The Road Less Stupid: Thinking Better and Smarter - Part 1 with Keith Cunningham and Joe Polish

okay by show of hands who has done anything stupid in their entire life that's most people is anyone here actually believe they've never done anything stupid okay that's pretty much everyone including me so yes we've all done stupid things it's part of growing up and it's part of life yes even very smart people do stupid things and really stupid people especially do stupid things now of course the goal is when we do stupid things to at least learn from our mistakes so we don't keep repeating them however that's not always possible sometimes we just don't know the right things to do and therefore we keep making stupid mistakes this subject has become a passion for Keith Cunningham as entrepreneurs and business owners Keith's name should not be new to you at all unless you've been living in a cave or remote in a remote Amazon jungle because for the last 45 years keith has been a businessman and investor a teacher a coach a mentor and a thought leader in the business arena he is previously two best-selling books or title keys to the vault lessons from the pros on raising money and igniting your business and the ultimate blueprint for insanely successful businesses these are now followed by his third book the road less stupid which is going to be the topic of our discussion for today this is the book and like I've mentioned before this is the best business book that I've read and probably a decade it's amazing and that's why I'm so happy to have Keith Cunningham here so give it up for Keith Kelly now thank you sir awesome all right so I've got some know people you may want to hold your applause I may be that good I've got some questions here so let me sit this down so here's here's one thing I actually want to want to start with so me and you have had a lot of people that have taken our information and put it out into the world and one of the things you said to me on the phone or when we're at dinner we were in dinner in Austin a few weeks ago you said there's two types of hey there's the hey before it goes into the horse and then there's the hey after it comes out of the horse and and I love that because you've had a lot of people that taken your hey and they've distributed out into the world in their own version of it went one thing like years ago Robert Kiyosaki was telling me I was out to lunch with Robert and he said I said well who are the rich dad he's like there's two rich dad's one was like a booze runner in Hawaii that did all kinds of crazy things he did a bunch of illegal stuff and he's like the other one is Keith Cunningham that's who I learned rich dad that's so this is literally the rich dad right so and there's been 29 million copies of the rich dad series books sold but I don't know if Robert presented it in quite the way you would but there's a lot of people that you're the highest rated speakers I've never actually seen it business at Tony Robbins business mastery him and Tony are the ones that do business mastery and yeah so you do a lot of stuff you influence a lot of people and most people would have no idea just how many millions of people have been influenced by your work and by your brain and so super happy to have you here I'm very happy to be here thank you thank you so the book the road less stupid I love this book there's a lot to it I'm gonna dig in deep to it how many of you have actually read the entire book okay handful how many of you started to read the book how many of you have the book because we've given it to you and you've not done anything with it yet okay good and how many of you do not have a copy of it okay if you do not have a copy we have we have some copies here for you so yeah everyone in the room and those of you that are at home watching this get a copy of the book and read it it is game-changing so what is the role of stupid how would you describe it if I gave you the opportunity to unwind any three financial decisions you've ever made in your whole life how much money would you have and there's not a person in this room that if I gave them the ability to unwind any one of three financial decisions wouldn't have more money it turns out that the key to making more money is to doing fewer stupid things that's true I don't need more good ideas I need fewer ideas that I think are good that I've executed on and so I've had the experience over the last 47 48 years of being in business of having done some smart things where actually it wasn't that smart but in reality I was lucky I happened to catch a big wave and I had mistook catching a big wave with being a good swimmer and it's what Warren Buffett is very famous for saying most of you have heard it you never know who's swimming naked until the tag goes out and so the key is not can I make it the key is can I make it and keep it those are two entirely different skill sets and in fact they are almost diametrically opposed what it takes to make money is very different than what it takes to keep it and most people are so obsessed with making it that as they become more successful they do stupid things which winds up sabotaging their overall success and I know this story firsthand because this is one of the reasons I appreciated you so much Paul and your presentation is because I've had the experience of losing a lot of money a hundred million dollars of my money that I made I didn't inherit it I made it you were better off than me because you cut the bleeding at plus six hundred thousand I didn't cut the bleeding until I was minus fifty million so I went from plus 100 million to minus 50 million in a matter of 24 months and when you do that it takes your breath away yeah I mean it that's a major major event not only because of the size of the money but also because it's the loss is so and I had so much of my network I have my