#1 CEO Coach: Effort Isn't What Makes You Rich, Do This Instead | Joe Hudson

My new book Own Or Be Owned is out now! I wrote Own or Be Owned to answer one question: How do you make more money, less miserably? I broke it into the 12 Profit Levers… The 12 levers I've seen determine whether you print cash or hate your life. Check it out! https://contrarianthinking.biz/hudson Joe Hudson is one of the most sought after CEO coaches in the world, mentoring founders from Mark Pincus to Sam Altman and turning struggling companies into billion dollar businesses. He's spent decades unlocking the hidden patterns that keep high performers stuck, and in this episode, he breaks down why work ethic is overrated, how self-reliance is secretly killing your growth, and the exact frameworks billionaire CEOs use to make great decisions without burning out. In this episode, you'll learn: Why work ethic is way overrated The golden algorithm Why shame is the lock that holds bad habits in place The “no” doctrine Why self-reliance is the biggest trap for entrepreneurs ___________ (00:00:00) Introduction: Work Ethic Is Way Overrated (00:00:56) The Golden Algorithm: What You Avoid, You Invite (00:02:18) Shame Is the Lock That Holds Bad Habits in Place (00:05:08) Every Business Problem Is a Self-Awareness Problem (00:07:39) The Action Needed Email Protocol (00:09:19) Obsession Over Work Ethic: What Actually Makes You Rich (00:11:20) Decision-Making Happens in the Emotional Center of Your Brain (00:13:40) Enjoyment Is Efficiency: The 10% More Experiment (00:14:34) Hire for What They'd Do for Free (00:15:35) Sitting Across From Billionaires: The Better Than and Worse Than Paradox (00:16:59) How to Say the Hard Thing: Every Time I Pucker, I Say It (00:24:07) Owning Your Projection: The Blame Tool (00:26:02) The No Doctrine: Stop Trying to Convince Your Team (00:29:13) Work Ethic Doesn't Correlate With Wealth (00:32:35) Money Beliefs: Why People Without Money Think It Will Solve Everything (00:34:42) Complexity Is the New Enemy: You Have to Actively Dismantle It (00:35:55) The Hardest Conversations Build the Most Trust (00:51:24) Build the Part You Understand the Least First (00:53:08) Pace and Spin: Track Wasted Energy, Not Just Output (00:53:17) Maximalism Works: Think Bigger Than You Think You Can (00:54:32) Culture Is Where Maximalists Stop Being Maximalists (00:56:31) AI Is Commoditizing Everything Except Creativity and Teamwork (00:59:14) Most Meetings Suck: If the Outcome Is More Meetings, That Meeting Sucked (01:02:23) Never Have One-on-Ones: They Create Politics (01:03:28) No Secrets: Assume Everything You Say Gets Said to Everyone (01:06:48) Where Do You Want Diversity and Where Don't You? (01:08:50) The Leader's Happiness Is the Company's Health (01:11:17) Self-Reliance Is the Ceiling: You Can't Grow Without Help ___________ MORE FROM BIGDEAL 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@podcastbigdeal 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigdeal.podcast 📽️ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@big.deal.pod MORE FROM CODIE SANCHEZ 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@codiesanchezct 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codiesanchez 📽️ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@realcodiesanchez OTHER THINGS WE DO 🌐 Our community: https://contrarianthinking.typeform.com/to/WBztXXID 📰 Free newsletter: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3XWLlZp 📚 Biz buying course: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3NhjGgN 🏠 Resibrands: https://resibrands.com/ 💰 CT Capital: https://contrarianthinking.biz/4eRyGOk 🏦 Main St Hold Co: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3YfGa8u Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  Work ethic is way overrated.

• 0:32Codie Sanchez?

  Wow.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  I know a lot of very successful people who do not do a lot of work at all. Effort is not the key. Make five or six great decisions a day, you can be incredibly successful.

• 0:43Codie Sanchez?

  Today's guest is Joe Hudson, one of the most sought-after coaches who mentors founders from Mark Pincus to Sam Altman. You'll hear the actual advice to get these billionaire founders unstuck and the most difficult truth nukes he drops on his clients that we get to steal.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  The best way to learn how to make great decisions is to be comfortable with all the emotional states. If I'm like, I can't feel this kind of discomfort. I can't be sad. Then I am not going to see that set of solutions. If I'm willing to feel everything, I'll make better decisions.

• 1:11Codie Sanchez?

  You coach billionaire CEOs. What do you tell them that the rest of us don't get to hear?

• 1:15Speaker 01

  That is a fantastic question.

• 1:22Codie Sanchez?

  One of the things you drill down on that I thought was really interesting, you call the golden algorithm.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26Codie Sanchez?

  Can you explain what that is?

• 1:27Speaker 01

  So the thing that you're trying to avoid, especially in the motion you're trying to avoid, you invite in the exact way that you're trying to avoid it. And so this is incredibly crippling for businesses. Right? So if you're trying, like a conflict-avoiding CEO, which you are not, right? But like a conflict-avoiding CEO, they're constantly trying to avoid conflict and therefore their firms are raging in conflict and dysfunction, as an example.

• 1:54Codie Sanchez?

  Fascinating, actually. So you basically become a mirror for the thing that you're trying to not have more than anything else.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:01Codie Sanchez?

  How can you tell somebody is not conflict-avoiding that quickly? Like, how can you classify somebody that fast?

• 2:07Speaker 01

  That's a really hard question. So if you watch the coaching videos of me online, so we have like a couple hundred of them, you'll see me be able to like read somebody's entire history with like a sentence or two. And there's a lot of stuff that goes into that. But an example would be if somebody has like a line right here, it's usually repressed anger. It usually means, or a critical parent hunch, or if they have it tucked by, it means that they got abused a lot as a kid. So there's physical cues. There's language cues. There's emotional cues. And then there's just pattern recognition.

• 2:39Codie Sanchez?

  That's horrifying, by the way.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  It scares people. When they watch me coach, it scares people that I like, they feel like it's magic or something.

• 2:47Codie Sanchez?

  Interesting. You have a quote that I really liked, which is, "Shame is the lock that holds the chains of bad habits in place. Whatever you shame, you repeat."

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:57Codie Sanchez?

  What do you mean?

• 2:59Speaker 01

  The easiest way to think about this is to say, okay, think about all the things that you haven't wanted to do for like a decade, but you keep doing. And I can tell you something about them. All of them are things you tell yourself you should do or should not do. That's all shame. And it's very easy to see that it doesn't work because everything that you haven't changed in the last decade that you wanted to change, you've been shaming yourself for. So like, what on earth would make us continue to do it? We'd be like, oh, but if I don't beat myself up, then, then nothing's going to change. But that's not true at all. If you like, look at a kid from, say, zero to seven or eight years old, there's a huge amount of change that happens and there is no internal shame voice.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  Right? We grow and evolve by our nature. We don't do it because we're beating ourselves up. And it becomes really clear. Imagine if you had a boss and the boss was like over your head. And it was like, you shouldn't have done it that way. Why'd you do it that way? Oh, you could have done that better. The way that most people speak to themselves, you would be like, I fucking quit. I'm not here. I'm what? I'm out. But somehow we think we need to do it to ourselves. But it's really, really ineffective.

• 4:11Codie Sanchez?

  So what is the way then to change something that you don't like about yourself?

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Focus on your wants and enjoyment. Let's say I want to work out. As soon as that want becomes a should, then it's something I have to do. It's something I'm oppressed by. It's something that, oh crap, I didn't do it. See, I'm bad. But if every time I think about working out, I'm like, what would be the coolest, funnest, most enjoyable way of working out? How do I enjoy working out 10% more this week? Then I'm going to more like, if at the end of my workout, I'm like, I enjoyed the hell out of that, it's probably something I'm going to do again. If it's something where I beat myself up and then I did it, and I'm like, shit, I only did 40 minutes instead of 50 minutes. Why am I going to sign up to get my ass kicked again? Like, I'm not going to do that.

• 4:55Codie Sanchez?

  Interesting.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Right? And it does work for some people. Don't get me wrong. Like, but those are the people who have like a particular kind of, it's not a should. They're doing something slightly different. They're thriving off of like pushing themselves. That's a different deal. But it's, but to beat yourself up for it is the ineffective part.

• 5:12Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, my husband would be a great example of the, he thrives off of the intensity.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:17Codie Sanchez?

  So if somebody's trying to coach or pep him up while working out, he's going to be like, get out of here.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:22Codie Sanchez?

  Beat it.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:23Codie Sanchez?

  I'm perfectly fine. I like being miserable in this moment. Get off me.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Right. And he probably, if you listen to his language, he's probably not saying I should work out. He's like, I want to work out or I'm going to go get some reps in or whatever.

• 5:33Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  His language is different.

• 5:34Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, it's important the way you talk to yourself, isn't it?

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Critical.

• 5:38Codie Sanchez?

  You also talk a lot about, not just how to do this individually, but also how to do this in business, which is cool. You often say, every business problem is a self-awareness problem.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:49Codie Sanchez?

  Can you talk to me about that? Like, let's say you're struggling right now in business. Something is failing massively.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:56Codie Sanchez?

  What's the first thing you should do?

