0:00

When I got my testosterone measured after having

0:02

drank , like , say , four nights a week , my testosterone

0:04

was at like 330 and it should have been at

0:06

like 900 . So a third of what it should have

0:08

been . Get a Google Doc open and write down

0:10

the steps that are necessary to do that correctly

0:12

and record yourself actually doing

0:15

the task in Loom as an example , and talk

0:17

through what you're doing . Then you have this

0:19

list of all these tasks that you're performing . You've got

0:21

all the documentation around it , all of the Loom

0:24

videos around it and at the very least , you can start

0:26

delegating some of this stuff . Platforms like school

0:28

represent amazing opportunities to

0:30

bring people together around something you

0:32

really enjoy Kind of assemble your tribe

0:35

with clear community guidelines and a community

0:37

manifesto and kind of the rules of

0:39

engagement of like what we do in the community and what we

0:41

don't do .

0:41

Matt Gray is the systems guy . He

0:44

shares proven systems to grow a profitable

0:46

audience with organic content . He's

0:48

built a community of over 14

0:51

million people through organic content

0:53

Now true founders OS . He's transforming

0:55

good founders to be great and he's building

0:58

the world's greatest founder led

1:00

community . Building a business is hired . Matt's

1:02

purpose is to make the founders journey

1:04

more joyful and magical , all by contributing

1:07

to the four W's in life Work

1:09

where you want , on what they want , with who you

1:11

want and wherever you want . This episode

1:13

is a deep dive into creating systems

1:15

, eliminating the unessential , taking

1:17

care of your health and building community of

1:19

fellow builders . What's up , people

1:22

? Before we get into this video , please make sure

1:24

to subscribe , like and comment

1:26

down below so we can get bigger , better

1:29

guests for you every single week

1:31

. Let's get straight into the video right now . Let's

1:33

kick off . Let's do it , man . I want to start

1:35

with a point that you always bring

1:37

up , which is pain plus reflection equals progress

1:40

. Where's that ?

1:41

So I learned this from the book Principles

1:44

by Ray Dalio . You

1:46

know one of the most prolific investors of the last hundred years

1:48

. And so , yeah

1:50

, I think , as founders , oftentimes

1:53

we're always looking for that mentor , someone external

1:56

, to teach us different lessons or how we can improve

1:58

, when really , at the end of the day , oftentimes you

2:00

are your greatest mentor . And

2:02

so I think , slowing

2:05

down , kind of taking time

2:07

to reflect , analyze , you know

2:09

, what you've learned over the last month as an example

2:11

, what mistakes have you made , what's gone well

2:14

, what hasn't gone well , what have you learned , and

2:16

then using that to iterate on a monthly

2:18

basis and then coming up the next

2:21

month with new insights and learnings

2:23

based on that reflection leads

2:26

to a lot of traction and I think

2:28

the pain side of it is kind

2:30

of a bit of a mindset shift . The reality is , you

2:32

know , when you're building a business , there's

2:35

going to be bottlenecks , there's going to be problems . Oftentimes

2:37

your job is to just prioritize what

2:39

you focus on , based on where the biggest problems in

2:42

a business and then fixing them . And

2:44

so , versus seeing pain is a

2:46

bad thing , pain is oftentimes like just the biggest

2:48

opportunity , and if you can kind of slow down , reflect

2:50

, you know you have an awesome opportunity to really

2:52

grow much faster , I think as a founder .

2:55

Let's get into that , because people want

2:57

to avoid pain right , but it's kind of the inevitable

2:59

in a business or like training or

3:01

meditation . It's usually that difficult

3:04

point that most people don't want to do is what

3:06

you should do , because most people in this comfort are

3:08

living simple lives . They

3:11

, you know rough roads , rough roads and smooth

3:13

, smooth roads and rough . I

3:15

heard that from Daniel Priestly . So you've done

3:17

a lot of that in our work and it wasn't

3:19

always like that , though for your first startup

3:21

, would you say you would have just went through the fire day

3:24

in , day out and not kind of reflected .

3:26

Yeah , so building my first business

3:28

, bitmaker , you know , we trained full stack

3:30

software engineers , got them jobs at

3:33

companies like Shopify , google , meta

3:35

, and it was my first

3:37

business I'd ever built . I was 20 years old . We

3:40

had a successful exit from it , but it

3:42

was anything but successful . In my own brain

3:44

and in my own body when I was building it , it was

3:46

constant fires , chaos

3:48

, stressful as hell . I felt

3:51

burnt out , depleted , anxious , depressed

3:53

, and I

3:56

don't think I just knew how to cope with the

3:58

stress and I didn't know how to kind

4:01

of build systems in that business . Surround

4:03

myself with great people , it was oftentimes

4:05

just , you know , an inexperienced new founder

4:07

just trying his best to keep up , but it's

4:10

kind of on this endless hamster wheel of issues

4:12

and chaos , and so , yeah

4:16

, you know , I think that's oftentimes like

4:18

how we learn . Best , though , is like just

4:20

putting ourselves out there trying

4:22

things . I'm really big on kind of launch

4:25

and then figure it out , and I think bitmaker

4:27

was a great example of that , having no idea what

4:29

I was doing and just putting

4:31

myself into the arena and

4:34

kind of building the parachute on the way down . But , having

4:36

been through that , there's a lot of different ways I've built things now .

4:38

That's what I mean when you look back on that . Did

4:41

you look at that and think , ok

4:43

, I want to go back in the arena , but do you want to do it

4:45

better ? Or were you kind

4:47

of really afraid to get back in it ? Because

4:49

sometimes when people look at new businesses , if they've had

4:51

a bad experience , it will kind of deter them

4:54

from doing it again .

4:55

Yeah , there was definitely a period

4:57

of being like , hey , is

5:00

this , am I meant for this ? And I cut out for this . And

5:02

then , when I kind of started thinking clearly and

5:04

really examining my own values and what I am

5:06

after in life you know I love to

5:09

work on tough problems , I like to build

5:11

big things , I like to control where

5:13

I work , when I work , what I work on and

5:15

be able to work wherever I want to work . And

5:18

so it was obvious to me that , like

5:20

you know , I've been built since a young

5:22

age to be a founder and that's my

5:24

calling in life to be a founder and

5:26

to help other founders . What do you think that is ? What's

5:29

that ? What do you think that is ? So

5:31

I think there's

5:34

a couple of things like number one , like I think I have

5:36

a real distaste for the status quo . I

5:38

think a lot of founders are like that . You know they're in

5:40

a nine to five job maybe , but their

5:42

essence they're like screw this place , screw that guy

5:44

. You know I just want to run my own thing . So

5:47

that's very much me . Like I want to control

5:49

my own destiny , I want to control

5:52

business , like I want to build

5:54

something that I have skin in the game

5:56

. And then , in addition to that

5:58

, I think just you know it's something you're

6:00

kind of maybe born with , a bit right Like I

6:03

was born , you know , in a small

6:05

town north of Toronto , canada , the

6:07

kind of person that at a young age was like building a snow

6:09

shoveling business and going door to door and trying

6:12

to shovel people's driveways and then had a landscaping

6:14

business helping people tend to their gardens and

6:16

all this kind of stuff in the neighborhood . So always

6:18

this idea of just being able to go my

6:20

own path . I think I saw a

6:22

post around from George Mack , actually

6:24

you may know , talking about just like high

6:27

agency people . And I feel like it's

6:30

just that there's some people that just are high agency

6:32

, like they want to carve their own path . They

6:34

, when other people are digging , their

6:36

zaging , you know , when people

6:38

are seeing chaos , they see opportunity

6:40

and I think I've just kind of had that in me

6:43

from a young age .

6:44

It's when you see a problem , you see it as an opportunity

6:46

versus something to stop Right . And

6:48

that's the thing with founders is that we meet

6:50

the wall resistance continuously , but

6:52

it's about pushing through that wall resistance . So

6:54

when you're looking at like that inner work

6:56

which I think is really cool because you

6:59

document that really well , how you improve

7:01

, do a lot of reviews every single month and

7:03

making sure you're hitting those criteria what

7:06

type of like inner work did you do to make sure you're a better

7:08

founder right , because it's not always your business

7:10

is a reflection of you . So how

7:12

you've even seen yourself develop like that continuously

7:15

Maybe you're reading , maybe what influences you .

