advertise. It's like, just do Meta, just do Meta and get really good at that. And you think, well, we should advertise on Meta, on LinkedIn, we should advertise, we should buy podcast ads, we should do this, we should do that. It's like, No, no, no. Just that one thing. And let's really master it. And it's going to take 6 months. And so it's kind of funny that you're hearing that. Like, I don't know about basketball, but what are you telling them to do? Just that one thing? Or you said 3 things. What are those 3 things?
Okay, these are a little bit nerdy basketball things, but that's right. Here's one. Something called playing off 2 feet. So the way that— how do I explain this? If it's not like, okay. In nor— when you play basketball normally and you go, you're just playing by yourself, there's no defense. You're like, oh, I'll go do a layup. So you run in and you jump usually off one foot and you go shoot a layup. And that's great when there's nobody there. When there's defense, uh, that's a lot harder to do because it's not only other people in the way, but when you jump off one, when you just run and jump off one foot, you commit to like that path being the only thing you can go do. And so what we have is a lot of undersized guys, right? Like our point guard is like, I don't know, 5'7 or something like that, right? We don't have like 6'4 athletes that are just going to be dunking and finishing at the rim across the board on our team. We have like, I think, one guy who can dunk pretty much. And so we, um, uh, we had to teach them that there's this other way of playing, looks a little less sexy, uh, but is really effective, which is when you get into the paint and you're amongst the giants and the crowd, you come to what's called a jump stop. So you just land on both feet and now you have options. You could pass, you could pivot, you could shoot. You can step through, you can do, you can do a bunch of things, but you're more under control. It's almost like a slower way to play. And it's not what you practice when, it's not what you do when there's no defense there. When there's no defense there, you just kind of naturally will go do this. But guess what? In the real game, there's always defense there. So we're going to do things, we're going to practice like what happens in the game, and we're going to do things that match our athleticism. And this is a habit that you guys don't have. And so we're going to like drill this not once, not twice, but every single day. You're going to get reps at doing this and you are going to hear us say the same phrase, playoff 2, playoff 2, playoff 2. You're going to hear that till you hear it in your dreams. All right. So that'll be like, let's say, one of the core principles that it's like, that's a change we need to make, right? Because change requires that level of like repetition to do a new, new behavior.
You're going to say it until someone hears it in their dreams. That's what we have to— that's exactly what I'm meaning about reminders. You have to That's like, that's so funny. Number 2 is what?
And by the way, the actual test is you say it till you hear them saying it to each other. Once you, once they're saying it to each other, your job as the coach has like, you know, you have successfully incepted the idea into them. This happens also as a CEO, right? Like whether it's habits and how we do meetings or whatever, or it's like what matters, what are the priorities? You know, you've done it well when they're saying it to each other. Okay. I used to do this test with companies, like if I would invest in them or they were running into trouble. And they'd be like, yeah, we're, you know, we're trying to do X. And almost always in there, the little magic trick you can always pull is you take, you know, let's say they have a— it doesn't matter how many people, it could be like just the top 5 executives or it could be, you know, 15 people at their company. You say, hey, everybody, I'd like you to write down the top 3 priorities of the company. What actually matters right now? And then you look at the CEO and you see the CEO start to realize like, oh shit, We are not on the same page. Like, I have not done a good job. They don't even— forget doing it. They don't even know what we're supposed to be doing. I have not even successfully communicated the priorities because everybody, what they'll do is basically they will focus on their problems, my little problems in my part of the world, or recency. What's the most recent fire that somebody put on my plate? And like, that's just the thing I'm thinking about. I kind of forgot about all the other shit we talked about at that at that all-hands or at that meeting or at that offsite or whatever the thing was where we made our plans. And so this is the same thing in whether it's a team or whether it's a sports team or it's a, it's a company. Today's episode is brought to you by HubSpot. Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book, but then tearing out 4/5 of the pages. Point is, you miss a lot. And unless you're using HubSpot, the customer platform that gives you access to the data you need to grow your business, the insights that are trapped in emails, call logs, transcripts, all that unstructured data makes all the difference because when you know more, you grow more. And so if you wanna read the whole book instead of just reading part of it, visit hubspot.com.
I heard this story about NASA in the 1960s before we went to the moon. They had this amazing leader and they were telling the story about how they knew he was amazing. And this one reporter sees a janitor mopping the floor at the NASA center and he goes, sir, what are you doing here? And he goes, I'm helping us get to the moon. And that was like the best story ever because like they all knew the mission. Like, we all are playing a part in getting us to the moon, right?
By the way, there's like such funny things that happen. Like, uh, one kid like came to practice like 10 minutes late and we're like, dude, you can't be late. And he was like, um, he's like, sorry, I was at work. And then we look at his hands, hands were covered in grease. Like, he's a mechanic, I guess. He's like, our point guard's like a mechanic, and then he comes to practice. And like this other guy, wait, in high school, he's a—
is he—
yeah, they have like jobs, you know. Does he like Dude, our best player's named Vinny.
Yes. Fuckin' A, man.
Vinny's amazing. Like Vinny. Yeah. So anyways, there's all these little things where you're like, oh, you forgot what it's like to be, first of all, like a teenager. But secondly, you forgot like how much of the basic habits have to be installed in somebody that will serve them not just here, but also like whatever they do, right? Because most of our guys are not going to be in the NBA, right? None of them. So it's how do I teach you something that's useful today for you on this team so we win and have fun? But that's like a master skill that's going to serve you in the future, right? I'm not, I'm not doing my Gordon Bombay if I don't actually do both for them.
Do you think how much percentage of a difference will— so let's just say you're hypothetically, let's say your team is a 5 out of 10, just average. Yeah. Good coaching. What do you think that would change?
I think it— I think good coaching can take a 5 out of 10 team to an 8, which is great, which is dramatic. Yeah.
