Best of 2024: The Blueprint for a Transformative New Year

0:16 Welcome to the Knowledge Project, a podcast about mastering the best of what other people have already figured out, so you can apply their insights to your life. I'm your host, Shane Parish. The final episode of the Knowledge for 2024 is a collection of the best insights from the show this year. We've had some of our most popular episodes ever come out this year, and I'm excited to share. Some of the best ideas and our favorite moments in One Episode.

0:45 These insights will set you up for an incredible new year. Thank you for listening and learning with us. Together, we're gonna make 2025 even better. We have a lot in store for the podcast this year. Until then. Happy holidays to you and yours. There are too many podcasts and not enough time. What if you could skip the noise and get just the insightful moments, even from shows you didn't know existed?

1:20 That's what Overlap does. Overlap is an AI-driven podcast app that uses large language models to curate the best moments from episodes. Imagine having a smart assistant who reads through every transcript. finds just the best parts and serves them up based on whatever topic you're interested in. I use overlap every day to research, guess, explore, and learn. Give it a try and start discovering the best moments from the best podcasts.

1:47 Go to join overlap.com. That's join overlap. dot com Let's start with our most popular episode of the year featuring personal finance expert Morgan Hausel. The skill it takes to get rich are different from the skill it takes to stay rich.

2:07 Few understand this phenomenon more than Morgan. In America, we spend something like a hundred billion dollars a year on lottery tickets. hundred billion dollars massive that people spend on lottery tickets. And if you dig into who's buying it, It's Almost exclusively poor people.

2:24 They buy the vast majority of lottery tickets, and the poorer you are. The more lottery tickets you buy. And these are some people for whom they literally can't buy food, or they might l be homeless. And when at whatever little money they have.

2:38 They go into a seven eleven and buy some scratcher tickets. And you might look at that and say, like you you idiots, like what are you doing? Yeah, this is the dumbest idea I've ever seen. And maybe that's the right answer. Like maybe you could just stop there, but In Kahneman's framework, I think it starts to make a little bit more sense. If you have someone

2:55 In a situation like this. who in their mind at least they think I can't get a raise. I can't build a career. I can't get promoted. I'm kind of stuck in minimum wage job if that's their mindset. than buying a lottery ticket. might be the only time in their life.

3:11 Where they can say to themselves and believe like This is my literally take it out of here. This is the only chance that I have to get ahead. And so it starts to make a little bit more sense in that situation. And maybe you contrast that with someone who has A very high net worth.

3:28 They might be like, Look, I could just put all my money in treasuries and just live for the rest of my life just off the interest. And when you have so much, you don't need to take the risk. Well, it comes down to perspective, right? So like if I could see what you see and feel what you feel, that decision would be rational. Yeah. There's so many things in life where you can look at other people and the and the decisions they make, not just in money, but for politics, their health decisions, whatever it might be. And fiercely disagree with it.

3:53 But what's easy to overlook is that if I were in your shoes and had experienced what you had, had the same family dynamic that you do. The same DNA that you do, I would do the exact same thing. And I think that is a more qu important question to ask yourself. Like What financial decisions would I make differently? If I were born in a different era. Born to different parents, born in a different country.

4:15 And I think you can't answer that question, honestly, because you don't know, but you know there would be a lot of things different. that are completely outside of your control. Where and when you were born. Would have a massive impact. You and I should not pretend that if we were born in the 1960s in Nigeria, that we would have the same views about. investing in the stock market over time that you and I do today. This kind of gets to the topic of luck. And a lot of people when you bring up luck, they will say something that sounds smart that I've v I fiercely disagree with. They say, like, oh

4:44 you should increase the surface area of your luck. You should like, oh, the harder I work, the luckier I get. It was like some variation of that. I'm like, no. If you can do something that changes your odds of an outcome, it's not luck by definition. Luck to me, the biggest are where and when you were born. You can't control it. Bill Gates couldn't control it.

5:02 Elon Musk couldn't control it, but it has a massive income uh massive impact. on where you're gonna go in life. That to me is what luck is. It's what you truly have absolutely no control over. And then there's also the the not only the country you're born into, but the socioeconomic households you're born into, the schools that you go to. How how much of this is nature versus nurture

5:22 versus chosen nurture. The stat that I I think is so astounding is that income among brothers. is more correlated than height or weight. So basically that means if you have a brother Who is rich and tall. You are more likely to also be rich than you are tall.

5:40 It's more correlated than the little DNA that you're that you're that you're sharing with each other. Look, is it is it a perfect correlation? No. Are there is it possible to be raised by a poor family and become rich? Of course. Is it possible to be raised by a rich family and and end up in the streets? Of course. But there's a very strong correlation between those two. I I think people get really uh can get kind of testy when you talk about luck. Because if I say that you got lucky I look jealous.

6:06 And if I say that I got lucky uh I feel diminished in in what I'm doing in life. So it plays a massive role, but it's very easy to ignore. The impact that it has in the world. How how do we break down that contribution between luck and skill or what's repeatable on our part?

6:23 Rather than saying What is luck? I think it's important to just say like what is repeatable? What is something that happened that I could do again? And if we look at Buffett, this guy standing behind our shoulder here.

6:34 And and less let's look at the course of his life. I cannot, he cannot. Recreate. the trading conditions that existed in the nineteen fifties. that allowed him to buy blue chip stocks at

6:45 three times earnings, whatever it was back then that he was doing. He can't recreate that. He couldn't do it again. But could I or you or anyone else listening try to recreate his patients? Some of his risk framework, yes. So that's something we should pay attention to. You want to find what is repeatable. And what you could do again.

7:04 And those are the things that you should s pay the most attention to. I think that's fascinating, right? Because when we look at Buffett, what we want is the outcome. And what we don't think about is all the things that go into creating that outcome. So what stays the same between all these different decades where he's done this, right? So he's done it from buying net net Ben Graham stocks. All the way to buying great businesses, all the way to the patience to do nothing and then once every 10 years deploy a whole bunch of cash. Yeah what is consistent across that period in your mind? Two of the big ones, we could come up with dozens of things that are consistent with someone like Buffett, but the two big ones are

7:40 Endurance and maybe tied to that, capping a downside risk that allows him to stick around for longer than anyone else. There's also a psychological trait of wanting to keep going longer than anyone else. Um I I I use the stat in in my book that ninety nine percent of Buffett's net worth was accumulated after his sixtieth birthday. Like the vast majority of people, including me, and maybe you If we became a billionaire at age sixty, would be done. You'd move to Florida and buy a private island and like live happily ever after.

8:09 For him to be that successful and to keep going full blast. for what's now another thirty three years and still going stronger than ever. Is a very unique characteristic that plays a massive role in his success. If Buffett had retired at age 60 or 50, like a normal person would have in that situation, you would have never heard of him. The whole reason he's so successful is just the endurance. And there's a, again, there's a psychological and a financial component to that. Never getting wiped out financially. And the psychology that will allow him to keep going full blast for nearly a century on in now.

8:43 But that sounds Academically correct, but in temperament. incredibly difficult because I see my friends getting rich off like Bitcoin or something. And that makes me wanna change the patience that I have. I know how to get wealthy over time. We know historically that what's worked is saving money.

9:04 Being very patient. Letting it compound decade after decade. Then all of a sudden you wake up with it. a ton of money and your financial independents. But if I see my neighbor

9:16 getting richer quicker than I am. It makes me want to accelerate that timeline. Yeah. And my lack of patience sort of changes the outcome. Not having FOMO. is the single most important financial skill.

9:28 I think it's so important that you cannot ever imagine accumulating significant wealth over your lifetime. If you are susceptible to FOMO. Like if there's literally one thing. The one trait that you want. That's gonna allow you to accumulate wealth, it's the lack of FOMO.

9:42 particularly in modern markets that can get so crazy with social media and Reddit and Twitter and everything. If you ha if you are susceptible to FOMO, there's no hope for you over time. I I I I really don't think that's an exaggeration. And that being able to see your neighbor get much richer than you. And not being being impacted by it.

10:00 Is is so incredibly critical and easy to overlook these days. I don't have that many financial skills. I could never be a stock picker. I could never be a trader. I don't have the intellect or the the the the horsepower To pull that off. But I feel like I've never been At least that's susceptible to FOMO. It doesn't bother me in the slightest to watch other people getting rich. Brent Bishore, our our mutual good friend, had a quote that I love. He said,

10:25 I am perfectly happy. Watching you get very rich doing something that I would never want to do. And I think that's that that's a great way to frame it. I don't get jealous or or anxious to watch other people get richer than I am over time. My investing strategy is To own index funds for as long as I possibly can, to be average for an above average period of time.

10:48 And I think that will actually lead to an incredible outcome. Not only will it Achieve the financial goals that I have for my family. But I think over a long period of time it will put you in the top Decile at least.

10:59 of people who are who are compounding money over time. really hard to appreciate that what's short term optimal and what's long term optimal are. are often two different things. Completely different things. Howard Marks talked about this investor that he knew who in any given year He was never in the top half. versus his peers.

