If you are not good at predicting what is going to happen next, life will be hard for you.
And the better you get at predicting what's going to happen next, the more you will get what you want.
And so then, being able to predict what's going to happen requires an accurate framework of how reality works.
And I think that that's where you know, if you've lost everything and then you can rebuild it again, it's because you accurately view reality and it wasn't luck.
You can redo it again.
And so for me, I think a big part of it was like.
I find like most people don't know what they're saying most of the time.
Like the vast majority, of people, spend their time regurgitating and reparenting things that they never thought about.
And so I think that the single greatest razor that I have for defining reality more accurately has been removing all sentiment, emotion and quote psychology from the equation and only looking at it from a behaviorist frame of what can I observe?
We put out a lot of content.
Yeah, I do.
And I can't imagine you do all of it.
You have help, I would imagine.
So the reason that I think the brand has been consistent across the board is because I do.
All content that goes out is me.
So basically anything that's written, I wrote, or is a transcription of something I said.
So those are like, if I said it, I'll stand by it.
And so like captions on Instagram are just tweets.
LinkedIn posts are transcriptions and or transcriptions plus tweets or many tweets put together.
But X is still my my like core.
That's like my that's like my home base.
X is where my source of truth, and then everything kind of springs from X.
So you put out two or three or four a day or like.
You probably scroll the comments and you probably get inspiration like oh, I'm seeing a lot of people say this thing.
No, not at all.
So the only tool I use is a tool that allows me to schedule things in the future.
And so I'll have a conversation with you and something will come up and I'll be like oh, that was a pithy thing.
I just said.
And then I'll just put it to whatever my next tweet moment is, and then it'll come out whenever it comes out.
And so that's like my tweet strategy.
And then the team when I do like the live streams or whatever, like the team's behind the camera here.
And, you know, I've got one or two of my guys who's like taking notes.
I'm like, oh, that was a cool thing you said.
And then they'll send it to me afterwards.
And then when I go and make tweets in bulk, which I do like every once in a while, they'll just send me a shitload of quotes that I've said.
And then I'll just, you know, massage the edges and then post it. what percentage of your time per week is dedicated just like content creation so as of right now i do one recording day a week which is like four hours um and then on weekends i spend about two hours on written so six hours ish and when you're sitting down to rice do you ask yourself questions like what's something that i learned today or i don't know no not really um it's it's it no honestly not um i just like i think you chuck does this as well and you do this too you talk in soundbites but you use fake in frameworks i don't think like that at all it does not come naturally to me and whenever i hear you or we have a mutual friend ryan dice yeah and ryan was like he was like make me feel like a jerk he was like you don't think in frameworks like how do you learn something and then think how you're gonna teach it to your team or whatever i'm like I don't know, man.
I'm like a Neanderthal.
I just kind of flip by life sometimes and I don't reflect and think in a framework.
I think frameworks happen when you have to reteach or reuse the same thought process over and over again.
And so, rather than re-deriving the same decision set, you create a framework to give yourself mental shorthand.
And so I think it's just like um, I created the scaling one, like you were at the implementation workshop, like the Mosey six or whatever.
Uh, it's like more metrics, market model money.
And then underneath the model, there's, you know, four offshoots and then finally manpower.
So it's like, these are the six reasons that people get limited in their business.
Right.
And that was because I had to think like, okay, I've done so many Q and a calls.
There has to be, There is a decision tree.
Like.
It might be more complex than I thought it was, but there is a decision tree that I'm going through.
And so just actually crystallizing that.
And so you totally think in frameworks, you just haven't documented them.
That's my two cents.
That's my opinion.
Well, you had this cool like I've been watching your, I think I told you the other day I was watching your concept now on tactics of making money, but on tactics of leadership and management.
And you had this cool thing called the diamond.
Yeah, it's great.
Do you remember what it was?
Yeah.
It was basically for the listener.
It was like, you have an employee who's out doing what you want them to do.
They don't know what you want done.
They don't know how to do it.
And they weren't motivated.
Or they don't know, I think, when they... Yeah, or there's something blocking them.
Yeah.
And when you come up with something like that, is that something that you make up?
Or do you read other books and you steal cool bits of inspiration and you recurse them?
For your so honest truth, i really don't read as much as i probably should.
Um, most almost all my stuff just comes from like me doing it and then saying man, there's got to be an easy way to describe this.
Um, if i happen to come along some sort of you know, if there's some coincidence, i see that as corroboration of an idea.
But yeah no, i really don't consume anyone else's stuff for for, like inspiration, i like i have enough shit going on every day.
I have tons of stuff to talk about.
Um, And so yeah no, the management document was like, all right fundamentally, people don't do stuff for a reason.
I have to figure out what that reason is.
And if there's a way that I can have a framework that I can have for this conversation that makes it less like how do I not attack the person?
Right.
Rather than say, like, you are a lazy piece of shit.
It's like that's, that's unlikely to be productive and also probably not the real cause of why they're not doing things, because most people do prefer to stay employed and also prefer to do a good job.
I think by and large.
And so it's like if we take that to be true and I want them to succeed, and so do they then like what's getting in the way here.
It's like, well, I didn't communicate that I wanted them to do this thing.
OK, well, that's on me.
I didn't tell like I told them, but then they're like, cool, I don't know how to do that.
That's a training issue.
OK, you know, they didn't know there was a deadline associated with it's a win problem.
Right.
And then it's like, OK, well, they knew when to do it.
They knew how to do it.
And then and they knew that I wanted them to do it.
Then it's like, OK, well, then is there something blocking them?
Now, the motivation one of like they're not motivated to is like technically correct, but.
It's the last one that I'll go to because most times people are relatively motivated to do it.
Now, mind you, there's definitely times when that's just not the case.
Right.
Or the how component has a more generalized skill that someone doesn't have.
So I'll say differently, like if, in order to do a role, my position is, like you probably heard, like attitude versus aptitude.
And that used to bug me a lot because I was like, well, that can't always be what it is.
Right.
Because it's really just that there's there's a deficiency in someone's skill set to enter an organization to do a role.
And so we want to hire for the small skill deficiency.
If you're hiring for what people consider low skill labor.
So if you run an Airbnb and need maids or you have a yogurt shop and you need to have people who do clean the counter and like check people out, that's very low skill technically.
But in terms of hiring, you're going to hire for attitude, not aptitude.
