598: Sam Parr (Founder of The Hustle) - Living By a Mantra, Thinking Big, Growing (and Selling) a Media Company, Persuading Others, Becoming a World-Class Writer, Working The Cold Email Muscle, and Pursuing Excellence

28:26Like worst case, you just walk out of the room. You know, like it's not like you're getting killed. And I'm like, in a way that doing hard things makes other things that maybe some people would think are hard, it makes them easier. And so that's why it's good probably for all of us in whatever way you can to regularly put yourself in positions to do hard things, manufacture hardness. And I want to actually ask you this. It's a little bit of a shift, but you as a dad now, you have the opportunity to raise your daughter and maybe future kids to have whatever they want to be able to provide for her for her whole life if you wanted to.

29:04But I know you don't want that, right? You want to raise somebody who's tough and resilient and has got a lot of the skills that you have had to develop on your own to be gritty and keep fighting, I think, through the hard things. and I know she's still pretty young, but you and Sarah, your wife, what have you talked about in order to raise kids to be tough, resilient people? I'm scared. I'm very scared about that. So basically, compounding is a crazy thing. If you make money when you're young, it becomes potentially billions in a lifetime. It's pretty insane. And I'm fearful of that. And I think about it all the time.

29:40I think that as I've had a little bit more career success, We're relatively frugal still, but we have some nicer things. We have a bigger house. We have a nanny. We fly differently. And as my kids get older, I think we'll likely... For a long time, I was like, I want all these amazing services. I want someone doing my laundry all the time, which is what I have now. I have service providers. And I'm like, as our little girl gets older, we're going to say goodbye to this stuff. I'm not going to have that shit around because I need her to see me doing things I don't want to do so she knows what grit means.

30:19And so I'm enjoying things now because she's nine months. But in the next handful, a couple of years, we're going to purposely dial things down, I think. And that sucks for me because when I can finally afford all the shit out. That's hard to do, man. I feel like that's going to be hard to do. It's not that hard, I think. I mean, yeah, it is hard, but like, I mean, I've been really poor before. Like I've had like a lot of, I've had a handful of things happen in my life where like I've experienced what it was like to have nothing or to be destitute. And so I'm like, dude, like we could, we'll be fine.

30:58And so, yeah, it will be hard in one sense of like, it's not going to be as cushy, but it'll be easy in the sense of like, you know, I read a lot of history books. I love reading about war and like people who have experienced hardship and I'm like, Hey, compared to like these other people, like, I've actually kind of always been good at that of like comparing myself to like a global audience of like the best or the worst of everyone. Do you know what I mean? So it's like reading a biography of a billionaire and you're like, oh, I see myself in him. I could do that. And so, and similarly, where it's like, I'm reading about kids in Afghanistan and I'm like, well, we're like crazy wealthy compared to them, even if we just make 50 grand a year.

31:35So we're fine. So we're going to downgrade like big time. Like, hey, look, we're not sleeping on dirt. life's good. And so we're pretty good at that as a family, I think. Yeah. It's a really good skill to develop, I think, too. You brought up earlier in the conversation about the fact that you would meet these super wealthy people or CEOs in the green room for HustleCon and realize that they're actually not that much smarter than you or they're not even as smart as you are. And I found that to be one of the number one things over almost 10 years and 600 episodes of doing this is not that people aren't brilliant and do amazing things.

32:13It's the fact that almost every person I've met is figuring it out as they go. And I think that's really inspiring. I think that's an inspiring thing to think about that people are basically all of us are just figuring it out as we go. And so it is possible to do big, amazing things, but you got to be willing to act. And I think that's one of the key learnings. I'm guessing you have too, because you've interviewed a lot of people. You've met a lot of people that we really are just all figuring it out as we go. Yeah. It's like the most fun thing ever is to see your heroes cry. And I've seen that a bunch of times where I've seen them cry or I've seen them confess to committing adultery or to being fearful of firing someone.

