My First Million - The man who made a billion off blueberries

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

Want to start your own million dollar business with less than $1k? Get the guide: https://clickhubspot.com/ejn Episode 744: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talk about the insane economics of Broadway shows, the blueberry billionaire plus business lessons from sports. — Show Notes: (0:00) Billy of the week: John Bragg (20:40) America's Banana King (24:29) Sam goes to Broadway (34:01) Lessons from Tennis (42:36) The pain cave (50:53) Rebranding motivational phrases (59:48) Jerry Seinfeld on how to be great — 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

This guy's story is kind of amazing. So this is basically a farmer billionaire. Love it. In. In. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like my days off.

On a road, let's travel. Never look to that. This is kind of a crazy story. So do the words John Bragg mean anything to you? No. They don't. Didn't mean anything to me either. Shout out to Shane Parrish.

over at Farnham Street. He did a great podcast with this guy that caught my attention. This guy's story is kind of amazing. So this is basically a farmer billionaire. Love it. In. In. There was only two sources for this.

Farnham Street and the Van Trump report had written about this guy. There's the only things I could find. He's got a biography as well. All right. So here's this guy's story. I just think there's a bunch of factoids about this guy that I just think you're going to love. You're going to love this guy's whole aura, his vibe.

He is the bill. the billy of the week. Cue the music. $1 million isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion dollars. John Bragg, this guy grows up on a family farm, like a sawmill or something like that. And when he's in high school, you know, what did teenagers do?

They start to experiment. They start to dabble. Maybe a little bit of maybe girls, maybe weed. No, no. Blueberries. He tries to harvest blueberries for the first time at 13, 14 years old. You know, he starts to, he gets the itch. And then he goes to a local blueberry farmer.

he decides, hey, can I pick blueberries for you? And he picks blueberries all year. His last year of high school, him and four or five other blueberry pickers end up making $4,000 each picking blueberries, which was a lot of money at the time because this guy's very old. And he realizes, oh, wait, I can pay for college if I just pick blueberries every year. And so he's making, college was like 10 or 12 grand. He's making $4,000.

He realizes, oh, I can do this. My parents otherwise weren't really going to be able to send me, but I could do this. And so he makes more money the next year and the next year picking blueberries. Finally, when he graduates, he's got a couple options on the table. Plan A was going to be to become a teacher, and he was going to make, I think, like, $3,800 or something like that, big a teacher, an extra $100 if he coaches the basketball team or something. And plan B was, let me go work on the family business, maybe over time, buy out my dad on the sawmill. But he decides to go plan C. He's like, I think this blueberry thing, there's something to it.

And he decides to start his own blueberry farm. So he buys a little piece of land, and he starts trying to harvest blueberries. And it goes pretty well the first couple of years. He's doing all right. But a couple years in, he, there's a problem in the blueberry industry, which was that one year, there was just huge supply glet. So there was way too many blueberries, not enough buyers. And prices crashed. And so he's like, shit.

You know, could have quit, but he's like, no, no, no. I'm just going to figure out what I should have done differently. He's like, I need basically like a backup plan. sort of, you know, an insurance. And he wasn't doing financial insurance, but he's like, I need another way to make money in case this ever happens again. Never again will I let this happen to be,

where I'm at the mercy of the prices. And so he decides, I think I need to build a packaging and freezing plant for blueberries. Now, he's got no money, but he's like, I'm going to try to do this. So he goes to the other blueberry farmers. He says, hey, guys, we all just got whipped. Let's put some money in together. And I'm going to build this plant. And then you can use the plant, too.

You could freeze and package your stuff too. if we ever have over supply. And so they do that. He borrows money from the bank. He gets money from the other farmers. He starts to build this thing. Never, no experience, by the way. No manufacturing, no factory experience.

But he's like, I can do this. So he builds this plant. And in the first year that they build the plant, he's ready for two million, like a capacity of two million, but they only produce 100,000 because there's this crazy frost that kills all the blueberry production that year.

And he's like, Oh my God. I owe so much money. And like we came in at like 5% of the like the estimated like freezing capacity. This is terrible. I have this empty factory now. I owe a lot of money. And basically it's like, dude, you got to just let this go, declare bankruptcy, move on with your life. Instead, he calls another guy who he knows, McCain. And he's like, McCain. He's like, yo, what's something you need to make? But you don't want to make. Is there anything? Give me the last. The last. thing you want to do, but you should do it. And the guy's like, all right, I got you. Onion rings. He's like, onion rings? Okay. He's like, can you send me like a file like about? So he gets like a little book on how to make onion rings. And he's like, all right, say less. I'm never going to ask you another question. I will figure this out from here. And so he, he's got an empty factory, but he turns it into like just for that one season or whatever. He makes onion rings for this guy. It just tides him over enough to continue. And so he carries on

and he ends up building something called Oxford Frozen Foods, which today controls about 40 to 50% of the global supply of blueberries. It's like 70 million pounds of blueberries they're making every year. Do they still have onion rings, blueberries and onion rings and mozzarella sticks on their website? Yeah, you never forget. You never forget who got you there. And so he builds this absolute juggernaut over time, and they become bigger, bigger, bigger.

His brother invents this like blueberry. picker that can do the work of 35 like humans doing this. And he's like, oh, amazing. And then what he does is he actually like gives it out, basically like freely shares it with other blueberry farms too. He's like, he's like, what's good for one is good for all. Here we go. And so he wants the entire blueberry industry to grow because he's like, the more the blueberry industry grows, the better we all do. I don't want to be the biggest fish in the smallest pond. I want the pond to get bigger. And we're competing with all the other fruits out there. So if we can up our production and we can have more blueberries, we can build more innovative products, this is going to be good for everybody.

And so he's got this very interesting business philosophy. He ends up then going in to a new business. So it's many years later. Actually, I think he kind of did this around the same time. I shouldn't say many years later. I don't know the exact date on this, but it wasn't like once he is already like huge. It was like somewhere around the same time. TV was picking up and cable TV was picking up. And this guy's from Nova Scotia, popular. 9,000. And so they held an auction. They were like, hey, all right, who wants to buy the cable TV rights for Nova Scotia?

Nobody shows up. He's the only guy there. And so he picks up the cable TV rights for that area. And he's like, all right, I don't even know what to do with this. Like, I guess I'll put like some old recorded programming on here. There's like no programming, basically. But he's like, whatever, let's do this. And so he's in that business. And he's losing money the first couple years. And his dad's like, bro, you've got to figure this out.

like this, you can't just keep bleeding money over here. And so he cuts his cost, he tries to figure this out. And he finally gets it to like kind of a break-even point or whatever. He ends up over the next, you know, couple of decades building the largest private telecom company in the country. And he owns cable TV networks, you know, everywhere. He does a bunch of acquisitions. He takes on a bunch of debt.

And he ends up buying up others. And he goes down, he goes like sort of down the stack. So whereas most TV companies want to do the sexy funds. stuff, they get into original programming and content, and they're like, content is king. He's like, yeah, no, you know what's king? Fiber. Like, I'm going to go own the underlying infrastructure for cable TV, and he ends up building this juggernaut.

And so this guy ends up now, he's like, whatever, like, you know, much older now in his 80s or something like that. And he's worth a billion dollars. He built the largest fruit farm, basically, in the world. And he's built the largest private telecom company in the country. Isn't this kind of amazing? This is amazing. As you're telling me this, I've noticed there's a trend amongst this era of people.

Was he doing it right when cable was getting started? Yeah. Man, there's a trend. So Ted Turner, who eventually went on to start CNN, he owned a Billboard company, which he parlayed into a radio station, and then eventually a cable news network, CNN, cable news network. Do you know another guy named Jim Patterson? Have you heard of Jim Patterson? No, who's that?

Dude, Google Jim Patterson. Another Canadian guy. Look at what he looks like. He's like a small... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen this guy before. He's like one of the richest guys in Canada, right? Yeah, he's like one of these guys who is like, he's like energized or energizing.

Like, he's like a wind up toy. Like, he just can't stop like moving. But he, I think his story was he, uh, at a young age, uh, opened up a car dealership. And within three years, he bought like a plastic manufacturing. or something very like out of left field. And then another thing, and another thing, now he owns a telecommunications business,

but he also owns like Ripley's believe it or not. And I think that like the Patterson group, which he owns the whole thing, I think has 100,000 employees or something insane like that. And then another one is his name's John, his last name is crazy. I'm going to butcher it. Cat's mandatitis.