self-worth entwined with my net worth which is a deadly combination yeah how old were you during that time forty forty and that was during the real in real estate real estate yeah a lot of and what led to the loss look at your losses hey it's not necessarily pleasant to think back on but everybody's had some kind of loss that they've sustained as a result of a bad decision or excessive optimism unexamined assumptions unexamined assumptions faulty expectations excessive optimism are killers arrogance is killers hubris is a killer for creating and sustaining wealth so the goal to me is not to get it the goal is to get it and keep it you can get lucky and make it and I know lots of people who got lucky but the problem is they weren't able to keep it because they didn't have skills that would allow them to sustain so so the truth is to me sustainability of wealth is the Holy Grail making it I can catch a big wave I can get lucky I can happen to hit a crease in the market at exactly the right point and you know we can wind up being you know affiliate associated with you or Tony Robbins or any number of other people and yeah there's a degree of luck and all that and there's a skill set in all of that and so I'm very much about let's make sure that if we warned all this effort in order to create the success and people do stupid things that in the creation mode as well people oftentimes think that if I just prove my product that that would somehow allow me to create business or financial success and yet the truth is it doesn't require great product in order to make a lot of money if I ask you to think about your favorite restaurant the place you would go to have a huge celebration you're thinking about it you you know where it would be there's not one person in this room that's thinking about McDonald's not one and yet nobody has made more money in the history of mankind in the restaurant business than McDonald's how'd it happen is it because your cheeseburgers are so good no their cheeseburgers are horrible right they are they're french fries on the other hand are really good but the cheeseburgers are horrible what allowed McDonald's to make a lot of money was not an obsession with the product it's never write this down this will be a take away it's never what you do it's how you do it it's never what you do it's how you do it Southwest Airlines their whole business model is put butts in seats and butt fly those butts from point A to point B safely no mention of your luggage that right it's the your luggage is immaterial to the airlines whether it makes it or not we don't care let's just make sure the person gets from point A to point B that even have to be on time Southwest Airlines has made more money in the last ten years in the airline business than the rest of the airline industry cumulatively since Orville and Wilbur Wright now you think about that one airline has made more money than everybody else since Orville and Wilbur how'd that happened is it because their planes are so good is it because their first-class section is so roomy is it because the food so outstanding is it because the the the hostesses and stewards and stewardesses is it because they're so good-looking no I can't tell which is older the stewardesses or the airplanes right it's it's not it's never what you think it's Southwest Airlines success is not based on what they did it's how they did it you name me any product or service I don't care what it is give me one week you could say chewing gum shoelaces seminars pins socks name me any product or service give me one week and in one week I'll come back and name you one person ISM it made millions and a hundred people that have gone broke with the exact same idea the problem is as entrepreneurs we become obsessed with the product we become obsessed with the the the either the quality and I'm not opposed to great products that's not the message the message is what is it as a business person what is it that we're focused on the artist side of me wants to focus on the product and making it better and longer-lasting and prettier in at more robust and I'm good with that we need artist the operator side of me wants to get busy and get a bunch of stuff done I just got it so much to do and holy cow if it's gonna get done I'm gonna have to do it myself because I don't know how to hire a team or keep a team or have a players or create a culture I don't know any of that I just got a lot to do that's the operator side the business person side says wait a minute the job is not to react to what it the the problem does you're the the what I need to do is leverage and structure right those two worse down that's the difference between a soul opener and one one-person army a solopreneur and a business owner a business owner has mastered two things structure and leverage and without structure and leverage there is not a way to create a sustainably successful business I must say the structure part a different way before I talk about leverage yeah opportunity without structure is chaos the that Achilles tendon of most entrepreneurs is structure they hate it that's why they started their own business is because they hate the idea of having structure in yet structure is critical for scaling there are a lot of people in here talking about scaling or scaling is just a Silicon Valley word for growth that's all it is how do I grow this thing okay well if I'm gonna grow this thing I need structure in order to be able to do it otherwise I got kind of a fire drill working with a bunch of people doing a bunch of stuff and it's not necessarily the most productive thing that needs to happen leverage one of the highest forms when I talk about leverage most people think oh he's talking about debt and reality I'm not I mean dead is a financial instrument it's leverage but but the the more powerful form of leverage is who's on your team so