WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.440 In today's episode, it's a throwback, but I'm talking about 13 lessons that I wish I had learned earlier. 2 00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:10.560 This is definitely more from a business owner perspective, but just some hard-learned stuff 3 00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:17.120 that people seem to have really liked a lot. So enjoy. 13 lessons I learned after graduating 4 00:00:17.120 --> 00:00:22.960 college from the real world that I wish I had learned earlier. The first is that you make better 5 00:00:22.960 --> 00:00:27.680 decisions and you learn more by assuming that you're dumber than everyone else. And the reason 6 00:00:27.680 --> 00:00:30.720 this was something that took me a long time to learn is that when I was in college, it was all 7 00:00:30.720 --> 00:00:34.720 about showing how smart you were. It was about talking more in the group meetings. It was about 8 00:00:34.720 --> 00:00:41.520 raising your hand more in the classroom and proving how smart you were in every way that you possibly 9 00:00:41.520 --> 00:00:46.800 could. And so I took that and started translating in the real world and I realized that I didn't learn 10 00:00:46.800 --> 00:00:52.160 very much because I was the one talking all the time. And it only took a few times of me getting 11 00:00:52.160 --> 00:00:56.560 introduced to somebody because I wish I could just tell you it was once, but it wasn't. Or I get 12 00:00:56.560 --> 00:01:00.880 introduced to someone. Someone would introduce us and I would basically spend the whole time 13 00:01:00.880 --> 00:01:06.160 blabbering on about how great I was and how much I knew only to find out later that this person 14 00:01:06.160 --> 00:01:12.000 was way above me in business and whatever things that I was pursuing at the time. And then I felt 15 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:17.840 tons of shame and embarrassment about how stupid I was for doing that. And so I had to shift the 16 00:01:17.840 --> 00:01:21.760 way that I talked to new people and the way that I answered rooms and I'll be real. I still talk 17 00:01:21.840 --> 00:01:27.280 probably too much, but at least being aware of that lesson as early as I as it could, I wish I 18 00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:33.280 had learned it earlier, but fundamentally you can't learn if you're talking. I guess obviously 19 00:01:33.280 --> 00:01:38.080 this is it. And so if you're trying to learn, then not talking is the first requisite for doing 20 00:01:38.080 --> 00:01:43.440 that. And if you want to make better decisions than you need to learn. And so if you talk less and 21 00:01:43.440 --> 00:01:47.200 listen more, which is why this is somewhat of a platitude, it's easy to understand and hard to do. 22 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:54.000 And tactically, when you were in situations when you're meeting new people, this was a big epiphany 23 00:01:54.000 --> 00:02:01.840 I had was that I got introduced once to somebody and I was walking peripherally after I had left 24 00:02:01.840 --> 00:02:06.880 and somebody else went up to them and was like, do you know who that guy is? And in that moment, 25 00:02:06.880 --> 00:02:11.440 I realized that my positioning was now sky high because I didn't have to be the one to say it. 26 00:02:12.320 --> 00:02:19.200 And so the idea that I realized was how can I get other people to edify me because what I had 27 00:02:19.200 --> 00:02:23.840 to allow people to do was to make the same mistake that I used to make, which is that someone young, 28 00:02:23.840 --> 00:02:28.080 someone inexperienced, someone less aware, whatever would come up and then start posturing 29 00:02:28.080 --> 00:02:33.040 themselves and blathering on about everything that they're doing. In me, I might be way ahead of 30 00:02:33.040 --> 00:02:38.240 them, but I would listen and see if there's anything interesting. And so on that conversation, 31 00:02:38.560 --> 00:02:42.080 I learned more than they did. I learned what type of person they are. I learned where they're 32 00:02:42.080 --> 00:02:45.760 out with their career. And if they had anything interesting, that would be worth, you know, 33 00:02:45.760 --> 00:02:50.960 following up with. They learned nothing. They felt good about themselves. And then later, 34 00:02:50.960 --> 00:02:55.360 would feel bad about themselves when that other person went over and told them. And so I was like, 35 00:02:55.360 --> 00:02:59.520 of these two scenarios, which would I rather do, but I'd rather have someone have a conversation 36 00:02:59.520 --> 00:03:06.320 with me and then not know who I was and then never know who I was but be able to learn because 37 00:03:06.320 --> 00:03:13.520 that's the worst case scenario, right? Or would I rather blather on, learn nothing, and either, 38 00:03:14.160 --> 00:03:18.880 either I am above them and then they're like, well, fuck that guy, he brags, or I'm below them, 39 00:03:18.880 --> 00:03:24.000 and I'm the moron. So those are the only two alternatives in the scenario where you blather on 40 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:29.440 about yourself and try and position and try and sound smart. So I stopped doing that because the 41 00:03:29.440 --> 00:03:36.320 scenarios of me not saying as much and listening more, I got, I learned more. And if the person 42 00:03:36.320 --> 00:03:40.800 found out who I was later, I was positioned. And if they never did, I still just learned. So those 43 00:03:40.800 --> 00:03:45.840 are the upsides and downsides versus both. And that shifted my behavior. So that was lesson number one. 44 00:03:45.840 --> 00:03:50.800 Lesson number two was that the hardest respect to earn is one zone. And so what I realized, 45 00:03:50.800 --> 00:03:53.440 and this was something that was really hard for me is that I had a pretty bad reputation in the 46 00:03:53.440 --> 00:03:56.640 very beginning of my college career and all of my high school career. And it was because I drank too 47 00:03:56.640 --> 00:04:02.960 much. I was irresponsible. I slept around a lot. And it just ultimately, I wasn't representing 48 00:04:02.960 --> 00:04:06.640 the type of person that I wanted to be. And so I thought ashamed of the behaviors that I did, 49 00:04:06.640 --> 00:04:10.960 but I didn't change them, right? And so it was only through a conversation that had with my father 50 00:04:10.960 --> 00:04:15.040 where I said, how do I change my reputation? How do I get these people to stop saying this stuff? 