Random Chat, Thoughts, Posts, and/or Rants Thread

[ZF Lee]

Break the cycle. Very important. We are not trapped by our family's bs cycle, but we are predisposed to the junk we are surrounded by if we don't break the cycle.

I broke the smoking and drinking cycles of my dad, who was a great dad, but died young.

It's important to remember that you have a lot of life to live ahead of you without your family's direct input. I don't know when you'll move out, but one day you will, and your decisions will be solely yours to make.

Thanks Kak.

I have already moved out, but I and the parents still visit each other now and then.
I'm trying to take more of the initiative now to check up on them...which isn't always easy with work and all.

 

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[Lex DeVille]

Has anyone come across anything like this?

Hostile architecture that (this youtuber claims) is designed to keep the homeless away.

I'm curious to read others' thoughts. Interesting idea from an entrepreneurial perspective.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Hostile architecture that (this youtuber claims) is designed to keep the homeless away.

Classic policy decisions by politicians who love to address symptoms, but never fix problems. Also subject to the Cobra Effect.

 

[BizyDad]

Has anyone come across anything like this?

Hostile architecture that (this youtuber claims) is designed to keep the homeless away.

I'm curious to read others' thoughts. Interesting idea from an entrepreneurial perspective.

I have seen this kind of stuff. Been around a while..

As someone who lives in a working class area of Phoenix, I would argue it doesn't "keep them away" but more like "redirects them" to less desirable area. The city isn't installing this kind of stuff in the areas south of my neighborhood. I'd wager the same is true in most US metros. Try to keep the homeless out of the affluent or commercial areas.

 

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[monnffffiiiiiii]

Few know that Kim Kardashian and Taylor Swift are among the top business people of all time.

Those who laugh at this statement don't know what it takes to succeed.

 

[Kak]

Few know that Kim Kardashian and Taylor Swift are among the top business people of all time.

Those who laugh at this statement don't know what it takes to succeed.

I guess it takes being a famous airheaded sex symbol with actual business people behind you.

 

[Kak]

If you give to your kids early, it can grow in their possession instead of yours.

IRS Increases Gift and Estate Tax Exempt Limits — Here’s How Much You Can Give Without Paying

 

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[Antifragile]

Few know that Kim Kardashian and Taylor Swift are among the top business people of all time.

Those who laugh at this statement don't know what it takes to succeed.

What a stupid thing to say with confidence. Are you being ignorant, stupid or just trolling?

While TS is a great businesswoman, great artist and entertainer - she's no where near the top business people of all time.

Read about:

• Andrew Carnegie
• John D. Rockefeller
• Henry Ford
• Steve Jobs
• Walt Disney
• Bill Gates
• Elon Musk
• Sakichi Toyoda
• Sam Walton
• Jeff Bezos
• Warren Buffett
• Mark Zuckerberg
• Andrew Grove

I am honestly getting tired of just listing names that pop into mind...

With that, Mr.Troll - show me where I am wrong.

 

[Kak]

Has anyone come across anything like this?

Hostile architecture that (this youtuber claims) is designed to keep the homeless away.

I'm curious to read others' thoughts. Interesting idea from an entrepreneurial perspective.

That's interesting. A big need for a lot of cities nowadays.

The guy in the video come across as super entitled to benches. Wow.

It needs better PR than "hostile architecture" how about "suggestive architecture?"

 

[socaldude]

Has anyone come across anything like this?

Yeah that’s common in a lot of cities.

Architecture gives you clues where the ruling elites want to drive the culture.

 

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[Lex DeVille]

That's interesting. A big need for a lot of cities nowadays.

The guy in the video come across as super entitled to benches. Wow.

It needs better PR than "hostile architecture" how about "suggestive architecture?"

Our town is small, but the homeless population has grown a lot in the last few years. Seems like a good time to swoop in and get the city to drop big bucks on new architecture.

The guy in the video used another word at one point, but I don't remember. Whatever the term, it was less hostile than "hostile." The video got 11M views in a couple of weeks, so I'd say the term worked out well for his purposes.

 

[ZackerySprague]

What a stupid thing to say with confidence. Are you being ignorant, stupid or just trolling?

While TS is a great businesswoman, great artist and entertainer - she's no where near the top business people of all time.

Read about:

• Andrew Carnegie
• John D. Rockefeller
• Henry Ford
• Steve Jobs
• Walt Disney
• Bill Gates
• Elon Musk
• Sakichi Toyoda
• Sam Walton
• Jeff Bezos
• Warren Buffett
• Mark Zuckerberg
• Andrew Grove

I am honestly getting tired of just listing names that pop into mind...

With that, Mr.Troll - show me where I am wrong.

Was his statment about as bad as mine?

A few that beat Taylor Swift and Kim Kardashian that I admire are:

Noah Kagan
MJ DeMarco
Kara Goldin
Glenn Stearns *his book is absolutely amazing*
Andy Frisella
Tom Golisano
Judith R. Faulkner *Last time I read she was a sweet lady who's big into philanthropy.
Nick Seavert
Michia Rohressien

Sports Professionals:
David Goggins.