Yes, is that it? He's got a condition. Cat's mandatitis. Wait, do you know him? Do you know him? No. So he started a grocery store. I think it was called Apple Foods.

Dude, let me just tell you this. Any guy who looks like this, if I just showed you this photo, and I said, rich or poor? Yeah, you already know everything about him just by looking at him.

One photo. Yeah, like, this guy, when he gives you a hand shake, he's pulling you in. Do you know what I mean? You can just look at him

and you know what he's going to do. He's going to pull you in, he'll have to smack you really hard on the back shoulder. Yeah. And no chance this guy has one wife. By the way, let me just look this up.

I bet you. I'll bet you anything right now. Let's just, if you Google as kids, they're beautiful. First wife, divorce. New wife, Margo. This guy started Apple grocery store. It's like a 20, it's a 20 store chain in New York City. Like, it's tiny.

But then he bought a radio station. And then that's like how he got extra rich. And then I think he also bought a cable news network as well. And so my point being is there's a refining company. And he owns a energy company. like an airline. I think he owns like a small private airline. He owns everything.

There's this type of entrepreneur where they're kind of cowboys where they start in one thing and they get in the media eventually. And a lot of it happened in the 80s, the late 70s and the early 80s when cable was getting popular. And it was sort of like the first version of a SaaS business. You know, it was recurring revenue, huge TAM. Kind of weird and unknown. People weren't sure what to do.

And I believe that a lot of the cable news networks, they were regulated by the FCC, and you had a certain satellite. Like, you'd only own X amount of satellites. Like, there was some type of, like, limiting blocker where only a certain amount of cable companies could even exist. And so if you were able to, like, get in on that, it was almost a near monopoly. Ted Turner came along, and he was one of the first guys that were, like, petitioned Congress and was like, this is nonsense.

We need more competition. And that's when CNN came about. But this whole area. I like how sometimes when we explain these things, it's kind of like when I explain such to my kids. Like, they're like, how does, um, like, how does the picture come on the TV? Like, where is this coming from? And I'm like, oh, um, satellites.

And they, and they're like, but how does it get from a satellite to our TV? I'm like, it shoots it. It's shooting Gabby dollhouse at our, at that tower, I think. I think that's what the cables are for. Or maybe that's electricity. I'm not sure exactly what's going on. It doesn't matter, though. But you're like, there was only so many satellites.

You had to buy these letters, but they only had so many letters. No, we're about the letters, okay? I do know that it is true. There's some spectrum available. There's like a, yeah, we know a lot about spectrums. There was, I do know there was a famous, like, hearing where Ted Turner, like, made this passionate speech to, like, politicians to convince them that they have to change the rules to allow small upstarts to get a satellite. But anyway, that's cool. I like this blueberry guy.

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 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. Let me give you some of his

His little business isms, his philosophies Okay, so, and this is again, some of this from Shane Parrish's stuff. Dude, I can just tell this guy, is he, Canadians are in Midwestern people where I'm from. They're the same people, aren't they? Yeah, it's like, it's a species in its own.

So here's a great line by him. I have no reverse gear. I just thought that's an amazing line, which is like, he's like, yeah, you know, when things got hard and the blueberry crop died, and then the factory is empty. Like, I just didn't consider going backwards.

I did not consider, like, it was just not a gear I have to either stop or reverse course. Like, I just decided I have to find a way through. And the onion rings were the way through. Another thing that I thought was interesting, which was kind of counter to conventional advice. So, you know, most people who are in the business, the game of business Buffett and all the real estate guys, the famous phrase they all say is, you make your money on the buy. You don't make your money when you sell. If you buy it right, then you're going to make money.

Dude, I read that line, like, after I bought three real estate projects that I totally lost money on, I was like, shit. I'm being serious. It's not like the fine print, by the way. This is like the first thing you learn. Like I was, like, reading a Warren Buffett book, and I, like, read that quote. And I remember thinking, like, that was literally the exact opposite of what I thought it was. You were just doing the John Bragg. So here's John Bragg's philosophy.

intentionally overpay. Okay. I'm in. So he goes, he goes, early on, I intentionally overpaid for acquisitions. And word spread fast.

If you want to sell, sell to John Bragg. You'll get a fair price, a quick close, no games, which I love that. I'm going to put that on my, on our little mini private equity shop

website. I feel like that advice typically isn't right, though. Well, typically not. So here's the cap. Here's the caveats of, you know, they say like, you know, the amateurs learn the rules,

or the amateurs don't know the rules, professionals know the rules, and then the masters know when to break the rules or whatever that thing is. This is kind of when to break it. So he goes, I will overpay as long as it's something that's only available once, because when opportunities are scarce, you need to pay what it takes. I know many people who tried to nickel and dime and then spent the rest of their life regretting, not getting that key asset. So I think in the realm of buying the TV rights, when there's only good, they're only going

be up once and whoever gets it's going to own it, that's like a time to overpay. Or if it's a key asset that locks down a certain competitive advantage, don't quibble on price, in fact, come in over so that you make sure you secure that asset and you develop a reputation. He said something like, you can't buy a reputation. I was like, I think that actually what you're saying is you can buy a reputation. It's like, oh, but here's the reputation. I will overpay, right?

Like it's like soft bank in the venture game right now. It's like, oh, you want a bunch of money and at a huge crazy valuation, you go to soft bank first, right? And there's actually like some merit to that strategy when you have these like, you know, this, if you can get the things that have huge upside. So was he like an MNA guy? Yeah, it was a lot of building the empire through M&A. And what was he buying other cable companies or other farms? Both.

Here's another banger of a line. So he has 40 to 50% of the global supply. And about half of that is like stuff. that he owns and operates his farms and half his farms he's buying or owns like a, you know, a big stake in. And he goes, here's the exact line. He goes, we don't want to have 100% of the industry. That wouldn't be good politics.

Dude, that's like, imagine having the choice to have 100% market share and they're like, that's not polite. What a baller. Here's, here's some Sam porn for you. So, focus is absolutely critical. probably the biggest single principle you can have in business. Here's a big mistake people make. They make their first million,

and they think now I can succeed in any business, even once I know nothing about. I've been there. Sam buying the ranch. Yeah, been there. And then he goes, I just wanted to, he goes, I wanted to just stick to my knitting, figure out what I could do well,

and then just do more of it. You know, everybody else who came into this industry wanted to make a buck. I was this young guy who said, I'm here to play this game for a long, long time. This guy's awesome. This guy's awesome, right? I think he's my uncle.

Then he goes, here's a couple other great quotes. The guy who asked the question to me looks better than the guy who knows the answers. I like that. Done. Did you get all this from Shane's podcast with him? Shane's, and then there's like a couple other people that have written about him, but a lot of this is from Shane's podcast. Which I didn't even get to watch because I was doing the, like, I discovered this guy this morning. It was like on my list of like things to check out.

And as soon as I checked out, I was like, oh man, this is amazing. I got to go watch this later. So I've actually only skimmed the transcript and stuff for this. So I might be getting some of the details wrong. A couple other things. He's one of these like Buffett types where it's like, he's a billionaire. But the vast majority of wealth came like after the age of 70. So it's like, you know, just saying the same way for Buffett where they just keep compounding.

He had some other things that thought were pretty interesting. I would have thought he'd be richer. If you own all half the blueberries in the world, wouldn't you be richer than $1.5 billion? Yeah. punk. Weak shit. He better be a huge philanthropist and have given it a lot

away because I definitely would have thought he'd be richer, right? I mean, I guess. I don't know. I'm not going to knock him. All right. So he believes in Buffett a lot. He loves Buffett. And so he, Buffett has a great quote, which is, I'm a better investor because I'm a businessman. And I'm a better

businessman because I'm an investor. Yeah. So at age 70, he was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. So he goes to each of the executives at his companies. And he says, today you're just businessmen. You're not investors. He gives them $10 million each, not as a bonus, but as an investment portfolio that they get to run. And he said, I want them to see how strong companies operate and how weak ones fail.

There was no penalty for losing the money and no bonus for the gains. It was pure education. Isn't that like pretty wild to do? So he gave how many managers did he have? I don't know. Six teams. So 60 million bucks. He gave them what?

Like a stock portfolio? Or he gave them $10 million and told them? $10 million to go buy businesses. Oh, within their portfolio. Sure. Wow. Okay. That's badass.

