My First Million - Brainstorming $100M AI-Proof Businesses

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

*Want to start a business with less than $1k? Get the guide: https://clickhubspot.com/obd Episode 739: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talk about anti-digital businesses that are making $10M to $300M a year. — Show Notes: (0:00) Shaan joins a country club (06:28) IDEA: Social Club (11:04) IDEA: Family club house (12:10) IDEA: Pet Owner Housing (19:47) IDEA: $300M Anti-phone pouch (32:53) MFM’s Pascal Challenge (24hr phone fast) (34:29) The greatest biography of all time (37:22) Steve Martin's 40-year mindset (41:31) Dialectics — Links: • Zero Bond - https://zerobondny.com/ • Chief - https://chief.com • The Malin - https://themalin.co/ • The Lighthouse - https://thelighthouse.com/ • Neuehouse - https://www.neuehouse.com/ • Soho House - https://www.sohohouse.com/ • Yondr - https://www.overyondr.com/ — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies! Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano

I think the theme of this episode today is basically anti-digital, anti-tech, anti-AI ideas. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On a road, let's travel. Never look at that. I have an idea for you, by the way. What?

All right. So Hampton, you've got this community of CEOs in different cities. And it's great. And you're doing great. And it's mostly a started off online. I'm so glad you shift. to like in person, which I'm sure was hard, but like painful but necessary change. I've just been thinking about some of these like AI proof ideas.

I think it's just an interesting lens to be like, what doesn't really make sense for AI to like improve or or disrupt? And we joined a country club. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I thought I could just keep going. Hold on. I didn't think the TSA agent would ask me for my passport there. Who's we?

Like you and your wife? Your family? Like, you and your wife? Like a golf? Like a golf? A golf country club? Even though I don't play golf currently. Okay.

Like the stereotype of my head of like a golf course and like chicken tenders. I think it's a lot of that. There's a great pool. Okay. Great amenities. Tennis court, pick a ball, et cetera. Okay. Look, I don't want to talk to what you're going to talk to what I'm trying to say is from a business perspective.

I'm breaking fast. Did you have to interview? Did you have to interview? Did they Google you? We have an interview scheduled in a few days. Yeah. Oh my God. The hardest part, by the way, is there's a dress code?

Is Under Armour on it? Are you allowed to wear it? I was like, okay, I get full tank, but how about a muscle tank? You guys get with that? That's actually how I showed up for the first tour. So anyways, yeah, I'm a little fish out of water. Wait, what are they going to ask you on the interview? Are they going to, like, are you going to, you should, you can't tell them you host a podcast called My First Million.

I mean, it's so taggy. You can be honest. They reject me. Don't be honest. What? Are you insane? You have to lie. Look, my wife really wants this.

She knows a lot of the moms from the school, go there, whatever. All right. So let me get to my point here. Yes. Yes to everything you're thinking insane. All right. Let's just agree on all of those things that are every thought in your head right now. How much is it going to cost?

What's your monthly? All right. So the membership fees are something. like you pay $7,500, so $7,500 just to like initiate, just to like get your foot in the door. Okay, that's not even the dues. That's like an, well, there's a $500 application fee. Then it's like a $7,500, like an initial join the club fee. And then you pay something like, I don't know, $700 to $1,000 a month as a member. And that's to not even get to play golf. That's like Pleb member. You don't get to play golf. If you play tennis, you got to like use your left hand or

something. I don't know. It's not, you don't even get everything. So we're joining as like the basic member. But I was looking at the numbers. I was like, okay, so they're basically probably close to 2,000 members at this club. And so 2,000 members times, let's call it 10 grand a year, average membership fee, which again, doesn't even include the golf, is a $20 million annual recurring revenue business to then have the right to go pay for food there and drinks, to just have the right to go shop there. And so everything else, I think mostly operates break-even. I think they do events like weddings and birthday parties and stuff like that. That makes some money too. But I'm pretty sure this country club is pulling in something like 20 to 25 million a year in recurring

revenue, not including the all of the like, you know, whatever margin they have on food, beverage, golf, etc. which might be closer to like 10% or something. And I just thought, man, this is an incredible business. And I've seen a few of these now. So I saw that one. when I first moved to San Francisco, the guy I was working with, Michael Birch, he created the battery in San Francisco, which was like, San Francisco didn't have a Soho house, so he created the battery.

Was that good? Was that a good business? Well, I think he undercharges dramatically. You know, he didn't need the money, per se. He sold his company for like $800 million. So, you know, he wasn't doing it for the money. He was doing it for the social. And I think he didn't want to make it like an only rich tech guy thing.

So he priced it initially at like $2,500 a year. like 200 bucks a month. It's like that's literally less than Equinox or something, you know. Now I think it's $3,000. This is a pretty, pretty low still. One time I went there, I think with you, and I'm not exaggerating. This is the, I swear to God, this is the truth. There was a booth that had a pretty blonde hair lady, Snoop Dog, and a monk wearing an orange like Shaw sitting at the same booths. Like, it looked like the Dalai Lama, Snoop Dog, and a hot blonde girl. And they, and they were like sitting like this, like, leaning in having a conversation. I don't know what it was about, but it could have been like world peace,

but it was crazy. I saw that in real life and I was like, this is the craziest thing I've ever seen. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, I've seen Elon there, I've seen Jay-Z there. It's crazy. So I saw that model. And Soho House, I don't know if you saw, just went private. A private equity group just came and basically took it private at $2.7 billion. And they think that in 2025, it'll do something like 150 million of EBTA. But it's a little confusing. They said, not profitable currently, but the 2025 forecast is 150 million in EBTA.

