Denk selbst, sonst denkt die Welt für dich

0:00Think for yourself or the world will think for you. So, this is what I thought a lot about, which is to be unique, you need to have high agency. And so, agency is essentially being able to reason for yourself from the things that you can observe or have observed. And so, at the lowest levels, it's being able to say that you like a person, a show, a movie that most people don't like. It's thinking for yourself. Most people, and here's where it gets really interesting, most people pick their identities off the shelf, right? They come They come with pre-canned beliefs.

0:35They have a set of apparel that they wear that's that's the fashion of this guy. Oh, I'm a hipster, which means I have to have gauges, I have to have one of those beanie hats that's a small thing, I wear black combat boots, you know, black things with a chain, whatever, cuz I'm a hipster. And all my beliefs are going to be what hipsters believe. And or I'm a I'm a redneck, and so I'm going to have flannel, and I'm going to wear a trucker hat, and I'm going to have jeans, and I'm going to have super conservative views on X, Y, and Z, and whatever. I'm going to live in the country and I want to ranch. All right?

1:09There's nothing wrong with doing that. It's just that most of the time when you pick your belief set and you pick your personality off the shelf, the reason that you do that is because you didn't actually reason for yourself. Meaning, there's probably not 100% of hipster worldviews that you agree with. There's not 100% of redneck worldviews that you believe with if if you believe in the that if that's you, right? And so, if you actively think about all the components of your life, which is like, what shoes will I wear? Why do I pick these shoes? What makes a good shoe for me? Why do I wear these shorts? What makes a good short for me? Why do I wear this shirt? As silly as that may sound, you choose every single component of your life, and you either choose to live it by default or live it deliberately.

1:56And the people that are interesting typically have multiple components that they reason for themselves that get put into one box. And so then when people see them, they double take because they're like, "Wait a second, these pieces don't go together." And what does that do? It makes you interested. And so let's say that you have the body of a meathead and you dress like a redneck, but you quote ancient philosophers and you're also extraordinarily wealthy. That's weird.

2:27Right? That's odd. And so if that's you, then you will probably attract attention. And so a lot of people want to live a unique life, but they take all their decisions from pre-canned boxes, off-the-shelf, out-of-the-box. And so I think that asking yourself, "What do I want? And does this thing help me get it?" are the questions that begin to lead down the path of agency. Because if you approach every component of your life with that lens, you'll often find that the things that you took off the shelf don't. The politics you you you vote for, the people that you that the the sports teams that you root for, all of this stuff that you've built your life around, not at all.

3:09And so having high agency is higher cost in the short term because you actually have to make these decisions and also suffer the rejection of decisions that other people who might all dress like hipster not agree with because you didn't take the same belief out of the box or off-the-shelf as they did. But it's lower cost long term because you don't find yourself 10 years down the road wondering how you got here. How did I marry this person? How did I start this business? Why am I dressed this way? Do I even care about this stuff?

3:38Why do I vote like that? You got here because you never questioned your decisions and just went with the flow. You went with what everyone else was doing, but everyone else is unhappy, mediocre, overweight, in debt, and divorced. Why would you be like them? And so the only way out is by turning inwards and saying, "What do I want, and does this thing help me get it?" And if the conclusion that you come to is different than everyone else's, great, because you don't want to be like them. So you should hope to find discrepancies between what you decide and what other people decide, because it means you have begun the path of thinking for yourself.

4:13Maybe you like a movie that your friends don't like. Instead of saying, "I I mean it's okay." Don't hold back. Be like, "I think it's a great movie." They're like, "Well, you're an idiot." You're like, "Okay. I like that show." "That show is trash." "Okay. Don't watch it." Look, that's it. Right? Oh, "Why do you wear such lame shoes? Why do you wear jean shorts?" Alex, why did you wear the little sandals for 2 years that I wore that were really weird? Because at the time that those shoes served what I wanted. I wanted cuz I was at the beach a lot, cuz Layla and I were traveling, and so I was like, "I want something to go to the gym. I want something to go to the pool.

