Playing to Win - 094 - Brad Pedersen - A ’how-to’ guide to entrepreneurship

00:00:00.000 All right, boom, we're live. Welcome to the 94th installment of the Plain and Wood podcast series.

00:00:06.580 My friend Brad Pedersen is back in the house. How are you doing, Brad?

00:00:10.000 Rich, I'm doing great. Really grateful to see you again. I mean, I think with COVID,

00:00:15.420 it's been a minute that we didn't, there wasn't a lot of travel going on. And I know this is

00:00:20.660 not as good as being live and in person, but just get to reconnect and see your face.

00:00:26.120 Yeah, we go way back. There's an organization that I've mentioned several times on my channel

00:00:32.100 called Entrepreneurs' Org, and we met in a forum there and had hung out for three years, maybe?

00:00:40.080 We did a forum together.

00:00:41.740 Three or four, yeah. I think that's right.

00:00:43.200 Really, really good times. Awesome retreat memories. We became great friends. Did a lot

00:00:48.180 of stuff. We unfortunately don't get to see each other as much as we did before because

00:00:51.300 you've moved out west now. We used to both live in the GTA. How was the summer for you? I reached

00:00:57.880 out when those fires were all an issue and all that sort of stuff, but was that a big deal for

00:01:02.160 you guys out there? Yeah. I live in the Okanagan, British Columbia, and I tell people it's the best

00:01:12.020 place on planet Earth. If you love outdoor pursuits, it's pretty epic. Summers are amazing. Winters,

00:01:18.040 they get tons of snow, and the seasons just are all awesome. But we have an issue called

00:01:26.240 forest fires, and this past year was the hottest, driest summer on record. And so we had thought we

00:01:34.820 escaped it. There was a lot happening in northern British Columbia. I don't know if you even saw it.

00:01:38.880 There's an app called smoke.ca, and it shows where the smoke's coming from and the fires.

00:01:44.180 But it was crazy. The Northwest Territories and the Yukon and northern British Columbia and Alberta

00:01:49.200 were on fire. It just was this mass of fires, which is crazy because that area has got permafrost

00:01:55.840 and tundra. So to see all that open up in fire, it definitely speaks to that something's gone amok

00:02:01.640 in terms of the way that the planet is transitioning. So yeah, we thought we'd gotten away with it.

00:02:09.840 But middle of August, I was out for dinner with family. We saw a smoke plume off in the distance.

00:02:16.460 By the time we got to our house at eight o'clock that night, we saw the fire crest over the mountain

00:02:20.420 across the lake from us. And there was like a huge windstorm that came through the same wind,

00:02:24.740 actually, that powered the Lahaina fires hit the west coast. And so everything was tender dry.

00:02:31.520 Anything that sparked up just actually got, you know, became massive. And we thought, well, okay,

00:02:38.180 it's on the other side of the lake. It's four kilometers across. No problem. And within an hour,

00:02:42.840 all of a sudden we saw our side of the lake was on fire. And we're like, wait a second. It just

00:02:47.500 jumped the lake. So yeah, we got evacuated for 10 days. When we returned home, you know, we were

00:02:54.960 watching things through our security cameras. We actually had pictures of firefighters in our

00:02:57.700 backyard with hoses, hosing down the forest because we could see the flames coming up the back.

00:03:03.080 So we got home. We didn't know what to expect. Fortunately, our houses were standing,

00:03:07.240 but literally the fire burnt right to the edge of the property line. And a combination of

00:03:12.920 extraordinary firefighting and an act of God, quite frankly, because, you know, the entire

00:03:18.940 community, it should have been, it burnt below us, above us and in between us. So yeah, it was

00:03:23.860 terrifying. I call it terror sighting, terrifying and exciting time of life for sure.

00:03:29.020 Terror sighting. Cool. So you've written a new book from your time in the toy industry. You were,

00:03:36.700 you were running, I think, I mean, I'm going to butcher this. Maybe you should clarify it, but

00:03:41.140 I think it was Canada's second or third largest toy company, or was it North America's second or

00:03:46.300 largest toy company? Well, my first toy company was the largest toy distribution company in Canada.

00:03:53.020 But I crashed and burned that in my last episode with you. I tell that story. And then I started a

00:04:01.820 new company again that was in toy manufacturing. And that became the second largest toy company in

00:04:07.820 Canada. Spin Master Toys, clearly they're the, you know, they're the shining star in this country.

00:04:11.760 In fact, in the world, they're, they're, they're leading, but yes, had close to 30 years of working in

00:04:19.820 the industry to play things and making products that would ultimately try and put smiles on kids'

00:04:24.500 faces. That was a big part of what I did. So you've taken that tenure, you've taken that

00:04:29.220 experience and you've put a book out. It's just been released. It's called Startup Santa,

00:04:35.400 Toymaker's Tale of 10 Business Lessons Learned from Timeless Toys. Got 300 odd pages. I haven't

00:04:44.800 listened to it yet. I'm an audio book guy. So when it comes out in audible, I'll, I'll,

00:04:49.560 I'll throw a credit at it and definitely have a listen to it because I know there's going to be

00:04:52.520 some wisdom in there for sure. Um, but I do have the chapter guide here. So I wanted to use this

00:04:57.980 podcast to sort of enlighten my viewers as far as, um, some of the stories that you tell in there.

00:05:05.520 Um, obviously, you know, an hour is not going to be long enough to tell them all, but, you know,

00:05:09.040 give them some ideas and some, and some game changing nuggets that they can at least contemplate

00:05:13.160 marinate on, or maybe even use in their own business. So in the first chapter, it says, uh,

00:05:18.460 G.I. Joe's humbly mind their flanks. What do you, what do you mean by that? What was the lesson

00:05:23.860 there? Yeah, it's, so the way the book is structured, let me step back and first talk

00:05:30.300 about that. The book itself is, is, um, start off as a memoir and I didn't really want to write

00:05:35.360 this book. Um, well, to be honest with you, um, it was going to be a memoir just to maybe

00:05:42.460 basically capture some of the force guy gump like moments in my life that I just thought,

00:05:46.900 you know, I gotta put this on paper because our minds are really good for coming up with ideas

00:05:50.640 for creativity, but retaining information, not so good. Hence, you know, why we should journal

00:05:55.400 and write things down. And, you know, my coach says to me all the time, we don't learn from what

00:05:59.840 happens. We learn from reflecting on what happened and unpacking the lessons, completing the loops,

00:06:05.020 going through, in some cases, a grieving process. And, and then from that choosing again. So I,

00:06:11.240 I thought it would just be helpful for me to do this memoir. And what I found on the other side

00:06:16.600 of it was cathartic. I, since I've learned there's something called narrative therapy,

00:06:19.600 where when you write about your life, about the things that happened, and then you start to

00:06:25.440 unpack it, there's a healing process that happens for you. I mean, I literally found myself in,

00:06:29.560 in points of my life where I was, or points during writing this, that I was in tears,

00:06:32.860 um, just because there was things that I was unpacking and discovering. And I don't know, I, I,

00:06:38.100 I tend to go through life and try and just, you know, uh, glaze over the tough times and just move

00:06:45.600 on and just like, I think men tend to do that. Um, but that's not really helpful for you to really

00:06:53.640 understand more about yourself, your belief systems and your values and, and what it really means.