I'm going to ask you a question if if I gave you an opportunity to build a world-class team of a players and the only people on your team were a players I mean seven footers these are the Kevin Durant's they can do it all if you only had a team of a players how many of your existing problems that you have right now will go away disappear it turns out the problems that most of us are dealing with are not even really the problem unisys where I need a little whiteboard if I can get one Joe just handed you a piece of paper a second ago and said thank you and said write down one of your biggest problems so I'm gonna ask you right now to write down on your piece of paper one of your three biggest problems maybe you just did that maybe you can refer back to that piece of paper maybe but you're not gonna have to share this we're not going to talk about it though this it's not going to be anything so you may want to write really really small so that nobody else can see right it really small and just write down or revisit one of your three biggest problems that you think you have with your business let me give you a thought the exercise is over you don't have to complete writing it down the exercise is over every person here has an is line this is reality this is the way it looks this is point a point a and the problem that most people have in my experience I know I have this problem is that I'm not particularly honest with myself about the reality of my situation i sugar-coated when I was at the University of Texas every day I'd walk past a a little message X edge ting granite over the the doors of a building and the message was you shall know the truth and the truth will set you say you know this right and every day for four or five years I walked past this and I went I don't know what this means what does that mean you should know the truth or knows the truth will set you free what the reality it's dawned on me later is that as long as I'm lying to myself or not telling the truth I have no opportunity to make a change so it's why addicts don't stop using is because they say well I don't really have a problem I can stop anytime I want yeah I know it's a look I know it's a little bit but you know the reality is it's I'm functioning right it's why alcoholics or poor people you pick it pick a topic people don't tend to tell themselves the truth this is point a we also have point B point B is at this is a way I'd like for it to look this is point B and it turns out that most of us are experts on point B we have massive clarity on the way we would like for it to look because we've done all this visualization we've done all this goal setting where you you know make a goal and then you make it vibrant and then you turn it into black and white and then you bring it closer and farther away and then you put music around it in and so we're really good at visualizing what ought we tend to suck at what is and when asked what our problem is we describe the gap the gap between where you are and what you want is what you typically describe is the problem with in reality this this gap is not the problem this gap is the symptom I just ask you Joe just ask you the last exercise you did write down one of your three biggest problems and everybody got busy real quick we did we knew what the problem was because we were visualizing the gap between where we are and what we want when a reality that's not the problem that's the symptom the gap sits right here this is sorry that the problem sits right here this is the problem this is the obstacle that I need to overcome in order to move the needle on the is line in order to move the needle on my is line I need to get clarity on what it is that's truly blocking by forward progress what's blocking my forward progress has nothing to do with where I am versus what I want what's blocking my forward progress is the obstacle that sits right here and it turns out Joe that the hardest part of thinking time is getting clarity on the problem that is if you don't have clarity on the problem that is you'll be tactical instead of strategic so I say I'm ten pounds overweight what I want to do about it well as long as I view the problem as being ten pounds overweight which is not the problem that's the symptom hello hello are you with me on that being ten pounds overweight is not the problem that's the symptom but as long as I identify it being ten pounds overweight as being the problem then what I will lurch to is okay should I buy a jump rope or should I join a gym should I buy Oprah's latest diet book or should I get a personal trait oh I know what I'll do I'll get a piece of home exercise equipment that's what I'll do if I just had a peloton bike in my house then I would I would get in shape which is why most home exercise equipment and most diet books don't work because it's a tactical response to a tactical question as long as I'm dealing with the symptom I'm going to be dealing in tactical and once I say it's not a tactical issue I need to be strategic and think of strategic and identify the problem it is so here it is and then I'll stop Joe if I don't have clarity on the problem that is I'll build a machine for the problem that isn't which is what we do 99% of the time we identify the gap call it the problem when in reality it's a symptom and we're highly tactical in our response because we have a tactical question that we've asked which winds up sabotaging our results if you tell me your sales aren't high enough I'm going to say that's a symptom not a problem if you tell me you don't have enough profits if you tell me you have a crummy culture if you tell me you have weak employees if you tell me your balance sheet is screwed up I'm gonna look at you and say all those are symptoms what's the problem so if I gave you an opportunity to rethink the problem that you identified a minute ago is that really the