Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - The Man Behind Priceline and a $500M Exit Explains What Actually Wins | Michael Loeb - Loe

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Lessons - The Man Behind Priceline and a $500M Exit Explains What Actually Wins | Michael Loeb - Loe · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this lessons episode, discover why relentless persistence is the ultimate competitive advantage
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  and what it takes to achieve world-class success.
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  Learn how mastering one core strength creates outsized results, explore why an unstoppable
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  mindset fuels growth, and understand how small entrepreneurial actions compound into lasting success.
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  Every single person, if they put 20, 30, 40 years into something, they'd be successful at it.
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  Or if they have a feedback loop built in, if they iterate, if they learn, they'd be some measure
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  of success at that thing. But I find that I wasn't even going to this yet, but we're like right
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  out of the gate, the thing that people have to take home from this, it's that attitude.
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  It's that I'm not fucking giving up till I figure it out or die, attitude.
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  Yeah, I think you got it, man. I think that, you know, I'm either going to win or I'm going to
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  die on this hill. And the fact of the matter is, most people, I mean like 99% of people,
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  don't do that. I mean, they get a good job and they worry about keeping their job.
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  There is an expression, a quote that has stayed with me for a long time, which is A people
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  hire A people and B people hire C people and B people hire C people for one reason, which is
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  job preservation. Because they know the C's will never get in their grill and push them.
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  And you know what, B world class, B world class, the other piece of advice they can give everybody
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  is that we are all a collection of A's and B's and C's and D's. With A's being what we're
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  going to add and C's being what we suck at. Forget about the C's and the D's. Do not do the
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  C's and the D's. Find your A, find your A and move it from an A to an A plus and move it from
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  an A plus to a plus plus and then move it to world class, right? World class. And then you
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  just do that over and over again. Many of your listeners know about Mariana Rivera. He's been out
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  of the game out of baseball for five years. The guy had one pitch. He had a cutter. He was the
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  best in the world cutter, unnatable. And if you hit it, you broke your bat. And it was as simple
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  as that. And he became the best reliever ever. And he might have been the only guy. I don't know
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  if he was unanimously elected into the Hall of Fame, but he was as close to unanimous as you
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  can possibly get, right? And he had one pitch, right? And Collins would say the book Good to Great.
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  And that book, by the way, is very interesting. Here is the guy. Here is the dude who sucked
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  as a professor. He got fired all over the place and sucked at everything he did and came up with
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  the book. Good to great. And he talked about foxes and hedgehogs and foxes, right? They're
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  bees and everything, right? They can do everything a little bit. They run fast, but they're not the
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  fastest. They're stealthy, but not the stealthiest. They can, you know, hunt game, but it's got to be
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  rabbits. Can't be big, okay? On the other hand, a hedgehog, which is kind of like a porcupine,
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  or at least I think it's zoologist on here. It's going to bitch at me for that. But,
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  you know, they curl into a ball and they're all quills and they're like nothing can penetrate
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  a hedgehog, right? You're done. That's what you want to do. You want to find out your super power
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  and you want to build on that super power and make it the super duper power best in the world
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  power and figure out compensating mechanisms, scaffolding, right? To do everything that your
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  bees and season these. Forget about the bees and season these. Don't try to take a sea capability
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  and turn it into a bee or be and turn it into it. It's a waste of time. Become, by the way, world
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  class in one thing and do that thing all day long like Mariano Rivera. What's your super power?
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  I told you, you're just not listening. Aren't you in the job of listening, dude? Okay, I don't give up.
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  All right. Does anybody know what a healamonster is? No, you know. Okay, so a healamonster that's
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  in the southwest of the United States. They are the meanest mother fucking snake ever actually
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  they're reptile. So get, understand how mean the son of a bitch is. First of all, they got like
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  this pebbly impregnable skin, impenetrable skin. And you can, and by the way, they have a poisonous
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  bite, right? And if they bite you and they're hanging from their your leg and you take them a
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  shetty, all right? And you cleave their body off their leg off their head, right? That head
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  doesn't go anywhere. It stays clamped down on your leg. That's a healamonster. I'm a healamonster,
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  right? Just, you know, give me any body part. I am like biting your, I'm biting your ass, man.
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  And I'm staying there. And that's what my super power is. I just will out persist you, out hustle
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  you 24, seven. I'll outthink you, right? I'll outthink you. And part of the reason why I can outthink
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  you is I will take disparate things from disparate industries and disparate experiences. And I'll
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  put it together in unique ways. Now what lets me do that? It's the courage to free your mind,
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  right? And if you are impenetrable, impenetrable, okay? If you cannot be defeated, then you get that
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  courage and allows you to think laterally like nobody else. And yeah, that's my, that's my skill.
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  I don't give up. I love it. But that wasn't, was that always the case? Or was there something
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  that? No, always the case. So when somebody says, listen, that's because your super power is a
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  superpower, the Trump's all superpowers. I mean, there's people that are, are specialists in a
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  variety of different things, but the ability to not give up can make you significantly proficient
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  at literally anything you take on. That is almost like a skill that allows you to learn new
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  skills, too, because you just don't give up. I don't give up. That's like saying. I don't give
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  up. That's like saying like, yeah, go ahead. All right, I'll tell you the story about me and tennis,
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  okay? So 20 years ago, I bought this house in the Hamptons, right? And your listeners would like
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  to know this because if any of your listeners has seen billions, I want to show up hands,
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  who have you have seen billions? Oh, a lot of you have. Okay. So that was house. That is the house
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  on billions. And it became the protagonist of the show. And the beach house is what I'm referring to.
