The man who made a billion off blueberries

Summary

My First Million Podcast Summary

Episode: The Man Who Made a Billion Off Blueberries
Hosts: Sam Parr & Shaan Puri (Hubspot Media)
Date: September 12, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on the extraordinary story of John Bragg, a little-known Canadian entrepreneur who quietly built a billion-dollar empire—first transforming the global blueberry industry and then becoming a telecommunications magnate. Sam and Shaan explore Bragg’s unconventional business philosophies, share colorful anecdotes from his career, and zoom out to consider patterns among old-school operators who crossed from blue-collar roots into multi-industry domination. The discussion branches out to broader reflections on business, mindset, legendary business figures, the psychology of elite performance, and the creative process behind iconic work.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The John Bragg Story: From Blueberries to Billions

• Early Entrepreneurship:

  • Grew up on a family farm in Nova Scotia.
  • As a teenager, picked blueberries to pay for college: “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.” (Sam, 01:00)
  • Realized, “I can pay for college if I just pick blueberries every year.”

• Founding the Blueberry Empire:

  • Weighed several career choices: teacher, family sawmill, or go all-in on blueberries. Chose the path less traveled—building his own blueberry farm.
  • Faced a massive industry glut/crash, forcing him to pivot.
    • Built a packaging/freezing plant not just for himself but for other local farmers, organizing competitors: “He goes to the other blueberry farmers, says...let's put some money in together. And I'm going to build this plant. ...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, ...I can do this.” (Sam, 03:06)
  • Early calamities didn’t stop him: devastating frost led to massive underproduction in his factory’s first year. Rather than fold, he took on a contract to manufacture onion rings for another local entrepreneur, keeping the factory afloat.

• Building Oxford Frozen Foods:

  • Oxford Frozen Foods now controls 40–50% of the global blueberry market: “It's like 70 million pounds of blueberries they're making every year.” (Sam, 05:05)
  • Shared technology: freely distributed a cutting-edge blueberry picker to other farmers to raise the industry tide—believed in expanding the “pond.”

• Second Act in Cable & Telecom:

  • Serendipitously bought the cable TV rights for his rural region when no one else showed interest.
  • Despite early losses, grew his cable holdings into Canada’s largest private telecom company by acquiring infrastructure and avoiding the “sexy” parts of the business.
  • “Whereas most TV companies want to do the sexy, fun stuff, they get into original programming...he’s like, yeah, no, yeah, you know, what's king? Fiber." (Sam, 06:30)

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2. Patterns Among Old-School Moguls (07:58–11:28)

• Drawing parallels between John Bragg and fellow North American “cowboy” entrepreneurs like Ted Turner, Jim Pattison, and John Catsimatidis: people who leap from one industry to “boring” infrastructure or media.
• The Golden Era of Cable: “...it was sort of like the first version of SaaS business, you know, it was recurring revenue. Huge TAM. Kind of weird and unknown. People weren’t sure what to do.” (Shaun, 10:26)
• Regulatory arbitrage and industry consolidation were recurring patterns.

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3. Bragg’s Business "Isms" & Philosophies (13:23–20:17)

• No Reverse Gear:
  “I have no reverse gear.” (Sam, 13:38)
  Bragg didn’t consider quitting even after devastating setbacks.
• Intentionally Overpay:
  “Early on, I intentionally overpaid for acquisitions, and word spread fast. If you want to sell, sell to John Bragg.” (Sam, 14:56)
  Built a reputation for paying fairly—sometimes above market—to secure irreversible strategic assets.
• Collaborative Dominance:
  “We don’t want to have 100% of the industry. That wouldn’t be good politics.” (Sam, 17:04)
• Focus:
  “Focus is absolutely critical. ...The biggest single principle you can have in business.” (Sam, 17:13)
• Play the Long Game:
  “I was this young guy who said, I’m here to play this game for a long, long time.” (Sam, 17:37)
• Cultivating Investors:
  At age 70, distributed $10 million each to executive teams, instructing them to manage investments solely for education: “There was no penalty for losing the money and no bonus for the gains. It was pure education.” (Sam, 19:17)

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4. Comparisons to United Fruit/Banana Empire (20:44–24:39)

• Sam and Shaan discuss the United Fruit Company and its founder, Samuel Zemurray: street hustler turned “banana king” who orchestrated coups in Central America to preserve his business advantages.
  • “The book is called The Fish that Ate the Whale, because he was the fish, and he eventually ate the whale.” (Shaun, 22:56)
• Illustrates the once-accepted, sometimes ruthless extremes of early 20th-century entrepreneurship.

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5. Mindset, Performance, and the “Pain Cave” (34:50–50:12)

• Sporting Parallels in Business:
  • Tennis, running, and fighting analogies abound—namely about the necessity to sometimes “descend” the mountain, to embrace discomfort, to stay sharp.
  • Greats like marathoner Meb Keflezighi are referenced: “What separates these...the freaks among freaks...it is not physical. It is absolutely mental.” (Shaun, 43:31)
• The Pain Cave:
  • Ultra-athletes use the term for enduring prolonged suffering; Sam applies this to entrepreneurship: “...there’s some. 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 a bad thing, that you don’t panic...” (Sam, 48:00)
• Roller Coaster Metaphor:
  • “...you got in line for the roller coaster, baby...there were going to be ups and downs. Don’t be surprised when they come.” (Sam, 48:54)
• Systems for Dealing with Highs and Lows:
  • Highs and Lows Slack channel; naming and revisiting emotional peaks and valleys to keep perspective.

