#2273 What happened to our partnership?

0:28Hey there, Freedom Fighters. in the last year. I feel before we were working together, there was a lot of like buddy, buddy text messages. And you're killer at that. I keep trying to do that. And it's not fully me, but I'm getting closer. Then we were in like building infinite possibility land together. And that was really exciting. And then it got to this, why the fuck is Andrew not doing this? And me going, why is Jesse constantly coming up with different ideas all the time? and it went from buddy-buddy to world of possibilities to this, I don't know. How would you describe where it is right now?

1:10You know, I think every business has, and every relationship has different arcs and seasons, right? I think that's where I start with it, which is like that's somewhat, it's not totally abnormal.

1:24I think that it's been interesting from my vantage point to watch you sort of the creative genius version of you versus the businessman version of you they're pretty different and I think from my vantage point it was like oh there's this creative genius who just saw something in me and part of the reason I wanted to start doing this podcast with you is that we can actually get out and get back to that get back to the things that make us make you great, make us great together. And versus the, you know, I think the side of the business stuff is like, oh, you're running a business and like, you want to run the business, like I would run the business, but that's, you're not me.

2:00So you're not going to do that. So it's going to feel weird to you all the time. And it's never going to feel great. And like, I think a big part of this whole thing working well for me with everybody is, is like letting them be the best version of themselves, not like a shitty version of me or my methods. And so it's constantly like a question of how do you take those absorb the stuff but make it your own uh and i think that's like a there's a lesson there i think for anybody building that's been a big wrestling match for me like how much do i amplify who i am and how much do i take a step back and say no jesse's got a different approach here that i'm trying to learn from knack has a different approach that i'm trying to learn from rachel has a different approach how the how do you integrate how much do you integrate and how do you just amplify the part that's that's mine how do i amplify the part that's mine that's been challenging yeah i think it starts with knowing what your zone of genius is and and it's like in some ways you can say that's a difficult thing to figure out in other ways it's like well what do you feel most energized and excited about what do people compliment you on the most what like you know in your case i think it's pretty obvious it's like you're amazing at at directly supporting and networking getting showing entrepreneurs and helping people do that i think you're amazing you have a great taste and content eye and perspective you're very curious like you've got all these things and even as you look at your history your career and all that like it also becomes very obvious and i think once you're clear about that and you're willing but you know it and you're willing to stay inside of it like the second part the harder that's been the hardest thing for me i like learned my zone of genius at ampush but i wasn't actually willing to commit to my zone of genius until i probably started gateway x what was your zone of genius and what could you not like what what did you do outside of it that was hard to break like i knew i loved coaching and teaching people i knew i liked starting new things and kind of the like the entrepreneur energy i knew i liked learning new things or and and building relationships and developing relationships but when we were at ampush like we tried we tried investing in startups off of our balance sheet we bought a company we um we uh we we launched and something called ampush x believe it or not It might sound familiar because I was like, oh, we're going to go start a business.

4:12And so I knew what I wanted to do. Like it was very clear to me what my genius was, but then I was still the CEO of the company. And so Ampush X went nowhere because it was like a weekly meeting with me and two employees who were not staffed on any clients. So that like, oh, let's go start a new business idea. And it just went nowhere because I wasn't engaged at the level I needed to be because I would like every time a client called, I would run away.

4:36and you know when I like left as CEO Rick actually he gave me sort of his feedback which was right as it always is which is like he's like no you should stay a CEO like make John the GM of Ampush and get it out get it off your plate so you can go do whatever it is you want to do but don't you know don't fully give that up and in my case I just sort of said okay I'm out like it's not working I'm out I'm going to go start something brand new but willingness to actually stay in your zone of genius because when something goes wrong somewhere when a client's not happy when something's breaking when you know you know this because you you see that issue and so the thing i see in you is you kind of know your genius but you're not willing to commit to it and usually you're not people aren't willing to commit to it because they don't trust they don't trust that they know my genius and i also feel like i'm the person who does the everything i i have to go and do every part of it and show people that i'm a part of it and partially it's because i love being with people like you know we've got but let's start with something like what what are the what's the things what are two or three things we don't need to nail it perfectly what are two or three things that you know you're really good at that also energize you

5:43i got two one is i do love this what's your problem customer discovery let's talk through and iterate it together and the other one is how do i bring people together persuade them to try this new thing, you know, they're kind of similar, but those are, those are the big ones. And, and what are things that you know, actually, you're not actually that good at and they de-energize you? Writing a first draft of anything, even though I feel like, all right, I know what to say and I should just be, I could tell a writer, this is what the first draft should be like. And then I go, no, I should just go do it because now it's taking too long to even explain to them.