51 00:04:15.040 --> 00:04:20.160 And I thought there was some like PR marketing angle that I could take that I could control the 52 00:04:20.160 --> 00:04:25.600 narrative. And he said, why don't you stop being a piece of shit? And he said that in his own, 53 00:04:25.600 --> 00:04:30.080 you know, in his own words. And I was like, that can't be it. I'll figure out a way. But only, 54 00:04:30.080 --> 00:04:34.160 you know, as when parents talk to kids, they're listening, but they're not listening. That really 55 00:04:34.160 --> 00:04:37.280 stuck with me. And I started thinking about it. And so I said, like, well, if I wanted to be somebody 56 00:04:37.280 --> 00:04:42.000 who was respectable, what would I do? And so then I tried to start acting in that way to be someone 57 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:47.520 who's respect my own, I would earn. And so when I started doing that, nothing changed externally. 58 00:04:47.520 --> 00:04:51.680 People still treated me like I was a piece of shit. And they were probably right. But my behavior 59 00:04:51.680 --> 00:04:58.080 began to change. And then slowly so did my reputation. But it started with me trying to respect 60 00:04:58.080 --> 00:05:03.920 myself first. And then others began to respect me as a result. And so that was a huge shift that 61 00:05:03.920 --> 00:05:08.960 happened for me that I wish I had learned earlier. If you want to control people, think control what 62 00:05:08.960 --> 00:05:13.200 they say. This is the third lesson I learned. And this is more of a business slash marketing lesson. 63 00:05:13.200 --> 00:05:18.480 But if you want to talk about products and services, you have to equip people with the words to 64 00:05:18.480 --> 00:05:23.360 describe what you have. Because otherwise, you're asking them to solve the problem of how to describe 65 00:05:23.360 --> 00:05:26.240 your business. And if right now you can't even figure out how you're going to describe your business 66 00:05:26.240 --> 00:05:29.200 and you own the darn thing. How do you expect them to do it in a half second when they're telling 67 00:05:29.200 --> 00:05:33.760 their friend? And so this is really about giving, equipping people with simple language so they 68 00:05:33.760 --> 00:05:38.000 can communicate what you do. So for example, at acquisition.com, like, this happens all the time 69 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:41.440 still. So I just want to be really real with you. The mission when I started the business was to 70 00:05:41.440 --> 00:05:45.200 document and share the best practice building world class companies. I have now realized that most 71 00:05:45.200 --> 00:05:50.640 people don't know what that means. And so I have now, and we probably will shift the language to 72 00:05:50.640 --> 00:05:54.560 to make real business education available to everyone. They functionally mean the same thing. 73 00:05:54.560 --> 00:06:00.000 But giving people the words to describe it in a way that they understand allows me to give 74 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:04.000 them words that they can explain to somebody else. It's like, what's that guy I asked Rosie to or 75 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:07.680 what's acquisition.com? It's like, oh, they're just trying to make real business education for everybody. 76 00:06:07.680 --> 00:06:10.880 Like, it's easy to remember. But documents share the best practice building world class company. 77 00:06:10.880 --> 00:06:15.040 It's too hard. Like, what's best practices? What's documenting? Like, there's all these things that 78 00:06:15.040 --> 00:06:19.440 people don't conceptualize to sound like sound bites and words, but people can't describe. And so 79 00:06:20.080 --> 00:06:24.800 what I stopped trying to sound smart and try to get my prospects to feel smart is when things 80 00:06:24.800 --> 00:06:28.160 change. And I've seen that that pattern happened over and over and over again, which when I came out 81 00:06:28.160 --> 00:06:32.000 of college, all I did was want to sound smart rather than have my prospects and the people I was 82 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:39.040 slashing to feel smart. Number four, you get more out of reading one book. That's great. Five times 83 00:06:39.040 --> 00:06:45.040 than out of reading five mediocre books. And so I don't read many books. And what I mean by that is 84 00:06:45.040 --> 00:06:50.320 I buy lots of books. I skim most of them and quickly realize that it's not worth reading. And so 85 00:06:50.320 --> 00:06:53.520 then I toss them aside because just because someone wrote a book doesn't mean you need to finish it. 86 00:06:53.520 --> 00:06:57.680 It has nothing to do with you. It means that they didn't organize it well. So there you go. But 87 00:06:57.680 --> 00:07:01.920 every once in a while, you do get a book. And I have found that books that are older in general 88 00:07:01.920 --> 00:07:04.880 tend to be better because the reason the person wrote it was a different intention. They wrote it because 89 00:07:04.880 --> 00:07:08.000 they wanted to transmit knowledge to the next generation. Whereas people who write books now, 90 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:12.400 are either writing for money, writing for notoriety, or writing them to sell out of the shit, right? 