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Firing Yourself, Business Roles, and Why Alignment Drives Growth - EP010 · Freedom Flip

• 0:00
  I was a prisoner of the business. You had to remove yourself. And therefore, I thought that hiring people is going to help to remove myself. But it didn't really do that. And fast forward, what, seven years, the business was high growth, great revenue, great profit. But I felt a prisoner of the business. Why do I say I felt? Because you may not feel a prisoner of the business. So just the way that I am wired, I do not like the day-to-day. And this is the part that I think that is important for everyone to understand.
• 0:25
  If you could go back and talk to yourself five years before, is there any key advice you'd give to somebody who's just starting to build a business or wanting to? Know yourself and invest your time, your energy, and your money accordingly. That's it. Look to figure out who you are, what are the things that you bring the most amount of value. Those things usually are connected to what you enjoy the most. Just figure out what are those two. And if you do that,
• 0:47
  You're going to kill it. It's going to be awesome. When I started the business, I was doing me. I was just enjoying it so much and the business was skyrocketing. The biggest mistake that I made is we tend to mislabel the wants as needs. I want the car. I want the job. I want the house.
• 1:05
  And we do not even care or take care properly to the real needs. So we forget about the real needs. And instead of leaving the ones, we label them as needs. And that's why potential is never enough. And we keep, quote unquote, needing, which is wanting.
• 1:21
  more and more and more. You're just chasing these things and you actually get something that's a want. In 30 days, you don't care. And that's something interesting if you flip it. If it's a need after 30 days of having it, after you sleep better for 30 days, are you going to want to stop sleeping better? Peter, Pablo, welcome to the Cayman Islands. Welcome to Epstein's Island.
• 1:45
  Welcome to Paradise. What's up? Just happy to be here, brother. Celebrating your birthday. So first topic, what do we got? Let's dig in on firing yourself. When we met, you've talked about your business. I want to hear about firing yourself. Many people would say that's impossible if you own the business. Many people who are listening either want to own or own a business and think that's out of the realm of possibilities. Let's see if you're full of it.
• 2:07
  I think that we need to dissect first. Meaning, why do I want to fire myself from my business? And you said I shouldn't be fired ever. Maybe. I don't know. So, but this is what I would say. When I started the business, I had no idea about business. Never hired anyone before. I did not know what an SOP was, what a system was, what a process is. No clue. Zero. So I started learning and the content that I was consuming, it was all about, okay, you need to remove yourself.
• 2:33
  You need to remove yourself. You need to remove yourself. And therefore, I thought that, well, hiring people is going to help to remove myself. But it didn't really do that. And fast forward, what, seven years, let's say, it was, yeah, the business was high growth, great and so on. Great revenue, great profit. But I was a prisoner of the business. I felt a prisoner of the business.
• 2:54
  Let me just put it like that. Why do I say I felt? Because you may not feel a prisoner of the business. So just the way that I am wired, I do not like the day-to-day. I don't. And this is the part that I think that is important for everyone to understand. Do you enjoy the day-to-day? Maybe the answer is some things yes, some things no. I didn't. Almost any of it.
• 3:14
  And you said, clarifying, in the earlier stage, you read all this content said, remove yourself. You tried that and it didn't work? Well, I think that I was doing it incorrectly. So the way that I learned it was, well, just do an SOP. You hand the SOP to someone, just does the SOP. Life is great. And you are removed from the business. Well, I don't think that's correct because, first of all, I am not a systems person. Yeah.
• 3:35
  You are. I'm not. That's just very important to understand who we are. When there is a problem, you go directly to what is the problem in the system? How should I change the system to fix the problem? My mind doesn't go there. My mind goes more into what is the problem in the resources? How are they? Are they allocated properly or not? What is the place that we can go and put the lowest bet to get the highest returns?
• 3:57
  And the third group, I think of like my partner, when there's a problem, she would just say, let's just fix it and forget about it. Artists want to just see the product with that. Based on how Anastasia teaches this, the other group, so you are an architect, I am an allocator, the other group is artists. So the artist, when there is a problem, they say, okay, the problem is in the product or the service. Let's fix the product or the service.
• 4:19
  Which is basically like right now the thing that's broken, let's just adjust. No, because that can be the system. That can be the resources are not allocated properly. It's more about there is a problem, let's say whatever that is. I am not getting XYZ that I want. Artists go into the product and like the problem is in the product or the service. We need to fix that. Architects go in the system, the system, the machine. We need to fix the machine. Allocators go into their resources.
• 4:44
  Maybe if we hire a person here and we put it there, maybe if we invest a little bit more in marketing, maybe we are underinvesting, maybe we are overinvesting, maybe the profit should be higher, maybe the profit should be lower, maybe whatever. Allocation of resources of money, time, people.
• 5:00
  And coming back on your firing, you tried that, wasn't really working because you just maybe did an SOP and handed it to someone, didn't work. This is the mistake. I made an SOP and then I just hire a person that I treat the person like a monkey. And to me, that doesn't work. Maybe it's the type of business that I run.
• 5:19
  And treating a monkey saying, just do this again and again and again? Yeah, you find this problem, this is how you solve it. And the problem is that usually not all problems are exactly the same or get solved exactly the same. Or maybe this SOP is great for the last 12 months and for the next six months or for the next year, but not for the next 10 years. So instead of hiring someone that is going to create the system to
• 5:41
  fix whatever comes and understanding that the only goal that they have is to fix things, to solve problems, rather than here is how you solve it. So that's the mistake that I was making, which I found it for me impossible to free up myself. It's impossible. Why? Because the person that I am treating like a monkey, meaning no brain, no possibility to think, the problem changes a little bit, changes one degree. The person comes up, hey, Pablo, how do I fix it? And then I get all frustrated.
• 6:09
  Just think about it. Just do it. Because you have the wrong person, the wrong SOP, and the wrong system of how to tie together. This is all my fault. I am treating the person like a monkey. I didn't say I hire monkeys. I say I'm treating the person like a monkey. Terrible idea. Yeah. So even if it was the right person, you're not treating them the right way. Yeah. But I also would say, I don't know if this person, he or she was the right person because I was being the wrong boss.
• 6:33
  So you may have been trying to hire the wrong type of person. I would have started everything with myself. I was being the wrong boss. So there is no way that that person is going to be successful. Yeah. So coming back to how did I, quote unquote, freed myself? The definition to freeing myself to me is for me to do what is aligned to who I am.
• 6:51
  So if I am an allocator, that's what I want to be doing. If you are an architect, a system person, you just want to be doing that. I would say not 100% of the time, but I would say at least 80%, 80-20, at least 80, the majority of your time you want to be doing you rather than what the world is telling you. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, said something, I think 50 to 60% of the time, if you're doing something you enjoy in a job, his belief was for a job, you've got a great setup or a business. Yeah.
• 7:18
  So somewhere between, let's say, what he says low in 50% to what you said 80%, we should really feel aligned and flow. Yes. And if you are behaving or acting 80% of your time aligned with you as an owner, as an employee, it doesn't matter, you're going to be able to bring the most amount of results to the business, which not only that you are going to feel more aligned with yourself, you're going to most likely feel more fulfilled and happy, but also the people that you are working, you're going to be.
• 7:45
  killing it. You're going to be doing amazing because you are doing you. Another way of analogy that I use is these are different sports. Yes, we have soccer, basketball, golf, volleyball, all of them. You have an idea of how to score. You have balls, you have players, but they're all different.
• 8:02
  So if a great soccer player goes and plays golf, maybe he does okay, but he's not going to be doing as great as he does in soccer. So you need to understand, what's my sport? Who am I? And I like, again, the way that Anastasia puts it. You have three types, artists, allocators, and architects. One is they are always thinking about the product. There is a problem. You go and try to fix the product or the service. It's the same product service.
• 8:26
  Another one, the architect is the machine. They focus on the machine. What is the system? How? And we've been speaking with you and your brain goes automatically in the system. How do I fix the system? My brain does not go into the system at all. My brain goes into the resources. I mean, where are the resources misplaced? And this is a time, money, people. So tying it back, you try the SOPs, not working. You try and replace yourself, not really working.
• 8:50
  You're continuing to improve the business, but at the cost of, you said this, and I generally feel it, you can't avoid working hard, but you have to work hard and be right to really grow a business. At least in the early years, right, as you've had success and as we've grown or sold businesses, we have the choice. But you get to a point where it's starting to really take off, but you realize, I'm a slave day in, day out. This isn't what I want. It's starting to achieve some financial success. Two questions. One, what would you tell yourself 10 years before that point?
• 9:18
  If you could go back and talk to yourself five years before, is there any key advice you'd give to somebody who's just starting to build a business or at an earlier stage or wanting to? Yes. Know yourself and invest your time, your energy, and your money accordingly. That's it. Look to figure out who you are, what you are about, what are the things that you bring the most amount of value. Those things usually are connected to what you enjoy the most. Usually. Usually.
• 9:42
  If they are not, just figure out what are those two. And if you do that, you're going to kill it. It's going to be awesome. So for me, the biggest mistake that I made is when I started the business, I was doing me. I was just enjoying it so much and the business was skyrocketing. Then I started listening to other people. Oh, you need to, now you need to build systems. So then I called myself, I said that the next stage was me being an HR manager because it was all about dealing with people, with systems. I was miserable.
• 10:09
  And I took the ice off the thing that was growing the business. The way that you are going to grow the business is just put the systems. Like, yeah, a system person may say that. An allocator will not say that. Or an artist will not say that. An artist will say like, no, no, I need to keep doing the product or the service. And for me, it was like, no, no, I need to just keep allocating properly the time and energy and the money on the things that we are doing. So then we just can keep skyrocketing.
