The Best (and Worst) Businesses to Buy in 2026

20:34Nicole Lapin:right, explain it to us. 12 Ps. Yes. So essentially - Love alliteration. Thank you for that. It's the only way I can remember anything. I have the mind of a goldfish. So that's the other thing that's good about the process is you don't need to be smart or brilliant or remember everything to run a really profitable business. You need named frameworks and systems that you can steal from other people in order to take their 10 ,000 hours and apply it to you. And so I am not, that I'm not smart, I don't have a good memory. Actually, like if you quote some stuff from the book, I'm like, oh yeah, I do remember that.

21:03I have to write things down. And so have you ever felt like somebody gives you advice and you're like, I bet that worked for you. It sounds like it was great. That sounds terrible for me. And that's how I think most business advice is. You get advice from somebody, but you don't want to live their life. You don't actually want their business and you sadly don't have their skillset and they don't have yours. And so we started doing all this research on businesses that succeed. And we're like, how come we're applying all the same processes to these businesses and they're not having the same success rate?

21:35And the differentiator was one thing. What type of owner are you? So it's not just what type of business do you run, sector, industry. It's not just what size business you run. It's who are you as an owner? What skill set do you have? So we realized there's 12 archetypes of owners. And it's not dissimilar to like Myers-Briggs or even horoscopes. We're like, you just know that you have pre, you have predilections, things that you're more likely to be like. And after surveying about 15 ,000 owners and high achievers, because we wanted to get people on the climb and then people who had already climbed, we found we could categorize them pretty scientifically.

22:11And so they would say, yes, this is me. Their team would say, yes, this is me. And of these 12, the one that you are is the ball hog, which basically means you're probably a great closer. You bring in the deals, you're on top of things, but also nothing closes without you. And so this is very normal for high-performing entrepreneurs. It's probably why you're like, you left. You're like, listen, guys, I got this. You can't employ me because watch, I'm going to do better than you. That's why you left. Then you're in business and all of a sudden you're like, watch, I do better than you. And then you're like, wait a second, I employ you.

22:44I pay you to be here. I can't be better than you. You have to be good. And so I'm a workhorse, which means I get off on this theory that I need to work hard all the time and I define myself by how hard I work. And I think that's really impressive, which also means that I work on everything all the time and I can have no life if I do it wrong. And so once you see this light and dark side of yourself, you'll realize, oh, I need to surround myself like as a ball hog. You probably need to surround yourself with a few people pleasers. and those people pleasers will be people who actually want to help you.

23:17And so I have a couple of them. Lindsay would be one for me. She took the test and I'll be, because you have like some tendencies. So I'm mostly workhorse. I have some ball hog in me too. Nobody's shocked there. And Lindsay will say, Hey, give me that. Like, that's not for you, you know, or Nicole yesterday was doing this to me about something else. And so now you can realize how you should build your team because you don't want all ball hogs you guys will fight. And so anyway, that was the idea with the book. Yeah.

23:45Nicole Lapin:My husband also says that I take the marker out of his hand. What's he? Have you had him? No, but he's next to take. I'll send you the link. Actually, it's easier. So you don't have to do it in the book. Thank you. This wasn't a prototype, but I thought it was interesting where you quoted Ray Dalio saying that an issue is that people think that other people know what they're thinking, essentially. One of the reasons why if you're a founder, you're successful is because you've been able to sell people a dream and a vision. You've got them to buy in on your way of thinking. Well, that's beautiful, except often you can railroad their way of thinking.

24:19And so due to your force of will and brilliance as a founder, you have inadvertently really shut up a lot of your team, which is something I've definitely done too. And so once you take the quiz, you can kind of go, oh, wait a second. This is a natural tendency for me. What's the natural tendency for my team and now I can play into it a little bit more. And that helps me.