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6. Creative Process & Wisdom from Masters (61:45–68:10)

• Learning from the Craftsmen:
  • Seinfeld’s process: 2 hours of sacred, distraction-free writing daily for 45 years.
  • “There is no writer’s block. There’s lazy, there’s afraid, there’s having too high of expectations. But there’s no writer’s block.” (Seinfeld via Sam, 64:28)
  • Tim Urban’s (Wait But Why) corollary: The difference two hours makes.
• The Wisdom Trap:
  • Shaan’s “rebrand” of motivation as “wisdom”: “Oh, you don’t like motivation? You like wisdom.” (Sam, 54:11)
• Copywriters as Gurus:
  • Deep dives into copywriting legends (Dan Kennedy, Bill Bonner), and the “Darwinian” selection pressures of high-stakes creative fields.

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7. Modern Craftsmen: Portnoy, Simmons, and the Joy of Mastery (69:25–77:34)

• Consistent Hand-on Creative Involvement:
  • Portnoy (Barstool), Simmons (Ringer): Both remain embedded in the “craft” even after massive financial success. Simmons, for example, carries his own chair into a colleague’s podcast to talk football—pure enthusiasm for the “game.”
  • “Career goals...a job that’s so fun and so you...you just want to do the thing to the point where you’re just going to carry your chair down the hallway...” (Sam, 74:00)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Early on, I intentionally overpaid for acquisitions, and word spread fast. If you want to sell, sell to John Bragg.”
  — Sam Parr, quoting John Bragg [14:56]

• “I have no reverse gear.” — Sam Parr [13:38]

• “We don’t want to have 100% of the industry. That wouldn’t be good politics.” — Sam Parr, quoting John Bragg [17:04]

• “The biggest single principle you can have in business...they make their first million and they think, now I can succeed in any business, even ones I know nothing about.” — Sam Parr [17:13]

• “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.”
  — Jerry Seinfeld via Sam [67:22]

• “Oh, you don’t like motivation? You like wisdom.” — Sam Parr (playfully reframing personal development) [54:11]

• “You got in line for the roller coaster, baby...there were going to be ups and downs. Don’t be surprised when they come.” — Sam Parr [48:54]

• “He looks like an HR manager. Right? Like, he doesn’t look like he’s the most naturally talented guy. And that’s kind of why I love it...he’s just this craftsman. He squeezed everything out of his natural talent.” — Sam Parr, on Seinfeld [68:10]

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Important Timestamps

• John Bragg’s Blueberry Beginnings: 00:26–05:15
• Oxford Frozen Foods and Industry Domination: 05:15–07:58
• Telecom & Cable Expansion: 05:40–07:58
• Comparisons to Ted Turner, Jim Pattison, et al.: 07:58–11:28
• Key Bragg Business Philosophies (“Isms”): 13:23–20:17
• United Fruit/Banana King Story: 20:44–24:39
• Performance Mindset & Pain Cave: 34:50–50:12
• Creativity, Copywriting, and Craftsmen: 61:45–68:10
• Simmons, Portnoy, & Creative Longevity: 69:25–77:34

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Tone & Takeaways

The episode strikes a playful, curious tone—mixing awe at old-school moguls’ grit, irreverent banter about motivations and personalities, and deep appreciation for craftsmanship and the compounding power of relentless focus. If you’re hungry for tactical wisdom (“pay up for rare assets,” “never lose your focus”), mindset reframes (“the pain cave,” “roll with the roller coaster”), or inspiration on how the greats keep creating over decades, this episode delivers.

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For the ambitious builder, creative, or investor: John Bragg’s story is proof you don’t need industry permission, inherited status, or even a well-laid plan—you just need relentless drive, intelligent risk, and the guts to stick with it after the frost hits your fields.

Transcript

[Sam Parr]

This guy's story is kind of amazing. So this is basically a farmer billionaire.

[Shaun]

Love it. In.

[Sam Parr]

In. I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it. Like, my days off on the road. Let's travel. Okay, let me give you this one. This is kind of a crazy story. So do the words John Bragg mean anything to you?

[Shaun]

No, they don't.

[Sam Parr]

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.

[Shaun]

Love it.

[Sam Parr]

And in, like, there was only two sources for this. Farnham street and the Van Trump Report had written about this guy. There's only things I could find. Yeah, he's got a biography as well, but. All right, so. So here's this guy's story. I just think there's. There's a bunch of factoids about this guy that I just think you're gonna love. You're gonna love this guy's whole aura, his vibe. He is the Billy of the week. Cue the music. Million dollars isn't cool.

[Shaun]

You know what's cool? A billion dollars.

[Sam Parr]

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 do 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 grand. 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. You know, 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 bucks if he coaches like the, the, the. 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 glut. 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, a 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 me, 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 it ever. If we ever have oversupply. 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 2 million. Like a capacity of 2 million. But they only produce a hundred thousand 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 I. 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 gotta just let this. Go declare bankruptcy. Move on with your life. Instead, he calls another guy who he knows, Guy 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 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. 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'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.

[Shaun]

Do they still have onion rings? Blueberries and onion rings and mozzarella sticks on their website.