6:25That's one example for sure. So how many times have you done that in the last year to date? The only reason that I can't tell you infinite number of times is because I just broke. I couldn't keep sitting and looking at that. But you've done it a lot. You've probably spent 20, 30 hours of your year doing that. That's fair. So are you willing to just commit to not doing that? You know, when you say that, I feel like such an irresponsible prick. Why can't you just sit down and type out what you want to do or what you want to say? why does Jamie have to write the first version? Well, but herein lies the issue with why it's so hard to commit to.

7:04You can know it. Now, you literally know it. And we got very specific and tactical. You know you like bringing people in and doing things, but you're not. And so the whole framework is like you're at 75%, 80 % of your time is in your genius. And you're clearly not there. You're at 30%. So not only are you less effective, but you're also more burnt out. and what keeps you there what keeps everybody there is the stories and it's scary like when I started gateway x like the first time I saw adrian doing something weird I wanted to grab the steering wheel from her and go no no no no go here right or like one extreme version is grab steering wheel from her another version is like yell at her to tell her what to do and and like none of those are right because those aren't those just aren't like they would have led me down this other path right and and I think it was hard and it still is hard sometimes to commit into my zone of genius and be willing to go, no, I'm not going to like go run the staff meeting for growth assistant.

7:56I'm not going to go pitch the client on the upsell. Those are, those are two things that are, I would pull my zone of excellence, by the way, like pitching clients for sure zone of excellence, like does it, you know, doesn't necessarily energize me. Sometimes it does, but, but doesn't often energize me, but I'm amazing at it. Um, and so I think that it's, it's a pretty high bar and it's a pretty, in some ways, I think most people just kind of like roll their eyes at it being unrealistic. I think it's one of the most life-changing things that I've done for myself. I do feel it's like it's understanding and persuading is probably it.

8:31Like in one moment, it's the understanding through customer development. What's the problem that they can't solve? How would they want help solving it? That's customer development. The other one for me is persuading. Like I wanted to have this dinner tonight here. I wanted to have the speakers of the a conference to come over to my house and i knew that there's like a path to doing it understanding to persuading those are the two what would you say yeah there's something else though yeah there's you're seeing well i'm thinking in myself yeah i mean that there's have you done done the genius exercises no i'm afraid of doing too much with dave cash in by going okay help me plan and i got updates for you on that help me deal with this other stuff and also help me deal with zone of genius.

9:14So that's why I put him to work. I mean, that's his job. Um, I'm like his Chirag. I like, I get everything I can out of him. You know, you are really good at that. So I keep telling Chirag, here's what I'm watching with a Jesse does. Like, for example, I always thought you have a coach like Dave Cashin working with me. The thing is I have an hour with him every two weeks. That's the limit of what we pay for. That's the limit of what we have. And you said, go text him in the middle of the week about this thing. And then you said, if you're having an issue, just message him right now. I go, but text, he goes, it's too much.

9:48And you said, he's an adult. He'll tell you if it's too much. I actually have a question for you about that. I don't know if now's the right time, but okay. You will say, ask this person to do the thing. They're an adult. They'll tell you no. I get that. And I do think I need to ask more, but I wonder if you realize the power that you have over people and their inability to say no to you. And maybe that's on them that they should learn. But if you're asking, say, a writer to also edit something else or video producers also, they won't say no to you the way they might say even to their mom, no, they feel like they want to please you.

10:24And that's, what do you think? Yeah, I think, I mean, look, I think it's important. There's two pieces to this, right? One is like this concept, I think, from conscious leadership around 100 % responsibility, right? Which is like, when there's between two people, there's 200 % of responsibility and we should each take our hundred percent. And if I, if I worry about asking you for something that I'm taking more than my hundred percent in our relationship versus you being independent and me going, Hey, Andrew, will you do this? And you go, no, I can't do that right now. I can do it tomorrow or whatever that trend.

10:57So I think, I think practicing that as a general frame is really valuable in every relation, even in your marriage, like the, the concept, you know, the, the, the lingo that people use is, is heroing someone, right? If I asked my wife, can you wake up in the morning and, uh, cook me breakfast and take care of the baby and drop the kids off. And she's like, well, he's tired. I'm going to hero him. Like I'm going to do that even though I don't want to do that. That's called heroing. And when you hero someone, you're taking more than a hundred percent responsibility for, for like your relationship dynamics.

