14 Years of Actually Good Advice

Williamson said, he sent me a text and he said, "Hey, you should make a piece of content like this." And he sent me a substitute article by a guy named Adam Masterani. Hopefully I say that right. Um he said, it's called actually good advice. He said most advice is bad. It's either obvious, like don't sweat the small stuff. If I thought it was small, I wouldn't be sweating at it. Uh applicable to some people but not others. Like be more aggressive. Some people should, sure, but other people need to cool it. Uh or wrong. Live every day like it's your last. So I should spend every day making funeral arrangements. Like that doesn't really work, right? So, for a long time, I've been collecting pieces of advice that are applicable to everybody, likely to help and unlikely to harm. Uh, things that I've actually tried and work for me, and things that I've seen work for other people. And then, uh, four, useful even without lots of context. So, that's the premise. And he had a list of his own, and I made a list for you guys that I thought you guys might like. So, let's start with actually good advice. Number one, compliment people when they don't think that they can hear you. All right? So, for example, if you have a waiter who comes over and you know they're doing a great job, you can say, "Hey, you're doing a great job." But it's way more valuable to wait till they turn away, wait till they go like one or two tables and be like, "Was that waiter awesome? They've been on top of everything today." Right? Like that if they can hear you, but they don't think that you can hear that they can hear you, then the compliment actually hits like way hard. This also applies for like if you get out of an elevator and someone walks out and the doors are closing and they're walking away, you're like, "That guy was the nicest guy." So, if you want a compliment like really hit, try it when you they don't think when you don't think that they think that you can hear them. Actually, advice number two, when you're dieting, try to eat foods that you have to cut and chew. Uh, and on the flip side, when you're trying to gain weight, eat foods that you can drink or eat with a spoon. So, like cutting a steak in a salad, it just takes longer and it's like literally the same calories as a steak ground up. You can eat in like 2 seconds versus chewing and cutting the whole way. We good? >> The audio is a little weird. >> Little janky. >> Yeah, you got a little janky audio. >> Are you plugged in? Am >> I plugged in? We cooking? We cooking with gas. It's a good one. It's a keeper. All right, we're seeing we have we're getting a little little technical. Uh, this is fun though. A little little Wednesday time together. I might reset the person with the audio sucks, so I apologize for everybody. Um, but I do have a big mondo list. I got some good I got some good some good cookers today. Um, I spent like some decent time on this list cuz I was like, what is actually really tactful advice that applies to anyone does no harm. Uh it was like a really good uh what do you call it? Um razor or filter uh for the advice. I'm curious with you guys uh if you guys have any of that. Feel free to drop it in the chat. We're going we're going this way. >> Yeah, I'm bringing it to you. >> All right, bring it. Bring it to me. This is fancy. Hot tech. Oh, you're not going to hold it full time, too. >> Oh, I'm holding it the whole time. I guess that will be horrible. All right, we'll do it. So while he does that, I will read you guys number three. How's that? If you want someone to say yes, ask people nobased questions. So for example, would it be crazy if I asked for your number? Uh would you be totally against going out to dinner tonight? And so the reason it works so well is that people feel safer when they say no. Uh never split the difference. Chris Voss uh was the first person I heard this from. And it was one of those things that I was like, "Oh, this is something that I do but didn't name." Um, and so to be clear, it's not like you have this ultimate cheat code that people are going to say yes to or no to say yes, uh, like every time you do it, but it's like right when you have those questions that are like kind of like at right on the edge where it's a little bit of an ask, but not like they're like, "Hey, would you be opposed to giving me your home?" It's like, "Yeah, no, of course that, but it's like right when you're right on the edge of like something they might say yes to." That's where I think having a no-based question um is like the perfect setting for it. Let's see here. Uh actually good advice number four. Uh when you're nervous to give a talk or have a conversation, just tell yourself that you're not nervous, you're excited. For whatever reason, the first time I heard this, I was like, that is incredibly useful. And as somebody who like talks a lot in public and has a lot of high stakes situations, um just saying like, oh, I am source. I am not the thing that things are happening to. I am the thing that is happening to everything else. Um I am excited. I am not reactive and being nervous. And so just a small frame that's helped me out a lot. Can I hand this or this little? Okay. Um look this way. Look this way. >> This way. >> This way. All right. Cool. Let's continue to cook, shall we? I think you want somebody to fill out a survey or your team survey. Act as though most of them have actually done it and then try and single out the few people who haven't done it. Rather than try to be like, "Guys, no one's filled out the survey. What the hell? Don't mess." instead of say, "Hey guys, most of you guys have already taken care of this, but there's a handful of you who haven't, who know who you are. Get this done by the end of the day so we can just be 100% on this." Everyone wants to be safe. And so being safe means being with the herd, being with the majority. And so you don't want to have people feel like the majority are not doing something. And by doing that, they feel safe by not doing it. We want them to feel like the odd man out by not doing it. And so you want to act as if most people have taken action. And then by extension, you'll get way more to do it. fun little uh attribute advice number six accept that you will not be able to respond to every DM, text, call or email and you have to feel zero guilt because it is a physical impossibility with scale. So let me explain it if it is an option not an obligation because a message is an inbound bid for time. All right, so unlimited people can ask you for your time and you only have a fixed amount of it and so it is a it is basically a form of so social norm budgeting, right? Right? You have a so a social budget of how much energy or time or whatever and you have to budget a certain amount of it and you have unlimited inbound requests and you have to be willing to just say I'm not going to respond. Action good advice number seven. If you want to end a friendship without confrontation, use a forced fizzle. Slow down response times to emails and texts and calls response rates with people that you want to not have a relationship with. And so over time, they'll start looking to other people or other places to get that fast dopamine hit. Like they text you, you text back, they text you, you text back. Just text, don't get a response. They start texting somebody else. And then over time, rather than having like a harsh breakup call or a big, you know, confrontation, um, usually just like slow fizzle them out, and it's not nearly as big of a deal. Uh, actually good advice. Number eight, when shaking hands, to have