Sich selbst gute Ratschläge geben

0:00I want to talk about Solomon. >> Okay. >> Sure. >> You said this during a couple of podcasts, which is like your 85-year-old self. You named them Solomon. >> Yeah. >> And that's the counselor >> Yeah. >> use >> Yeah. >> to base decision-making off of in this day. >> Yeah. >> Can you talk us through the last thing that you consulted with Solomon? And maybe if I didn't properly describe who Solomon is >> Yeah. I'll give I'll give some context. So, Solomon was named after something called the Solomon Paradox. And for those who don't know who Solomon was in the Bible, he was a very wealthy uh ruler uh who many other kingdoms came to to seek counsel or advice. The reason it's called Solomon's Paradox is that he was amazing at giving advice, but his actual life was in shambles. So, he cheated on his wife, and his son was you know, he had a bad bad relation with his son. And so, the idea is that as humans, we're better at giving advice than we are at following it.

0:47And [snorts] so, that's why it's called Solomon's Paradox. And so, in in an effort to try and get better answers, the the higher up and I'll use quotes here that you get in business or whatever endeavor you're going after, the harder it is to find people who can actually help you out. And part of having or getting help from people is that I want someone who has aligned incentives. I want someone who um is competent, and I want someone There's a third piece, but it's There's three things you want.

1:13Oh, and they I want them to have complete context. So, like they have to have complete context, they have to be competent with that context to give advice, and they have to be aligned. Cuz if someone's super competent and uh and has complete context and not aligned, they just know how to ruin my life. >> [laughter] >> You know what I mean? If they're really aligned and they're competent, they have no context, they might have good advice in general, but it won't be specific to me. Right? If they're aligned and have uh context, but they're incompetent, it's your mother. She completely understands you, and she loves you, but she has no idea how to tell you how to invest.

1:41>> Right. >> And so, I wanted someone who would have all three. And so, in trying to think through this, I I had you know, multiple experiences with the you know, executive coaches, counselors, therapists, whatever you want to call it. And I've I've always had very short-lived experience with those those people. And I think part of my experience was that I felt like their a lot their incentive was not aligned. It was that their goal from a financial perspective was that I just continue to pay. And I was like, "Well, that doesn't really solve problems for me. Like, you just want me to keep staying. No matter what you say, that's how you get paid, right?" The other piece was that uh from a context perspective, I would notice that I would spend 60 minutes trying to to just give color to the decision that I was trying to make that I was faced with just so that they could give me some valuable feedback on it. And the third piece is if I'm talking to a therapist, I'm probably better at business than them.

2:26And the vast majority of the problems that I face on a daily basis have to do with business. And so like I'm asking somebody who is basically a solopreneur or self-employed on how I'm trying to manage a $200 million a year portfolio and how I'm going to like allocate resources. And like they're probably not going to have a good answer for me in terms of their competence level. And so in trying to tackle that, I came upon the Solomon Paradox. I was like, "What if I could give myself advice?" Because I'm sure everybody who's listening to this has given somebody advice on a relationship or on fitness or whatever.

2:54And you're like, "Man, if I followed that advice, I'd be in better shape, too." And so I was like, "Well, maybe maybe I I have the answers and I just need to package it differently." And so I started having these sessions with what I call, you know, my 85-year-old self who I call Solomon for whatever purpose that seems to separate my personal self and my older self. Because that man is the only person who has absolutely aligned incentives with me, has complete context to my situation, and is as competent as I am. And I'm trusting the fact that I give better advice than I heed. And so I have basically chat form messages with Solomon. It's an ongoing document. It's the first hour of every Monday for me.

3:27It's like, "What's top of mind for me?" And the nice thing is that it also can last 7 minutes. And sometimes it can last 45 minutes. I don't need to like stay for 60 or drive somewhere or take a Zoom call. Like, if I get to the bottom of what I wanted to get to, it's done. And I don't need to waste all this time giving context. And so um I usually keep going uh with Solomon literally back and forth like it's chat. I just hit enter and I just keep going back and forth until I get to the root of the issue. And I usually have some sort of thing that Solomon will tell me that will kind of like close the loop. And I know it when I when I when I get it. And then at that point it's like I don't think about that thing anymore. Like the decision's made or like I know like I've I've resolved the inconsistency.

4:03And so an example of that was um I had a I had a a big snafu that happened. I'd worked for a while on a project and um it ended up falling through because of a vendor. And um it cost me about $15 million. Um of actual money. It really sucked. And so I was really upset. You know what I mean? I was I was very upset. >> What happened? >> I won't go into the details um but like I had basically think about this way like I paid a a big chunk of money for insurance uh against uh a $15 million loss.

4:32And the person that I had paid that was literally their only job that I paid a good chunk of money a fraction of that but a good chunk of money several hundred thousand dollars to ensure that didn't happen. And then after paying it did happen. And I was like this was the only job you had. This is the thing that you were that this is the only thing I hired you for. Was this one thing that you said you specialized in. And like what? You know so I was [snorts] really upset about it. And so I'm having this conversation it's almost and the thing is is the more I talk to the person the more I just realize that they were just truly incompetent. It wasn't malicious. They were just stupid.