problem really is that the problem is that the core root underlying problem that's blocking your forward progress or is there something below that something buried where you got to get busy and figure out what in the world is going on so business to me is an intellectual sport it's chess money and business does not respond well to emotions warren buffett said it hop Muslim is the enemy of the rational investor it turns out in business optimism is your enemy which is why one of the pieces of advice that you gave is so good Paul which was we all need a board we need advisors we need people that we will listen to the higher you go or the higher you want to go the greater the requirement to have somebody around you who will tell you the truth because I can't smell my own breath I can smell your breath but I can't smell mine I can't see my own swing I can see the shot I can't see the swing I need people around me watching me swing who will give me advice and then I got to be willing to hear that advice yeah as long as I'm arrogant right unwilling to listen it does no good to ask so business is an intellectual sport and the people that win the game sustainably have got skills and tools which is why I wrote the book let the road less stupid yeah well so you - I love how you refer to businesses and what you build as the machine how would you if you is simplistic as it may sound what do you mean by that a machine everyone here's building a machine and your comment about building a machine for the problem that isn't it seems to me that the vast majority of entrepreneurs because of the failure rate in the stress level and just really not getting ahead in any way financially that they spend an enormous amount of activity accomplishing not much of anything except getting them tired and worn out and frustrated so if that's the case you've developed a process which is thinking time which we'll get into which is why I believe your book is so good and it's so beyond just a book it's it's it's it's it's a it's a map it's a it's a plan in the path what is this machine know for if we think of we're all building a business it's a machine it's an intellectual sport it's a chess game what how should one how should everyone here think about this machine that is their business there are two types of business models there's the Michael Jordan model and the Michael Dell model both of them will work and both of them you can get filthy stinking rich one is not right one is not wrong one is not good one is not bad they're just different models Michael Jordan Tiger Woods have a personal services model it's all on them there's very little leverage because Michael can't delegate the jump shot to win the game Tiger can't delegate the two-foot putt on 18 he tiger has to make the putt you can make a lot of money in that kind of model but there's not as much leverage as there is the Michael Dell model the Michael Dell model is Michael hadn't put together a computer in 38 years he put together a couple of them and then realized very quickly unless he has some people on his team that he could leverage that he wasn't going to get to the success that he was capable of or that was available to him depending upon which model you're talking about the machine could look one of a couple ways the Michael Dell model where it's not a personal services type of model Michael Dell model relies on three things it relies on a strategy a plan not an idea not an idea one of the fundamental mistakes we make as business owners is we wind up executing on ideas instead of plans we have an idea of what we want but there's no yellow brick road this is us we're in love with us i I've heard so many business owners tell me over the years this is my dream this is my vision I go I'm good you're telling me about us build me the yellow brick road show me how to get from where you are to us and then I'm on board but just because you become very adept at describing us doesn't give me the clarity that I need to be an investor or to support you if I don't have clarity on the plan so the plan the strategy is number one what a strategy mean Southwest Airlines here's how they made all their money here's how they made more money it's one sentence this is one sentence so it's going to tell you how Southwest Airlines made more money in the last 10 years in the restaurant rest of the airline industry cumulative Southwest Airlines at the very beginning said this a plane on the ground makes no money how hard is that what a brilliant insight and so they built the entire organization around keeping planes in the air and it turns out the key to keeping planes in the air is to become an expert at baggage handling the core problem the Southwest Airlines had to had to figure out is how do you get the passengers and the baggage on and off the plane as quickly as possible because the faster we get them off the plane faster we get the new ones on faster the plane takes off more money we make one sentence that's extraordinary so plan and a strategy is number one on machine number two you got to have people a players you take a great strategy and you have B players C players if if I am a in here have an employee anybody in here ever been disappointed with the performance of an employee I'm gonna give you a hint and we may talk about this more you get what Sol rate you get which tolerate in fact I'll say this I'll say this even louder this could be the most important thing I say nothing can change until the unspoken is said nothing can change until the unspoken is said and the truth here's the truth for us as leaders the greatest failure of leadership is a lack of courage a lack of courage to say what needs to be said I tell my employees we own businesses and I tell my employees all the time I'm I refuse to lower my standards in order to accommodate your need for mediocrity I will not do it this is the standard