WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.600 The ocean between good work and great work is vast. 2 00:00:03.600 --> 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 --> 00:00:11.200 Which is why you have to be really selected about the few things you choose to do 4 00:00:11.200 --> 00:00:14.560 that are worth doing and in being worth doing, worth doing well. 5 00:00:17.840 --> 00:00:21.360 Welcome to the game where we talk about how to sell more stuff to more people in more ways and 6 00:00:21.360 --> 00:00:25.520 build businesses worth owning. I'm trying to build a billion dollar thing with acquisition.com. 7 00:00:25.520 --> 00:00:28.480 I always wished pesos, musk and buffet had documented their journey. 8 00:00:28.480 --> 00:00:30.720 So I'm doing it for the rest of us. Please share and enjoy. 9 00:00:33.120 --> 00:00:37.920 13 lessons I learned after graduating college from the real world that I wish I had learned 10 00:00:37.920 --> 00:00:44.080 earlier. The first is that you make better decisions and you learn more by assuming that you're 11 00:00:44.080 --> 00:00:48.000 dumber than everyone else. And the reason this was something that took me a long time to learn 12 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:52.080 is that when I was in college, it was all about showing how smart you were. It was about talking 13 00:00:52.160 --> 00:00:58.560 more in the group meetings. It was about raising your hand more in the class room and proving how smart 14 00:00:58.560 --> 00:01:03.760 you were in every way that you possibly could. And so I took that and started translating in the real 15 00:01:03.760 --> 00:01:08.320 world. And I realized that I didn't learn very much because I was the one talking all the time. 16 00:01:08.320 --> 00:01:13.760 And it only took a few times of me getting introduced to somebody because I wish I could just tell 17 00:01:13.760 --> 00:01:17.760 you it was once, but it wasn't. Or I get introduced to someone. Someone would introduce us. 18 00:01:17.760 --> 00:01:22.400 And I would basically spend the whole time blabbering on about how great I was and how much I 19 00:01:22.400 --> 00:01:28.400 knew only to find out later that this person was way above me in business and whatever things that 20 00:01:28.400 --> 00:01:33.680 I was pursuing at the time. And then I felt tons of shame and embarrassment about how stupid I was 21 00:01:33.680 --> 00:01:38.640 for doing that. And so I had to shift the way that I talked to new people and the way that I 22 00:01:38.640 --> 00:01:43.920 answered rooms. And I'll be real. I still talked probably too much. But at least being aware of that 23 00:01:43.920 --> 00:01:49.280 lesson as early as I as it could, I wish I had learned it earlier. But fundamentally you can't 24 00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:54.400 learn if you're talking. I guess obviously this is it. And so if you're trying to learn, 25 00:01:54.400 --> 00:01:59.200 then not talking is the first requisite for doing that. And if you want to make better decisions, 26 00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:04.240 then you need to learn. And so if you talk less and listen more, which is why this is somewhat of a 27 00:02:04.240 --> 00:02:10.560 platitude, it's easy to understand and hard to do. And tactically, when you were in situations, 28 00:02:10.560 --> 00:02:16.640 when you're meeting new people, this was a big epiphany I had was that I got introduced once to 29 00:02:16.640 --> 00:02:22.480 somebody. And I was walking peripherally after I had left and somebody else went up to them and 30 00:02:22.480 --> 00:02:27.600 was like, do you know who that guy is? And in that moment, I realized that my positioning was now 31 00:02:27.600 --> 00:02:33.920 sky high because I didn't have to be the one to say it. And so the idea that I realized was how 32 00:02:33.920 --> 00:02:40.000 can I get other people to edify me? Because what I had to allow people to do was to make the same 33 00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:44.320 mistake that I used to make, which is that someone young, someone inexperienced, someone less 34 00:02:44.320 --> 00:02:48.880 aware, whatever would come up and then start posturing themselves and blathering on about everything 35 00:02:48.880 --> 00:02:54.000 that they're doing. And me, I might be way ahead of them, but I would listen and see if there's 36 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:59.280 anything interesting. And so on that conversation, I learned more than they did. I learned what type 37 00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:03.120 of person they are. I learned where they're at with their career. And if they had anything interesting, 38 00:03:03.120 --> 00:03:08.000 that would be worth, you know, following up with. They learned nothing. They felt good about 39 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:12.320 themselves. And then later would feel bad about themselves when that other person went over and 40 00:03:12.320 --> 00:03:17.120 told them. And so I was like, of these two scenarios, which would I rather do? But I'd rather have 41 00:03:17.120 --> 00:03:23.440 someone have a conversation with me and then not know who I was and then never know who I was, 42 00:03:23.440 --> 00:03:30.800 but be able to learn because that's the worst case scenario, right? Or would I rather blather on, 43 00:03:30.800 --> 00:03:35.680 learn nothing and either either I am above them. And then they're like, well, fuck that guy, 44 00:03:35.680 --> 00:03:41.440 he brags or I'm below them. And I'm the moron. So those are the only two alternatives in the 45 00:03:41.440 --> 00:03:46.000 scenario where you blather on about yourself and try and position and try and sound smart. So 46 00:03:47.120 --> 00:03:51.600 I stopped doing that because the scenarios of me not saying as much and listening more, I got 47 00:03:52.720 --> 00:03:57.760 I learned more. And if the person found out who I was later, I was positioned. And if they never 48 00:03:57.760 --> 00:04:02.480 did, I still just learned. So those are the upsides and downsides versus both. And that shifted my 49 00:04:02.480 --> 00:04:07.360 behavior. So that was lesson number one. Lesson number two was that the hardest respect to earn 50 00:04:07.360 --> 00:04:11.200 is one zone. And so what I realized, and this was something that was really hard for me is that I 51 00:04:11.200 --> 00:04:14.400 had a pretty bad reputation in the very beginning of my college career and all of my high school career. 