We Made A BIG Decision… | Ep 908

25:58And if you are the person who has done every job in the business, then it means that literally only one brain has, is the max capacity of the business. And so if you were to imagine this as like a little triangle, it's like all of a sudden, if you just add a second brain, how much higher the peak gets just from adding two kind of rate limiters or capacitors in the business. And when you add a third, the peak goes way higher in terms of the capacity for the business. And so that's where this gets really exciting. And there's a third kind of alpha for everyone, which is what are the opportunities that get unlocked that none of us could pursue on our own, but that we could only do an aggregator together.

26:35And I think that's where we get these more sophisticated and yet simpler. It's more complex to execute, simpler in concept outcomes that everyone can agree like, man, if we could just do this one thing, it could change everything. It's like, yeah. And that's where I'm like, yeah, we could change everything. And you guys are like, it will take more steps. But I think it's really powerful though for the person listening and watching to kind of decode a little bit of what Alex and Leila just shared is that we've experienced this. And I really, one of my favorite things about being an acquisition.com is this, where we could have a chat about something and then Layla will say, I got it.

27:15And then that's it. You don't have to worry because Layla got it, right? Or we'll be talking about something and say, I got it. The conversation is over. And the more people that can say, I got it, is insanely powerful for an organization. You say, I got it very often. And I really appreciate that. Alex never got it. We sometimes have to text you under the table. This is your time to say, I got it right now. No. I actually think you made a video about this. you said, how do you get scale? You get scale when you ensure that the leverage that is transferred gets transferred without a change in the performance in some way, which is insane.

27:54And so probably my favorite three words that someone can ever tell me is I got it because I know that, and if they actually got it, it's super, super powerful. And when you have someone like that in your organization, I would support them, get out of their way, reduce fiction, get them support, make sure whatever they want is taken care of. Not that you need a partner per se, but anybody that has that level of competence and that has that level of care, I would highly take care of them. And if you're in an organization right now and you feel like you want that recognition, say, hey, partner, manager, boss, whatever, I got it.

28:30And then deliver on the I got it. That is the fastest way to kind of building that trust with your team. hey guys first off want to say thank you there's one person who's been sharing this more than anyone and that is you the only reason this podcast continues to grow is because you guys are sharing it and uh my only ask is that if this has provided value to you or you think it would provide value to somebody else more importantly um if you could dm it to them if you could slack it to them uh if you could text them uh a screenshot or link to this podcast is the only way it grows and uh that's what fills the hole inside of my heart uh for the approval of others so that I can go to sleep at night.

29:05And that's why I really do this. Anyways, enjoy the rest of the pod. No, it's really good. You say, I got it all the time. And it's just like, if someone says it to me, I'm just like, I will ask no more questions. Because I also think that the other thing it does for the person saying I got it, which what a lot of people don't realize is when you say I got it, there's an insane belief system and a responsibility that you put on yourself. Because the reason I say I got it is I can't let Layla down. And so I will work super hard because I put those three words in front of Layla. And the next time I say it, if I did not get it, then she's going to be like, what the heck?

29:39So there has to be a 100 % say-do ratio on I got it. You cannot screw at any time. And if you do, you're like, I'm so sorry. This is what happened. Let me go fix it, right? So the number of I got it that can happen in an organization will move the business so much faster. It's a really good analogy. Now I'm thinking about it. I'm like, who says I got it most? I can think of the top two people that say it to me the most. And I'm like, oh, I always appreciate it so much. I'm like, oh, yeah. Well, I'll throw this in. Like, I think bringing a partner on, I think, you know, this has been awesome, you know, for us.

30:16But trying to explain, like, right way to feel, wrong way to feel, I think just from a pattern recognition perspective might be helpful. One, we've been working for, you know, not working, but like we've been talking about this. So we've laid a lot of, you know, groundwork for this so that we can hit the ground running. but Sharon has given me and especially Layla attention back and so it's like and I don't like using soft language but I'll use it here and then I'll explain it but like it makes like Sharon is making everything feel lighter and so I see that as okay I only have so much time and so much bandwidth which is even less than the time that I have in terms of like mental acuity and all of a sudden having two-thirds of the things that I was formerly working on now just gone and being done at the same level or arguably higher because Tron has more experience with these things.