that we have and what we're going to do is we're going to help you build a yellow brick road so that you can be successful every every employee you have every employee you have has for all of us has the exact same outcome they're all optimizing for the same thing every one of our employees wakes up the morning and they want to be successful there's not one person who wakes up in the morning and says today I'm going to try to do the worst job that I possibly can my job as the Oh as the owner as the leader is to support my team and being successful that's my number one job and so I'm going to coach I'm gonna build a yellow brick road I'm gonna have performance standards but I got to have a people if I so I've got a lot of tabs open right now my brain so I'll come make sure I come back to machine what's the definition of an a player there's three or four things number one they have a high internal emotional need to succeed high internal emotional need to succeed I'll say this a different way pros don't have to be motivated amateurs do people ask me all the time how do you motivate your employees I say I hire them I'm giving you an opportunity and I've built you a yellow brick road that if you stay on the yellow brick road and hit my standards you and I are gonna do well if you can't hit my standards I understand this is not a good fit you're not gonna be able to stay here and be successful which I know you don't want it you don't want to come to work for the next five years and be unsuccessful so let me help you go find someplace else where you can be successful because it's not here because here this is what we produce if I don't have standards which is all part of the people if I don't have the standards then I'm going to be promoting people or giving raises based on loyalty or longevity or likeability um I got this person has been here since day one you know in fact the first month they were here you know they were here we we didn't even pay them they've made it and so I wound up creating this story that becomes a substitute for performance at the end of the day I don't want the story to get in the way of the facts I tell you what sabotage you or sabotage for me I substitute a story for the facts I'm really good at spinning those stories so are you that's where those unexamined assumptions come from so that's number two number one is I got to have the plant the process number two I got to have the people number three I got to have the structure and part of the structure probably the most important part of the structure is going to be the culture culture is not Perks those are two different things perks are how many jelly beans are in the kitchen and whether you do or don't get to bring your dog to work those are perks Joe has heard this story I was giving a speech in Oslo and there was some very well-known famous entrepreneurs who had done very well and one woman came on stage who's very well known and started talking about how important culture was in her organization and the example that she used is and we just built our employees to nap rooms I I hadn't gone on stage yet I'm sitting on the front row and when she said this I looked up and I said out loud I didn't mean to but I'm sure she heard it you must be kidding me nap rooms have nothing to do with culture nap rooms are pert besides that I'm not paying my people to come to work and sleep that doesn't even make any sense to me but apparently it did to her and so I look at culture as how do we treat each other treat each other how do we talk to each other culture is accountability the Navy SEALs has got one hell of a culture because they're accountable they get stuff done they do what they say they're gonna do they're on time that's a cultural issue and so I would ask you as you're thinking about a machine what's your plan what's your leverage Tyger as leverage he's got a plan but he also has leverage is just not the same kind of leverage that Michael Dell has but he has leverage and they both have structure Michael Dell and Michael Jordan Tiger Woods they all have structure there's a culture there's a way we do things the whole idea of the machine is that I pour gasoline in and it runs which is not the kind of business that most of us have most of us have a business where were this work rankles we're hand cranking and then I hear people talking about I want to scale my business and if you scale a crank business you wind up with more clankers because there is no machine it turns out scaling a crank is a bad idea but we were addicted to this idea of growth and getting big and scaling as if big was the same as rich big is not the same as rich those are two different words and when I look into the cockpit of most businesses there's one lever that the pilot has at his or her disposal who's running the business the pilot and that lever is the accelerator anything it goes wrong okay first thing let's do let's mash down let's get big let's amp let's scale this let's add more.this let's do this let's get a a social media web did too detective today and pretty soon I got all this all these tactics storming at me and I'm going what what is the real problem here what is the real problem I've got you know JCPenney thought that the idea was to get big and you see where they ended up and the list and Kodak the list is long of businesses - somehow mistakenly believe that the most important thing is how do we grow it whenever yet I'll say it this way sometimes gains are a result of losses avoided if you could rewind the clock and avoid Oh 8 oh nine and 10 have we just been able to dodge that bullet now we can't always and so one of my job's is a business owner is to think in terms of risk so the machine is three things I got to have a process I got to have a strategy and a plan I got to have the people to execute and I got to have some structures so that I pouring gas and this