I think in my leadership position in my career, I think I've only been average and I've seen great. And I've particularly loved reading military books like about Navy SEALs and stuff like that. And I think I get good examples of what a good leader looks like. And I think the difference with all else being equal, like I've read, like I think Jocko has this story about, he's got this book, I forget what it's called, something leadership. And he talks about the story about how they would, during BUD/S or like, you know, the week where you become a SEAL, they have like 6 different groups of like 8 guys carrying the rafts on their back and they have to race and they assign leaders. And all they do is they change the leaders after each race. And what they notice is that the leader is determined, determines whether the boat wins or not, not the other 7 guys lifting the boat.
Right.
And when I heard that example, I was like, I'm not that leader at this moment and I have to become one because I think the difference is not— I think it's more than from a 5 to an 8. I think it's potentially like almost a 10 because I just, I just, I just think that leadership is so important and it's just so challenging because it's one of these things where If you're like you and I, you think, oh, I'm charismatic, I'm probably already good. I don't need to, I don't need to learn. Like, I can convince people to do stuff, or I'm an idea guy, my ideas are good. That's just not the case. Just like basketball, it's a skill. Learning how to get teams to operate effectively, it's a skill. And I'm learning all of this like in real time, and it's been very challenging.
I'll give you an example that we, I took from the pod. So I think you were on here, you were talking about company values. You're like, oh, at Hampton, we're trying to, come up with our values. And you were saying, like, here's what I think they're gonna be. And then I was kind of pushing back, like, yo, I kind of expected it to be like this. And you were like, yes, okay, let me— and you were, you were working through it. So right after I got off the pod, I drive over to— I grab my whistle and my clipboard, and I drive over to basketball practice. And when we get there, I was like, hey, it's the start of our season. So I'm telling Danny, our coach, I was like, hey, I think we should install, like, the kind 2 or 3 things that we hang our hat on. What are we, what are we all about? And in sport, they call this like your, your team's identity, right? So there was like all these famous teams that had a real identity. So it'd be like the Bad Boy Pistons. It was in the name. You already knew they were tough, they were mean, they had a nasty streak, and you could not push them around, right? They would push you around. They were the Bad Boy Pistons. Uh, in the modern day, there's like, um, Heat culture is a big one. So the Miami Heat are known to be this team where they do— they, they hold a standard almost like military. So for example, they're the only— I think they're the only NBA team that, that does this, where you get tested on weight and body fat every single week, and you're either fined or you don't get to play if you are not keeping your body— like, it doesn't matter who you are. If you're the star player, like, you can't, you know, can't just coast by on your talent. And so they demand— and they demand it from day one. So it's like, by the time you show up to training camp, you need to already be in shape. You don't come to training camp to get in shape. And that's just a known thing, that that's their standard. And so it doesn't matter what it was like where you played before. When you go there, you already know what they're all about. You've heard the stories. And so you got to buy in or you're going to be out. It's one way or the other. And so we, so we, so we go there and our first day we do it all wrong. We're like, okay, what do we, you know, it's all about playing hard. So, uh, effort, effort is going to be one of our things.. So we tell them that at the beginning. We tell them 3 values. Effort's the first one, then we had 2 others. All right.
Right.
So you get to the end of practice. Coach had to leave. Like, the athletic director wanted to talk to him. So he's like, Coach Sean will finish up the practice. And I'm like, me? That's me. Wait, I'm Coach Sean. I don't know what to do here. Okay, let me go ahead and help these guys out. So as we're finishing up, I just huddle them up and I'm like, All right. How did we do today on those? We started the practice saying we're going to be— this is our team identity, these 3 words. And I was like, who can give them to me? Couldn't— they couldn't even remember, right? They got 1 of the 3. So they got effort as the only 1 of the 3 that they remembered. And they were like, they wanted to remember, they just couldn't remember. So this is just— it's like to your thing about repetition and reminder, right? Like it's super important. So then I was like, so how'd we do on effort? And they were like, you know, some guy was like, You know, kind of like a nod with a shrug, like a pretty good. Another guy just shook his head no with no explanation. You know, another guy was like, yeah, it was good effort. And then I was like, oh, remember what I was telling Sam, which is like Facebook's value was move fast and break things. It wasn't just like, it wasn't just like speed, which everybody could be like, yeah, we're moving fast. It's like, no, no, no. Are you moving fast? Like, are you moving so fast you're breaking things? Because if you're not, then you're not even playing at our speed.
So what's yours?
So we— so I was like, oh, if we just said the word is effort, then like some effort's fine, I guess. Kind of pretty good effort's fine. Like, wait, guys, what is it? Is it pretty good effort?
Whatever.
And there's one kid on the team who always beats everybody in the sprints. He's not the most talented kid, but he's— he plays the hardest. And then whenever we make them run, he always finishes first. His name's Max. And I was like, oh, perfect. I go, all right, we have a new standard. It's called max effort. And I was like, if you're not playing as hard— but like, it's like a pun, right? But I was like, if you're not playing as hard as max, it's not effort. That's not, that's not what we do. We play with max effort. And so that's the only one of the three that stuck because it was like a campaign slogan and it like worked, you know, it's like it is actually a bar you could pass/fail. Whereas most of the other values were like, yeah, like we want to be really competitive. It's like, all right, we were kind of. There's no pass/fail. You can't test it. Versus everybody knows, did I actually go at max effort today or not? It's like a very simple pass/fail. And so taking these things from one, you know, from business and trying to apply it here has been very, very interesting.
Yeah, I think that we, we, I think that we too often think about marketing to customers when we should be marketing to ourselves and our teams and our families. So like, you know, this sounds eye-rolly, but my wife and I are like, I was like, should we have values for our family? Like, what should we— because we're at the age now where our children are just now old enough where we're able to form traditions. And we're like, what traditions should we have? You know, what do we like want to teach them? And so I joke with my daughter where we do daily affirmations. I say, repeat after me, I'm bold, I'm tough, and I won't conform to anyone. That's like her daily affirmations, because clearly I care about like, you know, that type of stuff. But we had to sit down and we're like, all right, well, what collectively should we care about so we can teach our kids? And also like, what traditions can we have? And I was thinking, I was like, well, I have these things. I have what I call my 4 Fs, family, fitness, finance, fun. And that's like the categories that I value or I weigh myself on. I need to have that for my family and I need to have that for other parts of myself. So if I'm being a weak leader, I need to come up with a cool phrase that I can remind myself in times of like, I want to revert back to, you know, old me in order to create change. This whole episode is about change. And I think that something— these cute phrases, I'm telling you, I just dismissed them by calling them cute phrases. I'm trying to make myself feel better here, but they, they work. They work. They work so much. At Hampton, we have this thing called the 3 C's: commitment, candor, and confidentiality. And that— and so we have to repeat it. We have found roughly 6 times to our customer for them to understand and remember the 3 C's. And so it all has to be in a memorable format.