[Sam Parr]

You never forget. You never forget who got you there. And so he builds this absolute juggernaut over time, and bigger and bigger and 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 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. 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, somewhere around the same time. TV was picking up and cable TV was picking up. And this guy's from nova Scotia, population 9,000. And so they held like 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. I guess I'll put some old recorded programming on here. There's 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 gotta figure this out like this. You can't just keep bleeding money over here. And so he cuts his costs, he tries to figure this out, and he finally gets it to like kind of a, like 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, fun stuff, they get into original programming and content and they're like, content is king. He's like, yeah, no, yeah, you know, what's king? Fiber? Like, I'm going to go own the underlying infrastructure for, 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 farm, fruit farm basically in the world. And he's built the largest, largest private telecom company in the country. Isn't this kind of amazing?

[Shaun]

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?

[Sam Parr]

No, who's that dude?

[Shaun]

Google Jim Patterson, another Canadian guy. Look at what he looks like. He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've.

[Sam Parr]

Seen this guy before. He's like one of the richest guys in Canada. Right?

[Shaun]

Yeah, he's like, he's like one of these guys who is like, he's like Energizer, Energizer Bunny. Like he, like, he is like a wind up toy. Like he just can't stop like moving. But he, I think his story was he at a young age opened up a car dealership and within three years he bought like a plastic manufacturer 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 Cat, his last name is Crazy. I'm gonna butcher it.

[Sam Parr]

Catmanitis.

[Shaun]

Yes. Is that it?

[Sam Parr]

He's got a condition. Cat's Manditis.

[Shaun]

Do you know him? Do you know him?

[Sam Parr]

No.

[Shaun]

So he started a grocery store. I think it was called Apple Foods.

[Sam Parr]

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.

[Shaun]

Yeah. You already know everything about him just by looking at him.

[Sam Parr]

One photo. Yeah.

[Shaun]

Like when he, this guy, when he gives you a handshake, 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's going to smack you really hard on the back shoulder.

[Sam Parr]

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 Wikipedia.

[Shaun]

If you Google his kids, they're beautiful.

[Sam Parr]

First wife, divorce.

[Shaun]

Yeah.

[Sam Parr]

New wife, Margot.

[Shaun]

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.

[Sam Parr]

A refining company and he owns energy.

[Shaun]

Company, like an airline. I think he owns like a small private airline that he owns everything. There's this type of entrepreneur where they're kind of cowboys, where they start in one thing and they get into 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, of a, of a SaaS business, you know, it was recurring revenue. Huge TAM. Kind of weird and unknown. People weren't. 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 era, I like how.

[Sam Parr]

Sometimes when we explain these things, it's kind of like when I explain stuff to my kids. Like, they're like, how does. Like, how does the picture come on the tv? Like, where is this coming from? And I'm like, oh, 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.

[Shaun]

It doesn't matter. No, just go.

[Sam Parr]

But you're like, they ran. There was only so many satellite. You had to buy these letters, but they only had so many letters. Letters. Okay.

[Shaun]

That is true.

[Sam Parr]

Like, spectrum available.

[Shaun]

There's like, a. Yeah, yeah, we know a lot about spectrums. There was. I do. I do know there was a famous, like, 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 dollars 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 a thousand dollars, 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.

[Sam Parr]

Let me give you some of his. His little business isms, his philosophies. Okay, so, and this is again, some of this from. From. From Shane Parrish's stuff.

[Shaun]

And dude, I can just tell this guy is he. Canadians are in Midwestern people where I'm from. They're the same. The same people, aren't they?

[Sam Parr]

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 are 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, Buffet 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.

[Shaun]

Dude. I read that line, like, after I bought three real estate projects that I totally lost money on. I was like, I'm being serious.

[Sam Parr]

It's not like the fine print, by the way. This is like the first thing you learn.

[Shaun]

Like, I was like reading a Warren Buffett book and I read that quote and I remember thinking, like, that was literally the exact opposite when I thought about it.

[Sam Parr]

Well, you were just doing the John Bragg. So here's John Bragg's philosophy. Intentionally overpay.

[Shaun]

Okay, I'm in.

[Sam Parr]

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, quick close, no games. Which I love that. Like, if I'm. I'm going to put that on my. On our, like, little mini private equity shop website.

[Shaun]

I feel like that advice typically isn't right.

[Sam Parr]

Well, typically not. So here's the caveats. 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 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, in the, in the realm of buying the TV rights, when there's only. They're only going to be up once and whoever gets it's going to own it. Those are. That's like a time to overpay. Or if it's a key asset that locks down, you know, 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. 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. So like, oh, but here's the reputation. I will overpay, right? Like, it's like SoftBank in the Venture game right now. It's like, oh, you. You want a bunch of money and at a huge crazy valuation, you go to SoftBank first, right? And there's actually like some merit to that strategy when you have these, like, you know, this, this. If you can get the things that have huge upside.

[Shaun]

So was he like an M and a guy like, or.

[Sam Parr]

It was a lot of building the empire through M and A.

[Shaun]

And what was he buying? Other cable companies or other farms?

[Sam Parr]

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 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.

[Shaun]

Dude.

[Sam Parr]

That's like, imagine having the Choice to have 100% market share. And they'd be like, that's not polite.

[Shaun]

What a baller.

[Sam Parr]

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 ones I know nothing about.

[Shaun]

I've been there.

[Sam Parr]

Sam buying the ranch.

[Shaun]

Yep.

[Sam Parr]

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.

[Shaun]

This guy's awesome.

[Sam Parr]

This guy's awesome. Right?

[Shaun]

I think he's my uncle.

[Sam Parr]

Then he goes, here's a couple other great, great quotes. The guy who asked the question to me looks better than the guy who knows the answers. I like that. Done.

[Shaun]

Did you get all this from Shane's podcast with him?

