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0:00I think you've spoke about people that break the law in an attempt to make money. You said we sacrifice the thing we want for the thing that's supposed to get it. So we sacrifice freedom for money in the hopes that the money will give us freedom. Downstream from that, this is one of the best things that I learned for all of last year and you created the framework and then I filled it in. So I talked about the tension between success and a desire to feel like we're enough. I think that this speaks to what you're on about here. Success is a strange thing.

0:29Presumably we want success because we think a more successful life will bring us more happiness, meaning and fulfillment is the problem. We sacrifice the thing we want, happiness, for the thing which is supposed to get it, success. Failure can make you miserable, but I'm not sure that success will make you happy. And if you end up with an equation, if you could imagine like we sacrifice happiness to achieve success in the pursuit of happiness. Like if you just remove success from both sides of the equation, what you're left with is just happiness.

0:54There are um We can't deny the fact that we're status full beings, that we you know, we require external validation. We can't just you know, go and live in a cave and in peaceful bliss and all the rest of it. Like there are things that we need to do, but I do feel like a lot of the time we over clock our lives with regards to success and the pursuits that we go through in an attempt to to do this. And that we sacrifice the thing we want for the thing which is supposed to get it is like I see that all the time. I always ask myself, am I over complicating this?

1:22Like am I am I doing more than I need to do? Is there a simpler way to do this? I think um I mean, I think this is a actually a game theory thing. And you're familiar Okay. So I can I can I can go on or I can not if you want. Okay. Yeah, so I mean Simon Sinek popularized this, but you have finite and infinite games, right? Finite games where you have no known players, agreed upon rules, and an outcome that that wins the game, right?

1:51And then infinite game you have known and unknown players, no rules, and the point of the game is to keep the game going. And what happens is that people apply finite rules to infinite games and then they wonder why it's not working. What's an example? So, a finite game would be like baseball. You know, the players at the end of the game, the person you tally up the ones with the most runs and you win and there's you can't you can't run you can't hold the ball and run around the bases. Like there's rules of play.

2:17With an infinite game, the Vietnam War is an a simple example that Simon Sinek gives, which is basically the US lost the Vietnam War because they were they were applying a finite structure, which is we're going to win this war and the Vietnamese people were were playing an infinite game structure, which is we're going to stay alive and keep fighting. And as long as someone is staying alive and keeping fighting, they will beat the person who's trying to end something. And so the infinite frame always conquers the finite. And the thing is is that most of the games worth playing are infinite. And so, if you were trying to get in shape, you don't win getting in shape. The point is to stay in shape for the rest of your life. You don't win at marriage. The point is to stay married.

2:53You don't win at business. The point is to stay in business and keep doing business. And the point of the game is to keep playing. And I think if if the success and I would imagine success, if you put all of those things together, it's an infinite game. And so the point of success is to do the things that make you successful. And so if you're doing the things that are making you successful, then you are by definition winning. Mhm. And I think that for me redefining what is a perfect day and living as many of those days in a row as I possibly can, to me that's winning. And I and I obviously have a relatively contrarian worldview, but which is that like when we die nothing happens and you know, we know what it was like to die because we've all been dead before, which is when we were before we were alive. Um but I don't think that what I will do will ultimately matter in 500 million years. And so that kind of eliminates a lot of the pressure for me around like the external outcome. Sure, I'm human.

3:43There are definitely motivators, but if I can just over time chip away at how much that weighs on the scale and I can keep putting more and more coins on the other side >> [cough] >> towards the infinite game of like the point of the game is to keep playing. And like there are some things that I remind myself over and over again. It's just like the point of the game is to keep playing. That's the point. That is the point. It's just keep playing. Point of the game is to keep playing. I very much like that. What was that you found out the three trait the three most common traits of highly successful people? Do you remember those? Yeah, it was um It's so funny.

4:16A superiority complex. So, the three most common traits of hyper successful people that they looked at. And it was interesting cuz there's the influencer world wants to be like, you have to wake up at 5:00 or you have to do cold plunges or whatever the [ __ ] right? But the thing that that but there was actually very few that they all had in common. So, number one was that they had a superiority complex. They thought they were better than other people and that they deserved more. The second is that they suffered from massive insecurity and feeling that they would never be enough.

4:42And third, they had impulse control. And so you've got this combination of people who are like, I want to do this big thing. So, there's big toward thing. And then you've got this big away pain that's like, I'm never going to be enough. I always have to do more. And then they have impulse control that keeps them focused on the goal. Without seeing the woman in the red dress or getting pursued by her. And that like So, it's like shoot high, have a big thing that that motivate like have a big tiger behind you, and stay on the path.

5:07Have you ever heard Jordan Peterson talk about that study of starving rats in a tube with a spring attached to their tail? >> No. [ __ ] brilliant. This is this is what you're talking about. So, um starving rats are placed into a tube. Yeah. And they have a spring that is attached to the tail that can measure the force that they pull at and that's a proxy for desire. >> [snorts] >> Then they waft the smell of cheese in from the front of the tube and the rat pulls and they measure how hard they want to go. And you think these rats are starving, they would be pulling pretty hard. Then they do another iteration of the study. This time they waft the smell of cheese in from the front, but they waft the smell of a cat in from behind.

5:40And the rats pull harder. Yeah. And what's the lesson? That you not only need to run towards something that you want, Yeah. but you need to run away from something that you fear. Now the problem and this is I like it superiority complex crippling insecurity impulse control. I like that. The problem is the people who we admire the most due to the most success in the real world don't necessarily have the most admirable internal states. That to me isn't necessarily the most peaceful blissful way to live your life.

6:09>> Mhm. What does it say that especially in the modern world we uh revere the people who have external accolades of success >> Mhm. and yet the three most common traits of these super successful people lead from a place which is almost objectively miserable. unadmirable. >> [laughter] >> Yeah. How do we how do we square this circle? I think it's just what are we solving for?

6:34So um like I mean a lot of people I love watching last dance which is Michael Jordan's you know mini docu-series. >> Phenomenal. >> Yeah, unbelievable. Um I think most people could see him there and be like I don't know if I really envy this guy's life. Like he still seems like pretty upset despite being a billionaire despite all the you know these these these other things. And so I think that if like what are we solving for? Like my my closest friend Dr. Cashy he has a statement cuz he coached Olympic Olympic teams. He was like champions are broken.

7:03I was like huh? He's like they people look at champions and try and find something that that champion has that they don't have. He's like but it's not that at all. He's like they lack something everyone else has which is an off button. They just don't stop. And at the end of the day like if we're if we're optimizing for outcomes then the most broken person will win. The person who has the absolute biggest you know desire for achievement the absolute biggest fear or pain that they're running away from and the hardest impulse control. Now impulse control most people would agree is a good thing. The other two not as much.

7:36And so what are we optimizing for? What problem are we solving? It's my favorite it's probably the number one most frequently asked question that I ask to our portfolio companies whenever we're about to do anything, which is what problem are we solving? If the problem that we're solving is that I want to be content, well, there's a lot of ways to do that, and you don't need to do all these other things. If the problem you're solving is that you want to be the richest man in the world, well, you're going to have to have a lot of superiority complex, you're going to have a lot of crippling insecurity, and you're going to have a lot of impulse control, and you're going to wait a long time. Real quick, if you are a 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 dollar 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 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.