7:17

Yeah . So I think there's like a whole kind of learning stack

7:20

I've established over the years that has

7:22

allowed me to kind of , you

7:24

know , gain the traction that

7:26

I've gained in both my life and business

7:29

. A lot of those lessons

7:31

have been learned the hard way . But you know

7:33

, one thing I think that's at the top of the list for

7:35

me personally not advocating it for everyone

7:37

is sobriety For

7:39

me . You know , when I was building

7:41

my first business , I coped the stress

7:43

with alcohol and

7:46

I ended up running a business

7:48

that was running me into the ground and

7:51

I didn't realize how much it was affecting me . Because

7:53

, you know , alcohol normally affects your mood

7:55

, but it affects your sleep and it kind of

7:57

has this downward spiral effect . And

8:00

so , yeah

8:03

, really dialing in my sobriety changed

8:05

my mood , changed my energy . It

8:07

also affects your hormones as well . So being able to get

8:09

my testosterone back and my sleep back has

8:11

made me just that much more of a

8:13

high performing individual , and so

8:16

I've been sober for about five years now and that's been

8:18

an absolute game changer . I

8:20

think . Also , something I'm really big on is

8:22

taking soul trips every six

8:24

weeks , so getting away

8:26

, getting into nature I'm plugging

8:29

this weekend as an example , going to

8:31

a mon with my girlfriend taking four

8:33

days swimming with some sharks hanging

8:35

on the beach playing some tennis . I don't

8:37

know what we'll end up doing . The point is just kind

8:40

of booking a spontaneous trip

8:42

, getting away , this idea of like we work hard

8:44

as founders but play harder and

8:46

take time to also make sure that you're

8:48

building your life resume right , that you

8:51

are like checking things off

8:53

the list , that when you look back on your life when you're

8:55

85 , you're like , damn , I friggin

8:57

went hard and that was amazing All the things I

8:59

accomplished . Because business is just one

9:01

bucket in life and I think it's an illusion that a lot

9:03

of founders see is that oh , I got this amazing

9:05

business , but then every seven other bucket

9:08

of your life is just depleted . So

9:10

this is like family , friends , mind

9:12

, body , spirit , adventure , fun , play like all these

9:14

things matter .

9:16

It's because , like , your business can consume you , right , because

9:18

there's always something to fucking do . It could be more

9:20

sales , more marketing , improve your fulfillment , there's

9:22

always something to do . So if you don't

9:24

feel not devoid , but don't fill

9:26

the space with other things that you really enjoy , like

9:29

going to Oman and going to just

9:31

do other things , you're going to fall into just

9:33

working 24 , seven and

9:36

again , life is in seasons . Right

9:38

, that's fine for a quarter , but you can't do that

9:40

forever . Now going back to the alcohol and

9:42

I think that's super interesting , right , because I'm

9:44

from Ireland a lot of people , young

9:46

, they drink , but they don't see

9:48

that as being a problem . But

9:51

I have a bit of a kind

9:53

of a worry around this , because a lot of people that are

9:56

struggling , they don't see

9:58

alcohol to be the reason . Why Does

10:00

that make sense ? So they have a really

10:03

shit scenario . They're working

10:05

a job that they hate and then they're going out

10:07

the weekend to get away from that

10:09

lifestyle and they don't

10:11

identify that to be the problem . And I have a video

10:13

on YouTube that's like 500 days of alcohol . 90%

10:16

of the comments are positive , but the 10% are

10:18

people that like kind of internally

10:21

hate themselves , that are saying that it's not a problem

10:23

, and a lot of people were even saying on LinkedIn

10:25

when I put it up , saying that , well

10:27

, you could have it , a moderation , you could have just one drink

10:30

a month and all this stuff . But the

10:32

reality is most people don't do that and they

10:34

use it as a scapegoat , basically for

10:36

their life . So how you see that kind of observe

10:38

even yourself because I see

10:40

a lot of founders , you know , doing founder parties

10:43

and they're drinking all the time it's quite

10:45

strange , right , it's something that it's a drug that's

10:47

basically accepted . Yeah

10:49

, Society .

10:50

So I don't want to speak to the other people's perspective

10:53

on things like I think that you know to each their

10:55

own . I can only speak about my own personal experience

10:57

with alcohol , and

10:59

my perspective on it for myself

11:02

is that you

11:04

think about like a well-lived life or being a well-rounded

11:07

founder . It's a game of inches , and

11:10

every little inch you can get of

11:12

progress momentum , you're going

11:14

to seize it , and so if

11:17

you are doing anything

11:19

right whether that's arguing

11:21

with someone , hiring the wrong person , drinking

11:24

and being hungover in the morning , whatever

11:26

those things are right , binge eating , late at night

11:28

, which , hey , we're all guilty of here and there the

11:31

point is , when you stack these things up

11:33

like , you're just losing inch by inch

11:35

. And I

11:37

live in a world and I hold myself to a standard

11:40

where , like , every inch matters , and

11:42

so I

11:44

think that , with alcohol as

11:46

an example , one of the biggest things I

11:48

found that it did after

11:51

learning more about it is that it has

11:53

a dramatic effect on your sleep . It

11:55

affects your testosterone , and testosterone

11:57

is a chemical in humans that makes effort feel

11:59

good , and so if , when

12:01

I got my testosterone measured after having drank

12:04

, like , say , four nights a week , my

12:06

testosterone was at like 330 and

12:08

it should have been at like 900 , to a third

12:11

of what it should have been . And so you think about

12:13

all this hard work you're doing as a founder , all these

12:15

walls you're trying to drive through all this you

12:17

know just hard work . You're trying to put forth to

12:20

manifest some thing in the world and

12:22

meanwhile you're doing this thing that just making all

12:24

that stuff feel so much more difficult

12:26

and kind of draining you of your like

12:28

life force , energy . And so it

12:31

was actually obvious to me that this wasn't just

12:33

me losing inches in life , this is me losing like

12:35

miles . And so , after

12:38

consulting with Hubert Mann and messaging him

12:40

on Instagram , getting some advice from him , and then seeing

12:42

a doctor getting some blood work done which I highly

12:44

recommend every founder does at least twice

12:46

a year I then realized , okay , I

12:49

can dial this in . The blood work allowed me to

12:51

gamify my hormones and then

12:53

to dial them in a way where I'm like , okay , I'm going to get

12:55

this to 900 and I'm going to use sobriety

12:57

and being sober to get

12:59

me there . So previously I'd seen it as like

13:02

, oh , I just got to give up alcohol and just hope this is better , and

13:04

it kind of was vague to me as to why I was doing it per se

13:06

, whereas this allowed me to really dial it in

13:08

with numbers .

13:09

And I love that . I'm very , very similar , so it's

13:11

exact same . My testosterone was like 400 . So

13:14

23 years old and

13:16

, funnily enough , because I was training so much , I was actually

13:18

decreasing it because I was overtraining . I

13:20

was training six , seven days a week , so removing

13:23

that made me improve different

13:25

aspects of my sleep , my diet , my nutrition

13:27

and like when everything is dialed in , that

13:30

stuff feels stupid Going out and

13:32

getting pissed or smashing . You know

13:34

, burger king , it feels stupid and

13:36

that's what I think is really interesting . I want to walk through

13:38

your process and what you get

13:40

set up . So saw your video making over

13:42

730k a month , working four

13:44

hours approximately a day . Now

13:47

how do you go from where you were to

13:49

that ? Like , what's the process of how you

13:51

started to build systems and basically

13:53

build ? You know many

13:56

empires now , or your new empire , basically

13:58

?