11:18 He was never in the top fifty percent of of other investors. And over a twenty year period, he was in like the top four percent. 'Cause everyone else who was beating him in a given year couldn't keep it going. And so like what's your ultimate goal? So much of investing is just define the game that you're playing. And I don't look down upon or criticize people who are short term traders. Maybe like that's their game and for their investors or for their like it makes sense for them. My game is is different. I think your game is different. Most people's game might be a little bit different. And what's important is that

11:48 If your game is to invest for the next twenty, thirty, fifty years that you're not taking your cues. from people who are playing a different game. Of trading for the next quarter. And that's where a lot of danger in investing comes from.

12:02 Next, Blake Eastman, who has dedicated his entire life to psychology and nonverbal behavior. And people are obsessed with recording the person on stage. What's more interesting is recording the audience. Because the truth is I'm always asked, how did my presentation go? I go, I don't know, let's see the audience. My presentation is for that group of people. So what often happens is a lot of communication experts will watch like a presentation and they'll go, Well, I think you should move your hands more or less, or I think you should speak up like They're doing that through their perceptual lens. They're not optimizing for the engagement of the audience. So I used to record my presentation and the audience every third presentation for like three years. It was fascinating. Why don't we take that approach? I mean comedians effectively that approach without recording the audience because it's based on oh

12:47 That joke got a laugh. I'm gonna use that next time. That joke fell flat. I'm not gonna use that next time. It's the feedback loop is instant. So that's how I that was what's was such the value. Like when I was teaching psychology at CUNY, I was like speaking like eighty to a hundred hours a week, both at my office and both Instant feedback loop of what story worked. what story didn't work. Like did that land, did that offend somebody? And you just start to develop this quicker repertoire of things that actually work, but that comes from that audience interaction. But most people when giving a presentation

13:16 they're not even present enough to do that because they're so in their head about the presentation. So it's sort of a skill set that comes after you've been more comfortable being on stage to be able to process and sort of predict the behavior of an audience. What's the biggest thing that gets in people's way when they're presenting? Uh really just the social construction that a presentation is something different. So peep oh it it's got this whole cultural narrative. Oh you got a pr you have your big presentation coming up. It's hyped up as this this different thing. You're just talking to a group of people. And they're responding by shaking their head and nodding and you're

13:51 sitting up there and I think that's the first construct that needs to be broken. And then also just people just don't put in the reps. Like that's something that just takes time and Most people. Work so hard for a presentation. And they do it and it's like, oh, it's flood of release where they should have just done

14:07 Every day for the next three weeks do a presentation, it'd be so much better. W what does putting in the reps mean? Does that mean crafting your story and positioning it for the audience? Does it mean your intonation Like how do you actually go about working on that? Like how would you make me an expert presenter if You had three weeks and you had one hour a day of my time. So th so that's so that's so cool that you did that. So my question is always be what was the constraint? So if you said three hours a week, one hour a day of your time

14:37 The first week would probably be reps of just Let's get you comfortable. Let's so the thing is with a lot of the nonverbal behavior stuff and movement. I have found reliably that the most effective version of someone is when they're the most comfortable. Hm.

14:52 Bar not every single time. So the the whole joke is people think I teach like oh stand this way. No. Like step one is get you to the level where you're the most comfortable, where you feel the most free, and then build on top of that. So I try to get you there first. And I wouldn't be focusing on I mean it really depends. If you're doing like a TED talk that was like 20 minutes, I'd probably tell you just to rehearse it and get that down. But if you're doing like an hour presentation or the most presentations that people have to do, it would be all outlines repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. And it's a It's a careful balancing act to like understand where you're at'cause

15:26 Some people with a lot of anxiety. I will know Or some people that are trying to get it right. I won't be focusing on little details. It's a way more dynamic process. Like so some people that have like these phasual things to getting better at presentations like

15:39 It's different for every person because some if someone you're telling someone Listen, you're moving your hands too much. And they're gonna get in their head about moving their hands too much. They're gonna start looking all weird. Yeah, yeah. And some people can take a cue and immediately change it. And other people J just get them comfortable. Just get them comfortable. And then using video. But you want to hear something else fascinating. So what do you show people video of themselves? I work once worked with this.

16:03 woman um I hope she's hearing this because I I I love her, but not to call her out. So I she gives one of the worst initial presentations I've ever seen in my entire life. She was Extremely flat. She was like moving her hands. She literally spoke like this for an entire 20 minutes. And I it was like painful to watch.

16:23 And at the end of the video, I was like, Okay, so let's see what we're working with. And I put her video on her like projects, and the first thing she says to me is like, I need a nose job. And it just shows you like that's where that person's perception is focused on. Like we're focused on these weird little different things that no one else recognizes or no one else cares about. And I truly believe. That the most world class Best presenters. are truly about their audience and not about themselves. They're not trying to come across a certain way. They're trying to like I even feel that now, like I'm stepping more into my own self after the first twenty minutes.

16:59 Like at first it's a little bit you know, it's a little different. I'm trying to be more measure, now it's more me coming out of it. And the truth is, how do you get to that immediately and build from there. And go right away into that. Wanna switch gears a little bit and talk about Um

17:13 workplace and sort of power structures and social dynamics. How Can you teach me to understand the power structure at work and social dynamics? How would you go about that? So power structures. Oh man. Such a good question. Uh

17:28 They are V'invisible things That's that's when I when we talk about reading a room in a corporate structure, that's what we're talking about. We're talking about power structure, talking about permissions, all these things. The first way to do it is to do this exercise where

17:44 You sort of do a decision tree of the potential, like show people what the potential landscape. So for example, let's say all of a sudden uh a new CEO gets pulled in. And we want to say, okay, what is this CEO going through? Is this CEO just? pushed in by the PE company.

18:02 Does the CEO have performance based incentives? Like what are they trying to do? and just map out all what quote unquote is possible. And then start using the data and evidence that's coming in on a daily basis. to like cross out which one it is. And then sometimes just just straight up ask.

18:19 I think that's something that a lot of organizations don't do. I can I can't tell you the amount of times where I'm just like So I I have this really cool perspective'cause I work with Often the entire C suite. So like the CO, CTO, like everybody I work with.

18:32 And it's like you two need to talk about this. Because this is blocking you two needs to talk about this. But the amount of communication that just doesn't happen at like a personal level. Or just a level that's like blocking decision making.

18:45 It's kinda crazy. Uh I I think organizations need to talk way more than they are. Uh in this siloed environment sometimes. If you just were able to have those conversations, you would be able to navigate and see the power structures.

18:59 way easier. And people just don't have that social skill set, that the people skills to sit down with someone and A lot I've just seen every a lot of people get power structures. Oh, I'll give you a good one. If you Are falling in line with the power structure.

19:14 it's often very difficult to navigate it. Meaning if it's like, oh my God, this person is this and this person is this and I'm just this you're very rarely going to be able to see eye to eye with that person because you perceive them here and you perceive yourself here. And I feel like people do that a lot inside of organizations and it doesn't give them that creative freedom to actually read what's going on. Yeah.

19:37 Is the delta between where you are and where you perceive the other person Like does that influence your How? I mean uh just from like of what you have quote unquote permission to do or say. It's all a perception. Like I I've I've worked with people like executive I've worked with CEOs that are

19:58 The most open Every all of their behavior suggests that they're the most open, honest, come to them with problems. But people don't come to them with problems'cause they're a CEO. Yeah, but they say it over and over and over again. And I look at why and they're like, Oh, I don't wanna bother the CEO with this. I'm like

20:13 They said seven times this year come to me with this specific kind of problem. Yeah, you're right, but uh j I just don't know. You get in your head like that. How much of that do you think is cultural too, because I I worked with a CEO who said that, but the minute you came to him with a problem he'd basically like scream at you. That's the kind of stuff that I correct. So that's the bulk of my when you say something, but your patent a lot of these people

20:40 Often. Just don't understand a lot of executives don't understand the impact of their own behavior. So I have met people that are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful people. But yeah, the way they give feedback, oh my

20:54 God. It just ripped the person apart and they're like, no. I l I love them. They're one of my best people. I think they're great. I'm like Well, let's take responsibility for what that interaction looked like, and that's why Zoom and video is so important for me. Cause sometimes when you work with an executive or you work with anybody and you tell them something.

21:12 They don't see it like the way that you describe. But when you show them on video. That feedback, I was like, listen, go back twenty years in your career, if you were given this feedback, how would you feel? They're like Yeah. And I and I do this cool thing that

21:25 It's an exercise that really works. So you know, leadership principles and all that stuff. I'm not there to tell somebody how to lead. I'm not there for any of that. I'm there just to make sure that their intent is aligned with their behavior. So I do this thing.

21:38 Where I'm like, Close your eyes. And imagine Yeah, your funeral. And everybody you've ever worked with in your entire life is there. what are the stories and things that you're saying about you. And I just make sure that those things are in alignment with their behavior. Yeah. And they choose and solidify what those things are. And then I kind of hold them accountable to making sure that they're carrying out those things.

21:59 Denk an den 31. Juli! Wieso? Last call für deine Steuer. Oh no, ich weiß gar nicht, wo ich anfangen soll. Bei Wieso Steuer. Das ist wie Steuererklärung, nur ohne Stress. Ist das einfach? Klar, macht fast alles automatisch. Dauert das lange? Nö. Einfach per App. Na dann? Hol dir jetzt dein Geld zurück. Mit Wieso Steuer. Bis zum 31. Juli abgeben. And this is marketing expert April Dunford. Who's in charge of positioning at a company? Good question.

