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What's going everyone? Welcome back to the game. We're talking about growing our businesses,

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making more money, helping more people making products that change and improve the world.

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That being said today, I wanted to talk about a little bit of a cautionary tale. Many of us have had

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people in our lives who we've looked up to and have created these very strong

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isms or these beliefs that they will die by. They have unreasonable or unshakable conviction

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that these beliefs that they hold are true. I'll give you an example and I'll tell you how this

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came to be. I'm investing in a treatment clinic so it's a business that helps addicts recover.

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My partner in that business was talking to someone who was going to advise or help with the

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business in a different capacity. He made a statement which was, you should never work with your

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spouse. He brought this up to me because obviously Layla and I worked together. He said that this,

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particularly individual who was successful, whatever, had worked with their spouse and it did

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it work and therefore made this rule about life. It reminded me of a different time when I went

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to a privately firm. I was introduced to the Managing Partner. He laughed when I came in the door

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because at the time I had a mustache, I had my hair pulled back obviously Layla and I were together

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and he pointed to this sign on the door which is the only three rules that we have in investments here

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are no man buns, no husband wife couples, partners and no people from Florida. So I think part of

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it was a joke or whatever. The point is that people tend to have some traumatic experience

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and when I say trauma, I mean that in the literal sense which is that you have an

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aversive experience, a negative experience that permanently changes your behavior. That's

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what trauma is by the way. So if you touch a stove when you're a kid and then you never touch

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stoves again, then that was a traumatic experience. It was an aversive experience that changed your

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behavior forever. And so these guys have these aversive experiences, these traumatic experiences

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like the first guy who worked with his wife, the second one who hit the private equity partner.

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That was talking about just now the issue they had was they had invested in a business where there

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was a husband and wife couple that had defrauded them. He said what's interesting is that because of

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laws within the U.S., you never have to tell in your spouse in the court of law. And so basically

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it makes husband and wife duos proficient fraudsters. I'll just put it that way. There's an

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increased risk there. Each partner can take the fifth when trying to tell in the other partner.

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All right, that's the simple. Back to the main point. The thing is is that I have so many times

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my life and one of my friends, you know, who were partying on this addiction treatment thing

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together came to me and he was like, well, I was telling my friend about you and you and Leila,

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he didn't seem to like want to hear that. I bring this up because there are many things that you

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probably have heard in business. You know, no one can sell like you can sell. No one should ever

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handle the money, but you employees will never work as hard as you. Don't go into business with

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your family. Don't go into business with your spouse. I think there's just all of these,

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these isms that people will swear by based on their traumatic experience. My underlying point here

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is that I would strongly suggest you relinquish those beliefs in your life because all you have to

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do is find a single example that proves or disproves that thing. Now, it's more helpful to say,

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I don't have the skill to be able to work with my wife. I don't have the skill to be able to work

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with my family rather than saying anyone who works with family is an idiot. Anyone who works with

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their wife or husband is a moron, not helpful. There's a saying that I think comes from the Silicon

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Valley world, but strong beliefs loosely held, which basically translates to, you go as hard

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as you can on the stuff that you believe to be true, but you only believe it to be true not because

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you like the belief, but because you believe the data that supports that belief. And as soon as

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new information comes, you change the conclusion. You change your belief as you should. And obviously

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with the recent political stuff, it's shown that a lot of people are not able to do that on either

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side. It's interesting because people have they wrap their identity in their beliefs and said,

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that's where it gets very dangerous because you become very immovable. To be a successful entrepreneur

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as you scale, it comes down to being able to make your identity fluid. So here we are. So this isn't

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some gender ideology, whatever. This is basically who you are, the bucket of skills that in total

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create the behaviors that you do, which then other people use to describe who you are.

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So for example, most people like to think of being as an action, which it isn't, doing as an

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action, and then being as typically how people will describe the doing other people did. And so like

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there's a reason back in the day, Carpenters is like, oh, who is he? This is John, the Carpenters,

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right? Like we used to describe people by what they did. And I think that that fundamentally

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remains true. If we need to become a different person, meaning we need to do different things,

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we need to have different behaviors in order to grow the business, then I think having a very

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loose connection between your quote identity and the actions and beliefs that you have is a very

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good way to speed up that cycle faster, to become who you need to become, to build the business you

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want to build. And I would say that for me personally, if I look at who I was when I started my first

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gym versus first, even before that, the first like online fitness business I had after that,

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when I started doing turn arounds after that, when we started gym launch, like all of these,

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if you were to interview me and you can and the cool thing is at least at least from the

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starting gym launch until now, all of it's documented. And I haven't taken down podcasts that I

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disagree with. Like I think my like seventh podcast is stop branding, which is kind of funny,

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not more about brand, right? But I think it's cool because you can actually see the evolution of

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thinking from day zero all the way up to now. Most of us have these very strong beliefs,

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but they are anchored in our identities, which make them strong beliefs strongly held rather than

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strong beliefs loosely held. And so I would encourage you to look at what are the skills or behaviors

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that I lack. And are there any strong beliefs that I have that are getting in the way of these

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actions that I must do in order to build the business that I want to build or move up in the company

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that I'm that I'm working at? Seeing my friend kind of like, you know, laboring over this idea of

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working with their spouse, which they had done in the past, and we're told that they shouldn't do

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that anymore. And so coming to me being like, well, you do it, like how do I explain that it's okay

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or whatever. And I just thought about this as like, I've just heard so many of these isms from

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business owners, and they're just all utterly bullshit. Fundamentally, from the ground up,

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why can't a husband and wife work together? There is no reason. The real reason is the same reason

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that any two people couldn't work together, which is that maybe you don't have the skills to work

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together, which is fine. There's also a likely mismatch of skill sets or work ethic or whatever

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that would happen between any two people. More so it's, what is the likelihood that two people can

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work together if taking a random over a 20 year period? It would probably be really, really,

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really, really low, but it's the same likelihood of having a successful business partnership.

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Most business partnerships are not successful. I mean, how? Most marriages are not successful.

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And so I don't think there's any issue with working with a spouse just like, I don't think there's

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any issue with getting married, right? It's just that there are going to be successful marriages.

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They're going to be unsuccessful marriages. There's going to be successful partnerships,

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unsuccessful partnerships. You're going to have successful hires and unsuccessful hires.

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And to refrain from making broad generalizations that will invariably prevent you from taking

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steps in the future that you will need to take at that point to get to the next level.

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And these unshakable beliefs that are strongly held will often be the barrier that I have seen

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over and over again, simple solutions on the other side of them breaking a simple belief that's

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dumb. That's my cautionary tale of the day. I hope you guys have an amazing day and

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fresh all your goals and take the souls of your enemies. All right, bye.