2346 - Strategies for Sustainable High Performance in Business Leadership with Stagnation Intelligence Agency's Todd Hagopian

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0:58With us right now, it is Todd Hagopian. Todd, you are the executive director of the Stagnation Intelligence Agency. I like that. Your book is called The Unfair Advantage, Weaponizing the Hypomanic Toolbox. Can't wait to get into that. Your website is toddhegopian.com. Todd, it's great to have you. Thank you so much, Josh. I've been looking forward to this one. Me too. Todd, before we get going and talking about what a hypomanic is and how one could use that to their advantage, you and I were talking just briefly before we got started, and I understand that you and I both love horror. And tell me what you've – give me some good scary movie recommendations.

1:50Yeah, you know, and I'm going to, of course, blank on all the names. But what I can tell you is we basically watched everything on Amazon and everything on Netflix. And we've gotten into Shudder now, which has a lot of these independent videos that maybe you haven't seen. You know what I mean? And that's why I can't remember the names. But what we've gotten really into is these, what do they call those, where it's where you're filming yourself, like, you know, the. VR. yeah you know where you're filming yourself and like um and he's the he's filming uh video like he's going out and doing it got it got it got it kind of like Blair Witch yes exactly like that we've gotten those yep yep and we've been doing those and there's so many out there and they're low budget but they're good enough you know what I mean and they're just it's a lot of fun to see these kind of young filmmakers do some cool things you know and then and then see the bigger filmmakers kind of grab it and turn it into a bigger movie you know and uh but yeah we really enjoy those uh those types of horror films well i learned recently that you're in uh you're around cleveland ohio i learned recently that ohio has more haunted houses per capita than any other state in the united states uh in in in october halloween uh season did did you go through some houses this year yeah we actually are going to we have one special needs child who's a little too young right now but uh but our older boy is really interested in it so it's on our bucket list for next year and the year after to do a bunch of them?

3:14We moved down to Orlando, Florida from Michigan about 17 years ago. And Universal Studios, as you know, has Halloween Horror Nights. I don't know if you've ever been down to that, but it's just completely on a whole different level. I saw that the average house costs about a million and a half dollars to produced and you absolutely see it. It's remarkable. My wife and I will always get kind of the, either the passes to kind of, so we can go through the houses multiple times. It's just amazing how many details they put in that. We can talk about haunted house and scary movies for the rest of the time, but I definitely, Todd, I need to learn what your book is, The Unfair Advantage, Weaponizing the Hypomanic Toolbox.

4:04Okay. You got my curiosity. All right. So hypomanic toolbox. I went 15 years undiagnosed bipolar and I was moving up in business real fast. There's two parts of bipolar. There's the hypomania, which we'll talk about, which is high energy, big goal oriented, you know, high focus, no sleep, just really, really focused work. And then there's the bipolar depression, right? That's the part that's bad that causes the suicidal ideation and things like that. and so I went through this for 15 years undiagnosed flying up the corporate ladder right but every time something good happened something bad would happen and it looked like one of those self-sabotage situations you know what I mean like I just couldn't get out of my own way that's kind of what it looked like from the outside um but still I was moving up and finally it got so bad where I was I was sleeping less than two hours a night for years you know what I mean I was I was drunk um you can get drunk at 20 and go to work the next day once you're 35 it starts getting harder you You know what I mean?

5:00Yeah. Like there's a lot of problems that were happening. And I finally went in and they were like, yeah, you are like really bipolar. And I had no idea. Like, I just didn't know. I didn't. I thought it was just work hard, play hard, you know, and and a little messed up and I just didn't have good judgment and stuff like that. You know what I mean? Which was weird because I always had good judgment in business. Just my personal life was a disaster, you know. And so so I finally got diagnosed. I went eight years where I didn't tell anybody. I just got on the medicine. but what happened was when I got on the medicine the hypomania just went to zero and I completely changed and I was like crap I am the global marketing director of a big company like I can't just suddenly not have all my all my things you know and so I had to basically decide whether I wanted to be sane or successful and and I was like that can't be that's not fair so so what I did is I started bottling it up and systematizing it so that I could mimic the manic behavior in a way that I could then do it while I was healthy.

6:02And so I started coming up with different tools. And I turned around one business with a couple of tools, turned around another business with a couple of tools. The third business I got to, the 13th month, I realized I hadn't done that thing from the first one. You know what I mean? And I was like, I need to write these things down. And so then I wrote down the toolbox and I took it to the fourth business. I turned around. And so these were like big turnarounds, you know,$50 million companies, $100 million companies. And, and it worked great. And I was like, you know what, I think I can teach people this.

6:32And I think it's time to tell people what's going on. So that neurodiversity has some advantages in the workplace. But more importantly, like I can take this toolbox, and I can teach it to somebody who's neurotypical that doesn't have anything wrong with their brain. And they can take this and get ahead. Because if we all read the same 20 books, we're all going to do the same 20 things. You're only going to get breakthrough results with differentiated thinking. And that's how it all came about. When you were experiencing kind of the low side of the hypomania, can you describe, and just so I understand, is it that something happened and then your reaction may have been disproportional.