31:02So we're paying down ignorance as we're kind of learning the edge cases of what is the, you know, nine-figure to 10-figure marketing playbook look like? What is the nine-figure to 10-figure sales playbook look like? What does the nine-figure to 10-figure product playbook look like? We're trying to pay down this ignorance set as fast as we can across all these functions. But it's like, well, Tron already did this on the public level, you know, in a public company. And before that in Intellis at a multi-billion dollar level, it's like, well, some of these legal infrastructure pieces, it's like, OK, well, we can and we'll learn it.

31:33Or we can just not have to pay the scar that I know or the interest that is going to come due later because we just pay that debt down now. I think that that habit of trying, being willing to sacrifice some today to not get destroyed tomorrow has served us really well. But from a feeling perspective, which I don't really tap into very much, it just things feel lighter. And I think that if somebody comes into your organization, obviously it works at any level, but if someone comes into the organization and it feels heavier, that person is not helping you. They're not putting attention back on your plate so that you can then eat up the problems that you're uniquely qualified to solve at the higher level than you're currently solving it.

32:10it no i think that's really valid i also think even even in that case like when you're bringing someone to make it feel lighter whatever that may be i think like for me it's definitely very mental it's also from a work standpoint but like the mental like knowing that even just like talking things through with you it's just like i just value that so much and i'm so grateful for it just to talk through things that i didn't have anybody in the organization to talk about before you know what i mean it's like of course but we don't even work on the same things in the which has just been like a sigh of relief of like me being like this is shit right and you're like that's shit we're like this is amazing right and you're like that's amazing i'm like okay like it's nice validation and then also like be able to run things by you and learn things that i didn't know you know when we told the team that you were coming on like the the way that i brought it up to everyone was like guess who hasn't taken a company to a billion dollars before me and i was like so I would like to bring on somebody who has like and I think a big learning for me was that and of course I didn't talk to you about it because you're very busy at the time but like I was so nervous to tell everybody like so nervous so like I've talked to one of my coaches I talked like two of my coaches about I'm like how do I do this in a way that positions it really well and they're like what's the truth about this and I was like all these everything we just said here right and they're like well just tell the truth and it's so funny because I told the whole team and that was exactly the frame I used, which was just like, I haven't done this, Labore.

33:37Sharon has. We've been friends for this long. We've been talking to him behind the scenes for this long. Like, these are all things. And not one person had an adverse response. And it still has not. Like, it has gone insanely well. So what I will say is that if you are bringing in somebody to help, you don't want to, like, skimp out on how you bring them in, how you talk about it with your team, even, like, onboarding. Like it was fast and crazy, but like I built out everything. And then you were like, you're like, I will do some of that. But, you know, it's like you just never know. We should.

34:11It's like you don't know. We should talk about how Sharon on board. Because I think that would be super helpful for people who are bringing in high level executives, directors, partners. Do you want to hit on that? I mean, we can. It wasn't even as planned because I ended up. No, but I love what you did. I mean, so, you know, the first thing that Sharon did, which a lot of. So this is, I think this is kudos to Shran because he has zero ego, which is why he is as successful as he is. But a lot of, you know, partners, execs, even directors, depending on like leaders, I'll just say, might come into a company and just be like, all right, what's my 30, 60, 90?

34:44And there's nothing wrong with that. That's fine. But Shran just was like, okay, I'm going to meet every single person who works at acquisition.com from like the bottom of the org chart all the way up. And he was like, this gives me so much rapid context and I'll have rapport and, and, and. and he basically onboarded himself within 10 days and talked to 100 plus people in that period of time. And he came back and was like, I understand what's going on now, which is better than you trying to write a 16-page document that trying from, because the thing is, is it's always gonna be one person's perspective.

