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The Man That Makes Millionaires: Turn $0 to $10k With This Step By Step Formula! Alex Hormozi — Transcript

by The Diary Of A CEO · 41,910 words · 5,666 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00if you want to make more money you might
0:02want to consider doing this so number
0:03one is hold that thought for just a
0:05second because the thing that comes
0:07before that is this grow of yours oh God
0:10this is the entrepreneur life cycle and
0:12there are six stages now the vast
0:13majority of people get stuck on stage
0:15three and I've made some of the biggest
0:16career mistakes at this point and you
0:18end up living the same 6 months for 20
0:19straight years suffering until you learn
0:22how to break free from it I want to go
0:23through the whole thing this is going to
0:25be awesome Alex horos is the master of
0:28business strategy an autist in tring
0:30companies into the millions and a
0:31leading voice in how to craft your way
0:33to success he's an entrepreneurial
0:35Powerhouse whether you're starting out
0:36or want to go from 1 million to 10
0:38million there are certain behaviors and
0:39actions that will increase the
0:40likelihood of success that we're going
0:41to go through but here's the really hard
0:43truth that a lot of people don't like
0:44talking about entrepreneurs must be
0:46willing to make impossible choices have
0:48the courage to be willing to be wrong
0:49have Shame by failing at things in front
0:51of people whose opinions they care about
0:53and that fear keeps people stuck in a
0:55job and a life they don't want for years
0:57and that was my path I had a white
0:58collar job condo overlooking the city
1:00everything's according to plan and I
1:02remember thinking like I didn't want to
1:04be alive cuz I was so afraid but once
1:07you get over the fear it unleashes this
1:09whole new realm of possibility of being
1:11able to do what you want and that is
1:13when you can learn the real game of
1:14Entrepreneurship such as knowing that
1:16business ideas typically come from one
1:17of three piece and you only need one of
1:19those three and then there's the four RS
1:20for customer success how to learn new
1:22skills quickly how to stand out in a
1:24competitive market the winning strategy
1:25for 2025 and so much more so where
1:28should I start
1:31I have been forced into a bet with my
1:34team we're about to hit 10 million
1:35subscribers on YouTube which is our
1:37biggest Milestone ever thanks to all of
1:38you and we want to have a massive party
1:40for the people that have worked on this
1:42show for years behind the scenes so they
1:44said to me Steve for every new
1:46subscriber we get in the next 30 days
1:47can $1 be given to our celebration fund
1:52for the entire team and I've agreed to
1:54the bet so if you want to say thank you
1:55to the team behind the scenes at D of
1:57here all you've got to do is hit the
1:58Subscribe button actually this is the
2:00first time I'm going to tell you not to
2:02subscribe because it might end up
2:04costing me an
2:07[Applause]
2:12[Music]
2:18awful Alex if someone's just clicked on
2:21this conversation and they're
2:22considering listening for the next
2:24couple of hours based on everything that
2:26you do for the millions of entrepreneurs
2:28that follow you that read your books can
2:31you tell me exactly why you believe they
2:33should stay and listen and who should
2:35stay and listen at
2:37acquisition. we scale
2:40businesses the content that I generate
2:42that we put out conversations like this
2:45helps people who are going from Z to one
2:47just getting off the ground to helping
2:49people go from 1 million to 10 million
2:51um to helping the entrepreneurs going
2:53from 10 to 100 either get there or exit
2:56along the way and there are Frameworks
2:59that cross all three of those that I
3:02consider both deep and wide um that help
3:05any business navigate whatever strategic
3:07decision is in front of them to get The
3:09Highest Potential return for their time
3:11and so if you're listening or watching
3:14then if one of those Frameworks applies
3:17immediately to your business and allows
3:18you to pull five years forward in your
3:20career I would say that's a pretty good
3:22return on time for the people that are
3:24at zero yeah what is it that they're
3:26typically coming to you to help them
3:29with so if you were one of them yeah
3:31what is it that they want from Alex hzi
3:34I think it's um there's what they think
3:37they want and what they actually need um
3:39which are two different things and so I
3:42think what they think they want is uh
3:45some tactic that's going to immediately
3:47help them start a business um what they
3:51typically actually need is um the
3:55courage to be willing to be wrong and to
3:59be willing to have Shame by failing at
4:03things in front of people whose opinions
4:06they care about and I think that's like
4:08if I re rewind the clock for me it was
4:11probably one of the hardest things that
4:12I had to get over and so I think that's
4:14why maybe my message resonates with a
4:15lot of people is because it was so hard
4:17for me um to get over and what's
4:19interesting is basically anybody who's
4:21listening the harder it is for you to
4:23break free of whatever kind of mental
4:25prison you've made for yourself whether
4:27that's real or just in in your head
4:30the more compelling your story will be
4:32when you break through it um because it
4:34will resonate with even more people uh
4:37for the people that it was easy that
4:39their story doesn't have doesn't have a
4:40lot like I was immediately an
4:42entrepreneur like I wasn't like that I
4:43had a job when I was in high school I
4:45had a job immediately out of college
4:46some people were like I was selling
4:48lemonade out of the back of my you know
4:49thing when I was 13 I didn't do any of
4:51that like I School failed me I actually
4:53was pretty good at school uh I didn't
4:55have any of those issues you know what I
4:56mean and so I had a pretty clear career
4:58path and so I had many would consider
5:00like I had a real opportunity cost so I
5:03had a white collar job and I had uh a
5:05GMAT score above Harvard's mid score and
5:08so I had a a really clear path of what
5:10my life would could look like in the
5:12next 20 30 years and it was fairly well
5:14defined like I'll go to Harvard or
5:16Stanford or one of the top Business
5:18Schools and then I will either go back
5:19into management consulting or I'll go
5:20into Investment Banking and then
5:21eventually end up in private Equity um
5:23and that would be the path right and
5:25then all the flowers would be set at my
5:27feet and you know everyone would say we
5:29approve of you you're an excellent
5:31person but when I saw the people who
5:32were 20 years ahead of me I really
5:35didn't want their life and then it
5:36started making me look at my life and I
5:38was like I don't even know if I really
5:38want my life um and so the the big
5:42decisions that I've made in my life
5:44unfortunately um have almost always come
5:46at the at the the doorstep of a parent
5:50death um and I think maybe in some ways
5:52that makes me a coward uh for having
5:55needed death to make decisions and so
5:59operational realizing that has been
6:01something that has helped me move faster
6:03to make decisions that I know I need to
6:05make but don't and so like the first big
6:08kind of like what felt like a death
6:10decision was um I was a consultant 22 is
6:14years old I had a paid for you know
6:16condo that I bought uh overlooking the
6:18city and I remember thinking like I
6:21really hope I don't wake up tomorrow and
6:24that and I don't mean that to be
6:26melodramatic it just I just for a period
6:28of time I just always just like hooped
6:30every night I was like I just really up
6:31I don't wake up tomorrow like I just
6:32don't want to do this and what was
6:35difficult about that was that at that
6:36time was when my father was most proud
6:38of me uh because I was doing everything
6:41that was according to plan you know he
6:43could talk like his son who graduated in
6:45three years from Vanderbilt had the had
6:47the good job like everything was we're
6:48following the plan um and it was upon
6:54realizing that my ultimate expression of
6:57living out his dream was me feeling like
7:00I didn't want to be alive and so in and
7:03it took me time to get to that point to
7:06even articulate that because obviously
7:07you never want to kind of like admit
7:08failure of like I have really messed
7:11something up here um but I was living my
7:14life to win someone else's game and when
7:17I realized that I realized that one of
7:20our dreams had to die either his or mine
7:23and when I realized that his dream must
7:27die in order for mine to live was a a
7:30statement that I kind of crystallized
7:32when I was at that point in my life like
7:34I had to keep repeating that like his
7:35dream has to die in order for mine to
7:36live and so to put this in perspective
7:39of like how afraid of my father's
7:41judgment I was I left the state and
7:44drove across the country halfway through
7:45before calling him to tell him that I
7:46was gone and so I I bring this up
7:49because I don't try I'm not trying to be
7:50dramatic here but I'm saying that if you
7:52feel a lot of pressure I get it like I
7:54tried to leave the job that I was at to
7:56pursue just literally anything that
7:58wasn't that just I wanted to start a
8:00business at some point I didn't know how
8:02I was going to do it I just knew that
8:03what I was doing was not the path I
8:04wanted to be on and everybody around me
8:07wanted me to be on that path and so I
8:09went to go be like hey I'm thinking
8:11about doing something else and you know
8:12it would always be that ah you know
8:14don't later later like everything's good
8:16later you know and um I remember when I
8:18called my dad and I told him that he
8:21said understand why don't you come like
8:23come home well uh well I didn't tell him
8:25that I was I was gone yet like I said
8:27hey I want you know I want to go pursue
8:28this Fitness thing
8:30um he said cool come over for lunch
8:31we'll talk about it you know and and he
8:33and I was like I'm I'm already gone and
8:36then obviously his tone changed a lot um
8:39and um and you know our relationship
8:40struggled for you know years after that
8:42and I I also bring that up because
8:45sometimes there's this illusion that
8:47like you know you get on the on the
8:49Oscar stage or whatever it is and you're
8:50like hey I just want to think you know
8:51my mom my dad my friends for always
8:53supporting me and um I can't say that
8:57and I wish I could and you might not not
8:59be able to say that either and I also
9:01don't think that's a reason not to do it
9:04and so um we did struggle for years
9:06after that to kind of like because I was
9:08basically living as what was once his
9:10prodical son uh goes and takes a minimum
9:13wage job as a personal trainer at a gym
9:15uh like you know cleaning floors and
9:17stuff to learn just to learn the gym
9:19business um but that was ultimately like
9:21how I broke free literally you know
9:23physically uh leaving the area and you
9:26know mentally but I think that I had to
9:28accept that
9:30there was a there was a timeline where
9:31my father would never talk to me again
9:33and I had to be okay with that um to
9:35pursue what I wanted and I think that
9:37when you ask the original question what
9:38are the people from 0 to one really
9:39looking for I read tons of business
9:42books at that time but I couldn't use
9:44any of them because I was so afraid and
9:47what's crazy is that like I think about
9:48it now in retrospect and it's like it's
9:51crazy how large the perceived monsters
9:54can appear and Leila has this quote that
9:57I love but it's um is a mile wide an
10:00inch deep and so you look at it it looks
10:03like this ocean and then you take the
10:04first step and you realize you don't
10:05drown because it's like oh there's
10:06ground underneath of this right there's
10:08other people who are more on my path and
10:11the friends you lose you gain new
10:12friends right and so um that
10:16fear was the hardest decision that I've
10:19had to overcome in my entrepreneural
10:20career and I think of all the of all the
10:22the split paths in my life that was the
10:25one that if I had many timelines or many
10:27universes that existed that was is
10:29probably the one that is the most likely
10:30that I would not have parted from so I
10:33think in like 90% of universes that Alex
10:35rosi exists I'm just a consultant
10:37somewhere and so um I would encourage
10:40you if you do feel that you're not going
10:42to die like you won't die and you might
10:46just
10:47live it's so interesting because I think
10:50everything you've said is just
10:51absolutely spot on but you're right in
10:53way you say that if you'd asked an
10:55audience member listening now why they
10:57haven't started yet they would say fear
11:00they would say I haven't got the X I
11:02haven't got the Y but actually it is
11:03such an emotional thing and we don't
11:05talk about that enough because
11:06uncertainty is humans seem to be
11:08allergic to uncertainty and they'd
11:10rather the certain misery of their
11:11current situation typically than
11:14uncertainty and I think um and I and I
11:17used what I consider a very non-p
11:19palatable word of coward purposefully
11:22because no one wants to say they're
11:24afraid because if you say you're afraid
11:26then it means you're a coward and I
11:28think that it only means coward if you
11:30don't if you allow that fear to change
11:34your behavior in an aversive way as in
11:37it not towards what you want and so you
11:41know the inverse of that many people
11:42have heard it Courage is not acting um
11:44without fear but despite fear um and I
11:46think that um when you
11:49act when you allow fear to change your
11:53behavior the wrong way that is when you
11:55can give yourself that title of coward
11:57and I think that that is a title that I
11:59feared my whole life and that label is
12:02almost I'm more afraid of that label
12:04than the label of failure I'd rather be
12:07a failure than a
12:08coward is there a framework for knowing
12:10when to
12:12quit so I think there's the there's like
12:15the math behind it and the math I think
12:16is pretty straightforward so like when
12:18do you quit your business I like you've
12:21saved up three to six months of personal
12:23savings number one number two is that
12:25you have started something because
12:27nowadays in the digital age you can
12:28begin a business on the side that can
12:30generate income and that income um in
12:34the small amount of time that you're not
12:35working uh replaces or at least matches
12:38the existing income you have from your
12:40your current job and you've been able to
12:41do that or demonstrate that income for
12:44like 3 to six months if you do that
12:46that's a very like math way of
12:47approaching it that also is basically
12:49never the reason that people aren't
12:51quitting their job right like that's a
12:53really s like I have I have I have
12:54backlog I've matched my current income
12:57with my part-time work and if I just put
12:59my full-time work I would probably make
13:00more very reasonable but never actually
13:03the reason that people don't do it I was
13:05I was thinking about the two sort of
13:07reasons why someone might quit something
13:09or feel like they want to quit and one
13:10of them is clearly because it's hard and
13:12that's obviously not reason enough to
13:13quit and then there's another one which
13:14you are speaking to there which is it's
13:16not moving me towards a meaningful goal
13:19irrespective of how hard it is like a
13:20marathon you're raising money for a
13:22charity you care about it's hard but you
13:24don't quit yeah and then there's maybe
13:26if you're running a marathon for no
13:27apparent reason you know there was no
13:29charity there was no one watching there
13:31was no like Fitness benefit then that's
13:33a good I guess moment to consider
13:35quitting um my story mimics yours in a
13:38way that I didn't realize I didn't
13:40realize you went through a similar thing
13:41in terms of call the parents
13:43disownership yeah um no real great
13:46option to to flee to but feeling like
13:49the current path that would have led me
13:51to be I don't know business management
13:52student was significantly worse on
13:55balance than taking the risk but I think
13:59maybe a point of Distinction is it
14:00didn't I was so naive that it didn't
14:01feel like a risk yeah so what's really
14:05interesting about that is um the
14:07guarantee and so a lot of times we don't
14:10we don't look at what I call the don't
14:11which is like the the alternate path and
14:14so if I had played out my existing path
14:17I had a guarantee of outcome I didn't
14:19want it was just out a
14:21delay whereas here there's a chance that
14:25I can make it and so one of the final
14:28kind of framework for making the
14:29decision was guaranteed bad chance at
14:33good and I was like well I might as well
14:36take a chance and I I strongly um
14:41encourage thinking about uh playing it
14:44out and so what I mean by that is like I
14:46think
14:47fear exists in the vague not in the
14:51specific and so when you say I'm GNA
14:54quit my job and then what if this
14:56doesn't work I'm GNA failure tons of
14:58fear
14:59if I say I'm going to quit my job and
15:02then I'm going to try and start a
15:04business and if the business doesn't
15:06work I'll probably have a compelling
15:08story that I could tell for business
15:10school if I wanted to to show that I had
15:12some entrepreneurial slant in the
15:14meantime I could use that experience
15:15plus my job experience to probably get
15:17another or maybe even better job in the
15:19meantime and match or or supersede my
15:22existing income and the actual loss
15:24would be maybe the savings that I had
15:26saved up but if I'm younger or I haven't
15:28made as much money as I want then that's
15:30never been the amount of money that
15:31would be material anyways on the grand
15:33scheme of what I would like to make um
15:35and in terms of living situation I will
15:37worst case go back to my parents house
15:40with my tail between my legs or sleep at
15:43a friend's couch because I have enough
15:45people that would be willing to put me
15:46up in a garage if I had to and so it's
15:48like okay so my actual worst case
15:50scenario is just like I have a cool
15:52story and maybe some shame that I is
15:55self-inflicted cuz it's not like no one
15:57else cares really but it's
15:58self-inflicted shame
15:59and maybe a detour or a different story
16:01that I have to tell later on in my
16:04career not as much fear there right but
16:07like the first one like I'll fail
16:08everyone will hate me and I'll die the
16:11first one sounded like it was written by
16:13your like amigdala like the Fierce and
16:15the second one was pure like prefrontal
16:16cortex it was all logic yeah and I'm
16:18wondering you know as you're going into
16:19that decision obviously fear is going to
16:21lead it so of course you're going to go
16:22for option one where you just think
16:23about the downside maybe there's a
16:25practice that allows you to get into
16:27your prefrontal cortex into logic and I
16:29think that's I actually so I think you
16:30nailed it and said it way better than I
16:33did but I think that's I think going
16:34from vague to specific basically
16:37disengages your mdala because it's it
16:40can't reason the logic chain of
16:42causation and causality of what's going
16:43to happen next in a chain of events and
16:46so when you get into the specific of it
16:48all of a sudden you're like okay I'm not
16:51going to be homeless and then shamed and
16:53die um I might live in inferior living
16:57conditions for a short period which by
16:59the way when you're later on in your
17:00life you'll look back and think of as
17:02the good old days cuz I can't believe I
17:03was couch surfing I was pursuing my
17:05dreams right it's it's only like in the
17:07moment that it feels bad when you look
17:09back like even I I find this hilarious
17:11like like how long after you do
17:13something embarrassing is it
17:14funny right like at at some point for
17:17almost all of us with enough time the
17:19shameful experience becomes funny and so
17:22if it is going to become funny
17:23eventually it might as well become funny
17:25now yeah and so it's just like pulling
17:26the time Horizon up but all of that
17:28prefrontal cortex decision making and so
17:31um no but I think that's exact like I
17:33think that that nailed it because when I
17:34thought about this this decision
17:36obviously I had my very you know
17:37emotional statement around like his
17:39dream has to die for mine to live yes
17:41also logic downside risk here I'll have
17:44a story and I can always get my job
17:47back okay and if I can't get that job
17:49back I'll will have other ones that will
17:51be available fine and if I have a
17:53downgrading and some people think that
17:54I'm not as successful as then okay I'll
17:57not stop though and so I think that that
17:59that demystifies a lot of the fears I
18:01think that applies not just for
18:02entrepreneurial fears I think applies
18:03for any fear like I'm going to talk like
18:05I can't tell this person this bad news
18:06all right let's play it out I say
18:08something and then they're going to kill
18:09me probably not so what's going to
18:11happen I'll say these words and then
18:14there they they they'll flip the table
18:16they'll they'll flick me off they'll
18:18maybe just feel hurt and maybe they'll
18:20cry maybe they'll shout okay okay if
18:23they shouted at me what do I do like and
18:24you just kind of play it out and you're
18:25like okay I think I have like most of
18:26these conditions prepared for and then
18:30all of a sudden you can like have those
18:31things what you also said is that in the
18:34face of guaranteed misery any option is
18:36better yeah like it's real you get to
18:39live once yeah so like why would
18:41guaranteed misery be better than any
18:43available option it's delay discounting
18:46that's what's crazy is delay discounting
18:47happens both ways like um so like you
18:50set your alarm for 5:00 a.m. at night
18:52and you're like I'm going to wake up at
18:545: but that's because you're delaying
18:56the pain of waking up and when it's
18:58immediate when I have to quit the job
19:00like I'll quit my job tomorrow for 20
19:02years and so it's just like we always we
19:04we we delay the fact that we're going to
19:06be miserable into the present uh to like
19:09a like we we massively discount what a
19:11whole lifetime of misery would be amen
19:14when you're thinking about what to
19:16pursue so say you've left the job you've
19:18quit the thing when you're thinking
19:19about what to
19:20pursue how much of that is a
19:24decision derived from self-awareness
19:27because you know they'll someone will
19:28look at you now and be like Oh No Alex
19:30did this so I'm going to start a
19:32acquisition. comom you know or they'll
19:34say um I want to I saw Steve Jobs did
19:37that thing with the computers I'm going
19:38to start Apple yeah right or Elon I'm
19:40going to do the spaceships how much do
19:42you have to know thyself to know what to
19:44pursue man this is a really good
19:46question so um there's a tweet that I
19:48love by Andrew Wilkinson which is um
19:51every entrepreneur ever colon here's the
19:54winning number for my lottery ticket and
19:56so it's like every entrepreneur will say
19:59here's the winning lottery ticket but
20:01it's like that game already that drawing
20:04already happened ah okay yeah right and
20:06so like you can't cash that ticket in
20:07it's already done and so people say the
20:10word first principles no one really
20:11knows what it means uh I mean some
20:13people do but the I think far more
20:15people say it than know what it means
20:17and so basically there are foundational
20:19truths of business that that exist and
20:23the conditions of the environment will
20:24change and so you have to apply those
20:27truths to whatever the current condition
20:29is and so that's what I try and tease
20:30out with the books and the stuff that I
20:32that I put out in content but at the end
20:34of the day you have an input of time
20:36like zooming all the way out if the goal
20:38assuming that your goal is to make money
20:40okay like and this is just a purely
20:42economic business goal then you have
20:45time which is the primary currency that
20:47you trade it and you make dollars over a
20:48period of time and so I tend to reject
20:51the idea of like never you know never
20:52trade time for dollars or anything like
20:54that because everyone trades time for
20:56dollars it's just some of us are more
20:57efficient at it than others but even
21:00exchanges that occur that just are not
21:01denominated in time still occur over
21:03time and so uh you have this
21:07foundational unit of time which you're
21:08going to give in what we're seeking is
21:11the highest return on that time and so
21:14there you know within a business context
21:16there's kind of three levels of uh
21:18things that have to occur in business
21:19you have to you know attract attention
21:21you have to convert attention then you
21:22have to deliver something uh for that
21:23attention and in each of those things
21:25you want as much leverage as possible so
21:27you want as little time as possible
21:29required to get the most output and so I
21:32have built acquisition. comom on
21:33basically two primary thesis uh which
21:35are in the logo which is this is a full
21:39Crum for leverage for people that can't
21:40see it's like a triangle yeah so it's
21:42like a triangle or the Illuminati
21:44because that always gets brought up um
21:46right so we've got the full Crum for
21:48leverage and then inside of it you have
21:50supply and demand and I see those as the
21:52two foundational principles of business
21:54and so which is you need supply and
21:56demand to have a business and then
21:58leverage to get as much out of it as you
22:00possibly can and so um when you're
22:03looking at the assets that you have
22:05assets can also be skills resources what
22:07you have available to you now if you
22:08have nothing then all you have is your
22:10brain your hands and the time that you
22:12have that you can put towards learning
22:13something which is why I'm a big fan of
22:15skill acquisition as one of the the
22:17primary things that you can do is
22:18educating yourself and not formally
22:20educating but informally or
22:22alternatively educating yourself on
22:24super tactical things uh once you get
22:26over the fear then you start asking okay
22:28okay how do I let people know about my
22:29stuff and what do I let them know right
22:32and so you have to have something to
22:34sell which is the offer and ideally you
22:36want the offer to have as much leverage
22:37as possible like so if you sold software
22:39or you sold media those are things that
22:40you can U cut once sell sell a thousand
22:44times um if you have a conversion
22:47mechanism it's like you can have it be
22:48automated like a check out page or some
22:50sort of video sales letter or something
22:52like that where people just buy without
22:54a phone salesperson if you add a phone
22:55salesp person there's less leverage not
22:56to say this wrong but you you want to
22:59have the highest leverage opportunity
23:00and then from a um from the
23:02deliverability expect uh perspective um
23:06I kind of talked about deliverability
23:07first but uh from the advertising
23:09perspective uh if you reach out to
23:11people one-onone that's lower leverage
23:13than being able to make one piece of
23:14content that a million people see right
23:16and so over time you go from low
23:17leverage to high leverage uh where you
23:19have the same inputs but you just get
23:21significantly more for your output and
23:23that fundamentally is like if we're
23:24reasoning up from first principles how
23:26do I get the said differently the
23:28question someone I think is really
23:29asking is how do I get the most for what
23:31I put in and you have to reason within
23:34your current context of your skills and
23:36your resources and your assets in order
23:38to derive that solution for you so if
23:41someone walks up to you in the street
23:42and they say Alex what idea should I
23:43pursue I've just quit my job yeah right
23:46so I would say um business idea is
23:49typically come from one of three PS so
23:50it comes from a pain that you're
23:52currently experiencing a past profession
23:54so the thing that you just quit or some
23:56of the jobs that you just quit or a
23:57passion MH so it's something that you're
23:59inherently interested in that you would
24:00spend your time doing
24:02anyways uh some skill that you learned
24:04while you were in the workforce which by
24:05the way is one of the most proven ways
24:07of making money because the economy has
24:09already showed you that people are
24:10willing to exchange money for that for
24:12that specific job and so uh in the world
24:15of gig economies and solar preneurs
24:17every business can be dismantled into
24:18just jobs being done and all of those
24:21jobs can be fractionalized so anybody
24:23like we look at any business you've got
24:25sales you've got you've got marketing
24:27you've got customer uccess you've got
24:29you've got customer support if you want
24:30to differentiate that you've got product
24:31you've got design you've got web pages
24:33there's you know there's so many
24:34different components to a business you
24:36just need to learn one of them and then
24:37it's like boom you have a skill that you
24:39can trade for money that you don't have
24:40anybody else to report to um and then
24:43pain is usually I think um in some ways
24:47um sometimes one of the biggest drivers
24:49it's like you had an eating allergy and
24:52you couldn't find pancakes that dealt
24:57with your specific eating all and you
24:59bet that there's a decent amount of
25:00other people with that allergy that also
25:01like pancakes and so then you make
25:03pancakes that that are delicious and
25:05amazing that also cater to people with
25:07that food allergy and then all of a
25:08sudden like you have a business based on
25:09pain and why why does that matter what
25:12the Pain part um I what leverage and
25:14Advantage does it give you for the next
25:16five years I think that deep knowledge
25:19of the prospect is Paramount or very
25:22important for creating exceptional
25:24products and you can either do that by
25:26doing a ton and ton of research or by
25:29being the Prospect and there's a certain
25:31amount of like visceral feel that you'll
25:35know like if someone wants to make a
