ATHLLC7472042191

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.400 | Hello and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks,

00:00:05.400 | a show about upgrading your life, money and travel.

00:00:08.320 | I'm Chris Hutchins and I started this show

00:00:10.120 | almost two years ago because I love doing all the research

00:00:13.360 | to optimize every aspect of my life.

00:00:15.840 | And I wanted a way to share that journey with you.

00:00:18.280 | After the first dozen or so episodes,

00:00:20.320 | I knew this would be my full-time thing,

00:00:22.600 | but somehow it took me another year and a half

00:00:25.400 | until I was ready to go all in.

00:00:27.440 | Now, I am so glad that finally happened,

00:00:29.920 | but why did it take me so long to commit

00:00:32.240 | to something I knew deep down inside I was ready for?

00:00:35.440 | Well, that is exactly what we're gonna talk about today.

00:00:38.000 | And I'm joined by the perfect person

00:00:39.880 | for the conversation, Matt Higgins.

00:00:42.480 | Matt grew up in poverty and dropped out of high school

00:00:45.200 | at the age of 16, before going on to graduate

00:00:47.840 | from law school and then become the youngest press secretary

00:00:51.000 | in New York City history during 9/11,

00:00:54.000 | where he led the effort to rebuild

00:00:55.620 | the World Trade Center site,

00:00:57.080 | before becoming the executive vice president

00:00:59.120 | of the New York Jets,

00:01:00.360 | and then the vice chairman of the Miami Dolphins.

00:01:02.880 | Matt was also a guest shark on "Shark Tank,"

00:01:05.120 | he teaches at Harvard Business School,

00:01:07.160 | and through the investment firm he co-founded, RSC Ventures,

00:01:10.080 | he's invested in some of America's most beloved brands.

00:01:13.520 | So what does all this have to do with me

00:01:15.320 | taking too long to go all in on this podcast?

00:01:18.240 | Well, Matt just published an incredible book

00:01:21.120 | that I wish I had been able to read a year ago,

00:01:23.820 | where he shares his framework to stop hedging

00:01:26.480 | and unlock your full potential.

00:01:28.600 | It's called "Burn the Boats."

00:01:30.560 | So today, we're gonna talk about why too many of us

00:01:33.080 | are driven by fear,

00:01:34.560 | why we wait for the perfect moment to act,

00:01:37.120 | and why so often we subconsciously construct a safety net

00:01:40.840 | or plan B that actually holds us back.

00:01:44.280 | But we're not just gonna talk about it,

00:01:45.800 | we're gonna lay out an actionable playbook

00:01:47.760 | to overcome all these hesitations

00:01:49.660 | and burn your boats, as Matt says.

00:01:51.920 | We'll also cover understanding your own motivations,

00:01:54.340 | overcoming fear, processing failure,

00:01:56.840 | managing crises, asking the right questions,

00:01:59.320 | and a lot more.

00:02:00.440 | So let's get into it right after this.

00:02:02.720 | Matt, thanks for being here.

00:02:06.000 | - Thanks for having me, I'm excited, Chris.

00:02:08.600 | - It's funny, I read the front cover of the book

00:02:10.480 | before I opened it, before I dug into it,

00:02:12.640 | and it's like, you can unleash your full potential,

00:02:14.440 | all this, there's a lot of books

00:02:16.280 | that cover topics like that.

00:02:17.640 | "Awaken the Giant Within," Tony Robbins, all this stuff.

00:02:20.360 | What made you feel like we needed another book in here,

00:02:23.360 | and what's gonna set this story apart?

00:02:25.800 | - That's a great question.

00:02:26.840 | Well, big picture, I don't think there are new ideas

00:02:29.320 | in the universe, mostly they've all been discovered,

00:02:31.620 | but there's new packaging.

00:02:33.240 | And when I read a lot of business books on the subject,

00:02:36.760 | not disparaging anyone in particular,

00:02:38.780 | I do feel like they're written like reference manuals,

00:02:40.720 | number one, and by the third chapter,

00:02:43.040 | you've basically got the crux of it.

00:02:45.120 | They're very repetitive,

00:02:46.480 | and that's not how people learn information.

00:02:48.980 | I'm a storyteller by heart,

00:02:50.480 | was a journalist when I was a kid.

00:02:52.840 | I know how to explain, articulate, package stories.

00:02:55.840 | And so I wanted to create a book that was very readable,

00:02:58.960 | that was a business book, but masked as a memoir,

00:03:02.160 | masked as a riveting historical fiction journey,

00:03:05.280 | and sort of break the genre to some extent,

00:03:07.640 | with the goal being you could read it

00:03:09.400 | from beginning to end in one setting,

00:03:11.680 | and be left with a feeling of infinite possibility.

00:03:14.520 | So packaging, to me, I think is actually very important.

00:03:17.440 | Storytelling is very important.

00:03:19.240 | And I've accumulated a lot of wisdom

00:03:21.580 | through a lot of heartbreak

00:03:23.040 | and a lot of incredible opportunities,

00:03:25.100 | and thought that I had something special to share.

00:03:28.000 | - I think you're selling two parts of this short.

00:03:29.760 | I think the idea of there being this plan B,

00:03:33.160 | that there are benefits from not having and getting rid of,

00:03:36.440 | I think is a unique perspective I hadn't read before.

00:03:38.980 | And so we're gonna get into that.

00:03:40.760 | And then I think the second is you said it's a business book.

00:03:43.240 | I'm curious if this really is just for people

00:03:46.120 | running businesses, wanting to start a business,

00:03:48.320 | 'cause my perspective reading it

00:03:50.080 | was that it has a lot more broad applicability

00:03:52.460 | than just being for business people.

00:03:54.540 | - Yeah, that's a good point.

00:03:55.540 | Like, it doesn't quite know what it wants to be,

00:03:57.560 | but I would argue that business is just the tapestry,

00:04:01.360 | or the canvas, rather,

00:04:02.720 | and that at the end of the day,

00:04:03.560 | it's really just about anybody, which is everybody,

00:04:05.680 | looking to unleash their potential.

00:04:08.080 | - I heard you say this is for people who wanna break out.

00:04:10.520 | They feel like the universe has a lot more in store for them

00:04:12.900 | but they keep finding obstacles.

00:04:14.860 | So let's just jump in.

00:04:16.000 | What do you think some of those common obstacles are

00:04:18.160 | that kind of hold people back from pushing forward?

00:04:21.360 | - What I try to do with this book,

00:04:22.880 | and had in my head the entire time, is show, don't tell.

00:04:26.240 | Like, when I use that third person voice, Matthew,

00:04:29.160 | like, you're at the center of the journey too much here.

00:04:31.400 | You wanna show and illustrate rather than tell.

00:04:33.520 | And a lot of books, I think, just tend to lecture you,

00:04:35.560 | and then, therefore, it doesn't quite stick.

00:04:37.760 | So that's a way of saying the boat, in my book,

00:04:41.520 | historically, is meant to be literally the escape route.

00:04:44.040 | That's how military strategists use it.

00:04:45.960 | Burn the boats is literally burning your escape route.

00:04:48.520 | In my case, the boat is meant to be a metaphor

00:04:50.720 | for all the things in our lives that hold us back

00:04:53.720 | when we're at the threshold of doing something great,

00:04:56.400 | something uncomfortable.

00:04:57.840 | And a lot of that has to do first with internal issues

00:05:01.320 | that aren't really discussed.

00:05:02.820 | Certainly, I feel like they're not discussed

00:05:04.120 | at my level enough, and that's imposter syndrome.

00:05:07.980 | In my case, it was shame.

00:05:09.640 | The metaphorical boat that I needed to burn first

00:05:12.480 | was the shame I carried around from the stigma

00:05:15.120 | of growing up in abject poverty

00:05:17.040 | and taking care of my mother who died when I was 26,

00:05:20.600 | being a high school dropout, getting a GED.

00:05:22.880 | There was all this shame that I carried

00:05:24.800 | that I didn't realize until life brought me to my knees

00:05:28.320 | that even though I had achieved

00:05:29.840 | a pretty significant level of success

00:05:32.160 | at an early age, objectively,

00:05:34.360 | I hadn't really scratched the surface of my potential

00:05:37.080 | until a bunch of things happened in my life

00:05:39.200 | that brought me to my knees.

00:05:40.800 | I was stripped away, and we can get into this.

00:05:43.560 | And then I realized, oh, you haven't really

00:05:45.640 | done anything yet, right, like any kind of self-work.

00:05:48.680 | And so a lot of the issues that we need to do,

00:05:51.000 | the metaphorical boats for all of us are internal.

00:05:53.880 | - How does someone who maybe hasn't even thought

00:05:56.200 | about what those things that are holding them back are

00:05:58.520 | even begin to identify them?

00:06:00.140 | Is there a process or questions you ask yourself

00:06:02.760 | to even start to understand that?

00:06:04.240 | - Yeah, I think self-awareness

00:06:05.640 | is the greatest arbitrage in the universe.

00:06:07.520 | We're sort of taught that we should go to Barnes & Noble

00:06:09.680 | and buy my book or go on YouTube, watch TED Talk,

00:06:12.180 | and no one ever emphasizes like,

00:06:13.960 | actually, the greatest upside in ROI you can have

00:06:16.640 | is self-awareness and reflecting what's going on inside you.

00:06:19.160 | So the first question, even when I'm doing a deal

00:06:21.440 | and I find that a founder or CEO or entrepreneurs

00:06:24.240 | help resistant, I try to identify, what are you afraid of?

00:06:27.840 | Like anyone out there listening,

00:06:29.680 | if you find it hard to assess your flaws or your failures

00:06:34.040 | and reflect, the question I always say is like,

00:06:36.840 | what are you afraid of?

00:06:38.200 | And the answers usually fall into these different buckets,

00:06:40.400 | and I'll just throw out a few.

00:06:41.700 | Usually it's stigma, it's some kind of judgment

00:06:45.600 | from a super authority, a parental figure

00:06:48.440 | or a spouse or a friend group that if I acknowledge

00:06:52.240 | some type of shortcoming or even an aspiration,

00:06:55.240 | I wanna be a musician, my dad's gonna judge me.

00:06:57.600 | There is something that's getting in the way

00:06:59.100 | of somebody being reflective of their dreams,

00:07:01.840 | of their flaws, and it's usually something

00:07:04.760 | that was prosthetically installed externally, long sentence,

00:07:07.660 | but in other words, it's not that nature put it in there.

00:07:10.880 | I think nature wires us to be reflective actually,

00:07:13.600 | 'cause it's a way to protect ourselves,

00:07:15.200 | but nurture, your friend group, those parental figures,

00:07:18.540 | those people in your lives, over time they accumulate

00:07:21.080 | and they prevent you from wanting to look in.