22:27 This has traditionally been seen As marketing. function. Um And even more specifically in tech companies, we often say this is a product marketing function.

22:38 But I don't believe that. I think that's not the right way to think about it. If we really think about what we're doing in positioning, is we're getting really tight on Who's our competitor?

22:50 How are we different? What is the value we can provide to them? To the customer and who exactly are those customers. If we made a change in that. That would be a big change in the business. If I think about

23:03 Again, my CRM example, if we switch from being General purpose enterprise CRM. to CRM for investment banks? That's a that's a whole different company. Yeah. So I don't think marketing Uh has

23:18 They're not talking to customers every day the way sales is. uh they don't necessarily understand the differentiation amongst competitors the way the product team would. And sure as heck the CEO is gonna have something to say.

23:36 About where we're selling and how we win in the market. So in the work that I do with companies with positioning We do it with a cross functional team. So we bring together

23:48 product, marketing, sales, customer success, support. And we bring everybody together and everybody comes With what they understand about customers and how we win. And we work through the positioning Together.

24:02 As a group exercise. Now somebody needs to be the steward or the police of that positioning once we've said it. To make sure that we are consistent about that and the way we're using it in marketing and the way we're using it in sales. And that's typically marketing that does that. I also think It's good to have

24:20 somebody be the person that puts their hand up and says You know what, things are changing in the market. we we maybe need to come back together and check in on that positioning. But I don't think that marketing should be able to change positioning or look at positioning or do it on their own, they could try.

24:37 But it won't stick because sales won't believe in it, CO won't believe in it. What we actually need is a cross functional team to get together. And look at it. make some decisions, get everybody in agreement and alignment on it, and then we can all go execute on it in in our respective departments

24:53 And then marketing can be the steward of Here's the positioning, here's how we define it. This is the messaging that comes out of that positioning. And then marketing be the person to put their hand up and say, you know what, this big acquisition just happened in our market and we might need to step back and look relook at the positioning. It's interesting that you you say that when we were talking about a salesperson and the first call, I was thinking, Oh, like If things don't go as planned, the salesperson points to marketing, marketing points to the salesperson.

25:22 Everybody points to product and and But you even expanded this. So you have a cross functional team of sales, marketing, product, customer success, support, and then you have the CEO involvement at some point in there too. Exactly. And when things are going well, everybody is a winner and everybody's responsible for success. But the minute You have a problem. Everybody starts pointing the finger at everybody else. How do you determine when that's a positioning problem versus Mm.

25:49 A larger problem. It's interesting because you know, I do this as work as a consultant and sometimes companies will call me And they think they have a positioning problem, and then I have a conversation with them and I'm like, I don't actually think that's a positioning problem, because there's lots of reasons businesses aren't successful and positioning is just one of them. So typically so sometimes companies will come to me and they'll say You know what?

26:12 Every company we talk to Loves us. Mm. If we can get'em. In a meeting? We close all that business.

26:20 That tells me the positioning's good. You're just not getting enough meetings. You're just doing a terrible job at lead generation. You should go fix that. You just need to get more at bats. Uh sometimes what you have is a sales execution problem. Like there's something in the way you're executing in sales that isn't working. So my test is often Like so first of all Do you have

26:41 Good, happy customers. That stick with you and love you and are referenceable and whatever. Most of the companies that come to me and say, Yes, yes, we have that. Okay. Uh confusion

26:52 When at the beginning of your sales process Where they come in and they just don't get it. That gap between what a customer knows and what a prospect knows, we can close that gap with good positioning. What role does storytelling play in all of this?

27:11 Storytelling is one of these things marketers think a lot about storytelling and obsess a lot about storytelling. Particularly on the consumer side. business to business marketers Like to think about storytelling, I don't think a lot of B to B companies are doing an amazing job at storytelling. What's really funny about that is if you go over to sales, sales doesn't care about storytelling. They never talk about storytelling. And yet they're the ones that actually are face to face with a customer and if anyone should be telling a story, maybe it's your sales team. Most of the storytelling stuff that you see, or at least what I learned as a marketer going through m if you go to marketing school and learn storytelling.

27:48 A lot of what you'll see is this hero's journey. structure for storytelling, which um is very common in entertainment. It's the way most movies are written. A lot of stories are written with this hero's journey. So in B2B storytelling, We think about the hero as the customer. So the customer has a problem, they embark on this quest, they meet a guide. That's us, we're the guide. And we give them a plan and we help them be successful and avoid defeat. We have this hero's journey. The problem with that storytelling arc.

28:19 Is There's kind of no competitor in there. And if we think about what a buyer is actually trying to figure out is why pick you over the other guys? A hero's journey doesn't really give us an arc.

28:32 To do that in the work that I do with customers. We start with positioning. So we get really clear on What's the value we can deliver that no one else can? Who are the customers that really care about that?

28:45 And then we want to build a story around that. The story that we're trying to tell needs to answer this question. Why pick us over the other guys? So in that storytelling framework we need to s we need to have a spot in that framework To paint a picture of the whole market.

29:02 And then show where we fit. And where everybody fits. So we shouldn't actually be just talking about us. We should be talking about the alternative approaches to the problem. Which means we're gonna talk about competitors. Or at least the approach that the competitors take.

29:17 In the work I do we Take the position and we translate it. into a sales pitch. That sales pitch has a storytelling structure.

29:28 That starts with A conversation around the market. So we'll talk about Look. We look at this market.

29:36 In a different way. Than our competitors. And because we look at it in a different way, we've built the product in a different way. And you're you're Customer, you have you have lots of choices. There's other products that you could buy, there's other approaches you could take to this problem. Let's talk about that. We think about this all day, we have opinions about it. We want to hear what you have to say about it too.

29:57 So this is the way we look at it. You can do it this way. This way or this way? And here's the pluses and minuses of these different ways of solving this problem. And this is a conversation with the customer more than me. Telling the customer stuff.

30:10 But at the same time, I'm teaching the customer. Або. is important in a purchase decision. Which most customers don't know early in their purchase process. They're trying to buy accounting software, half the people doing a purchase in B2B have never purchased a product like yours before.

30:28 So they're doing this for the first time. They're overwhelmed with information on the internet. Every vendor says We're the best. No, we're the best. No, we're the best. What we need to do in good sales storytelling and B to B

30:42 Is help customers Understand How to confidently make a decision. In order to do that I have to paint a picture of the whole market.

30:52 So they feel good that they understand Ah. If I choose this I'm choosing to go big on this and low on this. If I choose this Here are the trade offs for this. If I choose this, here's the trade offs for this.

31:05 Or you could choose us. And here's the trade offs for us. Are we a good fit for you or not? That's what we should be doing in a good sales storytelling, in my opinion. And who does that really well, in your opinion?

31:17 I have a bunch of clients that I've worked with, but One that I think is doing an amazing job of this for a really technical, complicated product. is a company I worked in with in San Francisco called Postman. Postman does Essentially

31:32 A platform for um developing APIs. This is a new concept. Nobody had this idea of a platform for APIs before Postman came up with it. They do an amazing job, I think. Of talking about Why APIs are important, so important that you actually don't want a set of disjointed tools across your organization to work on them, why that's important. They've coined a concept called an API first world.

32:03 And then they've done an amazing job of storytelling around that. So if you go on their website on their homepage and you scroll down about halfway, They have a graphic novel called The API first world. And it's a graphic novel devi designed for

32:20 технікол піпо To understand this story of What's an API? Why is it important? Why do we really want to have high quality APIs? Why is that important for your business? And why do we need a platform to enable that. So I think they do an incredible job of that. And they do it in a thousand different ways. Like if you see

32:41 The CEO do a conference talk, he's actually not talking about the product. As much as he is Talking about the market. En this концепt And why we need to think about APIs differently.

32:53 But if you are aligned with his point of view on the market. you're gonna buy his product. But they've really done a good job, I think, of Developing a point of view on the market. Helping customers understand The context around their product.

33:08 And the things that you need to understand in order to understand why their product is valuable and why you might pick it. One of my favorite guests of the year, eighty four year old blueberry billionaire John Bragg. What are the key indicators you look at? for your businesses on a regular basis to

33:27 Gauge how well they're doing. Condu to Buffett were a big e bit, uh believer. uh the cash they generate. Uh If it's

33:38 Through depreciation, that's all right. How much cash are we generating and And how can we service the debt and what can we buy with that cash? And as a private company. And that's work for us. You know, when we were building the cable business there was lots of depreciation, but the cash flow was good.

33:57 And still is. The same in the food business as we invest in factories and so on. And we also you know, try to work the angles on on the tax situation and use our depreciation. Warner said in the past he's not a believer in Ebet Dow but But we are. We think it's the cash that the business generates that

34:20 And so we're always saying, Well, what's the multiple on Eva Da and So we know what cash is coming.'Cause You can you can usually cut back on your capital if you need to. We're always trying to measure how much free cash businesses are generating. What do we have? Two.