33:00And I see all these things that bring them down in my eyes. And that sounds negative, but it's actually super positive where it empowers me. And I think that it makes it normalize that it's cool to do great things and it's normal to suck at many other things, but I could still be great in general. Yep. Now that you've built multiple businesses and are currently building multiple businesses, you have to make hiring decisions. And I think this is one of the most important things that leaders do is choosing the people that they're going to surround themselves with, they're going to work with. I'm curious, Sam, when you think about, let's say you're hiring for a leadership role, like to run Hampton, for example, right?

33:43Because you hired somebody to do that or senior leadership roles as that company grows. What are you looking for in a leader? What are some of the must-haves you're saying? Yeah, they got to have this, this, and this in order for me to want to hire them to be a leader at my company? I tend to like freaks or weirdos. I think of myself as kind of quirky and weird. And I like people who were the others growing up. I really like that type of personality. And another way to put it is I like people who are passionate about their hobbies. And so when I interview people, I like to ask them, I call it the bottom fourth of the resume.

34:18So for example, let's just say you went to a four-year university and you majored in philosophy. I don't really care about philosophy, but I'll be like, hey, what was your favorite class and why and if they can't passionately entertain me on a story about something they spent four years and hundreds of thousands of dollars on why that's interesting then i don't want to be around them and i think they're losers and so i really care about people who are passionate about a hobby about anything it doesn't even have to be work related so people who have are high energy and focus on something that interests them i i love those types of people um when i hire for a lot of roles i have it like two categories category one is like people who have been there done that.

34:54And so like, with a CEO or something like that, I want someone who I'm like, look, I'm not trying to give you a chance. Like, I just want to find like, it'd be like hiring a quarterback who like has never played quarterback before. I'm like, no, no, no, I want someone who like, you are already good, and we'll give you room to be even better. But then there's other roles where it's like a junior role. And it's like, I'm looking to buy people's stock before it becomes overvalued. And so in those cases of the second one, that's when you really find some of these weirdos and like i want to hear like like for example i interviewed this one guy jacob who ended up working at my company he now he works somewhere else and he's amazing and i was like what do you do for fun and he was like um you know i have i have acid reflux and i've been like working to find the best ketchup and so i went because i saw a bunch of boxes in his back of his house and i'm like what the hell are all those boxes he was like so for fun i like i'm trying to use these beets to make a new ketchup so i can eat ketchup and i'm like tell me everything about that.

35:51And he walked me through his experimenting phase. And I'm like, you're brilliant. You're the best. You have the it factor. And so, we hired him. And so, I hire people a lot of times because if they have these weird hobbies or they're passionate about something, I'm really into that. I also want people who are skilled at something. I think that far too often people think that being a generalist is cool. And everyone starts unskilled. But you have to have a little bit of a promising ability to be skilled because you're being intentional about getting better at something. So I care about people who are skilled.

36:25I think far too many people fall back on the generalist mentality. And I think that's bullshit. I think you have to be highly skilled at something. I know it probably depends on the role, but how important is them being an effective writer slash communicator? Dude, it's like the most important thing ever to me. So a lot of people think because of the way I talk on podcasts that i'm like a bro or whatever and i'll get people who email me and they're like what's up mfr and there'll be like typos in their email and i'm like not a chance don't ever talk to me again i'm very into effective communication because effective communication there is a 100 % correlation between how well you communicate and how clearly you think and if you can't if you communicate clearly by definition you're very likely or you are thinking clearly and so clear writers are like it's like the most important skill set like because writing particularly copywriting is again just another arm of persuasion not always but a lot of types of writing are like persuasion and i'm like if you can't get me to read what you're saying and get the thoughts into my brain from your brain effectively, then you're a nobody.

37:49You're going to be nothing. Unless you can communicate to me, then I don't want to be around you. I think your writing is very enjoyable to read, even whether it's zampar.com or the anti-MBA. You have blog posts that go back that are enjoyable to read or even a yearly review of last year. I just reread that one today. And I think one of your skills that you can make it look really easy, just like a great keynote speaker, they make it look really easy or a great standup comedian, they make it look like they just wander out and talk, even though it's like very crafted to the syllable. I would say you write like you talk.