And that's just because the amount of skills required to train someone on attitude far outweigh the skills it takes to take somebody who's already friendly, knows how to show up on time, can smile, say hello, makes chitchat, teach them how to use a cash register and clean.
The thing could take like two hours.
Like it's not a lot of training in order to do that role.
And so it doesn't make sense to hire someone for attitude aptitude like I've worked a cash register before, but I am a dick.
It's like well, that's not gonna be very like, I'm gonna have to train you to not be a dick.
It's not worth it.
On the flip side, if you wanna have the number one AI researcher in the world, if that guy's a bit of a dick, then you could probably work with them on being a little bit better at communicating with the team.
You're not going to take the person who was the yogurt store cashier register assuming they're not on the side doing all this stuff and make them the number one AI researcher.
And so it's like we always just should at least in my opinion hire for the person with the small skill deficiency.
And then we have to ask the question as the business owner given that skill deficiency, is it worth us or worth our resources to train them?
And so I take the position that I think every skill is trainable.
It's just, is it worth training?
Like, are there other people I get higher returns on?
In which case, great, I'll use them.
And that, for me, is fundamentally like why I would say that, over my career, the biggest change in terms of my hiring practices is I hire far more for general intelligence now.
It's like, yeah, I want someone who has just significantly higher horsepower.
Higher horsepower, above attitude and above skill set.
Yes and no.
So it's like basically the, the intelligence will allow someone to bridge the skill gap faster, and so it's a return on resources for where they are versus where they need to be, whether it's a quote attitude issue or quote hard skills issue, but i see soft skills and hard skills as just skills, when you know hard skills are easy to easy to define and measure.
Soft skills are just hard to define and measure, but they still are definable and measurable, and so i want somebody who has high intelligence, because i define intelligence as rate of learning, and so if i can get someone who has a high rate of learning versus somebody else, maybe that person starts a little bit behind, but in six months they're going to pass the other person who might have experience, and so again, it all depends on like, what the timeline is.
If i take a toddler, i can get them to be an adult in 18 years and be perfect, but i don't know if i have 18 years to wait, and so you know, that's that's kind of my general rubric.
When, uh when, you're hiring for smart people, how do you figure out their smart, the quality of the questions that they ask?
So if someone said hey, I noticed that you guys have this media brand here and you have this advisory practice here.
Have you considered what's revenue retention around that?
Is there's another vehicle that you guys have considered that isn't in the pipeline right now?
I'd be like wow, that demonstrated that they did a fair amount of research and they were able to take a complex thought between these two things and ask me about it.
So like, That's a great question.
Whereas if someone says like, you know, what's the five year vision of the company?
I don't see that as a bad question.
Um, I just see that as like kind of a generic interview question that someone might ask.
And if that's not already answerable online, which you know the the the pros and cons of our situation, similar to you, is that a lot of my stuff is public.
And so I expect somebody to come in with better than generic questions, because I've already answered generic questions publicly.
If they ask one of the questions and then, um Oh, when they deconstruct a problem that they're solving in terms of what they're thinking with.
So I mean this is to be fair.
This isn't like my invention, but like uh, in the consulting world people do cases for a reason, right.
They want to hear how, like okay, if I need how many.
You know how many ping pong balls fit on a 747 right?
This is a common question.
They would ask in, you know, a college interview, not because they care about the answer.
They care about how you think through getting the answer, because it demonstrates a level of horsepower.
Um And so for us, I would say, a practice that acquisitioncom we use, especially at our higher level, in leadership roles, is we actually, instead of presenting them hypothetical cases, we actually present them with the real cases?
And so, you know, worst case, we get free consulting.
Best case, we get somebody who is capable of implementing that solution that they just came up with.
And so if they can use frameworks that I wasn't aware of, experiences that I'm not aware of, those things will come out in that complex issue that we're dealing with.
But it's also at least like way more interesting of an interview for me, because now like they're solving my problem.
So I'm like way more engaged.
So does that mean that's like the hiring manager or maybe you would have someone at the company has like a generic description of the company and what some of the numbers are?
Maybe they're like big numbers even.
And then each role will have a specific problem that you need help solving for a company.
And they get like a Google doc, like here.
In advance is like prepare your thought and send it to me in advance.
I'm going to read it.
So I'll differentiate this by level of role and type.
And so I'm talking, cause right now I'm like knee deep in like C-level like interviews.
So that's like what I'm thinking with right now.
If we're trying to hire an editor or a salesperson.
Those are roles that are super repeated and, as a result, have incredibly structured interview processes and whatnot.
And so for those like for a salesperson, for example, it's like we're going to send a script to every candidate that we want to invite to a group interview first.
And so they're going to get the script ahead of time.
And we want to hear them do a one minute, two minute soundbite of the script.
So if they didn't even take the time to like go through a few times like they're going to sound horrible and so immediately, either they they don't have the skill or they don't have the work ethic.
Either way, we can weed those people out and we can tell within a couple minutes.
So we don't need to waste a 30-minute call on somebody who wants to be a salesperson.
We can have 10 people on the call one or two minutes and we can find out if someone's got a little bit of game From there.
It's like okay, then we'll say hey, you messed this thing up, tweak it, try it again.
When we do that, we get to see how coachable they are, how much ego they have and how quickly they can learn intelligence.
And so from there, we're like, great.
I actually read a book that you suggest this.
The guy who did HubSpot sales team wrote that book.
We do the same thing here.
Yeah, and it's funny because, like It's like, we ended up re-deriving the exact same interview process as the book.
And so it was very corroborating.
He actually says that IQ is the number one.
He's like charisma is important, but it's not the most important thing.
Ability to learn quickly.
And I think part of that also because they were selling to business owners, and so do we in most of our portfolios B2B.
And so if a salesperson is being outgunned consistently by the people that they're getting on the phone with, the people on the phone feel like they're talking to somebody who's an idiot and can't actually help them solve their problem.
And so, yeah, I think general intelligence is such an important part.
But honestly, it started there, but I kind of just see it across the organization.
Show me exceptional organizations that employ people dumber people.
I mean there are some, but especially in the work that we do, B2B and higher level, you need horsepower.
So in terms of intelligence rate of learning, and we can actually demonstrate them learning on a small level.
And that works, same thing with editors.
We follow a very similar process.