24:39Nicole Lapin:So do you think there's a difference between being irreplaceable and being insecure? Or do they show up the same way? I believe that you want to be a hero because it tastes like heroin. You know, like it is the most addictive substance in the world to feel needed. And so in the book, we do say hero is a four letter word. And so if you are a founder and you are trying to be the hero all the time, you will eventually do as Spider-Man says, you'll become the villain, which is you'll hate yourself, you'll hate your business. You know, your family will certainly hate it too. And so why are you a hero?

25:16Because your entire life has been set up to reward you achieving things. That is mostly how capitalism and business works. The more you achieve and the more you excel, the more people love you. and so you start to associate what you do as love from your business and love might be money or attention or whatever gets you off and so this happens to all of us in business and once you realize that you can take a pause and say actually the best business owners in the world their output has nothing to do with the revenue of their business and that statement can really free you If you realize I should never be the single engine driving this railroad.

25:57Instead, it should be actually the railroad runs by itself. There's train cars passing all the time. And I am one engine amongst many. And so I do think it's not even that you're insecure. It might just be, God, that felt so good. You know, that little hit of heroin all the time felt so amazing as a business owner. I want to keep getting it. And then I don't realize eventually that becomes an addiction.

26:23Nicole Lapin:So the addiction is work? Usually, yeah. And it might be the addiction could be work. The addiction could be your customers telling you nice things. The addiction could be your team feeling like you're really needed. Your addiction could be that you're building something that you've never built before. It could be novelty. And so it'll really depend if you're the artist, you might not even look at it at work. You might just say, I build incredible things and I don't even have to talk about them in the marketplace because somebody will find me eventually for it. They don't get off on sales. They get off on, no, no, I'm an artist.

26:59I create, right? Whereas the people pleaser might get off on, my customers love me. I know we don't make any money, but look at the impact we have. And so once you realize what your brand of heroin is, you can figure out, how do I change my perspective on this? And I think that's the only way you hit multi, multi millions in revenue consistently and don't hate yourself.

27:20Nicole Lapin:Obviously aim to not hate yourself. Cosign hard on that. But should you aim to be replaceable? Yes. Yes. I mean, your job as a CEO is to surround yourself with a team so much better than you. You get a little bit embarrassed at times. You are winning as a CEO when you have a team of A players where in their individual lane, they are better than you. And your job is really probably to do, as Elon Musk says, to find the series of compounding lies inside of your business. So your job is data. What is the data really telling me? And then your job is vision. Where are we going next? Where's the next big thing in the business?

27:56But you are not actually employed to be the admin, the operator, the accountant, the salesperson inside of your business. That would just mean that you have a very stressful job with a terrible boss, a.k.a. yourself. And so we need to move you out of this idea of being what we call a manager in your business into an operator. So a manager in your business is where most people are. I like to think about it like a triangle, four levels to the triangle. Bottom level, entrepreneur. You don't have a business yet. You want to, you're kind of working on it. You're thinking about it. Manager, you have a business, but it's mostly you doing everything.

28:32You know, your org chart just looks like a series of views. Then operator is we do everything, right? So I'm in it, the team, you and me, we're doing it all together. CEO is they do most things and I either oversee it or I redirect or analyze the data on it. And that's where we want you to get. It doesn't mean you're ever going to give up oversight, but it does mean you should be doing a lot less than you probably are.

28:57Nicole Lapin:This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18+. This summer, no excuses. Double down when everyone else disconnects. At Equinox, that's high-performance living. Iconic spaces built to inspire.

29:32Nicole Lapin:Personal training backed by real data. unlimited signature classes including Pilates and HIIT. Elevate your post-performance ritual with saunas and steam rooms as well as innovative treatments at the spa. Everything you need to lock in this summer and unlock your potential at Equinox. Start today at equinox.com. As you know, Paul Graham, Brian Chassie, love Founder Mode. He was on the show touting Founder mode. So is Brian wrong? No, I don't think Brian's wrong, but I'll start with, who was the first one you said? Paul Graham. Paul Graham. Let's start with Paul Graham. Incentives, always follow the incentives.