That's crazy. And this was at age 70. And then he's like, most people stop learning once they become successful. But the outliers never stop being students. Love that. Resonade with me. All right, what else resonated with me? Let me give you one more.

Dude, how about the fact that, like, I just Google the Shane podcast? Shane went to his office, which is really cool. And he's 84 years old doing a podcast. Like, that's, that's amazing. That he's with it and he's sharp and he's had this pod. Dude, when I'm 84, I'm going to be in the metaverse. I'm going to be so just like plugged into what everybody's doing in the future. I hope.

All right. You want to do one or you want me to go? Have you read about United Fruit? If we're going to talk about fruits? Have you read about United Fruit? Is that the Banana King guy? Man, that's a great book. I'm in the middle of reading it, and it's the story of United Fruit, which is basically

centered around bananas. So like... You want to do the quick story? I think we've talked about it before, but it's on theme. It's on trend. In the late 1800s, I think bananas were discovered, I think in Nicaragua or somewhere in Central America, and they brought them to America. Americans were like, yeah, we want every banana.

we can get our hands on. We love it. It even got to the point where, like, I think in the 1920s, when immigrants would land at Ellis Island, we gave them a banana. And that was like, you're here now. This is this American thing. And it's sort of American because we get to Hawaii and they give you the lay. Yeah, it was like a banana. And this, the banana company, United Fruit, it became so big that it was basically a monopoly. And they did the same thing where they tried to hide that they weren't a monopoly for years and years and years. And Sam the Banana Man, I think his name, Samuel Zamuri. He was, I think a Ukrainian. an immigrant and he started out like uh with like a fruit cart like walking the streets and his whole thing was he would sell rips and so the way it worked is a banana train would start in one part of the

country i believe louisiana and it would slowly make its way up over seven or eight days to the northern part of america and along the way it would drop off at bananas at different markets and his whole schick was uh he was going to sell rips meaning bananas that were already becoming a little bit brown that they previously thought were uh throw away bananas and he was like, oh, I'll buy him for a fraction of the price. And I'll just be really fast at getting them to where they need to go. And he eventually becomes so big that by the time he's in his 60s, he takes over a united fruit. And it's a big deal. Well, he starts with $150. And by the time he's 21, he's got $100,000. And this is way back in the day, right? So this is

like a lot, that's a lot of money. And he keeps on going. And it gets to be so. And that's, you're saying, he's basically, he starts as just like a dude on the dock or whatever, like a dude on the side of the road taking their discarded trash and going and hustling it and selling it. And by the time he reaches his peak, he buys the, he buys the whole company where he was initially just like taking their discarded trash. And the book is called the fish that ate the whale because he was the fish and he eventually ate the whale. But it gets even crazier. So Sam knows Zimmerry, he has a lot of admirable qualities. You know, he's this like hardworking immigrant. He's pretty quiet. And he's like a stoic guy, but he's kind of a warlord because at one point, uh, Nicaragua, like, they have like some

type of meltdown and a new president or dictator comes in charge and they won't sell them bananas. And so he funds a coup. So he basically gets like a small unit of like 10 or 20 people to like help this other guy assassinate the current leader and take over. And that leader was like, all right, thanks for getting our back. Now you can. have some more bananas. And so that's kind of like the story of Samuel Zemarie. It's pretty badass. Got that killer instinct. Let's go. Yeah, this is pretty wild, right? Like, imagine a story like that today. Is there such a thing? I can't think of, I mean, what Elon does in Rockets is like pretty, like, you're kind of like dominating another planet, like potentially. I mean, that's like pretty crazy.

of like the Republican Party this year? Like going to the point of like actual like funding a militia. I guess like Donald Trump is doing this where he's like for shits and giggles I'm going to like play a joke and run for president and just kind of starts to work. But yeah,

I mean it's a pretty crazy story. Yeah, so it's been great. So I did something this weekend and I thought about you and I've been holding this in me like waiting to like talk to you about this. But like a man in Lent or November holding it in. Yeah. Oh, man.

Yeah. If you know, you know. So I saw a Broadway play for the first time ever this weekend. Phenomenal. Wow. Fonomenal. It's called O'Mary. It's basically about Mary Todd, who was Lincoln's wife.

And it's just like a comedy. It was fantastic. Never been to a, never really been to a play, honestly, my whole life. Because you judged it. or just happened to not go? What was the deal? Yeah, I don't know. Like, you know, it just went on the list of things to do.

It just didn't, it didn't make its way into my life. And I finally went. The first thing, as I thought of you, because you had made an offhanded comment a while ago that you cared about, like, writing a show. Yeah, I just thought it would be cool. I went and saw one, and I was like, oh, that would be kind of a fun thing to work on.

So you had the same thing I did, which is like, it was like a new art form that you hadn't previously experienced and then you go to it and you're like, I understand the appeal now. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. I had gone to a bunch when I was a kid, and so I think I liked it from that. Like, I was a theater kid when I grew up, so I liked it.

Now, how is it related to this podcast? Well, for one, if you Google O'Mary revenue, you can see there's a website called Broadwayworld.com where they estimate the revenue of each show. I guess they look at like if they're selling out and the average ticket price online. And this thing, Oh, Mary. I think it's been live for, June of 24, it came out. And it's been making a million dollars a week.

So it's doing quite well. And it started off with about $4 million in funding to get going. And it all reminded me of this podcast that we did about two and a half years ago. You didn't make it. But we had this guy named Michael Harris. Did you ever look into who Michael Harris was? What was it, death row? Which record label was he the guy?

Yes. Yeah. So the short of it is some people call him Hario, because his name's Michael. Michael Harris. They call him Harry O.G. Gangser. So Harry was famous because in his early 20s, he was basically a drug kingpin and he made a lot of money selling cocaine. And at one point in the podcast with him, I said, yeah, and I was trying to be nice. I was like, you know, instead of saying you are a drug dealer, I said, I read an article saying that the article said that you were selling $1 million. Yeah, the article said you were selling $1 million a day in cocaine. And he goes,

I think that article said two million dollars a day. He's like, I told that journalist it was two. I was like, yes, sir. And eventually at the age of like 32, I think he gets sentenced to life in prison, one for attempted murder, one for drug conspiracy, which basically is like the RICO Kingpin law. And he had a life sentence. And recently, I think like 10 years ago, Trump commuted his sentence.

And that's how he got out of prison. And when he was 32 years old, he founded death row records with Dr. Dorey and Shug Knight while he was serving a life sentence in San Quentin. And that's like how death row got started. And one of the reasons why it's called death row is because he was... Wait, they co-founded it with him while he was in prison? And what did they, would they want from...

What was he able to offer them while he was in prison for life? Money. Money. So his wife... His wife was on the outside. Okay. And she somehow had funds to fund death road records, you know. Right. Now, how is this really to Broadway?

Well, on the podcast that I did with him, he said something that I didn't pounce on because I didn't know anything about it. But he made this comment to me where when he was 29, I think, he was the first ever black producer of a Broadway musical or a Broadway show. And he kind of told the story. but basically somehow he got in cahoots. He was considered well known for being like a drug guy. I hope you said cahoots to him. Right after I said, okay. He's like, how do you end the podcast?

Which button ends this podcast? I was like, holy moly. Harry O, you dog. Holy moly, Harry. So somehow he got the loop at this, but he funded Denzel Washington, an early Denzel Washington, his first ever play. Damn. Michael Harris, Harry O was the fund, he was the investor that funded this show with a million

dollars. I think this was in 93 or 92 when Denzel, he was just getting going. And he starts telling this story. And while I was at this play, I was like, holy crap, this guy got his way into being the first ever producer of Broadway. Like, while I was there, I'm like, oh, my God. Like, he was so much cooler that I even realized. Dude, if I invested in Denzel before he became Denzel, that's like, you know,

Jason Calcanus is like, I was saying he's the fourth investor at Uber. I would never shut up about it. Google Michael Harris, Denzel Washington. You'll see a photo of them together. And Michael Harris looks like a, like a well-to-do guy. He's wearing a suit. Turns out he was only, I think, 29 or 28 in these photos. And he was a drug kingpin.

Kind of amazing, right? Yeah, that's incredible. When he was 26 or something. Was he 26? I think he was pretty young. Very young. And like allegedly had made something like $100 million selling drugs. Pretty crazy.