00:06:58.280 And the flip side of that is success as a sake teacher, because when you're succeeding,

00:07:02.920 there's no reason to stop. You just keep going forward. But, um, I think it's really important

00:07:08.040 that we, we take the time to reflect. And so from this, uh, this was an experiment for me just to do

00:07:13.520 that. And of course, because I'm a toy guy, I decided, Hey, why don't I just make this playful?

00:07:19.120 Because play is actually a part of important part of our humanity. Um, it's how we develop as humans.

00:07:24.780 When we're playing, we are problem solving. We're learning how to develop social skills and we're

00:07:30.520 learning how to develop our own personal skills in the process of playing. So, and toys are a

00:07:35.260 facilitator of play. So I use chap, I use classic toys that you would know about, uh, talk a little

00:07:41.800 bit about the origin story and then unpack some of the lessons of what those toys are meant to taught

00:07:46.000 us, teach us. And then I, I, um, tell my own stories from the toy business. And typically it's

00:07:51.500 wisdom for my wounds. It's things I did wrong and what were the lessons. And I kind of taught

00:07:56.060 them together. So chapter one, uh, GI Joe's humbly mind their flanks. Uh, so it tells a story

00:08:03.000 of GI Joe's and where they came from. And it kind of brings it to, you know, who are the

00:08:06.840 modern day GI Joe's? Well, the modern day heroes that we revere are the Navy SEALs and the Navy

00:08:13.220 SEALs have a couple, uh, common sayings. One is slow is smooth and smooth is fast. And the

00:08:19.060 other is advance while protecting the flanks. And the two actually coexist in terms of how

00:08:24.820 they, when they think about a battlefield and how they are advancing, why they're doing

00:08:28.960 both those things at the same time. So advancing to protect your flanks is, uh, the idea that

00:08:35.320 you can only advance to the extent that your ability to actually protect yourself from any

00:08:40.800 kind of attacks on the backside. And as I think about it from business, you know, as a business

00:08:45.400 perspective, we're supposed to grow. That is something we're all designed to do.

00:08:48.520 Um, in fact, businesses don't sit in stasis. I don't believe that exists, but if you're

00:08:53.420 growing a business, you have to also recognize that you're stressing the business. And so

00:08:57.860 stressing it breaks things. And, you know, some growth is healthy and some growth is

00:09:02.660 unhealthy. Uh, growth at all costs is an example, which I've done many times in my

00:09:06.640 life, um, tends to break things within your business. And there's three areas identified

00:09:10.960 that are going to be constantly breaking and that need to be reinvented. And that is the

00:09:14.380 people you hire and or surround yourself with, uh, the systems that you are building to

00:09:19.440 actually keep everyone singing from the same song sheet and then the cash that's required

00:09:23.860 to actually continue to grow the business. And, you know, the problem with the third one

00:09:29.360 is that most entrepreneurs focus on vanity metrics. Um, they're, they're just simply

00:09:33.380 think about top line growth where really the truth is, if you've been in business long

00:09:37.240 enough and people like you and I, who've come from bootstrap companies, we understand the truth

00:09:40.920 of this, that top line's vanity, bottom line sanity and cashflow is reality. And if you're

00:09:46.120 building a business, you have to be thinking about what do I need to keep my cashflow, uh,

00:09:51.680 flush because you run out of cash and you're dead on the field. So, so that is the idea

00:09:57.920 advancing and protecting the flanks and then slow is smooth, smooth is fast. You know, when

00:10:02.020 you're a young startup and you're a generalist doing everything, you can be frantic. You can

00:10:08.940 do quick nimble pivots and just go here, there and everywhere and just respond to the needs

00:10:13.140 of the business. But as you start to go from startup to scale up and you build maturity

00:10:17.560 into the organization and you add team members, that kind of frenetic motion creates whip solving

00:10:22.660 an organization that ends up frustrating it. People really thrive under simplicity, certainty,

00:10:29.500 and your confidence in being able to deliver it. So when you're whips on the organization, 0.65

00:10:34.740 all those things get broken. So I talk about how it's about making less decisions, but better

00:10:39.800 decisions and making sure those decisions ultimately are congruent with, you know, what

00:10:44.760 are goals, uh, mission vision. But the idea being is that your goal should be in concrete,

00:10:50.040 but your plans in sand, you should be able to shift and move, but do in a way that doesn't

00:10:53.800 whipsaw the organization. And the final piece to all of it, the reason humbly is added to that

00:10:59.080 is that the virtue that we look to when we think of, um, you know, this references the GIs from back

00:11:06.740 in the forties and fifties that, you know, defeated Nazis and then the Korean war, the number one

00:11:12.600 virtue of heroism was humility, was the fact that they were doing this selflessly. In fact, um, I'm

00:11:19.400 currently in my place in Florida and this week is heroes week because, uh, we have, um, remembrance

00:11:24.200 day this coming weekend. And so every, every workout is dedicated in honor of a fallen soldier.

00:11:30.680 And as I've been listening to the stories that they've been telling every day, they talk about

00:11:34.680 a soldier and they talk about the family and what, what happened where they were. The one thing that

00:11:38.320 is common is that they were humbly serving their country, doing something in another place and had

00:11:43.780 selflessly sacrificed their life for the sake of a cause. So the humility piece is really important

00:11:49.400 because when we're not acting humility, we actually go from being a hero to a villain when it's

00:11:53.180 self-serving. So it's just pieces together, kind of the necessary attributes that we need to be

00:11:57.960 thinking about as we're growing and advancing our, our enterprises. Um, sounds like the entire process

00:12:05.280 for you is making your wounds, your work. Yeah. Yeah. One of my favorite quotes that came from you

00:12:11.980 is that, uh, your scars are a reminder that you're stronger than when trying to kill you. Um, and yes,

00:12:18.320 I, I, uh, you know, I think that this is, we, we've, we've, we've shared lots of stories together,

00:12:24.580 but what the thing I've come to learn is this, is that to truly be human, there's a few things you

00:12:29.920 need, you need, you need food, water, companionship, shelter, but add to it struggle because your

00:12:36.560 struggles will either build a strength into you or beat it out of you. You decide, but it is a part of

00:12:42.620 your evolution as a human. And, um, so yes, my, my lessons as of many of yours have come from,

00:12:48.940 you know, the, the struggles and, and hopefully the wisdom that you unpack from those wounds.

00:12:53.500 Yeah. It's, it's chaos, man. Chaos is a massive teacher, right? Um, chapter two is outlined as we

00:12:59.900 only play monopoly with others. What's the, um, what's the deal with that? Yeah, this is a fun chapter.

