Kind: captions
Language: en
you lay out three traits of ultra
successful people yeah I don't know if
they're yours or if you read them
somewhere this is so brilliant and when
you said it you put words to something
that I have felt for a very long time
yeah um if you don't remember them I
have them here but if you remember I
remember them yes uh and so it's there's
three traits that people then they
looked at because they were trying to
find Habits of Highly Successful People
and when they actually pulled apart it's
not you know and I hope I'm not
contradicting anything um but there's
people who are really rich who wake up
really late and work really late and
there's people really rich who wake up
really really early and there's people
who really rich who eat really healthy
and there's people really rich who drink
Coca-Cola and eat french fries every day
and so there's all these things that we
want to make as truths but there there's
easy examples that counter those things
so it's like what are the few things
that are true or at least that seem to
be present in all of the situations and
it seems as though there were
surprisingly few and so the three common
traits that they had they had found were
one that people have a superiority
complex they believe they're better than
others and they believe that they
deserve more than everyone else does and
that they can accomplish big goals right
so they have a bigger Vision because
they believe they deserve it or whatever
it is that they were able to identify
that the second thing that they were
identify is that they had crippling
insecurity and which which is a paradox
of paradoxes they feel they'll never be
enough um and they'll always be measured
against the things that they've achieved
and so you've got this crazy dynamic
between they they think they're better
than everyone they think they deserve
more they want to go after this big hill
and at the same time they fear they'll
never be good enough they'll never
actually achieve it and they actually
suck
and then the third piece which kind of
adds the beautiful like mix of this is
impulse control and so they're able to
control their actions and focus on a
single thing for an extended period of
time and so if you put those three
things together it's like you've got a
big goal that's pulling you this way
you've got this big fear that you are
running away from and then you've got
impulse control to keep you focused on
the one thing that matters yes and if
you do that if you if you are the type
of person who has those traits then you
are very likely to be successful you
gave me the chills twice while you were
explaining that so this is I'm often
asked like hey you know what does it
take to be successful or how did I get
successful and I'm like from the time I
was a little kid so I grew up lower
middle class and but from the time I was
a kid I told everybody I am going to be
rich like you don't understand I'm going
to be rich I was so angered by not being
able to get the things that I wanted as
a kid and I had a little problem with
authority and so I felt like I was being
told that I had this box of stain I was
like no no no I'd always had these crazy
dreams and I just believed I could make
it come true yeah but I'm terrifyingly
insecure that I'm not smart enough to
pull it off and I have something I need
to prove to myself to my wife my
father-in-law my own parents like I just
no matter how much I achieve I
still have this right so I I have this
crushing need to validate myself and to
feel like no you really did have it kid
and but I am psychotic at my ability to
delay gratification yeah like I can
suffer and toil and grind and just like
I don't need to eat the marshmallow for
a hundred years right which is stupid in
some ways but you put those three things
together and you just go and go and go
it's really G my yeah yeah so to the
marshmallow point because I think this
is really interesting and I don't think
it's talked about enough which is they
they like to separate the kids into the
two buckets right like uh kid who waits
for two marshmallows and the kid who
just says I want the marshmallow now but
I feel like they should have a third
bucket which says how long do they ask
the kid to wait for the marshmallow
right because it's not do you have like
because I like to think of things like a
lot of times we have false dichotomies
or we have binaries where're like good
or bad you know disciplined or
undisciplined I'm honest or dishonest
right when I think more reality is to
what degree am I honest to what extent
am I disciplined to what degree am I you
know loyal right oh God there's a whole
conversation there yeah and so I think
that each of those three traits that we
just went over it's it's not do I have
them or not for the people who are
listening because people like to think
yes I have it or like oh well I have all
three of those it's not having them and
I'm sure you you've interviewed some of
the most successful people on the planet
it's how much do you have yeah right and
so I think that like your ability to
delay gratification it's not just like
oh I can wait a week or I can wait a
month but it I made this tweet that that
went pretty viral and it was like if you
can wait a
year you can make a ton of money like if
you can do something for 12 months you
can not need for financial goodness
pretty much for the rest of your life
I'm not saying you're going to be hella
rich but you're not going to need for
anything if you can wait 12 months if
you can wait a decade you're going to be
above the 1% if you can wait 10 years
for an outcome be able to do the doing
without seeing the result for 10
years you will be able to be above any
most achievement of most people and if
you can wait a lifetime and you don't
even need to see the result of you're
doing this even while you are alive but
know that it may get done after you pass
then I I believe that you can change the
world and I mean that and so I think
that if people can just extend the time
Horizon that they're measuring
themselves on they can just do so much
more I mean you've probably heard the
Bill Gates qu where he says people
overestimate what they can do in a year
and underestimate what they can do in a
decade I think it's the same thing just
continue to drawn out and I think as
I've as we've been able to you know
achieve more leverage and make more
money Etc my Horizon has extended and
when I listen to the people who are the
people who I want to emulate I can
almost tell by the measurement of money
that they talk about and the measurement
of time that they discuss how successful
they are or how successful I think
they're going to be like if I talk to a
25-year-old and he's talking about what
he wants to do in two decades and his
whole plan of what he's going to do as
long as he's not just blowing smoke
because he's heard an interview from
me um then I'm like this kid's got it he
gets it he gets it and most people just
don't think they they can't wait 90 days
they most people can't even wait a month
right they start a diet and 14 days
later they don't have a six pack and
they can't wait but like if you do a
year you can look whatever way you want
for the most part you know by and large
and if you wait a year for the ability
to learn how to sell you wait a year for
the ability to learn how to Market wait
a year just providing value to a a group
of people for free and then delaying
your ask you can do whatever you want
now and I don't know how you're going to
react to this if we can separate that
idea from being patient yeah so I made a
shirt that said patience okay but
yeah if you're not playing the long game
sced with patience is you have all out
at ainter PACE and run a marathon at a
sprinter's pace if you want to achieve
something yeah that's where people fall
down you'll find people that can wait
but can they and this is one of my
all-time favorite quotes I'm pretty sure
it's Winston Churchill though people
often attribute things to him but who
knows uh success is the ability to go
from failure to failure without a loss
of enthusiasm now there are people that
can go from failure to failure but do
they lose the enthusiasm can they attack
it as hard I was telling you at the at
the end of this year we have a plastic
table that I'm going to smash into the
little pieces because it has come to
represent like the hardest thing that
I've built in my professional career
just all the problems that have
been associated with it and but I'm
still going after it as hard every day
and when I think about like so because
I've had success and I know how many
people are chasing it and I can just say
people a lot of time it's not going to
give you what you think it's going to
give you so like don't bother chasing
that kind of success uh so an easy way
to say it is uh don't worry about
winning a championship ring worry very
much about becoming capable of a
championship performance that will be a
far more interesting life because you
really do want to get that good yeah but
in the pursuit of that thing in getting
that good it's like it is going to take
an inhuman amount of concentration
willingness to fight through the pain
and suffering and an ability to attach
enough meaning and purpose to it that
you'll keep going when you're just
getting kicked in the face over and over
like it's crazy and so knowing how badly
people want that I want for them that
thing like how whatever it is and and I
have a method that I can teach people
how to do it but most people still won't
do it which is to build the desire to
create an association between the doing
that thing yeah and the meaning and
purpose that you want to have for your
own life and that it's not going to seem
self-evident you have to bolt it on it
feels kind of fake in the beginning but
if you really invest and it really is
something that you care about it can't
be fake but if it really is something
that you care about and you build that
intense Association then you can fight
through that but boredom kills more
entrepreneurs than fear or failure ever
well when you say boredom do you mean
that they're starting something it's
starting to work and then they just
switch because they're add or no I mean
that doing something where you don't get
the result that you want and it's 10
years out and you're going to have to do
what Jeff Bezos calls overhead right no
matter how much you love your job
there's always overhead there's boring
yeah and what I find is people they
can't stay on task yeah I find in myself
a strong desire not to stay on task
because it is boring it's just boring or
even worse if it feels bad yeah and you
have to keep doing it and you have to
wake up every day and face that like
this is really going to be tough and
it's going to be tough for a very an
undetermined amount of time so it's not
even like I know it's going to be a year
yeah it's there is an unknown amount of
suffering before me and I have to
somehow continue to muster the
enthusiasm and have faith yeah that this
theory that I have is actually going to
work out or that I'll get better right
that maybe this Theory isn't the Right
theory but I'll be able to figure it out
it's interesting you say that because um
we talk about need to believes when
we're thinking about a company that we
want to like invest in and so it's like
what are the you know we try to have as
few need to believes as possible for you
know a growth thesis to happen um and
then not only do we want to have as few
as possible really interesting need to
believe like I need to believe that this
is true for this outcome to be possible
yeah so how do we have as few of those
as possible and how do we have that
those need belief statements are as high
likely to as humanly possible right so
it's like do like if we had a business
that was relying on and you know an
inflationary period or something I'd say
like okay well I believe that that's you
know it's high likelihood that it's
going to occur okay so I feel okay about
that one and if that was the only thing
I need to believe for this whole
business to be successful like where do
I write a check because it's the only
thing I so it's how many of these are
there right and if there's a lot of them
then with each additional line our
likelihood of getting the outcome we
want goes down um and so I think that if
reversing that for success for somebody
who's coming along is
like what amount of action would it be
unreasonable for me not to be successful
and so for me it's like I I believe that
if you do 10,000 cold calls you'll
you'll get better like it would be
unreasonable for you not to be good like
after that level of effort if you if you
run you know if you take half your
paycheck every month or a third of your
paycheck every month and you say I'm
going to advertiseing University which
is I'm going to spend money actually
advertising trying to get people to
click on this thing and give me their
name and phone number if you go and you
spend that amount of money on actually
advertising after a year after two years
you'll probably you'll probably be
pretty good especially if you join a
community other people who are doing the
same thing right you see got mentors who
are doing who who have done and and give
you Frameworks that you can just work
off so you can shortcut your path to
success it becomes unreasonable that you
wouldn't be more successful in the
future than you are today and so I like
thinking about things in terms of
directionally correct rather than will I
hit it or not right I think there's so
many binaries because it's easy
psychologically for us to say yes no
honest dishonest Etc successful not
successful um um but it makes making
decisions really hard because you're
like is this the path for me is this the
product going the business I'm going to
start where I was like well if I started
something I would be more likely to be
successful than if I did not start
anything and from there I will gain
experience and perspective to then make
the next iteration on the main thing and
I was Quest your first thing ever first
successful thing but you'd done other
stuff before that and failed and I I
still I was I was like I hope Quest
wasn't his first
um most people had thank God it wasn't
honest most people had a graveyard of
failures before they had their actual
first success and so most people spent
all this time um had a different tweet
that went viral it said like with 20
hours of focused effort most people can
be pretty decent at something whether
it's a guitar it's singing even cold
calling if you actually cold call it for
20 hours focused
effort you'd be decent but most people
spend years waiting to do the first hour
wow
whoa and so it's like how can I decrease
that action threshold and get someone to
just just just embrace the suck and so
it's like how can I normalize nose so
it's like if I'm teaching somebody to
sell it's like dude I need you get 100
nose all right just get 100 nose for me
I don't care about the yes just get 100
Nos and the thing is all of a sudden if
if the no becomes the goal then they
realize that it's about the process and
not the outcome and then they will
become better sales people because they
stop being afraid of it the same thing
like for training salesperson I want
them to hear the gasp right which is
like you say a price over the phone
everyone's afraid of saying the price PR
it's like dude if you didn't get a gasp
you didn't go high enough right they're
like what I'm like oh you failed
terrible sale they didn't gasp they're
like really and so then it becomes it
flips it and it becomes a point of Pride
it's like oh I got her you should hear
the gasp on this one and so all of a
sudden they stop being afraid we
normalize we do like exposure therapy on
the things that people are most afraid
of and I hope that with all the stuff
that we do that we can do that in a
micro way for at least a handful of
people so they just start doing and
realize that they're going to gain
perspective and the light of their
knowledge will give them the next foot
but the thing is they're stuck on the
first one trying to pick the first path
when they have no idea what they're
doing was selling ever hard for you like
the idea of selling not that I'm sure
you were bad at it at one point but was
the idea of trying to convince somebody
to buy something yeah I uh so when I
quit my job um my dad's buddy was in
private Wealth Management in marinch and
so he called me up and was like hey you
should sell for me and I to this day and
he jokes about it now with me um I said
H sales I was like I'm not a Salesman I
was like I'm an academic you know what I
mean I just come from you know ons and I
thought I you know whatever and um and
then lo and behold I signed my lease I
slept on the floor and and I was like
how do I pay rent and woman walks in the
door and I was like I need to get her to
give me money so I can pay rent and I
was like oh this is sales and I didn't
know so for me it was just begging
people to give me money in the beginning
I like I promise I'm going to give you
the best results ever um but uh the idea
of sales was very I I thought it was
beneath me I thought it was scammy I
thought it was used car sale you know
just like the abhorent you know that
would be the right word but um yeah and
then I through exposure I realized that
it was and I ended up in life's irony
being something that I've really fallen
in love with there there are people on
the internet I will let them remain
nameless that they give me the hebbie
GBS I am deeply uncomfortable with
something in the way that they sell and
I've actually never taken the time to
figure out what it is and I probably
should I'd make a lot more money but
there are people that make me deeply
uncomfortable and then there's some
something about you so I'd never heard
of you somebody P me was like yo you
need to check this guy out and I looked
at your stuff and I'm like there's
something about the way that you talk
that is super matter of fact it isn't
the I have nothing to sell you because
you're an incredible salesperson so even
when I interface with the way that you
sell it doesn't creep me out I've I've
not thought about it enough to know why
but I bet you have what is it that makes
a salesperson creepy and why aren't you
creepy
why aren't you creepy the best the best
interview question I've ever had um so I
I think a lot about this because I'm
outlining the next book which is so the
next book is leads and I'm already done
the draft and you know how that is where
I'm like I'm not done that book but like
I'm like I can't wait for the next book
um and so I'm thinking through like what
what is it that that sales is overall
right it's structuring a conversation to
increase the likelihood that the person
who's on the other side gives you money
that's what it is it's structuring that
conversation that way and structuring
that conversation I heard you mention
something that you call and I am so only
vaguely aware of like proper sales you
said holding the frame it's not about
the words you say it's how you say them
and whether you can hold the frame is
that what you mean by structure the call
all of it yes I mean so what is what is
the structure what is holding a frame
like what does that mean so
in I'm like I love sales so so when
you're when you're when two people
interact in general no matter what man
woman child whatever two frames Collide
and I believe it's animalistic whatever
it is there is a there is a decision of
who is Alpha now the alpha is also
contextual and so you can be Alpha in
like the president un united states is
Alpha everywhere until he goes into a
doctor's office he tells to pull his ass
and he sticks his finger up right frame
right in that room doctor is King right
he is the alpha in that setting in that
context and so the ability to hold the
frame for most for most salespeople is
really having a sounds crazy having a
clear agenda in controlling the
conversation which is
why are we here right because it a lot
of sales is clear communication because
if you clearly communic because the
biggest advantage that a salesman has is
that the person has already said they
have a problem most times right so if
someone responds to a Content piece and
says hey can you help me they've already
annunciated they have an issue they have
a problem and so you already have the
inherent advantage of the frame which is
you said you needed help I'm here how
can I help you right and so it starts
with that right it's it's being clear
about why we're here and then we get a
agreement that we understood the problem
that they said they had next and then
from that point we have to turn the
desire into a decision which is okay you
say you want these things here's the
frame that I want to give you to analyze
the decision can we agree to this Frame
right and so for example if I were
selling marketing services and I so
whenever re we rework a sales script
with any of the portfolio companies
which is one of the things that we do to
make them grow a lot of times they have
all this gobl you cook right and so I
like the shortest possible Scripts we
can because a lot of communication is
wasted right so what happens a lot of
times on a sales call is they say hello
build rapport talk for 30 minutes see
that there's time that's running out and
then realize they have to pitch right
and so then they motor mouth and then
just awkwardly ask right and it is to
your point about it seeming icky right
or sucking um is that it's not normal
human communication and you're not
providing value to the other person and
so if giving Clarity to someone on a
decision is tremendous this value and so
if you can sell in a way that clarifies
a decision my objective always when I
teach sales the goal is not to get the
person to buy the goal is to get the
person to
decide and I believe that people don't
decide for only three reasons and this
comes from Albert Ellis this is not me
but people blame all the wos of their
lives on
circumstances other people and then
ultimately themselves and so when we're
overcoming obstacles in a sale we have
to make sure that we are accounting for
the C circumstances which is taking away
time as a reason they can't do it taking
away money as a reason they can't do it
taking away particular aspects of the
product as a reason they can't do it we
have to make sure that they don't cast
their power to other people and saying I
can't make this decision someone else
has to make it and then finally when
they're with themselves they want to
avoid the decision they want to delay it
they want to not make it I'm not going
to think about it right and so the idea
is that I believe that if you sell
properly you can talk to an empowered
person and you have to basically sift
through the crap that they're telling
themselves about why they decide why
they have to talk to their husband why
uh the circumstan of their situation
matter and so I think that if you can do
that and communicate that in a
conversation you are you have made
someone feel powerful and you've given
them the tools to make a decision and
then in making that decision they take a
step towards the life they want to have
and so if you can structure a
conversation that way it's not icky it's
value additive and then ultimately you