And when I was like sitting there in this play, I was like, obviously, what do you and I do when we do everything. We go to the play and you type it like, oh, Mary, revenue on Google. And I started seeing the numbers. And I'm like, it's like the plays going on in front of you. You're turned around counting how many seats are in the upper bleachers. And they're like, are you watching the show? What are you doing here? And this is how I remembered Michael Harris saying that, where it all like clicked together where I was like, oh my God. Do you know how much revenue these shows generate? I'm looking at, it's astounding. It's astounding. The number one, this, I'm just going to give you the top five. Top five highest grossing Broadway musicals of all time. You have number one,

Lion King, grossed over two billion in just the ticket sales. Wicked, one point seven billion. Phantom of the Opera, 1.3. Hamilton, which is newer, already crossed a billion. Insane, right? And of course, are guys from South Park. Are they number one? They're number five. Book of Mormon, number five, $850 million on their side hustle. That could be, oh, us. Dude, to be honest, we just need to be talented and hardworking. That's a whole we're missing. They are so talented. When I was at the show, I was like, it's just they're oozy with talent.

One of the guys, Abe Lincoln, the character was played by, what's the guy from Silicon Valley, Kunal? Is that his name? Oh, he's in the play? Yeah, he's in the play. And it was like famous actors and actresses were like in the plays. He's like a jacked Indian Abe Lincoln. Like, what do you mean he played Abe Lincoln? It sounds crazy.

And honestly, it is crazy. The guy who played Mary Todd was a guy. So, like, it's all types of crazy. Yeah, it's a whole thing. But I just had to, like, nerd out with you about this. So I looked into this pretty hardcore. So it's definitely an outlier hits business just like most. It's angel dusting.

Yeah, it's angel investing. Because, and then I was looking at the venues. I was like, should I own the best venue in San Francisco? Like, can I go buy the San Francisco? Like, you know, I forgot what it's called. like the theater or the opera house, whatever, there's like a bunch of, there's like three or four different theaters for this.

And I was looking at them, because the theaters make money either way, because the shows have to pay rent. They got to be like, hey, we want to do 60 days on stage. They're like, great, we'll take your money, right? Whether that show becomes a hit or not, they paid the money up front.

So I thought that was kind of interesting. Then I was looking at the shows. Then I was looking at how much it costs to produce the shows. Because I had just seen the one about Lehman Brothers, which I recommend, by the way. It's too long. first of all, it's way too long. Dude, the one that I went to,

we only went to it because it was 90 minutes. I can't sit there for more than 90 minutes. Yeah, less is more, guys. Less is more here in the theater. But it was great. And it was business entertainment, which is what I considered to be my genre. And I was like, damn, if they could take,

I wasn't even interested in learning about the Lehman Brothers. If they took an uninteresting subject to me, but they made it great. And I remember the story because of it, this is cool. This is a really cool format. And so, yeah, I've definitely interested in that.

If somebody actually knows how to do these things, I would love to talk to you. Email me. Maybe we could make something. I have a story in mind. We had Tim Ferriss on the pod and like the top comment on YouTube was like, Rich guys finally discover board games. And like, this one's going to be like, all I pay the attention to the rich guys part, I was like, yeah, hell yeah.

Thank you. Not this one's going to be like, the bros discover plays. Like, Sam, they were singing in the middle of that. You're talking one second. They're singing. It's incredible. It's all part of the story. Listen up.

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So I'm watching a lot of sports lately. I don't know it's like everything's kicking out. Like football season just kicked off. tennis was awesome. By the way, did you see the, have you been following, do you follow tennis? A little bit. Like, I went last year

and like I kind of watched a little bit on TV. The Russian gal, she's, she's an athlete, man. She's a freak. What's her name? Sabalinka, I think. She looks like a Terminator. So I follow, I've gone in and out of tennis, right?

There's many years why I won't even pay attention. And there's like, oh my God, Nadal, he's amazing, and I'm watching these guys. A great tennis match is up there. It's like very thrilling to watch a great tennis match. It's like a great UFC fight. Like, there's some sports where

you know, the median game is like really good. I put like, you know, NFL in that category. But then there's some sports where just the peak is just like peak drama, right? Yeah. Boxing and UFC are like that. We're like, the average thing's not that good.

But the peak, the biggest personality is when it's all on the line and it's just two guys going in there and they're trying to take each other's head off. Like it's hard for a basketball game to match that. Okay. So tennis is kind of up there in that sense. So there's the new wave of tennis players. So this guy Alcaraz and this guy, Sinner.

Did that happen? Did the men's final happen? It just happened yet. And so I really wanted Sinner to win because I just like went down the rabbit hole of this guy's YouTube highlights and he's unreal. And the other guy is also unreal, but he's unreal.

when it's in the sense of like, you know a guy who just like does all the right things? It's like he eats right, he works out right. Like he just does it. He just like prepares really hard. He's very talented. He's maximizing his potential. He's not like,

there's not a lot of like flaws to like attach with there. You know, there's not a lot of like, it's like, oh, so you work hard and do all the right things. Great. Yeah, that's fantastic. In fact, they showed the warm up right before because I think Trump showed up at the U.S. Open. So it was delayed like half an hour or an hour

something like that. And so the guys were just in their locker room, like, supposed to be warming up. And Algaraz is like, you know, doing a side plank in midair with his trainer and like activating his core to get ready. And the other guy was playing dodgeball with his trainer and like running around the gym, like just throwing balls at each other. It's like, smoked and sags. Yeah. So I was like, I kind of like, I kind of like this other guy. Anyways, they go out there. Sinner loses and he just keeps losing to Alcaraz. He's ranked number one because he beats everybody else, but Alcoraz's beat him, I don't know, four out of the five last times that they've faced each other. And he's like, I, and so he had this great quote that I thought, like,

forget tennis. This is just like a great, like, mindset quote. So they were talking about like, you know, hey, you know, it must be tough. You're at the top. And then you're ranked number one, but this guy seems to, you know, you've had some tough matches. This guy's got your number a little bit. And here's what he said. He goes, I was very predictable on the court today. He changed up his game and the style of how he plays. And now it's on me if I want to make changes or not. I'm definitely going to work on this. For example, I didn't use a lot of drop shots.

I didn't do one serve and volley. You arrive at a point where you're going to play this guy, I got to go out of my comfort zone. So here's what I'm going to do. I need to start playing more unpredictably. I might even lose some matches, but I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to make some changes.

I'm going to try to become more unpredictable as a player. That's what I have to do to become better at tennis. And at the end of the day, that's my main goal. And I really just love this mindset from the number one ranked guy who's beating everybody else. And he's like, you know what? I'm here, but the top of the mountain is still a little higher. But this path I'm on doesn't get me to the summit.

I got to go back down for a bit. And I got to find a new trail. And that is so hard to do in life. It is so hard to go back. This is one of these things where he's like... For the bottom and reinvent yourself. He's like, I'm going to learn how to play tennis, but I'm really learning how to play the game of life.

It's like one of those type of moments. Totally. Totally. And to be like, I'm going to lose, I'm going to probably lose some more matches because I'm going to have to learn this. I'm going to have to experiment with this new style. And that's going to suck, but I'm going to do it. And like, whatever you're doing in life, that analogy probably holds for you right now, whether it's you as a parent, it's you on the book that you're writing. It's you at your job. It's you in your business. Like, whatever it is, I guarantee you there's an element of like, if I want to get to the next level,

what I've been doing doesn't probably get me there. And I need to like be, willing when the time comes, when I recognize the moment, I need to be willing to go back down the mountain for a little bit and then come back up a new way. Have you ever heard of this guy named Meb Ghrfluski? If you Googled him, that's a hard name. The makeup name, so no. Yeah, that's a hard last name to Google. But if you Google Marathon, Meb, M-E-B, you might recognize his face. Marathon Meb? M-E-B. You see M-B? I don't recognize this guy. He's 50? Yeah. So I think in 2004, he was the gold medalist in the Olympics in the marathon for America, but he's an immigrant. And so when he won, it was sort of one of these things where everyone got behind him because he's a nice guy and it was like the American dream type of energy. And I think it got to the point where he like spoke at Obama's, a bunch of Obama events and whatever. He's a big deal. He's great. His brother listens to MFF, his brother, Howie. And he reached out to me when he heard that I liked running,

and I've been friendly with him for a couple years now. And this past weekend was this thing in New York called the Fifth Avenue Mile. And so they get all these guys, these Olympian Milers, and they get them to run one mile down Fifth Avenue, which is basically a huge street. And it's slightly got it down or they shut it down? No, no, no, no. They shut it down.