38:30If I'm having listened to you talk and reading your writing, you write like you talk. And that sounds like it should be easy. We'll just write like you talk. But I don't know if it is. Can you? No, I learned how to do that. Yeah, I'd love to hear more about your process on writing like you talk. Because it sounds way more authentic than trying to be like a writer. I'm just going to write like I speak. No, I learned how to do that. And when I talked about being a generalist, people are like, because I actually don't like generalists. And they're like, well, you are. I'm like, no, no, no. I'm self-trained, but I'm a trained copywriter.

39:04I know how to do that. I can always get a job doing that. And I taught myself how to do it. The way I taught myself how to do that was doing this thing called copy work, which is where you find other people's writing and you just copy it word for word just to understand their flow and stuff. And I did that for months, every single day. I would word for word write other people's work. So I would do it with entire books. I would do it with best-selling advertisements. I would do it with scripts of Saturday Night Live. And so in the same way that you learn guitar, you play other people's music for a long time.

39:35And then you're like, oh, I like this. I like this. I like this. and I'm going to combine all of that to make my own flavor. That's what I did with my writing. So I just copied other people for a long time. And then in copying other people, I was like, oh, you know, this, you know, the way he phrases, that's very authentic to me. I would use that. And same with this person, this person, this person. I'm going to combine all of it to make my own thing. How does it like literally handwriting? I believe there is some science behind this, right? Yeah, there's definitely science behind it. Handwriting other people's, like, because you think like, I'm going to handwrite other people's stuff.

40:04Like, why would I do that? like how does that help you become a better writer well if i said hey to learn how to play piano here's like you've never played piano before uh but write me a song it's like impossible you know what i mean like it's really hard uh like i've tried to learn how to play piano if you told me like we're gonna learn by you writing a song i'd be like dude can you like teach me how to do chords first uh can i like learn happy birthday and then like this other band and this other bands so i could just like see how they do it and uh when i was a kid i used to play drums and the way like you learn was i would just put headphones in and i would play with green day all the time and like oh cool he does this fill all the time here like i i get it uh or like oh you see how he like hits the cymbals twice here like that adds this really cool like bit of emotion like i feel kind of cool it's the same exact way with writing and so a lot of people think oh that's ridiculous why would you copy other people's work and i explain it with music and they're like well, that makes perfect sense, actually.

41:04And there is science behind it. I don't know all the science, but there's been large sample-sized studies where they teach people this way. And it is effective. It's very effective. I heard you talk with David Prowl about this. Good buddies with David. I love his work, too. And you talk about writing and headlines and thinking and headlines. And I think from a leadership perspective, this is important because you've got to say things that are memorable. You're at a town hall leading a thousand people. It's got to be memorable. It's got to be sticky. It's got to be entertaining. It's got to be motivational and inspirational.

41:38I think leaders need to think about this. What's your mentality when it comes to writing and thinking in headlines to be clear and to help people remember it and take action based on what you're saying? Yeah, it looks like we're in a data with new data all the time. And the only way to make people or make anything you're thinking stick, whether it's in a leadership perspective at your company or writing, you need bite-sized memorable phrases. And there's a lot of examples of this of great advertisements where you only remember... You don't remember a lot of it, but you remember just five words and boom, that stuck.

42:16I got it. And so that is true for headlines. But the reason why headlines are important when you're writing is if like, basically anyone who's ever ran anything on the internet, they know that the like 3 % conversion rate for some reason, that's like, it's kind of arbitrary, but it's kind of a threshold of like, if a hundred people come into your website, if you're lucky, 3 % of them will buy something. And it's always like the best websites in the world. Maybe we're talking like Amazon is like probably 8 % or something like that. So like on the ballpark of 3 to 10, whatever. Same with articles.

42:51So on Facebook, if I were to post an article, the click-through rate, if I'm doing kick-ass, is going to be 3%. And yet people will spend 100 or 99 % of their time writing the article and only 1 % on the headline. And I'm like, well, if you do the math, like the headline actually reaches most every, like reaches way more people. And if you were to change your click-through rate from 0.5 % to like 5%, we're talking 10 times more people are going to like read this. So like your headline is like a huge deal. And so when I say think of headlines, I mean, I mean it one out of being practical, like your headline is actually more important than the article because that's to get people in the door.