52 00:04:14.400 --> 00:04:20.160 And it was because I drank too much. I was irresponsible. I slept around a lot and it just 53 00:04:20.160 --> 00:04:24.160 ultimately I wasn't representing the type of person that I wanted to be. And so I felt ashamed 54 00:04:24.160 --> 00:04:29.040 of the behaviors that I did, but I didn't change them, right? And so it was only through a conversation 55 00:04:29.040 --> 00:04:32.880 that had with my father where I said, how do I change my reputation? How do I get these people 56 00:04:32.880 --> 00:04:38.160 to stop saying this stuff? And I thought there was some like PR marketing angle that I could take, 57 00:04:38.160 --> 00:04:42.480 that I could control the narrative. And he said, why don't you stop being a piece of shit? 58 00:04:43.360 --> 00:04:47.040 And he said that in his own, you know, in his own words. And I was like, that can't be it. I'll 59 00:04:47.040 --> 00:04:51.360 figure out a way. But only, you know, as when parents talk to kids, they're listening, but they're 60 00:04:51.360 --> 00:04:55.360 not listening, that really stuck with me. And I started thinking about it. And so I said, like, well, 61 00:04:55.360 --> 00:04:59.520 if I wanted to be somebody who was respectable, what would I do? And so then I tried to start acting 62 00:04:59.520 --> 00:05:05.120 in that way to be someone who's respect my own, I would earn. And so when I started doing that, 63 00:05:05.120 --> 00:05:08.560 nothing changed externally. People still treated me like I was a piece of shit and they were 64 00:05:08.560 --> 00:05:15.680 probably right. But my behavior began to change and then slowly so did my reputation. But it started 65 00:05:15.680 --> 00:05:22.000 with me trying to respect myself first and then others began to respect me as a result. And so that 66 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:26.800 was a huge shift that happened for me that I wish I had learned earlier. If you want to control 67 00:05:26.800 --> 00:05:30.800 people, think control what they say. This is the third lesson I learned. And this is more of a 68 00:05:30.800 --> 00:05:35.840 business slash marketing lesson. But if you want to talk about products and services, you have to 69 00:05:35.840 --> 00:05:40.800 equip people with the words to describe what you have. Because otherwise, you're asking them to 70 00:05:40.800 --> 00:05:44.080 solve the problem of how to describe your business. And if right now you can't even figure out how 71 00:05:44.080 --> 00:05:47.200 you're going to describe your business and you own the darn thing, how do you expect them to do it 72 00:05:47.200 --> 00:05:50.320 in a half second when they're telling their friend. And so this is really about giving 73 00:05:50.320 --> 00:05:54.320 equipping people with simple language so they can communicate what you do. So for example, 74 00:05:54.320 --> 00:05:58.720 at acquisition.com, like this happens all the time. So I just want to be really real with you. 75 00:05:58.720 --> 00:06:01.440 The mission when I started the business was to document and share the best practice 76 00:06:01.440 --> 00:06:05.520 building world class companies. I have now realized that most people don't know what that means. 77 00:06:05.520 --> 00:06:10.720 And so I have now and we probably will shift the language to to make real business education 78 00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:16.160 available to everyone. They functionally mean the same thing. But giving people the words to 79 00:06:16.160 --> 00:06:19.840 describe it in a way that they understand allows me to give them more so they can explain to 80 00:06:19.840 --> 00:06:23.280 somebody else. So what's out, you know, what's that guy asked Rosie to or what's what's 81 00:06:23.280 --> 00:06:26.560 acquisition.com? It's like, oh, they're just trying to make real business education for everybody. 82 00:06:26.560 --> 00:06:29.760 Like it's easy to remember, but documents are the best practice building world class company. 83 00:06:29.760 --> 00:06:33.840 It's too hard. Like what's best practices? What's documenting? Like there's all these things that 84 00:06:33.840 --> 00:06:38.320 people don't conceptualize to sound like sound bites and words, but people can't describe. And so 85 00:06:38.960 --> 00:06:43.600 when I stopped trying to sound smart and tried to get my prospects to feel smart is when things 86 00:06:43.600 --> 00:06:47.040 changed. I've seen that that pattern happened over and over and over again, which when I came out 87 00:06:47.040 --> 00:06:50.800 of college, all I did was want to sound smart rather than have my prospects and the people I 88 00:06:50.800 --> 00:06:56.880 was listening to feel smart. Number four, you get more out of reading one book. That's great. 89 00:06:56.880 --> 00:07:03.360 Five times than out of reading five mediocre books. And so I don't read many books. And what I mean 90 00:07:03.360 --> 00:07:08.880 by that is I buy lots of books. I skim most of them and quickly realize that it's not worth reading. 91 00:07:08.880 --> 00:07:11.920 And so then I tossed them aside because just because someone wrote a book doesn't mean you need 92 00:07:11.920 --> 00:07:15.600 to finish it has nothing to do with you. It means that they didn't organize it well. So there you go. 93 00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:20.800 But every once in a while, you do get a book. And I have found that books that are older in general 94 00:07:20.800 --> 00:07:23.680 tend to be better because the reason the person wrote it was a different intention. They wrote it 95 00:07:23.680 --> 00:07:26.560 because they wanted to transmit knowledge to the next generation. Whereas people who write books 96 00:07:26.560 --> 00:07:31.280 now are either writing for money, writing for notoriety or writing them to sell other shit, right? 