• 10:34
  And instead of that, I pay attention too much to other people. And I'm like, okay, okay, you're telling me that I need to allocate my time here because if I do this, this life is going to be great. Okay, let's do it. Four years of misery, which, sorry, don't get me wrong, great financial success, but internal misery because I felt like a massive disconnect.
• 10:53
  Like I'm doing these things. The business is not growing. It was stagnant. It's not that the business was declined. It was stagnant, but I didn't feel there is something wrong here. There's something that is not matching. And then I realized when I look at my calendar, I said, I hate my calendar. I hate my day to day. This is insane. This makes no sense. I need to get out. I don't know how. I need to get out. Which is similar to what happened to me in my early 20s in Argentina. I hate my day to day. I don't like this life. I need to get out. I don't know how. I need to get out.
• 11:22
  And think about that, the pyramid. You start at the lowest level, which is you're trading your time for money at stage one. So that was you as a corporate employee in your 20s. Then in your 30s, you were trading money, right, to hire employees to get back your time. And then...
• 11:37
  Later 30s, you reach. So the first one's employees, second entrepreneur. And the third stage, empire builder, you trade money to even more money. You go make the right investments, public markets, private markets, invest in businesses. You're not an active investor on that. And it compounds even greater. Or even in your own business, you've created an empire builder where you aren't trading either of those.
• 11:59
  Yeah. So coming back to your question is figure out who you are, figure out what you are about, what are the things that you like. For you, you are an architect. You love systems. You think about systems. Well, if all your friends are artists, you may start feeling like ****.
• 12:14
  that what's wrong with me, that I don't care as much as these people about the product. And it's not that you don't care at all because no company with a product succeeds. So there is a care that needs to happen. And in my case, I have people that are more artistic and that love that part. The same thing will happen with you. Yes, you will understand your product and you will care about the product, but you will have most likely a person that is an artist. I made, as a simplifier, I made a very simple process or system
• 12:43
  simplifiers and complicators. Simplifiers are drawn to simple things. And then complicators are drawn to complex things. Nobody is better than the other one. It's just different things. So you are a complicator. I am a simplifier, which is not a very good recipe for partnership.
• 13:02
  unless there's clear separation of labor. But if we are both trying to do the same thing, you will try to build something that is more complex than needed. If what we are trying to do is simple, but if it's complex, I'm just going to give up in the middle. You build something too simple for a complicated topic and you realize it's not going to fulfill. Yeah, or I give up in the middle because it's not attractive to me. It's like, ah, I lose interest. It's just too complicated. Okay.
• 13:28
  For somebody that's thinking about who the heck am I, the quick thoughts on artist, allocator, and architect, what's the fastest way to know who you are? Exactly what I said before. When there is a problem, where do you look? In your business, you have a problem. Let's say sales are not what you want. Profit is not what you want it.
• 13:45
  Something is breaking apart, whatever it is. Where do you go and look? When left alone, where do you go and spend your time? If you spend your time in the product or the service, you're an artist. If you spend most of your time in trying to fix the machine, create the machine, improve the machine, the systems, the processes, you're an architect. If you spend most of your time looking at allocation of capital resources, then you're an allocator.
• 14:11
  I remember thinking, what would you consider your baby being called ugly? So another way to think about it is if someone says, hey, Peter, that system's really terrible. That's my baby. I feel hurt the most, way more than if it's my product or if it's my, as an artist, that's, you know, a painting I did. I'm like, yeah, yeah, it is an ugly painting or it is an ugly product.
• 14:33
  Same with an investment. They say, Peter, that's a really bad investment. I'm like, oh, cool. Tell me more. But when it's like, hey, that's not a good system. That's the one that feels like you called my baby ugly. So another way to flip it. I think that's a very good way. I think that's definitely I can see it with artists. You go and you just bash the product that they are creating. You're like, you know what? This is not good at all. This is why. It's just really painful. The same way that it's super exciting when...
• 14:58
  people praise the product or the service. And then for a system person... Yeah, if you say it's a bad system, that gives me more of a reaction than a product or an investment. And I guess that for me would be similar. I'm not thinking about investing in DSMP or in bonds or in whatever company. That's a bad investment. Not sure about that, but I think if I'm thinking about a company, if someone may say like, hey, the way that you are allocating your time is terrible. It's really bad. I don't know what we're thinking about. It's just insane.
• 15:26
  But if someone tells me, dude, your system is so bad, I would be like, yeah, I know. Fix it for me, please. And so what was the turning point? Where did it break? Where was the fear of change versus the fear of not changing, shifting for you after seven years or more? It was 2022 where it was the...
• 15:48
  First and only year that the company went down in profit and in revenue, we went down 10%. Not terrible, but we went down 10%. And I just grabbed the leadership team and I said, hey guys, this is the first time that this is happening. And I said, this is all my fault. I hire you, you are great, but I did not assume the responsibility that I had to assume. And I have not been really leading the company.
• 16:13
  So this is going to change now. We're going to change everything. So we're going to start with a very simple, and this is what I was saying before, very simple system, which is everything that we are doing, we're going to ask a question. Is this a must or a nice to have? And let's say that to keep it simple, our goal was to increase revenue, profit, and units sold by 20% year over year. That's it. So we said, it's a must or a nice to have? And of course, I started questioning that on everything.
• 16:41
  So there's a meeting. And I'm like, okay, is this a must or nice to have? And here's what happened at the beginning. Like, yeah, it's a must. I'm like, great. What's the ROI? And I go, the what? The ROI. Yeah, what is the return on the... You said that you want to go and to put a stand in this fair because, yeah, whatever. Or you want to go and spend $100,000 or $10,000 in Google AdWords. Great. You said that it's a must. What is the ROI?
• 17:07
  Well, you know, it's brand awareness. It's like, yeah, what's the ROI? I'm asking for a number. Oh, you don't have a number. Okay, fair. That's fine. You don't have a number. It's a nice to have. Once you come up with a number, then we can define if it's a must or a nice to have. But for now, this brand awareness without a number does not help us to increase 20%. Maybe in a wishy-washy scenario, maybe.
• 17:29
  But it's not a must. So we're going to remove this. Then I started asking this with all the meetings that I had in my calendar. We had a... So one of the things that I hate a lot is recurring meetings with no end date. Disgusting for me. What I found is at the beginning is great.
• 17:45
  because you need a cadence in order to make things happen. But eventually, it's not needed. As much as it was before, nobody questions the need of the meeting. Everyone keeps showing up to the meeting. And there is no real value to that meeting. If we flip it, why do you think most companies or people that are listening do do that with their business or their potential or their job? Possibly because many people are not allocators. From an allocator point of view, it's just...
• 18:13
  You're killing me, man. Why am I in this meeting, dude? What are we doing here? Whereas a systems person, it's a chance to actually improve the system, which is why I might want to go. But I didn't like those either. I'd like to come back to what's the system for a recurring meeting? Why do people think? I think in most cases, it's actually fear of people aren't going to get their stuff done unless there's an accountability date. And really, that's to me, that's a bad system or goal or everything you're talking about you did with your team.
• 18:37
  It depends because let's say that we are starting something new, right? And we are accountability buddies. Well, unless we put it in the calendar, we're not going to meet, most likely. So if we say, okay, we are meeting every Monday for 27 minutes or 25 minutes or 20 minutes, and this is what we are going to talk about. And this is the reason, this is the goal. This is what we are really trying to do. Fine. And we are going to go to do this for hours.
• 19:03
  two months, and then we check again. Are we really getting value out of this or not? I think the problem is that we establish recurring meetings without end date. So that way it ends here and then it's up to us to buy this again. We need buy-in for this meeting, for us to create a new meeting. Do you think how powerful your point is? It reminds me of no government program that gets started, you know, ends. The other one is medicine, right? A lot of the medicine industry is like, well, just let's get them on it and have them take it the rest of their life.
• 19:33
  And it's like, wait a minute. No. Now I'm dependent. It's the opposite of freedom. I'm flipping into being a slave to X, Y, or Z rather than, oh, it's a short term. Here's the plan. Like you said, two months, weekly meetings. It's over after two months.
• 19:48
  So what I started doing is I started firing myself from the meetings by asking that question. So just picture weekly meetings with leadership team. And all of a sudden I drop a message like, hey guys, is it a master nice to have that I attend these meetings? Like it just creates a massive, how do you call this? It's like a conflict in the brain.
• 20:08
  Because the brain is like, what 404, like error? What do you mean? How do we even operate without you? What? How the owner is not going to be. But the question is very simple. It's the must for us to have. And if you're going to ask me, if you're going to tell me that it's a must, then you know what question is coming. And sometimes there is a very good reason. It's like, no, is it a must because this is what we are doing? Got it. Is it the must for us to have that I attend for the full three hours?
• 20:38
  Oh, okay. So that's how I started reducing the wasted energy in my business. And we came back to focusing. Now, again, my business is a simple business. It's a business for a simplifier. So for me, less noise, the better. Well, I call it noise. Maybe a complicator would be like, no, this is opportunities. And you know what? Let's just keep building on top of all these things. It's funny because...
• 21:01
  getting to know you and spending time as a person that seeks out complicated businesses, problems, et cetera. I've seen the brilliance in people who are simplifiers that say, and I started a business a year ago. I've started a couple of businesses where I've had simplifiers and it's so cool to see them say, my first business, they're just like blinders. It's like the horses with the little covers over their eyes. I'm going to win this race.
• 21:24
  And that is liberating and that creates freedom. That's a flip to be more free. The interesting thing I have is there is enjoyment for me of being in the river, like pulling up the pan, looking to see if a golden nugget's in it, like the old gold hunters. Because one out of 10 might be the game changer idea. Now, I think why I work well with simplifiers and people with different opinions is because they say, OK, Peter, give me your favorite one.