do make more money but you're not
focused on that because you're focused
on helping them make the call and if we
can do that you can sell whatever you
want and I think that's like that's what
I try structure and that's why I'm so
excited for the sales book when it
finally comes out but most of it's clear
communication when I listen to sales
calls cuz I still kind of do it CU I
like it um it's like therapeutic you
know what I mean um there's so much
there's so much waste there's so there's
not no people aren't direct it's like
why are we here you and someone's like I
just want to get more information that's
an obstacle no you didn't you're not
here because you want more information
you're here because you're suffering
from a problem you don't just hop on
sales calls all day to get information
no you're trying to solve something
right what are you trying to solve what
are you in pain from got it so let me
make sure I understand this label the
problem right so it's like a lot of
people just don't know how to talk and
they just make face noise at each other
and no one's listening and no one's
talking they ping pong back and forth no
one actually is listening yeah they're
not communicating at all right they say
a statement I mean someone says I
literally just list a reviewed a sales
call yesterday guy says uh I'm not sure
now's a good time salesman then responds
with uh well you know I'm not sure if if
you're a good fit if you're if you're
not sure because and just goes off on
this weird tangent and then there's a
pause and the guy just asks another
question no communication happened it
was like I have a question you just said
a bunch of words and I guess it's normal
for me to say something else now and so
then he just asked another question
right and so it's clear like what and
then normally when you overcome these
sorry I can talk about this forever but
like when you overcome these obstacles
with somebody it's like I don't have
time right I'll just give you a simple
one because this is one this is for
everybody who's listening because right
now you're probably not doing something
because you're like I'm too busy I'll
start when it's convenient
whatever if you say that as the excuse
for not doing something then there's an
assumption underlying that that says
that if I get busy again in the future I
will
stop and so do you want the success that
you want to be long term yes then do you
believe that you'll never be busy again
for the rest of your life no so then you
might as well start when you're busy so
that you have the most support because
if you learn how to do it when you're
busy when you get when it gets quiet
you'll succeed even more and when it
gets busy again you know how to do it
because that's how you start it right
obstacle overcome
and then one step closer to making a
decision and so what happens is in the
even in the obstacle process when people
are trying to sell stuff people start
from the outside in so it's so easy to
say I don't have time it's the easiest
thing to say I don't have time I don't
have money right and then once you peel
you you show them how that's a fallacy
it's a logical fa it's a distortion of
reality you peel that back you get one
layer closer to them my wife won't let
me my partner won't let me my kids so
you can feel like it's it's closer to
you right and you peel that out because
how do you overcome that well 5 years
now if you didn't do the things that you
wanted to do with your life and you
blamed your wife the whole time CU she
wouldn't let you do it who you going to
blame her is that fair for your marriage
for your
relationship what do you think no so I
think what you're doing is you're asking
for permission instead of support all
right and here's how you have that
conversation with your wife right so now
we're we're sliding on the other side of
the table and be like let's play this
out right it's not going to go the way
you think it's going to go because if
you keep repeating this habit you're
going to end up 5 Years From you're
going to look at your life the same way
you're looking at now and hating it and
who you're going to blame now you're 5
years in you still kind of like your
wife 5 years from now you might not so
much cuz you've had 10 more times you
tried to do something she said no so
it's today the day right and so we peel
one layer and then finally you're at a
person who's squirming there right
because you you've forced them to
confront reality which is now they don't
want to make the decision right because
they're like I'm just going to avoid it
I'm not sure etc etc and you're like
hold on like I've got you you know what
I mean like we're going to get through
this cuz you cuz you're just waiting
through the that people people tell
themselves right and so finally when
they're in the avoidance part the
biggest fear they have is making a
mistake right they don't want to be seen
as stupid they don't want to lose status
as a result of this decision and so when
we're when we're when we're dealing with
that it's making them understand that
you don't need time to make a decision
you need information and if the only
source of the information you have is
May then let's talk what are the
variables you're going use to make the
decision and a lot of people haven't
even thought through that it's like well
if you don't know what they are why
don't I walk you through four that might
be useful
does this thing solve the problem the
way you want it to be solved yes or no
yes do you want to work with us yes or
no yes do you know someone you have
access the amount of money to get
started with this program yes or no yes
great let's do it right and so you can
walk someone through it and it's like oh
wow like and like you feel like just
went on this magical journey of like all
these things of why the reason they
haven't they decided not to make
decisions but so many people are stuck
in that same spot for why they're not
taking action whether it's selling a
product or selling themselves and I
think that those Frameworks of thinking
through each of those problems and
there's have a zillion of them for each
of those things um I had to develop
because I use those on myself so I was
like I have to give myself a compelling
reason to start doing stuff I have to
give myself a compelling reason to make
decisions when I don't want to I have to
give myself a compelling reason that I
can explain to a partner of why I made
this decision right later and so by
doing that it decreased the the time
between me getting information and
acting and then It sped up my decision
Loops in my life in general and then
obviously I applied that to sales but
I've applied it to
everything when I say these beliefs I
don't say these as a an affront to
anyone who shares different beliefs to
be clear um but for me a very core
belief that has been I think intrinsic
to at least the material success that
we've experienced has been a belief that
meaning is self ascribed so that there
is no inherent meaning in the things
that we do um or the we take or the
outcomes that happen U but only that
which we ascribe to it um and so because
of that I feel like it's allowed me to
the point of what you were saying about
like the amount of pain the amount of
suffering that you have to go through in
order to to achieve the things on the
other side I think it's been able to
it's allowed me to reframe a lot of the
discomfort into what if this just is how
it always has been or what if this is
actually
amazing and what if this is exactly what
it should look like and so I think a lot
of times it's the it's the discrepancy
between our expectations in reality that
shape the emotions that we have in
response to any given situation bad good
Etc and so I think a lot of people can't
control their state and I we deal with
this with a lot of the portfolio
companies is it's like it's funny
because I don't even necessarily want to
get in this I want to talk about like
the business and what's the strategy how
we're going to execute this stuff but
you know there's a big percentage of
time where they're stressed and they
think there's something wrong with that
and so I feel like a lot of people feel
like there's something wrong with
experience human
emotions and so they are stressed and
then think there is something wrong with
them or they are sad and I know that
this is the thing that the keyboards are
you know fingers are right on top of it
is my belief it is contrarian I accept
that that it's it's the beliefs we have
about our emotions that are the things
that drive us mad facts and so
somebody's sad and then they tell
themselves that're they're bad because
they're sad or they're wrong to be sad
or they're a piece of because
they're sad um rather than saying isn't
this a beautiful thought about human
existence like if I could not be sad
then I would not experience Joy so like
if I say that I don't want to be sad
anymore then I would also have to give
up Joy am I willing to do that no well
then this is just a part like I can't
say that I want sunny days if there are
no rainy days like we don't say weather
is good or bad it just is and so I think
to the same degree The Human Experience
is also that way too at least how I
Define it and so I think having that as
my backbone frame in terms of my
worldview although contrarian has helped
me a lot in dealing with the things that
often derail entrepreneurs on their path
to getting what they want and so for me
that's been very helpful so from a
contrarian standpoint of like Bel you
know Peter the's question like what
closely help belief do you have that
most people don't agree with that's one
of them um I'm scandalized by the way
that that one is something that people
don't hold I think that people get
themselves in trouble
because uh they believe the opposite of
the following quote there is nothing
either good or bad but thinking makes it
so yeah and they think that no there are
things that are objectively good and bad
and I'm simply recognizing the truth
that is the that certainly what I
struggled with the most in my own life
that I was simply when I had a negative
view of myself or anything else I was
simply recognizing the truth of the
situation not understanding how the
belief I had about the thing was
influencing my behaviors and my
behaviors entirely determined My outcome
and so then I was like well hold on if
if my behaviors are predicated on my
beliefs and my outcomes are predicated
on my behaviors then my outcomes are
actually linked to my beliefs and so
I've got to go in and make sure that I'm
believing things that are effective and
so my whole thing is I only do and
believe that which moves me towards my
goals now the next question that people
ask is well then does that mean that you
believe things that aren't true and the
answer is unintentionally no and the
reason is unintentionally no is because
that to me something is true based on
its ability to increase your ability to
predict the future and the outcome of
your actions that that's what's true if
I touch this hot stove it's going to
burn me I believe that to be true
because hey I've touched hot things
before and they actually do burn me and
so when you can like in sales if I
structure the conversation in this way
it's more likely to lead to an outcome
that thing is true just because you've
run the experiment enough times to be
like yeah that actually gives me the
ability to predict the outcome of these
actions you can reboot your life your
health even your career anything you
want all you need is discipline I can
teach you the tactics that I learned
while growing a billion dooll business
that will allow you to see your goals
through whether you want better health
stronger relationships a more successful
career any of that is possible with the
mindset and business programs and impact
Theory University join the thousands of
students who have already accomplished
amazing things tap now for a free trial
and get started
today and when I encounter people that
either don't even know what they belief
system is and so they they think this
isn't a belief this just is true about
the world I'm like no that that is a
belief that you've chosen to believe in
it's completely you
up one of my favorite quotes I think if
there were to be a quote that would be
on my Tombstone it's it's top three
which I love a lot of quotes um it's
Orson Scott Card he said uh we question
all of our beliefs except for those that
we truly believe and those we never
think to question yes and so it's
because you truly believe it and those
are the ones those are the pesky ones
those are the ones I think um I was told
because you get asked a lot I'm sure
like hey I'm going to talk to a mentor
what question should I ask them and I
got this really good one which is what
do I believe to be true that
isn't whoa and so that's a great
question right and because I'm sure you
see it and if I talk to somebody I can
tell like they they cast these views of
what is and what isn't about business
about marriage about health whatever it
is and they say like and then they and
then they operate off of that framew
work of assumptions which is might be
patently false and then they wonder why
what they're doing is not working it's
like because the entire Foundation upon
which you built this thing is just wrong
right and so um the EAS you know the
easiest way to do that is to get people
who are ahead of you who tell you by the
way I don't think that belief is true
but you have to get in a place that
somebody can actually communicate that
to you and be open to it yeah and then
you have to do something about it which
most people don't otherwise you get one
piece of advice then people you're not
going to do anything with this like that
that's the hard part so I have the
saying impact University where I always
thought all I would ever teach is
business and I found that to get people
primed to do the business part I first
had to deal with all the lies that they
were telling to Bel like the
self-destructive behavior all that once
you could get past that then they had an
actual shot at running the business but
because success is the ability to go
from failure to failure to failure
without a loss of enthusiasm and the
ability to do that is predicated on the
story you're telling yourself about
yourself you believe that it was all
like this mindset like yeah rats
nest of like God if I can help you like
peel this stuff back you'll be able to
get out of your own way but most people
can't but it's really interesting when
you were saying that I was like part of
what makes like when you hear somebody
speak and they really resonate with you
they give you the chills you get excited
it's because they're either putting
words to something that you felt but you
didn't know how to articulate and now
it's super Concrete in your mind or they
make you realize you believe something
that wasn't true yeah and that's when
it's like I you feel like you're being
set free oh totally and that's like
that's really exciting it's like a
weight
vanishes that's my that's what like
that's what I think sales is is that is
that people have these beliefs and you
have to know like the the the process of
being a good salesperson is being able
to help people break the beliefs that
they have about themselves or about the
realities that are not true and so I
think if you can basically just un
encumber somebody then it becomes very
easy to sell someone because if you have
this struggle we have this solution do
you believe that buying this solution
will get you more likely to get to the
acam you want yes what are we doing
let's go you know what I mean just but
talking to that person you have to weigh
through all this stuff but like I've
beli that like you know I speaking that
it's like I believe that you could start
a call and just be like you want to do
it and then just start from there right
like depending on what someone's
consuming beforehand um
but I'll tell you one of the things
that's that shaped my life in terms of
business stuff is understanding the
concept of of Leverage right and so a
lot of people are limited um by either
the skills the beliefs or the traits
they have right and so the skill
deficiency is the easiest one to fix
it's like go do
repetitions in a community of people who
are also doing repetitions to learn the
same skill and you will learn it quickly
right that's the thing then you have
traits and beliefs which is a little bit
more morphous right and so from a from a
beliefs perspective it's you need
someone to tell you stories that you
believe to be true that conflict with
your view of reality and then their
their the evidence of their story being
truer than yours then that it's like a
frame control that frame now wins and
that becomes the new lens that you see
everything through and so I had a friend
who had a fitness app and he was doing
20,000 a month he was a CrossFit
competitor really high up he didn't win
of course how like all he's like he
didn't win so he didn't want to tell
anybody that an app because he didn't
think he deserved it he didn't deserve
to have an app because he didn't want
anyone to know because he's like how
dare I make a fitness app because I was
only fourth in the world you know what I
mean or whatever it and then all of a
sudden he talked to somebody he got over
it and then he just started just telling
people he had an appp and he went from
like 20,000 a month to $100,000 a month
and so it's not that his skills changed
it's not that his traits changed he was
still just as hardw workking same looked
the same Etc I was like it's just his
beliefs right and I'm sure in the in The
Entrepreneur Space one of the most
common traits is is Focus right people
can't do the same thing over and over
again they just do all these half-built
Bridges and so I know for me my big
explosion happened in my entrepreneurial
Journey when I went from having nine
businesses that is not a not a misspeak
nine as in one less than 10 at the same
time that I was CEO of all of so I had a
I had a I had a dental agency marketing
agency I had a chiropractor marketing
agency I had gym launch where we'd fly
out and do gym turnarounds and then I
had five gyms of my own Jesus at the
same time and I was somehow perplexed as
to why I wasn't making any money I was
there's like everything was always on
fire all the time and I always just sold
my ass off enough to be able to pay all
the bills and have nothing left over
that was the that was how I rocked it um
and it was only you know when Lea came
in and she was like you know I think
maybe if we just did one thing you could
win cuz she was like imagine she like
imagine if all you had to do is make one
of these businesses work how easy would
that be I was like oh my God if I only
to make one of them work it would be a
joke and like I heard myself say that
and I was like you're an idiot why are
you so dumb and so like the trait that I
was missing at that point was Focus
Andor discipline I couldn't say no I
didn't have that muscle so that was a
tradeit i lacked and so it's like boom
and then that blew up and so it's like
sometimes the question is which of these
things do people lack um and so since we
don't always know because we don't have
the perspective to judge ourselves often
it's like you just got to keep moving in
all of the directions getting those
communities and then like that's
ultimately like I'm a big believer in
the alternative education space the
whole Guru space that everyone you know
laments and hates um I learned
everything from that space I have a
feeling speaking to the people that are
caught up in the um they're they're
wasting their time they're not doing the
things that they need to do they're
they're going to need to create some
structure now that structure may be as
simple as what you're talking about
which is because if if from my frame of
reference the way that I would put
thoughts in my own head about what
you're saying is I have a rule and this
is a literal rule of mine I only do and
believe that which moves me toward
towards my goals which sounds very akin
to what you're talking about it's like
if I do this thing I get this output uh
when I wake up early I've had better
things happen when I'm in shape better
things happen when I put in the work
better things happen um and
ultimately that's the thing that I'm
trying to get people to Anchor around is
their everything that you do is a test
MH your test will have results it's what
I call the physics of progress so to
make progress one must have a hypothesis
know where you are know where you want
to go understand the obstacle between
you and that come up with a hypothesis
about how to overcome that obstacle run
that test look at the data very frankly
don't BS yourself and then come up with
a more informed hypothesis and try again
over and over and over and over uh but
ultimately you're steering by results
and I think very often people either
don't know how to in fact I think
there's a few things that will happen
one they don't know how to conceive of
the problem so they don't understand the
obstacle two they don't know where
they're going or three they cannot break
themselves out of the dopamine cycle
they haven't identified the pain they're
moving away from whatever insecurity
they have and so they end up in that
death Loop of um feeling like they don't
have enough time when a reality they
have the same time is hyper efficient
successful people they just don't use it
in the same
fashion I think senica said that um we
all think we don't have enough time but
it's really we
just don't use the time we have well
um and I think I think a lot of it is
around like how we how how we choose to
pick our identities to your point
earlier like someone might say like man
I'm
lazy I I would say like that's amazing
like a lot of great CEOs are lazy that's
fine um let's use that and so let's just
make working more convenient than the
other thing and then your laziness will
take over you know what I mean just like
in terms of how we can frame the problem
right like as a as an example you're
saying earlier with the iPhone um like
scientific study anyone can do this you
can decrease your iPhone usage by simply
going to
grayscale like across age groups if you
switch your colors on your screen to
grayscale you will lose use it 30% less
than you normally would it's like great
for most people that's like an hour plus
a day 30% is an hour plus oh my God yeah
whoa I think it's way I mean I think
average iPhone usage is probably like I
mean I think one hour is like
conservative on that I think it's like
like might be even two yeah Aza yeah
hours it's like there you go found your
time you can make all your content you
can all the stuff you watch a movie the
time that you have from saving it but
like anyone can do it and so just like
how many how many of these little things
can I make convenient right so like if
you're like if you're trying to eat
healthy right I mean obviously like we
both came from that space it's like well
you just make it more convenient to eat
healthy than eat unhealthy it's like
okay well remove all the stuff in your
house that you don't want to be eating
make sure all the snacks you have are
protein related snacks um you know
anything that has calories in it that's