So I was, um, kind of studying this last night. So I was like, how do you actually do it? Because you said that, right? They need to be memorable. All right, Sam, tell me how you make them memorable, right? So it's like, uh, you kind of like, it should be a couple frameworks, right? Like, but like, I'm not an expert on that. I don't think you're an expert on that. And we actually care about this and we should be good at this. We're like, actually pretty good at writing and pretty good at talking. It's kind of what we do for a living. And even we aren't like that far ahead. Okay, so who is great at this? Who's— who's in what group of people is amazing at this?
I don't know.
Marketers. Marketers. So the people who come up with specifically slogans, right? Another one that's like, where, where is it life or death? Where do you have to be great?
Military or police.
Military and politics. You got to get elected, right? And so, make America great again, right? Okay, okay, that's a, that's a, that's a thing that if he repeated it a thousand times, but it was enough to stick. It was polarizing, it was interesting, it was repeatable, it was like something you could get behind. So I was studying this last night, and there's this, um, phrase called, uh, I don't even know how you pronounce this, chiasmus. C-H-I-A-M-U-S. All right, so, so here's an example of one, Sam. If I said the following phrase, if I said 'Ask not what your country can do for you.' What would you say next?
'Ask what you could do for your country.' Exactly.
And that's a chiasmus. It's basically a sentence structure that is an earworm. I don't even know when— when was that said? When was that phrase said? It was said like, you know, 50 years ago or something like that.
JFK said it in like 1963, I think.
Yeah, exactly. So this is, you know, more than 50 years ago, and yet off the tip of our tongue, me and you can, can say this phrase that was said before, like 20 years before we were alive. That's how powerful that phrase is. Okay. And so what is that structure? And it's basically this, like, if you break down the sentence, it's the— they say this A-B-B-A structure. So the first part is about asking, right? So ask not what your— and then it's your country can do for you. That's the B. Then the B, uh, um, you know, then, then you switch the order and basically ask what you can do for your country, right? So you're going to switch the sentence structure. And there's these two like overall structures. There's like a, um, you know, uh, ABBA, and then there's like a, uh, uh, A, uh, sorry, there's an ABBA, and then there's like an ABAB, right? Or ABBA. And so it's like there's two structures that you could use. And so what you start to do is you start to find two phrases that individually are valid. Okay. So for example, I don't know if you've seen that podcast clip that goes viral where people— where it's just people are like, oh my God, I hate podcasts. Where there's that girl trying to be motivational and she says, don't— she's like, don't love your job, job your love.
Oh yeah. And the, uh, blonde-haired lady.
Yeah. And everyone's just like, oh, it's like the ultimate groan. And the reason why that chiasmus doesn't work is because "job you love" doesn't make any sense. Right? And so you have to find two, two individual statements that make sense, like asking what your country can do for you and what you could do for your country. Both are individually valid. Then you structure it this way and it becomes incredibly memorable. And if you go look at that JFK speech, there's like three of them that he does of that same structure in the, in that one speech. If you go break that speech down.
Yeah. Here's another one. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
Exactly. Chiasmus. And these sound beautiful. They're very satisfying to the mind. And when you understand how the mind works, you see that the mind loves order. It loves structure. If you look at how a— why is a face a beautiful face? Symmetry, right? The more perfect the symmetry of the face, the more, more beautiful the face to people. Another example of this, the game Tetris. Why is the game Tetris so addictive? Why are games like Candy Crush and Tetris so addictive? Because they actually, like, tap into this part of your brain that's almost this cleaning instinct. There's a mess, and then you put one block in the right place and it evaporates the mess. It creates order out of disorder. And the brain loves that. It just wants to do it again and again and again. And this is the basis of the game design of Candy Crush and Tetris. And so, you know, the brain likes what it likes. And so if you want to, you know, deciding to change your brain which is this like, you know, multi-thousand years of evolution is very hard. But just changing the structure of how you speak so that you tap into what the brain likes and give it what it wants so that it does become memorable, it does become sticky, and it has an effect is obviously the much better way to go.
This is, this is pretty profound. This is, this is very fascinating. What did you read to learn this? When you said last night, you said last night, you said you were curious about this.
Well, I started asking different questions, so I started asking, you know, I think I even said it earlier, which is like, whose life depends on this? So anytime I want to get good at something, I try to figure out who— who— for who this is a nice to have for me. Who is it a must have for? So let's say you want to lose weight. You would go look at the bodybuilders training for a bodybuilding competition. If you want to know the logical extremes of how you get the maximum muscle and the lowest body fat, go watch what they do.
Yeah. Now, you know, whose, whose next meal is dependent on getting this right?
Exactly. So, for example, right now I'm writing the book, and I told Diego yesterday, who's helping me, I go, you know, I— we're doing this process where I write in the morning and then I do a bit of a show and tell with them, and I kind of show them what I'm doing, and then I get feedback. But I'm like, the problem with our feedback is I want you to like it, so I want to show it to you. And then— but I also want your honest feedback because I want to make this better. You're trying to be polite and not hurt my feelings because you see that I tried very hard this morning. But you're also trying to help me make it better. And those two things are at odds with each other. And I was like, so I was like, we don't even know how to give feedback in this way that's like, look, I need to be able to share so that I can get this better, but I don't need my emotions to swing based on, yay, they liked it, I did a good job. Oh, they didn't like it, I did a bad job. It's like, that's so lame and a waste of energy. And on your end, you don't— I don't need you having one part of your head saying, like, how do I say this the right way? Because I want to be nice and supportive versus like, hey, how can I tell you what I'm feeling? Or, you know, for giving feedback. So I was like, this art of giving feedback on art, on something that's subjective. I was like, I don't know how to do this. And you don't know how to do this. Who definitely has already solved this problem because it's a must-have for them? So I was like, oh, let's text like a couple of people who are comedians. Because I was like, I think comedians have to figure out like, yo, is this funny or not?. And once I've heard the joke, once I've written the joke and looked at it 20 times, it's not funny to me anymore. I can't even tell. I'm too lost in the sauce. And so I was like, how do they do it? How do musicians do this? How do they play a song? And it's like, is this a good song? I can't tell. I kind of liked it, but now I've heard it 10 times and I can't tell anymore if this is any good. How do they get feedback? And so now we're gonna go find the people. This is a new thing. I gotta go find the people to like go learn from the people for whom this is a must-have.