a firm handshake without looking like you're trying to crush the other person's hand, try to sink your webbing deeper into their hand. Because what happens is if you try and squeeze hard here, it crushes the person's knuckles. It feels really aggressive. If you squeeze hard here, got to show this way. Here we go. If you squeeze hard here, you're crushing their knuckles. If you sink the webbing and you kind of like have your hand almost at the wrist, you can squeeze as hard as you want. It doesn't hurt. And so if you want to have a firm grip that doesn't look like you're being a dick, just sink the webbing before you squeeze. Just a little hack that I got from my dad. Um, actually good advice number nine. If you're gonna meet a bunch of new people, bring a pack of gum. Hear me out. When you open it up, ask every person individually if they want a piece of gum. And it's one of the cheapest ways of building reciprocity in a new environment. And this works especially well for kids, but especially when you have a t, you know, basically one one gums pack worth of people that you're getting into. If you go to a 100 person concert, you know, maybe not a good idea, but if you're going to a room, you're going to 10 15 new people. Having that also one, you're the first person to give. Number two, everybody has good breath, so it just makes everybody's life better. Uh, actually good advice, I think. Number 11, uh, to make sure meetings aren't a waste of time. Just finish every meeting with who, what, when. As in you cannot get off the meeting without saying who's going to do what, by, when. And it just makes it just completely consolidates what the hell did we just talk about and make sure that we have action items that we actually leave with. It's something that I've that I've done for years and work really really well. Uh, actually good advice number 12. If you're ever going to say that you're good at something and you want people to believe you, because sometimes you don't have somebody else who can gas you up, you kind of have to let people know. Um, list the things that you're bad at first. Right? And then they'll actually believe the thing that you say you're good at. So, for example, if I say like, "Hey, you know, I don't shower as much as I should. You know, I've got a bum hip. Uh, I eat more dessert than most people would consider, you know, healthy. I waited longer to have kids than I probably should have. Uh, but over the years, I learned to make ads that sell better than most people." The likely they believe the last statement is significantly higher if you say things that are true and damaging beforehand. Um, I can't tell you how incredibly powerful this is in copy for persuasion. If you're going to make a claim, you don't just make the claim and have proof. That's good, too. But you become more relatable and likable by also saying all the things that you're not good at as well. Um, actually good advice. I think number 13. So, if you if you want something, don't ask if someone can do it. Ask what it would take. So, for example, if I say, "Hey, can we get five videos edited by Friday?" I'm going to get a yes or no question or answer without any context. But if I say, "What would it take for us to get five videos edited by Friday?" I'm going to get the answer to that question with the assumption that the five is going to happen. And then I get to choose whether the price is worth it to me. And so that person might say, "Hey, I have to not I have to dep prioritize the other two things or I have to skip two meetings or I might not be able to do the offsite." And I might say at that point, "Yeah, that's totally worth it." But if I just ask the question, can you get me five videos by Friday? They might say no. and then make the assumption that they basically make the decision for you with their calculus of your priorities without giving you context on how they're making the decision. And so I have found it to be a far more effective question to just say what I want and what it would take and then I get to determine based on what they give me is whether or not it's worth it. I cannot tell you how incredibly valuable this is. What would it take to insert the thing you want rather than can you or could we insert the thing? Uh actually good advice number 15. Uh, if it's your first time on stage, opt for a lapel mic. Where is it? There you go. Opt for a lapel mic or a headset. My preference is headset. And I'll explain why in a second. Because if you use your hands to talk, uh, a handheld mic will either feel make you feel handcuffed because you're like, "Oh, shoot. I can't I have to use this like one hand over here." If you're used to using both hands. Um, but also if you do use your hand now, the mic's getting further away from you. And it's just one of those things that if you've never really spoken on stage or you don't do it that often, it can just be unnecessarily distracting for no reason. And so I would say my favorite is the headset because then when you talk and you move your head your sound you'll sound the same. If you have it on one side with a lapel sometimes when you talk this way the the sound volume goes down. So my preference is headset first. Underneath of that is lapel. Underneath of that would be handheld. So just a little pro tip. Um actually good advice number uh 16. If you are very poor or very rich or anywhere in between, a one-page letter of heartfelt appreciation will do more than a gift that sparkles or shines to a loved one. Um, if you can afford to do both, even better. Uh, but sparkles without a note does not hit nearly as hard as a note without sparkles. So, just something that I have learned as somebody who has means to give things, um, the thing that the people that I care the most about want the most from me is my time and attention. And so me actually taking the time to write a one page and I actually type and I think people have been fine with that. I actually just type out um my letters um to people that I care about like Ila and she has kept every letter that I've written her over the years for birthdays, anniversaries, whatever. Um and it's funny because like I've given her plenty of gifts that I'm sure she has thrown away, but she has kept every one of those letters. So I think to me that's like you don't need to have money to give an amazing gift. Um, actually good advice number I think 17. Uh, if you want to be less emotionally stressed, clean your physical environment. All right, so that means your room, your car, your desk, your desktop, your inbox, your your phone inbox, like for texts. Literally clean everything around you. What's crazy about is that like your actual mental noise will go down. So like if you are ever emotionally stressed clean including this is crazy shower because grooming is actually a cross speecies decreasing activity for cortisol. So like animals they groom themselves when they're stressed right that's why when an animal is really stressed out it like starts picking at itself and tell they have nothing like it's hyper like going overboard there. But the idea is that like we as humans and mammals at least when we groom we de-stress. And a version of that is cleaning your environment. So, just a fun one I found out. Uh, actually good advice number 18. If you have shoulder pain, well, sitting at a desk, which I know firsthand a lot about. Um, lower your desk to your lap. So, look at this. So, if I'm writing, we just moved this up, but I want this to be right on my lap as low as here as I possibly can. And you want to have a sideways mouse recommend. And you want your thing to be at eye level. I