00:07:22.600 | So the number one exercise I go through with anyone

00:07:24.800 | when I'm establishing that rapport

00:07:26.640 | and we're trying to establish a relationship or do a deal,

00:07:29.640 | and I find that they under-index for self-awareness,

00:07:32.200 | I try to identify, like, what are they afraid to find out?

00:07:35.240 | - So let's say someone goes through this process,

00:07:36.800 | they're like, okay, one of the things for me I'll share

00:07:39.540 | is the first two jobs I had out of college I didn't like,

00:07:43.600 | so I was convinced for probably a decade

00:07:46.680 | that I couldn't be happy and make money,

00:07:48.920 | and so I was so afraid that I would either work a job

00:07:52.900 | I didn't like or have no money,

00:07:55.000 | that this entire optimization and savings journey

00:07:57.760 | really began from I need to find every way I can

00:08:01.320 | to save as much money as possible

00:08:02.760 | so I don't have to rely on a job to be unhappy,

00:08:05.200 | and over a decade, as I managed to do that saving,

00:08:09.240 | I also managed to realize, oh, there are other jobs,

00:08:12.240 | there are other things you can do with your life

00:08:13.920 | that will make you happy,

00:08:14.980 | but it took me a lot of work trying to figure out

00:08:17.040 | why do I think that I couldn't make money and be happy?

00:08:19.640 | What is it?

00:08:20.880 | So it actually came to me,

00:08:22.920 | but it's not sure I knew what to do with it for years.

00:08:26.600 | So what does someone do if they identify

00:08:28.600 | the thing that is holding them back

00:08:30.440 | or the thing they're afraid of, and then what?

00:08:32.520 | - I don't know.

00:08:33.480 | That's for them to figure out, Chris.

00:08:34.740 | I wanna get a tattoo eventually,

00:08:36.360 | now I'm putting this out there in the world,

00:08:37.920 | but I can't find the words that are lasting enough

00:08:40.440 | to wanna imprint on my body.

00:08:41.980 | If I had to settle right now,

00:08:43.840 | it would be to face everything.

00:08:45.680 | If you just simply acknowledge the fact

00:08:47.380 | that if you face everything,

00:08:49.320 | including the thing you identified

00:08:50.880 | as the thing holding you back, that is where.

00:08:53.040 | So let me use myself as a case study.

00:08:55.000 | When I say that life brought me to my knees,

00:08:57.080 | I had had cancer when I was 32 years old.

00:08:59.880 | I had testicular cancer, and when I was diagnosed,

00:09:02.640 | I talk about this in the book,

00:09:04.240 | my first reaction was concealment,

00:09:07.400 | that once people find out that I have cancer,

00:09:10.600 | and I was worried about losing my right testicle,

00:09:12.880 | that's like a tremendous trauma

00:09:14.120 | to go through in 24 hours, right?

00:09:16.200 | But I was actually more concerned

00:09:17.540 | about everybody around me was gonna think I was weak,

00:09:20.780 | and now's the time they're finally gonna take Matt out.

00:09:23.800 | I met my HR director on the corner of 57th Street

00:09:26.320 | because I didn't want anybody to see me in the office

00:09:28.200 | so I could change my paperwork, my beneficiary, should I die?

00:09:32.280 | And then two days later, I was like,

00:09:34.200 | how am I gonna prove to everybody that I'm undefeated?

00:09:36.560 | And I was running the New York Jets business at the time,

00:09:38.600 | and there was a dinner with the coaches,

00:09:40.400 | and I decided to show up to that dinner,

00:09:42.720 | and sit down, everyone's looking at me, it's cringy,

00:09:45.080 | I have ice on my crotch, but I thought I was all tough,

00:09:48.040 | and I raised a glass and did a toast.

00:09:49.520 | I said, "Hey, I wanna tell everyone what my new motto is."

00:09:52.120 | And I said, "It's half the balls, twice the man."

00:09:54.480 | And I said, "I just ordered dog tags,"

00:09:56.400 | which I still have to this day.

00:09:57.640 | I tell this story because in my 20s,

00:10:00.360 | that was like, or early 30s, wow, that's so tough.

00:10:03.360 | Look what you're telegraphing, right?

00:10:05.260 | It wasn't until later on when I got divorced,

00:10:07.400 | and my whole identity kinda crumbled, right?

00:10:09.560 | As this young kid who was able to do everything earlier,

00:10:12.100 | succeed earlier, you know, press, press, press.

00:10:14.600 | This was one thing I couldn't press through,

00:10:16.280 | and it was a public shame that I needed to own.

00:10:18.280 | That's how I saw it at the time.

00:10:20.200 | But then I started reappraising everything,

00:10:21.960 | saying, why did I go back to work two days later,

00:10:25.240 | after I had cancer, and like, was gonna die?

00:10:28.340 | And why have I been behaving like the house is on fire?

00:10:32.920 | And I realized, it's like I never warned the death

00:10:35.060 | of my mother, and I never left that tiny apartment

00:10:38.100 | in Queens, you know, living in that Roach Motel,

00:10:40.840 | with no food, with eviction notices on the door,

00:10:43.520 | and Con Edison about to turn off the power,

00:10:45.920 | that I had never stopped living in that state

00:10:48.000 | of hypervigilance, despite the fact

00:10:49.760 | that I ran the New York Jets.

00:10:51.320 | So what was I afraid to look at?

00:10:53.480 | I was afraid to look at the pain and suffering

00:10:55.900 | of that effort to try to save my mother.

00:10:58.300 | Once I had nothing left, because my identity

00:11:00.760 | had been stripped, and I had sort of gone

00:11:02.580 | into a depression, right, to an extent,

00:11:04.660 | that was I able to realize my behavior, right,

00:11:06.920 | to look at it for what it was.

00:11:08.480 | And that changed the entire course of my career.

00:11:11.280 | So it's hard to say what you're specifically

00:11:12.960 | supposed to do, but I know what you're supposed

00:11:14.960 | to do is look within, and once you identify it,

00:11:17.320 | is to face it and hug it, and like embrace it,

00:11:19.800 | like almost with excitement.

00:11:21.240 | When I realized your behavior makes no sense,

00:11:23.680 | because you think you're being chased,

00:11:25.280 | when you're no longer being chased.

00:11:26.800 | Once I realized the boogeyman wasn't behind me,

00:11:29.120 | then everything started changing about my behavior.

00:11:31.760 | - And are there things in your routine

00:11:33.640 | or your daily life that you now do differently,

00:11:35.900 | because you're in this new state?

00:11:38.100 | - Oh, I mean, so many things.

00:11:39.300 | Like, let's just start as a leader,

00:11:40.780 | back to that story I just told you about,

00:11:42.500 | have the balls twice a man.

00:11:43.700 | Imagine you worked for me at that time,

00:11:45.460 | and you were dealing with something in your life,

00:11:48.200 | and you needed some space to heal, to mourn, to recover,

00:11:52.240 | but you know the boss literally just had a surgery

00:11:54.540 | to remove a testicle on his back at the office.

00:11:56.700 | That would tell you, telegraph to everyone around you,

00:11:59.220 | that unless you are in a state as extreme as that,

00:12:03.400 | you better suck it up.

00:12:04.400 | So to answer your question, I have done a 180,

00:12:07.640 | and then I try to create an environment

00:12:09.400 | where people can surface the issues they're dealing with,

00:12:11.860 | because one, you make better decisions,

00:12:13.860 | and two, if people have space to be human,

00:12:16.040 | you get more out of them in the end.

00:12:17.280 | So that's one example.

00:12:18.800 | And in my relationships, I tend to very quickly

00:12:22.200 | create space to be vulnerable and share details

00:12:24.880 | that maybe can be a little shocking,

00:12:26.320 | but it's to open up the permission to do that.

00:12:29.140 | But in every area of my life,

00:12:31.600 | I am constantly trying to refine my ability

00:12:34.800 | to be self-aware and be unafraid about what I'm gonna find.

00:12:37.320 | I'm constantly auditing my motives.

00:12:39.360 | Like, why am I doing this?

00:12:40.560 | Even my own book, frankly, sometimes I say I wrote my book

00:12:42.720 | so I'd read my book, 'cause I'm like,

00:12:44.920 | wait, now I am not on brand.

00:12:47.160 | If I wrote it in a book, I gotta actually live to it

00:12:49.400 | or else it's kind of embarrassing.

00:12:50.720 | So my book is now my accountability partner.

00:12:53.360 | I read every day when I stray from it.

00:12:55.140 | - Okay, so we've kind of talked about a little bit

00:12:57.560 | of what you need to do to evaluate yourself,

00:12:59.360 | understand what might be holding you back.

00:13:01.920 | If we look forward now, I know a lot of people

00:13:04.720 | who maybe they're not caught up in what's holding them back,

00:13:06.840 | but they don't know where to go.

00:13:08.320 | They know they are destined for something,

00:13:10.920 | but it's not that they're being held back,

00:13:12.420 | it's that they haven't figured out what's their motivation,

00:13:15.160 | what are they good at, what could they leverage in their life

00:13:17.560 | or their skills to start a company,

00:13:19.840 | do something at their current job, anything.

00:13:22.560 | I know you talk a lot about this in the book,

00:13:24.480 | but what do you think people should do

00:13:25.920 | to try to figure out where their path should go?

00:13:28.960 | - I have this dialogue with students oftentimes

00:13:30.960 | at Harvard Business School.

00:13:31.840 | You would think top of the world, right?

00:13:33.640 | You've made it, you're at Harvard Business School,

00:13:35.320 | your life has been de-risked,

00:13:36.560 | you'll always have a six figure job.

00:13:38.540 | And yet I find even at that level,

00:13:41.080 | people can sometimes be totally lost.

00:13:43.720 | And it's because they're asking themselves

00:13:45.840 | the wrong question.

00:13:46.720 | They're asking the question of what do I wanna do

00:13:49.680 | as opposed to who I wanna be?

00:13:51.320 | So I go through this discovery exercise

00:13:53.200 | with everybody I meet and I say,

00:13:55.440 | when you imagine yourself the happiest,

00:13:57.520 | are you a creator or are you an executor?

00:14:00.640 | You know what I mean?

00:14:01.480 | When you imagine the environment that you thrive in,

00:14:03.400 | are you alone at a desk or are you in an office?

00:14:05.720 | The who do I wanna be

00:14:07.080 | and how do I wanna spend my time questions

00:14:09.080 | are way more important than what do I wanna be?

00:14:11.880 | I wanna be a lawyer, I wanna be a...