13:59

So I'd break it down to four things Community

14:02

, accountability , mentorship , improvement systems

14:04

. So talk about each one of those

14:07

quick . Community is like the ultimate

14:09

competitive advantage . You surround yourself

14:11

with like an amazing community of peers , of

14:13

fellow successful founders , and

14:15

you're increasing your surface area for

14:18

like luck , for people opening doors

14:20

for you . You know , being here in Dubai as an example

14:22

, there's an amazing community of people here that

14:24

I've been introduced to and I have these kinds of people that I've

14:27

met all over the world and online

14:29

. And so by putting organic content

14:31

out there , by building an audience , building a community

14:33

, suddenly , like a lot of just doors start

14:35

opening for you . So you don't need

14:37

to chase so much in life , you're actually just attracting

14:40

opportunities to you . You're attracting talent

14:42

. I don't need to go and hunt down and try to email

14:44

a hundred people to go and find an , a player

14:46

to hire for a role . I just post that

14:48

for one second to my audience

14:50

and inbound . You're getting a bunch of legends

14:53

that want to work with you as an example . So

14:55

just an enormous amount of leverage comes from

14:57

building a community . The second aspect is accountability

14:59

. You know I think that you know Michael Jordan had

15:01

a coach . Serena Williams is a coach . Every entrepreneur

15:04

is an athlete and they need coaches , and

15:06

so a key aspect there is like having

15:09

accountability to someone whether it's your team

15:11

, a fellow peers and friends a coach

15:13

. I think whatever you can do there to just

15:15

make sure that your goals are not

15:17

just some goals that may or may not happen , that

15:19

these are things that must happen is

15:22

a game changer . Third aspect

15:24

, which is somewhat similar , is like mentorship . I'm

15:26

big on building a personal board of advisors

15:28

around myself , so you think about

15:30

all the areas of your business strategy finance

15:33

, your health , marketing

15:35

, audience , growth , content , whatever

15:38

it may be in your business . I think

15:40

it's important to go and try to have at

15:42

least one or two people in each of those areas

15:44

. That is about three to four steps ahead of you

15:46

that you can just constantly be learning from . I

15:49

was talking with some friends the other day about this . It's almost like you want

15:51

like

15:54

a opportunity , like

15:56

anxiety , that like you're in

15:58

these conversations with them and you see the opportunity

16:00

, but you're almost anxious that you're like there's

16:02

like that little bit of like an edge that you're on

16:05

because they're talking to you maybe about , oh , this is

16:07

how they grew their newsletter or this is how they're hiring

16:09

people . And you're like , oh my God , I'm so stupid , why

16:11

am I not doing that Right ? And so

16:13

you almost then reflect on your own life afterwards , after

16:15

kind of like getting over that anxiety , and you're

16:17

like , okay , I'm inspired , I'm ready

16:19

to go , I see the opportunity here , I'm going to get after it

16:22

.

16:22

I've learned that so much here Just being here

16:24

. The biggest thing that I've observed is people that

16:26

are willing to invest in themselves and mentors . It's

16:28

crazy how much willing , how much funny

16:31

. Nearly everyone that I sit down with is been mentored

16:33

by Sam Evans or has started

16:35

out with Tai Lopez at some point

16:37

, but they all put their hand in their

16:40

pocket to learn from someone

16:42

a couple of steps ahead of them and , as a result

16:44

, they were time

16:46

delay . So they have a cause effect and a time

16:48

delay . They've all become incredibly successful over over

16:50

on now . Now that could be a survivorship by . This

16:52

is obviously winners and losers , but for the most part

16:55

, a lot of the winners have had

16:57

those advisors , personal board

16:59

of advisors but even paid mentors

17:01

are not even paid . So how would you approach that for someone

17:03

? Should they go down the

17:05

paid route ?

17:06

So I think , either way , do

17:08

whatever is best , right . I think the

17:10

most important thing is that you find the right person

17:12

, the right fit for you and where you're trying to go Ideally

17:15

finding someone that charted the path that

17:17

you're trying to go and that you can basically use

17:19

their proven systems to speed up your

17:22

process of accomplishing something similar . And

17:24

yeah , the fourth aspect that I think is really important , like I said , is proven

17:27

no-transcript

17:31

. You need systems for audience growth , for community

17:33

building , for hiring , and

17:35

how I've been able to largely remove

17:37

myself from operations in the businesses that I start

17:39

is , shortly after kind of building

17:41

them out , getting product market fit , getting them to

17:43

market , getting initial traction , I

17:46

then work to systemize the entire business , using

17:48

things like Loom to record myself

17:51

doing certain processes , notion to hose all

17:53

those processes easily so that people can be onboarded

17:55

and understand them , and

17:57

having great documentation , step

17:59

by step SOPs of all the different areas

18:01

of the business , so that I can then

18:04

remove myself from the business and

18:06

work on it versus being stuck in

18:08

it . And so having those

18:10

proven systems in place I think is something that's core , and

18:12

this is where I see a lot of founders struggling is they're

18:14

on this sort of hamster wheel of just trying to keep up

18:17

with all the demands day to day but not training

18:19

anyone around them to do it . Or you have solo

18:21

printers that are just trying to do it all themselves

18:23

and I oftentimes think , well , that's great for

18:25

a lot of people . There's a lot of people that are kind of

18:27

getting themselves into a bit of a cycle of burnout with

18:29

that , whereas you know a few

18:32

great people in your company

18:34

can make all the difference 100% .

18:36

And it's the boring on sexy stuff , right , that's

18:38

what makes great businesses . Hermosie talks about a lot

18:40

. Right , people want the flashy stuff , but

18:42

it's the boring back end . So let's get straight

18:45

into it , because , man , for me , where we're out with

18:47

our business , this is becoming more

18:49

and more important . But my question

18:51

for you is how do you build

18:53

a great system ? And let's say , if it's a back end

18:55

operation , right , how do you define

18:57

it ? Do you do workflow diagrams ? Do

19:00

you draw it out ? What is a great

19:02

system that you would look at ?

19:04

Yeah . So first things first

19:06

. I love the approach of kind of like 1% better every

19:08

day is 37 times better in a year and

19:10

I kind of always internalize that . So if

19:13

you understand that , it's like not going to happen overnight , it's

19:15

more of almost like a lifestyle than it is

19:17

like , you know , a week project

19:19

and then it's done . So it's

19:21

taking a look at you know what

19:24

, do you what's ? Taking up the time on your calendar right

19:26

now and doing a bit of an audit over the last say , 60 days , getting

19:29

out of Google Sheet as an example , and writing

19:31

down every single thing you've spent your time doing , right

19:34

? So you spent your time invoicing people

19:36

, meeting with your account . You've sent your time

19:38

hiring , interviewing , recruiting

19:40

, posting to social media , scheduling , looking

19:42

at the analytics , whatever those things are . Now

19:45

, instead of just doing those things any

19:47

given week blindly and then just over

19:50

and over , just getting stuck in the soup , having

19:52

that stuff documented and actually next time you

19:54

do it , get a Google doc open

19:56

and write down the steps that are necessary

19:58

to do that correctly . Then

20:00

record yourself actually doing the

20:03

task in Loom , as an example , and

20:05

talk through what you're doing , so

20:07

that then you have this list of all

20:09

these tasks that you're performing . You've got all the

20:11

documentation around it , all of the Loom

20:13

videos around it , and at the very least

20:15

, you can start delegating some of this stuff From

20:21

there using tools like Airtable , zapier , asana

20:23

whatever is needed for the given

20:26

task . You can also look to automate a lot of

20:28

this stuff . I think we live in an amazing world where

20:30

there's all these no code tools you could be using that

20:32

can just simplify your life , and once you've hopefully

20:35

gotten yourself a bit of space and delegated some

20:37

of the soup , you're now able to

20:39

look at the business and go okay , which

20:41

parts of this are inefficient that I can be automating

20:44

or even just eliminating because it's just a complete

20:46

waste of time . And so that's

20:48

sort of like at a baseline , like how I

20:50

look about kind of systemizing a business

20:52

.

20:53

All right people . We're just going to take one short break

20:56

for a little update about podcast university

20:58

. So if you enjoy podcasts like this and you

21:00

want to start your own podcast , head down to

21:02

the links down below to Pockets University . This is a learning

21:04

platform that I've built to help people like you

21:06

build , launch and scale your own

21:08

podcast . I've wasted many years doing this

21:11

, making it all up as I go , so

21:13

I put everything together in a very seamless and

21:16

easy to follow course for you

21:18

guys to follow and just learn exactly

21:20

how to do it . So if you want to bypass a lot of the mess

21:22

with your podcast , check out the links down below the

21:24

Pockets University and we'll show you exactly

21:27

how to launch and scale your own podcast

21:29

. How do you distinguish between what you should

21:31

automate , delegate or eliminate ?