And so I started thinking about these clubs, and I was like, why doesn't Sam get into this business with Hampton? Right. Like, why not in your core one, two, three cities, get some real estate, create a physical space and top up on the members. And then any time a member is traveling to New York, L.A., Chicago, whatever, Austin, wherever you want to put through, wherever your hubs are, they have a physical place to go work, to heat, to meet, to do whatever. So I have an answer. So for one, it's operationally,

I think that it's silly for me to, my main business is creating wonderful core groups where people talk. And then this business that you are talking about is hospitality and real estate. I think the answer is there's a world or we will do it, but it needs to be its own business. You shouldn't mix them. So a company I was inspired by, called Chief, it's what we're doing, but mainly for women executives. They had a lot of real estate, and it dragged down, it dragged them down significantly. But let me tell you something. So, there's this weird surge going on, particularly in New York, where there's this, and over the last year or so, there's been something like 15 or 20 new social clubs or co-working spaces

that have popped up. And so have you heard of like zero bond? No. So that's an example of one. And there are so many of these. Social clubs amongst, like, young, like, 20-something Gen Z, this is a phenomenon that is just absolutely killing it. And it's not new. Social clubs have been around for forever since the Gilded Age. People have been doing, like, social clubs since Ben Franklin doing Juntoe, where he would, like, meet up with his friends.

But what I'm noticing is that there's a whole niche of co-working spaces that combine this social club kind of aesthetic. So let me give you a few weeks. examples. Google the Malin. So it's the word the and then M-A-L-I-N. Before I had my office here, I rented a space here. And this is like a very niche co-working space, absolutely beautiful on the inside, with three locations. And whenever I was there, it was like buzzing. And like the target demographic for these guys are like good-looking freelancers. Like everyone who weren't there was like, a hot freelancer.

They're like, good news and bad news. Good news. We like that you're a freelance designer. Bad news is one other requirement. Yeah.

I didn't fit the ICP, but they still let me in. But like... They let you in just see why you don't belong? Yeah, they let me hang out. There's another guy in my core group. His name's James Street.

So go to this website called thelighthouse.com. So thelighthouse.com. My friend owns this agency called Whaler, and it's a huge nine-figure-a-year digital agency, and it's based in L.A., so it's all hip and cool and everything. And they created a little project called The Lighthouse, so The Lighthouse.com, and it's, I think they call it a creators campus. In other words, it's basically a co-working space for creators,

meaning instead of like just normal desks, they have, like, cool studios, kind of like the one I'm recording in where, like, someone can just, like, record. And in the first year of business, they've done eight figures in revenue with one location. And I'm seeing this pop up like over and over and over. And then another one is Newhouse. Have you heard of New House? No. Go click New House.

And so they call themselves the work and social home for creatives. And so these guys are selling everyone that I've just named. They're basically just taking a sliver. of what like we work is and who it's for and then what you're talking about of social clothes and they're combining it because scaling cool is very challenging that's what soho struggled with you can't scale exclusivity really well unless you own a variety of brands like you're louis Vuitton and you own like ermes and louis vaton and this and that and so each one it's okay if they're like don't grow aggressively but scaling utility works wonderfully and that's where positioning it as a co-working space

works really well. But in New York in particular, but I'm seeing this in a lot of other places, these social clubs slash co-working spaces are thriving. And we were told that we work and all these other businesses like that are kind of silly. They're not. The economics can be great. It's not going to be like an $80 billion company or whatever we work raised at, but it could still be an amazing company. All right. So a lot of people will talk about how you need a million dollars and three years of experience to start a business. Nonsense. If you listen to to at least one episode on this podcast, you know that is completely not true. My last company, The Hustle, we grew it to something like $17 or $18 million in revenue. I started it with like

$300. My current company, Hampton, does over $10 million in revenue, started it with actually no money, maybe $29 or something like that, nothing. And so you don't actually need investors to start a company. You don't need a fancy business plan, but what you do need is systems that actually work. And so my old company, the hustle, they put together five proven business models that you could start right now today with under $1,000. These are models that if you do it correctly, it can make money this week. You can get it right now. You can scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Now back to the show.

There's two other interesting ones I want to show you. One is slightly related. So one is a Soho house for families with kids. So I think it's called beginning clubhouse. Dude, it's in, it's in New York, right? Yep. Dumbo. What is Dumbo?

Is that Brooklyn? Yeah, Brooklyn. It's like, this is where like yuppie parents who wear Carhart. Exactly. So they're opening this up there, which is a cell house, but that's kid-friendly because, you know, all these private clubs tend to be only for like sort of like either single, you know, young people or like people whose kids are grown up. And it's like a, you know, family's not welcome.

but as somebody with like, you know, four or five-year-old kids, my entire life, basically, and the reason we got, you know, our membership for this thing is, like, we just need a place to take the kids as, like, a reliable spot where they're going to have some fun and I can, like, have them fenced in. You know what I mean? Like, they have some stuff to it.

I can just chill and, like, take care of, you know, whatever, oh, you need food, we have food. You want to swim, you got swim. You know, like, you want to just chill. You want to play some games. We can do that too, like whatever you need. So I thought this is kind of interesting. The other one I thought was interesting,

the guy who started wag.com has a new business. Have you seen this? He's starting this new thing in Denver. When I first heard it, I kind of laughed. I think his name is Jason Metzler. He's basically building multifamily housing, so just like a place to rent to live. But it's called like, I forgot what it's called like live pet play or something,

live pet work. And basically it's like, what he realized was, you know, in Denver, there's more pet owners than parents with kids. And he's like, there are, and I think this is true nationwide, I believe, that there's more people with pets than there are people with kids. And for those people, housing often is like very limited.

So like a lot of places don't let you have a pet. If they do have a pet, it's like this inconvenience where like nothing about it is built for life as a pet owner in a city. Whereas what these guys are doing, they're like, cool, you know, dog grooming. You basically, you rent your plate or you rent your unit. It's like the unit has like a doggie door. there's like grass areas at the bottom and on the rooftop to take your your dog out. There's dog walkers in the building. So you get like, you know, 20 jog walks a month.