00:14:13.680 | I actually think we should be spending way more time

00:14:15.480 | meditating about context, environment,

00:14:18.020 | the cues that tell you a little bit more about yourself.

00:14:21.120 | For example, in this exercise, it's in the book,

00:14:23.520 | I was talking to a student

00:14:24.960 | trying to figure out what they wanna be.

00:14:26.560 | And then in the series of questions, she had said,

00:14:29.680 | "Actually, I wanna be the one

00:14:30.960 | "who enables a brilliant visionary,

00:14:32.920 | "but I don't think I have it in me.

00:14:34.340 | "So I wanna be the one who uses my hard skills

00:14:36.800 | "to make somebody's dream come true."

00:14:38.800 | And I said, "Okay, we can work with that.

00:14:40.640 | "Well, what kind of context do you enjoy being in?"

00:14:43.240 | And she said, her name was Rachel.

00:14:45.080 | "Well, I love the beauty industry

00:14:46.920 | "and I'd love to end up there."

00:14:47.880 | I said, "Oh, well, as luck would have it,

00:14:49.400 | "I'm good friends with Bobby Brown."

00:14:51.480 | Bobby Brown, admittedly, hates math.

00:14:54.360 | And she's about to launch this new company

00:14:56.260 | called Jones Road and finally go out on her own.

00:14:58.520 | And she needs somebody, a quant, and to help her with that.

00:15:01.440 | And I picked up the phone, put it on the table,

00:15:02.960 | and I said, "If Bobby Brown answers right now,

00:15:04.960 | "this is what's meant to be."

00:15:06.320 | She did.

00:15:07.200 | And fast forward, Rachel ended up working for Bobby Brown

00:15:09.360 | and launching her new brand.

00:15:10.940 | So I just say that as an illustration

00:15:13.120 | about what happens when you shift the questions

00:15:15.040 | to where do you wanna work, what company,

00:15:17.320 | to who do you wanna be?

00:15:19.060 | And I go through that in the book too,

00:15:20.120 | these kinds of questions that help you identify

00:15:21.840 | who you are as a person.

00:15:23.360 | - I mentioned that some people

00:15:24.200 | might not know where they wanna go.

00:15:25.600 | And you mentioned a couple things I could talk about.

00:15:27.840 | You have an exercise in the book

00:15:29.080 | that I think people should buy and take.

00:15:31.080 | No matter where you are in your career,

00:15:32.720 | what about when someone has an idea of what they should do?

00:15:35.360 | And this is gonna bring it back to the title of the book.

00:15:38.400 | You know, they're kind of wavering.

00:15:40.160 | For me, I started this podcast and when I did,

00:15:43.000 | I kinda put one toe in the water and said,

00:15:44.520 | "Let's see if there's eight episodes.

00:15:46.600 | "Let's run it for a year

00:15:47.780 | "before I kind of really jump into it."

00:15:50.460 | I think this is one of the biggest themes titled the book.

00:15:53.260 | So obviously, it's one of the biggest themes.

00:15:54.760 | But how do people really get the buy-in

00:15:57.440 | and commitment in themselves?

00:15:58.920 | And what's kind of the research say about the way you plan

00:16:02.200 | and the impact it can have on the outcome?

00:16:04.380 | - Yeah, when I meet someone or a business owner or founder

00:16:08.520 | who the business is either failing or in some respects,

00:16:11.760 | it's failing them emotionally

00:16:13.440 | because it no longer satisfies their soul.

00:16:16.480 | Few years in, when I do the post-mortem about like,

00:16:19.520 | "How did we get here?"

00:16:20.560 | What I often find,

00:16:21.960 | it's because they refuse to ask the right questions

00:16:24.720 | at the beginning of the journey.

00:16:26.260 | And there's a few reasons why.

00:16:28.300 | When we have a great idea at three o'clock in the morning,

00:16:30.820 | most people are so excited

00:16:33.280 | that they've had something that stirred them,

00:16:34.640 | especially if they're in a bad situation,

00:16:36.820 | that they are then afraid to subject that idea to scrutiny.

00:16:40.020 | Because we also aren't taught to focus on opportunity costs,

00:16:43.000 | especially if we don't value ourselves enough.

00:16:45.080 | We don't wanna talk about opportunity costs.

00:16:46.960 | We instead focus on how do I implement this idea?

00:16:50.020 | And I think that's how most people find themselves

00:16:52.400 | in a bad position.

00:16:53.240 | So I do the opposite, right?

00:16:54.880 | I totally focus when I have a big idea on opportunity cost.

00:16:58.600 | I try to project Matt Higgins three years from now

00:17:01.680 | and ask whether this idea is big enough,

00:17:04.400 | interesting enough, valuable enough

00:17:06.680 | to sustain me three years from now.

00:17:08.680 | That requires you to believe two fundamental things.

00:17:11.640 | One, if you're somebody who come up with a good idea,

00:17:13.800 | you can come up with an even better idea a week from now.

00:17:16.040 | It's a little bit like real estate.

00:17:17.400 | Brokers will always tell you there's always a better house

00:17:19.140 | coming on the market next week.

00:17:20.560 | The same is true with somebody who's an idea factory.

00:17:22.880 | So don't be afraid to rule out your own idea.

00:17:26.680 | And then two, I go through the exercise

00:17:29.160 | of opportunity cost.

00:17:30.680 | I try to imagine what could be better than this?

00:17:33.260 | What could be three years from now

00:17:34.720 | when I'm out of this situation?

00:17:36.120 | And the reason why that's so important

00:17:37.960 | is most people make relative decisions

00:17:40.340 | to the situation they're in to escape it.

00:17:42.720 | Most big decisions we make,

00:17:44.480 | and you see this in personal relationships

00:17:46.120 | when somebody leaves somebody for another person

00:17:48.520 | that rarely works out.

00:17:49.580 | And same thing with a job.

00:17:50.840 | If you take a job just to leave the last job,

00:17:53.100 | that usually will leave you unsatisfied too.

00:17:55.140 | So the reason why this opportunity cost decision matrix

00:17:58.320 | is so important,

00:17:59.360 | 'cause it will help you figure out,

00:18:00.480 | am I running from something or running to something?

00:18:03.520 | So I go through in the book,

00:18:04.440 | this exercise around opportunity cost

00:18:06.520 | to pressure test our own ideas.

00:18:08.040 | And if you do that,

00:18:09.260 | and you spend a couple of days or a week

00:18:11.320 | going through that exercise,

00:18:12.320 | you'll make a much better decision

00:18:13.840 | that's a sustainable decision.

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00:20:46.960 | That's D-R-I-Z-L-Y.com today.

00:20:50.960 | Must be 21 plus, not available in all locations.

00:20:54.200 | And you mentioned the idea

00:20:56.600 | of just leaving a job for another job.

00:20:58.080 | So, to go back to the,

00:20:59.320 | this isn't just about running a business.

00:21:01.160 | This isn't just about being a founder.

00:21:03.320 | Ideas that came to my mind were deciding

00:21:05.320 | to quit your job to do something totally different.

00:21:07.400 | That isn't starting a company.

00:21:09.120 | Are there ways that you think people

00:21:11.560 | can process those big decisions

00:21:14.000 | and think about the things holding them back?

00:21:16.680 | So, let's say we've identified,

00:21:18.280 | okay, I'm not just trying to escape this job I don't like.

00:21:21.640 | I've really found a thing I think I'm passionate about.

00:21:24.840 | I went through this myself over the course of 18 months

00:21:27.640 | with this podcast,

00:21:29.040 | but I think there are a lot of people out there

00:21:31.160 | who they have the idea.

00:21:32.520 | They're not being pushed away

00:21:34.560 | as much as they are being pulled,

00:21:36.320 | but they're just scared or there's fear about going all in.

00:21:40.480 | Let's talk about going all in.

00:21:41.960 | Let's talk about burning the boat.

00:21:43.320 | Let's talk about why maybe going slow

00:21:45.880 | or having a plan B isn't actually helping you.

00:21:50.040 | Yeah, so we have our idea.

00:21:51.080 | We've done our exercise.

00:21:52.040 | We've pressure tested opportunity costs.

00:21:53.960 | It's an idea worth pursuing.

00:21:55.080 | We're ready to go.

00:21:56.360 | And then we get stuck.

00:21:57.800 | So, what are the reasons people often get stuck?

00:22:00.440 | Obviously, one is fear.

00:22:02.040 | When people sometimes hear about the title of my book,

00:22:03.840 | "Burn the Boats,"

00:22:04.680 | they presume I mean "Reckless Abandon,"

00:22:07.480 | but the book would be called

00:22:08.320 | "Burn the Boats" with you in it, and it's not.

00:22:10.360 | So, I am one of the most paranoid risk takers

00:22:13.080 | you're ever gonna meet,

00:22:14.240 | but how you synthesize risk and fear is everything

00:22:18.200 | when it comes to plan A.

00:22:19.960 | So, what do I mean by that?

00:22:21.200 | That those who are able to fully commit

00:22:23.680 | to their own dreams and ambition

00:22:25.440 | have done the work to process the worst case scenario

00:22:28.040 | at the outset.

00:22:28.880 | So, I'm always going through the following exercise

00:22:31.960 | when I have a big idea that I wanna go all in on,

00:22:35.160 | and that is one,

00:22:36.000 | what's the worst possible thing that could happen

00:22:37.920 | if this does not work out?

00:22:39.480 | First question I ask,

00:22:40.800 | what would I do if the worst thing

00:22:42.480 | that could possibly happen happened?

00:22:44.280 | How would I mitigate it?

00:22:45.640 | I have never asked myself that question

00:22:48.520 | and never had an answer to mitigate

00:22:50.680 | that is entirely within my control.

00:22:52.760 | So, what I find is mostly the reasons are not practical.

00:22:56.720 | They have to do with judgment and fear of being judged

00:22:59.240 | or fear of being embarrassed.

00:23:00.360 | But to the extent to which it's,

00:23:02.080 | I started a new job and it ended up being out of my depth.

00:23:04.960 | That was my plan A.

00:23:05.920 | You know, you could always be like,

00:23:06.760 | I'll just go back and get that other job

00:23:08.120 | because we're primal creatures.

00:23:09.480 | We are already equipped with the ability to defend ourselves

00:23:12.240 | when our plan A doesn't work out.

00:23:13.480 | But unless we pressure test that at the beginning,

00:23:15.760 | then the third question I ask,

00:23:17.320 | what's the probability

00:23:18.760 | that the worst case scenario will materialize?

00:23:21.520 | Usually the probability is actually very low

00:23:23.440 | because we could catastrophize if you pressure test it.

00:23:25.880 | And then the fourth question I ask is,

00:23:27.880 | what would I be willing to do to have that plan A?

