The Twelve-Month Deliberate Wander
After a liquidity event, spend a guilt-free year doing nothing but reading, researching and talking to people, saying no to everything until one thing is obviously right.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 83%
Sam Parr sold The Hustle for enough that he did not have to work again but not enough to stop being ambitious, and deliberately inverted the advice he gives everyone else. Normally he tells people to just start and have something live by the end of the weekend. For himself he decided that for the next twelve months, possibly longer, all he would do is research and think. The critical rule was not saying maybe: he said no to everything rather than yes to anything, and he explicitly gave himself grace about not producing, which he acknowledged sounded like Oprah. He read constantly, talked to people, and used the podcast as a research instrument, interviewing the operators in the business he eventually entered. He had zero other ideas he was tempted by in that window. Shaan's argument for why this pays is a visualisation: your life is a fifteen-inch line and you are perhaps a quarter of the way along; one inch spent on choosing changes the colour of the remaining ten. Sam's read on why it works for people like them is that they are cars with the back wheels lifted and the accelerator already floored, so the only variable left is where you set the car down.
Origin
Sam Parr adopted it for himself after selling The Hustle to HubSpot, and Shaan pressed him on it while trying to decide what to do after Twitch and Milk Road.
Core principles
- 01Say no, never maybe; maybe keeps the calendar occupied.
- 02Forgive yourself for not producing, or the guilt will end the wander early.
- 03Research and conversation are the work during this period.
- 04The right thing announces itself as a feeling, not as a spreadsheet.
- 05One inch of deliberate choosing changes the colour of the whole line.
How to run it
- 1
Verify you have earned the right to pause
Sam's precondition was selling for enough that a fairly luxurious level of needs was met forever, but not so much that ambition disappeared. He also knew he already had the ability to just start and ship, so pausing was not avoidance.
Watch out If you have not proven you can execute, this becomes procrastination. Sam explicitly never gives this advice to anyone else.
- 2
Declare the window and the no policy
Set the period at roughly twelve months, extendable. Then adopt the rule that matters more than the length: no maybes. Say no to everything so the calendar stays genuinely clear.
Pro tip Maybe is what quietly refills your time. A no is reversible; an accumulated pile of maybes is not.
- 3
Absolve yourself of the guilt in advance
Sam's framing was that he was going to forgive himself and give himself grace for not doing things, and he named the fear directly as the sense of missing out. Deciding this up front stops the guilt from truncating the window at month three.
Pro tip Expect it to feel embarrassingly soft. Sam and Shaan both joked it sounded like Oprah, and did it anyway.
- 4
Read hard and talk to operators
The output of the window is input. Sam read like crazy and talked to people continuously, using the podcast as a legitimate excuse to interview the operators in a candidate space at length.
Pro tip Shaan's version of this is scouting a neighbourhood: trying all the different bars, asking people where the best tacos are, asking what was here before this.
- 5
Go all in the moment it clicks
The wander ends decisively, not gradually. Sam's rule was that when the feeling feels right it will feel right and he goes all in. He had no other ideas he was tempted by before the one he took.
Watch out The point of the year is that you only get to throw your all into one thing at a time, so the commitment at the end must be total.
In the wild
After the HubSpot exit, Sam refused to start anything, said no to everything, read continuously, talked to people, and interviewed the operators of a candidate business on the podcast rather than pitching himself into it.
→ He arrived at exactly one idea, with no prior temptations, and committed to it. He had also tried angel investing during the period, deploying $15 million across 70 companies in a year at about ten hours a week, and used that to conclude he hated it and quit.
Shaan laid out the case for the pause as a visualisation: your life is a fifteen-inch line, you are perhaps a quarter of the way along, and one inch of that line spent deliberately choosing will determine the trajectory of the remaining ten inches.
→ The conclusion both agreed on is that spending a disproportionate amount of time on the choice early is the highest-leverage use of the year, because the alternative is a decade of cumulative effort pointed slightly wrong.
Common mistakes
Saying maybe instead of no
Sam singled this out as the operative rule. Maybe preserves optionality on the incoming opportunity but destroys the empty time the whole method depends on, and the window quietly fills with other people's agendas.
Letting guilt cut the window short
The failure mode for high-output people is the missing-out feeling, which converts the sabbatical into a shorter, anxious break followed by starting the first available thing. Sam pre-committed to forgiving himself precisely to block this.
Giving this advice to people who have not shipped
Sam says he never gives anyone this advice and instead tells people to have something live by the end of the weekend. The pause only compounds for someone whose accelerator is already floored; for anyone else it is just delay.
Is it for you?
Best for
Compulsive executors who have just sold something and have enough runway that the next decision can be made on conviction rather than need.
Not ideal for
People who have not yet proven they can execute, or anyone without the financial cushion to say no to income for a year.
From the transcript
“For the next 12 months, but it could be longer, all I'm going to do is research and think.”
“I'm not going to say maybe to stuff. I'm not going to say yes to anything. I'm going to say no to everything.”
“This 1 inch of time was going to impact the rest of the 10 inches. It changes the entire trajectory.”
“At any given time you're really only going to get to throw your all into one thing. And so if you're going to do that,…”
From the episode
Shaan's Story: How I Made My First $1,000,000 By Age 31
Shaan's Story