Level Up Your Life In 2026 | Shaan Puri

The biggest risk you have is spending

your life trying to do a really good job

at the wrong thing.

>> Yeah.

>> Idiocrity is the real

>> for any person with high potential cuz

it'll sap you. Sap your will, sap your

time, sap your resources, slap your

energy, sap your belief in yourself.

>> This is Sean Puri. He sold his company

to Amazon and Twitch for millions. And

he now runs one of the most successful

business podcasts in the world with

millions of listeners.

>> I know this cuz I spent 10 years doing

things only for like, oo, if this worked

it'd be amazing. The work has to be the

win.

>> Yeah.

>> The win can't be some future

hypothetical payoff. Because you enjoy

it, you do it all the time. Because you

do it all the time, you get really good

at it. Because you get really good at

it, you do get the results,

>> right?

>> That's the flywheel.

>> In this episode, we talk about what it

takes to be successful, how to work

smarter, not harder, and how to live a

good life.

>> I think hard work is over. It's probably

maybe the fourth or fifth most important

variable. Mhm.

>> You know, I think the very first one is

All right, today's a special episode

because I'm the guest of today's

episode. Normally, we have guests on and

we ask them all about their life, their

philosophies, how they work, how they

did it, how they made it. But this time,

I'm the guest because my former intern

Walter uh created his own podcast. He

used to work for me when he was, I don't

know, 18, 19, 20 years old. he was in

college and he's gone on to create a

cool podcast and he asked me to come on

and so I went on one of the first

episodes of his thing and I watched it

and I was like this is actually a really

good interview and the reason why is

because it's a lot of information about

before we ever made any money. So, um,

you know, how I was thinking when I was

in my early 20s, the ups, the downs, the

indecisions, the uncertainty of do I go

this way or this way, and how I thought

about it, I think it's going to help a

lot of people, specifically people who

are, you know, you haven't quite made it

yet. Maybe you're young, maybe you just

haven't, it hasn't all clicked for you

yet. I think there's some very useful

philosophies in here. So, I hope you

enjoy. This is an episode where I got

interviewed by my former intern, Valter.

>> You had a great life um, seemingly. So,

why did you end up moving and what was

that year of being strategically broke,

right?

>> Yeah, strategically broke. That's what I

called it. Uh,

>> I think most people just call it

unemployed. Uh, but you know, why not? I

I I put a luxury brand on it.

>> So, basically what happened is I

graduate from college and I get a great

job. I got a job paying me $120,000 a

year to go work in a boring industry

that I knew nothing about, didn't really

care about. Mhm.

>> kind of stumbled into a a a job that I

thought was too good of money to pass

up.

>> Yeah.

>> So, I go and I work for this guy and um

sure enough, I'm like pretty bored

actually. I'm like, "Oh, you know what?

Like, I can do this job, but I'm fairly

bored." And at and it was a fork in the

road because before I took that job, me

and my friends had had this business

idea.

>> Uh the idea was to create a sushi

restaurant chain um called Sabi Sushi.

It was supposed to be the Chipotle of

sushi. So, the way you have Subway for

sandwiches and Chipotle for burritos,

the idea was we were going to do that

for sushi. Okay. And we win this

business plan competition. So, on one

hand, we get $25,000 of prize money.

>> Mhm.

>> That the three of us are going to live

on. Um or I could take this job for

$120,000. So, I took the job. Within a

month, I'm like, "This is lame." I just

looked at my life and I was like, "This

is I made a lame choice."

>> Yeah. Um,

the good thing about me is I don't

really make great decisions, but I make

great reversals of decisions. Like once

I realize that I have made the wrong

decision, I'm not one to linger in it,

>> right?

>> Um, mostly because I just can't like

tolerate it anymore. Like if I was

dating somebody, I remember I was dating

this girl and I realized like, all

right, she ain't the one.

>> Um, I like just called her and broke up

with her. Oh, you know, 10 minutes later

after thinking about it, I was like, I

what am I supposed to if I go hang out

with her now, this will be unbearable

now that I I know what I can't unsee

what I've seen. I can't unknow what I

know. And so I'm pretty quick to cut

things off when they're not working.

>> So I I quit my job after a month and a

half and I tell him, "Hey, I'm going to

go work on my sushi restaurant." He's

like, "What? Uh, okay." So I fly back

and I meet up with my friends. And so we

got 25 grand, three people. So we're

basically $8,000 each

>> for a year

>> for to live for a year. And um I was

like I don't know that I don't know how

much I don't even know how much life

costs. I'm a college kid, right? When

you're in college, everything's just

provided for you, right? Like you swipe

this thing and you get meals. Yeah.

Things just like happen.

>> Uh like my parents paid for the for the

dorm or something. You pay up front. I

just didn't understand. Like you don't

know what it's like to pay rent and

bills and laundry and all that stuff.

>> So I um I like how I threw laundry in

there. It's like a dollar$1 dollar 25 a

week or something.

>> Um

>> so I don't really know even how much

8,000 is, but I know it's low, right?

cuz all my friends got good jobs and

nobody's making 8 grand a year. So I

decided, okay, I'm either going to every

day wake up and feel worried and shitty

about money

>> or I'm going to commit and say I'm going

to try to spend this year strategically

broke. So instead of being I looked at

my friends like investment bankers and

they were money rich time poor.

>> Yeah.

>> And that's what I was when I had took

that job. I was money rich time poor. So

I was like, okay, if I'm going to be

money poor, I'm going to be I'm going to

make a choice to be rich in other areas.

So it's like I need freedom and

flexibility of my schedule. So I'm going

to be time rich.

>> I'm going to be adventure rich. Like I'm

going to travel with my friends. We're

going to do fun stuff.

>> Yep.

>> I'm going to be learning rich. So it's

like, how do I learn? If I'm making 10

times less, 12 times less here,

>> I got to be learning 12 times more than

I would on the job there. Right now, the

good news is that's not that hard of a

bar. you don't learn that much on your

like entry- level jobs, you know, or if

you learn you learn kind of the same

task. You're not learning like a wide

breath of stuff, right? Whereas with the

business that we were doing,

>> I'm learning about sushi and restaurant

operations and how margins work and what

a P&L is and I'm learning to pitch

investors. Then we're negotiating a

lease and I'm figuring out what how how

real estate works. I'm looking learning

learning how I remember we went to the

city like the city area and we were