• 5:59Speaker 01

  You should look at everything you don't want to look at. That would be the first thing that I would do. There's something in the back of your head that is, that you know is tickling you that says, this isn't quite right, that you're like being positive about or you're saying, it's great, or I don't want to look at that, or I don't want to open that bill, whatever it is. You go right there and you, that's where your inefficiency is. That's where you look. And that's the same thing with self-awareness. If you're, if somebody comes to me and said, how do I start working on self-awareness? One of the first things I'm going to tell them is look at all the places you don't want to look. Like, that's where you're going to start finding yourself. You can look at it as, there's that thing I don't want to look at. That's a pain in the ass. Or you can say, oh, that's where the inefficiency is. Therefore, that's where I have the opportunity to make the most money or grow the most.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  And so it's the same. In the business, the thing you don't want to look at is where you're going to have the most opportunity. Internally, it's the same thing. Where, when you look at that and resolve that, then you get the biggest unlock.

• 6:55Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah. This guy Brad Jacobs I really like, who wrote How to Make a Few Billion Dollars. He has this quote that I love, which is, why would you get upset when you see problems in business? That's where all the money is.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 7:05Codie Sanchez?

  And so that's actually been really helpful to me. Every time I have a big problem in business, I'm like, all right, let's deal with that. It's annoying, maybe in this instance. But man, the second and third order effects of this, probably all the money is right there.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. The other thing that, now this is more for like the people who are running big businesses. But the thing that I noticed there is when they have a problem, that's the first order. The second order is, how do I solve this problem structurally so I never have to face it again, ever? And that is like, that's a huge unlock.

• 7:36Codie Sanchez?

  A hundred, it's so funny. We just, well, I was rudely late to this podcast and it was because I was dealing with this thing that I sort of had to deal with in the moment. And that was where we left it. I was like, okay, issue, problem, big, annoying. But second thing, I think these are the three steps we take so we don't have to deal with it again. I don't have the answers to like how to fix this perfectly, but fucking if we're not doing these things next, we're idiots.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that business people are, successful business people are pretty good at doing that with like the business phenomenon. They often aren't great at it on the human phenomenon. So I'll give you an example. I was reading emails inside of our company and, and I just was annoyed because it was, I think this, or maybe we should do this. I think, you know, that, one of those emails. And there was like no movement and there was a whole bunch of people, I just, ugh. So I, we have a structural solution. At the end of every one of our emails, it's, you have to write, no matter who you are, action needed. You have to name a person, anybody in the company. Give them an action and a date in which it needs to be done.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  So I have people at the bottom of our organization delegating to me and everybody delegates to each other. And it happens at the end of every email. And you're not writing an email if you don't have that. Email. Reduction of thirty percent, productivity increased by like thirty-five, forty percent.

• 9:00Codie Sanchez?

  Interesting.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  So one little action like that. And that's what I mean, because you can think about it through like, how do we prevent this kind of risk in the future, but you can all think about it as like culturally, how do we change the culture so that these, this victim culture is never happening again, or whatever it is.

• 9:19Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, it's super interesting, because you were here in Austin, Texas, now one of the tech really centers of the world.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:26Codie Sanchez?

  And I happen to know a bunch of these guys who probably you work with. Now, I can't wait to go ask them afterwards and say, you didn't tell me anything, but which of you fuckers works with him, because I know some of you do, or need to. And it's funny, because you teach emotional intelligence to some of these leaders. What have you found are the key characteristics that most people have to have in order to succeed?

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Obsession, without a doubt, like an obsession on the problem. I think something higher order than money, meaning if your game is just to make the money, you're not going to be as successful as if your game is to be the best, or to have a massive impact on the world through creating a technology, or by helping a lot of people, or by being the company that makes the best decisions, whatever it is. But you have to have a goal that's beyond the goal of making money. That's another really important thing that is there. I think work ethic is way overrated, I would say.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  I know a lot of very successful people who do not do a lot of work at all. So if you, at some level, you have to be able to make great decisions, more than anything else. So if you make five or six great decisions a day, you can be incredibly successful. And the way I think about this is, I don't know any startup that has failed because of lack of effort, right? Like in Silicon Valley, I'm sure that there's like restaurants or whatever, but Silicon Valley, there is no place where they didn't work themselves in the ground to be successful. So effort is not the key. The key is like, oh, am I, is the leverage there?

• 11:17Speaker 01

  Am I making great decisions?

• 11:20Codie Sanchez?

  Interesting.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  And so I think that that's something that they need to be able to do pretty consistently, is make really good decisions, and understand the leverage points of those decisions. So like a great investor, for instance, they might be a horrible board member and be okay. They might have like low EQ and be okay, but they have to be able to identify great entrepreneurs, if they're a venture capitalist investor. They have to be able to identify, they can do just that one thing really, really well, they can be incredibly successful.

• 11:50Codie Sanchez?

  How do you get better at making good decisions?

• 11:54Speaker 01

  So making good decisions is a really interesting thing, neurologically speaking. If I took the emotional center of your brain out, you would cease to make decisions. It would literally take you half an hour to two or three hours to decide where to have lunch. So we make decisions in the emotional center of our brain. We do not make logical decisions, neurologically speaking. And so occasionally, there's a bypass, you can like jump away from a snake without going through the emotional center of your brain, but then it's not, also not going to the prefrontal cortex. So that's what we're doing. So then the question is, if we're making emotional decisions, how do we make the best emotional decisions? And this is where the rubber hits the road with emotional fluidity, is that if I'm willing

• 12:36Speaker 01

  to feel everything, I'll make better decisions than if I'm not willing to feel certain things. If I'm like, I can't feel this kind of discomfort, I can't be sad, I can't feel failure, if I don't want to feel that stuff, then I am not going to see that set of solutions that might have that as a risk, and I'm not going to take those actions. And you can just see your whole life is parsed by that kind of decision-making. Everybody's life is parsed by that kind of decision-making, depending on what it is you want to feel.

• 13:07Codie Sanchez?

  That's important to them.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Exactly. There's some science that shows that there's happiness and relevance, I think they use the word meaning, and it's basically everybody's wired in one of those two ways. I either want the, I'll give up the short-term happiness for the meaning, or I'll have the happiness, but I'll give up the meaning. Like they're prioritized in one way or another. I find that like, the more you get of one, the more you get of the other. So I'm a both-and kind of human on this.

• 13:35Codie Sanchez?

  Are people who try to be happier as opposed to have more meaning, more or less successful? Is there any correlation?

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I think that people who go for a purpose or meaning definitely have a higher chance of success, because they'll lean into the difficult moment more likely, which is the big driver for success. Whether that's working out, I'm going to feel the pain, or doing business, I'm going to go have that hard conversation, they're going to, it's going to drive more success. However, I think that when folks who are driven by meaning start to understand the efficiency of enjoyment, then all of a sudden, they become a lot more successful. So what that means is, if I had a really fast car, you would know it's not an efficient car, right?

• 14:21Speaker 01

  But business, people often think fast is efficient, but fast isn't efficient. Efficient is how much energy do we use to get to the place? And so if you're, and I highly recommend doing this experiment, take a week and say, how do I enjoy my week ten percent more? And if you're successful at enjoying your week ten percent more, I will guarantee you that you were more productive, you have more energy, and your week after that's going to be a better week as well. And so the idea that enjoyment is something that we should optimize for, when high performers get that, when they actually like experience how much, like more effective they are with that, it totally changes everything.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  So when I'm hiring people, I think about, what does this person, what would this person do if I didn't pay them? And if that's not what I'm hiring them for, I don't hire them.

• 15:13Codie Sanchez?

  That's very, very true, because you have to have a love of the game. I was just realizing this with an executive that we have, who really, I think, at their highest point, likes to golf, and like be social.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:24Codie Sanchez?

  We hired them for a role that was not that. And I remember one of my executives saying to me when we did it, this will be good for about a year, but it's not going to be longer than that. So if this is this gap that we want to fill for this period, and there's a specific role there, then okay. But in retrospect, I'm not sure that's ever a good idea. And so it's really, yeah, it's really interesting.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  Because it hurts the culture.

• 15:47Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, it does.

• 15:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, you have to sometimes, you know, it is business, so there's these moments, but generally, I don't make that sacrifice.

• 15:53Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah. You sit down with one of the leaders of the free world in many ways, and some of the biggest builders of our time, one of them being Sam Altman. What is that like?

• 16:05Speaker 01

  With super high performers, one of the things that you'll get a lot of, where you don't get it as much in the normal population, but you do get in the normal population, is on one hand, they are, they think they're better than everybody, and on another level, they think they're worse than everybody. It's like both, they're like trying to prove that they're not bad, and something in them says, hey, I'm better, and it allows them to, right? And so that resolution, resolving that, that's a lot of pain. And resolving that is something that's pretty consistent in that arena, like, you know, maybe seventy percent consistent in that arena, if you really want to do a major unlock. But, you know, there's that, there's also like self-reliance.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  Self-reliance is a huge thing for entrepreneurs and business leaders, and you can unlock a lot there. But generally, it's, you know, we all have our shame, we all have our love, we all have our obsessions, we all have our care, we all have our, you know, self-abuse. Like it's, you know, there's, it's the same, we're all humans, there's no real difference. Yeah.

• 17:16Codie Sanchez?

  So say you're sitting down to chat with someone, and like, if you want someone to really change their perspective, to have a life change, to flip a mentality that's holding them back.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:29Codie Sanchez?