spent probably $20,000 on PT and a bunch of crazy stuff and this solved all my shoulder pain and I could sit for way longer in like a week. And so I like this was probably it's like a $100, you know, a few hundred bucks for setup. It cost it costs less than a package of of physical therapy. I'll say that. Um, highly recommend. So lower the desk, get a sideways mouse and have something that you can see eye level for your screen. Cannot recommend it enough. Um, actually good advice number 19. Learn to sleep with earplugs for the love of God. It takes three to five days for your ears to like get desensitized because sometimes your ears will be kind of sore when you do it. I know cuz that's what it was for me when I started. Um, but as soon as you can do that, you can literally sleep anywhere. So, if I go with Ila, Ila doesn't sleep with ear plugs. Um, and if we're like at a hotel in a different city and it's like downtown for some reason and there's just like the bars that are open until 2 a.m., um, that could be really annoying. I can't hear [ __ ] So I pass out in seconds. And so it is one of those things like if you can just get through the first three to five days, you instantly give yourself perma improved sleep for the rest of your life. Like if you think about sleep is one of the biggest uh levers on longevity and health and everything. If you have one habit that costs you basically nothing to learn how to do in 3 to 5 days, like I can't imagine a higher ROI thing to do. Um actually good advice number 20. If you can't breathe while sleeping, as someone you know who deals with that, uh you can actually fall asleep on your hand. I learned this in eighth grade like this and you don't actually have to actively open up your like you can fall asleep on your hand. And so when you do it like that, you don't have to actively keep anything open, but it actually stays open the whole time. And that was actually what I did before I even had, you know, no strips or anything like that. And I did that for years. And so if you are one of those people, it it's basically it'll open up more than anything you've got. Um, it's just a habit that you can learn how to do and that's how I was able to learn how to sleep. Um, I've had like two nose surgeries and it's been really hard for me to breathe. So, pro tip. Um, actually good advice. I think number 21, if you can't uh, sorry, uh, when you're looking for a sales leader on a team, prioritize the person who is the best human rather than the best salesperson. So, if you take the person who's the best at the job, some, and this goes for any role, sometimes you'll lose their production. Um, and so on the flip side, if there's somebody who's just a great human, you'll get a good leader. Now, if there's somebody's on your team who's already an amazing leader or great human and also good at the job, you probably aren't struggling with this because you probably already made them a leader. All right? But if you have to pick between uh should I pick upgrade the person who's good at the job or the person who's the best human, pick the best human, it's just something that I've learned after like I will I will I'll die on that hill. Like super effective. Um, actually good advice number 22. Uh if you're picking between two paths, the hard path and the easy path, pick the hard path because if the easy path were the right path, you wouldn't be debating. You would have already chosen it. And so you already know that the hard path is the right path. It's just because you're hesitating because you know it's going to suck, but you're still considering it because you know it's the right thing to do. Um actually good advice number 24. Read the first chapter of a book to decide whether it's worth reading. So I used to guilt myself into trying to continue to finish books cuz like I'm a finisher. Like I finish what I start. Um, but I then had to think, oh, not all content is worth consuming. Uh, like we happily abandon a YouTube video, but we won't happily abandon a book or we feel guilty like it's this half open thing. Read the first chapter. If someone can't crush the first chapter, the first chapter of a book is always the most edited, most thought through chapter. It's where people start. And any good writer knows that the intro is what matters most. And so, if they don't already know that, then the rest of the book's only going to go downhill from there. And yeah, so actually good advice, do that. um related uh actually good advice. Number 25, um read and listen to books at the same time because the information stores in multiple places in your brain so you remember more. Number two, you stay focused longer because if you're anything like me, sometimes I get distracted by my mind wanders. It's hard to have your mind wander when you're literally getting the words pounded into your into your ears uh from, you know, the the audio. Um and so you can read faster, you remember more, and you stay focused longer. So, it's like read faster, read longer, remember more. It's an ultimate hack. It's worth the 10 bucks extra for like the audio version of every book. Anything that's worth reading, that's how I read it. Um, actually good advice number 26. Uh, when making a big life decision like what, you know, what job should I take or what career should I pursue, who should I marry, what what should I major in, what business should I start? Um, it's much easier to start with all the things that you do not want rather than trying to pick the perfect thing because it's almost like saying, "What is your favorite flavor of jam and here's a hundred of them." It's incredibly hard to pick. But if you said, "Well, I you know, I don't like berries. I don't like, you know, cantalopes. I don't whatever. I I jam's probably I don't know enough about fruit jam." But the idea is there's enough filters. I could say like for a business, it's like, do I want to be in person or to be remote? Do I want to be the person selling? Do I want a checkout page? uh do you want to sell physical products? Do you want to sell services? Right? Like very quickly you can just see the world just chunk down. And so most people try to boil the ocean. It's an impossible task. And so what ends up happening is that you never actually make the decision because there's too many decisions to make. And so you basically want to limit the amount of decisions you make by just basically adding filters. It's just like going to a web page and having 1,200 products. The first thing you're they're going to give you is a filter, right? And so you have to filter decisions the same way. Um yeah, otherwise you'll just be too paralyzed and never actually choose. Um, actually good advice number 28. Uh, if you have to tell someone bad news, get them to brace first. So, tell them that it's going to suck or that this is not going to be a fun conversation. Um, it helps them emotionally brace before you deliver the news and it'll decrease the pain literally that they experience and the potential wild reactions that you likely would like to avoid. Um, and this goes double for firing, breakups, or anything where you're the bearer of bad news. like they teach physicians who have to deliver bad news how to get the family to like brace for the bad news before they deliver it. And so, you know, as somebody who's you unfortunately had to let people go over over the years, um to have empathy for the person, it's like how can I set them up so that they can have the least minimum negative impact for this and brace themselves for this news. And so, I just like to start by saying like, "This is not going to be a fun conversation