35:15Whereas if you get 100 different perspectives, you actually get such a three-dimensional view of the company rather than 2D kind of paper version. I'll also say that from a speed of growth perspective, If we think about the speed of a business can be derived from the speed of their ability to make decisions, right? Well, it's like then what speeds up decision-making ability? So one part is data. Well, actually, data is going to be the biggest one. But when you don't have, in the absence of data, you have patterns, right? You have basically past data that you can extrapolate in the future. And so to your point, Layla, it's like we might say, hey, based on reasoning, you know, just on logic and what we know about the world, We believe this is a good direction or a good decision.

35:57And having someone who has that pattern that's already recognized be like, yeah, already did that. Like, that's the right call. Or yes, and add this piece because this will come up later. It has compressed what would be maybe multiple hour, two hour long discussions to then being finally like, all right, let's just do it. But that whole process might take two weeks or four weeks to make that call, which then can now be done in 30 minutes. But then tomorrow we have another 30-minute decision. And the day after we have another 30-minute decision. But each one of those would have been two to four weeks, two to four weeks, two to four weeks.

36:30And that's where you can see why a company can grow at 10 times the rate, 100 times the rate of others. Because minutes versus months is a massive difference when we look at timescales for growth. And I think that's one of the other massive unlocks that, I mean, I'm excited that you've already given us. But, you know, even more in the future. You mean just how we make decisions? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think part of that too is like we're so we're usually like this. And I feel like you have the unique like you've done a lot of things like by having both the sets of skills. So like you can flex on either side.

37:04And so like you bring a really like rounding the middle ground. Well, thank you. But the I think the interesting part about the onboarding, which people need to know is the thoughtful like Layla wrote me a like a 16 to 20 page onboarding plan, which was amazing. because that allowed me to say, all right, let me read through that. And the interesting part about that was not the plan itself, was seeing Leila's thought process on how the world works. And I thought, and I think that most people will just say, okay, cool. Hey, let's do a press release and bring this person on board. And hey, for the first few months, just meet people.

37:41I'm like, no, you were 90 days of like ramping up. That's crazy. You need to make impact today. And so Alex hit the nail on the head where if the organization is somewhat larger, especially if there is a hybrid component to it, you can't wait for rapport. You need rapport and patterns very quickly. And so if you're talking to people and five of them say this is what they love about the company, that reinforces what that is. And if three of them say this is the same issue, that reinforces what that is. And you learn it very quickly and you learn it from natural patterns. And that also allows for rapport.

38:20So if you're new or in a company, I would suggest focusing on rapport and patterns. That would be very, very helpful. And the second is to be super impactful, you have to find the most granular thing that happens in the business. So for us, it was me going through every single line item in our P &L, right? And so I know you know everything because where the money goes is where the business invests. And once you know that, you know where everything is at. So if you're in a marketing organization, you should know every single metric, every single channel. And that allows you to kind of figure out that is the pattern in a lot of ways.

38:56So people think about learning top down. You want to learn bottom up because that allows you to know what the culture of decision making happens. That's what's manifested in the bottom up numbers. And if you do bottom up, you can get perspective very quickly. If you do top down, it takes a lot of time. I think that's what I was most impressed with is I totally saw the bottom approach there. just like already being able to recall so many of the details i was like wow like just so fast i don't even have anything insightful to say it was just like really it was really impressive well i think the pattern for me is that you know if we bring leaders in in general i mean i think we've tended to we talk about this publicly anyways but it's just further reinforcing of the framework that like a players don't usually need a long time to immediately start providing value and when we hear someone who might say like i'm gonna need a quarter just to like get my bearings it's like probably not the guy or the gal right like every single life player that i could name off the top of my head in this business like immediately i mean within the first five day you know first work week was like i got it i could already understand this chunk i'm gonna start eating this and i'm gonna understand these but they hit the ground running and um every time that i've probably been like you know what we'll give them it's like it's never really worked out long term or it's just been an also rant.

40:11It's been like, they're all right. Like they somewhat solved the problem and they're not a screaming hot pain right now. I'll deal with it later. But every player hits the ground running. And this is obviously no exception. I would love both your perspectives on this. And I, because hopefully this is helpful for folks watching as they're bringing people on or you're coming out to an organization is you want to deliver artifacts as soon as possible. And it's not just, oh, I had impact. You want to deliver something real, tangible, artifacts, something as soon as possible. and when you start producing people around you are like, wait a minute, he showed up, he tried, he showed up, he wrote a memo, he showed up, he made a video, he showed up, he set up a process, he showed up, he talked to a vendor, right?

