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And instead of thinking of it as a problem to be solved, it is instead a dichotomy to be managed.

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Welcome to the game where we talk about how to get more customers, how to make more

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percustomer, and how to keep them longer in the many failures and lessons we have learned

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along the way. I hope you enjoy and subscribe. When I was in the beginning of my entrepreneurial career,

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I would read a book on delegation, right? And as soon as I read the book, I was like, okay,

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this is a delegate. And then I would come back to the team and be like, all right,

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delegate, delegate, delegate, delegate, delegate, right? And I'd be like, all right,

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y'all are good. And then I would dip out. And then, you know, we all kind of know how the

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story is probably going to go. Me being super excited about business and thinking that things are

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going to, you know, a lot of things are going to run themselves right now that I've delegated

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everything. I'm a big boss man. And then of course, I'll check in a few weeks later. And then

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things weren't done the way I wanted to. And then of course, you know, I read super, you know,

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a bunch of books on management, et cetera. And then I dive super far ahead and start

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micromanaging everyone, trying to control everything. And then yet again, the problem would arise

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where people were not doing what I wanted them to do. But for different reasons, because they

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felt completely stifled, they wouldn't take initiative because they felt like they needed my

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sign off and everything. And then I'm basically a huge bottleneck in the business yet again,

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but in a different way. And so I say that to illustrate one of the the thinking frameworks that

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has served me well. And I'm actually really excited to talk about this because when I talk to

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people, I think a lot of people think that, or I'm told that sometimes I communicate some

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idea as well. And so what I wanted to do was provide you the frameworks for thinking through

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thoughts. And I know that sounds crazy, but I'm going to give you four different frameworks that

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work really well for me. And I'll try to give you examples of each one of them. So the example

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I just started with that little story, right, is an example of something where most people try and

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solve how much management first is should I delegate or should I manage, right? And instead

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of thinking of it as a problem to be solved, it is instead a dichotomy to be managed. As in

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micro-managing is not good on this extreme and complete delegation on this side is not good either

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way, right, abdication. And so there's a middle ground. And so what's interesting about this is that

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there are a lot of different things that come up in the business world where I will see people

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conflate or mistake what thing they are solving, right? And most times when I'm talking to a new

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entrepreneur or even a more established entrepreneur and they reach out for help or guidance or whatever,

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right? Or it's one of our portfolio companies, most times they'll start talking, right, really fast

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about all this stuff to try and provide context. And I'll just usually pause them and be like, what

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problem are we solving? And it usually gets them to stop, right? And I would highly advise you,

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if you're dealing with, if you have subordinates or you have direct reports, who roll into you,

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and they have a whole bunch of decisions, a lot of times you can get caught. And sometimes

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ourselves too, we can get caught in the day-to-day, the minutia, and just simply pause and say,

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what problem are we solving, right? And there's so many pieces of this that I want to impact that

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I think are going to be really interesting for you. But the first one is when you define what

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problems you are solving, you may even have to ask the question, is that a problem? When some

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people are like, well, hey, we're getting customer service complaints. It's like, okay, understood.

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Is this something that we believe that we can reasonably eliminate? Is this something that is

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catastrophic to the business, or is this something that we can kind of try and improve over time

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through systems and process, right? And so a lot of times people misprioritize problems because

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they perceive them as threats to existence when in reality they are a course of doing business

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and things that we can constantly improve, right? Especially if you're newer. You're starting

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out, of course, your product's not going to be perfect yet, right? You're just getting going.

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But you improve these things rather than thinking I have to stop everything to fix this problem,

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right? And so the first frame shift is that most people think in terms of like, I have a problem

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to solve rather than a dichotomy to be managed. As in, these are two things that will always exist.

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All right, I'll give you a different example of this. Actually, this will be a fun one. The reason

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we will probably never have people who are all happy about a tax code is because you cannot have

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both fairness and equality. Equality means everyone pays 10%. Fairness means the rich people pay more

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than the poor people. That's fair. This is equal. Both are ideals and yet somehow they're not the

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same thing and yet both are right. And so because of that, we will always have this conflict. It's the

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same thing between justice and mercy. Both of them are ideals. Both of them are right and yet somehow

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they're conflicting. And so we see these situations and this is why I'm trying to hopefully give

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this to you because the more I started to recognize these patterns, the more quickly I could recognize

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them and then identify them and then either dismiss them or say, oh, it's another one of those,

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right? It's a pattern recognition. It's like, oh, you guys are spending all this effort trying to

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solve a problem that is unsolvable. This is a dichotomy that must be managed and will never be eliminated.

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And so I think what my goal with this video is if I can help you get out of these little

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mental hamster wheels, it's been incredibly valuable for me. All right. So that's the dichotomy.