30:11Paul Graham wants you in founders mode. Why? Paul Graham backs founders. Every venture capitalist out there wants you working harder, longer. Why? Because they know only one or two out of 10 is going to succeed. They want to bet on a bunch of you guys sleeping in your basements and being pretty miserable for a long time with the hope that eventually you could be on the cover of Entrepreneur and you can be Elon Musk. That's highly unlikely just mathematically. So I would say, and I respect the shit out of Paul, but most people are not happy in venture backed companies, don't ever succeed, and then have to go somewhere else.

30:42It's just what the math tells us. Now, when it comes to Brian Chesky, Brian is an incredible operator. He has been for long time. He's been known as that for a long time. However, Brian is probably one of the top 1%, which are those unique individuals who are like Elon Musk, who I would never disagree with either, who say, I cannot help it. I must build this thing that exists in the world. And simultaneously, for Elon at least, he would say, you don't want to be in here. It is like a place of misery and chewing shard glass or something like that, he said. And so I would say for Brian, we got to be careful not expecting every single person who owns a business to want to have a business that changes the world, raises billions and billions of dollars, and then does billions of dollars a year.

31:29It's only 3 ,000 billionaires in the world. It's really hard to hit that. It means massive obsession in order to do it. The question is, do you want massive obsession, linear type of life, and not much else going on for many years? And I think we should at least question that assumption.

31:48Nicole Lapin:So do you think all of those, unfortunately, mostly dudes, 3 ,000 of them, they all fail your test? I think most of them fail the do I do this and I'm happy test. And how do we know that? How many billionaires stayed married? All the way on the list. I think there's two. It's Zuckerberg and Michael Dell. The rest of them are all divorced multi-times over doesn't mean they're miserable. Some of them are on the list because of divorce. Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's the counterpoint. So I think, you know, and you and I have both by now met a lot of billionaires through podcasting and getting to be online.

32:27And what I would say is I've met very few really happy billionaires. Most billionaires I've met are defined by the money that they've made and the things that they've created. And I always joke, I was just joking with a friend yesterday that they billionaire on you all the time. You know, they'll be like, yeah, name your kid after me and I'll pay for college. I'm like, what? Who says things like that? You know? Yes. And so, hey, it's all good, but let's just make sure that we're not defining our life by money if you don't want to. And so I would never tell somebody the way they're living is wrong as long as they're content with it.

33:02And I think what I hope is that we're a counterpoint for the people who have this like trauma bonding over being a CEO, because that seems to be a thing. Like you weren't happy before you were a CEO. You're not happy as a CEO and thus no CEO should be happy. That's, that's actually correlation, not causation. And so that's my push. Now, I guess schadenfreude too. Right. Yeah, exactly. And, and, and don't get me wrong. I think like I'm obsessed with what I do. I love working and I work all the time. Uh, and that's a choice that I'm like constantly asking myself, do you want to continue to work like this?

33:42And if any point you don't, let's set up the business you don't have to. So, hey, Brian Chesky's like, I love it now. I got this huge team. The team is amazing. Airbnb is great. I get to keep rolling my business. Sick. But if any point he wants to take a sabbatical, great. Amazon's not struggling without Jeff. That to me is a real business as opposed to the first time Steve Jobs left before I think he became a real leader and Apple absolutely flailed and he had to come back. Why? Because he actually hadn't set up the business except to be a cult of Steve. And that I think is a real difference.

34:17Nicole Lapin:So if you don't want that, what is addiction to any of those things, work being the biggest, look like? Yeah, I think it's following the process that we call owner mode, which is basically, as opposed to founder mode, I want you to have an owner mindset where you think about the business as a business and an entity that's separate than you. When you go through the book, you basically see that there's four segments of this. But if I was going to explain it at a really high level, we want you to understand what type of owner you are so that you can figure out where your darks and lights are, the things that you should do, the things that you shouldn't.