25:36nose product for breathing I have tried
25:39every product since I was in eth grade
25:40so it's been 20 plus years 30 whatever a
25:43lot of years um that since then and I've
25:45tried everything and so I know the pros
25:47and cons of every product that exists on
25:49the market and I can tell because and
25:51I've done it's not like oh I tried it
25:52for a day it's like I'll try things for
25:54a month at a time and so I have so much
25:56time exposure to this problem that I
25:58have a lot of nuance in my opinion on
26:00what's wrong with the solutions so I can
26:02formulate a way better hypothesis on how
26:04to fix it and that hypothesis would will
26:06be for an investor so much more
26:08compelling because you lead with a story
26:10as opposed to logic I met the guy who uh
26:13invested in Regal Cinemas which is the
26:15probably the biggest chain in the US um
26:18and it was when it was there was guy had
26:20just one theater and it became now
26:21obviously Co has disrupted that business
26:23but you know for 20 you know years
26:24whatever they they crushed and he said
26:27it was so weird to say that oh Cinemas
26:29are going to make a comeback because
26:30they'd kind of been on a downturn or
26:31something like that during the time that
26:33he was making the investment and he said
26:35the reason I decided to invest in it was
26:36because this guy knew everything about
26:38the business down to how much the cost
26:39of Colonel of popcorn was and he just
26:42knew it so like the back of his hand
26:44that he was like this guy can't fail
26:45like he just knows too much about this
26:47business to not have it work and so he
26:49investing in you know making gazillion
26:50dollars and so but I think that that
26:53deep understanding and if you look at
26:55all of these the passion things you'll
26:57have deep understanding because you're
26:58spending spending all of your
26:58discretionary time pursuing this passion
27:01the pain you have a deep understanding
27:03of the of the problem and the prospects
27:05going through it because you've
27:06experienced it probably for years now
27:08the professional one I would say is a
27:10bit of a shortcut um because if you're
27:12quitting the job because you don't like
27:15it and then you say I'm now going to do
27:16this for myself well you're
27:21okay um I mean well the the the one the
27:24one proven point about that is that that
27:26one is proven to work from an economic
27:27perspective
27:28you will be able to make money doing
27:29that because you already have made money
27:31doing it these other two are less proven
27:33but sometimes have a significantly more
27:34upside when you were talking about the
27:36breathing example with your nose it's
27:38funny because if you had sat down and
27:39said to me Steve I've made these like
27:40breathing nose strips um they are better
27:42they're 20% more durable they expand
27:44your nostrils by 20% it is multiples
27:48less compelling than you telling me that
27:50story you just said about being a kid
27:52having breathing problems trying to
27:53solve this problem for yourself and it's
27:55funny cuz that that story you told
27:57versus the sort of rational logical
27:59approach or the benefits approach is
28:01your marketing campaign for the next
28:04five years on Tik Tok and Instagram it's
28:06I had a problem I solved it I tried
28:08everything and solved it for myself
28:09there's almost like nothing more
28:10compelling and believable no we see that
28:12in Dragon's Den it we'll be sat there
28:14listening to these pictures all day then
28:15someone will come in and say I had ADHD
28:18I tried Energy Products they all made me
28:20crash so I went out and solved this
28:22problem for myself and we're on edge cuz
28:24we almost can't argue with it yeah at
28:26that point you know yeah so basic has
28:28this great framework where he talks
28:29about missionaries and mercenaries and
28:31so it's kind of like you have the guy
28:33who says okay I looked at market trends
28:35and this is a growing category and you
28:37know I surveyed people and this was the
28:40you know the result that came back and
28:42so I believe that if we time this
28:43product right uh at this point in the
28:45market we'll achieve huge you know a
28:47mass adoption blah blah blah blah and
28:50it's like loging your way through and to
28:52be fair some people do you know do make
28:54it work but the missionaries are the
28:56ones that end up making the most money
28:57because is like they do it sure for the
29:01money cuz the business has to have some
29:02economic engine behind it but really
29:04because they viscerally experienced this
29:06problem and don't want anyone else to
29:07solve to deal with that problem either
29:08and so like if I were to tell that story
29:10like you were saying like when I was in
29:12eth grade it was the first year that I I
29:14started really noticing I couldn't
29:15breathe at night and so I learned how to
29:17fall asleep with my hand on my face like
29:18this so that my nostril would so I could
29:21fall asleep in my hand with because you
29:22there's no actually other because you
29:23can't hold your because you fall asleep
29:25right and so if I fall asleep with my
29:27hand like this right like like I'm on
29:29the couch and I fall asleep like that it
29:31keeps my nostril open and I can fall
29:33asleep and it doesn't move and so that's
29:35how I learned how to sleep for years uh
29:38before founding like just like simple
29:40nasal strips and things like that but
29:41there's tons of problems with with those
29:43solutions that exist right now that I
29:44won't get into but um maybe someday I'll
29:47make a nasal product I think I mean
29:49literally just
29:51delivered [ __ ] I can tell you if you
29:53put if you put every product in front of
29:55me that exists right now I can tell you
29:56what's wrong with it cuz I've tried I've
29:57tried literally all of them not like I'm
29:59pretty obsessive and so like I've tried
30:01all of them missing opportunity here
30:03I've tried I've tried the ones from
30:04Europe I've tried the like not just us
30:06like I've tried I've tried every product
30:07that exists on Amazon I've tried all the
30:10ones from foreign countries every every
30:11fan or follower who sends me a product
30:13that is a nasal company that's new um I
30:16will try the product I still do um and
30:19there has yet there's there's yet to be
30:21one that has truly solved it I mean you
30:23should I
30:25mean but I I think in some ways uh so
30:28this is actually a really good meta uh
30:29concept here which is that um if you
30:32want to be compelling a demonstration or
30:35a model is always more compelling than
30:37anything else and
30:39so me even going through that entire
30:41narrative right is taking everyone else
30:45who's been listening to this on some
30:46Journey it's like if you want to make a
30:47compelling pitch for a business it's
30:50like we pretty much just kind of went
30:51through one um and so that's that's
30:55really what it comes down to you're like
30:56well what do I do with my business it's
30:57like
30:58create your Narrative of why you're even
31:00doing this and if you can explain to
31:03somebody why why they should care about
31:04this problem or more specifically why
31:06you care about this
31:08problem I'll tell you this more
31:10investors will like I might be like I
31:11don't care about kitchen utensils but
31:13this girl certainly does and I'm sure
31:15there's other women who do too and what
31:17everyone wants to see is Obsession and
31:19unfortunately in like some of the world
31:22I know more in the UK than the US now
31:24like that kind of perspective of like
31:27just being all in obsessed with stuff
31:28has almost been like um bastard or like
31:31you know been um
31:32chastised and I but the people who are
31:35obsessed with the ones who changed the
31:36world at least changed their world and
31:40um and I think that so a very close
31:42friend of mine um did all the uh Olympic
31:45teams um nutrition and supplementation
31:48stuff for uh a country overseas and he
31:51said you know the difference between
31:52Champions and everyone else and I was
31:53like what he said everyone always looks
31:55at them and says what do champions have
31:58that I don't have and he said it's they
32:01have it backwards he said it's what do
32:04Champions not have that I have it's what
32:07do they lack and it's an off button they
32:10just don't stop and so in dealing with
32:13the gold medals he's like they just
32:14never stop they just can't stop
32:16everything in their life is geared
32:17towards one goal and so finding that
32:21thing and they approach everything in
32:23their life that way and I think that
32:26that level of obsession of around like
32:29everything that you touch on a daily
32:30basis is required for really getting to
32:33where you want to
32:35go so interesting because as we spoke
32:37there about the reason why the story was
32:41so much more compelling it was back to
32:43the amigdala it was back to emotion
32:46right and it's funny because we we said
32:47a second ago that when someone's
32:48thinking about quitting a job they're
32:49like SE in their amigdala humans run
32:51mostly on their amydala so when we think
32:53about pitching we should really be
32:55aiming at the same part of the brain
32:57which is what you did when you showed me
32:58that you were sleeping as a kid with
32:59your hand stretching across your face I
33:01immediately felt sorry for you felt
33:03sympathy and I immediately believed that
33:04if anyone's going to solve this problem
33:06it is this [ __ ] guy who's been
33:07through that pain I've had two surgeries
33:09both of them didn't really work like I
33:11mean like i' I've got the story my
33:12girlfriend's the same what really two
33:14surgeries but she's coming up to her
33:16third one now we've tried all the nose
33:17drips I saw you wearing one I bought
33:19that one for her yeah um and so there's
33:22a lot of people watching right now and
33:23there's something going on with these
33:24bloody [ __ ] like noses yeah people
33:26shouldn't like yeah we're doing
33:28something I I feel like I may it popular
33:29some of the N Stuff yeah but D making it
33:33cool pain profession passion yeah
33:36ideally you have all three if you have
33:38all three then you're I mean my God
33:40you're set like if you if basically pain
33:42created an obsession and for some reason
33:44you also were doing something like that
33:45in your work like I feel like the
33:46likelihood that you don't succeed is
33:48almost nothing you only need one of
33:50those three you just pick one like if
33:51you just had one pain that you had that
33:53you wanted to overcome or one passion
33:55that you were just inherently interested
33:57cuz sometimes passion has nothing to
33:58like you might just be really into model
33:59cars it's okay well there's a lot of
34:01businesses that you can build around
34:02model cars it's like you can you can
34:04manufacture model cars uh you can have
34:06services around model cars making them
34:07faster because some people race model
34:08cars you can uh be a collector and start
34:10flipping model cars like you can just
34:12make media around how to build them and
34:14then have a media company around like
34:16there's so many different components of
34:17any Obsession or interest that you can
34:19make I I was talking to um on one of the
34:21future episodes of uh mosy tank uh
34:24that's coming out we have a guy who's um
34:26he loves Dungeons and Dragons so he's an
34:27it he's an IT guy and just loves
34:31Dungeons and Dragons and he was like I
34:33just want this to make enough money that
34:35I don't have to do ID
34:37anymore and but it was so pure you know
34:39what I mean and so I was like we're
34:40going to help you do this and so we kind
34:42of walk through the business plan for it
34:43but like is he going to be a billionaire
34:45no but I also don't think that's his
34:47goal and so I think being really clear
34:49on what you want um is important so if
34:51you're like I want to be the richest
34:53person in the world I think it's a
34:54terrible goal but if you want that great
34:56well you have to have a multi-trillion
34:58dollar idea because now because by the
35:01time that occurs there's already multi-
35:03trillion dollar companies now so you got
35:05to be looking at like Deca trillion
35:06dollar opportunity and so believe it or
35:09not basically the bigger the goal the
35:10narrow the scope of the path to get
35:12there if you're like I want to make $10
35:14million like you can literally do that
35:16in almost any business you want to make
35:18$100 million probably still almost any
35:20business you can do it on a long enough
35:22time rise and you can do it a trillion
35:23or decad trillion it's going to be some
35:25sort of tech it's probably going to have
35:27some sort of AI
35:28like and so you get basically the bigger
35:30the goal is the narrower the scope of of
35:32how to get there but the vast majority
35:33of people were like I want to be the
35:34richest man in the world it's just
35:35because they don't know how to like
35:36really think through it and be like all
35:38right well after like a hundred there's
35:39really nothing you can't do except buy
35:42more big things but like in terms of
35:44your actual consumption maybe even 20 is
35:46like you can only eat at restaurants
35:47that go so expensive you can only stay
35:49at the best hotels you can only drive
35:50the nicest cars you can do that with
35:51about 25
35:52million what do you think the cheat code
35:54is then so I've got my idea what do you
35:55think the cheat code is in 2025
35:58to win at the game of attention like
36:02there's got to be some new rules here
36:03because we've got AI we've got new
36:04platforms we've got New
36:06Media you know I'm give you a
36:09hypothetical business idea I'm going to
36:11be a personal trainer okay and I pick
36:13that because everyone can do it and it's
36:14it's a saturated industry if I'm if I'm
36:16a personal trainer in the
36:182025 how should I be thinking about
36:21building attention mhm so I'll tell you
36:24what I wouldn't do first which is I
36:26don't think I try and out science the
36:28science people uh because like unless
36:30you have some PhD there is a PhD guy
36:32who's already jacked who's making
36:34content and so he's more knowledgeable
36:36and more Jack than you so you're not
36:38going to win there and so I think in the
36:40game of attention it's trying to find
36:42what is unique right and so how do you
36:44how do you quote stand out when
36:46everyone's loud and this is going to
36:48sound trite but your fingerprint is
36:52unique literally from a biological
36:54perspective but so is your life and your
36:56experiences and so there's there's real
36:59Alpha or or benefit to be had above
37:02normal level of effort by leaning into
37:05you and so what makes every person
37:08unique is what makes their content
37:10unique and so trying to be like oh I
37:12want to make content like Alex is
37:14probably not the best way to do it
37:15because you're not going to beat me at
37:16being me but you'll beat me at being you
37:19and so it's basically your flavor of
37:21media so like for me it's like you know
37:23what is you know my brand to to to to
37:25model this it's like well I have
37:26elements of flly philosophy that are in
37:28my brand well do I need that no but
37:30that's like kind of me um I obviously
37:32talk a ton about business marketing and
37:33sales promotion conversion those are all
37:35things that I spend a lot of time
37:36thinking about and so a lot of my
37:38content about that um Fitness is a
37:40component of my life and so there's
37:41light sprinkling of Fitness uh in my
37:43content also I come from a background of
37:45Fitness um with the the with gym launch
37:47and and the companies that I owned
37:48before that and so that would make sense
37:51that and I've my wife Lea and so that
37:53sprinkled in and so like those are
37:54basically the components of My Life um
37:56and so that's what kind of shines
37:57through in my content I consume a ton of
37:59comedy and so sometimes you'll see some
38:00dry humor and dark humor that that
38:01shines through um but that's me now you
38:04have all of those little buckets of you
38:07and not only are those buckets unique
38:09but also the proportions of those
38:11buckets will be different and so maybe
38:12your philosophy is way bigger or maybe
38:14Fitness part is way bigger but I think
38:16what makes the truly unique personal
38:17trainer or Fitness brand is leaning
38:20into people being interested in you for
38:23being you and then being like by the way
38:27I have Fitness stuff if you want to buy
38:29it from me and I think the key part is
38:33the vast majority of products and
38:34services are commone tized there you're
38:36not you're probably not going to be
38:37significantly better than other trainers
38:40just being real you probably aren't but
38:43you will be different than them and we
38:46want to lean on I I want to buy Fitness
38:49from somebody and so I might as well buy
38:51from her or I might as well buy it from
38:52him so you're taking basically this
38:54audience that would buy from anyone but
38:57your brand premium gets them to want to
38:59buy it from you we think about Prime for
39:01example with the drink the drink company
39:03like it's a it's a drink that there's
39:06other products that already exist in the
39:07marketplace that satisfy the same thing
39:09as Prime but if you are agnostic to that
39:12brand and you have brand Affinity with
39:13that that Creator then you're like well
39:16then if I have two things that are
39:18basically equal and I just like this guy
39:19better I'm just going to as long as the
39:21prices are comparable I'll just vote
39:23with my dollars here and so I think that
39:25if you're a personal trainer in 2025
39:28um it's going to be longterm it's going
39:31to be building the content short term
39:33it's going to be Outreach to people that
39:35you know and making a compelling offer
39:37to get people to try to work with you
39:39this overarching point you said there
39:40about being yourself as I was thinking
39:42about it I was thinking gosh do you know
39:44what the thing that all of my favorite
39:46creators and the Really successful
39:47creators have in common is they all have
39:50and I use these words intentionally the
39:52courage to be themselves yeah because I
39:56tell you what when I was starting out as
39:57a content creator and I looked back I
39:58was showing one of my team members the
39:59other day the things I used to post it
40:01was like everything happens for a reason
40:03it was cringe cliche fluff and it took
40:06me several years to almost relax into
40:09just realizing that the game here was to
40:11get to the point where I could be myself
40:12on the internet and actually that was
40:14the most high value because of you know
40:16of what you said it's the uniquest part
40:17of me but the courage to be yourself and
40:21it's it's it is the winning strategy for
40:242025 and it's I think um it's leaning
40:27into it and the thing is is that
40:29everything in you wants to not do that
40:30I'm not really sure why um but I was
40:33having a conversation with Ila I want to
40:34say two nights ago or three nights ago
40:37um I got a bunch of flack for uh some X
40:40poost that I made and she just looked at
40:42me and she was like never dilute
40:46yourself because I was like maybe I was
40:48like maybe I shouldn't talk about this
40:49stuff like maybe I should just like you
40:51know I'll just lean off and she was like
40:53never dilute yourself like there are so
40:56many more people people who need that
40:59message than people who are hating that
41:02message and she was like and if you're
41:03actually going to make a difference in a
41:06lot of people's lives there's going to
41:07be an equal and opposing force of people
41:09who want to reject that and she's like
41:12this just comes with the territory of
41:14like how big of an impact you want to
41:15have and it was just such a great you
41:17know wife talking to husband you know
41:19conversation um that I guess for me at
41:21the end of the day I'm like as long as
41:22she thinks I'm cool like you know I I'll
41:25keep doing it but um but yeah it's just
41:28uh because the diluted down version all
41:31all of a sudden becomes everyone else's
41:33stuff well you said a second ago you're
41:35not sure why that is but by very
41:39definition of it being unique that that
41:41means that there is no blueprint yeah
41:43there is no person that's come before
41:45you and proven that it works so the
41:48courage of being yourself there's only
41:49one Steven Bartlett so if I'm truly
41:51myself it's never been done before that
41:53means that the risks are unknown the
41:54upside is also unknown yeah but so again
41:56going back to to our our hate of
41:58uncertainty it makes much more sense for
42:00me to try and copy you because I can see
42:03a blueprint there than to run the risk
42:05of being yourself and you are someone
42:07have to say who is running the risk of
42:09being yourself and actually as someone
42:11who's observing you now I know who you
42:13are and I now know who you're not and
42:16it's important for me as someone that
42:17follows your work yeah that actually I
42:20see consistency because I've established
42:22Alex os's values yeah and anything that
42:24diverts from that is actually less
42:26valuable because you say it's more like
42:28everyone else and the things I've had
42:29before but it's also it wouldn't feel
42:30true anymore yeah and um and this is
42:34something that even as a Creator myself
42:36I I have to fall back on is my audience
42:38know who I am now For Better or For
42:40Worse yeah they're not going to learn
42:42anything new yeah you know what's really
42:44interesting is navigating the gray and
42:46so there are contradictory ideals and
42:51this is what I kind of come back to when
42:52I'm when I'm like worried about these
42:53types of things which is like you've got
42:55mercy and you've got
42:58Justice they are somehow opposed and
43:01they are both ideals so how can we
43:04believe in Justice and also believe in
43:05Mercy at the same time and so and I mean
43:09there's you can have variety and
43:10consistency like there there's there
43:12there's tons of examples of this right
43:15um and so we have these diametrically
43:17opposed ideals which means that if you
43:19ever say by the way I'm a little bit
43:21more of a Justice guy like I understand
43:24they had a hard time but at some point
43:26you got to take your own personal
43:27accountability so like no you're not
43:28going to get out of the speeding ticket
43:29you're going to get like that's what's
43:31just on the other hand it's like hey
43:33single mom uh gets pulled over uh for
43:35driving too fast you know what maybe we
43:38let her off today both of those stories
43:40fair but you're going to get attacked by
43:43the other side that has an ideal that
43:46all humans try to strive for and it will
43:48feel terrible because they are right and
43:51so what and so I think that like
43:54understanding that that conflict will
43:56always exist between two apparent ideals
43:58that and this is fun this is
44:00foundationally what politics is right is
44:03that there are two apparent ideals that
44:04bet all of us I would say 99% of people
44:07would say justice is good Mercy is good
44:09variety is good consistency is good
44:11right respecting values is good so is
44:14innovating and doing new things how can
44:16we have both of these contradictory
44:18ideas and at the same time like navigate
44:19that without conflict you can't because
44:22how much becomes the question and so I
44:24think that your thumbprint as a Creator
44:26is that when someone presents a
44:29scenario and says does Alex choose Mercy
44:32or Justice in the scenario that your
44:34audience says gets it right and so I
44:37think about um branding in general as
44:40basically a mosaic that you get to
44:42create and so like each piece of content
44:43is a little tile that has a single color
44:45on it and if you just see one piece of
44:47short content of of Steven Bartlett you
44:50you don't really have an idea who Steven
44:51Marlett is but if you see a thousand of
44:53them all of a sudden you zoom out and
44:54you get to see the whole picture and I
44:56think that that the the colors that are
44:58in those mosaics and the and the
44:59proportion of how many yellows how many
45:02Reds how many greens and where are they
45:04is what ultimately creates the brand and
45:06so um because people want to try and
45:08turn this into okay so I make one post
45:10about family I make one post about
45:12finances I make one post about whatever
45:14right it's like I don't think that's how
45:16it works I think you just be you and
45:19then those proportions will naturally
45:21shake out and also over time you will
45:24change and so it also makes sense that
45:26your brand will change and was I had to
45:29recile which likeit I don't know if I
45:31agree as with some of the things that I
45:32said years ago the thing is in the
45:34digital world like my first podcast was
45:362017 July of 2017
45:39wow episode 8 is called stop
45:44branding I have changed my views on
45:47branding to be clear yeah but that first
45:50podcast is 90 days from when I lost
45:52everything MH and so the entire the
45:55entire like horm Journey if you want to
45:57call that from zero to billion is
46:00actually documented 90 days from zero
46:03it's all there and so you can see how my
46:05my my views on business have changed and
46:07like what I was thinking about at every
46:09kind of portion of my life and so I had
46:11to just be okay with the idea that like
46:14I will change my mind because I will get
46:17new information because let's take the
46:18alternative stance if I get new
46:19information do I just keep parting what
46:21you did before this is also an issue
46:22with politics right is that like he's
46:24flippy floppy it's like so they're not
46:26allowed to learn
46:27yeah you've been in politics like you
46:29haven't learned anything like no stances
46:32Chang like I feel like we should be able
46:33to do that obviously Brands don't work
46:35that way so it has to be gradual over
46:37time which I think if you were always
46:39you at all times it will be gradual over
46:41time yeah I don't know I think a lot of
46:44the time we end up over focusing on
46:46unreasonable people which is a war we
46:48can never win anyway because you say
46:50that to me I think so I think it was
46:52like I had this uh this guy therapist on
46:53my podcast who I then spoke to after the
46:55podcast and he basically broke it down
46:57to me he was like there's 20% of people
46:59that just absolutely love everything you
47:00will ever do like you could say anything
47:02you change they're [ __ ] they're just
47:03super fans there's 80% of people that
47:05are actually like he said there 60% of
47:07people that are really reasonable they
47:09don't speak yeah they just watch they're
47:11like reasonable and there's 20% of
47:13people with no matter what the [ __ ] you
47:14do they're going to be he is like don't
47:16spend your life focusing on the the 20%
47:19the quiet majority the 60% they don't
47:21tweet they don't they just chill and
47:23then the 20% you know they your
47:25evangelists but you know I find myself
47:27falling into the Trap of the so what's
47:29interesting about the 20% is that like
47:31um I was thinking about this today the
47:33your so no matter who you are you're
47:36going to be disliked period because no
47:38one's liked by everyone so we just have
47:40like let's if we can accept that as a
47:41premise right no one's going to be like
47:43for everyone you might as well be
47:44disliked for being you than being
47:45somebody else amen am at the most basic
47:48level you the being disliked is a fixed
47:53cost and and I think to to to to take
47:56the opposite pers perspective I think it
47:57is far better to be disliked for being
47:59who you are than loved for someone
48:00you're not yeah and one one of the great
48:04entrepreneurs I interviewed on the
48:05podcast said to me when it comes to
48:06marketing and branding and this sort of
48:07attention conversation we're having she
48:10said to me that in order to reach your
48:1380% you have to piss off your 20% or at
48:16least be willing to piss off your 20% it
48:18was Jane warang who's the founder of
48:19demica global Beauty um brand with I
48:22think hundreds of thousands of people
48:24and she sat and said to get to your 80%
48:26you have to be willing to piss off no
48:28actually [ __ ] she said to get to your
48:3020% you have to be willing to piss off
48:32the
48:3280% and from a branding perspective it
48:35makes so much sense because when you
48:37stand for something clearly which you do
48:40you inadvertently stand against a you
48:42have to if you draw a line there's
48:44there's there's a side on either side
48:46and you have to say like I'm on this
48:47side did you see that Nike ad dude I was
48:50just going to say that I was just going
48:52to say that yeah the William defo ad
48:54yeah like what's yours is mine and
48:55what's mine is mine yeah just like it
48:57was actually the first time that I'd
48:59seen something from Nike in a long time
49:00that I was like this is what built this
49:02brand and I think they have they had
49:05lost their way for a while yeah uh with
49:07like the wokeism and all that stuff and
49:08I think it's like Nike means Victory
49:11which means people have to lose yeah and
49:14they were willing to say that for the
49:15first time ever right I posted it on my
49:16LinkedIn and it was 50/50 yeah I'd say
49:19it was actually more like 80% of people
49:21were either neutral or pissed off and 20
49:24yeah and 20% of people were like that is
49:27me I am a Nike person and for me when I
49:29saw that I thought I want to buy some
49:30Nike shorts yeah it was I mean it was
49:32the first time I actually felt like I
49:33had positive brand Affinity towards the
49:34brand in a long time how important in
49:36this game of building and starting is
49:39people
49:41oh very a hiring question I'll tell you
49:45why I asked this question because when I
49:46look at my portfolio early stage first
49:48Founders never seem to understand the
49:50importance of hiring in people yeah and
49:53I bang my head against the wall trying
49:54to convince them that actually the game
49:56they're playing is in the company group
49:59of people yeah so I would I'll start
50:02with one thing and then I'll answer the
50:03question so I was talking to um a mentor
50:05of mine and he said when I was in my 20s
50:07it was all about the destination he said
50:09when I got to my 30s I realized it was
50:11all about the journey he said when I was
50:13in my 40s I realized it was about the