a beverage don't include it right like
just the just simple things that all of
a sudden you're like I'm hungry and
you're like you're like I've got
cucumber slices and uh and protein chips
you're like well what do you think will
be more effective that or dehydrating
the horse I think that is dehydrating
the horse interesting that one's never
spoken to me one because that's not my
problem you can fill my house with
snacks and if it either violates one of
my rules which I'm obsessed with because
I created them and they're designed to
give me the results that I want or they
violate my identity I'm not going to do
it yeah uh that's unique to you I don't
I I think that's like a Tom like 1%
thing just me from the outside I think a
lot of people have a hard time following
rules you don't think people will drive
30 minutes to gorge on something I think
they could but they're just as likely to
break a rule and I think it'd be I think
it's it's more likely that they will
break a rule because it takes less
effort to break the rule to themselves
than it does to drive 30 minutes and so
I just want to make it as inconvenient
as possible to do the wrong thing and as
convenient as possible to do the right
thing that will clearly be advantageous
so in no way is what I'm about to say
arguing against that uh so huge love
that total support on board now uh
having said that I have a feeling that
the thing that people are up against and
and I thought a lot about this with food
at Quest I wasn't thinking oh I need to
make this convenient that was part of it
and we certainly were not blind to the
fact that giving somebody a package good
that they could carry in their purse was
going to be really helpful but the
Mantra I kept saying to myself was I
want to make food that people can choose
based on taste and it happens to be good
for them because I think people will go
way out of their way violate rules all
that uh to eat something that makes them
feel the way they want to feel and if I
had to Anchor all of my fears around
people not being able to accomplish what
they want to accomplish it would all be
around the things you're going to need
to do don't feel the way you want them
to feel and because they don't feel the
way you want them to feel you Veer
towards the things that do make you feel
the the way you want feel now part of
that you can accomplish by reframing but
part of it I think is inescapable you're
going to do what feels good and you're
going to avoid what's painful for the
most part okay I love this
so one of the one of the big misnomers
in my opinion around discipline is that
people who who like some people might
look at me and say that oh Alex is
really disciplined but I actually really
do what I want to do every day and it
just so happens to be work that is
productive and and makes money but that
statement that you made earlier that uh
people shoot what did you said you said
people do what makes them feel the way
they want to feel right and then they
you said well oh it's because it's not
making them feel the way they want to
feel and my only addition to that would
have just said
yet just yet and so it's usually because
their Extinction curve is too low right
on the behavior and so if I go let's say
I'm the best door knocker in the world
best door knocking sales guys and I
knock on on Five Doors I might not get
an answer from any of those five doors
and I walk away and I say I guess door
knocking isn't for me and I might be the
LeBron James of door knocking right but
if the sample size is too small because
my Extinction curve just cuts off really
fast I'll never know and so that's why
it's like if if you can give the thing
the opportunity to reinforce its own
behavior then it goes from external to
internal but like video editors for
example like there's people who love I
mean we're going to film school right um
in the beginning you suck at editing
film but then you like make the letters
appear and you get instant feedback and
you're like whoa that was rewarding
right and then you do it again and then
you learn another technique and another
technique another technique and so then
the behavior itself becomes rewarding
and you begin to like work right you
begin liking your work and so I think it
really is that just getting over the
hump in the beginning of knocking on a
thousand doors rather than five and
realizing that it would make sense that
you would suck because you haven't done
it before um but knowing that if other
people have done it too that there is a
reward that will eventually come and it
will reinforce me just like it has every
other human before me who has done this
and I think just like one of my my core
you know assumptions um as I like to say
um is that if if somebody else can do
these behaviors I can do these behaviors
and get the same outcome you know
barring external environments timing and
things like that but you know assuming
that those are the same like door
knocking to sell solar today is the same
as it was last year and if I see
somebody who's number one in solar and I
do the same behaviors as them I will
likely get an outcome that is decent and
so I that that's what gives me uh
confidence going into a new environment
is modeling somebody and just being like
ignore all of these other things what
are the behaviors how many times is you
know is this person you know how how
quickly do they walk from door to door
do they only go to apartment buildings
or they you know like what's their what
is all the steps that they do
operationalizing success um rather than
kind of like the the theorizing that I
feel like happens a lot and I think
that's to be fair I think the reason a
lot of people kind of like some of the
content that I put out from a
money-making perspective is how can I
operation this word right so like
patience for example is one that people
throw out a lot but for me defining
patience was helpful which
is figure out what to do in the
meantime like that's patience like we
like I'm not patient it's like no you
just need to figure out what to do in
the meantime that's all like you and I
are being patient on all the Investments
that we made last year while we're
having this podcast like they are
happening we're figuring out what to do
in the meantime so we're being patient
and so it's like patience feels bad when
you're focusing on it but if you're not
focusing on it then patience happens by
default um like sadness for example like
that was really helped me to find uh
figure out just even defining the word
in terms of operational perspective
helped me get out of those funks faster
which is um sadness comes from a lack of
options a perceived lack of options
which is why it feels like
hopelessness but if it comes from a
perceived lack of options then it means
that you solve that with knowledge
because it's perceived lack of options
which is an ignorance problem which
means it's solvable which all of a
sudden gives me something to do so then
all sudden I do have an option and then
you can get out of the funk and like
anxiety is the is the reverse of that
which is I have many options and I don't
know which one to pick which means I
don't have priorities so like you solve
sadness through knowledge you solve
anxiety through
decisions and so like helping me just
spell those out to myself I'm like ah I
feel anxious okay that means that I have
lots of paths and I need to make a
decision so which one am I going to
decide so I can get out of this bad
feeling if I have sadness great what do
I not know okay now I have to go figure
that out great I have something to do
and so that like you can I think these
are like mental models
around using emotions to fuel the
behaviors that you
want I didn't want to say a word during
that because I think um what you're
talking about is so I'm as as you're
talking I'm trying to
map
um my fear about people not being able
to make the change mhm um and I the more
I think about it the more I think this
boils down to people feel way that they
don't want to feel and they don't know
how to handle that yeah and you just
without me even thinking to ask you um
you were going through how to deal with
different emotions and by having a plan
by having a procedure which I think
you're going to call operationalizing
yeah um then you know what to do oh when
I encounter sadness then I do this when
I encounter anxiety Then I do this and
so it's a very oriented plan yeah um so
I want to plant a flag in that and then
I want to follow up with how one goes
about operationalizing something okay so
I'm going to lay out a thesis you can
push back or
whatever uh people one of the the things
that you and I have both said
historically that I think is maybe the
most powerful thing we will ever say and
everything after that is just what you
do once you get over that uh your life
is an exact reflection of your choices
you are not a victim and even if you are
it does not help you to think that way
you have to break through that and um
one of the intros to this episode that I
considered was that um every day each of
us has to make a choice whether we are
going to play the victim or play the
game and if you're going to play the
game play to win it's the only thing
that makes sense but that is em negative
emotions can be so gnarly that we need
to make it somebody else's fault that to
point all 10 fingers back at us and this
is one of the things to get higher to
impact Theory uh you're going to be
asked the question along the lines of
something horrible happens to you how
many fingers go outwards and how many
fingers point back at you and the
punchline is if all 10 are not coming
right back at you it's just
disempowering it doesn't mean that bad
things don't happen nothing you can do
about a tornado etc etc but still to
realize that you can make different
choices and get a different outcome but
people don't do that a lot because to do
that if you don't have the right frame
of reference if you haven't leaned on
the right traits
build your
self moment say it's your fault fault
fault is just emotionally devastating
and people have not operationalized
their encounter with negative emotions
and therefore they will do anything they
have to do completely unconsciously to
not feel that way now if that is uh
doing drugs they'll do drugs if that's
drinking masturbation cheating whatever
they will do all of it but it really
boils down to what's your relationship
ship with your emotion now to push this
farther and to really um make clear what
I think I don't think emotions are
objectively real I don't think that
people ought to believe an emotion I
think people think because they feel it
it is the right reaction to objective
truth rather than a subjective reaction
to perception sure and if you can
understand that all of your emotions are
a subjective reaction to perception that
you can take control of that that you
can reframe things you can have a
different emotion and now in that moment
instead of doing something that moves
you away from your goals you can replace
it with something that moves you towards
your goals okay so that's my thesis as
as I really think about boiling it down
to what messes people up it's that if
I'm right about that how do you
operationalize anything like what does
that mean because I have a feeling the
thing that makes you phenomenal is the
ability to operationalize
everything so if I I love this
conversation just as a side note
um so in my opinion a a lot of things
even huge departments practices and
business and medicine and everything
come down to learning and
communication and so let's define terms
so learning is same condition new
Behavior so to the point I felt sad last
time I learned this new thing from this
podcast on impact Theory which is okay
if I feel sad then it means that I don't
see an option which means I need to get
more uh education or knowledge on the
subject so that I can figure out what to
do well at least deciding that I need to
learn more gives me the next step that I
need to do and boom I'm not sad and so
you've been sad before and then it took
you 5 days to get out of it and you're
sad now and it takes you five minutes to
get out of it same condition new
Behavior so you
learned and so if we go one degree move
that I'm going to circle back to the
original point if we think about
intelligence right um like what is
intelligence as I Define it from an
operational perspective it's rate of
learning right so somebody who learns
really slowly is less intelligent
somebody who learns really quickly is
more intelligent but that means that
intelligence is just a rate it's a
measurement of how quickly you change
your behavior in the same condition and
so if you continue to listen to podcasts
and you're wake up in the same exact
conditions every day and your behavior
does not change it means you learned
nothing which means you are not as smart
as you think you are but it also means
that you can influence and have a direct
influence on your intelligence by
increasing or decreasing the time it
takes you to actually act on the
knowledge you have when the same
condition presents itself and so for me
that's incredibly empowering because
it's like I can be smarter by simply
hearing what this person says getting
the same condition and then immediately
changing my behavior wow that's cool and
so that then like from the fingers
perspective it's like okay okay all 10
fingers are on me of how I can influence
my own surroundings and and do the
things that I want to do um so to to
Circle back to um the original question
I think which I probably dovetailed a
little bit um was can you repeat it one
more time how do you operationalize
things what does that mean so okay so
it's breaking down what does this word
mean from a behavior
perspective so it's it's it's it's
really hard like I think the reason that
so many people are confused used and
they have a hard time remembering things
and understanding complex topics is
because they have lots of words in their
heads that they have not defined I
really mean like I I truly believe that
which is why every book that I have
begins with a definition of terms which
just like this is what an offer is this
is what a lead is right these are these
are what this means right um and until
you have that you're just you're
basically making face noise right like
if I say leads and you perceive that as
something different then we can't
actually have a conversation because
we're not talking about the same thing
and so lot of people have a lot of words
they've heard other people say that they
not along to and some people are like
make sense and they say yes but when
someone says does that make sense we
have been trained as humans to nod and
say Yes it doesn't mean it makes sense
it means that when we have that cue
that's the behavior we do right because
we know that we get punished when we say
no because then it becomes oh this big
thing and then you know you dovetail
into all these other conversations and
you get punished for it right and so you
learn what's reinforced and most people
say make sense and then you say which
means nod your head when I say this and
you're like I nod my head great and then
you move on and so I think that's why a
lot of people don't learn because they
actually don't know what the words mean
and so um to operationalize something it
is simply going back down
to when I say I'm confident what does
that mean it's not a feeling it's not a
what other people say about you like
none of that is measurable like how much
like what is measurable it's a
percentage of likelihood that what I say
will happen will happen period that's
what it is now what you'll also find is
that there are a lot of words that mean
the same thing and that doesn't mean
that the the concept wrong it's just the
fact that English or whatever language
you learn usually has a Melting Pot of
like well this is the version of the
Nordic word and this is the version of
the Hindi word and this is the version
of the French word and they're all in
the Lexicon but most of them more or
less mean the same thing and so getting
away from words meaning what the the
dictionary tells us it means and just
say what does it mean to me in terms of
what I can do with it then I think makes
navigating life a lot simpler because
the only thing we can control is our
behavior and so if we Define the words
in terms of what we do about it then
these all become things that we can
control and and can change our lives
with yeah okay that I think is super
important um one of the things that that
changed my life and the easiest way to
explain it is how it manifested in my
marriage was to Define terms and because
what Lis and I were realizing is we're
saying the same words but we don't mean
the same thing totally and that's
creating a lot of confusion now as a
leader in a business this becomes
problematic often because you will say
something that to you self-evident
exactly what it means people do the it
doesn't make sense yeah and um they do
that a lot and So Lisa and I started
defining really simple words like what
when you say you promise what does that
mean when you say something's important
what does that mean yeah and so like in
our marriage if we use the word
important it means stop whatever you're
doing I don't care if you're with the
president of the United States you will
immediately get up leave that and deal
with this thing because it's important
so if it is Meaningful but not important
then Fair it's meaningful but I'm in the
middle of I'll get to it later doesn't
mean that it's you know not something
that needs to be addressed but it isn't
important cool now we have a shared
lexicon yeah um and I think
that going back to my thesis around
emotions emotions are the subconscious
way of communicating to the conscious
mind so when you think about and this
isn't I mean this is me making things up
this is me connecting dots that
Behavioral Science has made abundantly
clear but I am admittedly connecting
dots but uh Lisa Feldman Barrett wrote a
whole book on this called how emotions
are made so this is not me just shooting
from the hip but I'm I'm putting my own
words to it um the the way that you feel
is the subconscious mind which can
process information uh faster and vaster
as they say so it's a a much larger
number of data points process much
quicker but when you bring it into the
conscious mind you're going to think
either in images or in words most people
probably think primarily in words and so
it really Narrows down your ability to
um deal with a lot of information and
because emotions um are coming from the
lyic brain which we had before we had
the higher level cognition that humans
have the other animals don't have you're
going to be in a situation where oh
snake and you just jump you just have
the emotion and you move yeah um most
people leave things there and so they're
never pulling that into the light to say
ooh why do I feel so uncomfortable in
this moment what what is it and if they
would take the time to Define what the
discomfort is then they might be able to
operationalize the response that they
should have to this predicated on at
least from my perspective what's your
goal so I feel some kind of way but I
have a goal my goal makes demands which
is something I don't think people think
about very often to achieve your goal
just hey there's physics to it so
certain things will move you towards
your goal and certain things won't so my
goal makes demands but I feel some kind
of way that make me want to move in the
opposite direction of the demand and my
goals make so now using your words I
have to operationalize my encounter with
this emotion Define it Define a response
and then actually adhere to that
response in order to move towards my
goals and that the the moment where you
pull the emotion into the spotlight of
your conscious attention and Define it
in a really simple way I think is where
the vast majority of humanity get lost
so um I do something called impact
Theory University and I answer some of
the same questions over and over and
over and they often have to do with that
moment somebody does not understand
their own emotions and therefore they
cannot operationalize the next
move have so much to say I will keep it
short so so I want so in reference back
to what I was talking about like with
sadness and anxiety and patience like
these are all well patience is more of a
behavior sadness is a feeling that and
then how do we translate that right um I
want to be clear that I use those terms
because I want to meet people where
they're
at me
personally and if you look at it from
like the the Behavioral Science
perspective you have stimulus and you
have response what happens in the box of
like what this person feels right like
if I hold up a red flash card to a
random person and then I slap them and
then I hold the red flash card again
like all of a sudden some of them might
feel anger some of of them might feel
fear like what they feel when they see
the stimulus which I've now paired with
a response right is going to be
different and so I think a lot of effort
goes into people and even people in our
world trying to help people describe
their feelings talk through things blah
blah blah and I I just genuinely think
that it's a waste of time because not
who cares but why does it
matter because
you can do it when you're sad you can do
it when you're angry you can do it when
you're fearful and again to the point is
if 100 people more find out about the
thing that I'm trying to sell or
whatever I'm trying to do then I'll have
a greater percentage likelihood that I
will get this outcome that's it and I
think a lot of people they just get into
this cycle of trying to analyze their
feelings and then they're like oh it's
because I had this trauma when I was a
kid and you know because my dad didn't
hug me enough and like blah blah blah
it's like the because for most people's
explanation is irrelevant cuz I get like
I had a podcast question the other day
that asked um do you feel like uh uh
trauma you know is is something that
creates success later in life among
entrepreneurs blah blah blah and um I
really thought about it and I was like I
think people suffer and some people
become
successful so do I think that suffering
creates success no I think that everyone
suffers and some of them become
successful and then they attribute their
success to make it feel worth it to have
gone through that suffering because they
have an outcome but I don't think that
they're related in any way because like
you were successful because you did the
thing how you felt about it is
completely irrelevant and I just think
that there's so much effort that gets
put into that conversation um which is
why I have really contrarian views
around like therapy and things like that
but um I think like if you keep opening
a wound like what does it help
you I don't know like you still didn't
make the calls so like let's let's let's
create an environment where it's more
likely that you that you do the calls
that you need to make and it just it
simplifies the variables that we can
control because no one know like even
even adding the because to things like I
did this because it's like you don't
even know why you're doing what you're
doing and so when people are
