A look inside how we actually run My First Million

00:00:00Okay, so this was supposed to beprivate,but we decided to do it in public as anygood influencer would do. We said, "Hey,why do this if we're not going to havethe camera on?"So, I guess the setup here isme and Sam are on camera, but you'llalso see Ari and Cassie doppelgangers.And Cassie's the newShe's the newuh the new girl on the team and she cameon and we were supposed to do kind oflike a strategy meeting of like, "Oh,what are weYou're here to help with the podcast.What are we trying to do again? What'sthe strategy?" And we said, "Why don'twe actually just record it and umwe'll just do it live and see what comesout of this session." So, that's that'swhat I'm here to do. Sam, did I Is thatwhat you are expecting here?Yes, and we all filled out something inadvance. You are the only one who didnot submit yours, Ari.Well, okay, yeah, that's right. I did,but I'm like the I'm like the collator,okay? So, IWhat I What I like to do in thesesituations, and I think anybody shouldsteal this.I stole this from Amazon when we gotacquired there. I I learned this method,which isyou send

00:01:15um a little bit of pre-work inadvance and it makes the meeting so muchmore interesting and so much morevaluable because there'sSome people are fantastic at thinking onthe spot and coming up with insightful,accurate, true, honest things on thespot in front of a large group ofpeople, but that's like 1% of people.Most people don't think very well thatway. And so, if you actually want to getto the right answer, a really good thingto do is to send out some questions orhave people write in advance whatthey're thinking. And then one person'slike the the gatherer. You gather allthe materials together and then use thatto have a good discussion. And so, Iasked you guys 10 or so questions andthey were questions like, "What'sworking really well with the podcastright now? What's not working? What'syour biggest pet peeve? What's somethingwe're just stupid for not doing rightnow? Right? Like just very simplequestions.And so, I gathered all that, and we'renot going to use all of it.But, I wanted to share some of the mostinteresting findings. Can I Can we juststart with the most interestingfindings? The first one isSam, you had a a bit on um almost likethe virtue of selfishness. You werebasically like,"I want to do the selfish thing." And uhwith with the podcast, cuz thethere's one way to look at this, whichis it's all aboutwhat should we be doing to be moresuccessful? How do we make this external

00:02:30thing work? And you were just like, yousaid, "I want to do the selfish thingand have fun and learn and improvemyself. I think others will enjoy that alot more than us trying to appeal tothem in an inauthentic way."And um it reminded me of the Rick Rubinquote of the best way to serve youraudience is to ignore them completely. Iactually think I was like nervous toeven put that on there, cuz I'm like,"Oh, we're going to do a podcast onthis, and I'm just going to go tell theaudience to have to have themselves." UhUh I just think that so originally youyou started this podcast, then I cameon, and for the first 3 years, I don'tthink you and I ever looked at the data.Um and I couldn't even tell you a bunchof the numbers. Frankly, I still don'treally look at the numbers, but everyonce in a while I get drawn and suckedinto this thing where I look at theYouTube numbers, cuz those are the thoseare the most uh public, and I startthinking in headlines, and I startthinking in what can get the highestclick-through rates. And thenoccasionally, I suggest we do some ofthose episodes, and we do do some ofthose episodes, and I notice the nightbefore I get the Sunday Scaries out ofTuesday night, cuz we record onWednesdays. I notice that I dislikethose the most. And then, I notice thereare so many times like when you willtell me a story, or we will have a guestlike Graham Weaver, who I think GrahamWeaver is popular, so it's maybe not thebest example, or Sarah Moore, who youdid a podcast with, where

00:03:45we do thesepodcasts, and I leave with more energythan I came in on. And almost always,that happens when it's not data drivenand it's simply what am I curious aboutor if I read a book and I'm like, I'm soexcited to tell Shawn about this. OrShawn goes and does something and hegoes and visits Austin and I just wantto hear his opinion of who he met andwhat was cool about it. I am moreexcited and energized at the end ofthose than I amat the things where I've done based offof a headline that I think will bepopular. Right. That's so true. And I II think we should actually set thestage. Well, I forgot to do this. Setthe stage on where we're at. So, forthose who don't know, started thispodcast 6 years ago.We're 822 episodes in.I think we've done something like 115million downloads of the podcast. Andthe entire podcast is based off of ashtick, which is four words. There's anempire built on four words.Dude, have you seen this?And And that's [clears throat] That'sit. And then it's basically Sam sayingthat to me and I'm like, no, what is it?And he tells me something that makes meThat kind of gets me excited close mymind and then I try to do the same forthem. And it's a a giving contest whereme and you sit here and we try to dothat. That's how I see it. 6 years in tohaving a podcast, we are basically amedia company.

00:05:00We have never We have never had a socialmedia person. I didn't even know that wehad like social media.You don'tknow how many times somebody fromHubSpot has asked me like, hey, doesanybody have the Twitter login? Hey, canyou can you can like Cassie yesterdaywas asking, he's like, hey, there's likea LinkedIn page. Do you know who madethat? And I was like, I have no idea.Didn't even know it existed. We've gotlikean Instagram account that for yearsnobody had the password to.>> [laughter]>> We had to like request to like reset.Yeah, we're pretty comically likecartoonishly bad at some of thesethings.Hey, so when I was prepping for thismeeting, I put all of our MFM numbers,our competitors, our goals into a Claudeprompt and it gave me a 60-day actionplan for growing our channels. I want togive it away to you as well. So, if youhead to the show notes below, drop youremail, we'll send you the prompt thatyou can use to grow your platforms aswell.