That's actually, um, First of all, there's— I keep talking to the listener today, but there's two or three takeaways. The question of whose life depends on this. That's a great question. And I'm very curious, actually. I want to know the answer because I create a little bit for a living. I want to know how you know if something's hitting. If I had to guess for a comedian, they would probably just say, I perform it in small audiences and I suffer the pain of bombing. Right.
Yeah. Then that might be it for them. And it's like, oh cool. So what's my version of open mic with 20 people and testing if it bombs? Can I do that in my world? Is there a way I could set that up? Okay. Maybe if it's not that, how do musicians do this? And you sort of start to figure out, well, how do they do that? How do they give feedback? What's the language there? Pixar, I think, wrote this book, Creativity, Inc., which is very like, they talk about the brain trust that they have of how they show raw, kind of like not even the movie, but like a single scene. And how they created a dynamic of trust. There's actually a great story of, uh, when Disney bought Pixar. Pixar had been making hit after hit after hit, and Disney Animation had been just bombing for years. And so they put the Pixar guys in charge and they were like, great, like, we'll merge these two companies and then we'll just start making hits like Pixar.
No, no, no. I think what he did at the beginning, the, the, the main guy, Ed Catmull, they were like, oh, what a perfect A/B test. What a perfect, like, you know, randomized control test here. So what they did was they didn't blend the teams together. They didn't move them together. So what they did was they kept the teams separate. And then what he did was he basically took the Pixar method and he went and he taught it to the Disney folks. And he's basically like, if we just took our process but not our people, could we make those same people who have been failing succeed? Kind of to your question earlier of like, how big of a lever is leadership, is coaching? Like, can it take a 5 and turn it into a 10? And they actually started creating hits once he taught them the process of doing this. And for them, I think trust was like the underlying thing, which is like, um, if you don't have trust, you're not going to share your work at the right times. You're not going to be— give real candid feedback. You're not going to receive candid feedback in the right way because you distrust what's going on. You think your project's going to get killed if it's bad, or you think this guy's going to come steal your thunder. If, you know, if you let him collaborate on it, right? You have all these fears that are basically a lack of trust. And once they installed their sort of like trust process, Disney Animation started making hits too.
Well, and I think one of the, the other points in that book was he was like, we have hitmakers. It was like, we got like these 2 or 3 people who are just typically more— they're more right more often than other people. We listen to them. Like he did like a pretty fun, funny thing about that. We should— okay, so for MFM, we've done like a handful of challenges, like the MFM fitness thing. We should do like a give back thing because tell me about— I haven't like really given my time to give to others, which I don't know if you consider coaching. Is it like you rescued a dog, but you say the dog rescued you? Is it that type of like—
that's so funny.
Like, you know, you thought You thought that you were going to go and, you know, do it for these kids. But really—
To be perfectly clear, my choice was selfish. I wanted to do it. I thought it would be fun and it is very fun and I do want to do it. So it's not like this, like, burden. I'm caring. At the same time, I had recently, like, in the last 2 years, I'd given some money to charity and felt nothing. Like, so maybe I did some good in the world. It's hard to know. You know, you give the money and it just goes in a black box mostly. And then, you know, hopefully something good. Hopefully someone's life got changed from that in some positive direction. But I don't know. And I didn't feel anything. So I didn't want to like triple down on that. And my trainer has this great thing. He says basically he always talks about, he's like, oh man, he's like, our economy, our economy. And I was like, why do you talk so much about the economy? Like Jim Cramer? Like, what are you talking about over here with, okay, okay. You know, Powell, you know, what are you talking about? The interest rates and the economy. What are you, what are you talking about? He's like, no, he's like us. He's like me and you and my other clients. And which is because he trains my mom and then my mom, then they refer to another person. He's like, it's all like a web, right? And so he was like, I'm just talking about like our local economy. Like he's like, I want that little economy to thrive local. Not like I don't care what's going on in the macro. I want the local to thrive. That's what I can affect. And if that's thriving, like that actually like improves the lives of these people that I can see, feel, touch. And if everybody was just doing that in their local little bubble, then the big picture would take care of itself, right? I was like, okay, fair enough. And he even like went further, like again, like the sort of cute thing, like he was like, I was like, so if the normal economy measures GDP, gross domestic product, I was like, what's the, how do you know if your economy is doing well? He's like, he's basically, he's like, baby smiles per hour, baby smiles per hour. He's like, he's like, I just want everybody to be smiling. He's like, if I made you laugh and then you carried that vibe into the house with your wife next. And with your kids, and then they carry that into school. He's like, that's how it works. Like, if you're making people smile by whether it's your mood, it's doing something for them, it's thinking of them, it's having an experience together that has this carry-on effect. They take that smile into the next interaction. That's how it spreads. So I started actually like buying into this. I was like, it is about your local economy. It is about smiles per hour. And so I was like, what do I do that is a kind of give back but not the way I did it last year. I put money in some black box into some multinational nonprofit, and then it just disappeared. And I don't know what happened. I didn't feel anything. I don't know what happened. And so the idea of, like, going to a local high school, taking an unpaid job, and just contributing my time, my talent, my effort, and affecting, like, a group of 12 guys— like, that sounds small, but it feels very big. The other thing, solving world hunger felt, sounded very big, but felt very small. Like there's no feeling. And so I don't know. I don't know if this is the right direction or wrong, but that's the one I've gone.