97 00:07:31.280 --> 00:07:35.520 And that's the vast majority of books. So if you find books for the author is actually writing because 98 00:07:35.520 --> 00:07:38.800 they want to convey knowledge to the next generation, those tend to be better books in my experience 99 00:07:38.800 --> 00:07:46.160 because the intent is to actually teach not to persuade. No slight difference. So when you do find 100 00:07:46.160 --> 00:07:51.760 those gems, I have realized that if I read something once and to end, I still don't know it yet. 101 00:07:52.560 --> 00:07:57.920 And so I will read a book two times three times four times five times until I can't teach the book 102 00:07:57.920 --> 00:08:02.800 when I feel like it is worth learning. And then once I have like squeezed the book for everything 103 00:08:02.800 --> 00:08:06.560 that it has to the point where I can convey the message to somebody else, like I can teach the 104 00:08:06.560 --> 00:08:10.400 concepts of the book, which is something that I've done many times, or actually make a presentation 105 00:08:10.400 --> 00:08:14.720 on the book so that I can wrap my own frameworks around how I can remember it. That's where a lot of 106 00:08:14.720 --> 00:08:17.840 these frameworks come from is because it's me trying to make sense of the world in a way that I can 107 00:08:17.840 --> 00:08:22.400 remember. Because otherwise I read stuff and then I would just discard them and it's just like a waste 108 00:08:22.400 --> 00:08:27.120 of time where if you if your behavior doesn't change as a result of reading a book, then it means 109 00:08:27.120 --> 00:08:30.800 you've learned nothing, which means it was a waste of time. And many people who read books are just 110 00:08:30.800 --> 00:08:34.960 wasting their time because their behavior doesn't change. And so I consolidate once I find something 111 00:08:34.960 --> 00:08:39.680 that's good, I plug everything I possibly can into it and suck the juice out of it so that I can 112 00:08:39.680 --> 00:08:43.760 change my behavior as a result, which comes from the frameworks and how I think about it. So I read one 113 00:08:43.760 --> 00:08:47.760 thing that's very good many times rather than trying to brag about the fact that I read a book a week. 114 00:08:47.760 --> 00:08:50.960 Because I'm like, well, what was the book last week not that good that it wasn't worth rereading? 115 00:08:51.600 --> 00:08:54.640 Right? That's how my thinking had changed when I was younger, it was all about like how many 116 00:08:54.640 --> 00:08:58.960 books can you read? It was like a contest. It's like a pissing contest. Instead, it's like how deeply 117 00:08:58.960 --> 00:09:02.080 do you understand the knowledge of the book? Because if you just did how to make friends and 118 00:09:02.080 --> 00:09:05.920 influence people and you put it into your DNA, you would be successful, right? There's many, 119 00:09:05.920 --> 00:09:09.120 there's a handful of books that if you just did them for the rest of your life, you would win. 120 00:09:09.120 --> 00:09:14.240 And so rather than read another book that's on the airport bookshelf that was just well marketed 121 00:09:14.240 --> 00:09:18.880 that's a crap product from a ghostwriter. Instead of that, you can just read the few other times 122 00:09:18.880 --> 00:09:23.600 classics written by the author to convey a message to the next generation. Number five is that most 123 00:09:23.600 --> 00:09:28.640 champions do not have something that you do not. They lack something that you have. And so it's a 124 00:09:28.640 --> 00:09:32.480 different thought process because if all of us have the exact same hours per day, it means that 125 00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:37.680 they're allocating their time differently. And many times, they eliminate things that you are 126 00:09:37.680 --> 00:09:42.160 still doing. They have sacrificed more. They have given up things that you have continued to have 127 00:09:42.160 --> 00:09:48.480 on your tree as branches that are distracting from growing up, right? And so many times champions, 128 00:09:48.480 --> 00:09:51.840 when I look at the people who are further ahead of me, they're even more ruthless with their time, 129 00:09:51.840 --> 00:09:57.040 they even have lower tolerance for friends, family, people around them that are not at the bar 130 00:09:57.120 --> 00:10:02.480 that they hold themselves to. And for me, going through college or, you know, when I was younger, 131 00:10:02.480 --> 00:10:06.000 I always thought it was about adding to your plate, saying yes to everything, saying yes to 132 00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:10.800 opportunity, say yes, say yes, yes. What all I did was I just completely got distracted and spread 133 00:10:10.800 --> 00:10:16.720 super thin. And so what most champions have is singular focus and they're willing to say no to 134 00:10:16.720 --> 00:10:22.880 everything else. And that for me took me too long to learn. Six is that goodwill compounds 135 00:10:22.880 --> 00:10:27.920 faster than money. And the reason for that is like if you actually think about what goodwill is, 136 00:10:27.920 --> 00:10:32.480 it's that you have positive sentiment and you have a degree of influence over a person's behavior. 137 00:10:32.480 --> 00:10:38.160 That's what goodwill is. And so if one person has goodwill with you and then shares your stuff with 138 00:10:38.160 --> 00:10:43.920 somebody else and you create goodwill in that next person, you can double your goodwill or 10x 139 00:10:43.920 --> 00:10:49.360 your goodwill in a matter of 12 weeks. 10xing your money in a matter of 12 weeks is very, very 140 00:10:49.360 --> 00:10:55.120 unlikely. And so goodwill because it's based on audiences and humans can compound significantly 141 00:10:55.120 --> 00:10:59.440 faster than money can. And when I realized that that goodwill could be translated into money, 142 00:10:59.440 --> 00:11:03.200 if I so desired at a future date, then I realized that rather than focusing on the money that I'm 143 00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:07.520 trying to make today, why don't I focus on the compounding vehicle that compounded a much faster 144 00:11:07.520 --> 00:11:12.080 rate than money does that compounds tax-free, by the way, building the audience is tax-free, 145 00:11:12.080 --> 00:11:16.720 and then when you choose to have the conversion event, you can do that at your own choosing. 