*Continues the onslaught of DMs in Slack at work for patching*

 

[GPM]

So for that experiment where we had to reach out and find the most famous or successful person we could... We only had 24 hours.

Most of the other guys went for sports figures and such. One actually got a video message from a Canadian gold medalist from the 90s which is kind of cool. But sports? Meh.

I tried to swing for the fences on that. I am still waiting to hear back from Pierre Poilievre (99% chance of him becoming the next Canadian Prime Minister). A few other high net worth individuals I didn't get a hold of. I did have an interesting conversation from a possible very successful Chinese man who @Kak says is crazy connected, but he may have been pulling my chain with a second phone #, you never know.

While we only had 24 hours to complete this, that makes the email I received back today not count, but it's still cool. I got an email back and a shout out from the forums favorite Grant Cardone. I think it's pretty cool. I'd take contacting ol' GC over a hockey player any day.

 

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[monnffffiiiiiii]

I guess it takes being a famous airheaded sex symbol with actual business people behind you.

Tbh I thought you'd agree with me.

 

[Kak]

Our town is small, but the homeless population has grown a lot in the last few years. Seems like a good time to swoop in and get the city to drop big bucks on new architecture.

The guy in the video used another word at one point, but I don't remember. Whatever the term, it was less hostile than "hostile." The video got 11M views in a couple of weeks, so I'd say the term worked out well for his purposes.

For his purposes, yes. His purposes were to propagandize the unemployed, 4hr per day youtube communist, against such installations.

For your purposes, and I think it's a very solid business idea, the word hostile isn't going to be good.

 

[Black_Dragon43]

One of the biggest advantages I have in my business is that I can do everything myself. There is no task that I can’t do.

And I can’t say the same about most owners. 90% of business owners out there aren’t able to do every single task that goes on in their business. And I don’t mean that they don’t have the time, but rather that they don’t have the skillset.

• Write sales copy
• Create social media content
• Create apps & program
• Run paid media campaigns
• Run webinars / workshops
• Take on sales calls
• Accounting & Financial Management (and I don’t just mean read a balance sheet, I mean actually know how to balance accounts and record stuff in your favor based on your business needs)
• Cold outreach campaigns
• Building & managing teams
• Optimize websites for speed (with complex, optimizations, not just clicking a few buttons on a plugin)
• Graphic design, logo creation, visuals.
• Write and create contracts and agreements.
• Create and design presentations from scratch.
• Coach and train others.
• Create custom wordpress plugins
• Create websites
• Do website security via .htaccess files
• Integrate with CDNs.
• Work with 3rd party APIs
• And the list goes on.

There is no task inside my business that I cannot do. The two biggest advantages:

1) My people have maximum respect for me, because I’m at the front of the charging army, not at the back. I can also take ownership of every single decision made. I don’t have to trust the way an accountant decides to file things for me — I can tell him what I want him to do. You can’t do this if you don’t know.

2) Speed. This is the biggest one. If you want to create an app, it will take you, unless you’re a programmer yourself 3-6 months at least (and more if it’s highly complex, rather than an MVP). For me, it’s 2-3 weeks of working day and night to get it done (and that includes learning). And then after 3-4 months you realize that there is a better way to do it, but oh shit, back to development and taking ages because developers are lazy and screwing you over. And on and on it goes.

In a digital business this is a huge advantage. The business that moves the fastest wins. You cannot move the fastest if you always rely on other people and cannot get your hands dirty.

This does result in very long hours of work sometimes, and it took an inhuman amount of effort to get here. I cannot emphasize this enough. Inhuman. Like not doing anything apart from working on your business from morning to night. Day after day, the same on repeat, for 10 years. It’s why I say that if I had to do it again, I wouldn’t be able to.

I was always obsessed about being wealthy. As a 14 year old kid I devoured biographies of people like Rockefeller and Henry Ford. I had this unreasonable, burning desire, whatever it took, I would do it. And it’s almost like that desire always minimized whatever obstacles stood in my path, and blinded me to the difficulty of it all, until I was so far along the path that turning back was simply impossible.

People always said you’ll just burn yourself out, this isn’t smart. I didn’t care, just kept charging ahead. Didn’t even see or hear anything else apart from the target — like a laser beam.

Now I’ve started to cross that point when you get to the peak of the mountain, and it all starts to go downhill from there and you gain momentum. Things get easier. There’s fewer and fewer things that surprise you or you don’t know how to handle.

I know that some people here advocate to focus on the big picture and leave the details to others. I have no doubt that in the short run they will beat me to the cash. But they have no chance in the long run as the advantages in terms of leadership and speed begin adding up.

My path may be very hard and perhaps not for most. But I see it as the most certain path to success.

 

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[MTF]

One of the biggest advantages I have in my business is that I can do everything myself. There is no task that I can’t do.

And I can’t say the same about most owners. 90% of business owners out there aren’t able to do every single task that goes on in their business. And I don’t mean that they don’t have the time, but rather that they don’t have the skillset.