50:14company and I was like I can't wait till
50:16you're in your
50:1750s the next one right but I thought
50:19that was such a great like such a
50:20profound shift in terms of how he
50:22thought about his business success cuz
50:23he was like I don't need to be a you
50:25know a Deca billionaire he's like I'm
50:27I'm cool where I'm at um and now I just
50:30want to do it with people that I like
50:32and so to the question about um people
50:38overall I believe that the potential of
50:41an organization is directly correlated
50:44with the aggregate intellectual
50:46horsepower of everyone contained within
50:49it and so if you are the smartest person
50:53in the business then and you can do
50:56every everyone's job better than
50:57everyone in your company then it means
50:59that the limit of the business is purely
51:01based on one person's horsepower and one
51:02person's life
51:05experiences and that will be the cap and
51:07basically it doesn't matter how smart
51:09you are you can't live a 100 lifetimes
51:12like you can learn quickly sure there's
51:13some people who can learn faster than
51:14others but you're not going to be able
51:15to live a thousand lifetimes and
51:18so as a business grows more expertise is
51:22required and I think the easiest liit
51:24test for this is if you look at the
51:25richest people in the World almost none
51:27of them Own 100% of their business so
51:29number one most of them don't even own
51:3150 like most of them are small
51:33percentages Jensen WIS at 4% for NVIDIA
51:36basos is at seven or 9% for for Amazon
51:39uh I think elon's at 20 for Tesla like
51:41small percentages and it's because it
51:43takes a lot of horses to take a chariot
51:46to the Moon right and so basically as
51:50you put in more intellectual horsepower
51:53the potential peak of the business goes
51:56so much so much higher so much faster
51:59Keith rabois from um he's one of the
52:01original PayPal Mafia guys has a really
52:02good analogy for this and he talks about
52:04it in terms of barrels and ammunition
52:06and he says so as soon as you get some
52:09product Market fit the business starts
52:11to grow and you say okay we need to
52:12start shipping things faster and this
52:14works the same with a Services business
52:15a physical products business software
52:17business the concept's the same and said
52:19so what happens is you then hire a lot
52:20of people and you assume that your
52:23throughput is going to increase
52:24proportionally so we have 10 people we
52:25hire 50 we should 5xr output and then
52:27you quickly realize that that is not the
52:29case and so what happens is uh there are
52:32people who are rate limiters for or or
52:34and organization and those are the
52:36barrels so think about like a civil war
52:37Barrel you know Old Cannon and you've
52:39got these cannonballs next to it he said
52:40most people are ammunition and so you
52:42bring more ammunition but you're still
52:44going to be limited by the one barrel
52:46capacity of how how many shots can get
52:48taken by the barrel and so you need to
52:50find more barrels so you have to go from
52:52one barrel to two barrels two barrels to
52:54three barrels and that becomes an
52:55increase in capacity or throughput for
52:57the organization and there are very few
52:59of those in a different um I can't
53:02remember the law but it's some
53:03organizational uh law but uh the square
53:06root of the number of people in a
53:07company generate 50% of the work so you
53:10have 100 people in an organization 10
53:11people are responsible for 50% of the
53:13value that's created facts right anybody
53:16who's been in like you're like of like
53:18preach and so the thing is is I think
53:21the real game of Entrepreneurship is
53:23that your standards rise over time and
53:26it's unfortunate because we we hear
53:29things that other entrepreneurs tell us
53:30it's all about the people stupid and
53:31then you're like sure but look at my and
53:33it's like no you're not hearing it and I
53:36don't know there are some I think
53:37Williamson talks about this how there's
53:38like some lessons that for some reason
53:40it's like we have to learn for ourselves
53:43I still believe that that it's like we
53:44can operationalize this at a lower level
53:46so that we don't have to learn it for
53:47ourselves but like I'm convinced I
53:49haven't figured it out yet but um so
53:52every entrepreneur can can can can
53:54resonate with this which is every
53:56business that I've started I've gotten
53:58to the success of the business Prior Way
54:01faster and I kind of liken it to a video
54:04game where it's like you beat level one
54:07and then you know you get to level two
54:09and it's like you spend months trying to
54:10beat this boss and you finally figure
54:11how to beat the boss and it's like great
54:13and you spend another three months
54:14getting beating Boss 3 and let's say you
54:16start the game over with a new character
54:18it's like you just zoom through level
54:19one two and three and then you get to
54:20level four and you're like shoot now I
54:21got to spend time it's like virgin land
54:23like I don't know how to beat this yet
54:24and so I think that that happens for
54:27archetype finding for skill and talent
54:29within an organization and so say that
54:32again so if you have functions across an
54:35organization there are people who are
54:36going to drive results within that
54:38function and the first time you hire a
54:40salesperson for example you don't know
54:42what you're looking for and so you just
54:44hire a human who says they can sell and
54:46maybe they can maybe they can't and then
54:49you cycle you try to train them that
54:50doesn't work does work whatever and then
54:52finally you let's say you cycle through
54:53three sales guys and finally you find a
54:54killer and then you have this
54:56recognition you're like okay that's what
54:58I'm looking for and then all of a sudden
54:59you try and approximate that person or
55:01that archetype as as much as you can and
55:04so when you start your second company
55:05you're like oh I can quickly staff up
55:07sales because I know what I'm looking
55:08for but then you're like shoot I've
55:10never really nailed sales manager yet
55:12and so then you cycle through you start
55:13you start whacking away at the boss and
55:15then you have to end up firing the boss
55:17at level because you're like oh God this
55:18didn't work and then six months are gone
55:20because you had to find them recruit
55:21them hire them train them and then find
55:22out they sucked and then start over
55:24again and maybe it takes 18 months to
55:25really find the right sales manager and
55:27then you're like okay I know what that
55:29looks like but I still don't have a
55:31director of marketing what does that
55:32look like and so it's basically
55:34developing this pattern recognition
55:36across all functions of the business so
55:38you that you know what exceptional looks
55:39like and then over time what happens is
55:42as a business grows your ability to
55:44attract Talent increases and so then
55:47your standards also grow and then you
55:49find out that there's even more Nuance
55:50to this which is that there's a director
55:52of sales at a $1 to10 million level
55:54which is a different looking person
55:56from10 to100 million level and it
55:58continues to go all the way up and so
56:01it's basically building this repertoire
56:03of identifying patterns and what if you
56:07talk to I would say more experienced
56:09entrepreneurs now they don't talk about
56:10building businesses it's like assembling
56:12them you just assemble the pieces and
56:14you just know that this is how it's all
56:16going to flow together and that
56:19fundamentally is basically what I try
56:21and decode within the content that I
56:22have so that it's like here's a pattern
56:24for how you recognize this here's a
56:25pattern for how you recog ize this so
56:27that you can just move faster through
56:29the levels um to get to where you want
56:30to go and so to loop back to the
56:33original question which is how important
56:34are people in an organization people are
56:37the organization and so if you ever want
56:39to build Enterprise Value it's building
56:41the collective consciousness of the
56:43organization the skills and how they
56:44collaborate together towards a specific
56:46outcome and so knowing how to staff that
56:49up is the
56:51job I think the reason why first-time
56:53Founders feel like they have to learn
56:55this lesson themselves is because
56:57everything you've just said is an
56:57unknown unknown like they don't even
56:59know that they don't know it so they
57:00stumbl they hire the sales guy because
57:02they were their friend from high school
57:03and then [ __ ] and then they go
57:05through the pain and I say this because
57:07I'm so unbelievably passionate about it
57:09I went through the same BS I hired my
57:11friend who worked at Prada to be art
57:12account I hired a guy I met at a rap
57:14battle to be my marketing director who
57:16who was literally playing video games
57:18for a living at 30 years old um and I
57:20went through this whole thing and then
57:22at maybe three four years into my first
57:24business I accidentally hired someone
57:27great like through no intention of
57:29myself accidentally I saw the net impact
57:31they had and I thought oh my God over
57:33the coming years I learned that the game
57:34the fundamental game here is as you said
57:37assembling the best group of
57:38people how if I'm a firsttime Founder
57:42can I put a system in place to to make
57:47sure that even though I don't know what
57:48a good salesperson looks like yeah even
57:50though I don't know what an ex good
57:52person looks like I still attract them
57:54to my company
57:57the simplest way of doing it so the
57:59simplest way of attracting somebody to
58:02your business when you don't know how to
58:04do the job or know who to look for is to
58:07unfortunately do the job yourself and
58:10then once you can break down the job we
58:12follow 3DS which is um document
58:15demonstrate duplicate that's how we
58:16train anybody so first you have to
58:18document everything that you do to
58:20successfully do the job and that's
58:22step-by step into a checklist then you
58:25demonstrate so you do do this checklist
58:26in front of the person that you're
58:27trying to bring on then they duplicate
58:30they do the checklist in front of you
58:32what's interesting about that three-step
58:33process is that you'll often find when
58:36you try to demonstrate following the
58:37checklist you don't follow your
58:38checklist and so then you have to adjust
58:40the checklist until you actually follow
58:41the checklist and then when you can
58:43consistently follow that checklist and
58:44get the output then you can have them do
58:46that checklist and so I think this is
58:48why bootstrap Founders uh I think often
58:51times will find they they tend to know
58:54more about more things because they had
58:56to learn them in order to teach them now
58:59what's really interesting about what you
59:00said about accidentally finding that
59:02that star at 3 or four years in is that
59:04I think that happens to almost everyone
59:06well hopefully it the people who end up
59:07making it it happens to almost everyone
59:09um because then you realize oh my God
59:11like if I had four of these people like
59:13we could change the world right say
59:15something as well the other Epiphany
59:17Revelation I had was the star hired
59:20Stars yeah right and so I think of her
59:23name's casy leison of the 10 people she
59:25then hired nine of them became the best
59:26people in my company and also I'm not
59:28going to say his name but someone else
59:29in my business a c player yeah of the 10
59:33people he hired yeah he and everyone he
59:35hired was F so one of the it's so as you
59:39go up in the organization with hires the
59:41risk and reward goes up and so that's
59:43something that a lot of people don't
59:44like talking about but I will um which
59:47is if you hire somebody and let's say
59:50that they're not a cultural fit maybe
59:51they have the skills uh or they are a
59:53cultural fit and they don't have the
59:54skill fit and they're a leader
59:56what you find often and it sucks is that
59:59everyone it's almost like it's like a
1:00:01tree that has an entirely rotten Branch
1:00:03it's like you end up having to scoop out
1:00:05three4 of what was underneath because
1:00:08you realize that they were ineffective
1:00:10or they just were against the actual
1:00:11mission of the business and it's it's
1:00:13harrowing and it's horrible but I try to
1:00:17give this analogy um to my team because
1:00:19we've had to do it in every business we
1:00:21like it happens it's just part of
1:00:22business
1:00:24is if somebody goes to the bar and
1:00:28you're at the club and somebody racks up
1:00:31you know just ordering shots for
1:00:32everybody shots shot shot shot shot
1:00:33shots and then that guy dips that guy
1:00:36leaves we all have to pay the bill in
1:00:39the moment when we pay the bill when we
1:00:41scoop out the Deadwood when we scoop out
1:00:43the rot from the organization it feels
1:00:46horrible but that pain isn't because the
1:00:49scooping out the rot is bad it's because
1:00:52we planted it on bad ground or because
1:00:54that guy ordered all these shop but
1:00:56couldn't afford it and I have a
1:00:57different analogy because I really want
1:00:58to drive this home because I think it's
1:00:59important is that in the in the
1:01:01relationship world if one spouse tells
1:01:05the other spouse hey I cheated on you I
1:01:08had an affair that moment is incredibly
1:01:11painful for both parties and so what it
1:01:13makes you think is oh this was wrong to
1:01:16tell the truth but it's not wrong to
1:01:19tell the truth what's wrong was cheating
1:01:21when you tell the truth is when you make
1:01:23it right and so the pain that you often
1:01:25have to to encounter in organization
1:01:27feels wrong but is right because that
1:01:31was you're you're writing a wrong and
1:01:33that's where the pain occurs and that's
1:01:35why so many businesses stay stuck is
1:01:36because they have this affair they have
1:01:39this person and they're unwilling to
1:01:40have that hard conversation or multiple
1:01:42in order to make it right and they stay
1:01:44stuck for
1:01:45years this is
1:01:47another quality of really successful
1:01:49Founders that I've noticed which is what
1:01:51you just said is the ability to have the
1:01:52hard conversation sooner and in my first
1:01:55um in my Folia where there's firsttime
1:01:56Founders they're coming to me and in our
1:02:00like uh monthly meeting saying God
1:02:02there's this guy who's running the Ecom
1:02:04Division and he's so bad and I'm having
1:02:06to do the job for him what do I do about
1:02:07it Steve what do you
1:02:10think but then they come back to me two
1:02:12weeks later and they're like he's still
1:02:13there yeah right A year later and you're
1:02:15like it's still John you know you're
1:02:16like what are we talking about here I
1:02:18remember asking him when at such meeting
1:02:20uh does JN know that you're unhappy with
1:02:22him oh yeah
1:02:23no so there this quiet dis
1:02:26faction which I think is a virus right
1:02:29right and what what no one wants to
1:02:30discuss is the fact that everyone else
1:02:32knows John sucks amen and that that
1:02:34becomes the minimum standard for what is
1:02:36acceptable for excellence in the
1:02:38organization and so I think like so if
1:02:41brand is what your reputation is
1:02:43externally I think culture is kind of
1:02:44what reputation is internally and so I
1:02:47Define culture operationalized because I
1:02:48think culture is a very fluffy word what
1:02:50does that mean right it's the rules that
1:02:51govern reinforcement within organization
1:02:53what do we reward what do we punish and
1:02:55so the thing is is that there's
1:02:57realistically there's like people have
1:02:59values because they're bundled terms
1:03:01that lad up many behaviors if I said
1:03:05Rolls-Royce probably would have some
1:03:07value that's quality over speed probably
1:03:09right and so they would have that but
1:03:11somebody would have to say like what
1:03:12does that mean right well we hope that
1:03:15we use this as a decision-making filter
1:03:17for how it affects behaviors on every
1:03:20situation so that when you're in the
1:03:22should I go fast or should I make it
1:03:24right you make it right and there are
1:03:26other organizations kind of like the
1:03:27speed uh justice and mercy speed and
1:03:29quality both of them are important and
1:03:32sometimes they sit diametrically opposed
1:03:34and so it's like we have to say where do
1:03:35we sit in the gray so that we can
1:03:37duplicate decision-making across the
1:03:38organization so that we can maintain the
1:03:40culture and so culture uh you know lless
1:03:44this is a lot but culture I think this
1:03:45is a drer quote actually U culture
1:03:47Trump's strategy like twice week and
1:03:50every day on Sunday if you have a
1:03:51mediocre strategy but an unbelievable
1:03:53culture you will crush somebody who has
1:03:54a great strategy and a terrible culture
1:03:56because culture Lads up to Performance
1:03:58and execution and almost every business
1:03:59is limited by execution not strategy
1:04:01most business strategies isn't that
1:04:02complicated like let's do a really good
1:04:04job so good that people tell their
1:04:05friends about us and as long as we have
1:04:07enough gross margin we'll make money
1:04:08it's not that hard right it's just that
1:04:10the doing it is the hard part and so so
1:04:13when we have these uh they are the
1:04:15spoken and unspoken roles mostly
1:04:17unspoken if someone shows up 3 minutes
1:04:19late to a meeting and there's 10 people
1:04:20in the meeting and it's supposed to be a
1:04:21marketing meeting and I'm there if I
1:04:23don't say anything I have now said we
1:04:27have an unspoken rule that if someone
1:04:28shows up 3 minutes slate to a meeting
1:04:29it's okay I've I've reinforced that rule
1:04:32now if I I've reinforce it by not
1:04:34punishing the behavior or at least
1:04:35calling it out um on the flip side if
1:04:38someone comes in and I berate them
1:04:40that's also a way of changing Behavior
1:04:42maybe not the right way to do it um but
1:04:45I could then like what do you do in that
1:04:47situation someone shows up 3 minutes
1:04:48late um first off you would probably
1:04:54sideline with that person be like hey
1:04:56I don't know if you realized that you
1:04:57were 3 minutes late what happened and
1:05:00they're like I was on a client call um
1:05:02it went late I'm really sorry or I was
1:05:05on a sales call for me in my
1:05:07organization clients in sales like will
1:05:09take priority so if you have a meeting
1:05:11and you're on a sale and you're about to
1:05:12close it close the sale right but if you
1:05:15were just doing nothing and we have this
1:05:18meeting then this is the priority and so
1:05:20the next time we hop on I'll be like hey
1:05:22guys I just want to address something
1:05:23John was late he was late because of
1:05:25aale call or when I dm' him right as he
1:05:28got on late I would say hey make sure
1:05:29you say that and be like hey guys sorry
1:05:31I was late I was on a sales call and
1:05:32then I would say that's fine you're good
1:05:35to go always go make money yeah and then
1:05:37I'm reinforcing the right thing yeah
1:05:39right and so I think we're very big on
1:05:41rapid feedback um in the moment because
1:05:44that's how you train Behavior so if you
1:05:45look
1:05:46at if so there's tons of studies on this
1:05:48but basically if you want to train a dog
1:05:50right um and you want it to sit if you
1:05:53have it sit and then immediately give a
1:05:55biscuit it learns really quickly if you
1:05:58have it sit and then wait 10 seconds
1:06:01before you give a biscuit it takes like
1:06:02three times as many repetitions for it
1:06:04to learn that the that the sitting gets
1:06:06the biscuit if you wait more than a
1:06:08minute it never learns really it just
1:06:10you can see the learning curve the
1:06:11amount of repetitions just skyrockets
1:06:13until eventually there is no amount but
1:06:15here's where it gets crazy that biscuit
1:06:17is still reinforcing something just not
1:06:19sitting it's reinforcing the thing that
1:06:22just came before it so if we want people
1:06:24to do something we have to change in the
1:06:25moment and so when we train and I think
1:06:27that we're we're a training organization
1:06:29we're very good at training whatever
1:06:31skills um is engineering ways to give
1:06:36many feedback loops in a short period of
1:06:38time around uh specific skills so I use
1:06:41sales because it's one that everyone
1:06:42understands if you're training a script
1:06:45with someone at the if you if you let
1:06:48someone read through a script and then
1:06:49at the end you say Hey you know here
1:06:51here's the things you could have done
1:06:52better blah this is how 95% of people
1:06:54train it's also doesn't work mhm we set
1:06:57the premise with you're going to read
1:06:58through the script and in the first 30
1:07:00minutes we might get through a third of
1:07:01it and I'm going to probably stop you
1:07:03like 30 times and if that happens it
1:07:05means we're doing it right so we set the
1:07:06premise that I'm going to interrupt you
1:07:07a bunch of times and as soon as you say
1:07:09the first line I'm going be like stop
1:07:11say it again say it like this go again
1:07:14and then they're like okay and they say
1:07:15it and I'm like awesome job do it again
1:07:17awesome job do it again so I reinforce
1:07:20it as many times I can okay go to the
1:07:21second sentence right now do first and
1:07:23second right do second and third right
1:07:24and you keep working working your way
1:07:25through until eventually they just say
1:07:27like a whistle they can sing it because
1:07:28they've also had so many repetitions and
1:07:30so many feedback loops that they're like
1:07:31this is what it sounds like when it's
1:07:33right and I think that the vast vast
1:07:35majority of organizations have no idea
1:07:37how to train and their entire training
1:07:40their their way of getting Talent is
1:07:42just uh let's hire 10 and we'll just see
1:07:45who works out rather than being able to
1:07:46take someone and level them up and I
1:07:48think that the ability to train is one
1:07:50of the largest Alphas that exist in
1:07:52organizations because if you can buy
1:07:54Talent at at B skill and get them to A+
1:07:57then you net the Delta and profit
1:08:00between what you had to attract and pay
1:08:01the person to come and what they perform
1:08:03at if you have to use a picking strategy
1:08:05then you have to pay for ex for current
1:08:07market rate of the skill and so you
1:08:09actually eat into margin because you
1:08:11don't know how to train there are
1:08:13advantages to speed and sometimes it
1:08:14still makes sense to bring in the talent
1:08:16because maybe the training requires so
1:08:18much time that it's not worth it and so
1:08:21from a hiring perspective because I we
1:08:22were just talking this is the theme we
1:08:25always want to hire for the smallest
1:08:26skilled deficiency and so in low skilled
1:08:29labor for example if we have a cupcake
1:08:31uh Bakery and I need somebody to work
1:08:33the counter that is pretty low skilled
1:08:36labor and so if there's a number of
1:08:39skills that are required being able to
1:08:40be on time smile be nice those things
1:08:43are bundled terms that have many skills
1:08:45underneath of them right whereas
1:08:48teaching someone how to use the register
1:08:49might take like 30 minutes and so it
1:08:52makes sense to hire for attitude and
1:08:54then train aptitude when you have low
1:08:56skilled
1:08:57labor when you have really high skilled
1:09:00labor I can't teach someone 10 years of
1:09:03being a CFO for m&a just just an extreme
1:09:06example right and so in that instance we
1:09:10still hire for the smallest skilled
1:09:11deficiency but I can probably teach
1:09:14someone to be nice under these
1:09:15circumstances faster than I can teach
1:09:18them to be a CFO if they have everything
1:09:20that I want here obviously you would
1:09:21want both but the world is imp perfect
1:09:23and so we just try to hire for the
1:09:24smallest SK Gap and attitude is a series
1:09:28of skills and so instead instead of
1:09:30thinking of things as an attitude and
1:09:31aptitude just think of everything as
1:09:32skills and then we hire always for the
1:09:34smallest efficiency mhm the thing that's
1:09:37easiest to train up yeah okay one of the
1:09:39things that's so Central to that is we
1:09:41were saying about giving people feedback
1:09:44and I wrote down most companies and most
1:09:46entrepreneurs and Founders are scared to
1:09:48give Petty feedback oh because if like I
1:09:52might notice you're making a slight
1:09:54error yeah but if feels Petty to point
1:09:56that out it feels like I'm some kind of
1:09:58rude dictator yeah why is that so
1:10:02important and how do you create an
1:10:03environment I'm totally good with that
1:10:05yeah I a lot of people aren't I I have
1:10:06lots of managers on my teams and they
1:10:08don't want to offend people their
1:10:09Central focus is too much on being nice
1:10:11and it's dude kind not nice it's one of
1:10:14our one of our one of our cultural you
1:10:16know I wouldn't say it's not the one on
1:10:18the site but things that are repeated
1:10:19internally all the time K not nice is
1:10:21one of the big ones which is that you're
1:10:23actually being unkind to someone by not
1:10:26maximizing the likely that they succeed
1:10:27in their
1:10:28role and people don't lose jobs because
1:10:31typically because of one thing it's
1:10:32usually a hundred small things and so if
1:10:34we can immediately fix those hundred
1:10:36Small Things most people want to do a
1:10:38good job and most people want to succeed
1:10:40and most people want to move up and we
1:10:42can maximize the likelihood that those
1:10:43things occur if we help them
1:10:46and this is where the culture is there
1:10:49if on that first day like I said we say
1:10:51we're going to work through the script
1:10:52and we're only going to get through a
1:10:53third of it I'm going to stop you 30
1:10:54times to correct you we've already kind
1:10:55of set the expectations of how things go
1:10:58here like we will fix things and we will
1:11:00fix them fast and it's understanding the
1:11:02difference and I we teach our teams this
1:11:04is what is the difference between an
1:11:05insult and criticism so criticism is a
1:11:09discrepancy between actual and desired
1:11:11so you were supposed to be on time and
1:11:13this week you were late twice and so
1:11:15that is
1:11:16discrepancy and you're lazy is the
1:11:18insult and so the Judgment that's
1:11:21associated with the discrepancy is
1:11:23insulting someone pointing out the
1:11:24discrepancy is purely criticism and
1:11:26that's objective and so if you want to
1:11:28improve the team remove insults focus on
1:11:31criticism and tell them what to do
1:11:32instead and so the easiest way to think
1:11:34through this I think is stop start keep
1:11:38so I'll tell you a real story so we had
1:11:41um we had a we had a a director level so
1:11:44a relatively High person um in the
1:11:46organization who was having um behavior
1:11:49issues uh oh said differently everyone
1:11:52thinks you're a
1:11:53dick and so so he ended up making his
1:11:56rounds of the executive team uh and
1:11:59having a sit down with all of them
1:12:01because he was really proficient at the
1:12:02scale he's high performer like good at
1:12:03what he does just no one liked him and
1:12:05so um he talks to four different
1:12:08Executives and the behavior didn't
1:12:09change and so he finally came to to my
1:12:12office and he was like a little bit
1:12:13worried and he was and he was like am I
1:12:15going to get fired and I was like no HR
1:12:17will fire you if you're going to get
1:12:17fired you're not going to meet with me
1:12:19what are we talking about um but when we
1:12:21sat down I said Okay I want to be clear
1:12:25I want to decrease the likelihood that
1:12:26people call you a dick in the future I
1:12:27was said does that sound like an
1:12:29agreeable goal and he said yeah I don't
1:12:31I want that I was like okay good I also
1:12:33don't care if you are a dick I just care
1:12:35that everyone else thinks you are and so
1:12:38I just want to minimize likely that I
1:12:39get drawn into this ever again
1:12:42so the reasons that they are calling you
1:12:44a dick we need to dive into that because
1:12:46every other conversation you'd had with
1:12:48you know some of the leaders was just
1:12:49like hey man stop being a dick and the
1:12:51thing is is what do you do with that
1:12:53nothing you just get insulted
1:12:55and then you have nothing to do and so
1:12:57instead it's like okay when you cut
1:13:00people off when they
1:13:02talk stop start keep doing do this
1:13:06instead shut up so when someone else is
1:13:09talking wait until they finish and if
1:13:11you're not sure ask if they're done it's
1:13:13like
1:13:14okay when uh you give unsolicited advice
1:13:19on how they should run their Department
1:13:21don't or ask if they want it if if they
1:13:25say no don't say anything and so we
1:13:28identified three or four behaviors that
1:13:29he was doing and I said just do this
1:13:32instead and literally the next week
1:13:34people were like what happened to him
1:13:35he's like a new man and the thing is is
1:13:37that he wasn't a dick he just didn't
1:13:39know how to behave and so if you want to
1:13:42teach teaching has to come from
1:13:44conditions and a behavior and so if
1:13:46you're trying to get someone to be
1:13:48different you have to give them the
1:13:49conditions under which they need to
1:13:50change so when someone says this if this
1:13:52occurs there's a condition and then this
1:13:54is you need to do and so the vast
1:13:56majority of training that exists does
1:13:58none of that it's just people shouting
1:14:00at each other insulting them and saying
1:14:02hey you need to level up you need to you
1:14:04need to get you know you need to
1:14:05increase your performance what does that
1:14:07mean and so I think one of the easiest
1:14:10ways to identify the actual Behavior
1:14:12because that's actually the tough part
1:14:13is like why do I think he's a dick why
1:14:15do I think she's lazy because I want to
1:14:18insult them but that's not so how do I
1:14:20help her it's like okay why am I
1:14:22describing her this way okay so when I
1:14:24slack she she tends to be slow in her
1:14:26response so sometimes it takes an hour
1:14:28sometimes three hours I'm like okay so
1:14:29I'm going to gather that data and be