21:33

Yeah . So first things

21:36

first . The best thing you can do is just eliminate stuff

21:38

. So being clear on like what is core

21:40

to the business , I think a lot of people

21:42

spread themselves to thing and like , at the

21:44

end of the day , oftentimes there's just one thing you need to do

21:46

in your business that provides just the most leverage

21:49

, and the more focus you can put on that point , the

21:51

faster you can scale . So getting clear on that kind

21:53

of one thing , that's going to move the needle forward , I think

21:55

is a big differentiator . And then

21:58

from that what stems is okay , what's all the stuff

22:00

in my business ? There's just a distraction , Some

22:02

stuff I should eliminate , maybe not even forever , but at

22:04

least for now . So I can really focus on this

22:06

one area that is our big thing .

22:08

Can you give an example from your perspective ?

22:10

Yeah , I built a community

22:12

of 14 million people . One thing

22:14

that everyone in that

22:16

space was doing was they were trying

22:18

to do everything right . They would try to

22:20

build a business that was marketing

22:23

. They do delivery . They would do

22:25

you know , social media

22:27

audience growth . They would help people with

22:29

sales . Like you saw , a lot of these businesses

22:31

that were spread out doing everything . Meanwhile

22:34

what we focused on was just marketing

22:36

as a service . All we did was help people

22:38

with programmatic ads

22:40

, seo and a proprietary

22:43

email software . We'd built and kind of combined it into

22:45

one thing , and that was the single thing

22:47

that we did was just the better we could do at that

22:49

marketing as a service , the better

22:51

we would scale . And people would tell us , oh , why aren't

22:53

you doing this other thing ? Or why don't you try this

22:55

? Or now that you've done that well , you should try to expand to this

22:57

. And we just for 10 years building

23:00

that business , just said , no , we're good , like

23:02

nope , we're just going to focus on this thing . And everyone's

23:04

like come on , like there's so much more opportunity if

23:06

you try this other stuff . And we just stuck to our

23:08

guns and I've seen over

23:10

the years working in a bunch of different industries

23:12

, whether it's SaaS or education

23:15

, info products , whatever it may be , is

23:17

that the most successful people in any of these

23:20

industries ? I think like they focus and

23:22

they find , like what is that single thing

23:24

that is going to get me to my goals ? And

23:26

then how do I just like triple down on that

23:29

and put blinders on and tunnel

23:31

vision to anything else that may come across

23:33

by purview ?

23:35

And I love that because it sounded

23:37

very similar to Sahel Bloom when he talked with us . It's

23:39

what's the one thing that gives me the asymmetrical

23:41

returns . If I can figure out during my 20s

23:43

what I can get asymmetrical returns on and

23:45

put all of my time into that as what happens

23:48

right . And it's actually quite similar to our business Learning

23:50

from people like you . We just focus

23:52

on podcasting and I've been asked oh , do we do email

23:55

stuff and LinkedIn stuff ? I said Nope , we're

23:57

just the podcast company . We just have that's

23:59

like we do strategy . We do a lot of work on podcasting

24:01

and , as a result , it's it's only thing we

24:03

do and that made it hurt some people , but

24:06

it actually doesn't . It attracts the people that we want as

24:08

a result . Now you mentioned focus

24:10

. How do you think about focus ? Have

24:13

you put a lot of thought into like keeping that

24:15

narrow focus , like how you kind of plan that

24:17

around your productivity ?

24:18

Yeah , so my focus

24:20

and like my all comes down to , like my daily

24:23

habits . So what

24:25

works for me is , I believe that , like focus

24:27

in a given day , it starts the night before . It

24:29

starts with getting clear the next day

24:31

Like what are your core priorities ? So before

24:33

I go to bed I have my notebook

24:35

pretty old school that way just write

24:37

down , you know what I need to get done the next day

24:40

and then put numbers beside each thing , generally

24:42

ranking them from like one to 10 . What's

24:45

the most important thing I need to get done the next day , all

24:47

the way to number 10 . And then when

24:49

I wake up , I already know what I need to get done and

24:51

what's important . And then I'm just going through that list

24:53

from one to 10 . And

24:55

, after having gone through a bit of it , needing a break , I'll go

24:58

these days I go play paddle tennis and

25:00

go get a little bit anger out and

25:02

then come back and then slam through the

25:04

rest of it . And I

25:07

think that where people

25:10

screw up sometimes is they get so lost in different

25:12

tools like oh , are you using notion

25:14

or using this or that , like the tool doesn't matter

25:16

, it comes down to the founder . The other thing , too

25:18

, is just not getting clear on their priorities

25:20

, and so I'm very

25:22

conscious of understanding . Okay with

25:25

founder OS is an example where our mission

25:27

is to inspire 100 million founders to accomplish

25:29

their dream superven systems . We're

25:31

very clear on the 10 year vision . We're

25:33

trying to accomplish right , helping

25:36

100 million people , and then reverse engine

25:38

that to three years from now , getting

25:40

that to 20 million people , and then , okay

25:42

, what do we need to accomplish in one year to get there ? 90

25:45

days , 30 days tomorrow

25:47

and the more . You can kind

25:49

of reverse engineer this like long

25:51

term , ambitious , energizing

25:54

vision to what you need to get done today

25:56

. I think the combination of having

25:58

clear priorities and then having this like unwavering

26:01

, like energizing mission

26:03

that you're trying to accomplish allows you to

26:05

stay radically focused , because any shiny

26:08

toys that come across your purview

26:10

, you're like nah , like it actually doesn't

26:12

look that good . Like I got a really cool thing I'm

26:14

building here and I don't have much time . I

26:17

really got to focus on what I got on my plate

26:19

because there's like a lot . This thing's

26:21

pretty ambitious . Like it's going to take all

26:24

of my might and my team's might

26:26

and then like some luck or God or the

26:28

universe or whatever you believe in to then make that thing happen

26:30

.

26:31

And you're running out of time continuously . Right , time

26:33

is finite , so you got to keep on going . Now , that's

26:35

super interesting because I hear

26:37

a lot of founders and see a lot of founders who they

26:39

have good businesses . They could be making like a million

26:42

a year , could be stock within a million and two million

26:44

, and instead of trying to get that

26:46

thing to 10 , they start

26:48

again and they want to build something else on the side and

26:51

it's , you know , split . Focus

26:53

is no focus catch . To try to catch two hairs

26:55

, you catch none . So I kind of describe it and

26:58

for me that's super important Like , how do we stay

27:00

super narrow in this podcast space ? And

27:02

just , I just dominated basically because

27:05

I don't know how you feel about this , but I don't necessarily

27:07

want to do eight different stuff . You

27:10

know , same with you , right ? You're just so focused

27:12

on founder s .

27:13

Yeah , I think also just

27:15

jamming with you on it . I think the other like hidden

27:18

mistake that can happen

27:20

if you focus on too many things , versus

27:22

like the unbelievable unlock that people aren't

27:24

aware of is that when you do too

27:26

many things , other people

27:28

don't know how to talk about what you do , and

27:31

so around like 50 to 60%

27:33

of your marketing actually happens Not

27:36

when you're present . Right , it's all of this word

27:39

of mouth going on around people talking about

27:41

what you do , but if you do everything

27:43

, then how does someone even talk about what you do

27:45

? They're like , oh yeah , he's that guy that like kind

27:47

of has this thing here but then also dabbles

27:49

there and this , that . So when they talk to someone

27:51

else , that person's hearing it and going , huh

27:54

, don't understand it . Interesting

27:57

, sounds neat , which means like I don't

27:59

give a shit , yeah , or is it someone

28:01

that's like yourself , like you're saying , it's like I'm

28:03

going to dominate this podcast area , mega focused

28:05

on this narrow thing . And then suddenly it's like , oh shoot

28:07

, I know a guy that'd be really good there to get on that podcast

28:09

, because it's just so obvious that , like

28:11

what you do , I can understand it in five

28:14

seconds and I can connect

28:16

the dots , and so I think there's a lot of

28:18

like hidden levers that exist in

28:20

situations like that , when it comes to sort of word

28:22

of mouth marketing as well . When you just focus

28:24

clearly and it's easy for people to understand

28:26

, like what it is , you do .