• Write sales copy
• Create social media content
• Create apps & program
• Run paid media campaigns
• Run webinars / workshops
• Take on sales calls
• Accounting & Financial Management (and I don’t just mean read a balance sheet, I mean actually know how to balance accounts and record stuff in your favor based on your business needs)
• Cold outreach campaigns
• Building & managing teams
• Optimize websites for speed (with complex, optimizations, not just clicking a few buttons on a plugin)
• Graphic design, logo creation, visuals.
• Write and create contracts and agreements.
• Create and design presentations from scratch.
• Coach and train others.
• And the list goes on.

There is no task inside my business that I cannot do. The two biggest advantages:

1) My people have maximum respect for me, because I’m at the front of the charging army, not at the back.

2) Speed. This is the biggest one. If you want to create an app, it will take you, unless you’re a programmer yourself 3-6 months at least (and more if it’s highly complex, rather than an MVP). For me, it’s 2-3 weeks of working day and night to get it done (and that includes learning). And then after 3-4 months you realize that there is a better way to do it, but oh shit, back to development and taking ages because developers are lazy and screwing you over. And on and on it goes.

In a digital business this is a huge advantage. The business that moves the fastest wins. You cannot move the fastest if you always rely on other people and cannot get your hands dirty.

This does result in very long hours of work sometimes, and it took an inhuman amount of effort to get here. I cannot emphasize this enough. Inhuman. Like not doing anything apart from working on your business from morning to night. Day after day, the same on repeat, for 10 years. It’s why I say that if I had to do it again, I wouldn’t be able to.

But now I’ve started to cross that point when you get to the peak of the mountain, and it all starts to go downhill from there and you gain momentum. Things get easier. There’s fewer and fewer things that surprise you or you don’t know how to handle.

I know that some people here advocate to focus on the big picture and leave the details to others. I have no doubt that in the short run they will beat me to the cash. But they have no chance in the long run as the advantages in terms of leadership and speed begin adding up.

My path may be very hard and perhaps not for most. But I see it as the most certain path to success.

Oh man I soooo want to hear what @Kak and @Antifragile think about this.

I like the idea of being able to do every task in your business so that you aren't dependent on someone but IMO it's not always possible.

I mean, can you honestly say that you're as good at graphic design as a professional graphic designer AND at the same time as good at coding as a coder AND as good at law as a lawyer?

Man if that's true then I really wouldn't want you as my competitor as you're a superhuman.

I know I suck at many things. I can do many tasks at a passable level but man, no way I can do them even 1/10 as good as a pro.

My huge realization about this was when I had a ghostwriting agency. I realized that a freelance writer I hired produced stuff I wouldn't even dream about creating. It was way, way better than my writing. And that's despite writing being my by far number one skill that I've practiced for 15+ years.

 

[Black_Dragon43]

I mean, can you honestly say that you're as good at graphic design as a professional graphic designer AND at the same time as good at coding as a coder AND as good at law as a lawyer?

In my view, most professionals out there aren’t very good at their jobs. Sure, there are some that are true experts and I’m definitely not better than them.

But a real expert will cost you a fortune. If you want to hire one of those whizz programmers who crosses every T and dots every I, never makes mistakes, is never sloppy, always looks for the most efficient way to code things, and so on… you better be ready to pay a fortune.

But… most doctors, even famous ones, suck at their job. I’ve had doctors that cost $500+/hr and lawyers that cost $500+/hr advise me wrongly. And I didn’t listen to their advice, and it turned out I was right.

Example: I had a pilonidal cyst. Nasty thing, that according to most doctors you need to have a surgery for, and the surgery can’t be closed — you need to keep it open and let it naturally heal over months. My best friend had it too, and he had the surgery. I went to 5 doctors, the top doctors around for this problem. They all said surgery. Guess what I did? I researched it, identified the correct antibiotics, went to my GP, and told him I order him to write me a prescription for these. He did. Took them, got cured, never had it recur after 10+ years.

And I can give you 20+ examples like that.

So can you really trust the experts? Personally, I only trust myself. The experts are very often uninterested in your problem, too tired to care, etc. and usually the more famous they are, the more likely that this is the case. A famous doctor who sees 30+ patients per day… that guy can’t possibly give your case the attention it deserves.

 

[MTF]

In my view, most professionals out there aren’t very good at their jobs. Sure, there are some that are true experts and I’m definitely not better than them.

But a real expert will cost you a fortune. If you want to hire one of those whizz programmers who crosses every T and dots every I, never makes mistakes, is never sloppy, always looks for the most efficient way to code things, and so on… you better be ready to pay a fortune.

But… most doctors, even famous ones, suck at their job. I’ve had doctors that cost $500+/hr and lawyers that cost $500+/hr advise me wrongly. And I didn’t listen to their advice, and it turned out I was right.