00:05:54Sean, what do you want to do are thereany new initiatives that you want to dothis year in the next 12 months and isthere anything that you want to do youdon't want to do?I think most of the things are things Idon't want to domeaningI could come up with a list of like 30possible things butI think the real question is like whatare the one or two things that mightactually change things for the better.You know the one I wrote right now is Ithink our core product is actuallypretty good. I think I you know I wouldlike listening to this podcast andthat's a good test. I don't know if Iwould listen to the podcast by defaultcuz I might not even know it exists orknow what what's in it you know whatwould hook me in to doing it in thefirst place.And ironically like some of the thingsthat would hook me in might be like abigger name guest that I oh I'm curiousto hear what this person has to sayabout this or oh there's an interviewwith this person I haven't seen whatthat person is saying or the topic theysay is going to be interesting.But that isn't exactly what the mainpodcast is or it doesn't give me likea feel for what the next episode mightbe totally different than what that onewas for example.It seems like the main way that podcastwork today is you have the loyallisteners and then you have the samplersand the samplers are basically clipsthat you put in places where people

00:07:09already arethat give somebody a bite-sizetaste of what the real podcast is like.So for exampleI love this podcast Basement Yard. I'venever even listened to the a fullepisode of it but I've watched probably200 clips and if you tell me what do youthink about that podcast? Oh my god Ilove those guys. That podcast isamazing. Never even listened to it rightbut I've listened to so many clips thatI feel like I know those guys. I feellike I know the show and every one ofthe clips gives me the same feeling mostimportantly right like it's not like oneis a really deep intellectual thing andthe other one's funny. Now, every clipis hilarious. I think those guys arehilarious. They seem super likable.Those guys are awesome and that show isfunny. If I ever wanted a funny show,like that's where I would go.And so,I don't think we're doing a good job ofgiving out the samples of what's in MFMto give people that frame breaker, givepeople that that that inspiration, orgive people that story, or the banter,or whatever in a good enough way wherepeople already are. So, on on I think alot of our community is on X, forexample. And and and they can do amazingthings. Like I was on Chris Williamson's>> Okay, but what do you want? Do you want10 or 20 clips a day?Which is fine. That that sounds like acombatant>> think that's that's probably too high.Let's take a normal episode in an hour.The challenge would be how do you takeumthree

00:08:24to four moments from that podcastthat are likeMFM in a shot versionand give that to people and architectthose clips in a way that that you we meand you would want to share cuz oh yeah,that was that was a great bit that wetalked about. It's edited tightly enoughwhere people would understand what itwhat it is right away and they would behooked and they would get the payoff.And if we do that and we share it wherepeople already are consistently, I thinkthat's the number one thing that wedon't do a good job of that seems to bethe smart thing that every otherpodcaster does. Like I was on ChrisWilliamson's podcast. We did an episode.I don't know if the episode was fine,like good. You know, if you looked athis YouTube channel, it wasn't like a10x outlier. It was probably on thelower side of his normal episodes. Butfor 3 weeks, his team has just beenclipping from that episode, littlestories, little nuggets from thatepisode. He put one up on on X and Elonreplied to the some story I told onthere.And that same thing could have happenedmaybe 20 times from MFM and it doesn'thappen.And you just don't It's like the dog'snot barking. We don't know what we'remissing because it's not obvious. It'sinvisible to us. Okay. That sounds good.That's a great idea. Awesome clipsposted on social media where peoplealready are. Instagram, Yep.>> uh TikTok, and and X.

00:09:40And LinkedIn, sure.Is this a My First Million first? Theparallel I'm going off?>> [laughter]>> Well, he's pretty quick to act there.The dad instinctsHow do we go viral? What if Sam'sapartment catches fire during theepisode [laughter] and he savesI think we shouldmake this more meeting-like. What do youthink, Sean?You're saying it's boring? As anepisode, or what are you saying? You'reso different instrategy meetings. I'm being differentnow?You're being You're being podcast Sean.I wasn't aware of that, but you'reprobably right. What's the maindifference? You're more umyou're not harsher, but you're just morelike blunt and do more>> [laughter]>> Wait, hang on. Hang on. This is good.>> of a dick. Leave this in, dude. This isgreat.>> [laughter]>> Um yeah, just make it more how we talkwhen we're talking and like up>> you give an impression of how I am offoff podcast when we're doing strat whenwe're ever we're talking about what weshould do or not do? All right, what'snot working?>> [laughter]>> Why are we doing this? This is stupid.Someone SomeoneSean doesn't suck. Yeah, we're doingthree things like why aren't we doingthat? Yeah. Sean chastised someone onthe

00:10:55team and he gave his answer. Hegoes, "That's a stupid answer.>> [snorts]>> Give a better answer.">> [laughter]>> Okay, but his his last point is good.Basically, we do need more clips. Weneed them to be on X and we need it tobe on Instagram. You know what one ofthe things that we grew most from waswhen we made this bounty where we justsaid, "We're going to give five grand tothe person who clips the most that welike." And we got 20 million impressionsin 1 month, the first month, whichinterestingly, there's all these likethings called clipper armies now. Thatwas like one of the That was like one ofthe first examples of doing that. Wedidn't even know what we were doing andit was incredibly successful. Westumbled ass-backwards into that wherewe were just like, "Hey, what if weHonestly, by the way, the reason we didthat, we didn't trust ourselves to bedoing a good job of this. It's like, Idon't think our own team's going to do agood job of this. How about the crowd?Anybody who does this, we'll give you aprize." And two two very interestingthings happened. First,it was awesome. We got so so much spreadfrom it. The second, the guy who had themost viral clips ended up creating acompany doing short-form content, soldit to Morning Brew, and like, you know,had a sort of successful business comeout of the whole thing. And then, by theway, and hilarious news, we thenimmediately stopped doing what wasworking, forgot about it, and haven'ttalked about it since since then untiltoday.>> my opinion is we should A, on ourinternal team, we should post way moreon