11:27And what happens, what do you think happens when you do that with someone? I think if I'm heroing someone, I, there's resentment that just, you build resentment and then you break the person. That's a hundred percent what happens. Right. And, and so it's not like, it's, it's not like it's costless. Like, yes, in the moment, it's easy to hero some situation, right? The opposite of heroing is like either blaming someone or you're pulling back and being the victim and saying like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to do my part here. I'm going to, I'm going to run away from this. And that's kind of this whole concept of a hundred percent responsibility on both sides.

11:58So I think I like to stand for the concept of 100 % responsibility, which is, which is, yes, I can ask for anything I want. And you can also tell me yes, no, maybe, or negotiate it back. And so some of it is just teaching people that and getting to know it, I think. And with that said, I think that, you know, you do have to be mindful of power dynamics, um, for sure. Right. And, and I think like power dynamics in for, for a junior employee versus whatever, like calling it out, it's okay to say no here. And I want to ask you for what I want. So the idea behind it is, is to, is to create the space, but not like a, you know, sometimes people call it negotiating against yourself.

12:35If you already start to go and say, well, I don't want to put pressure on them today. So let me wait till tomorrow to ask them. And you're all of a sudden you're playing all these games that are very actually energetically draining. If you think about it, cause you're like, well, I don't want to ask that person now. Let me ask them tomorrow. And this person, this, and then, and you kind of just go, Hey, you can say no to this. And I want to ask for my a hundred percent. Uh, Dave sent me this thing one time that was like, ask for your a hundred percent, a hundred percent of the time, be willing to hear no and negotiate for a win-win.

13:02And I think that's the best formula version I've heard of it. Always ask for a hundred percent of the time you ask for your a hundred percent, but you're also willing to hear no. And then you're, and then both parties are willing to negotiate for. And if you think about where it breaks down at one of those things, either you don't ask for your 100%. That's one way it breaks down. You don't do it 100 % of the time. So you only do it some of the time, right? You're not willing to hear no, or both parties are not willing to actually have the conversation around a win-win, right? And if all four of those things are true for both people all the time, it's an incredibly healthy and empowering relationship.

13:42And I think it's important to train people. And the best way that I've done that, by the way, as a leader is like, I let people say no to me. And I'm like, Oh, I'm so glad you said, okay, let's, but let's find the win-win. Like what's okay. You can't get it done today. Let's get it done tomorrow. Or like, can you stop doing that other thing? And I think once you get people trained in that way of being, it's like highly addictive. I like the, you could say no to me, but I'll ask you for the a hundred percent. I do think that makes it easier for me to ask for things. Um, cause I do struggle with that because I feel like I want to protect people.

14:13And part of protecting people is protecting them against imaginary problems that they don't even tell me they have but i'm assuming that they don't want to take on this extra responsibility and sometimes it's the opposite they do want more but here's a here's a here's one that might stun you andrew is you're taking on the hero position can you see that i do that all the time what does that but does that mean you think about the other person that they need my protection because

14:41if you're on the hero spot where can they be than me correct you know i do you're treating someone like a victim you're literally saying someone is less than you when you take that posture you're putting them beneath you not only do i do that sometimes i do that intentionally as a way of building myself up like i'm gonna do this because now i'm seeing how strong i am and it's it's little things like i'm gonna show how strong i am at doing this work and that maybe you need to get done. Sometimes it's, I'm going to show you how impressive I am that I can now drink you and still show up the next morning to go take care of the baby.

15:15And you're not even checking on what I'm doing with the baby. You don't even know that I have a baby, but in my head, it's like the way I build myself up. Yeah. I mean, and that sounds consistent with the pattern and you're, you're a three in the Enneagram. You're like, you have some deep fear that you're not enough or that you have to keep proving yourself. And so these are all these various ways that you keep trying to make yourself better than everybody else. Yeah, I do. Yeah, there was when we were doing that 833 meeting with other founders, and there was another one who was a three. And I said, not only do I need to know that to have people tell me that what I've done is great, it has to be absolutely irrefutably great.

15:54And I need like evidence. And then I could go, okay, this is good. Which is why running is good, because I could finish a marathon and know, okay, I hit this number and I'm good. But if you just say, Hey, great work, Andrew. I like this article. I'm like, did you, how do I know that it's really right? Where's the metric? Where's the outside proof? Where's the rigor? By the way, I'm drinking a shake now. I've been, you know, I've been working on how much I'm eating. How the hell do you not eat all day, especially with the stressful work that you have and everyone else dumping their problems on you?

