WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.520 The ocean between good work and great work is vast. 2 00:00:03.520 --> 00:00:07.760 It's five times ten times the work to go from something good to something great. 3 00:00:07.760 --> 00:00:11.120 Which is why you have to be really selected about the few things you choose to do 4 00:00:11.120 --> 00:00:14.560 that are worth doing and in being worth doing, worth doing well. 5 00:00:15.600 --> 00:00:17.920 The wealthiest people in the world see business as a game. 6 00:00:17.920 --> 00:00:21.200 This podcast, the game, is my attempt at documenting the lessons I've learned on my way 7 00:00:21.200 --> 00:00:23.920 to building acquisition.com into a billion dollar portfolio. 8 00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:26.640 My hope is that you use the lessons to grow your business and maybe someday soon 9 00:00:26.720 --> 00:00:28.640 partner with us to get two hundred million dollars in beyond. 10 00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:29.680 I hope you share and enjoy. 11 00:00:31.520 --> 00:00:36.720 13 lessons I learned after graduating college from the real world that I wish I had learned earlier. 12 00:00:37.520 --> 00:00:42.480 The first is that you make better decisions and you learn more by assuming that you're 13 00:00:42.480 --> 00:00:46.400 dumber than everyone else. And the reason this was something that took me a long time to learn 14 00:00:46.400 --> 00:00:49.520 is that when I was in college it was all about showing how smart you were. 15 00:00:49.520 --> 00:00:55.120 It was about talking more in the group meetings. It was about raising your hand more in the class room 16 00:00:55.120 --> 00:00:59.520 and proving how smart you were in every way that you possibly could. 17 00:00:59.520 --> 00:01:02.480 And so I took that and started translating in the real world. 18 00:01:02.480 --> 00:01:06.640 And I realized that I didn't learn very much because I was the one talking all the time. 19 00:01:06.640 --> 00:01:12.000 And it only took a few times of me getting introduced to somebody because I wish I could just 20 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:16.080 tell you it was once, but it wasn't. Or I get introduced to someone. Someone would introduce us. 21 00:01:16.080 --> 00:01:21.040 And I would basically spend the whole time blabbering on about how great I was and how much I knew 22 00:01:21.680 --> 00:01:26.640 only to find out later that this person was way above me in business and whatever things 23 00:01:26.640 --> 00:01:31.280 that I was pursuing at the time. And then I felt tons of shame and embarrassment about how stupid 24 00:01:31.280 --> 00:01:36.800 I was for doing that. And so I had to shift the way that I talked to new people and the way 25 00:01:36.800 --> 00:01:41.440 that I answered rooms. And I'll be real. I still talk to probably too much. But at least being 26 00:01:41.440 --> 00:01:47.040 aware of that lesson as early as I as it could, I wish I had learned it earlier. But fundamentally, 27 00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:52.800 you can't learn if you're talking. Obviously, this is it. And so if you're trying to learn, 28 00:01:52.800 --> 00:01:57.520 then not talking is the first requisite for doing that. And if you want to make better decisions, 29 00:01:57.520 --> 00:02:02.480 then you need to learn. And so if you talk less and listen more, which is why this is somewhat of 30 00:02:02.480 --> 00:02:08.880 a platitude, it's easy to understand and hard to do. And tactically, when you were in situations, 31 00:02:08.880 --> 00:02:15.440 when you're meeting new people, this was a big epiphany I had was that I got introduced once to somebody. 32 00:02:16.240 --> 00:02:21.120 And I was walking peripherally after I had left and somebody else went up to them and was like, 33 00:02:21.120 --> 00:02:26.880 do you know who that guy is? And in that moment, I realized that my positioning was now sky high 34 00:02:26.880 --> 00:02:32.880 because I didn't have to be the one to say it. And so the idea that I realized was how can I get 35 00:02:32.880 --> 00:02:38.720 other people to edify me? Because what I had to allow people to do was to make the same mistake 36 00:02:38.720 --> 00:02:43.120 that I used to make, which is that someone young, someone inexperienced, someone less aware, 37 00:02:43.120 --> 00:02:47.280 whatever would come up and then start posturing themselves and blathering on about everything 38 00:02:47.280 --> 00:02:52.400 that they're doing. And me, I might be way ahead of them, but I would listen and see if there's 39 00:02:52.400 --> 00:02:57.680 anything interesting. And so on that conversation, I learned more than they did. I learned what type 40 00:02:57.680 --> 00:03:01.120 of person they are. I learned where they're at with their career. And if they had anything 41 00:03:01.120 --> 00:03:06.000 interesting, that would be worth, you know, following up with. They learned nothing. They felt 42 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:10.160 good about themselves. And then later would feel bad about themselves when that other person 43 00:03:10.160 --> 00:03:14.640 went over and told them. And so I was like, of these two scenarios, which would I rather do? 44 00:03:14.640 --> 00:03:20.800 But I rather have someone have a conversation with me and then not know who I was and then never 45 00:03:20.800 --> 00:03:27.680 know who I was, but be able to learn because that's the worst case scenario, right? Or would I 46 00:03:27.680 --> 00:03:33.600 rather blather on, learn nothing? And either, either I am above them and then they're like, well, 47 00:03:33.600 --> 00:03:39.600 fuck that guy, he brags, or I'm below them. And I'm the moron. So those are the only two alternatives 48 00:03:39.680 --> 00:03:43.520 in the scenario where you blather on about yourself and try and position and try and sound smart. 