34:54We want you to run a process that we call the 12 Ps, The 12 Ps will tell you what's wrong inside of your business right now as your next issue. We want you to fix one of those 12 Ps to get to the next level of the game. And then we want you to run a process to see, do I want this business to do one of three things? Do I want this business to be venture style, grow like crazy? Do I want this business to be lifestyle and cashflow to me? Or do I want to exit? And it's like, when you know who you are and you know where you want to go, it's way easier to get there, right? You're like, I got the skills and I know where I'm going.

35:29And so if you want a lifestyle business, let's set up the business where you can cash flow on it and enjoy. If you want a venture business that's going to grow like crazy, let's set up the business like that. If you want to exit and do something else, then let's set up the business that way. Like, you know, choose your own adventure for entrepreneurs. It's not saying my way is right or Brian Chesky's way right or Elon's way is right. It's like you pick your road and don't let anybody tell you that the way you want to want to run your business is wrong as long as it's true to you.

36:00Nicole Lapin:Now that you hopefully are going to be taking some maternity leave, are you? Yeah, for sure. Okay. You want to build something that survives you or exists in your absence, right? So have you built that machine and are you nervous about leaving it? Oh, yeah. I mean, when I first told my team that I was pregnant, I was like, I think everybody's probably going to leave. I don't know if they're going to stick through this. I had totally unreasonable responses to what it would be like to not make my business the center of my world, which is weird because we own a ton of businesses. So I have 20 businesses that I don't run at all, that still cashflow to me.

36:41So I know there is a mechanism to do this again and again without your business becoming your identity. What's interesting is contrarian thinking is so tied to my identity. So many founders, you know, we believe we are the thing we've built. And so even though I have this process across these others, I looked at this one and thought, oh my gosh, how am I going to move this somewhere else? So all that takes is a little reflection. We like to run it on what we call 90 day sprints, kind of like tech does. And so we started a 90 day sprint and my team and I are talking about it right now. I do a lot of content and I'm like, I really don't want to do content for about eight weeks when I'm feeling like a whale at the end of pregnancy.

37:20So what do we do? So the team's already pre-thinking, how do we film and schedule all the spore before? And then I don't want to film until eight weeks after I'm done being pregnant. So the team's building that out now. Old Cody would have said, how am I going to do this? New Cody says, how are you going to help me achieve this? And usually your problem in business is like you think you have to solve the solution, but it's really always a who within your business that can help you get to the how of what you're gonna do next.

37:52Nicole Lapin:Well, so many founders are the face of their business or are the face of their content like you are. And so how do you think about replacing that or not being as present in that? I know in the back of your book, you have a link to what your system is and you say to steal it, which is so kind and generous of you. But how do you step away when you actually have to have your face out there? Yeah. Well, I think the number one question you got to ask yourself is, are you really key to your business? So I would be the worst example of a business that has key founder risk, right? So if anybody's like, no, Cody doesn't get it because her business is way easier to outsource.

38:32Like my face is all over this thing. I'm in all the ads. So one could say this business is not possible without Cody. Well, we've basically found that we have so many ways to make content, to reuse content, to repurpose content, and now to add characters to my cast that aren't just me, that even this business, which is so founder dependent, can be de-founder dependent. And so I think like we've probably, I don't know, we probably worked with how many different hundreds of business types by this point, but I've yet to find a business where I thought, wow, without the founder, this cannot continue.

39:10Like perhaps if you were an independent inventor with no other employees whatsoever, then you have a job, not a business. But for the most part, that is a story that you are telling yourself about how important you are in your business. And you will be even more important to your business in a way when you are not critical to it.