34:37 Either pay down debt or to buy Five More Buffett stock or or something similar. How would you classify your management style? Historically uh

34:49 a lot of hands on. I really don't find the day to day operations as much fun as as I do the investment of the funds and So I'm enjoying moving to a head office role as compared with

35:06 But I still like to monitor uh We still have monthly meetings with all of our major investments. So Probably a little people would say a little too much detail and so on, but Got when you're signing the checks and the notes

35:22 You wanna know what's going on. And so I would rather be well informed up front. So that I can help if there's a problem. That come to the problem late. Operating without surprises is

35:35 It's pretty important to me. There's a a trend in business sort of like getting away from the details as you move up in the organization. Well a friend of mine one time said you can run any company with five points on the back of a cigarette package. That was years ago. But that's really basic. You know, just what are the key items? Is it

35:56 Revenue, is it sales is it margin? And and cost. I'm a big believer in being a low cost producer. Doesn't matter what you're doing, there's no excuse To waste money.

36:09 Your low cost. Y you're gonna stay in business in the tough times. So I would say for instance in the food business, a little boat cost,'cause you don't know what the revenue's going to be. Because we don't whether we're gonna have a frost or whether the currency's gonna change or

36:27 Or whether somebody else got a big crop or a poor crop. But if we keep our costs in good shape. We'll be all right in the long run. And I would say in cable You know, you always have to hit cost, but capital probably the biggest thing in in the cable business. 'Cause you can make big mistakes and And

36:47 You know, yeah. And then I will Say a billion dollars to get into programming and that just didn't Every company. I would say every business has

36:58 You know, the five points might be different. You're eighty four now? eighty four. And you're still working full days. I try to. Ha.

37:08 Yeah, I do. I do, I enjoy it. And I work a little every night. I'm always reading about Stocks or reading. This stuff.

37:17 Yeah, I guess I'm not working quite as much as I used to, but I could share with you I given some money to an entrepreneurial school at University of Prince Hort Island. Catherine Colbeck, who's a former premier there and the and the business school's named after And she was a friend of mine at university.

37:37 And uh A great person. And so We gave some money to the to an entrepreneurial school. And I said, on the condition that you put seven oh on the wall.

37:50 What seven oh? That's the hours entrepreneurs have to work every week. I love it. Not fifty, but seventy. And entrepreneurs do work seventy. What role did Judy play in all of this? I'd say she's a great mother. She's been a full time mother. We have four children. I don't know whether she didn't have an interest in the business or I didn't want to share it. But I do like going home and not talking about the business. Yeah, we have four great children and we have eight grandchildren.

38:18 She's been Just a very supportive mother. I traveled the world for years. And She brought up our children. Her role is a supportive role. But not directly in the business.

38:30 Is there anything looking back that you would have done differently? Probably if you said sure I have done differently uh Maybe. But on the other hand I was very comfortable doing what I did. And I worked hard. But

38:47 You know, I we bought our first cottage and Theory was that. Judy could be at the cottage for the kids and I could work. Which Work out well. But basically uh

38:59 our uh our philosophy of life and so on, I wouldn't change. Wish. Live the low profile, uh rural community and And

39:09 And at the same time had the ability to do whatever we wanted to. What role did Focus play? Focus in business is a big deal. when it comes to business principles, there w there isn't one A bigger than focus. Just uh

39:24 Stay at it and work at it. It's amazing. How hard work brings you good luck after a while. Focus is absolutely critical. Probably the biggest Maybe the biggest single principle you can have in business. Is there anything about decision making that you've learned that you think most people miss or

39:45 would benefit from Your knowledge. I've seen a number of friends or associates who Made the first man

39:57 And then thought they knew how to make the second with ease and they would Yeah, the focus go buy another company that they didn't know anything about. Uh and just Just Not

40:10 focused on on what they knew. I think it's fine to to Diversify But you have to be careful how you do that. Frank Sobe when I was in university Reading up. Financial Times, I don't know which one.

40:27 And um I've read a quote where he says, Always keep the back door open. So So although we were levering through these formative years The real debt load was in cable where the cash flow was quite consistent. The mistake

40:43 many people make is is they have a business and they make the first million dollars. And now they get into things they know nothing about. In too big away. I mean, if you want to test the water so it's one thing. I'm a a

40:57 Great believer in and Um Not having all the answers. Well we say the guy that asked the question looks better than the guy that has the answers. And so I'd like to have the questions and

41:10 But people Yet they have the answers, you know. You we've all been around uh Associates that Once they make a little money they

41:21 They know more than the next guy. D in your experience, how often have those people self corrected after they've started to go down that path? I I haven't seen much self correction. A guy that's really doing well when he speaks up. Uh you listen to'em.

41:38 When he goes broke, nobody listens to what he is saying more. So making a million didn't make you smarter and losing it didn't make you stupid. Fifty, sixty years. Patience is a real virtue. I don't know whether I Have enough. But

41:58 But I've had to have a lot because We we Built her team. We have lots of imports now, but in the early days we built our team on

42:10 On locals. But you know, didn't have as much experience as people from away and And some of them turned out to be great entrepreneurs and but you had to have patience, bring them along and And get them uh

42:26 Exposed. Because I was I was trying to point out. The way I wanted to report and the guy says Yeah, but John, you're outside and seeing all these boards and reports. We don't see that. Although he's smart.

42:41 Just didn't have the imagination. But today tremendous, uh Exactly. But it does it does take a little time and Patient.

42:51 Respect. Seville, those words or Or Big on our culture. One of the things that you said that I was most intrigued about that gives me a lot of hope.

43:01 Is that most fortunes are made after fifty. Well, I was a member of YPO like lots of other entrepreneurs and you get rocked out at fifty. And I remember saying, you know, for me this just the beginning'cause I built a base now. I haven't really made any money, but I built quite a base. And now I've got to take that base and m move on. Most of my real equity the way you would measure it. Has come after sixty. Uh but before that I was building land bases and factories and people and

43:35 And but it didn't show up on the bottom line. But I was building a real Base of assets I could say that After seventy we've got a lot better still. Good for

43:46 Got the base going and And like the portfolio we have, I didn't really get started until seventy five, maybe. And We played a r I shouldn't say played around. We had maybe a significant portfolio on some people's mind, but

44:02 But Not one that You would see written up in the New York Times or something. But when I

44:11 When these interest rates were so cheap. You didn't have to be a genius to Or one or two percent. Best in dividends at five.

44:20 So we did it. Could have sat back and done nothing. And not everybody was doing that. We have a board. I have I was explaining to them

44:30 What my What my Yeah. Thoughts were and how I thought it would work. And what the downside was

44:39 Well, we've just plugged away at it and we Got a couple of billion of equity or more now and And the portfolio. All that came late in life. Parenting extraordinaire Becky Kennedy. One of the things I wanted to come back to, uh, outside of the world of teens and maybe inside the adult world here is you said earlier

44:59 How we think about someone affects how we communicate with them. I want to relate that to how we think about ourselves and that inner voice we have and how we the stories we tell ourselves. And What are the common ways that we sort of self-sabotage or get in our own way with these stories that we're telling ourselves and we're not being kind to ourselves and we're not being gentle. And and that has all of these other sort of

45:26 implications like how can I treat you nicely if I don't even treat myself nicely. I mean there's so many examples of that. Right, and I think most of us We can get into the causes, but most of us have Learned To wire.

45:42 Struggles. Next to blame. They're like very, very close in our circuitry. And I say blame because it's it's often a combination of other blame. And self blame. Right. Blame is often a two way street. Like some of us maybe

45:55 you know, specialize more in self blame, some of us in other blame, but usually it's a seesaw. Like it's, you know. And so when something's hard or something doesn't go our way. Right. Um maybe Maybe I yelled at my kid. Right. And then I all of a sudden I'm like, I'm a monster. I'm the worst parent. I messed up my kid forever. It's just like huge spiral. Or I did a presentation at work and my boss said something like I don't know if it was critical, but it was kind of ambiguous. And I leave and I'm like, My boss thinks I'm so stupid. And like, Oh my goodness, I'm gonna get fired. And we just like you said, we start telling ourselves stories.

46:27 And then those stories Like start to influence, of course, they influence how we feel, they influence then the next action we take, that usually is just kind of further reifying that story or really that interpretation. And we can really get off to the races, right? Um an a another image I wanna share, right,'cause I think this is really one of my favorites and it really illustrates what we're talking about. It's like if you picture yourself as the driver of a car. We all have multiple passengers in our car.

46:54 Right. So like some of us have imposter syndrome as like a very, very noisy passenger. Some of us have it's all my fault. Some of us have, oh the world is gonna end and everything is gonna go badly, right? We get into problems not when those things are our passengers. We get into problems when those things take over the driver's seat. And actually A lot of us when we're aware of those voices, we try to get them out of our car.

47:16 Like we do. We're like, I shouldn't feel that way, or I know my boss doesn't actually think I'm stupid. Why am I thinking that? We either fight. The voice Or it kind of takes over us. Like that's usually what happens. Um

47:30 When I actually really think mental health. is not about getting those voices out of our car. They're there. They're not going anywhere. But actually just like Talking to them. when they're in the passenger seat to ensure that they don't take over the driver's seat.