49 00:03:44.160 --> 00:03:50.000 So I stopped doing that because the scenarios of me not saying as much and listening more, I got, 50 00:03:51.120 --> 00:03:56.160 I learned more. And if the person found out who I was later, I was positioned. And if they never 51 00:03:56.160 --> 00:04:00.880 did, I still just learned. So those are the upsides and downsides versus both. And that shifted my 52 00:04:00.880 --> 00:04:05.760 behavior. So that was lesson number one. Lesson number two was that the hardest respect to earn 53 00:04:05.760 --> 00:04:09.600 is one zone. And so what I realized, and this was something that was really hard for me is that I 54 00:04:09.600 --> 00:04:12.800 had a pretty bad reputation in the very beginning of my college career and all of my high school career. 55 00:04:12.800 --> 00:04:18.560 And it was because I drank too much. I was irresponsible. I slept around a lot. And it just 56 00:04:18.560 --> 00:04:22.560 ultimately, I wasn't representing the type of person that I wanted to be. And so I felt ashamed 57 00:04:22.560 --> 00:04:27.440 of the behaviors that I did, but I didn't change them, right? And so it was only through a conversation 58 00:04:27.440 --> 00:04:31.760 ahead with my father where I said, how do I change my reputation? How do I get these people to stop 59 00:04:31.760 --> 00:04:36.720 saying this stuff? And I thought there was some like PR marketing angle that I could take that I 60 00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:42.080 could control the narrative. And he said, why don't you stop being a piece of shit? And he said 61 00:04:42.080 --> 00:04:45.760 that in his own, you know, in his own words. And I was like, that can't be it. I'll figure out 62 00:04:45.760 --> 00:04:50.320 a way. But only, you know, as when parents talk to kids, they're listening, but they're not listening, 63 00:04:50.880 --> 00:04:54.320 that really stuck with me. And I started thinking about it. And so I said, like, well, if I wanted to be 64 00:04:54.320 --> 00:04:58.800 somebody who was respectable, what would I do? And so then I tried to start acting in that way to 65 00:04:58.800 --> 00:05:04.240 be someone who's respect my own, I would earn. And so when I started doing that, nothing changed 66 00:05:04.240 --> 00:05:08.240 externally. People still treated me like I was a piece of shit. And they were probably right. But 67 00:05:08.240 --> 00:05:14.880 my behavior began to change and then slowly so did my reputation. But it started with me trying to 68 00:05:14.880 --> 00:05:21.040 respect myself first. And then others began to respect me as a result. And so that was a huge shift 69 00:05:21.040 --> 00:05:25.840 that happened for me that I wish I had learned earlier. If you want to control people, think 70 00:05:25.840 --> 00:05:29.760 control what they say. This is the third lesson I learned. And this is more of a business slash 71 00:05:29.760 --> 00:05:35.120 marketing lesson. But if you want to talk about products and services, you have to equip people with 72 00:05:35.120 --> 00:05:40.000 the words to describe what you have. Because otherwise, you're asking them to solve the problem of 73 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:43.120 how to describe your business. And if right now you can't even figure out how you're going to describe 74 00:05:43.120 --> 00:05:46.160 your business and you own the darn thing. How do you expect them to do it in a half second when 75 00:05:46.160 --> 00:05:50.720 they're telling their friend? And so this is really about giving equipping people with simple language 76 00:05:50.720 --> 00:05:55.280 so they can communicate what you do. So for example, at acquisition.com, like this happens all the time 77 00:05:55.280 --> 00:05:58.640 still. So I just want to be really real with you. The mission when I started the business was to 78 00:05:58.640 --> 00:06:02.480 document and try the best practice building world class companies. I have now realized that most 79 00:06:02.480 --> 00:06:07.840 people don't know what that means. And so I have now, and we probably will shift the language to 80 00:06:07.840 --> 00:06:11.840 to make real business education available to everyone. They functionally mean the same thing. 81 00:06:11.840 --> 00:06:17.280 But giving people the words to describe it in a way that they understand allows me to give 82 00:06:17.280 --> 00:06:20.560 them words that they can explain to somebody else. So what's out, you know, what's that guy asked 83 00:06:20.560 --> 00:06:23.600 Rosy to do or what's what's acquisition.com? It's like, oh, they're just trying to make real 84 00:06:23.600 --> 00:06:27.120 business education for everybody. Like it's easy to remember, but documents are the best practice 85 00:06:27.120 --> 00:06:31.280 building world class company. It's too hard. Like what's best practices? What's documenting? Like 86 00:06:31.280 --> 00:06:34.880 there's all these things that people don't conceptualize to sound like sound bites and words, 87 00:06:34.880 --> 00:06:40.240 but people can't describe. And so when I stopped trying to sound smart and try to get my prospects 88 00:06:40.240 --> 00:06:44.400 to feel smart is when things change. I've seen that that pattern happened over and over and over again, 89 00:06:44.400 --> 00:06:48.720 which when I came out of college, all I did was want to sound smart, rather than have my prospects 90 00:06:48.720 --> 00:06:54.240 in the people I was listening to feel smart. Number four, you get more out of reading one book. 91 00:06:54.240 --> 00:07:01.280 That's great. Five times than out of reading five mediocre books. And so I don't read many books. 92 00:07:01.280 --> 00:07:06.000 And what I mean by that is I buy lots of books. I skim most of them and quickly realize that it's 93 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:09.920 not worth reading. And so then I toss them aside because just because someone wrote a book doesn't 94 00:07:09.920 --> 00:07:13.440 mean you need to finish it has nothing to do with you means that they didn't organize it well. So 95 00:07:13.520 --> 00:07:18.400 there you go. But every once in a while you do get a book. And I have found that books that are 96 00:07:18.400 --> 00:07:21.680 older in general tend to be better because the reason the person wrote it was a different intention. 