5:05And they made the promises just because they're stupid. And so it's almost like uh if you have a Babe Ruth rookie card and your toddler pours paint on it. What do you do? You hit the kid? Like they don't understand. Like you just have to take it. You just get kicked in the nuts. This is what it is. Um and so I was going through this process with with Solomon and um he said I am the asset you are building.

5:30And I am satisfied with the effort you put in. And that is enough. And that was kind of it for me. I was like my I put all this work but two years into this thing in this project um and it was because of the person that I ultimately want to be cuz I want to die, it's not going to matter anyways. Um and so the person I'm becoming is the ultimate asset that I'm trying to build. To answer the billion-dollar question, like billion is just a reflection of the asset I'm trying to build.

5:57And that's the person who I want to impress. And the the interesting thing with Solomon is that like you especially the higher higher performing you are, cuz I'm sure you get this question a lot, like how do you stay motivated, whatever, if you've achieved a certain amount. It's by not comparing yourself to other people, it's by comparing yourself to the person you want to be. And so the tough part about that, if you really real about it, is that like Solomon if I could have tried harder. So like with the presentation for the the leads book, I couldn't put more effort in. Put 200 hours in over 28 days.

6:22It's basically every hour every day. I'd review the slides in the morning. I would do a live recording, and then I'd watch the recording afterwards, and I would edit the slides in real time as I watch the recording. And I did that every day for the entire month leading up to it. >> I had no idea. >> Yeah. >> Wow. I thought maybe there was like a teleprompter or something. I know you're kind of going base of the slides, but >> Yeah, and so it was funny cuz like right right before I got on stage, and I'm going to loop back to Solomon, like the lady who was the the the one who ran the venue with the the the screens and whatnot, was like, I've literally never seen anyone so chill about something like this, and this is like the biggest event we've ever even had here.

6:57And um I was like, I've done this before. Like I've done this before. Like this isn't my first time. Like I know this presentation. Like there's nothing more I could have done to prepare for this. And so like in that instance, Solomon in that, you know, mini sitting would be like, I am proud of the effort I know you put in, because at that time, whether the all the cameras cut off and the you know, a storm came through and everything blew up, there was nothing more I could do.

7:23And so for that, like I try to make that man proud of me, but the tough part is is that he knows how hard I can try. And then a lot of times, if you are a high achiever, if you compare yourself to other people, you're going to beat them anyways. And so like you can't compare yourself to them. And it's like, well who's the one person who always knows how much more I could have tried? And that's future me. And I also think that hopefully a future me has an even higher work capacity and more focus and better skills than I do uh to work. And so, that's the man I ultimately try to impress. And um if I'm brutally honest with myself, um I think I think he gives me ruthless honesty um in terms of my deficiencies and the things that I can work on. And I am good enough at giving that advice um that I can I can take it.

8:03>> So, for the 15 million loss though, what was the takeaway for you? It's just like I know you did everything you could, but then wouldn't that also say that you should have done a better job vetting people to make sure they're more competent? >> Yeah, I mean, those are the I'm going to always do that. But, I would say this, which is that when you play with bigger stakes, you your chips were are worth more. You know what I mean? Like if you're if you're playing you're playing a poker game and your buy-in's a million bucks, every hand you're betting 50 grand. You know what I mean? And so, like as the as the game gets bigger, you just add zeros to the stakes. And so, if you want to make a billion dollars, you have to be willing to lose 100 million. It's just It's just I mean, you've lost money now, right? Up to this, I'm sure you've lost money on things and be like, "Fuck, I learned from that."

8:44>> Given the information that I had at the time about the vendor and their experience and how they came recommended, I think that the decision that I made was reasonable. >> Now, I could always go and 100% quadruple-check every single thing, but at what point do I become micromanaging and then blow That blows up in my face. So, it's like uh Ray Dalio talked about this with um I think crypto in the early days. Uh but, he basically said, "I don't feel bad about missing out on opportunities because if I were to make the decision to pursue that opportunity, I'd have to also apply that same decision-making process to all the other opportunities that I would have bought and then lost all my money on." And so, like sometimes you just get kicked in the nuts. And I think that um like you do the best you can. There's always going to be things that are uncontrollable.

9:27And it is what it is. >> When is the last time you've fallen short of Solomon's standards? >> Every day. >> Every single day? >> Yeah, of course. Like for real. Like there's there's always things I could do better on. I could have I could have been you know I could have been kinder to Leila. I could have put more effort into like what I was going to say to her this morning. Like there's always things I can do better. And it's um And yeah, I but I will say that my talks with Solomon are typically about one specific thing. >> Real quick, if you are a business owner and you are not growing as fast as you like, I'd like to give you a free gift.

9:53So, my team and I put together the $100 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. And so we broke it into 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 can 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.