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  And there's a whole story, not worth getting into about how that became the billions house.
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  It was not my choice. It found me a friend of mine, Rand's Showtime. And he, well, he kind of begged,
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  he compromised it. He did whatever he had to get that house. And he was, by the way,
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  paying a little bit too much to film at that house, which was a good thing and all went to charity.
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  True story. But anyway, I never played tennis before. And that was because in college,
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  I was a lacrosse player, but I really was a wrestler. And if you saw, you know,
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  if you saw my, my shoulder to waist ratio, you would totally understand why I'm a wrestler.
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  And anyway, I thought, you know, tennis, the white shit, you know, the white clothes,
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  those funky little rackets, the fufu stuff. I mean, that's, that's not the stuff that wrestlers,
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  right? Right. We're not, we know, we get bloody. Okay. It's like, you know, oh, I broke my nose
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  again. Okay. Just put it back in place. I'm back out there. Like we think Rocky, right?
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  Is a sissy. Okay. So anyway, that's what a wrestler is. And I'm a wrestler. And then I bought
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  this house at a beautiful tennis court. And I said, you know what? I really got to try playing.
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  And I learned to love that sport. It's not golf. Right. You pick up that rack and you are running,
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  running around. I do not play with humans only pros. And I am now in the really, really very good
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  category of tennis, right? As an old guy, right? An old half Jewish short guy. I am in the
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  really, really good category. And, you know, I play pros straight up. And the question I always
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  get is, where did you play your D1 tennis? And it was like, no, I didn't start playing until I was
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  50. Well, first of all, congratulations for that question. That's a pretty damn good question to
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  be asked. That's pretty good. Yeah. It's kind of cool. It's got to be cool. It is very cool.
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  I will play, I will play like a guy who just graduated, you know, from like wherever as a D1
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  player. And then, you know, he went on the circuit for a little bit. And then he plays me and he
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  said, where'd you get all that? I mean, where'd you, where'd you, where'd you play your tennis? And
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  it's kind of full. It's cool to have that assumption. But anyway, so yeah. So, but, you know, I pick
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  and choose, right? It's not every sport. It's like that one sport. And, but if I do it, I do it
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  at conquer. And I never, I never lost that. I like to lose that. Can I tell you about a friend of mine?
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  I'll tell you about a friend. Yeah. Ready? Okay. Yeah. Oh, oh, so I have a friend named Stu not
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  going to lose use last names and Stu had a number and the number was 200 million. Right? If he
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  got to 200 million, he quit. And he was able to quit like 30 years ago. Right? And Stu calls me
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  up twice a year. And I pick up, you know, I answer the phone. And it's Stu. And he says, Hey, dumb
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  fuck. I see you're still working. Right? Because, you know, I went over the 200 miles down a while ago.
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  But anyway, so hey, dumb fuck, you're still working. That was a, Stu's number 200, right?
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  Took care of all the kids at everything you want. And then he says, okay, what do you think?
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  Where do you think I am right now? And I said, well, Stu, you're probably not in your, you know,
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  your mansion in Aspen. I don't think it's past, you know, harvest. So you're not in your
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  winery in Tuscany. Um, you're not in your apartment and try Becca because we'd be going out
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  to dinner tonight. So you got to be in Palm Beach. And he goes, bingo, dumb fuck. Okay, what am I
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  doing now? And I said, I don't know Stu. And he says, well, I got my cup of Joe. I'm looking at
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  my waves hitting my beach. But I'm not that guy. Right? I mean, I got the toys, but I really like
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  to work. I really like to work. I like to think I like working with people half my age and twice
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  as smart. And I say that with, I'm not being disingenuous. This is with all humility and humility.
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  I mean, it's amazing. What, you know, the people I encounter know and how intelligent they are.
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  But I like being in the game. I like the action. I like me. That's it. Yeah. But do you think
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  that's a learn trait? Do you think that's inherent? Do you think when you invest in companies?
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  I think it's inherent. I really do. I think one of my questions for entrepreneurs is tell me about
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  your lemonade stand. And if they said, I never had a lemonade stand. I said, well, tell me about
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  your paper route. And if they said, I never had a paper out, I said, well, tell me about your
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  lawn care business. And then they said, you know what? I never had a lemonade stand paper route or
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  a lawn care business. I kind of say, well, you're not an entrepreneur. That presents itself young,
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  right? That the idea of that you can make money. You can perform a service and make money.
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  And you can repeat it again and again, because if you can do that, it's called a business, right?
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  That it's infectious. If you're an entrepreneur, you get a little taste of that. And that's it.
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  You double down, triple down, quadruple down, you never stop. Because the making of the money
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  is too much fun. And if you hire somebody to help you with that, then you're done, right? It's like,
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  let me get this straight. I can hire somebody, train them and I get a dig on what they do. It's
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  amazing. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe
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  button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation,
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  check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.