16:26The shake is, is not even doing it for me no i'm not i'm not i've still another two or three hours till i have my shake yeah don't you feel like you get stressed and so the worst thing about working from home is there's always food around though i remember the gateway x office also had my like number one snacks which is like nuts and seeds that kind of a thing how do you how do you go to whatever what are we now 12 30 without eating especially when other people are dumping their stress on your head I go till two or three I think as long as I stay busy I think on these calls or whatever like I I don't really I find the easiest thing for honestly once I start eating I find it hard to not keep eating during a window but as long as I'm not eating a lot of liquid coffee and water I feel like I can I can really block it and then I can and then I can start eating yeah there's something about having a no in my head I know I'm not eating until noon so it's not a question anymore.

17:22Yeah, exactly. I think that works in a lot of things. All right. So you were saying that you see the genius that I'm not noticing. How, how do I get to notice this? I mean, there's a couple exercises, right? One is there's, there's this exercise that CLG people have, which is just email the 20 people in your life and ask them like, when have you seen me most energized? What do you think I'm best at? And by the way, they say that genius is like asking a fish if they're a good swimmer. They don't even say, they say, what do you, what's water? I don't even know what water is. So I don't even know what you mean by the question.

17:56Like when you tell me that I'm so good, like riffing off of people and giving them feedback, like it just, it's so natural to me that I don't even realize I'm doing something like that. And so you, I think getting other people to reflect it back to you is a really powerful way to figure out what your genius is. There's a couple other exercises of like reflecting on times you worked your best. There's the energy audit, which, you know, you look at when, when you've been energized versus not. I had to do that actually. Before we were working together, you gave that to me. And now I want to go find that notion doc where it basically what I was doing was keeping track, keeping this notion doc on my computer all day.

18:30And anything I did, I would mark what I was doing and then write whether it gave me a reduced energy. Well, there's something about you, Andrew, about information and content that you have a genius around. Like you can, it's some of it's, you have this unique curiosity where you constantly ask questions or you, you, you sort of probe and ask these questions. Like, here's an interesting example. We had that very private conversation with Rick Elias where he shared a really private thing about himself and was like, you know, and he wasn't going to do that. He just said, I had a tough, I had a tough couple of years and everyone was like, okay.

19:04And everyone was satisfied. And you were like, oh, give me a real example. And then, and then the example he shared, we were all in tears, right? It floored all of us. but like so there's something you and i think the same thing with me you've done that a lot of times like i think the whole sales accelerator was a function and many much of what bootstrap giants is is you you doing that you found these situations where you've been like um well hold on wait how did you get that meeting how did you meet supercell like what was that client and and there's something that you're really naturally good at digging in uh that i think is part of that and then you find an angle or you find the unlike you then connect it with people who need it the most and I think there's an element of that too.

19:42But yeah, I think you shouldn't undervalue your taste and your ability to kind of like see something content-wise or information-wise other people don't see. Yeah, I see what you mean. Do you feel like you're, I know you took this big change in your life this year where each business was going to get one day. I know that your calendar was chaotic. Do you feel like this is reducing the chaos and allowing you to live in your zone of genius? That's a good question.

20:15What? So I think the context switching has been helpful. To not have to go from Aux one day, on the same day Aux, Bootstrap Giants. In the morning and then Bootstrap Giants in the afternoon. And I think the clarity for everyone else has also been super helpful of just like, if you work on Aux, you're like, Jesse's available Tuesday. This is a great topic to talk about because it's very present for me right now. I think what it has also led to is that like everyone crams everything into those, these days. And then my days end up these three, the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, end up feeling like crazy for me.

20:51And if I'm a little off energy wise or I'm not fully there present, like I, it definitely just drains me by the end of it. And then I think what's happened with Thursday and Fridays is, you know, Friday has become this like marathon networking or like all the other calls basically get dumped into that day. but then, you know, it just ends up with the situation where my calendar is completely packed. And it's not even that I like want to get any work done. You know, I don't like doing work. Like that's not a thing I like to do, but it's, it's honestly like, I, like I'm, I'm more, more I'm growing in my spiritual journey and my personal journey, like type seven.

21:26One of the things about the Enneagram type seven is they like to fill their calendar with things. Cause if they have free time, they literally feel anxious. So they're like, it's a way they avoid feeling. And now that I'm like more in touch with my feelings than I ever have been, I actually find the, that I don't like it as much. I just want spaciousness. Like I literally want an hour where nothing is booked where I can, I can putz around and like not do anything or pick up something that I haven't done in a minute or read. Like another thing I realized is like, like listen to podcasts or read, read stuff.