You get two nights of dog sitting and targeting specifically this like sort of demographic of person. I thought that's pretty interesting. It's basically like take normal multi, multifamily. But how do you charge like an extra 30 to 40% of rent every month? Well, if you make it like a plus for somebody who's like dog obsessed and you know, dog owners, I think they say. spend something like $6,000 a year just on their pet alone. And the inconvenience of living in a

place that's like not pet friendly is a daily, you know, a daily nuisance. So I think there might actually be something to this. That's interesting. Because all real estate is just a question of can you buy it where everybody thinks it's worth X, right? You buy it because everybody thinks it's going to generate X dollars of net income. But you know you can, you can do 1.3x, 1.2x. And if you do that, you know, and you buy a $20 million building, you've increased the value of the building, maybe by $10 million or $12 million if you're able to do that well. And so I just think this was smart because normally the way they do these value ads is you have to build more units. It's like, that's how you're going to generate more income is I'm going to have to spend

a bunch of money to build more units. This was like, no, I'm just going to like position it as being great for this type of customer. And I know that that type of customer is willing to pay a little more for these additional perks and services and spaces. How much money did this guy? raise. I saw he's raising for the building itself, not for like the head co. Like it's a real estate play, right? So he's like, we're buying this building. Already it generates this. We're going to add these things. And then it's going to, you know, it'll generate this once we have it rented. We have confidence going to be rented because, you know, here's all the demographic trends in our favor. I always get nervous when tech people go into real estate. That always freaks me out.

I tried to do the same, by the way. I had an internet company. And I try to like, I, I, I tiptoed into it and I bought some real estate. And I just want to like, I could put this on the record. My hit rate for anything that I've done on my own real estate wise, it's I'm 0 for three. I have lost money on every single one of them. Yeah. Well, operating yourself is always different, right?

Like you, you tried to be the real estate developer, right? You tried to do the execute project plan yourself. And you're just at the beginning of the learning curve. Like I probably the last 12 months, my best investment across everything. And I, you know, like, I mean, all the AI stocks and all that, my best investment by far has been my real estate investments. But I'm not the one operating. Yes, investing in other people. Yeah, I'm not operating.

Like, when I'm just an investor in someone else's work, it's been wonderful. I agree. That is wonderful. Any time that I have tried to operate it, oh for three. I've lost in every single one of them. And every single time I think, what am I doing? I can make a website for zero dollars. And I can make more money than I've just made off of investing seven figures and having to work really hard and stress over making significantly less.

Or no money. Yeah. Have you seen any other of these, like, social clubs that interest you? No, but I just think it's going to be more and more popular. Like, all of the trends seem to play in this favor, right? So it's like, if you have remote work, which was like pretty niche before, then it became everybody. And now it said to some new normal, but it's still way bigger than it was before.

So you have remote work. You have AI that's disrupting other types of businesses. You have, like, generational declines in, like, number of young men dating. number of people who are like married, number of virgins, you know, people with social anxiety and depression. Like, all of those numbers are just like going in the wrong direction. And so things like, whether it's run clubs or social clubs, like, it just seems like the core desires they tap into are not being met and like those problems are being really seen. Like, I'm not surprised at some of the examples you had and some of the numbers. Like, I think it's really impressive, but I'm not

entirely surprised because I think people do need this now. If I'm a young person listening to this and I wanted to get into this. I've been playing around with like copywriting and an idea for this. It doesn't work for Hampton. It's a little too aggressive. But I was reading this book called Bowling Alone. And it's all about in America up until roughly the 60s. The average America, American was a member of a variety of clubs, like their PTA Rotary Club, which most people don't even know what that is. I don't even know what that is, but I've heard it. Like the Elk Club, like all these clubs that like we've heard the name, but we're not entirely sure what they were. The average American was part of like 1.8 of them. Voter turnout for the Kennedy election was an all-time high. I think it was like 78%. And the trust that the average American had in a random other American was also at an all-time high. And since then, there's been this slow decline where club affiliation is really low. PTA is a good like kind of litmus test that it has very low participation. Voter turnout is low. And the amount that we trust one another is low.

And there's all types of hypothesis as to why this is the case. One strong hypothesis is the suburbs. So when you are out in the suburbs or you don't live in an urban environment, you have less interaction with your neighbor and you don't really get to know them as much. And it's a little bit more like, this is my land, this is my territory, everyone else stay out and let me worry about me, that type of energy versus if you live in a building or an urban environment, you sort of kind of have to understand we're in this together. And that's one of the theories.

And I was thinking if I was wanting to start a club in this space, my tagline would be join or die. And this idea that as AI and digital gets more popular, you, a young person, crave human and interaction more than ever. And that you will literally live longer if you have a community of other people who you interact with on a regular basis. Right. And so I was thinking that like this line, join or die, has sat been sitting with me for like three or four weeks. where you can do all types of campaigns around this idea of like you owe it to yourself to be part of a community and you have to get out from behind the screen and I think that like the average 22 year old is yearning for this so badly I have a few notes on your tagline but we'll do that offline you're not a fan of join or die didn't do it for me but I'm sure there's others who will like it to do just imagine like some like pretty lady named Kaylee who's like serving chicken tenders and she's She like serves and says, thanks, Sean.

Enjoy your tendies and fries. Join her die. This is a greeting. I think Brian Johnson's got don't die. So you're almost infringing there. So we've got to be a little careful. Hey, let's take a quick break. You know, HubSpot helped Tumblr solve a big problem.

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And the result was huge. Three times more engagement and double the content creation. If you want to move faster like Tumblr, visit HubSpot.com. All right, back to the show. Okay, I have another idea that's, I think the theme of this episode today

is basically anti-digital, anti-tech, anti-AI ideas. Okay. And so here's another one that our friend Trung was tweeting about. Did you see this thing that he was tweeting about, Yonder? No, what's Yonder?

All right, so check this out. Have you ever been to a like maybe a stand-up comedy show or a music festival? Yes. And they put your phone into a pouch. Yes. Siva, our buddy, he used to date a girl like 10 years ago who worked at this company. Do you remember this? She like told us all about this company.