7:16Like it was like two, like, let's say like a major sale got lost or, you know, something bad happened in business. And then would that just kind of like knock you out? And, and unfortunately, no, it was, it was just out of nowhere you'd, you'd hit the low. So actually it ended up usually happening after something really good happened. And I don't know if that was because I was manic, you know, and, and working so hard and then something good finally happen and I relaxed for a minute and the body let go or whatever, but that's usually when it would happen. Oh, so when you got at the end of a really big push.

7:49Yeah. And I don't know, I don't know if that was just like crazy. Yeah. And I don't know if that was just kind of like, you know, what happened or if that's, if there's some medical thing around that, but that's how it usually hit me. That is, I, I am so grateful that, that you and I have connected. I, you know, I don't know that I'd be fully diagnosed, but I think men, many leaders, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, it's almost like you're white knuckling, you're push, push, push, push, push, drive, drive, drive, drive, drive, drive, drive, drive, drive, right? And when I'm in that moment, it's like, I've got my superhero cape on, you know, I cannot be stopped.

8:22Like I've just so laser focused on it. And then when the work is done, wow. Yeah. And hypomania, I mean, it's a leaders have this ability, you know, good, good leaders that you've heard of billionaires and whatnot. A lot of them have these tendencies, whether or not they're bipolar. There's also something right below bipolar that that has hypomanic tendencies, you know, that a lot of people exhibit. And so it's it's true blue like this does help you in business. So the question is, can you bottle it up into some systems and automate it so that you can do it healthy, you know, and not overwork yourself and, you know, not have to be bipolar to do it?

9:00No, I don't want to be bipolar in order to do this. Give us some of the secrets on how you can bottle up some of that hypomania without, again, kind of that crash and burn, you know, hangover. yeah sure so i'll rattle i'll rattle through like four of them and any of them you want to get into we can but i always say okay so over or under promising and over delivering is for losers the first thing is grandiose goal setting like you need uh you if you're if you're this type of leader because this only works for people who are going to be you know excel accelerate leaders um you need a big big goal so if you say six percent you end up at nine percent and i say 25 and i end though I missed the 25 % by six.

9:48I know because I promoted a bunch of people in that way. So grandiose goal setting, not only you setting the goals, you need to believe it and you need to get your team to believe it. Right. So, so that's a big part of hypomanic leadership is grandiose goal setting, not being afraid to do that. Then 80, 20 matrix profitability is you have to treat different customers and products differently. Right. So we do a big matrix. I could go into it for a whole hour, but, but essentially your, your A customers and your A products and that combination, those product combinations, 20 % of those is going to drive 80 % of your profitability.

10:21We all know that. What we do is 80-20 squared, and it's really 4 % of your customer product combinations are going to drive about 64 % of your success. And then there's going to be this huge area down in the bottom right where it's your bad customer or your small customers and your small products that are just driving incredible complexity into the business. We call it the complexity tax and you have to start outsourcing, killing or raising prices by 40 % in that range. And when you do that, you can then invest all your time back into the A products and A customers. So that's the 80-20 matrix of profitability.

10:56The Corellin method ties to that. So the Corellin method for explosive productivity is activity times efficiency equals, sorry, activity times efficiency times focus equals results. Everyone knows the activity and efficiency, right? If I work more hours and I'm more efficient, I'm going to get more results, right? We all know that 20 % more hours, 20 % more efficient, all of a sudden you're 44 % more productive. If you put the focus part in here, it's key. So if I then, so I always tell people this story, I have 18 ,000 unread emails. So I'm either the laziest person at the company, or I am the most productive person at the company because I don't even read it.

11:34I don't even read it if it's not in my 4%. And everyone knows that They'll send me like the, you know, here, just letting you know what's going on emails. But they know if it's not in the 4%, I'm not taking action on it. And so my whole calendar is built around the 4 % that drive the 64 % because your calendar doesn't lie. So if you've got 40 hours a week and you've got 100 things to do and you're going to spend a half hour on each of them, you know what I mean? Like you're not going to be driving as much profit as me where I'm spending 40 hours a week on the four things that are going to make the biggest difference.

12:06And so I outsource the rest. I automate the rest. I AI the rest. I systematize the rest. But I have nothing. I'm not spending any money, any time on things that aren't in that 4%. And so it's all about making as much money as you can every minute of the day. so that's and that is certainly what you're describing there is absolutely i would say a personality trait of some because i don't i'm you know probably too much disclosure here but man i'm really identifying i'm still my brain is going crazy because i you know if i'm and i think a lot of leaders are like that you know when they've got something they and and they are just they've got a vision they want to get it done they want to get it to market as quickly as possible i mean hell hath no fury like josh you know when he's got that kind of task to get done and so um but you're right like nothing else nothing else gets through it during that time so like i appreciate that that's a later thing and if you're not like that and and i'm just i guess not you know not everybody has that superpower but you can learn this superpower that's exactly right if you're not like that you can structure your calendar like that and then you will be right your calendar will drive what you're doing.