• 21:48
  You know, I don't want all 10. Give me your favorite one. And that one's, frankly, the one that it's forcing me to be more of an allocator to say, this is the one I would bet on. This is the one I think is unique. Did your team feel empowered as you gave them more of the reins? Were they scared at first? Was there a lot of fear?
• 22:04
  So this is the mistake that I did in the past. And then I tell you how I fixed it. In the past, I hired a person and I said, good. This is your resume, right? Good. Now you're in charge. Call me if you need me. I'm here. Call me. Here's my number. You can call me anytime, 24 hours. What happens is they rarely call you. So, and I'm like, cool, they are taking care of this. It's fantastic. No wonder why the business was not growing. So...
• 22:27
  Instead of that, then what I did, so when I had this conversation at the end of 2022, I grabbed the two sales managers and I said, we are going to meet every week, the three of us. And the system that I developed was the following. We met and we said, okay, great. So let's start from first principles. What are the things that we need as a must for the business to grow? And we came up with seven different things. If we do these seven things, so I already had the answers in my head
• 22:56
  They came up with the answers. Fantastic. Great. Yeah, I already knew. I'm like, okay, these are the things. So I asked the question. They come up with it. That's a good Socratic method. You use Socrates' method of, hey, guys, what do you two leaders think? Yes. Then you get to validate their thinking in a way. And by the way, I started with, this is all my fault. There's a flip. Just me hiring a person. I'd be like, okay, good luck. For me, it just didn't work. Did you used to take responsibility at the start of the meetings? Or was that a shift where you started coming in, recognizing, hey, this is my fault?
• 23:25
  I recognized that at the end of 2022, when I saw the business declining, I'm like, okay, this is my fault. My approach here has been wrong. And this led me to not only the business declining, but also me living a life that I did not want to live. Think about the management team. They're coming to the meeting first year ever for the business declining. They've all got their heads down, like worried they might lose their job. They're going to get yelled at. Bad thing, bad thing. And you step in and you say, hey, guys, we just had our first decline. It's all my fault.
• 23:54
  Do you feel that just reduces the stress in the room to allow people to be more creative? When they come to me and let's say something is not working with their team. And I'm like, you know, what's the great thing about this? The great, amazing things that this is all your fault. And at the beginning, the first time that I said that, they're like, that means that you have the power to change it. This is awesome.
• 24:14
  Yeah, they laugh, of course. I guess that there's a part that is like, ah, and the other part is like, but it's true. It's just true. At the end of the day, they are in charge of hiring, firing, promoting the person that is doing the work. And they are fully in charge of their department, which leads to being fully in charge of the results that they are getting.
• 24:37
  I am not. They are. For good or for bad, I ask, okay, what are the things that we must do in order for the company to grow? And again, in our case, we measure three things as the most important and all of them they need to grow, which is gross revenue, bottom line profit, and then units sold. These are the three things that I identify that unless the three of them grow, there can be a trick. For example, if revenue grows, but units go down, that means that they may raise the prices like crazy, but then eventually it's going to come and bite us.
• 25:06
  They didn't realize a guy raised in Argentina knows all the tricks, all the communist government tricks. I don't know if that's true. But it's really important. You did set the vision of these. These are the three key makers. I identified what are the things. And this is another part of taking responsibility. Like, why do I expect just because I hire a person that has the title sales leader, sales manager, they are going to come up with this. If I cannot come up with this, like why? And it's my business. So taking the responsibility, figuring out, OK, what are the things that we need to aim for?
• 25:35
  These three things, that's it, very simple, very easy. Everyone can understand, awesome. So they come up with these six, seven things, fantastic. The next step was great. Now I want that you rate yourself. Zero being, I don't even understand what you're talking about, 10 being, I'm a master on each of these things of the seven areas topics.
• 25:55
  And I had an idea of how great or not they were. And I personally like a lot, I don't know where I got this, but you kind of rate yourself as a seven. You are an eight, which usually eight is a good number. Six is usually, you know, that you're falling a little bit behind. This is why I removed the seven. Because people that are kind of like in the middle, but they know that they are not great, they are like, I'm a seven. Seven looks a little bit, at least in Argentina, seven was a pass.
• 26:19
  Six is not a pass. Six you are under. So remove the seven. So when they start rating and the rating was very honest and I agree with the rating, I'm like, great. Next question. What number do you think that you should be? So one more time. What are the things that we must do in order for us to achieve our goal? All these areas. Fantastic. Rate yourself. What is your level of expertise? From zero to 10, you cannot rate seven in each of these areas.
• 26:44
  Great. Next step, how you should be. What's the level? What's the number that you should be in order for you to be successful? So, of course, some areas were four, some areas were six. And I wanted to have an understanding also of, first of all, is self-awareness, is honesty. Like, you know what? Yeah, I am a five. Simple example. I am a five on advertising. Yeah, I should be an eight. I'm like, yeah, I agree. Great. I take responsibility. I'm going to make you an eight.
• 27:10
  I'm going to teach you. Again, this is sales is the area that I am very good at. So I was able to do that. I'm going to, so I mentored them on a weekly basis, teaching them how to do and why we are doing what we are doing on my methods. But the vision was very simple, which is I'm going to share with you what I do. At the end of the day, you need to be better than me.
• 27:32
  No, we're like, we're going to meet every single week, no matter what. And in every week, we're going to move something forward. Their pattern was, we're going to do everything at the same time. I'm like, no, we're just going to do one thing at a time. One thing at a time. And then we move to something else. Oh, but what about these things? Yeah, yeah.
• 27:48
  We've been sucking at this. We've been at four at this for two years. So two more weeks is going to be fine. Don't worry. Just full focus on this. And they were able to get higher into those numbers. And eventually we can brainstorm together. I can give you my opinion about it, a second opinion, or I am going to verify. Meaning I have the final call. I have the final say on something.
• 28:10
  Let me clarify. This is an employee comes and you've said there's three tracks to show up, three doors you can enter through. I'm an employee. I say, hey, Pablo, I work with you, for you. I'm either going to brainstorm with you. I'm looking for a second opinion or a verification.
• 28:26
  Second opinion means I give you my opinion, but you decide. Verification is, okay, this is a new thing that I've never done with you. I don't know how you really think about this. You don't know how I think about this. So at the beginning, we're going to be verifying. The way that I like to do is at the beginning, I want to verify everything or almost everything until you understand how I think. The way that I like to do it, brainstorming is very simple. Hey, I have to solve this problem. I want to brainstorm with you.
• 28:51
  Fantastic. Go. And then I'm just asking a couple of questions or I'm trying to direct if I see. So simple. Usually they never want to brainstorm with me. Maybe because they have friends. They're not friends. They have people in the company that they work with. So they brainstorm between each other. Seeing a bad thought. Why do they not want to brainstorm? Or they know how you protect your time. I don't think that I protect my time of brainstorming. I like brainstorming. Does the team know that? They should. I don't know if they know. But also think about this.
• 29:19
  do you really need me to brainstorm? Or you can brainstorm with chat GPT? It's going to be faster for you to brainstorm with chat GPT. That's my guess. It's going to be smarter than me. It's going to give you shorter answers. I don't know. It's going to be easier. That's my guess. So second opinion, and it's a little bit different,
• 29:35
  which is, so let's say a team member says, hey, Pablo, I need your second opinion. Got it. Tell me. I am looking, my team looks like this. I am looking to hire for this position. And this is what I am thinking of doing. I consider this other option and this other option. And the main reason why I want to go with this option is because X, Y, Z. I want to hear your opinion.
• 29:59
  Now, my opinion is not me making a decision. It's them making a decision. So they have full responsibility for the decision. This is the part that for me is so critical. If I say, okay, do this, then it's my responsibility. They have no ownership. If they have no ownership, I have all ownership.
• 30:19
  I don't want the ownership. I love your reference. You call it a dead body. It's like you've got a dead body to figure out what to do with if they're handing off this decision. Well, sometimes, and this is the wrong way of approaching things, is, hey, Pablo, I have a problem. This is the problem. What do I do? What do you think? People don't say, what do I do? It's like, what do you think? And what do you mean, what do I think? Do you want my brainstorming? Do you want a second opinion? Or do you want, oh, well, yes, I want a second opinion. Got it. Just as a reminder, always approach me like that.
• 30:48
  You need to tell me what role do you want that I play. So that way I can serve you. If you just bring a dead body, that's going to be terrible. It's going to be a waste of time for you, waste time for me. Let's not do that. And the verification, the third one, do you phase that out usually by two, three, four, six months with a person? Depends on the task. Let's just take the example. We just hire a chief of staff for the community that we are building. So she's great. She has tons of experience.
• 31:14
  doing what we want to do. Tons. But she doesn't know how I am thinking through things. She doesn't have, even though I can share the vision with her one time, I need to share it 20 times. This is normal. Or let's say I need to share it for the next 20 months.
• 31:30
  or the next six months or the next 20 months. But I need to keep repeating, not only to her, but to everyone. This is usually how you build it until I can hear that she's talking to me back the vision. Oh, this is why we're doing it like this. This is what we want to accomplish. So let's say right now she's booking for a trip that we are going to be doing. She has no idea if I want accomplishment
• 31:51
  conference room, a small conference room, a chef, go to a restaurant, order Uber, cook ourselves. Hiking, alcohol, what type of people? Zero idea. So it would be kind of a waste that I say, hey, go do it. Because I may find myself with something that I don't want. As an example, it's like, oh, we just got an incredible wine tasting. I'm like, oh, I'm not.
• 32:16
  I didn't tell you, we don't drink. Oops. She's like, oh, I wasted all this time and I already paid the guy. Or the worst would be, we show up and he's like, hey, now we are going to wine testing. I'm like, uh, nope. So that's why at the beginning, there is verification. Given the vision, I'm sharing on a chat, on a phone call. And then she goes and it's like, hey, Pablo, this is what I have planned.