Example: I had a pilonidal cyst. Nasty thing, that according to most doctors you need to have a surgery for, and the surgery can’t be closed — you need to keep it open and let it naturally heal over months. My best friend had it too, and he had the surgery. I went to 5 doctors, the top doctors around for this problem. They all said surgery. Guess what I did? I researched it, identified the correct antibiotics, went to my GP, and told him I order him to write me a prescription for these. He did. Took them, got cured, never had it recur after 10+ years.

And I can give you 20+ examples like that.

So can you really trust the experts? Personally, I only trust myself. The experts are very often uninterested in your problem, too tired to care, etc. and usually the more famous they are, the more likely that this is the case. A famous doctor who sees 30+ patients per day… that guy can’t possibly give your case the attention it deserves.

And at what point would you trust someone else? What if you had a rare type of cancer that only one doctor had an extraordinary success rate treating it?

And how about things you need to learn from someone else for safety reasons, like mountain climbing or freediving? Would you question the professionals as well and try to prove them wrong?

There must be a point where you either don't have the mental capacity (can you really know more about launching rockets than a SpaceX engineer?), sufficient fundamentals that take years to master (like construction) or where it simply makes no sense to try to figure it out yourself (why study immigration law if you can hire someone to get the job done for you?).

 

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[Antifragile]

One of the biggest advantages I have in my business is that I can do everything myself. There is no task that I can’t do.

And I can’t say the same about most owners. 90% of business owners out there aren’t able to do every single task that goes on in their business. And I don’t mean that they don’t have the time, but rather that they don’t have the skillset.

• Write sales copy
• Create social media content
• Create apps & program
• Run paid media campaigns
• Run webinars / workshops
• Take on sales calls
• Accounting & Financial Management (and I don’t just mean read a balance sheet, I mean actually know how to balance accounts and record stuff in your favor based on your business needs)
• Cold outreach campaigns
• Building & managing teams
• Optimize websites for speed (with complex, optimizations, not just clicking a few buttons on a plugin)
• Graphic design, logo creation, visuals.
• Write and create contracts and agreements.
• Create and design presentations from scratch.
• Coach and train others.
• Create custom wordpress plugins
• Create websites
• Do website security via .htaccess files
• Integrate with CDNs.
• Work with 3rd party APIs
• And the list goes on.

There is no task inside my business that I cannot do. The two biggest advantages:

1) My people have maximum respect for me, because I’m at the front of the charging army, not at the back. I can also take ownership of every single decision made. I don’t have to trust the way an accountant decides to file things for me — I can tell him what I want him to do. You can’t do this if you don’t know.

2) Speed. This is the biggest one. If you want to create an app, it will take you, unless you’re a programmer yourself 3-6 months at least (and more if it’s highly complex, rather than an MVP). For me, it’s 2-3 weeks of working day and night to get it done (and that includes learning). And then after 3-4 months you realize that there is a better way to do it, but oh shit, back to development and taking ages because developers are lazy and screwing you over. And on and on it goes.

I was going to stay out of this one... but

Oh man I soooo want to hear what @Kak and @Antifragile think about this.

MTF got me.

Of course I see the world of business differently than this.

Doing every task yourself seems incredibly inefficient and not feasible for most businesses of scale. And frankly I disagree with a few points made by @Black_Dragon43

In a digital business this is a huge advantage. The business that moves the fastest wins. You cannot move the fastest if you always rely on other people and cannot get your hands dirty.

I agree that moving fast is important and not just in digital business. It doesn't mean that you must do it yourself to move fast. Why wouldn't your employees be able to move fast on a task you need done?

This does result in very long hours of work sometimes, and it took an inhuman amount of effort to get here. I cannot emphasize this enough. Inhuman. Like not doing anything apart from working on your business from morning to night. Day after day, the same on repeat, for 10 years. It’s why I say that if I had to do it again, I wouldn’t be able to.

To be frank, I've sacrificed similarly but with a different objective and now with a different outcome. I never aimed at doing every task myself, but the tasks I took on had the biggest impact. They both alined with my abilities and business needs.

I was always obsessed about being wealthy. As a 14 year old kid I devoured biographies of people like Rockefeller and Henry Ford. I had this unreasonable, burning desire, whatever it took, I would do it. And it’s almost like that desire always minimized whatever obstacles stood in my path, and blinded me to the difficulty of it all, until I was so far along the path that turning back was simply impossible.

People always said you’ll just burn yourself out, this isn’t smart. I didn’t care, just kept charging ahead. Didn’t even see or hear anything else apart from the target — like a laser beam.

Now I’ve started to cross that point when you get to the peak of the mountain, and it all starts to go downhill from there and you gain momentum. Things get easier. There’s fewer and fewer things that surprise you or you don’t know how to handle.

I know that some people here advocate to focus on the big picture and leave the details to others. I have no doubt that in the short run they will beat me to the cash. But they have no chance in the long run as the advantages in terms of leadership and speed begin adding up.

My path may be very hard and perhaps not for most. But I see it as the most certain path to success.