39:28Nicole Lapin:Well, I think it's so important to also for real, and I never wanted to be that woman who had a baby and like only talked about baby stuff or like be the mom business lady. But it really is a different conversation. And so we're talking about a bunch of dudes. Jensen, we haven't even talked about him yet, but he talks about like his 60 direct reports, Brian and Elon and all of these guys who have these systems and processes and have never been a pregnant founder either. And so when you think about the systems and processes, how do you think about like life changing? So, you know, you're going to have your eight weeks and your eight weeks.

40:02Nicole Lapin:But what if you're like, I just want to live inside the, which I did, inside the leg folds of my daughter and just smell them all day long and just like be here for longer. That is so eerily specific. I'm sure I'm going to get it later. I'll be like, is the leg fold? It's the rolls. They're delicious. You'll get it. What if, you know, you want a different thing for after birth and you don't know that yet? Or what if it, you know, there's a curveball with it. So you can have these systems and processes. And I did too, by the way, I had like a system for a birth plan. I had a system for mat leave and then contractions came like out of a movie and I'm screaming at the top of my lungs.

40:41Nicole Lapin:I'm like, how fast can we get an epidural? Never thought I'd get an epidural, but I was like, have it ready for me when we arrive. You know, two weeks later, a house burns down. You know, I had this whole system and process set up. Like I was walking to my office, I was doing the thing, I was setting up like my mental health plan and I love like a great system and process just like you do. But I think it's a different conversation, especially for women and especially around family planning. Yeah. I mean, I can't profess to know how to do that with families yet. I don't have one. I don't have a kid.

41:11I don't want to pretend like I'm going to be some perfect mom and CEO because I'm sure I won't and we'll figure it out as we go. So I think maybe my closest comparison is just, I think a question I often ask myself as a founder is, are you burnt out or are you just doing too much of the things you don't want to do? And I think oftentimes as founders, we're overwhelmed because we've taken on so many things that you just actually are kind of miserable in. And you actually outsource parts of your business that you like because everybody tells you to do it based on how much they cost. and all of a sudden you're running parts of the business that you don't really like anymore and other people have the job that you do like.

41:51And so I think it's, if pregnancy becomes the thing you like and being with the baby becomes the thing you like, then the question you need to ask yourself is, what do you still want to do inside of the business? And this goes to one of the chapters on processes, which is where you ask this question. I don't believe you should just look at your business and say, where is my highest ROI on dollar? I think you've got to look at your business and say, where is my highest ROI and my highest ROI on fun. My husband has a line where he always says there's 100 % return on investment on fun. And I say that is categorically incorrect.

42:24Nicole would disagree with you on it. This is not a one-to-one on that, but it's not a part of the equation enough. And so - It's a line item. Yeah, it's exactly. But it's a big one. It's actually a really big one. I don't like one-on-ones. I like Jensen's process of not having any one-on-ones with his team. I do not really have them. I have a meeting with my content leaders and I have a meeting with all of my leaders at my company. And then I have a meeting with my leaders at varying companies that we manage. So three meetings. I got rid of one-on-ones. And at first I thought that would be really a bad idea.

43:00Like everybody does this. Why don't everybody wants a one-on-one? Everybody's going to leave. They're not going to feel focused on. It hasn't mattered to the business at all. And so I think going through your calendar and asking yourself, not just the Mark Twain, if you have to eat a frog, eat the first one, you know, eat in the morning. If you have to eat two, eat the big one first. Sure. But after a while as a business owner, if you don't want to eat frogs anymore, find somebody who wants to eat the fucking frog. And so I don't know why we weren't ever taught that. Some people like frog legs.

43:29That's actually a thing. You know, they pay a lot of money for those. Just not me. It's not for me.

43:34Nicole Lapin:Yeah. I think that like a lot of these men that have written a lot about operationalizing business have never had to even think about a deranged prenup, for instance, or I've never thought about family planning and financial planning in the same breath. So I think it's an important topic to talk about together. And also, I mean, just your energy levels and all that change a lot with pregnancy. I'm sure they change with children even more, you would know. But, you know, there was many a day where I was laying on the floor, you know, of my little office in the first trimester and like, you know, my office door is sort of closed, which I'm usually pretty open door.

