Emotional Work Ep 624

In this episode, the host and guests explore the dichotomy of maintaining optimism while confronting harsh realities in entrepreneurship. The host of acquisition.com shares his journey toward building a billion-dollar portfolio, emphasizing the importance of a positive mindset and the willingness to face difficult truths. Gym Lodge's sales team's reluctance to face reality prompts a discussion on Jim Collins' leadership principles, highlighting the balance between hope and factual awareness. The host recounts his own growth, the evolution of his thought patterns, and the value of engaging directly with customers to stay informed and agile. The episode concludes with an invitation to access more visual content on the host's YouTube channel, emphasizing the multifaceted approach to business growth and customer engagement.

• Negative team members can hinder the ability to see positives.
• Self-awareness is crucial to manage one's own negative thoughts.

"And so if you have somebody on your team who is constantly talking negative, it's difficult for them to even see anything positive, and then they end up sabotaging themselves."

This quote emphasizes the detrimental effect a persistently negative team member can have on themselves and the team's morale.

"But you yourself have to think, or at least for me, you have to catch your own thoughts around that stuff."

This quote highlights the importance of self-monitoring one's thought patterns to prevent being influenced by negativity.

• Wealthy individuals view business as a strategic game.
• The podcast aims to share business growth lessons.
• The ultimate goal is to help others grow their businesses and potentially partner to reach significant financial milestones.

"The wealthiest people in the world see business as a game."

This quote encapsulates the mindset that successful businesspeople often adopt, treating business as a competitive yet strategic game.

"This podcast, the game, is my attempt at documenting the lessons I've learned on my way to building acquisition.com into a billion dollar portfolio."

Speaker B states the purpose of the podcast, which is to document and share valuable business lessons from their experience.

• Good leaders balance optimism with a realistic understanding of facts.
• Jim Collins' work is referenced regarding leadership traits.
• Entrepreneurs evolve by stressing less over time about issues that previously affected them.
• Personal development in entrepreneurship is a cycle of acquiring skills, character traits, and breaking beliefs.

"One of the things that came up from my sales guys on our side for Gym Lodge was that at this current period of time, there are more gyms that are getting on the phone and they described it as being reluctant to confront reality."

Speaker A brings up an issue observed by sales personnel, where there's a reluctance to confront the current realities in the gym business.

"Jim Collins talks about some of the character traits of good leaders, and he talks about one dichotomy, which are two kind of things that you have to balance back and forth, which is maintaining almost unreasonable optimism for the future while also confronting the brutal facts of reality."

This quote summarizes Jim Collins' perspective on the duality of leadership traits, balancing optimism with the acknowledgment of harsh realities.

"And so not to go back to the talent stacking kind of module of progression for entrepreneurs, but first you acquire skills, then you acquire character traits, and then you break beliefs, right? And that's a cycle that continues to happen at each level."

Speaker A describes the process of entrepreneurial growth as a cyclical pattern of skill acquisition, character development, and belief transformation.

• Optimism is crucial for the willingness to face difficult truths.
• Small business owners often avoid looking at critical financial metrics.
• Confronting issues directly, such as sales performance, is necessary despite discomfort.
• The concept of loving bad news as a means to find solutions is emphasized.
• Entrepreneurs are characterized by their ability to thrive under pressure and in unfamiliar environments.

"That optimism is what allows us to then get into the mud and confront the brutal reality of a situation."

This quote highlights the importance of optimism as a precursor to facing challenging situations head-on. It suggests that a positive outlook enables individuals to tackle the less pleasant aspects of their work or business.

"Not wanting to look at what your sales conversion numbers are, not wanting to listen to sales recordings because you're afraid of how bad your sales team might be."

This quote illustrates the common avoidance behavior among business owners when it comes to confronting potential weaknesses or problems within their operations, particularly in the area of sales.

"The sooner you find out your bad news, the better it is."

The speaker is emphasizing the value of early detection of problems, drawing an analogy with medical diagnoses to underscore the benefits of facing issues promptly.

"We have to rewire our brains to start loving bad news and trying to frame them as, instead of problems as really opportunities to come up with solutions."

This quote suggests a mindset shift is required to view challenges not as insurmountable problems but as opportunities for improvement and innovation.

• The speaker expresses personal calmness and happiness amidst the Covid crisis.
• Challenges like Covid force a focus on what truly matters and present opportunities for growth.
• Entrepreneurs inherently enjoy risks and changes, which are part of the business landscape.
• Employees may not share the same comfort with change as entrepreneurs do.
• Business is likened to a gamble, emphasizing risk and skill in entrepreneurship.

"I've actually never been more calm and I've never been happier... during this whole Covid mess."

The speaker is sharing a personal reflection on their emotional state during a crisis, indicating that such situations can bring clarity and satisfaction to those with an entrepreneurial spirit.

"It forces you to just focus on the only things that matter and everything else just become extraneous."

This quote captures the essence of crisis management, where non-essential concerns fall away, allowing entrepreneurs to concentrate on core issues.

"If you have employees, then you should understand that they definitely aren't comfortable like you are in change."

The speaker acknowledges the difference in how entrepreneurs and their employees may perceive and adapt to change, highlighting the need for leaders to be mindful of their team's comfort levels.

"We love the risk, we love the change, we love to be assert. To a certain extent, we love the gamble."