I don't, I'm not charitable. Uh, I want to be, but I'm like a little bit, I'm like, I don't know how to be. I don't want to just write a check to someone and not feel anything. I want to be selfish. I want to get value out of this, just like a feeling. And so I talked to, do you know who Mike Beckham is? He started a Simple Modern.
Yeah, the hugely successful water bottle company.
So he told me all the numbers and he told me I could share it. So he's worth $200 million because the company does something like $200 million a year in revenue and does $50 million a year in profit. His net worth, because he owns half of it. And then with the multiple, he goes, I'm probably worth— this was last year I talked to him. So he said, I'm worth probably $200 million. And he said $190. And he said, I have about— I think he said $3 or $4 million to my name, but I pull $5 million out of the business every year and I take $1 million of it and I give away $4 million. If you guys Google Mike, Mike Beckham, Sam Parr, you'll like see a post I wrote about it. So I think there's a chance I got the numbers slightly wrong. But basically he said, I take something like $5 million and I give the rest away. I, I, my family spends $25,000 a month, so we take enough for us to spend minus taxes. And I give, you know, $4 million or $4.5 million. I give it away. And I was like, that's insane, man. Why do you do that? He's like, well, it's not generous to do this when I die because that's not hard for me. Like, it should be like some type of like challenge. Like, this should feel like I should feel a little bit of pain. But then he said something really great. He said, the more that I give, the less loud the greedy voice in my head becomes. So he's like, I feel this like greediness in my— this voice in my head that says, make more money, buy more stuff, do this. But the more that I give, that becomes a whisper because I feel what it's like to give away this money. And it feels significantly better than the acquire a bigger home or another car. He was like, I drive a $30,000 CR-V because I know that if I spent— bought a $90,000 car, that's $60,000 less that I can give to people. And it makes me feel good to do that. And so his whole— the whole point of him telling me this was he wanted to, to, to get me to like give now versus when you're old and/or dead. And I thought that that was very inspirational. It wasn't that inspirational because I haven't done it yet, but, but more admirable. Yeah. Yeah. And inspirational. Yeah. It inspired me like a, you know, like the Rocky movie. Like, you know, I should get into boxing one day.
Totally.
But I did think it was really awesome. 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.
You know, I've read this a few times on Twitter where somebody will say, oh, I started either microdosing or I started taking like, you know, Ozempic or whatever.
One or the other. I've done all those things. You can just ask me.
Okay, so maybe you had this too, but they talk about food noise, which is not a phrase I'd ever heard before. I don't know if that was— is that common? But like, they basically said the biggest change is not the weight loss, it's the— I don't have food noise. Basically, this like part of my brain, this, this chatter in my brain about the next meal or about should I have this or wanting this or—
let me give you an example.
Yeah. Is this real?
Yes. So like, I have an addictive personality and I had addiction stuff. Before. And tell me if you've ever experienced this. You get a piece of dessert, like a cake or something. You eat half of it. You put the rest in the refrigerator. And then you go lay in bed. You lay in bed and you're like, but it's still there and it's uneaten. I think the fork that I used might still be in the sink. I could probably just use that. Maybe. Well, what a— I'll just go up and get a little bit of bite. So you go, you get in bed and you eat one little bite, you put it back, and then I will do this 7 times until it's gone and then it goes away. And I say to myself this, I say, shit, well, I already did this. I might as well eat this entire sleeve of Oreo cookies. Right. And before you know it, notice you've done 1,000 or 1,500 calories of like binge eating, but it's all based on one urge. That is the food voice. And when you take GLP-1s, not only does that voice get dimmed, other addictions get dimmed. I notice I bit my nails less. I noticed I wasn't craving— like it used to be where I would smell like beer. If I walked by like a brewery, I'd be like, let's, let's go like see what's up. Not anymore.
What is up when you go see what's up?
You do. The secret is you should not go see what's up, but like you smell the hops and you're like, ooh, that's nice, right? But yeah. So yeah, it definitely turns it down.
So I wanted to ask you about this. On the money, the loudness of the money voice, of the more voice in your head. Because a few podcasts ago we did an episode. I think the front half of it was about something sort of silly, but the back half of it was us talking like we kind of mostly did today. Just like what's hard for us in life, what is, what's some of the wisdom that kind of helps and just sort of like, I don't know, trying to figure shit out out loud, right? In front of a bunch of other people. Bunch of other strangers, which is a little bit uncomfortable, but you do it. And in that, I mentioned this thing that had come up, and I had a lot of friends who were basically like, they have all the success and then they go start another company. And it's like, did they stress out, lose some hair, gain some weight, and try to build another company?
And I— well, you said the best phrase ever too.
Yeah, this is the phrase that a lot of people DM me afterwards, which is like, you, you've already earned the last dollar you will ever spend. So why are you trading good hours for bad dollars now? And that's something that I had, you know, thought of for myself and when I saw others. But like, you know, that doesn't mean I'm like immune to it either, right? Like, I still am in the same boat. I think I have it to a lesser degree in the same way that like that food chatter you were talking about, like, I got that, that guy's got a megaphone in my head. Whereas I think for other people it's, you know, a little bit more like a whisper. And so I want to do two things. I want to ask you about the voice in your head, and then I want to tell you about a ChatGPT coaching conversation I had about money. I kind of want to read you what it said to me a little bit. But, but first I want to ask you, you know, you, you are also in that boat where I believe you have earned the last dollar you'll ever, you'll ever spend. You're a pretty frugal guy in general. Like, you're not like Mike Tyson buying tigers. You had a great exit with The Hustle, and you have earned the last dollar you'll ever spend. But here you are starting more companies, maybe making some investments. And, you know, every day you wake up and you take your life energy and you go to an office with other people and you do this. And you can always talk about how, like, you know, you like working and the mission. I'm not saying it's bad. That's not what I mean. I guess what I mean is, how do you think about money and wanting more? Are you honest with yourself that you do want more? And then how do you square that circle of like, but I don't actually need more because I have already earned the last dollar I've ever spent? Or do you not think that's true? So I just want to hear how you— what's, what's that chatter in your head? How loud is it? And what is the— what does it say?