00:12:10all platforms. And B, we should doanother one of those things. And we caneither do the exact same thing or wecould just pay a CPM. So, for example,if you have a video that gets 100,000views, you get I don't know what thegoing rates are, but I think it's cheap.I think it's like a dollar per thousandviews. Something like that. Butbasically, it's like, all right, you gotit you got 100,000 views, you get agrand. Or I can't do the math, but youguys understand what I'm saying. So, Aritold me that I should be moreblunt and direct as I am in not thispodcast format, so I'll do that. Cassie,welcome to the team.You have lots of good ideas aboutcommunity and this and that. Here's whatwe want to do. In the next 90 days, Ineed you to raise a clipper army, getthis [ __ ] going, and we should, youknow, you have 24 hours to basically seta target that makes sense. Like, youpick you pick your goal. But what wefundamentally are trying to do is copy aa working playbook that, you know, hasworked for everyone from Andrew Tate to,you know, whoever else, you know, on theon the clipping side. And we want to usemoney to incentivizethese like 16-to-22-year-old kids whoare just awesome at editing and makingclips to post clips about our stuff onsocial, not on our own brand accountnecessarily. We'll take the best andwe'll put it there. But we want to

00:13:26um, avery aggressive stretch goal andaggressively raise this army ofclippers, and we'll do that for 90 days,and then we'll check in in at the end ofthe 90 days and decide whether wecontinue or not. But, you could bebasically stupidly aggressive for 90days so we get a clear answer versustiptoeing into it, and then we won'treally know in 90 days cuz oh, we're wejust we're just getting started. Wehaven't really found out yet. Like, gogo all out, spend more money than youthink you need, um, be a little bitlooser with the controls about it, andgo, you know, go for more scale, uh, andlet's see what happens. Okay. So, in myopinion, let's make a list of only likeone or two things that we want to domore of. Big rock one, clipper army.Um,>> [laughter]>> uh, okay, let me get let me give you acouple. Um, one thing that I don't know100% Sean if I want to do it, but weshould consider it. We've been talkingabout events for forever. I think Iwould be open to like a two or threevenue tour.Um, I would want it to make I would haveto figure out if family can come or notand if we can make that happen, but Iwould be open. But, the schtick that wehave needs to be easy because, and Idon't mean easy like in a lazy way, buteasy where we could kick ass at itbecause performing in front of 2,000people like we have before,it's kind of hard to make itentertaining. And I've been to a lot oflive podcast tapings with a lot ofpeople. Almost all of them suck. And so,we would have

00:14:41to like really hone in ona format. So, I would say I would beopen to doing an event. But, let me giveyou a a few more, uh, ideas.>> Wait, hang on. Before we do that, let'sstick to events. Like, what would Sean,what would you do if you could if it wasworth drivingan hour for, what would you do?I think Okay, here's what here's myinterest in an event. I don't want to doan event for money. I don't want to doan event for the ego hit. I got that egoa couple times.>> you would like to get paid for it. Sure,sure. Making money's fine, but thatwouldn't be the motivation to do it.Same thing with like it's awesome towalk into like a theater or an arena orwhatever the thing is and be like, "Wow,all these people are here for us. Thisis awesome." And like there's a line ofpeople trying to take selfies and likeshowing my wife like, "Look, it's real.Like, this is a thing." And like, yeah,like, you know, my kids, do you Is thisAm I cool to you yet? And they're like,"No. Can we go?"Um so so that wouldn't be the mainmotivation. The My only motivation withan event is I want to know who the top1% of MFM listeners are.And this is a extremely selfish request,which is over timeactually not through me, but through mybusiness partner Ben Levy, people go toBen and they're just like, "Dude, I loveMFM." And so he'll be like, "Oh, youknow this the founder of that reallycool thing we we eat that that place wego, that product we use?" Yeah, he lovesMFM.And then I get to meet him and text him.I'm like, I'm like,

00:15:56"It's insane that wedon't know who the most interestinglisteners are. That's who I want to dothe event with and for." And just purelyout of selfishness because I want tomeet them. And also it'd be cool, Ithink, if they met each other.And I think that would just be the funversion of doing an event that I'm atmost interested in. So if we can figureout what I call the MFM 1% event, that'swhat I want to do. Okay, got it. So 1%means like a 1%er in that mostinteresting. So that means curated.Curated. That means Okay, so you'rethinking cur- like 100 or hundreds ordozens>> 100 to 150 curated people and let's makeit a awesome retreat, hangout, whatever.Let's invite some friends of the pod whoare guests. Like, let's get Andrew andSteph Smith. Let's get other people thatthey they would also want to meet. Okay.>> But again, like, if you if you curateit, to me, that's a room I want to be inbecause I know I would have a fun time.I would go meet I could in one day meeta bunch of awesome people who arelike-minded, who are fans of the show.That would be the no stress versus geton stage, like, travel somewhere,already bad, get on stage, have toperform like some live showfor what, you know? I'm not I'm surewhat I What do I want out of that? Idon't I don't really want anything outof that. Here's another version that Ifind interesting. So I I like alwaysbrainstorming like, what's the opposite?So what's the

00:17:11opposite of the live tour,the the big show? And my brain went toTiny Desk. So you know, like the NPRTiny Desk series that they created onYouTube? Like the vibe is immaculate.It's cool because it's kind of small andintimate rather than mega mega. And youget to see the artist cook. And so, I'veactually be would be curious like if wedid our version of Tiny Desk. So, soyou've seen like Hormozi does a lot ofthese where he's he's doing his likeworkshops and somebody stands up andsays, "I have this problem. I'm I'm thisguy, you know, here's my business,here's what I do, blah blah blah." Andhe's supposed to give him the rightanswer as the kind of guru on the stage.And it's it's good, but it's very like abit sterile, right? Like the vibe of itis like we're in a cold conference roomand um you know, we're here for for somesome tactics. Whereas Tiny Desk has likea different aura to it, a different vibeto it. And so, I would if we had a coolvenue that was like almost likecompact.And we had 20 people who are, you know,entrepreneurs, wantrepreneurs, whatever.People who listen to the podcast who areentrepreneurial.And then we just kind of spit spitballwith them. Like I think both me and youare pretty good at doing this withpeople. Like I've done this at a coupleof events where I got paid to go do thistalk and I threw I just on the drivethere I just threw out my deck and I waslike, "Uh you know what I'm going to do?I'm just going to stand up and be like,who's got a busi- you're here for you'rehere to get better and improve yourbusiness. Like you want some value outof this?