And I was like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. And now it's huge. They're crushing. According to Trong, which I couldn't verify elsewhere, according to Trong, they're on basically like $300 million this year in revenue. Just putting people's phones and vouches. And it's this great example of one of my frameworks, which is like anytime the pendulum swings too far in one direction,

it creates the demand for the opposite. Right? Like, you know, Newton's physics, it's like, you know, every force or whatever has like an equal, every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction. So it's like every trend creates an equal and opposite trend. And I think as we all have just become completely addicted to our phones, you know, six to eight hours a day of.

screen time. I don't know how many times I open my phone, but it's got to be like, you know, 300 plus times a day or something, something just really embarrassing. This has become a huge business. I started off. So the story here is this guy started this in San Francisco, and he's a former soccer player. And I guess the way the story goes is, which you never know with these startup origin stories, how much of this made up, but he was at a music festival. And somebody was taking pictures of somebody else who was intoxicated, having a good time, but like, you know, shared without their consent or whatever. And he was just like, man, it's like messed up.

There's just like phones everywhere now. And he's like, we should be able to go to a concert like this and feel like, you know, be present. Feel free. You know, blah, blah. So he goes to his like in a lab. He starts sewing. He thinks about like, should I do lockers?

Should I do, you know, bags? And he comes up with this idea of a magnetic pouch. So it's a small pouch about the size of a phone. And it can only be, as a magnet seal and it can only be unlocked by this like base. You know, you have to tap. it on the base to get the thing off. Sort of like when you shop at a store

and they have the anti-theft thing on it and the cashier has to take that off so you don't like, you know, spray yourself with ink or whatever. It's basically that for phones. And he starts hustling it and he's like, all right, who needs this the most? He's trying to do music festivals.

He's going door to door. And in San Francisco. And then he finds out that Dave Chappelle has been talking about how he just hates that people are like, you know, on their phone. They're recording his sets. he's working out material

and his business is to have these specials, but the whole thing would get leaked on YouTube. And so he asked a comedy booker in San Francisco. He's like, hey, can you connect me with Dave's team? And he goes and he demos it to Dave, and Dave's like, I'll try this. He tries it at one show. They loves it.

People are way more present. They're not on their phones, and his stuff doesn't get leaked. So Dave starts using it. Other musicians are you. Which was a huge deal. I remember when that happened in San Francisco, Dave Chappelle is making everyone lock their phones in a bag.

Yeah, it sounds like. They got a lot of press. And it sounds extreme. Yeah. And anytime an idea sounds extreme, it's what Seth Godin would call remarkable, meaning worth remarking. It's an unusual thing. And so it continues to grow there.

But that was going to be a small business, right? Because how many stand-up comedy shows are there? How much these comedians even make? What can you charge? And then the big break came with schools. And now 70% of their revenue comes from schools. So like a Minnesota school district pays $500,000 to get these for all the schools. so that schools become a cell phone free zone.

Where students come, they have to lock up their phone to enter or leave it in their car. And then, you know, now they're focused during the day. Now they don't have that distraction. They don't, they're not texting each other. They're not bored in class doing that stuff. And the stats bear this out where, like, kids are happier. Their grades go up.

And the teachers are happier. They have a better environment. And so they started doing this, you know, schools all around the world. And so isn't this crazy that this little business, putting your cell phone in a pouch, is now this $300 million juggernaut. Like, how cool is that?

It's, for one, like, I would have thought this would never in a million years work. Now, it seems obvious. But back then, I, like, it's one of these ideas where it's like, dude, maybe you should go get a job and, like, not fool around with, like, sewing these bags. Two, have you used one? Yeah, because at comedy shows, they always make us do it.

I hate it, but, you know. What emotion do you feel? Rage. And anxiety. I feel rage and anxiety. I can't get to my phone. Extreme. Like, I remember one time when my wife was pregnant, I went to a Dave Chappelle show,

and the lady handed me one. And I was like, look, lady, my wife's like three weeks pregnant. I'm not giving you my phone. And I tried to hide it and sneak by, and she ran me down. And she goes, he'll be fine, dude. Or sorry, three weeks away from giving birth. And I was like, I have to have my phone. And she goes, and she turns sideways.

She goes, yeah, me too. And she was super pregnant. And she was like, and she was really pregnant. The lady working at the counter. She goes, I'm pregnant too. Put the phone in the bag. And I was like, I was like, yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am.

But I felt extreme anxiety, which means I need to use it more than I thought. Yeah, exactly. In my school district where I was living before, they were going to, the board, I was paying attention, they were going to vote whether they should use this. And you want to know something crazy, it lost. Most parents wanted their kids to have their first. Right. Yeah, yeah. There's like an argument about whether it's safety or like personal property. There's arguments against it. But I mean, it seems like the market reaction is that it's working overall. Obviously, yeah. And I just think it's such a simple idea. Also, I was watching something the other day and Ed Sheeran was like, I haven't had a phone for five years. Isn't that crazy? He was like, what does that mean? He was just like, I don't own a phone. He's like, when I had a phone, people were just like calling me or texting me all the time. Or I was just, you know, using social media all the time. He's like, it was really hard to, like, make music.

So I just got rid of my phone. He's like, if someone needs to reach me, you know, I have a manager that will come find me if you really got to get to me. But I haven't had a phone of five years. I was like, wow, that might be like, you know, when you read like David Goggins is like pull up record? I thought like the Ed Shearin not having a phone for five years is like up there with any sort of like ultra race or pull up record.

Can I propose an M. Okay. Okay, so last... Oh shit. Yeah, listen, last summer we did, what do we do? My first muscle. My first muscle. I have to think of a good name for this.

But the challenge is we're gonna, we should pick a Saturday or Sunday, or just one week we can do it. You have to go on a 12-hour walk and you can't bring your phone or have a conversation with someone. 24 hours. 24-hour phone fast. No, a 12-hour, dude. 12 is easy. Dude, I promise you it's not easy. I would bet so much money that you...