28:28

It's your brand right , and they talk about that in category

28:30

of one . It's not what you say , not

28:33

what you think your brand is is what other people

28:35

perceive you . It's how you interact as your

28:37

customer experience . That's the that will

28:39

determine fundamentally how

28:41

people perceive you and , obviously , come and work

28:43

with you . We found a way . You have this great

28:46

brand that's buildable from your reputation and you

28:48

sharing proven systems . That's helped people

28:50

over the years , which is amazing . Now

28:52

let's spin back into community . Why

28:55

? How do you think about community and like

28:57

, how have you been able to build like 14 million and

28:59

now going on to build a hundred million people in

29:02

this , in this ecosystem ? Because

29:04

that's someone who's in the content

29:06

game , I find it difficult sometimes

29:08

to be able to retain people in the community

29:10

.

29:11

Yeah , so , and

29:14

I think about community , you know

29:16

there's layers to it , right ? You have

29:18

what I'd call like a rented

29:20

audience . Then you have an owned audience and

29:22

then you could drive people to your community . Right , your

29:25

rented audience exists on platforms like

29:27

X , LinkedIn , YouTube

29:29

, TikTok , Instagram all

29:32

them rented because you don't own these platforms At

29:34

any moment . Zuck could take

29:36

it away from you , Musk to take it away from

29:38

you . The point is you got to , as quickly

29:40

as possible , grow an audience there with

29:42

organic content and then drive that audience

29:44

to something you own , like

29:46

a newsletter . So in my case , I use ConvertKit

29:49

, a newsletter platform . That's

29:51

amazing , has tons of automations , helps

29:53

you kind of scale up an owned audience

29:55

that you control . You can email them , get on

29:57

the radar , send them an email to their phone whenever

29:59

you want . From there then

30:02

driving people to a community . Right , I

30:04

use school as my community platform

30:06

. It's easy . You can have the

30:08

community there . Any education , you

30:10

can have different live sessions all in one spot

30:12

. It's kind of like a community hub that

30:14

I highly recommend , and

30:18

so that's an example of a kind

30:20

of organic

30:22

content funnel . The backbone

30:25

of that is amazing content

30:27

. I think where people

30:29

get tripped up is they

30:31

try to build one of these parts , an audience

30:34

with no newsletter or a newsletter , but

30:37

not building an audience correctly and

30:39

any one of those pieces breaks

30:41

the sort of whole funnel collapses

30:43

, and so when I think about growing

30:46

an community to a hundred million

30:48

people , I got to basically probably

30:50

go and reach in an audience segment

30:52

like a billion people over time right

30:55

To then drive these founders to

30:57

newsletters and then drive them to

30:59

an awesome community where they can find amazing

31:02

peers , they can find the accountability , the mentorship

31:04

, the proven systems that they're looking for . So

31:07

yeah , on the content

31:09

side of things , I think it comes down to

31:11

the four C's , which is

31:14

curation , creation

31:16

, checking that content , making sure

31:18

it's amazing and then actually

31:21

circulating it , and so those

31:23

four stages are all important . Number

31:26

one is , I think the best creators are

31:28

the best curators . So

31:31

a lot of people are online and they're seeing

31:33

content that hooks their attention . There's

31:35

two kinds of people some people that just go

31:37

into that . They , you know , gobble it all

31:39

up and then they go to sleep . I

31:42

think there's curators out there that look at that

31:44

content and they ask themselves why did this hook

31:46

me ? What is it in this that's grabbed

31:48

my attention ? And they save it and

31:51

they think about it later and go oh , this

31:53

is kind of how that could apply to what I'm doing , and

31:56

so I think it's shifting your mindset from

31:58

sort of consumption to curation

32:00

. The second aspect is then creating

32:02

amazing content , which is a combination of amazing

32:05

hooks , which is 80% of the battle , really

32:08

driving an enormous amount of value

32:10

. Basically , value bombing your content , Cause

32:12

there's so much content out there

32:14

these days that if you're not being

32:16

as generous as possible with your free content

32:18

, you are just going to get lost

32:21

in the mix . And so I think giving

32:23

away as much as you know , giving

32:25

away proven systems , giving away all

32:27

of your secrets , your playbooks , just

32:30

trying to be as generous as possible to people , ends

32:32

up sort of like shining through and people can

32:34

feel the intention behind what you're putting out there

32:36

, and then you know , double

32:38

back and check it . I think one

32:40

thing I've learned over the years is that quality

32:44

is the ultimate pattern . Interrupt . And

32:46

there's so much content all over the

32:48

place , thousands and thousands of podcasts

32:51

, all these YouTube channels . If you can

32:53

just really stand for quality and

32:55

people know that when they watch this podcast

32:57

, they see your content out there it's like damn

33:00

, this guy goes the extra mile to

33:02

make sure this stuff is dialed

33:04

. They can feel that intention

33:07

and I think , as a creator , as a founder

33:09

, you want to be that yardstick for quality

33:11

in your given space . That

33:14

will cause people to start coming back to

33:16

, kind of like stopping their tracks as they're scrolling and go

33:18

okay , whoa , double click , what's this ? And

33:21

then the last aspect there is making

33:23

sure that you're circulating it properly . You know there's a quote

33:25

. You know , first time founders focus on tech

33:27

, second time founders focus on distribution . And

33:30

so really , like distribution

33:33

is your competitive advantage , like really

33:35

nailing that ? How are you showing up

33:37

on X ? How are you showing up on LinkedIn ? Don't

33:40

just do it at a surface level and think

33:42

that that's somehow going to make a big impact on your business

33:44

. If you're hoping to really set up

33:46

an organic content funnel , really drive a community

33:48

, do big business on these different platforms

33:51

, you need to go deep , because

33:54

that's where the game is won , and

33:56

you need to understand the algorithms . You need to understand

33:58

how the platform works . You need to pay attention

34:00

to the top 20% of your content and

34:02

double down on that . You need to look at the content that's doing the

34:04

worst and stop doing it and

34:07

kind of . The combination of those four C's

34:09

is , I think , what then allows you to grow

34:11

the audience necessary to drive

34:13

people to the community that you're after .

34:16

I love your passion with that , because you put so

34:18

much emphasis on the quality of the content

34:21

, but you've also been able to reach quantity

34:23

too right , because you work

34:25

from your newsletter back and then redistribute

34:28

. How does that work ? Your process , your content

34:30

system ?

34:31

So my content system actually

34:33

starts with X at the top of

34:36

the system , and so I

34:38

call it like a content waterfall system . It's basically

34:40

how you can turn one piece of content into

34:43

about 14 plus other pieces of content

34:45

by kind of repurposing one idea

34:47

, and so at the pillar

34:49

piece is like a thread on

34:51

X which is like around , say , 400

34:53

words around a single idea . That

34:56

one thread now can become a

34:58

newsletter on Saturday for

35:00

founder West . It can become five

35:03

smaller tweets and thoughts , it

35:05

could become a concept

35:07

for a YouTube video , it can become a concept

35:09

for a podcast , it can be

35:12

distributed onto LinkedIn as

35:14

a long form post and it can be used

35:16

as part of the script for a

35:18

short form video like an IG reel , a YouTube

35:20

short and a TikTok . So

35:22

one thing I'm really big on is obviously

35:24

getting as much leverage from what you can do as possible

35:27

. You only have a finite amount of time and you

35:29

hear a lot of people that they start creating content but they

35:31

give up because it just becomes

35:33

too much . And so by being

35:35

able to kind of really spend a lot of time

35:37

going deep in one idea , you know

35:40

to take the time to make it high quality and then

35:42

finding ways to repurpose that . 14

35:45

other ways allows you both to focus

35:47

on quality but make things sustainable .

35:49

So then you only need to focus on creating that one

35:52

crystal clear idea and I saw you

35:54

beforehand even writing outside . You're so focused

35:56

on creating like high quality content

35:58

that it becomes the highest point

36:00

of leverage because people will come in . You mentioned

36:02

school . How do you think school will

36:04

like ? Change online business space ?