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That's like one of the things that people will mistake. The mistake a dichotomy for a problem

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that needs to be solved. All right. Hey guys, real quick for those of you guys who are $100

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million off for fans. I love you. I added in a lost chapter that has never been released. I'm

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releasing it now. Transparently, I'm doing that to build hype for $100 million leads. But you will

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have the unreleased chapter. It talks about your first avatar and how to segment customers to make

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more money. You can get it by going to acquisition.com forward slash leads. It's a free exchange for

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email so that I can email you when we launch. I don't really know all the leads and so that you

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can not miss out on it because last time I sold out for like eight straight weeks really fast. So

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that is my way of making sure that y'all get first tips. Another framework that I find immensely

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valuable is the concept of a continuum versus a binary. All right. This is probably one of the

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biggest mental errors that people make when they're trying to identify things. All right. And this

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is what I mean by that. So for example, I might say I'll use a weight loss example. So people will

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say something like I am off my diet or I'm on my diet. It's a very simple thing. And that's

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because psychologically we like to be binary. We like to label things as yes or no. But biology

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and reality exists on continuums as in to what extent did you go off of your diet.

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Right. Did you go 200 calories over? Do you go 500 calories over? And as even though it is

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quote more difficult to think in this way, it is also more accurate. And so our brain uses

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binaries as placeholders for decision making to store data. Right. When in reality, when you start

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storing all these binary decisions, they start adding up and you start getting more and more

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inaccurate. That's a word on your decision making process because you're actually

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basing your decisions not on facts, but based on binary shorthand that your brain saves. All right.

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And so that is one of the biggest mistakes that I see all the time in thinking in entrepreneurs

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and really in anything in general because we like to have that shorthand. It is easier. Right.

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It's easier to say I fell off my diet or I am diabetic when the reality is it's not whether

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you are diabetic. It's how diabetic are you? Right. Kind of interesting. I stole that from Dr.

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Cashy, but I just love that. Who's my close friend? He's a biochemist and we talk about this

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stuff all the time. But point being, if you can think about this within, I'll give you a business

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example. Right. So if we have a binary where people are saying yes or no, which is let's say

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Facebook doesn't work. Right. Marketing doesn't work. I hear these statements all the time and

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you may laugh at this. Right. But I get DMs like this all the time. Facebook doesn't work for me.

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Marketing doesn't work for me. Like you can't sell this way in my business. Right. And so people

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want to shorten a problem into yes it works. No, it doesn't work when so much of business and problem

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solving is understanding the nuance between where we're starting and where we're going. And it's to

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what extent has Facebook not worked. Right. Where is the fall off? Right. It is not that it doesn't work.

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It is just we only got it to work this percent. Right. Now we need to get all the way over the hump

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to get there, but it's to what extent. And I think that when I want if you if you can ask

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the right questions, if you can see the problems as they truly are, they become far more solvable.

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And so this has been probably I just gave you two of my my best frames that I think with all the time.

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All right. So I'll say these again. So the first mental lapse I'll say that I see all the time

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is mistaking a dichotomy that needs to be managed for a problem that needs to be solved. All right.

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People do this in their marriages as well. Right. So you look at your wife. Right. You look at your

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wife and you're like, I need more variety. Right. But later you're like, I need more consistency.

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And you're like, we have to figure this out. We need variety. We need consistency. It's like, yes,

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you need both. Right. And so it's not a problem to be solved that dichotomy to be managed. Right. So

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that's framework number one. The second framework between two things that I see as a problem that most

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people make is that they use a psychological binary to make a judgment and say, yes, this works

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and no, this doesn't work. Or yes, this is this way or no, this is not this way so that I can apply

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this arbitrary label that was made up. When instead, it is to what extent? Right. It is a continuum.

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Right. I did not go off my diet or stay on my diet. It is how far off did I go? And a lot of times

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when we do that, we also can stop the the mental judgment of being terrible people because we can

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actually approach reality, which is I was 10% over yesterday. So I can go 10% under today and be fine

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and be on track with my goal rather than, oh, I was off. I might as well eat 19 pizzas because I'm off

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because that's the psychological shorthand, the psychological binary of yes or no. And so

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those two understandings have underpinned a lot of the breakthroughs in terms of how I think through

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things that have served me well. And also when talking to entrepreneurs and they're trying to figure

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out what is wrong, quote, wrong with their business, when in reality, even naming it as a problem

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might actually not be the case when it is actually a dichotomy that needs to be managed or they're

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labeling a binary when it really is a continuum. All right. And so if you look at the problems that

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come up in your life, whether they're personal, whether they're physical, whether they're

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with their business wise, if you look at just with those two lenses first and me sharing this,

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like these are the things that like Charlie Mugger talks about having a lattice work of mental models.

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Like how are the, you know, any checks through decisions with mental models. And so I want to share

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as many of those as I possibly can with you guys, because I think if we can think, if we can be

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precise with our language, we can prove precise with our thinking. If we can ask the right questions,

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we will get the right answers. If you ask stupid questions, you get stupid answers. If you play

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stupid games, you win stupid prizes. And so my goal for everyone here in Mosy Nation is that we do not

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play stupid games and not win stupid prizes, but instead get exactly what we desire so that we can

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then ask the bigger questions of life. And so anyways, my name's Oxford Mosy. I'm an acquisition.com.

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We do $85 million a year in portfolio revenue. If you enjoyed this video, hit the subscribe button.

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If you didn't, I still love you either way. Lots of love and I'll see you in the next video. Bye!