It's a big event. It's like a huge event. And there's tens of thousands of people there. And so I went with Howie and I got to like be like his like sidekick. So in Howie, he runs a management company who he originally, Howie was managing his brother Meb. Now he manages other runners because Meb was like, can you do, can you help me make more money? And he was like, yeah, fine, I'll do it. And then eventually now he manages, I don't know, 40 runners or something.

And a lot of his athletes were running at this race. And so I got to be his assistant basically. And he like took me in like I got to meet all these cool people, whatever. And these guys are flying, by the way. I think the guy who won ran three minutes and 46 seconds for the mile, which. Which is crazy. And the guy who won... What's your mile time?

Dude, back in high school, a minute slower. Four minutes and 47 seconds. Okay, Ted Bundy. Now, what's your mile time now? What's your final time? 18 years ago? That was not my question. Seven minutes.

I mean, seven minutes. Like, very, like, recreationally, like, average. So, wait, did you run it or you just hung out with how we... Ah, hell, no, I didn't run it. I was watching. I was watching. I was just sitting on the sidelines watching. And we got to watch these guys run, and they look like gazelles.

They look like animals. It's like crazy. And I was asking them. I was like, what separates so like, because when I was watching the race, the winner and the guy who got third, they're really close. Like it doesn't seem very far when you see them. But like it's like a second is only, it's not that much, but it is a lot when you're running. And I was like, what separates Nogu, the guy who won? What separates him from the guy who got last? Because they kind of look the same.

They're tall and they're skinny and they look like freaks. like what's going on? And he was like, it's mindset. He's like, once you get to this level and you're already a nine out of ten, what separates the guys that get first versus last in these big races is when they step on the lines, they're killers. He wants to kill you. And he acts like a nice guy, but when they step there, they think, I am here to win. I'm built to win. I am not trying to finish second. I'm trying to be the best and I'm trying to win no matter what. And I was like, well, your brother was like a happy go lucky guy like he looks like really kind and he was like yeah he is but he would sit down for hours and envision winning the new york marathon and then when he got to the

starting line you couldn't talk to him he was an animal he was out to win and i thought that was really fascinating and i'm always finding it fascinating particularly in sports particularly in these uh uh individual sports tennis swimming track and field cycling i think we had lance on and like we talked to him a little about this what separates these the first the first freaks of the freaks. What makes you a freak among freaks? And it appears as though it is not physical. It is absolutely mental. 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

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Have you heard this phrase? probably heard it because you're like into running, but I don't, don't run. I don't do it. It's not a, it's like motorcycles. I just don't get on that. So one of the guys who was filming for us, he was talking about this, he wants to film this documentary about this woman and she's like this amazing long distance runner. I don't know, her name, you probably do. But the point is he was talking about this phrase called the pain cave. Yeah, we go to the pain cave. You go to the pain cave. And I was like, look, not into running, but I'll just take that phrase out. That was a cool phrase. He's like, he's like, so the pain cave describes like when you're in these like ultra long races,

100 mile race or whatever. And it's like mile 60 or 70, you hit this just like extreme level of like physical, mental, spiritual exhaustion and pain. And you go to the pain cave. And I'm like, but what do you mean? What does that mean? You go to the pain cave. He's like, you go to the pain cave mentally, okay and you basically i mean you can probably describe it better than i can but my understanding was you accept that there's going to be this stretch where you're going to be this is between pain you go to the pain cave you know you're there you become comfortable you become not comfortable but enough you become um acclimated to the pain cave and you're able to stay there where others want to quit and you even want to quit others would quit and then you push through and you end up getting you know to

the to the second to the you get your second way and you get out of there and you get to the end um did I did I butcher the pan cave or did I describe it right? No, no, no. And a lot of athletes. You visited? I've been on vacation a couple times. No, I was training for an ultra before and it was miserable and I hated it. And I remember going out for a three hour run. And it just is, it's horrible. It's not a fun experience. And like you get to a certain point. And what's, it's crazy to do a sport or an activity where even if you are winning, you go through hell. So we had Brennan Schaub on the pod

Who is a former UFC fighter and he said that One time he was fighting on a on a card and the guy who was fighting above him Crow Cop who was the main guy Afterwards Brendan saw Crow Cop like on a stretcher And Crow Cop had just won the championship But Crow Cop still had gotten hurt And he was sitting on a stretcher holding ice on his head or something like that And he looked horrible like he just got beat up really badly even though he won

And Crow Cop was like give him a thumbs up And Brennan was like, these animals think that this is winning. And that's why I'm not going to be the best. It's because even when you win, you are beat down and broken. And they still are giving you a thumbs up of like, yes, we did it. And that's what separates the winners from the losers is the guys who like are willing to go through the pain cave. Because in a lot of sports, I think it's so fascinating. And honestly, I think this way about business or anything really in life that when you win and you get everything you wanted,

you still have to go through hell. And that's kind of fascinating and interesting to me. It's like the mindset of these winners who can just eat so much shit. And honestly, business is the same way. It's not as physical, but it's still emotional where even if you think that you're on top of the world or things are going well, I don't know if you've experienced this, but where everyone on the outside thinks like, oh, you're the man. You must be killing it. I'm like, dude, it's really, really hard.

And it feels like it's going to fall apart all the time. Yeah, I find that, um, these phrases like pain cave or whatever, there's a lot of power in just having like a label to put on a thing so that when you're feeling it, you don't feel like this is bad thing that you don't panic. And you don't feel like it's forever. You realize it's like a temporary phenomenon.

And so I know that one of the things that people brought up to me is that this analogy that's been very useful. And it's like if you're going to be an entrepreneur, you know intellectually there's going to be these ups and downs. if I told you that nobody would be surprised at that idea. Yet when it's happening, you're like, oh, you got that feeling in your stomach when you're going up and down a roller coaster and it does not feel good and you want it to stop and you don't like it and you think this is bad.

And then you're like, but the thing we talked on on the podcast is like, you got in line for the roller coaster. Like what did you think was going to happen? You stood in line. You waited. You chose this first. You knew this is the nature of roller coasters and that there are no, There are no ups without downs.

There are no ups. This has to be, it's a necessary condition of doing this activity. So don't complain and don't be surprised and don't feel like, wo is me, and don't victimize yourself, and don't think this is forever because it's not. And so, like, that's been a very hopeful metaphor for people who is just remembering, like, you got in line for the roller coaster, maybe. Like, there was going to be ups and downs. Don't be surprised when they come.

And a tactical thing that's helped me is I have this Slack channel. I've told people about it's called highs and lows. and anytime there's an extreme high or an extreme low, I go immediately, I put it in that channel and I put my exec team in there as well. And the beautiful thing about it is, when you go in there,

you see something from like four to six months ago that was like an extreme low in the moment or an extreme high in the moment, and now it has like no effect. You're like, yeah, obviously if it was a low, it's like obviously we survived, it was fine. And even if it was a high, it was like, doesn't have that same pull.

And so it keeps you from, in this moment, going too high and too low because you could just scroll back and see all the other moments that in the heat of the moment you thought were such a you know such an extreme and now are like whatever you know just random random things in the past how often you're adding stuff to that all right so last one was four months ago and it was oh cool Trump just tariffed all of our goods 150 percent so like imagine a thing used to cost us $10 now we pay the $10. But then we pay an extra $15. That same item costs us $25.

That's the full sales price of some items. You know what I mean? Like, oh, cool. We make no money now. Oh, got it. Cool. Business makes the money thing out of our control. Like, got it.

And then there was another one. And then there's a high two months before that when, you know, this celebrity with six million followers is posting about our brand. And it's like, oh, that's awesome. But like now that I look at it, I'm like, who cares? I don't care. Nothing. Like, nothing.

My life didn't change. for either one of those two things. My life didn't change. We got through the low, and I already forgot about the high. You know, another one. Rihanna's manager emailed us asking for product. Like, you know, Rihanna wants her shit.

That's cool. That's exciting. Wait, hold on. Was Rihanna asking for free stuff? Yeah. Yeah, they always ask for free stuff. Really? Yeah.