00:18:27Tell me what you're doing, tell me yourbiggest problem, let me try to help youright here on the spot." And I did thatwith like 20 people. And I felt like amagician cuz you get to do a magic trickof like they're stuck and you get themunstuck. Which talk are you referringto? The Mercury one? The Mercury one,yeah. Uh cuz I watched that. That wasgood. Okay. So, me and you doing thattogether I think would be pretty fire.Yeah, I agree. That could be cool. Wecould have like a cool set. We do one inNew York, we do one in San Francisco, wedo one in wherever else. And we take ourfamily, we hang, andyou know, it's it's like a curatedevent, but that becomes the trick is thelive event is a experience, but reallyit's the content you create off that.Meaning like you [ __ ] like whatHormozi's doing is pretty smart, right?Like he chops that up into a thousandquestion and answer clipsumwhere somebody has a problem and then hehelps them solve it and then they'relike, "Wow, thank you so much." Like,"Oh my god, yeah, you're right." Thatbecomes like good clip content. And so,I think for us, we could do that and Ithink it would be>> interested. pretty easy for us to do.Much easier than like going on stage andlike performing comedy or essentiallylike live entertainment. I'm moreinterested in that than like hanging outwith really successful people. Like Ifor some reason I don'tlove like hanging out with like alike ballers in these type of settingsbecause A, I don't feel like Googlingeveryone

00:19:42in advance of seeing if they'reon the up steam list, but alsoit just feels like a>> [laughter]>> it just feels like a pissing match.And II just like being with like thenobodies. But yeah, I'm interested inthat.Okay, Bernie Sanders of business overhere.>> [laughter]>> I'm like, who's the guy Mitt Romney whowas like, "I don't like poor people.">> [laughter]>> Okay, so maybe we do different events.You do the everybody event in in venue Aand I'll be with all the cool successfulpeople in venue B. It'll be great.>> [laughter]>> And something for everyone.Uh something I want to do less of.A few things I want to do less of. Doyou like doing solo episodes? I hatedoing solo episodes. I hate recording toand like looking at a bare screen. Doyou? I I don't mind it. I sometimes Ilike to teach if I have something, butum well, there's two types of solo. Oneis solo just talking to the camera. Theother is like a whenthere's a guest in New York and it'smake sense for you to hang out with themin person and do the in person pod andI'm not there or or vice versa.>> like those either.I I find those to be way less funbecause I'm like, "Oh, okay. This feelsa little bit like like work." But whenwe do them together, it feels morefun. It feels way more fun

00:20:57because itfeels like cuz it's sort of likewhenever you're around brothers and theyegg each other on. I love the egg eachother on mentality. I don't love solointerviews or occasionally if it'ssomeone who I know that you don't likeor you don't care about their topic butit's super interesting to me. I'm likeall right, I would like the solo timejust to go really deep on this onething. But in general, I prefer duoversus solo for both interviews andtalking about stuff. Me too. The onlycaveat would bethere is something cool about in person.You pick up so much more than just doinga remote podcast where they pop on andthey pop off at the end of the hour andthere's there's not a lot in between. SoI So I think hanging out in person ispretty cool and I think the productionvalue I do like I I likeI I prefer to watch podcasts that arelike that when people are togetherversus when they're doing a Zoom. Andthen lastly like sometime you know, Ilike you you were pretty sacred aboutlike what times you were going to recordwhereas I'm like you know, all right, ifyou ask me like hey, this person wantsto record on the moon at 2:00 a.m. I'mlike yeah, that's cool. Like all right,like have I ever said no? I'm basicallylike yeah, sure. What does it matter tome if it's 9:00 a.m. or p.m. I'm like Idon't really care whereas I think Samfor you you're like that throws my wholeday off. I have a more structured day.So I think that's the only other timeswhere we where we do solo is where

00:22:13youcan't make it.What do you guys feel about newsletter?I know Sean you you both Sean and Samhave experience in this realm butcurious what your thoughts are on abranded newsletter too. There has to besome type of way yes, interesting. Therehas to be some type of way where itnever become where it doesn't become aliability and it only becomes an assetor at least is a liability a smallamount of times because the problem withcuz neither of us have time to write it.The problem with saying yes to that isthat you're going to say something dumb,you're going to say something thatdoesn't fit our taste or it's just goingto be factually incorrect. And if one ofthose three things happens and it hurtsour reputation, to me I go never do itagain. And so as long as you we couldde-risk it which it will never be 100%but as long as there's some type oftrust there, it is interesting butthat's a hugething to solve for, right? Yeah. Well,what what do you guys would beinteresting, too? Like, what would youread? Or what newsletters do youcurrently read that you're like, "Hey,this is something we'd want to pull fromor at least get inspired by?">> Just takeaways from our episodes. Like,I want that. Yeah, exactly.>> Just like I don't want to watch listento everything like there's so manyepisodes that we have done where I'mlike, I need a reminder of that. We have850. Just pull out like cool learnings.Yeah, I think basically if it's here'swhat we just