44:08and I hadn't told the team and really just thinking, you know, this is odd and it wasn't where I thought I would ever be. And so thank God we had built a business, not a job because I couldn't have done that.

44:22Nicole Lapin:Well, I was nervous to tell a lot of our partners that I was pregnant and I didn't want to be, but I was naturally. Do you think that that fear is real, that people are concerned about signing new deals with pregnant women or they're going to take time off or they're not going to be as much of beast mode or founder mode or owner mode or whatever mode you want to be in? I mean, I do think there's, you know, there's biases against everything. So I'm sure people, there are some people, but for instance, you know, it was funny. One of my employees actually came to me while I was pregnant, but hadn't told anybody.

45:02And she very sweetly told me very early on, she's like, she had just started and she's like, I'm so sorry. I just found out I'm four weeks pregnant. Like, I totally understand if you don't want me to stay in the job and if I can't do the role and dah, dah, dah. And I was like, wait, wait a second. You know, that doesn't matter. It's fine. You know, every life has cycles. You're in a cycle. Just tell us what you need, get what you need to get done. And like, we'll work through it. This is like kind of a zero issue, but I sort of chuckled because I was pregnant at that moment, sort of, you know, she didn't know.

45:32But I think it's a natural thing because we haven't been through that many cycles as women, you know, generationally where we're working nonstop or running businesses. But what I can say is like, the only things that have happened to me are that people have been hyped about it. Although I did give my president a lot of crap because he, I told him and then I was like, I'm gonna do sometime in December. And he's like, oh, great. Comes back two hours later and he's like, hey, November 25th or something like that, there's a really famous celebrity pro-am golf tournament and they want you to play. Like, can I sign you up?

46:05I'm like, Mark, for fuck's sake, I'm going to be nine months pregnant. No. And then he proceeds to text me, which I can confirm with his wife, Carly. He's like, oh, I don't know. Carly like golfed four days before she gave birth. And I was just like, get the fuck out of my office. Get out of my office. Carly is the national. Yeah. And then she texted me. I did actually do that. I go, shut up, Carly. I don't care. I'm not. First of all, I don't like golf. Second of all, I'm not doing that. Can you imagine? But I think for a lot of people, what I'm realizing is it's way more inspirational for them because that is the human experience.

46:40Running a business is really for the top 10%. Only 10 % of people run a business ever. Humans since the dawn of time have been having families. And so the fact that we haven't seen a bunch of successful female entrepreneurs be really public about pregnancy while they're running a business is like actually kind of shocking. And so I think for the next gen, it's going to be really inspiring to see them do it all while having families and pregnant. And our millennial generation didn't get that. It was boss, babe, don't need no man, blah, blah, blah. And that's fine if that's what you're into. But if you actually want to have a family, I do think you can do it all.

47:16Nicole Lapin:And just FYI, as someone who gave birth in December, I was on the phone with our accountant before we closed the books while I was having contractions. That was real. Well, you know, it's interesting you say that. Since I wrote the book and then people saw that I was pregnant, I've gotten a few people that said, like my employees have said, yeah, my wife was like writing a lease term, you know, while she was about to give birth to the baby. that's really common. We say in media, you know, a pound of pre-production is worth 10 of post production. What I'm hoping is if we can put some of these processes in place, bad things will just still happen.

47:52That's life. But you will be able to say, no, I'm not going to do the fucking golf tournament. No, I'm not going to do the lease agreement. You're going to be able to just say, I'm shutting off my shit. Deal with it. And like, at least, you know, you can blame me as the bad guy and say like, no, other people have done this. I don't need to do this. This is a you problem. I'm excited to see you figure it out. Amen, sister.

48:12Nicole Lapin:Can't wait to see.