40:49And so it's the email is not the artifact. The artifact is the artifact. And the more artifacts that you can ship early on, the more confidence you get and the more feedback you get. And you start to realize, so if you're coming in new to an organization, the more artifacts you can ship, the better. So artifacts to me like organizational wins. Correct. Yeah. Hey, we read this memo. Here's a video. Here's how we're thinking about this. Like something, I always think about it as, what do you have to show for it? Right? Yeah. Which is a great doge question, but you have to ask yourself, what do you have to show for it?

41:23And if you have nothing to show for it, it's okay you made a decision, but early on you have to have something to show for that decision. Otherwise, you don't get cultural buy-in on that. One piece that people discount a lot, which is like, I explain this to people, I'm like, listen, I can know what you're doing, But if the team doesn't see wins from you, they're not going to assimilate you into the organization. They're not going to know, why should I listen to this person? Because you're like, oh, well, no, ask Layla. I'm doing all this for eight weeks behind the scenes. They're like, okay, whatever.

41:49And don't be behind the scenes. Don't be behind the scenes. The two biggest pieces of advice I give to everyone that asks me, because we have so many new people, they're like, what can I do? And I'm like, one, don't tell people what to do when you're new. Don't go around telling people that something they do is wrong. That doesn't make you smart. It doesn't make you cool. that's not why you're here like just watch just watch I was like the second thing is offer to help everybody I'm like just offer just like hey is there anything I'm gonna do to help you is there anything I'm gonna do to support you don't like if you do those two things it's like and one thing I've noticed with you is you're like hopping on support hopping on help so they need to do for you like constantly asking those things and it's like even if someone doesn't need something it's like they feel like Molly they ask that they can do something for me and they're brand new you know what I mean and you always gain rapport from kind of the servant frame right it's like it's not telling them uh what to do it's asking them what you can do just a small pivot and by doing that though then it's like now i've got one reward cycle with this person and one especially if you come in from the position of above right if they know you have the authority you flipping and be like hey how can i help you is a like i think that's the authority hijack right the thing that you could do that ultimately will gain you real influence rather than title-based authority in the business?

43:04The one thing I will offer is the thing that made me feel the most welcome and secure was Layla's document because it showed me that she cared enough to spend all that time preparing for me. And I don't think most, I'm just going to say most onboarding managers do that, where imagine the anxiety of a new person coming on board anywhere in the organization. They want to show up. They want to be successful. They want to do a good job. You know, but it is the first two to four weeks are actually the manager's responsibility, not the person's responsibility. And us putting in a little bit of effort upfront, showing them that you have saying, hey, this is a plan.

43:49Here's the onboarding plan. It shows that you care so much about the person coming on board, as opposed to, oh yeah, we'll just introduce you around and watch her. No, you don't want to do that. And so I publicly want to thank you. I know how much effort went into that, but that allowed me to see your thinking and also feel your care, which we have a bunch of new leaders coming on board that are going to work with us directly. and that you set the bar for me to think about them coming on that way and almost to guarantee their success. And so I want to take – my effort needs to guarantee their success because at the end of the day, we just want guaranteed success.

44:33And so I want to do the effort, and you showed me how to do that. That's super cool. I appreciate that. It's funny you say that because that is – When I remember when I walked into a new job and they had a whole document packet and like basket for me. And the way I felt was like, I never had a job do that. And they had like two days where they spent so much time with me. It was all structured. And I wanted to give more to them because of what I got there. And that was when it clicked for me of like, okay, when I build an organization, like the first impression of just like how much effort they're willing to put in.