97 00:07:21.680 --> 00:07:24.480 They wrote it because they wanted to transmit knowledge to the next generation. Whereas people 98 00:07:24.480 --> 00:07:28.320 who write books now are either writing for money, writing for notoriety or writing them to sell 99 00:07:28.320 --> 00:07:33.200 other shit, right? And that's the vast majority of books. So if you find books for the author is 100 00:07:33.200 --> 00:07:36.160 actually writing because they want to convey knowledge to the next generation, those tend to be 101 00:07:36.160 --> 00:07:42.080 better books in my experience because the intent is to actually teach not to persuade. No slight 102 00:07:42.080 --> 00:07:48.480 difference. So when you do find those gems, I have realized that if I read something once and to 103 00:07:48.480 --> 00:07:53.920 end, I still don't know it yet. And so I will read a book two times, three times, four times, 104 00:07:53.920 --> 00:07:59.280 five times until I can't teach the book when I feel like it is worth learning. And then once I 105 00:07:59.280 --> 00:08:03.440 have like squeezed the book for everything that it has to the point where I can convey the message 106 00:08:03.440 --> 00:08:07.280 to somebody else, like I can teach the concepts of the book, which is something that I've done many 107 00:08:07.280 --> 00:08:11.280 times. I'll actually make a presentation on the book so that I can wrap my own frameworks around 108 00:08:11.360 --> 00:08:14.720 how I can remember it. That's where a lot of these frameworks come from. It's because it's me 109 00:08:14.720 --> 00:08:18.400 trying to make sense of the world in a way that I can remember. Because otherwise, I read stuff and 110 00:08:18.400 --> 00:08:24.000 then I would just discard them and it's just like a waste of time where if you behavior doesn't change 111 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:27.600 as a result of reading a book, then it means you've learned nothing, which means it was a waste of time. 112 00:08:27.600 --> 00:08:31.280 And many people who read books are just wasting their time because their behavior doesn't change. 113 00:08:31.280 --> 00:08:36.000 And so I consolidate, once I find something that's good, I plug everything I possibly can into and 114 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:40.720 suck the juice out of it so that I can change my behavior as a result, which comes from the frameworks 115 00:08:40.720 --> 00:08:44.640 and how I think about it. So I read one thing that's very good many times rather than trying to brag 116 00:08:44.640 --> 00:08:48.320 about the fact that I read a book a week. Because I'm like, well, was the book last week not that good 117 00:08:48.320 --> 00:08:52.240 that it wasn't worth rereading? Right? That's how my thinking had changed. When I was younger, 118 00:08:52.240 --> 00:08:56.000 it was all about how many books can you read? It was like a contest. It's like a pissing contest. 119 00:08:56.000 --> 00:08:59.760 Instead, it's like how deeply do you understand the knowledge of the book? Because if you just did 120 00:08:59.760 --> 00:09:03.120 how to make friends and influence people and you put it into your DNA, you would be successful. 121 00:09:03.680 --> 00:09:06.480 Right? There's many, there's a handful of books that if you just did them for the rest of your 122 00:09:06.560 --> 00:09:11.520 life, you would win. And so rather than read another book that's on the airport bookshelf that was 123 00:09:11.520 --> 00:09:16.480 just well marketed, that's a crap product from a ghostwriter. Instead of that, you can just read 124 00:09:16.480 --> 00:09:20.400 the few other times classics written by the author to convey a message to the next generation. 125 00:09:21.040 --> 00:09:25.520 Number five is that most champions do not have something that you do not. They lack something that 126 00:09:25.520 --> 00:09:30.320 you have. And so it's a different thought process. Because if all of us have the exact same hours per 127 00:09:30.320 --> 00:09:35.600 day, it means that they're allocating their time differently. And many times they eliminate things 128 00:09:35.600 --> 00:09:39.840 that you are still doing. They have sacrificed more. They have given up things that you have 129 00:09:39.840 --> 00:09:45.360 continued to have on your tree as branches that are distracting from growing up. Right? And so 130 00:09:45.360 --> 00:09:49.360 many times, champions, when I look at the people who are further ahead of me, they're even more 131 00:09:49.360 --> 00:09:53.120 ruthless with their time. They even have lower tolerance for friends, family, people around them 132 00:09:53.120 --> 00:10:00.160 that are not at the bar that they hold themselves to. And for me, going through college, you know, 133 00:10:00.160 --> 00:10:03.840 when I was younger, I always thought it was about adding to your plate, saying yes to everything, 134 00:10:03.840 --> 00:10:08.080 saying yes to opportunities, say yes, say yes, say yes. When all I did was I just completely got 135 00:10:08.080 --> 00:10:14.160 distracted and spread super thin. And so what most champions have is singular focus. And they're 136 00:10:14.160 --> 00:10:18.480 willing to say no to everything else. And that for me took me too long to learn. 137 00:10:19.360 --> 00:10:24.960 Six is that goodwill compounds faster than money. And the reason for that is like if you actually 138 00:10:24.960 --> 00:10:29.440 think about what goodwill is, it's that you have positive sentiment and you have a degree of 139 00:10:29.440 --> 00:10:35.120 influence over a person's behavior. That's what goodwill is. And so if one person has goodwill 140 00:10:35.120 --> 00:10:39.200 with you and then shares your stuff with somebody else and you create goodwill in that next person, 141 00:10:39.200 --> 00:10:46.320 you can double your goodwill or 10 extra goodwill in a matter of 12 weeks. 