91 00:07:12.400 --> 00:07:16.640 And that's the vast majority of books. So if you find books for the author is actually writing because 92 00:07:16.640 --> 00:07:19.600 they want you to convey knowledge to the next generation, those tend to be better books in my 93 00:07:19.600 --> 00:07:25.920 experience because the intent is to actually teach not to persuade. No, slight difference. So 94 00:07:26.560 --> 00:07:32.400 when you do find those gems, I have realized that if I read something once and to end, I still don't 95 00:07:32.400 --> 00:07:38.160 know it yet. And so I will read a book two times, three times, four times, five times until I can 96 00:07:38.160 --> 00:07:43.600 teach the book when I feel like it is worth learning. And then once I have squeezed the book for 97 00:07:43.600 --> 00:07:47.280 everything that it has to the point where I can convey the message to somebody else, like I can 98 00:07:47.280 --> 00:07:50.960 teach the concepts of the book, which is something that I've done many times. We'll actually make a 99 00:07:50.960 --> 00:07:55.440 presentation on the book so that I can wrap my own frameworks around how I can remember it. That's 100 00:07:55.440 --> 00:07:58.560 where a lot of these frameworks come from is because it's me trying to make sense of the world in a 101 00:07:58.560 --> 00:08:02.160 way that I can remember. Because otherwise, I read stuff and then I would just discard them and 102 00:08:02.160 --> 00:08:07.600 it's just like a waste of time where if you, if your behavior doesn't change as a result of reading a 103 00:08:07.600 --> 00:08:11.040 book, then it means you've learned nothing, which means it was a waste of time. And many people who 104 00:08:11.040 --> 00:08:15.280 read books are just wasting their time because their behavior doesn't change. And so I consolidate, 105 00:08:15.280 --> 00:08:19.680 once I find something that's good, I plug everything I possibly can into it and suck the juice out of 106 00:08:19.680 --> 00:08:24.080 it so that I can change my behavior as a result, which comes from the frameworks and how I think about 107 00:08:24.080 --> 00:08:28.000 it. So I read one thing that's very good many times rather than trying to brag about the fact that I 108 00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:31.440 read a book a week. Because I'm like, well, was the book last week not that good that it wasn't 109 00:08:31.440 --> 00:08:35.440 worth re-reading, right? That's how my thinking had changed when I was younger. It was all about 110 00:08:35.440 --> 00:08:39.520 how many books can you read? It was like a contest, it's like a pissing contest. Instead, it's like 111 00:08:39.520 --> 00:08:42.880 how deeply do you understand the knowledge of the book? Because if you just did how to make 112 00:08:42.880 --> 00:08:46.800 friends and influence people and you put it into your DNA, you would be successful, right? There's 113 00:08:46.800 --> 00:08:50.240 many, there's a handful of books that if you just did them for the rest of your life, you would win. 114 00:08:50.240 --> 00:08:55.360 And so rather than read another book that's on the airport bookshelf that was just well marketed 115 00:08:55.440 --> 00:09:00.000 that's a crap product from a ghostwriter. Instead of that, you can just read the few other times 116 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:04.720 classics written by the author to convey a message to the next generation. Number five is that most 117 00:09:04.720 --> 00:09:09.760 champions do not have something that you do not. They lack something that you have. And so it's a 118 00:09:09.760 --> 00:09:13.600 different thought process because if all of us have the exact same hours per day, it means that 119 00:09:13.600 --> 00:09:18.800 they're allocating their time differently. And many times, they eliminate things that you are 120 00:09:18.800 --> 00:09:23.280 still doing. They have sacrificed more. They have given up things that you have continued to have 121 00:09:23.280 --> 00:09:29.200 on your tree as branches that are distracting from growing up, right? And so many times, 122 00:09:29.200 --> 00:09:32.640 champions, when I look at the people who are further ahead of me, they're even more ruthless with 123 00:09:32.640 --> 00:09:36.400 their time. They even have lower tolerance for friends, family, people around them that are not 124 00:09:37.120 --> 00:09:43.600 at the bar that they hold themselves to. And for me, going through college, when I was younger, 125 00:09:43.600 --> 00:09:47.120 I always thought it was about adding to your plate, saying yes to everything, saying yes to 126 00:09:47.120 --> 00:09:51.920 opportunity, say yes, say yes, when all I did was I just completely got distracted and spread 127 00:09:51.920 --> 00:09:57.680 super thin. And so what most champions have is singular focus and they're willing to say no 128 00:09:57.680 --> 00:10:04.000 to everything else. And that for me took me too long to learn. Six is that goodwill compounds 129 00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:09.040 faster than money. And the reason for that is like, if you actually think about what goodwill is, 130 00:10:09.040 --> 00:10:13.600 it's that you have positive sentiment and you have a degree of influence over a person's behavior. 131 00:10:13.600 --> 00:10:19.280 That's what goodwill is. And so if one person has goodwill with you and then shares your stuff with 132 00:10:19.280 --> 00:10:25.040 somebody else and you create goodwill in that next person, you can double your goodwill or 10x 133 00:10:25.040 --> 00:10:30.480 your goodwill in a matter of 12 weeks. 10x in your money in a matter of 12 weeks is very, very 134 00:10:30.480 --> 00:10:36.240 unlikely. And so goodwill because it's based on audiences and humans can compound significantly 135 00:10:36.240 --> 00:10:40.560 faster than money can. And when I realized that that goodwill could be translated into money, 136 00:10:40.560 --> 00:10:44.320 if I so desired at a future date, that I realized that rather than focusing on the money that I'm 137 00:10:44.320 --> 00:10:48.320 trying to make today, why don't I focus on the compounding vehicle that compounds at a much 138 00:10:48.320 --> 00:10:53.200 faster rate that money does, that compounds tax-free, by the way, building the audience's tax-free, 139 00:10:53.200 --> 00:10:57.840 and then when you choose to have the conversion event, you can do that at your own choosing. 