Wie ich klarer über die Welt nachdenke

0:00Is there anything that you want to write a book about? >> Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean I we we cuz it's I mean it'll be it'll be Trevor and I. Um we will write we will write the behavior book. We will write it. And I think it'll be I think it will be the book that sells more than all my books put together. That's me calling it. Do you have any idea of what a main focus might be or maybe something you're thinking about in terms of behaviors right now?

0:29>> It's an operating system. Hm. How to see the world. And I think that I won't publish it until I feel like I have a good foundation to publish it from. So I would say that I haven't, you know, achieved the things that I would like to achieve before publishing it. And so I have to achieve those things. And then once I can achieve those things once I have achieved those things then I will publish it. Um but basically that operating system, my relationship with Dr. Cash has changed my life more profoundly than any relationship that I've had.

1:01And it was because it defining language has made the world make sense. And the vast majority of people spend a lot of their time talking to other people and thinking that they're communicating when really they make face noise at the other person and that person has can't define any of the terms that they're hearing and then just has some loose definition that they don't really operate on that they're listening and that's why, you know, the vast majority of time like nothing occurs when people talk. They just like make noise at each other because they've been rewarded for making noise at each other in the past, right? And so in thinking about that, I think I've I've gotten much better as a communicator. I've gotten much better as a teacher. I've gotten much better as a learner. Um because I can observe I think the pieces that matter most which is what are the actions? What are they doing? Right? And so it all comes this is I mean again this is my view of the world is that everything comes down to behavior. What do you do?

2:00And it's observing all the tiny nuances and all the tiny details that are all important because all there if there's many variables and this is a BF Skinner quote but if if many variables exist many variables many variables must be studied. And so that's that's basically the viewpoint and you know people will say like hey you know I want to be more honest or I want to be more courageous and it's like well what does that mean? And they're like I don't know. I'm like right well then how can you get there?

2:24How can you how can you become that? If you don't know how to do that. And then it gets very real cuz you're like how do you do that? And then that's where basically the field of study begins. What does it mean to be courageous? What does it mean to be authentic? Do you believe most adjectives adverbs are like ill-defined in general? 100% Totally. I also think there's a lot of words that mean the same thing. Mhm.

2:50Is there any one word that you've been thinking about lately? Um Do you ever like have to define this? No. No. Um as they as they come up Trevor and I have conversations and we'll be like what do you think this means? And we're like well and we just think and the way that you have to think through it from a behavioral lens is what would occur in the world or in the environment in front of us for us to know that this adjective had happened?

3:15And so this is like and this is why I think teaching you know has been really helpful for me in terms of the same behavioral lens which is you know Emily's lazy. Okay. Why am I saying that? I'm describing her as lazy but I'm describing her as lazy because I observed something. What did I observe? When was the first time I thought that she was lazy? And is there multiple times that I thought she was lazy? Okay, let's track back to that because usually you'll just ascribe a label and never think about why you put the label there and then you just call Emily lazy. But like there's something or multiple things that she did and so maybe Emily was slow to respond to Slack or maybe you know I just saw Emily walk in late to a meeting or uh you know she sent me you know I said hey you owed me this thing." She delivered it late and then I reminded her and then she and she gave me something that was just crappy. I'm like, "Oh, she's lazy." But, then when I say, "Emily, stop being lazy." She has no idea what that means. She doesn't know which behavior she needs to change or what behavior she did I'm describing that label to which we'll deem as negative. And so, it's way more fruitful to instead of saying, "Hey, Emily, stop being lazy." to say, "Hey, there are three things that you've done that I did not like."

4:16Instead of doing this, do this next time. And then when Emily does that next time, immediately trying to reinforce the behavior and say, "Great job. That was amazing. Awesome." or whatever source of reinforcement is most positive for her which we might find out Emily likes something else more, you know, who knows? Maybe she wants a call out in public or maybe she wants a free lunch. I don't know. But, when we do that, then it's like, "Okay, now I can create reward cycles around people so I can encourage the behavior that I want."

4:42Do you believe the word energy is ill-defined? Sure. I mean, How would you define energy, perhaps? I wouldn't even try. I just I just I just I wouldn't even try. I mean, cuz it's like, if someone's like, if someone said, "Hey, so-and-so has good energy." right? I would probably say, "Okay, this person has done numerous behaviors in front of other people that they recognize a pattern with other people that they have had positive experiences with in the past." And so, what are all of these behaviors that this person who has quote good energy has that then I can take to somebody else who has bad energy and say, "Do this instead." And all of a sudden, this person now has good energy. But, it's not that they have good energy, they have observables. Now, some people be like, "No, there's just there's something else you can It's like, "Nope.

5:28You have senses, you can observe through them and that is what you are limited to. Period. Show me anywhere that we've that we've been able to prove that we have any other senses besides the one that we have. We have our eyes, we have our ears, we have our touch, like, we can listen, we can taste, like, those are the senses we have. That's how we perceive the world. That's where we take in information. And so, it's from those senses that we made a decision. And so we just have to deconstruct what were the variables that created that that that that pattern that we recognized from the past that was positive.

6:00But this is how I feel like fundamentally this is how I think about learning any skill and and being like you want to be a good speaker it's like look at good speakers and you have to really look. It's not just like he seems so confident. You can't describe that to yourself cuz you don't even know what it means. So like but what is he doing? How like okay, he doesn't he doesn't pace a lot on stage. He he walks and then he he stands on one side and he addresses one side and he stays there for a little bit, you know, 10 seconds or so and then he walks to the other side and he stands there for 10 seconds or so. Okay, so he does walk but not always cuz I walked and it looked like I was nervous. Okay, so I got to walk but only sometimes. Got it. And what is he doing with his hands? Okay, he doesn't have his hands in his pocket but then he does put his hand in his pocket when he makes a point but then he takes it out again. Okay. And so like as as anal as that sounds when you start doing it people are like whoa, what happened?