43:32But two, if you think in headline, that also forces you to write a certain way. So like, for example, I had this article go viral and it was like, I lived on Soylent. So for people who don't know, Soylent is like slim fast for nerds. It was like a meal replacement thing. And it was like, I lived on Soylent for 30 days straight. I knew in my head that that would go viral. And so I made the article to fit within that context. And so when you think in headlines, you think, what can I create that can fit within a headline? Which is, like I said, practical, but also gives you a really good framework to like...

44:06Because any good content or good email or good speech or good anything, you need guardrails to stay within. and finding those guardrails is hard. That's why I did copywork because I was using someone else's work. I didn't have to make my own guardrails. When you have that guardrails, that's where art is made when you have this little box to stick with inside of. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. That's why I think it applies so much to outside of just the world of writers or copywriting, but it applies to people who are leading teams, leading companies, is because the communication element that part like i don't know if you look like think of all these famous speeches i have a dream yeah or ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country like right like martin luther king his legacy is defined defied uh defined yes as civil rights but it's like oiled down to like i have a dream that one day might you know what i mean like that line same with jfk that line like that like when you think of these one-liners you they have to be memorable.

45:10They have to be repeated a ton. And same leadership at your company. You want your company to behave a certain way. You got to repeat the same shit all the time. You got to make it memorable. Yep. One of our, I think, mutual guests from our podcast is one of the best in the world that's currently Scott Galloway. He has so many memorable turn of phrase sayings. And I heard you and Sean talking to him and it was the same feeling I got talking to him a few times of, how does this guy have so many memorable sayings? And it's like a lot of practice, a lot of reading, a lot of writing, a lot of preparation.

45:44Very smart. But I think that is why somebody pays you 150 grand to go give a speech or why somebody would pay you to consult or why somebody would pay you to be the CEO of a company is because you've really worked on thinking in headlines, writing, speaking, communicating. That's what moves people. And Scott's good at it so often. For example, he was like, I work out so I can kill and eat everyone in the room or to be able to outrun them. And I'm like, yeah, that's mine now. I'm still in that one. He has these beautiful phrases that I freaking love. He's very talented at that. Yeah, sweat more than you watch other people sweat.

46:18I was like, oh yeah, I should be working out more than watching some game on TV. I was like, oh. And that leads to the eat and kill everybody and be able to take over a room or whatever. Yeah, I'll say, you should be signing the front of checks, not the backs of them, meaning you should give more money. And I'm like, yeah, that's a great line. I love that. He just has lines. He's very good at it. He's a wordsmith for sure. I know. It's something for all of us to think about from a communication perspective. Hey, there was a cool post online that you and your co-founder of Hampton, I like that you were very clear on what you both wanted going into it.

46:59You posted this and I was like, oh, okay, What Sam wants in a certain amount of net worth in seven years. You talked about fame and influence. You talked about freedom. You talked about what that could provide you. I think this idea of documenting what you want, it has two purposes. One, it helps you get very clear on what am I trying to do? What am I trying to accomplish? Then if you are going to work with a partner or with anybody else, it makes sure that they have vivid clarity of where you're coming from. You have clarity of where they're coming from, so you're on the same page. and so I'd like to hear more I think it was his name is Joe right that yeah you guys I did that wrote wrote each other like this is what we want this is what we're all about this is what we're striving for and how that's benefited you I originally did it with my wife so like my wife and I yeah when my wife and I were dating you know we got to the conversation same type of template or is it different it was similar so we got we got to dating and like when it was getting serious we were like hey I think like I would like this to end in marriage in a family would you and she was like yeah and i was like that's wonderful let's like do you want to like do an exercise where we like write down like tell me what do you want in 5 10 20 years and it's okay if it changes but like tell me what you want and i'll tell you what i want and what values we stand for and when we say when we say what i want it was like how many kids do you want like where do you want to live uh what type of lifestyle do you want and in order to have that lifestyle how much money do you think that we need to make and like what jobs like not necessarily careers but like you You know, like, for example, it could be like, well, you know, so maybe I'll be the one who earns the money and you could be the one who like, supports us in this other way.