47:43 Right. So For example, not first of yelling at my kids, I may be like oh There's the I messed up my kid forever. Again voice Hey. You

47:53 It's unfortunate, but you do tend to come up whenever I make a little mistake with my kid. And like, okay, I'm just gonna come back to today. Like it is twenty twenty four. And you know, I don't really know what the next eighty years, you know, kind of hold, but I'm pretty sure what I did today did not, you know, mess up my kids forever and I know you'll say that again to me, but I'm just gonna kind of Keep you in the backseat. Right. Or Uh.

48:13 Okay, I don't even feel great about my presentation. And my boss did do this, but there's that my boss hates me voice. And it's true. Whenever I even doubt myself a little bit. I do tend to also think that my boss is about to fire me. Right, and all of a sudden now I'm actually in a relationship. With These stories, right? Or with these parts, I would call them these parts.

48:35 And as soon as you're in a relationship with a part of you, inherently that part of you can't take over you because you in the driver's seat. Or like talking. to it. And to me, that's what I actually teach adults and parents like all the time. It's honestly like some of my favorite interventions to teach kids how to do that when they're young. I think it's like one of the most important skills they could take into adulthood with them. Um, because I think those are some of like the ultimate coping skills in life. One of the other things we talked about earlier, and and I'm sort of like going down a couple of rabbit holes because we we sort of Covered a lot of ground really quickly.

49:05 was regulating emotions. And not only do we as adults and parents have to teach our kids or help them better regulate their own emotions. Uh we have to often learn how to regulate our own emotions. How how do we do that?

49:20 I get this question from parents often, right? Because The way kids learn how to regulate emotions. Yeah. Through the their relationship with their parents.

49:31 Right. It's not something you could get taught in a textbook. And it's not to say when we get older, if we don't have a lot of those early experiences that helped us learn how to regular our emotions, which most adults I know a lot of them didn't. Doesn't mean we can't get there. But Our kids, right, they kind of borrow our regulation. in a moment, and they kind of absorb it. And like I was saying before, they kind of over time learn

49:53 Oh, my emotion inside me that feels so scary to me is less scary to someone else. And they kind of absorb that hope and they absorb that kind of tolerance, and that really forms the foundation for so many of their coping skills. So parents will say to me, okay, I actually get that. How can I do that for my kid if I can't? If I if I really do struggle to regulate my own emotions, it seems like I'm teaching my kid and myself at the same time. And we are.

50:19 And like that's is just kind of the hand a lot of us for Dell. And it's not an impossible hand. It's not an easy hand, but it's definitely a winnable hand. Like I know that and I've seen it now with millions of adults who are, you know, winning a lot of their hands. Um and so I think there's a couple like concrete ways as adults. that we can, you know, start to learn how to better regulate our emotions. Right. Number one to me is just the word curiosity. Like

50:43 Being curious about yourself. І за фаундаче. to regulating your emotions. Because it's the difference between saying Um

50:54 My kids whining. Like who can stay calm when they whine all day, like Are you saying people like whining? I have to get to a place where I like whining? No, nobody likes whining. Literally nobody likes whining, but there's a big difference. Between Not liking whining.

51:06 And I don't know, reacting and being in a state of reactivity with screaming at our kids versus not liking whining and being able to regulate Our emotions and respond to our kid from a place of groundedness and sturdiness, right? Still nobody likes it, but it's very different. And curiosity to me gets us from point one to point two because instead of saying like, What's wrong with my kid and why are they acting the way they're acting, we might say, What's going on inside of me? What's going on for me?

51:32 W what what is happening inside me? That is kind of a component of this reaction, right? The idea that my kids whining isn't inherently making me scream at them. It's a trigger. But there's a story inside me. There's something that happens inside my body, that frankly.

51:48 pre-dat my kids existence. So if I can get curious about that. Right, then I can actually make a lot of progress. And to me I think it's so easy to hear that. And someone say, Oh, so it's my fault? No. Like

52:02 I don't know, we're I feel like we're obsessed with the word fault. Like it's not your kids' fault. It's not your fault. Like, why does it have to be anyone's fault? Like, I don't know why it's like it just this is happening. Either we can be curious and like learn and through that learning Probably

52:17 Live in a way that's more in line with our values, feel more in control of ourselves. Like Your kids gonna benefit, but I promise you as the adult are gonna benefit in areas like way more. Like everybody wins, right? And so I always say to parents this isn't a system of like saying this is your fault. It's a system of saying, like, this is actually a place for your empowerment and to like finally learn skills and skills always help us feel. you know, more powerful. So One of my favorite

52:40 emotion regulation skills to teach adults. It's something I call A V P. Okay, and it's like the simplest thing. And has the most profound impact.

52:49 On people. Okay. So A VP stands for acknowledge, validate, permit. So I'll I'll teach each part. Step one. to regulating emotions.

52:58 is acknowledging them. And actually this is A really good point of the conversation relative to what we just said about this image in the car. So Let's say, you know, my kid is whining, step one, acknowledge, like

53:10 Whoa I'm feeling really annoyed. Right? Like in a way what I'm doing is like I'm the driver of my car. And annoyance in the back seat is like starting to kind of make its way to the driver's seat. And I'm like, hey there, hey. And that's literally what I'm doing. I actually use the word high a lot because it always makes me laugh. And to me, if I could add levity. to like that process, it gets easier. So I'm like high annoyance or high anxiety, right? Or something like that.

53:32 So for step one is just acknowledged. You can acknowledge by using a quote feeling word like hi annoyance or hi sadness. A lot of people don't like really know the name of their feelings, and that's totally fine. And you can also do it in a more general way. Like I'm feeling uncomfortable right now. Or I feel I'm about to explode right now. Or I'm feeling tight right now.

53:50 Any acknowledgement. Two is validate. And to me the the best way that our body, I think, likes to be validated. I don't know why, is the term make sense. I think there's something where feelings feel like accepted by logic in our body when we use that term. I don't know. I haven't like I haven't asked, but I think that's what's happening. So I'd be saying

54:09 Um I'm really, really annoyed right now. Or um, you know, when my kid was whining and I'd say to myself, Well That makes sense. Like Mining is pretty annoying. It makes sense that I feel that way. That is

54:20 a hugely Helpful. Phrase. in regulating our emotions because The reasons

54:27 Our emotions. Get unregulated. Right. Is that they are exploding out of our body. In our behaviors, they literally, if you think about these moments of reactivity, when I yell.

54:39 Or right, I'm the emotion is like coming out of my body and like through my mouth. Right, it's kind of like a volcano. Right? The opposite of that isn't suppressing emotions'cause you just can't beat them. So it's always, you know, an unwinnable

54:53 You know, endeavor. But we're kind of saying when you regulate an emotion, like it's okay to live inside your body. Like it can just live there. It doesn't have to explode out of you. It can live inside there. Like it has a place, it has a home. So if you think about those two steps already, like first I'm saying hi to it. Like if you're saying hi to someone. at a party, like maybe you don't love them, but you're probably like okay with them being there because he said hi. And then you're telling you feeling like it kind of makes sense that you're here. And then P is permit. Which actually just is inv involved saying yourself.

55:19 I give myself full permission to be Feeling this way. Right. So another example of going through an A V P I'm feeling really anxious right now and really, really worked up. And you know, well, that makes sense. Like I am managing my kids' soccer schedules and you know, I'm thinking about what they need for dinner and I didn't respond to that email. And I think tomorrow's gonna be a snow day and then my kids are gonna have canceled school and

55:40 P permit rate. I give myself permission to be feeling this way. And they think a kicker at the end. It's just adding the phrase. And I can cope with it.

55:50 And I Can cope with that. I you know, interestingly laugh, you're catching me on like Last night I was walking in Times Square. And as I do, I film

55:58 videos myself for Instagram when I'm like on my on the way to the subway, so I was like filming myself and this guy saw me. He's this twenty eight year old guy, stop me. He goes, I'm a twenty eight year old man. I'm unmarried.

56:10 And I don't have kids. And he goes and I Like, I'm so excited to see you. He's like, You're like a celebrity to me. And he goes, he goes, A V P. has changed my life. That's what he said. Because A V P has changed my life. I'm reparenting myself.

56:25 I know I never learned what some people learned in their childhood, and I need to kind of reparent myself through those skills. And A VP has Like you know, change my life. And so There's a couple ways to use it.

56:38 If regulating your emotions is new for you. You can't expect yourself to start to regulate your emotions when you're in your most heightened emotions. That would be Like someone who has never taken a foul shot.

56:52 Taking a foul shot. game seven of the NBA finals when time has run out and the game is tied. Like that person is not making it. You take foul shots. In practice. Low stakes.

57:03 And so the way I tell people to practice AVP. Is literally going to their phone right now, setting a random time that they tend to be alone. Right, not in the midst of things, and just literally making a daily reminder. That says A V P and When it goes off, you just stop.

57:17 What am I feeling right now? And and it can be like I'm not feeling much. I don't know. Well, that makes sense because this is a new thing. For me to check in with my emotions, so it makes sense that I'm not sure.

57:29 Permission. I'm giving myself full permission to not know how I'm feeling. Like there's no way to get it wrong. That's what I'm saying. Like and I promise you. After a week or two. Not only Will you start to recognize more things?