00:13:06.200 I actually learned a lot about myself through this as well as just, uh, the, you know, when I think

00:13:11.520 about monopoly, we think it's a game about greed, uh, cause you're trying to like own the monopoly

00:13:16.600 board. And the fascinating history of monopoly is that the original, uh, creator of monopoly was a

00:13:22.200 lady who actually was trying to do the opposite. She was trying to prove that socialism is a better 1.00

00:13:29.100 system that the government should own all the land. So she created two games, one that basically

00:13:33.580 demonstrated that, uh, we should live in a system where the government owns all the land and that we

00:13:37.900 are basically renters. And the other was that, um, you know, capitalism would, uh, would flourish

00:13:44.320 and that, that, that would be, it would be self-revealing that it was a broken system. And we

00:13:50.520 know that the rest of the story is that her original game did not work. And the one that focused on a

00:13:56.240 capitalist, uh, approach is what ultimately became what we know today. Um, but look, I talk about that

00:14:02.640 the problem with both capitalism and socialism is they focus on one problem, which is greed,

00:14:10.100 one being the antithesis of greed and the other that you should embrace it. And I actually think

00:14:14.520 that whenever we've seen those lived out in full, uh, we've seen that it digress to tyranny and broken

00:14:21.260 systems. And, um, and so I talk about the third alternative, which is the word free enterprise. And I know it

00:14:29.240 just seems like a nuance, but if you think about it, what it means free enterprise, the idea that

00:14:35.280 we're free to pursue enterprises and that the enterprises that we're actually building are

00:14:39.640 bringing more freedom and value to the marketplace and those around you, that actually is an empowering

00:14:46.560 idea. And the problem with pure capitalism is that pure capitalism is focused on greed and that it

00:14:54.000 basically is using people to acquire things where free enterprisers really look at how do I take

00:15:00.240 things to help build value and meaning into people. And, and so I just, I contrast these two, uh, I talk

00:15:07.920 about, you know, the, uh, the most important things in life, because I think we're all led down this path

00:15:16.060 that we should be focusing on. How do I have, uh, or do these things? And, you know, I've spent a lot of

00:15:21.780 time with Colin and we talk about the be, do you have triangle, but most of us are really, at least I am

00:15:27.800 susceptible to having or doing as the things that drive me to who I am today. Yet, if I ask you or your

00:15:34.920 listeners and said, Hey, who is, what are the most memorable moments of your life to this point in time?

00:15:40.380 I bet you, if I asked you the top three memories, it would be the birth of your daughter. It would be some

00:15:45.900 vacation you took with, um, uh, your significant other. It'd be a memorable, uh, challenge that you

00:15:52.120 overcame, uh, or some kind of business, um, milestone that you hit. In other words, there's things that

00:15:58.740 focus on what I call the four C's, which are challenges, contributions that come in the form of

00:16:04.080 either charity and or creativity and meaningful connections with people matter. Whereas the media

00:16:10.860 and advertisers focus on that you're not enough and you will only become more if you have the four

00:16:16.720 P's, which is power, prestige, possessions, and pleasure. And so I, I use these as a great filter 0.96

00:16:23.040 when I'm thinking about, you know, my motivations behind why I want to do something or have something

00:16:28.400 to ask the question, is this going to build more of the four C's in my life? Is this going to create

00:16:33.840 more contributions, connections, creativity, or meaningful charitable outreach in my life?

00:16:40.580 And if the answer is no, then typically it's not the right choice for me to make at that time.

00:16:45.340 And, um, it's been a helpful framework for me in terms of how I think about what I should be

00:16:50.880 pursuing at this moment in my life and what's ultimately going to bring me lasting and enduring

00:16:55.000 joy. Okay. And then in the third chapter, it's, um, it's still down to in Jenga, some blocks you can't move.

00:17:05.000 Hmm. Yeah. This, uh, this actually goes back to, um, my time in New York city.

00:17:10.580 So I was in New York on nine 11. I had an office that was 20 blocks away from, uh, the world trade

00:17:16.620 centers. And we watched, uh, that tragic day happen in real time. And it's kind of this contrast that,

00:17:24.180 you know, minutes before that I was in this very important business meeting. Um, I, at that time,

00:17:29.740 my family was far away. I was working there. I'd been there for many days. I think we'd been there for

00:17:35.200 maybe a couple of weeks. And, you know, I thought what was happening in that meeting was the most

00:17:39.740 important thing yet. As I stood on that street corner watching the panic and the chaos of what

00:17:44.760 was happening that day, uh, nothing that had happened in that building mattered to that point.

00:17:50.360 The only thing that mattered was really thinking about, you know, the, the tragedy of the moment

00:17:56.340 and wanting to be with the people that I loved and cared for the most.

00:17:59.940 And so I use that as a reference point to talk about Jenga and in Jenga, there's, uh, if you've

00:18:05.920 played the game, you know, there's foundational blocks that can't be moved. And then there's

00:18:09.280 flexible blocks that you have to move carefully. And I align that with the idea of values that we

00:18:14.960 have values and our values are where we invest our time. So with our time, we, you know, we, we,

00:18:22.880 we say all these, we espouse all these virtuous things about what we believe in or what we think

00:18:27.660 is important. Yet, if you audit your calendar, like if you say your fitness is important, well,

00:18:32.980 then I should be able to audit your calendar and look and see, oh yes, you've invested every day

00:18:37.640 consistently a certain amount of time in fitness. Same thing comes down to your family. You say your

00:18:41.620 family's important. Well, let's take a look at your calendar. It's a great auditing tool. Is that true

00:18:46.180 or not? So I've identified for me what my, uh, values are. And some of those are actually

00:18:53.900 foundational values for me. It's my faith, my fitness, uh, my finances and my family. Those are

00:19:00.340 the things that I'm not negotiating, that there's something I'm investing in on a daily basis. And my

00:19:06.140 calendar should show that that's true. Likewise, I have some flexible values for me. That's fun

00:19:11.200 friends, uh, refining, which is doing personal development and growth. And, uh, and then finally

00:19:17.500 freedom, which is just working on things that allow me to grow my circle of influence, but those things,

00:19:23.140 they have flexibility to them and you can move them carefully. Although I think that they're all

00:19:29.120 important. It's just a matter of prioritizing what's the most important. And then the final thing

00:19:34.560 here is that not all time is equal. Um, there are seasons of life, uh, when you're starting a startup,

00:19:41.200 it requires an incredible amount of focus. You know, when Elon's rockets takes, uh, 90% of the

00:19:47.260 fuel on board just to get outside the atmosphere. So there's an extraordinary amount of intensity

00:19:51.540 required for that period of time. Likewise, when you're starting a startup, you know, and I know

00:19:55.920 that it takes a bunch of time and effort to get that thing going. So for a seasonal life, you actually

00:20:00.860 have to be willing to have out of balance. But the idea being is that it's for season. It's not

00:20:06.780 forever. It's about knowing that and having the guardrails to make sure that you stay within that.

00:20:11.200 Hmm. Chapter four, Spider-Man versus himself. What's that about?

00:20:17.100 Well, this is something that I think every human struggles with, uh, certainly founders. Certainly

00:20:24.580 I personally have struggled with this. The idea that if you think about Peter Parker and there's

00:20:29.580 the whole backstory of like the Marvel superheroes that prior to that, uh, the DC superheroes were

00:20:34.300 super, they had no flaws, but the Marvel superheroes all were very human and they had broken sides.