10 xing your money in a 142 00:10:46.320 --> 00:10:51.840 matter of 12 weeks is very, very unlikely. And so goodwill because it's based on audiences and 143 00:10:51.840 --> 00:10:56.320 humans can compound significantly faster than money can. And when I realized that that goodwill 144 00:10:56.320 --> 00:11:00.640 could be translated into money, if I so desired at a future date, then I realized that rather than 145 00:11:00.640 --> 00:11:04.560 focusing on the money that I'm trying to make today, why don't I focus on the compounding vehicle 146 00:11:04.560 --> 00:11:09.120 that compounded a much faster rate the money does that compounds tax-free by the way, building the 147 00:11:09.120 --> 00:11:14.560 audience's tax-free. And then when you choose to have the conversion event, you can do that at your own 148 00:11:14.560 --> 00:11:18.160 choosing. But if you focus on the audience, you focus on the goodwill, that will grow significantly 149 00:11:18.160 --> 00:11:23.200 faster than any kind of monetary move. But you can still translate that later into money when you want. 150 00:11:23.200 --> 00:11:26.160 That was a big epiphany for me. I thought it was all about the money when I was coming up. 151 00:11:27.360 --> 00:11:33.360 Seven is that you're going to die. And two weeks after you die, most people will have forgotten about 152 00:11:33.360 --> 00:11:38.240 you. And six months after you die, no one will talk about you. And if they're not caring enough 153 00:11:38.240 --> 00:11:43.040 then then it certainly doesn't matter what they think about your life now. Because if that's the 154 00:11:43.040 --> 00:11:46.800 most significant event that's going to happen in your life, which is that you stop living, then 155 00:11:47.440 --> 00:11:52.080 how much credibility or weight should we give to other people's opinions on what we should do with 156 00:11:52.080 --> 00:11:58.320 our lives? In my opinion, very little. And so unless the person has a vested interest in seeing you 157 00:11:58.320 --> 00:12:03.600 succeed, comma, and the context to provide the advice, most of the times it's just worth ignoring. 158 00:12:03.600 --> 00:12:06.000 Because they're trying to live their own life and they're projecting their own beliefs and 159 00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:10.960 experiences on you. And you spent all this time trying to improve your own view of reality 160 00:12:10.960 --> 00:12:15.440 through the beliefs that you've shed and shifted that they have not. And so what they believe to 161 00:12:15.440 --> 00:12:19.280 be true is what they're casting onto you. And if you don't like the life they have, then I don't 162 00:12:19.280 --> 00:12:25.760 think it's worth listening to. Eight, extraordinary accomplishments come from doing ordinary things for 163 00:12:25.760 --> 00:12:31.120 extraordinary periods of time. This is just me speaking about me. But when I was younger, my action 164 00:12:31.120 --> 00:12:36.240 showed that I was more impatient. I always was willing to sacrifice what I had today to get the 165 00:12:36.240 --> 00:12:40.560 quick buck. I was always, I was shifty like that because I just thought that that was how it worked. 166 00:12:40.560 --> 00:12:45.120 I thought there was some shortcut I didn't know about. And I would see the guys on stages being 167 00:12:45.200 --> 00:12:49.600 like, this is what we do. We do the basics. We do a lot of it. I was like, they're just trying to 168 00:12:49.600 --> 00:12:54.000 hold the secrets back. And I'm here to tell you that that is not true. Like I wish I could go and 169 00:12:54.000 --> 00:12:58.080 shake my college self and be like, if you do one thing for a very long period of time, you will 170 00:12:58.080 --> 00:13:02.560 get very good at it. And it will compound onto itself. And maybe I would listen to me if I mean, 171 00:13:02.560 --> 00:13:07.200 if future self showed up in my living room now, I would totally listen to him. But you know what I mean? 172 00:13:07.200 --> 00:13:11.920 And so I can't do that. So the best thing I can do is try and shake you by the collar and say that 173 00:13:12.080 --> 00:13:17.520 if you like the thing that makes the action extraordinary is the commitment to it, not the nature 174 00:13:17.520 --> 00:13:22.800 of the action itself. Working out and doing reps is not extraordinary. If you saw one set of a 175 00:13:22.800 --> 00:13:28.240 workout from me at the gym, you wouldn't think, Oh, this guy is amazing. It's the fact that you do it 176 00:13:28.240 --> 00:13:33.760 for 20 straight years that is what compounds on itself. If you listen to one guy make one phone call, 177 00:13:33.760 --> 00:13:38.720 you listen to one major league baseball player, one at bat, nothing about that is extraordinary. 178 00:13:38.720 --> 00:13:43.600 It's the dedication to doing it over and over and over and over again, despite feeling like there's 179 00:13:43.600 --> 00:13:47.840 better opportunities, despite people approaching you with new and exciting things, but saying that you're 180 00:13:47.840 --> 00:13:52.080 committed to the original vision you had and that reality has not changed in such a way that you 181 00:13:52.080 --> 00:13:56.800 believe that your need to believe is no longer true. You said, I believe that X, Y and Z is true. 182 00:13:56.800 --> 00:14:00.480 And as long as that remains to be true, then I will continue on this path for an extraordinary 183 00:14:00.480 --> 00:14:04.560 period of time. And that not the action itself, but your commitment to the action is what makes 184 00:14:04.560 --> 00:14:10.000 someone extraordinary, not the thing itself. None. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well. 185 00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:18.000 This is a really great, small saying that like I, I, I, I short cut it so much stuff when I was 186 00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:23.280 younger. I just wanted to like get it done, get it done, get it done, rather than doing it well. 187 00:14:23.280 --> 00:14:26.720 And there's kind of two ways you can take the saying, which is why I like it so much, is that if 188 00:14:26.720 --> 00:14:31.200 it's worth doing, it's worth doing well. Because many times I was doing things that we're not worth 189 00:14:31.200 --> 00:14:36.000 doing. And so I didn't have the time to do things well because I was doing so many things that 190 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:42.320 we're not worth doing. And so the first criteria is, what problem are we solving? What am I hoping to 191 00:14:42.320 --> 00:14:48.640 accomplish? Is this worth doing at all? Because if it is worth doing, then I have to understand that 192 00:14:48.640 --> 00:14:54.320 to do it, come right to do it