Entrepreneurship Q&A with Patrick Bet-David
Episode Stats
Harmful content
Misogyny
2
sentences flagged
Hate speech
3
sentences flagged
Summary
In this episode, Pat McAfee talks about how he went from being a radio host on Fox News with Glenn Beck to now being one of the most influential people in American politics. He also talks about why he s more comfortable now talking about politics than he was a year ago, and why he doesn t need any money.
Transcript
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80% of people could care less about your problems.
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People are gonna die, there's gonna be divorces,
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you're gonna lose money, there's gonna be risk,
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there's gonna be enemies, there's gonna be people
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When I'm coming up and I'm building my insurance agency,
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in October 29th, 2010, I get a call from Glenn Beck.
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hey, I'd like to talk to Glenn Beck, okay, cool.
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I had a radio show called Saving America back then
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with the same place with Hugh Hewitt and Dennis Prager
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yeah, I want you to fly out to New York to be on Fox
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because we hear what you're doing and we want you to be on.
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And then I went on Fox News on 2010, that's 10 years ago.
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And I spoke and I'm not yet involved in politics.
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Like I'm not even, I'm 30 years old at the time,
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I come back, my San Francisco office shut down,
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I had my office in San Fernando Valley that shut down,
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Overnight from being on Fox News with Glenn Beck,
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Eventually what happened, my outlet, I stuck to economy.
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And I'm not fully where I will share with you everything
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I wrote a fiction book that took me five years to write,
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that if I published the world would think I'm crazy.
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I'm gonna publish after I sell majority of my shares here.
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Then maybe I'll publish the book and I'll put it out
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Because some people are gonna say, Pat, a little bit out there.
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That I'm more comfortable today talking about politics
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than a year ago, than two years ago, than three years ago.
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Because I don't need any of your money on here.
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This is, guys, you're not, like, value tamed is not,
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I don't know, value tamed is not 5% of my income.
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Only reason I'm saying this to you, I have the power
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So the other day Coca-Cola calls us and Leo handles this account.
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And Coca-Cola CMO, uh, hires me to be their, uh, consultant.
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So I don't know if it's this week or next week.
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I'm having a call with them and they pay premium because it's gonna this week.
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So it's this week and Leo dealt with them and they got them going.
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And I'm going to be working with them and their executives
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to help their marketing team identify their next five moves.
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Whether they say yes or no, I don't need that money.
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Because I build a business that's generating income.
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So you have to be thinking about if you're fully ready to make that move or not.
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I don't want to give you the naive move to say, go talk about what you believe in.
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You know, so if you do have aspirations long-term,
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remember, your next 15 moves, maybe talking politics will be your next 11 moves, your move 11,
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Hold yourself back a little bit and then release your thoughts when you have 5,
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10 million in a bank and you're more confident and you're not relying on one source of income.
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There are certain people that don't believe in this, but I do.
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I think you got to find a way to have carrots in your life to get you excited and recreate yourself.
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You know, the whole concept of capitalism is based on incentives.
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So if there's no incentives, capitalism doesn't work.
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You got to put some kind of incentives for you and your wife.
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What could that be? I don't know. You know, it could be anything.
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I said this the other day, and hopefully this will make sense to you.
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I currently right now have been living in a million and a half.
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I just sold my house for million six, five, something like that.
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I live in an eighty three hundred square foot house.
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But I told myself, babe, I don't want to go from one and a half to three million dollar house.
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I don't want to go from one and a half to five million dollar house.
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So I told her, I'm not going to be buying a big house.
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But now we're going from a one and a half million dollar house to potentially a 20 million dollar house.
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Because I went delayed gratification for a few years.
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Now, at the same time, I've had the Lambos, the Ferraris, the Porsches, the Rolls Royce, all those cars, because that's my incentive.
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I think you're talking about whether I need to be taking income or not, because I'd rather invest it back into the company.
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It all depends on how big of a thing you want to do in the next year, two years, three years.
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But if eventually you and your wife don't see an incentive, specifically your wife, like she needs to see some incentives.
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She may need to see incentives to kind of see this thing that you're working so hard.