1:14:30like okay so when I talk to her I'm like
1:14:32I'm going to have this this branch of
1:14:33data the next thing is when I get stuff
1:14:36uh you know projects from her they are
1:14:39incomplete I feel like they're not all
1:14:41the way fleshed out I'm like okay that's
1:14:43a second second bucket um the next one
1:14:45is that when she shows up on Zoom she
1:14:48looks disheveled I'm like okay so now
1:14:50when I talk to Sandy I'm not going to
1:14:53say hey Sandy you look lazy need you to
1:14:55level up a little bit here otherwise
1:14:57we're going to have issues and have to
1:14:58put you on a pip performance Improvement
1:14:59plan right instead of saying that just
1:15:02put her on the performance Improvement
1:15:03plan without saying it's performance
1:15:04Improvement plan and just
1:15:06say when you show up on calls change
1:15:10your background to like the the standard
1:15:11company setting so we don't see your
1:15:13bedroom right and and make sure that
1:15:15from the waist up you look professional
1:15:17and what do why I mean by look
1:15:19professional have a collared shirt and
1:15:21put your hair back okay now some people
1:15:23like how does that work at in woke
1:15:25politics no idea deal with it in your
1:15:26country but like you should have a
1:15:28culture where you can say stuff like
1:15:29that the second thing is that right now
1:15:31I need you to turn on slack
1:15:32notifications and I need you to respond
1:15:34within within 10 minutes okay during
1:15:36work hours after work hours fine but you
1:15:39know 9 to5 you have to respond within 10
1:15:41minutes do you think you can do that yes
1:15:42and so the end goal here is like I will
1:15:44get everyone to stop calling you
1:15:46lazy and this is how we do it it's
1:15:48interesting because it goes back to
1:15:49something you were saying earlier where
1:15:50you were saying specifics versus vague
1:15:52yeah prefrontal cortex versus amigdala
1:15:54like insult is amigdala totally can't do
1:15:56anything with that but if you make it
1:15:58specific then action is more likely to
1:16:01occur and useful action is more likely
1:16:03to occur um on on this point of a person
1:16:05who's listening now who's an
1:16:06entrepreneur they've got a business yeah
1:16:08and they're thinking about making those
1:16:09first hires I want you to throw a
1:16:11proposition at you to see what you
1:16:12thought of this one of the things that I
1:16:14think can help you not [ __ ] up in the
1:16:16hiring process especially early is if
1:16:18you just live it with the permanent
1:16:20assumption that you are bad at hiring so
1:16:22I live with the permanent assumption
1:16:24that I'm bad at hiring because I've got
1:16:25biases there's things I don't know about
1:16:27certain things Etc and when you start
1:16:29with that assumption that you are really
1:16:31really bad at hiring you try and
1:16:33decentralize the decision- making so one
1:16:35thing I say a lot to Startup Founders is
1:16:38if you're hiring a salesperson create an
1:16:40interview process where there's five
1:16:41people and one of them might be you and
1:16:44the other four are the best salesp
1:16:46people you've ever encountered in your
1:16:47life like who sold you your house yeah
1:16:49and ask them ask them to be part of the
1:16:52interview process how does that sit with
1:16:54you I think it sits great and I think
1:16:56that the amount of references that you
1:16:58go for is proportional to the importance
1:17:00of the role okay so say I'm the
1:17:02co-founder of school um when he so he
1:17:04was a non-technical Founder who school
1:17:06what is school sorry oh so school's uh
1:17:07school.com is uh a platform for building
1:17:09communities right now it's online but we
1:17:11have an inperson component so that
1:17:12people can meet online then meet in
1:17:13person it's awesome and so that's the
1:17:16only investment that I've publicly uh
1:17:19Associated myself with outside of
1:17:20acquisition. comom so it's a very big
1:17:22deal it's something I believe in a lot
1:17:23because it's education it's where
1:17:25education and media meet
1:17:27um Sam is the is the is the founder of
1:17:30school and he is not Technical and so he
1:17:34knew that to build an exceptional
1:17:35software product you need worldclass
1:17:37talent and so he interviewed 600
1:17:42developers to find Daniel who' become
1:17:45the CTO of school and he asked everybody
1:17:49to know who the best coders were and
1:17:51then he talked to all those people and
1:17:53then he asked them who the best coder
1:17:54they knew was and he talked to those
1:17:56people and then he asked them who they
1:17:57thought the best coder they knew was and
1:18:00eventually like Daniel's name came up as
1:18:02like god tier he's like if you can ever
1:18:04get this guy he'd be amazing and so he
1:18:07ended up finding a way in to find Daniel
1:18:10and then he ended up becoming a
1:18:12co-founder of school as well and what's
1:18:15interesting about that process is that
1:18:17it actually Lads into uh rapid learning
1:18:22and so when I was a consultant you I was
1:18:2422 years old
1:18:25and I would go and have to give
1:18:27presentations to fourstar generals right
1:18:29about about weapon systems that I knew
1:18:31nothing about cuz I was you know
1:18:33chugging beers like 12 months earlier
1:18:35right um and so how do you sound
1:18:37intelligent in front of somebody who has
1:18:3930 years more experience than you do and
1:18:43so this is the Consulting process for
1:18:44Rapid
1:18:45learning first is you find five experts
1:18:49so you ask the one person you're like
1:18:51hey tell me the five people you know who
1:18:53are the best at this thing and then you
1:18:54ask them who are the five people you
1:18:55know who are who are who also know a ton
1:18:58about this thing and for each of the
1:18:59interviews you take all of their their
1:19:01information down of like what do you
1:19:02think about this what do you think about
1:19:03this what do you think this and what
1:19:04happens you start mapping kind of like
1:19:06the E the information ecosystem and the
1:19:08reason you talk to experts first is that
1:19:09there's no lack of information like you
1:19:11can Google whatever you want the problem
1:19:12is there's too much and so the filter
1:19:14becomes where the highest point of
1:19:15Leverage is and so experts have spent
1:19:17years filtering out for what's important
1:19:19and so then you basically rapidly
1:19:21consume the most filtered information
1:19:23and then you reor organize the
1:19:25information and so this is what a
1:19:26typical analyst will do as a consultant
1:19:28is like I would so for the space and
1:19:29cyber project that I did I we had 600
1:19:32pages of notes from all the interviews
1:19:33that we did first step is you
1:19:35recategorize all all the newes by
1:19:37category so it goes from raw notes to
1:19:39categorized notes then from there you
1:19:41distill and consolidate notes into what
1:19:43are the what are the TR truths or the
1:19:47the most distilled beliefs that we have
1:19:49about these particular in this case
1:19:50weapon systems but it could be whatever
1:19:53and then from there you're able to
1:19:55generate your inferences for what the
1:19:57what it looks like when it's right what
1:19:59the problems are what potential
1:20:00Solutions might be and then that's
1:20:02fundamentally how you say this is what
1:20:04we need to do next that's if you're
1:20:05trying to learn something but in talking
1:20:07to all those people it actually works
1:20:09the same way because the interview
1:20:10process the higher up the talent is the
1:20:13more I would encourage entrepreneurs to
1:20:14use it as a learning process as a
1:20:16consultant and so I present somebody who
1:20:19wants to come in for this role the
1:20:20actual problems of the business for
1:20:23which they would have control over and
1:20:24say how would you solve these and so
1:20:26then they tell me all the things that
1:20:27they would be considering and what
1:20:28they're thinking about and then I'll ask
1:20:30the next guy what he thinks and what he
1:20:31thinks and what he thinks or she thinks
1:20:33and then all of a sudden one I get free
1:20:34consulting which is amazing but secondly
1:20:36you can tell by how the quality and
1:20:39quantity of metrics that someone tracks
1:20:42how good they are at a particular scale
1:20:44and so this is fundamentally what
1:20:45separates beginners from experts and so
1:20:48beginners typically have binary thinking
1:20:49in terms of outcomes either it worked or
1:20:51it didn't work an expert for example for
1:20:53a marketing campaign
1:20:55isn't going to say oh marketing doesn't
1:20:57work or ads don't work they're going to
1:20:58say this particular campaign didn't work
1:21:01because our click-through rate was too
1:21:02low or because it was sending traffic
1:21:04that wasn't qualified and we weren't
1:21:05converting enough on the page or we
1:21:06didn't have enough people who were
1:21:08taking the second step in our four steps
1:21:10and like they can break down any part of
1:21:12those any part of that Continuum if I'm
1:21:14interviewing a salesperson and the
1:21:16person says and I say okay how are you
1:21:19going to affect these metrics what
1:21:21behaviors are are you going to do so to
1:21:23the same degree about vague versus
1:21:24spefic specific if they give me vague
1:21:26things back I'm going to dial in and say
1:21:27no what are you going to do that's going
1:21:29to change that and by the way this is a
1:21:31wonderful way to teach in the
1:21:32organization how what they do makes a
1:21:34business money and so if you have like a
1:21:36customer support rep for example and you
1:21:38say Hey how do you make our company
1:21:41money if they can't explain it to you
1:21:43they probably aren't doing it and it
1:21:46sounds as simple as it is but if someone
1:21:47says well you know I answer customers
1:21:50questions and it's like how does that
1:21:51make us money now if they're able to say
1:21:54when I answer customers questions I
1:21:56increase the likely that they refer
1:21:58other customers and I increase the
1:21:59likelihood that they stay and continue
1:22:00to pay for us so I help us get new
1:22:02customers by delivering an amazing
1:22:04experience and I get the customers that
1:22:05we have to continue to pay us and if it
1:22:08makes sense I recommend other products
1:22:09and services that we have that I can
1:22:11introduce them to sales guys who can
1:22:12explain that so we generate even more
1:22:14revenue from them I'd be like one if you
1:22:16can articulate that you're probably not
1:22:17just a front like us you're probably a
1:22:20director right and so that level of
1:22:22nuance the specificity is what shows
1:22:25expertise and so when I look for and I'm
1:22:28interviewing uh for candidates I first I
1:22:31I want to gather this once information
1:22:32as I can I want to drain as much
1:22:34knowledge as possible but I'm also
1:22:36really looking for the quality and
1:22:37quantity of metrics they track and
1:22:39behaviors that they do to influence
1:22:41those metrics so in the hypothetical
1:22:44problem that let's say we're trying to
1:22:45solve uh we have low clickthrough rates
1:22:46I'd be like okay this is the problem we
1:22:48have how would you approach changing it
1:22:51right and then that actually gets me to
1:22:53understand what they would do in the
1:22:55organization because it's very easy to
1:22:56say uh you know I'm going to come in and
1:22:58let's say a sales director I'm going to
1:22:59come in and I'm going to I'm going to
1:23:00improve the the sales team I'm like okay
1:23:02cool what are you going to do you know
1:23:03I'm going to coach the guys up I'm like
1:23:04okay what does that mean and so just
1:23:06continuing to ask what does that mean
1:23:08how do you do that until they're like
1:23:10okay well I'm going to meet with the
1:23:12guys every single morning and we're
1:23:13going to do role play all right how do
1:23:15you role playay well we're going to
1:23:16start with the script and we're like the
1:23:18more detailed they get the more I
1:23:20believe they can do it because they've
1:23:21actually explained what actions they
1:23:23will take if someone can't dial into
1:23:25actions then it's very unlikely that
1:23:27they're going to take them and so what I
1:23:29just outlined is basically Three core
1:23:31things so one is the quality and
1:23:32quantity of metrics that they track the
1:23:34second is the behaviors that they're
1:23:36going to do to influence those metrics
1:23:37and then lading up to Third how do those
1:23:40metrics and these behaviors influence
1:23:41the revenue in the business if they can
1:23:43explain that clearly you have a
1:23:45winner all of that
1:23:48is requires them to know if the person's
1:23:52not
1:23:52bullshitting and also to know like what
1:23:54metrics matter right cuz someone could
1:23:56sit in an interview if for my firsttime
1:23:57founder say a bunch of big complicated
1:23:59words it sounds good I hire them and
1:24:02that's really what I'm trying to
1:24:03mitigate here is how do I not let a
1:24:04[ __ ] a pass me so assume I know
1:24:07nothing let's start there what do you
1:24:10think customer service
1:24:12means and
1:24:14so if someone really has expertise so
1:24:17Richard fan was famous this the
1:24:18physicist which is if you can't explain
1:24:20it to a child then you don't understand
1:24:21it well enough and so if they do confuse
1:24:24you it means that they don't understand
1:24:25it or they're doing it purposefully
1:24:27neither of which are good scenarios you
1:24:30said something during during that
1:24:32explanation you said you were talking
1:24:34about your like your founding partner at
1:24:36school and you said that he was pursuing
1:24:38a CTO and he said if we can get this guy
1:24:42he'd be amazing yeah so many
1:24:43entrepreneurs that are starting in
1:24:45business have that thought sometimes
1:24:47they think if I could just get that guy
1:24:49from that amazing company to come join
1:24:51our garage where we're building this new
1:24:53startup it would change our
1:24:55fortunes but how how do I get a truly
1:24:58exceptional person who is being paid
1:25:01[ __ ] tons of money who has a comfortable
1:25:03job who has security to come join me in
1:25:05my
1:25:07bedroom well I think there's there's the
1:25:09soft and the hard side right so the hard
1:25:11side is the is compensation maybe you
1:25:14don't have as much cash so it's like
1:25:15you're going to have you know a few
1:25:17levers at your disposal so you have what
1:25:19do you pay them in cash what's their
1:25:21upside if there's Equity or shares that
1:25:22you're going to give them this is
1:25:23obviously if it's soft software business
1:25:24you can and I'm you know it's probably
1:25:26worth segmenting this so if you're not
1:25:28in a software company which is probably
1:25:29the vast majority of people listening to
1:25:31this there are four elements within
1:25:34Equity that that that exist you have
1:25:37control so who gets to call the shots
1:25:39you have risk what happens if everything
1:25:41goes wrong who's liable you have profits
1:25:45which is the cash flow of the business
1:25:46who gets distributions and then
1:25:48basically sale or Enterprise Value when
1:25:51we sell or if we sell who gets to
1:25:53participate in that upside those are
1:25:54kind of the four elements of equity now
1:25:56the thing is is that you can obviously
1:25:58Grant shares or you can give stock in a
1:26:01company that's one way of doing it but
1:26:03you can also basically contract around
1:26:05any of these things now most of the
1:26:07times they don't want the risk and they
1:26:09probably won't get the control uh if
1:26:11it's your company so you really just
1:26:12have profit and you have uh and you have
1:26:14upside in terms of uh a sale and so you
1:26:18can contract these things and there's
1:26:20lots of structur so I'm not going to get
1:26:21into legal around this um but asking
1:26:23somebody what do want sometimes it's
1:26:25just a very powerful way of beginning
1:26:27this and my favorite question for these
1:26:28types of scenarios is asking what would
1:26:31it
1:26:32take so when you have this guy it's like
1:26:34man it would be amazing like how do I
1:26:35sell this guy I just ask him what would
1:26:37sell you so I say what would it take
1:26:40because I don't know he'll tell me and I
1:26:43love that frame because it assumes
1:26:46yes it assumes you're going to come so
1:26:48what would it take how so many of the
1:26:52books that you you write and so much of
1:26:54the content you make centers on this
1:26:55idea of sales yeah and it is a sale
1:26:58isn't it totally and I I always think
1:27:00about the Steve Jobs quote where he met
1:27:02with was it John Scully who was working
1:27:04at like Pepsi and he said do you want to
1:27:05consider continue selling sugar water
1:27:07for the rest of your life who you want
1:27:08to come change the world yeah um how
1:27:10does that sort of emotional
1:27:12psychological element of this self
1:27:13factor into it persuading someone
1:27:15exceptional to come and join your
1:27:16mission I think it's the amigdala story
1:27:18that we started with the nasal strip
1:27:20thing which now has actually reared its
1:27:21nose multiple times poked its nose in a
1:27:23few times here but I think that pitch
1:27:25that you're giving to a potential
1:27:27co-founder or potential early hire who's
1:27:29going to be a leader is the same more or
1:27:31less that you'd give to an investor it's
1:27:33almost the same pitch except instead of
1:27:35investing Capital they're investing time
1:27:36they're investing their life they're
1:27:37investing their expertise but
1:27:39fundamentally you're asking for
1:27:40investment I'm just asking
1:27:42you there's also this weird question
1:27:45which I've I've actually never asked
1:27:46anybody but Founders often struggle with
1:27:50do I hire naivity because that's going
1:27:53to probably create new solutions to Old
1:27:55problems like the young Scrappy kid that
1:27:57gets Tik Tok or do I hire experience
1:28:01which is going to be more expensive more
1:28:02conventional and safe and I see some
1:28:04companies lean too far either way
1:28:07yeah I have actually fairly strong
1:28:10opinions on this oh great so I actually
1:28:12think it's um and I was talking to the
1:28:14CEO of butcher boox about this
1:28:15particular thing um last
1:28:17week I think it's a barbell strategy
1:28:20where you have people on either ends and
1:28:22very little in the middle interesting so
1:28:25I love lots of young hungry people who
1:28:28are here for growth and want to learn
1:28:30and are ready to work long hours and
1:28:32just go all
1:28:34in and the people at the call it the L
1:28:37the back half of their career that are
1:28:40here that they they've made enough money
1:28:42they know they can get a job wherever
1:28:43they feel like it you're not doing them
1:28:46a favor by giving them a job and they're
1:28:48not what I a term I hate which is
1:28:50careerists they're not obsessed with
1:28:52their title they're not obsessed
1:28:54obsessed with their career path what
1:28:55their promotion plan is going to be they
1:28:57basically have a litmus test which is
1:28:59like I have to have make about this to
1:29:00get to come in and do this with you but
1:29:02they actually just really love the work
1:29:05and so these people are learning so the
1:29:07young people are learning and and
1:29:09overcompensating with tons of hours and
1:29:11Reps and these people are bringing their
1:29:13experience to the game and creating
1:29:15significantly more leverage with
1:29:16strategy the people in the middle are
1:29:18the ones that tend to be the pain in the
1:29:20ass for everybody and I don't think and
1:29:22be clear here I don't think this is
1:29:23actually an age thing I think it's a
1:29:25perspective thing so it's just are you
1:29:28here for growth or are you here to share
1:29:31what you know and I think that it's the
1:29:34people in the middle that are like well
1:29:36I'm bringing something but I need some
1:29:37it's like this kind of tit fortat
1:29:39relationship that um I would say the
1:29:42vast majority of people that don't work
1:29:43out are in that bucket and what role
1:29:46does naivity play in Innovation here
1:29:49because the kids that don't know the
1:29:50rules yeah are more likely to stumble
1:29:52across nuances right I think yes
1:29:56uh you can fundamentally you can disrupt
1:29:59any industry if you don't know how it's
1:30:00supposed to go and so but that's I think
1:30:04that really teases out something we said
1:30:06at the very beginning which is um
1:30:08starting from first principles which is
1:30:10what are the few things I know to be
1:30:11true and then basically forgetting
1:30:13everything else and when you build from
1:30:16those assumptions up you end up building
1:30:17a lots of different paths up the
1:30:19mountain that may or may not have been
1:30:20Trot in before I think one of the one of
1:30:22the one of the most um ating things that
1:30:24can happen sometimes is that like you
1:30:25rederive a solution that already works
1:30:28and you're like okay well now I know why
1:30:29this works right and I think but I think
1:30:31that's actually then you have more
1:30:33confidence in the path and you're like
1:30:34okay that's fine but now I know why
1:30:35we're doing this not just because other
1:30:36people did it but because I understand
1:30:38why it works and so I think it just
1:30:40comes down to what are the few truths
1:30:42that I know to be true and going all in
1:30:44on those things like I know that if
1:30:46customers love my product they are more
1:30:49likely to tell other people about it
1:30:50than if they hate it that I feel very
1:30:51confident so then we say okay what are
1:30:53the things that must occur in order to
1:30:55get someone to quote love my product AKA
1:30:57increase the likelihood that they tell
1:30:58their friends about it or post about us
1:31:00and so now there's and you can break
1:31:02this and again this is where quality and
1:31:03quantity of metrics matter so it's like
1:31:05how how much more Nuance can I break and
1:31:08break this up into small pieces so it's
1:31:09like okay at what time do we deliver
1:31:11these messages or around what
1:31:13experiences that have high likelihood of
1:31:15them posting can we decrease the
1:31:17friction around uh them sending friends
1:31:19how can we make it both easy and how can
1:31:20we incentivize it and so all of these
1:31:22components whether it's a service
1:31:23business a physical products business a
1:31:25software business it still works the
1:31:26same way is you know and for each each
1:31:29customer for example as we're taking
1:31:30someone through this I have four
1:31:31Milestones that I look for which are the
1:31:33four RS so how do I get them to review
1:31:36my product how do I how do I well in
1:31:39order it be how do I retain them
1:31:41immediately how do I get them to review
1:31:43my product how do I get them to refer
1:31:46somebody and then how do I resell them
1:31:49and so they're basically those for RS is
1:31:51what I try and take every customer
1:31:52through it's a very simple framework
1:31:54right when you think I was like oh man
1:31:56customer success what does it mean it's
1:31:57just like well these are the four things
1:31:58that I want to occur and so all I'm
1:32:00trying to do is reverse engineer what
1:32:02activities increase the likely that each
1:32:03of these four hours
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1:32:08globally are utilizing AI in some form
1:32:10it's become so integrated across every
1:32:12point of my businesses that it's hard to
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1:32:56well I want to go through the the four
1:32:57RS but I also I think that what comes
1:32:59before the 4 RS is knowing how to get
1:33:01customers in the first place which is a
1:33:03was a tricky one and actually maybe even
1:33:05the thing that comes before that is
1:33:07being psychologically prepared for
1:33:10the the toll and the roller coaster that
1:33:13business is I found this um found this
1:33:16graph of yours oh God yeah and I think
1:33:19for any founder starting a business it's
1:33:21important to for them to understand this
1:33:23cycle um I think you call it like the
1:33:25crash burn cycle or something because if
1:33:27you're not aware of the cycle when you
1:33:29hit certain parts of it you're probably
1:33:30going to think that there's something
1:33:31wrong with you yeah and but there's a
1:33:33certain inevitability to this crash
1:33:35cycle I'll put it on the screen for
1:33:36anyone to see yeah this is this is the
1:33:39entrepreneur life cycle until you learn
1:33:41how to break free from it and so there
1:33:44are six
1:33:45stages you have stage one which is
1:33:49uninformed optimism this is where you
1:33:52see your friend or you see something
1:33:54online and it looks like they're making
1:33:55money or it looks like there's some
1:33:57opportunity and you think oh my God that
1:33:58sounds amazing and you have optimism
1:34:01because it looks great but it's
1:34:03uninformed because you have no idea what
1:34:04it
1:34:05entails so then you dive in and you say
1:34:07okay I'm going to pursue this this thing
1:34:09whatever is it baking cupcakes or I'm
1:34:10going to I'm going to do lawn mowing or
1:34:11I'm going to do crypto trading whatever
1:34:14second step is you get into it and
1:34:15you're like oh my God I don't know
1:34:17there's so many things involved in this
1:34:18and this is significantly more
1:34:19complicated than I I expected so then
1:34:21you become an informed pessimist
1:34:24you now know uh that it's hard or
1:34:26significantly harder than you expected
1:34:29the third stage is you have your crisis
1:34:31of meaning or the value of Despair so
1:34:34you're continuing to do this stuff it's
1:34:36continuing to not work and you keep
1:34:38working and it keeps not working and so
1:34:41this is the step and this is the this is
1:34:43the point of Truth and this is the cycle
1:34:46where the the paths of the entrepreneurs
1:34:48split and the vast majority of people
1:34:50take this next step which is they then
1:34:52say you know what
1:34:54there's that thing over there that my
1:34:55other friend's doing maybe I should do
1:34:57that instead and so then they hop back
1:35:00to uninformed optimism and then they go
1:35:02boom to inform pessimism and they just
1:35:04go around and around and around and they
1:35:05live the same six months uh for 20
1:35:08straight
1:35:09years now the other path of from the
1:35:14valley of Despair is sticking with it
1:35:17and so then you become an informed
1:35:19Optimist because now you understand you
1:35:21still understood all the bad stuff but
1:35:23you also understand the good stuff and
1:35:24how to avoid the bad and maximize the
1:35:27good and then once you're there you do
1:35:29you stick on that path long enough and
1:35:30you end up achieving what you originally
1:35:32thought was really easy and fast and so
1:35:35that cycle this is more or less the um
1:35:37the Alex rosi life story which is why I
1:35:39can so intimately describe you to the
1:35:41steps is that I call that Loop and that
1:35:45uh the person on the other side the
1:35:46woman in the red dress which is probably
1:35:49my favorite part of the Matrix movie
1:35:52which is Neo who's the the main
1:35:53character uh is in a program to teach
1:35:55him one thing and so he's walking uh
1:35:57through the crowded streets of what
1:35:59looks like a New York City with Morpheus
1:36:01leading him and uh he's drawing on about
1:36:04something that he's supposed to learn
1:36:06and he says Neo were you listening to me
1:36:08or were you looking to the woman looking
1:36:09at the woman in the red dress and and
1:36:11Neo was looking at the woman in the red
1:36:13dress as Morpheus is talking and then he
1:36:15says look again and he looks back at the
1:36:18one the dress and it's agent Smith with
1:36:19a gun point at his head and in that
1:36:22moment he's like freeze
1:36:24and he explains that you're either one
1:36:28of us or one of them and they are the
1:36:31people who are Sentinels sent to destroy
1:36:32us and so what appears to be the woman
1:36:35in the red dress is actually a a an
1:36:38agent from the system meant to destroy
1:36:40the opportunity that you're in right now
1:36:42and so I love the woman that red dress
1:36:44so much because it's so real because
1:36:46you're in this thing you're in this
1:36:48relationship with your business and
1:36:50you're like you know this girl seems
1:36:52great and then you you get to know her
1:36:54and you find out she snores when she
1:36:55sleeps and all of a sudden it's like you
1:36:57know uh you know you see you see the
1:36:58sweatpants and no makeup in the morning
1:37:01and you realize that sometimes she's
1:37:02Moody whatever but you get to you start
1:37:04to get to know you're like I don't know
1:37:05if we're going to get married like you
1:37:06know this is kind of where we're at and
1:37:08then you see a woman in the red dress
1:37:10and you're like you know what I think
1:37:12that's the girl and so you quit this
1:37:13relationship with your business and you
1:37:14get into that relationship but then you
1:37:16realize that that girl has crab she has
1:37:17a crazy ex-boyfriend and you're like oh
1:37:19my God I didn't want to deal with any of
1:37:20this stuff right and so my CF so was one
1:37:24of the first people that were like oh my
1:37:25God I hired that person it changed
1:37:26everything so my CFO in gym launch um
1:37:28had taken four companies from 0 to 100
1:37:30million um she had done over 40 m&a
1:37:33transactions her largest one was 5
1:37:34billion super experience um she was the
1:37:37very end of her career and she was like
1:37:39I'll take you guys I'll I'll take this
1:37:41one last ride with you guys and so you
1:37:43know mind you Leila and I I'm 26 or 27
1:37:45at the time Leela's 23 24 and we're
1:37:48sitting across the table from a very
1:37:49experienced business person being like
1:37:51please help us and so one of the things
1:37:54that she taught me that I I'll never
1:37:56forget is she
1:37:59said the grass is always greener on the
1:38:01other side you just don't know that it's
1:38:04fertilized with
1:38:05[ __ ] and she and she she's Southern so
1:38:08she have this deep southern act she's
1:38:09like there's always [ __ ] yeah [ __ ]
1:38:12everywhere and so she's like I've been
1:38:13in enough businesses to know that all
1:38:15businesses have [ __ ] and so you just
1:38:17have the [ __ ] you don't know about and
1:38:18the [ __ ] you do know about and you're in
1:38:19this business and so this is the [ __ ]
1:38:21you know and that has been so profoundly