• 32:40
  This is the hotel. This is why the hotel. This is how it's allocated. This is how we are going to be sleeping. This is the size. This is how much it costs. This is why we want to be here rather than here. And I may be like, you know what? That's great. Now I realize I did not tell you something.
• 32:56
  We really want to be outdoors most of the time. And this one is so far away from the national park that now we need to commute one hour. I should have tell you, like we want to be inside of the national park. We want to maximize the amount of time that we spend together. So giving you some examples or another one that happened
• 33:15
  in the last trip, not with her, with another one, with another person that was working for us, is that I had to tell her, hey, we want a private room, but we don't want to get interrupted. I know it sounds, but we don't want waitress coming and interrupting our conversation, interrupting the flow. So in fact, I would just want to come one time to take notes, one time to serve the food out. We want to have the conversation. If I don't say that, how is she going to know?
• 33:40
  So that's why it's important the verification at the beginning. And over time, just to answer your question, over time, the verification must go down, must go down. And what I have seen in my company, the verification stays only for huge things, one-way doors or kind of one-way doors or big things that we have never done.
• 34:00
  So for example, opening a store, opening a physical store, that's not a one-way door. Yes, if we close it, it's going to cost a lot of money. The question is, is this connected to Pablo's vision of what we want to do here? I don't know. Let's just, hey, Pablo, this is what we want to do. This is why. Another way that I didn't mention here is we want to get your vision.
• 34:20
  Now, the challenge with that question, we want to get your vision, is that sometimes is, hey, we want to get your vision. Do you want to fly in this way or this way? It's like, well, that's not necessarily a vision. Now, you are asking, you are masking the to-do or the strategy to achieve a vision with the word vision. Pablo, I want to get your vision. Do you want this cabin or this cabin? That's not a vision.
• 34:43
  So a different story is like, what is your vision about the trip? My vision of the trip is the following. That we connect, we have fun, we give, we serve each other, we learn from each other, we grow together. We are doing incredible things together. And it's a time that we will never forget. That's my vision. Now, I would even avoid saying outdoors.
• 35:08
  You would? Yeah. Because I just think some people are going to hear that and be like, oh man, my best times in life were at the bar at 1 a.m. with my buddies. They are not part of our community. Of course, but a brand new employee that's trying to... A brand new employee is...
• 35:23
  understands the whole DNA of the community. She has a big piece of paper with who we are, what we are about. And by the way, great. If she's like, hey, let's go to the bar and let's just, okay, I'm gonna verify that so that way we don't fall into the trap. So to answer, this is a very long answer, but the idea is the verification goes down. Why? Because in each verification,
• 35:46
  The employee understands how we think. So next time they know how to act because now they understand, oh, they don't drink. Oh, they really enjoy outdoors. Do you think you've spent more time now talking about that vision to start to help reduce the number of these smaller conversations? Like with your executive team, you kind of cast the vision. Here's the three things that are going to keep going up.
• 36:06
  I'm going to delete myself and you all should delete any non-required steps and decisions. Do you start with the vision, new chief of staff for the community that you're building, new business that you would be a part of, nonprofit? Are you starting on that vision to try and align? What's the mountain we're climbing? Of course.
• 36:25
  So similar to what I just mentioned about connecting, having fun, giving, growing, learning, that's the vision. If I say every single trip, we have to have those condiments, that's the vision. How does the strategy work?
• 36:38
  And how has that worked now? Fast forward to 2026 from 2022. So now in my company, what I do is I attend to the quarterly meetings, but I even challenge that, which is how many days do you want that I attend? How many hours do you want that I attend? Is it a mastermind I still have? I want them to decide. I want them to think through, like, why do we need Pablo? And sometimes they go even all the way. They go too much into, oh, we don't need it.
• 37:05
  Okay. So I have to always be paying attention. So I, of course, I check the numbers. I check the financial results, monthly P&L. You're checking by always, you mean you still have a pulse monthly of seeing where numbers are. Yeah. I think it would be stupid not to because I want them to succeed. Think about this. If they succeed, that means that the company succeeds automatically.
• 37:27
  That means that the people underneath them succeed. That means that the customers succeed. It's always a win, win, win, win. Everyone wins. So the worst thing that I can do is to be like, okay, you are an expert. Good luck. Just never call me. Send me the dividend check. I think that's not a very good allocation of resources. What I identified in the last years is that usually there is like one or two big things that I end up deciding. And that changes.
• 37:55
  And are those usually related to the big swing, the big investment, the big opportunity, or it just depends every time? Depends. Depends. I see it as a massive point of leverage. Like, oh, okay, if we do this, this is really going to change things for the better. Okay, I'm going to put my focus on this. So I don't have a to-do list for the business. I don't have weekly meetings or anything like that. But right now, for example, I am working on something very specific, very specific, very
• 38:22
  One team member, group, department. With the leadership team. Oh, got it. I understand and they agree that if we fix this, everything else gets easier. And okay, who is the expert? It's like, well, I have a lot of experience in this. The Mark Twain quote, if your job is to eat frogs, eat it first thing in the morning. If your job is to eat the largest one first. You take care of the biggest problem, everything else is going to be a lot easier. That's what I identified. Now, this potentially will be different for you.
• 38:51
  Because you're an architect. And this is why I believe that one more time, know yourself, invest accordingly, allocate your time, energy, money accordingly. It's so important. Because if you try to behave like me, like an allocator, and you are a great allocator also. So by the way, we all have these three things in ourselves. It's just where do we default? Where do we go naturally? That's where we want to be going as much as possible. I build systems. Yeah.
• 39:19
  But, and you may say, well, that's a great system, Pablo. Nice to have. Must. The way that people approach you, do you want to brainstorm or do you want the vision? Great system. I agree. But I am terrible at the day-to-day systems. There's something that happens where people need to connect and do things together. I don't like that.
• 39:37
  I am not good at that. Two questions come to mind. Why do you think a lot of business owners don't do this? Do what? Fire themselves from the day-to-day. I don't know if they should. It's a good flip. I think that we should all fire ourselves from the that we are terrible at. And I think that even employees should do that. Because if you suck, you suck. That's it. Now, I'm not talking about that 19-year-old person that just starts working. You're going to suck maybe at almost everything, whatever. But I'm talking about the person that is late 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s.
• 40:05
  You should stop doing the things that you suck. You should do more of the things that you're great at. Why they don't do it, I don't know. I always think fear is a big driver to flip it. It's a fear of who am I without the business? Will it fail without me? Or what if it succeeds without me? You know, maybe that'll be scary or hard. And then let's flip back to somebody who's thinking about starting a business. What would you say if they are an allocator, if they are someone who they think has a similar trait? How old are they?
• 40:35
  25 to 35. If they are allocators, it's always about where am I going to put my time, my energy, my money, the people that I hire, how I'm going to move things around. So at the beginning, when I started, I was allocating properly. I was just focusing on launching as many products as possible. Great products, as many as possible, as fast as possible. That was the perfect strategy. That was the right allocation of resources. But what if we build a website? No, no. What if we do? No. No.
• 41:05
  this. And then eventually it's like, oh, we need an HR meeting. No, I don't think so. Yeah, yeah, we need, we need. No, I don't think so. We need, we need. Okay, okay, let's do it. And then eventually I became an HR manager and my life was miserable. That's what happened. How much happier or better was your energy from 2022, four years later, 2026?
• 41:25
  It's much better because I'm much more aligned. It's really finding alignment with yourself. This is what I said when I know yourself and invest accordingly. Yes. Invest is not just the money. It's how are you putting, allocating, investing your time, your energy? Where are you doing that? If it's somebody that's thinking about starting, do you have any good alignment questions on this?
• 41:45
  I struggle with that question because why are you thinking about starting? Why are you not starting? There is a quote. I can't remember who's this quote, but it's like, if you're asking that question, then you shouldn't be doing this. Should I start this business? No. I guess that should be the answer. Like, no, you shouldn't. Well, I'm going to prove you wrong. Great. Go for it. Do it. I need the approval of someone so I can go and start it. I have enough pain inside of me to just go and do it. That for me is like, I don't, I don't care. It's happening.
• 42:15
  It's funny, I got a message from a friend I play soccer with who's from Spain. And he said, I'm like you. When somebody says, don't do it, I want to go do it. And it is the motivation is different for different people. Jeff Bezos, I think about just because I just read his biography on Amazon. He was a hedge fund guy, 30 years old. And it was the pain he perceived of being 80 if he didn't try it. That got him motivated. And he told his boss and his boss said, it's probably better for somebody who doesn't have a job. And he just did it anyway.
• 42:46
  Needs versus wants. How would you frame it? It ties to business so well. In business, we get lost in all these wants of this could help, this could do, whatever. Same thing in our life. And we come back first principles, five levels. So you have a fascinating take about needs versus wants. Share. Should not be using the word need as often as almost all of us do. Give me an example. Where do we use that?
• 43:15
  I need you to grab this for me. I need you to pick this up. I need this new shirt. I need that car. What should we say? I want. Well, if I am speaking with an employee that I want to empower, and it's not a monkey, I don't want to treat this person like a monkey. So if I say, I want that you do blah, blah, blah, it sounds a little bit much more aggressive, don't you think? I think this depends on how people use vocabulary.
• 43:44
  If I heard, I need you to do this, it sounds like this is life or death. It sounds like the boy crying wolf, somebody saying, oh, this is super necessary today. And it's actually reduced the power of the statements. Let's cross over to kids. Why do I not yell at my kids? Because the moment I yell at them,
• 44:04
  is likely what I deem a life or death moment. I want that to hold the power and force of a hurricane of the strongest movement to them possible. And if I waste that like a little yipping dog, they learn to block it out.