like Tom what's your number one reason
for success we're making it up we're
making up our our response I mean it's
what it is like how do I there's a
hundred things a zillion things I don't
know like is it because my dad didn't
hug me in enough is it because my mom
like who knows maybe if he would have
been president still it would have been
fine like it could be completely
irrelevant but we just choose to give
this thing that some percentage of the
audience then says oh that's like me and
maybe then I can be successful too and
that's fine but I think the the the
boiling it down to the absolute Basics
or not even Basics the absolute truths
of it are that there's a stimulus and
there's a response what happens in the
Box inside of your head does not matter
if you respond a certain way you have
learned and if you continue to see the
same stimulus and you don't respond the
way you want to you have not learned so
you need to
learn I love how direct and simple that
is see a red card get slapped see a red
card duck yeah you learned or block even
better right you preemptively SLA and if
I have to show the flash card to you
seven 10 12 times the person I show it
to once and then Ducks the second time
is smarter more intelligent then the
person has to show it to 10 times before
they react in a different way than
standing there and getting slapped m
dude I love that um I
will I will say for all the people that
I because the the people that I have um
maybe I glom on to because of my own
here's me making up a reason that I've
glomed on to because of my own sort of a
um The Journey that I've had to go on
the thing I've had to deal with is that
I think where people fall down because
you are right there is no in no
uncertain terms if upon stimulus you do
the right thing for goal attainment you
will attain your goal like that's just
how it works uh but then the question
becomes why do the vast vast vast vast
vast majority of people never reach
their goals and I think it's because
they're not able to either because
either will work they're not able to
either stop caring about what the reason
is um or they never take the time to
figure out the reason now given that I
think most people struggle because they
just don't have Clarity yeah I do think
people are going to need to they might
not need to understand why they feel
that way but they're going to need the
very thing that leaves them uncertain
about why they feel that way is the
thing that leaves them uncertain about
what they want to do with their life or
how to achieve what they want to do okay
I really I'm G I love this okay so the
first part of the statement was uh
people aren't doing the thing and then
it was because and then the second part
of the statement I would pause it that
with the because I would put the reason
they're not doing the thing that they
want to be doing is because they've been
rewarded for doing what they're
currently doing in the past
and so all they're doing is continuing
to do they have learned works and so
it's like if you are continually
rewarded cuz like there's a reason that
you do what you do right which is that
you have been trained to do it now train
is a you
know the environment can train you which
is what most of us switch to over time
you have an external stimuli that wants
to pair a new Behavior with a stimulus
right if you want to teach someone to
duck right you show the red card and
eventually they learn right um but at a
certain point once you do the red card
and then eventually you pair the red
card with a fist then all of a sudden uh
the person gets into fighting right and
then you don't need to pair that anymore
because the environment will
self-reinforce and reward the behavior
of ducking and will punish if they don't
get if they don't duck right and so if
you just think about that as like a
really simplistic microcosm of how we
learn thousands of things like even even
the concept of speech is a million
reinforcement points from the time a
baby is alive right so if you think
about about a baby as stimulus response
so they're alive they make noise reward
they're here right attention affection
approval right reward and then they make
no noise and they make noise again
reward make make noise again reward
reward then once they learn to make
noise consistently we then start
rewarding noise that sounds like words
so it's like
like right and they're like whoa It's
like that's we're not going to reward
that one and then all of a sudden start
approximating the first word and so all
of it is is this continuous feedback
loop of me doing something and it having
an Extinction curve because nothing
happens or me doing something and I get
a reward and so that is the that is the
micro and so you can apply that to
everything that's happen so like when
you when you start seeing the world in
that way it becomes much simpler to
navigate because you don't need to find
the reason you just like I do this
because I've been rewarded in the
past cool so I just need to reward
myself in the present for this new
behavior and like how can I pair this
new Behavior with something good which
is like as a total side note for me a
little trick like when I go to the gym I
always get a little Shake even though
it's a little bit more expensive at the
gym because it's like a little reward
that happens immediately after I lift
and I look forward to that and so it's
just like little things that you can do
to reward yourself to to hijack that
cycle that changes behavior and so it's
like we want to change our Behavior I
think we have to define the terms of
what behavior is to begin with um and
how we Define learning uh because that's
all it is is pair you know learning is
pairing a stimulus with a response and
so if they want to learn things that's
what they have to do all right if so
many people fail so many people have a
victim mentality what reward are they
getting that reinforces that so it could
be that they're because uh a reinforcer
can be both a more of a positive or less
of a negative right it's like if I
remove a slap that's a reward in its own
way um or I add a positive and so they
may be avoiding punishment in certain
ways by staying in this place because in
the past past because everything's
extrapolations from the past in terms of
how we see Behavior because that's our
pattern right like we look back at what
like we use our history to make
predictions about what's going to happen
with when I when I try to turn this door
knob to get into the room I turn it and
I turn it because when I have turned
door knobs in the past it worked and the
first time I encountered the door I was
like what do I do now what I probably
did is I looked at somebody else and
when they turned it the door open so I
know when I see this thing now if I made
that thing solid and it can't be turned
I would like and then think what other
types of doors are there and then you'd
be like is there another handle in the
door like and you go to secondary and
tertiary behaviors whereas the most
likely one that's going to work is the
first one we start with and so we have
these behaviors that let's say laying on
the couch and watching Netflix has been
rewarded watching Netflix is a rewarding
experience it's I mean like it's it's
more positive and it avoids negative but
then you get into short-term and
long-term reward and Punishment right
which is why it's harder um which is why
I think it's the meta skill which is on
top of those things which is is that I
know that I can delay a short-term for a
long-term payoff um and I think that's
where that's where the big leap has to
happen because if you can train yourself
to know that like I know that if I do
one workout I'm not going to look
different and I know if I do six
workouts I'm still also probably not
going to look different right but if I
do 600 workouts I probably will and as
soon as you have that one first thing
where you had to delay gratification you
got a much bigger payoff you start to
associate the behaviors in while you're
doing it with with reward and so the
difference between experts and beginners
is that experts find more ways to reward
themselves while they work on whatever
the thing is and so it's not that they
are more disciplined which is the
finally the full 360 on this is that
experts are not more disciplined than
you they've just found more ways to win
if somebody is starting from scratch
what are the traits skill sets that they
should be cultivating in order to up the
odds of their success uh they should
focus on one thing in general rather
than lots of different things that
you're not sure about because if you're
starting out everything looks like an
opportunity so the correct answer is all
of them are opportunities but all of
them won't work unless you pick one
right so you have to say no to all the
other Mistresses so boom you pick one
and then from there I always say six
figures is sell something to someone
that's it and if you want more detail
sell something to someone so it's one
Avatar one product one channel so you
don't have to figure out how do I create
20 pieces of content across it's like
just pick one channel one media Source
whether it's Facebook Instagram YouTube
you know whatever whatever Twitter
consistently start going on that whether
that's cold outbound whether that's
content whether it's running paid ads
whether it's Affiliates Word of Mouth
whatever it is um and start reaching out
to people there to start selling your
stuff and so if you can just do that
consistently and I use something all
right what's the skill set that's going
to make somebody good and this is six
figures still yeah yeah so what's the
skill set in that is it getting good at
the outbound is it getting good at
saying no to the other stuff like how do
we translate that into a skill set you
have to learn how to advertise which I
Define is the process of making known so
how do you let other people know about
the stuff you sell so you have to
advertise there's six ways to do it I
covered five just now so there's there's
six ways you can do it and then once
people engage with whatever
advertisement you have you have to sell
them so advertising is the first skill
selling them is the second skill and
then product would be the third skill
which is the thing that you're
ultimately advertising and selling okay
so that gets us six figures what gets us
seven doing the same thing consistently
so usually once people do it in the
beginning they're sporadic they're not
consistent with it just the act of doing
the same thing every day usually gets
people to 100,000 a month which sounds
crazy to probably people listening but
most people who think that's crazy also
haven't done it consistently for an
extended period of time and so I use
something that I call the rule 100 which
is 100 primary actions whether that's
100 minutes of of content creation per
day 100 reach outs per day uh $100 of AD
spend per day uh like you have to pick
one of them but 100 per day and you do
that for 100 days and I promise you
you'll have you'll be making six figures
if you do that most people won't yeah I
know you know that they will fail at
something what is the most common thing
that you see people fail so you give
them the blueprint your ability to
articulate a blueprint to success is
insane legitimately insane dude when I
so I'm going to make a prediction right
now five years from now in this space
you will be one of the biggest people on
social media 100% guaranteed YouTube
podcast whatever because your advice is
real and I said I I was about to tell
you something and I said I'm going to
say it on camera and I will tell you
right now I judge everybody that comes
on the show by when I'm doing the
research to bring you on which is a way
bigger time investment than the
interview itself did I actually learn
something did I move forward did I enjoy
myself dude it was awesome researching
you was awesome it was good for the
business it was good for the soul good
for the mindset everything so this is
going to be incredible but where do
people fall down because most people
even knowing how articulate you are and
know that people are still going to fail
is crazy and I know that most people are
going to fail so where where do people
really struggle in that
equation I think it's fear mostly um and
that's not a skill but I think it's a
character trait and so people are afraid
of Val you know not getting validated or
they're afraid of judgment that they
perceive from other people that exist or
don't exist in their lives um and so for
whatever reason they have this second
voice that that criticizes everything
they do that in reality isn't even there
um but it's constantly present it's like
the antithesis of whatever the god
figure is but just the negative voice
and so I think that's the thing that
stops most people from doing the stuff
they know they need to do because if you
think about like whether it's want to
get in shape or I want to have a better
marriage or I want to make more money
most people on some level at a basic
level they know what to do and my proof
point of like even making money right
most of us have had a bill that came up
that was unexpected a tax bill a car
breaks down a health thing whatever it
is and we find a way and so when it's
for someone else people are will use the
actual resourcefulness that they have to
make the money but for whatever reason
they won't use that same resourcefulness
to make it for themselves and so I think
that most people know if they want to
work out uh s to to get in shape or to
lose weight whatever they know they need
to eat fewer donuts and move more in
general but they don't right because
they're afraid of getting started or
they don't have the discipline to keep
going which is they can't make the
short-term sacrifice for the long-term
achievement so big picture it's like
there's usually some fear that's
preventing from doing it and then how it
looks from a behavioral standpoint is
they do not make the short-term
sacrifice of discomfort for the
long-term achievement facts independent
of whatever path they're talking about
you guys are going to want to say to the
end I'm going to give you my favorite
Alex quote but now I'm going to give you
one that I actually think pertains to
this so uh you said how to stay poor
assume you're always right yeah and when
I think about people failing it's
because in fact there's another quote
this one I didn't write down but I'm
going to get close um marketing is just
a fancy nine-letter word for test and
once people understand you're going to
fail and you're going to fail a lot and
if you can't deal with that failure yeah
if you think that failing makes you a
failure if you think that it's a
permanent state of being and you're
never going to get better then you won't
do the things you need to do to
ultimately be successful you talk about
consistency yeah but it isn't just
consistency because if you do it wrong
yeah consistently you're still going to
fail right so this is you have to be in
my own language willing to stare nakedly
at your inadequacies yeah and if you can
stare nakedly at your inadequacies then
you can actually get better if you're
running the test and you're like hey
looking at the data did this work or did
this not work 100% then you can actually
improve but you went through this so in
the beginning of your career and this is
one of the things I find most
interesting about your story is you
failed you actually pulled your now wife
aside and said I'm a sinking ship yeah
uh and if you wanted to leave I would
completely understand uh how did you go
from that to like there was something
you figured out yeah what what is that
thing you figured
out I think at that point
um the the reality of my situation was
so Bleak that I I didn't conf I honestly
didn't even process the reality of my
situation because the more I thought
about it like the sadder more hopeless I
would feel and so I focused on the the
few things that were under my control
which is like I can do these things and
so when I talk about advertising when I
talk about selling I talk about those
things boiled down to the actual actions
because I had to think of it in that way
because it was the only way that it
wasn't overwhelming it's like I just
have to make a hundred reach outs or I
just have to spend $100 a day and I have
to look at the ads and I have to T turn
off the ones that are bad and do more of
the stuff that starts to work um and and
that that was the process of getting me
from kind of like dark uh to I'll bet
a better outcome but I mean from that
actual point we did the only thing we
knew how to do which was it market and
sell and that was that was how we got
out of that and honestly that that
single skill of being able to generate
leads um independent of the industry has
been like my get out of jail free card
um which has allowed me to fail over and
over and over again until finally you
know I got it right and even after that
one when we were at the Rock Bottom
there I had just you know nine 90 days
earlier got a DUI my mom was in the
hospital um really bad shape uh that's
when I had just lost all the money um
which is when I pulled her aside but
then fast forward 6 months basically
repeated the cycle again um which is I
had we had started doing these launches
where we'd fly out and and turn gyms
around like Bar Rescue but for gyms and
when we were out there uh all of a
sudden we came back home and we saw like
two of the gyms refunded all of the
transaction because they just told the
people they could just sign up through
them and just do it for half the rate
after we had already spent the money for
the hotels and the flights and all the
ad spend and every you know a whole
month of work and so basically all the
money that we had saved up in that like
I think we're out of jail free lost it
all again um and only then did we
accidentally um pivot into the licensing
model which ended up becoming the thing
that was like the first very big success
um that we had but like that whole
period of time was five years of
basically not having anything um even
though on you know on paper when I had
the gyms I materially looked successful
cuz we had six locations um but I always
just put all my money back into each you
know each new location so I had very
little actual cash I was asset rich and
Cash 4 I know the drill right and so but
then when I lost everything after that
because I sold them took the money put
in the new Venture and then lost it I
was like wait I just lost five years
because I had nothing to show for it and
so that's probably what what has created
a lot of the hypothesis I have now
around I didn't lose the 5 years I lost
the assets where were which were not the
most valuable thing that I had earned
over that time it was the skills the
experiences the character traits because
I still had those and then using those
three things I was able to do the next
thing fortunately um yeah yeah I'm
obsessed with learning yeah and it's
interesting because I've had the level
of success that I've had and because I'm
technically middle-aged which is crazy
to say uh I used to be the kid I swear
to God uh it is it's really there's a
gravitational Center in my brain that
wants me to think that I have crossed
some line yeah and that it's about
looking backwards and it's really
dangerous like you have to be looking
forward I mean God willing I've got you
know another 40 plus years of life left
and every time that I get in that trap
it's I just re-anchor around whoa I'm
still learning like all this stuff I'm
46 but I've learned so much I failed so
many times and I've acquired so much
knowledge and skill set and all of that
and then you can think about oh cool
like as long as I've got the energy to
keep pushing to keep building because I
have to your earliest point about what
makes you successful it's the that is
literally My Kryptonite is I have a very
hard time accepting the fact that I can
do anything I want with my life but not
everything yeah and that I find deeply
distressing but like on a level that
borders on mental illness yeah and
by focusing cutting out the other stuff
and recognizing okay I've reinvented
myself again yeah but a lot of that
knowledge is going to transfer it's
going to be useful as I push forward but
getting obsessed with learning like that
would be the gift if I could give to
people and say okay you you want to be
successful I get it everybody wants it
right now but if you can stack these
skills like then if you've got the skill
set and the methodology that you know
you and others can really lay out
incredibly well it's like now you can do
something but if you have the
methodology but not the skills or you
don't have the mindset and so you're
broken by the failure or you don't have
the methodology if you're missing any
one of those then you end up in a death
spiral yeah it's interesting what you're
saying with the learning thing because
um I think a lot of people said like the
early because I I also I like I feel
like two parts of the audiences that
like follow my stuff I've got the
business owners who are trying to scale
their business ETA and then I've got all
the people who want to start a business
and usually they're a little bit younger
and whatnot and I think there's a a
misnomer around like education and so a
lot of them I don't know how explicit I
can be but like they mentally masturbate
so watching lots and lots of videos they
you know want the pump-up speeches they
buy the tickets to the things and so
they just learn and I think that they
think that exposure to information is
learning and I don't think that's true
or at least it hasn't been for me it's
definitely not true so you know cuz I'm
sure you get asked all the time like
what are the books that you know
transform your life and I've had a
handful of books that have been useful
to me but I would say 99% of the things
that I have learned I've learned through
doing and so when I do the original rule
of 100 and whatnot it's because I think
it's the most effective way to learn
which is you force yourself on the one
controllable that you have which is the
activities that you can take and then it
goes with the underlying assumption that
you go off feedback and you're like well
that opening message did not work yeah
right and then I think most people have
a dramatic underestimation of how much
volume it takes to be successful
independent of the thing right they're
like okay I should go on five dates and
then find the girl I'm going to marry
like what if it was 500 to find the
right girl you're going to marry or I
want to you know start this this new
Channel I want to I want to become an
influencer whatever it is and they start
doing you know one post a day for four
weeks and they're like why am I not
famous yet and they find I mean real
right true and they find out that like
you know we ended up doing 400 episodes
before we made it to the top 10 on the
podcast thing and now we start doing you
know 100 plus pieces of content a week
and it's just this volume game that you
get the the skill from the volume the
feedback from the volume and you there's
all these like little things I'm sure
it's like from the exercise role because
you come from that um like when you
squat the first time you squat you're