Perhaps the difference is in the industries we chose. I recently interviewed a young man who's looking to transition form tech into RE. I asked him "What is the biggest difference between the two?" He couldn't answer. Here is what I said "In tech it's popular to move fast and break things. You can rebuild the app that didn't work easily. You cannot put up a high-rise condo building and then test it to realize you forgot the washrooms!"

Some industries benefit disproportionately from having experience. I cannot build up experience in Architecture, Construction, Engineering, Environmental, Finance, HR etc. in my lifetime to be able to do a good job at all tasks.

As a result, it was never even an option to do all things myself, not that I'd want to!

That said, your comment "some people here advocate to focus on the big picture and leave the details to others" isn't something I advocate either. I sweat the details the same way I'd sweat the details of what my doctor tells me when something hurts. I listen to their experience but I don't just leave it to them either. Same with my business, I have people who are 100x better than me in specific sections of our business and I understand maybe 1/5th of how they do what they do... But they do it better and faster.

In fact, I can't imagine scaling any company with the mindset of "I must be able to do every task myself" - WHY? I just don't get it. Do you really need to record your own invoices? I only sign cheques! Do you really want to file your own taxes? Why not leave it to accountants? And this goes on and on and on...

In my world, I control the following "tasks":
- Money (debt/equity)
- New business
- Big ticket sales

The impact is too large and then work is too fun for me to pass it on too soon. Only recently I moved financing to our CFO entirely. At one point I'd like to just focus on the company direction and making decisions when others cannot. Typically when shit hits the fan.

Lastly, understanding every aspect of your business enough not to get swindled is important. Doing every task yourself isn't.

Just my thoughts... what do I know about digital marketing agencies? Are they Bitcoin?

 

[Black_Dragon43]

And at what point would you trust someone else? What if you had a rare type of cancer that only one doctor had an extraordinary success rate treating it?

I listen to experts, but I never trust them. I’ll always take my own decisions, because I’ve learned that experts can be wrong, and sometimes fatally so, and I bear the consequences of them being wrong.

Another example. As a kid, I had a slight underbite (a type of dental malocclusion). I went to the best orthodontist around, top university professor. I wore braces for 10+ years, the result? I have a cut in my tongue that was so deep it has never healed even to this day, and they’ve created a malocclusion due to the treatment that is so bad that there is basically a gap when I bite down of 1.1cm between my upper teeth and my lower teeth where the molars are. And you know what their reaction was at the end “yeah, we can’t do anything more, the only solution now is surgery”.

Every other dentist I’ve seen, including in the UK, Germany and other places said the same thing. Moreover, no one has seen a case as bad as mine. Not even in textbooks or medical literature. I had a friend who had a similar issue to me, but obviously a lot less severe and she went for the surgery. She had trouble breathing after that, developed panic attacks and basically ended up a mess because of listening to a German doctor.

I didn’t want to do a complicated surgery. So I found a dentist willing to do what I wanted them to do. Create extensions that can be installed like a crown on my bottom teeth — 1.1cm in height (huge for inside the mouth) so that I can chew normally. First time in history this was done, it doesn’t exist as a treatment. I remember they filmed it and took pictures when they did it.

But I’ve lived with those for 12+ years, never had a cavity or any issue (except 3 times so far, one came off, and had to be reinstalled).

So I ask again, can you really trust an expert? My answer is no. I will consult experts, but the decision will be mine, because I will suffer the consequences and I’m just as capable as they are to reason through problems, what I may lack is just their knowledge.

 

[Black_Dragon43]

I agree that moving fast is important and not just in digital business. It doesn't mean that you must do it yourself to move fast. Why wouldn't your employees be able to move fast on a task you need done?

Because my employees don’t care as much as I do, and because it’s not their business so they’re not willing to work ungodly hours to make my dreams a reality. They want to chill and take it easy, while I work 15+ hours a day. I can’t demand to a developer complete this app in 2 weeks, because I know if I do it that’s how long it will take. They’ll just be like F*ck off, do it yourself then. I need 3 months.

As a result, it was never even an option to do all things myself, not that I'd want to!

I wouldn’t be able to do everything myself either — we’re a team of 9 atm. But… I CAN do every single task myself if I had to. Meaning I have the skill to do it — it’s not a question of time here.

I agree that to grow you need to outsource tasks, there’s just not enough time to get it done by yourself.

 

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[Kak]

@Black_Dragon43

I see your point, but if you want to grow beyond a certain point, that program doesn't scale.

I would consider myself a polymath. I'm well versed in a wide variety of things and there has always been the temptation to take on a ridiculous variety of tasks. Whenever I pushed it, my results suffered.

I believe I could hold my own pretty well in a lot of things I don't primarily do like law, or accounting, or a million other things adjacent to my business, but I'm thankful to have people I know, with 100 percent certainty, are better than me for that. Why? Because they devoted their entire careers to it and I'm not going to.

I know very little of how my chemicals are manufactured other than the standards and qualities we test for. I don't really know how our testing works. I also know very little about the end formulations they go into, and our customers all keep that pretty close.