• 44:21
  I think in business, I think in our personal life, using the word need, it has that same power. I want it to hold this power of, Pablo, I need this from you. And you're like, oof, chill goes down your spine. You're like, I've never heard this from Peter. You straighten up. You're focused. If I'm, hey, I need the glass. I need this. I really need that drink alcohol. I need this shirt.
• 44:41
  I need this favor from you. It's actually using this powerful word that I think really has power, right? Our spelling cast spells, it has this power, words coming out of our mouth, and pushing that in that way feels too much to me. Give me one example. You mentioned I, people say incorrectly, I need a glass of water. So how would you rephrase it?
• 45:01
  Now, water is an interesting one because water is actually a need. We will not survive. So freedom flip. I think getting rid of a bunch of these wants and reclassifying, just like you talked about investing in a business, in our personal life, is a liberating way to flip into freedom, right? That's what we're all about, is flipping the way people think into a way that makes them more free. So what do we actually need? There's an interesting question for us principles. Can you think of them?
• 45:24
  We need food. Totally. People say that we need a roof. I'm not sure that we really need a roof. Because people without a roof, I mean, we survived for, we found caves. Tents, right? We created a little, I guess that's still a roof. We need a place that protects us from, let's say, the outside environment so we don't die outside. Okay, fine. Then we need... Think more basic, physiological. We need to pee. We need to poop. Wow.
• 45:51
  We do. Yeah, we do. We need to release those. Yes. What are you checking in your room right here? You've got a monitor. We need oxygen. We need to breathe. We need to sleep. Without sleep, we die. We need social media. Yeah.
• 46:05
  There's a flip. I don't know if that free is us or enslaves us is a flip. Is that freedom flip or a enslavement flip? I think you nailed it. These are the ones that I would come up with. You listed six, seven, eight things. That is such a simplification of life to take all these things off my shoulders.
• 46:22
  Just brush it off. All the 20 pound weight I'm carrying around on my shoulders, gone. I'm just going to set it in the trash and let it be gone. And that's our first principles. Let's go down to the bare minimum. Let's think about what we need. Now we can be simple, right? And this was something we explored a bit this trip. I've been exploring for the last two, three years is I want to be a professional sleeper. I know sleep is necessary. But,
• 46:43
  So what if I'm not, you know, in my case, I was on the path to sleep apnea, on the path to death because I was getting low oxygen. You know, I would have been a CPAP type of person. I had all these problems.
• 46:54
  And to clarify, when you say you are in the path to death is because that's going to reduce the years that you're going to live. Correct. It's going to bring me death way earlier. So I went deeper on this need, right? I need to sleep. Why don't I not just need to check the box? What if that new energy, because I put all these wants in the trash, I refocus it on, let's be a professional sleeper. And today I was just, I was thinking about this, right? So I want to go to bed at 9 p.m. So what do I do? I set an alarm at 8.45. How is that working? Okay.
• 47:21
  You know, it's interesting. It probably works 70% of nights, which is a huge improvement over what, because I used to, like other people, you know, you had alarms to wake up. Well, you've already lost the game. You've already lost the game because you got stuck playing video games, pornography, some waste of time, social media, getting in a fight.
• 47:40
  And suddenly, you know, you're going to bed at midnight, 1 a.m., 2 a.m., not 9, 10, 11, whatever you want. So I think refocusing all this newfound energy on these needs, right? Food. Oh, man, I'm eating garbage food. This is something I need. Well, what if instead of on the spectrum between not eating death and eating the best food that's ever been created, what if I just shift along that spectrum a little closer towards the best food that's ever been created? Especially in today's world of most packaged things are poison.
• 48:10
  people are trying to wake up to this. You look at the label and say, I can't read a single word on this ingredients list. It says healthy all over the package, but I don't know what these words are. So now someone might dive into the needs. And I think by really challenging ourselves to use the word need with focus, we actually free ourselves. We flip from all these wants that are distractions to digging into the true needs that allow us to be more free.
• 48:37
  What are the most common ones that have you heard people saying as needs? There's a lot depending on age, you know, male, female, stage of life. I laugh now that I have kids. It's like, oh, we need the really nice stroller. You know, we need the new outfits. We need for this two-year-old, one-year-old, three bathing suits. None of that is a need.
• 49:00
  None of it. So what happens when they reframe or they rephrase to, this is a want? I think it loses power over us. This is what I see. And if you notice your partner, your employee, your buddy is using that, they're giving away a lot of their power.
• 49:15
  I actually think it's shifting the power into that clothing now has some control. It's got some tentacles, some cuffs on our wrists that it now enslaves us. And we're all about reframing it, flipping it, and becoming free. I mean, I joked with you, and you pushed back a little bit, and it was fun, us going back and forth. You'd say, hey, I need this, right? You'd use the word need.
• 49:34
  Then it's debatable. Maybe I didn't say that. Maybe you didn't. Maybe it was another one else. It was accused. Accusations. There were accusations of needs. So someone used the word need. You heard me just, I just gently asked the question, what do you need? Are you sure you need it? And even this, I think, puts space between this belief that we need, have to have, and this realization that it might just be a want. And it's shifting again on the spectrum.
• 49:59
  Yeah, I think that is massive. Let's say I want to buy something and I'm like, I need a new computer. I need a new cell phone. I need a new car. I need a new... Let's just keep going up in the list. I need a new apartment. I need to move out to a new house.
• 50:15
  We need a new house. I mean, the family is growing or whatever. And I think that when I change it for me, I'm playing the scenario in my head and I change it to I want, to me, it just gives me much more freedom and power to be like, well, this is a decision. I want this. Okay, let's go for it.
• 50:32
  Or to be like, do I really want this? Do I want everything that comes with this? Which can be, okay, now I have a financial loss because I need to put money on this and I may not be able to afford it. Or it comes with a lot of maintenance that, no, I don't want to have the headache. Yeah, so I don't really want that. Do I really want that? But I think that the phrasing of needing, you bypass all this thinking if you really want it or not. And it's a big way of lying to ourselves.
• 51:02
  totally the house is a big one because you went up the scale right from clothes all the way up to the largest financial decision almost almost all humans make is buying a house and they see the one with the white picket fence and it checks the boxes and blah blah i need this house right wild part is the smart real estate agents will have you know the baby camera and you know and they'll hear it they'll hear the conversation the potential buyers are like we need this now they have all the leverage in the world and i'm not saying everyone's using that to manipulate oh yeah
• 51:32
  wants to have kids and imagines having a family here. It's over, right? All negotiating is now this real estate agent's like, okay, we got this in the bag. Like, we're not budging on anything. And it's solely because the space between believing that I had to have this
• 51:47
  And, you know, not having it was so big, right, in their minds and so necessary to close fast that it creates this tension that you can't. We lose our creative thought. We lose our ability, our rational prefrontal cortex, the front of our brain. It's all anegba. And it's really tapping into this part of the actual needs we have, which is food, water, oxygen, a roof over our head, being, pooping, right? And when you tap into not having those needs.
• 52:13
  That is a dangerously powerful force to motivate any kind of action. I notice that in myself. Now, my kids, they now can talk, right? Which is this hard thing because you start teaching them things and they flip it back on me. So, for example, I'll be on my phone and they'll look at me and go, dad, do you want to be on your phone?
• 52:31
  In my head, I'm like deep in something I shouldn't be doing, you know, like deep in dopamine hits. And that, just them saying, do you want it, allows me the realization that I don't need to be fixated on this phone. Okay, now I have a choice. It's a want. And boom, it's short circuits. And we do this all to each other as a fun way of, I'm not taking away your power. I'm not saying, Pablo, get off the phone. It doesn't work well for me and for most people. We don't want to be told what to do. But the want...
• 52:58
  It allows the person to recognize they probably have an emotion of, I need to do this. I need to watch this clip. I need to see this video. I need to text message. What if all that's wrong? What if we flip it? It's not a need. And what if it's a two and a half, three-year-old that's updating me and my belief system to challenge me? And do you want this? Okay, now there's space. Now the spectrum of need and want. I'm way closer to a want and I can use creative thought to say, yeah, that's not how I want to spend the next hour. I actually have a headache and I don't feel good and I feel all. I need to rest. Yeah.
• 53:28
  I look at this all coming to your allocator topic of, if we're intentional about how we allocate our energy, our breaths, our thoughts, should we allocate them more to wants or to needs? Most of us have a long way to go in putting more energy towards the needs. And when we subtract a lot of these wants, we can double down on not making these needs okay or suboptimal, but really making the sleep we have, the food we eat,
• 53:56
  go a lot farther, be a lot more meaningful. What about relationships? Is that a need or a one? It's a really deep question because I'm fascinated by this. There's Dunbar's Law, which is Robin Dunbar is a professor that I believe is still alive and said humans by nature can't have more than 150 relationships. Have you heard of this before? He says it's our brains can't handle more than 150 relationships, basically. And people are like, oh, well, I have more friends. Well, how many of them do you talk to today? Not 150. 150.
• 54:25
  And that's actually part of our evolution to where for survival, we needed to be part of the tribe. It was so dangerous of the lion's going to eat you, the dinosaur's going to eat you, something's coming after you, as well as you just didn't have the skills to get enough food to sustain life. It's food and water. So Pablo was the water guy. Peter was the hunter guy. There was a woman that cooked. You know, it was very simplistic, but it was roles-based and group-based.
• 54:51
  So I think it was a need for us. I truly do. I think in today's world, it is not. But, but it is definitely, you know, the next thing after these kind of essential needs is these deep relationships. And you can see that in the Harvard study that was a longitudinal study over 70 years that said smoking cigarettes was less likely to reduce your lifespan than not having deep relationships. So if you really want a deep, meaningful relationship, I would say go seek out friends.