you're orienting yourself to your
environment you're barely actually
squatting you're just looking like you
have a bar on your back but you learn so
much between that first rep and your
10,000th rep of squats and so I think
for most people it's like if we can if I
my goal like with the learning is like
if I can just decrease the action
threshold for people to begin and be
okay with the fact that they're going to
suck and it is okay to suck it is you
should expect to suck and it would be
unreasonable for you to be good if you
haven't done it before and so it's like
are you asking the universe to be
unreasonable for you by expecting to be
good on your first try and I think
that's where a lot of people it's the
expectation that destroys their ability
to be successful because they expect to
win on the first shot and no one does do
you worry at all about people wanting to
be on camera right from the jump because
that puts an expectation to be good that
oh yeah that's rough
um I think it's so much e like if we're
so have so many so many feelings about
this um so you've got you've got this
whole Space right and you look at like
if you're like I want to be a business
influencer right well it's like well you
look at the guys who actually the top of
the business game and virtually everyone
you Andy Ed Gary all those guys have
killed it in business and most of them
even Gary had gone to 60 million a year
before he made his first content and so
I think the issue is that people look at
that and say I should make content like
them when you don't have you can't
answer the underlying question which is
why should I listen to you which is
always in the back of every audience's
mind in my opinion at least that's what
I think like when someone's like a
relationship expert and I find out
they've been divorced three times I'm
like you know maybe not right I mean and
as terrible as it is they might be
giving amazing advice but it doesn't
pass the first filter which is if I'm
going to take military strategy from
someone I'd rather have a general that
has a winning record even if the other
guy Napoleon said I'd rather have lucky
generals so even if you had two that
were even you'd rather have the lucky
one and so to the same degree I think
people use that filter because it
actually takes less effort to learn from
someone that you trust and so it's like
if you've got the the basement teacher
that's telling you to dollar cost
average into the S&P and you've got
Warren Buffett who's telling people to
dollar cost average in the S&P they
don't want to listen to the teacher even
if the teacher is better objectively
from a constant standpoint because they
just don't know if they should trust
them so you have to have two filter I'm
hearing the thing should I trust the
thing with Warren you can just plug into
whatever he's saying and just take it as
truth which takes less effort and so I
think most people don't get that point
and so I think you should make content
but the if you're or you should
advertise the stuff that you sell let
people know about what you're doing um
but it should be about the true
expertise that you have which is often
times just talking about the stuff
you're doing rather than saying you
should be doing this this is what I am
doing hope you find it interesting hope
you find it valuable and I think that's
a big Dynamic which for is like how to
it's how I um just that little shift and
I think a lot of people would get much
bigger better audiences and actually
make more money from the content that
they're making because everyone else is
like why should I listen to you yeah
yeah with content like I'm I'm open
anybody that wants to make it make it
people will watch it if it's adding
value hopefully they don't do what you
were describing earlier which I'll call
spiritual entertainment where they're
just learning learning learning watching
watching watching getting motivated
getting inspired they're not doing
anything with it but my big concern with
people creating cont
is that they will trap themselves
because they're afraid to suck like when
I got on camera I was like wow I'm
really rolling the dice now because my
life has taught me one immutable truth
I'm going to fail a lot and there's
nothing that tells me that that period
in my life is over like and and it was
never interesting to me to like ride
into the sunset on oh I sold Quest so I
sold Quest and then like Babe
Ruth I said I'm going to build the next
Disney right yeah but went on camera and
said look honestly the odds are stacked
against me the odds that I fail are way
higher than I that I succeed right and
so going into that I did not want to
back myself into a corner where I was
afraid to try things I was afraid to
step into an area where I wasn't good
because it's the only way that I know to
get better right which I call the
physics of progress I call it the
physics for a reason because I think it
is truly the only way to improve is
basically the scientific method you come
up with an informed hypothesis come up
with a test that lets you actually try
that out
you test it you get results you stare
nakedly at those results which will
sting a little because it almost
certainly did not work as well as you
hoped yeah you will then get a little
bit wiser you will reformulate a
hypothesis you will retest and you just
that's the loop right and you just go go
go and you see what works and you see
what doesn't but people are so
interested in looking cool yeah that the
content becomes the Trap that stops them
from actually getting good it's the
posturing it's the external validation
that they need to feel like the success
they're not having in reality can be
made up for with likes and comments and
perceive
success talk to me about the so you said
that you wanted to Vanquish your dad
yeah so this to me is tied to that idea
of like you you need something that
propels you you need something that
pushes you to go through all of
this but also trying letting your dad
control your actions is probably not the
best move yeah so like like how was it
useful and then is there getting to the
other side of that yeah so um and you
know to be clear dad um the I would say
that the the vanquishing thing is
something that I was able to kind of
recognize in retrospect which was it was
all about beating my dad earlier on so
and a lot of that was because I felt
like a lot of the respect was withheld
from me earlier on and it was always
like a moving Target which is you know
you need to be this you need to be that
you have to be in shape you have to date
Haw girls you have to be top of your
class you have to play all the bars
sports like all those things right be
editor-in chief of the newspaper be
editorinchief of the of the literary
magazine all those things at the same
time and still if I got something wrong
on a test it was like what you get wrong
you know rather than this is cool I'm
not 99 right yeah I'm not bohoing about
it it is what it is it's made me who I
am and I'm grateful for it um but that
was kind of the the earlier part was I
wanted to win at the game that had been
set up for me and you know first it was
make 100,000 a year and then it was make
uh the same amount amount as my dad and
then it was make more than my dad then
it was make more than my dad had ever
made in his entire life and then once
that happened I looked around and I was
like I think I've been playing his game
and not my game and so I wasn't really
setting any rules I was just playing
with the rules that were given to me and
so and kind of think like is this even
the game I want to play and so that you
know that took me you know a little bit
of time to process um and I think that
It ultimately to your question I think
it did serve me a lot um and I don't
know how much of these reinforced
behaviors that I learned during that
period of time still benefit me today
but they're not fueled by the same thing
so I still have these habits of how I
work and and you know being dedicated
towards goals Etc that I think we're
born of that um but no longer are fueled
from that now so how do we effectively
take control of the process of rewarding
and punishing ourselves to keep us on
track towards our goals I think being
cognizant of it at at at the absolute
base layer you start to see the world
through very different lens and you're
like okay that was punishing huh like
that was rewarding
great I'll do more of that but then you
start to think you're like why do I do
that you really start thinking about
you're like well because I it sometimes
it's so funny like I'll have um because
we you know we we we invest in buying
products and whatnot and so I had two
different products that were in the same
category because I like the category
that I was looking at and one of the
products had a better result like it had
a better better end outcome when when
the customer uses it and the market
leader and this is who they were trying
to disrupt um had a slightly inferior
result um but it delivered the result
almost instantly and the other one took
like five minutes and this one was like
5 seconds and the other one was
objectively better like even like SC
like science had had all the stats and
everything like it was objectively
better and they wanted me to invest in
this company and um they're like we have
a better product I was like no you have
a better result you a better product the
reason these guys are still number one
is because uh latency matters more than
intensity when it comes to reward the
reason that a little icon on your phone
is cuz it's immediate right and then it
goes away right like you have this
immediate feedback loop whereas um you I
don't know if you've heard this okay so
um sorry I I love this stuff so if
you're trying to train a dog right they
uh there's this I wish I could I'll
maybe send it after the show but like a
graph that shows how you can train a dog
to sit or with like a treat and so if
you tell the dog the command and then
you wait and you immediately reward it
it learns faster if you wait 30 seconds
it learns you know it takes more tries
to get it to
learn after
minute the dog's
untrainable a
minute and so it doesn't know why it's
being rewarded now the thing is is it's
not that you aren't training the dog
because whenever you have some sort of
reward you're training it you're just
not training what you think you are so
you have to look at what happened
immediately before you gave the reward
which happened a minute later right and
so we think because it's like it's sat
I'm going to wait a minute and then give
it the cookie but I'm not reinforcing
the sitting I'm reinforcing the thing
they did right before they got the
cookie and so as a as a as a as a zoom
back out here um when we're thinking
about like again the reason I brought up
these two products was that the the the
the original product the one that was
the the market leader was better because
it gave even a smaller benefit but it
gave it immediately and so people will
probably it seems silly but when you
really try and be honest with yourself
like why do I why do I go to this gym
instead of that gym because I have a
bunch of gym memberships I'm like why do
I CU I like to think about this I'm not
surprised by that I'm like why do I go
to this place I'm like cuz the other
place has better equipment and I'm
like the person at the front always says
hi when I walk
in immediate reinforcement for walking
in the door and I was like I think
that's what it is it's I like it like
when I come in they always say hi and I
have like a two-minute conversation and
like I look forward to that I drive 10
minutes further for that I'm like how
silly but when I think about it when I'm
really honest with myself and so to go
back to the person who's on the couch
it's sometimes the rewards are minuscule
and then when you name them they feel a
little bit less powerful but it also
means that you can say how can I make
another minuscule reward in another
direction that gets me moving towards my
long-term goal and then I can Kickstart
that cycle where I start to learn like a
master does because Masters enjoy love
the process it's like easy for a master
to say because you're good at it
easy for you to say right like when
you're you know I'm write like I write
my 19th draft of the book I've now
written a decent amount you know what I
mean like I've I've spent a long time
writing and so I the act of writing
itself is rewarding for me like you must
work so hard which I do but it's not
that I'm willpower my way the whole way
through not always of course there's
times where it's like not the most fun
but big picture the process is rewarding
because I've gotten good enough that is
rewarding and so um the more ways you
measure the more ways you can win which
is like one of our one of our little
monikers and so it's like how many
different ways can we measure so that we
can make progress on these little things
and have wins as quickly as possible in
the direction you're trying to go and
then start the loop Okay so so um to say
that really succinctly to make sure I
understand no no no the exploration was
amazing I just want to make sure that I
understand it um I think we've covered
the reward part so I'm going to do
something measurable and see my growth
and that starts a positive reinforcement
Loop that's going to send me down the
right path okay so that makes all the
sense in the world uh proximity the rate
at which you get the reward is really
going to matter that's really
interesting from a product persp
perspective you're the first person I've
ever heard talk about that super
interesting but now how do I punish
myself do I like I'm a big believer that
you need to punish yourself but when I
say that sentence out loud I know what
people hear and it feels icky and weird
um but it's been incredibly powerful for
me so do you believe in the power of
self-punishment and if you do how far do
we take it so
um I will just just for sake of everyone
I will just State this as my opinion and
we'll just leave it at
that so you have praise and you have
punishment or you can have reward and
you have punishment whatever you want to
call
it punishment is more effective to
change behavior in the short term like
if I hold a gun to somebody's head I can
imediately Chang Behavior right reward
is more powerful over the long
term and so like if you look at an
environment so we think we talk a lot
about this.c because it's kind of part
of our mission internally is to create a
culture of reward non
punishment uh and the way that we think
about this is if you have like let's say
Goldman Sachs or McKenzie some of these
very big organizations that attract some
of the best and brightest and are
renowned for having relatively terrible
or punishing cultures right they work
people to death and blah blah blah so
what happens is if you if you put an
animal in a cage and uh they can't
escape then they will revert to law of
least effort so they will do as little
as they can to not get punished and so
then when you're in a punishing
environment you all you have to do to
get them to do more is you just raise
the bar for what they have to La least
effort do to not get punished and so in
an environment of high performers that
gets everyone to raise the bar but then
quickly burn out now that model works if
you have an endless supply of bodies but
if you are the person who is being
burned out then that works for two years
or whatever Praise on the other hand or
reward can unlock in my opinion
discretionary effort so the effort
beyond the law Le effort required to
keep your job and not get punished and
so the issue is that the people who are
the most able are the ones who are able
to work the least and still keep their
jobs but they're also the ones who you
get the absolute most upside on if they
work because they want to not because
they have to and so that is kind of our
our our thesis of how we try and build
companies at acquisition. and we're not
perfect we you know believe me there are
plenty of times when I want to choose
someone head off but we really try I
know my team's here nodding but like we
really put serious effort into saying
like it so let's say like I find out the
dog shits on the on the carpet when I
get home I hit it it doesn't learn all
I'm doing is hitting a dog like if it
was less than if it was within 60
seconds from the time that it happened
it's not going to learn and so like if
you know that and then you hit the dog
anyways what does that make
you interesting right and so um now
obviously if we're like punishing
ourselves and whatnot um that might be
somewhat different I'm talking about how
we relate to others um
but you can either avoid punishment or
you can seek reward and I think both of
them are powerful uh motivators avoiding
punishment is powerful more powerful in
the short term to change Behavior it's
faster uh reward is more powerful in the
long term to keep Behavior going because
eventually you uh like kind of like
hedonic adaptation you get used to a
punishment and then it no longer works
so you have to have you have to increase
the variety and intensity of punishments
in order for it to continue to be
effective do you punish
yourself honestly not a
ton I have super high
standards but I don't know if I punish
myself I don't know if I'm like Alex
you're a piece of I don't
not really because I you know Lea and I
are kind of sit on opposite sides of the
like I'm like some people have like a
Bas of anxiety that they like work
through I don't come from that side I
come from probably like a base of
laziness like and just you know like and
that's why I have have all these things
to get myself to to do stuff um but
punishment just like it's also just
never been effective for me like when I
get punished I I want to just figure out
how to avoid punishment not do what they
want me to do right like when you when
you use punishment to like train kid you
get them to sneak out more right um not
like they just find other ways to get
out of the house quietly they don't
necessarily change the behavior but if
you reward them for staying then they
never want to leave that kind of idea
the reason people leave when they're
younger is because there's more reward
outside of the house than inside the
house and so if you want to fix in the
long term make the reward for being home
more than leaving
home it's interesting so uh this is
probably one where defining the term
would be very meaningful um I I
personally use what I call
self-punishment now to me
self-punishment is to force myself to
acknowledge that I said I was going to
do something that I did not do that's
normally where this will come from
interesting I would call that stating
the facts interesting I would call that
punishing so and this this is why it's
important so I understand why people
always react so negatively when I say
that you you are missing out on an
incredibly powerful Tool uh if you don't
punish yourself now just to acknowledge
and you've said
we we are all speaking from this is what
works with me so this is the experience
that had the com exactly uh and there so
getting out of bed in 10 minutes or less
is I I struggle with it every day of my
life it's it's hysterical to me that
even now all these years later I still
have to be like you said you'd get out I
stay in bed for like 45 minutes on my
phone I can't allow myself to
immediately as soon as I wake up if I'm
doing something in bed I I suppose I
should change it to working um that I
have 10 minutes to be productive is
probably right way to think about it um
and cuz there are times where there's
something that I can do in bed like this
morning when I could start researching
you the second I wake up then then I
would still call that a win but if I
don't do the thing that I said I was
going to do then I force myself to to
acknowledge to myself with no I don't
let myself run so I don't let myself be
distracted I'm just like you said you
were going to do something you did not
do this thing and therefore you should
not feel good about the behaviors that
you enacted in this moment and then I
often confess to my wife or my employees
or my community so that I am holding
myself accountable and now I'm sitting
in something that I do not like the way
that it feels I'm not letting myself run
and so then I'm like I don't want to be
back here yeah so next time I'm going to
take a different set of
behaviors that has been transformative
for Mees and that not using that for me
would be to miss out on a huge
motivational I love this and I want to
draw similarity for the audience cuz and
I think I think this is why I think this
stuff is kind of interesting for anybody
who's listening is like
is there are different ways this is why
like there there are only a few things
you need to do to win and the way you do
it is entirely up to you uh which is why
I love boiling things down to just like
what are the few the few things that
everything has in common and everything
else's preference but with what you just
said I think I have like the first thing
we do is we State the facts is that I
said that I would wake up within and
something within 10 minutes observation
that did not
happen then comes the third step which
is that you this is me putting words is
that you label that as bad and then
maybe label yourself as bad depending on
you know that I don't do right for the
for the audience just to be clear um
okay I need to not see you so one so if
if one wakes you know doesn't wake up in
10 minutes and then States the facts I
did not do what I said I was going to do
um then uh labels the the thing as not
good and then says I am also not good
then that becomes trouble now one degree
before that is just labeling the
behavior is not good or not ideal for
the outcome that I want um but I'm not
sure how much it matters to feel bad
about it again with the behavior box of
like stimulus response because once you
feel bad about it right and then it's
like well what what do we do to increase
the likelihood that next time it
increases now cuz we could feel amazing
about it we can feel terrible about it
we can feel neutral about it but all
that will matter is what Behavior we
change in order to increase the
likelihood that we do what we want next
time at least as as as I see it and I
found that I put for me a lot of energy
into trying to understand things trying
to label things as good or bad trying to
label myself as good or bad as a
consequence um and the only part that
mattered for me to actually get what I
wanted was the last step which is what
am I going to do about it and I can also
just skip these sorry I can just skip
these other three steps and just go
straight from I always said I was going
to do this thing observation I did not
do it what is the change in my behavior
or my environment that I'm going to do
next time to increase the likelihood
that I do it and then even with the
binary thing that we were talking about
earlier with rules I'm actually more of
like a weighing system of okay over the
last 60 days I got up within the first
10 minutes 60% of the time okay next 60
days if I can do 70% of the time I am
making progress and so rather like
because most people will fall short of
perfection and so I feel like it ends up
setting up a an inevitability of failure