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We've never done a organization recruiting the staffing agency recruiting for the field.
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We've always use recruiting agencies for home office always.
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Multiple staffing for home office, never for the field.
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Now, obviously, you have to also know that we get a lot of leads that come through
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PHP's YouTube channel or people see a video from me on value attainment.
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Oh, my gosh, I've always wanted to get into insurance.
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And then, boom, they send an information and that goes out.
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But we don't have a place we go through or we get the leads.
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We just have a ridiculous system that we've trained our guys on a war market that's worked very well.
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And if you do that right, it could work very well for you.
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Today, if you're looking at young guys, I mean, Instagram today is the number one recruiting tool out there.
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There's not a better tool in recruiting today than Instagram.
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But the part you've got to be thinking about is the following.
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The comp structure of many companies will determine whether the salespeople will recruit or they will sell.
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Where you put your incentives is where your salespeople will go bring new talent for you.
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So if a part of your incentive is based on me recruiting talent, I'm going to recruit more talent for you.
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I was consulting this trucking company and they were doing, you know, 5 million a year, you know, 10 million a year business.
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And I went out there one day and we worked on their comp plan for an entire day.
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We spent one full day on their comp plan, one full day on their comp plan.
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And we came back and we put a comp structure together for them.
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2020, they ended up with a quarter of a billion dollars of sales.
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But their sales, and all they changed is they changed the incentive for their branch managers that they have.
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And they started bringing in guys that started selling loads.
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And the next thing you know, now they have branches in U.S., Mexico, Canada, Europe, Armenia, all over the place.
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And they're doing around a quarter of a billion dollars a year.
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You got to kind of look at your comp plan and see where the incentive could be for your sales guys to be recruiting versus just selling.
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If you look at a guy's kids on how the kid does whatever he does, look at kids of teachers.
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If you know a teacher in your family that's an older teacher, like let's just say in their 60s and they have three or four kids, what do their kids do?
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Because the teacher's number one incentive in the family is to do what?
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So whatever incentive you create, I guarantee you, your kids are going to go after those incentives.
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Your sales guys are going to go through those incentives.
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I changed my comp structure probably 50 times in the first 24 months.
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And then I just said, oh my gosh, this one's going to take off.
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I just had a meeting with my guys and I announced to them on the first.
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My announcement was top 30 performers in a company for 21st to 30th place.
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11th through the 20th, I get them a Porsche 911 and I fly them out to Germany to go pick
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Second to 10th place, I'm getting everybody a cash brand new Ferrari Portofino.
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And in first place, I'm getting you a cash Aventador and I'm flying you out to Lamborghini
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In order for me to buy those $5 million worth of cars, the company has to grow 40%.
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And you have no idea how crazy people are going right now.
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So there's a relationship where one of the most important trainings I ever did for my
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I said, let's talk about, here's how it opened up.
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I said, it was a four hour session I had with my guys.
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I sat in my room in Woodland Hills and I said, guys, I want you here long-term and I want
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But before I give you that, what is your expectation of me?
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And at first they start very soft, like small stuff.
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We would like you to be responsible financially.
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Or we would like you to add millions in the comp one day.
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And then it got bigger, which was great because it set me up for what?
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In order for me to be able to give this from you, is it fair to say that I should have
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I said, I got a PowerPoint prepared of what I expect from you in order for you to get what
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And this can be a very simple relationship together.
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I went through on exactly what I expected from you.
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And I think sometimes the relationship between the supervisor, the CEO, the boss and their
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But if you come from a, and you have to let them talk first, not you.
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You have to be sensitive in addressing the most uncomfortable topics way before you hire
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Like I said, do you want a salary or do you want to be a consultant?
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So, but that can't be like, oh my gosh, we're going to take over the world together.
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Like slow down and take a few more weeks before you do this, but ask all the difficult
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And Soren, it's, it's the closest thing to a prenuptial agreement you can have.
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And I don't know if you have a nuptial agreement or not.
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It's the closest thing to a nuptial agreement you can have.
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You got a comp for salary benefits, all the other stuff you negotiate.
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Then it's, you know, 20% bonus, 25% bonus, whatever the bonus will be based on markers.