45:08I didn't need half of it right and I didn't end up using half it but like that they were willing to made such a difference in just like feeling welcome because you're you know you're nervous and stuff and so I'm glad it was helpful I know the doc it was definitely overblown and I did it out of complete anxiety of not wanting it all or to fail but I it was awesome yeah I was like if this fails it's my fault for sure but that is the responsibility that that the leader should take right that is that is the responsibility because you spend all this time hiring going through the process making the person feel special come on board and then you're like welcome you know i think what a lot of people don't talk about i i prepared so much for issues with bringing like telling people that you were coming in of like people being like well layla i want to work with you on this or i'm gonna like this or like who's this person like what's going on like how are we gonna make decisions like i was completely prepared for all of that um because that's what so many people told me like happens and i was like even though we have such a great culture and organization like I just need to prepare for it.

46:05And I think a lot of people, that's actually where I spent even probably just as much time, which was having the conversations with people one-on-one, talking to people, what does it mean? What does it not mean? What's changing? What's not changing for individuals and then for the company. And I think that alone is where a lot of people fail is that they don't do the work when they're bringing in a new leader or a new partner to position them well, to step into the organization and be welcome. Because a lot of times they do a couple of things, which is like one, they say it's going to be better with this person.

46:34I don't say any expectations because I'm like, it's going to be different. Good joke. Thank you for money. It's going to be different. Well, I saw the worst was like three years ago when a leader would like replace themselves. They're like, it's going to be so much better with this. But I was like, you can't say, I knew for us, you can't say that because it's going to at first feel so different. They're not going to think, well, you said it was going to be better. It's day two. Why is it not better? It's like, well, they're new. What do you expect? It's like, well, you said. And so that's the first one was like, just don't set any of those expectations.

46:59Just say it's going to be different. It's going to be a change. Here's what the change is going to look like. And I think the second piece to it is explain how it, like the highly impacted individuals, how is it, what's going to happen and what's not going to happen? Like what changes and what doesn't change? And I think that those are also really important to explain to people because a lot of people bring in someone like you and they're like, am I getting fired? Is this still happening? Like what's changed? Like there's all sorts of things that can go through their brain. So I always just try to come up with like, what are the things that, what are the obstacles I anticipate ahead of time that I can just overcome before they even bring them to me?

47:34And I think that in itself, paired with what you just said, like if you do those two things, like you address either the communication plan for how you're going to communicate to the organization, and then there's a plan for when you bring a person in. I think that is how you set someone up for success. So when they walk in, people are excited for them to be there, not scared or not annoyed or frustrated or worried. I'm just excited for her. Real quick, guys, I have a special, special gift for you for being loyal listeners of the podcast. Leila and I spent probably an entire quarter putting together our Scaling Roadmap.

48:11It's breaking scaling into 10 stages and across all eight functions of the business. So you've got marketing, you've got sales, you've got product, you've got customer success, you've got IT, you've got recruiting, you've got HR, you've got finance. And we show the problems that emerge at every level of scale and how to graduate to the next level. It's all free and you can get it personalized to you. So it's about 30-ish pages for each of the stages. Once you answer the questions, it will tell you exactly where you're at and what you need to do to grow. It's about 14 hours of stuff, but it's narrowed down so that you only have to watch the part that's relevant to you, which will probably be about 90 minutes.

48:45And so if that's at all interesting, you can go to acquisition.com forward slash roadmap. R-O-A-D map. Roadmap. ACQ 3.0. ACQ 3.0. That was your idea. Yeah. It is the natural progression. I think that's a lot of stuff that people are going to start seeing us moving towards. than when we allude to the big moves we make that it comes with acquisition.com 3.0? I mean, I see it like as a progression of, like I would say, you know, 1.0 was us helping ourselves directly. I would say 2.0 was us helping ourselves directly and helping everyone else indirectly. So it's like if you document all these things, we show what we're doing, that's going to help a lot of business owners indirectly.

49:30We're not the one actually like setting up, you know, like taking calls for them. we're like, but hey, here's how we do it. And here's how we do our marketing. Here's how we do our sales. Here's how we do these things in the business that we can help you grow and hopefully hit your goals. And I would say acquisition 3.0 is how can we help ourselves directly and help you directly? And so I see that as kind of the vectors, which is kind of the natural progression. But in order to do that, from the first time we met until now, the size of the quote indirect direct audience went from, you know, a few thousand to now, you know, tens of millions that have, you know, directly been in our network versus the people even in our interested demographic.