13:15So if you know that these are the 4 % and you structure your calendar around that, you will make more money per minute and you can get five to 600 % more productive. If you follow this formula, it's, it's pretty incredible and it works like a charm. It's just, it's probably the best tool in the toolbox. And all it is, is making sure every meeting you're making as much money as possible. Cut down the meeting invites, cut down the time, cut down the attendees, like everybody in there better be making money in the meeting, you know? Yeah. So like, uh, last one I would, I would kind of highlight is just the, uh, orthodoxy smashing innovation is just a really key part of, uh, bipolar is kind of thinking outside the box and going down rabbit holes and this and that.

13:56So orthodoxy smashing is where everyone believes something to be true in an industry. And you systematically go through all these orthodoxies and say, what if it wasn't, what if that was not true? What would we do differently? And you kind of run down that rabbit hole. And it could be, you know, I always say process innovation makes you way more money than product innovation. So things like lead time, things like I'm going to do this a little differently and suddenly the cost will come out, you know, or I can take out 10 bucks and put$5 more of cost back into this feature. So now I can have a better product at a lower price.

14:30You know what I mean? Sniper skews where you say, okay, my competitor is doing this and he's offering three different things. If we just offer one right here, it's way better and we'll have a better profit margin. Like there's a sniper skew strategy in here, but essentially it's smashing orthodoxies and being willing to take risks inside of an industry. And this is the best way to make money in a boring business is to change something that's been the same for 50 years. That is how everybody makes money. If you think all these revolutionary business models, that's exactly what they did took a boring business and said, what if instead of cabs, you know, we had normal people drive, you know, and Uber started, what if instead of going to a restaurant, we made it so that you could deliver, you know what I mean?

15:16And all this stuff and all these things have completely changed 50 year old, 100 year old, 200 year old industries. Amazing. Todd, for those who are listening to us and maybe like myself, understand, you know, wonder, you know, again, all of the amazing things that we can create because of this superpower. Again, there's a kryptonite to it. What did you find? I mean, obviously, aside from talking with a doctor and, you know, if it's appropriate, you know, making sure that you're getting the right treatment plan clinically or, you know, again, getting the right medicine lift from that. But was there, what do you do for self-care because again, you can absolutely, you can completely burn out.

16:02Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was working 22 hours a day for 15 years, you know what I mean? And so I am on medicine. I always tell people it's your call. You can take it. You're not like, I don't advocate one way or the other, but the medicine helps me. And then sleep is the biggest, the biggest thing. So obviously I quit alcohol. That was a huge part for me. It's not for everybody, but I quit for me. And that allowed me to sleep more, which was important. And so the sleep is really the key for me. If I get, if I get even four or five hours, I am a hundred percent better than I was, you know, when I got to, and, and I don't hit that wall.

16:38You know what I mean? Now I can go all 12 months, you know, at five hours of sleep, I can go all 12 months without having any, any of the fall off. So. Oh my goodness. Todd Hagopian. This has been such a great conversation. I'm so grateful that we bumped into each other. Your website is toddhagopian.com. Your book is called The Unfair Advantage, Weaponizing the Hypomanic Toolbox. So you can learn the secret superpowers that some of us are blessed with. But Todd, to our friend that's listening, what would you recommend next episode? You know, and I'm so sorry, like, obviously, you know, you've written the book.

17:13Do you mind sharing a little bit about your other work and what you do professionally? And then just kind of go ahead and cap it up with how people engage with you as well. Yeah, sure. So I currently work for a large food equipment company and we manufacture a couple million dollar machines, you know, that basically bottle all your sodas. And so that's what I do professionally right now. And I've got a three book deal. So there's two more books coming out and really working on the website. And essentially the best way to get ahold of me and ask questions is I don't sell anything other than the book and occasionally speaking, but no consulting.

17:49So I got a ton of free information on the website. I love talking about this stuff. Send me a question, ask me to make a video. You know, I love this stuff. So just if you have questions on this, go and look at my website. There's a bunch of information out there. Hit me up in the contact me. You know, let's have a discussion. I love jumping on the phone with people. I learned so much from talking to other business folks. And the way I look at it is you're always in the best position to help the person that you once were. And so I've been a P &L leader now for 10 years. If you're a P &L leader or somebody who's about to be a P &L leader or somebody who even runs a division inside of a P &L, like I want to talk to you.

18:24I want to help and I want to learn. So that's where I'm coming from. Todd Hagopian. Again, the book is The Unfair Advantage, Weaponizing the Hypomanic Toolbox. Your website is toddhagopian.com. Thanks, Todd. Thank you.

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