and this isn't one that I'm looking forward to, but we got to do it." Right? All of a sudden, they're like, "Okay, something serious is happening." And then I can start going into the thing. So just something that's helped me also sometimes when you have the nerves just kind of getting that out kind of like for me it kind of like nullifies my own nerves about the conversation and so then I can actually like get into it. Um actually good advice number 29. If you're choosing a spouse find one who pushes you to be the best version of you rather than the than the the most comfortable version of you. Right? There's a version of you that's the minimum amount of change from your current state. Um obviously you can do whatever the hell you want. my recommendation. Um, I think that if you find someone who pushes you to be better, at the end of your life, you won't regret it. So, those were uh just a handful of actually good pieces of advice that uh served me well. Uh, and so hopefully they serve you well as they have served me and I hope you enjoyed that. Um, and so yeah, let's uh shall we do some preuntas and uh what's the what'sas? Is it is it P and R in Spanish? For all my espanol speakers, do we is it is it Q&A or do you see like P&R? Is it that's this is very this this is very important stuff that we're covering right now. Um please let me know in the chat. I would uh be very very curious uh to know that. Um okay, so couple things. Uh let's dive in. Sales question. How to get the information out of prospects without feeling an interrogation. You have to know how to dig for pain. Now, prospects who give you surface level answers are not going to buy because you have not agitated the pain or said differently. You have to motivate them enough to take action. And so, the way to do that is whenever someone gives you a surface level answer, start with, can you give me an example? Hey, why do you think the business isn't growing as fast as you want? Uh, you know, don't have enough leads right now. Can you give me an example? Well, you know, like uh you know, last week we got, you know, 10 leads. Okay. Uh well, how many leads you normally have? 15. Okay. Tell me more about that. That's the second statement. And so, you need to alternate between, can you give me an example of that and tell me more about that? And so, you can literally go back and forth between, can you give me an example? Tell me more about that. Can you give an example? Tell me more about that. Um and you'll just dig deeper and deeper until you get the actual kernel that you need that relates back to the product you sell. And you're like, boom, I got it. And so you can just stay in that lane without pissing the person off because believe it or not, people love to just talk about themselves. And so asking them to give examples or tell me more and also if you want the 2011 version of sales, when you tell someone to tell you more, it is a command. So there's an assumptive frame of authority um that is built into the statement. So little little 2011 sales hack for you. Um let's do a theme for today for the Q&A, which I forgot to do. Um you know what? I tried to program this. Hold on. I programmed a a little vibe coded thing uh for let's see here. I vibe coded this this puppy. See if this zooms in. All right, we're spinning the wheel. Let's see what the theme of today will be. Cash flow. All right, cash flow is our theme of the day. Uh any questions about cash flow? How to improve it? How to destroy it? I don't know why you would destroy cash flow, but hey, you know, it's America. You can do what you want. Um, and yeah, anything in between. In the meantime, Droken, uh, I'm not sure what path to take. Advice on how to decide. I got nothing to lose and I need to make money for my sister's surgery. I don't care about money and myself. I don't want money. I just need it. I mean, that is wide as [ __ ] in terms of a question. Um, there's a lot of stuff you need. It kind of depends on how much money you need. So, surgery, let's just assume. I mean, I don't know. There surgeries. Is it there, thousand bucks? Is it $100,000? I don't know. Um cuz that depends cuz like if it's like let's say if you're if you need to make like call it 0 to $2,000 you could probably just drive Uber like as many hours as humanly possible and just get that done with basically no risk and just you just literally straight trade time for money. Number one. Number two, you can ask at work if you have a job. Uh is there a side project that I could take on in exchange for this thing? And I would tell them I'm trying to pay for my my my sister surgery. I'm not asking for a handout. I would like to know what I can do to go above and beyond that would actually make the business this much money. that would be worth it. Uh, number three, you can ask for advance. That's a little bit iffy. Depends on your tenure of the business. If someone had been with me for four or five years and they had a thing that was happening, I'd be probably happy to do it. If someone's been with me for four or five months, probably not, right? Um, the next thing is, uh, if you are a business owner, uh, there are three sources of fast cash. Number one is getting prepayments from existing customers. So, getting people to prepay for future services. So, you say, "Hey, I've been working with you every month. Can you pay for the next two or three months ahead of time? I'll give you a small discount." That's way one. Way two is you reach out to past customers and say, "Hey, um, you used to work with me. You spent $500 with me. I'll give you all of that $500 as credit towards my other thing." You can use the email subject headline, I owe you money, and it's basically that I owe you uh money towards the amount that you spent towards the new thing. Let's say it's a $3,000 thing. So, it's a way to upsell and get the conversation going uh to a much bigger package. It's number two. Number three is you can hit up your entire list of all prospects, you know, current and old, uh, with a giveaway offer, uh, or a buy X gety free offer, meaning uh, hey, buy six months, get six months, or something that I like to do, which is like ultra high-end, very limited, um, which is, uh, one-on-one work with me if you have any kind of service that you can do or the most skilled person at your service um, for a year. And the deal is I can only take on five customers and you have to prepay, right? And so those are the ones that like if you have to make money, it's the best way that I've seen work in a short period of time. Useful. Okay. Uh Venetraman Padman. That is that was word for word. That was exactly what the name was. I'm not I could not make that up. Um I would even know how to make that up. Uh what is cash flow in simple terms? It's the amount of money from month to month. So let's say you start your bank account starts at 100 bucks and it ends at 300 bucks then your cash flow is $200 which is the amount of so a normal business. So if you've ever heard of um cashbased accounting in a cash based accounting system which is you just when money comes in you count it as as revenue period. You don't think about like when you deliver stuff like if I sell someone a six months of service and they prepay $10,000 a day for the whole six months I count all $10,000 a day as revenue. That's in a cashbased accounting. And so your cash flow is basically difference between your the cash that comes in and your expenses that go out. The difference there, the amount of net free cash that comes out of the business, that's your cash flow. How to have cash flow from Hankier? I think the definition actually