140 00:10:57.840 --> 00:11:01.360 But if you focus on the audience, you focus on the goodwill, that will grow significantly faster than 141 00:11:01.360 --> 00:11:06.160 any kind of monetary move. But you can still translate that later into money when you want. That was 142 00:11:06.160 --> 00:11:11.200 a big epiphany for me. I thought it was all about the money when I was coming out. Seven is that 143 00:11:11.200 --> 00:11:16.400 you're going to die. And two weeks after you die, most people will have forgotten about you, 144 00:11:16.400 --> 00:11:20.960 and six months after you die, no one will talk about you. And if they're not caring enough 145 00:11:20.960 --> 00:11:25.760 then, then it certainly doesn't matter what they think about your life now. Because if that's the 146 00:11:25.760 --> 00:11:29.520 most significant event that's going to happen in your life, which is that you stop living, then 147 00:11:30.160 --> 00:11:34.640 how much credibility or weight should we give to other people's opinions on what we should do 148 00:11:34.640 --> 00:11:40.960 with our lives? My opinion, very little. And so unless the person has a vested interest in seeing 149 00:11:41.040 --> 00:11:45.680 you succeed, comma, and the context to provide the advice, most of the times it's just worth 150 00:11:45.680 --> 00:11:48.720 ignoring. Because they're trying to live their own life and they're projecting their own beliefs 151 00:11:48.720 --> 00:11:53.680 and experiences on you. And you spent all this time trying to improve your own view of reality 152 00:11:53.680 --> 00:11:58.240 through the beliefs that you've shed and shifted that they have not. And so what they believe to 153 00:11:58.240 --> 00:12:02.000 be true is what they're casting onto you. And if you don't like the life they have, then I don't 154 00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:08.560 think it's worth listening to. Eight extraordinary accomplishments come from doing ordinary things for 155 00:12:08.560 --> 00:12:13.520 extraordinary periods of time. This is just me speaking about me, but when I was younger, my 156 00:12:13.520 --> 00:12:18.080 action showed that I was more impatient. I always was willing to sacrifice what I had today 157 00:12:18.080 --> 00:12:22.320 to get the quick buck. I was always, I was shifting like that because I just thought that that 158 00:12:22.320 --> 00:12:26.640 was how it worked. I thought there was some shortcut I didn't know about. And I would see the 159 00:12:26.640 --> 00:12:31.440 guys on stages being like, this is what we do. We do the basics and we do a lot of it. I was like, 160 00:12:31.440 --> 00:12:35.600 they're just trying to hold the secrets back. And I'm here to tell you that that is not true. 161 00:12:35.680 --> 00:12:40.080 I wish I could go and shake my college self and be like, if you do one thing for a very long 162 00:12:40.080 --> 00:12:44.400 period of time, you will get very good at it. And it will compound onto itself. And maybe I would 163 00:12:44.400 --> 00:12:48.000 listen to me. If future self showed up in my living room now, I would totally listen to him. 164 00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:54.560 And so I can't do that. So the next best thing I can do is try and shake you by the collar and say 165 00:12:54.560 --> 00:13:00.480 that the thing that makes the action extraordinary is the commitment to it, not the nature of the 166 00:13:00.480 --> 00:13:05.920 action itself. Working out and doing reps is not extraordinary. If you saw one set of a workout 167 00:13:05.920 --> 00:13:11.200 from me at the gym, you wouldn't think, Oh, this guy is amazing. It's the fact that you do it for 168 00:13:11.200 --> 00:13:16.480 20 straight years. That is what compounds on itself. If you listen to one guy make one phone call, 169 00:13:16.480 --> 00:13:21.440 you listen to one major league baseball player, one at bat, nothing about that is extraordinary. 170 00:13:21.440 --> 00:13:26.160 It's the dedication to doing it over and over and over and over again, despite feeling like 171 00:13:26.240 --> 00:13:29.840 there's better opportunities, despite people approaching you with new and exciting things, 172 00:13:29.840 --> 00:13:34.000 but saying that you're committed to the original vision you had and that reality has not changed 173 00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:38.560 in such a way that you believe that your need to believe is no longer true. You said, I believe 174 00:13:38.560 --> 00:13:42.320 that X, Y and Z is true. And as long as that remains to be true, then I will continue on this 175 00:13:42.320 --> 00:13:46.480 path for an extraordinary period of time. And that, not the action itself, but your commitment to 176 00:13:46.480 --> 00:13:51.920 the action is what makes someone extraordinary, not the thing itself. None. If it's worth doing, 177 00:13:51.920 --> 00:14:00.160 it's worth doing well. This is a really great, small saying that like I, I short cut it so much 178 00:14:00.160 --> 00:14:04.880 stuff when I was younger, I just wanted to like get it done, get it done, get it done, rather than 179 00:14:04.880 --> 00:14:09.200 doing it well. And there's kind of two ways you can take the saying, which is why I like it so much, 180 00:14:09.200 --> 00:14:13.360 is that if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well. Because many times I was doing things that 181 00:14:13.360 --> 00:14:18.000 were not worth doing. And so I didn't have the time to do things well because I was doing so 182 00:14:18.080 --> 00:14:24.240 many things that were not worth doing. And so the first criteria is, what problem are we solving? 