00:23:28did, here's who's comingup, and have the just did, you know,here's like the three or four mostinteresting stories. Just in plainspeak. Like, oh, you know, he shared thenumbers of how fast they grew. It turnsout year one was this, year two wasthis, year three was this. Nogatekeeping. Like, justhere's the best stuff. If you don't havetime, like just great. Here's thisHere's a quick summary, but like thatwould make me want to go listen or watchan episode. And then if I knew, oh,Thursday they have this person comingon, that's cool. And then if there waslike a little just kind ofbullet points section where we can belike, oh, yeah, like check this out. Samuh went viral for this. We're doing thisthing. Uh check out this product webought. Like, you know, whatever. I'mI'm cool with like a little bit of extraso it's not purely an AI summary of likethe episode. I think that would begreat.And I I would be happy to like do thework on this and not write it myself,but like Diego, who's my head ofcontent, was my lead writer for MilkRoad. So, like, you know, I basicallytrained him how to write my style. Hedid it for 2 years for Milk Road and wasexcellent. You know, he's really, reallygood at this. That's a lift that like Ithink I could have Diego take on thatwould be worth it if we could driveenough people to it. I think right nowthere's this conflict, which is we tellpeople, "Hey, go to HubSpot to go getthis like offer." So, then that's wherethey would go. So, this would need tobecome the main place we're directingpeople

00:24:43to. And I think, by the way, likeway more people would subscribe becausethey would know like, "Oh, I'm justgoing to be getting value from this allthe time. That's That's great." Ideathat, again, don't know if we want todo.Um have Have seen or do Sam, do youremember when they were doing those likeriver community meet-up type things?Yes. So likethat was kind of cool for a little bit.People were going and the reason I sayit was cool is because when I met peoplewho like the podcast, they told me like"Oh, I'm part of the MFM Denvermeet-up." And I'm like, "What?" And theywere like, "Yeah, we meet up once amonth and it's like nine of us andwhatever 19 of us, whatever the numberis. It's not like a huge group."But they all got to know each other andlike we were the common like glue orbond. Well, that platform has pivoted tobecoming like a supper club, like adinner club.And so it's like a decentralized way tojust have like fans of the showopt in to going and getting dinner withlike six other people who also like theshow.And you know, this selfishly doesnothing for us in terms of like I'm notyou know, there's no growth hack, it'snot money, it's not any of those things.We're not even going to be there. It'skind of the barbell approach, right?There's some things that I want to get Iwant to do things that reach everybodyand then it's like, what are the thingsthat would just change somebody's lifecuz they would meet a co-founder

00:25:58or theywould make a great connection or theywould find like friends in their citythat they don't otherwise have that arelike the unique level of business dorkthat they are.It's a I don't know if we should dothis. There's like a lot of liability oflike we're we're not In our heads we'relike, "Oh, this is just you opt in andyou it's not our experience." But Ithink fundamentally they'll attributethe experience to us. That's thedownside.But the upside would be I think thiswould be really cool for people to meetother awesome people in their city andthat woulddo good karma for the world. What do youguys think of this?We can call it just the other 99%.You know.>> [laughter][snorts]>> I love this idea, personally. I thinkit's pretty cool. I think it's prettycool. I I didn't I loved it and then youwere like, "Oh, yeah, it is not out ofour It is out of our control and yetthey'll blame us if it sucks." I I WhatI would be on board with is if we justsaid newsletter, clips, and meet-ups. Ifwe just did those three things for thenext 6 months, I'd probably be fine withthat.Yeah. I I love this idea.It would be cool too. What if you guyslike showed up to one every once in awhile and surprised the the dinnergroups, yeah.I have. I've showed up every once in awhile.It's great content too. I know it's alittle different, butuh the VaynerX team

00:27:13was doing this withGary Vee for a bit where they were doingthese branded dinners in differentcities and capturing content and justhaving these really organicconversations and people loved it. Dude,you what what Vayner does is hilarious.One time,Gary Vaynerchuk, his handle, he DM'd me.He goes, "Hey Sam, haven't talked to youin forever." Which we are friendly, butnot like buddies, but he was like, "Doyou want to come to dinner with me?" AndI was like, "Yeah, that sounds cool."And I show up and there's like 50 otherpeople there and I was like, "Where'sGary?" And they're like, "Oh, well, hedoesn't actually come to these. It'sjust me, Nick. I host them on hisbehalf.">> Oh my god.>> [laughter]>> I was like, "Jeez, really?" Can ISo, that's pretty funny, but yeah. Well,we won't do that. We won't do that.>> [laughter]>> Um yeah, that sounds cool. Basically,and the last thing I think that weshould focus on guest-wise, Sean, is Ithink that we should I think we don'taim high enough. I think that our guestsshould probably be super mega popularpeople and we get them to talk about newstuff that they've not talked about likeideasor someone no one knows. So, like mymother-in-law, like Sarah Moore, like uma bunch of different people, but itshould be almost a little barbely

00:28:29wherewe should cuz I don't think we've done agood job of going after the one out of10 like popular person. And I don't likehaving those people just cuz they'repopular, but I do like having them andif they talk about something new. Andthen also, I loved I've loved havingsomeone who I like this was a nobody andthey were the the most insightful personwe've I've ever talked to.So, is the thing you're saying we shouldaim higher?Or or are you sayinghey, we do a lot of these ones in themiddle and we'll just stop doing those.Is that what you're saying? Like are youjust saying, "Hey, let's invest more onthe the ends?" Or are you saying, "Let'savoid the middle?" I'm mostly saying thefirst thing that you just said.Yeah, another one of those memorableepisodes is when Sean brought his formerIs he your former chief of staff?Who, Ishaan? Yeah, when he was like 22.Yeah, yeah, yeah.And that felt like Yeah, it was [snorts]like atotally unique. Like no other podcastwas going to have him on.>> Theo Von bringing on like the Amish kid.>> man. Yeah, yeah, the Amish kid was likemy favorite episode.I love the Amish kid. So, I would liketo go a little bithigher and lower, you know, like um Ithink I take a lot of pride that I amlike this and our podcast is like thiswhere I enjoy hanging out with the withyou know, world leaders and movers andshakers and also