50:07And so in order to do it and do it right and maintain our reputation, which is, I mean, we've worked such a long time to do. We want to make sure, you know, I'll try not to be crude, but that it's fucking awesome and it's fucking done right. And that if we can do that, then I think that we can, you know, get close to the kind of impact that I think all three of us want to have. Because you said this earlier, but like, it's hard for people to comprehend. It's like, Tron really doesn't need to do anything. And we really don't need to work at all. We can just like live off the dividends from the buildings and the businesses that we own and like, just work out.

50:44Like when I see the best entrepreneurs of all time, it's like they're They're able to kind of like flip their selfish interest inside out so that it just kind of pulls the world. And I think that that's I think it's something that all of us wanted to do. And it just takes more than one or two people to do it and do it right. I just think like at the end of the day, you know, when I think about what we're building here and like how it started and such, I think it's because, you know, at the end of gym launch, for example, like, you know, we got partners and then we were out. Right. We never brought partners into the business to keep growing the business in a way that didn't feel completely exhausting, because at some point it's not this isn't about the work that you do in the business.

51:28It's about the decisions, the judgment, the leadership, the experience. And that's, you know, it's not like we're like, oh, Sharon's going to come and do so much work. Like, it's like, I know you are because it's who you are. But it's like the judgment you bring, the decision making, the expertise, like your thinking, your brain. right and i think at some point especially like when we sold gym walks like i was definitely at a point where like it had just run off the two of us and i do think that i was on the point where i was like i was okay for a minute like in that brief moment of like thinking smaller because i was like oh my i was so tired like i was like i was just like i'm tired like i've been up since 4am i was going to bed at 8pm and i'm a freaking grandma and like it would be nice to just have something a little more a little less demanding of me right and it's funny because i look back and I'm like, it was just a skill deficiency, which is like, I didn't have the skill of doing a couple of things.

52:15It was like building a team that allowed for me not to feel that way every day and building a team where I actually, the like being tired of the day was worth it because I had so much fun working with them as well as then, okay, maybe you shouldn't be the one making decisions all day. Like if I'm making 35 decisions a day, is that really a good thing to be doing at that point? And I knew it was. Well, I think that goes to Alex's point of having the under-talented, right? And the crazy part is, how many times have we all experienced this where we, this doesn't mean to be a part of it, but you hired one person.

52:49And that person did so good. You're like, man, everything is so much better because Michael's here. Like, that happened, right? And when that happens, imagine that over and over and over and over again. And that's when you get to do so many powerful things. It's permanent I got it's, which then you have an organization of I got it's, I got it's, I got it's, I got it's. And then all of a sudden you create the space to then say, well, I still got some stuff. Like I can still go get stuff. But then all those I got it's lets you go get. And I think that's what allows you to build the future because so many entrepreneurs like have this, it's their dream is really just a dream and never meets reality because they never have the opportunity to pursue it because they're still stuck under talented in the business because they're constantly feeling like they have to play whack-a-mole because they don't fully complete the cycle like they get a three-quarter solution but you still kind of like leave parts of yourself behind because you know that someone hasn't fully got it i think that's the one thing i feel like like the one thing i think it's probably my what i feel most proud of this team is just like yeah we just have such great individuals you know it's like everyone's so strong and i think i used to really count on one hand how many strong people i had in an organization yeah and now it's like i would have to count on one hand how many weren't and i wouldn't have I need to put on my hand right now.

54:04You know what I mean? Which is like, I remember dreaming of that. And so I think at that point, then you're just like, when we talk about the barrels, you know, I think to a degree, it's like when you have the skills to build something amazing and excellent, you just realize at some point you just need to hook with other barrels so that you guys can help. You know, it's what I talk about a lot, which is like, you want a vision so big for something that you build that everyone's vision can sit inside of it. I think right now we see the vision for acquisition.com 3.0 specifically, and we all see how our visions for ourselves, our dreams fit inside of that vision.