1:38:25impactful in my life because it was so
1:38:26hard for me to break the cycle really
1:38:28hard for me um I mean I gave you my my
1:38:31life story of the many businesses that
1:38:32I've been involved in and so like the
1:38:33entrepreneurial add has been so real for
1:38:35me and I've made some of the biggest
1:38:36career Mistakes by just pursuing and
1:38:38splitting my attention between multiple
1:38:40Endeavors and I can say truthfully that
1:38:44this 2024 was the first year and this is
1:38:46now 2025 the first time in my life where
1:38:48I haven't experienced fomo so fear of
1:38:51missing out and it was one of those
1:38:53things things that I just always had I
1:38:54would see somebody doing really well
1:38:55like oh man I mean I should be getting
1:38:57into that like that I shouldn't be doing
1:38:58this I should doing that um and it was
1:39:01it was one of those things it's kind of
1:39:02like being happy where like you don't
1:39:04realize you're happy you just look back
1:39:05and you're like you know what that was a
1:39:06really good year you know like you kind
1:39:07of like you kind of see it in retrospect
1:39:09what I realized was that now when I hear
1:39:11someone say like oh my God I crushed it
1:39:13with this thing I think that's amazing
1:39:16for them I'm sure there's tons of
1:39:17problems that I don't know about and
1:39:18that's amazing but I'm going to keep
1:39:19doing this thing because this is the
1:39:20only thing I know how to do pretty well
1:39:22and I'm just going to keep compounding
1:39:23my information advantage against
1:39:24everybody else who thinks this is easy
1:39:26and wants to get into it and so um I
1:39:29think that
1:39:30that every any any massive company that
1:39:33you know of has existed for multiple
1:39:35decades and in order for something to
1:39:37exist for multiple decades the founder
1:39:38has to stay focused on that thing for
1:39:40the whole time and I measure focus by
1:39:42the quantity and quality of things that
1:39:44you say no to and I measure
1:39:48commitment or I Define commitment as the
1:39:50elimination of Alternatives and so if
1:39:52you think of marriage as the commitment
1:39:54then it is the ultimate commitment
1:39:55because you've limited literally every
1:39:56alternative besides this person and so I
1:39:59think that many business problems and
1:40:01many entrepreneurs would 5x 10x their
1:40:05business if they simply gave themselves
1:40:07no way
1:40:08out this is what I'm doing and I'm I
1:40:11mean the term you know burning the boats
1:40:13but I'm eliminating all Alternatives and
1:40:16structuring my life such that I I make
1:40:18it very difficult to pursue the
1:40:20Alternatives and I think by doing that
1:40:22you can actually conquer this this cycle
1:40:24and make it past the split where you go
1:40:27uh Crash and Burn and then restart the
1:40:28Doom Loop or make it to informed
1:40:30optimism and then eventually to the
1:40:32achievement that you
1:40:34want there's so much there there's so
1:40:37much there but it's such an important
1:40:38Point
1:40:40um so where should I start so at that
1:40:43moment here this crisis of meaning
1:40:46moment yeah what I see so much of is
1:40:48entrepreneurs not necessarily quitting
1:40:50the old thing but just taking on
1:40:51something else and get entrepreneurs
1:40:54will come up to me in the gym and
1:40:55they'll say hey Steve um just want to
1:40:57let you know what I do and see if you
1:40:58can offer me any advice and then they'll
1:41:00list three things they'll say I'm
1:41:02starting this crypto thing with my
1:41:03friend Dave I've got this hair business
1:41:04where we're selling on Ecom and I've got
1:41:06this other thing and they almost assume
1:41:08that the more things they're doing the
1:41:11higher the probability that they'll be
1:41:12successful in
1:41:15something my mom was that my my mom has
1:41:18started 30 businesses and I watched for
1:41:21my whole childhood how she was start a
1:41:24hairdressing salon and then the person
1:41:26down the street running an estate agents
1:41:28would come in and say we're making loads
1:41:29of money as an estate agents she'd start
1:41:31that that business would suck she'd hit
1:41:32this moment of crisis of meaning she'
1:41:34then start a Furniture business and a
1:41:37and then she she so she jumped between
1:41:4020 to 30 businesses and it's kind of
1:41:43still happening now where they last six
1:41:45months they eventually go bust she sort
1:41:47of like you know like the monkeys that
1:41:48swing to the next brch swings to the
1:41:50next thing and there's never been the
1:41:51escape Velocity that comes from this
1:41:53formed optimism
1:41:55part so yeah this it really rang true
1:41:57for me in every sense of the word this
1:41:59idea of like a focus going against all
1:42:03of your instincts and your emotions but
1:42:05being pivotal to achievement I think
1:42:08entrepreneurship is far more a war of
1:42:10the heart than it is a war of the mind
1:42:13like we can understand what we should do
1:42:15we just don't do it and I think that's
1:42:17why um we are so much better at giving
1:42:20advice than we are at following it so
1:42:21most people if they just followed their
1:42:22own advice they'd be
1:42:24successful right and so um with this
1:42:27kind of valley of Despair I call it um
1:42:31Niche slapping it's like don't make me
1:42:32nit slap
1:42:33you which is like when you have three
1:42:35things going on it's like let me like
1:42:38slap you into just picking one because
1:42:40the thing is is that any of them can
1:42:42work but none of them will work unless
1:42:44you pick only one because it's actually
1:42:48in my
1:42:49opinion an exercise and arrogance to
1:42:52assume that you doing three things is
1:42:54somehow going to beat somebody who's
1:42:56doing one and I can promise you the
1:42:58competitor who is going to beat you is
1:42:59only doing that one thing and you think
1:43:01a third of your time is going to be
1:43:02there no it's not going to I think it's
1:43:05arrogant and so there's actually like an
1:43:07under there's like an underpinning of
1:43:09egoo underneath of this and I say this
1:43:10to somebody who did this so like when I
1:43:12had the launch business I also had my
1:43:14six gyms I also had a chiropractor
1:43:16agency and I also had a dental agency
1:43:18and so I would introduce myself I'm like
1:43:19oh I own lots of companies but I think
1:43:22one of the biggest Mis conceptions when
1:43:23you're an entrepreneur is not
1:43:24understanding the difference between
1:43:25being an owner and being the CEO and so
1:43:28they might hear that you have a
1:43:29portfolio they might hear that I have a
1:43:30portfolio and be like okay well they
1:43:32have a portfolio so I must model that
1:43:33that guy's tall I should play basketball
1:43:35doesn't work that way right I should be
1:43:37so if I want to be rich I should fly
1:43:38private doesn't work that way right um
1:43:41it's conflating order and
1:43:45so we must do these things in order uh
1:43:48to get the outcome we have to
1:43:49concentrate on only one thing in order
1:43:51to get the outsized return
1:43:54and that spreading of attention
1:43:57especially when you're newer in the
1:43:58entrepreneurial career it's like you
1:44:00already don't know so many things how do
1:44:02you now want to have three sets of
1:44:03unknowns that you want to try and
1:44:04Conquer at the same time and the the
1:44:07fallacy of thinking is that I'm going to
1:44:08try all of them and see which one
1:44:11works but none of them will work because
1:44:14you're waiting to see which one will
1:44:16work because you can force in my opinion
1:44:18you can force one thing to work provided
1:44:21like I'm I'm going to just assume BAS
1:44:23like you're selling you're not selling
1:44:24$5 bills for $4 like like you know the
1:44:27normal economics of a business like if
1:44:29if if if a real estate business exists
1:44:31there are other people are making money
1:44:32there are hairon businesses where people
1:44:33are making money there are lawnmowing
1:44:34business where people are making money
1:44:36you can make money in all of them you
1:44:37just can't make money in all of
1:44:39them at the same and it it's when you
1:44:41walked in today and you sat down on the
1:44:43chair I said like what's going on with
1:44:44you professionally I remember what you
1:44:45said you said more of the same and
1:44:47better which clearly comes from your
1:44:49wisdom my my infinite wisdom right well
1:44:52it's just from from from from from
1:44:54suffering um the the the wo of this
1:44:59like the biggest entrepreneurial
1:45:02mistakes I've made in my career have all
1:45:03come from splitting my attention every
1:45:06one of them like every single one of
1:45:08them like I talked about how I had the
1:45:10e-commerce business that I bolted on to
1:45:11my to my licensing company I should not
1:45:13have done that as soon as I did that my
1:45:15my Revenue started slowing down and it's
1:45:17growth why did you because I was
1:45:19add like I just I was like oh my I don't
1:45:22want to leave money on the table and I
1:45:24want to I want to be so violent about
1:45:26this you are always going to leave money
1:45:28on the table that is the result of focus
1:45:32but you're you're leaving a small amount
1:45:34of money on the table to pursue the much
1:45:36larger money that's on another table of
1:45:38just sticking with the thing that you're
1:45:39on right now because compounding if I
1:45:42were to show a chart here it's like if
1:45:44you're at year three of your thing and
1:45:47you want to think about moving to year
1:45:49zero of a new thing you have to compare
1:45:52maybe year zero of a new thing grows
1:45:54faster but it has to grow faster than
1:45:56year three to four of the thing that
1:45:58you're on right now and I think that's
1:46:01that people will compare year zero to
1:46:02year zero but not year four to year zero
1:46:05and the thing is is you actually we have
1:46:07a linear life and so we that is it's an
1:46:09unfair but true comparison of the
1:46:11opportunity cost and every exceptionally
1:46:16um successful entrepreneur that I know
1:46:17has just stuck with one thing for such
1:46:18an inordinate amount of time and I think
1:46:20there's a quote by um I want to say
1:46:22Shane per is but he said um success is
1:46:27doing the obvious thing for an
1:46:29extraordinary period of time without
1:46:30believing that you're smarter than you
1:46:32are and it's just like you we we know
1:46:36what we need to do
1:46:38and comp so we don't need to make our
1:46:41lives more complex complexity will come
1:46:43with scale I promise and so just simply
1:46:46trying to do more of what you're already
1:46:48doing well is already hard enough don't
1:46:51add anything else and so like if you
1:46:53need to write some sort of commitment of
1:46:55like I'm just going to stick with this
1:46:57then do that but
1:47:01the what happens is we were talking
1:47:03about the levels earlier about like
1:47:04beating the bosses so what happens is
1:47:08you know how to beat boss one through
1:47:10three of of the game and so then you
1:47:14just say okay well I'm just going to
1:47:15start the game over and beat boss I mean
1:47:17this is this time it's going to be
1:47:18different but then you just get to level
1:47:20three again and then you're stuck again
1:47:23and so people just keep getting up to
1:47:25level three and new and and and new
1:47:27Endeavors over and over again because
1:47:28they never learned how to get past that
1:47:30boss and so you just have to confront
1:47:32the uncertainty of knowing that you
1:47:34don't know how to do it but that you
1:47:36will figure it out if you keep doing
1:47:38enough repetitions and that's where you
1:47:41talk to as many people as you can you
1:47:42see what they said you consolidate it
1:47:44all you say I think this is the highest
1:47:45likely path it might not work but I do
1:47:48believe fundamentally that if we cut
1:47:49people's hair well and we do it for a
1:47:52long period of time we will have a
1:47:53thriving business and if we have a
1:47:54really good model from that thing we
1:47:56might be able to open up another
1:47:57location and if we keep our costs down
1:47:59we might be able to have an actual model
1:48:00that we could either invest our own
1:48:02capital or bring somebody else and take
1:48:03it national like all of these like I
1:48:06have yet to find a business that can't
1:48:08get to $100 million a year that has a
1:48:11permutation of it that exists you're a
1:48:13dry cleaner fine well cool we'll build
1:48:15the model and either we're going to
1:48:16license the model we can franchise the
1:48:17model out we can get outside investors
1:48:18we can scale it nationally we can do it
1:48:20but the crazy goals are only crazy
1:48:22because people crazy timelines they're
1:48:24actually very seane goals if you extend
1:48:25the timeline out if you have a a true 10
1:48:28year goal or true 20- year goal almost
1:48:29anything's accomplishable I mean almost
1:48:32every multi-billion dollar company is
1:48:34about you know they get it's usually
1:48:36between like years six and 10 when
1:48:38companies get to kind of like those big
1:48:40numbers and most people who are
1:48:41listening to this are five years into
1:48:44entrepreneurship but you're six months
1:48:46into the thing that you've been working
1:48:46on right now and you keep restarting the
1:48:49clock for getting to year 10 every time
1:48:51you start over and I think that's the
1:48:53part that it took me a very long time to
1:48:55figure out and I think it takes a lot of
1:48:56entrepreneurs like everyone messes
1:48:58around with a lot of stuff in the
1:48:59beginning because you just don't know
1:48:59what you're doing and so in my
1:49:02experience it takes about five years for
1:49:05most entrepreneurs that I know to just
1:49:07like find something that works like like
1:49:10takes about five years to figure out
1:49:11which way is North yeah right and then
1:49:14it takes like another five years and a
1:49:16lot of people that's it like they they
1:49:17restart they they they go off Crash and
1:49:19Burn um and it takes another 5 years to
1:49:22build something that can can create
1:49:24generational wealth so it's about a
1:49:2610year slug and here's the really hard
1:49:28truth about it if you have a job right
1:49:31now for almost all of that five years
1:49:34you quit your job because you don't want
1:49:36to work as hard as you are and you want
1:49:38to make more money and as soon as you
1:49:40quit you will realize that you are now
1:49:42going to work way harder than you were
1:49:43and you're going to make less money for
1:49:46an extended period of time the one
1:49:48benefit is that you get to claim all
1:49:49responsibility for how little you make
1:49:51and how much you work
1:49:53because you're like my boss is an idiot
1:49:54and it's me but it's the truth and I
1:49:57think that in some ways having that um
1:50:02optimistic ignorance is actually one of
1:50:04the really redeeming traits of
1:50:06entrepreneurs and one of the really hard
1:50:09Parts is that the biggest jump you have
1:50:11to make gets so immediately reinforced
1:50:13from the freedom you have from being
1:50:15able to you know chart your own
1:50:19path but
1:50:23that big success of quitting one thing
1:50:25and starting another you need to
1:50:27immediately forget and I think that
1:50:30fundamentally that is why so many
1:50:31entrepreneurs keep doing it is because
1:50:33the first time you do it it's the
1:50:36biggest rush ever you quit your job you
1:50:38do the business and and you get some
1:50:40some first traction and that that first
1:50:42dollar that you make when the new
1:50:43business is like the best dollar ever
1:50:45right but it such a strong reinforcer
1:50:48that what does it reinforce it
1:50:50reinforces stopping what you're doing
1:50:52and St starting something else and so I
1:50:54think one of the fundamental errors of
1:50:56Entrepreneurship is that sometimes the
1:50:59jumping ship to start this thing is the
1:51:01lesson that you need to immediately
1:51:02unlearn because after that you have to
1:51:04just stick with it for a very long
1:51:06period of
1:51:07time there's also something in that
1:51:10entrepreneurs don't go into starting a
1:51:12company with the belief that their
1:51:14hypothesis is wrong so in year one or
1:51:17seven months in when they realized that
1:51:19their initial hypothesis was wrong they
1:51:21think that means abandoned [ __ ] because
1:51:23my hypothesis was wrong whereas
1:51:25successful entrepreneurs that I've met
1:51:26especially second time Founders realize
1:51:28that their hypothesis is almost
1:51:30certainly wrong from the jump and that
1:51:31the process of starting is to correct
1:51:33and to find a new hypothesis I think
1:51:35about like Mark Zuckerberg in his room
1:51:37with like face swap or whatever it was
1:51:39rating people's attractiveness and now
1:51:41meta is this like virtual reality AI
1:51:43company yeah but understanding that your
1:51:45hypothesis is wrong from the jump and
1:51:48that you know this is a process of
1:51:49finding a new hypothesis I think would
1:51:51give you a little bit more p patience as
1:51:53well through these cycles of the crisis
1:51:56of meaning and so on so two things so
1:51:58one is I had this tweet that went like
1:52:00super viral but it was like uh
1:52:02first-time founder hey I need you to
1:52:04sign an NDA before I tell you my
1:52:06business idea I know you've gotten I
1:52:08know I know you
1:52:10have third time
1:52:13founder uh here's everything I have
1:52:15here's all the documents here's all the
1:52:17projections it's probably all wrong and
1:52:19this probably won't work um but I have a
1:52:20couple smart people and I think we'll be
1:52:22able to f figure it out it'll probably
1:52:23cost longer and take longer cost more
1:52:25and take longer than we think but we
1:52:26think it's worth a
1:52:29shot and that things because everyone
1:52:32who who who's been on both sides of that
1:52:34understand like the entrepreneurs got it
1:52:35because they're like oh my God I was
1:52:36that guy um and all the investors get it
1:52:38because they're like oh my God I deal
1:52:39with this guy all the time but actually
1:52:41what you just said with the many many
1:52:44iterations that from your original idea
1:52:45until what actually happens is yet again
1:52:49one of those um demonstrations of the
1:52:51difference between a beginner an expert
1:52:54a beginner has binary thinking so they
1:52:56think this worked or it didn't work and
1:52:57if it didn't work then I need a new idea
1:53:00rather than having the Nuance thinking
1:53:01of a master or an expert or Advanced
1:53:03person who says what about this if I
1:53:05click into it I break it into its
1:53:07component parts what about this didn't
1:53:09work okay it's not that meta ads don't
1:53:12work or advertising doesn't work it's
1:53:13that we didn't nail the hook in our ad
1:53:16or that we didn't make our our offer
1:53:18clear enough on the landing page or it
1:53:21was not congruent with the advertisement
1:53:23or um you know it was the offer itself
1:53:26wasn't very compelling or it didn't have
1:53:27it didn't like it was just this we
1:53:29everyone's coming in and saying yeah
1:53:30yeah I kind of want that but this is
1:53:32actually my issue we're not solving the
1:53:33core problem so it's it's always in the
1:53:36in the details it's always in the
1:53:37sifting through the many small things
1:53:40that you find the kernel that ends up
1:53:41fixing uh the business I mean I know
1:53:44that uh Facebook was trying to fix their
1:53:46virality issue and they were locked in a
1:53:49room for days trying to figure out how
1:53:52they could get more users to retain on
1:53:54the platform right people would sign up
1:53:55but then they wouldn't do anything and
1:53:56then they they drop out and so finally
1:53:59um Zuck just said okay we have some
1:54:04belief that if people have more friends
1:54:07that they will engage and so they didn't
1:54:10and here's the thing like with the
1:54:11uncertainty they couldn't prove it he
1:54:13just was like I feel like that's better
1:54:15than them not having friends and so he
1:54:18said all right the new goal is 10
1:54:20friends in 14 days that's the goal so we
1:54:23have to create the experience so that we
1:54:24can get it to introduce them to 10
1:54:26people or connect them with 10 people
1:54:28they already know on the platform within
1:54:2914 days and as soon as that happened
1:54:32then obviously Facebook took off or
1:54:34continued to grow and so he wasn't like
1:54:37oh Facebook doesn't work anymore or
1:54:38social networks aren't going to be a
1:54:40thing it's it's usually way smaller and
1:54:43way the adjustment you need to make is
1:54:45much more nuanced than what you
1:54:47originally expect if the foundational
1:54:49principle of like cutting hair mowing
1:54:51lawns whatever it's like this problem
1:54:53exists and I can charge a certain amount
1:54:55and make a profit on it then there's
1:54:57nothing wrong with the business it's
1:54:59just what is the constraint that's
1:55:00holding us back and then usually zooming
1:55:02into the constraint and realizing
1:55:03there's 20 things that are contributing
1:55:05to the outcome not one and that's where
1:55:07expertise and that and you develop that
1:55:09expertise by trying and failing yeah and
1:55:12that's and that's just the name of the
1:55:13game and so I think you have to have an
1:55:15incredibly high tolerance for failure
1:55:17without internalizing it and feeling
1:55:19like you yourself are a failure as a
1:55:21result of failure
1:55:22well this is it when I started my first
1:55:24business at 18 years old called wallpark
1:55:26social network whatever um I thought the
1:55:28game was to be right yeah I came to
1:55:31learn from businesses that came after
1:55:34that actually the game of
1:55:35Entrepreneurship is to be successful and
1:55:37they're two very different things to win
1:55:40because when you want to be right you
1:55:41not only want to be CEO and you want
1:55:42your hypothesis that you put in that
1:55:44first um Pitch deck to come true and
1:55:46even when customers are telling you that
1:55:47you were wrong you try and force the
1:55:49[ __ ]
1:55:50hyp yeah but when when your game is to
1:55:53be successful there's a couple of really
1:55:55interesting things that I observe happen
1:55:56one of them is you I watch Founders say
1:55:58actually maybe I'm not the best person
1:56:00to be CEO yeah even though I founded
1:56:01this thing maybe I should be Chief brand
1:56:03officer when I think about some of the
1:56:05top companies in the UK represent just
1:56:08valued at 100 million Jim shark Ben's
1:56:10business valued at 1.5 billion Julian's
1:56:12business probably valued at a billion
1:56:15I'm involved in some of these businesses
1:56:16in different ways but um the thing they
1:56:19all have in common is at some early
1:56:21point the founder their ego secondary to
1:56:23the success of the business they said
1:56:25actually I'm not the best CEO I should
1:56:26be head of brand or marketing product or
1:56:29product or whatever it is and that's
1:56:31that mindset shift from being I need to
1:56:32be right and I need to be at the helm of
1:56:34being right versus this thing needs to
1:56:36be
1:56:37successful and this goes back to the
1:56:40who which is if you if you at some point
1:56:44if you want to have a really
1:56:45ridiculously successful company it will
1:56:47require more lifetimes of expertise than
1:56:49you can live and so then it's it becomes
1:56:52a recruiting game like very quickly
1:56:55almost all business becomes
1:56:57recruiting which is how do I I mean if
1:56:59you if you listen to Zuck talk about it
1:57:01you look you listen to Elon talk about
1:57:02it you listen to to Steve Jobs talk
1:57:04about it Steve would talk about how the
1:57:06best players that he had in the company
1:57:07he would set aside like a year to 18
1:57:09months to bring them in amen and he said
1:57:13every time I you know I I I knew who I
1:57:15wanted and then I would he's like you
1:57:18know I would take some calls with other
1:57:19people and I would just be like but
1:57:21they're not
1:57:22John they're not John and so he would
1:57:25just keep working on them and working on
1:57:27them and working them and eventually
1:57:28they're like you know what fine they
1:57:31like give up they're like if this guy's
1:57:32this persistent like he probably will be
1:57:35successful on but he will take us there
1:57:37and I think that like people are the
1:57:40highest leverage thing that you that you
1:57:41can bring into the company outside of
1:57:43you know crazy
1:57:45technology I am one of my favorite
1:57:47videos of all time is where Steve Jobs
1:57:48who you just mentioned talks about
1:57:51hiring tril exceptional people and he
1:57:53says words to the effect I'll play it on
1:57:54screen he says um people think the
1:57:56success of Apple is a consequence of me
1:57:58and my talent and my skills but what
1:58:00I've actually done is I've built my
1:58:01career quote on hiring truly exceptional
1:58:04people doing the extremely hard work of
1:58:06finding them and hiring them and this
1:58:08crazy thing happens when you do that is
1:58:10it propagates I a players then want to
1:58:13work with a players they also hire a
1:58:15players and it spreads I think it was
1:58:17this
1:58:18video I've
1:58:20built a lot of my success off finding
1:58:24these truly gifted people and not
1:58:28settling for B andc players but really
1:58:30going for the a players and I found
1:58:32something I found that when you get
1:58:35enough a players together when you go to
1:58:37through the incredible work to find you
1:58:39know five of these eight players they
1:58:42really like working with each other
1:58:43because they they've never had a chance
1:58:44to do that before and they don't want to
1:58:47work with BNC players and so it becomes
1:58:50self-policing and they only one hire
1:58:52more a players and so you build up these
1:58:54pockets of a players and it
1:58:58propagates the thing is is that it's
1:59:01just like money won't make you
1:59:03happy it's one of those things that like
1:59:05every founder like has to figure out for
1:59:07themselves but the thing is is and I and
1:59:10I've had obviously a bunch of
1:59:11conversations around this but
1:59:13like what you think is an a player today
1:59:17is not what you will think an a player
1:59:18is in five years and so I think one of
1:59:21the the hardest mental hacks around this
1:59:23is trying to project yourself into the
1:59:25future into the size business that you
1:59:27want to have and say who would be an a
1:59:29player at that size and scale and then
1:59:32coming back to the present and saying
1:59:34how do I get them to work for me today
1:59:36amen and it's it's really and so as a
1:59:39mental process for anybody who does have
1:59:41a business right now and has some
1:59:42employees if you like everybody right
1:59:45now you probably have some version of
1:59:47your a player because every business has
1:59:48at least one hopefully right besides you
1:59:50um imagine your business had five of
1:59:53those people like you picture in your
1:59:54head you've got that one person now you
1:59:56have five of them how much more would
1:59:59you make would you would you double
2:00:01would you would you five would you 10x
2:00:03would you 50x and sometimes you realize
2:00:06you're like no I think I would actually
2:00:0710x and so if that were the case one Not
2:00:11only would you 10x the company number
2:00:13two the value of the company would more
2:00:14than 10x because it would no longer be
2:00:16it would be significantly less relied on
2:00:17you and it'd be more reliant on the team
2:00:19that you've
2:00:20built number three if would happen
2:00:22faster because you would have more
2:00:24barrels that were firing concurrently
2:00:26moving things forward and those those
2:00:31pieces when put together you have to
2:00:33then ask yourself from an opportunity
2:00:35cost perspective what other activity
2:00:38could I be doing that would have the
2:00:40possibility of texing my company doing
2:00:42it faster and increasing the Enterprise
2:00:44Value
2:00:45multiple that's not that and if you
2:00:48can't find one then it means you're
2:00:50working on the wrong stuff and I think
2:00:52that is one of those um great litmus
2:00:54tests of like if I can find something
2:00:56and I'll give you a really simple one
2:00:57that's not not human B the talent based
2:01:00here something as simple as calling your
2:01:02leads so there's tons of research that
2:01:05suggest that you can four 5x your
2:01:08conversion of leads by calling them
2:01:09within 60 seconds of them opting it for
2:01:12any product you
2:01:14have if you have all of these priorities
2:01:16they have across the
2:01:18company does any of them have the high
2:01:21likelihood of four or 5x in your
2:01:23business
2:01:25immediately with very low cost of doing
2:01:27so less so than just calling the leads
2:01:30within 60 seconds if the answer is no
2:01:33Then by God why are you not calling all
2:01:36your leads within 60 seconds the fob
2:01:38question would would be like well I
2:01:39don't have enough people to call our
2:01:40leads within 60 seconds so then we'd say
2:01:43okay what is 4X the revenue of your
2:01:45company worth okay what does it cost to
2:01:50hire one person who whose only job is to
2:01:53just call the leads now I recently
2:01:55talked to a Restoration company so they
2:01:57did water damage for homes when they got
2:01:59hit by storms and he told me he said he
2:02:01was converting 55% of his leads not
2:02:04calls leads and I was like how on Earth
2:02:06are you doing this and I was like well
2:02:08how many leads a day do you get he said
2:02:09two or three I was like okay so what's
2:02:12the process he's like oh it's really
2:02:13simple uh my aunt I pay her $60,000 a
2:02:17year and she has only one job she has no
2:02:19responsibility in the company besides
2:02:20the moment a lead comes in you stop
2:02:23having sex with your husband you stop
2:02:24you stop you stop cooking you stop
2:02:26loving your child and you immediately
2:02:28call the lead that's the only
2:02:29responsibility she just has to make
2:02:30three calls a day at the moment the
2:02:32leads come in and he pays her
2:02:35$60,000 and that brings in millions of
2:02:38dollars of Revenue and So you you're not
2:02:41going to pay for it out of the dollars
2:02:43you have now you're going to pay for it
2:02:44out of the dollars that you're going to
2:02:45make that you're not making yet because
2:02:47you haven't done it yet and
2:02:49so pin in that
2:02:52back to the
2:02:54people I think the hardest time I we
2:02:56call this the swamp at acquisition.