if we Define it as binary just my own
perspective so how do you then deal with
people that are not hitting a standard
whether it's you or somebody else I have
found in business if you let people get
away with low standards uh not only will
it devastate their performance it will
begin to drag down the company and and
it really matters totally so um do you
stick to only rewards do you call it out
like what are you do yeah yeah so we AB
so we State the facts and then we say
what we're going to do about it and then
if someone consistently cannot do
because at some level there's always
there's always a chunk down skill
someone doesn't have right so if I say
hey can you send an email to so and so
we have assumption that they have a
stack of skills before that I assume
that they can read I assume they can
write I assume they can use a computer I
assume they have from an envir
environmental perspective they have
access to Internet they know how to use
a word processor like they know how to
open up an internet like I know we're
this
sounds silly but we make these
assumptions but for some people they're
missing one of those and so they have
all this failure because they're just
missing one link on that chain and so
trying to identify what is the skill
deficit and then is it a skill that I'm
willing to invest time into teaching
somebody and so we want somebody who
have as many base skills as possible
that apply to many scenarios so like if
two people go through the same training
program right and one person gets the
outcome and the other person doesn't
it's usually because the training
program doesn't account for every single
skill that is required to get the
outcome there are certain assumptions
that come in like if someone reads my
book I assume that they can speak
English I mean I'm saying as simple as
that sounds right but there's a hundred
other skills and the people who are
successful faster just have more of
those skills stacked up so that when
they get the right information they can
immediately use it and some people still
need to go back and learn how to wake up
on time and like have someone say no and
not cry right like these are these are
other skills and so um in the
environment of work how do we address
somebody who is not performing we State
the facts we recommend a course of
action that can help increase the
likelihood that they do it again in the
future and if that doesn't happen then
we say like this is what will happen as
a consequence neutral of you being good
or bad or this situation be good or bad
it's just these are the standards that
we will accept and you are beneath those
standards based on these facts that's it
like if you showed up to work late okay
just to be clear you understand that our
expectation is that you show up on time
yes I understand great you also
understand that that what you did was
not to that expectation cool so let's do
this do you have an alarm on your phone
yes do you use it no do you know how to
set an alarm on your phone yes great so
why don't we do this from here on out
let's set two alarms 5 minutes apart at
this time that'll give you ample time to
get up clean your face whatever and then
get on camera does that work yes and
then we measure and if it doesn't happen
again if it does then it's like why did
that because then you get into the base
skill being do I adhere to Authority
like I listen to instructions like those
are skills and if someone nods their
head and then doesn't do that then they
don't have that skill and then the
question is whether am I'm am I willing
to take the time to invest in teaching
someone this skill when the opportunity
cost of that time could be allocated to
somebody else who might already have
that skill or Suite of skills that's how
we think about it so one of the things
that is a recurring theme is the idea of
extending the time to
extinguish what if we were going to
operationalize that what what do we do
with people and um if I were going to
personify the the length to extinguish
I'll give a historical example and then
I'll give a a more modern so
historically uh Winston Churchill dude I
don't know if you've read much about him
unbelievable uh what that guy was able
to pull off and how long he was able to
delay gratification yeah and then a more
modern example would be a David Goggins
yeah so um how do we operationalize it
what do you take from those guys I think
it's the the the Master's thesis of
those guys are Masters at whatever the
thing is and so they find ways to reward
themselves in the meantime and so we
only think that they have Supreme Ultra
discipline willpower because we are
measuring what we can see as the outcome
of running a race you know 26 miles or
whatever it is but if they are rewarding
themselves throughout the entire process
then if anything the end of the race
might be uh a removing of a reward and
might be actually anticlimactic which is
what happens with most athletes after
they compete in the Olympics or they win
the championship or lose the
championship um the buildup is where
they have all the reinforcement and then
when that thing actually happens then
they have to get right back on the the
horse of where they get their reward
from which is the work to get there
because they are good enough at it that
they can win in more ways and so just
the more you know about something the
better you are at it the better you are
at it the more you can win the more you
can win the more you want to do it
how much of that do you think is
identity like when I look at somebody
like um a Churchill or a gogin it that
feels to me like a game of who am I or
who do I want to be one of my favorite
Churchill quotes um is well so quotes
failure's the ability to go from uh
sorry success is the ability to go from
failure to failure without a loss of
enthusiasm speaks directly to this but
one thing that I got reading his
biography is uh he said to his mother
when he was really young that uh this is
a paraphrase not exact quote but I yearn
for a reputation for physical courage um
more than anything I mean it was and and
this is a guy that for people that don't
don't know his story that sent himself
into war zones multiple times in his
life when he absolutely did not need to
do that including World War I when he
was like he was basically the equivalent
the British equivalent of a senator yeah
now imagine you have an active senator
who felt like he had let people down and
so he said send me to the front lines
and they're like whoa why would we do
that like you do not need to go to the
front lines even if you want to engage
with the war you certainly don't need to
go to the front lines and he said nope I
want to be literally where the bombs are
falling in the dirt with the men um and
that was somebody who had such a strong
internal Compass of this is who I want
to be or how men ought to be um same
idea with gogin right just felt like I'm
a loser he's staring at himself in the
mirror the accountability mirror doesn't
like who he sees decides he's going to
change and become a different person and
I'm sure you've seen the clips of him
screaming you don't know me you don't
know who I am um that's an identity play
MH
so how do you see that is is extending
the time to extinguish purely an an an
identity play or is there something else
going on so I
think I think the wording matters um but
if you uh want to extend how long you
continue to do something without seeing
the result of you're doing
uh you need to find a way to be rewarded
in the meantime like that's that's what
it is like that in my opinion and so
whether we call it Identity or we call
it a skill or we call it a behavior or
we call a character trait so it's saying
like with the the many words that
ultimately mean like what is the
percentage likelihood that this Behavior
occurs
um that is really all I would look at
and is it as simple as I I was today who
I said I was like how do we make that I
mean Not To Beat to Death the idea of
operationalize but when I think about
what I'm doing when I reward and punish
myself is I am trying to feel the way I
want to feel or not or make sure that
I'm feeling discomfort so that I will
move away from that behavior
yeah so what is it or how do we leverage
identity to feel the thing that we want
to feel like is it just words in your
head like how do you play that identity
is really internal
culture so if you think if you Define
culture as uh a set of rules of
behavior in a within an organization
identity is just the rules of behavior
within an
individual and so I think to your point
you have your rules of behavior um that
occur I would say that my rules of
behavior even though I hate rules as a
concept um when I do these things like
when I see this this happens right I do
have the these these behaviors that had
been cued that I have learned um see now
we have all these words that we've
defined so now we can at least everybody
can agree on what we're talking about
which is why it means a lot to me um
yeah I just I think identity is just a
big stack of Behavioral cues that we've
said because people change over time and
so it's really just like a mental
construct of this is how I
behave like what is an identity it is
like and even if you want to say like I
know this person what it really means is
that I have a high predictive score on
what this person will do or say as a
result of whatever I do or say
and so if that's the conversation that
I'm having with someone it's like I know
him really well oh he'll love that
because I have a good predictive score
that when this happens he will do this
now somebody who's all over the place or
super erratic right then are do they
have a unformed Identity or do I just
not know enough about them
maybe and so I it just that has just
been my litus test and maybe maybe it
seems like oversimplification but um for
me it has been incredibly fruitful to
just cuz then for for me it takes a lot
of the the Superstition a lot of the
magic a lot of the black box of feelings
and emotions and and identity out and
it's just Alex is a series of behaviors
that's who I am that I that have been
trained Into Me by my environment and
that I have tried to learn
myself and I will change in the future
because if I get better then it means I
can't be the same person I am today
which means some of the things that I
have learned now I will unlearn and
learn new behaviors when I see a
different stimulus or the same sorry
when I see the same
stimulus this is so interesting so um
the way that I have always approached
this is I I am trying to get people to
change their frame of
reference frame of reference speaking of
things that need to be defined frame of
reference to me are your beliefs and
values okay and see I didn't even think
that's what you meant I thought I
totally thought you meant something
different so this why we def yes exactly
this is why you define things okay so um
and and I will say all of this in what I
just heard you say is that where I'm
coming at things is from beliefs and
values where you're coming at things is
from behaviors and traits it's very
interesting very interesting like I am
going to think about this so much moving
forward uh as to one is it is beliefs
and values just particular to me and
that is I try to help people make change
in their life I'm wasting all my
time because this is just a thing that
resonates with me or is there something
I'm getting to the thing that's
underneath your behaviors and traits and
that if people don't address this
they'll never get to that or I'm just
wasting my time you were going to say
something I think it's well value so if
we were like when it's like I have these
values a value is just a behavioral
short code when this happens I do this
someone who is loyal when he's out and
his wife isn't there hot girl comes up
and says hey want to get a drink value
it means set of behaviors I say no or I
say I'm married or no thank you whatever
and so values are skills because you can
train
them that's interesting values are
skills I would say the adherence to a
value is a skill that you can train but
if you have the wrong value that you
adhere to you're going to be in trouble
here's why I start with beliefs and
values I think so much of the human
animal is invisible to the person and
that if they they'll never be able to
control their behaviors if they don't
control the emotions that drive the
behaviors and I think emotions are an
echo of your beliefs and values and I
can change somebody's emot like their
cognitive um the way that they frame
something cognitively will drive their
biological response to that moment which
is insane so the quote nothing is either
good or bad but thinking makes it so the
death of your mother is not good or bad
totally thinking it's bad makes it bad
yeah now that is uh you and I think come
at that from very different angles
totally and so not a bad way I think
it's great no no no dude this is so
intriguing to me one because all I care
about is are you getting the outcome
that you want yes or no and if you are
amazing and so you're giving me new
tools new ways to think about this um
okay so just a quick breakdown of of
frame of reference so my hypothesis is
that everybody's life is entirely
controlled by their frame of reference
okay the frame of reference the best
analogy would be to say that your frame
of reference is a pair of glasses that
you put on that distort the living
out of the world that none of us have
the um option of taking the glasses off
taking the glasses off would be to exist
outside of your biology nobody's going
to be able to do that so you see the
world in a hyper distorted way now all
of us over a lifetime of reward
punishment um oh God what you call it
approval like there's all kinds of
things that have toal attention
affection approval okay so all of us are
getting that constantly from the time
that we were born until now and we
choose who to value that from and you've
talked about your
all that anyway you canoose but you most
people never become cons aware of what's
happening and so their the Distortion of
their lens happens slowly over time in
ways that they simply recognize
mistakenly as objective truth so they
think they see the world as it is not
through the Warped lenses of their frame
of reference now once you realize that
you can change the way the lenses warp
the world now you can start to shape
your lens is based on um action outcome
I did a thing and it had this outcome
and so it all becomes about your ability
to predict the outcome of your actions
which is and we will get into sort of
the physics of making money but um to me
that's all about the ability to predict
like what test to run and how to
interpret the test and all that so It
ultimately boils down to your frame of
reference and if you don't get your
frame of reference right the world will
be so warped you will not be able to
predict the outcome of your behaviors
most people end up in the mistaken Loop
of my emotions are the the correct which
one needs to Define and they don't my
emotions are the correct response to
this stimulus even though it does not
lead me towards my goals and they spend
their whole life spiraling in emotion
and that's why they're never able to get
out of it and and begin to polish the
lens in a way that actually gives them
um something useful and what you're
saying is none of that matters
all that matters is whether they do the
thing that's going to yield the outcome
or not I think it it just I think just
saves a lot of time and a lot of because
when we try to name these emotions like
you know what am I feeling I'm kind of
it's like this whole conversation not
this but like that self conversation
it's like what does that accomplish
until you then decide to do something in
the real world like nothing matters and
from a from an outcome perspective but
I'll just share something with the
audience because I have a my my first
really big viral video was me just
talking about like what how you scale
companies and I first thing I talk about
is scaling the entrepreneur um I have
four frames that I go through in the in
the video and I used to believe that uh
entrepreneurs get limited by skills with
this is this is what I used to believe
which is skills uh character traits and
beliefs you can reboot your life your
health even your career anything you
want all you need is discipline I can
teach you the tactics that I learned
while growing a billion dooll business
that will allow you to see your goals
through whether you want better health
stronger relationships a more successful
career any of that is possible with the
mindset and business business programs
in Impact Theory University join the
thousands of students who have already
accomplished amazing things tap now for
a free trial and get started
today those are that's what I used to
say I now believe that character traits
are another way of saying when this
happens they do this which is trainable
which makes it a skill and then beliefs
are when they are presented with this
information they then make this decision
which is yet again another thing that
can be trained because if you can learn
it then it's a skill which means it just
comes down as I see the world it just
comes down to skills and just because
it's harder to Define uh Charisma
because it might be 20 things because we
have a term that buckets 50 behaviors or
whatever it is just because it's harder
to describe doesn't make it not a
skill and that's why like the soft stuff
in business like we probably agree that
the Soft Stuff matters a ton in building
a big company culture right McKenzie did
a big study on this playist s said a lot
more than I do cuz she's on on the
people side um but uh in a normal
business two out of three strategies
fail like new initiatives fail in
businesses where they have the soft
stuff down one out of three strategies
fail so two out of three succeed so you
get twice the percentage likelihood of
success on big strategic initiatives
youever guess
why why is Bey is beyond me I that that
was just that was the yeah I don't get
into yeah I don't get into because is
right this is that yeah Dr cashew is my
my closest friend like a brother he
jokes about he he obsesses about why
things work I just care that it
works um and so um anyways to to Circle
back on this is that people consider
like leadership to be like a foooo or
like communication skills is like soft
stuff right sales metric you know like
we have all these metric driven things
versus this and it's just because it's
harder to measure doesn't make it less
important and that was that was a big
realization for me is that it was just
because it was harder for me to measure
but it doesn't make it less important
and so these skills that we're talking
about um we try to find ways to measure
them by saying when I'm when somebody
walks like I'll give you an example with
our video team um we realized that we
have much better direct camera work for
our content if because we were we were
like man we have this one guy on our
team he's so good to film with and some
of the other guys are just like not as
good I'm not like as amped about it like
why is that so we could control the
things that we're going to walk into the
into the video session with like okay am
I did I sleep well did I you know all
that stuff if that's controlled and I
still change then it means there's
something in the environment and so we
then observed actually to be fair we
asked the the Superstar to observe what
are the things you're doing and so we
noticed that while he's while he's
filming he's like yeah he's like yes
this is awesome and so we said write
that down and then what else did you do
it's like oh I uh I write down questions
while you're talking while I'm so he had
to be able to multitask so he had to Bob
his head while we're talking and write
down follow-up questions for what we
were saying and so then all of a sudden
it became this continuous flow of
Consciousness with literally constant
reinforcement while we were filming
visually mhm and so then we gave that
sop to the other people on the team and
all of a sudden filming with them was
way better and so people like he's just
got a great Vibe it just means that we
don't know how to describe all the
little behaviors that that person does
and and say when I start talking Nodge
your
head real right and when when there's
something that you don't understand
write it down ask me because I mean
somebody else doesn't understand it too
and it makes for great content oh right
and so we had this big list and then now
we
operationalized what it's like or what
what you what behaviors you have to do
to become somebody who's good behind the
camera which means it's a skill that can
be learned like Charisma like patience
like confidence like whatever and so um
boiling it down that way has just
demystified the world for me and just
made it a lot easier to navigate because
I don't have to spend 90% of my time
trying to figure out why I'm doing
whatever I'm doing all I care about is
whether I do what I need to do to get
the outcome and if I do the thing and I
don't get the outcome that means there's
another variable that I haven't
controlled or I don't
understand and if you know in the words
of BF Skinner um if many variables are
present many variables must be
studied so sometimes we want to
oversimplify but like there might be 10
qes in the environment that create a
banger session but if we have nine is it
better than the last one that had three
probably and so then we just make
progress in that way
okay so this is your superpower this is
the thing that dude I just look at you
in awe it's it's really really
incredible what you do and I am so
grateful to live on the timeline where
the internet exists and someone like you
with this insane ability comes out and
just creates all this content um you
know I am as obsessed with learning as
you are and so um yeah it's just in
incredible and to never stop learning is
is the great gift of being a human Okay
so the thing that I think that you're
just unreasonably good at is taking a
very complex problem that maybe I'm
spending too much time and the why is
this happening and you're just skipping
past that and you're going okay I'm
going to break it down into these do
this when this happens do this when that
happens do that um I'm going to try to
get to the physics of business through a
weird question but keep in mind for
anybody watching that's that doesn't
know my story I I've been in the world
of Entrepreneurship for over 20 years
I've had some pretty incredible success
so this is a
this is a well-educated question from
I've been in this for a long time so
it's going to seem like a weird angle to
attack it this is for the audience more
than you um hang with me because if we
really can dissect this I think it will
help people understand the magic thing
that you do you rewrote your book
completely four
times something happened when you read
it the first time the first time that
you realized I have to start over
completely yeah that thing whatever that
was I promise you I have the chills just
thinking about it that is the thing that
makes you good at business and so I need
to understand what abstract use the book
as an example but I I want people to