I think the— okay, so nothing is all or nothing, or there's a priority of lists. So the number one priority for me is like, I just don't know what to do. Like I don't know how to spend time. And when I spend time sitting around, I feel like I'm missing out or I feel like I'm not contributing. And that feels bad. And yet when I spend all the time working, some days I have bad days and I'm like, what am I doing? I should be doing this other thing. So that exists. But then the one right below that is I'm not good enough and I have to, and my self-worth is directly correlated to the success of the thing that I'm working on.
My self-worth is my net worth, basically, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You could say that. And so that's probably through years of trauma and believing something, but it's hard to break. And then the last thing is more money does feel good. Yeah, it definitely feels good. And what I have to do, I do math all the time where I'm like, I don't need more. Everything that I want, I have, but I can't. Break that. I guess if you wanted to be like a therapist or a psychologist, you would say like, the reason you don't wanna change is, or the reason you don't change is 'cause you don't want to. You know, you like how it feels.
Do you like how it feels?
I love when things go well at my company. I do feel on top of the world. The problem with building companies is you typically only feel like that 10% of the time. You know, like things are bad most of the time.
Ineffective way to get that feeling.
Yeah, so I say I don't gamble, I don't do drugs and alcohol, And instead, this is like a dopamine slot machine.
Yeah. Okay.
So it's like, do you like being addicted to gambling? You say no, but when you win, it's so amazing that it makes you—
But at least it's not heroin, is what you kind of just said.
Yeah. And then I also justify it by saying, and this is a bad justification and I'll prove it to you, but you say, I want to— I'll go ahead and do the work for you. You say to yourself, you say, well, I don't want my kids to just I don't want them to see me sitting around and I want them to see me working really hard and I want to set a good example. But then they probably would rather be with you.
Yeah, they want to see me.
Yeah. And, and I don't— I think I do good. Like, I go to the office from 9 to 4, 9 to 5. But then I also say I'm doing this for them. And it's like, what is this?
What?
What? You know, like, what is this for them? How does that make sense? You know, do they— they don't need anything physical. You know, they don't— what do they need that I can't give them already?
Right. Yeah. Is, is 50-hour weeks the, the most effective way to just give them the general principle that you should work hard at things? Yeah. Like, that might not be the most efficient route to that, to that answer. Okay. So I wrote down 3 things. I wrote down imagination, which I think is the first part. The first one you said, which is I don't know what else— I kind of don't know what else to do. I want to do something and like, I don't want to do nothing. Therefore, I do this thing. And I think about that a lot. I think that, uh, Suli came on the podcast a while back and he said something where he goes—
Suli being your good buddy who is presumably worth hundreds of millions of dollars, is one of the more successful entrepreneurs we know.
Correct. He's my, he's my great friend, but he's also the guy who I respect and trust the most when it comes to entrepreneurship and like kind of business, like strategy. Yeah. And I've met a lot of people wealthier than him, but he consistently is the highest signal, best judgment person. And like, you know, just the way he, the way he approaches in a tax business, he's just like, like such a winner. Okay. So, uh, he came on the pod and he goes, I used to think I was limited by some lack of resource. Like I, maybe I didn't have a skill I needed. I needed to learn how to code. Maybe I didn't have enough money. Maybe I didn't have enough time. Like, basically he's like, I always just thought, you know, I didn't have the network. I didn't know people. Like, I just assumed I lacked some resource. And he goes, now I realize that all I ever lacked was basically imagination. He's like, I— the thing I lacked the most was even figuring out what to want, what the possibilities were of what I could do, and how I might be able to go do those things. That sounds kind of like hand-wavy, I guess. But the more smart people I meet, and it's almost like the bigger that side of your brain gets where it's like, I am analytical, I am good at making plans and then executing them and operating. And like, the better you are at that, the less I've, I've noticed they're disproportionately bad at imagination. And so, for example, it's like, you know, kind of don't know what else to do with my hands. That's kind of what you said. There's a lot of things. There's actually a ton of things, right? Like, and the stupid example I gave earlier, and this wouldn't be the right thing for you, but it was the right thing for me, which is like, well, what if you, instead of going and chasing down the next investment or starting another company, and I got a bunch of deals and I got a bunch of ideas, like the, the right thing, the thing that was fulfilling was, hey, what if you took 4 months, one season, and you just coached a high school basketball team? That was actually the right answer for me, which totally out of left field, doesn't even make sense. It wouldn't be the right answer for other people, but it's the thing that like totally fills my cup in a way that another business that was successful would never do.
Yeah, but I think that you're not— or maybe you are, but it's way harder than you think. Or not than you think, but figurative you. I think like that imagination game is quite challenging. Like, for example, if you said you have $1 billion today, what do you want to do? I'm like, I don't have an answer. Like we might get flamed in the comments here. All we're talking about is like this, I call it Second Mountain problems, but whatever. I was thinking about the— I was like, why do I want all these employees? Like, so we're moving to a new office down the street and we just signed this lease. It's a million-dollar lease. So over 3 years, it's going to be $1 million and we're building out this office, whatever. And it's a lot of money. I've never done this before. And I was like, why am I doing this? And I was like, I just— I think Maybe I'm lying to myself again. I was like, I care about capabilities. So what I hate is that you have an idea. So like, how often do you have an idea for like a small project and you're like, ugh, now I gotta go get the people and then I gotta like train the people and I don't think they're gonna be any good.
Yeah, all the time.
Yeah. And I was listening to Ari Emanuel talk and he was like, we have this thing and this thing and this thing. And I was like, how cool is it that your company and you have all these capabilities? You have an idea, you like, wouldn't it be cool if this existed in the world? And it's not just a business idea for him. I think he cares about like the show. It's like, wouldn't it feel awesome if like at the UFC we did blank or we bought all these tennis tournaments and we offered food at a discount? You know, I don't know. And I love the idea of having lots and lots of capabilities. And I think that's why business building is fun.