[Sam Parr]

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 that. 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 gotta. I gotta go watch this later. So I've actually only, like, skimmed the transcript and stuff for this, so I might be getting some of the details wrong.

[Shaun]

A couple other things.

[Sam Parr]

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 the same way for Buffett where they just. They keep compounding. He had some other things I thought were pretty interesting, so I would have.

[Shaun]

Thought he'd be richer. If you own all half the blueberries in the world, wouldn't you be richer than 1.5 billion?

[Sam Parr]

Yeah. Punk wheat shit.

[Shaun]

He better be a huge, like, philanthropist and have given it a lot away, because I definitely would have thought he'd be richer. Right.

[Sam Parr]

I guess. I don't know. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna knock him. All right, so he believes in Buffett a lot. He loves Buffett. And so he. Buffett has this 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.

[Shaun]

Yeah.

[Sam Parr]

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 pretty wild to do?

[Shaun]

So he gave. How many managers did he have?

[Sam Parr]

I don't know, six teams. So 60 million bucks.

[Shaun]

He gave them, what, like a stock portfolio or. He gave him $10 million in total.

[Sam Parr]

$10 million to go invest. Go buy businesses.

[Shaun]

Oh, within the. Their portfolio, sure. Wow. Okay. That's badass. That's crazy.

[Sam Parr]

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

[Shaun]

How about the fact that, like, I just googled. I googled 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.

[Sam Parr]

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?

[Shaun]

Have you ever read about United Fruit? If we're going to talk about fruits, have you read about United Fruit?

[Sam Parr]

Is that the Banana King guy?

[Shaun]

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.

[Sam Parr]

So, like, you want to do the quick story? I think we've talked about it before, but it's. It's on theme. It's on trend.

[Shaun]

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. We want every banana we can get our hands on. We love. 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 am. This American thing. And it's sort of American because, like.

[Sam Parr]

When you get to Hawaii and they give you the lei and, like, yeah.

[Shaun]

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's Samuel Zamuri. He was, I think, a Ukrainian immigrant, and he started out, like, with, like, a fruit cart, like, walking the streets. And his whole thing was he would sell ripes. 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.

[Sam Parr]

And.

[Shaun]

And his whole shtick was he was going to sell ripes, meaning bananas that were already becoming a little bit brown that they previously thought were throwaway bananas. And he was like, oh, I'll buy them 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. He takes over United Fruit, and it's a big. Well, he.

[Sam Parr]

He starts with $150, and by the time he's 21, he's got $100,000. And this way back in the day, right? So this is, like, a lot. That's a lot of money.

[Shaun]

And it keeps on going, and it gets to be.

[Sam Parr]

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 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.

[Shaun]

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 Samuel Zimuri, 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. Because at one point, 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 could have some more bananas. And so that's kind of like the story of Samuel Zimur. It's pretty badass.

[Sam Parr]

Got that killer instinct. Let's go. Yeah, that's. This is. It's pretty wild, right? Like, imagine A story like that today.

[Shaun]

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.

[Sam Parr]

Like, the Republican Party this year, like, going to the point of, like, actual, like, funding a militia, I guess, like.

[Shaun]

Donald Trump is doing this, like, where he's, like, for shits and giggles, I'm gonna, 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.

[Sam Parr]

Like, like a man in Lent or. Or. Or November. Holding it in.

[Shaun]

Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. If you know, you know. So I saw a Broadway play for the first time ever this weekend. Phenomenal.

[Sam Parr]

Wow.

[Shaun]

Phenomenal. It's called oh, Mary. It's basically about Mary Todd, who was Lincoln's wife. And it's just like a comedy. It's. It was fantastic. Never been to a. Never really been to a play, honestly, my whole life.

[Sam Parr]

Because you judged it or just happened to not go, what's the deal?

[Shaun]

Yeah, I don't know. Like, you know, it just went on the list of things to do. It just didn't. 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, running a. Writing a show.

[Sam Parr]

Yeah, I just thought it'd be cool. I went and saw one, and I was like, oh, that would be kind of a fun. Fun thing to work on. Yeah.

[Shaun]

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?

[Sam Parr]

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.

[Shaun]

Now, how's it related to this podcast? Well, for one, if you Google oh Mary revenue, you can see there's a website called broadwayworld.com where they estimate the. 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. To. To get going. And it all reminded me of this podcast that we did about two and a half years ago. You. You didn't make it, but we had this guy named Michael Harris. Did you ever look into who Michael Harris was?

[Sam Parr]

He's. What was it? Death Row? Which. Which record label was he?

[Shaun]

The. The guy, yeah. So the short of it is some people call him Harry O. Because his name's Michael Michael Harris. They call him Harry o, like Harry OG gangster. 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 $2 million a day.

[Sam Parr]

He's like, I told that journalist it was two.

[Shaun]

I was like, y. 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. Dre and Suge 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.

[Sam Parr]

Wait, they co founded it with him while he was in prison. And what did they. What they want from. What was he able to offer them while he was in prison for life?

[Shaun]

Money. Money. So his wife. His. His wife was on the outside.

[Sam Parr]

Okay.

[Shaun]

And she somehow had funds to fund Death Road Records. You know, right. Now, how does this relate to Broadway? Well, on the podcast that I did with him, he said something that I didn't pounce on because I wasn't. I didn't know anything.

[Sam Parr]

It.

[Shaun]

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 you know, he was. He was considered, like, well known for being, like, a drug guy.

[Sam Parr]

And I hope you said cahoots to.

[Shaun]

Him right after I said, okay, okay.