146 00:11:16.720 --> 00:11:20.080 But if you focus on the audience, you focus on the goodwill, that will grow significantly faster 147 00:11:20.080 --> 00:11:24.720 than any kind of monetary move. But you can still translate that later into money when you want. 148 00:11:24.720 --> 00:11:27.760 That was a big epiphany for me. I thought it was all about the money when I was coming up. 149 00:11:28.960 --> 00:11:34.720 Seven is that you're going to die. And two weeks after you die, most people will have forgotten 150 00:11:34.720 --> 00:11:39.360 about you. And six months after you die, no one will talk about you. And if they're not caring 151 00:11:39.360 --> 00:11:44.480 enough then, then it certainly doesn't matter what they think about your life now. Because if that's 152 00:11:44.480 --> 00:11:47.520 the most significant event that's going to happen in your life, which is that you stop living, 153 00:11:48.160 --> 00:11:53.440 then how much credibility or weight should we give to other people's opinions on what we should do 154 00:11:53.440 --> 00:11:59.760 with our lives? My opinion, very little. And so, unless the person has a vested interest in seeing 155 00:11:59.760 --> 00:12:04.560 you succeed, comma, and the context to provide the advice, most of the times it's just worth 156 00:12:04.560 --> 00:12:07.520 ignoring. Because they're trying to live their own life and they're projecting their own beliefs 157 00:12:07.520 --> 00:12:12.560 and experiences on you. And you spent all this time trying to improve your own view of reality 158 00:12:12.560 --> 00:12:16.960 through the beliefs that you've shed and shifted that they have not. And so what they believe 159 00:12:16.960 --> 00:12:20.480 to be true is what they're casting onto you. And if you don't like the life they have, 160 00:12:20.480 --> 00:12:26.240 then I don't think it's worth listening to. Eight, extraordinary accomplishments come from doing 161 00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:31.200 ordinary things for extraordinary periods of time. This is just me speaking about me. But when I was 162 00:12:31.200 --> 00:12:36.160 younger, my actions showed that I was more impatient. I always was willing to sacrifice what I had 163 00:12:36.160 --> 00:12:41.040 today to get the quick buck. I was always, I was shifting like that because I just thought that 164 00:12:41.120 --> 00:12:45.520 that was how it worked. I thought there was some shortcut I didn't know about. And I would see the 165 00:12:45.520 --> 00:12:50.320 guys on stages being like, this is what we do. We do the basics and we do a lot of it. I was like, 166 00:12:50.320 --> 00:12:54.480 they're just trying to hold the secrets back. And I'm here to tell you that that is not true. 167 00:12:54.480 --> 00:12:58.720 Like I wish I could go and shake my college self and be like, if you do one thing for a very 168 00:12:58.720 --> 00:13:03.200 long period of time, you will get very good at it. And it will compound onto itself. And maybe I 169 00:13:03.200 --> 00:13:06.400 would listen to me. If I mean, if future self showed up in my living room now, I would totally 170 00:13:06.400 --> 00:13:11.360 listen to him. But you know what I mean? And so I can't do that. So the best thing I can do is 171 00:13:11.360 --> 00:13:16.960 try and shake you by the collar and say that if you like the thing that makes the action extraordinary 172 00:13:16.960 --> 00:13:22.560 is the commitment to it, not the nature of the action itself, working out and doing reps is not 173 00:13:22.560 --> 00:13:27.600 extraordinary. If you saw one set of a workout from me at the gym, you wouldn't think, oh, this guy 174 00:13:27.600 --> 00:13:33.840 is amazing. It's the fact that you do it for 23 years. That is what compounds on itself. If you 175 00:13:33.840 --> 00:13:37.600 listen to one guy, make one phone call, you listen to one major league baseball player, one at 176 00:13:37.600 --> 00:13:43.040 bat, nothing about that is extraordinary. It's the dedication to doing it over and over and over 177 00:13:43.040 --> 00:13:47.280 and over again, despite feeling like there's better opportunities, despite people approaching you 178 00:13:47.280 --> 00:13:51.520 with new and exciting things, but saying that you're committed to the original vision you had, 179 00:13:51.520 --> 00:13:55.120 and that reality has not changed in such a way that you believe that your need to believe is 180 00:13:55.120 --> 00:14:00.080 no longer true. You said, I believe that X, Y and Z is true. And as long as that remains to be true, 181 00:14:00.080 --> 00:14:04.400 then I will continue on this path for an extraordinary period of time. And that, not the action 182 00:14:04.400 --> 00:14:08.160 itself, but your commitment to the action is what makes someone extraordinary, not the thing itself. 183 00:14:09.200 --> 00:14:17.360 None. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well. This is a really great, small saying that like, 184 00:14:17.360 --> 00:14:21.600 I, I, I short cut it so much stuff when I was younger, I just wanted to like get it done, 185 00:14:21.600 --> 00:14:26.800 get it done, get it done, rather than doing it well. And there's kind of two ways you can take the 186 00:14:26.800 --> 00:14:30.560 saying, which is why I like it so much, is that if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well. 187 00:14:30.560 --> 00:14:34.960 Because many times I was doing things that were not worth doing. And so I didn't have the time 188 00:14:34.960 --> 00:14:40.320 to do things well because I was doing so many things that were not worth doing. And so the first 189 00:14:40.320 --> 00:14:46.400 criteria is, what problem are we solving? What am I hoping to accomplish? Is this worth doing 190 00:14:46.400 --> 00:14:52.640 at all? Because if it is worth doing, then I have to understand that to do it come a right to do it 191 00:14:52.640 --> 00:14:57.920 well, it's going to take this much time. Now, given that, is it still worth