4:42I want something to go to the beach. I want something that can climb. I want something to go to a restaurant." That's why I was close to. Close toed shoes. It gives me everything I want. "Great. Alex, it doesn't look cool." To who? Who does that look not cool to? Girls? I'm married. I don't give a [ __ ] Who does that not look cool to? Guys? WHY DO I CARE WHAT THEY THINK? RIGHT? I DON'T I DON'T EVEN know how to say it anymore. Like, why would I care about any of that? They're not walking in my shoes, quite literally. These are comfortable. And if you don't like them, wear whatever shoes you want. Right?

5:10And so I think that when and this actually has a tie to marketing, which I think is important, which is like, if you want to make content, you want to you want to build a brand of some kind, the brand has to get built from the bottom up. You have to reason from that perspective. What I want, does this help me get it? And when you think that way, you'll actually be able to build a unique brand, because no one will have the same exact life experiences as you. And when you do that, that is what creates the unique combination, and you'll be able to defend why you believe what you believe. Because if you cannot explain why you believe what you believe, you believe what someone else told you to believe, and you never questioned it.

5:40Number six, a hard conversation up front can save you millions of dollars and years of life. So Rockefeller said this, which is a friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship. So, the big thing here is I used to say I used to hear people say I only can do business with people via handshake. And people that I just met when I was really young were like, "Oh, if we have to draw a contract, I don't want to do a deal." And I was pressured into doing handshake deals when I was younger with people that were quote more experienced because I didn't want to seem, you know, disintegrous or unintregrous, right? A dishonest person, "Oh, I need a contract." And then I just realized they were complete scoundrels and full of [ __ ] And so, then I went the other extreme, which was like everything has to be in contracts. Uh which I think by large would serve you really well for anybody who's starting out your first 10 years in business. If you do 10 years of business with someone, you will be able to get to the point where you can have handshake agreements.

6:36But you do not extend trust to someone who has not earned it. And I think that there's different levels of this. If an employee comes to the business, of course. Like you you have to extend trust, right? But if we're talking a business partnership, well, then like we should have a track record here. We should have a a large data set of behavior that I can look at in different circumstances where I know that you will behave in this way. And so, for me, trust is believing that the person will act in ways that are that are similar to the way they have continued to act in the past, right?

7:04They're consistent. And I want to be real with you for a second. So, I said this year was a tough year. I had eight lawsuits this year, right? And most of them were at the very beginning of the year, and I dealt with almost all of them. And here's the part that people won't tell you. All my lawsuits have been with people who were friends of mine or friendly. And if you're like, "Huh, well, I can't believe that he would get in arguments with his friend." What do you think divorces are, right? Like we humans think that we're somehow immune of like, "No, I'm really cool with this guy. We're best friends. I don't think we're ever going to get into an argument." Okay, well, consider this.

7:41People who sleep with each other for extended periods of time make life commitments to each other half the time end it. So, if you think the most important relationship in your life where you're sharing everything with this person, you're committing to forever, half the time it ends, maybe just maybe write down a [ __ ] contract. And the reason that I I honestly had a lot of these lawsuits is because And the thing is is it takes years for these things come due, right?

8:06Like you have a business thing that was 6 years ago and then the thing finally really starts to make money and then you have a conflict, right? And so, you have to deal with all the uncomfortable stuff up front. And I just so strongly encourage you to like those contracts, I avoided hard conversations and was like, "Ah, we'll figure it out when it gets to that." And we both didn't want to talk about those things. We didn't want to We didn't want to mess up the friendship. It's like, "Bro, if you think you can't have a hard conversation when there's no money on the line, just just assume that you will be in a lawsuit for many years.