48:38But like, we basically mapped out, we're like, you know, tell me all of your wants and dreams now and what you stand for and what you are willing to sacrifice and what you're unwilling to sacrifice. And I'll do the same. And as long as there's mostly overlap, and we're willing to compromise on the things where we maybe don't align on. Sounds like we're like, we're good. Like this, like, we're both we're aligned. And I did it with my wife. And it was like, really helpful. And then now I do it with... Joe is my only business partner, but we did the same thing where it was like, hey, so this business that we are tinkering with, it might have some legs.

49:12What type of outcome would you want to have? Would you want to sell this company? Would you want to own it forever? Do you want your family to work here? Do you not want them to work here? Do you want to have lots of employees or not lots of employees? How many hours a week do you want to work? What type of vacation would you like to have? What would your net worth? What would you like the outcome to be in five or 10 years. And we outlined this and we mostly overlapped on everything. And the things that we didn't overlap on, it was like, well, is this a deal breaker for you? No. All right, cool.

49:43This other thing that you said you want, I don't want to do that, but I'm cool going along with it if it makes you happy. And so this way, there's no surprises. And of course, we maybe will change, but it's important to be intentional, I think. Yeah, I think with any relationship, communication, clarity, and understanding of the desires and wants of each other is critical. And you see problems arise when people aren't good at this. That's why I want to highlight it. I actually wanted to drill down on one of them if you're cool. Here's an example. Yeah, well, I'll give you one example first. For example, what I said was, I don't want to do this right now, but once my kid gets a little bit older, I want to take the summer off.

50:25I don't want to work in the summertime. And he was like, yeah, I want to work all the time because I love it, but I'm okay if you want to take the summer off. And then this way, if I want to take the summer off, I'm fucking doing it because I told you that's what I wanted. You're cool with it, and I know that you have my back and I have your back. I'm doing it, and I'm going to be guilt-free. And you're very clear up front. You both are like, yeah, we're good. We're good here. I think that's critical for any relationship to go well. One of them you wrote about, though, was fame and influence. You said, I want a seat at the big boys table and for people to think I'm wonderful at my job.

50:56And then you wrote, I wanted it to be clear to Joe what my insecurities were. Being taken seriously as an entrepreneur, not just a content creator, was one of them. Can you go deeper there? What is that about? Well, you know, it's funny. It's changed. I don't care about fame at all anymore. Really? I don't want any of it. If I could just disappear on the internet, I'd be fine with that. You didn't write that that long ago, or did you? When did you write that initially? A couple years ago. Okay. But it's still rooted. What I wrote is still partially true. So I don't want fame. But I didn't come from a lot.

51:35I came from Missouri. I live out here near New York, and I see all these big shots. I want I'm like in my head I'm like I want them to take me seriously and to know that like I'm the real deal I'm not just some dude on a podcast and so I'm still like that is still true with me um now I don't care about like if I was never on a podcast ever again I would be totally fine with that so the fame thing is not true anymore but the taken seriously by big dogs I still feel a massive chip on my shoulder um where it's like a guy from missouri with nothing and then like you know i relatively knocked it out the park by the time i was 30 but even still i'm like it's not enough i made my money on a stupid newsletter that's such a silly small idea you know what i mean like i still have that like uh chip for sure of like proving to myself you don't think that that will make the big dogs take you seriously?

52:33What would make them take you seriously? Well, that question is similar to the answer to that is similar to how much money is enough. It's like, whatever you say is probably not true because the answer is probably like, it already is enough. They probably do take you seriously. But you know what I mean? The answer is like, it's a me problem, not a them problem. But I don't know. It would be nice to have a billion dollar outcome do you think that having a billion dollar outcome would like how would that change things other than you fly private and do whatever you want i already do whatever i want now right that's what i'm saying so how would it change then oh it wouldn't change at all it's just that i uh have like an ego issue and i still have insecurities and that's just something i'm trying to convince my or i have convinced myself to be true even though i i can logically say nothing will change like the only thing that will change with more money for me now is just how much I can give, I think.