Here's some raw footage. send us a clip back with your edit we can look at just the final output and that allows us to be more objective about like some people don't present well but that doesn't mean they're bad editors and I think like interviewing itself is a skill just like anything else and I don't need somebody's great at interviewing I need somebody's great at editing right and so trying to pull that apart and something that Layla's taught me that's been really helpful like for me lately has been um she's like some people are incredibly smart but are not very good at communicating and depending on um Depending on the role, they might not have as much need for that level of communication.
And so that's where it gets a little bit more nuanced.
But I want to be really clear.
They have their way around.
Yeah, sure.
They talk to people that are very charming.
Yeah.
They communicate wonderfully.
And I'm like, I can't fall back into this.
You know what I mean?
What is it?
It was like always go for an ugly surgeon or something like that.
Yeah.
There's some, there's some razor that I just wanted to put my little disclaimer out there, which is like I by no means claim that we are perfect at hiring or anything like that.
We just like everybody.
We take our licks.
But I'd say the hardest ones are always leadership, because you have fewer like you might appreciate this.
Whenever I go to a room of entrepreneurs I say hey, who here is on their second business or beyond?
And like almost the whole room raised their hands.
I'm like, okay, cool.
Now of those of you who are on your second business and beyond who here, your current business grew way faster or passed your first businesses.
And like almost the entire room raised their hands.
And I always think like, so why is that?
And so I think that, at the most basic level, It's pattern recognition, but especially when it comes to talent,
And so like, if you think about building like say, a million dollar business, it's like first you have us, you have some marketing function, you have some sales function, you have some delivery function, you know whatever you know across the board.
And for the first time ever, maybe a million, maybe it's three million a year.
Whatever it is, it's not you anymore.
Somebody else has to do some of this stuff.
And so you get your first pattern recognition of like oh, this is somebody who can do some advertising.
This is some person who can do some sales.
This is a person who can do some low-level management.
This is a person who can do some delivery or whatever.
And you basically keep struggling and keep plateauing at that level until you find that one person who's competent?
And then you're like, oh.
You can do the job.
This is amazing.
And then the business grows until that next level, you know, that next constraint.
And so then across the board, by department, one by one.
It's like you have these six month, 12 month periods where you go through interviews and interviews and hiring and onboarding just to see if this person's competent
And then whenever they're not, you're like, I have to start over again.
And then the business basically stays where it's at.
I think the more experience we've had on each of these roles of like, this is what SDR looks like.
This is what an SDR manager looks like.
This is what a closer looks like.
This is what a senior closure looks like.
This is what a closing manager looks like.
This is what a director of sales looks like.
This is what a VP of sales looks like.
Like it took me time to learn each of these levels and obviously do that across departments.
But then, after that point, when you got these new, the new businesses, you after you're not even building the business, you're just assembling it you're like these are all the pieces that are required to make this business.
Who have you hired recently?
Um, that is significantly better than you or has taught you something, because you're in the world now where you have to do all the talking and a lot of the yeah you're all using at your workshops and with companies that you work with.
Yeah, hoof k2.
Sharon does.
Sharon's the president.
He's so knowledgeable on the.
I mean, he's so knowledgeable on a lot of different things but, like you know, he said two.
He said two plus billion dollar companies.
And so obviously, acquisition is, you know, the third that you know we're shooting for, depending on, you know, when we have our third party validation.
But basically it's like the bigger the company gets, I feel like the better he gets.
You know what I mean?
Like the more in his wheelhouse he is in terms of like data pipelines infrastructure, real time dashboards.
How can we like how can how can finance get weaponized?
I would say that Leland, like Sean's so good at the finance function and understanding just like just tax ramifications, entity structure, like just a lot of the things that I.
For me, my acumen is on how do we let people know about it?
How do we get them to give us money for it?
How do we make sure that they really like it and tell their friends?
That has been basically the core of my skill set.
And everything that's not that.
The last thing you said there is that product.
Yeah, exactly.
But everything outside of that um is definitely not what i would say like my core.
Core is like leila is so good at that, like a lot of what we're talking about.
There is me somewhat relaying leila's you know zeitgeist or you know leila's uh mo around people and people and talent butron's so good at like enterprise value structuring, just like a lot, just a lot of the things that you know a public ceo would be good at, and that's that's what he comes from um.
But he also is like and i would say like from an observation personally like The true AAA talent one.
They're not employees.
They are partners.
And they see themselves as partners.
And if you don't see them as partners, then they are not A plus talent.
How do you treat a partner differently than an employee?
Like how would I know if I own a partner?
Well, I think if you go to them because you're not sure what to do and they're giving you advice, to me that's a partner.
If you're constantly directing them and saying this is what we're going to do, this is what we're going to do, there's nothing wrong with that.
But they're not a thought partner.
And I also use that as a great limits test for, like the true C-level executives that we have is like do I want to talk to this person about this complex problem?
If I don't seek their advice, then it means that I don't see them as a value add.
And so then they're not like they're not super essential, which is not good.
But yeah, so I think that, and then the other piece, and this is something again I feel like I've learned more recently, because I'm super deep in C-level stuff right now.
But it's clouds to dirt.
So vertically integrated, full stack skill sets.
And so, like I think, like the best sales leaders can go, like they can hop on the phone and get a cold lead to book an appointment from an SDR level all the way to building sales strategy of like, which starts to merge into marketing, right.
It's like, what kind of messaging do we need to look at?
What kind of avatars have the highest likelihood of buying our stuff?
How can we weave that into our process and our scripting?
How can we cut our training time and onboarding new reps?
Like they're really thinking about the sales organization, but they can also do almost every job.
And I just have yet to find like truly exceptional people that aren't full stack.
What do you have to offer to them other than market rate or above market rate money?
It's growth and impact.
If you were to ask everybody in the company Acquisitioncom what's the number one thing that they come for?
It's growth.
A lot of those companies aren't growing at the rate that we're growing, and so there's so much career advancement and opportunity.
We are very meritocratic.
There you go.
And so, like anyone, can come here and move up independent of age, you know, even independent of tenure.
Like we had a guy who came here 90 days ago and got a very large promotion after coming in at a pretty high role already, just because he demonstrated he was great.
And we're like, great, we have this opening.
We think you'd be the best fit.
Or like a lot of businesses are like growing only 20% a year.
I don't know.
Yeah fine, but mediocre number, and it's like where do they start if they don't have growth in order?
Not growth in terms of just the money paid people, the growth in order to impress the great people.
Still, i think it all depends on like, the opportunity and the level of like the pool that you're competing against.