8:37Just assume it. And if you're not willing to have that hard conversation up front and you willingly will go into having multiple years of lawsuits on the back end, then you deserve it. Right? And it's so avoidable and it's likely that it's not going to work out because one where both of you can't have hard conversations, which is required for success. And so, I unfortunately have the scars for this one. The contracts that I've done in the last couple years are significantly better than the ones that I did 6, 7 years ago, but those are the ones that are coming due now. And so, the time that you should have great agreements was 20 years ago, the second best time is today. So, just start with a frame of like, "Hey, I want everything in writing just so we have no misunderstandings so there's no unspoken expectations." Cuz the last thing in the world that I would want is that I would disappoint you because you expect me to do something that I was unwilling to do or that I didn't know you wanted me to do. And so, you can approach from that perspective and then you just have to say, "Hey, what happens if you don't want to be a partner with me anymore? What happens if I don't want to be a partner with you anymore? What happens if you die? What happens if I die? Right? What happens if we disagree on where we're going to put the money? Right, what happens if we disagree if we're going to sell? These are all things you have to talk about.

9:41And so, you either do it now when there's low stakes, or you do it at the end when you both have high stakes. And I can promise you it's much better when there's low stakes. So, that's a really cool concept. I think Sharoun said this and I really like it. He said you can you can see what level of friend you have by the things that you talk about with them. So, he had five levels of friends. I really love this. And I would use this as a litmus test for thinking through the quality of the friendships that you have in your life. The lowest level of friend is someone that you can only talk about the past with. Ah, the good times you used to have. Oh, remember high school? Past, right?

10:14The next level friend is someone you just talk about other people with. Oh, how's so-and-so doing? How's Let's talk about that person. Let's talk about that person. AKA kind of gossiping, but that's what it is. Level two. Level three friend is someone that you can talk about ideas with. Oh, wouldn't it be cool if Oh, isn't it amazing? You can dream, right? Ideas, concepts. The fourth level of friend is taking somebody you can do stuff with. You can talk those ideas and actually execute. You can take action, you can do things together, etc. Fourth. And then fifth is friends that you can make, lose, and spend money with. And I believe that because for whatever reason, money is just one of those subjects that I think it just shows how I mean, it shows how someone behaves around a reinforcer and what someone values. It just kind of cuts through the crap of everything.

11:00And so, like Sharoun for example, is our president. Sharoun and I have done deals together for like 5+ years. And we really started almost as to use the Rockefeller quote, like we are a friendship founded on business. And it has worked out great compared to most of the businesses I founded on friendship. And so, we just done lots and lots of deals together. We've had ups, we've had downs, we've made big calls, and I just have seen him in all the ups and downs of those years, and he's seen me, and we've been like, let's do more stuff together because it's so rare. And so, at this point, could I have a handshake agreement with Sharoun?

11:31Yes, totally. And we do have them on lots of different deals. On the really big stuff, we still write it out. Why? Just so we're on this literally the same page. And so, I was just reminded of that this year. It'll be I'd be remiss to not say what I learned from the eight lawsuits that I got in this year. Those are my big takeaways is that no matter what level of friend you're with, make sure that you put everything in writing and you want to front-load the discomfort. Real quick, if you are business owner and you are not growing as fast as you'd like, I'd like to give you a free gift. So, my team and I put together the $100 million scaling road map, which is basically 200 hours of us looking over all the portfolio companies we've had and what stages of growth they went through and more importantly where they got stuck and how they got past it.

12:12And so, we broke it in these 10 stages and we made this little kind of quiz thing where if you put in your business information, it'll tell you where you're at and the most important part for you, what to do for each of functions of the business across product, marketing, sales, customer success, recruiting, IT, human resources, and finance. And so, no matter what you're struggling with, someone else has already struggled with it and solved it. And so, I'd like to give you this thing absolutely free. You can go to acquisition.com/roadmap, plug in your business information, and if you want us to actually help you deconstruct the business and you're trying to scale, we'd love to help you out. On the thank you page, you just book a call with my team and we will look at the business, see if we can help, and if we can, we'll invite you out to Vegas and we'll do this in person live.