thing goes it doesn't require me in order to double the size for me to spend two times faster that's a crank business and that's a business that if you try to scale it you wind up tired so that's a machine great I love it talk about risk I mean it what because you have a in the book you have you know three questions to evaluate you know like an investment risk what's the downside what's the upside can you live with it with the downside how should everyone here think about stupid risk intelligent risk or however you would describe risk because I mean we get paid I think relative to what we are willing to take on it relative to the risk which could be misconstrued as lips make crazy ass you know judgments good risk doesn't cease to exist just because you ignore it one of the smartest investor one of the smartest investors in the world today who warren buffett stops what he's doing to read what this man has to say this is the only guy that one says when Howard Marks talks I listen Howard Marks has written a book you should own this book and you should read it soon probably after you read the road less stupid but then again I'm biased if my kids asked me to which one they should read first I'd point them to Howard Marks so read Howard Marks first Howard Marks runs a company called oak tree oak tree financial and he's written a book called the most important thing the most important thing he says three he says a lot of brilliant things three that I'm going to mention number one the less risk you perceive the more risk there is which is completely counterintuitive to the way most of us think if I perceive that there's no risk of having an automobile accident between my home and the grocery store then I won't put on my seat belt I'll text while I'm driving I'll be talking on the phone and watching a video and as a result of perceiving there's no risk risk skyrocketed the way you lose money is by perceiving there's no risk I'm a natural I've got all this money these are smart people if it doesn't work at us they'll get a lot more I mean what could go wrong and so we begin to think in terms of we we say stupid stuff everybody in here's done it I've done it we stays say stupid stuff like the greater the risk the greater the reward this is intergalactically stupid this is unbelievably ignorant the greater the risk the greater the probability of a loss but we say oh yeah I mean it's risky but I mean the reward my god the upside is so huge we've done this you and I were talking about this Warren Buffett was playing golf this is true story one got fit Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are playing golf they're best friends there's with two other guys they get to a par three which is the only kind of hole you can legitimately make a hole-in-one on they get to a par three and the one of Warren's playing partners right as Warren right as warm was about to hit his tee shot the playing partner said Warren let's have a bet on this hole Warren said okay what's the bet guy said two dollars I bet you $2 that that you don't hit a hole-in-one and Warren said well like what if I know it's $20 if a $20 and Warren said okay $20 if I got to give you $20 if I don't hit a hole-in-one and Warren said if I do hit a hole-in-one how much will you give me gasp said I'll give you $20,000 which is a thousand won ads that's what that is so if Warren loses if Warren doesn't hit a hole-in-one he has to give his playing partner 20 bucks but if if he does hit a hole-in-one then his playing partners got to give him 20001 looked at this and said no bet and the guy said why Warren said well I mean the odds of me hitting a hole-in-one are not a thousand of one it's ten thousand one if I stood up here and hit ten thousand golf balls there might be one that goes into the hole but if I only hit a thousand golf balls the likelihood of one going in the hole never gonna happen so I'm not gonna take the bet and the gal looked at Ward and said Warren its twenty dollars last year you made 5.6 billion dollars it's 20 bucks and Warren said I know stupid in small things stupid in big things what's sabotaging us is the small things sometimes so this idea of risk doesn't cease to exist that the less risk we perceive the more risks there is Howard Marks in his book said a house that can withstand a hurricane is indistinguishable from a house that cannot withstand a hurricane until after the hurricane and what we want to be doing is building houses financial empires that can withstand a hurricane I mean for crying out loud if you know that the economy does this and nobody can predict it I mean you know there's the soothsayers out there the account somebody told me one time the reason God made economists is to make astrologers look good right that the the the whole idea that somebody can predict what's about to happen I mean they can smell you know but nobody knows how big or severe or anything like that they just know it goes in cycles and what I want to do as a business honor is build a world-class defense to go with my world-class offense as CEOs as leaders as owners what most of us have done is built world-class offenses and so we're always going long we're always I'm probably the only one here that did this but when I was a kid that the guys would get in the front I'm talking about a kid like seven eight years ten years old and we'd be playing football and in the front yard and there'd be a quarterback and he'd draw on us and you say right now you do this and do you do that and everybody look at me and say Keith you go long right that means you just run and we're just gonna heave the ball down there it's gonna be a Hail Mary and maybe we'll get lucky and that's how oftentimes we run our businesses is relying on hope and look my dad told me years ago Keith you can rely on the rabbit's foot if you want but it didn't do much for the rabbit and that's that's