54:39And that's that's where the magic comes. And I think it's, you know, I'll say this with jumping on the piggybacking on the talent piece, which is that I think that whether you like it or not, like, I mean, I talk to business owners that every day they're like, I want to help a million people lose weight. And I'm like, well, you have one brick and mortar store that has 100 customers. like the gap between there. I think it's not even it's not even a realistic dream. It's something that they say that other people say that's amazing. And so that's why they keep saying it more so than they actually want to do it, because if they actually wanted to do it, they would behave differently.

55:10And so they have like their thing they say, and then what they actually believe is possible. And I think that when you bring when you get these other barrels in and you get more high quality talent, your scope, your realm of believability expands. sense and so it's great to say hey we want to do this thing but like you know on some level like what is reasonable or what is feasible with our existing capacity and so we still on some level still extrapolate forward or project forward based on what we already have and so when you bring those other people in all of a sudden like your ability to see further you're like oh i i would never have considered that but now that we have john or we have so-and-so like oh they can they we could actually connect these dots in a way that i never would have originally imagined because i would thought, I can't do that.

55:54And I don't know anyone else who can. But then we meet that person. You're like, oh my God, all these other huge, chunky things now enter the realm of possibility. And that creates all these new connections that then expands the realistic vision rather than the someday that'll never happen vision. It's totally fair. The one quote that Alex actually probably would say it better than me is this really hit me hard. And I was, I'm born a very driven person. And In my 20s, I really believed that it was about the destination. In my 30s, I realized that it was about the journey. And then finally, in my older 40s, I finally realized that it's about the company.

56:35And it is the people that you're with, the people that you build with, the people that you grow with, the people that you can see more and farther with. It's doing it with great people is what makes you have the ability to outwork everyone else. because if you think about the destination all the time, you're like, man, I got it. That's what the grind is. I feel like I'm grinding and I feel tired and resentful. That's what happens because you don't have the company. Or then you go through this period of growth and everything is painful. And you're like, at some point, you're like, I don't need to do this anymore, right?

57:09And then, but when you have great company, you're like, well, wait a minute. If I don't know how to do this, I can ask for help. Can someone else do what I got it? And then you realize that the growing and the joyfulness becomes so much more multiplied. Someone asked me this the other day. I said, the reason why I finally believe that it's about the company is because of this one thing. It allows me to work harder. Because there is no working smarter. It's like you realize you have the company so you can work harder. And that's what's super, super powerful. I feel that so hard. Well, the vision also expands because the timeline you think on it also expands.

57:42because if you're miserable, then you want the misery to end on some level. And so you're like, well, I can only really think this far out because I don't want to do this for longer than this amount of period of time. So then it creates this rush and this pressure to get it all done as fast as possible, which is very like pushing energy. Like you're like, I have to just keep driving, even though I don't want to. On the flip side, if you're like, I'm enjoying the company on this process it's like well in 20 years we can build whatever we want and so then it just it creates a lot more fun and you can dream bigger if you have enough i got it and with those i got it you enjoy those people then it's like well what do we want to do like let's like let's fuck shit up like let's have let's have fun hey that's why i've like had zero feeling of rush with acquisition.com it's just like it's like if there's one thing it's like do what you love with people you love And it's like find people that like you would want to be around even if they didn't work in your company.

58:37It's a big one. And like that has just been such a huge frame shift. You know what I mean? I do want to ask you something, though. Of course. I bet you people are wondering, especially like people who follow you, how's your content been a change? So far, the content has always been a very niche category king type content. And the crazy part is we've had a chance to build, you know, a 1.5 million TAM audience and build a billion dollar business from it. And Alex, you talk about this, right? You go niche, you can actually create a lot of revenue from it. But I remember being at brunch with both of you and with my son, Neil, and the idea of making content about what you're working on.

59:16That is the thing that I'm truly excited about. I read this quote, which was like, to write the book, you have to first live the book. If you have to write the book, you have to live the book. And what I'm really excited about is starting to just look at my calendar and just talk about what we are talking about. Like what you and I are planning on launching is talking about what we are doing day to day. And I think that is the thing that people are missing. They don't see that. They see a lot of the how-to stuff, which is cool, but they don't see the, what did you do to help your business grow?