36:07

So yeah , for those that don't know

36:10

, school a community platform started

36:12

by Sam Owens . We've been in the info

36:14

product space for about a decade or so and

36:17

then obviously recently got the investment

36:20

from Hormozzi , and so

36:22

what I see is

36:24

I think just more and

36:27

more people are realizing

36:29

that the future belongs to creators

36:31

with niche communities . You

36:34

know , you go on Instagram , you

36:36

go on Facebook wherever it may be right

36:38

, and it's just everything

36:41

for everyone and gradually , the algo is curating

36:44

certain stuff for you , but it's just pushing stuff , and

36:46

I think , as we've gone and started

36:49

consuming content , one thing that's really missing

36:52

is like people are more lonely than ever and

36:55

people lack a sense of belonging , connection

36:57

, and I think the people that

36:59

become the most energized in life oftentimes

37:01

are the people that realize their passion in life and

37:04

then find a peer group of fellow founders

37:07

or fellow just . You know , action

37:09

led people around that given thing , and

37:12

so I see the opportunity

37:14

with platforms like school for people

37:17

to find others like them and come together

37:19

and have fun together and find a sense

37:21

of belonging . I think , in a cool

37:23

way for founders , platforms like school

37:26

represent amazing opportunities to

37:28

bring people together

37:30

around something you really enjoy . Kind of assemble

37:33

your tribe , you know , with clear community

37:35

guidelines and a community manifesto

37:37

and kind of the rules of engagement

37:39

of like what we do in the community and what we don't do

37:42

, and really just put a lot of intention into

37:44

just having fun and growing together . I

37:46

think it allows a lot of founders

37:48

the opportunity to build a lot of

37:50

leverage , to assemble

37:52

a tribe around the given thing that they're into . And

37:56

the cool thing too is like make a good living doing that as

37:58

well , because you

38:00

know you don't just need to have free communities . You could build

38:02

a paid community if you want to on these platforms and

38:05

it's something that has , you know , monthly recurring

38:08

revenue behind it . You

38:10

know it's diversified , because if you grow a community

38:12

of 2000 , 3000 people , like you know

38:14

, you're making money from all of these people versus it

38:16

like off one customer . And

38:19

, yeah , it offers an opportunity to , I

38:21

think , basically productize your curiosity

38:23

. Where you can just be curious

38:26

about something really passionate about it in life and

38:28

school affords you the opportunity to bring

38:30

people together around that curiosity and

38:33

make a living doing it .

38:35

It's a way to improve , like the funnel as well . Right , because you could

38:37

have a ton of back end products , whether it's like courses

38:40

or it could be coaching or one to

38:42

one coaching . It adds like an extra

38:44

layer . But something that I

38:46

found quite interesting about communities , like school

38:48

and even discord Remember

38:51

hearing Jay Klaus he's

38:54

built a few different businesses saying that building a

38:56

community was one of the hardest or one of the

38:58

longest . And I remember hearing I think it was Greg

39:00

Eisenberg also say something similar . That , of

39:03

course , like it's amazing and there's a really

39:05

good MRR on it and it's really reliable

39:07

once up and built . But that's

39:09

some of people's , I guess , concerns is that

39:11

it's like who's the first person

39:13

to put their card in and join

39:16

a community with no one else in it ? Do you ever

39:18

kind of think about that sometimes ? All right , guys , one

39:20

short little update for Vox . I want to

39:22

give a short overview about my own company

39:24

, my media company called Vox . So if you

39:27

are a company or you are an enterprise

39:29

looking to grow your brand and looking

39:31

to grow your podcast , feel free

39:33

to reach out to work with us at Vox . What we do

39:35

is a fully fledged end to end

39:37

management of your podcast . We take care of the strategy

39:40

, the consulting . We take care of the growth

39:42

, the management . We take care of all the editing

39:44

, all the boring stuff that you can focus on creating

39:46

good podcast and create and growing your brand

39:48

. If you want to grow your podcast and get to

39:50

new users , if you want to grow your business , generate

39:52

more revenue and all that good stuff , check

39:55

out the links down below to Vox . You can follow through to schedule

39:57

a call with our team or else you can fill out

39:59

the application form to see if you qualify to work

40:01

with us .

40:01

Thank you , yeah , it's like

40:03

the cold start problem , like , yeah , who's going to be the first

40:06

person in ? I think that's a

40:08

very like worthy

40:10

thing to be kind of concerned about . I

40:13

think there's a lot of ways around that , though . You know you can

40:15

start a community , initially that's free , and

40:17

then turn it to paid overtime , right

40:19

, get that first critical mass of just 30

40:21

, 40 people You're just having fun , you're serving

40:24

, you're bringing them together and then , over time

40:26

, as there's value that you're providing

40:28

, as the community is vibrant

40:31

and people are collaborating , then

40:33

eventually go , okay , yeah , there's a lot , there's something special

40:35

here . You know we've built something cool . We're going to start

40:37

charging for access to this , so it doesn't necessarily

40:40

have to be something that , yeah , at first you need

40:42

to get money right away . On

40:44

the other side , you know , you could

40:47

just keep it really enticing

40:49

by just keeping the pricing low for a bit

40:51

, right , and getting people in for , like , early bird pricing

40:53

or whatever it may be , just to get again that kind of

40:55

initial mass going , and then start

40:57

compounding over time . I

40:59

think , though , with all of these whether any worthy

41:01

thing in life , right , whether it's learning to

41:03

run , getting fit , building a community

41:05

, growing a newsletter , building an audience , building a

41:08

business , building your bank account all these

41:10

things rely on compounding and

41:13

I think if you're going to compound anything

41:15

in any of these areas , it's

41:18

important first that you find

41:20

what actually brings you joy and

41:23

what actually excites you . And

41:25

if you're getting into community just for some money , here

41:27

you're getting fit just to like look it in the

41:29

mirror for say , like you know

41:31

, I don't know if it's going to last , right

41:34

Versus making sure that what you're getting into

41:36

you're getting into it for the right reasons , that you

41:38

could actually see yourself doing this for the next decade

41:41

, and thereby you know you're

41:43

playing an infinite game , something that is

41:45

like play . And thereby you

41:47

know it's going to be something that when

41:50

times get tough or yeah , if it takes like six months

41:52

to get it right , it's like no big deal , because you're going to

41:54

be doing this a long , long time and you're not going

41:56

anywhere , and the most successful founders I know always

41:59

have a very , very long term time

42:01

horizon .

42:02

Man , I love that so much . I'm always on with

42:04

the infinite game and that's why I love podcasting

42:06

, because you see the numbers ranked up

42:08

, whether it's Chris Williamson or Joe

42:11

Rogan or whatever . You see the numbers just continuously

42:13

going and there's no end to it

42:15

. Right ? It's kind of like being a founder . I know there's obviously a goal

42:17

sometimes to to exit , but , as

42:19

from Ozzy says , like you know , the goal is

42:22

to keep on playing . It's not to necessarily

42:24

leave the arena and that's how you

42:26

win . It's like when you get really fit or you play

42:28

a paddle tennis , it doesn't end

42:30

, it just keeps on going

42:32

. Right . And having that mental framework

42:34

is really interesting because it separates

42:37

the outcome from the activity

42:39

and it's more just let's just keep

42:42

going at it . And what you realize is that

42:44

some of the reasons why you got into it the external

42:46

validation , that kind of subsides

42:48

, because you get more involved in building

42:50

systems , building a business . And it's like

42:52

the infinite game is you're competing with yourself

42:54

and that might seem a little bit woo-woo , but it's like

42:57

the reality of your business , the reflection

42:59

of you , and as time goes on , you're

43:01

not going to be as concerned of what other

43:03

people are doing because , like you're doing right now . It's

43:05

a unique space . There's not many people doing what you're doing

43:08

.

43:08

Yeah , we , none yeah . And

43:11

I think when you know , let's say , you're building a community , you're

43:13

going to have moments . There's always tricky

43:16

situations , or bottlenecks , or bad weeks

43:18

, bad months , like these things happen . And

43:21

if you're too short-term thinking , you're

43:24

going to just really suffer in those

43:27

moments because you're like , oh man , this month , like

43:29

we're down from last month , like what's going

43:31

on , like everything's over . Or

43:33

if you have that longer-term view , you're like I'm sure this

43:35

is going to go up and down for the next decade , like this

43:37

is a slower month , next month we're going to come back swinging and

43:39

everything will be good . I

43:41

think the other side of things too

43:43

is , yeah , like you just want

43:46

to make sure that you're

43:48

doing stuff that over the long-term

43:51

you know you're just going to stick with it . Because

43:53

if you give up because something gets

43:55

hard a couple months , you know

43:57

, and you don't really enjoy it , you're

44:00

just going to , you know , wasting time

44:02

, you end up stopping the thing , you stop

44:04

the compounding and you're not going to really

44:06

probably achieve your goals .