00:29:44I I enjoy equally enjoyhanging out with someone who has donesomething not impressive at all, but isvery insightful and has some wisdom thatI want to learn from. Um and interestingrelated to that, what I've noticed Ihave found I've get the most joy out ofis when we have old people. I don't knowa better way to say that, but I lovehaving old people on. I'm talking like70-year plus. I have loved learning fromthose types of people.I like it. Um we've done so manydifferent episode types.Is there one type we should be doing alot more of?Is there one type we should be doingless of?Is there a new type you're itching todo? Like Does anyone have ideas oncontent types that we want to doubledown, abandon, or try? For some reasonI'm I think I'm a I think I'm a muchsofter person than you and I like II enjoy some sometimes less hard-hittingstuff, but let's just say we talkedabout likeraising children or like finding yourpassion or or finding happiness, whichis like Arthur Brooks. Umor parenting, which I don't think we'veever talked about here. Does that stuffinterest you, Sean, on learning thosethings?>> For sure.>> I think we should do more of those cuzwhen we had Graham Weaver on We dopretty pretty much none of that, right?We do Well, it we only do it when it'sinadvertent, but Graham Weaver was agood example of

00:30:59that where to me, he'san inspirational guy who has all thesecool ways to live a wonderful life, andit just so happens to be that he wasreally successful at business. But Ithink that we could for sure have someof these I I don't know what else todescribe it, but like I I've listened toArthur Brooks, you know who that is?Yeah. Like I would love to talk topeople like that, but also there's likea variety of people in that category.Some of them are totally unknown, butlike they've done some cool researchpaper or some like data-driven way tolike raise better children or be happieror find your passion or diethinking I lived a full life and I'mhappy. Like things like that. Right. Uhokay, down for that for sure.Um A format I love isyou guys areconstantly consuming interesting things.Sean, not so much books for you, butwe're working [laughter] we're workingon that. Hey, hey, hey. And then you'revirtually leafingYou're [laughter]alsoYeah, but but but you haven't[clears throat] turned any pages.Pages. He's debunked. [laughter]And you're professional explainers, andit's like basically like if my bestfriend can explain like this book he orshe has read in like 20 minutes, likethat's way more that's just a much morefun

00:32:15way of getting the information. Sam,I wanted to hear what you thought aboutthis cuz you read a lot. You read a lotmore than me. You read different stuffthan me, so I don't know exactly howthis works.I'm not trying to create a book club,but I do want to find excuses where thereading I'm doingcoincides with my MFM prep.Right? Like two for one. And so is therea format where we could both like eitherwhether we read the same book and webreak it down or we each bring a bookand like I tell you what you would getout of it like I basically tell youwhat's in it. You tell me what's in thisand we kind of like rate it ourselvesand so we know which books to skip,which books to definitely go go checkout.Um are you interested in that? Yeah, Ithink it should be quarterly. So likethe the the things that shaped myquarter. Like I'm reading a like I'mreading this Maverick. Almost I'mfinished with this. It's about aBrazilian business guy who like runs hisbusiness via democracy which is strange.>> Didn't hook me right away. Did that onehook you?No, but cuz I've only>> But it's highly recommended so I justit's in that weird category of like it'sprobably good but I don't like it. I'mstill judging my opinion on it. I justfinished Barack Obama's biography. Uhthe biggest takeaway is that he seemslike a nice guy but total psychopathjust like every other president. He waslike Really? telling he was tellingMichelle like

00:33:30hey I'm going to run forpresident and she was like honey pleasedon't do this we're happy. I don't wantthis and he goes you're going to notonly go along with it but I'm puttingyou on stage and you're going to starttraveling and you're going to campaignfor me. And she was like please don't dothis and he goes look Michelle and thenhe turns it on and he goes for everyyoung brown kid out there I could be thebeacon of hope. I can let them know thatthey can do anything they they set theirmind to. And she was likeyoufine.>> [laughter]>> That was my big takeaway that story.That was my favorite part from thisbook. And then I'm reading an informalguy guide to workwear which is a styleof clothing. So long story short, I lovereading lots of books and I can for surecome with stories once a quarter onbooks that I and like what the bigstories and takeaways are that I'velearned. Patrick O'Shaughnessy does thisgreat thing at the end of every episodewhere he asks them what's the kindestthing anyone's ever done to you and it'slike this softening question for everysuccessful person where they give aheart-felt story.>> Um like either we steal that exactquestion or we come up with our versionof those questions. I think one liketradition or ritual question would begreat and likesuch a small thing but would add to whatwe do. Uh Diary of a CEO, he did asimilar thing where at the end of everyepisode he would have the guest write aquestion for the next guest and then hewould tell them, "Hey, we have aa guest that