[Sam Parr]

I got you in the podcast. Which button ends this podcast?

[Shaun]

Yeah, I was like, holy moly.

[Sam Parr]

Harry. Oh, you dog.

[Shaun]

Holy moly, Harry. So somehow he got in the loop at this. But he funded Denzel Washington, an early Denzel Washington, his first ever play.

[Sam Parr]

Damn.

[Shaun]

Michael Harris. Harry O was the fund. He was the investor that funded this show with $1 million. I think this was in 93 or 92, when Denzel, he was just getting going and he starts telling this story. And while. 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 than I even realized.

[Sam Parr]

If I invested in Denzel before he became Denzel, that's like, you know, Jason Calacanis is like. I was saying he's the fourth investor at Uber. I would never shut up about it.

[Shaun]

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?

[Sam Parr]

Yeah, that's. That's incredible. When he was 20, 26 or something.

[Shaun]

Was he 26?

[Sam Parr]

Like, I think he was pretty young, very young.

[Shaun]

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. What do you and I do when we do everything? We go to the play and you type in like, oh, Mary, revenue on Google. And I started seeing the numbers and.

[Sam Parr]

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. Are you watching the show? What?

[Shaun]

And this is how I remembered Michael Harris saying that. Where it all, like, clicked together, where I was like, oh, my God.

[Sam Parr]

Do you know how much revenue these shows generate?

[Shaun]

I'm looking at. It's. It's astounding. It's astounding.

[Sam Parr]

The number one, this. I'm just going to give you the top. Top five, top five highest grossing Broadway musicals of all time. You have number one, Lion King grossed over 2 billion in just crazy. Just the ticket sales. Wicked 1.7 billion. Phantom of the Opera 1.3. Hamilton, which is newer, already crossed a billion.

[Shaun]

Insane, right?

[Sam Parr]

And of course, our guys from south park, are they number one, they're number five. Book of Mormon number five. $850 million on their side. That could be us, dude. We just need to be talented and hardworking. That's all we're missing.

[Shaun]

They are so talented. When I was at the show, I was like, this is just. They're oozing with talent. One of the guys, Abe Lincoln, the character was played by. What's the guy from Silicon Valley? Kunal. Is. Is that his name?

[Sam Parr]

Oh, he's in the play.

[Shaun]

Yeah, he's in the play. And it's like. It was like famous actors and actresses were like, in the plays.

[Sam Parr]

He's like a jacked Indian. Abe Lincoln. Like, what do you. What do you mean he played Abe Lincoln?

[Shaun]

It sounds crazy. And honestly, it is crazy. The guy who played Mary Todd was a. Was a guy. So, like, it's all types of crazy. Yeah, there's a. It's a. It's a whole thing. Uh, but I just had to like nerd out with you about this.

[Sam Parr]

So I looked into this pretty hardcore. Um, so it's definitely a like outlier hits business. Just like, it's angel investing. 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. The theater, 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 gotta be like, hey, we wanna 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. Cause I just seen the one about Lehman Brothers, which I recommend, by the way. It's like a. It's too long. First of all, it's way too long, dude.

[Shaun]

The one that I went to, we only went to it cause it was 90 minutes. I can't sit there for more than 90 minutes.

[Sam Parr]

Yeah, less is more, guys. Less is more here in the theater. But. But it was great. And it was. 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, definitely, definitely interested in that. If somebody actually knows how to do these things. I would love to. To talk to you. Email me. Maybe we can make some. Make something. We were a story in mind, but.

[Shaun]

We had Tim Ferriss on the pod. And like, the top comment on YouTube was like, rich guys finally discover board games. And like.

[Sam Parr]

Like, that's what the rich guys part. I was like, yeah, hell yeah. Thank you.

[Shaun]

No, this one's gonna be like, the Bros Discover plays like, like, Sam, they.

[Sam Parr]

Were singing in the middle of that. You're talking one second, then they're singing. It's incredible.

[Shaun]

It's all part of the story.

[Sam Parr]

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[Shaun]

I don't know.

[Sam Parr]

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? You follow us?

[Shaun]

Open a little bit. Like, I went last year and like, I kind of watched a little bit on tv. The. The Russian gal, she's. She's an athlete, man. She's a freak. What's her name?

[Sam Parr]

Sabalenka.

[Shaun]

I think she looks like a Terminator.

[Sam Parr]

So I follow. I've. I've gone in and out of tennis, right? There's many years where I won't even pay attention. Then there's like, oh, my God, Nadal. He's amazing. And I'm watching these guys and the. 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. 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? Boxing and UFC are like that, where, like, the average thing's not that good.

[Shaun]

But the peak.

[Sam Parr]

The biggest personalities, 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. Tennis is kind of up there in that sense. So there's the new. The new wave of tennis players. This guy Alcaraz and this guy Sinner.

[Shaun]

Did that happen? Did the men's final happen?

[Sam Parr]

It just happened. Yeah. 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. And the other guy is also unreal, but he's. 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 warmup right before, because I think Trump showed up at the US Open, so it was delayed, like, half an hour or an hour or something like that. And so the guys were just in their locker room, like, supposed to be warming up, and Alcaraz 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.

[Shaun]

Each other, like, Sigs.