00:23:31.640 | What would I be willing to endure

00:23:33.440 | to end up having that work out?

00:23:34.960 | So, in the case of Harvard,

00:23:36.400 | when I taught at Harvard Business School,

00:23:38.000 | which was very uncomfortable to me,

00:23:39.320 | I'd never been in a classroom before,

00:23:41.240 | but I wanted this so desperately,

00:23:43.160 | the idea that I had performed well at Harvard

00:23:45.160 | and had left these kids with something

00:23:46.600 | that was five times more valuable than their tuition,

00:23:48.960 | which was the objective I set.

00:23:50.680 | I was like, I would walk on glass to succeed.

00:23:54.240 | I would subject myself to endless ridicule,

00:23:57.440 | public scorn.

00:23:58.560 | I would come within an inch of my life to achieve.

00:24:00.840 | That's how much it mattered to me.

00:24:02.480 | And when I pressure test through those four questions,

00:24:04.800 | through that synthesizing risk,

00:24:06.400 | I was like, it's a no brainer to go on.

00:24:08.720 | So why does it matter?

00:24:09.640 | Why does that decision matter?

00:24:10.920 | Because when we are pursuing really hard things

00:24:13.840 | that take a long time,

00:24:15.400 | you're gonna take incoming, external and internal,

00:24:17.760 | the voice in your head, people around you,

00:24:20.240 | that are gonna make you wanna turn back.

00:24:21.880 | So, if you haven't already processed risk,

00:24:24.440 | you don't remember.

00:24:25.520 | And because you've done it at the beginning of the journey,

00:24:27.280 | you're like, wait a minute, I already asked myself

00:24:29.320 | how I would handle if this didn't work out,

00:24:31.640 | and I'm okay with it.

00:24:32.720 | It's the memory that you went through

00:24:34.120 | that risk synthesis operation, exercise rather,

00:24:37.480 | that sustains you.

00:24:39.080 | Let's talk about a little bit what plan B means.

00:24:41.000 | Sometimes people think plan B means risk mitigation,

00:24:44.600 | but I already said plan A incorporates risk mitigation.

00:24:47.480 | You've already gone through it.

00:24:48.440 | What plan B and what the science shows is,

00:24:51.240 | plan B is not about de-risking anything.

00:24:53.800 | Plan B is a way for you to achieve your subordinate goal.

00:24:57.080 | So, let's use it to anyone out there listening

00:24:58.640 | who wants to be a musician,

00:24:59.640 | but they have a crappy job that they hate.

00:25:01.240 | But you're like, you know what?

00:25:02.120 | My dad always said I shouldn't be a musician,

00:25:03.720 | but I don't care, I'm gonna tell him to F him,

00:25:05.360 | and I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna be a musician.

00:25:06.760 | I'm gonna work really hard until I get on that band.

00:25:09.240 | However, if it doesn't work out,

00:25:11.600 | I do have a plan B.

00:25:12.440 | I'm gonna go work at Bob's Record Store,

00:25:13.920 | 'cause I'm always perusing the aisles,

00:25:15.280 | and he thinks I'm really smart.

00:25:16.800 | That's your subordinate goal,

00:25:18.040 | which is to get a job different than the one you have,

00:25:20.400 | right, in the music sector,

00:25:22.400 | but very different being a musician

00:25:23.840 | than working at Bob's Record Store.

00:25:25.760 | And what the study and the science shows

00:25:28.080 | is that plan B is actually an alternative way

00:25:31.520 | for you to relieve the pain and discomfort

00:25:34.280 | of pursuing your goals.

00:25:35.720 | So, there are two ways to get that done.

00:25:37.160 | I can either win, succeed on plan A,

00:25:39.160 | or I can go for my lesser subordinate goal,

00:25:41.040 | which is gonna leave me unhappy.

00:25:42.840 | And then the last piece of interesting research

00:25:44.720 | that came out of Wharton in 2014

00:25:46.760 | was they found that just the mere contemplation

00:25:49.720 | of having a plan B, Bob's Record Store,

00:25:52.560 | is enough to ensure you will never be a musician.

00:25:55.720 | Just thinking about it.

00:25:56.760 | And what they also found in the research,

00:25:58.640 | just having that insidious thought

00:26:00.360 | of working in that record store

00:26:02.000 | is going to dramatically reduce your desire

00:26:04.800 | to ever be a musician.

00:26:06.240 | So, it's two things.

00:26:07.080 | You won't succeed, and you won't care as much anymore.

00:26:09.840 | That was a lot to unpack, Chris.

00:26:11.680 | (laughing)

00:26:12.520 | Yeah, I'm just thinking, like, it's hard for some people,

00:26:15.280 | especially maybe someone like myself,

00:26:17.280 | where I'm like always thinking about all the outcomes,

00:26:19.200 | all the options, to not have a plan B.

00:26:22.040 | But is having a plan B different

00:26:24.320 | than knowing that a plan B exists?

00:26:27.280 | There is.

00:26:28.120 | I love that you said that.

00:26:28.960 | That's such a smart way to put it.

00:26:30.360 | Having a plan B is very different

00:26:32.440 | than the peace of knowing a plan B is out there for you.

00:26:36.400 | And you don't need to return to it

00:26:38.680 | because you've already, at the beginning of the journey

00:26:40.760 | in pursuit of plan A, identified what it is.

00:26:43.600 | Like, it does not need to be crystallized

00:26:45.400 | because you'll know you'll get a job somewhere,

00:26:47.800 | not Bob's particularly.

00:26:49.280 | But if I'm having dinner with a friend

00:26:50.520 | and I'm like, I'm going all in, I'm becoming a musician,

00:26:52.920 | and they're like, yeah, and if it doesn't work out,

00:26:54.760 | you could just go work at Bob's Records.

00:26:56.280 | And it's like, oh, well, now that I know that's an option,

00:26:59.000 | I assume it wouldn't be fair to say,

00:27:00.840 | I can never become a musician again

00:27:02.320 | because I've now heard that there is a thing.

00:27:05.080 | Or is it more when you start to say, okay,

00:27:08.640 | yeah, that guy, he's right.

00:27:10.560 | I could just do this.

00:27:11.480 | That's gonna be fine.

00:27:12.920 | I'm trying to think how do you, as a optimizer,

00:27:15.280 | thinking through all the options,

00:27:17.480 | still make sure you aren't putting your primary goal at risk

00:27:21.600 | by just thinking about them?

00:27:23.080 | - Well, it's a great question.

00:27:24.480 | And so studies showed when you did introduce

00:27:26.640 | the idea of thinking about,

00:27:28.200 | I think the difference is all about sequencing.

00:27:31.240 | If you had that dinner with your buddy

00:27:33.560 | who was a little skeptical, like, hey, Chris,

00:27:35.400 | you're kind of delusional.

00:27:36.720 | You sort of suck too.

00:27:37.680 | Your guitar playing isn't any good.

00:27:39.480 | Unlikely, right?

00:27:40.600 | If you had yet to do what I said

00:27:42.120 | at the beginning of this conversation

00:27:43.480 | and have that risk synthesis process, right?

00:27:45.920 | That would have been the first time

00:27:47.120 | that somebody was now intruding into your thoughts.

00:27:49.440 | And then you get defensive, like,

00:27:50.680 | well, I could always go work at Bob's, right?

00:27:52.600 | But if you had already done the beginning,

00:27:53.800 | like, you're not even hearing it.

00:27:55.480 | Like, it does not matter.

00:27:56.480 | You're fearless and you're impervious

00:27:58.560 | because you already are self-contained.

00:28:00.880 | I already know what I'm gonna do.

00:28:02.040 | And I don't care what you say.

00:28:03.480 | You know what I mean?

00:28:04.320 | It's not registering.

00:28:05.160 | But if you hadn't already done that work on plan A,

00:28:07.600 | if it wasn't part of your plan A,

00:28:09.040 | you would be susceptible to it.

00:28:10.280 | So this can sound like semantics,

00:28:12.280 | but I'm 100% convinced it's not semantics

00:28:14.640 | because the research shows it.

00:28:16.040 | But you asked a great question is how to delineate

00:28:17.960 | between having already once thought through it

00:28:20.600 | versus having it at the table

00:28:22.520 | while you're going after plan A.

00:28:24.240 | I'll give it to you in a practical setting.

00:28:26.080 | There's some stuff I put in this book

00:28:27.960 | that I can't read, that I cringe at.

00:28:29.760 | It's so deeply personal.

00:28:31.400 | A couple of weeks before it got published,

00:28:32.920 | I was going for a walk

00:28:33.880 | and I was having a low serotonin moment.

00:28:36.480 | And I repeated on me, like,

00:28:38.720 | why did I put that in the book?

00:28:40.320 | Why did I put that in the book?

00:28:41.760 | Should I go change it?

00:28:43.200 | And then I was like, wait a second.

00:28:44.560 | We already went through this, Matt,

00:28:45.760 | at the beginning of the journey.

00:28:47.080 | You put it in the book because you're pretty sure

00:28:49.080 | somebody out there who's reading it right now

00:28:51.000 | is depressed and hopeless.

00:28:52.560 | And they're gonna read between the lines

00:28:54.000 | of what you wrote in that sentence.

00:28:55.680 | And it may change the trajectory of their life.

00:28:58.000 | You've already made the decision.

00:28:59.640 | That's the difference.

00:29:00.480 | And then I've already gone through, all right.

00:29:02.480 | So it gets published and amplified in ways

00:29:04.240 | that I didn't really intend.

00:29:05.280 | Like I'll live with it.

00:29:06.200 | But the benefit of helping somebody out there

00:29:07.920 | read that sentence is worth it.

00:29:09.240 | So again, nuance, but not semantics.

00:29:12.000 | - And when I think about this idea of,

00:29:13.480 | okay, go all in on this thing.

00:29:15.440 | You can be impervious to the feedback

00:29:17.120 | that maybe it won't work 'cause you've committed.

00:29:18.760 | You've metaphorically burnt your boat.

00:29:20.840 | Does that necessarily mean you have to commit

00:29:23.240 | to the full goal all at once?

00:29:25.520 | Or I'll give a concrete example that we talked about

00:29:28.400 | for two minutes before we got started was,

00:29:31.680 | I have this vision and this is the first time

00:29:33.240 | I think I'm sharing it on the podcast.

00:29:35.280 | So it's kind of fun.

00:29:36.640 | There's AARP, this thing that everyone knows,

00:29:38.880 | oh, my parents are retired.

00:29:40.000 | They joined this organization

00:29:41.240 | and they have all these great things

00:29:42.760 | and they've created a community of reasons

00:29:45.120 | that you would join a membership program for something.