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If he hires this person for me, if he raises this much money, if the EBITDAs are on this
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number, if we grow at a 40% rate, whatever, if we, if we, if we, if we, if we, whatever
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those markers are going to be, then he knows what he has to hit.
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If he doesn't hit it, he doesn't get that 25% bonus.
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So if you pay him a salary of, I don't know, pick a number, uh, uh, uh, for the sake of
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easy math, let's just use a hundred thousand dollars.
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Obviously you have to pay more than a hundred, but for the sake of math, if you use a hundred
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thousand dollars and you say, I'm going to pay you an additional 50% of bonuses.
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Divided amongst five different areas, 10% if the company grows by 40% net profit.
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If we grow and do 1.4 million, you hit your $10,000 bonus.
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I need a director of finance and I need a controller.
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If you find those three, that's another $10,000.
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I need the office to be restructured, set up and you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, lease,
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So you create whatever those markers are with the incentives.
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He's got his day to day plus those five incentives.
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You may have to agree on three years because this guy's just better than you.
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And then you're going to have to work to get on relationship, you know, calling him out.
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He's somebody that's self-made, but behind closed doors, you can.
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Half the battle with lying is you're trying to avoid conflict.
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You're trying to avoid conflict or you're trying to avoid embarrassment or you want to look
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You know, you know, the whole thing where guys will say they've been with three times the
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girls they've been with and girls will say three times less than the guys they've really
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Scientists have done extensive research on this.
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So don't call me out and say, Pat had a, you know, moment where he's calling out women.
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To say, well, I haven't really done it full run as much as I have.
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Now, there's a difference between that and lies like that, or you have a commitment to
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There's a difference between that and, you know, a compliance lie.
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You can take a company down with a compliance lie.
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And there's a difference between that and, but I call out the behavior because I don't
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And I don't tolerate anything that's going to hurt the company and bring others down.
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So the more you talk about it, sometimes the challenge, Simon, is your values and principles
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to the field or your employees or your executive team is not clear.
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If they don't know your set of values and principles and you don't talk about it over
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and over and over and over and over and over again, then they don't know what your
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They're kind of like, I don't know what it takes to make Simon happy.
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I don't know what's a good investor because you've never had those values and principles.
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Well, you take a piece of paper and a Sunday afternoon or Saturday afternoon, and you sit
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down and say, what are the best employees I've ever had?
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What do you love most about Johnny, Jackie, Larry, Mary, and then who were the employees
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or what kind of behavior hurt the company the most and what set back the company the most?
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Which one of those behaviors will you not tolerate?
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Then I'm going to sit there and I'm going to say, oh, I do that sometimes.
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But you got to share your values and principles.
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I read a book a few months ago called No Rules Rules, and I had every one of my employees
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read the book No Rules Rules, and I had them measure what matters.
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And after everybody read No Rules Rules, we kind of sat down and we went through the process
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of what everybody was saying, what I was saying, kind of figured out some people just don't
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belong here in the culture, and I'm not changing.
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Because if I have to conform to you, I never had a real culture.
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I didn't take time to really process what my culture was.
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The moment you do that, then they'll know what to respond to.
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But if they don't, and you keep it a secret, no one knows what's bothering you and what's
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And by the way, if I lose safe around you and you want me to be around with you long term,
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if you don't allow me to save face, I will leave you because you offended me.
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So you also got to make sure you're not, you know, hey, papa, papa, you know, you're not
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coming out just like, I don't care what happens, you know, no, you don't want to do that.
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You got to let me save face because I'm going to make more mistakes.
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You know, if I don't have that opportunity for people to save face, sometimes you need
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a crisis to create even more loyalty with your employees.
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Sometimes you need a problem where we overcome together, then the team's like this.
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That's why so many people, when they go to war together, their level of bond is the kind
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that they'll never have with their wives or husbands or, you know, kids.
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We were so annoyed with each other because somebody screwed up, but we overcame that.
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You have to give that opportunity for people as well.