00:20:39.240 So Spider-Man, Peter Parker was this awkward school boy who had, uh, lived with his aunt and

00:20:45.060 uncle and had a hard time connecting with girls. You know, on the other side of that, he's the savior

00:20:49.580 of the city and he's a superhero that does these incredible things. And it just speaks to the

00:20:55.160 imposter phenom, which is what it was originally called before it became the imposter syndrome.

00:20:58.800 Um, and that within all of us, there is a, a worth issue. And in this part of the book, I talk about,

00:21:07.420 um, my bankruptcies, uh, how I had over a million dollars of friends and family money that was in

00:21:13.860 those bankruptcies and how so much of, um, my worth was caught up in, in the businesses. You know,

00:21:21.760 I had birthed this business and it was a part of my identity and this was what I believed was my

00:21:27.100 representation of, of my life, uh, mission at the time. And I didn't know at the time that that's

00:21:33.620 broken, that ultimately I'm not my business. My business is a reflection of some of me, but ultimately

00:21:39.380 it's not me altogether. And I just talk about going back through and what are the belief systems

00:21:46.240 that we have in terms of, if we have results and actions and attitude that we see above the surface

00:21:52.460 of a, of our lives, what's down below, what is the inner, inner character and what are those belief

00:21:57.120 systems that drive that? And also talk about that. Look, within all of us, there are, uh, there's a

00:22:04.200 propensity to incredible good as well as incredible bad. Um, you know, Alexander Solonitsyn,

00:22:11.800 uh, I'm going to paraphrase the quote, but he said, if only we could eradicate evil from,

00:22:18.360 uh, humanity, but the line of good and evil goes through every human heart and who's willing to

00:22:24.160 cut away a part of their heart. And it just speaks to that. We all have been given this gift of

00:22:29.140 imagination. And with that, we can create incredible abundance or incredible scarcity,

00:22:34.760 incredible hope or incredible anxiety we choose. And it's a, it's incredible to have that power of

00:22:40.740 choice. And it's also realizing that we all have it within us and that we need to make sure that we

00:22:46.820 feed the, the wolf. So we talked about in our last podcast, the white wolf and the dark wolf that lives

00:22:53.120 within all of us. And the idea that the chief and his grandson are talking and, and the grandson says,

00:22:59.220 which one wins? And, uh, the chief says, whichever one you feed, that doesn't mean, so if you're feeding

00:23:04.920 the white wolf of more abundance and hope and, uh, building value, that doesn't mean the dark wolf

00:23:10.480 ever goes away, it's just pushing it and shrinking it to a smaller part of our being as possible.

00:23:14.860 And our choices daily will determine, um, how that happens, including, you know, things like this,

00:23:21.720 your community, like surrounding yourself with people who actually are either going to be engines

00:23:25.900 in your life and help build you up or anchors and drag you down. And, uh, one of the things I've

00:23:31.840 come to learn about how do you identify the engines of your life? They're the real friends who

00:23:36.700 will celebrate with you. Um, so struggles through struggles and celebration is how you find out

00:23:43.340 who your real friends are because during struggles, your real friends will stand beside you and

00:23:47.240 support you. And celebration being is that when you're winning, that they're actually routing for

00:23:53.020 you. Cause I've come to learn that most people want you to win, just not much more than them.

00:23:56.880 Your real friends. Well, you can always tell who your real friends are. Cause when you're winning,

00:24:00.540 they're not applauding. Right. Yes. The other thing that's noticeable too, is, is, is your true

00:24:06.760 friends will, uh, like bust your chops and they'll talk shit to your face, but they'll always protect 0.98

00:24:12.180 you when you're not around. Like they'll always manage your reputation in such a way that nobody 0.99

00:24:16.880 can disparage you, you know, to your back. If you're in the same room sort of thing. I like what

00:24:21.360 you've sort of described here because, you know, it's funny because we haven't sat together in a long

00:24:27.340 time and a lot of the conversations that we used to have in forum back in the day are some of the

00:24:32.320 topics that I've talked to my audience and my channel. And now you're sort of paraphrasing as

00:24:36.800 well. Like we're talking about the, uh, decision sequence between belief systems, choices, and

00:24:42.680 results. Right. And I've covered that many times. I can see you've added that in this chapter,

00:24:47.460 which is a huge, irrelevant point. So, um, just get the book guys. I'll, I'll drop the link in the

00:24:53.320 description, um, after the show, but, um, actually here, I've got it up here on Amazon. I'll just put

00:25:00.120 it in the live chat for now, but I'll put it in the description as well. Afterwards. Um, your next

00:25:04.940 outline is on chapter five and you mentioned etch a sketch of hope. Yeah. So we hear this all the

00:25:14.400 time that hope is not a strategy and I actually disagree. Um, I think any strategy that doesn't begin

00:25:22.220 with hope is a lost cause. There's two things that motivate our humanity, uh, hope and fear.

00:25:28.360 Um, people could say love and I would say, yes, love definitely is the most powerful antithesis to

00:25:34.080 fear. However, the precursor to love is hope. I had to hope that my wife would date me before I could

00:25:39.680 learn to love her. So, um, hope is imagining a better future, whereas anxiety is imagining one that's

00:25:47.380 worse. And, um, so knowing that in you and I, in our last conversation, we talked about, um, playing

00:25:54.420 to win, playing not to lose that, that, that philosophy of seeing teams on the field where,

00:25:59.640 you know, when a team's ahead and they've got a lead and then they stop playing to win, they start

00:26:03.280 playing not to lose. And this other team is thinking, well, Hey, we're not far away. And so

00:26:07.180 they start playing to win. And how many times we see in those games, the team comes behind to win the

00:26:10.540 game because hope is a stronger skill. Fear is more natural. It's just not optimal. Whereas we

00:26:17.700 should be focusing on hope. So the idea behind Etch-a-Sketch is so great is that the thing that's

00:26:23.800 beautiful with Etch-a-Sketch is that whenever you screw it up, you just shake it and start again.

00:26:28.740 And in my life, I've had, uh, you know, seven different adventures in business. I think actually

00:26:33.600 I'm now into eight different adventures in business. And most of them have been failings,

00:26:37.040 things that I have not won at. Um, but you're either winning or you're learning. And my learnings

00:26:42.580 happen to be very large. And the whole point is that you get the chance to unpack what, what were

00:26:48.760 the lessons there? What take those lessons, apply it to the go forward and then choose again and not

00:26:54.020 be a victim to what actually happened in the past. So, um, I'm just a really big believer that the most

00:26:59.300 important thing we could be focusing on is building more hope, which leads to creativity and abundance

00:27:05.400 to build and design a future, the better for ourselves. If you're just hoping as a navel

00:27:10.240 gazing exercise, it's not helpful. It needs to have the most important virtue, which is courage.