Rich people don't pay for things. That's insane to me. You thought rich people buy things? They request things. And you laugh at it. Sadly, give it to them. Have you DMed it? I think I've done it maybe twice.

Have you DMed people asking for free stuff? Asking for free stuff? No, I've never DM'd anyone. I think I've been like, yo, this is a great problem. If anybody wants to send me one, I'm happy to take it. Like, that's the, I think that's the lowest I've stooped. I don't think, maybe I have. I can't remember ever DM being asking for free stuff.

In fact, like, we usually go the other way, which is like, if it's like a friend's product or somebody we know's product, we want to be their like first customer and we want to like purchase it to like show because you know like feels good and right seems like the right thing to do another one Christmas Eve on Christmas Eve this last year the Mexican president blocked all imports

so like hey that's cool our warehouses in Mexico and on Christmas Eve all imports are blocked with no notice and no there's no other thing you could do cool the shit at the port do you have a coup staging team This is just in one business.

This is just in the e-com business. This is not even like, I have five other businesses. So imagine, like, if this is probably there's a higher or low every two months, three months maybe, but now you multiply by six businesses. That means every single month you're getting hit with a high and a low in one of the businesses. I think it was cool. You said something actually that was quite good, which is it feels nice to label certain demotions because it makes it feel better. I went through a period. It's sort of, what's that, we always reference that meme where like, midwit.

Yeah, this is like the opposite of that, which is like when I was really young and not very successful, I consumed tons of motivational stuff. And then I started like doing some stuff and I'm like, oh, that's for weaklings. Yeah, I'll bowl you. Yeah. Now I'm like, no, I actually do like reading about like other success stories and. Love me a good quote nowadays. Yeah. Like I do love that stuff because it feels nice to like label something. It's sort of like when you read a book and you're like, well, that was a good. The best books, people say the same thing about it. They go, everything they said was obvious. But it felt nice for them to say it out loud, for me to read it, and to be told what to do and remind me of the right things to do.

And that has helped me all the time. That's like, I pretty much read like lots of like, or it's actually my YouTube page is like only motivational shit. Here's the trick. So I've rebranded it. Because liking motivation, that's a pretty low class thing to do. Okay. Wow. That's, you know.

Very low status. Low status shit. Oh, I need motivation. I'm so, so weak. I need a blood transfusion. It's basically what you're saying. You don't need motivation. You don't like motivation.

You like wisdom. Oh, my God. High class thing to like. All right? There. I helped you out. I listen to tons of wisdom. It gets me fired up.

My favorite wisdom channel. I'm a wisdom speaker. Yeah. this YouTube channel called Motivation for You, the best wisdom. Yeah, exactly. I'll give you another little label. So I was reading this book,

another high class thing they do. I found this like old book out of print, had to like call a guy to get this book. And it's like, it's amazing. It's such a thin book and it's really amazing. What's it called? I'm not even going to tell anybody,

but it's my secret gem. And so in it, though, he talks about, so it's a book about how to have better ideas. So he's like, this is great advertising exec who's basically like, he's like, you know, and somebody asked me this and I laughed when they asked me the question. And then I realized I didn't have a good answer for it. He's like, and then I started thinking about it. I couldn't get this question out of my head. And he's like, I have now come to the realization that producing great ideas can be as reliable

of a process as for producing Model T's on the assembly line. And here's how the assembly line works to produce great ideas. And one of the things he says in the book, he goes, this is just a great quote. he goes, the brain, much like the body, has a second wind. And because he's talking about, like, there's going to be this point, like pain cave. There's a point in the process where you kind of fatigue out. He's like, just, I need you to hang in there for like give it. There's going to be another, you have a little like 10, 15% left. You're just going to give yourself a chance for the brain to have a second wind, much like the body.

And literally, like, for the last two weeks as I've been working, I've hit this point where I'm like ready to like stop the thing, go be distracted. I'll go, I want to open up Twitter or I want to go like go do. go eat some food or do something. And I just, the brain has a second one. Let me just give it a second here. And then I pushed through for like another 15 minutes. And it's actually like been like very,

very productive, this little, once one little simple idea. Can I make a guess as to who wrote that? And ignore this if it gives away too much. It was by a copywriter if I had a guess. Is that right? It was by an ad man. Yeah. So he copyrights.

It's crazy. Copywriters, like there's this weird underground world. I don't know if you ever have noticed this. there's copywriters out there where they sort of have a weird mystical, like, wizardry about them. And they end up learning about copywriting. But in order to be a great copywriter, you have to understand how humans think. And then if you can be a master copywriter, you're basically a master at learning about what motivates human beings. And thus, you can teach all about life.

But I've come across all these guys that are like old school internet marketers, but also people who are around even before the internet. and they often have these weird oras around them that if you find a bunch of their old landing pages, they explain some of the things that you're talking about and you get on their web pages and you're like, I have to give you my money. And there's not even a buy now button. I have to track you down.

But I've come across a bunch of these guys. One of them is Bill Bonner, the guy who started Agora. So Agora publishing is like the billion dollar a year. Newsletter business that is quite shady. But another one is Mark Ford. Do you know who Mark Ford is? No, who's that?

So he has this book called Ready Fire Aim on business, and he's pretty under the radar guy. I think he's probably in his 70s at this point, but he helped make Agora really popular. There's Eben Pagan. Do you know who Eben Pagan is? Yeah, Delaware Dating. Edwin. Evan Pagan was a guy who was one of the first internet marketers because he got going in the 90s when the internet was just getting going. And he had an e-book called D.O. Dating.

And he wrote it under a pseudonym called David DeAngelo. And Eben Pagan is another guy, where if you Google Ebbid Pagan and come across his courses or books on copywriting, you get entranced. And it sort of becomes like a moment where you're like, I used to think this way. Then I read this. Now my life has just changed. Evan Pagan was one of those guys. A lot of old Russell Brunson stuff is like this. But there's a copywriting world that like you come across these old guys. They're not old.

Russell Brunson is not old. These guys are age. No. Yeah. I mean like underground. I don't know how to explain it. No, yeah. It's almost like they ruled the world, but they're not, today they're less relevant and on the forefront and up in the center of attention as they were 15 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago.

There's a bunch of people like that. Yeah, and what happens, and a lot of people don't realize it, is you can just copy exactly what they do, and it still works, and you don't have to invent anything. So I'll give you an example. There's this guy named Dan Kennedy. We talked about Alex Hermose. And a lot of people say this to Alex as if it's an insult. think it's an insult at all, but they'll say, you just ripped off Dan Kennedy. And so I started reading a bunch of, it's not an insult at all. It's totally okay to steal from the greats.

But if you read a lot of Dan Kennedy stuff, first of all, if you Google Dan Kennedy, you're going to see what he looks like? And you're probably, you'd probably dismiss him. You're like, oh, what does this person know about business? Because he literally looks like a cowboy. But you read their books and their advice is beautiful so long as you come with an open mind. And it's incredibly effective. But it's sort of like, we talked about books that where you say phrases like, oh, it's banned in prison because it's too powerful. Yeah. They all have catchphrases like that.

I love copyright. I think there's certain professions where it's almost like Darwinian, right? So like the only way to survive as a copywriter. Let's say that was your goal. And a copywriter, then we'll kind of extend that to like an ad man, right? Like the Ogilviz of the world. And the only way to survive is to have these breakthrough ideas and be super persuasive with the written word. So it's like an animal that was on an island

And the animal had to develop this shell If it was going to survive That was the only way to survive in that climate And so if you want to get great of persuasion You want to get great at the written word You could learn from a bunch of people You can learn from Elon Musk or Steve Jobs But those guys in order to do what they did

They grew up in a they had to have other disciplines That they were great at And they could be good or maybe even really good at copywriting but there's people who that was the only way that they could make it. And so those people have like sharpened that. And you see this with a bunch of different things. So you see this with a lot of investors when we have them on the podcast, we're like, wow, like, I wanted to ask you about like stocks and like, you know, analysis.

But 95% of the things you think about and talk about is like mastering your own, like your own psychology and disciplining yourself and like learning like impulse control and learning how to like be to think for yourself and be comfortable in your own skin. And it's like, yeah, that's actually what, that's the thing it was required in order to be great in the investment world. Combination of like independent thinking and then like self-control and playing the long game and patience, right? And then you talk to people who are, you know, maybe comedians.