00:29:48.480 | I don't see something like that

00:29:50.160 | for the millennial who likes experiences.

00:29:53.200 | They're not gonna join AARP,

00:29:54.480 | though I have in the past said you can for deals,

00:29:57.560 | even as a not old person, retired, you could join.

00:30:00.080 | But I thought, oh, what if I start something

00:30:02.400 | that could be a valuable membership

00:30:05.040 | that I hope people get value out of

00:30:06.400 | related to all the hacks?

00:30:07.600 | So it's an idea I have.

00:30:09.480 | I haven't gone all in on it yet, right?

00:30:11.040 | I haven't even said I'm gonna do it until right now.

00:30:13.120 | But do I need to commit to,

00:30:15.320 | this is going to be a massive thing

00:30:17.600 | to effectively burn the boat,

00:30:19.280 | or could I say, hey, I'm thinking of starting this.

00:30:21.840 | Now I've at least created some public accountability.

00:30:24.160 | Or maybe I create it and I say,

00:30:26.200 | here's where you can sign up.

00:30:27.760 | I haven't built it all out to everything

00:30:29.440 | everyone might want.

00:30:30.360 | Maybe only a handful of you listening

00:30:31.920 | wanna join with a few aspects of it.

00:30:34.480 | How much do you have to commit to your grand vision

00:30:38.000 | to have burnt your boat, so to speak?

00:30:40.280 | - Well, I would argue that everything you just said

00:30:42.000 | is not your plan A yet

00:30:43.360 | because you're still in the formation phase.

00:30:45.600 | So I think we get to define when it becomes a plan A.

00:30:48.000 | It's about crossing the threshold of saying,

00:30:50.560 | I am going to do everything I can to manifest this.

00:30:54.080 | And you and the language you've used are not there yet.

00:30:56.720 | It's all about our personal comfort level

00:30:58.720 | with risk and commitment

00:31:00.000 | and where it ranks with your other priorities.

00:31:01.640 | So we are allowed to play and toy.

00:31:04.320 | In the book, I talk about this.

00:31:05.520 | I go pretty far down the road

00:31:06.960 | before I decide whether this is the thing.

00:31:08.640 | And I don't mind having goals that are in parallel

00:31:11.240 | and sometimes in conflict, right?

00:31:12.680 | I became a lawyer who goes to law school,

00:31:14.840 | gets an offer from Scadden Arps,

00:31:16.800 | and then I'm like, "No, I don't want to be a lawyer."

00:31:18.800 | And then I never even took the bar exam.

00:31:20.280 | Plan A and burning the boats

00:31:21.440 | is not about dogmatic, rigid,

00:31:23.880 | forcing yourself to fully commit to everything

00:31:26.440 | that comes into your head.

00:31:28.200 | But when you've decided, Chris,

00:31:30.040 | that you're doing this membership program,

00:31:31.520 | which by the way is a great idea,

00:31:32.960 | and I'll sign up right now

00:31:34.360 | without even knowing a single benefit

00:31:35.800 | because the way you hack everything feels valuable to me.

00:31:38.440 | This conversation is already fun.

00:31:40.080 | So I'm all in already.

00:31:42.120 | Hopefully that escalates your commitment.

00:31:43.840 | But it is not your plan A yet.

00:31:45.760 | So it doesn't matter.

00:31:47.320 | - I've already decided.

00:31:48.520 | I've burnt the boat.

00:31:49.360 | I'm all in on all the hacks, right?

00:31:51.240 | Like it's my full-time thing.

00:31:52.520 | I left my company, job, everything.

00:31:55.480 | This is it.

00:31:56.960 | Do you actually need to burn the boats

00:31:59.200 | on all the small projects in your life

00:32:01.320 | and commit to a plan A?

00:32:02.720 | Or is it really more a higher order thing

00:32:05.920 | for one or two projects in your life,

00:32:08.800 | your professional career, your relationships?

00:32:11.400 | How do I think about it on that spectrum?

00:32:12.960 | - I actually don't render an opinion

00:32:14.400 | on the number of plan A's we can have

00:32:16.200 | because I think the joy of living,

00:32:18.920 | at least as I've identified it,

00:32:20.160 | is in the perpetual pursuit of these growth opportunities

00:32:23.400 | that stretch me, that make me uncomfortable,

00:32:25.360 | and they tend to be operating simultaneously.

00:32:28.000 | What I do though is I try to consolidate my gains

00:32:31.840 | because if I'm jumping from thing to thing

00:32:35.120 | and then I look behind me

00:32:36.400 | and I see a sea of unfinished projects

00:32:38.720 | and a lot of hurt people who were like,

00:32:40.960 | "Matt, where'd you go?

00:32:41.800 | "You were so into this.

00:32:42.840 | "What year ago?"

00:32:43.880 | That begins to chip away at my self-esteem, right?

00:32:46.360 | I'm not proud of my behavior.

00:32:48.160 | So I try to hold myself accountable

00:32:50.200 | to scaling and optimizing.

00:32:52.240 | Things get easier the third, fourth time you do it.

00:32:54.320 | But I don't think it matters how many plan A's you have.

00:32:57.080 | It's really about once it becomes a plan A,

00:32:59.280 | how do you increase the likelihood you will be successful?

00:33:02.200 | That's all my book is about.

00:33:03.520 | How do I put the odds in your favor

00:33:05.440 | once you've identified this thing as a plan A?

00:33:07.320 | Not your only plan A, but a plan A.

00:33:09.480 | You can have 17 plan A's, just zero plan B's.

00:33:12.160 | I'm having this conversation in my head

00:33:14.360 | of whether the mere existence of multiple plan A's

00:33:17.360 | is plan B's.

00:33:18.560 | I gave you the framework before,

00:33:20.440 | which is a fun question.

00:33:21.920 | A plan B is by definition a way to achieve

00:33:25.120 | the subordinate goal of plan A.

00:33:27.280 | So that's how it becomes a plan B.

00:33:28.520 | That's why the musician and Bob's Record Store

00:33:30.560 | is a perfect way 'cause both give him a new job,

00:33:33.120 | but they're very different.

00:33:34.040 | So as long as you're 17 or your membership club,

00:33:37.400 | your podcast, they're like very hard things

00:33:39.880 | that require total, utter commitment.

00:33:41.560 | For me, I think I try to have a few number of things

00:33:45.480 | because I just personally can't manage

00:33:48.360 | lots of projects at once.

00:33:50.160 | Which goes back to something you said in the book,

00:33:52.080 | you talk about how to figure out what you're good at

00:33:54.040 | and accept that you're not good at everything.

00:33:56.680 | It took me a lot of time to process this

00:33:59.160 | and I'll shout out my time at Wealthfront.

00:34:01.800 | As a product manager, I realized

00:34:03.840 | there are parts of being a product manager

00:34:05.400 | that I'm just not good at.

00:34:06.760 | And I realized that not as early, but early enough.

00:34:10.760 | And I think it's hard for people.

00:34:12.440 | So I'm curious if you have any tactics

00:34:14.560 | for people to realize it and accept it,

00:34:17.640 | because I think it's so easy to assume

00:34:21.160 | that if you're good at something,

00:34:22.200 | you can be good at everything.

00:34:23.840 | And it's very hard to be self-critical,

00:34:26.520 | but I guess both, how can you find it?

00:34:29.440 | And maybe what are some things you could say

00:34:30.800 | to encourage people that learning the things

00:34:33.160 | you're not good at is actually a valuable thing to learn?

00:34:36.040 | There's a concept in land use and zoning

00:34:38.480 | that relates to property.

00:34:40.640 | And it's to ensure that property is always put

00:34:42.680 | to its best use based on the current context.

00:34:44.800 | So it's called highest and best use.

00:34:46.800 | And to make that less abstract,

00:34:48.240 | a warehouse in Tribeca in 1920,

00:34:51.320 | the highest and best use of that warehouse

00:34:53.000 | was as a slaughterhouse.

00:34:54.120 | In 2020, Taylor Swift is hanging out there

00:34:56.360 | with her private elevator, right?

00:34:58.080 | Like the property changes.

00:35:00.000 | I look at myself like a piece of property

00:35:02.240 | that is always changing due to its context,

00:35:05.040 | except the context is not external, it's internal.

00:35:08.400 | I am an amalgam of all the things

00:35:10.000 | I've accomplished prior to today.

00:35:12.240 | Oh, well, now I'm a guy who was on "Shark Tank."

00:35:14.000 | I know how to do TV.

00:35:15.320 | Now I'm a person who teaches at Harvard Business School.

00:35:17.360 | I know how to teach.

00:35:18.440 | Now I wrote a book.

00:35:19.280 | Now I'm an author.

00:35:20.300 | I have things to say.

00:35:21.400 | I ask myself every single week, sometimes every day,

00:35:25.200 | what is the highest and best use of Matt Higgins

00:35:27.840 | now that he has accomplished

00:35:29.920 | whatever it is he did yesterday?

00:35:31.640 | Whatever it is I've now achieved through my trauma?

00:35:34.200 | Part of the highest and best use of me now

00:35:35.800 | is to share painful things

00:35:37.640 | that some people don't talk about

00:35:39.320 | because that's very valuable.

00:35:41.200 | By focusing on the affirmative and asking yourself,

00:35:44.040 | anybody listening right now,

00:35:45.520 | what's the highest and best use of you,

00:35:47.500 | rather than be a negative of saying,

00:35:49.360 | you begin to cull the herd of opportunity

00:35:52.460 | and say like, well, I mean, I could do Excel,

00:35:55.160 | but I'm not that good at it.

00:35:56.000 | And by the way, why do I wanna be?

00:35:57.440 | And say, right, I'm a good communicator

00:35:59.400 | and I can synthesize complicated information

00:36:01.440 | and I could operate a company,

00:36:03.620 | but it's not the highest and best use of Matt Higgins

00:36:05.600 | is to operate a company with 200 people,

00:36:07.400 | even though I've done it before.

00:36:08.360 | So I don't know why people are afraid of this.

00:36:10.720 | Like, why do you wanna be good at everything?

00:36:12.920 | Don't you wanna be great at a few things?

00:36:14.480 | But besides, if you ask the question I just gave you,

00:36:17.520 | the answer will lead you

00:36:18.600 | to where you should be spending your energy

00:36:20.120 | and you don't have to make a value judgment.

00:36:21.840 | There's no value in the statement I just gave

00:36:24.000 | about the highest and best use.

00:36:25.040 | It just is true.

00:36:26.280 | That's my number one piece of advice.

00:36:28.100 | - Sounds like stop reframing what am I not good at

00:36:30.680 | and just focus on what you're great at.