2:02:58comom but it's usually between like 1
2:02:59and 3 million is the swamp and I think
2:03:02there's a numberous reason for why it's
2:03:04such a painful period for
2:03:07entrepreneurs let's say 1 million for
2:03:09simple math if you have a million-dollar
2:03:11business let's say that you have 20%
2:03:13margins so that means you're making
2:03:14$200,000 a year in profit for you to get
2:03:17an a player it's probably going to cost
2:03:20you 100% of your profit to get that a
2:03:22player and so you'll have what appears
2:03:25to be an impossible Choice you'll have
2:03:28do I sacrifice basically 100% of my
2:03:31profit to bring this person in or do I
2:03:34work another six hours a day to to do
2:03:38the job that this person is doing both
2:03:40paths work both are painful and risky
2:03:44because the overworking yourself thing
2:03:46you can get yourself through that hump
2:03:47and then now you're at maybe 3 or 4
2:03:49million and that 20% is 800 you can you
2:03:51can spend 200 you still have cash flow
2:03:53you can still live the downside for the
2:03:56picking the person path is that what if
2:03:57you pick
2:03:59wrong and this by the way ladies and
2:04:01gentlemen is why entrepreneurs get
2:04:03outside returns is because we take on
2:04:05outside risk and so this is the this is
2:04:08the job is that we have to be willing to
2:04:10make impossible choices and the vast
2:04:13majority of choices for entrepreneurs in
2:04:15the business are impossible choices
2:04:17between two relatively bad scenarios
2:04:20because the rest of the choices aren't
2:04:21don't even feel like choices because
2:04:23they're obvious of course we should car
2:04:25leads faster of course we should follow
2:04:27up more of course we should try and
2:04:28onboard faster okay all these things are
2:04:30the obvious ones but when you
2:04:32have man I'm trying to think of the ones
2:04:35I I'm not I'm
2:04:36not almost all the decisions that you
2:04:39get stuck with and Elon says this really
2:04:41beautifully he says
2:04:43um running a business is like staring
2:04:46out to the abyss and chewing glass so
2:04:49because uh the staring out to the abyss
2:04:51component of it is just the fact that
2:04:53this may never work and you're almost
2:04:57facing existential risk at all times to
2:04:59the business and the eating glass
2:05:00component is that you will by nature of
2:05:03your role get funneled the worst
2:05:06problems in the business and the
2:05:07problems that no one else can solve so
2:05:08it's one problems that people can't
2:05:10solve two the worst ones or that they
2:05:13they don't want to solve and they suck
2:05:16and so you basically become a filter for
2:05:18the worst things and that's why it feels
2:05:19like a fire every single day in the
2:05:21business because you're the only one who
2:05:23can make the tough call because no one
2:05:25else wants to choose between these two
2:05:26impossible choices and you're like why
2:05:28is it so hard and the thing is is that
2:05:30it literally never stops being hard it's
2:05:32that the currency that you pay for in
2:05:34the hardness changes and so you know a
2:05:38lot of people have this envisionment of
2:05:39like the rocky cut scene of like it must
2:05:40be hard for business but I don't I don't
2:05:42think that's where the hardship comes I
2:05:44think the hardship is that at every
2:05:46level of business there's new sacrifices
2:05:49that you didn't know you were going to
2:05:50have to make because if it was just oh I
2:05:52have to work long hours there's tons of
2:05:53people work long hours in their business
2:05:55and don't don't grow and it's usually
2:05:56because they're unwilling to have a hard
2:05:58conversation it's a different currency
2:06:01right they have to take on risk it's a
2:06:03different currency they have to um they
2:06:06have to they have to make some sort of
2:06:07BET right that they otherwise wouldn't
2:06:09have had to make they have some sort of
2:06:10legal issue that they encounter they
2:06:12have an employee who tries to sue them
2:06:14for some sort of Mal whatever right all
2:06:17of a sudden you're like wait all of
2:06:18these things are happening and they
2:06:19happen on a regular basis and at each
2:06:21level you unlock new levels of glass
2:06:24that you get to True through and so this
2:06:27is why like most entrepreneurs in my
2:06:29opinion don't actually quit they fizzle
2:06:32so it's not a big bang usually it's they
2:06:35just they stop seeking so either they
2:06:37get content at the level that they're at
2:06:39and they just don't strive for more um
2:06:41and sometimes they say it just wasn't
2:06:43worth the trade and I respect that if
2:06:44you're like you know what I'm at a
2:06:45million dollar a year and I don't want
2:06:46anymore fine you won congratulations
2:06:48like you won at life um but most of the
2:06:51time they don't really quit they just
2:06:53stop trying and then they just either
2:06:55coast and or it just Fizzles into into
2:06:58nothingness and that's just my
2:06:59experience of having I'm sure you've
2:07:01seen this having gone through like
2:07:02cycles of entrepreneur it's like Seasons
2:07:03it's like oh yeah I came in through even
2:07:06like in the media and influencer space
2:07:07whatever it's like there's a bunch of
2:07:09guys that 10 years ago it's a different
2:07:11landscape now than it was 10 years ago
2:07:12some people adapted some of them were
2:07:14like I don't like the they they just
2:07:17they just they weren't willing to chew
2:07:19the new glass which is how do I learn
2:07:20Tik Tok how do I learn but man blogs
2:07:22were so good it's like yeah and they're
2:07:24not anymore I talked to an entrepreneur
2:07:26really massive many hundreds of millions
2:07:28of year in sales and he was like dude we
2:07:31were killing it on infomercials so TV
2:07:34and he's like we just you know we uh we
2:07:37just we really just have to crack
2:07:38YouTube and I'm thinking to myself like
2:07:41dude it's 2024 like what like you needed
2:07:45to crack YouTube 10 years ago and he had
2:07:47the resources to do it but it was just a
2:07:49different kind of hard and so most of
2:07:52the hard is one a level of uncertainty
2:07:56that that goes into it and almost
2:07:58certain immediate failure because the
2:08:00first thing you're going to do will
2:08:02probably not work and again it's the
2:08:04iterations of when you get into the new
2:08:06domain you have to transfer your
2:08:08generalized knowledge which is that as
2:08:10an entrepreneur I will know that this
2:08:11doesn't work probably because I only
2:08:13know four things about it and I need to
2:08:15know like 400 and so I will get my first
2:08:18shot and I need to get directionally
2:08:20correct and then just keep doing more of
2:08:22that and so I gave the Consulting way of
2:08:24learning kind of like a new space but if
2:08:26you want to learn a new skill the
2:08:28fastest way that I do it that's outside
2:08:29of courses or anything is tremendous
2:08:32volume of activity so whether that's
2:08:34like I want to take a lot of sales calls
2:08:35I want to do a lot of Outreach I want to
2:08:36make a lot of content I want to do a lot
2:08:38of customer success calls whatever it is
2:08:40you do a hundred of those and then you
2:08:41say what are the top 10% of these okay
2:08:45what did these top 10% have different
2:08:48than the other 90 and then I say okay
2:08:50well these ones had these three things
2:08:52that were different let's try and do
2:08:53those three things on the next 100 and
2:08:56then because of the variety of life
2:08:57there's going to be some new variables
2:08:59that exist that you look at the top 10%
2:09:02of the next 100 and you're like okay we
2:09:04did those three but there's also two
2:09:06more things that happened in this 10
2:09:08versus the other 90 now let's do all
2:09:10five of those things and over time this
2:09:12is how you develop a checklist for
2:09:13making Banger content and Banger videos
2:09:16and I'm sure like there's this clip
2:09:18David Perell talks about Chris Rock's
2:09:20creative process and he says how is it
2:09:24that you see Chris Rock at Madison
2:09:25Square Gardens and it's just like 60
2:09:28Minutes of just fire you're like how is
2:09:30this guy so funny and it's because what
2:09:32you don't see is the many small clubs
2:09:34and the first club that he goes to and
2:09:36does a whole hourong set and has like
2:09:39three moments that people laugh a lot
2:09:40about and he's got like five minutes
2:09:42that are good and the other 55 minutes
2:09:45basically suck and so the next time he
2:09:47goes to a club he takes those five
2:09:48minutes puts them at the front and then
2:09:50he tries all new material for the next
2:09:5255 minutes and he gets another 5 minutes
2:09:54and he continues to repeat this process
2:09:56and put the new stuff at the front until
2:09:58eventually is 60 Minutes of
2:09:59uninterrupted laughing and then people
2:10:01are like oh my God he's so talented I
2:10:03can't believe that he can just stand up
2:10:04there and talk into a microphone and
2:10:06make everyone laugh cross age boundaries
2:10:08cross cultural boundaries um cross you
2:10:11know all of the boundaries that you
2:10:12might imagine how can he be so funny to
2:10:14everyone that's how how can that guy be
2:10:17so good at writing well he looked at the
2:10:18stuff that he wrote he found the best
2:10:20stuff made it into the the few things
2:10:21that he always does and then kept
2:10:23writing and that fundamentally is the
2:10:25process of learning anything and it's
2:10:26usually not one thing it's many small
2:10:28things that when added together in
2:10:29aggregate create the outside returns
2:10:31sorry that was a little Pulpit there I
2:10:34just get violent about skill acquisition
2:10:36like that's what it takes so interesting
2:10:37but it's so interesting to see your
2:10:38journey through that and how and how you
2:10:40you you ended up at skill acquisition
2:10:42because I was as you went through there
2:10:44was three things that I was thinking
2:10:45about and I managed to write them down
2:10:47the first at the top of it was you you
2:10:49detailed three reasons why hiring the um
2:10:53exceptional person when you're faced
2:10:54with that Paradox of what do I do with
2:10:55my profits Mak so much sense one of the
2:10:57big things I hear from Founders that
2:10:59they don't appreciate
2:11:02is to go for a long period of time you
2:11:06have to have some kind of emotional
2:11:07regulation and as you were talking about
2:11:10the the different levels of business and
2:11:11every level you have more problems what
2:11:13I often see is a young founder hasn't
2:11:16hired those levels in between to deal
2:11:18with all those different types of
2:11:19problems and they are like burning out
2:11:22and thinking of quitting I had someone
2:11:23in my office last week and she's on
2:11:25route to build about a $50 $50 million
2:11:27business this year and the first
2:11:29question I said to her was what's your
2:11:31executive team and she just like rolls
2:11:33her eyes and she's like I don't have an
2:11:34executive team she'd done a post on
2:11:36social media basically in tear saying
2:11:38that she was going to quit she's got a
2:11:4030 to 50 million business it's growing
2:11:43like wildfire but she's about to almost
2:11:45quit it because she's dealing with every
2:11:47single problem and often Founders say to
2:11:50me they think because they're
2:11:52experiencing so much hardship in that
2:11:53like 1 to three million phase that
2:11:55forever it's going to be just huge pain
2:11:58and I talked to them about this thing I
2:12:00called the promised land I love this cuz
2:12:03cuz I cuz in the first two three years
2:12:04of my business I thought that forever
2:12:06I'm going to have to deal with every
2:12:07[ __ ] problem Jenny and the offic is
2:12:08pissed off at Dave and on Saturday night
2:12:10when they were drunk they did something
2:12:11which they shouldn't have have and I
2:12:13realized the problem was I hadn't solved
2:12:15for hiring these levels so everything
2:12:17was coming to me and the emotional toll
2:12:19and my nervous system of dealing with
2:12:21problem was not sustainable and then I
2:12:23accidentally hiir someone good yeah who
2:12:25I mentioned and from and she dealt sheal
2:12:28with all [ __ ] and then I could think
2:12:30again as a Founder right so I wanted
2:12:32just give a moment to that and your
2:12:34thoughts on that I want to do my best
2:12:37shot at operationalizing what you just
2:12:38said for someone who's
2:12:40listening when we have when we encounter
2:12:43this issue we have a specific process
2:12:44that we go through and so we tell the
2:12:47founder I want you to make a Google
2:12:48sheet really simple and I want you to
2:12:50have the time slots from 5:00 a.m. to
2:12:52you know midnight what however long you
2:12:54work in 15minute increments and I want
2:12:57you to set a timer easy timer kitchen
2:12:59timer like for cooking for every 15
2:13:01minutes and every 15 minutes I want you
2:13:03to when it dings I want you to write
2:13:05down what you did one or two one or two
2:13:07words doesn't doesn't doesn't take a lot
2:13:09now as soon as I say that people are
2:13:10like oh my God I don't have time for
2:13:11this I will promise you it will be the
2:13:13most productive week of your life
2:13:15because you will be aware of how you're
2:13:16spending your time every time I do this
2:13:18I immediately think I should do this all
2:13:20the time and I don't so just do it just
2:13:22do it for the one week okay and so what
2:13:24happens is you'll do it for a whole week
2:13:27and then what the second step of this is
2:13:29you'll look at that and you'll say okay
2:13:31wow I didn't know that 40% of my time is
2:13:34dealing with this thing and I can hire a
2:13:37role to handle 40% of my time for this
2:13:40amount of money if I had 40% of my time
2:13:43back I could double this business and
2:13:45that would be worth significantly more
2:13:47than what I'd pay this person and then
2:13:48you look at the next 13 you know 15% of
2:13:51your time and you're like okay is this
2:13:53something that I can give to somebody
2:13:54else like can I can I push this down can
2:13:57I create some process around this that
2:13:58can correct it or do I need to keep
2:14:00eating it for a little bit until it's
2:14:01enough that it's a full-time role and so
2:14:04fundamentally I see the entrepreneur as
2:14:06the the many hated fractional that you
2:14:09continue to pull things under your plate
2:14:11until you have enough that you can ship
2:14:12it out to somebody else full-time and
2:14:15being aware of again the one resources
2:14:17we have which is time how we're
2:14:19allocating it so we get the highest
2:14:20return and so if you look at the stack
2:14:22of time as an entrepreneur we are always
2:14:24getting paid for our time kind of the
2:14:26premise of the the whole the whole talk
2:14:28here um is that we trade our time for
2:14:30dollars and so we always the whole
2:14:34process of Entrepreneurship is
2:14:35continuing to trade up what you're
2:14:37trading your time for and that's it like
2:14:40at the most foundational level that is
2:14:42all we're doing and so to take this as a
2:14:46hypothetical your business doesn't need
2:14:49you right now you spend spend whatever
2:14:51hours you do working and you do these
2:14:53things imagine a world where you could
2:14:55hire somebody who could spend the same
2:14:56amount of time doing all that stuff now
2:14:58you own the business and whatever you
2:15:00have to pay them you take out of the
2:15:01profit and everything else is now
2:15:03distributions that you own as an
2:15:05owner that's it now the entrepreneur
2:15:09who's Missi driven then Stacks their
2:15:11plate with even more things that they
2:15:12need to do and then just continues that
2:15:14process over and over again now this is
2:15:16the part where the the push back comes
2:15:19which is no one can do what I can do and
2:15:21I want to say you're right
2:15:23and if I wanted to let's say you're a
2:15:26unicorn so we can imagine this mythical
2:15:28unicorn got this White Horse got the
2:15:29horn tail everything and the little
2:15:32pixie pixie flies for the magic that's
2:15:33around it okay you probably won't find a
2:15:37unicorn but you can find a white
2:15:40horse and you can find a rhinoceros to
2:15:43get the horn and you can find some
2:15:45fireflies to give you the twinkles and
2:15:47so you may not hire one person who has
2:15:50all of these things but you can hire
2:15:52three and then those three together can
2:15:55potentially do everything that you're
2:15:56doing better because it's all they're
2:15:58doing with all of their time and
2:16:01breaking it up into basically
2:16:03understanding that you're not going to
2:16:04find that unicorn but you just break it
2:16:05into pieces and then you can partition
2:16:07it out to people who can just do those
2:16:08parts makes it a lot more manageable
2:16:12from an emotional level to think like
2:16:14I'm never going to find this of course
2:16:16you're not and that's okay because we
2:16:18can find we can solve for parts of our
2:16:20calar calend and fundamentally when you
2:16:22buy back the time you can then do what
2:16:26you're like basically take the next step
2:16:27in the business the other really
2:16:29interesting thing as you were talking
2:16:30about your friend who was doing blogs
2:16:31and missed YouTube was the idea that our
2:16:34success trapped the old innovators
2:16:36dilemma yeah that success traps Us in
2:16:39the past so your friend probably missed
2:16:41YouTube because he didn't want to
2:16:42reallocate headcount to something that
2:16:44was working and paying the bills and
2:16:46this I guess ties into your point about
2:16:48failure being so unbelievably important
2:16:49because what me and you both do right
2:16:52now is going to get old yeah like you
2:16:55know mean and we probably both watched
2:16:57the people that came before us fade into
2:16:59irrelevance look at these dinosaurs yeah
2:17:01right and we're part of some kind of new
2:17:03school of content creation but we're
2:17:04going to become part of the old school
2:17:06if we don't
2:17:08yeah what's what's in that Gap
2:17:12adapt and I think that it's a poort so
2:17:14you know Google has their their you know
2:17:16I think Sergey like solved this
2:17:18mathematically but they I think they
2:17:19called it 72010 so 70% of resources get
2:17:23allocated to the Core Business do more
2:17:24of what we're currently doing 20% goes
2:17:27to adjacent businesses so things that
2:17:29are high likelihood success that are you
2:17:31know one-step removed from the existing
2:17:32Core Business um and then 10% goes to
2:17:35moonshots totally like off the path like
2:17:38let's just see maybe we'll get 100 extra
2:17:40turn we probably will lose on most of
2:17:41these and he proved it with math he's
2:17:45smarter than I am um but fundamentally
2:17:47that is the concept of more better new
2:17:49and so that's one of the chapters in in
2:17:51in the leads book which is okay now that
2:17:53you have the core four right these are
2:17:54the four things that you can do you can
2:17:55post content you can run ads you can do
2:17:56Outreach to strangers you can do
2:17:57Outreach to people you know those are
2:17:58the four things any person can do to
2:18:01advertise the first thing you do is you
2:18:03do more and for most small businesses
2:18:06they're they're doing so little and
2:18:08think they're doing so much and it's
2:18:10it's a huge gap in in understanding and
2:18:13so I'll I'll tell this this story that's
2:18:15that's probably the easiest way to
2:18:16explain it which is when I had my first
2:18:19gym I called up a mentor he had 20
2:18:22locations I said how do you advertise he
2:18:24said I use flyers I said okay so I put
2:18:26300 Flyers
2:18:28out it didn't work I called him back I
2:18:31was upset I said WTF he said slow down
2:18:35what was your test size and I said what
2:18:38do you mean he's like well your test
2:18:40size so like I mean 300 wasn't the only
2:18:43amount that you put out I was like well
2:18:46yeah it's like well our test size is
2:18:485,000 flyers and then once we have a
2:18:51winner then we do 5,000 every day in
2:18:53terms of Flyers that they put on cars to
2:18:54get people in the get people in and so
2:18:58over a 30-day period he would be putting
2:18:59out 150,000 flyers and over a 30-day
2:19:02period I put out
2:19:04300 and so he was in a very real way
2:19:06doing whatever the math is there but
2:19:08like 300 times or whatever I don't know
2:19:10a lot more 500 times the math sorry 500
2:19:13times the Flyers that I was and of
2:19:14course he was getting a better result
2:19:16and so one of the fundamental
2:19:18misconceptions of small businesses is
2:19:20that they mistake V they mistake low
2:19:23volume for volatility
2:19:26meaning if you if you're not sure where
2:19:29your sales come from and you get one
2:19:30sale here and then you know two weeks
2:19:32later you get another sale and it feels
2:19:34sporadic it feels volatile well there is
2:19:37a certain amount of advertising activity
2:19:39that is occurring over that period of
2:19:41time and we know that a month passes and
2:19:45you get one to two sales and so the
2:19:47companies that are in your space that
2:19:49are doing one to sales a day take what
2:19:52you're doing in a month and they do that
2:19:54every day and I know that you can get
2:19:56this and I want to put this in context
2:19:58here I hear I would like to build a
2:20:00personal brand and I say cool and then I
2:20:03ask how much cont are you putting out
2:20:04and they say you know I put out you know
2:20:05one or two pieces a week and I like
2:20:07that's amazing um for context for anyone
2:20:09who's listening to this we put out 450
2:20:11pieces a
2:20:13week and so the brand that we have is
2:20:16way larger because we do so much more
2:20:19than you do and
2:20:21that's it's people can't fathom the idea
2:20:24that someone Works two times five times
2:20:2610 times a thousand times more output
2:20:29than they are doing but it is usually
2:20:31the reality of why they are getting a
2:20:33thousand times more than you're getting
2:20:35and fundamentally this is the concept of
2:20:37Leverage which is you know the that you
2:20:38get more for what you put in in the
2:20:40beginning you're the one doing the
2:20:41flyers then you get leverage because
2:20:42then you make enough from those flyers
2:20:43that you can look at your time study and
2:20:45be like okay I can pay two guys to do
2:20:47these flyers and I can get eight hours
2:20:49back that would be amazing but now
2:20:50you've got two guys doing Flyers which
2:20:52is still double of what you were doing
2:20:53now you have double the revenue that's
2:20:55coming in like okay should I hire more
2:20:56guys that's more or should I do
2:20:58something better should I change my
2:20:59flyer up should I change the offer on
2:21:01the flyer that would be better or should
2:21:02I start Facebook ads well the new which
2:21:06would be Facebook ads is the 10% thing
2:21:08now when you're looking at allocation of
2:21:10resources let's say we're now I'm fast
2:21:12forwarding a little bit into a company
2:21:13that has you know profit that they can
2:21:15do stuff with part of the reinvestment
2:21:17is insurance for the future and so every
2:21:20business has three strategic buckets
2:21:23that it has to allocate its resources
2:21:24into number one is how do we get more
2:21:27customers like if we get more customers
2:21:29the company grows period number two how
2:21:32do we increase lifetime gross profit per
2:21:33customer so if we got the same amount of
2:21:35customers but we made all the customers
2:21:36worth more we would also grow bucket
2:21:38three is how do we decrease risk AKA how
2:21:41do we increase the likelihood that the
2:21:42first two things don't stop happening
2:21:44and so those are the three buckets and
2:21:45so when we're when you look at that
2:21:4972010 the for the most part is usually
2:21:51going to be directed towards get more
2:21:53customers make them worth more and the
2:21:54better also Lads up to that the risk
2:21:57factor is usually going to be the new
2:21:59thing that you're going to do to uh
2:22:02ensure your future is going to be there
2:22:04by the time you get there and so if you
2:22:06Noti if we noticed for example that like
2:22:08YouTube becomes like Legacy television
2:22:10and you know viewership starts dropping
2:22:11and it becomes this new VR whatever
2:22:13right at some point we're going to have
2:22:15to look and be like we need to take 10%
2:22:1820% of our profit every year and start
2:22:19building out this this new team we're
2:22:21going to continue to do what we're
2:22:22currently doing and here's the mistake
2:22:24that you need to avoid don't take the
2:22:27stars that are making the one thing work
2:22:29and then push them on the other thing
2:22:30you have to find the people who can
2:22:32build this otherwise you're going to
2:22:33sacrifice the core because all of a
2:22:35sudden it's like oh god well now we're
2:22:37totally screwed because now we're not
2:22:38getting customers from our existing
2:22:39thing and we haven't figured out the new
2:22:41thing yet right and so this is
2:22:42fundamentally where I see the CEO role
2:22:44is like you want to eventually become
2:22:46the flex player which is that you can
2:22:48parachute in to a specific division or
2:22:50Department that's solving a complex
2:22:52issue and then you have the benefit that
2:22:54you have a CEO or founder is that you
2:22:56have decision- making power and you have
2:22:58the ability to allocate resources and
2:23:00immediately say yes to things and that's
2:23:02why and to be fair it's unfair to your
2:23:03team to say why can't why can't they do
2:23:05things as fast as me well because you
2:23:06can write the checks and because you can
2:23:07say yes you don't need to check with the
2:23:09committee you don't need to run it up
2:23:10the flag pole it's just you saying do
2:23:12this do that don't worry about that I'm
2:23:14telling you you can stay late for this
2:23:15meeting this is more important and so
2:23:17strategy is just a fancy word that
2:23:19people say when mean prioritization
2:23:21that's all it means we have we have
2:23:23unlimited opportunities that we can
2:23:25allocate things towards but we have
2:23:26limited resources and so how do we
2:23:28prioritize those unlimited opportunities
2:23:30against those limited resources that is
2:23:32fundamentally what strategy is and
2:23:34that's another way of just saying we
2:23:35prioritize yoga and Mya is the home of
2:23:38our digestion and it's also a gateway to
2:23:40Better Health but it can be hard to know
2:23:42what's going on in there Zoe who
2:23:44sponsors this podcast has one of the
2:23:45largest microbiome databases on the
2:23:47planet and one of the world's most
2:23:49advanced at home got Health tests their
2:23:51blood sugar sensor which I have in this
2:23:52box in front of me goes on your arm so
2:23:54you can see how different foods impact
2:23:56your blood sugar then there's the at
2:23:58home blood sample which is really easy
2:23:59and analyzes your body's blood fat and
2:24:02of course the
2:24:04famous blue Zoey cookie which tests your
2:24:08metabolism oh and I can't forget there's
2:24:10also a poo sample which is a critical
2:24:12step in understanding the health of your
2:24:14microbiome and you post it all to Zoe
2:24:16and you get your results back which will
2:24:17help you to understand your body's
2:24:19response to different foods using your
2:24:20results Zoe's app will also create a
2:24:22personalized nutrition plan for you and
2:24:24this is exactly why I invested in the
2:24:26business so my question to you is how
2:24:28healthy is your gut head to zoe.com to
2:24:30AUD yourkit and find out and because
2:24:32you're one of our listeners use code
2:24:34Steven 10 for 10% off your membership
2:24:37head to zoe.com
2:24:39now at my company flight Studio which is
2:24:41part of my bigger company flight group
2:24:43we're constantly looking for ways to
2:24:44build deeper connections with our
2:24:46audiences whether that's a new show a
2:24:48product or a project it's I launched the
2:24:51conversation cards I've relied on
2:24:52Shopify before who's a sponsor of
2:24:54today's podcast and I'll be using them
2:24:56again for the next big launch which
2:24:58we'll hear about soon and I use them
2:24:59because of how easy it is to set up an
2:25:01online store that reaches all of you no
2:25:03matter where you are in the world with
2:25:05Shopify the usual pain points of
2:25:06launching products online Disappear
2:25:08Completely no matter the size of your
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2:25:18thank you to all of you for listening to
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2:25:22is just $1 a month you can sign up by
2:25:25going to shopify.com
2:25:27Bartlet that's shopify.com Bartlet or
2:25:31find the link in the description
2:25:33below on the on the car example you're
2:25:35talking about with the Flyers yeah what
2:25:37I was thinking is so many businesses try
2:25:38and win on the game of creativity so
2:25:41we'll create something more creative and
2:25:43appealing as an advert and I see this in
2:25:45my portfolio because they'll send me
2:25:47something and they'll go Steve one
2:25:49particular business thinking about a
2:25:50major national supermarket has given us
2:25:52a display slot in a in 400 supermarkets
2:25:56which display should we use and they'll
2:25:59say to me this one or this one right and
2:26:01I remember replying to them and saying I
2:26:03don't know and you don't know but here's