And comedians are like, wow, you're actually like kind of a truth teller. And it's like, well, yeah, like, that's kind of what comedy is. It's like basically like seeing things for what it is that nobody's saying out loud. then we say it out loud, and then everybody laughs because everybody knew it. And so you realize, like, oh, these comedians are actually, like, pretty wise and pretty, like, spot on and spotting, like, the truth, the underlying truth in society. He's like, yeah, because if they don't do that, they don't make anyone laugh. And they get boot off the stage, and it's horrible.

And so the ones who survive are the ones who figure out how to do that one thing at a world-class level. And so you could study different disciplines where, like, the Darwinian, you know, pressure, the natural selection forced them to become, like, A-plus-plus at a certain thing. Who do you think falls in that category where you learn about them and they've done the same thing to you where you went to them for like, let's say, writing

and they changed your life. Seinfeld. Seinfeld is the easiest example. So I wanted this year, I was like, oh, like, could you like make yourself funnier? I just sort of assume that like, you know, growing up,

it's like you either are funny or you're not. And in my house, like, my sister's really funny. And so it was always like, she's the funny one and she's the great storyteller. And I was like, the nice kid. And so I always, I always had this probably like from a young age desire to be more like her. And like today is so funny.

People would be like from the podcast. I'm like, oh yeah, you're a great storyteller. I'm like, you haven't seen my sister. My sister's amazing at this. I'm just okay. But over time, as I've grown up, I've realized like a lot of these things that seem like you either have it or you don't, creativity, humor, storytelling. Like, no, these are just skills you can develop.

Like, if you just try, you can get way better at it. And so humor was one this year. I went into it and I was like, all right, let me just take two weeks and be like, let me just learn what there is to learn. Let me just see if I can make myself funnier. So I went and studied Seinfeld. So I went for the jokes and then I came out and been like, this man is wise and has some of the best,

sort of like he has this incredible creative process. Like the way he works has changed the way I work like completely, like night and day difference. In what way? So Seinfeld does this thing in the morning. You know about this, but like maybe other people don't. Seinfeld for the last 45 years has a morning routine. Sandfield's morning routine is very simple.

He's like, if you want to be a comedian and you want to tell great jokes, you've got to write jokes every day. So he wakes up in the morning. He sits down with a yellow legal pad, a pen and a coffee. And he has two hours where before he's pre-input, pre-everything. Nobody, no meetings, nobody can call him. He doesn't read the newspaper. He doesn't check social media. He doesn't do anything else.

He's like, I'm going to do two hours of this and then I can do whatever I want for the rest of the day. And he sits down and he does this two-hour morning block. It's two-hour morning routine. He's done that every day for 45 years. to the point where there's a photo where he took the pages from his yellow legal pads over the 40 years

and he laid it out on the street I think in New York. No way. You haven't seen this? No, I'm gonna go a little. It literally becomes the yellow brick road. This is awesome. Are you kidding me?

This is so cool. So he let's promote his book. So he published a book basically of all of his scrap jokes that he didn't put into a stand-up. It's called Is This Anything? I think it's the name of the book. But to promote it,

he did this yellow brick road of all his yellow pages. And, you know, like, for example, you know, how did I work before this, right? I'd wake up, I'd check Slack, I'd check my email, I'd then start to think about what I'm going to do, but then I got kind of hungry, then I go do this. Then, oh, I had this meeting scheduled at 9. So I'm going to get to my main thing at 11 and just Seinfeld's like keeping it sacred of like, yeah, what's your main thing?

You spend two, if you're going to be creative, you're going to spend two hours in morning creating. That's it. Tim Urban from Wait, but while told me the same thing. He goes, if he goes, all I have to do in life is wake up and spend the first two hours writing. and if I do that, life is amazing. And if I don't do that, my life sucks.

And by the way, it's only two hours. It's not eight hours. It's not 10 hours. I don't have to keep grinding all day. Two hours is more than enough if I actually do it. So Seinfeld does that. And he talks about riders block where they're like, but Jerry, like, what do you do on days where you don't know what to write?

He's like, what do you do with writers block? He goes, oh, you know, it's funny. You ask because there is no writer's block. And they're like, what do you mean, Jerry? Like, of course, like, we have all felt it. There's writers block. He goes, no, no, no. There's lazy.

There's afraid. there's having too high of expectations, but there's no writer's block. Let's be clear. And he's like, here's the curator writer's block. You ready? Except your own mediocrity. Don't sit down and think, today I'm going to make this great thing. It's going to be so amazing. The words are going to flow. I'm going to make this funny joke. He goes, that's what stops you. What you need to do is almost an anti-affirmation. You need to sit down and say, today I'm going to sit down. It's going to be hard to write. The thing I'm going to come up with is going to pretty much suck. I'm going to look at it and I'm going to hate it. I'm going to want to crumble it up and throw it in the trash.

It's going to be that bad. But you know what? I'm going to put it down on paper anyways because every once in a while there'll be a little nugget of something good and then after I find a little nugget of something good I might be able to polish it with a ton of work later and make it great and he's like this sort of like anti-affirmation

right so I have taken that and completely stolen that as my daily process from this guy I went to to learn about like how to make people laugh and I'm like I know I learned how to work how to live like he talks about he does transistental meditation they're like oh that's really great you love meditation goes no I just want to write great jokes

He's like, but you have to whip the mind. You have to whip the body. He's like, so why do I work out to be a better comedian? Why do I meditate? To recharge my battery so I can be a better comedian. He's like, all this stuff I do is to be a better comedian. He's like, you'll learn pretty quick. If you don't work out, you're leaving, you know, some of you on the table from being

able to do your best work. If you don't do something like a meditation or something to recharge your mental battery, you're going to do worse work. Like, it's just as simple as that, right? He's got a ton of stuff on that. I've been, that's so great. Jerry, I listened to a lot of his YouTube videos, his interviews, because it's the same thing where I learn more about life than anything. You know, there's a famous one where he talks about, like, consultants, like, and comedian, comedians and making jokes.

What's he say about that? The joke is he's getting interviewed by, I think, like, Harvard Business Review. And they go, you and Larry David famously wrote Seinfeld together with no writer's room, just the two of you guys. You wrote every single season, every episode. and burnout was one of the reasons you stopped the show in the end like you know was there and he goes the Harvard Business Review goes was there a more sustainable way to do it could McKinsey have helped you find a better model and he goes who's McKinsey wait did they really ask that yeah he goes who's McKinsey and they go it's a consulting friend he goes are they

funny he goes they go no he goes then I don't need them if you're efficient if you're efficient you're doing it the wrong way the right way is the hard way the show is successful because I micromanaged it every word word, every line, every take, every edit, every casting, that is my way of life. Did you have this up right now? Dude, I have like a dossier of Seinfeld. Like, I studied this man. Like, I went deep on this.

That's awesome. Have you ever seen him live? Yeah, I've seen Seinfelow. Honestly, wasn't that funny. I was going to say the same thing. I was going to say the same thing. Love the guy. Don't love his comedy, actually.

His stand-up is, eh, his writing is the best. but his stand-up for some reason is just fine. Yeah. It's just okay. I've been obsessing. But actually, it's in part why I really love this guy, right? Because he's been touring for 50 years as a comedian. 50 years.

This is an unbelievable, like, LeBron James is jealous of Jerry Seinfeld's longevity. There's like 50 years unbelievable longevity as a touring comedian. And he's also, I think it was remarkable. He's one of the, he's the first and only billionaire comedian, mostly because of Seinfeld the show, but also like, you know, comedians and cars doing cost. he sold for like $100 million. He's been touring for a long time. Yeah, Netflix picked up for $100 million.

He's a outlier. But the great thing about Seinfeld is, if you see him, he's not like naturally just oozing charisma and like talent. Like there's some guys they could do amazing impressions. You're like, I could never do that. Right. Or there's other guys that are just like, they have just this knack, this gift for gab. You can just see it like the way they grew up.

Like this guy's just so funny. And Seinfeld is like a, it looks like an 18. HR manager, right? He doesn't look like he's the most naturally talented guy. And that's kind of why I love it. Like, the guy's the most successful comedian. He's because he's just this craftsman. He, like, squeezed everything out of his natural talent.