A 12-hour walk? How far are you going to go? You have to be outside of the house and your phone has to be in your bedroom or whatever. And you can't be with your wife. You've got to be by yourself. You have to be by yourself. You can't have a conversation. You can't talk to a stranger.

You just have to be outside by yourself walking around wherever you live. It doesn't matter. Just go sit in a park. But you have to be by yourself for 12 hours. I would bet my life that you can't do that. I'm not trying to kill you, Doug. I think I can do that. I don't think you can.

You would cheat. There's 100%. I believe with, dude, you cannot go and just walk around and not have a conversation with someone without your phone for 12 hours. You don't understand.

My kids are on my phone at least half the day because I use it to like sedate them and like subdue them like a tranquilizer dark. So my kids are already on my phone all the time. I don't have my phone with me most of the time. But a challenge accepted. I think we should do this.

The phone fast. I think, I mean, 12 hours just sounds like child's play. Child's play for me, but, you know. You can't have a conversation. By the way, you can't use your like laptop. No screen. Yeah, no device and no conversations. You got to be by yourself.

So another, as I'm scrolling TikTok late at night, I see this other video of this guy who goes, he went six weeks, I think, without looking at a screen. So no computer, no TV, no phone. Six weeks, this guy did. And he was, you know, he was. Normally you'd be like, what do people say? They're just like, oh, I felt so much better, more present. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I know, but whatever.

This guy had one other interesting thing, which he goes, I tested my memory before and after. And he goes, I was 50th percentile roughly in memory memorization. I'm now 99th percentile. He goes, and it's not like I practiced memory. He's like, I was just like not looking and not distracted all the time. And I learned to be more present. And now my memory is 99th percent. percentile. I had to write a bunch of copy. And so like basically from like after dinner, so like 9 p.m.

to like midnight. I basically like you put your headphones on, you plug in and you just have to like write and get the work done. And it's a really fun way to get in the flow. And I hadn't done that in years. And it is incredible how hard it is to focus. When was the last time that you focused and you shut out all the distractions? You turned off slack. You turn off the, it's really, really, really rare that I do that. Very rare. And when I was in college, I would do that every single night. And it was awesome. Like, that's when I would do my homework or, like, my paper writing or whatever, like, from, you know, Monday to Thursday, like, 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. That was, like, work time. And it was a very rewarding experience to do it. What was the GPA? Dude, I swear to God, I graduated college with a 4.0.

Did you really? I got a D in entrepreneurship class because I missed, like, a presentation. But I got, I got virtually A's in 100% of everything. I took college in a very serious. That's amazing. In high school, yeah, I went to a bad school. I went to Belmont. University. Like, you never even heard of that. But in high school, I graduated with a 2.3. And then when I got to college, I was like, I'm going to take this seriously. And my nighttime work sessions were holy for me. It was like, I felt, it felt marvelous. And I never experienced

that anymore. Do you ever experience that? That absolute focus, phoneless focus. Yes. So what I started doing, and I would say my hit rate right now is maybe one out of every three days, I do this legit, like totally legit, which is I wake up and I do it first thing in the morning. So I go no input. So I don't look at my phone. I don't open up my computer. I grab a pencil and a pad. And I'll do one of two things. Either I go for a walk first. So if my dog's like up, I'll take my dog for a walk and come back and then do this. Or I'll just sit at this chair over here in this room. And I just write my, it's like morning pages, right? And so I'll try to create something pre-input. And I'll do different.

different things. So it doesn't matter what I create, what I write. It's, yeah, I stole this from Tim Ferriss. He told me something about, like, said something like a creative gym session. Just like the way you'll go to the gym and like, you know, if I go to the gym, I don't use my phone most of the time. Like, I'm off my phone for the majority of it. And you're just doing something for an hour, right? Doing that at a creative level. And so I've done it where I write jokes, like, because I learned this, this house Seinfeld started his day for 45 years. And so I was like, okay, did that. I'll sometimes just write my food plan for the day. Like, what am I going to eat? When am I going to work out? Just kind of get that, make that front and center. Sometimes I'll write

like a blog post or I'll just write, you know, stuff that I'm like thinking about like little loose ends about each of the businesses about like, oh, you know, I should probably do that. Or you know, we're being stupid about the way we're doing this or, you know, wait, this is working. We're not doubling down on that. What? I need to have a conversation, right? And so I'll try to do that. But the biggest thing for me isn't just a focus. It's being pre-input to any Slack, Twitter, whatever, email, nothing, text. What time in the morning? Usually starts at 7. Now that school came back on, I go at 8 and do a drop-off and then ride my bike, drop them off, come back. So that's kind of cut it now where it's like basically only one hour instead of the 90 minutes.

Yeah. I think we should do the MFM challenge needs to either be the walk thing or morning pages. I think that's quite helpful. All right. So in the YouTube comments, settle the debate. 12 hours or 24, just write 12 or 24 of a no phone, a phone fast. Just like people do juice cleanses. They do other, you know, like silent meditation retreats, whatever.

Ours is just a phone fast. And then Sam has this requirement that somewhere in that window, you got to go be by yourself. What's the famous quote like? Yeah. All of your problems, all of man's problems are because he can't sit in a room by himself. 30 minutes. That's what I'm suggesting, but 12 hours. Who said that? We'll name it after them. I don't know, Abe Lincoln. Pascal. This is the new Pascal's wager. Blaise Pascal said this. So the new Pascal's wager is, can you do this?