00:36:32.320 | - Yeah, and now as I say this,

00:36:34.120 | and you bring up a great point,

00:36:35.960 | I find it's one of the hardest things

00:36:38.040 | for founders to accept is those limitations

00:36:41.480 | because they don't know what it means to be a CEO, right?

00:36:44.680 | When you're a founder,

00:36:45.520 | you suddenly go from an idea creator to an implementer

00:36:48.840 | to a capital convener,

00:36:50.120 | and then all of a sudden you run an operating business.

00:36:52.560 | So you believe that being a good CEO, good founder,

00:36:56.660 | is having the capacity to run an operating business

00:36:58.840 | and do everything.

00:37:00.080 | And they don't realize that actually being a good founder,

00:37:02.320 | good CEO, is the ability to identify talent

00:37:04.760 | that's better than you at each position

00:37:06.920 | and to render yourself obsolete wherever you possibly can.

00:37:10.440 | But I find a lot of people struggle with this

00:37:12.120 | from an identity standpoint.

00:37:13.260 | They feel like they need to be good at it

00:37:15.400 | only 'cause no one gave them an alternative definition.

00:37:18.200 | - Or even in the non-founder CEO world,

00:37:21.400 | I find that people often think

00:37:23.760 | that there's a prescribed path.

00:37:25.800 | You do a job, you do it well,

00:37:27.280 | and then you manage people doing it.

00:37:29.000 | And I have met countless people that have realized

00:37:31.720 | that the best use of their time

00:37:34.240 | is not managing other people.

00:37:35.800 | And other people, similarly, are phenomenal at it,

00:37:39.200 | even if they aren't a master of the skill of their industry

00:37:43.840 | or whatever the people that they manage do.

00:37:45.240 | So if you're a designer,

00:37:46.080 | you might not be the best designer in the world,

00:37:47.440 | but you could actually be the best design manager.

00:37:49.760 | - I find a lot of people feel, for whatever reason,

00:37:52.280 | they wanna be branded like an operator.

00:37:54.080 | They're insecure about not being an operator,

00:37:56.240 | which fundamentally being an operator

00:37:57.600 | or managing people is being a very good therapist.

00:37:59.600 | And a lot of people don't have the patience or the EQ

00:38:01.640 | to be a therapist.

00:38:02.480 | And so therefore,

00:38:03.320 | you're probably not gonna be a very good operator

00:38:04.920 | 'cause it requires so much time and patience

00:38:06.680 | to get the most out of people.

00:38:07.920 | But I find that scenario a lot.

00:38:09.760 | People just get insecure

00:38:10.680 | about not being like an operator, an executor.

00:38:13.320 | - Interesting.

00:38:14.160 | I find that so many people think

00:38:16.040 | that management is the next step.

00:38:18.000 | I'm excited when I hear stories of people

00:38:19.720 | that realize that wasn't the case and what they did.

00:38:22.880 | And Google was one of the few companies

00:38:25.500 | that created alternative track

00:38:27.680 | for someone to just be very senior, very highly compensated,

00:38:30.900 | but not be a manager.

00:38:32.480 | And I see that trend picking up

00:38:34.280 | at least at a lot of companies in Silicon Valley.

00:38:37.560 | And I hope that continues to permeate itself

00:38:39.720 | through all industries.

00:38:41.040 | - It's possible to separate influence and authority

00:38:44.120 | from command control responsibility.

00:38:47.400 | And it makes sense

00:38:48.240 | 'cause most people are very bad managers.

00:38:49.840 | So it makes sense

00:38:50.660 | that not everybody was born to be a manager.

00:38:52.560 | - And so while we're on the topic of things

00:38:54.000 | that we might not be good at, let's put that aside.

00:38:55.960 | But let's talk about when things don't go right.

00:38:58.400 | When you do fail,

00:38:59.880 | are there things that people should be doing?

00:39:01.480 | 'Cause look, once you've committed to a plan A,

00:39:03.160 | you've boarded the boats, you're on the way,

00:39:04.920 | it's inevitable that things will go wrong along the way.

00:39:07.700 | Talk about the fear to get started, the fear to commit,

00:39:10.120 | but what about the challenges that come along the way,

00:39:12.400 | processing those failures?

00:39:13.640 | You wanna be a musician, you decide to go all in,

00:39:16.160 | you do your first gig, no one shows up, it's a disaster.

00:39:19.240 | How would you advise someone to process that failure

00:39:21.840 | and continue pushing forward?

00:39:23.840 | Or maybe understand when they shouldn't.

00:39:27.080 | - Yeah, that's a big reason why I wrote this book,

00:39:29.700 | because I have seen throughout my life

00:39:32.160 | the same fact pattern play over and over again,

00:39:34.280 | which I don't quite understand

00:39:35.720 | why the universe is wired this way,

00:39:38.000 | but the act of persistence

00:39:40.520 | is a tremendous predictor of future success.

00:39:42.800 | The mere act of persisting and surviving another day

00:39:45.920 | will ultimately beget success,

00:39:48.800 | which doesn't make any sense, right?

00:39:50.480 | Like, what do you mean I just stay around another day,

00:39:52.320 | I just push through and then eventually I get what I want?

00:39:54.740 | But the answer is it's true.

00:39:56.280 | And so I talk in the book about

00:39:58.240 | the most successful people I've seen

00:39:59.980 | would break through success.

00:40:01.260 | If I try to discern, like,

00:40:02.460 | what's the common fact pattern here?

00:40:03.860 | Come from all sorts of different fields,

00:40:05.660 | different walks of life.

00:40:06.540 | The common fact pattern I see is when they face a setback,

00:40:10.480 | they simply expand the definition of what success looks like

00:40:14.180 | to accommodate that particular setback.

00:40:15.780 | It sounds almost delusional, it's like,

00:40:17.740 | I'm so glad that didn't work out

00:40:19.340 | because I never would have hired Bill,

00:40:20.940 | and now that Bill's here, I'm gonna make a billion dollars.

00:40:22.880 | And yet when they have a win, it enhances their self-esteem.

00:40:26.200 | So what's the point of saying that?

00:40:28.540 | It's very important how we process failure.

00:40:30.460 | One, accept the fact that the goal is to continue,

00:40:32.660 | is to survive.

00:40:33.580 | So how do I survive?

00:40:34.620 | How do I keep going?

00:40:35.660 | And the number one thing you need to do to survive

00:40:38.140 | is to preserve your sense of self-worth.

00:40:40.860 | It's something we don't like focus on,

00:40:42.360 | but your number one objective when you have a setback

00:40:44.940 | is to ensure that particular failure

00:40:46.700 | does not become enmeshed with your permanent identity.

00:40:49.700 | So number one, my process is,

00:40:51.540 | I acknowledge that I failed,

00:40:52.740 | so I remain intellectually honest.

00:40:54.340 | Also by acknowledging it verbally and otherwise,

00:40:56.680 | it loses its power over you.

00:40:58.520 | The fear of even acknowledging it

00:40:59.960 | is the thing that kind of is half the battle,

00:41:02.280 | and being able to be like, yeah, I failed, whatever.

00:41:04.540 | But then number two, I am not a failure.

00:41:07.280 | Like, I just refuse to be identified,

00:41:08.840 | and that's the point I made

00:41:09.680 | about these outrageously successful people.

00:41:11.440 | It's like, it just does not penetrate

00:41:13.400 | their reality distortion field.

00:41:15.160 | So number two, I'm not a failure.

00:41:16.520 | Three, but what is a failure trying to teach me?

00:41:19.160 | How do I extract maximum value from this failure?

00:41:21.560 | Back to my point about survival and persistence,

00:41:24.680 | in the failure is the answers

00:41:27.100 | to your future persistence, your survival,

00:41:29.460 | and you have to mine it and sit with it for a bit.

00:41:31.980 | And then the fourth piece is to never look at it again,

00:41:34.420 | once you've extracted value.

00:41:35.820 | And I'm not great at that.

00:41:37.540 | And again, I wrote my book, so I'd read my book.

00:41:39.100 | So anybody here saying, wow, that's great,

00:41:41.140 | but I can't do it, understand that I struggle with this too,

00:41:43.820 | but I know it's true.

00:41:45.140 | So while I struggle with it,

00:41:46.660 | I remind myself that is the way to do it.

00:41:48.260 | But those four simple, easy steps, and then go forward.

00:41:51.520 | Back to our point about the musician,

00:41:53.380 | like, when should he give up?

00:41:54.980 | The answer is like, never.

00:41:56.780 | It's just like, find a different way.

00:41:58.500 | Find a different way to be in the band.

00:42:00.180 | Maybe you're not the lead guitarist,

00:42:01.460 | but you're in the damn band.

00:42:02.700 | You know what I mean?

00:42:03.540 | And just like, never stop.

00:42:04.500 | That doesn't mean never iterate, never course correct.

00:42:06.420 | That's like, you have to do those things,

00:42:08.340 | but just never stop.

00:42:10.140 | And that's why it's so important

00:42:11.380 | to have this plan A construct and to accept the idea

00:42:13.820 | of the way you're gonna get what you want

00:42:15.420 | is to not have the plan B

00:42:17.060 | and to have processed the risk

00:42:18.300 | at the beginning of the journey,

00:42:19.720 | because the way to be ultimately successful in life

00:42:22.860 | is to never give up.

00:42:23.900 | I know it sounds so corny and it's in all the books,

00:42:26.140 | but there's a reason there are cliches, right?

00:42:27.740 | 'Cause they tend to be true.

00:42:29.040 | You just don't stop.

00:42:30.260 | - I have a specific anecdote from researching podcasting,

00:42:33.340 | which is someone always asks,

00:42:35.100 | like, how do you be a top podcast?

00:42:36.660 | And I was like, well,

00:42:37.500 | I have one piece of advice that's very easy.

00:42:39.700 | There are 4 million podcasts.

00:42:41.900 | And if you filter the 4 million down by podcasts

00:42:45.660 | that have done more than 10 episodes ever

00:42:48.500 | and have published in the last 10 days,

00:42:50.520 | you delete 96% of podcasts.

00:42:53.700 | So it's like, if you wanna be in the top 5%

00:42:55.380 | of all podcasts that have been created,

00:42:57.020 | not the top 5% that are active,

00:42:58.980 | but of all, you literally just have to produce 10 episodes

00:43:03.460 | and keep going.

00:43:04.460 | And that's it.

00:43:05.300 | So you're not wrong.

00:43:06.700 | - We don't wanna accept that for some reason.

00:43:08.460 | I don't know why.

00:43:09.340 | I mean, because it's really hard.

00:43:10.700 | And there are moments like

00:43:11.660 | I'm going through something right now.