well, it's going to take this much time. Now, given that, is it still 193 00:14:54.320 --> 00:14:59.760 worth doing? And if it passes that test of A being worth doing in the long haul, and because it is 194 00:14:59.760 --> 00:15:05.840 worth doing, worth doing well, then it gives us this lens to which to see the activities we do so 195 00:15:05.840 --> 00:15:09.360 that we can prioritize the things that will make us the most money or get us closer to the goals we 196 00:15:09.360 --> 00:15:13.840 have. Right? And so for me, I spent so much of my energy, fun fact, when you're younger, you have 197 00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:17.040 more energy than when you're older. So whatever your energy is now, it's learning the highest it's 198 00:15:17.040 --> 00:15:20.800 ever going to be. From this point going forward, kind of kind of crazy to think about. And so younger 199 00:15:20.800 --> 00:15:25.680 me had more energy than me does now. I make way more money than younger me did. And it's because I 200 00:15:25.760 --> 00:15:32.880 do fewer things, and I do different things than I did then. And now, if I write a book, I'll take a 201 00:15:32.880 --> 00:15:37.360 year on writing the book, because if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well. Because I understand 202 00:15:37.360 --> 00:15:42.720 that taking one year today will mean that that book might sit and sell and distribute itself to 203 00:15:42.720 --> 00:15:48.960 millions of people over the next 50 years or 100 years or after I'm dead compared to me just 204 00:15:48.960 --> 00:15:53.680 putting words on a page that are pretty good and then shipping it. And I think the vast majority 205 00:15:53.680 --> 00:15:57.840 people don't get the difference between good and great. The ocean between good work and great 206 00:15:57.840 --> 00:16:04.160 work is vast. It's five times ten times the work to go from something good to something great. 207 00:16:04.160 --> 00:16:08.560 And I did not get that, which is why you have to be really selective about the few things you choose 208 00:16:08.560 --> 00:16:15.520 to do that are worth doing. And in being worth doing, worth doing well. Real quick guys, if you can 209 00:16:15.520 --> 00:16:20.400 think about how you found this podcast, somebody probably tweeted it, told you about it, shared it on 210 00:16:20.400 --> 00:16:24.880 Instagram or something like that. The only way this grows is through word of mouth. And so I 211 00:16:24.880 --> 00:16:29.680 don't run ads, I don't do sponsorships, I don't sell anything. My only ask is that you continue to 212 00:16:29.680 --> 00:16:33.200 pay it forward to whoever showed you or however you found out about this podcast that you do the 213 00:16:33.200 --> 00:16:37.760 exact same thing. So if it was a review, if it was a post, if you do that, it would mean the world 214 00:16:37.760 --> 00:16:39.920 to me and you'll throw some good karma out there for another entrepreneur. 215 00:16:42.400 --> 00:16:47.600 10. Be willing to negotiate everything except for your values. And so there were so many things 216 00:16:47.600 --> 00:16:52.800 when I was coming up that like that, you know, in college, even right after college as jobs, 217 00:16:52.800 --> 00:17:00.640 like I always just took things at face value. So prices, terms, relationships, everything. 218 00:17:00.640 --> 00:17:05.680 I took at face value. So whatever someone presented, I said yes or no to, right? Very straight forward. 219 00:17:06.560 --> 00:17:12.160 I have now realized that virtually everything is negotiable, right? Because people present with 220 00:17:12.160 --> 00:17:16.240 basically their best bad guess. And they're hoping that someone takes them by the hand and says, 221 00:17:16.240 --> 00:17:19.920 you know, that makes no sense. What if we did it this way? What problem are you solving? What 222 00:17:19.920 --> 00:17:24.400 problem are you solving? And then having the ability to clearly communicate someone, ask the right 223 00:17:24.400 --> 00:17:28.960 questions to get someone else's true desires and wants. And then knowing what your own true desires 224 00:17:28.960 --> 00:17:33.440 and wants and what you're willing to give up allows you to make better deals. And so I used to 225 00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:38.240 think of negotiating as a zero sum game and it's not at all. You can find a way where both parties 226 00:17:38.240 --> 00:17:43.520 get better than they were before, which is the entire point, right? Like that is how negotiating works 227 00:17:43.520 --> 00:17:47.520 if you're doing it well. And so I didn't understand that. I thought everything was an arm rest. So I 228 00:17:47.520 --> 00:17:51.760 thought everything was like this for that tit for tat, like no give. And I also thought really 229 00:17:51.760 --> 00:17:55.920 short about it. I was like, I was trying to get one over as ruthless with vendors. You know what I 230 00:17:55.920 --> 00:18:00.560 mean? Just like all of that kind of stuff as like I swung the other direction. So first I didn't 231 00:18:00.560 --> 00:18:04.720 negotiate anything. And then I found out you could negotiate and then tried to get everyone to give 232 00:18:04.720 --> 00:18:09.680 me their last last penny. But then I realized that this long term doesn't create good relationships. 233 00:18:09.680 --> 00:18:14.240 And they will not be loyal to you at all, which long term has a more negative impact than giving 234 00:18:14.240 --> 00:18:20.320 them the extra 10% and having an amicable relationship, right? And so I found kind of like my middle ground 235 00:18:20.320 --> 00:18:25.520 of you want to negotiate everything except for your values. Because the thing is if you really 236 00:18:25.520 --> 00:18:30.960 think about it, I negotiated everything in that second example, including my values. Because I was 237 00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:35.520 doing business in a way that was contrary to the values that I wanted to espouse, to wanted to 238 00:18:35.680 --> 00:18:40.240 embody, right? And so now in like, because the deals we do with acquisition are not 239 00:18:40.240 --> 00:18:44.400 for example, like I could probably ask for significantly more than I do. And I've had many times 240 00:18:44.400 --> 00:18:48.400 people like, I want to give you this. And I'm like, I don't want that because I don't think you know 241 00:18:48.400 --> 00:18:55.200 what that means. And so this is what I think is fair today and in 10 years. And so it's balancing both 242 00:18:55.200 --> 00:19:01.120 your need today, your need in 10 years and their need today and their need in 10 years. And you 243 00:19:01.120 --> 00:19:06.080 have those four points and you try and find the closest point given your reality. And you can 244 00:19:06.080 --> 00:19:10.560 explain that this is how you're thinking through it with them. And I think they will appreciate 245 00:19:10.560 --> 00:19:14.400 all four data points on the map to come to the best solution for today and tomorrow. 