You know like, if you are an ai true ai you know company um, you know it is super competitive.
On the flip side though, like if someone's going to start a new division for us, i can just say, like i can guarantee you demand Not.
A lot of people can do that.
And so, like it's not a question of whether this will work or not, is it's?
Is this the best use of the demand that we have?
And so it becomes an opportunity cost question.
But a lot of people in some ways it's like it's less risky to come to ACQ because we have so much demand.
Uh, and there's just, there's so much opportunity.
That's basically like if you're working for Jimmy said, you know, use a different brand, like Mr Beast.
Like he has virtually a limitless demand.
And so if he said, hey, can you help me spin up whatever, pick a pick a random thing.
If Mr. Beast was going to say, hey, let's start an umbrella brand.
It doesn't mean he for sure will sell umbrellas.
It's just not the best use of his resources.
Right.
So it's like we need somebody who can come in, recognize the best vehicle for for the demand that we have and then be able to obviously execute it on it.
But a lot of people don't have that like built in guaranteed you know, they just don't have that.
And so that becomes actually significantly riskier, despite you know what other quote perks might exist.
And so it's like you've guaranteed demand, you've basically guaranteed growth as as, as fast as you can grow, we can grow.
Um, and that's, and we also still pay exceptionally well.
And so with those, you know, those three things put together, we can get very, very good talent.
Uh, and there's also people that are just very mission driven.
Like we have a lot of people who come in and they're like, I've consumed your stuff for years.
And I saw the recruiter reached out to me and I was stoked.
And that was it.
Like there's just in some ways it's like, you know, private equity number 17.
It's like it's almost it's just commoditized.
Like their business is commoditized.
It's just not that interesting.
And so they have to compete on price.
And so their price is their comp.
Whereas if you have a value proposition like what's the, what's the Grand Slam offer from an employee perspective rather than a Grand Slam offer from a product perspective,
Because it's still the exact same process. of acquiring talent as it is to acquire customers.
It's just a reverse funnel.
Yeah.
So we could say, uh, what's like a really a salesperson.
That's a, that's a simple one.
Uh, but I'm hiring other roles.
I'm powering, um, chapter leads.
So we have 13 chapters that we, uh, they send them out a hiring, give them manage each chapter.
I mean, the easy answer is settling, but it's so tough because there's there's trades, because these things don't exist outside of time.
You know, it's like I have to fill this role and I want to find somebody, especially obviously for us at the sea level, because that's what's top of mind for me.
It's like I have to have somebody, that when I'm on the phone with them, I'm thinking I have to have this person.
And if I don't have that, I'm like, man, I really need this role.
And so if I'm thinking from the like I really have to fill this role angle, it's like usually not the right person.
If I'm thinking like I don't even care if I have a role for this person, I have to get them in.
It's usually the right person.
Are you willing to pay them more than you originally thought?
Yes.
A hundred percent.
Not even a question.
Break that a lot.
Yep.
And also if you ever, if you've ever been like I got to come up with enough money, like I hope I can get enough sales to afford this person, but I have to have them.
I haven't had the second part because we're a super cashflow positive company.
So like that hasn't been a problem.
I mean, fundamentally, as long as I can just pencil out the ROI of the role, then yeah, I'll do it.
I mean, it's just a return on capital.
Like that's, and I still see the, I mean, I still think the highest... Yes, mind it.
I think the highest returns on capital we get as entrepreneurs is talent.
Like full stop.
Like where else do you get 10x, 20x returns, 100x returns and can do so reliably?
Like talent is one of those places you can do it.
I will also say that typically, the higher up the org, the higher the arbitrage.
Are you fast to fire?
Uh, we continue to get faster.
I'll say that i think we get faster.
I would say that um, our firing practices do somewhat uh, rely on the constraint.
So like, sometimes you know layla says this but like, some fires aren't, aren't kitchen fires, they're like the, the trash can in the driveway is on fire.
It's like it's a problem, like we'll get to it, but it's not the thing that's limiting the business.
And so if we have somebody who's not as good as they should be but they're not in a role, that's right now like limiting the company, it's probably not going to be our first priority to to, to take them out, but as soon as that becomes the constraint, then it like quickly gets unearthed and then it gets handled.
That's like the realistic answer.
I sense a small bit in your voice where it sounded like potentially you were slow to fire because maybe i'm i'm raised to what's interesting, or your kind of voice.
Yeah, it was like, i just don't like it.
Well, i don't think anybody likes it, i think we're.
We're fast to fire if it is the constraint of the business and clearly that person is the one limiting us, like we will not sacrifice the company's growth and the opportunity of all the people who've trusted us with their careers to to not have a, you know, a comfortable conversation.
There's also levels of this and so like, Let's say there's, like you know red yellow green right,
If someone's like, well, green, they're great.
Fine.
So basically you've got maybe like yellow, orange, red.
Let's use that as the three levels.
For me, like if somebody is just not, doesn't have the complete competence, but it's not like they can still do their job, but they're not doing it as well as they should.
And they're definitely not going to grow and they can't take on new opportunities, then that to me is like a yellow
Um, if they're, if they're like for sure, like they can't actually do their their, their role right now, that's an orange.
If, um, red is like, you can't do the role right now and that thing is required for us to grow.
And so that's, that's kind of like, I'd say like we, it's, it's, it's a combination of like, what is the business need?
Um, and how incompetent is the person?
And so the rates of firing, I think, would depend on both of those things.
Obviously, in a perfect world, we get everyone out who's not a fit as soon as humanly possible.
It's just that sometimes some people do turn it around with good feedback and coaching.
That probably happens half the time.
And so, you know, people are messy.
And also, like, we have a reputation, too.
We don't want to be seen as, you know, brutal employers.
But at the same degree, like, we are intense and people do work a lot here.
How do you kind of...
Talk about being patient all the time, but you're moving at a wicked pace and getting results.
I think the patience is relative to the outcome that you're going for.
And so, if you're trying to climb Everest, your rate of ascension in terms of altitude is going to be significantly faster than somebody who's trying to climb a foothill.
The percentage growth might be the same, though.
And so a patient person might be willing to grow at one two three, 4 per year towards their ultimate Everest.
But it's just that 4% of Everest is significantly faster than 4% of a foothill.
And so the absolute difference will be different, but the relative difference, which is like what I'm quote measuring myself against, is where I feel patient.
And I think that's where the whole macro you know uh, macro speed sorry, macro patients micro speed is um, is super important.