And I think, how often does that really happen? Like, how often do people really maximize their potential? Very rare. I remember when I was starting the hustle, Scott Belski. Like, I cold emailed him and asked him to invest and he didn't want to invest. But then I just, like, added him to the hustle. And I started writing, like, extra good emails. And he eventually replied, he's like, this is so good. Can I invest like a very small sum? But I just want to let you know. Like, this is like you're fantastic. This is great. And he let me hang out with him. So for anyone listening, Scott Belski, at this point, he's known as like a legendary investor. But before he was this amazing investor, he had started Behance, which he had sold for I think $175 million. Now he was nearly the CEO of Adobe, which is one of the largest companies in the world. I think now he works at A-24. Is that right? Like the, the,

Big Shot Hollywood production company. He's the chief strategy officer and something else. And I didn't listen to his advice when I met with him. And I always regretted that. I didn't listen to his advice. And I didn't understand it until now. He basically was saying the exact opposite of scale, scale, scale. I was like, I need to automate this.

I need to hire more people. I need to get away from writing this email every day and making it great. I need to add more revenue. I need to get more advertisers. And he was basically like, you need to go in a room and just not have anyone around. And you just need to write this email every single day for about four or five years. And he used the, I never heard anyone use the word steward. He was like, you need to be a steward of greatness and a steward of taste for your audience.

And I didn't understand what that entirely met. But what I thought in my head, I was like, but you're wanting me to act like I'm a small business owner. You're wanting me to act like a craftspin. I was like, I'm not trying to be some garage band. I'm trying to be Lady Gaga. Like, I'm trying to sell out stadiums. What are you talking about being a craftsman? Do you know what I mean?

Like, I don't understand what you're saying. Why am I going to stay small? I want to sell out. I don't want to, like, that's the whole goal. And it took me years to understand what he'd met, which was you can become this, like, huge, successful person and also be a craftsman. You know who honestly does a great job at this?

And it seems silly. It's Dave Portnoy. Dave Portnoy has his happy. I don't even like the comedy anymore, but he's had his hands in it, and he's been consistent now for 25 years, and he's ridiculous. He's a ridiculous person. He's sort of obnoxious. But you know what? He's done it. He's done exactly what Scott Belski has said, which is you need to be in the thick of it, and you need to be focused purely on creative, and you need to be a steward for taste. And I didn't understand what that meant until I was about 32 years old. I think he told me this when I was 26. And I was like, Scott, how are you so successful? You don't know anything about business. You're telling me not to like focus on scaling and all. this. Gaga, Scott, Gaga. But now that I know, like, some of these people who are actually making the most money are actually still craftsmen. And, like, and so, like, I distinctly remember, I'm like, I want to sell out stadiums. I'm trying to sell out. I'm not trying to be a small little, like, Korean family-owned bodega. Like, I'm trying to take over the world, baby.

You, you said Dave Portnoy, there's another guy who's like that, Bill Simmons. And he's probably, He's probably the reason I'm doing a podcast today is because I was back in college and I don't know what that was. 2007 listening to his to the BS report. You know, I used to like fall asleep to listen to the BS report. Like it was like that like at the time podcasts were nothing. And he had been a blogger before that. Then he was a ESPN columnist. Then he did the podcast.

Then he did 30 for 30 documentaries. Then he went, he gets fired from ESPN because he does the ringer. Why do you get fired? he was pretty outspoken against Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner. He's like, this guy's like kind of covering shit up and like not, like he doesn't care. It could be contained. There was like a domestic violence thing. There was like the concussion stuff.

And he was basically like he would make jokes, but like the NFL's ESPN's biggest partner. And so he was, he got suspended a couple times. And then they were just like, this guy's too hard to work with. And so they killed his project Grantland and they fired him. And so he comes back after. licking his wounds a little bit. And he comes back with the ringer, which is just the Grantland again.

And he'd been doing this now for like a long time, but he ends up selling to Spotify for $200 million. And there's a great tweet that was going on the other day. So the tweet was basically a video of Simmons, and he's walking through the office. He's carrying like a chair, like a school chair, and he's carrying a chair at a microphone. And he's like,

and they're like, Bill, what are you doing? He's like, a trade had just happened in the NFL, the Microparkerson's trade. it just happened. And it's like kind of like a, you know, in the grand scheme of things, not like a big story, but like, you know, it was like the biggest story that week. And his company has like 15 other podcasts. And so there's like this NFL podcast going on. And he's like, I got to go talk about this. So he's just carrying a chair through the hallway. And there's a guy behind him like filming him. Like, Bill, what are you doing? And he just barges in and

he like puts down his chair with his microphone and he wants to like talk about it with the guys. And somebody tweeted they're like, honestly, respect. This guy's been doing this for like 20 years. he's got he's worth like 200 million dollars and yet on a like Thursday he can't wait he's literally carrying his chair his microphone and wants to sit with his friends and do his do a podcast about this trade like that's kind of goals you know what I mean like that's actually like career goals and um that really like I don't know that that kind of like stuck with me like that that is really what you want is like a job that's so fun and so like so you that it doesn't matter what's the money in the bank like you really just want to do it you just want to do the thing to the

where you're just going to carry your chair down the hallway and try to find a podcast to go do about it, you know? I thought that was great. Where's he now? So is Grantland still a thing? Grantland died with ESPN. He creates the ringer. Ringer sold to Spotify. And so it's part of Spotify. And he's been, you know, making bank ever since. Why haven't we been able to get him on here? You've talked about him like four or five times as like your number one. He's like that girl at the dance. I don't want to approach. Yeah. I'm like, hold on. I just got to like, I'm going to fix my shirt real quick. I've taken my shirt. I've got to go get some punch. I'm thirsty. Yeah. I'll do everything else. I'll do everything else. He's got for asking him.

Yeah. I mean, he looks pretty awesome. I don't know really anything about him. I would love to talk to this dude. He seems great. And you've talked about him like six or seven. He's prolific. Yeah. Is he? Is he? I mean, to go from a dude who couldn't even get hired by like a local paper, basically. So he starts blogging early on on the internet. Parlay's that blog into, like getting his own section and being the highest paid sports writer at ESPN. But the thing is, it's not just that he was the highest, it's not just that he's successful. He did it his way.

Like, he created an entire style of writing on, like a publication like ESPN. He basically wrote like a blogger on ESPN. Nobody did that. He wasn't impartial. He was like, no,

I love the Red Sox. I love the Patriots. I'm from Boston. What are you talking about? I'm going to write like a fan. Like, I'm a write like a fan. And sometimes I'll be pissed at what my team is doing.

Sometimes I'll be excited about it. I'm going to make a bunch of references to, to like MTV Road Rules the challenge. Like I'm gonna do what I'm interested in even though that makes none of it is like

by the book. And then he does podcasting early on. Then he does the documentary series. He builds the most successful sports documentary series. What 30 for 30?

30 for 30. He like, it was his brain child. He conceived it. He created it inside of ESPN. Like nobody believed in it basically. And he, you know,

he's kind of fought for it, got it done. It became super successful. I mean, it's epic, dude. What he's done? and still on the podcast, you would never know.

So he'll never reference the fact that like, he's basically richer than like a lot of the athletes he covers at this point. He's super well connected to him, but he's tried to like never really, he doesn't let that sort of creep into his content. Also, he didn't really rub it in ESPN's face, which he very much could have because they like literally kicked him to the curb

and didn't believe in him and told him like Grant Land, the idea is a failure. Like that, that's a money loser doesn't work. And he replicated the same business. and sold her for $200 million. So, you know, like, he could have done a victory lap and never did. That's awesome.

I'm a Bill Simmons fan now. Should I interview him without you? Yeah, I think you should. I would love that. So, Sean's not here today, but he says, your is inspiration and do anything for you. But there's not a year to do. There's been a couple of these guests where you fan girl.

That would be one where I'd be too much of a fan girl, and it really would be counterproductive to the podcast. That would be great to get you rattled. You're not normally someone who gets rattled. All right, that was a good episode. I enjoyed that, but that's the pod. 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 looking back. All right, let's take a quick break because, as you know, we are on the HubSpot Podcast Network, but we're not the only ones. There's other podcasts on this network, too, and maybe you like them. Maybe you should check them out.

One of them that want to draw your attention to is called Nudge by Phil Agnew. And whether you're a marketer or a sales, salesperson and you're looking for the small changes you could make, the new habits you could do, the small decisions you could make that will make a big difference. That's what that podcast is all about. Check it out. It's called Nudge. And you can get it wherever you get your podcasts.