246 00:19:15.440 --> 00:19:20.560 11 humility. This is a big one because I want to be a different voice on this because I have heard 247 00:19:20.560 --> 00:19:25.760 all over the internet recently people saying humility is stupid. If you looked up with the word 248 00:19:25.760 --> 00:19:29.360 means, you wouldn't want to be it because if you look it up on Google, it says thinking less of 249 00:19:29.360 --> 00:19:35.280 oneself. All right. This is why looking and defining terms is important because if you look at 250 00:19:35.280 --> 00:19:38.480 Mary and Webster, for example, it's lack of pride or arrogance. I don't think people would say 251 00:19:38.480 --> 00:19:41.760 you wouldn't want that. I was like, no, I think I think people are okay not being prideful 252 00:19:41.760 --> 00:19:46.080 or arrogant. I think that's okay. But even more so and the definition that I have taken on is 253 00:19:46.080 --> 00:19:51.280 actually the exact opposite of that, which is it is not decreasing your regard for self, 254 00:19:51.280 --> 00:19:55.200 but increasing your regard for others. That's from Clayton Christensen, who is a Harvard professor 255 00:19:55.280 --> 00:20:01.280 God of a human. I thought that posturing when I was younger was the thing that would get people 256 00:20:01.280 --> 00:20:07.760 to like me. But what I realized later was that you gain status by giving more to the group than you 257 00:20:07.760 --> 00:20:13.280 get. And so this is especially true for guys. It's probably true for girls, but I can't speak to 258 00:20:13.280 --> 00:20:18.240 that. But in a group, especially in all male group, if you want to gain status, the way you do it 259 00:20:18.240 --> 00:20:22.800 is by sacrificing more for the group than everyone else does. If you want to gain status in a company, 260 00:20:22.800 --> 00:20:27.280 you give more to the company than anyone else does. More than the company gives you back. 261 00:20:27.280 --> 00:20:31.520 Because what do they do? They reward that behavior. The group rewards the person who gives to the 262 00:20:31.520 --> 00:20:35.280 group. It's how it works. The people who take from the group and only when they get status, 263 00:20:35.280 --> 00:20:40.080 they only go in to get status from the group, end up getting banished by the group and bad it down 264 00:20:40.080 --> 00:20:43.920 because everyone wants to keep that person down because they don't serve anyone else. And so it was 265 00:20:43.920 --> 00:20:50.000 only by realizing that I had to give my life in order to get it. I had to give status. I had to 266 00:20:50.080 --> 00:20:53.680 serve because when you serve someone, you're giving them status. You're increasing your regard for 267 00:20:53.680 --> 00:21:01.040 others. When I gave status, I got it back. When I gave respect first, I would get respect back 268 00:21:01.040 --> 00:21:06.400 rather than demanding respect at the onset. Because then they wanted to disrespect me to 269 00:21:06.400 --> 00:21:12.160 level where I was at. Whereas if I raised them up, they would raise Mia. And it was understanding 270 00:21:12.160 --> 00:21:16.240 that group dynamic, which is what made me president of the fraternity that I was in. It made it 271 00:21:16.640 --> 00:21:21.600 all of these things started compounding when I realized that truth is that humility is not 272 00:21:21.600 --> 00:21:25.440 thinking less of yourself. It's thinking more about other people and increasing your regard for 273 00:21:25.440 --> 00:21:30.000 their needs. And if you do that, I promise you, you will have all the status you want. 274 00:21:30.960 --> 00:21:36.240 12. The happy man has a thousand wishes. The sad man has one. This is a little bit more of a 275 00:21:36.240 --> 00:21:42.240 heartful one for me because when I was younger, I was definitely angrier, probably darker in general. 276 00:21:42.800 --> 00:21:47.920 And a lot of that came because I had expectations that were fictitious, real or otherwise, 277 00:21:47.920 --> 00:21:52.400 from other people in my mind that existed who were constantly judging the behaviors and actions 278 00:21:52.400 --> 00:21:56.880 I was doing every day. And we're telling me that I was not enough. And so in some ways that 279 00:21:56.880 --> 00:22:01.280 created and reinforced behaviors that I still continue this day in terms of the actions I take. 280 00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:08.880 But the way that I feel and think about them has shifted. And so when you are sad, you want to not 281 00:22:08.880 --> 00:22:14.880 be sad. That's the main focus. You want to feel better. And many times people will take the 282 00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:19.840 short term way of getting out of that, which is alcohol, drugs, et cetera, because in the moment, 283 00:22:19.840 --> 00:22:24.640 they can feel better. They just want to feel better. And I remember I had a coach who said that to me. 284 00:22:24.640 --> 00:22:29.520 She said, everyone just wants to feel better. And so when I think about things that I used to 285 00:22:29.520 --> 00:22:33.760 think people were wronging me, right? And I'll get all angry and I'll spit on myself out. I use 286 00:22:33.760 --> 00:22:38.880 a different frame now, which is they just wanted to feel better. Do you think it had nothing to do 287 00:22:38.880 --> 00:22:43.200 with me? And they just wanted to