21:55Like I don't, I don't have any time in my day for that stuff. And that stuff I'm like it's it's better in some ways but it's not fully uh it's not fully where I'd like it to be I don't think yeah I feel like you're not quite where you need to be where I think you're your genius is in coming in and doing what you did this morning for our members where they had this problem and you came in with this like light bulb solution for them and that that's where you're great and i feel like instead we end up putting you into look at these slide sessions and why don't you give this kind of feedback on this thing saying the thing you've said 12 times before yeah i mean the way i would describe it at a high level is i think i'm still pretty heavily operationally involved in all the businesses and i think I think that's probably more zone of excellence stuff.

22:55And I think some of it is I'm also, the flip of it, by the way, is like, you know this from the Dave work. I can resist the reality of where we are now. I can change the reality of where we are now or my willingness to participate in it. I can say, guys, never mind. I'm not going to do this. I'm the chairman. You get two hours a week with me each and talk about your problems and I'll help you build a business. That's all I do. That's one way to solve it, which I could do. the other flip of it is like no that's this is like where we are right now as it is like this is where the thing is right now and accept where it is and show up with 100 against it and i think like when i look across the businesses like you know carolyn just started doing marketing for growth assistant you know they they just finished kind of a one big cycle of iteration she's figured out what channel she wants to prioritize she's doubling down on those like hopefully within the next few months there's going to be more of like a emotion there that's that's going right so there's certain things that we've growth assistant that's like they're operationally involved ox right now is i'm engaged with the case teams i'm helping casey recruit some senior people those are pretty operational things but like again they should create more scale like some more like independence of that business and bg we're you know we're figuring out various things we're still making content so i think part of it is also just accepting where i am right now in all of this and like it being like it's going to be part of the journey of getting it to the point where i can be that zoomed out, I believe, and holding myself accountable to not falling into the trap of next quarter signing up for more operational stuff.

24:26Do you think that maybe instead of launching these companies within GatewayX, it's better for you to just buy companies that have some momentum, but they're blocked, they've hit some plateau? Yeah. Have we talked about that? No. Oh, that's funny. You and I haven't talked about that. This is chaotic, and this is the messy part of entrepreneurship and I can see that you're good and excited about it and it's much more let's make it up which is creatively fun but it's also draining in little things yeah it's funny it's funny we I thought we I mean we've talked about that a little bit maybe like you know we decided not to start a new business this year partially because of all the things we're talking about partially like you know and there's another good sidebar we could take is like I've also learned to trust my energy a lot more.

25:13My energy has become like, I've, I've, I think it took me a while to learn what it was. Then it took me a while to trust what it was, but now I trust it. My energy is like, Nope, don't do anything new. You've got plenty going on. Um, but I, I, I think given that we've got more scale across all of the stuff we're doing now that plus like the, the starting a new business every year, even co-founding with you, co-founding with Casey, like your experience is like, and for Casey for, let's say that first year was tough. The first 15 months was up, but now she's like got a real business. It's got employees and like it, it's not gonna, it's tough in different ways, but my experience has been the slog of the first year of every business every year, which I think I was super hyped about for a minute.

25:52And now I'm like, like just not as excited that might, I might start another business in two years, maybe, maybe not, but it's definitely driven me to going like, yeah, wait, I think I do want to start it. Like, or I think I do think MNA is a more interesting path for me. It solves a lot of things. It solves that issue, right? So you get, no matter how good the idea is, I think ox is one of the best business ideas I've ever had and we've ever built. And yet it still took us a good two years to get it to like some sort of, I call it gravitational force, right? You kind of have to like the first cranks of the shaft you have to do a few times.

26:24And it's, I'm like, man, I'm like a little sick of that slog and I just don't want to do it. I think that's one thing that's driving me. I think the other thing that's driving me is leverage. Like again, it takes time to get these businesses to leverage. Whereas you buy something, you can get a lot more leverage very quickly. and then i think the third thing is uh is like it it will be different for me the expectations will be different for me to work on the business versus in the business like i think co-founding a business with someone there's just an expectation that i'm going to be part of the building of the business whereas if i'm like the owner i bought it it's like oh he's he's not like there's a business that runs and he's sort of helping make it better but he's not in it um and so i think that's that's driving it and i think the other thing we've proved a lot of interesting things Like we've learned from Ox that like growth marketing can be a really effective lever for, for, for businesses you buy.

27:14We've learned from bootstrap giants that there's a ton of founders out there who are stuck and there's like ways I can unstick them and I can actually have a lot of impact from the outside in. So I think there's like all these interesting things coming together. Then there's this whole AI thing, which is another vector we've been spending time on of like, now can you bring AI into the picture? And what does that look like? So I think it does it like I am getting excited for maybe the next season here to be more about M &A and at least to try it like it might not work. But but I'm open to trying it.