[Sam Parr]

Yeah. So I was like. I was like. I kind of like this other guy. Anyways, they go out there, Sinner loses, and he just keeps losing to Alcaraz. He's the. He's the. He's ranked number one because he beats everybody else, but Alcaraz has beat him, I don't know, four out of the five last times that they've faced each other, and he's like. And so he had this great quote that I thought, like, forget tennis. This is just Like a great 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, 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. You know, for example, I didn't use a lot of drop shots. I didn't do one serve in volley. You know, 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 have 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 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 gotta go back down for a bit and I gotta find a new trail. And that is so hard to do in life. It is so hard to go back.

[Shaun]

One of these things where he's like.

[Sam Parr]

And reinvent yourself.

[Shaun]

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 moment.

[Sam Parr]

Totally, totally. Like, and. And to be like, I'm gonna lose. I'm gonna probably lose some more matches because I'm gonna have to learn this. I'm gonna have to experiment with this new style, and that's gonna suck, but I'm gonna do it. And like, I. 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 and your business, 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 the. 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. I.

[Shaun]

Have you ever heard of this guy named MEB Kerflesky? If you Googled him, that's a hard name.

[Sam Parr]

So. No.

[Shaun]

Yeah, that's a. 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.

[Sam Parr]

You see Meb I don't recognize this guy. He's 50.

[Shaun]

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.

[Sam Parr]

And.

[Shaun]

And whatever. He's. He's a big deal. He's. He's great. His brother listens to mfm, 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 like, shut it down. Or they're just shut it down. 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, who he runs a management company who he. Originally, Howie was managing his brother mab now he manages other runners because Matt 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, like, 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 3 minutes and 46 seconds for the mile. Which is. Which is crazy. And the guy who won, what's your mile time? Dude, back in high school, a minute slower. 4 minutes and 47 seconds.

[Sam Parr]

Okay, Ted Bundy, now what's your mile time? Now? Not, what's your mile time?

[Shaun]

18 years ago.

[Sam Parr]

That was not my question.

[Shaun]

Seven minutes. Not. I mean, seven minutes. Like, very, like, recreationally, like, average.

[Sam Parr]

So, wait, did you run it, or you just hung out with Howie?

[Shaun]

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 him, 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. 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 Negus? The guy who won, what separates him from. 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 9 out of 10, 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. When they step there, they think, I am here to win. I am built to win. I am not trying to finish second. I am 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. 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 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 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 with duct tape. So here's my take. Custom software that actually fits your needs isn't just convenient. It's a competitive advantage to transform the way you do business. And that's why you need to know about a no code platform called Bubble. With Bubble, you can build powerful web and mobile apps by literally dragging and dropping different elements on a screen. No coding required. By the way, I use Bubble on a ton of different apps, including Hampton. And if you want help building something complex on Bubble, you have to bring in Zero code. They're the top bubble agency out there and literally the biggest plugin creator for the platform. They can build anything, custom portals, SaaS, products, and they do it about 10 times faster and cheaper than traditional development. Zero Code is also all about AI business automation, transforming manual and slow processes into efficient automated ones. So stop cobbling together different tools and solutions and head to zero code.com that's zero code as in the word zero. And then code Q, O D, e. Again, code is with a q. And tell them that Sam sent you.

[Sam Parr]

Have you heard this phrase? You probably heard it because you're like into running, but I, I don't. Don't run. 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.

[Shaun]

Yeah, we go to the pain cave.

[Sam Parr]

You go to the pain cave. And I was like, not into running, but I'll just take that phrase out. That was a cool phrase. He's like, so the pain cave describes when you're in these ultra long races, 100 mile race or whatever, and it's like mile 60 or 70, you hit this just extreme level of 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 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 between pain. You go to the pain cave, you know you're there, you become comfortable, you become not comfortable, but you become 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 win, you get out of there and you get, get to the end. Did I, did I butcher the pain cave or did I describe it right?

[Shaun]

No, no, no. And a lot of have you been, you visited? Well, I've been on vacation a couple times. No, I, 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, 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, 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, CRO Cop, who was the main guy afterwards, Brennan saw Crow Cop like on a stretcher and CRO Cop had just won the championship, but CRO Cop still had gotten hurt and he was sitting on the 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 CRO 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 is 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 I 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, the, the mindset of, of, of these winners who can just eat so much. 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 where, 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.

[Sam Parr]

Yeah. I find that these phrases like pain cave or whatever, there's some. 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 a 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 the podcast is, like, you got in line for the roller coaster. Like, what. 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. And those downs, ups like 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 woe 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 helpful metaphor for people, is just remembering, like, you got in line for the roller coaster, baby. Like, you. There was going to be ups and downs. Don't be surprised when they come. And then 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 and 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 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.

[Shaun]

How often are you adding stuff to that?

[Sam Parr]

All right, so last one was four months ago, and it was. Oh, cool. Trump just tariffed all of our goods 150%. 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 cost 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 6 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. 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.

[Shaun]

Wait, hold on. Was Rihanna asking for free stuff?

[Sam Parr]

Yeah. Yeah, they always ask free stuff.

[Shaun]

Really?

[Sam Parr]

Yeah. Rich people don't pay for things.

[Shaun]

That's insane to me.

[Sam Parr]

You thought rich people buy things, they request things, and you gladly give it to them.

[Shaun]

Have you DM'd? I. I think I've done it maybe twice. Have you DM'd people asking for free stuff?

[Sam Parr]

Asking for free stuff? No, I've never DM'd anyone. I think I've been like, yo, this is a great. 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 don't. I can't remember ever DMing asking for free stuff in Fact, like, we usually, we go the other way, which is like, if it's like a friend's product or somebody, we know you always buy it. We want to be their, like, first customer and we want to, like, purchase it to, like, show because, you know, like, I don't know, it feels good and 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 the ports are blocked with no notice and no. There's no other thing. You could do this shit at the port.