doing? And if it passes 192 00:14:57.920 --> 00:15:02.720 that test of A being worth doing in the long haul, and because it is worth doing worth doing well, 193 00:15:03.600 --> 00:15:08.480 then it gives us this lens to which to see the activities we do so that we can prioritize the 194 00:15:08.480 --> 00:15:12.800 things that will make us the most money or get us closer to the goals we have. Right? And so for me, 195 00:15:12.800 --> 00:15:16.160 I spent so much of my energy, fun fact, when you're younger, you have more energy than when you're 196 00:15:16.160 --> 00:15:19.840 older. So whatever your energy is now, it's learning the highest it's ever going to be. From this point 197 00:15:19.840 --> 00:15:23.600 going forward, kind of, kind of crazy to think about. And so younger me had more energy than me 198 00:15:23.600 --> 00:15:29.680 does now. I make way more money than younger me did. And it's because I do fewer things and I do 199 00:15:29.680 --> 00:15:35.520 different things than I did then. And now, if I write a book, I'll take a year on writing the book 200 00:15:35.520 --> 00:15:40.640 because if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well because I understand that taking one year today 201 00:15:40.640 --> 00:15:45.760 will mean that that book might sit and sell and distribute itself to millions of people over the 202 00:15:45.840 --> 00:15:51.920 next 50 years or 100 years or after I'm dead compared to me just putting words on a page that are 203 00:15:51.920 --> 00:15:56.400 pretty good and then shipping it. And I think the vast majority of people don't get the difference 204 00:15:56.400 --> 00:16:02.560 between good and great. The ocean between good work and great work is vast. It's five times, 205 00:16:02.560 --> 00:16:07.200 ten times the work to go from something good to something great. And I did not get that, 206 00:16:07.200 --> 00:16:11.360 which is why you have to be really selective about the few things you choose to do that are worth 207 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:18.240 doing. And in being worth doing, worth doing well. Real quick guys, if you can think about how you 208 00:16:18.240 --> 00:16:23.200 found this podcast, somebody probably tweeted it, told you about it, shared it on Instagram or 209 00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:27.840 something like that. The only way this grows is through word of mouth. And so I don't run ads, 210 00:16:27.840 --> 00:16:32.320 I don't do sponsorships, I don't sell anything. My only ask is that you continue to pay it forward, 211 00:16:32.320 --> 00:16:36.240 whoever showed you or however you found out about this podcast that you do the exact same thing. 212 00:16:36.240 --> 00:16:40.320 So if it was a review, if it was a post, if you do that, it would mean the world to me and you'll 213 00:16:40.320 --> 00:16:46.480 throw some good karma out there for another entrepreneur. Ten, be willing to negotiate everything, 214 00:16:46.480 --> 00:16:52.400 except for your values. And so there were so many things when I was coming up that like in college, 215 00:16:52.400 --> 00:16:59.760 even right after college as jobs, like I always just took things at face value. So prices, terms, 216 00:16:59.760 --> 00:17:05.680 relationships, everything, I took at face value. So whatever someone presented, I said yes or no 217 00:17:06.160 --> 00:17:12.080 to, right? Very straightforward. I have now realized that virtually everything is negotiable, 218 00:17:12.080 --> 00:17:16.960 right? Because people present with basically their best bad guess. And they're hoping that someone 219 00:17:16.960 --> 00:17:20.480 takes them by the hand and says, you know, that makes no sense. What if we did it this way? 220 00:17:20.480 --> 00:17:24.240 What problem are you solving? What problem are you solving? And then having the ability to clearly 221 00:17:24.240 --> 00:17:28.960 communicate, someone asked the right questions to get someone else's true desires and wants, 222 00:17:28.960 --> 00:17:32.640 and then knowing what your own true desires and wants and what you're willing to give up, 223 00:17:32.640 --> 00:17:37.280 allows you to make better deals. And so I used to think of negotiating as a zero sum game, 224 00:17:37.280 --> 00:17:41.200 and it's not at all. You can find a way where both parties get better than they were before, 225 00:17:41.200 --> 00:17:46.480 which is the entire point, right? Like that is how negotiating works if you're doing it well. 226 00:17:46.480 --> 00:17:49.600 And so I didn't understand that. I thought everything was an arm rest, so I thought everything 227 00:17:49.600 --> 00:17:54.000 was like this for that, tit for tat, like no give. And I also thought really short about it. 228 00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:58.480 I was like, I was trying to get one over as ruthless with vendors. You know what I mean? Just like 229 00:17:58.480 --> 00:18:03.280 all that kind of stuff as like I swung the other direction. So first I didn't negotiate anything. 230 00:18:03.280 --> 00:18:07.200 And then I found out you could negotiate and then tried to get everyone to give me their last 231 00:18:07.200 --> 00:18:11.680 last penny. But then I realized that this long term doesn't create good relationships and they 232 00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:16.400 will not be loyal to you at all, which long term has a more negative impact than giving them the extra 233 00:18:16.400 --> 00:18:22.240 10% and having an amicable relationship, right? And so I found kind of like my middle ground of 234 00:18:22.800 --> 00:18:27.360 you want to negotiate everything except for your values. Because the thing is if you really think 235 00:18:27.360 --> 00:18:31.440 about it, I negotiated everything in that second example, including my values. 236 00:18:32.080 --> 00:18:36.480 Because I was doing business in a way that was contrary to the values that I wanted to espouse, 237 00:18:36.480 --> 00:18:41.680 to want to do to embody, right? And so now in like, because the deals we do with acquisition 238 00:18:41.680 --> 00:18:45.360 are not common for example, like I could probably ask for significantly more than I do. And I have 239 00:18:45.360 --> 00:18:49.280 had many times people like, I want to give you this. And I'm like, I don't want that. Because I 240 00:18:49.280 --> 00:18:54.960 don't think you know what that means. And so this is what I think is fair today and in 10 years. 