183 00:14:24.240 --> 00:14:30.320 What am I hoping to accomplish? Is this worth doing at all? Because if it is worth doing, 184 00:14:30.320 --> 00:14:35.280 then I have to understand that to do it, come a right to do it well. It's going to take this much 185 00:14:35.280 --> 00:14:40.720 time. Now, given that, is it still worth doing? And if it passes that test of A being worth doing in 186 00:14:40.720 --> 00:14:46.720 the long haul, and because it is worth doing, worth doing well, then it gives us this lens through 187 00:14:46.720 --> 00:14:50.640 which to see the activities we do, so that we can prioritize the things that will make us the most 188 00:14:50.640 --> 00:14:55.120 money or get us closer to the goals we have. Right? And so for me, I spent so much of my energy, 189 00:14:55.120 --> 00:14:58.640 fun facts, when you're younger, you have more energy than when you're older. So whatever your energy 190 00:14:58.640 --> 00:15:01.840 is now, it's learning the highest it's ever going to be. From this point going forward, kind of, 191 00:15:01.840 --> 00:15:06.240 kind of crazy to think about. And so younger me had more energy than me does now. I make way more 192 00:15:06.240 --> 00:15:11.840 money than younger me did. And it's because I do fewer things, and I do different things than I did 193 00:15:11.920 --> 00:15:17.520 then. And now, if I write a book, I'll take a year on writing the book, because if it's worth 194 00:15:17.520 --> 00:15:22.640 doing, it's worth doing well, because I understand that taking one year today will mean that that book 195 00:15:22.640 --> 00:15:29.440 might sit and sell and distribute itself to millions of people over the next 50 years or 100 years 196 00:15:29.440 --> 00:15:34.160 or after I'm dead compared to me just putting words on a page that are pretty good and then 197 00:15:34.160 --> 00:15:38.000 shipping it. And I think the vast majority of people don't get the difference between good and 198 00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:44.800 great. The ocean between good work and great work is vast. It's five times, ten times the work 199 00:15:44.800 --> 00:15:49.680 to go from something good to something great. And I did not get that, which is why you have to be 200 00:15:49.680 --> 00:15:54.640 really selected about the few things you choose to do that are worth doing. And in being worth doing, 201 00:15:54.640 --> 00:16:01.680 worth doing well. Real quick guys, if you can think about how you found this podcast, somebody probably 202 00:16:01.680 --> 00:16:06.160 tweeted it, told you about it, shared it on Instagram, or something like that. The only way this 203 00:16:06.160 --> 00:16:11.120 grows is through word of mouth. And so I don't run ads, I don't do sponsorships, I don't sell anything. 204 00:16:11.120 --> 00:16:15.200 My only ask is that you continue to pay it forward to whoever showed you or however you found out 205 00:16:15.200 --> 00:16:20.160 about this podcast that you do the exact same thing. So if it was a review, if it was a post, if you 206 00:16:20.160 --> 00:16:22.720 do that, it would mean the world to me and you'll throw some good comment out there for another 207 00:16:22.720 --> 00:16:29.920 entrepreneur. Ten, be willing to negotiate everything except for your values. And so there were so 208 00:16:29.920 --> 00:16:35.600 many things when I was coming up that like, you know, in college, even right after college is jobs, 209 00:16:35.600 --> 00:16:43.920 like I always just took things at face value. So prices, terms, relationships, everything. I took 210 00:16:43.920 --> 00:16:48.480 at face value. So whatever someone presented, I said yes or no to, right? Very straightforward. 211 00:16:49.360 --> 00:16:55.040 I have now realized that virtually everything is negotiable, right? Because people present with 212 00:16:55.040 --> 00:16:59.040 basically their best bad guess. And they're hoping that someone takes them by the hand and says, 213 00:16:59.040 --> 00:17:02.720 you know, that makes no sense. What if we did it this way? What problem are you solving? What 214 00:17:02.720 --> 00:17:07.200 problem are you solving? And then having the ability to clearly communicate someone, ask the right 215 00:17:07.200 --> 00:17:11.760 questions to get someone else's true desires and wants. And then knowing what your own true desires 216 00:17:11.760 --> 00:17:16.240 and wants and what you're willing to give up allows you to make better deals. And so I used to 217 00:17:16.240 --> 00:17:21.040 think of negotiating as a zero sum game. And it's not at all. You can find a way where both parties 218 00:17:21.040 --> 00:17:26.320 get better than they were before, which is the entire point, right? Like that is how negotiating works 219 00:17:26.320 --> 00:17:30.320 if you're doing it well. And so I didn't understand that. I thought everything was an arm rest. So I 220 00:17:30.320 --> 00:17:34.560 thought everything was like this for that tit for tat, like no give. And I also thought really 221 00:17:34.560 --> 00:17:38.720 short about it. I was like, I was trying to get one over as ruthless with vendors. You know what I 222 00:17:38.720 --> 00:17:43.360 mean? Just like all that kind of stuff as like I swung the other direction. So first I didn't 223 00:17:43.360 --> 00:17:47.520 negotiate anything. And then I found out you could negotiate and then tried to get everyone to give 224 00:17:47.520 --> 00:17:52.480 me their last last penny. But then I realized that this long term doesn't create good relationships. 225 00:17:52.480 --> 00:17:57.040 And they will not be loyal to you at all, which long term has a more negative impact than giving 226 00:17:57.040 --> 00:18:03.120 them the extra 10% and having an amicable relationship, right? And so I found kind of like my middle ground 227 00:18:03.120 --> 00:18:08.320 of you want to negotiate everything except for your values. Because the thing is if you really 228 00:18:08.320 --> 00:18:13.760 think about it, I negotiated everything in that second example, including my values. Because I was 229 00:18:13.760 --> 00:18:18.240 doing business in a way that was contrary to the values that I wanted to espouse, to want to do 230 00:18:18.320 --> 00:18:23.040 to embody, right? And so now in like because the deals we do with acquisition are not 231 00:18:23.040 --> 00:18:27.200 for example, like I could probably ask for significantly more than I do. And I've had many times 232 00:18:27.200 --> 00:18:31.200 people like, I want to give you this. And I'm like, I don't want that because I don't think you know 233 00:18:31.200 --> 00:18:38.000 what that means. And so this is what I think is fair today and in 10 years. And so it's balancing both 234 00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:43.920 your need today, your need in 10 years and their need today and their need in 10 years. And you 235 00:18:43.920 --> 00:18:48.880 have those four points and you try and find the closest point given your reality. And you can 236 00:18:48.880 --> 00:18:53.360 explain that this is how you're thinking through it with them. And I think they will appreciate 237 00:18:53.360 --> 00:18:57.200 all four data points on the map to come to the best solution for today and tomorrow. 