Yeah, I have that right now. Actually, I forgot to say this, but the one of the things I've been talking about for a while on here but have not executed right, like the walk hasn't matched the talk. Is I had this realization that, that video is the language of the internet. It's like if, if the internet was a country and it'd be, it would be the most important country in the world. It'd be more powerful of a country than America. Um, so it's like a place where you live and you spend time. I think the internet is that people live and spend a lot of time online. And then you say, all right, well, do you speak the native tongue? Because if you don't, you know, if you come to America but you don't speak English, you're putting yourself at a pretty massive disadvantage.. And I believe that video is the language of the internet. It's how people communicate online, whether it's long form like this on YouTube or it's short form, which is growing, growing more and more popular across, you know, YouTube Shorts, Reels, TikToks, etc. It is the way people communicate information. And if you don't have the capability to communicate and tell your story, um, or connect with others that way, you know, you're just not speaking the important language of the important country. In fact, like, it doesn't really matter where you were born or what you were doing or how hard you worked. Pretty much if you were born anywhere in the world, the best decision you could make for your, like, life quality and upward mobility was to move to America and learn English. Even if that meant starting at the bottom, even if that meant being uncomfortable, like, in the long term, it was short-term pain, but in the long term, that was the best thing you could do. And it would— there was no amount of hard work you could do in Somalia that was going to make up for that one decision.
Dude, is this the most charismatic and epic way just to say you're going to start posting on Instagram?
Yeah, I'm going to start posting on Instagram. Did I not just sell your ass on the fact that I'm posting on Instagram?
Dude, imagine, imagine your wife at the dinner table, just like telling the story. Like, listen, You're— years ago, our grandparents lived in India. The best thing they could have done is learning English. Now here we are today, the year 2025. What? Sean, are you gonna start posting on Instagram?
Yeah, exactly. In fact, I'm gonna start specifically just posting, uh, a story series about the coaching thing I'm doing. So basically like day one, you know, basically like every week I'm just going to post like a thing that I sent you.
Dude, that was a good video. Do you get inspired by Marshall?
No, not Marshall. There's actually these young guys who are doing this. There's this format where—
Fire and the Bar guy.
His name, I think, is Rajan. I don't know exactly what his first name is. His handle is something. But they're building like a luxury Airbnb in Virginia. There's a guy who's bought an old bowling alley and he's rehabbing it. It's basically like, yo, I'm doing a project for shits and giggles and like, I want to make it happen and I'm kind of new to this. I don't have it all figured out, but I'm going to share as I go. And I just like the format and I think it's fun and I want to do it specifically on something that's not business. Like it's very hard for me to get motivated to be like, and now I'm going to give you business guru content. And even if I like, like business, it's just very hard for me to sit in front of the camera and do talking head content about business. Or, um, about myself or about, uh, you know, some new SaaS company. But I was like, this one I would want to follow. So I'm going to make this content. And so I'm going to make like a coach account. It's going to be like Coach Sean or Coach P or something. I'll put the link in the, in the Instagram, but, uh, or in the comments of this, or I'll put it on the screen. Uh, but I want people to follow it because I'm going to post videos on here and I think they'll be great.
That's so funny. I've been, uh, doing the Instagram thing. It's pretty fun. Because you start like trying to— it's basically because we're the old guys now. It's sort of like when people wanted to start newsletters or something and it was like, dude, you're writing way too like tight. You got to be a little loosey-goosey.
Right, right.
I've done the same thing on Instagram where I start talking to the camera and I like get official. You're going to, you're going to have fun. It's, it's very intimidating.
Pop those two buttons down, dude.
It's so intimidating. We have— if you go to my thing, I start— I do all of our videos now where I'm holding a spatula as a microphone because we had to like have fun and like, I just love you. Yeah. And it totally reflects our Manhattan office. Hey, fellow kids.
Yeah, exactly. Um, it is so funny that you say that. Uh, your content is pretty good though. Uh, the problem with it though, uh, you know, the problem with all social media, like being like, I'm going to try to like post good short-form content. Is it's basically saying I'm going to go to the bar and not get drunk because it's so easy for your mind to get wrapped up in the vortex of like, how many likes did I get? How many views did that get? Is that good? Is that bad?
And so easy.
I don't even know physically if even knowing that, like, you know, I don't know if it's physically possible to go in and not want that. So I could easily see myself aborting that, you know, that process 6 months from now, even though in this case it's like I'm doing it for just this basketball season, which is just 3 months. And it's only content about this random side quest that I'm on. Um, it's not like, you know, here's my personal IG, I'm gonna create short-form content every day.
But let me tell you something I've been telling myself, and it's been helping so much. So a few things. One, the algorithm is so good right now on Meta that the right people see the right stuff. Like, I'm pretty sure that the camera knows, like, what I'm wearing and what my background looks like, what I look like. Like, I posted a skateboarding video, it knows that I'm, like, doing a skateboarding thing. It shows it to the right people somehow. I don't know how it does it. And the second thing is that I have noticed, I've only been doing this for a handful of weeks now, and I'm going to be doing a lot more, but people text me when something hits. And I, that is so much more cool than the number of likes or the comments on the things. It's just those texts. And the cool thing is once you have a business, which in this case you're actually probably not going to be doing it for a business, you don't need that many people to watch it. Like I'm seeing it's, it's changing our company. Like we're getting customers. I've made a lot of money off of it already in a very short amount of time with very few views. I think my most popular thing is getting like 70,000 or 80,000 views. It's not a lot for Instagram. And the right people are shown the right stuff and you don't need that much to make it cool. There is something weird about like Instagram right now, and I know that like any 21-year-old listening to this is like, yeah, duh, duh. But as like if you are above 30 or whatever and you grew up with this stuff, the— I've never posted on Instagram up until recently. The algorithm is way different than what I used to think it was.
Mm. That's cool. Um, yeah, it makes, it makes a ton of sense. I think you're doing a good job. I think the spatula trick is a good trick. I like that. Um, everybody's got to have a shtick. That's yours. You're the spatula guy.