explains how to do it. Have more money that comes in than money goes out. Um, when is it appropriate to expect cash flow from day zero? Really good question. It depends majorly on the business. And so this is actually one of the really important things in terms of business opportunity selection. And so like if you're getting into a business, let's say it's construction, um you're going to be in a cash constrained business. If you're getting into e-commerce where you have to buy inventory constantly and if you're growing quickly, all the profit that you're making, you have to go to buy even more inventory so you can grow. Uh that's going to be a cash constraint business. Um if you have uh software, typically also a cash constraint business, especially in the early days because it costs a lot of money to start. You have no product and you just have to front cost. So money goes out, no money coming in. Uh to get developers to, you know, build you a thing that you can then ultimately start selling. Um all of those situations are low cash flow. I would say the highest cash flow situations are uh each of those businesses I just described when they're at scale can produce more cash flow. Um but a service business is the easiest to start that day one can produce cash flow because especially if it's just you starting out, your cost is your food and your rent basically. Uh, and then everything on top of that is basically profit if you're the one doing the work. And so the highest cash flow business you can do in the beginning is going to be you selling your time for money. All right. Uh, yeah, this is really interesting. This is top of mind for me. Um, no one is doing as well as you think they are, but you are not doing as well as they think you are. Which means that you're doing better than you think you are, but not as good as everyone else thinks you are, which also means that if you're somebody who's status driven, your status in other people's eyes is actually slightly above what you think it is if you're doing anything uh remotely good. And so, um, it's just just a very interesting paradigm that I've been thinking about a lot because, um, if you try to live your life through other people's eyes, it actually is more rosecolored because everybody else's lives are more rosecolored through your own eyes. Weird. Um, okay. Solivan Prattz. All right. Or soy Ivan Pratz. Ah, that's Espanol. Ah, GL. Okay. How do you start cash flowing ASAP when you're starting out? Let's say cold email is your lead getting method of choice and you sell agency services. Well, dude, if it's just you, the moment you sell, you're cash flowing. So, like you just need to collect money. Like that is literally the like if you have no other costs. You getting a stranger to give you money in exchange for stuff you do for them is the business. And the moment they give you the money, you now have cash flow. Um, this is not something to over complicate. I think it the question a lot of times comes down to a fancy word which is ROIC which is return on invested capital which basically means when I put money into the business what's my return on that money and so the person who needs to know the most about the return for every single dollar you spend in the business is you right the people who move the fastest in business are the best allocators or resources it's not the people actually move the fastest like you don't need to be erratic some like energizer bunny that's on you know cocaine like you just need to make good decisions where you put money and so that you get more money back out. So, for example, if you're choosing between uh a $5,000 website build and uh running ads to a funnel that takes you 5 minutes to build and then taking the $5,000 and running it in ads, if you put it in ads and the ads work, you could get 10,000, 20,000, $100,000 back uh from that ads rather than the website, which only works once something else happens. And so, it's kind of one of those are there are direct ways of making money and indirect ways of making money. When you're starting out, you basically want to focus on almost exclusively the direct ways of making money, which is like you have to let people know about your stuff. You have to get them to give you money, and then you have to make sure that they're happy and tell their friends about it. That's the game. Um, cash flow. How to convert bespoke 101 hypnotherapy clients, high ticket across five weeks into longerterm clients when the goal of the session is to resolve the issues. Find more issues. So, here's the deal. So if someone comes in, so it's like if someone comes in to lose 10 pounds, once they've lost 10 pounds, it's like, well, that was it. No, of course not. They still want to tone. They might want to lose more weight. They might want to I might want to switch goals and say, do you want to compete in a competition? Do you want to do powerlifting? Do you want to try bodybuilding? Do you want to try bikini? Do you want to do a tough mutter? Like there's a lot of different places you go um once you've solved the first problem. So one of the beautiful things about capitalism and humans is that because humans are inherently dissatisfied, there's always something else to sell. Because whenever you solve a problem, people will always find another problem. And so, it's our job as capitalists to just figure out what the next problem is before they figure it out and then have the product ready. I'll give you one more pro tip. Do not wait till the end of the five weeks. You need to sell them before the thing is over. You want to sell while the plane is in flight. So, when they're halfway through, call it like between week two or three in your fiveweek thing, that's when you make the offer to keep the party going. And one of the key parts of that sales motion is that you demonstrate the progress without the resolution. and then open up the next loop and say, "Hey, listen. We did hypnotherapy because you had your, you know, trauma with your dad and you know what? I think we've got more trauma that we can unearth." Or maybe you said you wanted to quit smoking, but you know, you also chew your nails or you also cough or you also whatever. And we're going to work on that, too, because at the end of the day, people can always improve. Hope that helps. Um, I was thinking about uh like really successful folks and I was like what what really separates them? Um, and it comes down to this. You become undeniable the moment you make mediocrity unacceptable. And I think the reason that that's so important is that you need to have higher standards than your customers do for your service, which is incredibly difficult because customers will always want more. If you can deliver something in an hour, they'll then think that anytime it's not an hour, it's bad and they'll want 45 minutes. And so one of the things that I love about Jeff Bezos is that he always tries to make bets on things that he knows will not change, which is that humans will always want everything immediately, fast, easy, and free. And so these are the elements of the value equation. How do I make something faster? How do I make it easier? How do I make it guaranteed? Right? And how do I make the outcome as big as amazing as possible? And so we always have these hypothetical ideals that we're never actually going to accomplish because we are not some sort of gods. Uh we just do our absolute best towards working towards those ideals. But in order to work towards those ideals, it means you cannot be satisfied with the existing. Which means you have to have your standards be higher than your customers, which