57:43 But already that skill, that coping skill will start to appear not in ten out of ten. emotional situations. It will not it's not magic. But like In in maybe two, three out of tens. And I think that's like one concrete thing like all adults can do to start making progress. And here's business genius Brad Jacobs, who started

58:03 Eight. multi billion dollar companies. Let's deep dive on MA. How do you think about it at a high level? And then specifically walk me through your process for

58:14 Not only evaluating companies. But beginning to end, including integration. MA has been a big part of my business career. Not in the first ten years. The first ten years from nineteen seventy nine to nineteen eighty nine.

58:28 I was in the oil business. It was all organic. We didn't do one single acquisition. So I'll just Trading and brokering and Building up a businessally. But since nineteen eighty nine I've been

58:38 Doing Roughly about five hundred acquisitions. I've done a lot of M and A. I love MA. I love MA. as a way to create value for shareholders.

58:48 Because I don't know of another way. on a risk adjusted basis on a Certainty level. That Is

58:55 more likely to create Massive shareholder value. Then doing sensible M and A. In order to Understand.

59:04 How to create value. I have to understand how I'm going to scale up the business. I I I only know how to create Tremendous shareholder value. By growing a business tremendously.

59:15 That that's how I know how to do it. And Of course it's organic. And I've had very good organic growth the companies I've led are been well performing companies that have had good market share and growing market share and we've taking customers away, taking business away from our

59:29 Less uh not as our c competitors weren't managed as well. But the real when you look at the the numbers, the real growth has been through MA, through acquisitions. What's been my secrets on acquisitions? I'll try to be concise because I did a Hour and a half podcast with McKinsey a couple of years ago with Andy West. That was that was the only question. Ask one question and I babbled on for an hour and a half.

59:49 It's still a big people still watch that that podcast'cause I really told everything about it. Here's the gist. It just is You first have to select an industry. You can't just do MA.

1:00:01 So I spent the last year. Going around studying dozens of industries looking at hundreds and hundreds of acquisition opportunities. Mostly with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and some other friend Sequoia and some friends.

1:00:13 Frigging out. Could I apply. My playbook. to this industry. Is the industry big enough?

1:00:21 Is the industry fragmented enough? Is there M and A to do? Is bigger better? That's not always the case. Are the economies of scale? Do you have a competitive advantage by being bigger? Is there a way to apply technology? My companies have always been tech forward. to the industry. Because the industry is a little sleepy on technology. As the way I run a business. The way I d do the intake of people and the culture and the

1:00:43 where we interact with each other and so forth. Is that something that'll work in this industry, is applied in this industry? Is it It's something related to something I know about. Industrial services, for example. Most of my companies since nineteen eight, have been industrial services.

1:00:56 And I looked at many, many different industries and I settled on The one that checked every single box, which was building products distribution. And the name of my company is gonna be QXO. And M and A will be a big, big component of what we do. There are is eight hundred billion dollars of

1:01:13 distributors in Western Europe. And in North America, which is where I want to Plant my flag. I wanna build a company that's caught fifty billion dollars.

1:01:21 I can do that. If there's an eight hundred billion dollar size I can take six percent of that. Through acquisition and through organic growth. I can get to$50 billion.

1:01:31 There's many other industries that are nice, but I'm not gonna be able to get fifty billion dollars. I wanna get you fifty billion dollars. So this industry there's a clear path How I can do that. Now

1:01:42 I can't just buy and there's Roughly about seven thousand. distributed here in the United States is about almost twice that amount in Western Europe. So roughly about twenty thousand distributors. You've gotta be very careful about who you buy.

1:01:56 There has to be a reason why you're buying that company. There has to be a strategic a compelling why you're buying that company. What what make What makes sense for that?

1:02:05 Why is that good for customers? Why is that gonna make our business a better business. Why does that fit with the other things that we've already bought and put together. How's it gonna integrate well? I like to look at The multiples that I pay. For an acquisition.

1:02:18 the price that I pay for an acquisition is very, very important. Because When I look at the levers of how we We create shareholder value. What contributes to that?

1:02:28 The biggest lever, the biggest component is The differential. Between What I raise capital at due to my relationships with mostly institutional investors.

1:02:37 And because of the track record. And what I can deploy that at on doing acquisitions. The second biggest leverage How much can I improve the businesses that I buy?

1:02:48 Those are the there's many, many levers, but those are the two biggest levers. So I pay close when I've studied all these different industries. I've studied historical

1:02:58 Acquisition multiples. And one of the reasons I like building product distribution is I believe that I'll be able to buy companies at lower multiples of their profit, then I'll be able to Raise capital that.

1:03:09 And that's gonna be a big that disagio, that spread, that difference, that delta is gonna create value, boom, just right away, right from the first day. Now you asked about integration. Integration is extremely important. Anybody can buy a company. It's not that hard.

1:03:25 You write a ch you send a wire, you sign a document, it's few dozen pages, lawyers have gone over it and You wire the money. And You're on it.

1:03:34 So that's not the hard part. The hard part is After you've selected the right industry, after you've selected the right companies within that industry to buy. After you Mm-hmm.

1:03:46 had discipline. So that you don't so that you pay the right price for all those. Then you have to integrate them. I've never run companies that have like hundreds of different companies all running separately with different names and different

1:04:00 SIF systems and different back offices and There is some level of decentralization where you need to be closer to the customer. But I have a very strong appetite for standardization. Standardization of

1:04:13 The ERP system. that you close the books with. Uh so you close the books promptly, right after the close of the month. And then you can have Standardized Dashboard. So all the managers have

1:04:24 The same format of the numbers they're looking at, the KPIs. And I see them graphically very easy to understand. I like to see so they can benchmark every comp every location to every other location, every district to other districts, every region to other regions.

1:04:40 And For that you need standardization. I like to have very standardized H R I S human resources system. Where All the people in the organization.

1:04:50 And we'll build the build this company up. We'll have hundreds of thousands of employees. I need to have a standardized data system for all of our employees. Everyone's on the For 401k, it's the same exact way of doing it. All the benefits are the same, all the performance appraisals are the same, compensation I can see right away. I need to

1:05:07 have transparency to the information about I need to have the organization charts. Very accessible right away. And every time we do an acquisition, I need to pull that information up right away while we're studying it. quickly so we have a competitive advantage. Against other bidders to see what would the synergies be. So I need standardized

1:05:24 HR technology throughout throughout everything. I need a standardized CRM customer relationship management system like Salesforce.com or there's several others as well. And For that.

1:05:36 to be able to make sure we're looking at customers the attractiveness of those customers, the profitability of those customers. the size of their spend, so therefore the potential of those customers going forward. All the interactions we've had with those customers. I need to see that in a standardized way, all across the globe.

1:05:52 Everywhere, every country we're functioning in. So I need to standardized technology for Customer. So I'm I'm giving the I need a standardized Internal social media. I happen to like I've used um Workplace by Facebook. It's not the only one, but I like that one really well. It's nice and

1:06:09 The interface is really, really good. So I like to have everyone on the same one'cause I like to have one company with one culture. Where everybody can ping each other. Like I don't want to have these silos of companies like Sometimes you see these companies

1:06:22 Roll up. Many different companies, but it's all a mishmash. It's all separate. I I don't like that at all. I I I see a lot of these S middle market.

1:06:31 private equity firms do that. They roll up these small companies that are doing five, ten, twenty million dollars Ebita each and they bat and they just buy a bunch of them and now they're up to a hundred million, two hundred million Ebita and They just get a bigger multiple because they're bigger, but it's a mess. Whoever buy those Whoever buys those companies, there's a lot of work to be done. You've gotta now standardize everything and integrate everything and opportunity to improve them, plus a lot of cost and time.

1:06:54 To fix all that stuff up. So I I integrate From the moment That we agree to buy a company. We're starting the integration process.

1:07:02 And the day we close the acquisition Gaza. We're in there and and we're standardizing everything as much as we possibly can. And we're communicating and communicating quite a bit. A big part of the success. For M and A.

1:07:16 is forming the relationship with people. and making sure we get off on the right foot. And making sure that we don't lose The great talent. And making sure we on the at the same time we're identifying

1:07:29 The weak players. And Gracefully and generously exiting them. So there's a lot of different components to M and A. I'm

1:07:37 summarizing a lot of different factions. Each one of those things we could talk for an hour just on that that block. But those are the kinds of things that go through my mind. My approach to eminent. Nutrition and health expert Rhon Patrick. You know, I kind of have my own framework for approaching nutrition in And it it has a lot to do with, you know, I I did my postdoc training in nutrition.

1:07:58 And um in specifically looking at micronutrients. So these are About forty or so essential vitamins and minerals. that fatty acids also and amino acids that we have to get from our diet. And

1:08:13 Those are in a variety of foods. And different foods have different levels and quantities of them. And these micronutrients are running Our metabolism, they're running everything, our neurotransmitters that we're producing, so our cognition, just absolutely everything that is going on in our bodies. So it's important to get them because if we don't get them, we can have Deficiencies or insufficiencies, which is quite worse because um insufficiencies are kind of something that

1:08:41 you don't notice every day. But there's like insidious types of damage just happening each and every day. And it accumulates over time and plays a role in age related diseases like cancer and neurodegenerative disease. So These um micronutrients are things like

1:08:59 You know, calcium, magnesium, vitamin K. Vitamin D, which I'm sure we'll talk about is actually something you can mostly get from the sun. Omega three and And so when you think about

1:09:12 the the s the the micronutrients that you need in your diet, it makes it a little bit easier to think about what you should be eating. Okay, so Mm. Well, let's start with like some of the most common

1:09:24 deficiencies in micronutrients. We have Uh magnesium. So a Almost half of the US population is deficient in or I I would say they're they get insufficient magnesium intake. And Magnesium is

1:09:39 It's at the center of a chlorophyll molecule, so chlorophyll makes plant gives plants their green color. So it's really easy to think about foods you should eat to get magnesium. You should be eating greens. particularly dark leafy greens. So um that's something, you know a framework where it's like okay, well I need to get my greens because they're high in magnesium.