241 00:18:54.960 --> 00:19:01.520 And so it's balancing both your need today, your need in 10 years, and their need today, 242 00:19:01.520 --> 00:19:05.840 and their need in 10 years. And you have those four points and you try and find the closest point 243 00:19:05.840 --> 00:19:10.560 given your reality. And you can explain that this is how you're thinking through it with them. 244 00:19:10.560 --> 00:19:14.960 And I think they will appreciate all four data points on the map to come to the best solution for 245 00:19:14.960 --> 00:19:21.120 today and tomorrow. 11, humility. This is a big one because I want to be a different voice on 246 00:19:21.120 --> 00:19:26.560 this because I have heard all over the internet recently, people saying humility is stupid. If you 247 00:19:26.560 --> 00:19:29.840 looked up with the word means, you wouldn't want to be it. Because if you look it up on Google, 248 00:19:29.840 --> 00:19:35.280 it says thinking less of oneself, right? This is why looking into finding terms is important. 249 00:19:35.840 --> 00:19:39.680 Because if you look at Mary and Webster, for example, it's lack of prior arrogance. I don't think 250 00:19:39.680 --> 00:19:43.040 people would say you wouldn't want that. I was like, no, I think, I think people are okay not being 251 00:19:43.040 --> 00:19:47.440 prior to the arrogant. I think that's okay. But even more so, and the definition that I have taken 252 00:19:47.600 --> 00:19:52.880 is actually the exact opposite of that, which is it is not decreasing your regard for self, 253 00:19:52.880 --> 00:19:56.880 but increasing your regard for others. That's from Clayton Christensen, who is a Harvard professor 254 00:19:56.880 --> 00:20:02.880 God of a human. I thought that posturing when I was younger was the thing that would get people 255 00:20:02.880 --> 00:20:09.440 to like me. But what I realized later was that you gain status by giving more to the group than you 256 00:20:09.440 --> 00:20:14.960 get. And so this is especially true for guys. It's probably true for girls, but I can't speak to 257 00:20:15.600 --> 00:20:19.840 that. But in a group, especially in all male group, if you want to gain status, the way you do it 258 00:20:19.840 --> 00:20:24.400 is by sacrificing more for the group than everyone else does. If you want to gain status in a company, 259 00:20:24.400 --> 00:20:29.120 you give more to the company than anyone else does. More than the company gives you back. Because 260 00:20:29.120 --> 00:20:33.680 what do they do? They reward that behavior. The group rewards the person who gives to the group. 261 00:20:33.680 --> 00:20:37.680 It's how it works. The people who take from the group and only want to get status, the only going 262 00:20:37.680 --> 00:20:42.240 to get status from the group, end up getting banished by the group and bad it down because everyone 263 00:20:42.240 --> 00:20:47.040 wants to keep that person down because they don't serve anyone else. And so it was only by realizing 264 00:20:47.040 --> 00:20:52.640 that I had to give my life in order to get it. I had to give status. I had to serve because when 265 00:20:52.640 --> 00:20:56.880 you serve someone, you're giving them status. You're increasing your regard for others. When I gave 266 00:20:56.880 --> 00:21:03.680 status, I got it back. When I gave respect first, I would get respect back rather than demanding 267 00:21:03.680 --> 00:21:09.840 respect at the onset. Because then they wanted to disrespect me to level where I was at. Whereas 268 00:21:09.840 --> 00:21:15.600 if I raised them up, they would raise Mia. And it was understanding that group dynamic, which is 269 00:21:15.600 --> 00:21:19.360 what made me president of the fraternity that I was in. It made it like all of these things started 270 00:21:19.360 --> 00:21:24.720 compounding when I realized that truth is that humility is not thinking less of yourself. It's 271 00:21:24.720 --> 00:21:29.200 thinking more about other people and increasing your regard for their needs. And if you do that, 272 00:21:29.200 --> 00:21:35.120 I promise you you will have all the status you want. 12. The happy man has a thousand wishes. 273 00:21:35.120 --> 00:21:40.720 The sad man has one. This is a little bit more of a heart fault one for me because when I was younger, 274 00:21:40.720 --> 00:21:47.120 I was definitely angrier, probably darker in general. And a lot of that came because I had 275 00:21:47.120 --> 00:21:52.080 expectations that were fictitious, real or otherwise, from other people in my mind that existed who 276 00:21:52.080 --> 00:21:55.840 were constantly judging the behaviors and actions I was doing every day. And we're telling me that 277 00:21:55.840 --> 00:22:01.040 I was not enough. And so in some ways that created and reinforced behaviors that I still continue 278 00:22:01.120 --> 00:22:06.320 this day in terms of the actions I take, but the way that I feel and think about them has shifted. 279 00:22:06.960 --> 00:22:14.480 And so when you are sad, you want to not be sad. That's the main focus. You want to feel better. 280 00:22:14.480 --> 00:22:19.520 And many times people will take the short term way of getting out of that, which is alcohol, 281 00:22:19.520 --> 00:22:23.840 drugs, et cetera, because in the moment they can feel better. They just want to feel better. 282 00:22:23.840 --> 00:22:28.880 And I remember I had a coach who said that to me. She said, everyone just wants to feel better. 