is always raising. Which means that you have to make mediocrity unacceptable. And that is when if you have your standards higher than everyone else's, I promise you will win. Um, two good tech tech YouTuber here. What up? Uh, I started six months ago and basically already grinding sponsorships, which is badass. Congrats. Um, should I promote my vids if revenue is the goal? I just want a yacht. Should I promote my videos if revenue is the goal? I don't actually know what that means. Um, I want to answer your question. Um, I think sponsorships is good. Selling more sponsorships is a great idea. If you're saying like, should you put money behind your videos so you can get more views, I think that is in some ways arbitrageing. um if they're good with it. I just wouldn't make it appear as though it's organic views because I think that's a little bit shady. Um so as long as you state the fact till the truth of what because they're paying you a certain amount because they're assuming it's warm views. They could also just spend money on ads but they want I'm guessing because their strategy they want these endorsements and so uh you could say like hey I'm going to boost it and with these boosts I want some percentage or whatever and I think that's fine. Um Jordan Indren Anthony I think we're picking some some some wild names today. Actually that's a pretty normal name. Uh, do you think it's worth reducing personal expenses to zero when starting out? The idea of moving home makes me go crazy, but I have zero cash flow. Yes. Full stop. Let me give you my argument for it. You don't want to go home. Guess what you can do when you live at home? Not be at home. Just work all day. So, if you don't want to be at home, it'll give you an excuse to not be at home. So, you can work all day and then sleep there and not pay anything. And if you're not going to be doing anything, like if you're not going to be really doing any like showing off of your place or having house parties or whatever the hell people do with their their pads, um, and if it's just you and you're not married, you don't have a a kid, then absolutely I think restricting all of the expenses so that you can go super aggressive on the offense is a great idea. Also, your risk appetite will go up because you can take bigger swings. So, let's just imagine, for example, that your place costs, I don't know, $1,500 bucks a month. Your place costs $1,500 a month. You've got $18,000 more of just pure risk that you can take on with your money and be in the exact same position. Because I promise you this, there's no mariachi band that comes out 3 years from now and says, "Hey, hey, not only did you succeed, you also succeeded without going back home to your parents." No one cares. The customers won't know. The market doesn't give a [ __ ] They just care about what products you have. And here's the real real talk. Even if they did know that you were at your parents' basement, they wouldn't care because they just care about what you can do for them. They don't care about your life. So, yeah, violent agreement there by Josephine K. Uh, I didn't breathe the entire time you're answering my question. Wow, Alex, thank you. Uh, make mediocrity acceptable. Rock and roll, baby. Um, you know what? Uh, speaking of beginner businesses, I think this is really important. Buy [ __ ] from your friends businesses and try to get free [ __ ] from strangers, not the other way around. This is one of the big things that drives me absolutely [ __ ] insane. People try to get free [ __ ] from their friends who are starting businesses and they buy [ __ ] from strangers businesses. Reverse it. Try to support the business. Like, the best thing you can possibly do is give them money. take the product, leave a review, and if you really are good friends and they don't have a high ego, give them good feedback on the product and tell them what they could be better right now. Only do that part if they ask for it. All right? Because otherwise, they might get weird about it because some people, you know, treat their products like they're kids. Um, they don't want criticism. Fine. But at the very least, buy it, leave a review. I actually I'm like such a stickler with this because I have a lot of people who offer free stuff. Um, and I always pay um because I'm such a believer in this. And I also, as a side note, I don't want a free deck, right? I don't know if you've heard this this expression, but basically it's like uh the giver of the free deck um is giving you something and they're, let's say they're, you know, working all day and then they go and work on your free deck later because they have their paying customers and then you, the friend who gets the free deck, wants a really high quality deck, but your friend is giving you the scraps because it's free. You're frustrated because you don't get the quality deck that you want. He's frustrated because you don't appreciate that it's free. and both of you were pissed off when it would be so much better if you were like, "Hey, Tony, you're my homie. I'm going to pay you and I'm just going to expect that because I'm also your friend. You're going to do a good job anyways." And it just like it becomes a plus plus relationship rather than neutralizing. Couldn't be more aggressive about that one. Um, might need some more more nicarat. I agree. Or whatever brand of gum you use. Um, I use uh I've used the off-brand ones for a long time. I have no no preference for whatever nicotine gum that you like to have. I realize that I'm a big big fan of the in caffeine, nicotine, protein, creatine, jelly beans. Um trying to think of more in Actually, there's a bad one. I'm not going to go there. Um um there was like Maybelline. That's Texas. Anyways, let's get back to it. Okay. Um, how do I bring cash forward? Um, for a film lab, we develop and scan film and people mail in their film from all over the US. Get them to prepay. So, like imagine I said I do surgeries. How do I pull cash forward? Get people to pay for the surgery before you do the surgery. I I don't know. That feels that feels pretty straightforward. Um and you're if if the immediate response is, well, people won't do that. Call them and then ask for the money. And then if they don't say, I'm going to put you at the end of the line. How fast you want it? People who pay go first. Uh Chaz W, my sales agency, Credit Repair, 50K a month, is struggling to offer services and drive more cash flow after our process is done. we are thinking about driving clients towards lending and affiliates. I don't think it's a bad idea. Um that's actually fairly common um in the world that you're in. Um if you and to be clear, there are some businesses that are relatively inherently transactional and so it's like it's a big one time thing and that's kind of it. Um having affiliate relationships with the other types of businesses I think is wise. I think starting those businesses is a very big endeavor that I wouldn't recommend you do, especially at the size that you're at. And so yeah, I think basically creating good partnership relationships with other people can extend the LTV and give you free cash flow. Um it's not going to fix the business per se, but free cash is free cash. Um in the spirit of working, uh if you are trying to catch up, remember that you can also work weekends. Uh think about this. 104 out of 365 days. That's a lot of days, right? Those are just the weekends plus 11 for federal holidays. So, when someone's like, "Man, I'm I'm just working so hard. Um, but I'm choosing to not work the 116 days of the year." Uh, it's like, "How hard are you really