238 00:18:58.240 --> 00:19:03.360 11 humility. This is a big one because I want to be a different voice on this because I have heard 239 00:19:03.360 --> 00:19:08.560 all over the internet recently people saying humility is stupid. If you looked up with the word 240 00:19:08.560 --> 00:19:12.160 means you wouldn't want to be it because if you look it up on Google, it says thinking less of 241 00:19:12.160 --> 00:19:18.080 oneself. All right. This is why looking into finding terms is important because if you look at 242 00:19:18.080 --> 00:19:21.360 Mary and Webster, for example, it's lack of prior arrogance. I don't think people would say you 243 00:19:21.360 --> 00:19:24.880 wouldn't want that. I'm like, no, I think I think people are okay not being prior to the arrogant. 244 00:19:24.880 --> 00:19:29.680 I think that's okay. But even more so and the definition that I have taken on is actually the exact 245 00:19:29.680 --> 00:19:34.960 opposite of that, which is it is not decreasing your regard for self, but increasing your regard 246 00:19:34.960 --> 00:19:40.880 for others. That's from Clayton Christensen, who is a Harvard professor, go to the human. I thought 247 00:19:40.880 --> 00:19:46.240 that posturing when I was younger was the thing that would get people to like me. But what I 248 00:19:46.240 --> 00:19:52.960 realized later was that you gain status by giving more to the group than you get. And so this is 249 00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:57.680 especially true for guys. It's probably true for girls, but I can't speak to that. But in a group, 250 00:19:57.680 --> 00:20:02.080 especially in all male group, if you want to gain status, the way you do it is by sacrificing more 251 00:20:02.080 --> 00:20:06.720 for the group than everyone else does. If you want to gain status in a company, you give more to 252 00:20:06.720 --> 00:20:10.880 the company than anyone else does. More than the company gives you back. Because what do they do? 253 00:20:10.880 --> 00:20:15.840 They reward that behavior. The group rewards the person who gives to the group. It's how it works. 254 00:20:15.840 --> 00:20:19.680 The people who take from the group and only want to get status, the only going to get status from 255 00:20:19.680 --> 00:20:24.000 the group end up getting banished by the group and bad it down because everyone wants to keep that 256 00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:29.520 person down because they don't serve anyone else. And so it was only by realizing that I had to give 257 00:20:29.520 --> 00:20:34.240 my life in order to get it. I had to give status. I had to serve because when you serve someone, 258 00:20:34.240 --> 00:20:39.120 you're giving them status. You're increasing your regard for others. When I gave status, I got it 259 00:20:39.120 --> 00:20:45.920 back. When I gave respect first, I would get respect back rather than demanding respect at the 260 00:20:45.920 --> 00:20:51.680 onset. Because then they wanted to disrespect me to level where I was at. Whereas if I raised them 261 00:20:51.680 --> 00:20:57.520 up, they would raise Mia. And it was understanding that group dynamic, which is what made me president 262 00:20:57.520 --> 00:21:01.920 of the fraternity that I was in. It made like all of these things started compounding when I realized 263 00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:07.040 that truth is that humility is not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking more about other people 264 00:21:07.040 --> 00:21:12.160 and increasing your regard for their needs. And if you do that, I promise you you will have all the 265 00:21:12.160 --> 00:21:18.560 status you want. Twelve. The happy man has a thousand wishes. The sad man has one. This is a little 266 00:21:18.560 --> 00:21:23.760 bit more of a heartful one for me because when I was younger, I was definitely angrier, 267 00:21:23.760 --> 00:21:29.360 probably darker in general. And a lot of that came because I had expectations that were 268 00:21:29.360 --> 00:21:34.240 fictitious, real or otherwise, from other people in my mind that existed who were constantly judging 269 00:21:34.240 --> 00:21:38.720 the behaviors and actions I was doing every day. And we're telling me that I was not enough. And so 270 00:21:38.720 --> 00:21:43.200 in some ways that created and reinforced behaviors that I still continue to this day in terms of 271 00:21:43.200 --> 00:21:49.760 the actions I take. But the way that I feel and think about them has shifted. And so when you are 272 00:21:49.760 --> 00:21:56.960 sad, you want to not be sad. That's the main focus. You want to feel better. And many times, 273 00:21:57.040 --> 00:22:02.080 people will take the short term way of getting out of that, which is alcohol, drugs, etc. Because 274 00:22:02.080 --> 00:22:06.480 in the moment, they can feel better. They just want to feel better. And I remember I had a coach 275 00:22:06.480 --> 00:22:11.520 who said that to me. She said, everyone just wants to feel better. And so when I think about 276 00:22:11.520 --> 00:22:14.960 things that I used to think people were wronging me, right? And I'll get all angry and I'd 277 00:22:14.960 --> 00:22:20.560 spit on myself out. I use a different frame now, which is they just wanted to feel better. 278 00:22:20.560 --> 00:22:24.640 Do you think it had nothing to do with me? And they just wanted to feel better about themselves? 