[Shaun]

Do you have a coup staging team?

[Sam Parr]

This is just in one business. This is just in the ecom business. This is not even like, I have five other businesses. So imagine like if this is probably there's a high 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.

[Shaun]

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, Midway. 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.

[Sam Parr]

Yeah.

[Shaun]

Now I'm like, no, I actually do like, reading about, like, other success stories.

[Sam Parr]

And love me a good quote nowadays.

[Shaun]

Yeah. Like, I actually 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 the best books. They. People say the same thing about them. 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. I. That's like, I pretty much read like, lots of like. Or it's actually. My YouTube page is like, only motivational shit.

[Sam Parr]

Here's the trick. So I've rebranded it because liking motivation, that's a pretty low class thing to do. Okay. That's.

[Shaun]

That's, you know, very low status, low status.

[Sam Parr]

Oh, Oh, I need motivation. I'm sorry. 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? Yeah.

[Shaun]

Oh, my God.

[Sam Parr]

High class thing to like. All right there, I helped you out.

[Shaun]

I listen to tons of wisdom and it gets me fired up. My favorite wisdom speaker. Yeah, there's this YouTube channel called Motivation for you. The best wisdom.

[Sam Parr]

Yeah, exactly. I'll give you another little label. So I was reading this book, another high class thing to 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 is such a. Such a thin book. And it's really amazing. I'm not even gonna 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 ford producing Model Ts 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 window. 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, 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 win. 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. The brain has a second one. Let me just give it a second here. And then I push through for like another 15 minutes. And it's actually, like, been like, very, very productive. This little, once one little simple idea.

[Shaun]

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 to guess. Is that right?

[Sam Parr]

It was by an ad man.

[Shaun]

Yeah.

[Sam Parr]

So he copyrights.

[Shaun]

It's crazy copywriters. Like, there's this weird underground world. I don't, 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 could. If you could 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 auras 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?

[Sam Parr]

No, who's that?

[Shaun]

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 Evan Pagan is? Yeah, that way you're dating from. 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 ebook called Double your Dating, and he wrote it under a pseudonym called David d'. Angelo. And Eben Pagan is another guy where if you Google Eban 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. Eben 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 or they're not old Russell Brunson's not old.

[Sam Parr]

These guys our age.

[Shaun]

No. Yeah. I mean, like underground. I don't know how to explain it.

[Sam Parr]

No. Yeah. It's like almost like they ruled the world, but they're not it today. They're less relevant and on the forefront and up in. 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.

[Shaun]

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 Hermosi. And a lot of people say this to Alex as if it's an insult. I don't 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. You'd probably dismiss them, be like, oh, what does this person know about business? Cause 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 ban in prison because it's too powerful.

[Sam Parr]

Yeah.

[Shaun]

They all have catchphrases like that.

[Sam Parr]

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 ogilvies 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. Grew, that was on an island, and the animal had to develop this shell if it needed, if it was going to survive. That was the only way to survive in that climate. And so if you want to get great at persuasion, you want to get great at the written word, you could learn from a bunch of people. You can learn from an 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, like, sharpen 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 thought 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 a little, you know, 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 independent thinking and then self control and playing the long game and patience, right? And then you talk to people who are maybe comedians, and comedians are like, wow, you're actually kind of a truth teller. It's like, well, yeah, that's kind of what comedy is. It's like basically like seeing things for what it is that nobody's saying out loud. And then we say it out loud and then everybody laughs because everybody knew it. And so you realize, like, wow, these comedians are actually pretty wise and pretty, like, spot on at spotting, like, the truth, the underlying truth inside. He's like, yeah, because if they don't do that, they don't make anyone laugh and they get booed 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 had the natural selection forced them to become like a plus plus at a certain thing.

[Shaun]

Who, who, 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.

[Sam Parr]

Seinfeld. Seinfeld is the easiest example. So I, I wanted, this year I was like, oh, like, could you, like, make yourself funnier? I just sort of assumed 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 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, they'd be 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, you, if you just try, you can get way better at it. And so humor was one this. 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 being 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. Seinfeld's morning routine is very simple. He's like, if you want to be a comedian and you want to write, you want to, you know, 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, 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, he does his 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.

[Shaun]

No way.

[Sam Parr]

You haven't seen this?

[Shaun]

No. I'm gonna go.

[Sam Parr]

This literally becomes the yellow brick road.

[Shaun]

This is awesome. Are you kidding me? This is so cool.

[Sam Parr]

So he, to promote his book, so he published a book basically of like all of his like scrap jokes that he didn't put into a standup. Um, it's called, is. Is this any. Is this anything? I think is 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 check slack, I check my email. I'd then start to think about what I'm gonna 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 gonna get to my main thing at 11 and just Seinfeld's like keeping it sacred. Of like, yo, what's your main thing? You spend two. If you're gonna be creative, you're gonna spend two hours in the morning creating. That's it. Tim Urban from Wait, but why? Told me the same thing. He goes. 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. He's like, 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 writer's block where they're like, but Jerry, you're like, what do you do on days where you don't know what to write? He's like, what do you do with writer's 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? Of course, we have all felt it. There's writer's 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 secure to writer's block. You ready? Accept 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 learned how to work, how to live. Like, he talks about, he does transcendental meditation. They're like, oh, is that. That's really great. You love meditation. He 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. 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, you know, 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.