  Is there a unique way you start these conversations?

• 17:32Speaker 01

  So I never have that agenda for anybody. So I follow their agenda. So when I sit across from somebody, their wisdom is what I follow, I don't follow my wisdom. Because no matter how smart I am, I don't know the next move for them that they want to do. And if I try to inspire them to do something, and you see a lot of people like big inspirational, ah, you should do this, this is great, and everybody walks out going, that's fantastic, and then a week later, their life hasn't changed.

• 18:03Codie Sanchez?

  Yep.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  That is just not an effective way of transforming as compared to somebody saying, "This is fucking bothering me." Great, let's go there. So the first thing I look for is what's the thing that's actually bothering them? What's the problem that they're having? That's where we're gonna find their passion to resolve it and enough pain for them to actually want to do something about it. And that's where we're gonna start, always. And then the second step typically is to, is there's an emotional and an intellectual piece. The intellectual piece is to help them realize that everything they've been doing is not working. Because if it was working, they wouldn't be coming to me with it. And so it's to deconstruct the intellectual piece that's holding them back.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  And then there's the emotional piece. There's something in there that they typically don't want to feel. And there's some pattern that they're repeating in their life over and over and over again. And that's usually underpinned by a stagnant emotion. So if, let's say, you have a girlfriend who has dated the same guy over and over and over again. He has a different license plate and a different name and a different, you know, face, but it's the same guy over and over and over again. And if I went to that girlfriend's family of origin, I can guarantee you I would find the remnants of all these boyfriends in the parents, right? And so what's happening there is they had a traumatic is one word for it, but they had an experience where an emotion didn't get resolved.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  I didn't get loved. I didn't get seen. I didn't get, I got abandoned. I got abused. And now I'm gonna relive that pattern over and over and over again. As soon as they feel the thing that they couldn't feel as a kid, like the hurt of it, or the anger behind it, or the fear behind it, and they can fall in love with that, when they can say, "Oh, I can't wait to feel abandoned again", which is a weird thing, then that, that pattern of dating the same person will go away. Yeah, because they're just trying to, it's like a cell trying to get homeostasis. And it's like, okay, here's this thing that I haven't been able to resolve, so I keep on repeating the pattern until I can resolve it.

• 20:12Codie Sanchez?

  Is there a process that you go through to try to get people to resolve those big, dark, scary things?

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Again, I don't ever try to get anybody to any place.

• 20:21Codie Sanchez?

  So the first step is really just let them talk, because they'll eventually tell you what they're struggling with.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  I just ask them to tell me in the first sentence. I don't want to fuck around.

• 20:31Codie Sanchez?

  Sentence one, what are you struggling with?

• 20:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, what's the, what's the issue? They say it. And the way they tell it to me probably tells me where the unlock is. Like, if you watch the coaching videos, you'll see that in the first three or four sentences, they've told me everything I need to know to, to, to lead them to the unlock, but they have to do the unlocking.

• 20:52Codie Sanchez?

  Interesting. When you're a CEO, you have zero time to waste. Like, that's what Joe and I were talking about. And that is the same spirit that drives Busy. Most business formation services, they're built to finish a task, sometimes not that quickly, sometimes not that efficiently. They just file an LLC, send the confirmation, they disappear. But Busy, I love because they're built to stay. So they help you start the process, then they continue handling the filings, the deadlines, and the state requirements that keep showing up long after the first year. So you don't have to, because you don't have time. So when you form a business with Busy, it's fast, it's simple. Formation starts at $0 plus state fees. So you can join the over 1 million entrepreneurs that have used Busy to do the work behind the work. And if you want to do that, I have a special code for you.

• 21:37Codie Sanchez?

  Go to busy.com/Cody to get started. I got you. So then, based you ask the question, they tell you, then you follow the thread to, in almost all these instances, some emotional moment that they need resolved.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, so there's either a lot of open-ended questions so that they can see. The other thing that I do is I love experiments. And so in our courses, all of, all of our courses, there's no talking, very little. There's just experiments. And so if you can give somebody an experiment that they can do in the moment, that shows them the thing in the moment, then that can resolve something for them, like instantaneously.

• 22:16Codie Sanchez?

  What's your favorite experiment?

• 22:18Speaker 01

  A great experiment would be this, would be, "How do you enjoy yourself 10% more right now?" Without changing what you're doing, just, you don't get to like get up and stop having the interview. But like, right now, what's required for you to enjoy yourself?

• 22:33Codie Sanchez?

  A better chair. I want better chairs.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  No, without changing the chair, without anything. You can't change anything.

• 22:38Codie Sanchez?

  You can't change anything?

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Anything, except for your internal state.

• 22:42Codie Sanchez?

  I'm happy.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  Internal state.

• 22:44Codie Sanchez?

  Oh, so I have to self?

• 22:46Speaker 01

  What, what's required?

• 22:47Codie Sanchez?

  Okay, well, I guess I sat up more straight. Now I feel a little bit better. I'm pregnant, so everything hurts all the time right now. It's fine, it's about what it's supposed to be.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:58Codie Sanchez?

  Probably that's it. Laughing, like I could just laugh at something. That felt nice.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:02Codie Sanchez?

  Are these, is that what you mean?

• 23:03Speaker 01

  There's no, yeah, it's just what is required to make this 10% more enjoyable.

• 23:08Codie Sanchez?

  But it can't be, because I want to buy something else to fix it.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 23:12Codie Sanchez?

  Okay, fine.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 23:13Codie Sanchez?

  Bye, Joe.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Exactly. And so then the question is, if that's true, if it's possible for you right now to make this 10% more enjoyable by being more present, or by sitting up more straight, or by taking a deep breath, or relaxing into the moment, whatever it be, what makes it that your whole life can't be 10% more enjoyable, without changing anything?

• 23:34Codie Sanchez?

  You know what I think is funny sometimes about advice or feedback about emotions? Is that all of us innately go, "Well, I'm pretty good, but if you could talk to my partner." And so I'm sure you get this all the time.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:49Codie Sanchez?

  Like, it's fine, I'm, I think I'm okay, but if you could talk to my husband, my wife, my, you know, whatever, whatever. So you do deal with these, like, I imagine, sometimes stubborn, serious, opinionated people.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:02Codie Sanchez?

  Like, what are your mechanisms for breaking through someone? Or breaking through to someone who is really stubborn? And maybe doesn't want to do this kind of work?

• 24:12Speaker 01

  If they don't want to do this work, I don't do the work with them, period. Yeah. I don't want to do it. It's like, it's like, why would I work with somebody that I can't have a huge impact with? Like, I have a choice of people I work with. I'm gonna work where I get leverage, right? So there's that aspect of it. As far as tools go, that particular tool, the blame tool, like, the one I use is, is owning a projection. So typically, what you can show somebody is that the thing that they're blaming somebody else for, they're also doing. It's almost always the case, right? And when I say almost always, I don't think I've ever not come across it. So it's like, "Oh, I'm blaming my wife for like not paying attention to me."

• 24:57Speaker 01

  Oh, cool. So let's talk about all the ways that you're not paying attention to your wife, or that you're not paying attention to yourself. And let's see if the problem is actually with your wife or with you, or both. But, and that immediately opens up the empathy response, because they can see that they're also in it, both for themselves and for the other, which is usually a lot of the resolution to blame is empathy. So that's one solution to the problem. The other solution to the problem is that usually when anybody's blaming another person, it's very easily, very easy to intellectually disintegrate that, that thing. It's like, okay, so you don't blame anybody else for your failed, your failed investment,

• 25:40Speaker 01

  let's say, right? Like, you're like, somehow there's world forces, there's political forces, there's geopolitical forces, there's market forces, but you're responsible for that. But somehow or another, the remodel of your mansion, your wife's responsible for. You're not taking any responsibility for that, right? You can deconstruct the blame really, really easily.

• 26:01Codie Sanchez?

  Interesting.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  Intellectually.

• 26:03Codie Sanchez?

  Because it's interesting, I think, as you get an adult or into business, you see the same thing. Like, some of the biggest difficulties I have are like, huh, I see X. My executive or a counterparty or whoever sees Y.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:18Codie Sanchez?

  And no matter what, I'm trying to get my frame across, but I can't. And so there's either my projection isn't working, or I'm not, you know, taking something back. What do you do when you're trying to get somebody to see your perspective?

• 26:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a great one. So especially in business, I think this is a massive tool, and it's a, it's a great unlock. So I don't ever try to walk into a room and convince my team or any team to do stuff because it's super ineffective. So I do it the same way that you would sell, which is basically, I want to hear all your objections, and we're gonna handle the objections. And every one of your objections, I'm going to mine for a better solution, right? So I call this the no doctrine. So you walk into your team and you're like, "Here's my idea, please tell me everything that's broken about it." First of all, they listen a lot better when they don't feel you're trying to convince them, and they think that you're asking them for help. Great. And then they tell you what's not gonna work.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  Now, maybe they're right, maybe it'll change the answer 0.001%, maybe it'll change the answer 99%, but we're gonna have a dialogue over that. And by the time that's finished, we're all gonna be aligned. So if I go and try to convince somebody, typically what happens, or if I see my CEOs do this, they could try and go and convince people, and everybody nods and says, "Yep, you got it", and then the action doesn't happen.