It's like, we still need, we still have deadlines.
We still need to move the ball forward.
We still have to act with urgency.
Um, we still have to ask the question of, like what would it take in order to do this in half the time?
Would it take for us to do this in a fifth of the time?
And can we do that?
Let's do that.
Um, and I think I honestly see a lot of the job of the manager or the driver or the operator, depending what term you want to use as doing that which is just consistently pulling, like pulling the future forward faster.
And like when you're having it, you know, even at the tactical level, like you're having a team meeting and you say hey, when can you get that done by?
They'll give you a date.
And then, like the FOP, like you know, level one manager, level zero manager doesn't ask when the deadline is.
A level one manager would be like, would just accept the deadline.
Like a level two manager would be like well, what else do you have that's blocking you right now from getting that done.
And they might say, well, I have these three things.
And at that point, they might say, well, this is more important than those things, so do this first.
And then with that new knowledge, what is your new deadline?
And they might say, okay, instead of end of week, I can get it two days earlier than that.
It's like, okay, how many actual hours do you think this work will take?
And they might say, well, I think it'll probably take four hours.
And it's like, okay, well, it's noon now, so why isn't it at four o'clock today?
Right.
And, I think, somebody who's willing to continue to ask those questions and they're like well, I could do it today.
And I just wanted to give myself some time.
It's like, well, why?
Right.
And so I think that's that consistent pulling forward.
And the thing is is like it's almost like many confrontational conversations that I think are required in order to move an entire organization at breakneck speed.
I mean, I look at Elon a lot, you know, as an inspiration from a business perspective.
Um, and all of his competitors talk about that.
Just like the maniacal sense of urgency that that he carries and i think a lot of it is that it's just like consistently challenging like, what would it take and is it worth us doing?
Like, is it worth it for what it would take?
If the answer is yes, then let's do it.
And a lot of people kind of like they make their decisions within their frame or their realm of reality uh, when that's not based on anything besides their own conjecture or some arbitrary timeline of what they think it should take.
So how do you think that people get their standards to be raised to this like extreme level?
Like were you around other extreme people and you're like, oh my gosh, there's so much more to do.
That's now the standard.
Or do you think that some people are just born extreme and and they, they just get there and they bring others to that level?
Does that make sense?
Yeah, i think.
I think it's probably a nature nurture question and, to be clear, i don't know the answer.
This is my two cents.
Um, I've always been a really intense person.
Like, my father, my whole upbringing used to always say, like, balance.
He's like, you're so unbalanced, you're so unbalanced.
Because like, as soon as I'd find something, I would just want to do nothing besides that thing until I had like finished it, or you know, whatever it was.
And so I do think there's a component of that.
The other aspect though, is like I for sure have had call it beliefs broken.
You know frame shifts from people who were ahead of me.
Like me, even observing Elon, you know it stretches the horizon of what you know I think we can accomplish.
And, you know, it's actually in some ways very refreshing to think like okay, you know where was Elon when he was 36, right?
Versus, you know, 56 or whatever, you know, however old he is now.
And he said had such an exponential crescendo in his career that to me it's like, it's actually very like inspiring, that.
It just it just takes time.
And a lot of the.
I think what takes time for entrepreneurs is there's just so many skills that required to be a good entrepreneur and you have to be like very good at all of them and I think that's why it's.
It's just that's why I see entrepreneurship is the single greatest path of personal development.
Like you get real-time feedback that you suck and then at some point most of us on some level get to a level of success and then say like this is enough or I'm not willing to make the trade-offs beyond this point in other areas because depends on the entrepreneur that you ask.
But I would say the vast majority of entrepreneurs want to win the game of life and business as a component is one of the games within the larger game of life.
Some people get lost to whatever game they're in um, or they just consciously choose that that game is more important to them.
I mean like Steve jobs accomplished a lot.
I think there's, there's been a lot that's been documented about his you know personal life suffering um, you know as as a result of his professional career.
You could make an argument that he was amazing, net positive for humanity, but on the micro level he lived a harder existence.
Elon is probably another one of those people.
A lot of people wouldn't want Elon's life.
And he says, you wouldn't want my life.
And I think we should believe that.
And so I think it's just like what trades we're willing to make.
And I think about.
That's probably a lot of my, A lot of my free.
Like shower time right now is like when you know the price of the thing you want, like it's OK to go into a store, see something you like and then not buy it.
What why are you questioning that now?
Is it because you just had the suits launch?
You like hit a hit, a milestone that you're like oh my God, I wanted this all the time and I kind of got it.
And maybe I didn't want to work as much as I want or.
Well, I had a confluence of three things happen within 30 days.
So I had called a four plus year project come to an end, which was a lot of.
My shower time was around the whole hundred million dollar series and the culmination of the money models launch.
So that was one.
There's obviously, you know, a financial outcome that was, you know quickly, you know happened at the launch.
That's the second thing.
Then the third thing is my mother died within 30 days.
And so it was a very interesting mix of different emotions within that period of time.
And so I have I've had a lot of time to reflect on like, what are the things that matter most?
And so.
Like in writing.
I mean, I think everyone's heard the advice like write your own eulogy and then try to live that way.
Except most people don't actually take the time to write their own eulogy.
But in writing her eulogy, it was interesting to see like what portion if we had a pie chart of this eulogy is going to be dedicated to her accomplishments.
And she was a relatively accomplished person compared to the rest of it, which was about service and character.
And the vast majority of it was service and character.
And so in thinking about that, it's like okay.
Well then, if I were to apportion my time based on what my eulogy percentages would be, I would probably not have the same pie chart that I do now.
That being said, you know, life is, has a lot of years.
And so maybe that slice of pie chart, that's the first two or three sentences, or whatever might be 15 years.
And then there's just another period of 15 years afterwards or 30 years afterwards.
That are a different slice of that chart.
Yeah.
If you, if you live, right.
If you live, like she had a, she had a freak accident.
So hers was a sudden death.
And so, yeah.
So that's what I think about a lot is the trade-offs, because I think most of like, Because obviously I have a lot of content that's going out there, just because people tend to ask me stuff about hard work.
And the reason I think I tweet so much about it is because it's always top of mind for me.
So like I don't have a we talked about this at the beginning but like I don't have a content schedule.
I don't have like a.
You know, I'm looking at trending tweets and thinking oh, how do I do my own spin on this?
Like that's not how I make content.