[Shaun]

I've been. That's so great, Jerry. I listened. 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 in. And comedian comedians and making jokes. Mackenzie, what's he say about that?

[Sam Parr]

So 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 writers 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.

[Shaun]

Wait, did they really ask that?

[Sam Parr]

Yeah. He goes, who's McKinsey? And they go, it's a consulting firm. He goes, are they funny? 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, every line, every take, every edit, every casting. That is my way of life.

[Shaun]

Did you have this up right now?

[Sam Parr]

Dude, I have, like, a dossier of Seinfeld. Like, I told. I studied this man. Like, I went deep on this.

[Shaun]

That's awesome. Have you ever seen him live?

[Sam Parr]

Yeah, I've seen Seinfeld. Honestly, wasn't that funny?

[Shaun]

I was gonna say the same thing. I was gonna say the same thing.

[Sam Parr]

Love the guy. Don't love his comedy, actually.

[Shaun]

His. His stand up is meh. His writing is the best, but his stand up, for some reason is just fine.

[Sam Parr]

Yeah, it's just. Okay, I've been upset. But actually, it's in part why I really love this guy. Right. Cause 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 in cars, doing coffee. He sold for, like, a hundred million dollars. Like, he's been touring for a long time. Yeah. Netflix picked it up for $100 million. He's a super. He's an 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, and you can just see it, like, the way they grew up. Like, this guy's just so funny. And Seinfeld is like a. He looks like an HR manager. Right? Like, 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.

[Shaun]

I remember when I was starting the Hustle, Scott Belsky, 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, 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 Belsky 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 big shot Hollywood production company.

[Sam Parr]

He's the chief strategy officer and something else.

[Shaun]

And I didn't listen to his advice when I, when I met with him and I always regretted that I didn't listen to his, 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 be. 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 meant, 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 craftsman. 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 say small? I want to sell out? I don't Want, like, that's the whole goal. And it took me years to understand what he meant, 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 is Dave Portnoy. Dave Portnoy has his head and 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 Belsky 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, and I, 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.

[Sam Parr]

Gaga, Scott, Gaga. And.

[Shaun]

But now that I know, like, some of these people who are actually making the most money are actually still craftsmen. And like, and, and so like, I distinctly remember, I'm like, I want to sell at 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.

[Sam Parr]

You, you said Dave Portnoy. There's another guy who's like that Bill Simmons. And he's probably, you know, he's probably the reason I'm doing a podcast today, because I was back in college and I don't know what, what. That was 2007, listening to his, to the BS report. You know, I used to like fall asleep, listen to the BS Report. Like, it was like that. It was that like. And at. At the time, podcasts were nothing. And he, 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, he does the ringer.

[Shaun]

Why do you get fired?

[Sam Parr]

He was pretty outspoken against Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner. He's like, this guy's like kind of covering up. And like, not like he doesn't care.

[Shaun]

It could be contained.

[Sam Parr]

There was like a domestic violence thing. There's 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. 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 Grant 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 and a microphone, and he's like. And they're like. They're like, bill, what are you doing? He's like, a trade had just happened in the NFL. The Micah Parsons trade 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 gotta 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 they're. 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, and yet on a, like, Thursday, he can't wait. He's literally carrying his chair at his microphone and wants to sit with his friends and do. 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 that really, like, I don't know that that kind of, like, stuck with me. Like, 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 point 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.

[Shaun]

Where is he now? So is Grantland still a thing?

[Sam Parr]

Grantlin died with espn. He creates the ringer. Ringer.

[Shaun]

Sold the ringer.

[Sam Parr]

I mean, and so it's part of Spotify. And he's been, you know, making bank ever since.

[Shaun]

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.

[Sam Parr]

He's like that girl at the dance. I don't want to approach. Yeah, I'm like, hold on. I just gotta, like. I'm gonna fix my shirt real quick. I gotta take on my shirt. I gotta go. I gotta go get some punch. I'm thirsty. Yeah, I gotta. I'll do everything else except for Ask him.

[Shaun]

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, he's prolific.

[Sam Parr]

Yeah.

[Shaun]

Is he?

[Sam Parr]

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, parlays that blog into, like, getting his own section of 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, like, mtv, Road Rules the Challenge. Like, I'm gonna. 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. Builds the most successful sports documentary series.

[Shaun]

What, 30 for 30.

[Sam Parr]

30 for 30. He, like, it was his brainchild. He conceived it. He created it inside of espn. Like, nobody believed in it, basically. And he, you know, he 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, he. 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, Grantland, the idea is a failure like that. That's a money loser. Doesn't work. And he replicated the same business and sold it for $200 million. So, you know, like, he could have done a victory lap and never did.

[Shaun]

That's awesome. I'm a. I'm a Bill Simmons fan now.

[Sam Parr]

There you go.

[Shaun]

Should I interview him without you?

[Sam Parr]

Yeah, I think you should. I would love that. Explain.

[Shaun]

So Sean's not here today, but he's too much. You're his inspiration, and he would do anything for you.

[Sam Parr]

But if a couple of these guests were you fangirl, that would be one where I'd be. I'd be too much of a fangirl, and it really would be counterproductive to the podcast.

[Shaun]

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. That's the pod.

[Sam Parr]

I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.

[Shaun]

I put my all in it.

[Sam Parr]

Like my days off on a road.

[Shaun]

Let's travel, never looking back.

[Sam Parr]

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 I want to draw your attention to is called Nudge by Phil Agnew. And whether you're a marketer or a salesperson and you're looking for the small changes you can 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.