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0:00I just want to understand your strategy and what are some of the mistakes that you made? I'm sure you gave too much to somebody or you made an ask too quickly. Like what are the best practices there? >> You know, I actually don't think I've made an ask too quickly. Um >> I t I'm maybe I tend to be like too ask insecure of like I want to make sure that there's like no doubt. Yeah, I leave no doubt that people talking I have given enough here that I can make the small ask. Um, you know, I would say that honestly one of my one of my best skills has been that like, you know, I've never actually identified that um until like this moment right now, but it's probably one of my one of my strongest skills skill sets has been knowing when to invest and when to pull back in relationships. Um, and people will probably see me as transactional.

0:53Um I just believe everyone's transactional and some people are just better at defining it. >> Um fundamentally like you if you have a like if you have a relationship with someone and like man we you know we used to be homies and you know I got to be loyal to that. To me translate that into human behavior is I have a history of reinforcement with this person and I have a belief that that that reinforcement will will return on a long enough time horizon. And so I'm willing to incur some cost in the short term. And obviously the relationship that you've had the strongest and longest periods of reinforcement for like a spouse, you're willing to give longer periods of time where things suck in order for things to, you know, come back to being good or different.

1:29>> Or the payback is your ego of being somebody that never befriends your homies or is always like friends with the same person. True. That's your payback. >> Yeah. >> You get to see yourself as such a good person. >> Totally. Yeah. You get to be an idealist. Um >> I got a definition for you. So I call a friend somebody that provides more value than he or she detracts from you in your life. >> Yeah. >> So >> a lot of people don't fall into that category for many people. >> A lot of people don't fall in that category. And also it's also too two two-sided. So you could have somebody completely crazy

1:59>> that you would never even want to associate yourself with, >> but that's comes through for you when you need them. That's a friend. And somebody that's there every day and just like, you know, making you depressed and you've known for 30 years would not be a friend. >> No. No. That's really good. And what's interesting is that if you if if if you keep a relationship, right, then it means you are you do have reinforcement from this person. The question is what are they reinforcing?

2:25>> So like maybe you hate being alone >> and so even though you don't like being with them, you prefer being with them than you prefer being alone or um to your point about the like you have some story that you tell yourself about how you are ex person and you get to tell yourself that story over and over again every time you see this this this friend. And so this person having this relationship serves you in some way and it's usually just not in the way that people expect that they're being served.

2:48But to the to try and uh put a nail on on the original thing. Um, I think one of the big like I I I wish I I I wish I knew where I read this, but I remember being completely uh engulfed in this game theory book about basically the prisoners dilemma where they they played out different givetotake strategies within the prisoner's dilemma.

3:12>> And they proved that the best give to take ratio was eight eight out of 10 give to take because if you're 10 out of 10, you get walked all over, right? And if you if you're on the other side, >> so eight give two takes. >> Yeah, basically. >> Um and and they even went so far as like it's eight out of 10. And they factored in forgiveness and learning between all the players with the different give ask ratios. And so it was like um somebody who learns um but does not let someone wrong them. Yeah. At an eight out of 10.

3:43And so it's this really like it's pretty precise in terms of and I think the the the reasoning behind it because they put wrote this whole thing about it was basically the eight out of like you have to give first most of the time because that's what opens up doors of opportunity if you're a tit fortter. So the five out of 10 like give and take then you don't >> wait for the other person to give and then you get that. >> Yeah. Those people don't get nearly the exposure of the eight out of 10 people on the givers because they open up so many more doors by giving first. the never askers just never they never benefit right and so there's a there's a sweet spot which is disproportionately giving but you still have to know when to ask and um I think this is really this is I think about this a lot because this it's it's actually very akin to people who get good at saving saving money just in a basic term withdrawals and and deposits right um

4:33>> there's I call it the fallacy of the third marshmallow say in the marshmallow test you know they have you you know take one now and take two two later. People have this um uh pathology where they believe that if I wait forever, I'll get a third marshmallow, like an even bigger outcome. And that's not the truth, right? Like there is a point in your life where you should start spending more money than you make, which is frightening for high achievers and earners who've spent way more time always earning more than they spend. But it's like, okay, then at the end you have this big big pile of crumbs as an ant, and then you die. Yeah. And so like you didn't get any of the So there is this sweet spot. And obviously it's difficult to get to um to balance that cuz most people don't even know how to like save. It's like so this is only for high achievers that I'm talking about here. Um but I have had so many doors in my life. And so functionally what I think organic content did for me was it allowed me to do that at scale was so as I as I prior to making me making content

5:33>> like Leila existed in my life to be the yang to my like yin of give first. So, she was like, "You just like Alex would be non-stop just like, let's do do this dinner. Let's do like let's let's I'm going to hop on the phone for three hours and help this guy redo this thing. I'm going to I'm going to help this guy with this whatever the things were that I was trying to help somebody with." I would just always do that. And she would be the one who was kind of like, and that's why I think Leila and I have been such a good partnership. >> Um, and she'd be like, "I think you're about to get taken advantage of here. I think you're I think they're just they're just using you at this point."