59:48So I'm looking forward to living the book and writing the book simultaneously. Yeah, I'm excited too. And I think also just like for everyone that follows you, like, you know, it has been like niche content, But like if you take the word real estate out of any piece of your content, like so many people come to our events and they're like, oh, I follow Sharon. Like, are you real estate? They're like, well, no, but you've got good shit. And I'm like, you're smart because that's what happened with Alex. It's like we. The early days of gym lunch, I had I had a lawyer stop me and he's like, hey, I listen to your podcast.

1:00:18I was like the gym secrets podcast. And they were like, yeah, it all applies. And I was like, well, yeah, but I say gym and membership rather than contract and services. And they're like, yeah, you just swap the words like. Like, duh. And I was like, huh, well, that's great. But, but I mean, Teron, I'll just, one of the things that also made Teron unique for this situation is that he also had, he understood content. He understood personal brand, which is how do you take, like, when you talk about unicorns, it's like, okay, you find somebody who's, you know, the Michael Jordan at real estate, which is a massive, you know, market, but then also has the upside of running the businesses that capitalize on this opportunity, which is, pure private equity, you know, like how do we, you know, increase enterprise value within the business and the ops itself of the people, the hiring, the recruiting, the marketing sales, all of those components.

1:01:08But then there's also the like, oh yeah. And one of those companies was also a public company. And so then there's the public securities, public market, which also he happened to have this experience at Goldman Sachs for years before that. So he has kind of like the bottom up approach of like what it's like on the floor of the, of, of kind of like the businesses that deal with the markets, and then also being the target of those products and services that are sold. So it's like this 360 view from a business perspective, but then in terms of, okay, that's all amazing, but maybe if Sharon were 80, he wouldn't be able to come into this, you know, our current context and understand the dynamic nature of how business is continually, you know, changing and evolving, especially with where attention is going and how to, just how acquisition works in general right now.

1:01:51And so, you know, Real was built largely, or at least in recent, you know, on the back of a lot of Sharon's speak engagements and his personal brand that brought in a lot of people to the company, right? And so being able to marry all of these ideas and then appropriately value each of them so that we could mix those things into the most viable thing for an entire audience or, you know, consumer base is just, it's like, how do you recreate that? It's like, oh, I just need another person who had, you know, who's an immigrant who isn't afraid to work, came here, you know, was dumpster diving in the beginning.

1:02:26And then also was able to go to one of the best schools in the U.S. and then go to the best bank or what is considered the best, you know, investment bank in the world. And then also do the private growth two times to a billion dollar level and do it publicly. it's just like and also have the the personal brand and also be someone that we like really get along with and share the values it's like yeah let's just wait for the next charan before we before we try and bring somebody in to do what we want to do and so um it's like you don't find another charan and um if you do get the opportunity to find another charan call me and don't don't bring them in uh but no we're we're just uh we're we're super pumped so excited to have you like Just genuinely, I think, you know, not going too much on my own, but like, it's just been so fun, even though it's I know it's hard and there's a lot of shit.

1:03:18It's still been fun. I remember it was like your fourth day when the members of our facilities teams messaged me and he was like, I just want to say you seem lighter. Like, you just seem like you're smiling more and you seem brighter. Like, is this because Sharon's here now? And I was like, oh, my gosh, I think it is. I was like, I'm just excited. That's awesome. That's awesome. That makes me happy. Yeah, I'm excited to build acquisition.com 3.0. 3.0.

1:03:49Real quick, guys, I have a special, special gift for you for being loyal listeners of the podcast. Layla and I spent probably an entire quarter putting together our Scaling Roadmap. It's breaking scaling into 10 stages and across all eight functions of the business. So you've got marketing, you've got sales, you've got product, you've got customer success, you've got IT, you've got recruiting, you've got HR, you've got finance. And we show the problems that emerge at every level of scale and how to graduate to the next level. It's all free and you can get it personalized to you. So it's about 30-ish pages for each of the stages.

1:04:23Once you answer the questions, it will tell you exactly where you're at and what you need to do to grow. It's about 14 hours of stuff, but it's narrowed down so that you only have to watch the part that's relevant to you, which will probably be about 90 minutes. And so if that's at all interesting, you can go to acquisition.com forward slash roadmap, R-O-A-D map, roadmap.