00:43:13.140 | There's always moments when I think

00:43:14.900 | that can't possibly be true.

00:43:16.980 | It can't be that if I just stay the course

00:43:18.820 | and continue to make course corrections and refinements

00:43:20.940 | that ultimately I'm gonna get what I want.

00:43:22.940 | No matter what, despite everything I'm saying right now,

00:43:26.140 | it gets bleak for me.

00:43:27.580 | And I cannot believe that statement is true.

00:43:30.020 | And yet I just forced myself to believe it.

00:43:32.960 | And in the end, it is always true.

00:43:34.580 | It's just, I don't know how it's gonna play out.

00:43:36.520 | Even my book, when you open my book,

00:43:38.220 | anybody out there who reads it,

00:43:39.380 | they'll tell you just a funny story.

00:43:40.540 | I did a $200 million back during a pandemic.

00:43:43.180 | I knew that the industry would probably turn,

00:43:45.140 | but I thought I could do a great deal

00:43:47.140 | and I could get it done and I would learn public markets

00:43:49.380 | and maybe I could outrun the timing

00:43:50.960 | and I could just show how it could be done better.

00:43:52.740 | Long story short.

00:43:53.740 | So that was the opening of my book.

00:43:55.500 | And in doing my SPAC,

00:43:57.020 | I had to will every part of this to existence,

00:43:59.840 | including the IPO.

00:44:01.020 | I IPO'd at the height of COVID and it almost fell apart

00:44:04.660 | and I had to just stay up all night and to get it done.

00:44:07.700 | I didn't feel good, but I just kept working through it.

00:44:10.540 | I rang the bell the next day.

00:44:11.820 | Within two days, I had double pneumonia

00:44:13.880 | and my oscillator, the oxygen was dropping.

00:44:15.940 | I'm like, wow, now I may die because I did this,

00:44:19.300 | but I got it done.

00:44:20.420 | And then I got a deal done and on and on and on.

00:44:22.260 | And then ultimately the market turned

00:44:23.940 | and the SPAC fell apart.

00:44:24.860 | That was the beginning of my book.

00:44:26.060 | Okay, I'm gonna have to acknowledge a little failure

00:44:28.600 | in the beginning, but the good thing is I have my TV show.

00:44:31.340 | I have a Shark Tank spinoff.

00:44:32.860 | I'm gonna open the book about my Shark Tank spinoff

00:44:34.820 | and tell everybody how I'm partnering with Mark Burnett.

00:44:36.680 | I'm leveling up.

00:44:37.820 | It's the whole premise of my book.

00:44:39.380 | I'm gonna get that done.

00:44:40.640 | So I write that.

00:44:42.380 | And then the TV show gets canceled before it ever airs.

00:44:44.980 | My editor is like, I think we gotta rewrite

00:44:47.060 | the beginning of the book.

00:44:47.900 | And I'm like, no, I think that's the point of the book.

00:44:50.220 | Like, this is how it goes.

00:44:52.140 | And you know what?

00:44:53.260 | When we look back, if I did a podcast with you

00:44:55.180 | three years from now, I guarantee you

00:44:57.180 | there's gonna be exponential value somehow

00:44:59.380 | that came from me knowing how to bring a company public.

00:45:02.380 | And two, my TV experience is gonna result

00:45:04.940 | in the next iteration of Shark Tank that I created.

00:45:07.180 | It's just the way the universe works.

00:45:08.620 | But when you're in the middle of it and it's bleak,

00:45:10.860 | sometimes it all doesn't make sense,

00:45:12.740 | which is why you need the faith.

00:45:14.100 | But if you just burn the boats,

00:45:15.320 | it's gonna play out in your favor.

00:45:17.020 | With travel back on the calendar and my kid in preschool,

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00:47:48.020 | I just wanna thank you quick for listening to

00:47:50.180 | and supporting the show.

00:47:51.680 | Your support is what keeps this show going.

00:47:54.500 | To get all of the URLs, codes, deals,

00:47:57.220 | and discounts from our partners,

00:47:58.980 | you can go to allthehacks.com/deals.

00:48:02.540 | So, please consider supporting those who support us.

00:48:05.900 | - And how do you go up against this

00:48:08.380 | as what you said, a paranoid risk taker?

00:48:10.180 | You're seeing all these things fall apart.

00:48:12.180 | Sorry about that.

00:48:13.100 | - Thanks, yeah.

00:48:13.940 | Well, I'm just trying to practice what I preach

00:48:15.580 | and model what it looks like.

00:48:17.580 | - But how does being a paranoid risk taker

00:48:19.420 | play into all of this?

00:48:21.060 | - I spent a lot of time agonizing of whether I should

00:48:23.260 | or should not do this back.

00:48:24.220 | All the things that could play out.

00:48:25.540 | Exactly what played out was on the list.

00:48:27.580 | So, I was able to go all in on plan A.

00:48:30.140 | Plan A is not a delusional belief

00:48:32.060 | that you're gonna get what you're entitled to.

00:48:33.900 | It's the utter commitment to the goal.

00:48:35.780 | The only way, that SPAC had any shot

00:48:38.420 | of becoming an IPO or getting a deal done

00:48:41.500 | is if I had fully committed to it.

00:48:42.900 | If I had an ounce of plan B as I was going it,

00:48:44.900 | I wouldn't have gotten as far as I would have gotten.

00:48:47.580 | And the same thing with the TV show,

00:48:49.460 | it wouldn't even gotten remotely close.

00:48:50.860 | So, as a paranoid risk taker,

00:48:52.460 | it's especially important for me to have processed

00:48:54.740 | all the risk at the beginning of the journey

00:48:56.420 | because then I would have these intrusive thoughts

00:48:58.300 | that never would have enabled me to get it done.

00:49:00.740 | They're not at all mutually exclusive.

00:49:02.540 | It's actually more important for a risk-adverse person

00:49:04.940 | to do what I'm saying and to go through that exercise

00:49:07.180 | and process everything.

00:49:08.340 | 'Cause when I was taking on water

00:49:09.700 | through both of those experiences,

00:49:11.780 | I kept remembering, you've gone through this,

00:49:14.060 | you knew this could happen.

00:49:15.180 | Attack, keep going forward and don't be afraid.

00:49:18.220 | You already know you have the tools necessary

00:49:19.740 | to handle whatever happens.

00:49:21.420 | Earlier in the conversation, you talked about goal setting.

00:49:23.620 | You've just walked through some big projects you worked on.

00:49:27.020 | Is there a framework you use to set goals

00:49:29.100 | in your personal or professional life?

00:49:31.860 | Yes, I think if you're gonna commit to a life

00:49:34.020 | of perpetual pursuit of bigger and bigger opportunities

00:49:36.940 | and you're gonna put yourself in uncomfortable positions,

00:49:39.100 | you could find yourself drowning or overwhelmed

00:49:42.180 | or have taken on way too much.

00:49:44.060 | So, I always say, this also helps me with processing risk

00:49:47.940 | and going all in on plan A.

00:49:49.780 | I believe it's important to identify

00:49:52.820 | what can I not live without, right?

00:49:54.980 | If I lost everything, what do I absolutely need to maintain

00:49:58.660 | in order to have a degree of peace and happiness?

00:50:01.660 | And as you become more successful,

00:50:04.140 | your relationship with risk actually increases

00:50:07.020 | 'cause you have more to lose.

00:50:08.100 | You get more afraid to take bigger swings.

00:50:10.580 | I find this with colleagues all the time,

00:50:12.100 | like, well, now I have the big job and the big salary,

00:50:14.700 | now I'm even more afraid to take on risk.

00:50:16.460 | And so, I think it's actually very important

00:50:18.980 | to define your needs as narrowly as possible

00:50:21.780 | the more successful you become

00:50:23.780 | and then try to let that base case not change.

00:50:25.980 | So, I draw a hard line of boundaries around my kids,

00:50:30.420 | my spouse who's my best friend,

00:50:32.180 | a few basic things that I need.

00:50:33.580 | We're always saying like,

00:50:34.420 | what's the smallest apartment we could live in?

00:50:36.660 | So, I'm not afraid of everything going to crap.

00:50:38.740 | And so, that's how I set objectives.

00:50:40.700 | And when I feel like I've taken on a lot,

00:50:42.620 | that something may fail, then I'm always like,

00:50:44.620 | well, it doesn't matter because I know what I need

00:50:46.660 | if everything were to go to hell.

00:50:47.780 | And I think people don't do that.

00:50:49.300 | People don't ask like, what's the minimum?

00:50:50.620 | They focus more on what they want,

00:50:52.380 | not what could they live with

00:50:53.900 | if they don't get what they want

00:50:55.140 | or what they have is taken away from them.

00:50:57.220 | - You talked about things going wrong.

00:50:59.180 | You've had experiences in your life

00:51:00.700 | that have dealt with all kinds of crises

00:51:02.860 | from the biggest stage

00:51:04.460 | to lots of business operational things.

00:51:07.220 | Maybe talk a little bit about your experience

00:51:09.300 | dealing with big crises and how you manage that

00:51:12.580 | both internally and externally.

00:51:14.860 | - Yeah, for those that don't know,

00:51:16.100 | I was the Press Secretary to the Mayor of New York

00:51:18.260 | on September 11th, 2001.

00:51:20.980 | And then I went and helped oversee

00:51:22.900 | the rebuilding of the World Trade Center

00:51:24.580 | as Chief Operating Officer.

00:51:25.820 | So I spent two years at ground zero

00:51:28.300 | from the moment that first plane struck the tower.

00:51:30.900 | And so the most extraordinary, complicated

00:51:33.980 | and gut-wrenching crisis maybe in American history.

00:51:36.780 | And my first takeaway that I learned from that experience

00:51:39.820 | was how showing up is half of everything

00:51:43.500 | and how people get that wrong.

00:51:44.780 | They get that wrong in every context, right?

00:51:46.540 | CEOs, leaders, you flail.

00:51:48.380 | That most people are looking for just symbolically

00:51:52.860 | and actually for you to show up

00:51:55.260 | and identify that you're here, that you're in charge.

00:51:57.580 | So whatever situation I find myself in,

00:51:59.620 | even in a personal crisis, I say, "Am I showing up?"

00:52:02.860 | And showing up personally means am I facing the thing

00:52:05.700 | that is the crisis, right?

00:52:06.900 | Back to my earlier statement,

00:52:08.020 | if I had one tattoo, it would be face everything.

00:52:10.260 | So showing up is number one.

00:52:11.420 | Number two is back to what's the worst possible thing

00:52:14.940 | that could happen in this crisis

00:52:16.660 | and how would I deal with it if it played out?