The other day I had a customer tell me they didn't want flatbeds to deliver product anymore. I didn't even know we were occasionally sending on flatbed.

I had another customer request a 1/2 ton sample of one of our gas products. One of my team members pointed out that there are zero canisters around that size that are DOT approved. We found a workaround by sending 26 smaller DOT approved containers.

This is just a view at a tiny slice of a machine that needs all of its proper pieces in order.

My business can not be kept in one man's head, with sanity.

 

[MitchC]

In my view, most professionals out there aren’t very good at their jobs. Sure, there are some that are true experts and I’m definitely not better than them.

I actually agreed with your first post but this is an insane take, are you just hiring the wrong people?

I can probably do everything in my business and I agree it helps me lead and give direction.

I also don’t think I should be doing everything in my business which I think you are saying too. Could do it if needed, but hire it out to free up time and increase output.

I have my creative suggestions taken seriously because I have created ads that have consistently out performed theirs for example.

I can design things in photoshop and canva

I can write copy

I can edit videos

I can do product photography

I can do light coding work

This does help you move faster and cheaper when needed

But man, I completely disagree that I am better than a professional at these things

Good designers, photographers, video editors, coders, you must be superhuman if you are claiming you are better than all of them at their profession, or you are hiring the wrong people

 

[BizyDad]

What a stupid thing to say with confidence. Are you being ignorant, stupid or just trolling?

While TS is a great businesswoman, great artist and entertainer - she's no where near the top business people of all time.

Read about:

• Andrew Carnegie
• John D. Rockefeller
• Henry Ford
• Steve Jobs
• Walt Disney
• Bill Gates
• Elon Musk
• Sakichi Toyoda
• Sam Walton
• Jeff Bezos
• Warren Buffett
• Mark Zuckerberg
• Andrew Grove

I am honestly getting tired of just listing names that pop into mind...

With that, Mr.Troll - show me where I am wrong.

I like a good challenge. Ok, here goes...

Each of these men blazed trails.

However your viewed is skewed in 2 key ways I think.

First, everyone you name has a relatively completed resume. Only one person on your list is under the age of 50. Very few of them achieved Billionaires status by 33. So the comparison is a little bit apples and oranges.

Second, if we had a crystal ball and could look back 100 years from now, what if I told you that the attention industry became the predominant industry of the next 30 years? What if social media and personal branding isn't just a fad but actually the predominant way things start getting done.

Who are the ones who set the new standards and rewrote the rules of the attention economy?

Hard to top Taylor Swift. One big difference between her and "attention experts" like KK or Mr Beast is she understands the commandment of control. She owns her stuff.

She has mastered the attention economy, but she also rewrote the rules of the music industry. The amount of "first person to ever" type things she has is pretty impressive, like first person to ever have 10 out the top 10 songs on Billboard's top 100.

She's done it twice.

She actually moves hundreds of thousands of units... Of VINYL records. She has done vinyl numbers no one has done in more than 40 years. That's her level of marketing.

And at 33, in business terms you could say she is just getting started. But her impact on the business of music, from how contracts are written, to how tickets get sold is undeniable.

Side note, I am far from a Swiftie, the only song I can name is shake it off. But biophase expressed appreciation for her business sense some months ago, so I did some reading up on her.

The Fed Reserve has officially written about her economic impact. Not everyone on your list can say that.

Those top business owners known as the NFL owners sure aren't complaining about the increased value of their brands from "the Taylor Swift effect".

No one is saying she is THE top business person of all time, or even top 10. But does she merit inclusion on the list of all time greats?

Well, let's see...

There's the "Henry Ford effect", the "Jeff Bezos effect" the "Mark Zuckerberg effect", the "Sam Walton effect" , the "Antifragile effect".

We all know the meaning of those, right? Saying this has an actual meaning.

If your name can legitimately be followed by the word "effect" in a legit business sense, written and studied by bonafide economists no less, you have achieved something very few in business ever do. Only the greats ever get to this level.

Imagine having a business that 12 years ago did 100 million in sales, 8ish years ago did 250 million in sales, managed to survive/thrive during the pandemic shutting down your main revenue stream, and emerged out the other side to do 1.5 billion in sales.

What do we call business people who achieve that kind of growth? Perhaps another 5 years, 10 years, her business acumen might not sound so "ignorant and stupid" to you...

And for the second day in a row, men and women of the jury, I rest my case.

 

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[biophase]

One of the biggest advantages I have in my business is that I can do everything myself. There is no task that I can’t do.

And I can’t say the same about most owners. 90% of business owners out there aren’t able to do every single task that goes on in their business. And I don’t mean that they don’t have the time, but rather that they don’t have the skillset.

• Write sales copy
• Create social media content
• Create apps & program
• Run paid media campaigns
• Run webinars / workshops
• Take on sales calls
• Accounting & Financial Management (and I don’t just mean read a balance sheet, I mean actually know how to balance accounts and record stuff in your favor based on your business needs)
• Cold outreach campaigns
• Building & managing teams
• Optimize websites for speed (with complex, optimizations, not just clicking a few buttons on a plugin)
• Graphic design, logo creation, visuals.
• Write and create contracts and agreements.
• Create and design presentations from scratch.
• Coach and train others.
• Create custom wordpress plugins
• Create websites
• Do website security via .htaccess files
• Integrate with CDNs.
• Work with 3rd party APIs
• And the list goes on.