• 27:38Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, it's really interesting. We, we say here that like first layer is communication. Have you communicated what you want? And then the second layer is understanding. Do they actually understand what you want? And then the third layer is, do they agree with what you say that you want? And then the fourth layer is, is there incentive alignment? Like, even if they agree, and they understand, and you communicated clearly, are they incentivized, you know, in whatever's important to them, to do the thing?

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:04Codie Sanchez?

  And if you don't have all four, Things don't happen.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  It's a great way to break it down because the no doctoring, all four happen by nature.

• 28:13Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  By the nature and it's, and it's again, it's that opposite thing. It's not, I'm trying to convince you to get somewhere. It is, I'm, I actually want to tell you why we're not going to be successful doing this.

• 28:24Codie Sanchez?

  Interesting. Yeah, that's super useful. I loved one of the things you mentioned earlier, which was worth work ethic.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:29Codie Sanchez?

  And I am increasingly, it's, it's actually the subject of my new book and I've been obsessed with it because like I told you, I'm pregnant and so I just have less time in the day. I'm less efficient than I used to be.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:39Codie Sanchez?

  Even if I just want to be really honest, I'm more tired, I'm slower, I'm all these things.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. And soon you have milk brain.

• 28:45Codie Sanchez?

  Oh my God. I can't even imagine because now I have pregnancy brain. I mean, I saw you in the hallway and I was like, I'm not positive, but I'm pretty, but I'm not going to say the things I want to check. So, so anyway, you know, I'm sort of having to realize some human things.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:59Codie Sanchez?

  Uh, about me and this idea of work ethic is really interesting because I've always thought that you don't have to be miserable to build a really big business.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:09Codie Sanchez?

  That you might have moments of extreme misery.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:11Codie Sanchez?

  But writ large, a lot of the most successful people out there, I mean, Jeff Bezos talks about puttering around and having a coffee in the morning.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:18Codie Sanchez?

  You know, Tim Cook talks about, um, doing a workout every morning for an hour, not responding to anything.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:25Codie Sanchez?

  And then you hear a lot of the hustle guys on the internet that are like, you wake up at 5:00 AM, you suck, you don't have a Lambo, like you should just keep going. And so I guess I want to know, what have you, you actually work with the biggest billionaires in the world.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:39Codie Sanchez?

  Like, what do you see as far as their work habits and work ethic?

• 29:43Speaker 01

  The entire spectrum. I have 24/7 guys and I have people who literally, I think, maybe work effectively two or three hours a week, maybe.

• 29:54Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah. So really no correlation between the harder the work, the harder you work, the more money you make.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  I think that there is a correlation, meaning like, I think the people who are obsessed with something are more likely to succeed and obsessed people usually work harder. Like, I think there is a correlation there, but I think it's the obsession that's important, not the work, not the ethic.

• 30:13Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  Like meaning, and especially the kind of fuel that they use is another big thing, right? Like if you're, if you're working hard because you're, I work hard because I'm, I would do everything I do for free that I do for money. I don't do anything for money that I wouldn't do for free. And I don't have to work. Like I could be done 10 times over, right? And so I love what I do and so I work hard, but I come from a place of passion and mission.

• 30:43Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  If I'm coming from a place of trying to prove myself, trying to prove myself to dad, trying to look good for the neighbors, trying to be like number, like have the Lambo, blah, blah, blah, that, that does not last. That like, you better figure out a way to get rich quickly and sell quickly and get out because it doesn't last a long time. You burn out, you know, and, and those people, what typically happens, you see this, they sell their company, they stay in their pajamas for one or two years and then they beat themselves up for not doing another project, but they have enough money that they never need to.

• 31:21Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Like that's what you see and it, and it's not a happy life. It's not a happy ending.

• 31:25Codie Sanchez?

  No.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Right? And I'm sure you've seen this.

• 31:28Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, definitely. Many times. But I, I do think, you know, I've become, let's say internet friends. I wouldn't say close friends yet, but I respect him a lot with Tony Robbins.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:39Codie Sanchez?

  The last time I was talking to him, you know, I'm like, come on, where are you breaking your word? Like, you know, you talk about the most important thing is the word, there's got to be somewhere.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:48Codie Sanchez?

  You know, you like had to think about it for a second. He's like, I'm honestly pretty good at it right now. He's like, but I guess the one place would be, um, I keep saying I'm gonna slow down.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:59Codie Sanchez?

  And I don't slow down. And you know, he like didn't have a voice. So he was like, I was here and I was here and I, you know, told my wife that I'd slow down and da, da, da. And I haven't been able to. And I think that's because he doesn't see it as, as work. He's just obsessed.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:13Codie Sanchez?

  You know, and when he, he has a very different persona than you do, but when he locks in on you, you're like, well, I can tell you're really into this because this is like, you're here, you're nowhere else.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 32:22Codie Sanchez?

  And so it's interesting. What have you noticed from really, really rich people? Like, do they have different beliefs about money and success than you find with normal people?

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. So people who don't have money and want money, they typically have some belief system hidden in there that money is evil or bad. Um, maybe because their dad chose money over them, or maybe because their dad was a, or mom was oppressed by money or rich people are bad or something. There's some, there's some aspect that's going there. They also have a hard time being grateful for the financial abundance that they do have. And, um, I find people with a lot of money actually are pretty good typically, not always, but typically pretty good at being like, I recognize that I, I'm blessed

• 33:14Speaker 01

  here or lucky or whatever the word they're going to use is. Um, that's one thing. The other thing is that very, very wealthy people, money is not the objective. And so money is a, a way to win a game, a different game that they're playing. And so that's a different thing, I think, that's there. Wealthy people also realize that money's not going to solve problems. Uh, there, there's some problems it can solve, but it can create as many, if not more, problems. And whereas people without the money often think that once I get money, then all my problems are going to be solved, which is one of the reasons that keeps money away from them because nobody actually wants all their problems solved.

• 33:53Codie Sanchez?

  Oh, interesting.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  Like nobody's like, okay, I'm going to press this button and you're going to be an absolute total piece for the rest of your life. You ready?

• 34:00Codie Sanchez?

  That is a little scary.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:01Codie Sanchez?

  What are you gonna do? Float around as a lotus flower or something?

• 34:04Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 34:04Codie Sanchez?

  Interesting.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  Exactly. No, we, we're human. We want the ups and downs. We want the drama. So, so there's a whole bunch of things. There's a lot of things hooked into money. I'm going to get free. I'm going to be happy. I'm going to be a piece. I'm not going to have to worry. And people with money, they don't, they don't, they can't buy into that very much. And I think one of the most brilliant things I ever heard was there is this young up and comer with this incredibly wealthy guy and they're sitting, talking with me and the up and comer is like, yeah, I just look forward to like the day that I don't have to work. And the guy said, there's no day. You all, everybody works. Everybody works. And this guy had plenty of money, but like just managing his money was work. Like just the house that

• 34:49Speaker 01

  like it's all work.

• 34:51Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah. Isn't that the truth? Also, I don't think you realize until you have more of it, how much like complexity gets added to your life with success.

• 34:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:00Codie Sanchez?

  So, you know, like the simplest your life will be is probably however it is at this moment. It'll never get simpler. And so all you're going to have is added complexity at some point. And complexity typically is some sort of problem.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  I think that complexity is, it's like bureaucracy in a company. You have to actively dismantle it. It does not dismantle itself.

• 35:18Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  But you can.

• 35:19Codie Sanchez?

  Fight against it. You know, a lot of these people, I mean, I always loved that, that George Clooney movie where he talks about only having the backpack and every single thing you put in it is an additional weight you have to carry.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:30Codie Sanchez?

  Now, he probably took that to the extreme one way.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:32Codie Sanchez?

  But if you think about it in life, you know, so many of these people who become massively wealthy, they have 42 houses. I mean, Peter Thiel's got a ship at mattress to all of his locations. Every time he goes at the mattress isn't there, he's upset about the mattress. So, you know, you're like, huh, that's a lot to carry.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Also, a lot of those people are so smart that they love having a complex game.

• 35:51Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Right? Like if chess is boring for you, it's really nice to play multinational, like six dimensional chess and that a lot of them are, are literally just building a problem complex enough for them to be interested in.

• 36:06Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, that's a good point. This international mattress delivery.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:09Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 36:10Codie Sanchez?

  What about, you have to sit across from billionaires.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  I don't have to do shit.

• 36:15Codie Sanchez?

  Okay, that's true. You get to sit across from billionaires or people who do really interesting things.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:21Codie Sanchez?

  Like, have you ever had to have a really hard conversation with one or like, what's the hardest thing?

• 36:26Speaker 01

  If I don't have a hard conversation in every coaching session, I am not doing my job.

• 36:29Codie Sanchez?

  Interesting. So what's the, what's the hardest thing you've ever had to express to somebody or what's a story that someone could relate to from those hard conversations?

• 36:36Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm sitting with an, I'll give you two stories. I'm sitting with an executive team and one of the exercises that we'll do inside of an executive team is we'll teach people how to be triggered by each other. So we'll literally have people trigger each other and figure out how to resolve triggering conversations so that they can have hard conversations easily. So everybody's like having a hard time triggering the CEO because the CEO had a, had a penchant for getting angry. And so, uh, so everyone's like, well, you do it, Joe. I was like, okay. So I sat down and I was like, your anxiety and fear is going to destroy this company and everybody in this room knows it in front of the entire executive team. But that, that's like, that's Tuesday for me. The other, the other, the other, other.