283 00:22:28.880 --> 00:22:32.640 And so when I think about things that I used to think people were wronging me, 284 00:22:32.640 --> 00:22:36.880 right? And I'll get all angry and I'll put myself out. I use a different frame now, which is 285 00:22:37.600 --> 00:22:41.280 they just wanted to feel better. Do you think it had nothing to do with me? And they just wanted 286 00:22:41.280 --> 00:22:45.680 to feel better about themselves? And that's given me a lot of peace about many of the things 287 00:22:45.680 --> 00:22:52.640 that used to anger me. And so I think that, at least for me, being able to quiet the hundreds of 288 00:22:52.640 --> 00:22:56.240 non-existent voices in my head that were constantly judging the activities that I was doing and 289 00:22:56.240 --> 00:23:01.040 labeling them good or bad or good enough or not good enough, et cetera, took up a tremendous 290 00:23:01.040 --> 00:23:06.720 amount of my attention. And because of that, all of my focus was on feeling better. And so I couldn't 291 00:23:06.720 --> 00:23:11.360 actually have any energy left over to do stuff because all I was focused on was feeling better. 292 00:23:11.360 --> 00:23:15.600 And all I was spending all my day was in my head trying to not feel like shit, right? And doing 293 00:23:15.600 --> 00:23:21.200 both short and long-term things to do that. And so it was only when I came up with the mantra, 294 00:23:21.200 --> 00:23:25.600 which I have said before, but fuck happiness, which sounds ironic because I said the person with a 295 00:23:26.320 --> 00:23:32.880 who's happy as a thousand wishes. But in choosing not to admit the deficiency between my current state 296 00:23:32.880 --> 00:23:37.920 and the future state of what I desired to be, I was able to accept where I was. And then the 297 00:23:37.920 --> 00:23:42.640 deficiency of not being good enough, not being happy enough disintegrated in my mind. And then I was 298 00:23:42.640 --> 00:23:48.640 able to focus on just doing things. And then when I started doing things, I started making progress. 299 00:23:48.640 --> 00:23:53.200 When I started making progress, I started looking back and feeling proud of how far I'd come. 300 00:23:53.280 --> 00:23:57.200 Because it wasn't about the many voices outside, it was about the only one that mattered. And so 301 00:23:57.200 --> 00:24:01.760 that shift is what I think genuinely from a spiritual standpoint is the thing that was able to give 302 00:24:01.760 --> 00:24:06.320 me the strength to do some of the things we have done. I'm not saying that we've done is amazing. 303 00:24:06.320 --> 00:24:10.720 We're hopefully living a long time. I do epic shit, but I wouldn't have been able to ever start 304 00:24:10.720 --> 00:24:16.000 on this path because I was paralyzed for years because I was paralyzed about what I thought other 305 00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:19.680 people were going to think about me only to realize that they weren't thinking about me at all. 306 00:24:20.320 --> 00:24:27.440 Thirteen. Failure leads to learning, learning leads to success, success leads to complacency, 307 00:24:27.440 --> 00:24:32.640 complacency leads to failure. And so a lot of times, I remember you thinking that like there was 308 00:24:32.640 --> 00:24:37.760 a destination, but I think the actual entrepreneurial cycle is, I'm going to give it in a way. 309 00:24:37.760 --> 00:24:42.080 It's not a destination, it's not linear, it's cyclical. And so that's why I talk about entrepreneurship 310 00:24:42.080 --> 00:24:46.960 in terms of seasons. Because there are cycles where you learn a lot, right? I used to say this a lot 311 00:24:46.960 --> 00:24:52.880 where I'd say either the business is growing or I am. So either I have learned lessons and I 312 00:24:52.880 --> 00:24:56.640 am applying those lessons to the business and the business is growing or the business is not 313 00:24:56.640 --> 00:25:00.960 growing and has problems. And now I am the one receiving the lessons from the business. And until I 314 00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:05.440 learn the lesson that I'm supposed to learn, the business will cease to grow. Until I have learned 315 00:25:05.440 --> 00:25:09.680 this lesson until I beat this boss at this level, right? And the difference between video games 316 00:25:09.680 --> 00:25:13.280 in real life is that sometimes in order to beat that boss, you're not doing it in 10 minutes. 317 00:25:13.280 --> 00:25:18.480 It might take you 10 years. And that's there's an entrepreneurship and a video game. And so 318 00:25:18.480 --> 00:25:23.280 recognizing that you were not above the cycle, but that that cycle is inevitable because you have 319 00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:30.000 failure, learning, success, complacency. The goal is if you can identify that, how quickly can you 320 00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.800 get back to learning success, learning success and try and skip the complacency step altogether? 321 00:25:34.800 --> 00:25:39.760 It still happens to a degree. But if you can recognize that, at least for me, seeing when I can 322 00:25:40.240 --> 00:25:44.080 start feeling the feelings in its rearing its head, I'm aware of it. And it allows me to speed 323 00:25:44.080 --> 00:25:48.800 through it faster into the same degree. I stop labeling things as good or bad because if I'm failing, 324 00:25:48.800 --> 00:25:53.280 that means I'm about to go through learning. Then I see learning is good. And on the flip side, 325 00:25:53.280 --> 00:25:58.240 if I'm succeeding, I succeeding is good. And so either way, they lead to my success and framing it 326 00:25:58.240 --> 00:26:03.600 that way took a lot of the judgment and the label and the depression around not achievement away 327 00:26:03.680 --> 00:26:10.480 from me. And also, when things are good, it allowed me to not be so high on my supply because I knew 328 00:26:10.480 --> 00:26:14.880 that whenever things were good, everything is good is followed by something that is not as good. 329 00:26:14.880 --> 00:26:18.800 And so you always have regression to the main, right? You have regression to the main. And so 330 00:26:18.800 --> 00:26:21.840 things are amazing, then it means they can only go down from here. If things are terrible, 331 00:26:21.840 --> 00:26:26.080 it means it can only go up. And so having that thought process at least to recognize patterns 332 00:26:26.080 --> 00:26:29.520 over and over again that happened in my entrepreneurial career have given me a lot more peace about the 333 00:26:29.520 --> 00:26:36.240 journey overall. 