I tweet whatever is top of mind and the things that come out are the things that I'm thinking about.
And you get to kind of like see the trends of whatever I'm thinking about a specific season.
But if you just take the aggregate of like a month of tweets, it's like oh, Alex is thinking about this right now.
I think there's two things that I think make entrepreneurship hard.
Number one is uncertainty.
It's just the absolute kind of like soul crushing uncertainty that is always present throughout your day, every day, while you're making decisions.
And it's just always this idea like you might lose and you don't know.
And then the other component that makes it so difficult is the known quantities that you believe that you're going to have to trade in order to get the unknown.
I guess there is some uncertainty there too.
The unknown upside.
And so it's like we can always quantify the downside the thing that we trade and we cannot quantify the upside.
And so I think about that a lot, because I think a lot of entrepreneurship, a lot of entrepreneurs that I see especially common with the lifestyle entrepreneurs, because I get tons of flack from that community.
Um, which is interesting because this was like you.
Just you were not willing to make trades that I was willing to make.
And there might be other trades that Elon's willing to make that I'm not.
And that's okay.
Like I just I just see that as like we all get to whatever level that we're willing to trade, trade for, but I just see them as trade-offs.
And I think most of the regrets that people have are wanting the upside from a decision or a path not taken without taking into account the downside that they didn't suffer.
What's the pie chart like now?
I mean, I think, I think for now it's, it's almost entirely business.
I would say, like I probably have 15 that's probably dedicated to like marriage stuff, like marriage Layla stuff, and probably 15 that's dedicated to like health stuff.
So I'm probably like 70% work, 15 health, 15 marriage.
What do you think when you're in a, when you're thinking about what it should be?
Do you ever think like well, I would like to try on this.
I think I would love to see a world where like, 25 to 30 is business.
I'd love to see what happens there.
I also think that there might be like and I say this understanding, like the position that I'm in to say this, which is I'm approaching a point where more hours really doesn't like so much.
More of it at this point will be the leverage of the decisions that I make.
Um, more than the work that I do.
But yeah, a lot of leverage is on the decision making.
And maybe it's just that some of the bets that I made five years ago have come to fruition and have paid off, which then just give more leverage right.
Because I mean, fundamentally, output is just volume times leverage.
And so, I mean, I could maybe make the algorithm I did even more.
Elon still works a lot.
So if you do a lot of volume and with a lot of leverage, you build rockets and build trillion dollar businesses.
So like, you know, I don't say that thinking that I'm somehow immune to it.
25% business.
What else?
Oh, it would probably just be a more even spread.
It would probably be like maybe 25%, you know.
I think health would probably be still around 15-ish percent.
I might change what I do there, but I think I have an appropriate amount from the health category.
I assume I'll bucket Layla as just family, wife at all.
And then probably other pursuits.
I'll still do business, but I think it would be.
I'll just, I just think.
I just think the percentages will change.
I, you know what?
I'll just say that.
I don't know what they are.
I think they will change from what they currently are.
I feel confident in that.
What the nod this is pursuit that you want to put in there potentially.
I don't know.
And I think I need to, I think I need to create the space in order for that to get filled.
Like, I don't think I will have a difficulty in finding things to fill my time.
I think the difficulties.
You to have any, we're buddies, but we're not terribly close, but I, We're not that close.
I would say we're friends.
We've known each other for off and on for a couple of years.
I'm not known of you to be someone who has... I've never seen you show interest in tops.
I like history.
I like buying clothes.
I think clothes are cool.
I like cars.
I like motorcycles.
I have hobbies where I'm passing in my XYZ.
It's like a motorcycle show.
I'm like oh, that's something great, i would love to see that.
Or uh, i like live music, but i have never heard of you sue like anything other than your wife and work it out.
And business and business yeah, those have been my big three.
I would say that i, i would.
I would define myself as, for the first time in in 15 years not even 15, because i wanted to start making money when i was like 15, so i guess it's been 21 years.
It's the first time in my life where I've been open to having other priorities.
I don't know what they are.
Like straight up, I don't know.
I don't know what they will be.
And maybe I'll just discover that I like the life that I have now.
But it's the first time that I've been like, I am open to this mix changing.
Andrew Ross Sorkin, he's got this new book called Nike 29.
I'm in the middle of reading it.
I think you read Science Fiction.
And this book, Nike 29, it's about the Great Depression and how it came to be.
And my biggest takeaway from this book so far.
Well, there's not much takeaway, but one takeaway is that the executives of the banks they didn't work that part.
And they were like, they were the JD diamonds at the time.
And their income was the equivalent of a hundred million dollars a year.
And like one guy had a routine where he's like, I'm up at six.
I exercise.
I'm at the office at 10.
I'm home by five.
Another guy had a similar routine as that, but then he would take off.
He took summer off to go to Europe with family.
And I read about some of these, like I think Brian Halligan, the founder of HubSpot just tweeted.
He's like, you don't move mountains working nine to five.
And all these people, yourself included and myself, talk about hard work.
But I see all these other examples and I'm like isn't it crazy how much you can get done by actually not working hard?
And lately I've been like insisted by those examples.
Have you ever read about that?
I haven't read about it, but I've definitely observed it with some people that are further ahead than I am.
I think that I think what's always difficult is like do I model the top of the mountain or do I model the climb?
Like, am I trying to extrapolate how someone currently lives for what they did to get there?
And that one's always a really dangerous one that I try and catch myself on, which is, like you know, we're in different seasons.
And so I have to make sure that I'm comparing this person's spring you know, to my spring, not my winter to their spring.
I had a list of so many people where I beat people.
I'm like, you don't work hard at all.
What the hell?
Let's say, like within your business, let's say that you could find the perfect Sam just as a thought routine, right?
The perfect Sam that you could hire and whatever you could pay the perfect Sam to do, and he could do everything you can do just as well as you can, it's like.
So, whatever your current profit is minus sam's compensation, if you could do that, then you would have almost the same amount of money you have now, and maybe in two years perfect sam would grow the pie so that you're making the same or more than you're making right now, but you're still not working at all.
And so if that's the case, then it's like we're always like in the hypothetical world.
We're one higher away from somebody who could do 100 of what we're currently doing and the business would be able to continue to grow.
I think um to that point about patience is like, But most entrepreneurs are like well, I'll find that person, I'll give it to that person and then I'll start the next job.
Whereas some other people just say like I'm just not going to start that next job, and then just be willing to let the company continue to grow with the team that I've assembled.