53:27But just like sports where it's like, if you want to bench press 300 pounds, and you finally hit it after four years of practice, you're not a different human being, you're a little bit different because you went through all the effort and you improved like your mindset a bit. But you're not a different person from 295 to 305. But once you hit 305, even though that's all you ever wanted, you're like, dude, I could get 330. I bet if I like give it another eight weeks, you know what I'm saying? And so that like competitiveness, like that scoreboard mentality while i think it's uh unhealthy for a lot of things and in many ways it's very unhealthy it is what it is like it doesn't go away or at least it has what do you mean by ego problem well like it's never enough you know what i mean like i'm not great enough like i need to build a legacy i need to be all time that's all rooted in your ego and And the fact is, in 200 years, none of us are going to exist or be remembered.

54:28And so I should live life a little bit differently. But you still, even if I know this to be true, you still fight these insecurities and the devil on your back of like, but I could be better. I could be a great, you know what I mean? And I recognize it's not important, but it's still like, I know that I should eat a certain way to look great. But that's a simple thing, but it's still hard. it's just the balance is so fascinating to think about because you know you know some of the issues and some of the problems but you also know that some of that is why you've become who you are and why you've accomplished so much in a in a short period of time yeah and for anyone who's like like i'm pretty paranoid about certain things and um it's hard to let go and not be paranoid even because you're like, well, that's why I'm a baller is because I'm fucking paranoid.

55:24And I think it's all going to go away. Productive paranoia, Jim Collins stuff, right? Don't you think? I've never heard of that, but that's awesome. Well, a great choice is I live with productive paranoia. And I use that intentionally because of like, whether it's before a keynote speech or a podcast or whatever, it will eat me up and spit me out. but I also know that it is very productive that pair that that productive paranoia then could lead to excellence on the stage or on a podcast or writing a book and so I try to be like be grateful for it but also at times I'm like oh god like why can I just relax you know and so it's like it it's never ending dude the strength is the weakness uh like and for example I love the UFC yeah and like the other day someone to dana white like one of the ufc guys got arrested for fighting and then another one got like a dui and the media was like hey dana like does this bother you he's like dude i'm getting guys who want to fight in their underwear to the death in front of millions of people in order for them to be great at that i must accept that they're going to be insane in other aspects that's just part of the personality and i think that's true for now that doesn't mean you should accept that.

56:44DUI is beating in fights. That's not acceptable behavior, but it's accepted behavior a little bit. You know what I mean? Like, I accept that that might happen. You could understand it. You could understand it. Like, I expect that that might be part of the territory. Yeah, football teammates like that. It was tough. You know, you got to be good character guys and do the right thing. But these guys are maniacs on the field. And sometimes they don't turn it off. And because we're humans and we're messy and we mess up and we make mistakes. So it's like, we want to do the right thing and be good people, but we also know we're maniacs out here and sometimes it spills over and that's life.

57:23And by the way, I know you got a lot of young people listening. I think the key to getting a badass job or to creating something cool is to be a fucking animal. Yep. Like an animal is how I would describe the best people I've ever hired. They're animals. Say more. nothing stops them or they're insane a little bit and when i use the word like freak and weirdos that they're cousins to being an animal sometimes the best people that you hire they're almost uncomfortable you're uncomfortable a little bit being around them and you're sometimes fearful like i have people work for me i'm like dude you you're like your belief in this thing is almost scary to me.

58:05And I love that. And you're pretty ruthless. And I love that. And being an animal is something I think you should dive into and lean into. I love that. I was just going to ask you to close here. You've been around some of the highest performers in the world. You've interviewed them. You've hung out with them. You've been backstage with them. You've seen them at their highest and lowest. What have you found to be the commonalities among leaders who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time. You really got to like your shit. You got to like doing it. There's a lot of passion versus what you're good at type of advice.