feel better about themselves? And that's given me a lot of peace 288 00:22:43.200 --> 00:22:49.440 about many of the things that used to anger me. And so I think that, at least for me, being able to 289 00:22:49.440 --> 00:22:53.840 quiet the hundreds of non-existent voices in my head that were constantly judging the activities 290 00:22:53.840 --> 00:22:58.080 that I was doing and labeling them good or bad or good enough or not good enough, et cetera, 291 00:22:58.080 --> 00:23:03.600 took up a tremendous amount of my attention. And because of that, all of my focus was on feeling 292 00:23:03.600 --> 00:23:08.480 better. And so I couldn't actually have any energy left over to do stuff because all I was focused 293 00:23:08.480 --> 00:23:12.480 on was feeling better. And all I was spending all my day was in my head trying to not feel like 294 00:23:12.480 --> 00:23:19.120 shit, right? And doing both short and long-term things to do that. And so it was only when I came up with 295 00:23:19.120 --> 00:23:23.520 the mantra, which I have said before, but fuck happiness, which sounds ironic because I said the 296 00:23:23.520 --> 00:23:30.400 person who was happy as a thousand wishes. But in choosing not to admit the deficiency between 297 00:23:30.400 --> 00:23:35.840 my current state and the future state of what I desired to be, I was able to accept where I was. 298 00:23:35.840 --> 00:23:40.560 And then the deficiency of not being good enough, not being happy enough disintegrated in my mind. 299 00:23:40.560 --> 00:23:45.760 And then I was able to focus on just doing things. And then when I started doing things, I started 300 00:23:45.760 --> 00:23:50.800 making progress. When I started making progress, I started looking back and feeling proud of how far 301 00:23:50.800 --> 00:23:55.200 I'd come because it wasn't about the many voices outside. It was about the only one that mattered. 302 00:23:55.200 --> 00:23:59.600 And so that shift is what I think genuinely from a spiritual standpoint is the thing that was 303 00:23:59.600 --> 00:24:04.080 able to give me strength to do some of the things we have done. I'm not saying that we've done 304 00:24:04.080 --> 00:24:08.560 is amazing. We're hopefully live a long time. I do epic shit, but I wouldn't have been able to 305 00:24:08.560 --> 00:24:14.080 ever start on this path because I was paralyzed for years because I was paralyzed about what I 306 00:24:14.080 --> 00:24:18.000 thought other people were going to think about me, only to realize that they weren't thinking about me at all. 307 00:24:18.640 --> 00:24:26.480 13. Failure leads to learning, learning leads to success, success leads to complacency, complacency 308 00:24:26.480 --> 00:24:32.000 leads to failure. And so a lot of times, I remember you thinking that there was a destination, 309 00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:36.560 but I think the actual entrepreneurial cycle is, I'm going to give it in a way, it's not a 310 00:24:36.560 --> 00:24:40.400 destination, it's not linear, it's cyclical. And so that's why I talk about entrepreneurship 311 00:24:40.400 --> 00:24:45.360 in terms of seasons because there are cycles where you learn a lot, right? I used to say this a lot 312 00:24:45.360 --> 00:24:51.200 where I'd say either the business is growing or I am. So either I have learned lessons and I 313 00:24:51.200 --> 00:24:54.960 am applying those lessons to the business and the business is growing or the business is not 314 00:24:54.960 --> 00:24:59.360 growing and has problems. And now I am the one receiving the lessons from the business. And until I 315 00:24:59.360 --> 00:25:03.840 learn the lesson that I'm supposed to learn, the business will cease to grow until I have learned 316 00:25:03.840 --> 00:25:08.000 this lesson until I beat this boss at this level, right? And the difference between video games 317 00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:11.680 and real life is that sometimes in order to beat that boss, you're not doing it in 10 minutes 318 00:25:11.680 --> 00:25:16.800 and might take you 10 years. And that's there's an entrepreneurship and a video game. And so 319 00:25:16.800 --> 00:25:21.600 recognizing that you were not above the cycle, but that that cycle is inevitable because you have 320 00:25:22.320 --> 00:25:28.320 failure, learning, success, complacency. The goal is if you can identify that, how quickly can you 321 00:25:28.320 --> 00:25:33.200 get back to learning success, learning success and try and skip the complacency step altogether? 322 00:25:33.200 --> 00:25:38.080 It still happens to a degree. But if you can recognize that, at least for me, seeing when I can 323 00:25:38.560 --> 00:25:42.400 start feeling the feelings in its rearing its head, I'm aware of it. And it allows me to speed 324 00:25:42.400 --> 00:25:47.120 through it faster into the same degree. I stop labeling things as good or bad because if I'm failing, 325 00:25:47.120 --> 00:25:51.680 that means I'm about to go through learning. And I see learning is good. And on the flip side, 326 00:25:51.680 --> 00:25:56.640 if I'm succeeding, I succeeding is good. And so either way, they lead to my success and framing it 327 00:25:56.640 --> 00:26:01.920 that way took a lot of the judgment and the label and the depression around not achievement away 328 00:26:02.800 --> 00:26:08.800 from me. And also, when things are good, it allowed me to not be so high on my supply because I knew 329 00:26:08.800 --> 00:26:13.200 that whenever things were good, everything is good is followed by something that is not as good. 330 00:26:13.200 --> 00:26:17.120 And so you always have regression to the mean, right? You have regression to the mean. And so 331 00:26:17.120 --> 00:26:20.400 things are amazing that it means they can only go down from here. If things are terrible, it means 332 00:26:20.400 --> 00:26:24.800 it can only go up. And so having that thought process, at least to recognize patterns over and 333 00:26:24.800 --> 00:26:27.840 over again that happened in my entrepreneurial career, have given me a lot more peace about the 334 00:26:27.920 --> 00:26:34.560 journey overall. 