2:26:06a system to find out we're going to
2:26:07create a 100 displays and we're going to
2:26:09run them as ads on Facebook or we're
2:26:10going to create some kind of environment
2:26:12where we're not going to try and win on
2:26:13being the best creative guesses we're
2:26:15going to win on our rate of
2:26:16experimentation yeah we're going to
2:26:18conduct more experiments yeah and I
2:26:20think this is a a real shift in so many
2:26:22regards because especially if we've gone
2:26:24through University and we've been
2:26:26trained as a copywriter we have the old
2:26:28problem of wanting to be right not
2:26:29successful yeah and and being able to as
2:26:31a creative even as a podcast to say I
2:26:34don't know what the right answer is but
2:26:35I'm I'm going to create a system where
2:26:36our rate of experimentation is going to
2:26:38be so much higher than our competitors
2:26:40that we're going to stumble across the
2:26:42right answer more than they do is a
2:26:44shift in thinking so there are two types
2:26:47of questions that you shouldn't ask
2:26:49questions that that can be solved with a
2:26:51spreadsheet and questions that can be
2:26:53solved with testing and so fundamentally
2:26:56the outside advice that you get on
2:26:57something that can be solved with math
2:26:59just solve with math and I get I would
2:27:00say like 30% of the questions that I get
2:27:02are like should I should I sell this one
2:27:04or this one and I'm like okay well
2:27:05what's lifetime value of this product
2:27:06and what's lifetime value of that
2:27:07product okay what's cost to acquire for
2:27:09this customer what's cost to acquire for
2:27:11that customer okay this is a math
2:27:12problem you have way higher LTV to C
2:27:14ratio here allocate resources here but
2:27:16that's a math problem anyone can just do
2:27:18that math for the testing one I love
2:27:20this like the leads book um I didn't
2:27:23know what to name it so it's about
2:27:25advertising so I ran story tests for
2:27:28like a week or two just saying uh $100
2:27:31million promotions $100 million uh
2:27:34advertising and then advertising one
2:27:35it's like1 million dollar advertising
2:27:36$100 million marketing okay then
2:27:38advertising wins I'm like okay $100 $100
2:27:40million uh advertising $100 million
2:27:43leads leads wins $100 million leads
2:27:45versus two other things leads keeps
2:27:46winning okay that's the title and then I
2:27:49did the same thing for the cover I did
2:27:50the same thing for the sub headline and
2:27:51so I tested every component of it to get
2:27:53the thing that people seem to want which
2:27:55is like the book is advertising but
2:27:57ironically people want leads so it's
2:27:59kind of like uh do I want to have a book
2:28:00on drills or do I want to have a book on
2:28:02holes right people want the hole in the
2:28:03wall not the drill that's just the
2:28:04vehicle and so the book is just the
2:28:05vehicle to getting leads amen um but uh
2:28:08as a quick hack uh for anybody who has a
2:28:11a brick-and mortar business this is just
2:28:13a just a quick hack for anybody if
2:28:14you're like what Market should I expand
2:28:16into here's five markets we're looking
2:28:18at take $1,000
2:28:20run your best promotion that you win in
2:28:22your current market in all five of those
2:28:24markets see what your lead cost is in
2:28:26all five markets the one that has the
2:28:28lowest lead cost then open in that
2:28:30market don't spend
2:28:32$250,000 you know doing all these
2:28:34studies and then and then building out
2:28:36this location only to find out that the
2:28:37lead cost in that area sucks just test
2:28:40it first it's the best $5,000 or $10,000
2:28:42that you're ever going to spend to just
2:28:45ensure this is a risk this is a risk
2:28:47bucket ensure that when you're there
2:28:49it's going to work
2:28:51I mean amen it's our whole philosophy so
2:28:53it's U it's so wonderful to hear that
2:28:55and I didn't realize that you done that
2:28:57with the book oh yeah I have it in the
2:28:58chapter where I'm like you have to wrap
2:29:00everything and and I show all the tests
2:29:02that I ran to I'm like you can see all
2:29:03the percentages of of people saying this
2:29:05is the that's the book title when people
2:29:07look at you Alex they you're a guy that
2:29:08knows a lot about a lot and one of the
2:29:11questions that I often get as well is um
2:29:13I need a mentor people kids will come up
2:29:15to you and say I'm sure they say it to
2:29:17you all the time will you be my mentor
2:29:19yeah do mentors
2:29:22matter so to I I'll explain what I'm
2:29:25thinking through so to answer that
2:29:26question I think it asks what is what is
2:29:29required to
2:29:31win
2:29:33and is a mentor required
2:29:37no but there
2:29:40are certain behaviors and actions that
2:29:43will increase the likel of
2:29:44success if you can do those
2:29:47actions faster then you will have a
2:29:50higher likelihood of winning and high
2:29:51have a higher likelihood of winning
2:29:53faster all of humanity has been built on
2:29:57us standing on our forefather's
2:29:59shoulders and taking what they learned
2:30:01we don't have to figure out how light
2:30:03bulbs work I have no idea how the
2:30:04internet works but I know that it works
2:30:06and there's somebody who can figure it
2:30:07out and so we just start where they kind
2:30:10of lay off the Baton and then we pick it
2:30:12up from there and we and we run the next
2:30:13Tower manyu and then we die and we end
2:30:14to the next guy
2:30:16and I think you don't need mentors but
2:30:20you need to learn from people ahead of
2:30:22you and so I think in models not mentors
2:30:26what can I model about their behavior so
2:30:29that it can change my behavior to
2:30:30increase the likelihood that I win
2:30:31faster and so everything that I do and I
2:30:34feel like pretty this a pretty strong
2:30:36statement everything that I do Ls up or
2:30:40down to behavior and so you'd probably
2:30:43notice it when I talk about training and
2:30:45employees when I talk about advertising
2:30:46I just want to increase the likelihood
2:30:48that a stranger takes that Des desired
2:30:50action that's all I'm trying to do and
2:30:51when we get into Behavior change it
2:30:54removes a lot of the surface level fluff
2:30:58that I think confuses the vast majority
2:31:00of people and so I'm always afraid to go
2:31:03on podcasts where somebody is like
2:31:06really heavy in like manifestation and
2:31:08like energy and frequencies and like
2:31:11whatever the
2:31:12hell and they'll say things like I
2:31:15manifested this meeting and I'll be like
2:31:17you didn't you're uh you have content
2:31:20that did well because you produce
2:31:21content on a regular basis and then your
2:31:23EA reached out to my EA that reach out
2:31:25is what initiated this not whatever
2:31:28Vibes you were setting out into the
2:31:29universe now some people might say yeah
2:31:31it was also The Vibes but I would bet
2:31:33that if they made the content and did
2:31:35the reach out I would still do it which
2:31:36means that those are the core things
2:31:38because if we' removed those if we just
2:31:40did the manifestation and didn't make
2:31:42the content on the reach out I would not
2:31:43be here and so one of these works one of
2:31:46these doesn't and so that is what has
2:31:48allowed me to try and extract the
2:31:50essence from the mentors or Heroes ahead
2:31:53of me I I consume a tremendous amount of
2:31:56Elon basos Zuck anything that I can find
2:32:00uh that they put out or that they're
2:32:01interviewed on I try and consume it and
2:32:03the whole goal is I want to think about
2:32:06their decision-making process as it
2:32:08relates to what they did and try and
2:32:11apply that to my context um in terms of
2:32:14behavior and so that has been just like
2:32:17the big the big big big zoom out for do
2:32:20I need a mentor no but you need to learn
2:32:22stuff and so whatever way is the fastest
2:32:24way for you to learn things do that and
2:32:27so I'll tell this story because I think
2:32:28it's it it like do you need one no no
2:32:31one needs one you could you can
2:32:32literally just do all of these things
2:32:33through trial and err on your own and
2:32:34you will figure it out time is obviously
2:32:37the one thing that is the the big
2:32:38question mark and I think part of it is
2:32:39a question of how valuable is your time
2:32:41to you not in a micro example but could
2:32:43would I pay in time or money to move
2:32:46forward five years and not make five
2:32:47years of mistakes so when I started my
2:32:50first gym I didn't actually start the
2:32:52gym because I quit my job and I drove
2:32:54across the country and I showed up at a
2:32:55guy's house that I Googled on the
2:32:56internet who said he was good at running
2:32:58gyms his name was seven figure Sam all
2:33:00right and so he was a gym Guru and so I
2:33:03showed up at his actual gym unannounced
2:33:05and I was like hey I'm here to be
2:33:08mentored and learn and he was like uh
2:33:11I'm working um I really don't know who
2:33:14you are and uh like maybe we'll talk
2:33:17tomorrow or something and I was like
2:33:19okay and he's like where are you staying
2:33:20and I said I don't know haven't decided
2:33:21yet he's like what do you mean I was
2:33:24like that's my car I just drove here and
2:33:25all my stuff's in there and he's like
2:33:27you have nowh I was like figured I just
2:33:29figured out when I got here and so he
2:33:30offered me to stay that at his at his
2:33:32house that night which was unbelievably
2:33:33generous and maybe my salesmanship got
2:33:34him you know who knows um but within a
2:33:38few weeks he had a Meetup of all the
2:33:39gyms that were kind of like following
2:33:41his little system for how he ran his
2:33:43personal training studio and and boot
2:33:45camp and I got to go as a 22-year-old
2:33:48and I paid to have access to this
2:33:50community of gym owners and they were
2:33:53all going around talking about what was
2:33:55going good and what was going wrong uh
2:33:56in the business and when it got to me I
2:33:59was like well okay so I want to open a
2:34:01location and this is kind of what I was
2:34:02thinking about my model and this is what
2:34:03I was thinking about price points and
2:34:04they were like wrong wrong here's why
2:34:06that's not going to work here's how
2:34:07that's not going to work and I was like
2:34:09oh uh okay well this is where I was
2:34:10going to buy equipment they're like
2:34:11don't buy there that's retail you can
2:34:13get it from secondhand over here and
2:34:14it's literally a tenth of the price and
2:34:16I was like oh that's awesome okay great
2:34:18I was like well I was thinking about
2:34:19getting this this type of thing they're
2:34:20like no girls will eat [ __ ] on that and
2:34:21they'll fall like I've had two girls do
2:34:23it don't worry about it like you're end
2:34:25not going to use it but you can get
2:34:26sandbags you can use them all the time
2:34:28and they're super cheap and if you have
2:34:29to replace them you can but you can use
2:34:30them for like hundreds of exercises and
2:34:31I was like great I'll do that and then I
2:34:33was like okay so I was thinking about
2:34:34this kind of square footage for my for
2:34:36my facility they're like dude you don't
2:34:37need all that you can cut that in half
2:34:39and I was like okay well cut that in
2:34:40half and um I was like I'm willing to
2:34:42pay two bucks a foot and they were like
2:34:44no never go over 150 and I was like okay
2:34:46never go over and so like in a matter of
2:34:48a day I got to take like all of the
2:34:51knowledge of all of these guys of the
2:34:53mistakes that they had all made with
2:34:54their gyms and I started my first gym
2:34:57just on their
2:34:58backs and so how much was that Worth to
2:35:02me years and so for me I have always
2:35:07been willing to pay in whatever currency
2:35:10was required to get knowledge that I
2:35:12don't know can you get that now for free
2:35:15yes it didn't exist then YouTube wasn't
2:35:17even a thing Instagram had just come out
2:35:18like for context who listening to this
2:35:21um I think about this equation a lot and
2:35:23I actually had some video of somebody
2:35:24[ __ ] on me for this but I'm going to
2:35:25say it anyways because there's the 20% G
2:35:27to say that's I'm not going to dilute
2:35:29myself so I saw a Salesman say this at a
2:35:32at a at a conference and he he wrote a
2:35:35million doll on a
2:35:36whiteboard and he called up a lady in
2:35:39the in the audience and he said how much
2:35:40do you make and she said $50,000 a year
2:35:42so he wrote $50,000 underneath the
2:35:44million and he subtracted it and it said
2:35:46$950,000 he said it cost you $950,000
2:35:50every single year you don't know how to
2:35:51make a million dollar a year and so the
2:35:54question is what is the value of that
2:35:56skill and the answer is the
2:35:59difference and so the the the troll who
2:36:03who who who responded to this originally
2:36:05was like well you can keep going what
2:36:06about a100 million do a year or a
2:36:08billion dollars a year and I was like
2:36:10yes yes if you had the skill of making a
2:36:13billion dollars a year then the
2:36:14difference between 50,000 and a billion
2:36:16is the Delta of the value of that skill
2:36:19and it's really not one skill it's many
2:36:21skills that lad her up to when combined
2:36:23together to create that kind of value
2:36:25but I remember that being like seared
2:36:27into my memory which is like whatever I
2:36:30want to have the Delta between where I'm
2:36:32at and where that thing is is what
2:36:34basically what I've what I'm willing to
2:36:36sacrifice in order to learn what I need
2:36:39to learn to get there and I think that
2:36:42if people appraised that Delta not by
2:36:45the money in their wallet or the time
2:36:47that they currently have but how much
2:36:48they would be making or how much time
2:36:50they would have and how much that's
2:36:52worth to them then I think far more
2:36:54people would be willing to invest in
2:36:55their education and it's such a taboo
2:36:57word because people hate the word
2:36:58education it's like oh it's like work
2:37:00but like you want to be an entrepreneur
2:37:02like you got to learn you just have
2:37:04there's so much stuff to learn Pirates
2:37:06versus practitioners this is an idea
2:37:08that I've I've thought about a lot over
2:37:10the years because I look at someone like
2:37:11you and I can tell based on everything
2:37:13you say today that you are a
2:37:16practitioner um in this analogy what I
2:37:18call a parot is is someone who hears
2:37:20what Alex said and then starts saying it
2:37:22but your lessons and wisdom have come
2:37:25from going through that [ __ ] and and
2:37:28being able to distill the essence like
2:37:29Richard Fryman and then share um there
2:37:32is a group of people that just spend
2:37:33their whole life reading books yeah
2:37:35posting about it Etc they never take the
2:37:37jump Pirates versus practitioners is the
2:37:40best way to learn being a
2:37:41practitioner this is widely known in the
2:37:43education space but not as much in the
2:37:45the content world but there are two
2:37:47types of uh education there is
2:37:49procedural and there is declarative so
2:37:51declarative knowledge is knowing about
2:37:52something procedural knowledge is
2:37:54knowing how to do something so a simple
2:37:56example would be okay I understand how
2:37:58private Equity works right like that you
2:38:00can you could talk about it you can
2:38:02explain how okay they take some debt and
2:38:04then they have this Arbitrage and they
2:38:05get this Enterprise Value multiple
2:38:07whatever but you've never done a deal
2:38:10and until you've done a deal you will
2:38:11not have procedur knowledge of knowing
2:38:12how to actually do a deal and so you can
2:38:15read a hundred books on sales but you
2:38:17will learn more about actually selling
2:38:19from your first hundred sales calls and
2:38:21business is the same yes and so the idea
2:38:24in my opinion for most people is that if
2:38:26you want to rapidly learn you want to
2:38:27rapidly do those 100 repetitions as fast
2:38:30as you can so that you can suck a 100
2:38:32times in a row and find the 10 that did
2:38:34that sucked the least and then say how
2:38:36do I suck least on the next 100 and you
2:38:38keep doing that so many times until
2:38:40eventually you suck so little that
2:38:41you're actually
2:38:42good hard work yes and I think you know
2:38:46this is actually really interesting
2:38:47because it Lads up to because there's
2:38:48two types of creators you've you've got
2:38:49entertainers and then you have Educators
2:38:51at least that's how I separate it the
2:38:52point of entertainment is to maintain
2:38:54the attention of the audience that is it
2:38:56so the point of an Entertainer is to
2:38:58literally just keep people watching the
2:39:00point of an educator is to change
2:39:01someone's behavior and so if you
2:39:06uh if you want content to do well in
2:39:11either of these buckets fundamentally at
2:39:13least in the education space you selling
2:39:16time so
2:39:18education is
2:39:20I spent all this time doing this thing
2:39:21to learn these four things that I can
2:39:23give to you so that you don't have to
2:39:25spend this time learning it and so
2:39:27education is actually if said
2:39:28differently what you do is you buy time
2:39:31so when you buy it's the only thing it's
2:39:33the only way to actually buy time today
2:39:35so if you want to basically Time Warp
2:39:38into your future you have to buy
2:39:40education so that you can buy all of the
2:39:42life experiences from all these people
2:39:43and then not pay for it in your life you
2:39:45pay for it with less time by consuming
2:39:49what they have or some money or some
2:39:50combination of those things and
2:39:52fundamentally we usually pay with the
2:39:53currency that we value least and so
2:39:58interestingly a rich person values their
2:40:00time more than their money and so
2:40:01they're willing to pay with money to get
2:40:03time back a poor person will also pay
2:40:04for their time and drive around to 10
2:40:06different gas stations to find the one
2:40:08thing that's 10 cents cheaper or drive
2:40:09to 10 different grocery stores to to use
2:40:11whatever whatever coupons they're
2:40:12valuing their time over their money in
2:40:15that instance and
2:40:17so back to the the
2:40:20educator if you want to be certain or
2:40:22have confidence in any Endeavor you have
2:40:25to do so much volume of activity that it
2:40:27would be unreasonable that you would
2:40:29suck and if you were to write out the
2:40:31equation of like okay how many public
2:40:34speeches would I need to give for it to
2:40:35be unreasonable that I would suck is it
2:40:3710 is it 100 is it a thousand write the
2:40:41number that you're like there's no way
2:40:42that I would suck after this many and
2:40:45then all of your effort gets really
2:40:46narrowed commitment elimination of
2:40:48Alternatives focused turn down quality
2:40:50and quantity of other things to just
2:40:51doing that and then and the key part of
2:40:54this is not just to do the Thousand but
2:40:56after every 10 or every 20 looking at
2:40:58the top 10 or 20% and saying what did I
2:41:00do well there and then because you have
2:41:01to have the feedback loop otherwise it's
2:41:03not just doing 100 reach outs you have
2:41:04to do 100 reach outs and then look at
2:41:05what worked and then do more of what
2:41:07worked and so for the the parent versus
2:41:10the uh practitioner uh component of
2:41:13this even if you're starting out you can
2:41:16have confidence in what you're doing
2:41:18because you derived the solution and you
2:41:21can actually answer why you do something
2:41:24so if you cannot explain why you believe
2:41:27what you believe it's not your belief
2:41:29it's someone
2:41:30else's and so most people I would say
2:41:34parot the vast majority of the things
2:41:35that they say because and to be fair
2:41:37that's how humans learn you're 5 years
2:41:38old you say what's that they say Bull
2:41:40and you say bull you pared it back and
2:41:42there we go right but when it comes to
2:41:44uh skills you can describe what other
2:41:47people have said before but if something
2:41:50goes wrong or what about this condition
2:41:52you won't know what to do but if you
2:41:54derived it from the ground up and
2:41:55there's a there's a great uh portion of
2:41:57this in the Y combinator Community that
2:41:59you or the Silicon Valley Community that
2:42:00you probably heard it maybe like three
2:42:02or four months ago it was like founder
2:42:03mode did did that get to the UK okay it
2:42:05was from um Brian ches I actually
2:42:06messaged him about it after oh yeah it
2:42:08was like it was it was awesome right and
2:42:10so the basically the tenant is that the
2:42:12founder always has special powers in the
2:42:14company because you know what built it
2:42:17and so that is basically at its core the
2:42:19practitioner versus parrot the people
2:42:21who came later are parting why you do
2:42:24what you do but you know what conditions
2:42:26you were in when you made this Rule and
2:42:28also you know how to break it and when
2:42:31to bend those rules and so if you build
2:42:34something when you built it from those
2:42:35repetitions to to still out the few
2:42:38truths that exist you'll know why those
2:42:40are the truths like I'll give you a
2:42:41really simple example so if we you know
2:42:43we've tried to learn YouTube and we've
2:42:44gotten better over time um but in the
2:42:46beginning I did this massive review and
2:42:48I figured out that the the videos that
2:42:50we had that had three things at the
2:42:51beginning proof promise plan was the
2:42:54videos that did the best and so then all
2:42:55of a sudden we said okay all videos have
2:42:57to have proof promise plan right at the
2:42:59beginning the first 30 seconds great so
2:43:01we started doing that for a while and
2:43:02then we looked at the outliers among
2:43:04those and we were like oh well we also
2:43:06in some of the ones that did really well
2:43:07also had some sort of visual picture of
2:43:09of this plan all right so it became
2:43:11proof promise plan
2:43:13picture then we kept looking and we
2:43:15found out over more repetitions that if
2:43:18we also include includes some sort of
2:43:19pain or problem that's being solved that
2:43:22also helps so proof promise plan picture
2:43:24pain and so you're like wait if you keep
2:43:27adding to this thing it's going to get
2:43:28really long no sometimes you can check
2:43:29multiple boxes with one thing and this
2:43:31becomes the Elegance of creation like
2:43:33how can I how can I check off three of
2:43:34these boxes with one sentence right and
2:43:37so that is by the way for if you're like
2:43:38thinking about this you're like do they
2:43:40really think about this when they're
2:43:41making videos yes and that is the
2:43:43difference between a 10,000 view video
2:43:44and a million view video and it's it's
2:43:46understanding that level of nuance
2:43:48across the ENT ire thing that creates
2:43:50expertise and also when you're like oh
2:43:53this video flopped when you're a
2:43:54beginner you're like these videos in
2:43:55general don't work or content doesn't
2:43:56work rather than saying this video
2:43:58didn't work and here's why because we
2:44:00did three of the
2:44:02five and so it's just like all of the I
2:44:05mean the devil is in the details and you
2:44:06only you only you meet the Devil Himself
2:44:09by doing the unreasonable amount of work
2:44:11and then it becomes it goes from
2:44:13uninformed uh lack of knowledge to
2:44:16informed optimism because first you're
2:44:18like I can make videos get rich then you
2:44:20realize that it's really hard to make
2:44:21videos that people watch and then
2:44:22finally you start develop a framework of
2:44:24this is how I make videos that people
2:44:25watch and when they don't watch it it's
2:44:27because I didn't follow it it's so
2:44:29timely because it's weaves into
2:44:31something you said earlier because my
2:44:32girlfriend came to the recording
2:44:33yesterday and as I went into the green
2:44:35room and I sat down she went babe look I
2:44:36found this new app and I said what is it
2:44:37she goes it's an app that summarizes
2:44:40books yeah and she it's called like head
2:44:42something and she showed me it and I go
2:44:44look at my book yeah cuz I know the laws
2:44:46I know the chapters I know all of the
2:44:48principles that lead up to the point so
2:44:49show me my book and law two of my book's
2:44:53called 33 laws so these 33 laws I got it
2:44:54yeah and um law two was about the
2:44:56Richard fman technique you talked about
2:44:58and I explain why that process of
2:45:01learning something simplifying it to its
2:45:03Essence for a 10-year-old teaching it to
2:45:05someone else if they understand it move
2:45:07on if they don't go back to the top and
2:45:08learn again and it had summarized l two
2:45:11of my book to um like writing is the
2:45:13best way to learn yeah and I said babe
2:45:15if you I said if you just read that that
2:45:17summary the top of the pyramid and you
2:45:19don't have the story and all these
2:45:21agreeable foundations which I then
2:45:22explained to her would you be able to
2:45:25then translate that and truly understand
2:45:26the nature of the problem so that you
2:45:28could apply it to lots of different
2:45:29settings and so on and then I told her
2:45:31what that that second law in my book
2:45:32actually meant and she deleted the app
2:45:34yeah because there's no point knowing
2:45:36the the conclusion the aphorism yeah
2:45:38like like the punchline when you don't
2:45:40know the story um and without the story
2:45:43you can't I I guess get get to the first
2:45:45principles of the thing so this is
2:45:46really interesting because um with that
2:45:49fan example it it proves that the
2:45:51distillation of knowledge is not
2:45:53bidirectional so you Richard Fineman can
2:45:57break it down to a child but a child
2:45:58cannot then rederive what Fineman has
2:46:00done interesting yeah and so it's it's
2:46:03convenient for the transmission of
2:46:05communication and for teaching someone
2:46:07who's let's say coming new to an
2:46:08organization here's the here are the
2:46:10things and these give you the
2:46:11decision-making Frameworks around which
2:46:13and it can give you directional um uh
2:46:16guidance but that is the whole founder
2:46:18mode that is basically a different way
2:46:20of getting to the founder mode idea that
2:46:22person derived this thing yeah and so
2:46:24when a problem arises we can rederive
2:46:27the next solution rather than trying to
2:46:30apply the aphorism to a new setting
2:46:32another point for Founders who are
2:46:34getting their work copied because this
2:46:36everything you've just said actually
2:46:38should give a Founder who's having their
2:46:39work copied their t-shirt designs their
2:46:41content copied huge amount of piece
2:46:43because if I need to know steps 1 2 3 4
2:46:46five up the staircase to success to be
2:46:49able to predict step six then if
2:46:52someone's just copying your step five
2:46:54you should be at total piece because
2:46:55they don't know yeah the the foundations
2:46:58that would lead to the next step and
2:47:00that's what we see as podcasts podcast
2:47:01is copy you they'll copy your thumbnail
2:47:02your title your whatever dude I mean I'm
2:47:04sure you you see it everywhere but the
2:47:06piece that the piece that I have is
2:47:08honestly I say to the team all the time
2:47:10if that's the thing that makes us
2:47:11special we're [ __ ] anyway yeah like if
2:47:14if it's the thumbnail or the this or the
2:47:15how we do this if it's the trailer that
2:47:17made us special we're [ __ ] any way
2:47:19yeah but also there's a set of
2:47:21principles we call it the iceberg the
2:47:2399% of what we do you can't see it's the
2:47:26it's the culture as you said it's like
2:47:28uh so I have so much on this so um one
2:47:31is right when I sat down you were
2:47:32telling me about uh the episode that we
2:47:34we ran that was like akin to a shark
2:47:36tank but new version that we had on our
2:47:37Channel and as you saw me like kind of
2:47:40like grow and be like it was 56 minutes
2:47:43on video but it was so much work to
2:47:45produce that one thing but no one sees
2:47:47all the work behind it that's the 99% %
2:47:49so that's thing one the the next thing
2:47:51is think about the if you're a Founder
2:47:53who's plagued with competition and being
2:47:55upset about it I was one too and I want
2:47:58to tell you how I got over it so number
2:48:00one is think about the alternative which
2:48:02is that no one copies you because no one
2:48:04cares about what you're doing well then
2:48:06it would be a requisite for Success that
2:48:07people will copy you so as long as you
2:48:09are successful this is just a part of
2:48:12business the the second piece is by
2:48:16definition if someone copies you they
2:48:19are second period and so if you want to
2:48:22lead you can't look at anyone else you
2:48:25have to consistently be deriving the
2:48:28next step the step six that's unseen
2:48:30from your first five steps to innovate
2:48:33rather than I'm just going to parot the
2:48:35next thing and as soon as you find
2:48:37yourself copying you have admitted
2:48:39defeat you've admitted that you were no
2:48:40longer the leader and that you were just
2:48:42following in someone else's footsteps
2:48:43and you're giving them the Baton and
2:48:45saying you be the champion I'm happy
2:48:46with second third fifth place and in a