This quote encapsulates the entrepreneurial mindset, which embraces uncertainty and views business as an exciting challenge rather than a burden.

• Balancing persistent optimism with the recognition of harsh realities is crucial for success.
• Negative team members can hinder the ability to see positive outcomes and may lead to self-sabotage.
• Self-awareness and monitoring one's own thoughts are key to maintaining a positive outlook.
• Having a vision board with 'big ideas' can inspire and drive opportunities for growth and innovation.
• Balancing exciting, new projects with routine, necessary tasks is essential for progress.

"And so all that to say, it's maintaining the dichotomy of being persistently and almost unreasonably optimistic with the ability to confront brutal facts."

This quote emphasizes the importance of keeping a balance between optimism and the ability to face difficult truths. This balance is vital for personal and professional development.

• A vision board serves as a constant source of inspiration and a reminder of the 'big ideas' that can lead to significant opportunities.
• It helps in maintaining enthusiasm for the work by juxtaposing exciting projects with mundane tasks.

"And so I always have these things which are new and fun and exciting for me. And I balance those that work that I have to do with, like the meetings and the one on ones and doing reps and just the boring work. Right?"

This quote illustrates the speaker's personal strategy of using a vision board to keep motivated and focused on growth while managing the less exciting aspects of their work.

• Offering a video version of content can enhance the audience's experience by engaging different sensory perceptions.
• Visuals and effects can help in making the content more memorable and impactful.

"If you ever want to have the video version of this, which usually has more effects, more visuals, more graphs, drawn out stuff, sometimes it can help hit the brain centers in different ways."

Speaker C suggests that their YouTube channel provides a more enriched experience of the podcast, which could be beneficial for those who prefer visual learning.

• Direct interaction with customers, such as through daily calls, is a valuable tool for reality checks and problem-solving.
• It can be daunting for businesses to face their customers regularly, but it is a practice that can lead to significant improvements and customer satisfaction.
• Such interactions are cornerstone activities that have proven to be extremely beneficial over time.

"And it forces me to solve problems in real time, and it forces me to constantly confront reality."

Speaker A explains that daily customer calls are not only a method of engagement but also a discipline that compels them to address issues immediately and stay grounded in the customer's reality.

• Active engagement with customers provides immediate insights into current needs.
• Direct communication allows for faster product improvement and innovation.

Because in taking those calls, I, one know exactly what the needs of a gym owner are today, right now, not last week, not an hour ago, right now.

This quote emphasizes the importance of real-time knowledge of customer needs, highlighting the value of immediate feedback in understanding and responding to client requirements.

Two, I know the intimate pains that they are struggling right now, which allows me to improve my product at such a faster rate than anyone else does.

The speaker stresses the advantage of knowing the specific challenges their customers face, which enables rapid product enhancements and gives them a competitive edge.

• The ability to test and iterate quickly is a key factor in staying ahead in the industry.
• Effective communication and rapid distribution of innovations help maintain industry leadership.

And so the reason I think that Gymwatch has been able to consistently stay on top of an industry that typically very much cycles through, quote, gurus, right?

This quote suggests that Gymwatch's success is due to its capacity for continual innovation and adaptation in a fluctuating industry that often follows trends set by "gurus."

And it's been because we've been able to innovate solutions at a faster rate and we've been able to distribute those innovations across our community at a faster and more effective rate.

The speaker attributes their sustained success to the speed and efficiency of their innovation process and the dissemination of these innovations within their community.

• Regular dialogue with customers leads to better communication and understanding of their issues.
• Awareness of product effectiveness and necessary process changes is heightened through consistent customer interaction.

Number one and two, we are better able to communicate with our customers, right, and prospective customers, because we understand their pains now, why? Because we talk to them every single day.

This quote highlights the value of daily conversations with customers, which improves communication and deepens understanding of customer challenges.

And if our product doesn't work, we know if there's a process that needs to change like it used to be, like this, and now it has to be like this. We know.

The speaker points out that regular customer feedback allows them to quickly identify and implement necessary changes to their product or processes.

• Maintaining a balance between optimism and confronting harsh realities is crucial.
• Knowing business metrics and being on the front lines with customers sharpens competitive edge.

The unreasonable optimism with the confrontation of brutal facts is one with the unreasonable optimism.

This quote introduces the concept of balancing optimism with a clear-eyed view of the actual challenges and facts of the business environment.

Have your list of big ideas that I'm working on and pushing forward. And then on the flip side, being able to confront the brutal facts of reality.

The speaker advises having a vision for big ideas while also being prepared to face and address the tough realities that may impact those ideas.

• Direct interaction with customers is not just valuable for intelligence gathering but also for keeping a competitive edge.
• The benefits of understanding customer needs outweigh the time investment required for front-line engagement.

Not because you need to value your time. My time's worth more than that. It's not because the value of the intel, of what is going to come to you in terms of the needs of the customer and how much your product can improve and where the opportunities exist will far outweigh the cost of time that it takes.

The speaker argues that the insights gained from direct customer engagement are more valuable than the time spent, as it leads to a deeper understanding of customer needs and product improvement opportunities.

And it also keeps your teeth sharp so that no one can sneak up from behind you and take you without under surprise.

This quote suggests that staying actively involved with customers helps maintain a competitive advantage and prevents being caught off-guard by competitors.