• 37:20Codie Sanchez?

  What did he say?

• 37:21Speaker 01

  He looked at me, he's like, yeah, yeah, you're right.

• 37:25Codie Sanchez?

  Because if you're able to like pinpoint the really dark, dark details.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  It's not just the pinpointing. It's I had no judgment.

• 37:32Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  I could see him, I could love him as he was. I wasn't judging him. I, I wasn't like bought up in the fact that I needed to change him.

• 37:42Codie Sanchez?

  Interesting.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. The other great story was I was brought into this, it was like a, you know, whatever. It was like a, like $10 billion market cap company. The CEO calls me in and he introduces me for about five minutes. I saw on your wall, this great less words, more meaning. Oh.

• 38:01Codie Sanchez?

  We aspire.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, uh, and so introduces me and everybody's kind of checked out, half checked out, kind of listening. And so I said, uh, okay. Thanks for the introduction. Uh, I'm going to go around the table. I'm going to ask why each of you was not listening to the CEO. And then I'm going to ask the CEO why you continued to speak when nobody was listening to you.

• 38:26Codie Sanchez?

  And everybody cringes.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Everybody cringes.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  But that's what, that's my job.

• 38:31Codie Sanchez?

  And what it takes sometimes.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  It's just the efficient approach. You know, there's other ways to do it, but in business, like, most people are, have time poverty. Right?

• 38:42Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  And it's completely, it's nonsense. Their time poverty is nonsense, but they have it. And so you have to work within that constraint. So you, you, you need to show that there's gonna be a lot of value very quickly if they're gonna continue to invest in you. And plus, I don't wanna work with people who can't handle it.

• 38:59Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, that's no fun.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  No interest.

• 39:00Codie Sanchez?

  No. How do you get comfortable with saying really difficult things to people?

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Well, one is, you know, for, there was a while in my career where it just basically it became every, I called it, every time I pucker, I say it. Like, if I think, oh my gosh, I could never, and then I do. And, and, and very quickly after that, I learnt that the more fear I had in saying it, the more it would come out sideways. So the important thing was to say it with like a, just a gigantic, big, open heart. Right? And I remembered two things that happened in my life when I was doing this experiment. I remember two things that happened in my life. The first one was I was like 13 years old. I, because of the alcoholic father and everything, I was, I was super dysfunctional youth, had a green mohawk, I lied a lot. And I had a friend just basically come up to me and said like, hey, we all know you lie.

• 39:51Speaker 01

  And we'd all like you more if you didn't.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  And I stopped lying. I just like, stopped lying because of that, that act of compassion. And so in that story helped me recognize that it's compassion what I'm doing. Like that act in that room is an act of compassion. They're all fucking miserable if that's what's going on. Nobody calling that out is just like letting something fester. It's like, it's like looking at a big boil and not doing anything about it. It's horrible. So that's one thing that, that, that kinda gets me over the hump on a personal level. And then the other thing was a friend of mine was hanging out with me at some point. And I was like in 36 or seven or something. He's like, Joe, you're a dick.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  I was like, no, but it got defensive. He's like, don't be defensive. I don't have a problem that you're a dick. Like, yeah, just embrace that you're a dick. For Christ sakes, like, you're a dick. Who cares? Like, let's just, like, let's enjoy you being a dick. That was his approach with me. And, and I finally gave up the ghost. I was like, okay, yeah, yeah, I guess I can see how I'm a dick. Like, I could see the way, and what I noticed is in the acceptance of that, it dwindled. Like, it allowed me to like not defend it and not defending it reduced the shame, reducing the shame meant that I didn't repeat it over and over again. And all of a sudden, I was less of a dick by accepting that I was in fact being a dick.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  And that just like, it opened my heart and I realized, oh. And so now when I say those complicated things, difficult things, hard things, one, I'm paid to do it. So it's like, there's an excuse. So I don't wanna say, but I'll do it in personal life just as quickly. But the second is I, I've seen so many times where it's helped so many people, it's worth it. It's like, I've seen lives transformed because of a well-placed sentence. I've seen careers change because of a well-placed sentence. And so like, why would I hold that back from people? And yes, there's some people who get offended. It, it does happen.

• 42:01Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  But it happens really rarely in my world now.

• 42:05Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Personal or otherwise.

• 42:06Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  I'm literally like with a friend, I'm literally with a friend walking this morning. And they were giving me like those ruck things that you're supposed to like increase bone density. Felt like such a meme, it was awesome. And we're like walking along, we're having this conversation and then like, just out of the blue, I looked at both of them. I was like, yeah, so the passive aggressive anger between the two of you, what's up?

• 42:29Speaker 01

  Like, that's, that's hanging out with me.

• 42:31Codie Sanchez?

  That is what it's like.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  That's what it's like.

• 42:34Codie Sanchez?

  And, and do you ever get it really wrong? Where they're like, what the fuck are you talking about?

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Well, those are two different things. Okay, I get the, what the fuck are you talking about? And I'm dead right. And then I, but I never argue. So if somebody's like, no, you've got it all wrong. I'm like, okay, what am I missing?

• 42:51Codie Sanchez?

  And then you just listen?

• 42:52Speaker 01

  And then I just listen because it's, it's, again, it's not my wisdom, it's their wisdom. So whatever's available to them is the thing you work with. It's not what's available to you.

• 43:02Codie Sanchez?

  It's really useful actually because I think in a lot of my arguments or, or life, if I think about it, it's, it is this like control dynamic. Trying to get other people to see my perspective, be heard, a fear of like, well, what if I just let them have their truth?

• 43:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:17Codie Sanchez?

  Then mine becomes less relevant.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 43:19Codie Sanchez?

  And I know this is common for a lot of people.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Really common.

• 43:22Codie Sanchez?

  But it seems like you've kinda let a lot of that go. You're like, okay, I can have whatever frame I want and still listen to yours. Like, what is the key to holding, to allowing somebody else to have their own truth and not letting it scare you that you can't have yours?

• 43:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a great, great question. So this is particularly important, I think, for self-reliant people. People who are self-reliant typically had a childhood where they learnt that they weren't gonna be taken care of. And 90% of the time, they also had a childhood where they learnt that they had to take care of somebody else. Right? And in that is one of, there's many things. There's things like they have a hard time asking for help. They have a hard time saying what they want. They have a hard time saying when they're hurt. They have a problem with authority. They don't wanna be the full authority, but they don't want to have an authority over them. Like, there's a whole bunch of things that come with self-reliance.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  But one of the things that comes with self-reliance is that they, there is a deep craving to be seen and cared for. And when you recognize that that drive to like, see it my way, da-da-da, is just that underneath drive of being seen and cared for. Then you can start saying, well, is that the best way to be seen and cared for? And you find out it isn't.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's, that's what I've learnt. And it's, it's a particularly like a self-reliant thing that people have that kinda push in them. And when that unlocks, their business takes off. Because all of a sudden, instead of an owner-run business, it's everybody owns the business. Because as long as they're trying to push their thing, it's they're the owner instead of everybody being the owner. And it's a huge shift inside of a business when that, when that, when that pivots. There is some things that a business owner can't let go of too, right? Like, you do need to hold your power, you have to own that. And like, you could have a whole podcast on that. But I would never let go of like, this is our operating principles.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  I would never let go of like, this is the way that we do business or this is the brand. Because like, the, the leader's job is to own the playing field. But it's to create a game where everybody gets to play for themselves. You know, and, and as a team, like both, that like, they get that. But I will never let go of that. That's the place where I'm asserting control is, I find very useful and very, very productive. So it's like Uber, there's like five rules to Uber, right? You get paid more if you work more, you get, you know, you get paid more if you're at a certain location. You have to get five-star ratings and you can't cheat your customers, something like that, right?

• 46:03Speaker 01

  And they have this huge decentralized thing where everybody works and is productive and they don't have to manage anybody. That's the part you have to own. But if you get that part right, then the business just, because everybody gets to, it's like a decentralized approach to your own business. And you can see this happen in Berkshire Hathaway, the Constitution of the United States, 12-step programs, iTunes. It really works and it works inside of a company, but you can't do it if you're looking to be seen.

• 46:34Codie Sanchez?

  Can I just tell you this? I spent 15 years in finance, learning how winners actually win. And you know what the takeaway is? Most people work way too fucking hard for the money they take home. You know, I've built nine-figure businesses and worked with thousands of companies and realized the same dumb mistakes get made over and over by me too at first. So I actually wrote a new book called Owner Be Owned that answers the question, how do you make more money less miserably? I've broken it down into 12 profit levers, the 12 levers I've seen determine whether you print cash or hate your life. On September 18th, I'm doing something insane, teaching the whole system line and giving away a million dollars in cash and prizes. So scan this QR code or hit the link below. I'll send you your free invite. I'm super excited about this. We've never done anything like it.

• 47:17Codie Sanchez?

  And if you wanna steal my 10,000 hours and a lot of the lessons that Joe talked about, you're gonna wanna be there. One shot, never doing this again. I always liked the quote that I mess up, who says it every time, which is, if you wanna teach, if you wanna teach your people to build a boat, don't teach them about ropes and nails and hammers. Teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. And I think there's like a portion of that, which is like, how do we get them to want to be a part of this? To feel a piece of ownership as opposed to the TPS report is due on Thursday?