2:48:49winner take all world like attention is
2:48:52all the fruits go to the first place
2:48:54anyways amen amen I have nothing more to
2:48:57add that's talk two last the last thing
2:48:59I want to talk to you about is it's
2:49:01really like a three-part thing it's hard
2:49:02work love and happiness okay and I put
2:49:04them together intentionally um one could
2:49:07say work life balance yeah love
2:49:09happiness I think these things are kind
2:49:10of fundamentally intertwined but how do
2:49:12you think about it you're someone that's
2:49:13known as being very obsessive um very
2:49:17into your work to say the least um you
2:49:20have a wonderful partner who seems to be
2:49:22aligned I know oh super okay good she's
2:49:24hardcore so let's go through it work
2:49:26life balance SL hard work love and
2:49:29happiness okay if we start with work
2:49:31life
2:49:32balance it was that [ __ ] question
2:49:35beliefs on it
2:49:37yeah so I will answer with how I derived
2:49:40my kind of Life thesis which was after
2:49:44we uh so when we went to so we had taken
2:49:46about $40 million in distributions from
2:49:48gym launch um personally throughout the
2:49:51you know years that we ran the company
2:49:53and then in the year of the sale um for
2:49:55those of you've never sold a company
2:49:56before you typically don't want to
2:49:57change a lot of things you kind of want
2:49:58the company to just be like be stable
2:50:01keep working everything's fine and so
2:50:03one of it's one of the most harrowing
2:50:05experiences to go through because you
2:50:07can't really change anything and if
2:50:10you're the founder you're always trying
2:50:10to innovate so you can't do what you're
2:50:12normally doing um and you also can't
2:50:16start the next so you can't change
2:50:17current and you can't start new
2:50:19because if the deal doesn't go through
2:50:20then you don't want to start two
2:50:21businesses remember because we you know
2:50:22cardinal rule number one we're not
2:50:23chasing chasing wom in the red dress and
2:50:25so you basically have to sit idly by and
2:50:28just like let things operate and so in
2:50:30that year it was one of the most
2:50:32miserable years of my life because I
2:50:33basically had nothing to do and um when
2:50:37I looked back on my life this sounds
2:50:40like you know I looked back on my life
2:50:41as though it's been so long I looked at
2:50:43the days that I enjoyed the most and on
2:50:47those days I had worked out and I had
2:50:51produced something and I had done both
2:50:53of those with people I
2:50:54liked
2:50:57and almost all of those days I'd worked
2:51:00many many
2:51:01hours and when I realized that the idea
2:51:06of working hard so that I can insert
2:51:10blank the so that actually makes it
2:51:13still destination
2:51:16driven so that was when I DED what I
2:51:19called hard work is the goal it's just
2:51:22to work hard that is my goal and then
2:51:25die MH on things worth
2:51:28doing and I those are the days that I
2:51:33love and I get a tremendous amount of
2:51:35push back for saying this and it bothers
2:51:38a lot of people and to them I say live
2:51:41your life whatever way you want this is
2:51:44again my my life is not a sermon it's a
2:51:46documentary this is just how I do it you
2:51:49can do whatever you want and for the
2:51:50people who are dissatisfied try it and
2:51:52if not no worries um I really enjoy
2:51:56working like the best days are like when
2:51:59I write those books it's the happiest I
2:52:01am and it's not happy in the moment
2:52:03because it's really hard but the amount
2:52:06of challenge is about proportional to my
2:52:08level of skill and every book I think is
2:52:10better than the last and the third book
2:52:12that's coming out is going to be [ __ ]
2:52:14awesome I'm very excited about it but
2:52:17there's nothing that I enjoy more more
2:52:18but in the moment I'm like how do I
2:52:20break this down and I'm just rubbing my
2:52:21forehead and I'm like and then I and I
2:52:23create two three different Frameworks
2:52:24I'm like no that's that doesn't work
2:52:26here and that doesn't work here which
2:52:27means some kid in Afghanistan is going
2:52:29to get stuck on this step because it
2:52:30doesn't work I have to figure out how to
2:52:32get it so that it works everywhere and I
2:52:34keep driving into but the moment it's
2:52:35like it clicks I'm like that's it fight
2:52:37me like that's the
2:52:39framework that is what I what I strive
2:52:41for and for me the love the happiness
2:52:45and work have all because of the nature
2:52:47of my life in one now some people have
2:52:50lived their lives where their love life
2:52:52and their happiness and their work are
2:52:54all separate um for me it has just been
2:52:57life and I like it that way and for the
2:53:00people who are upset by that I'm not
2:53:02upset about how you live your life um I
2:53:05just choose to live it this way and if
2:53:06in the future I change my mind I'll
2:53:10change my life if I get to a point where
2:53:12I'm like this is no longer a priority
2:53:14for me something else is then I will but
2:53:16when I look at the centenarians and I
2:53:18look at the people who like I look at
2:53:19Warren Buffett as somebody and Charlie
2:53:20merer as two of my heroes Charlie worked
2:53:23until the day he died and to be clear I
2:53:26don't work on a 7-Day calendar um I
2:53:29don't work a certain hour I work as much
2:53:32as I can until I feel like my rate of
2:53:33output drops precipitously because of
2:53:35fatigue and then I and I sleep and then
2:53:37if I feel like on a on a longer time
2:53:39Horizon of like I've worked nine days
2:53:41I've worked 20 days I've worked 30 days
2:53:42in a row and I'm like all right I feel
2:53:44like I don't have any gas today then
2:53:45I'll take the whole day off and whether
2:53:47that's a Tuesday or a Sunday or Saturday
2:53:48I take the day off and that just is what
2:53:50it is and I've just I have learned to
2:53:53work that way and I am okay with it the
2:53:55goal clearly for you then is the hard
2:53:58work itself and not a certain place
2:54:00you're trying to get to necessarily
2:54:01because that always moves yeah and so um
2:54:04Jesse iler has this and maybe maybe I'll
2:54:06I'll be able to steal it from him
2:54:07someday um but he told I saw him show a
2:54:11picture of his kid finishing a race and
2:54:13putting a zero up and what that
2:54:16signified was nothing left in the tank
2:54:18that he'd spent everything he had on the
2:54:20field and I
2:54:22would and it's like I have this visual
2:54:25of uh the 300 movie where the queen says
2:54:28to the king as he goes off the battle
2:54:29she says come back with your Shield or
2:54:31on it and I kind of see like my work
2:54:35that way like I can't imagine a better
2:54:37way to go out than like doing the thing
2:54:39I love and it bothers a lot of people
2:54:42that I love something different than
2:54:43they love and it's like it really it
2:54:45really Bo and it it bothers me that it
2:54:47bothers them to be honest
2:54:50um because I I I make no projections
2:54:54like do whatever you want and I feel
2:54:55like if if I ever had a a like one thing
2:54:59that that people took from me it was
2:55:01like absolute freedom and because of
2:55:04that absolute freedom we are 100%
2:55:06responsible for our own lives and so
2:55:08where we place the the finger of blame
2:55:10is also where power flows so if you
2:55:12blame your parents for your life your
2:55:13parents have power over your life if you
2:55:15blame your boss for your bad life your
2:55:17boss has power over your life if if you
2:55:18blame you for your bad life at least you
2:55:19can change you and you can do something
2:55:21about it and so I think absolute
2:55:23responsibility has been my my core
2:55:26tenant and if you have a life where
2:55:28you're like I don't want to care about
2:55:30work that much and I just want to spend
2:55:31all my time with my family I'm like
2:55:32congratulations you [ __ ] won that's
2:55:35amazing just don't assume that
2:55:37everyone's you and that winning for me
2:55:40is is the same as winning for you and
2:55:44and it and I think the the times that I
2:55:47talk about this I I know that my my
2:55:51message won't resonate with everyone and
2:55:52that's okay but it's for the few people
2:55:55who were like me and felt like everyone
2:55:57told them there was something wrong with
2:55:59them and I still get people to tell me
2:56:00there's something wrong with me and if
2:56:02wrong means not normal then yeah you bet
2:56:05but it's more so that like you are
2:56:07different and that's okay and I think
2:56:10that if you're if you're okay with that
2:56:12then it unleashes this whole new realm
2:56:15of possibility of being able to do what
2:56:17you want and kind of like I had the you
2:56:20know you do a 100 of these and you look
2:56:21at the top 10% do 100 of these look at
2:56:23the top 10
2:56:24percent that was my way of trying to
2:56:26operationalize happiness because it was
2:56:28this ephemeral thing that when I was 18
2:56:3219 20 21 22 I struggled a ton with I was
2:56:34very depressed I looked at you know
2:56:37religion I looked at a lot of different
2:56:38things and this is common for people at
2:56:40that age
2:56:41and um I I came up with a mantra for me
2:56:45at that time which was [ __ ] happiness
2:56:47now people then hear this and I'm sure
2:56:49this will get taken out of context but
2:56:52that was basically like this release
2:56:54moment for me where by continually
2:56:57chasing happiness it always existed
2:56:59outside of me and so it was always this
2:57:01carrot that was in front of me that I
2:57:02could never really get to and so by
2:57:05saying [ __ ] happiness I was like it's
2:57:09unattainable I'm just going to work and
2:57:12I'm just going to do the stuff I want to
2:57:13do and when I started doing the stuff
2:57:15that I wanted to do I looked up years
2:57:17later and I was like I kind of like my
2:57:19life and I was like is this what
2:57:21happiness is and I was like I don't know
2:57:24but I think one of the the major plights
2:57:26of humanity myself included is the
2:57:29expectation that life should be
2:57:30different than it is and so we we we
2:57:33create this idea that whatever we have
2:57:36right now is not what it should be and I
2:57:40think should is the is the root of all
2:57:42pain is that all the things that we
2:57:45think should happen but aren't is our is
2:57:48basically the measurement of our pain
2:57:50and so I've tried to eradicate should
2:57:52from my life should for other people she
2:57:54should do this they should do that um
2:57:57and just just lean into is it just is
2:58:01this way I work period not I should work
2:58:03more I should work less I should work
2:58:05differently I should see my mom more I
2:58:06should call my dad more I do this and if
2:58:09something changes I will change and so
2:58:11unconditional shoulds now if there is a
2:58:13condition of like if you want to make
2:58:15more money then this is a high higher
2:58:17likelihood you you might want to
2:58:18consider doing this those are things
2:58:20that I don't consider in that category
2:58:21but just the generalized shs of he
2:58:25shouldn't do that he should he should
2:58:27build a family he should have kids he
2:58:29should have gotten married earlier he
2:58:30should have gotten later he should have
2:58:31married someone different he shouldn't
2:58:33have the the life that he has he
2:58:35shouldn't work this way according to
2:58:38what and so for me that is my my theory
2:58:42on life on on on happiness work and love
2:58:45has been very unified because I love my
2:58:48work so much
2:58:50that I got out of a relationship and
2:58:55when I you know started dating Ila I
2:58:57said I am not willing to change this and
2:59:00so you have to be willing to deal with
2:59:03me working this way or this won't work
2:59:06because my relationship with my work is
2:59:09the most satisfying relationship I have
2:59:11now people will hear that and be like
2:59:12well that's because he's never
2:59:13experienced True Love or Whatever
2:59:15Whatever Whatever narrative they'll
2:59:17they'll say but it's like you haven't
2:59:18lived my life and I haven't lived yours
2:59:19and I don't project anything onto you um
2:59:22but I I like I like I love what I do and
2:59:25I like I get attacked for liking what I
2:59:27do so much and I like working a lot and
2:59:30and it's because they have negative
2:59:31associations with the word and that's
2:59:34that's their own history of of of their
2:59:36experience with the word but I see my
2:59:39goals and my relationship with my goals
2:59:41as one of the most sacred things that I
2:59:42have because I see them as a
2:59:43relationship with
2:59:44myself and so those those proxy ones
2:59:48someone comes in and says hey you know
2:59:51sweetie you've been working too much
2:59:53according to what why should I stop
2:59:55right um now let's do this other thing
2:59:59and people will probably see this as a
3:00:01they'll put whatever labels they want on
3:00:02it but like I just said this is what I
3:00:04would like to do with my life and if you
3:00:05can incorporate yourself into that that
3:00:07would be amazing and so my second date
3:00:09with Ila after we talked about business
3:00:11for 4 hours on our first date was I said
3:00:14I'm going to be working all day it'd be
3:00:15cool if you worked with me and she just
3:00:18worked next to me she had her own thing
3:00:19but she just worked beside me and I was
3:00:21like this is nice and over time
3:00:23eventually was like hey maybe you want
3:00:25to work on my thing with me and she was
3:00:27like yeah that sounds good it was a
3:00:29little bit more than that but like
3:00:30fundamentally I got her to to switch
3:00:31switch to to working on it with me and
3:00:33at that point what we got to talk about
3:00:36was what we were creating together and
3:00:38to me that's been you know the Journey
3:00:39of my life and it's been it's been
3:00:41amazing and um I'm not saying it works
3:00:43for everyone I say it probably doesn't
3:00:45work for most people uh but it has
3:00:47worked really well for me and it would
3:00:49make sense for me that my path would be
3:00:51different than most people's because I
3:00:52don't behave like most people and so I
3:00:54would have to have a different formula
3:00:56for how I drive you know meaning or Joy
3:00:59from my own life and since I don't
3:01:01believe in inherent meaning um just the
3:01:04meaning that we choose to ascribe to
3:01:06things then it's up to me to create that
3:01:09meaning within the work that I do and so
3:01:12the reason acquisition. comom was all
3:01:13based on and it was during that year
3:01:15where I just basically had nothing to do
3:01:16where I was like what do I want to do
3:01:16with my life because I don't need to
3:01:18work anymore and that was you know we
3:01:20taken 40 out before the sale and then we
3:01:21obviously got the sale so like I don't
3:01:23need to work I like to work and I I try
3:01:27to spend I look at you know I had this
3:01:29boss that told me this and was one of
3:01:31the one of the catalysts for for looking
3:01:33at life this way she said I had just had
3:01:35like a good weekend or something and I
3:01:37came in like chipper and she said well
3:01:39you must have had a good weekend and I
3:01:40was like yeah it was it was good and she
3:01:43said this it was like an off-handed
3:01:45comment she said I'm pretty sure the key
3:01:47to happiness is living as many days in a
3:01:48row like that as you can and it was
3:01:51actually like really operational like I
3:01:53could I was like I can use this like
3:01:54what are the good days how do I live as
3:01:56many of those days in a row as I can and
3:01:58so I've you know I've been attacked for
3:02:00like saying that I don't really enjoy
3:02:01going on vacation very much um and it's
3:02:03because like I just want to get I just
3:02:05want to get back to doing the thing that
3:02:06I really enjoy doing and I remember we
3:02:08Lea and I went to uh Mexico uh this year
3:02:11for a week and it's always during the
3:02:13week of Christmas cuz no one works and
3:02:14it drives me nuts and I've just like
3:02:16I've I've just given up trying to get
3:02:17you know get to work because even if my
3:02:19team will work cuz my team will because
3:02:21they they're crazy too other teams won't
3:02:23and vendors won't it's aain anyways and
3:02:25so while we were there all I came out
3:02:26with was like this is for other people
3:02:28and not
3:02:29me comma and that's okay ear WR when we
3:02:33were talking about s a long r no it's
3:02:35beautiful because it so a couple of
3:02:38takeaways from it but earlier on we were
3:02:39talking about being a great content
3:02:40creator is a byproduct of Having the
3:02:44courage to be yourself and from that
3:02:46what everything you just said solo yeah
3:02:48I also gleamed something similar which
3:02:50is being happy MH requires the same
3:02:55thing which is the courage to be
3:02:56yourself and in both in the previous
3:02:57analogy you said everybody is unique
3:03:00yeah and that is their value as it
3:03:02relates to showing up in marketing or
3:03:04with whatever product they have but also
3:03:07when I think about Alex's story your
3:03:09story and all you went through with your
3:03:11father and the early experiences in that
3:03:13consultancy firm the gym the fur place
3:03:14you worked logically from first
3:03:17principle
3:03:18the that's going to make you happy
3:03:20because you are completely unique is
3:03:23going to be completely different from
3:03:24everybody else right like to varying
3:03:27degrees depending on how you sort of
3:03:29defining your early experiences are but
3:03:30I actually think we talked about the
3:03:31courage of being yourself there's also
3:03:34the courage of being happy MH and with
3:03:37the courage of being happy you have to
3:03:40withstand public pressure the shoulds
3:03:42you said from your parents whatever from
3:03:43social media especially if you become a
3:03:45bigger
3:03:46Creator to actually just listen how you
3:03:48feel every day can I can I throw
3:03:50something out that I think might like so
3:03:52this blew my mind so I was in around
3:03:55that same period of time I because I
3:03:57talked to everybody I could to try and
3:03:58get context on this and so I I called a
3:04:00friend of mine up um or not a friend I
3:04:02would say acquaintance that I got
3:04:03connected with who'd sold his company
3:04:05for hundreds of millions of dollars
3:04:06really bright guy and one of the
3:04:09questions I asked him I said so how do
3:04:11you how do you drive meaning from your
3:04:15life and he said and that really really
3:04:19shook me um which doesn't happen that
3:04:21much given him my worldview he said why
3:04:23do you think that life needs to be
3:04:26meaningful and it was just this really
3:04:28interesting question which is basically
3:04:29that I had an unspoken demand of the
3:04:31universe life should be meaningful I
3:04:34should be happy and so it's the shoulds
3:04:37that we don't even know that we think
3:04:38and say that are the ones that chain us
3:04:40the most like hardcore and so my
3:04:43favorite quote of all time which is
3:04:45probably at the front of a few of the
3:04:46books that I have and probably be the
3:04:48one that'll be on my my Tombstone is a
3:04:50permutation of an or Orson Scott Card
3:04:52quote which is we question all of our
3:04:54beliefs except for those that we truly
3:04:55believe and those we never think to
3:04:57question and so I would say that a lot
3:04:59of my entrepreneu career even just human
3:05:01Journey has been what are the beliefs
3:05:03that I so so inherently believe that I
3:05:06don't don't even see them I don't even
3:05:08think about the should and so when he
3:05:10said that to me I was like whoa I have
3:05:13had this inherent demand of the universe
3:05:15that my life be meaningful
3:05:18and now people would hear this and be
3:05:21like they have their shoulds and they're
3:05:22going to say well it should be
3:05:23meaningful and I'm like why according to
3:05:26what and if we look at history history
3:05:28pretty much sweeps everyone under the
3:05:30under the bed like within a hundred
3:05:32years and within a thousand years
3:05:33basically everyone and the people that
3:05:35we remember we remember some of their
3:05:37works and we go a 100,000 years in the
3:05:40future or 10,000 years in the future
3:05:41probably unlikely that we will be
3:05:43remembered in general and that is
3:05:45solving for the idea that we need to be
3:05:47remembered again we have to why and so
3:05:51my solving has been for um degrees of
3:05:54freedom and uh responsibility so what
3:05:57are the things that I can control and I
3:05:59will do the very best of my ability to
3:06:01try and do the things um within my
3:06:04control to ideally make other people's
3:06:06lives better and my own in the process
3:06:08now that is a choice rather than a I
3:06:11demand that of the Universe um and this
3:06:13gets really abstract and heady really
3:06:15fast and so I will try and you know
3:06:17bring us back down to Earth but by by by
3:06:21demanding that life be meaningful by
3:06:23demanding that I be happy when I
3:06:26understood that I was demanding these
3:06:28things and and pursuing them that they
3:06:29were outside of me by saying I need to
3:06:32do this that I created inherent space
3:06:35that I could never Gap I could never
3:06:37close and so by trying to forget or
3:06:40eliminate the demand is where it was the
3:06:43first time that I experienced those
3:06:46things and so IED to keep them out of my
3:06:48head to the greatest degree possible so
3:06:50that I can be inside of them that sounds
3:06:53weird um rather than in
3:06:56Pursuit and so that um and so the times
3:06:59where I derive the most Joy from my life
3:07:02if I'm if I'm optimizing for that which
3:07:04is I wouldn't necessarily say that I am
3:07:06optimizing for Joy um I think Williamson
3:07:09was like you definitely optimize for
3:07:10purpose or meaning or something like
3:07:12that and
3:07:13um I I kind of reject a lot of it mostly
3:07:16because I do what I have been rewarded
3:07:18for doing in the past and so because I
3:07:20have a behaviorist view of the world
3:07:22which is that everything boils down to
3:07:24behaviors um why do I do these things I
3:07:27do these things because when I have done
3:07:29them in the past I have enjoyed the
3:07:31result and so I continue to do things
3:07:33that I've enjoyed the result of and if
3:07:34other people have done things that they
3:07:36enjoy the result of then I encourage you
3:07:37to keep doing them and I also encourage
3:07:39you to not project that other people
3:07:41need to also do those things and that
3:07:42they will experience the same result as
3:07:43you because they might
3:07:45not Alex thank you oh
3:07:48that was such a a beautiful way to end
3:07:50and um I I've it's so interesting
3:07:53because if if people attack you for that
3:07:56I just wanted to give my own perspective
3:07:57is when I hear you say these things
3:07:59about not not enjoying holidays and yeah
3:08:02um things about your relationship with
3:08:04Laya and how how that happens for me I
3:08:08feel even if I don't agree with 100% I
3:08:10probably get to 95% to be honest with
3:08:12you the fact that you're telling me that
3:08:15you're different makes my difference
3:08:17whatever it might be
3:08:20feel acceptable do you know what I'm
3:08:23saying I I 100% know what you're saying
3:08:25because because when I heard you say
3:08:26these things and I go oh my God Alex
3:08:28feels like he's different from the
3:08:29normal too we might not be me and Alex
3:08:31aren't the same but we both feel
3:08:33inherently like we're not playing by the
3:08:37rules and therefore in some way getting
3:08:39life wrong based on this like public
3:08:41Narrative of the way we should live our
3:08:44lives I thought amazing I remember
3:08:46watching the video where you talked
3:08:47about not like in going on holidays and
3:08:49being like absolutely obsessed and me
3:08:50thinking oh my God I'm so [ __ ] glad
3:08:52he said that because deep in my heart
3:08:54somewhere I felt a guilt yeah oh I you
3:08:57know a guilt and I'm like where did the
3:08:58guilt come from I'm doing it something
3:09:00that I love every single day but I feel
3:09:02guilty well I feel guilty because of
3:09:03other people's shs right so please Alex
3:09:06despite the um despite any critics that
3:09:08might be out there please continue to
3:09:11have the courage to be yourself CU you
3:09:13have no idea how it's making a group of
3:09:15weirdos that feel like they don't fit in
3:09:18feel heard and understood for their
3:09:20variance well that is my yeah I mean
3:09:22it's I I make it for
3:09:24them we have a closing tradition on this
3:09:26podcast as you know where the last guest
3:09:27leaves a question for the next guest not
3:09:29knowing who they're leaving in
3:09:31for god I'm laughing because it's so
3:09:34ironic
3:09:36okay great what is the meaning of
3:09:41life well the short answer is obviously
3:09:4442 um but um
3:09:48um I actually do think it's
3:09:52learning um because if we think about
3:09:55what learning is it's that you're
3:09:57exposed to new conditions that over time
3:10:01change your behavior and so you are
3:10:03different now than you were 10 years ago
3:10:05because you've learned more things and
3:10:07so if we think about the meaning of life
3:10:10as what is the output of life so I
3:10:13actually do really like this so people
3:10:16talk I can relate this to business of
3:10:19course I can really what's the meaning
3:10:21of life to business but what is the
3:10:24meaning of a business the purpose of the
3:10:26business is is whatever the output of
3:10:29that business
3:10:31is that's the meaning it's it's what the
3:10:34output of that business is and so if the
3:10:38mission like with uh Elon is like to get
3:10:40to Mars then the output of the the
3:10:43mission is that people get to Mars and
3:10:44so that's the meaning of that business
3:10:46and so the meaning of life in general
3:10:49for me I think for All Humans is that
3:10:52the output of experience is
3:10:55learning and
3:10:57so we will learn regardless whether we
3:11:01want to or not we learn Learning Happens
3:11:03whether you want whether you like it or
3:11:05not you will learn um and I think that
3:11:08that's where I would just leave it and
3:11:10the question is are you learning the
3:11:11things that you
3:11:12want
3:11:14amen I highly recommend people go and
3:11:16check out the new format you launched on
3:11:18your YouTube channel it's um titled
3:11:19building a $1 million business for a
3:11:21stranger in 56 minutes it's kind of like
3:11:23a new take on Shark Tank but it's more
3:11:25actionable more practical it's what you
3:11:27referenced earlier and I know it took
3:11:28you many many many many hours yeah to
3:11:30perfect it but it's a really interesting
3:11:31format that I think YouTube is seeking
3:11:34because it's so actionable and practical
3:11:35and I'd highly recommend I'll link that
3:11:37below but i' would also highly recommend
3:11:38people go and check out these books I
3:11:39mean they've been to say they've been
3:11:41Smash Hits is a mass massive
3:11:42understatement um thank you Mil I just I
3:11:45mean I just see it everywhere I fit feel
3:11:47like it's a prerequisite of any
3:11:49entrepreneurs toolkit when they're
3:11:51starting and they're trying to figure
3:11:52out Frameworks for scaling a business
3:11:55making sales generating leads and I know
3:11:57there's another one on the way which you
3:11:58won't tell me about but I know it's
3:12:00coming this year which is volume three
3:12:02of this this format and I'm
3:12:03exceptionally excited to see it and for
3:12:05any entrepreneurs out there that are
3:12:06looking to get in business with you I'd
3:12:07highly recommend they go check out
3:12:08acquisition. comom because there's so
3:12:10much there regardless of where you are
3:12:11in the cycle whether you're starting out
3:12:13whether you're scaling up whether you're
3:12:14looking for advice acquisition. comom is
3:12:16the to be thank you Alex for your
3:12:18generosity I appreciate it and thank you
3:12:20for all that you do thank you for being
3:12:21weird and different because like that's
3:12:23again that's the value that's all the
3:12:25value in the world um we don't need more
3:12:27of the same we need people that have the
3:12:28courage to be themselves and the courage
3:12:30to be happy um and that's exactly who
3:12:33you are and I really really appreciate
3:12:34it thank you so
3:12:37[Music]
3:12:38much isn't this cool every single
3:12:41conversation I have here on the DI of at
3:12:43the very end of it you'll know I ask the
3:12:46guest to leave a question in the Diary
3:12:49of a CEO and what we've done is we've
3:12:52turned every single question written in
3:12:53the Diary of a CEO into these
3:12:56conversation cards that you can play at
3:12:58home so you've got every guest we've
3:13:01ever had their question and on the back
3:13:04of it if you scan that QR code you get
3:13:07to watch the person who answered that
3:13:10question we're finally revealing all of
3:13:13the questions and the people that
3:13:15answered the question the brand new
3:13:18version 2 updated conversation cards are
3:13:21out right now at Theon conversation
3:13:23cards.com they' sold out twice
3:13:25instantaneously so if you are interested
3:13:27in getting hold of some limited edition
3:13:29conversation cards I really really
3:13:31recommend acting quickly
3:13:34[Music]
3:13:47oh

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