14 is that I would pay any amount of money to make obvious truths real for me. 334 00:26:36.800 --> 00:26:43.120 And I remember when I was when I was starting out, I was so funny. I went to Bally's gym right 335 00:26:43.120 --> 00:26:49.520 after I graduated college and the membership there was $29 a month. And I remember I was spit out 336 00:26:49.520 --> 00:26:54.720 my gum when they told me it was $29 a month because I thought it was so expensive. It was so crazy 337 00:26:54.800 --> 00:27:00.640 that someone would dare ask for money. I expected to be able to be like fitness is a right. 338 00:27:01.280 --> 00:27:10.880 Like I was such a piece of shit. And so there is a reality that no one can see right now, 339 00:27:10.880 --> 00:27:15.040 true reality. And no one can see it because we were shaped by the many things that we've 340 00:27:15.040 --> 00:27:19.680 been told throughout our lives and many of those things were not true. And so much of the path 341 00:27:19.680 --> 00:27:25.680 of entrepreneurship in my opinion is shedding these false truths so that you can see the world 342 00:27:25.680 --> 00:27:29.360 more clearly. If you see these business people were super far ahead and all of a sudden it's like 343 00:27:29.360 --> 00:27:32.880 they can lose it and then they can get it all back again and things seem so seamless for them. 344 00:27:32.880 --> 00:27:38.960 It's because they have a more accurate view of reality than you do. And so imagine trying to hit 345 00:27:38.960 --> 00:27:43.360 it, hit a target with a blindfold on. You're just going to keep missing and keep missing and keep 346 00:27:43.360 --> 00:27:48.160 missing. Now imagine there's a guy next to you who's got a blindfold on too, but it's clear. 347 00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:52.320 And he's just nailing it and you're like, what the hell? I'm doing the same thing with my wrist. 348 00:27:52.320 --> 00:27:56.640 I've got all this technique down. It's simply because he sees the target and he sees all the 349 00:27:56.640 --> 00:28:02.800 environment around it more clearly than you do. And for me, the whole concept of ignorance 350 00:28:02.800 --> 00:28:08.160 tax and ignorance debt has been one that I have taken with me for life and I actually heard this 351 00:28:08.160 --> 00:28:13.280 a speaker said this on stage and he was actually using it as a close for the audience. But it's like 352 00:28:14.080 --> 00:28:18.800 it just changed my life. So I'll probably add that to the other video. He said, how much 353 00:28:18.800 --> 00:28:24.080 is not making a million dollars a year costing you? He's like, well, if you make $50,000 a year 354 00:28:24.080 --> 00:28:29.040 right now, say to cost you $950,000 a year to not know how to make a million dollars. 355 00:28:30.240 --> 00:28:36.640 And I thought about that and I was like, shit. So right now the concept of paying down the ignorance 356 00:28:36.640 --> 00:28:42.320 tax, paying down the debt service that we are all paying to reality, right? We are paying a debt 357 00:28:42.320 --> 00:28:49.040 service to a false reality in order to get the real one. And so for me, I will pay any amount of 358 00:28:49.040 --> 00:28:55.600 money to speed that process up to see the world more clearly in a way that is true. And if the views 359 00:28:55.600 --> 00:29:00.560 that I have do not serve me and someone else is further ahead of me in the game, then they are 360 00:29:00.560 --> 00:29:04.080 better at the game of business than me in some way. And in that way, I can learn of them. 361 00:29:04.720 --> 00:29:08.160 Doesn't matter what they're doing. Because some people are like, oh, this guy's on ethical, 362 00:29:08.160 --> 00:29:13.120 this guy's, you can learn from everyone. If they're making more money than you, you can learn 363 00:29:13.120 --> 00:29:17.760 from them. And so taking that and taking my ego hat off, right? Taking my ego hat off and saying, 364 00:29:17.760 --> 00:29:22.400 like, I'm the student here, this guy's better in some way. What does he believe to be true about 365 00:29:22.400 --> 00:29:27.760 the world that I don't or what do I believe to be true that isn't? And simply trying to observe 366 00:29:27.760 --> 00:29:33.200 to see those realities is something that I will always pay for. And so that's why I pay, I mean, 367 00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:39.040 I made a video about conversations that have changed my life. Eight of the 10 conversations 368 00:29:39.040 --> 00:29:45.600 that I did to change my life I paid for. Eight of the 10. So I know that there's plenty of 369 00:29:45.600 --> 00:29:49.200 really successful business people who just, you know, they network and they do whatever. I didn't 370 00:29:49.200 --> 00:29:53.360 do that. I paid for access to everything because I didn't know and I didn't know anybody who 371 00:29:53.360 --> 00:29:58.160 did know. And so just observing them and having them speak into my lives and it wasn't always 372 00:29:58.160 --> 00:30:01.520 direct. Sometimes it's indirect. Just watching what someone's doing and saying they're doing 373 00:30:01.520 --> 00:30:05.440 something different than me, I don't believe that what they're doing makes sense, but they're 374 00:30:05.440 --> 00:30:10.560 making more money than me. So maybe they're right and I'm wrong. And consistently trying to speed 375 00:30:10.560 --> 00:30:15.360 up that process because right now I know if I went back in time just with the views of the world 376 00:30:15.360 --> 00:30:20.480 that I have compared to what I had then, I could recreate what I have now in two years. 377 00:30:21.360 --> 00:30:27.040 And so thinking about my future self, if it could take me 30 years to learn the lesson because 378 00:30:27.040 --> 00:30:30.000 I'm going to learn the lesson either way, I'm either going to pay in time or I'm going to pay in 379 00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:35.280 money. I'd rather pay in money and drag my future closer to the present because then I get to 380 00:30:35.280 --> 00:30:40.560 get to that future and drag another future to the present and shortcut it. And so I will always 381 00:30:40.560 --> 00:30:59.840 pay any money for an obvious truth to be real for me because for me it wasn't obvious.