48:39Nicole Lapin:This summer, no excuses. Double down when everyone else disconnects. At Equinox, that's high performance living. Science-backed training, real results. Start today at equinox.com. Well, aside from boring businesses, I assume that you are diversified. Are you invested in the market? Yeah, yeah. I have a financial advisor. I'm invested in the stock market. I don't look at it at all whatsoever. I just make sure the returns look reasonable. well, he's not stealing too heavily from me with his expense ratios. And then he's dollar cost averaging and the taxes make sense. But that's kind of it. So do you keep the equities part boring as well?

49:19Yeah, very. That's your whole investment thesis? Maybe the only thing fancy I do is like tax advantage strategies, opportunity zone stuff, a few things with real estate to get better depreciation. and besides that, I really optimize for earning as opposed to investment income from the stock market. I just wanna beat inflation. I wanna keep compounding. I wanna beat inflation. I don't wanna touch it and be dramatic in times of stress or chaos. I'm never investing in an IPO. A bunch of my advisors reached out, hey, we can get you into SpaceX at X and I've taken companies public before and that typically doesn't work out for the average person.

50:01So even with like the most brilliant company of all time, I was like, I'm pretty much guarantee you the lockup is going to be too long. The thing's going to tank in the meantime. And you're going to wish that you hadn't gotten pre IPO stock and you would have been better off buying it at a dip. And that's what happened. So.

50:16Nicole Lapin:Just base X and over you, dog. No, I love it long term. I would never bet against that guy, but I'm just going to put in the market with everything else. I'd rather you bet on you than even like an Elon. So you're an index fund girly. Yeah. Index funds or, you know, I'll invest in private equity portfolios too. I'll invest in diversified venture capital, but I just want like a wide swath in my portfolio. So how do you think about your portfolio with what you're betting on for yourself versus public equities or bonds? I put all my investable cash into things that have pretty easy liquidity. So those are going to be, you know, sitting on a series of financial advisor accounts.

51:00One of my weird things is I don't ever believe in going with independents or family offices. I want the big guys because I don't want a birdie made off. I saw that happen a lot back in my day. So I think like if you can go to like the Morgan Stanley, the Merrill Lynch, the whatever big ones, they have a fiduciary liability and a bunch of oversight and compliance. So it's all held at big firms, which I like. I would never do any like independent financial advisors. And because of that, it's largely in the Black Rocks, Black Stones, Vanguards, Fidelity's of the world. I don't think too much about that return except to get market rate and maybe to negotiate my advisor's fees, especially on anything that's sitting there in cash.

51:39I keep a ton of cash on hand. And then, you know, almost all of our earnings are from the businesses that we own outright and actively manage. What's a ton of cash? I always like having 12 months of cash for my businesses, which is a lot for how big our businesses run. So 12 months of cash. Now that could be sitting in like, you know, yeah. Well, I don't know if we have any outright T-bills, but it's certainly in slightly higher income producing fixed income. And so probably 12 months of capital. And then right now, I think there's a lot to buy in the market, and I think that's going to accelerate.

52:18So I have more cash than that because we're actively looking to acquire businesses.

52:24Nicole Lapin:In the market, you mean in? Private markets. Yeah. OK. So let's rate the boring businesses. You grade them. OK. Professor Sanchez. A through F. Got it. Car washes. That's like a B business. Laundromats. Probably C. you can't make enough money, but they're a great entryway business. Roofing. Roofing. B business. In the right state with the right certifications can be a great business. Vending machines. F business. Great entry level business. Terrible if you want to make a lot of money. You can't make much per machine. ATMs. F business as well. Same thing. Your transaction costs, you make so little per dollar.

53:09Then you You got to run around town grabbing five bucks from machines. Unless you're inside of a cannabis store, which we did own one inside of a cannabis store once. That was a good business. A cannabis store? Cannabis. Oh, cannabis. Yeah. You know how you have to. I don't know if it works now, but back then you had to use cash. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that was a great ATM route, actually. OK, so. Except you could get robbed often. So just go watch out for that.