00:27:16.360 And Aristotle actually identified the original four virtues, which he said were justice,

00:27:20.920 prudence, temperance, and courage. And courage is the cardinal virtue because the other three don't

00:27:26.420 matter if you don't exercise courage first. And the best definition I've heard of what is courage,

00:27:31.980 it's that bliss point between recklessness and cowardice. It's taking action despite the

00:27:37.260 uncertainty, but doing something. So hope is not a strategy if you're just willing to just think

00:27:42.220 about it, but before you can actually have the courage to take action, hope has to be the precursor

00:27:47.200 of imagining a better future. Yeah. You're viewing it through the lens of the entrepreneur. I think,

00:27:52.820 I think the vast majority of people out there that rely on hope as a strategy, it's a losing strategy

00:27:57.440 just because it's, it's like, you know, I'll just hope tomorrow fixes itself. I'll just hope,

00:28:01.820 you know, I can improve something or I'll win the lottery. You know, it was like a pretty bad plan

00:28:06.800 for success in life, but I love how you're leaning on this from the angle of the entrepreneur's mindset

00:28:12.100 because it definitely ties into playing the win. Yeah. I think that's, but I think that's a great

00:28:16.960 point. Like, you know, hope without a plan is delusional. So there has to be just masturbation,

00:28:24.200 you know, it's like, you're not actually doing anything productive. It's just, you know,

00:28:27.880 spinning your tires. Chapter six, assemble the perfect toy box, man. Well, this is, this is where

00:28:35.260 I tell people I got my, you know, I don't, I don't have a MBA in from a prominent school,

00:28:40.580 but I have my PhD in DUMB from the school hard knocks from doing this all the wrong ways. So I have

00:28:48.420 hired and fired and done all the wrong things as it relates to building a team. But here's the most

00:28:56.960 important thing. Once you've got, so there's four phases to a company, right? There's a startup phase,

00:29:02.220 there's a scale up phase, there's a sustaining phase, and then hopefully there's a succession

00:29:06.000 phase. So once you've gotten through a startup phase and you're now into scaling, there's no way

00:29:11.400 if you were planning to build something of significance, you can do it on your own. You need

00:29:15.500 to start to bring in people that actually can help you scale and get it to a sustainable place where

00:29:20.460 it's profitable and enduring. And, you know, I think it's Dan Sullivan says, you know, as, as

00:29:25.200 entrepreneurs, we, we, we see ourselves as superheroes. We're superhuman. We're willing to

00:29:28.940 work hard and long and, and do all the extra. And so most of us can imagine building a business

00:29:34.060 twice as big as, as what we have now. But what you really need to think about is how do I do it 10

00:29:39.820 times? And if you come to a 10 X result, you'll recognize there's no way you can do it with your own

00:29:45.240 bravado and ability to heavy lift. So it means you got to go find people. And the problem with

00:29:52.180 entrepreneurs, there's two things. Number one, we're optimists. We see the possibilities in

00:29:57.360 everyone. Like we, we look at people and we can say, Oh, I see that person's potential to be such

00:30:02.000 a great human and do such amazing things in my company. But until they see it first in themselves,

00:30:06.420 it doesn't really matter. And the second is we like to hire people we like.

00:30:10.280 So, uh, I go through and tell some horror stories of some bad hires I've made, uh, how that, you know,

00:30:17.240 I ended up hiring some mercenaries and really I need to find missionaries. And, uh, I kind of walk

00:30:22.360 through how that's evolved to what we've created today, which is basically a system to protect me

00:30:27.740 from myself of ensuring that we only get a players, uh, who can help build, uh, our a team,

00:30:34.180 because if you're going to go, you know, businesses battle. And if you're going to go into the

00:30:38.140 trenches with teammates, you need to make sure that you're looking over your shoulder and that,

00:30:43.000 okay, I I'm confident this person's got my back. If I'm going to war, this person, I want alongside

00:30:48.740 me. I don't want to be questioning whether or not they're going to be, you know, the weak link, uh,

00:30:52.780 or they're going to suddenly run retreat at tough times. So if we're knowing that's true,

00:30:57.960 based upon the fact that your competitors want to wipe you out, the market's not in favor of you,

00:31:02.540 you literally are fighting for the survival of your business as well as the families who depend on it,

00:31:07.520 then you need to ensure you have the best functioning team, uh, that's capable of doing

00:31:12.460 that. And we think nothing of it when we see sports teams trading out players or trading out coaches

00:31:16.360 even, cause they're trying to build the best team to win the championship. So we should treat

00:31:20.480 organizations the exact same way. And this chapter goes through and talks about a bunch of things

00:31:24.300 that I recommend in terms of how do you find the right players? How do you then retain them?

00:31:28.460 And then how do you build, um, uh, a cadence that empowers them to unleash their possibilities,

00:31:35.380 to advance the organization? If you get it right, it's exponential in terms of outcomes.

00:31:39.860 Yeah. Human resources are always a, um, a difficult area. I've, you know, I've gotten to the point where

00:31:46.980 I generally don't get involved in business now if I need employees. Um, cause you can now structure

00:31:53.760 a business in such a way where you don't need to rely on human resources. So, so getting it right

00:31:58.000 really matters when you don't get it right. You really suffer. Like you really know there's,

00:32:03.040 there's chaos and drama in your life. If you have the wrong people on the bus, as they say,

00:32:07.060 right. Um, chapter seven, never waste hula hoop moment momentum. Yeah. Well, one of the things

00:32:15.840 I found out about myself and seems to be pretty common with a lot of founders is that we're really

00:32:20.220 good at starting things and often good at finishing things. It's the messy middle, the in-betweens where

00:32:24.820 we don't do so well. And we'll often get a business up and spinning and we'll get some momentum

00:32:30.000 going and then all of a sudden get distracted by other shiny objects that are out there,

00:32:34.560 uh, trying to get, yeah. And I'm guilty of it. I've got a t-shirt. I'm a part of that, uh, that,

00:32:42.080 uh, recovery organization to try and fix those problems, but it's really about, it takes a lot

00:32:47.420 of effort and energy to get that flywheel spinning, or in this case, the hula hoop spinning. And then once

00:32:51.780 you do have it spinning, let's make sure that we completely, uh, utilize all the potential that's

00:32:57.620 there. And one of the metaphors that I actually got from Darren Hardy, that I think is a really

00:33:02.420 great, uh, example of this. It's like, if I took a bottle of Coke and I shook the bottle of Coke and

00:33:08.160 then released it, there would be this explosion of, you know, sugary goodness that would come out of

00:33:12.620 the bottle. And I have an option at that point. I could either put a straw in and extract the rest of

00:33:20.380 the cola out, or I could go shake another bottle and extract, you know, just keep going,

00:33:25.380 leaving the vast majority of the potential still in the bottle. Cause only the top is what sprays

00:33:29.300 that leave a lot behind. And so taking that philosophy, that idea to your business, what

00:33:34.340 do you need to do to optimize and build the most value out of the flywheel? Once you get that flywheel

00:33:39.780 spinning, because look, the odds in the mortality rate in business are pretty high, right? I mean,

00:33:43.720 most businesses fail. Um, and actually most businesses fail, not from starving from lack of

00:33:49.980 opportunity. It's from biting off more than they can chew. So it's about getting focused on getting a

00:33:55.780 flywheel spinning. And then once it's flinty spinning to optimize it, to ensure you're extracting all the

00:34:01.100 value and, uh, and making sure that you understand how, how to do that. Interesting. Um, do you have

00:34:10.340 any productivity hacks that you use today? Like do you have a top three lists that you need to rely on a

00:34:15.600 daily basis? Productivity hacks, like in terms of how do I opt? I mean, there's that that's a broad

00:34:22.580 sort of stroke. Give me some context of what you're looking for in terms of what, what specifically you

00:34:28.740 want to be more productive at. Do you have any non-negotiables when it comes to making sure that

00:34:34.160 you're as productive as possible? Cause it's one of those things that I found myself that I've

00:34:38.300 struggled with personally, you know, as I've gotten older and I've sort of like narrowed myself down to

00:34:42.600 a company of one sort of thing is how do you keep yourself motivated? How do you keep yourself

00:34:46.220 productive? You always have distractions. I mean, you're generally working from home. Um, so there's

00:34:51.380 a few tools that I've, you know, put in place, but I'm just curious, you know, is there anything that

00:34:55.060 you've relied on that you found most useful in your day-to-day life now? Yeah, look, I, I think it's

00:35:02.200 a great question. I, here's what I tell you is that, um, I'm not looking for more complicated tools.