• 55:20
  If I'm only sleeping three hours a night, my friendships don't matter. I'm not awake enough to know what the heck's being said. I can't contribute to your life in a meaningful way. And that's where I still look at the needs of, am I eating food, right? I mean, think about if somebody is so poor they can't afford food, they die. If someone is so mentally unsound that they're in an anorexic state that they're not eating food, they die. This is just an absolute...
• 55:46
  But it's a extreme that can inform the mean of how we're operating. Now, if I'm only eating the packaged chips all day, my body's dying at a way faster rate than it would have. So I think fixing those first allows you to be a better friend, husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, which I would not describe as a need. I think our brain still tells us it's a need. And I think we should invest in it heavily. But it's not as important as sleep, for example.
• 56:10
  That is very interesting because what you are saying, if I understand you correctly, is that we tend to mislabel the wants as needs. I want the car. I want the job. I want the house, whatever. Yeah.
• 56:25
  And we do not even care or take care properly to the real needs. So we forget about the real needs. And instead of labeling the ones as ones, we label them as needs. And that's why potential is never enough. And we keep, quote unquote, needing, which is wanting, more and more and more. And we know that's a trait that...
• 56:47
  beautiful for capitalism. It's beautiful for consumers to want the things, to go try and pursue the things that they don't want, to impress the people, that they don't care what they think of them. And it's this cycle, right? This treadmill that you get on this hedonic treadmill, right? You're just chasing these things and you actually get something that's a want. In 30 days, you don't care. And that's something interesting if you flip it. If it's a need, after 30 days of having it, after you sleep better for 30 days, are you going to want to stop sleeping better?
• 57:17
  No way! If you eat 30 days, so we eat really healthy for six months. We couldn't go to most restaurants after because we felt so sick. Just something about the food quality, the oils, it was like complete. After eating, we'd want to throw up. It was still tasty at the restaurant. It was just a reaction our body had because we'd cleaned it out. If you're a smoker, right, for your whole life and then you stop smoking, your body's going to feel clean. You're not going to miss having to smoke, right? Because your body doesn't want to be poisoned.
• 57:46
  So I think it's a good measure as you think about flipping it. It's what things would you be really excited about, especially these core ones, if you rapidly improve them in 30 days. You want to keep doing it. Buying a nice shirt, buying a nice car, you're not going to want to keep doing that every 30 days. Are you excited to buy that after 30 days? Probably not.
• 58:03
  So I think a good question for all of us to think is from our core needs, real human needs, what are the ones that we are totally, we don't feel proud about them, let's say. What are those? And then what can we do to improve them? By the way, chat GPT or any AI is great if you say like, hey, my sleep sucks. This is what's happening.
• 58:24
  which is very interesting. Maybe I'm going to share what I am going through in the next 30 days because I want more data, but fascinating experience. Or my body hurts. I have inflammation or I think that I have inflammation. And just speak with the AI and the AI is going to walk you through and then you may identify something. So I think that's an important thing. What are my needs that I am not really taking care of? And then what are the things that are ones that I am labeling as needs?
• 58:51
  and then change it, flip it, because it's not a need. It's so fascinating when I'm doing this exercise in my head. I'm like, oh, this is a want. I want to buy this house. Okay. I just feel much more empowered. When I'm like, I need, it's needy, right? There's this phrase of, you are very needy. It's not an empowering thing. It's like very weak position. If you say someone's really needy, what are you really saying?
• 59:13
  In the most simple term possible, it's just they have a long list of things they believe they need. That's true. That's all it is. When you say that, Billy, you're really, really needy. Yeah, you have a long list of ones that you are labeling as need. You heard him say that 30 times, right? You have 30 examples of these. Like, okay, you've now labeled him, right? And he's labeled himself as someone that is needy. I have a long list of needs. And so let's flip it to freedom. Let's just flip this. If he just throws that whole list in the trash, he's not needy anymore. He just freed himself.
• 59:43
  And he gets to decide, do I really want this? Or I am just trying to avoid something else. I'm keeping up with the chances. I am, what am I doing? Why do I want this? What do I really want underneath this?
• 59:54
  And when you dig into, as you've done, and we both like the Buddhists and a lot of the Eastern Taoism, a lot of it comes to the lack of attachment, right? The less I'm attached to this thing, the more free I am to be present in who I am and how I am. For some people, that sounds way too complicated. That's too, I look at just very simply, how long is your list of needs? If your list is 10 or fewer, you're free.
• 1:00:16
  You live a way lighter life, man. The weight on your shoulders is way lighter. And I still struggle with this, right? You have children and they're tiny and you're thinking about their future and you're thinking about, you know, for example, I had this weight of believing I needed to financially try and figure out a way to provide for them their whole lives.
• 1:00:34
  And I took that, and when I put that in the trash and said, I don't know what's going to happen to me financially, to them financially. I'm not going to carry that want as a need. It was like 30 pounds off my back overnight. And I think not realizing that we're carrying these things
• 1:00:51
  becomes even worse. You helped me on a beautiful one just in the last five days. I grew up in a, with an amazing mother who would, you know, have a kind of more Southern aspect of don't say anything if it's going to hurt someone's feelings. So I had this quote need to avoid creating pain and, you know, with comments and, or frustration or, you know,
• 1:01:12
  So what does that do? Well, suddenly I'm optimizing to then not be uncomfortable with things I say. And you pointed out, you said, Peter, you're saying this and it's confusing. Well, you were optimizing for efficiency and communication. I was optimizing for the least likely negative reaction from you, right? Which did two different mountaintops were climbing. I'm subconsciously doing this. It's not something I'm aware of. Okay, take that need in Peter's mind. We shined a big light on it, thanks to you pointing it out.
• 1:01:40
  Now I get to choose. And it doesn't mean I'm going to be perfect. I'm still going to do it. But now I can actively start to think, OK, is this a need or want? So what is it in that case? Is it a need or want? Total want. We went into this. We flipped it. If you flip it, for me, it was a need to feel loved. Realizing if I make someone unhappy, I may not feel loved by them. Or maybe my mom would say, hey, I don't love you because you're making people unhappy. Like there's a little Peter inside. Do I want to feel love or I need to feel loved?
• 1:02:07
  That gets a really deep one. And we could go down that path. I think love is the most beautiful thing that exists. You know, you can't define it, right? It's something that we use a word for, but we don't know exactly what it is for other people. I would still say for me to become the person that loves myself, I'm doing my needs on an above than average way. So starting with those and just getting consistency is actually showing myself love that opens me up to show true love to the world, to the people I care about most.
• 1:02:37
  I haven't thought about this deeply, but it's an idea that I like your question because it brings that up for me, which is if I'm not sleeping in a quality way. I mean, we talked about this today after I have this little baby that's crying all night. Right. And you're like noticing someone that was still in a positive place without their sleep. You can't do you can only do that for so many nights.
• 1:02:58
  And then you just mentally and physically break down, you know, without sleep. So let's, why do we always just focus on the downside, right? Okay, well, everyone's sleep deprived. Do they have to be? Oh, well, let me see your phone usage. Oh, you're on the phone six hours a day. Huh. I wonder if you could just take one sixth of that, you know, two sixths of that. An hour? Two hours back to sleep? Suddenly you're in the 1% sleeper in the world. And this is the flip that I had. I came from the investment banking finance world that I spent a very short time in, but
• 1:03:27
  He was really into it. And that was, you sleep when you're dead, right? Who cares? Flipping that to saying, I want to be a professional sleeper. I want to be a professional healthy eater. Here's two even more basic ones that'll make you smile. I realized I'm bad at walking. And no joke. The way I was turning my body, I got in this whole somatics thing to try and be in more alignment because I take hopefully 10,000 steps a day. If those steps are poorly done, that's not ideal. I was a bad sleeper in so many ways. I was using blue light. It was waking me up. I'd wake up at 3 a.m. I wouldn't go back to bed.
• 1:03:56
  stress with business, stress with investment, stress with ideas, all of it. I had to work through all those. And then when I thought I was actually a good sleeper, then I realized I was a bad breather. I wasn't taking an oxygen well. And I didn't realize that until I started using this O2. And then I realized it was my snoring and my mouth open. And I used mouth tape for a couple of years and it felt like poison. Then I started using this jaw bra. So the journey on each of these is way deeper than we have any idea. And I encourage everyone to think,
• 1:04:21
  What if my closet is a little less shiny and sparkly? And what if my inner closet, you know, the value built up from good sleep, from good food, from good breathing, from good walking, the actual mechanically, like I was a bad walker. I'm still okay. And I'm working on it because this is very important. Does that make sense? Love it. Yes.
• 1:04:44
  I've got the best hack to get your girlfriend, boyfriend, significant other to start doing the things you want. Change their algorithm. Change the algorithm. Explain. It was girlfriend before getting married. I would always have these ideas, these things I want to do with her, these new health things I wanted to try. Most of the time, she just wasn't that interested in it. And I realized it's all my fault.
• 1:05:03
  I was the wrong person to sell it. She's hearing me blah, blah, blah, blah on these topics. And I'm not doing the right pitch or she always hears me pitching stuff. So I was just losing the pitches. So instead, I used my buddy Mark Zuckerberg and her Instagram algorithm
• 1:05:19
  And I just started finding the people with similar beliefs and started following all of them. And it was truly like a magic experiment. She just started wanting to do these things. It would usually be two to four weeks. And I think it just pinged enough times. And before that, actually, a health idea was I wanted her off social media. I got off social media. It was amazing. So I was deleting social media. I'd just get on her phone. I'd delete Instagram. And then she'd just bring it back. And it was kind of, I felt I was being an annoying parent.