Great.
That's where we thought we'd land in life.
Let me write that in my diary.
I mean, have you ever had the thought, like, what did your grandfather do?
Dude, when I think about my grandfather, I think if I was him right now, I'd have like, you know, 18 confirmed kills under my belt in the world, in World War II. You know what I mean? With a fucking spatula.
In an ammunition factory in India.
Yeah.
Okay. So that's my grandfather. His thought, his idea of what work is.
As you're talking to a microphone with a sheep on it that says, sorry, I'm late.
My shirt literally says, sorry, I'm late. I was dilly-dallying. That's what I wore to work today.
Dude, your grandpa lost 3 fingers before the age of 28.
I was like, Ari, is this shirt too wrinkly right before the pod? And she's like, I think it fits what it says. It's like, oh yeah, yeah, that's true. Um, So, but just this is a kind of mind-bending thing, right?
My grandpa was a sheriff, was a— he was a cop.
Okay, so a job that like you can buy an action figure for.
Yeah, right. Yeah.
Like soldiers, policemen, like, you know, a factory worker, construction, doing a real thing that like the world critically needs that's hard and completely unglamorous. And then I think about, okay, his son, what did his son do? My dad. And it's like he sat in a cubicle like an office Like, not a factory. It's like, well, what does he do? It's like, well, he types on this computer mostly, and he like wears a suit, not like a construction uniform, wears this like fancy suit for some reason. And he will sometimes fly on an airplane to go meet with somebody, shake their hand, talk to them for a while, come back home and do them. So he does these like business meetings. Okay. That's what I grew up. And that's my dad. So to my grandfather, what my dad did kind of looked and seemed like a little bit of a joke. And now my dad looks at me and he's like, you're wearing a shirt with a sheep on it says I'm dilly-dallying. You're talking to your friend on this tiny screen. You're podcasting to who? What? What is a podcast? Do you make it? You can make like, I'll still go to family gatherings and they'll be like, so how do, how do you earn money though? And I'm like, uh, I don't know. How did I explain this? Ads. Um, and they're like, but where and how? I'm like, have I told you about HubSpot? So my uncle has a CRM. I don't know why, but, um, but, but to them what we do, which is like, yeah, you're talking with a spatula to a cell phone to strangers so that they can join, so that, that will, so that 0.1% of them will go spend $10,000 joining your membership community, uh, you know, like It's like, what is this? And then you think about like what your kids are going to do. It's going to be completely unrecognizable. Work is going to be unrecognizable from one generation to the next is what I'm realizing.
And I feel like such a fucking pussy doing it.
But I think like, you know, our kids are just going to be like livestreamers, right? Like, you know, those like, you know, that girl who was like, as comments were coming in, she'd be like, woohoo, cowboy. Every time somebody did a cowboy hat gift, it's like, that's what our kids are going to do. Something that seems even or start— it's going to be like, you know, yeah, I'm, I'm an AI therapist. It's like, what do you mean? It's like, well, I sort of, um, I talk to AIs to make them feel better. It's like, what? What is that? That's a job?
I think about your mom all the time.
Well, inappropriate.
Well, it could go either way. I think about your mom coming to America all the time because I think about how— because the way you told the story was really good, and I like, I saw myself in her situation of like not having a lot being on a plane for the first time, coming to America. We didn't speak anything. You just dropped off in Berkeley, I think it was. And like, you're like, what do I do? And like, I, I, I felt a little, not even close, but sort of like that when I moved to San Francisco, but on a much smaller scale. And I think, I think about her all the time. And I think about like immigrants and stuff like that who like come here with nothing. And I'm like, and I'm complaining about this. I'm complaining that my apartment that's already huge, is it big enough? And I want more and I'm sad about it. I'm going to pay a therapist money where they can hear me complain about this. What?
The idea of a therapist is like someone you pay money to complain to. It's so funny.
Like, I just think about that. I'm like, how ridiculous is this? Yeah. Sacagawea carried her 3-month-old kid across America for 2 years. For 2 years she carried that kid. In a piece of leather.
Yeah, but the car rental place only had forward-facing car seats, and I need 4 strollers.
She carried him in a leather sack without diapers. I think about that all the time. I think about this stuff like on a regular basis. How soft are we?
It's so funny because, you know, what's that famous, uh, like, Ernest Shackleton, like, you know, the journey will be hard, people will die, like that job posting.
What's that famous thing? Yeah, so Ernest Shackleton Honestly, the greatest book I've ever read.
I think I said his first name like he's just like Ernie from Sesame Street. And then I called him Shackleford. What's his name?
Shackleton is his name, right? Or Shackleford. But whatever. He's just like the hardest dude of all time. The book, uh, Endurance, probably honestly might be the top 3 books I've read of all time. Uh, the story is basically in the early 1900s when he was just in like a ship without, you know, uh, power. Sails around to the bottom of the Arctic or Antarctica. I forget which one. The ship gets like so deep into the cold that the lake or the water, the ocean freezes around it. And he walks for 3 months to get to like the tip of Brazil.
So here's the job ad.
No one died.
Such a good book. Hard job posting.
Wanted cardboard box cutter. Lots of Amazon packages getting a little bit unwieldy in the laundry room. Take off your shoes when you enter, please. Bring own box cutter.
Don't have tools. Softer than cream cheese, man. I'm so soft. I pride myself in trying to be hard, and it is— there is no pride there.
Why do I smell like chives? Oh, softer than cream cheese, maybe that's why.
This is ridiculous.
All right, so we started off talking about, uh, Dear Diary. Dude, the softest entry, the softest Softest entry, softest exit you'll find in podcasting history.
That's the episode. 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.
All right, everyone. If you're listening to MFM, you probably want to make more money. Well, I want to tell you about a podcast you might want to check out. It's called The Sales Evangelist, and it's hosted by Donald Kelly. Each week, Donald interviews the world's best sales experts who share their strategies to succeed in sales. They share actionable insights and stories that will encourage, challenge, and motivate you to hustle your way to the top. If you're someone looking to raise your income level, check out The Sales Evangelist. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts.