5 ruthless business lessons from one week in NYC

Key Takeaway

In every social situation, there's 'social slack'—something missing that prevents the room from reaching its potential. It could be the music's too loud, someone doesn't know who to talk to, or two groups haven't connected yet. The skill is identifying that slack and fixing it in the first 30 minutes instead of waiting 3 hours. This applies everywhere: your team meetings, dinner parties, even your own productivity. What's the slack in your life right now, and how can you pick it up?

Episode Overview

This episode explores lessons from a week-long New York City trip, focusing on the power of proximity, creative work processes, building trust in an AI-saturated world, and the importance of city and team brands. The conversation features insights from Hassan Minhaj on creative workflows, Gary Vee's approach to relationship building, and observations about how world-class performers structure their work.

Full Transcript

Transcript of 5 ruthless business lessons from one week in NYC from My First Million. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Okay, I just got back from New York. I was there for a week. It was probably the most fun business trip of my life. And I wrote down five bullet points I have here that I think we could uh dive into. And the first one I want to dive into is when was the last time you've been to New York City? Oh, dude, it's been like 10 years since I've been to New York. Like, I just don't really go. Well, uh, you had a great time.

That's good. Whenever people come here, I feel like I want to be a steward where I want to be like, "Look, it's not that crazy to live here." And it could be awesome and it's exciting. And I'm not like one of these guys that's like I'm not a Knicks fan. I'm not like a New Yorker. I just live here. So, I don't want to like pretend that I'm like a, you know, that type of person. But I felt proud to show you around. you around. you around.

Yeah. And you did. Also, I think a lot of people had that in New York cuz it would be like, "Hey, we're going to hang out with this person." And it would be half hangout, half city tour because there's a there's a lot going on and b I think there's a lot of pride in in like knowing the city and being a part of the city and bringing friends from other places to the city which I think is is pretty cool. So uh one is trust trust as a service.

The next one is marketing. Third one proximity. Fourth is city brands. The fifth is what is it really? Okay. So those are the those are my five my five key phrases. You which one you want to start with? Number three, Number three, Number three, proximity. proximity. proximity. Yeah, we use that word all the time. Proximity. So uh what do I mean by proximity? Proximity is being closely together. So I want to read you some notes from one of my hangouts. notes from one of my hangouts.

So I hung out with um with the comedian uh Hassan Minhage and he's been on the pod before. He's listens to the pod sometimes. We we've gotten to become friends from afar and I got to go to his office and hang out and meet his team and see how they work. I'm a big fan of watching how different people work, you know, go to their office, that sort of thing. He saw that me and Ben were together and now Ben lives in Austin. I live in San Francisco Bay Area.

So, we're we're not together. We don't work together in the same office, but him and his team do in New York City. He commutes in from like wherever, Connecticut or something like that to the city to work. Is his main job his podcast? I don't know if that I I don't think he would say that. I think his main job is just being being a creative, of which a podcast takes up maybe half of his pie chart and the other half is movies and and his tours and things like that.

So like Netflix specials, those sorts of things. So he said this thing, he goes, "As soon as you walk into a creative office and there's the hot secretary and the all glass windows and the fancy matcha in the in the kitchen," he goes, "You've already lost the plot. You've already forgotten what it's all about." And so he was like he he took he's like he's like it's not about all that stuff. It's not about the the glass and the the hot secretary [clears throat] and the matcha.

It's not about any of that. It's about this. And he hands the me the yellow legal pad where he's handwriting his his script. And he's like it's about these sticky notes on this wall and it's not even enough space. But we got to figure it out. Act one, act two, act three. This is the work. And he goes, "I wanted it to be tight. I wanted us to have close proximity." He's like, "It's a covealent bond." And he was talking about the power of proximity. He goes, "You know what?

I even take it further. He goes, "Whenever anyone's in New York, like you're in New York right now, come to the office. Come hang. Come be a part of this. You need to work for a day here. Come work right here. Oh, uh, you're shooting this movie. You need a place for hair and makeup, do it right over there." He goes, "Because it's when you're here and we're just doing things, you know, we we get to sort of bump into each other." Like, you know, our Adams get to bump into each other.

Good things happen. I pick up a little bit of what's going on in your world. I figure out a way to help you. You figure out a way to help me. And that proximity, I realize, is something I really miss. You get it a lot in San Francisco in the tech world. New York, I would say, is even a level above that because it's even denser. Everything feels very high proximity. Like we did a different thing every hour, I would say. Like we were hanging with somebody, you know, for probably 90 minutes at a time and then we would go do something else.

There was no more than like 10 minutes of transit time between anything that we were doing. It was insane. We were just hopping from one thing to the next. And so I thought his note on proximity, proximity with your co-workers, proximity with peers who you think are interesting and remembering like what is it all about? Is it about the space and the gloss and the remote work and and all that stuff? Or is it about the sticky notes and the close proximity and smelling smelling each other's, you know, deodorant?

Yes. But also like the time that you were here, you were going going going. You got nothing done. You know, I think that you were educated, you were inspired, you which is important. And also, if I'm Hassan and I'm writing all the time, which I kind of am for this podcast, like 2 hours before this podcast, I need quiet time. No one talked to me. I'm in a room by myself. So, he actually gave me some good inspiration for that too. Um, so he goes, I'm here, you know, whatever a couple days a week and we stack it cuz I I met up with him.

I think I went to his office like 10, right? Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I was with you at dinner and then I was like, hey, we got to go meet someone. They're like, what? Um, and we went I I think I got to his office at 9:30 or 10. Was it people were there? Him and his whole team was there. I thought he was just maybe hanging out for us. No, they he was in a meeting. We waited for him for, you know, 20 30 minutes and then we we hung out for another 2, three hours, then he took the train home.

It was it was insane. He goes, "No, no, these days I stack them. I tell my tell my person like, you know, top to bottom meetings, meeting meetings." Like that's where we're talking. He goes, "Because then the next 3 days it's quiet time." And he said he I think what he did was he like he's like I rented a office space above undunken donuts like the smallest little writer's room you can imagine. He's like and I go there when it's writing time. The other thing we said he said was he goes we were talking about like makaker time versus manager time like the program essay program essay program essay and you got to know which which schedule you're supposed to be on.

Are you on a manager schedule where every 30 minutes back to back to back you're you know you're context switching you're meeting a different group you're making decisions or you on makaker time where you need long blocks of uninterrupted creative time that's might feel unproductive for an hour of it but you needed that time to kind of get in the groove and then then you get flow state and you start start working and he goes I told my team like I need to be above this Duncan I need to be in that room alone no Wi-Fi no nothing just me in the legal pad don't even I don't even take a laptop because I could produce pages.

When I produce pages, it's like a magic trick. Money rains from the sky when I do that. So, you got to give me time to generate these pages. And I don't know. I just took a lot of inspiration. When you meet someone who's a a creative and an artist at the top of their field, it is feels very different than just meeting an entrepreneur. You know, there's a couple different like inspiring versions of this. Like if you walk into like, you know, Elon's factory where he's building things, right?

Or when we did the Mr. Beast tour. He's like, "This is the largest sound stage in America. That guy's trapped in that room for a year and we're building this set over here." Now, an athlete or when you talk to an athlete and you see their schedule and you see how they think about all these little things, little things, little things, how how seriously they take their body, their recovery, forget the workout, the recovery is impressive. And so there's these these little pockets of like world class people when they make you realize like, oh, that's what it looks like when you dial up to 12.

Whether it's athleticism, whether it's building, or in this case, it's about the creative process. creative work and so that was that was pretty inspiring. So you have I went to your office too and uh got to see you know you built basically a place for proximity. In what ways do people underrate it? In what ways does it unlock you? Give me give me something on it. it. it. Yeah. So I need a I have um a door right over here and it has a recording uh light on there so no one know people know not to come in here right now and I keep that on a lot even when I'm not recording.

But then every probably 40 minutes, I quit what I'm doing and I just walk around and people get mad at me at my office cuz they're like, "You're just staring at me." And I'm like, "No, I just want to like pop in on different conversations and listen." And I do that all the time. I think that there's a phrase um what's it called? Like managing by wandering where it's like, you know, like the CEO would like walk around like the factory floor with zero intention other than just to learn and see what's going on and occasionally find a problem and help solve it.

And so I do that all the time and I love it. It makes me happy. And so there's a joke where you can kind of see it. We have like frosted glass now because they say that I would just like stare at people in in the office. But like I I sometimes complaints. complaints. complaints. Yeah. Sometimes I'll just like pop into meetings and I'll just sit and I won't say a word and then I'll walk out. And I love doing that because it helps me learn what's going on and how people feel and what people's opinions are.

And I frankly love doing that. But I do require like lots and lots of quiet time. time. time. Yeah. It's like a barbell strategy, right? You want to have uh extreme high contact, ground truth, close proximity, serendipitous interactions. And then you want to have structured, isolated thinking time, working time that's like highly secluded. And that seems to be the optimal is to be able to have the ability to go far in either direction and not just stay in the kind of like weak middle where it's like a lot of Zoom calls and you know some Slack messages and a bunch of light touches but never really going deep on anything at any in with any people or any work.

And I also hired a a cheap designer. My office isn't particularly fancy but I wanted it to look like aesthetically pleasing cuz I wanted to be here. So uh I I took a little bit of a different route than him. What's the um what are the other few? All right. So, I had um All right. So, this episode is all about excellence. A while back, I shared my personal framework for building excellence in my own life. And the team at HubSpot turned it into a 30-day operating system that you can check out right now.

It breaks down the systems that have took me 10 years to figure out and shows how exactly I use them day-to-day. These are systems that genuinely changed my life. So, if you want to build a good life, scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Now, let's get back to the show. show. show. I had marketing, I had trust, I had city brands, and I had what does it really mean? mean? mean? What does it really mean? Okay, so this has been a long recurring theme.

What I mean by that is everybody's typically looking for some new insight. I actually value a repetitive insight because it means there's more to learn. It means there's probably higher signal. Like, if I hear if the same lesson comes up three or four times in a in a two-year span, I add more weight to it. Whereas, I think most people Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I think that's how most people treat things that they've heard before. So, I I think on this podcast I mentioned a couple years ago, I was at an event with the guys from Tiny, Andrew, and his business partner Chris, who's much less wellknown, and I was sitting at a dinner and this guy was talking about a business he had failed in.

And he said the thing that every, oh, you know, but but I learned so much. And then Chris goes, um, what did you learn? And then the guy's like, oh, so much. He goes, "So, what's the main thing you learned?" And then the guy was like, "Uh, he was fumbling and stumbling. He couldn't really figure out what to say." And then he said something that was like, I don't remember the specific example now, but it would be like if I if if I had started a restaurant and my restaurant failed and then I was like, I learned you shouldn't start a business um when it's rainy season.

It's like, that's what you learned? It's like that you didn't even learn the right lesson. And Chris basically pointed this out. He goes, I've talked to so many entrepreneurs. He goes, "Very rarely do I feel like somebody actually learned the right lesson from the thing." And this kept coming up. You know, this has come up for me many times. And so, what does it really mean? I think it is a is is a very important question. I don't I don't think people sit with enough. And so, let me give you maybe a couple of examples.

So, we met up with Gary Vee's right-hand man, Nick Dio, who we've talked about on this podcast for a very unique job. So, Gary Vee, big public persona, but he can't be everywhere at once. So, he's got this guy Nick, who's his right-hand man, and he's basically an extension of Gary. Nick will host dinners for people that people in the Gary orbit who he thinks are cool, and they just they pay the bill. They bring cool people together. Gary's not even there. He met up with us.

He's like, "I just got off a flight from uh the con what is it? Khan uh film festival." And he was there all week in Paris and then was like, "Oh, you guys got to come next year." And year." And year." And Gary tell everyone that he went to Khan. Oh, I think Gary was there in this case, but it's like they needed more manpower. And so we were talking to him and I was like um I think the the simple explanation that everybody you know I kind of asked him I was like what what does everybody think you do?

He's like, "Oh, everybody thinks I basically just go party and like, you know, drink and d wine and dine with like, you know, Gary." I said, "What do you So, what do you really do?" And it's very interesting when you ask somebody, "What do you really do?" And he goes, "That's a" He goes, "You know, most people don't really ask that, but you know, I think you're genuinely asking, so I'll tell you." And he gave me two stories that I thought were pretty dope. The first thing he said was, he goes, he goes, "Every room that you're ever in socially, there's some slack.

this the room is slacking in some way. So he goes there's there's a social slack that nobody can really put their finger on, but maybe the music's too loud. Maybe it's a little too cold. Maybe that guy doesn't know who to talk to. Maybe the drinks are maybe there's no drinks and we all need some drinks. Maybe it's there's two groups. They don't really know each other. They haven't bridged the gap yet in the in this room. Maybe they will in 3 hours, but can I do it in the first 30 minutes cuz it'll change the way the night goes.

He goes, "There's always this social slack in the room." And what I'm really great at is identifying that social slack and picking it up, finding a way to like stir the drink so that it tastes better of every room that I'm in. And people don't really even necessarily notice what I did, but it's the goal is to elevate the experience for everybody in the room, the room, the room, but they benefit from it in some capacity. And what's an example? Yeah, exactly. So, he gave a couple of examples.

So, I don't know if you saw this when the Knicks won the the championship, the there was a viral clip of of Jaylen Brunson toasting in this small restaurant and he he basically was like, "FWI and then somebody had record he didn't mean for it, but somebody had recorded it and it leaked and it like got out and it it went like mega viral." Well, that was happening. They the Knicks after their championship game, they went to Gary's social club, his place, uh, Flyfish, and they were in the room we were in where they have this like Omic ac sushi room.

And that's he's like, dude, dude, that was the chair right there. Look, watch the video. This is this is the exact spot. And so he's like, you know, through the relationship building I had done, when they decided, hey, we want a cool place to celebrate, they decided to come here. That's obviously very good for the brand of like if that's where the Knicks celebrate their first championship in 50 years, it's obviously going to be very good for our restaurant chain or for our concept, right? concept, right?

concept, right? That's pretty cool. And it's good for our members club. So that's like one example. He he gave another example of like being very intentional. So he's like if Gary starts to get into street wear and new fashion, um then [snorts] he's like my he's like then I basically go and I try to meet the 150 most interesting people doing interesting things in streetear and fashion. I go into them with no agenda. I'm just trying to meet them, understand them, help them, do whatever I can with them, but now they're part of our network.

And then sure enough, like one of them is raising money. We invested in, and boom, it's this like, you know, this hit uh product that that comes out of it. He's like, we didn't know going in that would be the win. Who knows? It could have been something else completely, but we don't we don't have to know where. We know we have like five touch points. It's like maybe that they're going to come on the podcast, maybe it's going to be an investment, maybe they're going to be friends, maybe they're really insightful.

They'll teach us something. Maybe it's that who knows what it is. I don't need to know what it is up front. I'll go in with no agenda and pick it up on the other side. All right, everyone. I'm going to make this quick. So, if you're an OG listener of My First Million, then you might remember a guy named Ben Wilson. Ben Wilson was Sean and I's producer early on in the podcast. He also has his own amazing podcast called How to Take Over the World, which we love.

And he's been battling cancer and he just announced it. We've known about it for a little while, but he just announced it on Twitter uh the other day. And the reason I'm talking about it here is because when he made his announcement, he did say that he had a GoFundMe uh that you should check out. You should look him up um on Twitter and he linked to that. But he also explained that he had stage 4 high-grade neuroendocrine carcinoma, which I don't know too much about that, but he said it's in his brains, his bones, his lungs, and his liver.

and he's trying to get hold of a very specific and uncommon type of drug called taratamab. called taratamab. called taratamab. I'm sorry I can't pronounce these things but it's it's it's a it's a very specific thing. And so if you have ever gotten value from my first million and also if you are in this world we're just trying to raise awareness for what Ben's going through then you can look up Ben Wilson on Twitter. He has a 16minute video that's quite inspiring where he addresses uh his his diagnosis and what he's facing and he is I find it actually quite inspiring.

He's got this amazing line where he's like you should live like you're living not live like you're dying and so you should watch that but also if you do want to support him via his GoFundMe and also he leaves his contact information. So if you're in this world where you can help him in any way uh his information is all there so look him up Ben Wilson on Twitter. We'll also link to this in Spotify, iTunes, and uh YouTube. Gary's easy to make fun of because uh first of all, I love him.

I think he's awesome. I'm not making fun of him, but people give him a hard time online because he's like loud and he's been doing content and he says silly fun stuff. And this is another thing where people would maybe mock like, oh, he just hires this guy to go party for him. And so I want to acknowledge that, but I think this is awesome. I think that Gary has done so many things that have been a bit ahead and he and he makes a ton of predictions and he's not right all the time, but like the fact that he's like been doing social media like he's been doing for forever and he was totally right.

And then just like having this I'm like, "Huh, this sounds like ridiculous and awesome and it could be very beneficial." very beneficial." very beneficial." Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I think it to I I told him I said this is the equivalent of if you ever hear that stat that LeBron James spends a million dollars a year on his body and it's like whoa that's a lot like you know is he crazy? is like, "No, are you crazy? He's he's LeBron James. His body is the product. Of course, he's going to What an incredible return on investment.

He's now playing in year 23 in the NBA." Like, I think that million just unlocked another $40 million contract twice. Like, are you joking? That's that's obvious. So, what is the equivalent in in your niche? Is a very good It's one of my favorite like kind of thought experiments uh questions like what would be the equivalent of spending a million dollars a year on your body for for whatever you do? I I think I've told this story about like my executive coach, he he spent a million dollars of his own money learning from the best coaches of all the different modalities.

Like if somebody's really good in like whatever somatic therapy, I don't even know what that is, but like whatever. He'll go find the best in the world, he'll approach them and be like, "Hey, is there any way I could get kind of two weeks of immersive one-on-one training in this? Name your price." And he did that with like, you know, 15 of the best coaches in the world over a period of two years and like spent a million dollars. And because of it, he's like a what a cool experience and b like I made myself more valuable as a coach because I now like I'm wellversed in in different different domains and I got and I I started with a deep dive with the world's best then I continued for years after that of my own self-practice.

self-practice. self-practice. All right, go to number four. I think it was New York brands. Yeah, city brands. So I think it's really interesting how there's only a few cities in the world that have brands. Like New York has a brand. New York has a look. It has a feel. It has a sound. It has an attitude. It has an aura. It has a reason to go there. It has, like any great brand, it has loyalists who swear by it. It has haters. Like I grew up in Houston.

Houston has no brand. Got a lot of people. Got a goodiz economy. What's the brand? Like it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, gas town kind of. What does that even mean? mean? mean? It's It's just that it's kind of new. Like oil and gas is like a relatively new thing. It's only I mean it's many decades, but yeah, it's kind of new. like Detroit, you know, has one. I think New York has one, but yeah, a lot of places don't. places don't. places don't. Las Vegas has a brand, San Francisco, LA have a brand, New York has.

There's not that many places that have brands. And I think there's a it's kind of a miss, you know, like um I think if you're if you're actually like trying to make a city attractive, you want to have a brand and be intentional about it. I actually think I told this to an NBA team owner, too. Very few NBA teams have a brand. And when you're not a brand, you're a commodity. You're basically saying coming and playing here is just the same as coming and playing somewhere else.

Now, there's a couple teams that have a brand maybe because the city they're in, right? Miami, LA, New York. The brand is really the city, not the team. But there's one there there's been there's been a couple examples of teams that have brands. I'm not a basketball guy at all, but like I know that like was it the 76ers or the Pistons? Who was the tough guy? The The The the bad boys. The Bad Boys. The Bad Boy Pistons is an example of a brand. They gave it a name.

It was cool. They made merch. They brought players in that reinforced the brand. It became a thing. It embodied. It stood for something. Some people hated it. They thought they were dirty. Other people loved it. They said they were tough. Or the Fab Five in in Michigan. I think Fab Five was an Exactly. Fab Five was another one. They wore all black socks, baggy shorts, right? What does a brand do? It has a look, an aesthetic, an icon, a visual, a brand, a logo. And so the the same thing uh right now the only team I would say that truly has like kind of a brand is um the Miami Heat.

They have this thing every reference is called Heat Culture. And it's like oh well there's heat culture and heat culture is basically like we they don't it's kind of like Navy Seals like when you come you get weighed in every day with your weight and your body fat and you have to be under a certain body fat or you don't get to play. And like a lot of other NBA teams cater to their stars and you know they don't really they don't want to like rock the boat.

Whereas Miami is like no this is heat culture. This part of heat culture if you came here you should know what heat culture is all about. And if you think about the best companies the best cities they have a culture they have a brand and then the people who get there's people who get attracted to that who come there for that and when even people who aren't didn't come there for that they will change their behavior to fit the culture to fit the brand. If I know that this place only rewards and respects people who are bold, people who take action, people who do XYZ, then I'm going to bring that version of myself to the party.

the party. the party. That's pretty cool. That's a good observation. I think Yukon had that because I saw the 60 Minutes guy or the coach on 60 minutes and he was like people are like uh well winning is everything. He's like in our culture winning is everything. Like we're here to win. And then uh I think SF has one. I would say it's a little less less less intentional and it's not really it's like there's the tech scene in SF and then there's SF. SF kind of hates the tech scene.

tech scene. tech scene. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Despite it being the driver of growth in SF and then there's the tech scene which has its own little brand. Uh but it just kind of like stood out to me that like I I think it's hard because there's nobody who like it's not a company, right? There's not like a Yeah. But the mayor has four years to kind of like somewhat Yeah. And but like you know who's the mayor and are they the kind of world class leader that can build this and then can you kind of hand it off from one person to the next.

It's it's a really tough thing but man when you have it what an what a competitive advantage cuz right like you recruit you move there and so did our other friends that we all visited. They all moved there. It's not like they were born and raised in Manhattan. Uh you know it's it attracts talent and when you attract talent you attract certain type of people. You attract earning power. You attract all kinds of things and then you know there's a flywheel that that spins. What about uh the number one thing?

What was number one? Trust. Okay. So, one person I bumped into at Gary Ve's Club or whatever was this Instagram or creator called Jack's Dining Club. Do you know this guy, Jack? He's the He's the hottest thing going. What was his exact name? It's a Diner Club. Club. Club. He's like, uh, I follow him. I think he's 22 or 23 and he has tens of millions of followers. All right. Jack's Dining Room is the is the name. And then he's got this brand called Yes Chef.

So, met this guy Jack and you know, Ben was like, "Oh, dude, I love your videos." Everyone's like, "I love your videos." I I was out of the loop. I didn't really know any of his content, but I started uh I grabbed Ben's phone. I started watching some of his content. Pretty fascinating what this guy's doing. The core video hook of what he's doing is we're here at the best sandwich place in Paris. This is a And then he's like he's got a sandwich. He's like this is a cheese and mayo dijon sand whatever.

And he's like the croissant. And he's like, "Dude, this thing is a" And he takes a bite and he loves it. And this guy's brand is pretty incredible. like um he has these things he does now. Have you ever seen his like reserve club? No, but I he has a whole suite of brands called Yes Chef. Go to his Instagram and watch one of the reserve videos if you can see it. Basically, it's these like you pay like a thousand or more than thousand like you say thousands of dollars to go as a group of like let's say 10 on like an unreal culinary experience.

Like we get on a private jet, we fly to this place. on the jet. There's a the the best sushi chef is making, you know, omocas on the on the plane. Then we land, we get the champagne. It's just like some overly indulgent like food, like a dinner on the sand in a fancy beach. beach. beach. Yeah. But like look who's there. It's like Machine Gun Kelly, Leonardo DiCaprio. These are like fans of his content. content. content. They're like, "I've seen your videos. I actually tried that restaurant cuz I saw that you you had you said they had the best chicken sandwich in LA.

I drove an hour to go get there." And he's like, "Wow, that's incredible." Leonardo DiCaprio, thank you for Thank you for saying that, saying that, saying that, dude. He And then it says like if you go to his Instagram, it goes to Yes Chef Guides, Yes Chef Festival, Yes Chef Reserve, Yes Chef Supply, Yes Chef Run Club, Yes Chef Group. He has a whole like thing around this whole ecosystem going. All right. So, so, so what was I thought really interesting about this was just the idea of trust.

So, when we were in New York, there was these um every place we went to was like, "This is the hottest the hottest steakhouse in New York, the hottest sushi." I was like, "Bro, you got to stop saying "Bro, you got to stop saying that. These can't all be the hottest restaurant. How many how many hottest restaurants in New York are there?" It's this kind of word of mouth thing. And and one thing I thought about was like, man, there's brand if you think about just the general idea of if I really wanted to have great food, who do I trust to tell me where the great food is in any city?

Just like a Yeah, I don't know. A smart friend. friend. friend. Well, smart friend, but that smart friend has to be like wellraveled, well versed, like you know, and not everybody has this guy's job, Jack. He's basically your boy who knows the spot in every city. And I thought, man, he's kind of sitting on a gold mine of trust. I think trust is going to be the thing that is in lowest supply over the next 10 years. Like, dude, every video I see on Instagram, I'm like, is this fake?

You know, when I whenever I see like an ad, I'm like, okay, that's an ad. And then I see a normal funny video, I'm like, that might have been a deep fake. Um, yesterday I saw this insane thing where you can create like a a UGC character. So, it says a new era of influencing, right? So, like check this out. You see this girl? Okay. So, it's a a pretty they're all pretty like Instagram, hyper realistic. I don't know if you can see the detail, but like hyper realistic looking person, right?

This is an AI generated person. But then it's like it will we can keep the character exactly the same. So, the face, the eyes, the jewelry, the style, the hair, and so you have one character and it says one character, endless content. So, like this is like catfish heaven, right? Like I'm going to be able to make this character, then I'm going to be able to put her in every scene. She can be the face of my brand. She could just be an influencer on her own.

She could do videos. She could do anything. And you're just going to be able to create a hyperrealistic looking person. Post content for them. And no one will ever know that this entire thing is fake. And like even if this is only mildly impressive to this is very impressive to me, but if this is mildly impressive to you, cool. Fast forward 12 months. Like we're going into like peak fakeness around the world. And what happens when everything is easy to fake? Trust becomes incredibly important. That's crazy.

I think podcasters like us are are well positioned because people know we're real human beings and like in a flood of endless content, you're just going to gravitate towards people you trust. I think this guy Jack is sitting on a gold mine of trust. So So where do you get food recommendations today? Yelp. Yelp is the the default answer. And it's like, dude, Yelp sucks. I've never seen anyone be like, "God, I'm I love Yelp so much." Like, you know, I trust Yelp so much. So Yelp Yelp always knows the best place to go when I want ramen in my city.

And so I was like, this guy, I pitched him this idea. I was like, look, you're selling hats, wonderful. You're selling these like thousand, thousand, thousand, you know, fun private jet experience. I'm sure that's a blast, but it it's it's obviously not that scalable as a business. I was like, you should create Jack's List as Yelp. You should try to compete with Yelp. should create an app that I just say I want the best burger, the best pizza, the best taco, the best ramen in any city and you better have it and it's your pick.

It's like here's number one, maybe number two or three and that's it. That's the whole app. And I was like that is what you should do with this trust is you should go after Yelp. Yelp. Yelp. Is he going to do it? And then him and his business partner were like, "Ah, yeah, but blah blah blah." And I was like I was so convinced I I was like, "Actually, you know what? You're right. How about I just build it and you just let me use your name and face.

All right, you just give me you just give me the I'll give you don't believe in it. Great. I'll give you 10 20% like let me build this because I'm so bullish on this idea that like he should create this as the how do you do like a huge swing or like 500 million you know to to $2 billion swing as a creator. Like every video you have gets a h 100red,000 likes of people who are like wishing that they could go to this place. That's incredible.

That's like, you know, that that's an unbelievable, you know, 10 million people are watching you eat this fro yo in Vermont. If that's really the best fro yo in Vermont, like you should just create your list and curate it and have it be the trusted place, way more trusted than Yelp. I think trust is sort of like, you know, gold right now. I've been um what's the thing called? Sorro. What's the uh the music one? SO bought a subscription to there a while back and like I taught my daughter how to pee on the potty because we have a song.

We made this artist called Noah Flan. You know, he's kind of like Noah Khan. He but he's like uh I don't know the cheap version. We call it Noah Flan. And it we have a song called Let It Flow. And it's him singing like um what's the Elsa song? Let it go. And it you know it goes um let it flow. Let the pee let it flow. Let the pee fall from your body. Let it flow. Let it flow. Pee into the potty. Let it And it's like this like folk song.

And uh and so whatever is it on your phone? Play it. Yeah. Let me see. Hold on. Listen. Listen. Pull those pants right down. Plant your feet and sit. Take a breath. Relax. And here it comes. That's it. Let it flow. Let it flow from your body. Let it flow. Let it flow it flow it flow into the body. Send me the show. It's great, right? What a hit. Holy [ __ ] Okay, Miss Rachel. So, I I created Noah Flan because I'll be like, "Hey, you know, I could tell she has to go to the potty." I'd be like, "Hey, do you want to let it flow with no flon and like we'll you know we'll sing and uh so I'm creating I'm creating a series of songs for like I use pseudo use pseudo use pseudo all behaviors all behaviors all behaviors for like all behaviors and like because I hate listening to like the same Moana song over and over again and I I like like folk music.

I'm like I'm just going to make something that I think you might like and I will like and so now we sing like let it flow. Let it flow. A great prompt word by the way because if you say folk it becomes almost too too folky Americana. just use the word Americana. It'll it'll add a little bit of that edge you want in it. Well, now I have Noah Flan like he's like a saved character and so I personally like I made a YouTube uh page for it and I'm like uploading his songs and uh and so anyway like AI has been awesome.

I know that we can hate on him but like that's not real artists but I'm telling you what we love Noah Flan. We sing no FL at our heart. What was it start? You don't know where it's going when it starts like pull your pants down. It's like what's going on? Well, we have this uh there's this company called um Live Live uh Love Every, you know, Love Every. Yeah, like the toy company. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a toy company and uh they like send these books and they they we got we bought a book for them on potty training and like they tell a story about a kid going poop and like he's like, "Oh, I ate these pancakes.

My stomach is growling." And then they show them on the toilet and then they actually show the poop and I'm like, "That's disgusting." And it totally worked. It totally helped her. And so what I'm learning is that when you like have to like teach children things, you need to be pretty explicit in the stuff that like a grown-up doesn't necessarily want to talk about, I talk about it anyway. And it like goes into like detail. Like you have to push and it falls out of your body.

Like these things actually helped her and it's pretty freaking gross. But like yeah, that's what I'm doing with No Flon. Flon. Flon. By the way, I was I was very touched and impressed by seeing you as a dad in New York. I also want to give you a shout out. You're a great dad. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I don't know if you know you're a great dad. I think you do. I think you actually do know. I work really hard at it. I try really hard at it.

I I I try so hard. I I think I told you when we had kids, I was like, I finally have found my mission in life. I work really hard at being a good dad. Yeah. You were like, uh, what' you say? You learned from your mom, you said, talk to them like they're adults and feed them like they're adults. And you know, at dinner, I was sitting next to your daughter and she was like, "Pass the green beans." And I was like, "What? What's happening?" What's happening?" What's happening?" I was so stunned.

I didn't do it. And then she's like, "Green beans." And then I gave it to her. Well, I just remember like growing up and seeing people and I'm like, why does the kid menu exist? Like, I'm just going to give them the same like we're just doing the same thing. thing. thing. Yeah, you're a great dad. Uh, all right. So, what was my other one? Okay, marketing. There was some great oneliners that the marketing nerd in me loved. I just want to say it. So, we were at this What was the name of that like fancy steakhouse thing we were at?

at? at? Something. It had the number 86 in the title. title. title. Yeah. Yeah. Like the the 86 or whatever. There some some restaurant. Really hard to get into. Great restaurant. Great restaurant. Great food. And the waiter brings out a box, like a treasure chest. And he's like, "Gentlemen, have we dined here before?" And we're like, "No, not really." And he's like, "Oh, well, you're in for a treat." And he opens up, he he starts to open the treasure chest, but he doesn't open it just yet.

And he's like, "Can I tell you the story of, you know," and we're like, "Yeah, please." And he's like, "So we" and he tells a story about how this restaurant which is in New York owns a farm in like Melbourne or something in Australia and they source their own Wagyu beef. They raise them. They, you know, they only feed them, you know, probiotics and Skittles or whatever, whatever they whatever they whatever they He was like, it was kind of funny. He goes, "About 3 weeks before we take their life, we feed them macadamia nuts and butter." And that just really tops it off.

it off. it off. And he's like, he's like, and so the meat, the steak, just so you guys know, almost like a warning. He's like, just so you guys know, when the steak comes, you got to be incredibly soft. You can eat it with a spoon. And I remember like, whoa, steak so soft you can eat it with a spoon. I was like, damn, that was a bar. So I just started writing down like just I wrote that one down. I thought, well, that's a that's a marketing kill shot right there.

I kind of love that idea cuz again, how do you say in five words what somebody else could try to convince you of in 500 and still not succeed at? He did the same thing with the knives. He opened it up. He goes, "You see these steak knives? These aren't normal steak knives. These steak knives are from 1930, which is the era that we this building was." building was." building was." This is Teddy Roosevelt steak knife. Here he goes. Have you heard of Al Capone? He ate here.

This was his knife. Like it was was was some blood on that one still. Yeah, it was it was great. And then we were like, "But what about the spoon part?" Uh was that a was that a figure of speech? Okay. So So that was one. Another one uh again in the restaurant space because again the restaurant marketing is is is off the hook here. This one restaurant's claim to fame was they go and three different people told me the same thing about this restaurant separately.

They go Taylor came here twice in a row. And I was like and so they make you have to Taylor Swift two nights in a row. That's the line. the line. the line. Taylor Taylor came here two nights in a row and I was like damn that's another kill shot. like for tell you this place is great is Taylor came here two nights in a row and I thought wow okay that's in the pantheon of like great you know oneliners that said that says a lot another another one you gave me this one uh I was I was asking you about your denim collection I was like so what's why why the denim thing and you were like I just you started talking about it you go it's like history you can wear and I go is that their slogan he go I just said that I was like that should be their slogan I thought that was an incredible line for whoever's the, you know, the higher who's the power that be in the in the denim world.

But they need to give you a little to they need to give you a little royalty and take that line. Yeah. Like Levis's can make like uh you know, instead of saying we make it like they used to make it, uh it's like, you know, uh wear history like Yeah, I think that's is actually a golden one. And then I was talking to somebody else who has been incredibly successful at marketing and I go, "What's the what's the trick? What's the trick for what you're doing?

How did how'd you pull this off?" And he goes, "Everybody wants something. And you just got to figure out what it is. The rich want status and praise. The rich and unknown want fame. The fame famous famous want privacy. He goes, "So, I just figured out how to create products for for each of those use cases." So, he's like, "For the famous people, I gave them privacy. For the rich but unknown, I gave them a pathway to fame. For the the successful person who's got it all, they still want access into the right rooms and they want praise." and he's like, "You just got to know who you're selling to because it'll tell you how to sell it." And um I thought, "Okay, that's that's pretty good." And and I've heard this before in other other versions.

It's like um you sell a mom safety, you sell uh you know, you sell the the busy parents time, you sell the woman youth, you sell the male um you know, power. You basically you got to know kind of like what's the what's the one word you're ultimately selling to a person, right? Like the one word of this podcast that we try to sell is inspiration. And so we're going to talk about hundreds of different people, hundreds of different cool things they've built, hundreds of different ways to be successful.

Hopefully so that you are ultimately inspired to do some badass [ __ ] yourself. Like this is just a podcast where we shout out people doing things that we think are pretty badass and therefore hopefully inspire somebody to do a badass thing in their own their own version of their life. I I know I have felt this way and I still feel this way even though I know it's wrong that branding and and and marketing but not marketing I think everyone understands direct response marketing like I put this much money in I just do the thing that gets the highest click clickthrough rate and I click it that's sort of like that's fine and everything but I think that like the great people understand that branding and marketing when I say marketing I mean like brand marketing it's not sticky and then I remember thinking like well Mark Zuckerberg wears a hoodie that's not branding.

Of course, obviously it it is branding, but I was like, he's it's all about utility. And then I read Peter Teal's book, um what's it called? Um 0ero to one. 0ero to1. And he talks about secrets. And he talks about like what's your special sauce? And it's so funny that Peter Teal, he did two things that were interesting. He said branding is a moat. Branding is a secret that you can know. And then he goes, unfortunately, it's not a secret that I know, so I'm not even going to write about it.

That's like, do you remember that part of the book? He's like, "Yeah, he he acknowledges." He's like, "I underestimated it. Now I've come to appreciate it. I still don't know it or how to do it. Can't tell you about it." Yeah. He's like, "I don't know anything about it, but I know it's real." And then um we had Aaron Levy on the podcast. Aaron is um a CEO of a company called Box, which makes enterprise cloud software. You could dismiss that as being boring, whatever, but he's immensely successful.

And we asked him what books he likes to read. He was like, "If you're going to read any business books, just read these four or something like that." uh and he listed off uh four books. He's like, "If you read those, you'll you're going to be amazing." And the first book that he said was a book called Positioning by this guy named Al Trout, I think his name is. Um I think he also wrote the 22 immutable laws of marketing, of which Tim Feres, that's like one of the only three books that he always says like just read this one.

And um I just have noticed that when you're telling these stories, I am in my head. I'm like I I'm taking notes right now where I'm like, by the way, it's Al Reese and Jack Trout. Sorry, Jack. Al Reese, my big the takeaway that I've like you said you like repetition. A a repetitive thing that I find myself is getting into the day-to-day weeds of of my business and thinking, well, what's the ad clickthrough rate? Okay, what if we just pointed a red arrow at this guy's face?

It's going to get a higher clickthrough rate. What if we did this? But it's somewhat it's these things that appear to be irrational that aren't irrational at all that have the biggest needle moving difference. So making your brand associate with one word in the same way that Volvo does with safety or Lamborghini would do it with like flashy or Ferrari with fast whatever or these other things that don't have an ROI right away like taking someone and saying here's the stake you see this steak right here and then telling the story.

You say that into in a meeting where people only care about numbers and they're like huh but just just just make a cheaper steak and just sell it at a higher margin please. Um, and I just I just think that when I'm hearing you tell the story, it's a reminder that I need to care about these things significantly more than I do. And I think probably everyone should. It's incredibly hard to do and it takes a long time and it takes faith and it takes a leader who I think has that core insight.

Remember that kind of to back to my point of like what does it really mean? What is it really? Like what is it really? What is Apple really? Why do we buy Apple? Right? because we're buying some version of design or simplicity, right? That's the the positioning Apple still has over everybody is that they make simple, beautiful products. So, I think that you have to really like to distill distill distill distill distill. I remember I was talking to Hermosi once and I go, "What's your brand?" And he goes, "Oh, my brand business." And I laughed.

I was like, "Business isn't a brand." Like I was like, "That's just a that's just a word." He goes, "I want to own the word business." He goes, and then, you know, he said this. I don't I don't know if I would agree with this, but he's like Grant Cardone owns real estate. I want to own business. I think what he meant was like on the in the world of like YouTube and content, I want to be the guy when when you think of business. And right or wrong, I thought there's incredible power in the focus and simplicity of trying to own a single word.

And um you know, you could disagree and say, why no, we really that doesn't capture everything that we do and no, we want to it's more nuanced than that. And it's like, yeah, but you don't really achieve anything when you try to spread it all out too thin, right? When you do the peanut butter strategy, you're spreading it all across the bread. And so I think there is a lot of value in trying to say, well, if it was a word, what would the word be?

And if it was a word, is that the word other people would associate with this right now, or is that just what we say internally? And if that was a word, like, are we doing that everywhere or are we only doing it in this one area? And um unfortunately, you don't usually like the answers to that stuff. There's like that quadrant of like um urgently needed or not urgent and then above it it's like impact versus low impact and like there's this quadrant of like it's not urgent but it's very impactful and that's like the thing where you probably should spend time on but you don't.

This is like one of those things. Right. Right. Right. Those are all the marketing actually there was one more marketing one that I think is is pretty cool too. I'll give you this one too. So we had dinner at probably the best Indian restaurant I've ever been to. If you've ever heard of Jim Kana, Jim Khana is like this really famous Michelin star restaurant in London. They have a sister restaurant in New York called Ambassadors Clubhouse. I think we went there with uh with our friend who who runs their he doesn't run the restaurant group, but they they've launched a sauce line.

So like you know how like Carbone started as a famous restaurant their sauces ra I learned it's not Rouse, it's Rayos. Uh they did the same thing. And so this guy's doing it with Indian sauces. And so great dude, great dinner. We hung out and you know, he was telling me about the business. And I had actually passed on investing on this early on for one reason, which was I was like, I don't know how many people cook Indian food at home. Like, I get why pasta sauce is going to sell a lot of units because people make a lot of pasta at home.

Wait, how did you come Wait, how did you come across this one? Because this isn't that's not in your wheelhouse. um a friend had invested in it and sent it to me and um I should have p I should have dug in more but I also didn't really respect the story of this restaurant. So again the story comes before the sauce and what's the story here? So, um, same sort of Taylor came here two nights in a row type of story. Like, oh, you know, XYZ celebrities are here.

The restaurant, I think, has a 100,000 person weight list. Like, this is an insane number. Um, like getting a reservation there is like impossible. The the story of the group, there was basically was like one guy, he partnered with a chef and restaurant wasn't doing so hot. And so he decides even though he's got no culinary experience now, he's not a trained chef. He fires the chef, goes into the kitchen and takes over the kitchen. He's like, "We're going to figure this out." 9 months later they had a Michelin star, which is unbelievable.

That's like if I decided to play in the NBA and in 9 months I was like or like you know the World Cup and I'm playing in the World Cup next next cycle. Like it's insane to be able to do that. And so they they pulled this off. Ah yes, I've seen this. Oh my god, it looks amazing. And so foods food's unreal. You should go you should definitely go. So I was talking about the sauce thing. I was like, "Yeah." I was like, "I just didn't think people were cooking Indian food that frequently at home." And he goes, "Oh, you know, this is where Ro really helped us out." So this there's a guy who came on our podcast, Rohanoza.

He's a guy you might have seen on Shark Tank. I think we were the only podcast he's ever done. And it took it took a lot of like twisting his arm to get him on, but he was amazing. He started, you know, he was in involved in making Smart Water a success. Vitamin Water a success. Uh Poppy uh soda, which I have right here on my desk, like Poppy a success. So, he's been just a killer with brands. Uh tons of brands, by the way. Those are only like three of like a dozen brands that you'll find in grocery stores that this guy's been like, you know, early and and big on.

And I think Ro is incredibly gifted when it comes to to like what is it really, right? cuz when he when he talked about this poppy thing, it was like I think when they started it was like apple cider vinegar as a as a drink supplement and he was like mother's miracle or something or we need to make clean soda. He's like I grew up in Zambia drinking Coke and Fanta and soda. He's like we need this to taste like a Fanta but be good for you.

And he's like I think that's where the where the market is. And so similarly with Jim Kana he goes we're going to make chicken great again. He's like what? He goes, "It's not about use this when you're going to cook Indian food once in a blue moon at home. It's of people who eat meat, 85% of their meals at home are chicken." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And what we need is for our sauce to make your chicken taste good and be less boring cuz it does. You add this sauce to your chicken, your chicken's going to taste phenomenal.

So, it's not about the one day you're going to decide to make Indian food for for all your friends and host an Indian food thing. Like, who does that? That's pretty tough. It's pretty high risk. what we need to do is make chicken great again. And I was like, it's that sort of marketing genius that you need that can be the difference between this being a really niche fringe thing to being worth, you know, $3 billion, you know, in 5 years. It's like that insight executed well.

A lot of investors say they add value. That guy added value by like giving you like the the the point of highest leverage to refocus the entire company around. This is awesome. I'm looking at their website, by the way. That's like something that you'd make fun of like with a guy like giving a TED talk. It's like we didn't stop there. You see, we moved the office and like put the couch from here to here. It's like what do we have in common with our ancestors from cavemen to make to make to make what?

But it makes sense. And I'm like because what's funny is like when you're copyrighting, you want to use such detail that the person feels it in their bones. So, for example, if you're selling like a weight loss thing or a gym product to a woman who's a little overweight, you're like, I know why you always offer to take the photo when you're with your friends. Oh, that's a good one. I know how you feel. It's like you want to go after these thoughts where they're not always loud, but they exist and they're silent enough that when you someone says that, you think to yourself, I didn't know other people thought that.

thought that. thought that. That's an incredible example. a quiet thought said out loud. So true. People want to feel seen and understood. And some of the great marketers they describe this they say if you could describe the problem in such great detail that the person feels completely understood. understood. understood. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They will trust you fully that whatever solution you speak next because you understood the problem so well, they now believe that you understand the solution equally well. Whereas everybody else just sells the solution.

Yeah. So you have to think you have to like this is the point when you're when you're copywriting uh an interesting idea there's this thing called um like general knowledge and then there's specific knowledge and general knowledge when you're doing copywriting is when you spend weeks just learning all about the industry all about like stuff that may not even apply to it exactly and then specific knowledge is when you learn about exactly how the product works but you need that general knowledge to understand a vague idea.

So, for example, if you're doing like gym work um or like a weight loss supplement, you know, eventually you'll get to the um specific knowledge where you're like, "Okay, so like the body loses weight by doing X, Y, and Z, and this product helps you by doing whatever." But the general knowledge is just talking to women and being like, "So, how do you feel?" Uh like, "Well, I feel like fat or whatever." Like, you're all right, but tell me more. Tell me more. And that's how you come up with these ideas where you're like, "She said this, but this was below the iceberg." So, I had to dig deep and I've noticed that this is like a common thread.

Therefore, that's a perfect thing that I can use in my marketing. So, when you said that uh you need to make chicken great again, okay, that's that doesn't mean anything. But when you said everyone wants to eat chicken because it's healthier, but it's so boring and bland and you need a good sauce for it, that like hits cuz I eat chicken all the time. I'm like, I'm so boring of this [ __ ] I don't want to eat this anymore. And so this is like a classic copywriting marketing shtick of like general knowledge and learning how to how to and positioning.

So literally the positioning extends because it's you know what what his makehen gradient was actually a strategy. It's not the marketing it's the strategy and the strategy basically then just is is to pair it with the positioning which is is this a sauce for cooking Indian food at home or is this a sauce for having really flavorful delicious chicken. Two totally different positions. And then that extends. Which aisle would you be in in the supermarket? Because there's aisles for pasta sauces and Asian ethnic sauces. And then there's there's aisles for uh toppers of you know marinades, sauces, things that you put on meat.

And that's where you see like that bachun's like Japanese barbecue sauce or whatever. It's an example where like I don't think a lot of people were really that into I'd like to just put I I'm really looking for whatever this uh umami savory Japanese sauce is. But if I'm looking for some bar, you know, some some kind of Asian barbecue sauce to put on my food, my on my chicken, that sounds pretty good. And it it's in the right aisle. And so the positioning literally becomes physical in the aisle.

And then you then you get down to like the actual actual marketing. And then you say, "Oh, well, we should probably market to people who are eating a lot of chicken." Maybe that's people who are trying to be healthy right now. But the, you know, the seven days a week of plain, you know, chicken breast is getting pretty old for them. What if one day a week they were able to add our marinade or add our sauce on top and actually it only adds 100 calories but bam that thing changes the whole meal all of a sudden it's popping off and so you then it becomes an actual marketing strategy.

I did this with Hampton a bunch where I was like, what what do people fear about building a company? And it took me forever. And I'm like, I'm still working on it. But one of the the emotions that I'm trying to get at is when you're building a company, the biggest fear often times is not like once you have a business that already does a couple million in revenue, it's not like, is this going to fail? It's like, I started this at 32. Am I going to be 42 years old and be like this thing barely grew and I just wasted a decade on something where I could have been working on a different opportunity and I just blew it all?

And like that is like the fear for where like I'm thinking about for some of our marketing of like well everyone has that fear and you don't talk about it out loud but you like fear like I should do this other thing and this other thing and I'm always fearful of that and so Hampton helps by giving you a room of peers who could help you make big $50 million decisions not by yourself and so you actually have like peers around you but like I sp I spent a lot of time thinking about like these phrases and words that you can use that aren't spoken often but when they are people just Yeah.

Well, I like the phrase $50 million decisions just as that had resonance for me. Let me give you one other example that's kind of in this like quiet thoughts uh said out loud. So, right now we're in a big uh like decluttering mode in our house like we're just like getting Oh, you had a great line. You you had a great line for that. By the way, you made a joke. You're like, "I'd rather move than declutter this place." Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I We almost are like, "We just need a new house.

We need to start over." Like, it's that bad. Everyone feels that way. It's like I'd ra That's a really good one. I would if I was like a moving company or a cleaning company. cleaning company. cleaning company. Well, my my wife has started. She goes because I was like what got what's gotten into you? Like you're every day you're like just I I used to really struggle to be like hey let's get rid of this. This is junk. We don't need this. And I used to do that and then she would hang on to it either for sentimental value.

No, we do need it once in a while. No, we paid a lot for that. Like I'll sell it. I'll get I'm going to do something with it. I don't want to just throw it away. all these reasons for hoarding, right? And so, and she didn't view it as hoarding and then she didn't like when I called it hoarding, right? So, that was like our we were in a stalemate where like nothing was really moving. All of a sudden, things changed and I was like, I didn't do anything.

What can you tell me what the answer was? Cuz I surely didn't have it. And she goes, well, I started following these women on Instagram. I just changed my feed. She's like, I just decided I'm going to follow like 20 of these people. I unfollowed a bunch of like parenting and like fitness stuff to like get my feed to be just brainwashing of the right flavor. And she goes, "Cuz I I saw this one thing that really resonated with me." I was like, "Oh, what was it?" And so there's these decluttering coaches on Instagram.

I don't know if you've seen this. They have like millions of followers. I love it. And there's women that are just helping other women like kind of figure out how to like think about decluttering their house. It's not even strategy, right? Cuz the answer's obvious. Put the [ __ ] in a bag and get rid of it. It's mostly personal. It's like how to feel about like saying goodbye to something that like your baby used to play with. play with. play with. Exactly. Or you spent money on it and now you feel like it's wasteful to get rid of it.

Um, it's sort of like how personal finance is more personal than finance. It's like cleaning is more like dealing with the inside. You know what does uh Caesar Milan the dog trainer say? He goes, "I trained the human and we rehabilitate the dog." the dog." the dog." Yeah, exactly. That that's so true. And so she was talking about like there was one Instagram reel she saw where the woman was walking around the house and she goes, "You know, I've been keeping all this stuff for my kids because I want them to I'm trying to like make sure they have everything they might need, but they don't have me anymore because now when I walk around, I just see I my brain is just thinking, "Oh, I got to pick those up.

Oh, I need to put that away. I really want to reorganize the shelf. I've been meaning to get to this." Like, "Oh my god." And then she's like, Another one was, "Are you ashamed?" Like do you do does panic come inside you when somebody offers to like come over or do a playd date? Like the idea of having guests over, does it trigger panic in you? Like that's not what your home is supposed to feel like. So whatever upside you thought this is giving you, giving you, giving you, that's a great one.

Think about the panic that you feel and my wife is like, "Dude, every time like when we go to school drop off, we have the Tesla with like the the wings." And so when you open the door, it's like such a it's like so open house for like our car and our car is like there's goldfish and Cheetos and four soccer balls and 19 shoes in the back of the car, right? Like it's just like we have three kids, three car seats. It's a it's a mad house back there.

And so she's like, "Let's drop off over here at the corner." And I'm like, "What the hell? Why?" She's like, "Cuz I don't want anyone to say, "Kids, get out the other door so nobody sees the window." When the when the when the creators on Instagram started to speak to those moments and those fears, which is the equivalent of you volunteering to take the photo so that you're not in it, then all of a sudden it like the flip switched. It's like I could see the power of like the right sentence that just hits the nerve that literally just rewires someone's behavior.

That's a great story. I'll be eager to see how long that lasts because that potentially could be life-changing. Yeah, hopefully it is. Um cuz it's it's pretty traumatizing to be like I did this. Like we this is hilarious. We've been like house hunting. Like we're seeing all these really nice houses that are like stage and every time we go in I'm like yeah but you got to remember we're going to ruin all this. We don't live like this. Like this is like a perfectly staged minimal house with like when you go like shopping for clothes you're like picture that with a mustard state on it.

Do you still like it? it? it? Do you have mannequins with bellies? Cuz I'd like to see what this looks like. And so, so then with with our house, I looked up our old like like Zillow photos of when the house right this same house we're in before we moved in and I was like, "What do you think of this house?" And it looks amazing. Oh, that's so funny. It's like we ruined this. This already was epic. We We messed it up. And so, you know, you have to face reality.

Yeah. I It's near and dear to my heart, this whole clutter thing. I argue with my uh wife about that stuff all the time, too. And it's one of the reasons I like living in New York is I make the excuse, I've got a small apartment, you guys can't get me anything, right? right? right? Uh and it's like not that small. Uh but dude, the the clutter thing bothers me. It kills me. It like when you walked into my house, like the entry, you open the door, it's like a whatever 30 foot ceil should be so beautiful.

Instead, we had a giant pink like UFC octagon trampoline just in the middle of the house. And the kids did love it. It was pretty fun, but like damn, man. Like where where did we go wrong? wrong? wrong? It's it's Amazon, man. But being able to buy [ __ ] so easily online. I think that like if I was um I don't think this would land as well, but if I was like an influencer in this space, it would be about like consumerism and like and like showing people like for example, if I was to get you if I was going to show you why you should eat healthier, you could do a bunch of like visualizations, but like I could just show you like look when you go to the movies and you get popcorn, I could just I could tell you that they put 100 grams of butter on it or I could just show you a block of fat and like that's 100 g and at is what is on here for this.

I could be like here's your bill. Like here's the money that you would have saved not buying this stuff. You know what I mean? Like uh that wouldn't land as good. But that's how I think about I'm like oh my god it's so much waste. Or I'll be like a kid in China made this. It flew over on an airplane. It got into this factory. It went to this UPS. Like that's where it hurts me. I'm like all this energy is just wasted. I hate the waste.

And so that's what lands with me when I think of like the waste. But that's that's a significantly less um popular emotion. Right. Right. Right. Uh but this is stuff is fun. If you want to learn more about this stuff, my favorite book on this topic is Made to Stick by Chip Heath. It's two brothers from Stanford and they do the best job of showing like five ways that you can make ideas stick with people. And and I'm kind of like thinking I'm going to reread that.

reread that. reread that. I've read that and I've read Positioning by the way, even though they come highly recommended. I actually did not think either was great. There's some books you read and you're like, "Holy [ __ ] every page is like you want to frame it." Um, that's not how I felt at all about those books. Also, they're pretty old, so the examples they'll give are not as relevant. I think this is something you just have to like actually study the ground truth ads and you have to notice what resonates.

You have to start paying attention and you start to start collecting for yourself. Um, the books can provide some, you know, some general frameworks, but I I personally didn't think that either of them was like good enough to like to feel like I I actually understood it. understood it. understood it. Um, Um, Um, okay. Well, agree to disagree. No, you do both, right? You're you have a pretty strong swipe file and a and an eye for this sort of thing, you know? You've been doing that for 15 20 years now.

I thought made to stick was cool because it just put frameworks, but like there's like classic ones that you see and some of them are funny where it's like this person is this rich. It's like, well, what does a trillion mean? Well, it's and then you do like the seconds thing. I think I I told you the story where like a million is like 72 hours, a billion is like 82 weeks, and then a trillion is 32 years. Like there's like ways to like break things down that are far more tangible.

Um, and that's what I learned from um, from um, from um, what's it called? Made to stick. Didn't stick. Almost almost almost lost that one. That's like my joke when I It's like That's a dad joke when people say I'll say uh, they could tell I've got bad hearing and they go, "Do you have bad hearing?" I go, "Huh?" It's never funny. No one has ever left. I I'll give it to you. All right. That's it. That's the pot.