• 47:50Speaker 01

  They all want to. Like, nobody came into this office today and said, I hope Cody's unhappy with me today.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  Everybody came into the office today thinking, oh, I hope Cody sees that I'm doing something. I hope they're, I'm seeing, I like, everybody here is motivated to make your world easier. Most self-reliant people can't see that. So they're all bought in on that. So it's like, it's already set up for that level of success. And so you actually have to actively stop that from occurring.

• 48:22Codie Sanchez?

  That is true. You know, it's funny, that is one, we have a member of our team and she's lovely and a stud. But she would always say at the end of doing something, she would always say, happy? It was a question to me.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:34Codie Sanchez?

  And I finally had to say, can you explain to me why you keep asking me that question?

• 48:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:37Codie Sanchez?

  And she was like, well, I just want to make sure you're happy with everything that's happening. I'm like, why do you think that me being happy with us is the outcome that we want?

• 48:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:44Codie Sanchez?

  Do you think that that's good or bad? I'm like, this isn't a sneaky question either. I'm like, this is a real question. I'm very curious.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 48:51Codie Sanchez?

  And she was like, well, I think I just say it because I, you know, do want to make sure you're happy. I'm like, okay, well, like from my perspective, what I actually want is like, have we accomplished what we need to get done?

• 49:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:01Codie Sanchez?

  Like, did we do the job?

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:02Codie Sanchez?

  What does do the job mean? Like, we have a goal, we do the things we think we need to do to hit the goal. Whether we hit the goal or not, not always in our control, but like, we've done the things to hit the goal. And in every single situation. And me being happy or not, probably should not be the defining characteristic of this.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:19Codie Sanchez?

  But, you know, to your point, I think as you become a leader, you have to start getting comfortable actually dissecting words, which can feel small in some ways.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  And recognize that that's the thing is people do want you to be happy because it's what makes them feel safe. And so if you're not actually providing the leadership, but so I'll take that one step. I don't really even care. My biggest thing now is have you done enough iterations? I don't really even care, like, did we do everything to get the goal?

• 49:49Speaker 01

  How many experiments have you tried? Is my big thing now.

• 49:53Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, that's a, it's a very good point, especially in the age of AI.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  Especially.

• 49:57Codie Sanchez?

  Because it's so easy to one-shot things or two-shot things. And that is done.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  Every single person in our company has, one of their goals is to do at least five experiments a quarter on their job.

• 50:12Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, I like that.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  It's so productive. It's unbelievable. And everybody stays interested and you retain smart people.

• 50:18Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  Because bored people, smart people don't stay if they're bored.

• 50:21Codie Sanchez?

  It's a good question. Like, if you think about it this way, to overly simplify, what do you think makes the difference between a good leader and a bad leader?

• 50:28Speaker 01

  Oh, there's so many, okay. So what I would say is that if a culture has, doesn't have the hard conversations, you have a bad leader, but it could be for many reasons. And if they don't resolve those hard conversations quickly, have hard conversations and resolve them quickly are kind of the two things that you're looking for.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  If you have a yeller, you're not going to have the hard conversations and not going to resolve quickly. If you have a conflict-avoidant person, you're not going to have a hard conversation. You're not going to, you're not going to overcome it quickly. So there's lots of ways of being a bad leader. But if you're looking for the two metrics to determine if you're a good leader, it's are the hard conversations happening? Are they happening quickly and are they going to resolve quickly? If that's happening, you're a good leader.

• 51:17Codie Sanchez?

  Good point.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  And that's what actually builds trust. So you can't get a team of trust because everybody's nice to each other. That's like, that's what Google tried, it does not work. Like, you need to have hard conversations that resolve into something better. And that's what actually builds trust. And I believe your husband was Navy SEAL. I guarantee they had hard conversations that resolved quickly and there's a huge amount of trust inside of his team.

• 51:42Codie Sanchez?

  Very much so.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  Right. And that, that's just how it works. If people go through the shit together and they, they come out better on the other side of it, trust is built in a way that it can, it can only be built that way.

• 51:54Codie Sanchez?

  You have a saying, build the part you understand the least first.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:58Codie Sanchez?

  What does that mean and why?

• 52:00Speaker 01

  So this is actually pulled from MIT Media Lab. So if you're going to build a car and you know how to build every part of a car except the catalytic converter, most people will build every part of the car, then build the catalytic converter, realize it doesn't fit, have to rebuild at least half of the car to get the catalytic converter in. So for me, it's, what's the thing I understand least? I'm going to build that first. And then the next question is, what's the simplest experiment I can run that will teach me the most about the thing I don't understand? Right? So if I don't understand a funnel, what's the thing I don't understand about the funnel? What's the quickest experiment that I can quickly run that I'll learn the most about? And then everything just becomes a series of experiments. I never really try to get to this successful funnel.

• 52:42Speaker 01

  I just run as many experiments as I can, as quickly as I can to get to.

• 52:47Codie Sanchez?

  It's a great point, because we say a lot here, like, the more, the faster you move, the more money you make. But I don't exactly mean that. It's a cute sentence.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:55Codie Sanchez?

  What I really mean is like, the faster you can have feedback iterative loops.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:59Codie Sanchez?

  That tell you something real, and then you act on each one of those loops.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:03Codie Sanchez?

  The more you'll get to whatever the right direction is more quickly.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  Right. So that it's, it's the faster you move with real reflection, with forward motion. Right? And so that's what we care about is like, is there, is there, we, every week in our company, there's a, and now it's every two weeks, everybody reports, this is my pace and this is my spin. Spin is wasted energy. If you look at your calendar, how much of it actually was useful? And that's what we track. And just bringing that into consciousness is the difference between moving fast and moving effectively and efficiently.

• 53:38Codie Sanchez?

  What have you learned from working with these huge power players?

• 53:42Speaker 01

  Like, so much stuff.

• 53:43Codie Sanchez?

  I bet. Like, what are the coolest lessons that you're like, I can't believe you paid me to learn that?

• 53:47Speaker 01

  The recent one is just how well maximalism works.

• 53:52Codie Sanchez?

  What does that mean?

• 53:53Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. There's so many people who are maximalists in Silicon Valley, who are basically, okay. So I have one client who was bought by another client.

• 54:03Codie Sanchez?

  Wow.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  So, and so he, he has a month of all this stuff until the acquisition and then he starts working. So between that month and like two weeks in, he has orchestrated three other purchases of the mother company of companies that he's always wanted to buy. He's a maximalist. Right? The company that he works for is a maximalist company, like, no, we're going to do this and this and this. And we can also do this and this. Like, that thinking is amazing to be around and, and to, to see how useful it is. And focus is incredibly useful too. And it's, you have to be able to do both of those two things.

• 54:47Speaker 01

  But typically, I'm just learning how you can think bigger

• 54:55Speaker 01

  and it almost always pays off.

• 54:57Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  And it's like, how much of the constraint is actually in the mind? What's interesting to me is that a lot of the people who are maximalists in business aren't maximalists in culture. Meaning, oh, I understand that I could do more and better in business always. There's always more revenue to make. There's always more companies to buy. There's always more technology to create. My culture's pretty good. It could always be better. You could have like the best culture in the world. And you know that pays off in your business. What makes you go, that's enough? Which is interesting. And I've, I've always been a maximalist when it comes to culture. Like, oh, we can, we can do, we can make a culture that's just un-frickin believable.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  But the maximalists in the like, the material world has been, has been really inspiring. That's been a big learning for me.

• 55:48Codie Sanchez?

  It's a great point. I mean, it's interesting what you talk about. Two, two thoughts I have. One, the culture comment's really interesting. Because I find if we were to make 10 reels and one of them was how do rich, how do rich people think differently? And the second was how to build a billion-dollar culture?

• 56:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:01Codie Sanchez?

  Nobody's watching the second reel. Like, it's never happening.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:04Codie Sanchez?

  Nobody cares about culture until you're really, really successful.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:08Codie Sanchez?

  And then I feel like people, and that's a gross generalization.

• 56:11Speaker 01

  There's a few who don't, but it's mostly.

• 56:12Codie Sanchez?

  But it's, it's kind of wild that most people, and myself included, I was like, cute, culture, whatever. Let's build this, get out of the way. And then as you scale, you realize, oh, it'll be the one thing that'll kill us.

• 56:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:24Codie Sanchez?

  It's never your external enemies. It's not the, you know, enemies outside of the fort. It's the ones inside that you've let in, that you've created, that you've become a part of, that always end up killing your company or your culture or your happiness inside your business.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we have this product and it's only for like startups that have found product-market fit, who can scale to multi-billion dollar companies, right? But so they're, and less than 50 people. And it's just all about getting the essential culture really tight. And so they come for two, three-day offsites and they do this monthly practice.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  Especially as AI is coming online, what's basically happening is more and more capital is going behind less and less talent, meaning the teams are smaller, they're higher paid, work is being commoditized, effort is being commoditized, knowledge is being commoditized. So all that's left is creativity and teamwork.

• 57:23Codie Sanchez?