1:09:58 Well, greens are also very high in vitamin K. And um vitamin K one. There's two forms. Vitamin K one you need it, it's essential when you when you take in vitamin K one and it's something like thirty five percent of the US population is not getting enough of that. And I'm sure, you know, in North America and Canada are are very similar. I mean we we have very similar for diets. So um Vitamin K one is essential for all your blood cotton processes. So you like in order to like

1:10:27 you know, have your blood clotting, which is important. You know, if you have a cut or something, you know, an injury, you want that clotting to happen so that you don't have like a hemorrhage, right? So um So vitamin K is also h you know high in leafy greens. You can also get um magn um sorry, calcium as well.

1:10:45 From greens. So that's really an easy way to kinda think about greens. Uh the other the other way the other thing is omega threes, right? So omega threes are very high in fatty fish. So this would be Things like wild Alaskan salmon or cod or mackerel, sardines, like these are good forms of fish that have

1:11:05 the marine types of omega three. So that would be DHA and EPA. And um, those are very important for a lot of functions, including brain health and cardiovascular health. And There's a lot of evidence. If you actually look at the evidence, um

1:11:22 A lot of work has been done by Bill Harris and his group at the Fatty Acid Research Institute. And um they have they look at omega the omega three index, which is a way you can actually quantify your omega three levels. And that's really good to be able to quantify something. Because if you don't quantify it, you don't really know if you are getting enough of it, right? So the mega three index is High in red blood cells.

1:11:46 And Um Er sorry, it's in it the it's they're they're characterizing it from red blood cells, which is different than a lot of other ways of measuring omega three. Um

1:11:57 Like, for example, plasma omega three, which is basically kind of reflective of your dietary intake the last week or so, the red blood cell or the omega three index is more of a long term status. So it's like 120 days for a red blood cell to turn over. So um the omega three index is a good marker of your omega three status. And um people that have a high omega three index and that would be Eight percent or more.

1:12:24 Have a five year increase life expectancy. compared to people with a lower omega three index, which is more like four percent. Now people in the United States on average have about an uh omega three index of about five percent. Um, and you compare that to, for example

1:12:41 countries like Japan, where they eat a lot of seafood. their omega three index is around ten percent. So and they also have a five year increased life expectancy compared to people in the United States. But um there's been tons of studies looking at omega three index and life expectancy. And there's been also like data where they stratif stratisfy like looking at, you know, for example, and this I like talking about this because I think it really puts in perspective

1:13:07 You th the framework of nutrition and thinking about Instead of focusing on what to avoid Focusing on what you need because If you focus on what you need, then it's obvious what you don't need, right? There's no nutritional value in processed foods. You're not getting micronutrients. You're getting calories. You're not getting protein. You're not getting things that you need.

1:13:26 So um Smoking is something that everyone knows is bad. You should avoid smoking, right? It's you know, heart disease, cancer you're gonna have a decreased life expectancy. emphysema, all kinds of problems, right?

1:13:37 Well, um What Bill Harris's group had done has they looked at life expectancy of smokers and non-smokers, and then they categorized their omega three index. And If you look at this data.

1:13:53 It's it's just mind blowing. So obviously non smokers That have a high omega three index. of eight percent or more have the highest life expectancy. And um the lowest life expectancy is smokers with a low omega three index. So there's like that's the worst of the worst.

1:14:10 But when you look at smokers with a high omega three index. They have they they have the same life expectancy as non smokers with a low omega three index. In other words, smoking Was like having low omega three or having a low and omega three index was like smoking.

1:14:29 And When I say you look the life expectancy, if you look at the graph in the publication the curves like overlay perfectly. It's kind of freakish, where you're like, whoa, like the people that are smoking, but they're getting a lot of omega three. have the same like life expectancy of these people that don't smoke but have Very low omega three.

1:14:49 And that's kind of like I I like talking about that because I feel like it puts it in perspective for people because like I said, no one's really thinking about I'm not eating my fish today. I'm not supplementing with an omega three supplement. to get that om those omega threes, you know, but people are thinking about oh, I shouldn't smoke. Because it's bad, right? So again, it goes back to that framework of

1:15:09 Thinking about what you need. And and and starting there. Um, as opposed to like just like okay, what should I avoid? Because when you think about what should I avoid Then you're not like people aren't thinking about magnesium. They're not thinking about

1:15:24 You know, the vitamin K. They're not thinking about omega three. And by the way, magnesium, you know, I said about half the half the population in the United States doesn't get enough. Um, they're not eating enough greens and unfortunately there's not a great test for magnesium because Um our body stores magnesium in our bones, and so any time we're not getting enough in our diet

1:15:44 our body pulls it out of our bones to like Because we need it, it's so important. You need it to make energy. Like without magnesium you can't make energy. So nothing's gonna function. But um You also it it's needed to repair damage. Like every time you have

1:15:58 You know, like right now, you and I were we're having a conversation. You know, we're you know, neurotransmitters are firing, we're thinking about things like that's causing damage. Metabolism, all that stuff causes damage on a daily basis, but our body repairs that damage. But magnesium is a co factor for these enzymes, these are proteins that are doing everything for that to function properly. And so if you don't get enough of that magnesium to do that, what happens is you don't repair that damage properly. And that can increase the risk of getting a mutation that can lead to cancer.

1:16:27 And so there's all sorts of studies that have looked at magnesium intake and cancer and You know, it's been found that for example for every one hundred you know, milligram

1:16:37 Increase in magnesium intake. there's something like a twenty percent decrease in pancreatic cancer risk. And there's been lots of studies like this looking at magnesium intake and cancer risk. And so the higher the magnesium intake, the lower the cancer risk. So again, it's one of those things where it's you can't look in the mirror and go, as you're brushing your teeth, oh, I don't have enough magnesium today, right? Like nothing's like showing you that

1:16:59 But it's happening, that damage is insidious. And I mentioned you pull it out of your bone, like it's pulled out of your bones. And that's another thing. it leads to osteoporosis over time. So You know. Investing in magnesium. So in other words, r remembering to eat your leafy greens.

1:17:14 is getting your magnesium. So you so women need about, I'd say about three hundred and twenty milligrams a day. Adult women need about three hundred and twenty milligrams a day of magnesium. Men need around four hundred and twenty milligrams a day. And um You know, this can change based on your your physical activity level as well. So like if you're physically active, if you're sweating, you sweat out magnesium. You also use it up for energy. So you might actually require anywhere between 10% to 20% more. Then that level so with

1:17:43 what's called the recommended daily allowance. in the United States. Um So you know, again, and people aren't even meeting that. So uh Investing in magnesium is like a way uh you can think about it like also for bone health because

1:17:57 You know, if you are getting enough magnesium on a daily basis, you're not gonna be pulling it out of your bones. And therefore you're not gonna magnesium's important for for your bones. And so as you keep doing that year after year after year, it dramatically increases osteoporosis risk, right? So there's lots of reasons to invest in you know, these micronutrients and to think about the foods that you need to eat. Um and I and so in beyond the micronutrients, it goes to the macros, right?

1:18:23 And finally, the guy who is beating death, Brian Johnson. If you can walk me through at a high level sort of the overarching day of blueprint. And w what does it mean to live Like Brian Johnson.

1:18:38 So the The premise on this is I I was posing the question. In the early twenty first century, is it the case?

1:18:46 that we have achieved longevity escape velocity, which means that for every one year of chronological time that passes, can I stay the same age biologically? And if not, where are we at? And so that's the backdrop on what my daily routine is.

1:19:03 And so what we did to establish this routine is we looked at every single scientific publication that's ever been done on health span and lifespan. We then graded the evidence of these papers and we then stack ranked them according to effect size. And then we've systematically been implementing each one of these these protocols. So

1:19:23 becoming the most measured person in history and then using using all the scientific evidence. I wake up so my day begins really the night before I go to bed. Currently at nine thirty PM I just changed my bedtime from eight thirty. But it's eight it's nine thirty on the dot. So it's it's not uh I don't have a two hour window of time.

1:19:42 And I I recently logged eight months of perfect sleep using my wearable. Which no human in history had ever done. So I wanted to demonstrate that you can get reliable high quality sleep for this extended period of time. And then I wake up naturally, I never wake up with an alarm. uh roughly four thirty, five thirty in the morning.

1:19:59 And I will I'll weigh myself, do body composition, like weight. Hydration. Fat.

1:20:07 Et cetera. I'll take my inner ear temperature. I'll take two pills. I'll do a few minutes of UV Uh light therapy.

