Quote · My First Million
5 ruthless business lessons from one week in NYC
Where this was said
Lesson: Proximity
At 3:18 · chapter starts 0:00
The first and arguably most evocative lesson from Sam's trip comes from a late-night visit to Hasan Minhaj's creative office. [1] — Sam Parr "Fancy offices with matcha and glass walls signal you've already lost the plot. Hasan Minhaj's real creative weapon is a tiny room above a D…" 01:30 Arriving around 9:30 or 10 PM, Sam found Minhaj deep in a meeting with his full team — a deliberate act of 'stacking' social days so that the next three are quiet writing days. Minhaj's core philosophy is blunt: the moment you walk into a creative office with glass walls, a hot secretary, and fancy matcha, you've already lost the plot. The real work is on a yellow legal pad, in a tiny rented room above a Dunkin' Donuts with no Wi-Fi, surrounded by sticky notes mapping Act 1 to Act 3. Minhaj described proximity as a 'covalent bond' — atoms bumping into each other, serendipitous value flowing in both directions. He even invites anyone in New York to use his office, whether they need a desk or a hair-and-makeup room. Sam draws a broader point about world-class people across domains — athletes with obsessive recovery routines, MrBeast with the largest soundstage in America — as examples of what it looks like to 'dial up to 12.'
Shaan Parr had not been to New York City for roughly 10 years before this trip, making the observations feel fresh and outsider-sharp.
Fancy offices with matcha and glass walls signal you've already lost the plot. Hasan Minhaj's real creative weapon is a tiny room above a Dunkin' Donuts with no Wi-Fi, a yellow legal pad, and sticky notes. The covalent bond of proximity — bodies in the same room, atoms colliding — is where the real work happens.
Hasan Minhaj batches all meetings into dense single days so the following 3 days are uninterrupted creative writing time, a barbell schedule approach.
The optimal work strategy is a barbell: spend time in extreme high-proximity serendipitous environments, then swing to completely isolated deep work. The weak middle — a fog of Zoom calls and Slack pings — gives you neither the breakthroughs of collision nor the depth of real thinking.