• 1:05:47
  That was pushing. This was with your wife? Yeah. Okay. The start of the beginning is, I want her off social media. New idea. I got off. My life's better. I'm now out of the cult. And I'm trying to tell her, hey, leave the cult. She's like, I really like the cult. It's pretty nice in here. So I'm deleting the app, you know, once a week, a couple times a month. And she just bring it back.
• 1:06:05
  So then finally, I was like, well, I guess if you can't beat them, you join them, as they say. So instead, I started thinking about things like alcohol. I started following these brands that were these no alcohol drinks or these accounts that were like, hey, how to drink less alcohol.
• 1:06:22
  I started following these no seed oil accounts or no X, Y, and Z that I was interested in. Families that travel the world. I was like trying to plant the seed of maybe we'd travel the world. And I was doing a horrible job with these ideas. And I also realized, know your partner, you know, you know your girlfriend, boyfriend,
• 1:06:39
  A lot of times some partners need to hear it 5, 10, 20 times before it really becomes exciting to them. So for her, I thought repetition might work. So I started following those accounts. Follow the families that travel the world. Follow the healthy eating families. Follow the people that stop drinking alcohol that are like, you know, cute women that have, that she'd be really excited about. And the results were insane. I mean, it was way more powerful, way faster as it changed.
• 1:07:05
  So you grabbed her phone without her noticing, I guess. She knows. Now she knows. But before, in the middle. My goal is to not lie in the last five years. So when she would ask me, she'd be like, what are you doing on my phone? I'd be like, oh, just following better accounts. Yeah. Did you unfollow accounts? Yeah, great question. So I'd see these like very toxic...
• 1:07:24
  you know, 5 million followers, but I'm like, she doesn't look healthy. Bad energy. Unfollow, unfollow. I'd also unfollow the clothing brands. Like I'd see all these clothing brands or I'd click, do not show me more of this. Because she's getting spammed with the brands she likes and then she's wanting to buy the stuff that are, you know,
• 1:07:41
  wants that become needs. So I was trying to reduce some of that. So it's really like reduce the bad signals or the bad things or things that that's a judgment, things that I don't prefer. She spent more time and energy and increase the area. All that is, is the algorithm and our algorithm becomes our mind. That's the hack.
• 1:07:57
  And did you do the same for you? I don't have social media in the traditional sense. So I have LinkedIn, not an app. I am not in LinkedIn, but I heard that it's also very toxic. I had to delete the app. What is the problem with LinkedIn? The algorithms become really good. What is it? Why do you get fed?
• 1:08:14
  You know, it's like professional contacts and business updates and interesting business insights from people and blah, blah, blah. Is that good or bad? If you have it really curated, maybe it can be good. I'm going to go aggressive with a strong statement. I think almost all social media from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all of it's garbage. What about YouTube? YouTube, I make the excuse.
• 1:08:35
  that long form is great, and then I notice I get stuck in the shorts. And I'm considering just deleting it altogether and maybe using Spotify to hear this content. Like, I'm literally thinking of this in real time. I probably should do that. Just delete YouTube. Definitely, for the vast majority of people, they are not even maybe thinking about how the algorithm is controlling their lives. But I think that for many people, they have the capacity to...
• 1:09:04
  really program and curate the algorithm to serve them. Meaning, let me give you an example. Let's say I have a YouTube account, you have a YouTube account, right? How often do we go and follow people that we are not connected with anymore? How often? Because of you giving me the insight.
• 1:09:24
  Yes. So many times, and it happened with me, and I think we were talking about it, we are seeing that our sleep is getting disrupted because we are thinking about politics. Most likely we are watching this somewhere. And if we consume content or news from YouTube, most likely we are following some kind of channel that is feeding us that. So why don't you stop? Just unfollow it. And then see what happens. Now all of a sudden, you stop paying attention to that.
• 1:09:52
  Let's flip it back. Why do you think they struggled to not consume any news? I think that it's addictive. It's like sugar. I think you're right. I'll give it additional reason. I think it ties back to that tribal instinct of how you feel like you're out of the tribe when you show up and you don't know about XYZ thing. You didn't know that he had this happen? You didn't know that? I always feel proud about it.
• 1:10:14
  Yeah, but you flipped it. I do too. But that's because you're a psychopath. And so am I. How is that a psychopath? Because we literally, by definition, are going against the herd. That is being a psychopath? I'm joking. I'm exaggerating. We need to put community notes here. Pablo and Peter are not psychopaths. The point is more of that is, from a brain level, different than most, almost everyone. We have a need to fit in with everyone else. Now, yes, I've taught myself want, right? Right.
• 1:10:43
  It's a want that feels like a need because we used to die if we didn't fit in. We used to die if we weren't part of the tribe. Evolutionary, you know, if you go back. So that is unique. And I think that's a deeper thing that scares people of not being in the, and they don't realize it, it's subconscious. And then I think it's combined one-two punch. It's addicting. I'm going to take the other side of your point. I don't think I can win against it because I did this with Twitter. I took it down to like the 50 greatest minds I'd ever thought of.
• 1:11:11
  And these are awesome people. Here's the problem. Twitter is a multi-billion dollar company. This was before Elon even bought it. And they're slipping in all these other points in the middle, in the cracks of the 50 people I want. If you actually could filter it to where the feed showed nothing except those 50 people, I would maybe believe it. Like I would try it myself. I'd be open to trying. I can't win. Like I can't. My brain, whether it's just me or most people, we'll see. I just realized I can't win in that game.
• 1:11:39
  Because I filter it down and then it still comes back. And I've heard my friends with strong opinions across all sides of politics talk about when they just unplugged from it, how much they felt their stress just go down. It's unbelievable. Well, I unfollowed a lot of accounts that I was, I felt that I was running on autopilot. I was just watching it because I've been watching it for the last two years. And at the beginning, it was very exciting. At the beginning, I was learning. And eventually, I think that I got into the diminishing return area.
• 1:12:09
  I'm not feeling incredibly great after watching this. Okay, unsubscribe. And then what happens, it happened to me that I come back, let's say, three months after, six months after. I'm like, let's just check some videos of this guy. So I go to the channel and I look at the videos. And I say, okay, let's just, I want to watch these three. These three look interesting. And then it's just garbage. And I realized, oh, this is why. I literally gained nothing.
• 1:12:35
  How do I say I gain nothing? Because it's not that I can call you and say, dude, check out what I just learned. I just learned this. This is just garbage. It's basically what legacy media does. It's just garbage. Just think about, for everyone watching news, that I don't know why,
• 1:12:53
  They're watching us right now. But let's just say people that are watching us also watch some news. From all the hours that you spent last year, tell me, what do you remember? Maybe they remember one thing, two things, which most likely are two massive main events that happened. And flip it.
• 1:13:09
  would they have heard about it anyway from friends and family? So they actually gain nothing by consuming it. A hundred percent. And this is what I usually tell my mother, which is like, well, if something happens, then someone will tell me. My mom challenged me the same way. Well, I need to be informed. Which is the opposite. It's not a need, it's a want, and it's not informed, it's...
• 1:13:28
  Programmed. Desinformed, programmed, brainwashed. Yeah, and this goes both ways. This goes to anyone. There's a good quote I love. The news isn't new. It's the same cycle. It's the same pitch. And right now we are watching with my wife Seinfeld, which is a very old sitcom, I think. So this is maybe, what, from the 80s, if I'm not mistaken. This is, what, like 35 years ago? 30 years ago? And you watch, and first of all, it's fascinating to me.
• 1:13:56
  They are talking about the answering machine. They're just talking about the answering machine. And it's fascinating because they come and they are addicted to see who left the message, which is very similar to us. And Jerry makes jokes about it. You go and you want to see how many messages do you have. Hey, no, no, let me just check first my message.
• 1:14:15
  my machine to see, and it's fascinating, or the newspaper. And it's always, or they are talking about the president, and they just named a president that I personally never heard before. And they are making the same comments that people make today about this president or the previous president. It's just always the same thing. It's unbelievable. It's so cool because you and your wife, it's like not being born in the U.S. You're learning about...
• 1:14:40
  America, but you're like, wait, so it's the same 30 years ago as it is now? Oh, so you realize even clearer, like, oh, it doesn't matter. Why do I need to catch up on? Well, I realized this back in the day in Argentina. That's when I realized because my grandmother was watching the news. And for me, what really clicked was when at the end of the day, there was one murder that happened, one person that got killed and it felt that 27 people got killed.
• 1:15:05
  And it's always the same story spoken from all these different news programs in the same channel. And I was like, oh, this is terrible. What am I gaining from this nonsense? Well, think if you tie it back to sleep. If you really want to prioritize your sleep, those updates are not good for cortisol and creating a calm nervous system that allows you to go to sleep. Terrible. And it's addictive. I think flipping it to not thinking about us consuming it and thinking about why are they producing it.
• 1:15:31
  You know, Legacy News was just an old technology as a newspaper. And they had a great business model. Well, then now you have... It's the same business model now. Different technology. It's a different technology, but that's created... Now it has to be instantaneous. It has to be more shocking.
• 1:15:46
  Because with the newspaper, there were just, there was one or two newspapers in town. I don't know. I was watching the other day the Murdoch, Murdoch, Murdoch, whatever, documentary on Netflix. And I didn't know the story. And they were showing how he gained so much popularity because his newspapers were so sensationalist. What we call yellow in Argentina. I don't know if this is a phrase. Yellow is like yellow papers. So...
• 1:16:10
  It's all about putting the craziest headline. And by the way, you go to YouTube now and it's clickbaited. Let's make sure that it's all about how can we capture attention? Because the eyeballs, that helps us sell. That's it. A podcast with a lot of followers is going to be able to attract a lot of sponsors in comparison to podcasts without. So it's all about what is the incentive to do.