I think just sitting for 30 minutes, though, and writing on with pen, with a pen and paper is probably even more beneficial. I think that, like, you have mentioned wanting to write a book. and in my head I'm like, man, writing a book, that would require like three hours a day of just not talking to anyone and being zoned out. That is what is, that is what is holding me or, I mean, I don't really want to write a book, but like if I were to write a book, that is what's holding me back is not in a good idea, not can I write, it's, but that requires three hours a day of silence. Right. And I think that that's pretty messed up that that is the reason why people can't do their best work. I met up with Tim Urban in Austin. And, you know,

big fan of his blog and he was writing a book at the time and I was asking him and he goes he just made it sound so simple he goes all I do he said the same thing I wake up and for two hours all I do is write I don't need a perfect day I don't need eight hours a day he goes I need two hours that's it and in those two hours I might write two paragraphs two sentences or two measly pages but if I just do that every single day for the year it just stacks right you do that for 300 straight days you've written a 600 page book and he's like I can just sit down and write the equivalent to you can't of two pages, right? It's not even like a, you know, like a book page is even smaller than like a Google Doc page. And he's like two hours. Like if you don't have two hours, like, then you're not

serious about this. And that really stuck with me. So I started, that's, you know, part of inspiration. Running my company Hampton, it gives me the chance to meet with hundreds of different businesses. And I'm always surprised by how many of them still use spreadsheets, emails and clunky tools that do not talk to each other. It's like watching someone build a house with duct tape. So here's my take. custom software that actually fits your needs isn't just convenient. It's a competitive advantage to transform the way you do business.

And that's why you need to know about a no-code platform called Bubble. With Bubble, you can build powerful web and mobile apps by literally dragging and dropping different elements out of the screen, no coding required. By the way, I use Bubble on a ton of different apps, including Hampton.

And if you want help building something complex on Bubble, you have to bring in Zero Code. They're the top Bubble agency out and literally the biggest plugin creator for the platform. They can build anything, custom portals, SaaS products, and they do it about 10 times faster and cheaper than traditional development. ZeroCode is also all about AI business automation,

transforming manual and slow processes into efficient automated ones. So stop cobbling together different tools and solutions and head to zerocode.com. That's ZeroCode as in the word zero and then code Q-O-D-E. Again, code is with a Q. And tell them that Sam sent you. Do you know who Robert Carrow is? Yeah, what did he write?

So Robert Caro, I think he originally was a journalist. And then his first big piece of writing was a three-book series on Lyndon Johnson, the president after JFK. And each book was like 800 pages. But then his big, world-famous bit of writing was called The Power Broker. And it was on a New York politician called Robert Moses. and Obama has since written the foreword for the most recent edition of the power broker just to give it an idea of how influential this book is. Many people regard the power broker as the greatest biography of all time.

It doesn't matter if you're interested in Robert Moses, the guy or not, the fact that this man packed every single sentence with like the best research for like, I think it's 1400 pages. It's like a modern marvel. That's what like that's like the clout of this book. and he did like funny things. Like he would go to like, if he's writing about a location, he would go there and count the amount of people coming in and out of the location.

So when he wrote about it, he'd be like, 58 people came that day. You know, like he was, it's like very specific. But anyway, there's a museum exhibit that I went to this past weekend where it was a whole exhibit written about or on Robert Carl writing the book, The Power Broker. And one of the main parts of the exhibit

was his process for writing. And what he said that he did was he had, you know how like a lot of our parents or teachers used to have a desk calendar where it's a big calendar where it has all 30 days on a piece of paper? And so his goal was he goes, all I need to do is write 1,000 words every single day. They don't have to be good words. I can throw them away. But what I have to do no matter what and to write this book over the next three years, 1,000 words every single day and I will achieve my mission. And they have the original notepad, his like calendar in the museum exhibit, and he writes on it. He says 1,243 words today, 1,300 this many words. And he writes it and you see a big X on it.

Right. And it's like an X on the block and then how many words? And they showed August and it was like he missed one because he was like had flu or something like that. But it was like it looked like a chain of like, you know, X's, which I think Jerry Seinfeld once referenced. And it was incredibly inspiring that greatness, this book being the great thing, which it's one of the best biographies I've ever read, but greatness comes from a very simple process of 1,000 words every single day. Of course, he's a genius and there's all this amazing stuff.

But that was probably the cornerstone of actually going from idea to a great work, was sticking to that thousand words per day. And that is a very attainable thing. It's hard to do, but that is a very bite-sized way of looking at it. an epic project, which I found very inspirational. I love that. There's another great one that is like that. Have you heard the Steve Martin banjo story?

No, what's that? Okay, so the Steve Martin banjo... He crushes. He crushes on the banjo. So Steve Martin tells the story. I got like a coach or a teacher or tutor. And the teacher or tutor was sort of like honest with him and was like, yeah, you don't have like a ton of natural banjo

talent, just so you know, right? Like, he was pretty frustrated with his progress. and what he did was he zoomed out. And I just thought this is like such a powerful, simple mental trick where he just goes, all right, look, I suck today. And I'm probably going to suck tomorrow. I'm probably going to suck for the next three months and six months or whatever. He goes, but here's the thing.

I really want to play the banjo. He goes, what if instead I just committed to playing the banjo for 40 years? Because if anybody who plays the banjo for 40 years, you can't suck. And it just took all the pressure of being good off his shoulders and let him just be like, yeah, I'm just committed. I'm just going to do this for 40 years. And of course, I'll get good. Then I don't have to have these daily doubts or questions or hesitations or moments where I want to give up because I reset my expectations. And I love that story. And by the way, he like wins a Grammy for a song where he's playing the banjo like five or seven years later. So, you know,

it obviously worked out really well. But I love that kind of 40 year mindset because it applies to basically everything. Like I felt this with like diet or fitness. It's like easy to get frustrated. Oh, I, you know, I was doing well. Then I sort of traveled. I fell off the wagon for two days or whatever. And it's like two, two zoom outs have helped me there. One is like, look, it took me 37 years to get in this shape. Like it's okay if it takes a couple for me to fix it. You know what I mean? Like, it's all right. And then the zoom out being like, instead of just doubting like, can I do it, will it happen? It's like, so I'm just going to keep trying this for the next decade. Do I really think it's not going to happen. If I just keep like giving this by all for a decade, like, no, of course

it's going to happen. Of course I'm going to fix all these habits. I'm going to get this good workout routine. I'm going to do all the things that I know I need to do. And I think it's very helpful because most people will quit early, but they don't quit early because they're weak. They're quit early because they're beating themselves up and they have the wrong expectation of how long something takes or how easy it'll be or how like, you know, whether they deserve it or whether it will happen for them or not, right? Like if you knew it was going to happen, when your Uber says it's nine minutes away, you don't get panicked that it's minutes away. You just sort of accept that as nine minutes away. You see it coming towards you.