  And decision making to your point.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  And decision making and wisdom, right? This is what's left. That is how well does a team work together? That's what that is. That is culture. And so we're moving into a time where culture is going to become more important earlier and earlier and earlier. Because you're one accounting firm and another accounting firm and AI is going to do all the accounting.

• 57:48Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 57:48Speaker 01

  What's going to be the difference? What's going to be? It's going to be how well that team hums.

• 57:54Codie Sanchez?

  It's interesting. I think also people don't like it as much because it doesn't seem as quantitative. So you can say like, well, if you learn how to spend money on Facebook, you can get a two to one ROAS on your investment and then you can scale and you can make your first thousand, hundred thousand, whatever, really easily.

• 58:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:11Codie Sanchez?

  It's like, yeah, that's relatively quantitative. There's easy to put that in a framework in Excel spreadsheet and you can run. But if you really want to build big companies, you know, I think about, we have this one company called Pink's. They're a window cleaning company. And that's not an innovative product set. This thing has been around forever. In fact, it's quite unsexy. But the difference in why they've scaled to a couple hundred locations all around the country and why most haven't is because the two founders are really cool. They've got a really cool culture. They are meticulous about like, you have to have, you know, your pink sort of washcloth has to be like cleaned and folded a certain way. You know, the uniform has to be done particularly, the inside of the trucks have to be taken care of particularly.

• 58:54Codie Sanchez?

  And so the type of people they attract to become franchisees and then employees is actually incredibly high for a window cleaner.

• 59:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 59:01Codie Sanchez?

  Right? You know, relatively speaking. And so they've been able to scale and it's not from what people typically think about in business.

• 59:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 59:08Codie Sanchez?

  Which is, let me show you how I can close you faster than somebody else with this perfect line.

• 59:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 59:13Codie Sanchez?

  You know? It's just not the case. So that's interesting.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  The culture becomes more and more important when you're in a highly competitive, low margin, lower margin business. Culture becomes really important and it becomes really important if you're in a super innovative business. The places where culture can like, you can get away with it is if you're in a high margin, not so innovative business.

• 59:33Codie Sanchez?

  I mean, you basically run meetings for a living in some ways. Like you're basically nonstop.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:38Codie Sanchez?

  Most meetings suck.

• 59:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 59:40Codie Sanchez?

  How do you run a meeting that doesn't suck?

• 59:43Speaker 01

  That is a fantastic question. There's so many things, there's like, I've literally written out 20 chapters of like, outlined like how to have great meetings. Some essential points. If you ever have a meeting where the outcome is, we should have more meetings, that meeting sucked. That's, you know, recognizing what the meeting's purpose is before you do it. But, and then there's, so there's all the like kind of classic things that I don't want to go into. I would say the mechanism that I, so, and one of the things we'll do is we'll take companies and we'll say, just send us your meeting and we'll dissect your company. We will tell you everything that is dysfunctional about your company from a single meeting. You can see the whole thing.

• 1:00:27Speaker 01

  It is so much fun.

• 1:00:30Codie Sanchez?

  For you.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  For me.

• 1:00:31Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  So there's so many ways it's dysfunctional, but the main thing is if you don't like the meeting, change it. No matter who or where you are in the organization, everybody in the organization should have the ability to say, this meeting sucks right now. And that's the quickest way to change the meeting because everybody knows if a meeting sucks. And everybody knows what's sucking about the meeting.

• 1:00:56Codie Sanchez?

  It's true.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  You know, at least half the room will be like, yeah, this, this, this is, this is what's sucking about this meeting. And if you actually just give people the empowerment to be able to change the meeting so that they're more effective, that they will become more effective. And there's other like little tricks, like if I have, if I have an executive team, I'll make sure that each of them run the meeting a different week, that not one person's running the meeting over and over again. And then their job is to improve the meeting. Each person who runs the meeting improves it. And this is a really good thing because typically what happens in an executive team or in a team is, let's say you're the boss, then everybody projects mom and dad shit onto you. And so they treat you, they'll rebel against you like a mom or a dad, or they'll try to

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  please you like a mom or a dad. But all of those dynamics go away when they're reporting to a team. When they realize it's not, I'm not letting Cody down, I'm letting the team down. And so the more you spread the authority through the team, the quicker it goes. So that's another like trick on making meetings better. But generally, meetings should not be boring. They should be super exciting. You should learn a lot through the meeting. And if there's a way to avoid it, avoid the meeting.

• 1:02:14Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah. Interesting. That's super, super helpful. I mean, we, we think about this a lot and we are not, I always think we have failed in some way when we keep having to have meetings. It means we're not, that's okay. It just means we're not good enough yet to do this.

• 1:02:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:28Codie Sanchez?

  And there was a period where we tried to do no meetings. We're not good enough to do that. That was a total fucking nightmare.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:34Codie Sanchez?

  And so, and we found most of our companies that we advise that are small businesses have to have actually a lot of meetings because the rest of their, you know, their, their organization is not very structured.

• 1:02:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. So other tricks, never have a decision making meeting that's more than five people. That's a good one. You, at this point, should never have one on ones, probably, or very rarely.

• 1:02:56Codie Sanchez?

  God, I'm so glad you said that. I used to get shit for that.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  No, it's so good because.

• 1:02:59Codie Sanchez?

  Talk to me about, should you have one on ones? If so, yes or no? Why?

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  One on ones create more politics generally. One on ones means that you're asking different people to solve the problem instead of the team solving the problem. And you want the team solving the problem. And especially at this level of organization, you want your team solving the problem. So you're not coming in and trying to get one person to do it. You're trying to get the team to do it. And therefore, everybody feels responsible for the problem.

• 1:03:23Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah. How far down in org do you usually go with that? Like, I don't do one on ones anymore for that particular reason. I also found that they were utilized mostly, even by good people. Didn't mean in a bad way, but utilized mostly to progress somebody's individual agenda.

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:03:39Codie Sanchez?

  And just led to more he said, she said, as opposed to what we've tried to do is when you have something hard to say, you're not allowed to say it if it's about another person and they're not in the room. Because by and large, whenever we have not done that, then, you know, you're trying to play telephone with, with two cans on a string wire.

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. We have a thing in our company that says, anything you say to anybody in the company, you should assume you just said to everybody in the company.

• 1:04:07Codie Sanchez?

  Oof.

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  And everybody, so when you say something to one of us, you, they have the freedom to say it to anybody at any time inside of the company. There is no secrets in our company.

• 1:04:17Codie Sanchez?

  What are like, when you've gone into these big companies?

• 1:04:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:20Codie Sanchez?

  Like, I went to Dave Ramsey's and he's become a buddy too. And I, I remember he told me, we don't gossip at this company.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:26Codie Sanchez?

  And I was like, okay. And then I went around to a bunch of people in this company, not sneakily, but I just met a bunch of them, was doing whatever. And so I was asking them, what's the deal with this no gossip thing? Like, that's for real? And he's like, they're like, yeah. It's so, and then they would repeat the same story, which is how I knew it was true. And, and they would say, yeah, the first time that you gossip, somebody would say, hey, by the way, I don't know if you know this year, we don't gossip. So it's just part of the company culture. The second time that you did it, if the same person caught you, your literary manager, whatever, you were fired. And so it was just like a no.

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  Gossip thing.

• 1:04:59Codie Sanchez?

  No gossip. And I kind of love, it works for him. That is like his thing.

• 1:05:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:04Codie Sanchez?

  But I love seeing that inside of companies because it feels like the best companies all have like one or three or five things that you're like, that is so unhinged and brilliant.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:14Codie Sanchez?

  Like, is there anything like that that you've seen from big companies?

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  Oh, I mean, I'm not involved in this company, but one of my favorite examples is Bridgewater films every single meeting, even one on ones. And then that meeting, it's not just filmed, then the meeting goes out and then people take notes on how you could have run the meeting better. It's like all constant feedback. It's that same thing. We're going to get constant iterative feedback. I think that's, and that's based on the principle that he has, which is transparent markets are efficient markets. And this business is a marketplace. And he recognizes the marketplace of a hedge fund. Everyone's trying to get ahead. That's an example of, of like an amazing, an amazing example of somebody who's going all the way.

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  I think Valve is also a company that does some, like, they decide their projects by where you roll your desk. So everybody has rolling desks. I don't know if it's, this is past COVID, pre-COVID, but basically the employees vote on what projects are gonna, and this is a company that makes more money per person than Apple or Microsoft.

• 1:06:18Codie Sanchez?

  Wow.

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. So they just basically have a fully decentralized approach.

• 1:06:22Codie Sanchez?

  Interesting.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  And I think you can get away with like a deeply decentralized approach if you have those four or five really elegant rules in place that, that maintain quality and fairness. Like the constitution or the Uber things that we talked about.

• 1:06:38Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, I liked my friend Amjad from Replit. He has a, he had like two things that I love that he does. And one of them is, I've stolen it, but one of them is he has an anti-sale on his recruiting page. It's like all the reasons you should never join this company.

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:54Codie Sanchez?

  And I love that because a lot of them are intense. It's like, if you don't want to work so hard sometimes, you know, you don't see your family for a while, it wasn't exactly worded like that, probably don't come here.

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:07:05Codie Sanchez?

  You know, if you, if you believe in closed source technology as opposed to complete open source technology in every single way, and you want personal accomplishments on any of this technology, don't come here.

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:16Codie Sanchez?

  And those are aggressive statements.