kind of true right you have to kind of think about am I where am i relying on hope and luck as opposed to being thoughtful and being thoughtful would say is there something that could go wrong and asking that question and building a defense so that you can live to survive another day which I didn't do when I was 40 this is why I lost all that money Yeah right it was all offense plus it was arrogant plus it was hubris I had a exhaust pipe in my mouth and I was just inhaling my own fumes I told somebody one time I was 40 years I was 38 years old I told somebody one time I was being interviewed and they said Keith how would you describe yourself and I said that shows you how screwed up I was okay I'm not proud to say this I said I'm a little bit like Halley's Comet a guy like me only comes around about once every 70 or 80 years that's how good I am at business and that was right before nose down into the dirt right all right here's a final thought on risk it's better to ensure survival under negative outcomes than it is to predict success under favorable ones say that again it's better to ensure survival under negative outcomes than it is to predict success under favorable ones and so this way of thinking you've mentioned it a second ago the three questions what's the upside and we tend to be experts at the upside because we're optimistic and we can see the opportunity what's the upside what's the downside which we tend to not be that good at we rarely ask that question and if we do we kind of minimize it it's kind of like what most of us do with our competition most of us with our competition minimize okay yeah I got some competition but nobody's really doing I mean I'm different I mean I've got that is about the craziest thing let me ask you a question again I'm opening another tab let me ask you a question let me ask you a question how much money could you charge for your product or service if you had no competition how many customers would you have if you had no competition I already know your answers if you had no competition you could charge whatever you wanted and you'd have all the customers so what dictates what dictates your revenue is your competition and how you position and message against your competition I think that the same thing is true with the risk at the downside how do i how do I need to think about the downside and be realistic with it and if the downside happened then can I live with it and one of the most powerful tools I've found in this is called a pre-mortem a pre-mortem you know what a post mortem is a post mortem is you know somebody dies they crack them open they look around say had they died well their heart stopped they stop breathing blah blah blah that's how they died a pre-mortem says I'm about to make a decision I'm gonna project myself one year into the future and I went by projecting myself one year in the future I'm gonna look back over the course of the last year and this decision I'm just about to make has turned into a dumpster fire this thing is a train wreck it it is a mess so one year into the future I'm now thinking as I'm looking back it's a mess a pre-mortem says what are all the things that went wrong that caused this thing to turn out to be screwed up if you will exercise this muscle which is defense on pre-mortem x' on identifying and evaluating minimizing risk its questioning assumptions losing some of the optimism my god were optimistic we're irrationally optimistic about the initiatives and ideas that we have and I think one of the best ways to play defense honestly is with what you're doing with this and some of the work I'm doing with the the boards that we have which gives business owners and opportunity to have people around them that will give them advice and tell them know yeah ask yourself the question how many people do you have right now right now they can tell you know that that will question your assumptions that will push you back on some of the ideas most of us don't have people around us that will do that in fact the vast majority of business owners don't have that and so it's why they say leadership is so lonely and it is because we don't have people around us it'll push you look at the most successful most successful businesses and implanted every one of them has a board and every one of those boards meets once a quarter there's a reason for that that board is not there to inject the CEO with adrenaline that board is there to say whoa cowboy slow down just a little bit just a little bit let's think this thing through what are the second-order consequences what could go wrong do we have a plan that ensures success or at the very least ensures survival or are we going all-in yeah I agree I told mean that's one of the main reasons why having a sounding board having the Board of Advisors is critical I mean in a lot of ways that's how I look at genius no work as a whole you can't see the label you can't read the label when you're inside the jar in heaven other people they'll be able to yeah but they have to be smart they have to be astute they have to be well selected and so let me do this because I want to give a little bit of time for a Q&A for everyone and by the way we're gonna be doing dinner with here tonight so in case anyone didn't hear that in the beginning when Mike mentioned it we will be doing dinner tonight together you have a whole process in the book to think through I mean there's so much but thinking time and I wanted to talk about thinking time and have you described that process why is it so important and it slows people down so that they can go faster and so that they can not build a machine for the problem that isn't right and there's so much knowledge and skills especially in this room I mean everyone here is had a certain level of a cop because they wouldn't even be in this room if they hadn't and at the same time taking this