44:07

And it's how you do . One thing is how you do everything . So

44:09

if you are I always imagine it from like a circle

44:12

if you start in the middle and you're trying to achieve this goal

44:14

, and if you give up , you go back to the center

44:16

and you have to keep on going again right

44:18

and short-term versus long-term thinking

44:20

. You write about finding your

44:22

calling and trying

44:24

to find what it is you really want to do in your life

44:27

. How was that process for you ?

44:29

So when I sobered up , I

44:33

I read a book called

44:35

the Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

44:37

. I found a sobriety coach

44:39

and this gentleman

44:41

recommended that I read this book . In

44:44

the book it talks about doing warning

44:46

pages , basically . Waking

44:48

up , you're sort of like groggy you

44:50

get a pen , you have your paper and you

44:52

just write three long form

44:55

pages and just get

44:57

it out of your system , whatever it may be . Sometimes

44:59

it's just some random gobbly gook , sometimes there's

45:01

actually something intelligent behind it . And so I

45:03

just started doing that every day , waking

45:05

up writing three pages and

45:08

didn't know what I was doing . But

45:11

as I started to kind of just writing around

45:13

what I was interested in and what I was feeling , around

45:17

that same time I came across this concept called

45:19

icky guy , the kind of intersection of what

45:21

you love , what you're good at , what you can be paid

45:23

for and what the world needs . The

45:26

intersection of those four quadrants is

45:28

your icky guy , which is like your reason for being

45:30

or your calling in life , the thing that when you get

45:32

out of bed it's going to energize you . And

45:35

so I journaled around this over a

45:37

couple of days . I revisited a bunch and

45:39

I started making an effort to optimize

45:41

my life around . The things

45:43

that energized me and gradually

45:46

make an effort of removing the things that

45:48

were not in that core center . And

45:50

in the center , in that intersection , in

45:52

the icky guy , were things like building

45:54

proven systems , building distribution from day

45:56

one , helping founders , entrepreneurship

45:59

as a soulful journey , entrepreneurship being

46:01

kind of like the ultimate meditation and just enjoying the process

46:03

. Nature , copywriting , design

46:06

, art these things give me energy

46:08

and so , as I

46:10

just started focusing on more of those things and

46:12

really just being like , okay , well , if this is the stuff

46:14

that I would do , even if

46:17

I was retired , then if

46:19

I can just make sure that my life consists of just

46:21

these things and remove all the stuff

46:23

that's outside of this , then essentially I'm living

46:25

every day retirement because this is stuff

46:28

that I would do anyway . I'm basically retired and

46:30

I was able to give up this level of thinking which

46:32

I had when I was younger , which is like I'm building

46:35

this business . I got to exit this for $50

46:37

million . If it doesn't exit for $50

46:39

million in the next year , I'm a failure . And

46:41

so every day that it hadn't exited per se

46:43

$50 million as an example I'm

46:46

not doing my job right . I'm a failure , I'm

46:48

a bad founder . I'm I

46:50

don't know what I'm doing and I'm clearly screwing something

46:52

up and it just led to this outcome

46:55

based thinking that was just really poisonous

46:57

, made me miserable , I was miserable to be

46:59

around and

47:01

, yeah , it was just like a rough existence , whereas

47:04

as I started to kind of lean into this icky guy

47:06

side of things and just like focusing on these

47:08

infinite games , on playing , on

47:10

adventure , on the things that brought me true

47:12

joy in life , everything started to open

47:14

up and that was sort of how I discovered

47:17

founder OS was just from helping founders

47:19

with the things that I truly am passionate

47:21

about , that are kind of my gifts in life , and

47:24

it just blossomed into this vibrant community

47:26

and this vibrant way of helping

47:28

founders avoid a lot of the pain , the agony

47:31

, the loneliness that I had gone through building businesses

47:33

and find and

47:35

build a more joyful existence

47:37

and journey as a founder .

47:40

If you money wasn't an option , would you still

47:42

be doing the same thing , 100% , 100%

47:44

.

47:44

Yeah , I architected

47:47

all of this with that in mind , which is like I'm never

47:49

selling this business , I'm never

47:51

getting out of it Like this is

47:53

what I will do till I die . I

47:56

view it less as a business

48:00

in terms of like my own thinking around it

48:02

. I view myself more as like an artist

48:04

, as like a craftsperson , and I'm just

48:06

building this thing , tinkering on it day

48:08

after day and just making it a little bit better

48:10

and making the experience amazing

48:13

and making people happy as much as I can . And

48:15

yeah , that's my approach

48:17

now and that's what makes it fun for me . And

48:20

that mindset shift for me changed

48:22

a lot . I used to think of business so

48:26

dollars and cents , all the time , and exits

48:28

and outcomes and all this stuff , and , as I

48:30

just started focusing on like the artistry

48:33

of it all and the craftsmanship

48:35

behind it , you just start kind of focused on mastery

48:37

and just doing the best you humanly

48:39

can in a given thing and really kind

48:42

of sharpening your sword day after

48:44

day and then inevitably , it actually what I found

48:46

which is kind of cool , is it actually

48:48

makes the outcomes come a lot faster and

48:50

it actually helps you become a lot more successful , a

48:52

lot quicker and just have way

48:55

more fun , and so that's

48:57

sort of the game I play now .

48:58

I love that , because that's what it's about is actually enjoying

49:00

it too right , it's not . It's not and

49:03

I think we've learned this probably from

49:05

that kind of VC tech world where it's

49:07

like stabbing the back and you know

49:09

people are only getting ahead by

49:11

like putting on people down . But when you're building something

49:13

that you truly enjoy and yes

49:16

, of course you want to make it successful but

49:19

you're not attaching yourself work to

49:21

the outcome , and I often find that with

49:23

a lot of people , even myself , I had to do that

49:25

work for my podcast , for my

49:27

business , and then it became to grow a lot faster . So

49:30

, told me , true , the growth of founders

49:32

. How has it kind of happened over the past two

49:34

years ?

49:35

Yeah . So just to touch on something you said right , like a

49:37

lot of this kind of venture backed approach to startups

49:39

like teach their own right , but

49:42

I think for certain founders is just not the right route

49:44

. You know , it oftentimes

49:46

encourages kind of growth at all costs and

49:48

it's a well known thing that under that model , like 99%

49:50

of businesses fail and then you have like that one

49:53

unicorn that kind of makes a whole venture capitalist

49:55

portfolio worthwhile . But those

49:57

other 99% actually probably could be solid businesses

49:59

if they just didn't grow at all costs and they just

50:01

grew patiently and steadily and

50:04

just compounded year after year and just got better and better

50:06

. And so my

50:08

belief at founder OS as a community is our belief

50:10

is that you know you don't need to scale

50:12

at all costs . It's about profit over revenue

50:14

. It's about building a calm company , something

50:16

that you actually enjoy , that's sustainable

50:19

, that's built on systems , that's

50:21

automated , so that you can pass what

50:23

I call the one month test , that you could go

50:25

on a vacation for one month and come back

50:27

to your company and it's actually stronger than when you left

50:30

it . And so we're

50:32

a community of founders that are

50:34

there to support one another . Our belief is that

50:36

no founder lets another founder fail and

50:39

as a community , we're really supporting one another

50:41

with mentorship , with proven systems

50:43

, helping hold one another accountable . And

50:46

you know , I'm trying to share as much as I humanly

50:48

can with the community in terms of

50:51

the learnings that I've had over 14 years . And

50:54

yeah , the business is skilled . You know

50:56

, incredibly , over the last couple of years , the audience

50:58

went from nothing to 3 million communities

51:00

, got around a thousand or

51:02

so people in it and

51:04

yeah , and it's just basically

51:07

just kind of all around this idea

51:10

that you

51:12

know you can build proven systems in your business so

51:14

that you can focus on freedom

51:17

, which I think is what entrepreneurs are really

51:19

after . But oftentimes when you're building , you

51:21

forget that it's freedom to control

51:23

. You know where you want , where you work when

51:25

you work , what you work on and with people

51:27

that you love to work with .

51:29

Because usually , again , people will not know what to do

51:31

for those extra times and they'll fill it void by

51:33

getting bogged down in their business . How

51:36

, what are some of those kind of success stories

51:38

you've had in founder , whereas of people being able to

51:40

, I guess , remove themselves ? And how have

51:42

they removed themselves ? Because that's the bottleneck

51:45

, right , that's where people think they can't get out of their

51:47

business .