• 1:16:37
  Spot on. And once you realize their incentive, what I'm saying is I still think it's accelerated to where he may have been not the norm when he was being sensationalist. But you can't compete if you're not sensational in today's news. You can't compete in today's social media news cycle without going sensational.
• 1:16:55
  Well, I disagree because just look at Joe Rogan. I think he flipped the model. Well, he speaks about whatever he wants. And many times he's like, did you hear what this one said? Jamie, pull the thing that I just sent you via Instagram. Whatever. So there is a lot of, he's not a news anchor.
• 1:17:12
  But he talks and does whatever the f*** he wants. And sometimes he's interviewing Trump or Bernie Sanders. But you have to come back to the incentive. I gave the example for all the incentive model of businesses. He created for fun. He was doing these other jobs and professional. He was the anchor for the wrestling stuff. He ended up having the biggest podcast. Totally. And I agree that was the better path for him and knowing himself. What I'm saying is the incentive was never there for him.
• 1:17:41
  The incentives of most news, social media, structures, organizations, that is their primary source of income. They're incentivized to get max. He didn't care. Oh, but that's the point. Yeah, I get it. And I think we might be saying the same thing. If I look at the incentives of most of what's on YouTube, of most of...
• 1:18:00
  news channels, all that, they have an incentive, they are structured. They aren't a Joe that's saying, oh, I'm just putting information out. Well, I would say we all have incentives. And I think that the person that or the company that doesn't, I wouldn't say the company, but let's say the person that doesn't have
• 1:18:15
  financial incentive as the number one incentive. That's the person that can create something that is transformational. You said before when we were talking outside while we were in a break that people with chips on their shoulders ends up with the most amount of chips in their pockets, which I think there is something about it. The question is why once they have the chips on the pocket, they just keep having the chips on the shoulder. Sure.
• 1:18:40
  There's an algorithm. Again, we're talking about algorithm and your mind. Kids who had traumatic or difficult childhoods, not always. Not always they have success, but the ones whose success often had challenging traumatic childhoods very often.
• 1:18:57
  And I was listening to a very short clip from a very successful person being interviewed on a podcast. And the two people interviewing were like, yeah, we noticed all these successful business people had traumatic childhood. Was that you? And she was like, oh, yeah. It really motivated me from a very traumatic childhood to have the success. And I'm still just as motivated as ever because of that experience. And the thing that hit me was the same that responded to you. Do you remember your answer?
• 1:19:27
  Why? It sounds like they're trapped. And that's exactly what I thought. They're on this, this, you're replaying your child. Think about this. You're actually replaying the fears and experience of your childhood on again and again and again. And that's what's motivating you each hour, each day, each minute, subconsciously, typically.
• 1:19:44
  to go do it. And the deep question of kind of this algorithm is if you do unplug this and let's say change your algorithm from this fear of traditional news or whatever happened to you as a kid, wow, now you have more space. Now the question is, what do you do with that space? Some would argue, and I think it's compelling, that that opens the door to find something that you're not motivated by money and you're motivated to do forever because of that. But
• 1:20:11
  You know, some would say you just kind of retire and you're worthless. You know, there's a different path. And that's an interesting challenge. And it's a popular topic right now in the tech or venture capital community of these awakened people doing plant medicine, people learning about themselves may not be as driven. And now the venture capitalists would say, well, this is terrible because I made an investment and they were going to go do this great business. Well, somebody who's a little more intentional might say, well, no, maybe they found the right path.
• 1:20:39
  Or at least they've opened the door to find a new path. How do you feel about that? I think that there is two motivators, at least in, let's just say, business people. And one is money. And the other one is, let's just say, money slash power. And the other one is internal fulfillment.
• 1:20:57
  Now, internal fulfillment many times is connected with contribution and serving. That doesn't mean non-profit. It means bringing something to the world that is incredible and that really change things for the better. Now, I think that these two, in most cases, they need to exist for survival. But the question is, which one goes first? Is money going first or is inner fulfillment slash contribution going first?
• 1:21:23
  So I think that both are very important, again, except maybe a nonprofit, but even a nonprofit, someone needs to be giving you the money. So at the end of the day, money, if you don't have money, I am not sure that there are examples where everyone donates everything. But still, it's money, it's energy, it's time. Someone needs to be donating that. And I think that resources, and I think the transformational, transactional is money first, then the rest. Right.
• 1:21:52
  transformational is the other way around. It's first the rest, then money. And money becomes a tool rather than a goal. So like, oh, I want to hit $100 million. I want to hit $10 million. I want to hit a billion dollars. I want to be a billionaire. So why? Cool, but why? Are you going to be happy after that? Like, what is it?
• 1:22:13
  What is it? Now, some people may say, well, by me achieving that, I will be able to donate, blah, blah, blah. I will be able to contribute, blah, blah. Okay, so then what you mean is the opposite. So that's not your goal. Your goal is the other thing. So I think this is why it's so important to really have it clear. And again, nothing wrong with one or the other one. But I find it fascinating, as you are saying, someone that already achieved success.
• 1:22:37
  Everything. Financially, meaning started with a lot of chips on the shoulder that transform on a lot of chips in their pocket. But the chips on the shoulder are still there. Therefore, there's no transformation. They're still there. And this is interesting for me on a couple levels. One, I was just thinking about this while we weren't chatting, which is...
• 1:23:00
  I have this rule I think about for investors or partners or people I want to invest in or partner with on a new business. There's two rules. One came from this venture capitalist, which is if they're not willing to do it on their own, I don't want to do it with them. Because if they don't have this confidence, they can go through the wall and figure it out on their own. They're missing this key ingredient of...
• 1:23:19
  I have the ability. And then they're, you know, I want, I need help on this. I need more capital. I need X, Y, and Z. Versus, no, I can do this. Okay, when you have that framework, you're just going to find a way around. But the second one is looking for traumatic childhoods. Like, I'm an example of it, right? If you had traumatic experiences or, you know, I had amazing parents, amazing family, but there were certain experiences that just because of time, age, everything else were intense. That's great.
• 1:23:49
  in my mind, to really propel you in the first stage of business growth as a fuel potentially. Now, is it as clean as the best, which is just, this is what you want to change the world on? No, not at all. Now, let me just double click on that, as you like to say. Are you really looking for traumatic childhoods? And the reason why I say that is because there are so many of them.
• 1:24:12
  The question is, so are you looking for that or you are looking for some strong, let's say, desire or chip on the shoulder that was created because of a strong desire?
• 1:24:28
  Traumatic experience. You said it more clearly. I'm looking for someone who has a chip on their shoulder that they want to be over. I was poor. I didn't have my dad around. I didn't have whatever. Yeah, but that still means nothing. That's what I'm trying to say. Well, let's play it. That person has siblings and all the siblings have the same experience with their own lenses. But the question is, what...
• 1:24:50
  did that experience generated in you? And this usually is, you have an insatiable desire to achieve something. I don't know what it is, but achieve something. Usually it's freedom, money, never be hungry, never be poor, or something like that. Spot on. I agree with everything you're saying. I agree with everything you're saying.
• 1:25:10
  Now I'm one of six. Why are my siblings not like that? Well, I had siblings that definitely had traumatic experiences, you know, growing up. But is that when you ask them, what did that result in? Like when people came back from the war, they basically had this analysis from world wars and these major events.
• 1:25:28
  You know, half of them would go downhill and become alcoholics to basically deal with numbing the pain. The other half would use it as fuel. And they'd go have these transformative lives. The same thing happened, I think it was Bell Labs or Bell was a big monopoly in the telephone industry. It got broken up because of monopoly.
• 1:25:46
  And so they had this cool case study, it's sad, but interesting, where they were firing like 50,000 middle managers. When they were fired, they tracked them. And it was the same kind of thing. It was, I don't remember the exact split, but something like half went into this downward spiral and half would go take off. It's how you deal with that adversity. What is the meaning that you put to that thing that happened to you? They can connect and understand, and maybe they don't even realize it, but if I can find that thread.
• 1:26:12
  of what it was and how that ties up. I think about a business partner I had that's incredible, incredible partner. And he was like, yeah, I would ask my mom why every time she said no. And when I got down usually by five or six whys, if she just said, because I'm your mom, I knew I won. And I was like, that's the kind of trait
• 1:26:31
  And he's like, we just didn't have any money. So I'd want to get stuff and I'd make a little money. And then I'd ask if I can get it. And she'd say no. I was like, that's that relentless pushing against the wall, the circumstance of the childhood. And it played out. And I think that's what's really powerful when I think of your algorithm.
• 1:26:47
  right, is we're playing these little shorts in our video of I was a poor kid and I didn't I had food insecurity. I was worried about whether or not we threw the table. I was a kid that my dad was never around. That's great. But the question is, what is the meaning that you put to that thing that happened?
• 1:27:02
  From me on hiring a partner or partnering someone. Okay, thank you for sharing. You were poor and you were hungry and whatever. But you have to understand what does that mean for them. They are tying that to a need prior conversation. But what I'm saying is you need to figure out what's that need.
• 1:27:19
  Typically, it's a want in today's world. But they feel that it's a need and it's so strong. That's it. Yeah, totally. It was a want, but it was so strong that it became a need for us. And this is why we achieved it. Let's say we achieved what looked back then impossible. It's spot on. I think that's why you're seeing so much struggle for people who have sold a business or created some financial is because that was their fuel. That was the fuel.
• 1:27:46
  And the reward was I'd resolve those things from childhood when I achieved this reward. And it's like, no, no, no, no. The brain, my mind, is the real product. The work, the business I created, that's all a projection, like a movie, the projector screen that it's out on. And none of that is going to change the internal algorithm that's running in my mind that I'm consuming because of childhood earlier. That's a whole different battle area of focus. Love it.
• 1:28:17
  All right, brother. See you next time.