6:03Um, and so it was right that she would kind of pull me back. Um, but as soon as I was able to transition into making content, um, that allowed me to, it's the same energy for me. Like me making content is the same energy as what I used to do for one person. All that effort and for like helping someone solve a problem. I now just do that same thing and then just many people benefit. And so that's where the huge leverage on giving

6:26>> you've instead of fighting your your intrinsic traits, you've weaponized it into scalability >> one-on-one. And then so that like >> it reminds me of a a quote that Naval says. He says my brand is my value ad. >> Yeah. >> He'll invest and he'll say my value ad is that Naval Ravik has now invested in your business. So for you your brand is your value ad. >> Yeah. >> And your and your content is your value ad. >> Yeah. And ideally, you know, someone's had such a strong history of reinforcement from consuming stuff that and using the stuff that I gave them that I'm already in the green. You know what I mean? if they do

7:05>> before you've even talked to them and realized it was actually a awesome question because I hadn't thought about it, but my strategy has remained the same. I give to as many people as I possibly can. It's just that as soon as technology and distribution came into play with media, I was able to put that on absolute steroids. And so I do I do significantly less >> these, you know what I mean? like um one. Yeah. Yeah. And those those ones are

7:32>> but there's also the audience. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. Like so it's like there's still you know there's still an excuse, right? Scale. >> Um but if but that's but if I'm if I'm going to choose at this point and >> I'm sure you have the same issue which is there's a supply demand of your time, right? There's just a such a limited amount and as supply sorry as demand increases the supply is fixed and so it just becomes so so so precious. So you have to just almost be path you have to completely switch which is what's been tough for me but I have learned it is you have to almost pathologically say no to everything. No is the default.

8:05>> How many messages are inbox? >> A lot. >> I'm always very conscious to text you cuz I I feel bad cuz you're probably have thousands of messages. >> No, but what's where it gets when you take it to the national extreme is like >> you don't actually owe someone a response. >> Yeah. >> Just like >> especially since you've already given them so much of your content. So, it's not that they haven't done anything for you, it's that you've already done so much for them. >> Just the time like if I So, right now I probably get somewhere in the neighborhood of like a message every like three minutes um across social media. It might be it might be higher, but it's probably in that neighborhood, right? And so, like if I were because I remember um I I think it was right after the book launch the the Yeah, right after the book launch or or my offers book, maybe it was the offers book came out. I manually DM'd anybody who who tagged me in the book and I said, "Could you please leave a review?" And

9:00>> manually being you did. >> Yeah. I Yeah, I did it. And I remember finishing my inbox and then the responses from the people who I DM'd plus the new DMs that had happened in that same period of time were greater than when I had started. Like it's like you have to paint the bridge. By the time you get finished painting, except it would be like the bridge now extends. It's like it was literally impossible for me to actually DM every single person because by the time they had responded, there was even more that I had to to respond to their response.

9:31>> So, I had to just get uh I did it for four days. It's all I did. Um because I wanted to get >> It was another efficiency thing. Yeah, >> it seems hyper inefficient, but yet it probably made your your book rise and it has some >> It got to a few hundred, you know, I think it got to like 600 five stars within the first few days and I was like, "Okay, that's now it's an Amazon book that it doesn't look like it has five, you know, five star five stars on it." Um, but all that to say, um, in the beginning you have to say yes to everything and in the end you have to say no to everything. And so being able to manage that apparent dichotomy comes down to resource allocation which is still the core entrepreneurial skill set. Like where is it worth it?

10:11>> What got you here won't won't get you there. >> One one tip that I that I've learned and I I think I came up with this I can't remember where where I learned this but >> how somebody treats you in the first day in the first week of how they when they meet you is how they will treat you over the next 10 years because it's not about you it's about them. M >> some people are naturally givers. Some people are naturally takers. It has nothing to do with you. They're a formed individual. They might be a 30-year-old.

10:37They have 30 years of conditioning. Just because they met you doesn't mean >> you change their behavior neurobiology. So >> I tell everybody, notice how somebody treats you in the first day because that is how they will treat you for the rest of of their lives. And that that's very telling. >> Super good. I'll give one more I'll give a tactic to that that I found is um never decline or cancel the first meeting because like you meet at a you meet at something someone makes an introduction you have a text convo whatever and someone says hey you know can can you meet at 7 or can we do this dinner can we do this call things come up because especially a new connection is very has low typically has lowish value to you as a person. So like almost anything that could come up that is not that you probably might be willing to move the the call or the meeting for to take the thing that you know has more importance or whatever. I I have found that it's very difficult to get the second like the second conversation or the second meeting after the if the first one gets cancelled for whatever reason especially last minute.

11:46Mh. >> Um, and so I have like an increased priority on making sure that if I do meet somebody who's new and I think they're worth meeting that that meeting takes a huge priority to one happen quickly and then second that it actually occur. Um, and the flip side of that is that I'm actually willing to be very flexible for first meetings because I think that typically even just that one meeting it's like it transforms from being like someone introduced us to like we have had a conversation and I have a good feeling. I have some feeling about this person. strong signals one way or the other and even from one meeting I can I can probably call somebody up a few years later because like we had the meeting if we didn't have the meeting it's useless

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