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  The way that we look at that, we do it a little bit differently. We're like, where do we want diversity? Where do we not want diversity? Like, I don't want diversity with like dumb people. Like, I don't want dumb people as a, as a form of diversity in our, and I can see some companies where dumb people, there's a place.

• 1:07:34Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  I don't want diversity. Everybody who works for us wants to grow as a human being and is, and if they don't feel like they're growing as a human being in our business, then.

• 1:07:46Codie Sanchez?

  It shouldn't be there.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  It shouldn't be there.

• 1:07:48Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  But for a business to really be able to identify this is where we don't want diversity and this is where we do want diversity.

• 1:07:55Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  I think is a really critical thing for building culture.

• 1:07:59Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, it's a good point.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  And most people haven't thought about it.

• 1:08:02Codie Sanchez?

  No, no. And these days, for so long, you weren't even allowed to say that you don't want diversity in some way, shape, or form. You know, you would have been killed.

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  Like your pink, it's called pink?

• 1:08:10Codie Sanchez?

  The pinks.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  The pinks?

• 1:08:12Codie Sanchez?

  Uh huh.

• 1:08:12Speaker 01

  Like, we, we want, there's no diversity in anal retentiveness, apparently, right? Like, it's like, you, you are this kind of person if you're working here.

• 1:08:20Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:21Speaker 01

  And that's fantastic.

• 1:08:23Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  Like, because why, why try to get somebody into your company that doesn't fit? Like, they're just gonna be miserable, you're gonna be miserable, it's horrible.

• 1:08:31Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, it really is. Yeah, we found at this company, one of the things that I prize more than anything else you said in the beginning is like, less words, more meaning. I really struggle with a super repetitive circular conversation, not grounded in data or facts.

• 1:08:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:47Codie Sanchez?

  And, and it sounds like duh, obvious, except a lot of people communicate that way.

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:08:52Codie Sanchez?

  And so, you know, we've had executives before, where I'm like, you're actually, your output is pretty decent.

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:58Codie Sanchez?

  But the way that you communicate is so inefficient for the company, that this is just not the right place for you. You're gonna have to find somewhere else where you can do this circular conversation continuously and not make me wanna kill myself.

• 1:09:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:09:09Codie Sanchez?

  And that's not here, you know?

• 1:09:11Speaker 01

  No, but that's a, that's a great thing to know. I think that that's, there's two things that you're saying in that that I think are really critical for CEOs to know. The first one is that the proper, for lack of a better word, energetic structure of a company is that everybody should be trying to please the leader of the company. So why do I say that? If the leader is happy, then the company is doing well. If everybody besides the leader is happy, then the company's not doing well. So, and it's the nature of it, it's like, everybody wants to make sure that the leader is happy, like, that's part of the thing. So that's like, a really important piece. The other piece is, as a leader, it's really important to be able to just be able to say,

• 1:09:55Speaker 01

  because that's what I enjoy. Like, I'm doing this because I wanna enjoy this. And so, but I, I extend that into our company as well. So as an example of this is, every year, we talk, if you're not excited that you get to work here, and if we're not excited that you're working here, we're gonna help, we're gonna transition. And it's not like, are you doing a good enough job? It's like, I wanna come in and I wanna be frickin' stoked to see you. I wanna, I wanna feel lucky. And like, that standard, it's just, it's been unbelievable for our success, but also just for my happiness.

• 1:10:35Codie Sanchez?

  The leader happiness thing is interesting, because, I can't remember where I was, but I was talking about the same idea, not even about me, about of our, our member companies. But there's only one person that like, if you remove them writ large, your business collapses entirely.

• 1:10:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:51Codie Sanchez?

  And it's you. And so, you know, I, I think it's so important that people like you are saying this, because a lot of leaders have, we, it feels like we've been trauma bonded over like entrepreneurial PTSD, to the point where it only is fun if, or totally acceptable if we say everything is miserable all the time.

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:07Codie Sanchez?

  And if in any way, shape, or form, we say, actually, I wanna be relatively happy in order to have endurance or sustainability in this, it's like, ugh, wuss, you know? Like, yuck. And so, but yet, most companies fail because the person gives up, the person in charge. And then all of your employees, what are they gonna do?

• 1:11:24Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:11:25Codie Sanchez?

  So I love hearing that, especially from somebody that works with people who, by and large...

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  Also, if you're happy, the company's doing well.

• 1:11:32Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:32Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? Like, like, don't you want your company to do well?

• 1:11:37Codie Sanchez?

  I wanna end on this question, which is, like, there's a lot of people that see themselves as self-reliant. I don't need anybody. You know, people, these women, I don't need no man, you know?

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:50Codie Sanchez?

  Like, I can do this all by myself.

• 1:11:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:52Codie Sanchez?

  You know, you're in my way, just watch me, I got this, right? This is like, very cultural zeitgeist. I mean, even, there's a whole segment of the internet I didn't know about called elder daughter, which is just all about how elder daughters are completely unreasonable and are very self-reliant, which I am one, so I was like, oh, this is interesting, this is, this is all through line. But you basically say that success is not self-reliance.

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  Self-reliance can be like incredibly successful at a very small scale, but you can't grow anything of significance without the help of people. And the better you, the more you're like, I'm all alone as a CEO, the more you are in self-reliance. The more you feel all alone, the more you're in self-reliance. The more you can't like, walk into an office and go, oh my goodness, all those people, they're all here to make my life easier. How about that? And they all care enough to do that. Like, as long as you can't see that, you're in a self-reliance mechanism. It means that you're having a hard time asking for what you want, it means you're having

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  a hard time asking for help, it means you have, you're not fully in your own authority, and you rebel against authority, and so there's a lack of authority in the company often. There's like, there's this kind of weird thing that happens there that I could go into. It means that, it means that you have a hard time saying when you're hurt. So that's why a lot of the CEO trauma bonding happens, or is like, I'm miserable, dah dah dah, because they can't say, wow, it really hurts that you didn't do the thing that you said you were gonna do, and I noticed that I'm not trusting you as much right now, and I don't, I don't want that, how do we fix that? CEOs have a tendency not being able to do that, because they're like, no, that, that

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  way is gonna be hurt, because somebody, like, I'm not gonna be taken care of. Because that's basically where self-reliance comes from, is this idea that I'm not gonna be taken care of, that comes from childhood. When you can get over that, then your company can explode, like, so well, like, explode is in grow very quickly, because you unleash people to actually help you, instead of having to manage everybody and tell everybody what to do, and be like, oh, they didn't do it well enough, et cetera, et cetera.

• 1:14:07Codie Sanchez?

  It's so good. I know I'm gonna be going back to this episode, having all my leaders listen to it, too. Where do you like people to follow you the most?

• 1:14:14Speaker 01

  Um...

• 1:14:15Codie Sanchez?

  We've got YouTube.

• 1:14:17Speaker 01

  YouTube.

• 1:14:17Codie Sanchez?

  And it's just your name.

• 1:14:20Speaker 01

  Joe Hudson. Yeah, YouTube, yeah. If you wanna, if you want personal transformation, the best is, is going to the YouTube, and the podcasts and the coachings, those are definitely the, the things that drive a lot of change in people. I get emails constantly of people's lives changing.

• 1:14:37Codie Sanchez?

  Well, and I, I don't even know if I'm allowed to ask you this, but like, I bet you charge these guys a lot of money.

• 1:14:42Speaker 01

  A lot of money.

• 1:14:43Codie Sanchez?

  To do this one-on-one.

• 1:14:43Speaker 01

  A lot of money. Most of what I do is I charge...

• 1:14:46Codie Sanchez?

  We're talking five or six figures.

• 1:14:48Speaker 01

  I charge a percentage of what we grow together.

• 1:14:53Codie Sanchez?

  Get the fuck out.

• 1:14:54Speaker 01

  I go by stock.

• 1:14:55Codie Sanchez?

  What's the most amount of money you've ever been able to get from help? Have you been able to make like, seven figures off of your help? I love that nod. That's a really smart way to do it.

• 1:15:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I just do it, I just like, if the company grows, like, like that, I told you about the thing, the council, where we help people with the getting their culture right?

• 1:15:20Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  We just take a percentage of the company, we don't even charge.

• 1:15:22Codie Sanchez?

  So you're really selective on who you take, because you're like, you guys better be good, otherwise you're not getting me.

• 1:15:28Speaker 01

  If they're committed to their culture, and they are in that 50-person or less company that has product-market fit, we take them.

• 1:15:35Codie Sanchez?

  Interesting.

• 1:15:36Speaker 01

  Because that's, those are the criteria. We keep it simple.

• 1:15:39Codie Sanchez?

  I love that.

• 1:15:40Speaker 01

  But yeah, so we, we just get a percentage of, of what we create.

• 1:15:43Codie Sanchez?

  Well...

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  Instead of, we stand behind the work.

• 1:15:46Codie Sanchez?

  Thank you for being here with us today.

• 1:15:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, what a pleasure.

• 1:15:48Codie Sanchez?

  So we don't get to steal any of these people's upside, you know? But they got all your juice for nothing. So thanks for being on this podcast.

• 1:15:55Speaker 01

  Pleasure.

• 1:15:55Codie Sanchez?

  This was so useful for me, and I know they're gonna love it, too.

• 1:15:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:04Speaker 03

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