53:29Nicole Lapin:OK. Some risk. So cannabis ATM specifically. Probably that's like a that's a B business right there. If you could just get all the cannabis stores, I don't hate it. Nail salons. Might be illegal. That's a small asterisk. Details. Let's check. Nail salons, probably a C-level business. The great part is the recurring. The tough part is the labor. And it is not very high dollar amount. You can't charge a lot ever for that. Pest control. Pest control is a good business. A-plus business. You can have recurring revenue. It can be really expensive. You can have commercial contracts. They're getting bought up like crazy by PE.

54:11Nicole Lapin:HRAC. Also a business for all the same reasons. Plus those contracts can be like 10x what pest control could be. And plumbing. Same thing. Killer business. Also with all of those, the tech bros and PE bros love to talk about those businesses. So devil's in the detail. If you want to be a little sleeper or sell, I think the real play with boring businesses today is take almost any home service business, make the brand cool on them, attract really good labor that you actually feel comfortable having in your home. I mean, typical plumber, HVAC guy, you're like, all right, I'll catch you in the back.

54:50But if you can have somebody that you are really trusted for that homeowner, you can charge a lot higher price for your product. So home services being like? window cleaning, painting, uh, gutters, gutters. Yeah. What else? Landscaping. Um, I think we're going to see sort of a Renaissance basically in home service businesses and we're biased. We have two that have really cool brands, uh, that one painter and pinks window cleaning and, uh, the band, that one painter is the largest company now by painting franchise locations. And pinks is one of the fastest growing window cleaning companies. And it's cause they're cool.

55:28They're like cool businesses you want to own.

55:31Nicole Lapin:What do you not want to own? Let me tell you some businesses you never want to own in 2026 or probably in a year. Drop shipping. Don't compete with the Chinese and Amazon. It's a bad idea. But it's so sexy on the social media. Oh, yeah, exactly. Just only compete with it if you're going to sell a course. The second one would be agencies. Agency businesses are super easy to start. Really bad businesses long term because there's huge churn in almost all of them. There can be examples of that, but I typically don't like to buy agencies. Like marketing agencies. Yeah. Graphic design, podcast services, they kind of pop up everywhere and then they die pretty quickly because it's hard to standardize and productize your service.

56:14The third would be any sort of consulting. Usually that is massive key man risk. I hired Nicole. Who are you? You come in here. I'm not hiring you. I want Nicole back. And probably the fourth type of business that I would never buy is anything to do with restaurants or hotels. Too expensive, really hard customer service, really low margins.

56:35Nicole Lapin:We end all of our episodes by asking our guests for one final tip that listeners can take straight to the bank. What's a final tip of concrete, actionable advice if they want to get boring in any part of their business? Even if you don't own a business, remember, if you speak the language of owners, you're going to make more money. And so, you know, I have an entire section focused on one person, which is me, the person that used to work for somebody else, but eventually wanted to own my own thing. And it was like, how could I become so valuable? Other people want me to have equity. Other people want to pay me more because I actually speak owner.

57:12And most employees with love, they're task takers. And so if you are a super hard worker that wants to win long-term, then you should read this with the mind of, if I understand all this, can I ask for more money? Can I ask for equity? Can I ask for the next step of the game? Because I'm that valuable to somebody.

57:30Nicole Lapin:And call yourself an owner. I gave someone this homework to call themselves an investor. Yeah. It changes your mindset around it. But it's very, very true. As opposed to like, oh, I just put money in and I kind of, it's like you put money in, which means you are an investor. That's right. I like that. I own all the tech companies and I just invest in QQQ. Surprise. Hey, dude, I love that. That's true.

57:57Nicole Lapin:This summer, no excuses. Double down when everyone else disconnects. At Equinox, that's high-performance living. Science-backed training, real results. Start today at equinox.com.