279 00:22:24.640 --> 00:22:29.280 And that's given me a lot of peace about many of the things that used to anger me. And so I think 280 00:22:29.280 --> 00:22:35.280 that, at least for me, being able to quiet the hundreds of non-existent voices in my head that 281 00:22:35.280 --> 00:22:38.960 were constantly judging the activities that I was doing and labeling them good or bad or good 282 00:22:38.960 --> 00:22:44.880 enough or not good enough, etc. took up a tremendous amount of my attention. And because of that, 283 00:22:44.880 --> 00:22:49.760 all of my focus was on feeling better. And so I couldn't actually have any energy left over to do 284 00:22:49.760 --> 00:22:54.320 stuff because all I was focused on was feeling better. And all I was spending all my day was in my 285 00:22:54.320 --> 00:22:59.120 head trying to not feel like shit, right? And doing both short and long-term things to do that. 286 00:22:59.120 --> 00:23:04.160 And so it was only when I came up with a mantra, which I have said before, but fuck happiness, 287 00:23:04.800 --> 00:23:09.040 which sounds ironic because I said the person with a thousand who was happy as a thousand wishes. 288 00:23:09.040 --> 00:23:15.040 But in choosing not to admit the deficiency between my current state and the future state of what I 289 00:23:15.040 --> 00:23:20.560 desired to be, I was able to accept where I was. And then the deficiency of not being good enough, 290 00:23:20.560 --> 00:23:25.680 not being happy enough, disintegrated in my mind. And then I was able to focus on just doing things. 291 00:23:26.400 --> 00:23:31.360 And then when I started doing things, I started making progress. When I started making progress, 292 00:23:31.360 --> 00:23:35.760 I started looking back and feeling proud of how far I'd come. Because it wasn't about the many voices 293 00:23:35.760 --> 00:23:40.800 outside. It was about the only one that mattered. And so that shift is what I think genuinely from 294 00:23:40.800 --> 00:23:45.600 spiritual standpoint is the thing that was able to give me the strength to do some of the things we 295 00:23:45.600 --> 00:23:48.880 have done. I'm not saying that we've done is amazing. We're hopefully live a long time. 296 00:23:48.960 --> 00:23:54.480 Do epic shit, but I wouldn't have been able to ever start on this path because I was paralyzed 297 00:23:54.480 --> 00:23:58.560 for years because I was paralyzed about what I thought other people were going to think about me 298 00:23:58.560 --> 00:24:05.520 only to realize that they weren't thinking about me at all. 13. Failure leads to learning, learning 299 00:24:05.520 --> 00:24:12.160 leads to success, success leads to complacency, complacency leads to failure. And so a lot of times, 300 00:24:12.160 --> 00:24:16.640 I remember you thinking that like there was a destination, but I think the actual entrepreneurial 301 00:24:16.640 --> 00:24:20.960 cycle is, I'm going to give it in a way, it's not a destination, it's not linear, it's cyclical. 302 00:24:21.680 --> 00:24:25.760 And so that's why I talk about entrepreneurship in terms of seasons because there are cycles where 303 00:24:25.760 --> 00:24:30.640 you learn a lot, right? I used to say this a lot where I'd say either the business is growing or 304 00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:35.840 I am. So either I have learned lessons and I am applying those lessons to the business and the 305 00:24:35.840 --> 00:24:40.160 business is growing, or the business is not growing and has problems. And now I am the one 306 00:24:40.160 --> 00:24:44.000 receiving the lessons from the business. And until I learn the lesson that I'm supposed to learn, 307 00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:48.320 the business will cease to grow until I have learned this lesson until I beat this boss at this 308 00:24:48.320 --> 00:24:52.240 level, right? And the difference between video games and real life is that sometimes in order to 309 00:24:52.240 --> 00:24:56.240 beat that boss, you're not doing it in 10 minutes, it might take you 10 years. And that's 310 00:24:56.240 --> 00:25:02.160 just an entrepreneurship and a video game. And so recognizing that you were not above the cycle, 311 00:25:02.160 --> 00:25:08.560 but that that cycle is inevitable because you have failure, learning, success, complacency. 312 00:25:08.560 --> 00:25:12.880 The goal is if you can identify that, how quickly can you get back to learning success, learning 313 00:25:12.880 --> 00:25:17.520 success, and try and skip the complacency step altogether? It still happens to a degree. 314 00:25:17.520 --> 00:25:22.240 But if you can recognize that, at least for me, seeing when I can start feeling the feelings 315 00:25:22.240 --> 00:25:25.840 and it's rearing its head, I'm aware of it. And then it allows me to speed through it faster 316 00:25:25.840 --> 00:25:29.920 into the same degree. I stop labeling things as good or bad because if I'm failing, 317 00:25:29.920 --> 00:25:34.400 that means I'm about to go through learning. Then I see learning is good. And on the flip side, 318 00:25:34.400 --> 00:25:39.520 if I'm succeeding, I succeed is good. And so either way they lead to my success and framing it that 319 00:25:39.520 --> 00:25:45.120 way took a lot of the judgment and the label and the depression around not achievement away from me. 320 00:25:45.680 --> 00:25:51.760 And also when things are good, it allowed me to not be so high on my supply because I knew that 321 00:25:51.760 --> 00:25:56.400 whenever things were good, everything is good is followed by something that is not as good. And so 322 00:25:56.400 --> 00:26:00.240 you always have regression to the mean, right? You have regression to the mean. And so things are 323 00:26:00.240 --> 00:26:03.600 amazing, then it means they can only go down from here. If things are terrible, it means it can only 324 00:26:03.600 --> 00:26:07.760 go up. And so having that thought process, at least to recognize patterns over and over again, 325 00:26:07.760 --> 00:26:11.520 that happened in my entrepreneurial career, have given me a lot more peace about the journey overall. 