working?" Now, to be clear, do whatever the hell you want. It like, you know, go go be a beautiful butterfly. You know, you're a special snowflake and you are unique. But at the end of the day, there's a certain amount of work that needs to get done. And the people who do that work faster get it done faster and the people who do that work win. I like I don't know how to say that differently. Now the response is typically um well aren't you sacrificing stuff? Yes, absolutely. And the question is just whether the things that you're trading is worth it. I'm encouraging you if you're not doing other stuff and you're just wasting time smoking weed watching Netflix that yeah, I think you'll be significantly better off staying productive and working. If you're like, "Oh, Alex, I can't believe you said that I shouldn't spend my time with my newborn child." Didn't say that. I said that you're going to make a trade. And if there's a version of you in an alternative universe that is working and a version of you that's not working, the version of you that's working is going to do better. Like, I don't know what to say. Like, I'm I'm sorry. Reality sucks. Like, I think there are so many people who are incredibly intelligent and wouldn't recognize reality if it tapped them on the shoulder. Like, the reason that so many of you are not happy with your current condition is because you think reality acts differently than it does. And so you make bets with your actions based on what your model of reality predicts will happen. And then you are constantly surprised by the fact that reality is not as you would have expected. And so you can continue to stomp your feet and get angry about the fact that reality didn't bend to your will, but reality in the universe is literally unfucking defeated. And so you can choose to stop and fe your feet and whine and then eventually die and then eventually be forgotten because everyone is on a long enough time horizon. Or you can adjust your model of the world and think maybe if every single time I've made these bets have been wrong, the things that I think are true might not be and maybe I should be open to an alternative view. Call me crazy. I'll give you this line that I have from the Madison that I absolutely [ __ ] love. So the Madison Tyler Sheridan show, phenomenal premise is patriarch dies. Don't worry, I'm not ruining anything. It's the first five minutes of the show. Um, and then it's basically the the family reacting to the patriarch dying. Now, the patriarch is like a private equity super finance bro, not bro, guy from New York. He goes to a farm in like Montana that was like his sacred happy place, little cabin, fishing, hunting, all that kind of stuff. And in the the the show there, you know, the wife's reading from the journal, and she reads this line that I like I like had to like stop because it hit me because I got allergies while the show happened for a short period. Um he said in society man wants to be remembered. In nature man seeks to be forgotten. I thought that was really cool. Like we have these idea like in society we want to build these buildings. We want to we want to leave our mark. We want to leave a dent. And when you look at this beautiful pasture in Montana with these rolling hills and this huge sky and these rivers and the fish and the and the you know the deer and the elk that are that are walking by, it's like this is what you want to leave your mark on. It's like in that setting man wants to be forgotten. And so it's only like in the settings where we created that we basically want to leave our mark. Um but in the settings that God, nature, etc. created, we don't want to do anything. And I think most people objectively see the destruction of nature as a bad thing independent of where you're at on the on the stuff. When you look at it, you're like, skyscraper looks worse than a mountain does. It just does. Um, and so I think that was just very very cool because if in the natural setting we do not want to be remembered remembered, then it begs the question of like why we're trying so hard to do it um in this unnatural one that we've created. Fun fact. All right. Uh, back to selling [ __ ] and making money. Uh, Muhammad Fahim, uh, how do I manage cash flow when you hand out credit to your customers in a transport brokerage business? Honestly, I don't really even know what that means. Um, hand out credit to your customers in a transport brokerage business. Again, I think a lot of you guys, you have to think more creative about the offers. So, if I have customers that are reoccurring rather than recurring, so they're not on a subscription, but they do business with you regularly, I'm assuming. If that's the case, then it's like, how can I get bulk purchases? How can you get blanket purchase agreements? How can you get people to prepay for multiple at a time? Um, that can pull cash forward uh for whatever services that we have. Now, if you extend credit to customers, it's a supply demand issue. Meaning, if I can jack up demand, I may be able to change terms. And so, this is one of those common things where like, well, nobody in my industry does it. And it's like, yeah, and everybody's broke, so maybe it might be worth doing something a little different. Like, everybody who pushes back on this, remember that most of the disruptors in every industry come from people who are not in that industry, and it's because they question the requirements. Why must we give this away? It's just some guy did it and then everyone else copied because no one is original and no one tries to think for themselves. They just look at what everyone else does and think, "Oh, this would be a good idea." Um, which if you suck, copying somebody who's good is better than sucking. Um, but once you get good, it might be worth trying to win rather than trying to get second place because you're always copying other people. One minute two cents. Uh, they copied your business idea. So what? Let them copy your idea, your product, or, you know, your video concept. Because the easiest way to stop copycats in their tracks is to make shitty stuff that no one wants. No one will copy you. How to stop copycats 101. Uh I see I see this I honestly get I get sent videos all the time. Actually my team showed me one today um of somebody that you would know um who just lifted a word for word basically version of one of my videos. Um and I just like it's just like it doesn't [ __ ] matter. It's so it's like I can't tell you it took me probably two maybe three years um in the beginning of my entrepreneur career where I cared about this where I used to get really butth hurt about it and I'll tell you I'll tell you the first one of the most significant times that happened to me. I'll tell you actually I have a bunch of stories but I'll tell you one really good one. So, when I was 24, I had my gym and I was in this little gym owners group and the owner of the group uh posted, "Hey guys, this is the new ad copy that's crushing." And he posted in the group my ad copy. And so I reached out to him and I was like, "Hey man, um kind of like, what the hell, dude?" Like, I mean, okay, I guess you're just giving my copy away. Fine, but like at least a little credit would be nice. Um, and he said, "You're gonna really be that petty." And I was like, "Man, I feel really weird right now." Um, and so as a result, we parted ways. Um, but the thing is is that I do think that what he did was not the right move. I also think that it doesn't matter because whether people in that in that group were going to make money or not in their gyms had nothing to do with my ad copy. It had