14 is that I would pay any amount of money to make obvious truths real for me. 335 00:26:35.120 --> 00:26:41.440 And I remember when I was when I was starting out, I was so funny. I went to Bally's gym right 336 00:26:41.440 --> 00:26:47.360 after I graduated college and the membership there, it was $29 a month. And I remember I almost 337 00:26:47.360 --> 00:26:51.040 spit out my gum when they told me it was $29 a month because I thought it was so expensive. 338 00:26:51.600 --> 00:26:57.840 It was so crazy that someone would dare ask for money. I expected to be able to be less, 339 00:26:57.840 --> 00:27:02.000 I was like, fitness is a right. Like I was such a piece of shit. 340 00:27:04.880 --> 00:27:11.440 And so there is a reality that no one can see right now, true reality. And no one can see it 341 00:27:11.440 --> 00:27:14.400 because we are shaped by the many things that we've been told throughout our lives and many of 342 00:27:14.400 --> 00:27:20.640 those things were not true. And so much of the path of entrepreneurship in my opinion is shedding 343 00:27:20.720 --> 00:27:26.240 these false truths so that you can see the world more clearly. If you see these business people 344 00:27:26.240 --> 00:27:28.880 were super far ahead and all of a sudden it's like they can lose it and then they can get it 345 00:27:28.880 --> 00:27:33.520 all back again and things seem so seamless for them. It's because they have a more accurate 346 00:27:33.520 --> 00:27:39.680 view of reality than you do. And so imagine trying to hit a target with a blindfold on. 347 00:27:39.680 --> 00:27:43.840 You're just going to keep missing and keep missing and keep missing. Now imagine there's a guy 348 00:27:43.840 --> 00:27:47.920 next to you who's got a blindfold on too, but it's clear. And he's just nailing it. And you're 349 00:27:47.920 --> 00:27:52.400 like, what the hell? I'm doing the same thing with my wrist. I've got all this technique down. 350 00:27:52.400 --> 00:27:56.560 It's simply because he sees the target and he sees all the environment around it more clearly than 351 00:27:56.560 --> 00:28:04.480 you do. And for me, the whole concept of ignorance tax and ignorance debt has been one that I've 352 00:28:04.480 --> 00:28:09.280 taken with me for life. And I actually heard this a speaker said this on stage and he was actually 353 00:28:09.280 --> 00:28:13.680 using it as a close for the audience. But it's like I just, it just, it changed my life. So I 354 00:28:13.760 --> 00:28:18.960 probably add that to the other way. He said, how much is not making a million dollars a year 355 00:28:18.960 --> 00:28:25.520 costing you? He's like, well, if you make $50,000 a year right now, say to cost you $950,000 a year 356 00:28:25.520 --> 00:28:30.560 to not know how to make a million dollars. And I thought about that. And I was like, shit. 357 00:28:31.280 --> 00:28:37.280 So right now, the concept of paying down the ignorance tax, paying down the debt service that we 358 00:28:37.280 --> 00:28:44.240 are all paying to reality, right? We are paying a debt service to a false reality in order to get 359 00:28:44.240 --> 00:28:50.000 the real one. And so for me, I will pay any amount of money to speed that process up to see the world 360 00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:56.240 more clearly in a way that is true. And if the views that I have do not serve me and someone else 361 00:28:56.240 --> 00:29:00.960 is further ahead of me in the game, then they are better at the game of business than me in some way. 362 00:29:00.960 --> 00:29:05.600 And in that way, I can learn of them. It doesn't matter what they're doing. Some people were like, 363 00:29:05.600 --> 00:29:10.560 oh, this guy is unethical. This guy's, you can learn from everyone. If they're making more money 364 00:29:10.560 --> 00:29:15.200 than you, you can learn from them. And so taking that and taking my ego hat off, right? Taking my 365 00:29:15.200 --> 00:29:20.240 ego hat off and saying, like, I'm the student here, this guy's better in some way. What does he believe 366 00:29:20.240 --> 00:29:25.280 to be true about the world that I don't or what do I believe to be true that isn't? And simply 367 00:29:25.280 --> 00:29:30.880 trying to observe to see those realities is something that I will always pay for. And so that's why I 368 00:29:30.880 --> 00:29:36.240 pay, I mean, I made a video the other week about conversations that have changed my life. 369 00:29:36.800 --> 00:29:43.200 Eight of the ten conversations that I did to change my life, I paid for. Eight of the ten. 370 00:29:44.000 --> 00:29:47.360 So I know that there's plenty of really successful business people who just, you know, 371 00:29:47.360 --> 00:29:51.760 they network and they do whatever. I didn't do that. I paid for access to everything because I 372 00:29:51.760 --> 00:29:56.080 didn't know and I didn't know anybody who did know. And so just observing them and having them 373 00:29:56.080 --> 00:29:59.680 speak into my lives, and it wasn't always direct. Sometimes it was indirect. Just just watching 374 00:29:59.680 --> 00:30:03.280 what someone's doing and saying, they're doing something different than me. I don't believe that 375 00:30:03.280 --> 00:30:07.520 what they're doing makes sense, but they're making more money than me. So maybe they're right, 376 00:30:07.520 --> 00:30:12.400 and I'm wrong. And consistently trying to speed up that process because right now I know if I 377 00:30:12.400 --> 00:30:18.160 went back in time just with the views of the world that I have compared to what I had then, 378 00:30:18.160 --> 00:30:23.600 I could recreate what I have now in two years. And so thinking about my future self, 379 00:30:23.600 --> 00:30:28.240 if it could take me 30 years to learn the lesson because I'm going to learn the lesson either way, 380 00:30:28.240 --> 00:30:32.320 I'm either going to pay in time or I'm going to pay in money. I'd rather pay in money and drag 381 00:30:32.320 --> 00:30:37.360 my future closer to the present because then I get to get to that future and drag another future 382 00:30:37.360 --> 00:30:42.800 to the present and shortcut it. And so I will always pay any money for an obvious truth to be 383 00:30:42.800 --> 00:30:53.280 real for me because for me it wasn't obvious.