Versus if you're doing some project and you have no idea if it even is going to happen. Right. Then every day you have this sort of am I in or am I out doubts. I think that like there's like a list of people. So this is like a business show. So we talk about business and money a lot. But there's like a list of people who I learn more from that have nothing to do with any of that. And I think like a Steve Martin type is one of those people. I think that when when I hear that story, so like I have a, a few, like, bad habits, which are strengths and weaknesses. One of them being, I put time limits on goals.

So I have a milestone for where I want to be, like, every five years. And that helps me stay focused. But also, I feel immense pressure of, like, I have to hurry up and I got to get it. And so it's cool to hear a story like this of something where you're like, you change the frame to where I'm going to do this now for 40 years instead of five. Because if you do something for five years, that, like, changed. break five years down quarterly. And then if I could break it down quarterly, I could break down monthly. If I could break down monthly, then I can break it down daily. And that is where both structure

and anxiety comes into play. Well, I used to be like, well, which one is it? Because I know the deadlines and the time constraints help me. But I know they also feel bad. And I know when I go over them or I don't have the results in time feels bad, man. What do I do? And then the Naval quote kind of cleared it up for me, which is impatience with action, patience with results. So the 40-year story isn't, I want this to take 40 years and I'm going to spread my workout over 40 years. It's the result is inevitable over a 40 year span. Now, the day-to-day actions I'm going to be quite impatient about. I'm not going to let myself be super patient about taking steps and moving forward and trying,

you know, so you have to be able to hold both those polar ideas in your head at the same time. And this is so common. Almost everything you have in life, like all the sort of best things come when you have to hold two truths that are polar opposites in your head at the same time. And so I think this is one of them. I think I heard you say that on a podcast recently. I learned that from Joe Lonsdale. I forgot what he calls it like dialectics or something like that. I don't know. Maybe that's like Scientology. But he that sounds a little too philosophical, like a philosophy class stuff for me. But I think I'd prefer the Sean way. Here, let me read this to you because I learned this when I was researching for

Joe's podcast. So he goes, I'm not by any means a philosopher, but I've worked with, work with some talented people who, who, you know, are in that discipline. There's an idea of opposing truths at extremes. It's a powerful concept that I've learned to appreciate my 20s. So he goes, my personality is sometimes been called a little intense. And when I spend a lot of time reading, discussing, or thinking about an area, I'll often appreciate why a strong viewpoint is true. It comes to very firm conclusions. Then later, I'm exposed to an opposite strong view, and I find this countervailing view also very persuasive. And I found this confusing. How could both extreme contradictory viewpoints to be true.

And then this great thinker, GWF Hegel said, truth exists at different extremes and the actual truth is a complex interaction between the two. So like, you know, he goes, most people are sloppy thinkers and opt for a middle of the road when they're faced with two opposing extremes. That compromise is less accurate than if you had just picked one of the extreme polls that were quite persuasive. But the wisest stance will incorporate both of the opposites within itself.

Do you have an example of like two opposites? that you tend to buy into? The example we just gave of like patience versus impatience, like, oh, it served me so well to be impatient. And like, I don't know any successful people that consider themselves super patient. But then at the same time, you go talk to those people and they're like, yeah, I was working on this for nine years before we had a breakthrough. It's like, damn, these people take pretty long-term time horizons also.

So how is it true? How can they be impatient and have a very long-term time horizon? Because both things are true just in slightly different ways. What's another example? Yeah, I've got a couple of them. One of them is capitalism. So, like, I'm super pro capitalism. Like, I love making money. I think building businesses is great. I think kind of a little bit everyone on their own is awesome. And then other times in my private life, I'm like, I want to be like a socialist. I just want to share with everyone. Like, I feel bad that my, I don't want my cleaning lady to ever want to go without. I want to make sure that she is paid above and beyond, even if it's not what the market demands. And I get angry. capitalism. And I feel like this kind of like this polar, like, one, I'm like so pro-capitalism. And two, it's like, oh, man, I just want everyone to like get paid more than they do and to be wealthy. And those, but you can't have both of those. Do you ever experience that?

Yeah. Yeah, totally. You know, you have the sort of head and the heart, you know, differences in that in that way. Another one that he gives as an example that that's true for me is like the difference between depth and width. So it's like, do you be a generalist and you're able to like kind of go pretty broad or do you go for depth you know and it's like well there's no one answer and there's obviously virtues to either path and you want to do both but you can't do both at the same time it wouldn't be like it wouldn't be true you wouldn't be sort of defying physics if you're going to try to do that do both those at the same time and so you could see the value in either end of the extreme what you probably don't want to do is the middle where you only have a handful

of subjects and you're not very deep in any of them here's one that I think you probably struggle with as well I struggle with this all the time which is creating legacy. So, like, if I go to a museum and I see someone's name on the museum, like, wall, or someone who has a business that's lasted for 200 years, I think, I want that legacy. I want to do something great that everyone knows my name. And on the other end, nothing matters. You're going to die.

You will be forgotten. And, like, I would say 50% of the time, I think this is all irrelevant. All that matters is that I hang out with my children and spend time with them because I'm going to die very soon. and no one will remember me. On the other end, create something that matters, do something that's great?

Do you feel that way? I think every entrepreneur, by the way, no matter how successful they are, even like the billionaires we've had on, I bet a nice chunk of the time they think, F this, like, I'm out. Also, it's like, if you go down that road and you're like, all right,

either none of it matters or this matters the most, you get, you're the most persuasive person you know. And so you know exactly how to convince yourself of either one of those, arguments at the time that it justifies doing whatever it is that you want to do, you know? So you can't trust yourself in that way either. Yeah, it's like being hungry at the grocery store. It's like, well, I'm feeling down today.