00:35:09.400 I'm looking at ways to keep it simple. Um, you know, I would say my greatest hack is my

00:35:14.760 Sunday planning session where I basically lay out my week. It doesn't take long to do it, but just,

00:35:19.320 you know, kind of reviewing backs. I say in business, you need a telescope and a microscope,

00:35:24.060 you need a telescope to kind of zoom out into the future that you're trying to create, make sure you're

00:35:27.260 clear on where you're going. And then you come back and look at a microscope of like, what are the

00:35:31.320 actions I need to do today? And for the week ahead, they're going to move me towards that as a part of my

00:35:36.220 weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual priorities. Um, and so when you get that context, my find my,

00:35:42.140 my, my Sunday planning session really is helpful to then just let, here's all the things. And I,

00:35:47.260 I just need to write it all out on paper, all the things I'm thinking about. That doesn't mean I'm

00:35:49.980 going to do all the things, but if I just write it out for whatever reason, getting out of my head

00:35:53.300 onto paper. And I honestly, I've tried typing it in. I've tried other tools. I just think having

00:35:58.380 paper it's low tech, but it's just for whatever reason, it kind of kinetically connects with me.

00:36:03.820 And then once I've laid that out, you know, the Ben Franklin process is go through your list and

00:36:08.620 say, okay, what is critical to advancing this week? And those become your A's. What is nice to have?

00:36:14.860 Those become your B's and what's relatively trivial. Those become your C's and the A's are your priority.

00:36:20.160 And typically those items fall into the Covey quadrant of, uh, urgent and not important. Whereas if,

00:36:26.840 you know, I actually encourage people to go back and look at, by the way, I just recently reread

00:36:32.100 the seven habits and I'd read it many years ago and, you know, the book hasn't changed,

00:36:37.860 but I've changed. And I can say, honestly, this may be one of the best books, if not the best book

00:36:41.980 ever written in terms of just personal mastery and focusing what's important, but that quadrant

00:36:47.060 of making sure you're focused on what's, uh, uh, not urgent and important as much as possible.

00:36:53.300 Cause those are the big rock items that we need to advance our life that the rest are gravel and sand

00:36:59.140 that just fill up your time real easily. So auditing yourself at the end of the week too,

00:37:03.860 is something I think it's super important. Yeah. And for those guys watching that don't know the

00:37:08.740 book he's, he's talking about, it's Dale Carnegie, the seven habits of highly effective people. It's,

00:37:13.000 it's definitely one of the top five business books you should reach for sure. Um, so you've got

00:37:19.020 chapter eight to still down to stay pliable as Plato. Explain that. Yeah. Look, um, if you've played with

00:37:27.520 Plato, you know, that it's fun when it's pliable, but when it gets hard and brittle, um, it's,

00:37:32.060 it's no good. And so I liken that the softness of Plato comes from you working the Plato, right?

00:37:38.200 You let it sit over time. It gets hard and eventually goes brittle. And that softness comes

00:37:43.100 from leaning in and adding energy to it. And I liken that to in business that in order for you to

00:37:49.500 build meaningful relationships, you need a baseline of trust. Um, the two most important decisions that

00:37:55.040 you make in life is who do you marry and who do you get in business with? Uh, those will highly

00:37:59.320 influence your, your joy and happiness factor in life. And for those relationships to work

00:38:05.000 in any kind of measurable way, it needs trust. And without a lack of trust, you have no basis to

00:38:11.340 actually build anything valuable. And Lencioni talks about this in, in the five dysfunctions where

00:38:16.480 trust is a baseline. If you have trust, you're actually willing to get into conflict with each other,

00:38:20.860 not about who's right, but what's right. You're pushing each other to get the best outcomes in

00:38:25.440 your best relationships. If you have that trust, your partners will recognize that when you're

00:38:31.120 leaning to something, it is because you're doing it out of love. You're doing it out of your concern.

00:38:34.500 You're doing it out of the hope to build something better. And once you have people's ability to weigh in

00:38:40.240 and buy in, there can be accountability, commitment, and then results. So, uh, I, I talk about as an

00:38:47.260 example, you know, this is actually a company I co-founded that I got fired from. And I talk about

00:38:51.740 how, uh, a little bit of that story would happen, but the baseline is, is that we went from having

00:38:57.400 some trust or if I thought to developing artificial harmony, where we were just sitting around and 0.97

00:39:01.980 grin fucking each other. And, you know, it didn't ultimately mean or land the way that we hoped. So, 0.61

00:39:07.420 um, yeah, and it was a, an awesome experience. Cause again, we don't learn from what happens. We learn

00:39:12.540 from, uh, reflecting what happens and then they reflect on relationship here. I can recognize

00:39:16.700 and see that we didn't have that important base layer to build the trust necessary to be able to

00:39:22.540 do something meaningful with that company. So talks about those relationships and how to build more

00:39:26.380 trust. Is there a, um, you know, I always say you want to watch somebody's behaviors. Uh, and if

00:39:32.940 there's a conflict with the words, believe the behaviors over the words. Yeah. So, um, for me,

00:39:37.500 when it comes to trust, when it comes, you know, trust in a business relationship, friendships, uh,

00:39:41.980 you know, the check, it doesn't matter. There's always a timeframe that I'm going to assign where

00:39:48.060 I'm going to compare what's said versus what's done. Yep. Right. So, um, do you have a timeframe

00:39:55.660 where you assign trust to something? Like, how do you, how do you get to that level of trust where

00:40:01.340 you can just say, you know, here's the keys? Yeah. I think this is a great point. I don't think

00:40:07.180 it's given easily. Trust is something that's earned, not given. It takes years, even decades

00:40:13.100 to build and seconds to destroy because it comes down to one, uh, character, uh, virtue,

00:40:18.380 which is integrity and integrity is say what you're going to do and then do what you say.