00:34:45said, you know, BarackObama was here last week and he wrotethis question for you." And it's justlike this cool mechanic. So, I think oneritualistic question would be awesome.So, likeAri, I don't know if you have ideas butlike I kind of want to like put that inyour court and I feel like you mighthelp us come up with something there.The other one I was thinking aboutlike acquired but for every manbusinesses.So, I get really into studying thebackstories of random products that Isee or little businesses. So, it's like,you know that sauce, Bitchin' Sauce,that's like in Whole Foods. It's like awhatever, it's just some sauce brandcalled Bitchin' Sauce. It's like, youknow there's got to be a story behindsome sauce called Bitchin' Sauce thatended up on the shelf of a Whole Foodsin the last 5 years.Part of me is like, would it beinteresting if we pickedthese like businesses that are inEverybody knows them but you don't knowthe story of them. You don't know howthey really took off and wewe already do this during episodes whereit's like, "Oh dude, I Do you know thereal story behind like the Stanley mug?It used to be for construction workersand then like it died pretty much andthen these moms in Utah picked it up andthey it was all about like moms stayinghydrated and it became the status symboland blah blah blah blah blah blah. Andlike the guy who used to run Crocs nowruns Stanley and he's using the Crocsplaybook there, right? Like there's likeinteresting stuff there.And so, I wonder if we did a like kindof the acquired thing where we both

00:36:00picka business to nerd out on, it's justthat one business.Uh it's kind of like How I Built Thisbut it's just Sam and John riffing onwhat we thought was cool from the storyfor recognizable everyday businessesthat we think have cool backstories.That sounds great. I just think that wedo that. I don't think we do it in a waythat would be a standalone package. So,what would the standalone package I getokay, so>> package would be like the title andthumbnail basically make you a promisethat like you're going to learn this andthen we both have studied it enoughversus today typically one of us knows alot more about it than the other, whichis okay. It's okay to do that, but likeuh and then we start the episode and weend the episode and we've delivered onthat promise that likeyou're going to hear about this thingand we're going to tell you the story,the ups, the downs, the how they howthey how they made it happen, um thecoolest stuff from this brand.Okay.Yeah, I think that's great. I just Idon't know how to make it um actionable,but that sounds awesome. Like what you'dwant to do for that?>> I think maybe for now we just put ourput it on our radar so that the nexttime you or I think of a business likethat or we see one or we start to hearthe backstory of it,we say, "Hey, hey, let's try thatthing." And then we like use the theauthentic uh interest in that thing thatlike in the moment before it perishesand we decide to like

00:37:15try this like afocused episode on that one thing. Andit's like What can we call it so we sowe like what can we reference this?>> Uh so CNBC does this thing on YouTubethat's called like make it. It's likethey're make it series.>> Dude, I love it.And they do an amazing job of these,right? So like uh they're they'll do oneon like what's a what's a popular onethey did? Like they did one on theYeezys. It's likeuh the story of how Kanye built Yeezy,right? And it's like, all right, sothat's like Yeezy, I'm you know, I maybeI see somebody wearing the slides. I'mlike, what the hell is the actual story?And by the way, I think I actuallyrecently heard there's a veryinteresting story about this. TheThere's a guy who built who built orbought the factory firstand had this game plan and then went toKanye and then like, you know, figuredit out. I don't know the full story, butlike sounds like there was somethinginteresting there that it didn't startfrom Kanye. It actually started fromsome guy who bought a shoe factory.Yeah, so okay, I don't know. Maybe we Sowe maybe we can as code name forourselves call it these like make itlike a make it style episode.Do you want to do Do you like when we doscreen shares?Yes, in theory. Like I love to see whensomebody pops up in a screen share. It'ssort of exciting like somebody tooktheir shirt off or something. I wantwant more artifact episodes or somethinglike that where they like share theirscreen. It could be if this would onlywork if the person was particularlyinteresting, but it could be like ifwe're talking about someone's day, it'slike

00:38:31show me your calendar.Right now.>> Right.Or if we're talking about a questionthat you ask or I you asked once and Istole it is how do you invest your moneyof like show me let's do a pie chartright now.>> Dude, we should do that with guestsbefore in the pre-prep. We should havethem send us a screenshot of theircalendar. Maybe they're like home screenof their phone, like what apps they haveon their phone.>> Yes. Yes.>> And like maybe>> Chrome plugins they use. Like forexample [laughter]No, I'm being serious. I love looking atpeople's Chrome plugins. Or I lovelooking like is their desktop clean ordirty and like how do they organize it?Like I love like they can just like tellme how you organize your workflows. Itcould be from Chrome plugins to thewebsite that you that that that you useon a regular basis.I love that stuff cuz I'm just lookingfor I hate using this word, but everybit of alpha. So it's like oh, you usethis like you Sean use a Chrome pluginor used to where it remind you of yourgoals. And I'm like show me that.Yeah, I like it. I also just think evenif it's not like alpha, it's just liketakes them out of whatever routine theywere in and we get we're going to findsomething personal that nobody's everasked them about or said you know,something something that's idiosyncraticto them.Right? Like how they how they roll. Youknow,

00:39:46if you if I see somebody's desk, Ilearn a lot. You know what I mean? LikeI remember we're sitting at Monish'shouse and I'm doing the episode with himand on his desk he's got this name thislikethis sign that says trouble isopportunity.And it's like wow, there's got to be astory behind that. That didn't just landthere by default. That's a philosophy,that's a story, that's important to you.If you look at Warren Buffett's desk, hehas a box called the two hard pile. It'slike what's that one? What is the twohard pile? And then you know, youwouldn't otherwise know those things. Ithink if we can get like whether it'stheir calendar or their desk or theiriPhone home screen, Something like thatI think will unlock a different anglewith guests than anybody else is doing.And then the last thing that I want tobring upthere we have This has only happened ahandful of times, but one thing that wehave to try to do, and I think Ari, thisis going to fall on you, is making sureso whenever we have someone on who has acheckered past, for example, MartinShkreli,I do feel a sense of responsibility thatwe have to ask him about his behavior.Andwith him it was okay, but there's beentimes where I didn't know someone had acheckered past, and I'm like, "Ugh, Idon't feel like becoming a show thatconfronts people. I don't want thatenergy right now." But it's like I bothI feel if we have that person on, I'mlike, "Ugh, I have we have to mentionit."

