Ein Gespräch mit deinem älteren Ich

0:00Yeah, >> I would love to talk to you about a couple of your tweets here. I have a bunch listed, but >> yeah, >> there's they're so good and your writing is is like it's really one of your gifts or or one of the things that you've built to be amazing at it. So, really just want to give you that acknowledgement. Um, oddly effective had a coaching call with myself. I typed up a chat conversation with some problems I was having and pretended to be my 85-year-old self. I got some really insightful replies. Worth a try. After all, no one cares about younger you as much as older you.

0:32Thought that was really cool, impactful, and a practice that anyone can do. I'd love to learn about uh are there specific prompts, questions, things you say to yourself that >> that make for the best conversation? >> This is the perfect question. >> Well done. So, this is something that I learned about later that stems from a psychological concept called the Solomon paradox.

0:57And so the Solomon paradox, if you don't know who anyone's listening is, is there was King Solomon who was known for being wise and he had he was one of the richest men of all time, etc. And so people, kings, rulers would come to him and ask for his advice. The reason that it's a paradox is that he gave exceptional advice to everyone else, but his actual life was in ruins. His he, you know, his son was was, you know, a terrible son and he had many wives and he cheated and he had this lust for money and all these things, but his advice to other people was amazing. And so the Solomon paradox and it's been studied in multiple facets that people give better advice than they follow themselves.

1:32And so they've studied this with relationships. They'll have somebody in a weird uh romantic relationship, tough tough setup, and they'll whitewash the names and say, "Hey, there's a lady and she's getting beat by her husband once a month." And it's happened for four years. And this time she says that her husband says that it's not going to happen again. What do you think that that woman should do? And then the person would give advice and it completely conflicts with how that woman actually lives her life even though she's giving advice to somebody who's not hurt. Right? And they have postulated why this is. Now you could say you've removed the emotions from it.

2:11You've removed the the tensions. Whatever you want to say, but what we do know is that people give better advice than they follow. And so if you pair that concept with the idea that no one has more context on your life than you do, then you have a very powerful combo. And so one of the issues that I've had with like therapists and performance coaches and things like that is that I I've done a hand I would say maybe I've spent like five maybe 10 hours in total in a setting like that. I'm not very good at it. Um, and it's because I usually feel like I'm spending the majority of my time trying to give them enough context in order to give me advice, right? But they don't know every one of my skill sets. They don't know every one of my backgrounds. They don't know the how that business deal like he kind of looked a little dodgy, but I didn't have time to give more context to it so that they could give me the advice, right?

3:03And so I have failed at most of those things. And so when I tried this experiment, it was because I was actually really stressed about a decision. And so I said, "Okay," and this has been a mental practice of mine was just talking to my 85-year-old self, but I was like, "Let me formalize this a little bit. I'm actually going to write it out in a document." And so I I started talking to my future self. And it was kind of interesting is um it I could hear myself laughing at myself.

3:34So like I'm like, "This thing isn't happening fast enough." like I don't know what's going on. And then I'd be like, what did you expect? You're trying to build a billion dollar thing in what, a year? And then I'm like, well, I mean, no. And I'm like, well, what's the objective? And I'm asking the same questions I would ask a portfolio company or CEO, right? Or whatever. And I'm now getting coached by me. And some people might take that as like wildly egotistical, which hopefully they don't. But the other side of it is that like this person has two things that no therapist has. They have complete context on my situation and they have completely aligned incentives and there's no one else in the entire world who has that.

4:16And I would argue that most people know what they should do. They just don't do it. So I'll relate this back to weight loss sales way back in the day. I'd sit across the table from Sandy and she'd be like, "I don't know what to do." And I used to just like play into that, be like, "Oh yeah, well I'll help you educate and all stuff." And as I got more and more experienced with sales, I'd be like, "Sure you do." And they would look at me because they didn't expect that. And I'd be like, "What do you mean?" And that's also it breaks the frame. And all of a sudden, you actually get their attention. But I would say that and and they'd look at me crosseyed and I'd be like, "If you had to lose weight, what would you do?" And they were like, "Well, I'd probably like I'd work out more." Like, "Okay." I was like, "What else would you do?" They're like, "I probably eat a little better."