00:40:22.380 And when people do that consistently and show up consistently with that, it builds trust. And when

00:40:27.420 they don't, it breaks it. So hence why I say these, you know, two really critical relationships in your

00:40:32.860 life, your, your, your life partner, as well as who you have as a business partner, if they don't

00:40:38.140 have integrity of words and actions alignment, there can be no trust. So it's, it is, or it's a

00:40:45.420 limited amount of trust. It's certainly not the kind of trust you're going to need to build any kind

00:40:48.940 of meaningful relationship of which those two institutions require it. Chapter nine, surf lucky

00:40:55.820 waves. What do you mean by that? So if we've listened to any of, uh, how I built this guy,

00:41:03.020 Ross, uh, podcasts, um, I love at the end, he asked the same question, how much of what happened

00:41:09.020 in your outcome? Cause he's interviewing, you know, these fascinating guests who've had these

00:41:12.220 companies they've built. And in most cases had some sort of an extraordinary outcome. And he always

00:41:15.980 asked the question, how much of your success is because you were good, you worked hard or you got

00:41:20.060 lucky. And it's always fascinating to listen to people's response. And the truth is if we think

00:41:26.620 about it, um, luck has an incredible amount to do with the outcome and luck can be distilled down

00:41:33.580 into one word, which is timing the right idea at the right time executed on. And so I talk about that,

00:41:41.100 you know, surfing is, is such an amazing sport. I'm currently my place in Florida. Uh, we get some

00:41:48.140 waves here. So I attempt to get out there and surf, although, you know, being a landlocked Canadian,

00:41:52.860 uh, you know, we don't get to do that very often, but it's, it's, it's what's so cool about the sport

00:41:58.300 is that literally it is all about identifying the swell, swimming out to be in the right spot,

00:42:06.220 paddling in at the right moment, and then standing up and riding the wave at exactly the right time.

00:42:12.620 And if you get any of that wrong, it's a mess. You either get Rick rolled into the whitewash

00:42:17.260 or you miss the wave and it goes past you. And so I use that to think about, you know,

00:42:21.740 business and how businesses really aligned with that sort of thinking. And in general,

00:42:27.580 I say, you know, any, any startup, there's kind of four critical elements that's required to take

00:42:32.140 something that's a startup and become something that's scalable and ultimately sustainable.

00:42:36.220 And that is you need a founder with a, um, an idea and ideas are like noses. Everyone's got them,

00:42:42.700 but that's kind of baseline. You need that second, you need a different strategy,

00:42:46.860 not a better strategy. Anytime you say it's better than you're comparing yourself to a market leader.

00:42:51.260 So you're already talking about a minimal part of market leftover. So I talk about how do you create

00:42:55.580 a different third is you need a team, a team of people who are actually going to help, um,

00:43:01.580 carry the mission and be the missionaries that take it to the finish line. And finally,

00:43:05.340 you need execution. And this is actually even more important than the team. And the example I use is

00:43:09.740 that when team Canada sent all these superstar NHL players to the Nagano Olympics back in, uh,

00:43:15.100 98 was the first time NHL has ever went. We had Messier, we had Gretzky, we had like the who's who of

00:43:20.940 hockey going, and we were going to for sure win the championship. We didn't even get a bronze.

00:43:24.860 And the reason why is even though we had all these great players, they couldn't execute,

00:43:28.140 they couldn't work as a team. So execution trumps the potential abilities of the team.

00:43:33.100 So those are the four elements that are required, but above all of that, you need luck,

00:43:39.020 meaning the right idea at the right time. And you know what, the right idea at the wrong time

00:43:43.420 is still the wrong idea. And then I talk about that, you know, not all waves are equal in life,

00:43:47.420 right? Like a North shore wave is different than a wave in Southern California versus a wave in Florida.

00:43:52.140 So the type of race, what we ride will determine the type of outcomes that we can expect in business.

00:43:58.380 And, uh, yeah, so it's again, I think the whole, the whole point though, get in the water and

00:44:03.500 start paddling. You can't, can't be watching it from the shoreline.

00:44:06.780 Yeah. There's always people that love sitting in the, uh, the stadium watching, uh, life, but,

00:44:12.300 uh, chapter 10 says, leave a Lego legacy. Lego was a big name today. It kind of was a big name

00:44:17.900 when I was a kid that went away and came back. What do you mean by that?

00:44:20.540 Yeah. You know, Lego is the ultimate toy. Um, these guys have, uh, first of all, it's a Danish 0.98

00:44:26.540 company and my ancestry is Danish as well. So there's some affection to that. And they're, they are now the

00:44:32.140 largest toy company in the world. Um, even though they're private, so it's not known, but they have

00:44:36.780 incredible, they're like a top 10 global brand. And the story is actually fascinating too, because

00:44:41.420 they came from humble beginnings. They were originally a wood, um, a wood toy company that

00:44:46.700 evolved into these plastic blocks. They almost went bankrupt in the early 2000s, which is shocking.

00:44:52.540 Um, and it's just, it's amazing to see where they are today. So look, I think when we start off in

00:44:58.140 our career, um, it's hard to know how we're going to be able to build anything of significance.

00:45:03.900 And I kind of think of that the same way with Lego blocks, Lego blocks are just kind of a pile of

00:45:07.820 blocks, lots of potential, but just blocks. And on their own, they're not that significant,

00:45:12.700 but as you snap them together, there's things that we learn, uh, along the way,

00:45:18.300 based on how we build it, that ultimately create a structure that is beautiful and meaningful.

00:45:24.860 And if you've created Lego structures, which it sounds like you have, you also recognize

00:45:28.780 that once you've created a structure that that's pretty cool that stands independent,

00:45:32.380 that's pretty cool on its own. But ultimately when you create a landscape with a bunch of structures,

00:45:38.140 that is awesome. So it's idea of going from dependence to independence to interdependence

00:45:43.980 and building a life that actually is creating more impact around other people. And so,

00:45:50.540 you know, yeah, the chapter just uses the idea behind blocks and how do we create more meaning

00:45:56.380 in terms of our lives of going from just being successful to significant and growing our circle

00:46:01.980 of influence and quite frankly, like what you're doing, like you releasing your, your book, your

00:46:07.740 podcast and a YouTube channel you've created. All of this is growing your circle of influence to be

00:46:13.740 able to build value in other people's lives and is a part of the legacy of what you've created.

00:46:18.780 You got a bonus section here that says red wagons are not meant to rust. I've seen a lot of rusty

00:46:24.780 red wagons. What do you mean by that?

00:46:27.260 Well, this is true. I have seen a lot of rust red wagons. I mean,

00:46:30.540 Ben Franklin said that most people die at age 25. They just wait to 70 to be buried.

00:46:35.580 And it's also said that the wealthiest place in the world is the graveyard where most people go with 0.96

00:46:40.460 their best ideas and best intentions still within them. You know, books that were never written,

00:46:44.620 songs never sung, businesses that were never started, that humans are the only species that

00:46:50.220 are capable of being less than what's possible. So you think about it, a tree will grow as high

00:46:56.940 and as big as it can. You know, squirrels will gather as many nuts as possible for winter as they

00:47:02.700 can. Ants will, you know, collect as much food for winter as they can to support the colony. But it's

00:47:09.020 only us as humans that have this choice to be able to be average or less than what's possible.

00:47:15.420 And so the idea that at the end of my life, I want to know that I have found all of my

00:47:22.300 internal potential and I've left it all behind on the field of life. One of my mentors, Jim Rohn,

00:47:28.380 used to say in life, you may not be able to do all you find out, but make sure you find out all you can

00:47:33.180 do. And, you know, my dad, I reference in this book, so kind of crazy that at the front end of

00:47:40.620 this book, my father passed away from COVID. And, you know, I know COVID had an incredible impact

00:47:45.580 on the world in general, but when it happens that close to home, it's like, wow, this was real.