00:41:01And alsoI don't want to.Yeah, there's a responsibility,[clears throat]and then also this is not what I want tobe doing. So you want me to pop in inthe recording and confront them?>> you asking Ari there? What was therequest to Ari?>> [laughter]>> Oh, like somehow you have to like justmake sure that there's nothing likecrazy. That you are awarethat we that we are aware. Like, forexample, we had the guy who dealt inwiththe guy in Italy, Thomas, and his storywas amazing. And then out of nowhere wefound out that he was got in trouble forfraud, and I'm like,[ __ ]>> up the headline like mid-recording, andyou were just like, "It's not good."Ugh, I was like, "Ugh, I have to callthis out. I don't want to. I don't wantto. We were getting along so well." Butyou have to. You have to say something.And I just want to minimize that amount,or it has to be worth it. Wherelike I think Martin Shkreli is worth it.I think he's an interesting person, andhe's done stuff I don't like, and wewill say, "You have done stuff we don'tlike, and also you're interesting."So it just has to be worth it. Yeah, cuzI don't think the answer is we don'thave anyone on who has>> No, that's not what I'm saying. It'sjust likeit's just like you have to mention it orask about it, and we have to make surethat that is the the it's worth it.Yeah, I just don't know what thesolution you're suggesting really is.Like what what do you want to change? Isthere a change you want

00:42:16or you just wantus to know how you feel cuz that's alsookay.Well, a little bit is yeah, I'm coveringmy ass. No. It's mostly just like Arijust like in the way in the same waythat Ari protects us. Like for example,she'll be like, "Hey, you said somethinghere and that came off really bad. Youlike like one time I made fun of SimoneBiles or something and she was like uhthat joke didn't land. Like when yousaid [laughter] Jon Morgan was smokingweed which I don't think he said.He did. He did. Yeah.I'm going to double check that later. Bythe way, it's really funny. 99% of thetime Ari's like, "Hey, yeah, that partwe should take that out, right?" AndSam's like, "What? No, that wasLeave it in. Start with that. [laughter]But you almost never strike it and I'mlike, "Dude, are you sure?"That was fine. That was funny.>> [laughter]>> I guess I don't know. Just like keep aneye out is all I'm saying. Um I don'tthink I have anything else to say, butbasically like Sean, the takeaway for meis like newsletters, cool. I'm on board.Clips, on board. Meetups, on board. Andtalking about like happiness andparenting and some of that other stuff,we're open to. Yeah, so I I think if wewere going to say what are the threewe're going to do, here's the rocks Isee.Cassie's going to raise a clipper army.And Cassie, I'm specifically saying thisto you as a challenge which is likeyou're joining the team. You're here tokick butt. This is the butt you we wantkicked. And to the extent that we learn

00:43:31how much of a butt kicker you are, we'llbe you'll be judged on how good you doat doing this one thing. Even if you didfive other really fantastic, wonderfulother things,this is the thing we're asking you to dobecause we think this is the biggestthing and isit's not easy either to do this. Likethis takes some figuring out. This takessome cleverness. This takes some likeyou know, you're going to have to Idon't know, get in some discords and uhyou know, go have some conversationswith people to get figure out how thewhole this all all this stuff works. So,that's the clipper army. That's numberone.Then in terms of guests, I think Sam,you brought up like go higher, gounknown, and go into the areas of lifethat we are important to us, but wetraditionally haven't done on thepodcast, which is sometimes it'skids stuff like you know, raising kids,it's happiness, it's like you know,whatever. Topics that are about thehuman condition.>> Yeah, like what is there anything Seanthat you want to add to that? I thinkthere's probably just going to be someothers that come up when they come up.Like I would say actually investing hasfall investing probably started in thatcategory, right? Like we were talkingabout business ideas and whatnot andthen likeyou and I both also want to becomesmarter as investors, so we startedasking questions there. Well, now we'redads. We want to get better at that. Andlike not in the boring sort of clicheway, but likewhat's the non-obvious stuff thatmatters? By the way, I also think weshould ask our guests who've got kidslike what's

00:44:46something parenting wise youdo that's pretty like atypical ornon-traditional that you believe in? Forexample, a bunch of entrepreneurs I knowhave told me the same exact thing, whichis they takea one-on-one trip with each kidum when they become like 6, 7, 8 yearsold and that becomes like a sacred likecore memory with them and that kid andit's a totally different dynamic cuzyou're always with the the full groupand the dynamic change when you goone-on-one. I've heard that like seventimes. Okay, I got to be a dummy at somepoint not to just go do that. Um if theyall keep saying it. But I you know, youwouldn't know otherwise unless you askthat question. Let's pair let's add athird one a third third rock, which isthese likeguest prep other angles. So we talkedabout asking them for theirtheir their screenshots of their theirspace, their desk, their computer,whatever, as well as like asking themquestions you know, maybe a our versionof the what's the kindest thing anyonehas ever done to you like a a greatcloser question that we can just doritualistically and build a traditionoff that. I would say for now we don'talso try to add meetups. Like I think weshould do this and like spend 90 dayslike actually doing these things andthen come up for air and if we'veactually done these well, then we'veearned the right to go try and do morethings.Awesome.Uh no comment. Um I think yes.I think that was great.>> Okay, um great.

00:46:01Thanks for agreeing todo that in public guys and uhfor people who listen to that I don'tknow. Hopefully that was interesting foryou guys.>> [laughter]>> We we thought we would do it in public.Maybe you get to see how the sausage ismade a little bit.All right. Sam, send them away.All right. God bless. That's the pod.Wait, no, what did I say last time? Godbless.>> [laughter]>> Oh, you're a blessing. You're ablessing.