And I think both like fundamentally if you work or you don't work.
As long as the business performs these functions, it will grow.
Have you ever bought or taken any courses?
And which one, if you did, what did you choose?
The biggest things that have really changed my life have been networks of people, more than anything like getting in the room with people who are ahead of me within the current realm or even across realms from me.
That was the stuff that really changed my life the most.
For sure from the tactical level books courses, things like that workshop seminars, those things absolutely.
I am a product of the alternative education world.
I have no... reservations about that, I am.
Some people were able to learn on their own.
I was willing to pay to learn from people who were ahead of me, and it was more than worth it.
So basically there's two types of knowledge, right?
You have declarative knowledge, which is knowledge about stuff, and then you have procedure knowledge, which is knowledge how to do stuff.
The courses and DIY stuff is predominantly procedural, which is here's how you set up a landing page.
Here's how you write a copy, here's how you structure a video sales letter, whatever right.
Um, and then there's the.
I see that the the, the networks and affiliations, and when you meet people who are further ahead of you, those are where you get their quote, belief spoken.
That's where you learn about stuff that you didn't know was possible.
And that about stuff could be like I didn't know.
You could work four hours a week and make that kind of money.
I didn't know that real estate worked that way.
I didn't know that the insurance industry was so profitable or whatever it is, right?
And those were, I think, where I had my order of magnitude increases.
So it's like my incremental increases in business were always just developing more blocking and tackling skills, like I have to learn how to do a webinar, I have to learn how to do a sales call, all these things.
But the large step function increases have been through association with people that were just way further ahead and were like hey man, let me tell you what the next five years looks like if you keep doing what you're doing.
This is what you need to do instead.
And I was like, oh.
And those are the things that really changed the trajectory of my life.
Your list of people who you'd kill to meet and spend time with or shadow for a day.
I mean, most of mine are the obvious ones.
Like, I would love to... I'd love to shadow Elon.
I'd love to shadow Zuck.
I'd love to shadow Bezos.
I'd love to shadow... Honestly, I'd love to shadow Bezos, like, 10 years ago.
Because, actually, I'm not even sure what his working... You know, what he's doing.
Like, he's got Blue Origin, and he's got other things.
I think he's got other things going on.
But, like, people who are in the thick of the game, I would love to...
Because a lot of it is just like, what frameworks are they using to think through these decisions?
Because they've made these decisions a bunch of times.
So I'd love to just get that framework.
Because if I could apply that to my current state, then I would move faster.
Listen, when I listen to you, I get envious.
Not envious, but I think I have to step it up.
Because I hear you learn these frameworks.
And I'm like, man, that's crazy that he's memorizing this stuff.
But not just memorizing it, but he.
When I hear him talk about it, I believe that he actually uses this in his day-to-day life.
And I would like to get better at that.
I'm just amazed at how much information you retain.
Thanks.
I think that the frameworks piece.
There's probably a book that will come out of me along that topic, but it's more around viewpoints of the world and reality.
And so I think that If you are not good at predicting what is going to happen, next life will be hard for you.
And the better you get at predicting what's going to happen next, the more you will get what you want.
And so then, being able to predict what's going to happen requires an accurate framework of how reality works.
And I think that that's where you know, if you've lost everything and then you can rebuild it again, it's because you accurately view reality and it wasn't luck.
You can redo it again.
And so for me, I think a big part of it was like or still is, I find.
I find like the most people don't know what they're saying most of the time.
Like the vast majority of people, spend their time regurgitating and reparenting things that they never thought about and saying words that they don't understand.
Because if you ask someone when they say, Hey, I think you should do this.
I would just say like, define that.
Or like, Hey, my goal is I want to insert thing, like I want to feel great about myself.
And I'd be like, well, what does that mean?
And then they can't define it.
I'm like, well, no shit, you haven't hit it.
You can't even define what you're going for.
Right.
And so I think that the single greatest razor that I have for defining reality more accurately has been removing all sentiment, emotion and quote psychology from the equation and only looking at it from a behaviorist frame of what can I observe?
And just say like and so basically, like if you were to, if you were to, you know, alien comes on earth, or a toddler, depending on how you want to see it and say like Hey, you know what does trust mean?
Like, hey, you're not very trustworthy.
I'd be like, well, what does that mean to you?
And most times people will just say a bunch of nonsense back to you and it's like well, of course you don't know.
And so I find that that's most people and that's why they can't communicate well and, as a result, they don't receive communication well from the world, because it's two people saying words that neither of them understand, and then they just roll the dice to see if they get what they want.
And that's how most people live their lives, which is why they don't get what they want because they didn't define what they want.
And that's why I've been so like the beginning of every one of my books defines terms.
The beginning of all my books defines terms.
The beginning of every legal document, there's a recitation of definitions.
And it's like you need that in order to be precise about what you want.
What's that mean?
So like defining what a win would look like, what a success look like?
Those are like the big obvious ones.
But underneath of that, it's like the day to day life that you have.
It's like you ask your wife, it's like, I'd like you to be more loving towards me.
It's like, well, what does that mean?
Like for real, like what is what is you saying the word I need you to love me better mean?
Does that mean, hey, when I walk in the door, can you come and give me a hug?
That's observable.
I can see that a court witness could say he came in and did that.
Right.
And so but like, again, this is like getting as granular as everything.
If we just bring everything down to what is observable in reality, then we can all get to agreement.
And I think that's where, like I think, the content that I have somehow seems both the same and different from the stuff that's out there.
They're like, man, I'm listening to you about marketing stuff.
I'm like, he says things that I know, but he says it in a different way.
And it's like, well, it's because I just think about it.
Okay, well, what is selling, right?
And then a lot of people are like it's a transference of feeling between two parties, you know, over a bridge of trust, right?
And I would say something like that.
15 years ago.
And I would yell at a salesman.
I'd be like dude.
Sales is just a transference of belief over a bridge of trust.
It's like, that sounds amazing.
There's nice visuals.
It's like, but what the fuck does that mean?
Like, how do I go transfer belief over a bridge of trust?
I'm like, go transfer belief over a bridge of trust.
And they're like, I don't know how to do that.
It's like, of course you don't.
Of course you don't.
I don't either, right?
Of course you don't.
And how do I give them this belief, right?
And so it's natural to use shorthand with language, because it's faster to transfer ideas, except neither party define the term.
