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And if you cannot quiet your emotions, there's no way that you're going to be able to move to the next level.

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And so it does require this sort of deadening of your emotional reactions.

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The wealthiest people in the world see business as a game.

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This podcast, the game, is my attempt at documenting the lessons I've learned on my way to

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building acquisition.com into a billion dollar portfolio. My hope is that you use the lessons to

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grab your business and maybe someday soon partner with us to get two hundred million dollars in

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beyond. I hope you share and enjoy. One of the funds quotes that I love about businesses,

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business is simply mathematical decisions made within the context of human psychology,

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which essentially means that you need to do arithmetic and division in algebra in order to make

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business decisions and then overlay that on the people that they're going to affect, right?

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And so one of the fun things is that if you look at really, really high up CEOs,

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like you look at Elon Musk or you look at Mark Zuckerberg and you listen or Warren Buffett and you

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listen to them speak, right? They sound like computers, like Bill Gates. They sound like robots.

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They sound devoid of any human emotion. And I think that there's the nature and nurture part of it,

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which is that there's some people who are CEOs who are, I don't want to say like sociopaths,

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but like basically who have a little bit less human affect than others and they're able to make

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mathematical decisions despite some of the emotions that may be around them which actually make

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better business sense even though they may be difficult. The thing is is that once you get up to

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that level, let Billionaire said, I said I'm not there, but I'm just saying if you observe the people

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who are there, it's a very common trend. And I think this is my, you know, position is that

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the reason that they're able to achieve that is because they're able to make decisions devoid

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of human emotion. And so the human, within the context of human psychology, the second part of

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that sentence, a lot of times comes into play when you're talking about sales and marketing and

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positioning because all of that is soft skills. But when it comes to the business model monetization

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and then in some instances, making the difficult decisions around personnel, a lot of times your

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emotions are really only things that are going to get in your way. There are a lot of decisions

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right now that you may or may not be making because you have emotional charge around them.

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So you may have a firing decision or a hiring display. Somebody who you know is not best for that

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position. And it is up to you as the business owner to be able to make the decision without the

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emotion. And so what happens is, and this is something that I've noticed is that I become less

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and less reactive as we have gone higher and higher and higher up in business because

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you have to be. And if you aren't, then you won't keep moving up. And so it's like if you see

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these people all the way up here, and some part of you might say, like, I don't know if I want to

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be that. And that's fair. But in order to get all the way up here, you basically in some ways

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have to become like a robot and be able to show up neutral in all situations so that you can't get

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hotheaded so that you can show up consistently to your team and make decisions that they can have

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faith in that they are logical that they are based on math. They are based on reason and not based

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on like swings of emotion of feeling like we're doing great. Oh no, we suck because the reality is

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that usually it's in the middle. But like one of the lessons that I've learned has been that nothing

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is ever is good as you think it's going to be or as bad as you think it's going to be. The only

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things that are above those things are things that you don't think about. So the only things that

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will be worse than you ever imagined are things that you didn't expect to come. Anything that like

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nothing is going to be better than you imagined, except for things that you didn't expect to have

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happened, right? I did not expect Jim wants to take off the way that it did because the original

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model that we had was not the model that we switched to. I did not have a huge anticipation for

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because I was actually getting out of the business when I made that decision to switch into a

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done with you model instead of a done for you model. And that's when everything took off. And so

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it's the things that we don't expect oftentimes that do the things that are beyond that. And the

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reason I'm saying this is because we have so much emotion that's charged around the future,

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charged around our anxieties or our hopes. And a lot of times that impairs our ability to function

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today. And a lot of times whether it's good or bad, how you show up to the team in a positive

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way or negative way. Like if you're somebody who's like really cold or really hot, like if you're

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like I always want to be positive, like that also is not good because it just shows that you're not

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stable. And so the goal, and what I observe with people who are doing much better than me is

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that I talk about this all the time that it's quiet. They keep their surroundings quiet. They

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always show up the same. That's why consistency is so key so that you have these routines in

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place that you can show up the same every single day independent of the circumstances around you

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so that you can make the decisions using the same frameworks and using logic and not feelings.