4:53I'm like, "Okay." I was like, "Pretty much got it." I was like, "But that's not the issue, is it?" They're like, "Well, no." I was like, "It's that you're not doing it." She was like, "Yeah." I was like, I can help you with that. And so the issue is that a lot of times we think that we like that we have a knowledge gap, but a lot of times it's not that we have a knowledge gap. We just need someone else to hold us accountable. And so the ultimate gift that I think you can give yourself in life is holding yourself accountable.

5:18Like if you can do that, if you can really hold yourself accountable, you can do anything. And so sometimes it's really hard to hold yourself accountable. And so I'm just asking my 85-year-old self to hold me accountable [laughter] to what I say I want. Right? Because even the flip side, and I said, there's two things. There's the knowledge and there's the incentive. Right? Somebody might be able to help you out, but their incentives aren't aligned. >> So, as terrible as I'm about to say may sound, there are therapists that I think are very good and really help people.

5:46But there are also therapists that are human and have bills to pay and have and have families and they look at their business like a business and have a recurring revenue stream and say like if I solve your problem you won't leave. And so you come here and you vent to me and I say let's do the same same time next week. They're not trying to solve your problem. They're trying to make you feel better in the moment but not solve it long term. And so I want someone who has complete context and completely aligned incentives. And there's only one person who has that and that's me. And so the question is like how can I give me advice? It's like, well, me giving me advice isn't working, so I need old me to give advice who has 85 years of context. And the nice thing is is that most of the time, he just laughs at me and makes fun of me and tells me that none of this is going to matter.

6:26And so, it's been a very nice razor for focusing on the few things that do. And so, when I am stressed or I have a big business decision, I also know that I don't have to educate a therapist or a coach on at least my level of business acumen to get good advice. Right? And so that has been what I have called the Solomon project. And so I have a recurring I have a recurring calendar meetup with myself for an hour on Mondays. It's the first thing I do.

6:51And I have a back and forth dialogue with 85-year-old me. And I I mean it's a dialogue. It's just like a chat. And so I chat to me and then I click enter and then I chat back and I do the whole thing like I like it's and I'm like well dot dot dot. And I'm like what dot dot dot? It's like, well, you kind of know. And I'm like, what do you mean? You know, like I have the whole thing. Um, but I can't tell you it's been one of the most rewarding experiences that I've been through because like I old me has absolute grace for young me. And old me appreciates the sacrifice that young me right now is putting in for old him. And it's like, I wouldn't be living the life I have if you weren't doing what you're doing right now. So, thank you. And it like it hits because like there aren't many people who thank you for doing what you do, but like there's no one that it benefits more than you, right? But actually to be thanked by it's very weird. It's very meta, but like it's been a really powerful experience for me. And I think from a mental health or anxiety or long-term planning perspective, it's allowed me to pump the brakes on reactivity in my life, whether it's with relationships or business decisions, and be able to just be wiser, if we call it that. But really, just, you know, most of wisdom is just thinking over a longer time horizon. And so it's like, might as well talk to the guy at the end and see what I should do today.

8:15>> And that this is through a Google doc or just a a chat. >> Just a Google doc. >> Just a Google doc. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> I just click enter. Yeah. That's it's simple. >> I mean, it's I can tell who's talking. [laughter] I know who's whose turn it is. You know what I mean? >> Yeah. I love it. >> It's It's really powerful. I'm going to do that right after this. >> Real quick, I'm going to show you the exact 10stage road map from zero to 100 million plus that less than 1% of companies finish. I've now done multiple times. And so, I can say with a lot of confidence that these are the stages as headcount increases that you need to get through. And I broke each of these down by eight different functions of the business. What the constraint feels like, like what are the symptoms of it when you're going through it, and then what steps we actually took to graduate.

9:00And we've done this across software, physical products, uh, service businesses, brickandmortar, all of this. And it works. And it's my gift to you. It's absolutely free. And so the link's in the description, but you just go acquisition.com/roadmap. Just enter your info and it'll spit it right back to you. Offering.