everything to do with how good they were at business because everybody who's a loser finds a way to lose and everyone's a winner finds a way to win. I'll tell you a different story. Um, this is this is many years later. I had a I think I I I had a I received a cease and desist from a local gym. This is when gym launch was was growing was much bigger. Um, and it was a it was a gym owner who was actually from that original group and he had five locations at the time and he emails said you know cease and exist with his lawyer saying that I could not use this copy and uh which first off ad copy is not considered IP FYI. So just big news for you which hilarious that the lawyer thought that that would be a good idea. They should probably question themselves but small-time lawyers, small time business owners, it is what it is, right? Broke people leading broke people. Um, I responded back with a screenshot of my first use case of the ad copy because I wrote the [ __ ] copy. I wasn't copying his copy. He had copied my copy. My copy had been spread around the internet so much that people were suing me for using my own copy. He didn't even know that I had written it. And so, uh, I got one of my all-time favorite emails ever, which was the attorney apologized to me, uh, for his client sending the cease and desist, uh, because obviously he didn't write it. Um, and I had proof that I had written it because I was like, if you can find a date where you posted it before me, let me know. Um, and so he went off and [ __ ] himself. Uh, which felt really nice and I get to tell the story. But the point is this is that like you are either source or you are looking at the source. Two people can't be source. It is what it is. Either you are the wellspring of the actions that you're taking or you're looking at someone else and trying to be a bastardized diet version of what they're doing. Like, and for me, whenever you copy, you concede first place. And to be clear, there's first place isn't for everyone. Basically, every other position on the board besides first place is for most people. And so, that might be you. And if that's you, dude, copy to your heart's desire by all means. But I prefer to think that I make my content for the the winners or the people who want to win. And if that is you, then you have to start believing in yourself because copying is a form of cowardice. You don't believe in your own skill enough to bet on you. You don't believe that you are good enough to actually do it on your own. I'll tell you a different story. I when I had my gyms early days, um I saw a competitor who came in better funded um better funded I better funded it. They had like 10 or 20 locations or something and they had opened a location in my in my market and I had my one gym and when I looked at their their page I was like, "Oh, this must be working." And so I looked at my page that I had built myself and I remember basically cloning their page. I was like, "I'm going to copy their page and run ads to a version of it that's basically similar." When I ran the ads, the conversion rate on the new page that I spent all this time money to build was lower than mine. And it was the first and last time that I did that. And I was so ashamed of myself. I was like, you didn't have enough confidence in yourself. And you somehow thought that everyone else had it figured out. No one knows what the [ __ ] they're doing. Like, if you can just make reasonable assumptions, which is like, I will just be very clear about what people are going to get. I'm going to show them a shitload of proof that I can help them do it, and I'm going to make it very easy for them to respond. You will probably do very well in marketing. And if you just keep solving those main risk objectives as the top of mind when you are writing copy, when you're making ads, when you're making landing pages, when you're making offers, you will out compete everyone because you will actually do it from a place of originality because it'll be you. In this world of AI where everyone's slopping everything, I don't think it's ever been easier to stand out as a human creator. So, in this world of AI slop, I think it's never been easier to stand out by just actually writing stuff and actually making it your own because it sounds very it's so like who here is tired of seeing AI slop scripts being read on a camera to make content. It's not this or this, but that the thing one, the thing two, the thing three. And it's not only that, but it's just like it's the f it's like Jesus Christ, dude. Like, even if you have the GPT, at least for the love of everyone who's going to watch, just try to make it look like [ __ ] writing at, please. Or just practice it a couple times so it sounds like you're speaking, not like a [ __ ] robot. Yeah, I don't have strong beliefs about this. Okay. Um, was that cool? The the intro part about the um actually good advice. I thought that was I was like I spent like I probably spent an hour on that just trying to write down that I was like what really good pieces of advice that I have that are actually super useful, super tactical but apply to everyone and have very low likelihood of doing damage. Um was it were those cool because I could make another list of those cuz I thought that was kind of it was fun for me to make. Um but otherwise hopefully the stories were interesting. Um you guys rock. I'm trying to stick with my 30 for 30ish for 30-ish. Um which is what I've been doing these live streams for. Um I had somebody ask me why are you doing this? Really good question. Um, I'm doing it for a number of different reasons. So, number one, I'm proving to my team that production doesn't matter. Um, and all that matters is the stuff inside the box. Number two, I wanted to have a forcing function of creating a shitload of content really quickly because I'm testing out more post-production stuff right now of how can we clip and post more. And so, I wanted to give more content. Uh, number three, I prefer the style of making content um rather than like there's nothing that make that drains my soul more than a teleprompter. Um, and to be clear, if those of you curious, I've never like I don't read scripts. I just I I want to kill myself. I just feel like a monkey with a tambourine and it it drives me [ __ ] nuts. Um, so if I am going to read from a teleprompter, it is basically just the bullets that I've already pre-written so that I just know kind of like talking points that I'm going to hit. It also makes better videos. So, just a little pro tip for anyone like once you learn how to talk a little bit better, um, just having bullets like bullet example, bullet example. And the example for me will be like, uh, you know, John's story at car wash and then I'll be like, oh yeah. So anyways, that was what the go and so that's how I make my content. Um, and you guys are seeing real time and uh I also have this belief. So I guess fifth reason um is that I think time on brand is a thing. Um and I think the imperfect moments in between is where people get to feel like they know you. Um and I think that I think that no matter how hard I try because things have to be edited and cut in clips, you're always going to get a a less than real life version obviously. But I think streaming and doing these lives uh is like at least one step closer to reality than the stuff that's kind of more curated um and polished. So my two cents, you guys rock. Happy hump day. Hope you guys slay your dreams. I don't know. Slaying dreams. You don't want to slay your dreams. Slay your nightmares and then accomplish your dreams. How about that? Otherwise, bye.