Mm-hmm

... and everything.

And after they finished, they wanted their money.

[laughs] And I didn't have it.

Oh, God.

I didn't have it.

And God did it.

Rhetorical pause.

Mm-hmm.

It's like, no, we're all like this.

But if you can dial in your personal systems, the way you do stuff, everything from, you know, how you brush your teeth to the way you organize your calendar, to the way you get things done, the way you future-proof and check, um, you know, make sure...

Like, I have buildings and I have apartments to rent.

You know, making sure that the, everything is working so the new tenant can come in and it's seamless for them.

Building those systems at every level of your life.

If you just do those things, that's the internal journey.

... and before we go, Fred, please do remind people about you and what you do and your new book.

Yeah

... running through it.

So you take in a deep breath, [exhales] and you just let it out.

And what that does is it switches you out of autopilot and in, from system one, from Kahneman, "Thinking, Fast and Slow." It switches you out of autopilot and into conscious choice, and you go, "Okay, I'm not gonna react anymore.

I'm not gonna go on autopilot and just do, react.

I'm gonna think and choose." So that's the first step, and just that fast.

Breath in, breath out, maybe two at the most.

But can you think of someone you've worked with who made that shift, and what was it like when they were stuck in obligation mode, and what changed?

... can't get a job and AI is a very easy adversary? Uh, what do you say to that?

It is.

Well, you know, part of me wants to say, "Just ignore AI and live your life." I think maybe a, a more pressing problem for everybody, but especially for people, young people who are graduating college, let's say, or about to graduate, the problem is that everything that you've learned how to do is not gonna be relevant in four or five years.

Not everything, but a lot of the things.

And so the superpower to develop is the ability to learn fast and adapt fast.

That's not a comfortable thing to do, and I empathize with that because I started my career as a biochemist and a molecular biologist and had to completely pivot and go into marketing and sales, which I turned out loving way more than, uh, being at a lab bench doing lab work.

Um, but it was a hard transition, and it gets back to, you know, how, how big is your timeline? Because I think, I think a lot of us feel like we don't have enough time, but that's really not true.

But anyway, keep going.

Could you share a little bit about that? Because I think that gives a little more granularity to what you were describing about meaningful and productive.

Yeah, it does.

So what's the problem that we're trying to solve? The problem that we're trying to solve is that the world is clamoring for your attention.

[laughs] I get interrupted so often with this darn thing, text messages, notifications.

CVS wants me to pick up my prescriptions.

I have other stuff to think about right now.

[laughs] And so you can divide everything that's clamoring for your attention into three buckets.

... and that symbiosis important? Why do you think that's the future?

So if discipline isn't, you know, the, the secret, what are some of these systems, um, whether it's, you know, metaphorical or otherwise, that, that we should be maybe building instead?

Well, I think the best one for the everyday investor is the two-sided growth engine.

It's really simple.

You got cash at the top, and you're feeding that cash from two places.

One is your own earning power, you know, after taxes, money goes in.

And then the second is returns from your investments.

That's loading in.

And I guess as well, a, a different way to, to ask it is, with all the companies that you've advised and worked with, are there behavioral traits in leadership that you find tend to separate the companies that become market leaders from market followers?

... about your personal life, more about your work, why you do what you do.

Well, I think the most important thing I can say about my personal life, I grew up, uh, in Portland, Oregon, and by the time I was eighteen, I'd been in the hospital eighteen times.

Not a lot of people know that.

Uh, and I think it was primarily because I had a pretty good case of ADHD.

I think I could've been a poster child for that.

I was one of those kids who, if I could think of it, I was doing it, and you know how that, that ends up.

Um, but then when I was eighteen, my dad died suddenly of a heart attack, and that was a bit of a catalyst, uh, to, to...

Is it essentially the, the, the behaviors of my mindset and, and, and, and my thinking? Is that what you're talking about? Or is it physical behavior?

Yeah, so tell me, is there a time that you realized this? Did you already have this innate in you? How did you figure

this out? I don't know how I figured it out, but it became pretty obvious to me that some unit economics don't work.

So one of the projects I had was selling audio books, audio tapes rather.

And I was selling them for $249 for a set of 20 tapes.

And it cost me about $300 to sell one copy of this $250 audio program.

So those unit economics don't work very well.

People loved the product.

What's been some of the biggest discoveries or points of learning that you've had running this business?