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And so one of the goals that Lail always has is as a leader and she puts this post it on her

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on her computer is be neutral. And so it's the reason it's so hard is that the middle path

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is so difficult, right? It's the dichotomy of leadership. Like you want to be really high,

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when it's high, you want to be really low on its low and archbunners by nature tend to be more

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emotional. That's what creates the creative spark that creates the desire to innovate. It's what

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is the initial thing that allows you to get that emotion going to take the risk to leave your job

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to start the business to do all these things. And then the moment you start it, you have to be the

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opposite of who you are in order to succeed. And so it's very counter intuitive that you're like,

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wait, I have to be devoid of emotion. And so what happens is you have to start these things with

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practice. It's like, well, how do I do that? How do I make emotions without feelings? And the best

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way, at least in my experience is to always break you down the math, right? Is to break you down

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the math and put as many decisions as I can through data and actually extrapolate out what this

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decision means, day wise. And so a lot of times, if you're looking at, okay, how much it will it cost

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me to keep someone in a position that they are not suited for? And then I start breaking down,

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okay, well, I have the cost that I'm actually paying, then that's the hard cost, right? And then I

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have the soft cost of the job that they're actually not doing. So it's like, there's money that's

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going out for them, right? And then there's the value that they're not added, which is actually

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a double-dearn. And then if there's someone who is in leadership, then it's all of the downstream

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effects of the decreased effectiveness of the entire team. And then you have the hard cost for

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those members. And so you can see how these things extrapolate out. And so breaking it down to

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the numbers like that sometimes can give you the confidence to make the decisions that sometimes

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are difficult to make. And I think that what happens over time is that you just get used to it.

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And so your skin gets thicker. And a lot of times, if you look at some of these interviews,

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like I was referencing, if you watch these CEOs, the super high-level entrepreneurs,

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they're very deliberate with how they speak and what they say because they've done it so many

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times, it becomes second nature. And it's difficult to develop that type of thick skin without

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going through the fire pit in the gauntlet of having, you know, employees that you loved

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start trying to sue you. And having it, but I'm saying that these things happen to you. And

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Elon Musk was on a podcast the other day. He's like, he has like 25 lawsuits ongoing at any time.

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Like people suing him because the car didn't drive them to work every day. Like ridiculous things

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because he's elevated to that position. And if you cannot quiet your emotions, there's no way

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that you're going to be able to move to the next level. And so it does require this sort of

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deadening of your emotional reactions. And so it's, that's my current chapter that I'm all

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right now of this little entrepreneurship journey is looking at all the things that create a

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motion in my life, both positive and negative, and seeing how it affects me and how I show up on

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a daily basis. And then more importantly, how it affects the decisions that I make what

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cleared. And so my, my urgent to you is right now, there probably are some decisions that you

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are not making because they're emotionally charged. And what you need to do is look at it within

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the context of math and say, does this make sense and do it like, and you have to make the hard

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choice. And a lot of times the hard choice is not the popular. It's not the one that makes you

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everyone's best friend. But the thing is, is that it will either be you who makes the hard choice

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to in the moment today, or the hard choice that we made for you by the marketplace because

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your business will not work. And so it's, it's a constant like, I feel like life a lot of times,

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man, this is being broad statement. But life a lot of times is sacrificing your short-term comfort

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for your long-term benefit. And so when it comes to fitness, sacrificing your short-term comfort

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of eating what you want to eat for your long-term benefit, sleeve for sacrificing your short-term

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benefit of like, well, I want to watch one more episode. I want to stay a little bit later. I

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want to, I want to waste time on my phone rather than going to sleep, right? But the long-term

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benefit is clear. I want to keep this person on because maybe they'll turn around, but they probably

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won't. You already know that. If you had to bet on it, you probably wouldn't bet on, right?

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I'm just using that as an example. There's a million other things that you have to do,

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same thing with clients. If you have a client who was just consistently grinning your attention,

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just get them out. You know what I mean? But it's hard. And the reason it's hard is the reason

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is why most people don't succeed. That's it. So like, the advanced people don't do anything

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advanced. They just never don't do the basics. And so like, this is something that I'm continuing

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to go back to, at least in the season that we're in, not for the right way. It's consistently

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revisiting the basics of like, how can I do the basics better? Rather than how can I find

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advanced things? And I think that a lot of us, you know, and I say this a lot, but like,

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we need to be reminded more than we need to be taught. Like, if you've ever, like,

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Bruce Lee said, I don't fear a man who's done a thousand kicks one time, but the managed

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number one kick a thousand times, right? Like, we get better by doing the same things over and over again.

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And that's like, and it's boring. And that's what makes it hard. And that's why most people don't

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succeed is that they want something that's fun and exciting because that's what entrepreneurs want.

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But business requires consistency. And the business requires you to be everything that you weren't

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born to be. And that is why most people don't make it. So just food for thought, if you have

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some things that you need to do, just do them. Take out, take the math out, look at it from

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pure numbers and make the decision as though it were someone else's company. And then you'll be

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surprised how easy and how clear some of those decisions can be. One other context or frame that I

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like to make some decisions on is if I were significantly smarter than myself, what would I tell

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myself to do? And, or if I were the smartest man in the world, what would that guy do? And if you

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think about things, I know it's silly, but a lot of times you think that guy would be a supergenious

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and he would look at it purely like this, dollars and cents. And then you'd be amazed at the quality

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of the decisions that come out of that type of thought process.