00:47:51.420 And at the end of the book, my mother passes away kind of as a byproduct also of COVID. And so

00:47:57.980 what I would say is it, it, it, it was a softening process in terms of my ability to kind of lean in

00:48:04.620 and understand. But, you know, the value of my parents, my life, but I reference that to say

00:48:09.660 that my father, I recognize now the incredible value and principles that he instilled my life.

00:48:15.260 And, you know, he said something when I was young and it made such impact that I actually wrote it out

00:48:21.260 and put it on a bed frame next to my bed. But he said to me, he said, Brad, in life, you're going to

00:48:24.380 pay one of two prices, the price of discipline or the price of regret. The price of discipline

00:48:29.340 is going to weigh ounces. It's going to cost you something, but the price of regret weighs tons

00:48:34.460 and will crush you under its weight. And those words, they still haunt me, but they certainly

00:48:40.540 haunt me at a young age. And in the mornings when I'd wake up and it'd be dark and cold as it gets in

00:48:45.700 Canada, you know, I would read those words and to make the difference whether I'd roll over or I'd roll

00:48:50.540 out and embrace the discomfort and take on the possibilities for the day. And so this chapter

00:48:56.220 is really about it. How do we do that? I actually tell a story of running the ultra marathon in Hong

00:49:01.100 Kong, which is a hundred kilometer race. Um, I'm not a distance runner. I'm not supposed to be,

00:49:04.540 I was a sprinter as a kid, you know, kind of built like you, Richard. And, um, it's, uh, yeah,

00:49:09.900 it makes it harder for guys like us to go and run along distances, unless you're David Goggins,

00:49:15.180 I guess. But, um, but it just, it's like, I was, it all came down to the curiosity of,

00:49:20.540 was it possible? Did I have it within me to do this race, which actually was a legacy 0.96

00:49:24.060 race from the Gurkhas who are the original badasses from World War II. So that's, uh, 1.00

00:49:28.700 that's what that chapter impacts. That's awesome. Um, when does the audible version come out?

00:49:35.420 Well, it's supposed to be out now. Um, but you know, did you read it or did you have somebody else

00:49:40.140 read it? No, I actually narrated the, uh, and I will say, I mean, did you do your book as well?

00:49:46.140 Cause I have your book, but I don't have the audible one of it. I just, yeah, get the,

00:49:49.500 get the second edition when it comes out in audible, because it's way better. I had my

00:49:53.660 editor come here and, um, he did the field reports as the editor in his own voice and the book itself,

00:50:00.540 like the edit on the first one, it isn't the greatest. So I wanted to clean up like the shitty,

00:50:06.220 um, the cuts and the arms and the breaths and stuff in there. So it's a bit of a task. I mean,

00:50:11.580 you run out of, like your voice goes away after a few days of doing it. I don't know if you found

00:50:15.260 the same thing. I was just going to say to you, like, I thought, how hard could it be to read

00:50:19.020 a book? It was like hard. So hard. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, so that's coming out pretty soon then.

00:50:25.820 So I'll grab that. And the audible of my second edition should be out pretty soon. The editor's just

00:50:30.700 doing the finishing touches. So I'll notify you guys when, when that's out, but grab Brad's book.

00:50:35.260 Um, I've, I've, I've sat with him for, uh, what, what, what must have like amounted to months,

00:50:42.940 you know, uh, in total during meetings and retreats and, um, you know, just social events

00:50:49.660 and stuff like that. Solid dude, um, fully co-sign anything that he puts out with his name on it.

00:50:55.500 I'm looking forward to listening to the audio version of it. What are you working on today? Is it,

00:51:00.060 is it still the, um, uh, case company with the recycled plastics for cell phones or.

00:51:06.060 Yeah. Yeah. And I tell, I talk about this in kind of the Lego legacy. So, uh, we got a couple of

00:51:13.260 minutes. So I'll just tell you a quick backstory. So during my life as a toy maker, I've literally

00:51:17.580 shipped billions of pieces of plastic around the planet. Um, always felt a little conflicted about

00:51:21.980 it because most toys end up in landfill, uh, within 90 days of purchase and people like,

00:51:26.380 really like Barbies and Tonka. And I'm like, no, probably not those, but it's the impulse things

00:51:31.340 that you're next to the counter and kids open them, play with them, break them. They go into garbage.

00:51:35.340 And that's the vast majority of toys sold. So when I exited the toy business and had a chance to

00:51:40.460 reimagine my future, uh, one of the things that I talk about that I focused on was I want to work

00:51:44.860 on things that ultimately made impact because I had a newfound freedom and I had the, the, the

00:51:49.340 luxury to do that. And so, uh, became one of the co-founders of Pila and we make the world's first

00:51:54.060 compostable phone cases. And, um, you know, that's a direct consumer brand and we've scaled that up to

00:52:00.300 be a very healthy eight figure business. Um, and it's been a lot of fun doing that,

00:52:04.700 but one, along the way we ran into this challenge where people were sending back their phone cases

00:52:09.660 to us. And we're like, no, no, no, you don't need to do this. Just put it in your home composting

00:52:12.540 bin. And they're like, well, we don't have a home composting bin. I'm like, we'll put it in your

00:52:15.420 industrial composting bin. Well, our industrial composter doesn't take it. So we recognized it

00:52:20.300 was just a lack of infrastructure. So that led us to develop Lomi and Lomi is the worst world's first,

00:52:27.260 uh, kitchen composter that takes all your organic waste and turns it into a

00:52:33.580 nutrient rich soil supplement while you sleep. Like you literally put your organic waste in,

00:52:38.460 hit a button and it processes it. And, uh, we launched it on a crowdfunding campaign in April,

00:52:43.820 2021 thinking maybe we would do a hundred thousand, 200,000, something like that. Cause you know,

00:52:49.100 Peloton is an example, did about $250,000 in sales. We ended up doing $9.7 million for the sales. Um,

00:52:57.260 and since then we've shipped almost 200,000 pieces into the market and, uh, have a, uh, a group of

00:53:03.500 raving fans. Cause we've taken what's disgusting, which is food waste and turned into something

00:53:07.260 delightful. And that pain point has been eliminated. And it also is this missing piece of infrastructure

00:53:13.660 to ultimately allow us to unleash the clean compostable economy. So, and it's aligned with my

00:53:18.940 values and my beliefs. So I love, love what I'm doing. How cool is that? All right. So guys,

00:53:23.100 check it out. Um, I'll leave the link in the description after I get off the show, but it's

00:53:26.700 in the live chat right now. If you want to grab his book, um, you can follow Brad on Twitter at,

00:53:31.980 uh, twitter.com forward slash Brad underscore Pedersen P E D E R S E N. And, uh, yeah,

00:53:39.500 check it out. See you guys, uh, very soon. Brad stick around.

Playing to Win - November 23, 2023

094 - Brad Pedersen - A ’how-to’ guide to entrepreneurship

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