58:47And I don't know anything about that. But in order to do something for decades, you really got to enjoy it. Now, it's sort of like you could start a business selling tires and you cannot care about tires, but you just love building an organization. or you love feeding your family or you love hiring people and watching them develop. But you have to find joy in what you do if you're going to be pretty good. You're going to be in the 1%. You got to really enjoy it, I think. And I think that's really important. I think that having endurance and being a cockroach and surviving a nuclear bomb, that type of mentality is a real competitive advantage.

59:27Willingness to do something for decades is a huge competitive advantage. And you got to enjoy what you're doing in order to last that long. I would say that like the world in general wants to make people be vanilla. So like my wife went to an Ivy League school and they were like, you got to go into finance and do this. And like everyone faces that. But the people who like do dope shit, whether that means a career wise or they're just like generally happy. You can't let that influence get to you. I think that far too many people get nervous about making a decision that's authentic to themselves to please people that they don't really give a shit about.

1:00:09And I would encourage young people to follow their gut a lot more and be willing to be different. You're a weirdo. Dude, this is awesome. I really appreciate it, man. Big fan of your work, and I would love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, dude. I appreciate you. And we'll have to do a mock combine. Mock combine. I don't know. You're in pretty good shape, man. I don't know. It might be tough to... What are you benching 225 now? Are you still getting like 16, 18 times? I did that last year. I can't do that today. No, I couldn't do that today. 4 '6", 40, is that right? Yeah, it used to be a lot faster.

1:00:43But yeah, I ran a 4 '6 this year. But 4 '6 at this age, that's super fast. That's fast when you're in college. It's all right. Yeah, the fast twitch don't go away. I don't know. I think it does for some people. at least it doesn't go away like you got it you don't a little bit but i um i have attributes so like on a video game like some of the athletic attributes i've always been good at that but then when it comes to like handling the ball or like running with the ball i'm like the least coordinated person oh so you're fast you wouldn't have been a good receiver though you wouldn't have been a good receiver well i can jump high i can jump far i can lift heavy things i could run fast but then if you ask me to like catch a ball while i have a helmet on my head i'm like dude this is I'm just simply not athletic enough.

1:01:29What about basketball? No, it's all horrible. I can't do any of it. I could dunk a ball, but if you ask me to dribble in between my legs, I'm like, dude, I can't do this. Wait, skateboarding? Skateboarding, though. I could do that, but anything that involves traditional sports, like holding a ball, for some reason, on paper, it looks like I should be good. I'm horrible at all of them. If we were to play basketball, it's embarrassing how bad I am. Huh. Funny. Interesting. Alright, yeah. Yeah, we should record one in person and do a little combine. We could figure some stuff out. I'd have to throw a few ball sports in to make up for the other areas where I'd lose.

1:02:02It wouldn't even be close. You would absolutely destroy me. Okay, we'll figure it out. Awesome, though. I really appreciate it, man. Thank you so much. Thank you. It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a note. Ryan at learningleader.com. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Sam Parr. A few takeaways from my notes. I love Sam's mantra, which he has tattooed on his leg. Bold, fast, fun. I think it's probably pretty hard to beat someone who moves fast, takes grist, and then he has fun along the way.

1:02:41Most people, as Sam said, move too slow. Let's be bolder in our thinking and move quickly and try to have some fun along the way. In addition to that, thinking big is important, but you have to get started. when you look at HustleCon and see the 2 ,500 people, you may think, oh, that's just how it's always been. Sam just had big events, but that's not the case. In fact, it started as a small book club, then a small event that made a little bit of money. And then years later, it's HustleCon, which helped launch The Hustle, which he then eventually sells for tens of millions of dollars to HubSpot.

1:03:18But you got to get started and you got to get going in order to get good in order to build something big, but all of it starts small. But you got to get started. Then the most important skill set, according to Sam at least, the ability to convince people of something, persuading others, the profession of selling, and we are all in sales every day. You have to believe it first yourself and believe in yourself. Be a clear thinker and know how to communicate that to others to make them believe it too. This one skill will help you accomplish so much in many different areas of life. Once again, I want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Sam Parr.

1:04:08I think it'll help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that. And you also go to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and you You subscribe to the show and you're right. A thoughtful review and you're rated hopefully five stars. And by doing all of that, you are continually giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.