6:45You're you look you have totally different energy now. It's just and the thing is is that I don't think that anyone does anything purposely. They're not trying to miscommunicate. It's just that big amorphous words like energy like vibe like manifestation, whatever are shorthand for bundles of terms and bundles of behaviors. And it's just much faster to say she's confident than saying she smiles when she walks in the door. She's you know, she she she talks you know, she speaks loudly. She enunciates. She nods her head when I'm talking to her.

7:17Um she reads back repeats back to me what I said uh before saying what she's going to say. Like rather than listing 30 things we're like ah she's confident. But being able to deconstruct that is what I think makes it valuable for you and for you to teach to other people if you were trying to do that. I think I'll understand the framework around most words but I guess how about energy in the sense of I have a lot of energy today? Yeah. Um because that one is helpful for others but I I think back to

7:43>> Actually, this is a perfect example. You said the word energy and I just said what I think you're talking about, right? And so this is how most people miscommunicate and they try to learn when somebody's giving them 10 amorphous words like that in a row and then they're like, "Why isn't it working?" It's because there's so many things that are ill-defined. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, no, no, no, totally right. Um But on energy, how would you define like having a lot of energy? Because I think back to this the first podcast I ever saw on you was Jack and Grams a while back when you originally went on My First Million and Jack and Grams were on the same time. Um and you had this idea of like [ __ ] happiness, right? And I kind of have a similar notion in my mind like [ __ ] energy, just kind of care about the results. Do you feel similarly about this?

8:27I honestly haven't thought about my energy levels in a very long time. So You just look at the outputs. I just like it's just not really a thought for me. I don't know. I have like I like I just haven't really thought about it. Like if I'm if I'm a little tired, I'll take a stimulant. If I'm a lot of tired, I'll sleep. >> [laughter] >> I don't know. And if I'm no tired, I'll work. That's like I just I don't know. Like yeah, it's just Yeah, I I really I really don't think about it at all.

8:52That's interesting. Um Dr. K also mentioned to talk about pop sci with you a little. Oh god. Can you persuade someone to do something that goes against their identity? Define identity. Hm. I guess usually in the context of I am a person who drinks lots of water. I'm a person who works out. >> Can you get someone to do something different than they've done before in the past?

9:18Yes. Sure. What would be your framework for going around that in perhaps a sales discussion? Well, it's kind of like the the temperature in the room. It's just how many variables can you control? Hm. I mean, if you think about, you know, what's motivation, right? No one knows. But I can say that it's the equal opposite of deprivation, which is when you're very deprived, you are motivated, right? If you're deprived of money, feel deprived of money, it's a psychological construct. I want to get into that one. I'll use a simple one.

9:51Physiological, if you're deprived of food, you're hungry. You're motivated to get food when you haven't eaten in a while. You're motivated to sleep when you haven't slept in a while. Motivated to have sex when you haven't had sex in a while, right? You're deprived of that thing. And so if I wanted to motivate someone to behave in a way different than they normally do, I would want to deprive them of something good in order to motivate the behavior, motivate the behavior, and make doing the thing that I want them to do the way of getting the thing that they want. And I think a lot of it just comes down to clearly communicating. And I would say like the longer I've been in the in the business of business, I I I have done away with a lot of the the fanciness of marketing and sales, and I've just it's about clear, not clever.

10:34How can I as clearly as possible communicate to this person? And I think having kind of the behaviors view of the world has helped me be more nuanced in my communication, more specific with my language, which then makes it clearer for people, and then it increases the likelihood that they do the desired behavior because I was clear with my instructions.

10:53If people are illogical in the buying process, why do we base offers in logic? Well, the premise is that people are illogical. I don't think they're all illogical. I think it depends on the nature of the purchase. The bigger the purchase, the more logical they are. The smaller the purchase, the quote less logical they are. And this, you know, Kahneman Daniel Kahneman made his whole Nobel Prize around this concept, which is the thinking fast and slow. And so I think it depends on what you're selling.

11:23And so I think your original question was why why have offers that are based in logic. But that assumes that someone's going to interpret everything logically, which they wouldn't anyways. Also, the more advanced the person that you're selling to, the more they already translate features into benefits, which is a fun one. Tell me about that. So, if you're selling to a super advanced car buyer, you don't need to say, "Man, this McLaren whatever is going to make you feel vroom."

11:55Like you're talking to an advanced car buyer, they're like, "Tell me about the carburetor. Tell me about the like the the engine. And tell me about the injector. The tell me the I don't know anything about cars." But like whatever. The like whatever those things are. Like if you're trying to like for me like what's I was saying is like what's something I know a lot about. Like I know a lot about gym equipment. Like I love gym equipment. I'm a I'm a gym equipment phenom. Um or fiend rather. >> [laughter] >> If someone's trying to sell me by like the feeling, I'm going like it's that's not like I'm like, "Show me the machine. Show me the strength curve." Like I because I will then translate it in my mind into the benefits of what I'm going to get from because I already know what I'm going to do with it. And so, the more advanced the person that you're selling to, the more you actually can talk about features because they're doing the translation on their own and prefer the specificity of language. If you're talking to a beginner, then the rich guy who just wins the lottery, then talk to him about the vroom vroom of the McLaren and how the girls are going to love him.

12:43So, I think it just depends again on the buyer. Now, to be fair, both of those people buy McLarens and it's up to the sales person to figure out which one they're selling to. 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 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 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 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.