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Make a note of what you won't tolerate, what you like, what's been qualities of your best
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employees, give that message to your guys, then go talk to that person, help them save
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face and help them save their ego and then challenge them to improve and then go about
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It's all on what kind of a culture you want to create, because if it's external, there
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It's like, I'm not emotionally connected to you, the vision, any of that.
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So, you know, the risk of one internal, what's the risk?
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When it comes down to sell, it's very value-based because somebody sees the culture that's already
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in there with leaders that are vested that are not going to go.
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And it's turnover is going to be higher because you're just another boss.
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You're just another person that's paying them the bills.
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So, I think the question you got to answer with that one is, what's your vision?
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You know, right now, my guys are working out of home.
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However, you know, one of my IT guys came up to me.
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He said, Pat, you got to realize there's a big difference between the IT industry people
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and other types of people that you hire in different departments.
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We like to stay with the company because we want to finish the problem that we started
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He says, most IT guys, if they go to a company, they take care of them.
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Because, you know, we kind of want to continue solving the problem.
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He said, the rest of the people that you have in different departments, they're here because
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Which one's going to increase the value for you?
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I would tell you right now, as you're going through the transition, probably you need a
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To do as we're going through the phase that we're going through right now.
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But the question will be answered with that based on what your vision is long-term.
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I interviewed a guy a couple of weeks ago who's a cardiologist.
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I don't know if you guys know who Cyril Wecht is.
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Cyril Wecht is a number one pathologist in America.
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He's the guy that he's done 21,000 autopsies, okay, brains, and he supervised 41,000 of it.
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It's to hold brains and to deal with dead people.
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You know what's a part of a cardiologist's job?
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Unfortunately, his job is to sometimes go to families and say what?
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You ever seen a movie, John Q, where the whole heart thing, and you saw one of the heart surgeons
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in a movie, John Q, with Denzel Washington, where the way the doctor speaks, he's so logical.
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I don't know if you guys know what I'm talking about.
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And the rest of the world is like, what a cold mother you-know-what.
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In football, when there's a massive injury in a game, players psychologically get afraid.
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If you look at football, the coaches and great coaches in that moment have to get their players
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If you play afraid of being injured, the chance of you getting injured goes higher.
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If you play as if you're not going to get injured, the chance of you getting injured goes lower.
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That moment, what the coach tells his athletes is what gets the players to go back out there and play.
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After a guy just broke his leg, he's gone for one year.
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Kobe came back after having the whole Achilles heel.
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If you play the game of business, there's going to be enemies.
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There's going to be people that want to see you go out of business.
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So I don't want to seem like I'm not being empathetic or sympathetic.
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Believe me, I cried when I'm sitting there and watching my wife cry.
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And however many years ago, all our parents conceived.
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And we got around eight years to see what we can do with our lives.
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But I want you to know, and this message goes to everybody, is brace for impact.
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There's going to be some bad things that are going to happen to you in 2021.
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There's going to be some bad things that are going to happen to you.
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There's going to be some things that are going to happen to you that you don't know about.
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They're going to get into a fight, injury, something like that.
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I told a guy the other day when the whole Jack Ma was being kidnapped in China.
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I said, you know what's one of the biggest mistakes people make in life that gives an automatic control to politicians to be able to manipulate you for the rest of your life?
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Because if people want to really hurt you, they go straight to what?
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If you don't do this, this is what's going to happen to your kids.
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If you have kids, something could happen to your kid.
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If you eat the food and it's too much sugar, bad diet, you may have something to do with your heart.
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Now, here's also some guaranteed news about 2021.
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There's going to be some great things that are going to happen to you in 2021.
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You're going to meet someone new that you didn't know before that's going to change your life.
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A new friend, a new contact, a new client, a new salesperson.
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And that's going to happen every single year for the rest of our lives until it's time for us to go away.
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But if you wake up every morning afraid that, you know, what if this, what if that, and oh my gosh, sorry me, feel sorry for me.
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You are going to stunt so much of your growth because that's not going away.
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Everybody and everybody else in the world is dealing with their own set of problems.
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80% of people could care less about your problems.
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Exes, former friends, former employees, former workers are glad you're getting new problems.
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You got to live your life and you do your best and good things will happen to you.