There is no task inside my business that I cannot do. The two biggest advantages:

1) My people have maximum respect for me, because I’m at the front of the charging army, not at the back. I can also take ownership of every single decision made. I don’t have to trust the way an accountant decides to file things for me — I can tell him what I want him to do. You can’t do this if you don’t know.

2) Speed. This is the biggest one. If you want to create an app, it will take you, unless you’re a programmer yourself 3-6 months at least (and more if it’s highly complex, rather than an MVP). For me, it’s 2-3 weeks of working day and night to get it done (and that includes learning). And then after 3-4 months you realize that there is a better way to do it, but oh shit, back to development and taking ages because developers are lazy and screwing you over. And on and on it goes.

In a digital business this is a huge advantage. The business that moves the fastest wins. You cannot move the fastest if you always rely on other people and cannot get your hands dirty.

This does result in very long hours of work sometimes, and it took an inhuman amount of effort to get here. I cannot emphasize this enough. Inhuman. Like not doing anything apart from working on your business from morning to night. Day after day, the same on repeat, for 10 years. It’s why I say that if I had to do it again, I wouldn’t be able to.

I was always obsessed about being wealthy. As a 14 year old kid I devoured biographies of people like Rockefeller and Henry Ford. I had this unreasonable, burning desire, whatever it took, I would do it. And it’s almost like that desire always minimized whatever obstacles stood in my path, and blinded me to the difficulty of it all, until I was so far along the path that turning back was simply impossible.

People always said you’ll just burn yourself out, this isn’t smart. I didn’t care, just kept charging ahead. Didn’t even see or hear anything else apart from the target — like a laser beam.

Now I’ve started to cross that point when you get to the peak of the mountain, and it all starts to go downhill from there and you gain momentum. Things get easier. There’s fewer and fewer things that surprise you or you don’t know how to handle.

I know that some people here advocate to focus on the big picture and leave the details to others. I have no doubt that in the short run they will beat me to the cash. But they have no chance in the long run as the advantages in terms of leadership and speed begin adding up.

My path may be very hard and perhaps not for most. But I see it as the most certain path to success.

So I used to think like this.

I know that I can create a website, take product photos, run email campaigns, run ppc campaigns, set up Wi-Fi, troubleshoot PC problems, set up pallet racking, fix the toilets in my warehouse, put up walls in my warehouse, even move containers within my parking lot.

When I was a small business, I was proud that I did not have to call a guy to come and set up my security cameras. I didn’t have to call a plumber to come fix my toilet. I imagined how much money I was saving over the competition.

Four years ago we installed new pallet racking and I said to @Trevor Kuntz, this is the last time we are ever putting up pallet racking. We are too big to be wasting time doing stuff like this in our warehouse. So next time we move yes I am going to pay another company $15,000 to set up pallet racking.

I’m not wasting my time on every task now.

 

[biophase]

Side note, I am far from a Swiftie, the only song I can name is shake it off. But biophase expressed appreciation for her business sense some months ago, so I did some reading up on her.

The Fed Reserve has officially written about her economic impact. Not everyone on your list can say that.

Those top business owners known as the NFL owners sure aren't complaining about the increased value of their brands from "the Taylor Swift effect".

Well I had to jump in here as a TS fan. I’ve been following her business tactics since 2015. You have to ask yourself, why aren’t other musicians as big as her? It can’t be just because of her songs. Plenty out there have good songs. Why aren’t their fan bases the same? It’s because of a ton of branding and business decisions.

I know that these examples below are probably not “her” ideas. But I believe that her broader ideas have cultivated a raving fan base that have supported her to what she is today.

I mean who else releases the same album twice and gets more sales the second time?

Or who releases an album with 4 different album covers that turn into a clock so her fans have to buy an album 4 times! This clock will cost you $175!

 

[Black_Dragon43]

I see your point, but if you want to grow beyond a certain point, that program doesn't scale.

So I used to think like this.

I know that I can create a website, take product photos, run email campaigns, run ppc campaigns, set up Wi-Fi, troubleshoot PC problems, set up pallet racking, fix the toilets in my warehouse, put up walls in my warehouse, even move containers within my parking lot.

When I was a small business, I was proud that I did not have to call a guy to come and set up my security cameras. I didn’t have to call a plumber to come fix my toilet. I imagined how much money I was saving over the competition.

Four years ago we installed new pallet racking and I said to @Trevor Kuntz, this is the last time we are ever putting up pallet racking. We are too big to be wasting time doing stuff like this in our warehouse. So next time we move yes I am going to pay another company $15,000 to set up pallet racking.