326 00:26:12.480 --> 00:26:18.800 14 is that I would pay any amount of money to make obvious truths real for me. And I remember when I 327 00:26:18.800 --> 00:26:25.440 was when I was starting out, I was so funny. I went to Bali's gym right after I graduated college 328 00:26:25.440 --> 00:26:31.600 and the membership there was $29 a month. And I remember I almost spit out my gum when they told me 329 00:26:31.600 --> 00:26:37.680 $29 a month because I thought it was so expensive. It was so crazy that someone would dare 330 00:26:37.680 --> 00:26:44.560 ask for money. I expected to be able to be less like fitness is a right. Like I was such a piece of 331 00:26:44.560 --> 00:26:54.320 shit. And so there is a reality that no one can see right now, true reality. And no one can see it 332 00:26:54.320 --> 00:26:57.200 because we are shaped by the many things that we've been told throughout our lives and many of 333 00:26:57.200 --> 00:27:03.440 those things were not true. And so much of the path of entrepreneurship in my opinion is shedding 334 00:27:03.440 --> 00:27:09.040 these false truths so that you can see the world more clearly. If you see these business people 335 00:27:09.040 --> 00:27:11.840 were super far ahead and all of a sudden it's like they can lose it and then they can get it all 336 00:27:11.840 --> 00:27:16.800 back again and things seem so seamless for them. It's because they have a more accurate view 337 00:27:16.800 --> 00:27:22.800 of reality than you do. And so imagine trying to hit a target with a blindfold on. You're just 338 00:27:22.800 --> 00:27:27.040 going to keep missing and keep missing and keep missing. Now imagine there's a guy next to you who's 339 00:27:27.040 --> 00:27:31.440 got a blindfold on too but it's clear. And he's just nailing it. And you're like what the hell? 340 00:27:31.440 --> 00:27:36.000 I'm doing the same thing with my wrist. I've got all this technique down. It's simply because he 341 00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:41.520 sees the target and he sees all the environment around it more clearly than you do. And for me 342 00:27:42.400 --> 00:27:47.920 the whole concept of ignorance tax and ignorance debt has been one that I've taken with me for 343 00:27:47.920 --> 00:27:53.040 life and I actually heard this a speaker said this on stage and he was actually using it as a close 344 00:27:53.040 --> 00:27:57.280 for the audience but it's like I just it changed my life so I'll probably add that to the other 345 00:27:57.280 --> 00:28:03.840 video. He said how much is not making a million dollars a year costing you? He's like well if you 346 00:28:03.840 --> 00:28:09.760 make $50,000 a year right now, it's said it costs you $950,000 a year to not know how to make a million 347 00:28:09.760 --> 00:28:17.040 dollars. And I thought about that and I was like shit. So right now the concept of paying down 348 00:28:17.120 --> 00:28:22.720 the ignorance tax, paying down the debt service that we are all paying to reality, right? We are 349 00:28:22.720 --> 00:28:29.760 paying a debt service to a false reality in order to get the real one. And so for me I will pay any 350 00:28:29.760 --> 00:28:34.560 amount of money to speed that process up to see the world more clearly in a way that is true. 351 00:28:35.120 --> 00:28:41.200 And if the views that I have do not serve me and someone else is further ahead of me in the game 352 00:28:41.200 --> 00:28:45.200 than they are better at the game of business than me in some way and in that way I can learn of them. 353 00:28:45.840 --> 00:28:49.280 Doesn't matter what they're doing because some people are like oh this guy is on ethical, 354 00:28:49.280 --> 00:28:54.480 this guy's you can learn from everyone. If they're making more money than you, you can learn from 355 00:28:54.480 --> 00:28:59.280 them. And so taking that and taking my ego hat off, right? Taking my ego hat off and saying like 356 00:28:59.280 --> 00:29:04.000 I'm the student here, this guy's better in some way. What does he believe to be true about the world 357 00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:09.200 that I don't or what do I believe to be true that isn't? And simply trying to observe to see 358 00:29:09.280 --> 00:29:14.320 those realities is something that I will always pay for. And so that's why I pay, I mean, 359 00:29:15.120 --> 00:29:20.160 I made a video about conversations that have changed my life. Eight of the ten conversations 360 00:29:20.160 --> 00:29:26.720 that I did to change my life, I paid for. Eight of the ten. So I know that there's plenty of 361 00:29:26.720 --> 00:29:30.320 really successful business people who just, you know, they network and they do whatever. I didn't 362 00:29:30.320 --> 00:29:34.480 do that. I paid for access to everything because I didn't know and I didn't know anybody who 363 00:29:34.480 --> 00:29:39.280 did know. And so just observing them and having them speak into my lives and it wasn't always 364 00:29:39.280 --> 00:29:42.320 to rack. Sometimes it's indirect. This is just watching what someone's doing and saying they're 365 00:29:42.320 --> 00:29:46.240 doing something different than me. I don't believe that what they're doing makes sense, 366 00:29:46.240 --> 00:29:51.280 but they're making more money than me. So maybe they're right and I'm wrong. And consistently trying 367 00:29:51.280 --> 00:29:56.000 to speed up that process because right now I know if I went back in time just with the views of 368 00:29:56.000 --> 00:30:01.600 the world that I have compared to what I had then, I could recreate what I have now in two years. 369 00:30:02.480 --> 00:30:08.160 And so thinking about my future self, if it could take me 30 years to learn the lesson because 370 00:30:08.160 --> 00:30:11.200 I'm going to learn the lesson either way, I'm either going to pay in time or I'm going to pay in 371 00:30:11.200 --> 00:30:16.480 money. I'd rather pay in money and drag my future closer to the present because then I get to 372 00:30:16.480 --> 00:30:21.680 get to that future and drag another future to the present and shortcut it. And so I will always 373 00:30:21.680 --> 00:30:39.200 pay any money for an obvious truth to be real for me because for me it wasn't obvious.