1:20:17 to start my circadian rhythm. It's still dark in the morning. I'll go downstairs. I'll make myself a a morning concoction. I'll take sixty pills. I'll do light therapy on my hair. I'll um Like once a meet once a week I'll do my blood my blood pressure.

1:20:32 I'll then work out for about an hour. in a specific protocol. I'll come in, I will make breakfast, which is a few pounds of vegetables. I'll shower, uh do a skincare routine. And get ready for work. I'll eat my second meal the day.

1:20:47 And then I worked for The day. And then I have a evening and then throughout the day I'll do various doctors appointments. uh medical procedures and measurement and then I have a wind down routine that I follow r uh ritually. And

1:21:02 What we've done is we've tried to stack Hundreds. of protocols into my daily routine. Because we do so many things and we're trying to follow the evidence. I'm not able to just randomly do things. It has to be highly structured in order for us to control this experiment.

1:21:19 with the rigor we need for the results. And so we've just done this for several years and fine tuned it and We go through the process of measure me measure myself, look at the evidence, we do the protocol. measurement evidence protocol again and again and again. And uh I have a few dozen biomarkers that are pretty phenomenal. So so for example

1:21:36 My cardiovascular capacity. is in the top one point five percent of eighteen year olds. My bone mineral density is in the top point zero two percent of thirty year olds, which is age minute for that test. And you know, my my uh My strength tests, same thing, like top one point five and ten percent of eighteen year olds. So

1:21:54 the biomarkers across my entire body, whether it's my cardiovascular ability, my strength. Uh my muscle my my muscle and body fat are the top ninety nine point five percentile. So It's produced. Uh You know, I

1:22:07 a pretty impressive list of biomarkers that indicate that I'm in pretty good health. I thought your workouts were like twenty five reps of exercise and stuff. Are are you is that giving you the the incredible strength? Uh yes, so it's about an hour a day and it you're right. It's like uh you know twenty plus. And it's mostly I try to flex and stretch.

1:22:27 Every muscle of my body. So I don't do heavy weights. That are uh hard in the joints.

1:22:35 But yes, even doing these things, I do it every single day. I don't take any rest days. And yeah, I'm on my bench press. It it's uh top ten percent of eighteen year olds. And we use eighteen years, a lot of people I mean, the with ninety-nine percent certainty when I say this, people are like, but wait a second, why not a thirty year old? It's because

1:22:54 Uh You max out your weight. to uh rep ratio At age eighteen. So even though you can lift more in your twenties and maybe even your thirties.

1:23:05 Your ratio peaks at eighteen. The same is true with your VO two max, your cardiovascular fitness. And so we do a reference to an eighteen year old not because it's an easy way to pick off a number We do it because according to these age these biological age standards.

1:23:21 You're looking at when the human when I when a male Peak perfor peak performance. And I think your last meal is at like eleven thirty AM? That's right. So I have roughly you know ten hours or so of fasting before I go to bed. Do you feel hungry when you go to bed?

1:23:36 I used to, I'm now normalized to it. And does that help your sleep? Like what happens if you eat later? I assume this was all like sort of measured and The the the fasting I eat my last meal the day.

1:23:48 At eleven AM. For the objectives of good sleep. because I mean there's supposedly good benefits on fasting. I think the evidence is still Maybe Developing.

1:23:59 So I mostly do it for sleep because when I eat my last meal of the day, I Have all my d digestion finished. So when I go to bed, my resting heart rate is around forty six beats per minute. And if it's forty six, I'm gonna have a perfect night's sleep. If I eat at five PM or six PM.

1:24:16 then my resting heart rate's gonna be fifty six. And when I do that, I'm going to uh knock off about fifty percent of my rem and fifty percent of my deep. And I'll increase my wake time by about thirty five minutes. And so I've done these ex I've done so many experiments now, it is algorithmic.

1:24:33 And I know exactly what happens when I eat what at what time and how it affects my sleep. It sounds like blueprint. is optimized for the sole variable of sleep. Is that correct? I mean so sleep is an important one. It's it's it's the the number one priority because everything else rests you know, hinges upon that. We are the first endeavor in history to focus on trying to rejuvenate every organ of the body.

1:24:57 So we have seventy plus organs and we've tried to quantify and rejuvenate. Every organ of my body. We just tried to rejuvenate my thymus, which is a gland right behind your Your uh chest here responsible for your immune system. And so you you I can say I'm chronologically forty six years old.

1:25:16 But the more important number is what is the biological age of my heart. And of my lungs. And of my liver. And that's really the The more powerful predictor

1:25:27 than uh a chronological number. And where were were you when you started Blueprint? Were you basically your your biological age for your Like was everything the same? No. I was I was coming from a pretty bad place. I After being depressed for a decade and running Yeah, being a start up entrepreneur my entire life.

1:25:46 And having just gone through a bunch of stuff. Uh I was pretty beat up. And I was in a bad state. So I definitely subscribe to grind culture. Where

1:25:57 Yeah, you do things in society to try to earn people's respect. and have a position of a status in a social group. to when you conform with these social norms. And so like the when you hear a story about a colleague who Worked on a pro uh

1:26:13 a problem for two days straight and didn't sleep. It's like wow, they're so awesome and amazing. Yeah, like that it's very hard to not be Mm-hmm. you know, to be induced to think that that's an emulation worthy behavior.

1:26:27 So I had to peel myself out of a grind culture and find out that This is the thing is we we are accustomed Death. is the enabler of all things immortality. You know, if you love country, die for your country.

1:26:41 If you want to s if you want to pay the ultimate price of being a hero, sacrifice your life. Yeah, it If you um want to achieve immortality in your professional endeavor. Have your works live beyond your death. Everything we we think about existence is around death.

1:26:57 And I was calling question to death that maybe we have reached this time and place in human history Where death is no longer inevitable, and if that is true. Everything about our reality changes. Do you think we'll see a quantum leap in average age? In the next

1:27:13 Fifteen years. To me, the most compelling contemplation Is Trying to Predict.

1:27:23 How fast intelligence is improving. So we humans have been the dominant force of intelligence on this planet for two hundred thousand years. And we've been able to increase our abilities of intelligence by forming better cooperation in our society. with language and all kinds of organizational methodologies, we've increased our ability to

1:27:46 Utilise our intelligence with technological tools. We've now created intelligence in AI. That is creating better intelligence. And if you say what is the speed at which intelligence is improving It's fast.

1:28:01 Faster than we can comprehend. And so when you When we make these uh when we model out the fe the future and we say What's going to happen on a ten year time span? Виарквалифід.

1:28:16 To answer that question. Because that time that time frame Exceeds our own intellectual capacity to imagine. So it's the first time in human history Where we the superior form of intelligence are up against a wall.

1:28:31 of not knowing what to predict what comes next because It w it's going to supersede us so fast. And so this is the thing, this is why I come down to The only thing I know to be true in the year twenty twenty four. Is don't die.

1:28:47 That's it. I don't know. Anything else. Other than I want to be around For what could be the most spectacular existence in this part of the galaxy.

1:28:57 Yeah, th there's a part of me that's really believes if we take care of ourselves really well right now, we don't die. We're gonna get a lot of advantage from technology that Thinks about things in a way that we couldn't even comprehend. I mean you take you take the for inspiration, if you say, Okay, well point me to an example of where intelligence has been used. That would give me any sort of of bearings on what I might imagine.

1:29:22 Okay, so take alpha fold. Uh it was Many people thought solving the protein folding problem. was unsolvable or would take us some unknown

1:29:33 Duration of time. And Deep Mind allocated their attention to that thing and solved it faster than anyone ever thought possible. The same thing with Go. And so when These

1:29:43 groups of people that are very talented focus on a very narrow problem. They solve stunningly hard problems. Faster than anyone thought. And as these systems get better. and uh use more broadly and is these systems create better systems

1:30:00 This is why w we are at this launch point. And you know, is it going to happen in two years, one years, five years, ten years? I don't know. But it's basically if you zoom out far enough, it's in the blink of an eye at this point. And so don't die is don't die individually, don't kill each other. Don't kill planet earth.

1:30:18 And when you're building AI The objective function of AI is this don't die audiology. 'Cause if you I mean, what I'm trying to say is like if so we've we've never been in the situation before where we're baby steps away from creating super intelligence. And When you're at this in this moment.

1:30:34 We have this This incredibly practical question to ask. What do we do? Like how do we think about reality? What do we care about? What are our ideals? What are our objectives? And then if you start surveying the world of like, hey

1:30:49 Who can tell us how to practically think about reality And you pro religions and capitalism and communism and socialism and Like any other group. Who can pull up and say, Here's a playbook, here's an instruction. on how you actually think about reality.

1:31:04 And that's what I've been trying to fill is that void is there is no philosophical stack. That informs humanity on what to do on a daily basis. For example, What to eat for breakfast. all the way through the most complicated question of how do you begin thinking about A philosophical alignment with AI.

1:31:32 Thanks for listening to our twenty twenty four recap. Which guest was your favorite? I'd love to know. If you're interested in my personal reflections on all these conversations, go to fs.blog slash membership and become a supporting member. You'll also get access to hand edited transcripts, our learning community, and an ad-free listening experience. While you're on our site, check out My book, Clear Thinking. A transformative guide handing you the tools to master your fate and sharpen your decision making.

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