understand this is an abstracted version
of something very important which is you
were able you did a thing yeah I'm
guessing you had to do the thing in
order to find the part that wasn't right
but you were able to then identify that
part reconceptualize get more
intelligent as you did it again it's
what I call the physics of PR but like
what your ability to learn and break
into constituent Parts is is the thing
certainly I want to learn from so when
you
ReRe what you first wrote what clicked
do you
remember well I got feedback so I sent
the first which was really the first
draft I ended up sending to people was
v9 um of the book had you Rewritten it
all over how many times have you
Rewritten that was like I had gone
through I mean I start back at the top I
re-edit everything again start back at
the top without feedback correct that's
the one I want to know about okay the
first time you read through the book
you're like H I have to reconceive of
the whole approach yeah what happened in
that moment uh it wasn't clear or wasn't
simple enough that's that's it like and
um I like to use this example because it
might make sense for a lot of the
audience if I were to
say edit a six assume you know how to
edit videos just for the the Simplicity
if I said go edit this
video someone might edit it and I said
get you know edit this video in 30
minutes and they edit the short clip and
they give it back to me and I say okay
if I give you two hours what else would
you do and they're like oh I might do
this and I might do this I might do this
I'm like okay go do that and come back
they come back and I'm like okay if I
give you 2 weeks for this 30 second clip
what else would you do like I might re
in the entire thing and actually lay it
out in this way it would take way more
time but like I think it would actually
still be better it's like cool do that
and they come back and then when there's
no more loose where I'm like what else
could you do to make this better at that
point to me the work is done I have
exhausted my level of skill and
understanding like I can't make the
leads book better at current now I'll
bet you in a year I'll think of some
things that I could have used to make it
better but at present moment there's
nothing that I can think that I would
either cut or add in in or break down or
add a visual for uh or lower the reading
level on uh to make sure that everyone
would understand it and so whenever I
have those like it's like a hangnail you
know what I mean it's like this little
Splinter where I'm like this could be
better does it start with a feeling or
with a
fact
um it's a good question
uh I don't know I think I something and
I think that wasn't as clear as it was
in my it's not as clear reading it as it
is in my head so what's the discrepancy
like this term is confusing or this
phrase doesn't make sense or I need to
break this into a paragraph or whatever
it is um and honestly it's just doing
that like it took me it's funny I had
this this cover letter that I was going
to include in every book um and it was
one page and I think I put uh 25 hours
into the one page um and it's it's
interesting because people hear that
they're like that's crazy like to me 25
hours doesn't count as one unit of work
yet um thinking hundreds dude you got it
yeah 100% um and so I ended up actually
not using the cover letter which is even
more ironic um but when my team saw how
many iterations went through it I was
like every single person will read this
part now chap you know the last chapter
in the book maybe it's 20% or maybe it's
13% or whatever it is we'll get to the
last chapter but the first page every
single person who reads the entire book
will read that page every person who
reads half the book will read that page
every person who reads only the first
chapter will read that page and so it's
like if anything I should put more time
into that but I approached just about
every page of the book that way it was
just that my team was able to see it on
one page publicly and so that's we we
wrote my editor I Dr cashy um wrote the
book because we wanted it to be around
in 100 years and so that was the frame
was like it has to be it has to work now
and the easiest way to know if it's
going to work in 100 years is does it
work 100 years
ago could someone 100 years ago read
this book and it still helped them
advertise better could someone read this
book 100 years ago and help them make an
offer that more people say yes to if the
answer is yes then we pass that limit
test and that's actually really hard
it's a very simple sentence say very
hard to do especially when you're
talking about media content platforms
like all of these different things um
and so I think it's having an
exceptionally High bar for what you what
you want to do and have been rewarded in
the past like if this had been my first
book it wouldn't have been as good but
offers was my first book and I wrote
offers in one fifth of the time as it
took me to right
leads because you didn't hold yourself
to as high of a standard because you
knew what better looked like I'd never
been rewarded for writing a book
before and so once I was rewarded the
amount of time I'm willing to put
towards something to get rewarded again
extends so it's like intermittent
reinforcement from a behavior like
that's how you get addicted to the slot
machine ma whatever it's like you reward
the first time immediately the next time
you reward in 30 seconds the next time
humans have a have a longer attribution
than dogs do just for context um but you
can continue to extend reinforcement
until eventually you can eliminate it
and and the behavior will
persist which is kind of cool talk to me
about leverage I think that's an
important part of this puzzle so there's
a couple moments in your story around
leverage um one is is the guy that told
you hey you shouldn't be in the gym
business you should be teaching people
how to do this uh and then the other
moment at least for me on the outside um
was when you realized I'm not going to
help these guys launch their businesses
so I'm going to sell them the course
that I put together
um what's the what is leverage why does
it matter and how do people get some
okay so first off just for the just for
the audience um it was much closer to a
franchise than a course uh so it was it
was a licensing model so we had it was
more it was closer to licensing plus
Services than it was a course just
because it would just do we don't even
sell courses so like I think that that's
because there's a lot of people in that
space that follow my stuff and so they
make that assumption um which is fine
and I only set the record straight for
for clarities um beyond that um leverage
as we Define it is the difference
between what you put in and what you get
out and so if I
uh and it's volume times leverage equals
output so it's how many many times you
do something times how much you get for
each time you do it equals output so if
I do a 100 sales calls and I have no
skill then I will get fewer scale fewer
sales than somebody who does the same
100 sales calls and has much higher
skill so skills create leverage you get
more for what you put in at a simple at
a at a at a basic level um but it works
with anything so if you're trying to
invest it's like if I can invest a
smaller amount of money and get a bigger
return than I have more leverage right
the reason debt is considered Leverage
is because you can put 20 % of the cash
in and get 80% as a loan and you buy a
building five times bigger than you
normally could so you get more for what
you put in um and
so there are degrees of Leverage and
this is wholeheartedly taken from nval
um and I'll probably have to think more
about it because I haven't written the
book on Leverage yet so I'm borrowing um
but I I remember as the four C's he has
different words for it but you've got
collaboration Capital code and content
those are the four seas of Leverage um
like we make this video right now we
make this podcast and we put x amount of
effort in but we get unlimited upside on
it many millions of people can see it or
one person can see it but we get more
for what we put in the better and better
we get at this uh code you can write you
can write an app one time and then
unlimited amount of people can use the
code or use the app uh
collaboration is I say okay I will now
teach 20 guys to sell and I will get 10
times the output that I had if I were
selling and so I might not take any
sales calls but make more sales than
anybody else does because I have more
leverage um and so a big you know
through line line of the leads book is
there's the core four which is the first
four things that I explain to you 101
one to many uh strangers and friends or
people know you people who don't and
then the other four which are the four
lead Getters people who let other people
know on your behalf which by their very
nature have more leverage because you
don't have to do it so if you can get
your customers to tell other customers
about your stuff using the core four
because they also have to use that like
a customer can only tell a customer by
telling somebody through warm Outreach
posting content about it running an ad
unlikely and doing cold Outreach also
unlikely but they could do one of those
four things and that's complete that
completes the advertising cycle so you
do something to get a lead getter who
then does the core 4 and around and
around you go so I could also make ads
to get Affiliates who then run ads to
get customers for me but if I uh go and
SP let's say I spend all my time and I
get 10 sales a month um of customers
right and let's say each customer is
worth $1,000 uh to me great I'm going to
cap at $10,000 a month
if I use the same effort of marketing
and sales and I sell 10 Affiliates so
still still same number of conversations
same number of humans but I sell 10
Affiliates per month and then those
Affiliates each month after that get me
one customer each well then the first
month I'll get $10,000 because each one
of those guys got me a customer but then
I'm still going to work and get another
10 Affiliates next month so then next
month I'm going to have last month's 10
plus this month's 10 so now I'll have 20
new customers and I do it again I have
30 new customers and so I am using the
same amount of work to get more
customers than I if I I directly went
through it and so that is that is a
basic example of how leverage Works uh
within the context of advertising to get
customers in a business so what is
the what is the way that you think about
um constructing a a business or the way
that you're going to structure something
so when I first asked that question
about leverage you you said something
really interesting which was hey I just
want to point out to everybody that that
was a licensing model it meant something
to you to make a a distinction there
which I have a feeling there's there's a
little bit of hormos sauce in there that
we would all benefit from understanding
what what drove that
decision why does that matter to you you
mean saying that structuring the
business to be so um this this is
exactly what went through my head when
you said that was oh like he
actually had a more keen moment of
understanding then has come across at
least to me and I've heard you tell that
story multiple times um and I've heard
you say oh it was a licensing thing but
it never I don't know it never landed
for me but this time I realize it really
meant something to you um so there was a
keen insight there what what was the
Keen Insight why why do it as a licensed
model instead of just saying ah this is
the course go use
it if we
added assistance and services where we
would maybe run the ads for them and we
would train their sales teams which we
do um and we would give them the ads to
run for their local area and we would
help them build the landing pages to
attract customers and we would uh give
them the white label you know meal plans
grocery list food preparation you know
instructions for their clients if we do
all of those things then we would
increase the likelihood that they would
succeed and make more money and I can
charge based on the a fraction of the
value that I can produce for the
majority of my customers and so if the
average so right now Jim launch till
Company still continues to grow um the
average uh Jim Lord which is what we
call the community Jim Lord Lord yeah
lording um the average gym Lord uh adds
$200,000 I want to say shoot I have to
know the metric a lot yeah adds this is
it there we go uh adds $200,000 a year
um to their business
and 100,000 of that's profit there there
that's what the math is so the average
gym Lord adds $100,000 year in profit I
think it's a little bit more like8
whatever and we can charge a percentage
of the increased net profit that we are
help we were able to help them generate
on average and now we have to usually
charge a
significant uh discount on that because
half the people are going to be below
the average so for the people who are
for for half them it's an even crazier
deal you know they they they pay for the
license model they don't have to spend
money to test ads we would say we
already spent 50 Grand in 20 markets
these are the winning ads this month and
they could just run them through the
system and then just collect the money
on the other side and so they get the
speed and they don't have to have they
don't have to taste the test you know
the the the failed ad test because we
would incur that cost but we were able
to distribute that cost at scale so no
individual gym owner could spend $50,000
to test ads in all these different
markets we could and then give it to a
th000
gems and so and again from a media
perspective uh leverage we could do that
one time and a thousand gyms can do it
at no incremental cost to us and so is a
very profitable business it still is a
very profitable business all right when
you had that moment and I'm sure people
know this part of your story you had the
moment where you're desperate
you've lost everything twice you're
scrambling to make money and you tell
the guy I'm just going to give him a
number that's high so that he doesn't
bother me with it uh six grand he's like
yes had you already thought of it as a
license model or you do those first like
what 150 Grand that you made uh with the
seven people or something I forget the
exact details of the story it was like
seven people that You' promised to do
their gym and instead you sell them this
model yeah had you already thought of it
in that moment as a licensed play I had
um I just I think honestly a lot of a
lot of the the words around like what we
did came from outside sources because
people saw how quickly we grew and we
were in a world that was direct response
marketing and so me many people in that
world sell courses so they use the words
that they know how to describe something
um but it was much closer and arguably
like significantly more support than
what a franchise does for a franchisee
and that's how we structured I wanted to
be I wanted to provide more service make
them more money for a lower fee than a
franchise would and potentially this is
smarter and um I'm really my goal in
this part of the interview is to help
people map the models that you have
running in your head that allow you to
do the things that you do um because
even from my perspective it's very
unique it's very rare you just have a a
real ability to break things down to
what I'll call the essence of the thing
um the anybody listening I will tell you
right now the biggest mistake you're
going to make is what I'll call a
category error people fail to understand
what the true essence of the thing is um
which I am as guilty of as anybody so I
don't put myself um outside of this but
have spent a lot of time trying to
understand my own failings and
shortcomings um so as I'm hearing you
tell the story I'm thinking okay one to
identify the license thing is very
shrewd and so trying to map how you
conceptualize the thing feels tied to me
to the the same idea of um understanding
that an individual gym cannot afford to
do the market testing that you can
afford to do and therefore if you do it
you now have a moat you have leverage
you have a service that you can sell
that is understanding the true nature of
the Beast yeah do you ever stop and
model the N the nature of this thing is
and then you break into constituent
Parts what does that process look like
and is it Universal or is it nail salon
nature of uh gy nature of yeah um I I
boil it down to something probably
hilariously simple uh which is number of
potential units sold times gross
profit that that's and then and then the
you know the tertiary piece is what
upfront or Capital Investments required
to be a that would enable that right
like if I had if I had to go buy a
machine that could manufacture widgets
that have you know phenomenal margins
because the value that people get from
it is you know $10 and I can make them
for 10 cents then that's a you know
great business but if I can only sell it
to you know one town in Alaska because
it's a really unique fishing tool that
only works in their environment uh
there's elements of that that would make
it an attractive business but there's
elements that won't so it's like it'd
probably be a very small very profitable
business that could not scale um nothing
wrong with that there's definitely huge
place in the economy for things like
that um but when I'm looking at
opportunities that's what I would that
is the simplest way um of looking at for
me is number potential units sold uh
gross profit per unit and then what I'll
call competitive Dynamics as the as the
third part which is like if you look at
you know cell phones it's like what does
it cost them to add another cell phone
to this massive Network probably not a
lot is it really sticky yes do people
stay and pay for a long time yes okay so
there's probably a lot of gross profit
to be made there um and how many people
need you know cell phone service a lot
right it's like okay so that might be
really attractive but the competitive
Dynamics is that I would have to have I
don't know a billion dollars or I'd have
to partner with somebody that would
allow me to White Label so this is when
you get in the competitive dynamics of
like okay well is there is there value
in creating a brand and wrapping on top
of an existing solution and say hey I
might be better at marketing and sales
than you and you already have the
infrastructure to deliver cell phone
services to people Nationwide or maybe
just in this region um and I will do
what I'm good at and you deliver on the
back end and we structure some sort of
deal where you know the more volume I
get the more of the economics I get to
you know participate in so those are
kind of the the big three variables that
I look at if I'm just trying to analyze
a business uh in terms of opportunity
and the and the big piece that I think a
lot of folks will miss out on is when I
say uh gross profit um I'm talking
lifetime gross profit and so that's
where like I have less care about
recurring versus not recurring um you
know if from a and this gets into the
push and pool of selling a business or
not selling a business but you know if a
if a company has something that's super
recurring let's say it's a service like
accounting or bookkeeping and let's say
there's really high you know gross
profits on that because we've aut made
it a ton and we've got some uh offshore
workers doing you know the remainder of
it we have really amazing margins and
it's really sticky um that could be a
super high gross profit business but at
the same time if you're Elon Musk and
you sell everyone a Tesla and even if
everyone buys one Tesla that might be
still more gross profit than you know
the bookkeeping services just as a
completely contrasting example um and so
I just look at what is the lifetime
gross profit and some of that might be
better structured for recurring and some
of it might be better structured for a
onetime transaction um and then I know
I'm going into like stuff that probably
bore the audience but if you're looking
at the business as a product then it
then it also becomes you have two
customers you have the customer that
you're selling the product to and then
you have the customer that you're going
to sell a company to um and most
customers who are investors who are
buying companies feel
better buying something that is
recurring in nature uh because then they
feel that the likelihood that they it
will continue to make money in the
future is higher even if the Tam's huge
all that stuff they still feel they
sleep better on it and so you get a
premium for the company um and so that's
that's kind of big picture how we think
through what companies we want to invest
in uh or at least the opportunities that
we could look at and then from a
personal investing perspective is how
much value can we add to that
specifically like I probably wouldn't
take on a wireless cell phone company
likely but if there's a you know a
brick-and-mortar chain of services
that's like Med spas or beauty or you
know health and fit like that's my
wheelhouse like we know how to Crush
those and so it decreases my risk
because I know that even from a value ad
perspective if I can 5x the company
because I know how to how to build those
marketing and sales processes at scale
at the unit level then the likelihood
that I don't get a tremendous return is
really low okay there's two things um
there one sorry solation no no no this
is this is amazing and I I hope people
are taking this as it's intended so in
fact let me uh let me give people a
frame of reference this is the way that
you should be thinking about what we're
talking about right now which is um all
of these things abstract so that you can
think through novel problems big data
sets with a few filters so you can make
quick decisions on massive amounts of
data what do you mean by that in terms
of what we're talking about right now so
if I if I so if I so I get every day on
my phone I'll have a list of all the
companies that have applied at
acquisition. comom and they'll be ranked
in terms of like this one looks the most
interesting these ones are less
interesting and here's why we didn't
think they were interesting for my team
and so I will basically Go pass pass
pass pass pass pass pass second call and
ask these things and then they'll go and
do that um for me to be able to quickly
make the decision because otherwise I
would I would be inundated with the
amount of data that I have to take in I
have to have filters that are faster
just LTV toac ratio like I feel like you
can boil down most businesses to what
does it cost you to get a customer what
do you make from that customer over the
lifetime period that's it now Tam is you
know how many of those customers can you
sell sure but like if I just had if I
could only look at one metric in a
business that's what I would look at
okay so most of the entrepreneurs that
are listening to this or people that
want to be an entrepreneur no I think
they'll get that but there that's not
where they're going to be at in their
Journey that's certainly a more advanced
thing um so the part that I want to
bring you back to is they're going to
they're they're going to be thinking