And that's where a lot of quote miscommunications come from.
And so I think to be an accurate communicator.
It's like we have to define terms before we can actually engage in this conversation, which is annoying for some people.
But it's also required if you want to have effective communication.
And so for that whole like salesperson thing, it's like, well, what is selling?
It's increasingly likely that someone makes a purchasing decision.
Done.
That's all it is.
We just increase the likelihood.
And so that is your job is to increase the likelihood to make a purchasing decision.
And we know that there's a number of variables that affect that percentage.
And that's what the ones that we can affect that we can observe.
And I think we just leave it there.
But we get all of this hullabaloo and all of the manifestation and the synchronicities and the energy and all of this crap out of there.
And maybe that stuff's true, but I can't see it.
And so how do I transfer it?
I don't know.
And so I just talk about the observable world, and it has made my life so much better and my ability to predict what's going to happen next so much better.
Dude, this is why I like, by the way, Dale Pradeky, How to Win Friends and Move People.
Very tactical.
100%.
The takeaway that I don't want to have, but I think one of them will be, you say someone's name.
Say someone's name because that's the most beautiful sound in the English language.
Yes.
Very practical.
And another really practical thing that I loved reading that more people should do, particularly if you're working in the internet world.
Old school direct response copywriting books.
So Claude Hopkins, David Olderby, a little bit newer, Joe Sjogren, a little bit newer, Guy Kennedy.
I love reading those books.
Those books are my favorite because they are the most tactical, but they also teach you about life.
No, I did.
Basically, when I was in my rocky cut scene of learning marketing, I read all that stuff.
I haven't read much of it lately because I feel like, you know, like the midwit meme?
I feel like I feel like the midweek meme is one of my favorite memes of all time because it just it's, it's been so true for me in so many domains of my life.
It's, like you know, when I started lifting, it was like add more weight, eat protein, try hard.
You know what I mean.
Like do it over and over again, and that was like that was it right.
And then I got into, like you know, periodization and, like you know, volume blocks, and then you know peaking cycles and, like you know, we have to have undulating periods and we have to have, like you know, this is better for hypertrophy, this is better for like all this, like complexity, right?
And then like fast forward.
Now it's just like dude, just eat protein, add more weight to the bar and you know, thank your parents for your genetics, like whatever.
Now, of course, the comments will be like and Alex takes testosterone, which I've been public about, so deal with it.
But, like, yes.
That's like, and so I think the same thing with marketing.
And so like a lot of it is... Did your testosterone make you more Persian?
I don't know.
Maybe, I think it's all genetics for the hair.
At the PED, is speed more Persian?
If anything, I think testosterone would decrease the amount of hair I have on my head at least.
But anyways, but yeah, but like with marketing, it's like, it's so much like...
No persuasion occurs in the vague.
Persuasion occurs in the specific.
If you can articulate someone's pain to them more accurately than they can, they will buy what you have to sell without even hearing much about whatever your offer is.
If someone describes every pain in their life in excruciating detail, you're like if this guy knows this much about my pain, he has to know how to solve it.
And what's also nice about pain specifically is that Pain is more motivating than promise.
And so it's also more compliant.
Because if you think about what is a salesperson, what is marketing in general?
We just simply motivate someone to take action.
We increase the likelihood that they receive this message, they take a desired action.
And so it's like, well, then where does the basis of motivation come from?
Which is a super complex question.
And so for me, motivation comes from deprivation.
We have to deprive the prospect or increase the perception of deprivation around the action that's associated with whatever thing that we want them to do.
Or the outcome associated with the reaction we want them to take.
And so that comes from when people are like, the pain is the pitch, which is one of my little isms.
It's like, the pain is the pitch.
If you can accurately do that, And it's not about like fancy words.
It's not at all.
It's short words, short sentences, clearly defined that it takes no brain power to process.
And yet it still has emotional resonance because of the specificity.
So, like, lose weight fast probably worked as the first weight loss ad in 1930.
And then everyone was like, wow, short words, that's amazing.
But then they had to get, like, more nuanced.
And so it's like you just have to keep breaking words down into, like, what does that really mean?
Like, what is fat?
Have you ever been like the overweight girl who wanted to take the photo instead of being the photo?
Yeah.
No, and that's real.
Have you ever walked on the beach and had your thighs chafed together?
Have you ever always had a coverall when your friends were in a bikini?
Have you felt weird about you putting your own sunscreen on?
In pictures, you said, do you duck out?
When you put your pants on that you used to wear, do you find yourself holding your breath for longer and longer in order to put them on?
Those are specifics.
Right.
And that's where copy is driven, which is why you have to know the customer, which is why, in my opinion, some of the best marketers, like the truly goaded marketers, can advertise pain that they have not experienced.
But the vast majority of marketers who are good in specific spaces know the avatar because they are the avatar or at least were the avatar.
Just good words can sell way better than anything else.
Yeah, I agree.
Also, I actually think that that's true with content as well.
If you're an educator, to be clear, if you're an entertainer, that's different.
But if you're an educator, which most B2B, anybody who's a business person uh, whatever most businesses are, if they make content, is more on the educational side.
Um, whether you're a plumber or otherwise, like you tell people about toilets and then people buy your stuff, right?
Um like, i did this experiment with my team because sometimes my editing team gets like they get cute, you know they get, they want to get fancy.
So i said hey, this next one we're going to do the entire thing on an iphone.
All right, so the whole thing is on an iphone.
The audio is crap, it's shaky.
A guy's holding it, no tripod, like no, that's all it was.
But um, it was just about like a concept that i knew was going to do really well and it got like, you know, 17 or something, almost 2 million views uh, from that video.
And i was like we spend so much time in post on some of these videos and like it doesn't matter.
Now it might matter a little bit, it might matter ten percent, but how are we allocating our resources towards, you know is?
Are we uh, are we appropriately, appropriately allocating the resources towards the thing that's going to get us the highest return?
And the answer is almost always no, because the words are the hard part, the words you have to think, and that's what most people avoid.
So um, you know, last time we talked about 10 days ago, something like that yeah um, I needed someone that I wanted to talk to today because I enjoy their conversation.
I don't have a plan.
I just want to have a conversation with Alex.
And like Ari made a joke.
She was like, I want you to talk in soundbite.
I was like, that's the exact opposite.
I don't want you to talk in any soundbite.
I just want to see what's up and just catch up with you.
And I'm happy we did that.
No, I am too, man.