I’m not wasting my time on every task now

I agree with both of your points, I’m not suggesting you should do everything yoursefl, just that there is an advantage to having the know-how (ie, being able to do it if needed).

There are parts of my business operation that I’ve helped build, but have taken a life of their own, and developed past the point where I know all the details involved, things that I haven’t put my attention on for many months.

An example is building prospecting lists — I’ve helped develop our own tool to do it, and our own process. But I can’t possibly manage it for 70+ customers, so it’s all done by others. The process has been improved since I’ve first created it, I have no idea how. So long as there aren’t problems/complaints from customers I won’t give it another look or get involved — I simply don’t even want to know about it because it’s not a priority.

So I’m not suggesting you do tasks yourself just because you can do them or even just because you’re better than someone else at it. Indeed you can be better than your team members and very often you should still not do it.

But… there are situations when you SHOULD do it, and that’s when it pays to have the know-how. For example, now I’m building an app. If I assigned this to a developer it would take at least 3 months, he doesn’t know exactly what I want (hell, I don’t know what I want — what I want changes based on what’s possible and how certain technologies/APIs work), and he would charge me $10K.

Idk about you, but I’m not happy to wait that long or risk $10K, and then depend on a dev to make the thousand and one changes I need and waste a few other months getting it done. Such things, esp. since they are very important to the growth of the business are better done quickly by me.

Better to put in the hard work myself for 2 weeks, and possibly bring in someone else once it has a solid foundation that I know and understand to expand it.

I wouldn’t be able to do something like this, as fast as I am doing it, if I didn’t have the skills, that’s my point.

 

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[Lyzmin]

Better to put in the hard work myself for 2 weeks, and possibly bring in someone else once it has a solid foundation that I know and understand to expand it.

I wouldn’t be able to do something like this, as fast as I am doing it, if I didn’t have the skills, that’s my point.

I really like this vibrant discussion. I would like to add my perspective. Curious what your thoughts are on it @Black_Dragon43.

What are your vital 2 or 3 few that make it rain? There are 100 things to do in a business.

As a recruitment specialist as well. Talking to clients, talking to candidates, writing vacancies, writing introductions and so on. My core rainmaking activities are - 1. Talking to clients (getting jobs to fill) 2. Interviewing candidates (get people to fill the job).

If I only do these two, my revenue is at least 5x vs if I do it all myself (tested it last year). Everything besides that I build a proces or system for an delegated it. I didn’t trust the people would do a better job than me (same idea as you have), but I do trust if they follow my system it would be of quality enough. This way I only needed to inspect what I expected, sometimes give suggestions and from there directly back to my vital few.

What are your vital few?
How much time do you really invest there?
What would happen if you could double this time?

You seem to already do great! Always nice to look for the marginal gains

 

[Black_Dragon43]

What are your vital 2 or 3 few that make it rain?

That's the thing... they aren't fixed and not easy to determine.

Sure, in the short term "get more sales calls", "do more sales calls", "serve clients well" are the vital few.

But...

There are some non-vitals that imo are MORE important than the vital few above.

Is it vital for me to get on podcasts? No. But if I do, I can get more sales calls coming to me.

Is it vital for me to create an app? No, but if I do, I ease the workflow (reduce the costs) of fulfilment, can more easily get invited on podcasts, etc.

Is it vital for me to write a book? No, but if I do, – you get the idea.

For @Antifragile, it's not vital to write a book. But damn, if he did that, he could get himself on podcasts, and if he did that, he'd swoon over many millions of dollars that he can't otherwise get, just like uncle G.

I'm actually starting to consider that all the "vitals" are actually unimportant, and sooner or later have to be outsourced.

My competitors are all focused on the "vitals". So they send more cold emails, they do more outreach, bla bla bla. And where does that leave them? With an offer that has 0 differentiation, swimming in a sea of competitors and unable to capture attention and close deals with ease.

Stephen Covey had a good way to talk about this – increasing production vs increasing production capacity.

Getting more sales calls, doing more sales calls, and serving clients well – that's increasing production.

Increasing production capacity on the other hand is different – that's building the assets/brand that may not help with production directly, but actually determines it in a big way.

I think of this as the ocean – that's your assets/brand. When the ocean level rises, all the boats rise with it. The boats are your cold email, your ads, your sales calls, and so on.

Suddenly I introduce the app in the sales process – BOOM, closing rate increases by 30%.

I introduce the app – BOOM, I get invited on 50% more podcasts, which leads to 50% more sales calls getting booked.

So should I really spend my time on the vital few, or on increasing production capacity?

So funnily enough, my time is better spent pumping out lead magnets, workshops, and assets that will then lift up the performance of ALL of our marketing.

If I only do these two, my revenue is at least 5x vs if I do it all myself (tested it last year). Everything besides that I build a proces or system for an delegated it. I didn’t trust the people would do a better job than me (same idea as you have), but I do trust if they follow my system it would be of quality enough. This way I only needed to inspect what I expected, sometimes give suggestions and from there directly back to my vital few.

Yes, building systems is very important for quality control, 100% agreed there.