51:47

Yeah . So Steve Gutena is a great

51:50

founder and friend . I know who

51:52

went through founder OS . He

51:54

was able to go and sort of build out a

51:57

whole kind of content empire around

51:59

his business . Initially Steve

52:01

came into the community , was kind of skeptical

52:03

. Right , is this really work ? And

52:06

, you know , can I implement this ? So

52:09

this idea too of like I want to be sure if I want

52:11

to build an audience around myself or put

52:13

myself out there like I'm not looking to be famous , and

52:16

he started building more of his brand on LinkedIn

52:18

. He actually launched a new sass arm

52:21

to prey , which

52:23

is his company , grew that over a year

52:25

to $7 million ARR , so blew

52:27

it up , launched a podcast

52:29

which became the second most popular podcast

52:31

in their niche , which is religion and

52:34

you know , absolutely is cranked

52:36

it . And so that's

52:38

one . And there's many , many others , you know

52:40

, across all different niches , whether it's success

52:43

coaches , consultants , course creators , because

52:45

at the end of the day , like a business comes down to

52:47

the systems and the people , and so what

52:50

we go over and what we help founders

52:52

with are ubiquitous to any of

52:54

these spaces . At the end of the

52:56

day , the stronger your systems , the stronger your business

52:58

, the more freedom you're able to achieve and

53:01

the stronger the people in your business , obviously , the more

53:03

leverage you get as well .

53:04

Before we finish up , I want to ask you around

53:06

AI . So our

53:09

question , asked a lot of people , is like how to become AI

53:11

proof ? How do you think someone

53:13

should go about doing that ?

53:15

So I got a couple of thoughts . So one

53:17

thing yeah , I think it's good

53:19

to like keep up on technology

53:21

and to pay attention to the developments

53:23

on it Again , just kind of play around with it . You

53:26

know , I think that there's also

53:28

a lot of hype in that space right now . It's

53:30

like my three point door right . I keep on like I'll hear something

53:32

on a given platform like oh , this company's taking

53:34

over , and then I'll try the thing and I'm like this is garbage

53:37

. And so I'm

53:39

sure like these things will become insane and

53:41

we'll probably watch this back like in two years and be like I was guys

53:43

, an idiot . But

53:46

a lot of the things that people think are so good

53:48

at certain things , I like try them and I'm like this is

53:50

just not so . An example

53:52

of this is like you'll hear people talk about

53:55

my God chat . Gbt

53:57

is definitely going to take over content

53:59

writing on X or LinkedIn or

54:01

whatever it may be right . And

54:03

then you look at content that it spews out

54:06

people will post and it's like this is

54:08

garbage . Number one , it doesn't read

54:10

well and number two , the algorithms know

54:12

it's from an AI , so they're not going to ever like push

54:14

it , and so , overall

54:17

, I think it's important to

54:19

be curious about it and to stay up on it , but

54:21

I'm not concerned . I think that inevitably

54:24

, as with anything , whether it's

54:26

your computer , your phone like we're going

54:28

to evolve with these pieces of technology and

54:30

we'll use them as a tool . It's not something

54:32

that I see like just completely replacing

54:35

a lot of the stuff that , like our core to a founder

54:37

, which is like you know your

54:40

grit , you're building your team , knowing

54:42

the numbers , building an amazing culture

54:45

, right , these are things that , if

54:47

you're doing it right you know numbers , people

54:49

, culture , you know

54:52

human is not going to replace that part of it , I

54:54

think anytime soon . I'm sure it will enhance

54:56

it , I'm sure it will be a tool that will help you do a better

54:59

job of that and you should keep up on

55:01

those developments , which I'm sure everyone

55:03

will . But I don't think you should

55:05

be operating at a few around it . It's more of a curiosity

55:08

thing .

55:09

It's like the commodity tasks who can give

55:11

you help with , give you a hand with it , whether it's like editing

55:13

or whatever it can give you a small help with . But

55:16

it's like , fundamentally , humans

55:18

are like the human connection I believe

55:20

can be really replaced . That's why I love

55:22

long form so much is because , like I believe

55:24

, that a lot of those like lost form of communication

55:26

is really really dying out , like people are becoming as

55:29

lonely as ever . They've been disconnected . So

55:31

I think , leaning into these different variables whether

55:33

it's in your business , using the

55:35

tools to help you , to

55:38

help you do the commodity stuff , so that you

55:40

can , you can focus on the experience

55:42

with your clients , with your customers , with your community

55:44

that's what becomes really important is the fact

55:46

that we can get rid of the dumb shit . That's why we

55:48

had a laptop . That's where you've gone through the

55:50

internet era is to help you , not

55:52

restrict you . You mentioned

55:54

about grace and you write about resourcefulness

55:57

and relentlessness . Where does that come from

55:59

?

56:00

Yeah . So I

56:03

mean , I think one

56:05

of our jobs as founders is to

56:07

be able to recognize

56:09

patterns and having hired

56:11

you know good

56:13

amount of people over the years 100 or so you

56:16

know you see the patterns in a players and

56:18

then the patterns in C players . And

56:21

, yeah , some of the patterns you see in

56:24

people that really get it and

56:26

that have that sort of it factor are

56:28

, you know , grit , being relentlessly

56:31

resourceful , being optimistic

56:33

, people that can figure

56:35

it out in ambiguity , and so

56:37

, yeah , these are traits that

56:39

I'm really big on optimizing on

56:41

my team . I think that you

56:44

know , building a team can be stressful if you

56:46

build the wrong team , and I've been there

56:48

. I've built a team

56:50

years ago 20 or so people

56:52

, half of them were A players

56:55

, half of them C players , and

56:57

I was way to flip

56:59

in with my hiring . Just kind of , someone

57:01

was cool , like come on board , right

57:03

, and that

57:06

became not cool . Sure enough . In

57:08

time there's like some toxicity

57:10

and just a lot of like a lot of

57:13

fat in the organization and

57:15

you end up just building this really complex machine

57:18

that I basically built my own

57:20

prison and what

57:23

I've learned over the years is to be incredibly strict

57:25

about the people you let around you . And

57:29

, yeah , you want to find people that they

57:31

have the grit , like they're not expecting

57:33

it to be easy and you don't need to like cater

57:36

to every little nuance

57:38

neediness that someone has . They're

57:40

the kind of people that they believe in your mission . They

57:43

love what you're doing and they're all in and

57:45

they're going to roll with the punches . You can put them in a room

57:47

. They're going to figure it out on the result

57:49

. You can see a resourceful side , the kind of people

57:51

that you don't need to give them all the direction

57:53

in the world . You know we work in a day and age where

57:56

most teams are remote and you can't be constantly

57:58

looking over someone's shoulder , booking a meeting every

58:00

day with them to help them figure it out . You

58:02

onboard them . Well then , you give them the resources

58:04

, the tools , the motivation and they should be able to kind

58:06

of make their own way with things . And

58:08

, yeah , they're still able to ask questions , all that , but there's

58:11

a level which they're independent . And

58:13

then you know , on the optimistic side , you know you don't want

58:15

to work with assholes . You want to work with people that are inspiring

58:17

and that you know have a good orientation

58:20

, the kind of people like we talked about , when

58:22

there's a bit of a challenge , they see

58:24

as an opportunity versus like they start complaining

58:27

about it . And so , yeah , these

58:29

are just things that I think are important and

58:31

I think , if you can build a team of those

58:33

kind of people you've actually built , you

58:36

know , a common company where again

58:38

you can kind of take a break from it , you can remove yourself

58:40

from operations and just trust that

58:42

these legends , this core team you've built

58:44

is going to just do amazing things .

58:46

It's trust in the day . That's what we're looking for

58:48

and that's when you take the cheap option or

58:50

the easy option , it has

58:52

time and effect in the layer right . As a result

58:54

of that , at the end of it you will be

58:56

left holding the bag the money

58:58

degree . I want to say a massive

59:00

thank you , sir . I think we could have done another two hours

59:03

if we needed to . I want to say I appreciate

59:05

it .

59:05

Yeah , thanks so much for having me , man , I'm going to do another session

59:07

in another six months ? Yeah

59:09

, means a lot . Thank you , man .

59:10

Thank you , you should have , I'm going to say thank you

59:13

.