through how do I start a business what
business do I start um how do I identify
the opportunity and so there's a couple
things that you were just going through
that I think are really relevant one of
them is how you identify the business
model so um looking at a total
addressable Market uh lifetime value of
the customer versus what it costs you to
get them all 100% they will have to
figure that out or they're going to end
up doing something dumb chasing a small
opportunity
whatever um but the all of those metrics
will change based on the decision that
they make around what business model to
pursue so just by way of what a business
model is uh selling courses that's one
business model licensing a business is
another business model so people saying
even when they try to retell your story
they are confusing the two so uh but
very different when it comes to
execution there's no recurring course
model those just wild so um how do you
process through if if you were starting
so not as when you're looking to acquire
how do you process through what is the
right business model to
pursue so this is pulled from my $100
million offers book which goes the point
of that book was to answer the question
what do I sell and I think that a lot of
people especially when you're starting
out you're like I need a business plan I
need a I don't think any business I've
had has had a business plan as an aside
um it's just what are we going to sell
and how are we going to get customers
and then from there we build everything
around it and so um isn't that a
business
plan I have two things on my
plan I mean I've seen like 16 page
business plans I'm like okay all these
numbers are made up it doesn't matter
like do you know how to get customers um
and so
picking the Avatar which is the customer
that you want to go after and then
picking the problem that you want to
solve for them and problem you want to
solve is I feel like kind of a trit term
in the in an entrepreneur space um but
you usually want to make their lives
easier in some way uh it's usually going
to track down a status or it's going to
track down a time like those are those
are two huge buckets that that can that
cover a lot of stuff and you know
different people say there's health
wealth and and relationships there's you
know there's a million bigger buckets
that you can try and chunk this stuff
into but if you are starting out so let
me just get you really tactical so we
were just really clouds for a second let
me just get you
tactical number one you can go and set
up all of your Autos Corporation your
LLC and all that stuff online with a few
clicks of a button under 30 minutes so
you do that step one step two you take
those papers to a bank and you get a
bank account step three you hook up a
payment processor to that bank account
which is again a series of clicks that
nowadays are almost automated once you
have those three things you get a
stranger to give you money in exchange
for doing something for them and so I
would categorize businesses as I see
them usually as you either sell products
you sell services so physical products
something like a mug right you sell
Services you do something that they
would otherwise have to do for them you
write software that does something that
a human would do for them but because
you have an aut you have automation with
code uh you can get them to do it or you
create things that entertain people that
they want to have access to and so those
basically function into media again
you've got people products uh code and
and uh and and and content so it
actually breaks out to those four types
of businesses and I think that most
people if you have no like let's say you
aren't a software developer right and
you want to start a business uh the
easiest ones to start are
either the easiest one to start is a
service business because it only
requires your time and you to learn a
skill that other people can also learn
but some people just might not want to
do it and that is all you need to solve
and I remember like when I was in
college and I I spoke at uh some
universities for um for entrepreneurship
and everyone there is always like here's
my business idea right and it's always
like weird ggs widgets and gizmos and
like these these never-before seen
businesses and most of those will fail
whereas like if you want to make your
first business and the big fallacy is
that the first is going to be the
forever business which it won't most
entrepreneurs have many businesses over
their career and each business you learn
elements that help you build a bigger
and better business the next time and
so you start with something that people
already buy so it's like you can look
what do people already buy they already
buy lawn care services they could mow
their lawn they just choose not to they
could optimize their website for SEO
they just choose not to they could run
their own ads they just choose not to
they could edit their own videos they
just choose not to you could set up
email you know autoresponders for people
but they choose not to you could set up
voicemails for businesses and and
transcribe it and send it to them
because for those people it saves them
time and so you can pick any problem you
want that someone already does or
already purchases look at the solutions
and you can literally just do it the
same way and have a way to get customers
that's it like that's that's it you just
reach out to people that you know
one-on-one you reach out to strangers
one-onone you make content about the
problem and you run ads there's the only
four things that you can do to let other
people know about your stuff so once you
decide what you have to sell you then
use the core 4 one of them pick and then
you let people know about it until
eventually someone says yeah I'd be
interested in you solving that problem
for me and that's how you make your
first do all right Focus becomes the
problem people end up getting really
scattered they want to try a bunch of
different things and see what sticks um
how how do you make Focus work for you
and not against you feel like Focus can
only work for you um I guess lack of
focus is the nightmare scenario most
people spend their time in yeah I think
it's um so I love showing this visual uh
and maybe we can grab it at post for
this but if you imagine a curve right
where you go uh you start here a little
bit above the line at uninformed
optimism is that you see your buddies
doing Drop Shipping and he's making
money and so you're like wow this must
be amazing I will do that too so then
you leave your current opportunity to do
or maybe you start you start doing that
then you move to stage two so you go
over the hump of excitement and then you
go to informed pessimism now you're
below the line then you're like wow okay
you have there's a lot of other stuff
that's really competitive I don't have a
brand it's it's hard to differentiate
you know the cost of goods is actually
continuing to rise and so are ad costs
and you start realizing the other things
that you didn't know before so you have
a slightly more realistic view of the
opportunity then you go to stage three
which is the value of Despair where
you're like nothing's working I don't
know what I'm doing and this point is
where everyone then jumps to uninformed
optimism in the next opportunity and
they repeat repeat one two 3 1 2 3 1 2 3
until they're eventually able to learn
that they just need to stomach because
every single business has and when
the grass is green on the other side
it's because there's lots of manure
there right same as yours and then you
go up to
informed optimism and then you hit
achievement and so those are the five
stages that I see most entrepreneurs
going through and they continue to cycle
the first three over and over again
until they learn the lesson so this is a
skill focus is a skill I can train
someone to do it um if you're in the
same environment and you're at this
point where you're not sure what to do
but other people have succeeded at this
thing and then you think something else
is easier you find out about that is a
stimulus that we can then say here's the
red flash card are you going to duck or
are you going to get slapped and
realistically most people just need to
keep getting slapped until eventually
they realize that nothing is going to be
easy and they have to go through the
period of not knowing what they're doing
because that's like that in essence is
what entrepreneurship feels like is
uncertainty of whether or not all of the
time that you've put in is actually
going to work out and you have to get
really comfortable with that is that you
won't know because if you were to be
guaranteed the outcome that you're going
to get what you want you wouldn't want
to do it to begin with because everyone
would already be doing it because it's
already guaranteed which means the
opportunity is gone so the opportunity
is in the uncertainty and so as long as
you can Embrace that which is why you
have to have some tolerance for risk as
an entrepreneur because you have to pay
down your tax of ignorance which we all
have to pay down every single day for
not knowing the things we should know um
and the only way you do you pay down
that tax is that you test and you
iterate and so you just want to get as
many NOS out of the way as many failures
out of the way because you're not
actually failing you made progress it
wasn't yes or no did it work or not it's
how well did it work and I think if you
can make even that frame shift you're
like okay well I'm reaching out to
people they're responding but I'm not
getting them on the phone okay well then
you have a scripting issue okay then you
get them on the phone okay well they're
not buying okay well then it might be an
offer issue it still might be a sales
issue depends on why they're not buying
if they're saying you know it's price
it's like you might be mispriced but you
also might just be really terrible at
explaining the value and so you just
continue to work your way down until
eventually someone's like yeah that
sounds good and they read you their
credit card over the phone and you're
like holy this is actually
happening and you make your first dollar
and I promise you have to make your
first dollar the second one comes a 100
times faster than the first one
did if there are many variables present
many variables must be tested must be
stud must be studied yeah uh that is
certainly uh marketing summed up yeah
there no doubt uh that people are going
to have a hard time figuring that out um
I want to better understand you just did
a book launch for um your most recent
book and it I mean you said set records
it was Unreal I mean really like blew
people's minds set a standard in in the
world of online marketing um what was it
about that that or what did you
demonstrate in the way that you did that
that other people don't understand so
with each book I wanted to demonstrate
the concept of the book with the book
itself and so offers when I released it
was uh $1.99 I've now since made it free
um but it was a $1.99 on Kindle it had a
course that went with it that many
people charge $5,000 or $10,000 for um
and it was the sub headline of the book
and offer so good people feel stupid
saying no and so I actually launched
that book with a single post when I had
10,000 followers on Instagram that's it
and every month after the first month it
continued to sell more and more copies
into the state continues to sell more
copies every month and that is based on
the offer being exceptional and people
sharing it because they got tremendous
value relative to what they paid that
was the that is the entire concept of
the book the the core framework of that
book is is called the the value equation
um which I won't get into but that is
basically people say the word value but
how do you operationalize value right
and so that book is about
operationalizing value making the thing
that you currently sell more valuable in
the perception of the customer so
they're willing to trade more of their
money for
it the leads book had an entirely
different core concept which was the
core 4 and the four lead Getters and
that is the advertising cycle and so
it's how do you let other people know
about your stuff and so the sub headline
of that book was how to get strangers to
want to buy your stuff now to be fair
it's not it's not how to get strangers
to buy your stuff because that's sales
but how to get them to want to buy your
stuff is advertising and so this book
sits literally just between they don't
know who you are and they show interest
and that's where the book ends you get
lots of leads saying I'm interested I'd
like to find out more about your stuff
and that's all I could fit in one book
to make it actually effective and
operational for most people and so since
the concept of the book was to advertise
and to get lots of leads then I thought
it would be appropriate to advertise and
get lots of leads and I used every
method in the book all eight for the
book launch even though I could just
have made a post on my you know across
all my social medias and probably sold
plenty of books just doing that but I
wanted to show that this stuff works
today and it will work in 100 years and
it worked 100 years ago and so I went
through I had some people that I reached
out to one-on one purposely just to
check the box I reached out to some cold
people so I could do podcasts I uh ran
ads for it even though I didn't need to
run ads we still got 137,000 people from
ads uh we had Affiliates we got 104,000
people there from Affiliates uh we had
27,000 Affiliates promote the book um we
had customer referrals people sent their
friends there so I had an incentive that
if you just get 10 people to come you'll
get two bonus chapters that aren't
released with the book uh Affiliates uh
which is the the another lead getter
right I mentioned it earlier but uh
Affiliates uh we got them uh to to
promote the book we got agencies who
actually were the ones who ran the ads
for us because we don't run ads at
holdco because we don't transact um and
then uh employees which is the fourth
type of lead getter which is they do the
core 4 on your behalf for you so we had
mosy media which is our internal content
team um made all the content and the ads
for that matter uh for the event and the
book itself and so I actually only did
uh 17 long uh 17 short form pieces of
content and six long form pieces of
content and then that got cut into uh
143 posts that we did over six weeks uh
on top of the 2200 posts that we were
making anyways uh over that same period
of time and so I used all the methods in
the book to demonstrate to give proof
that the book works and so you know the
next book I'll try and continue that
meta theme of I have Concepts in this
book and I will show you that they work
because I will use them to Market and
promote the
book The thing that I really want to
make sure that people understand and if
you think I'm crazy definitely let me
know but I doubt you will um the reason
that all that worked so well isn't what
you did at the time it's what you did
for the years leading up to that moment
um building brand uh building awareness
generating massive amounts of Goodwill
um is that like what amount of
magnification did the whatever 4ish
years leading up to the launch of that
book play in the the launch's success it
was
everything I mean it was everything now
that being said you could still
absolutely use like you can still use
warm Outreach you can still use cold
Outreach you can still like and one of
the concepts in the book is making
content and I talk about how I structure
content how we pick topics how we pick
headlines how we format it how we do all
those things so that people can use that
and make content for themselves um but
usually the longer you can wait um
before making any ask and to be fair the
I gave the book for free and if if you
wanted to buy a physical copy you could
that was the whole that was let me spoil
the surprise of the launch was that I
gave everything away for free and said
if they want to buy a physical cop you
could
um I'm I can't wait to write the book on
brand because I have a lot of thoughts
on it and I can't wait to have really
clearly crystallized like unre you know
beyond reproach ideas about brand um but
I'll give you a working teaser for for
how it works but brand is basically
teaching it's associating something
people know with something they don't
know and we associate these things
enough that eventually I can remove this
and then you'll associate water with my
hand
and so if I do that enough times and I
have you know water and you know coffee
and whatever then you might generalize
and say the hand is a beverage thing
right and I like thinking about it that
way because what do I want people to
associate me with I want people to
associate me with tremendous value I
want people to associate me with
long-term Goodwill I want them to
associate me with money right so every
book is $100 million something offers
$100 million leads um and so I want them
to associate me with investing which is
what a lot of the stories that I talk
about our companies that we've invested
in that we owned and scaled or exited
and so I we do those things so that when
you have a brand a brand is put on
something to direct someone's Behavior
it is a it's a physical sign so if you
look at the you know original the
origins of the word brand it was a brand
you put it on a cow right and so if you
have a cow that doesn't have a brand and
a cow that does have a brand you will
behave differently with a cow that has a
brand on it you're not going to go
capture it you're not going to go kill
it you might return it to its nebor its
neighbor whatever like the brand changes
your behavior and so brands have at
least as far as I'm concerned like these
you know I haven't written the book yet
but um have kind of two two continuums
you have the strength of the brand and
then you have the positive or negative
uh inclination towards it so away or
towards so like Nazis for example have a
very strong brand away for most people
now to be fair there's also a subset of
people who are super strong towards
there's a subset of people some kind of
way right it changes their behavior it
does right and then and then the
inclination says towards her away to
some degree um you know Donald Trump has
a strong brand right for many people for
for a percentage of the population it's
it's uh negative and for a percentage of
the population it's it's positive right
and so when we think about brands that
way it's been helpful for me because you
really answer the question who and what
do I want to associate myself with and
then by doing that eventually your logo
and your identity will then have
a set of things that people associate
with which then will change their
behavior which is why I think brands are
the most valuable things that you can
build because it really becomes a way to
influence the behavior of the masses at
scale and so if every single person
recognizes the Nike Swoosh and I can
take a water bottle and then put a Nike
Swoosh on it and triple how much I can
charge for it and still get more people
to buy it then you can measure the
strength of the brand by the difference
in price between the Comm monetized
version of it and the Branded version of
it and that translates into tremendous
profits from a from a capitalistic
perspective and so if you're trying to
build something really valuable then you
make many associations that are positive
for specific audience because uh I think
Black Rifle coffee right they're kind of
like politically charged is right so
Black Rifle coffee is going to be really
positive for people who are probably
right leaning uh in terms of their
associations with that brand it'll
probably be kind of negative for the the
people more left landing and that's okay
because they're like we can sell to half
the population whatever and so I'm I'm
kind of agnostic to the direction of it
obviously na is negative on that but
like for for most of these things I'm
just looking at what is what is the
percentage likelihood that people will
adhere or comply with the requests that
the brand makes of them buy my thing go
to this thing whatever and so that is
the that's why you can have somebody who
has a huge brand in terms of uh the
amount of people who are aware of it but
have very low ability to direct or
change behavior and so you probably I'm
sure you know this better than anyone
with Quest you guys were one of the
first ones getting into the influencer
space like way back way back when the
term influencer was a new term um and
you probably saw some people with
million person accounts and they
couldn't drive any sales and then you
saw somebody with 15,000 and crushed it
because they had a stronger brand for a
narrower audience even if it was just
like uh a girl cop who has an audience
of all girl cops they might have lots of
positive associations with that person
and then be more likely to you know
comply with whatever request they have
and so I know this is a branding
discussion um but the reason that I
think many people wanted to come to the
event is because they were rewarded in
the past for consuming content for
reading my last book and so they felt
like the likelihood that I was going to
reward them again at this event would be
high and I tried to like I'll tell you a
secret I try to make many promises and
keep all of them and the more times you
can make promises and keep promises the
higher the likelihood people will
ascribe to you for being somebody who is
predictable in a good way if he said
this will happen this is what's going to
happen if he said it's going to be worth
it it's going to be worth it and so that
was woven in for the 24 months from the
time I released offers to the time we
did leads was trying to actively build
up the Goodwill so that um we could set
records and do something really cool and
demonstrate the concepts in the book in
the real world so that people could know
that it would work for them too h no man
it's incredible it's breathtaking um
what you guys were able to do what was
the record that you broke so the
Guinness Book World Records for a
business virtual conference live was
21,000 for business conference so you
absolutely demolished yeah that which is
really cool that's awesome I will say
this as an aside uh I think the the the
the Fanfare about the launch will
decrease soonish and I think that the
actual contents of the book is going to
be the thing that that can that that is
that machine will start spitting because
inside of the book referrals is always
the one that I always try and drive the
most in any business I have because it's
the lowest cost to a car customers not
that it's a customer acquisition thing
for me but um or sorry not a
money-making thing for me books are not
the best way to make money just throw
that out there um but it can create a
viral effect so that you can get more
customers every month without paying a
cost to acquire and so the mission of
acquisition. comom is to make real
business education accessible for
everyone and so in order to do that I
can't do it alone and so that is why I
have to have other people help me if you
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