Podcast
‘Think and Grow Rich’ Is a Lie.
My First Million
- Make Lots Of Stuff To Improve Quality
- Prioritize making many imperfect things over seeking one perfect creation to improve skill and originality.
- The pottery experiment showed the quantity group produced higher-quality final pots and greater satisfaction than the quality-focused group. Transcript: Shaan Puri She told me the story about the pottery experiments. Kind of a semi-famous example if you read a bunch of books, but most people don’t read books. The story is there’s a professor in a college in Florida. And the actual story is, I think it was about photography, but they kind of changed it to be about pottery for some reason. So he has a class and he wants to prove a point, which is that to be a great creative, again, it’s about this commitment. And so he says, half the class he tells, you will be judged at the end of the semester on quality. I want you to make the best thing you can make. So all year, you don’t have to do anything, but turn in your best pot at the end of the semester and I will grade you only on the best pot you make. Okay, great. That’s first half of the class. Second half of the class, he says, I will grade you only on the quantity of the number of pots you make. They could be bad, they could be good, don’t care. As many as you turn in, your grade will be a function of quantity. All right, the two groups go on. So at the end of the semester, what happens? Obviously, the quantity group made way more pots, as you would expect. The surprise, the spoiler, obviously, is that they also made the better pot. So like the higher quality pots also came from the quantity group, who was not focused on quality at all. They’re only focused on quantity. And they found out that the quantity group had a higher measured satisfaction rating. Sam Parr Correct. Shaan Puri So when across the board, you made more stuff, you had more fun doing it and you made the better stuff. Okay. So you sort of swept. Now, why is that? Obviously, if you do things a lot, you get a lot of shots on goal, a lot of more attempts to make something great. If you do things a lot, your skill level goes up. So your ability to make something great goes up. The last thing is you remove your filter. When you just try to do things that are, you try to make a lot of things, you don’t self-inhibit. So you don’t count yourself out, which you don’t, you’re not afraid to create, which usually pushes you towards doing safe projects. With this, they were willing to experiment more widely. And because they were able to go wide, they did things that were more original and novel. Okay. So that’s the kind of the story from that. So she was saying like, that changed my life. (Time 0:36:08)
- Vanta Grew From Repeated Mini Projects And An Excel Hack
- Christina Cacioppo taught herself to code, built ~25 mini-projects, then created a manual Excel workflow that became Vanta.
- Her process turned repeated small experiments into a compliance product that now generates hundreds of millions in revenue. Transcript: Shaan Puri So these are like, you know, ruffling, she goes roughly in chronological order. Most of these things never saw the daylight, which is probably for the best. And it’s like, I don’t know, 25 different little mini projects that she built during this time. And so she was making a lot of pots. And then she, so she tells a story about the pottery experiment, how this had this, it changed her thinking, how she built all these different projects. And of course, the last one, which really didn’t even use code, it was just a spreadsheet in Excel, which was, let me help, let me see if I can make a useful spreadsheet in Excel for any company That wants to get their SOC 2, you know, security certificate. And so she, and she just did it in Excel, did it manually, and started helping companies manually, and eventually turned that into software. And that eventually became Vanta, which now does hundreds of millions in annual revenue, which is like this pretty crazy success story. (Time 0:38:41)
- Use A Countdown To Override Overthinking
- Overcome hesitation by acting quickly: count down and move before doubt stops you.
- Mel Robbins’ five-second rule (5-4-3-2-1) and Sam Parr’s three-second rule for approaching someone both force physical movement to beat overthinking. Transcript: Shaan Puri Got her the five second rule, you know, the Mel Robbins five second rule. Like where you could eat stuff off the floor? You would think, right? It’s world famous. It turns out this is the alternate. So her five second rule, this is her book, which is basically if you are procrastinating or you have self-doubt. So let’s just take an example. You’re a guy, you see a cute girl at the cafe. There’s that moment where you have to decide, am I going to approach her and say something to her or not? And her rule is basically you count backwards, five, four, three, two, one. And then you just physically move towards doing it before your brain can stop you. So you sort of, the body overrides the brain. You don’t let yourself be an overthinker. That one principle is like her most famous principle or most useful thing that has spread, the idea that has spread the furthest. That’s been great. Sam Parr I mean, that’s a weird coincidence because since I’ve been a pickup artist expert for the last 24 hours, I’ve been teaching this idea of the three-second rule, which is as long as you See, whenever you see a girl who’s cute, you have to go up and talk to her within three seconds. So great minds stick to light, right? Shaan Puri You have to run. It doesn’t matter the distance. You have three seconds to get there. Yeah. Sam Parr And the first slide is, I was staring at you, and I just wanted to let you know. And then you just say the first thing that comes to your mind. Right. (Time 0:45:00)
- Turn A Missed Approach Into A Charming Opener
- A trainer missed an initial gym approach but later re-encountered the same woman at a bus stop and candidly confessed the earlier miss, which led to a successful date.
- Using the missed-opportunity story as an opening line proved flattering and effective. Transcript: Shaan Puri And they like, like Mel Robbins was saying that you did, right? You made yourself a more desirable partner. He just kept doing that, kept investing in himself, made himself the most desirable partner, right? Like such a great guy. So I told him, I said, this year, I was like, I got this inkling. I’m going to introduce you to somebody this year. I have this gut instinct that I’m going to find the right person for you. I don’t know why. I’m somehow the dots are going to connect. And he’s like, I’m here for it. And he goes, I have the crazy story. I was at the gym like a year ago and I saw this girl and there was this five second rule moment where like, she made eye contact, I made eye contact, but we were kind of far away. She was in the middle of the set. I was in the middle of the set. I didn’t walk over to her. And I kind of overthought it for a second. And he’s like, dude, I’d never do that. But he’s like, she was just, she just seemed great. So he’s like, I just, I missed it. He’s like, but I told myself, if I ever see that girl again, I’m going up to her. He goes, so yesterday I’m across the street and I see that same girl at this bus stop. And he’s like, I ran across the street. So he’s like, I run over to her. He’s like, and I just told her, he goes, he goes, he goes, hey, he goes, hey, hey, he goes, I got to tell you this crazy story. I saw you at the gym like a year ago. And at the time I was too nervous to come up to you and talk to you. I thought you were really cute, but I just, I fumbled the ball. And I told myself, I said, if I ever see that girl again, I’m definitely going to come up and talk to her. And I just had to come up and say hi. And she loved it. And then they went on this date and they went great. (Time 0:46:54)