Therefore, nothing matters. Therefore, I'm going to let it burn down. Exactly. But like that is like the dichotomy that I face probably. I am more often than not on, more often than not do I feel uncertainty around those two. Then I do feel certainty. Right. By the way, can I also just give you some props? I think your Robert Caro museum visit that you did,

your, you know, these clubs, these housing things, did you, you have a crazy bag of knowledge and interest that's just like really insane to me. Like that's really, I don't know, inspiring and interesting. Like, I just can't believe, like, I don't know what is your filter for what you get, like, interested in, but the result of it fascinates me, you know, which is why we've been able to do whatever 700 episodes of this podcast. Well, and by the way, the props or vice go both ways when I hear like, you tell a story.

I'm like, how did you know this? But basically what it comes down, like, I tend to find something that interests me, and then I'll create a semester around it. So where I'm like, this interests me, I'm going to follow my nose. And I will like pretty systematically read about it from like 9 to 10. And I just follow what interests me. Right now, I'm oddly interested in like beauty. and art. And so I can give you an example. I live in New York City now on the Upper West Side, and I purposely moved into a building from the Gilded Age, because that's my favorite era.

And my neighborhood is very weird. There's a little bit of the tism coming out. But I am in awe of all these buildings that were built between like 1895 and 1920. And so I've been using ChatGBT, and I've been going from building to building to building. Like I'll just walk around at night and like learn about the building and ask the doorman. I'm like, tell me everything about this building. I want to know all about the architecture. I find it so fascinating. And the other day, I started watching this guy. I'm going to say this in a crude way. And if he makes it to him, I just want to say, Guy, I'm sorry, but I'm going to say it this way. But do you know the Indian guy from Mean Girls? His name's Rajiv. Do you remember that? Maybe. Yeah, kind of. Yeah. First of all,

I want to say, I'm a huge fan of his. I'm only saying it in a crude way because this is how what most people will remember the rapper the rapper guy yeah yes uh his name's Rajiv so r a jiv i v um he has a youtube channel right now uh that i love he's basically like bob ross but he's been talking about um pottery and calligraphy and like kind of beautiful things things that don't typically do well on youtube things that are really fast uh or the opposite of fast so it's not fast pace it's very slow and he's been talking about architecture now that's like one of his latest things buildings and i realize in one of the videos that he lives down the street from where i now live and last week or uh on sunday i was at a coffee shop and i saw him and i go hey are you Rajiv i just want to let you know i love

your youtube channel it is so good uh what are you doing he's like i'm just getting coffee i was like well i have a seat right here me and my daughter are going to have a coffee would you like to hang out with me so i sat with an hour with this guy and he told me he told me all about the neighborhood and all about the beauty of like the architecture and that is like where I'll learn and like get stories is I'll just go up and like talk to him or find another person who I love and it's it's been a blast like following my nose of like what interests me that's hilarious that's amazing I spent an hour with this guy I have an extra baby seat here if you want to no well I had there was like I had the best seat in the house and I go do you want to sit down and just like talk and

hang out with me. And it's like, oh great, are you leaving? And it works. You're like, no, no, with me. But anyway, I've been, that's usually what I do to like learn is I like, that's usually what I do. I meet a former actor turned like cultural expert at a coffee shop. That's not what you usually do, right? No, I amends myself. Like, I get interested in like a topic and I'll immense myself and then I go out and I talk to people about it. So I do field trips. This was a lucky field trip. But I would do field trip. But I would do field trip. all the time, where it's like I'll hear about a museum doing a thing or I'll fly somewhere. That's why I like to learn. That's cool. Yeah, you should publish more of that. I think that's great.

Well, that's cool. I guess I should. I never really thought of it as particularly unique. How do you, when you read a book or a topic, what do you do? Yeah, like kind of a similar thing, just a little less structured as in like I think my attention spans a little shorter, meaning like once I, once the idea clicks, I get this extreme high of feeling like I just learn something cool or know something now. And then I want to go do it and I don't want to keep researching. And then also it'll lead me to the next thing, which is totally unrelated. Like I had this whole phase on the creative process, which I was reading about

Seinfeld and the Banjo story and all this stuff, like super, super into that. And then it'll be like old school marketers. And then it'll be, you know, the posterior chain and like why my hamstrings are so tight. What should posture actually be? And how do I fix that? You know, like it'll just be like random stuff like that where I'll get, you know, A similar season, but I think mine are shorter because I am less diligent about doing it. Yeah, my preferred way of doing it is if I think I'm going to be interested in a topic,

I try to research like roughly three to six books on the topic and I commit to going deep on them because I don't want to be persuaded when it gets, like I don't, I want to make my decision in advance that I'm going to consume and study. Yeah, because otherwise you have the problem I have, which is like anytime you hit a lull where you just are not getting like amazing feedback loop of learning new things or you know finding something interesting it's easy to eject because this was a voluntary thing anyways it wasn't like for a specific outcome or result

whereas I think I would be better served if I did it your way where I like pre-commit the time and it's like look I can't do anything else during that time I'm just going to keep wandering around here because I bet I'm giving up at the first lull but there's still like a lot more gold to find if I just carry on you know if I just want to keep wandering for a little bit longer And oftentimes what people tend to do is they think that researching what to research next or researching what to do next is actually productivity when it's not.

Productivity is actually doing the thing. But yeah, hey, Renaissance, Sam. What can I say? The remissons. All right. That's it. Go ahead. Hit them with your line.

That's it. That's a pod. My friends, if you're going to, I put my all in it like no days off. On a road, let's travel, never looking back. My friends, if you like MFM, then you're going to like the following podcast. It's called Billion Dollar Moves. And of course, it's brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network,

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