knowledge and wisdom that's within them and being able to flesh it out by simply asking themselves the right questions and giving themselves the time to come to that is your thinking time process so I'd love to have you describe that great so this will have some amount of strategic and a greater amount of tactical because the tactical is kind of important because the tactical is what it allows it to become a ritual so the key to thinking time is to start with a powerful question the piece of paper that Joe passed out asked you to write down one of your problems challenges or opportunities and what would have made that piece that your response very successful would be if it was framed in the form of a question so the instant a problem is framed as a statement your brain will shut down because you've just said it's true right I'm poor I'm single I have my sales are inadequate that's a statement and what I want is a question because the question is going to be the thing that opens everything up and so the question might be how might I so that I can how might I increase revenues by 20% and maybe I want to insert a guardrail right there how might I increase revenues by 20% and on less than a thousand dollars a month budget so I just put in a guardrail so that I can drop an incremental ten grand my bottom line every month so a the power is in the question albert einstein was a professor at princeton for 20 years in his third semester of teaching Albert's fellow professors came to him and said dude they're on to you and Albert said what do you mean and his fellow professor said the students have stopped studying because you keep giving the same final exam questions every single semester they're on to you these are smart kids they said you got to change it up otherwise they they all have passed around the tests they know what's coming ever said I'm not gonna do it and they said you gotta be kidding me Albert you've got to change the questions he said not gonna do it and I said why and he said because the answers keep on changing now what you think about that in the context of your business in the context of your competition in the context of the price of oil or who's in the White House or interest rates or alliances or networks that you have available the answers keep on changing and so what I need to get good at is figuring out the question to set the saying I have is this smart people have really good answers geniuses have really good questions the key is can I find the question that I need to ask before I start my thinking time and the road less stupid has got 704 questions that I've used or variations on those themes out of the thousands more that I've created these are some of the best set these the best 704 questions I got I've been doing thinking time for 20 five years 28 years I do it three times a week it lasts for 45 minutes I I turn off my machines I'm not in front of the computer I have a kitchen clock a timer that I set for 45 minutes so I'm not constantly picking up my phone or glancing at the clocks of my office and and and I got a chair that I sit in and the only time I sit in this chair is when I'm going to think I got a a Big Chief tablet and I got a pen and I only time I touch this pen sit in this chair with this tablet is what I'm about to think I've pre framed my thinking time with a question that I've developed that I need to ask myself that would I'm going to think about and and the idea of thinking time is not to come up with the right answer the idea of thinking time is to come up with a lot of answers you know how to have a great idea do you know how to have a great idea have a lot of them and pick the best one that's exactly what we want to do we want to have a lot of ideas and the thinking time process is all about can i generate more ideas more possibilities more choices than what i have today so here's here's a discipline that's what thinking time is it's a discipline that says if if I can sit quietly if business is an intellectual sport which it is in my opinion and if I'm going to be successful in solving problems or taking advantage of opportunities or identifying risk or figuring out what the obstacle is as opposed to the symptom if I'm going to be successful in that I need to stop reacting I need to stop lurching and what I need to start doing is thinking about here's possum abilities and when I'm done with thinking time the alarm goes off when I think it looks like this so I'm I'm in my chair I get all settled in I got to get my body really really still with which my body is gonna interfere with my thinking so I always clear my throat I take a sip of water I do whatever I need to do each my but I get very very still I've got my question or questions on my piece of paper I start my timer and I literally have my hand over my eyes so that i'm not i'm i'm only looking down if I look up I get distracted and I go into 45 minutes and then the buzzer goes off and then I look and say okay well which one of these answers or which ones do I need to think more about I have yet to have a thinking time in 28 years have yet to had a thinking time that didn't add massive value it I is anybody in here taking I know several of you have taken four day MBA you've heard me say this take away all my skills take away all my money leave me only thinking time I'll get it back that's how powerful this tool is

Channel: Joe Polish

Views: 36,660

Keywords: 25k group, business, coaching (industry), entrepreneur, genius network, genius network annual event, genius network events, genius network mastermind, joe polish, joe polish genius network, marketing, piranha marketing, success, keith j cunningham, business mastery, business plan, entrepreneur mindset, entrepreneur life, genius network interviews, optics business

Id: 15g_0uUptnk

Length: 65min 30sec (3930 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 14 2019