00:52:18.460 | And what's the likelihood of that playing out?

00:52:20.180 | I ask myself those same questions when I'm in a crisis.

00:52:23.180 | And then three, I look for the silver lining very early.

00:52:26.820 | This law of physics that every action

00:52:28.500 | has an equal and opposite reaction

00:52:30.220 | is very much on display in a crisis.

00:52:32.620 | No matter what happens in this world,

00:52:34.220 | when there is a crisis and something bad happens,

00:52:36.380 | a portal is gonna open up to a parallel universe

00:52:39.100 | where something good is happening as a result.

00:52:41.060 | Sometimes when that involves pain and suffering,

00:52:42.900 | it's very hard to accept

00:52:43.900 | and you have to just wait for that to materialize.

00:52:46.180 | But when life or death is not on the line,

00:52:48.380 | you should give yourself permission to say,

00:52:49.980 | okay, I just lost my job, which is a big crisis,

00:52:54.300 | but what's the portal

00:52:55.380 | that just opened up to a parallel universe?

00:52:57.380 | Oh, well, I have nothing to lose.

00:52:59.020 | Now I'm willing to go all in on being that musician,

00:53:01.100 | my plan A, right?

00:53:02.100 | Now I don't have to settle anymore for Bob's Record Store.

00:53:04.420 | And so I do think, again, not in life or death situations,

00:53:07.940 | but every time I have a crisis,

00:53:09.300 | I get excited by what's the portal, where am I going?

00:53:12.300 | What's gonna happen in my life

00:53:13.380 | as a result of what just happened?

00:53:14.700 | And there's another way to say it.

00:53:15.860 | Rahm Emanuel said at Mayor of Chicago,

00:53:17.580 | never let a crisis go to waste,

00:53:19.020 | but it's another way of saying what I'm saying.

00:53:21.740 | But I do talk in a book too

00:53:22.740 | about one of the interesting things

00:53:24.460 | when you look about crisis

00:53:25.700 | and sometimes you assess how you performed,

00:53:27.620 | and if you admire how you performed,

00:53:29.500 | often the reason is because you had clarity

00:53:31.580 | of decision-making and you act decisively

00:53:33.820 | 'cause you had few choices.

00:53:35.180 | A lot of my book is about how do you migrate

00:53:37.500 | the benefits of crisis decision-making in times of peace

00:53:40.940 | so that no one wants to have cortisol

00:53:42.940 | flowing through their stomach in order to behave effectively

00:53:45.300 | but there is something to be said

00:53:46.420 | for the clarity of crisis decision-making

00:53:48.380 | and applying it to everyday life.

00:53:50.740 | - It brings up a good question.

00:53:51.900 | Let's take someone who's at a job,

00:53:53.060 | they don't love it,

00:53:53.900 | they're trying to figure out what to do next.

00:53:55.660 | Do you think the average person is spending too much time

00:53:58.140 | trying to make that decision or too little?

00:54:00.820 | - I think the average person is spending too much time

00:54:05.820 | looking to settle to escape the pain

00:54:08.300 | of the current situation

00:54:09.700 | and not enough time believing

00:54:12.180 | that the right situation is out there

00:54:14.780 | and confidently pursuing it.

00:54:16.780 | I think the same is true of relationships too.

00:54:18.620 | We wanna relieve the pain of the status quo

00:54:21.180 | and therefore we settle

00:54:22.460 | and not enough time trying to identify

00:54:24.580 | what's the right situation.

00:54:25.780 | So we tend to repeat the same bad patterns, I believe.

00:54:28.340 | Most people fall into that trap

00:54:29.780 | and that's because you don't value yourself enough.

00:54:31.940 | You either believe the right situation isn't out there

00:54:34.460 | or you believe you don't deserve it,

00:54:35.780 | especially true in personal relationships.

00:54:38.020 | You just like don't know or you don't think you're worthy.

00:54:41.020 | - Well, on the professional side,

00:54:42.100 | I feel quite amped right now.

00:54:44.740 | I already did the plan A,

00:54:46.020 | went all in on the macro idea of what I'm building here,

00:54:49.060 | but I'm ready to start.

00:54:50.860 | - You already got your first customer right here

00:54:52.500 | and it was effortless and your acquisition cost was zero.

00:54:55.540 | - Just to be clear, I have had two listeners or readers

00:54:58.780 | use this feature on the newsletter.

00:55:00.380 | I think both of them said,

00:55:01.380 | I'll pay $100 a year for a membership,

00:55:03.300 | you just have to build it.

00:55:04.260 | So technically Matt, unfortunately you are customer three.

00:55:06.820 | Huge shout out to customers one and two.

00:55:09.060 | - Chris, I have news for you.

00:55:10.380 | I'm willing to pay 400 for the premium membership.

00:55:13.100 | - Okay.

00:55:13.940 | - So I am technically still the first premium member

00:55:17.060 | as I have upsold myself.

00:55:18.700 | (laughing)

00:55:19.820 | - Tier two.

00:55:21.260 | - See, this is what happens

00:55:22.100 | when we commit to plan A publicly on a podcast.

00:55:24.900 | - So I'm excited to do that.

00:55:26.100 | I guess I should probably commit myself

00:55:27.860 | to this even further and say,

00:55:29.340 | if you go to allthehacks.com/join,

00:55:31.660 | I'm gonna put up a page where anyone listening

00:55:34.380 | can join a membership that I will create.

00:55:36.780 | And the one thing that I will commit to having in it now,

00:55:39.700 | there's not a lot of features,

00:55:40.620 | is I'm gonna do a once a month call just for members,

00:55:43.340 | Zoom call, you can join, ask anything,

00:55:45.660 | we can talk about anything.

00:55:47.060 | I'm not gonna record it.

00:55:48.180 | I'm not gonna put it out to everyone.

00:55:49.660 | We'll at least do that.

00:55:50.940 | The goal in the long run is to build a real membership,

00:55:52.940 | to have perks and benefits.

00:55:54.940 | I have some crazy ideas on travel.

00:55:56.940 | I'll talk about them in that first Zoom call.

00:55:58.860 | But if you go to that page,

00:56:00.220 | I will set something up by the time this airs.

00:56:02.220 | - Wait, can we use this as a case study though?

00:56:03.660 | 'Cause one thing we didn't get into

00:56:05.060 | is something I talk into my book

00:56:06.340 | about the loneliness of being on the bleeding edge

00:56:09.220 | and what happens when you have a revelation

00:56:11.580 | or an epiphany like you've had with this membership idea,

00:56:13.780 | which I think is fantastic.

00:56:15.140 | But let's say I was neutral.

00:56:16.540 | What happens is the relationship

00:56:18.140 | between the magnitude of an opportunity

00:56:20.300 | and the amount of data there is to support it is inverse,

00:56:23.220 | which makes sense, right?

00:56:24.380 | If you have a really great idea and only you see

00:56:27.300 | because you're so early,

00:56:28.980 | there's not gonna be any data out there to support it.

00:56:31.100 | And two, if you rely on your friend group

00:56:34.300 | or family group or whatever to validate it,

00:56:37.140 | they're not gonna be able to see what you see

00:56:38.460 | 'cause it's your epiphany.

00:56:39.460 | At the same time, those are actually confirmatory

00:56:42.020 | that it's a big opportunity,

00:56:43.140 | unless you're crazy or delusional,

00:56:44.380 | because only you are putting the pieces together.

00:56:46.820 | And I think what happens is oftentimes

00:56:48.540 | where people sit where you sit, wait a second,

00:56:50.300 | why is there only AARP?

00:56:51.500 | There should be a membership group.

00:56:52.820 | What is it about being 65

00:56:54.180 | that makes you wanna belong things?

00:56:55.460 | That's not true.

00:56:56.340 | I would love a group where I get benefits, right?

00:56:58.700 | What happens a lot of times, Chris,

00:57:00.460 | is now a person will road test it

00:57:02.660 | with their peer group or their friend group.

00:57:04.700 | And if they surrounded themselves

00:57:06.300 | with people who are risk adverse,

00:57:08.980 | or maybe they don't have their best interest at heart,

00:57:10.740 | the idea dies with those groups.

00:57:12.860 | So I talk in my book a lot about,

00:57:14.700 | make sure that when you have a nascent idea

00:57:16.420 | that you one, cradle it,

00:57:17.420 | but two, consult agenda-less supporters

00:57:19.940 | or what I call pragmatic optimists,

00:57:21.980 | people who are wired to be optimistic, but pragmatic,

00:57:24.460 | so they can give you real data.

00:57:26.100 | But it's really important to sit with this idea

00:57:28.220 | that when you have a big opportunity, a big idea,

00:57:30.660 | there isn't gonna be the data

00:57:32.540 | or the affirmation to support it in the early days,

00:57:35.060 | and don't let it die at that point.

00:57:36.980 | 'Cause the best innovations in life are gut sandwiches.

00:57:39.500 | They began with intuition, like you just had,

00:57:41.660 | a little bit of data, AARP, the thing exists,

00:57:44.540 | but you're gonna launch this based on intuition

00:57:46.940 | and my early membership fee of $400.

00:57:49.300 | Last point on this,

00:57:50.180 | 'cause Chris is about to start this journey.

00:57:52.220 | My number one advice to you is opportunity arrives

00:57:54.940 | before the tipping point of evidence.

00:57:56.740 | So don't be afraid.

00:57:58.500 | If you trust your instincts and your intuition,

00:58:00.540 | if it's a great idea, you'll figure it out

00:58:02.660 | the same way Chris is gonna figure out

00:58:03.900 | with his new membership group.

00:58:05.500 | Do we have a name?

00:58:06.580 | I mean, the whole thing's under all the hacks,

00:58:08.260 | so it's gonna be there.

00:58:09.100 | We'll see where it evolves.

00:58:10.100 | I have ideas of everyone joining

00:58:11.980 | can be a sub-agent of a travel agency.

00:58:14.100 | People are gonna be able to build this with me.

00:58:15.940 | One other thing I'll add is a feature.

00:58:17.900 | I'm gonna float to all members, the upcoming guests.

00:58:21.140 | So you would have gotten a message that Matt's coming on,

00:58:23.220 | we're gonna talk about this.

00:58:24.540 | I'm gonna let you guys also be a part in,

00:58:26.780 | what should we talk about with this person?

00:58:28.380 | What topics should we discuss?

00:58:29.980 | So I'm gonna bring you in as members

00:58:31.620 | to part of what we're building.

00:58:32.620 | So there's a feature ad right now

00:58:34.420 | for members of this already announced,

00:58:36.500 | by the time you hear it, membership.

00:58:38.420 | Exciting, I can't wait.

00:58:39.860 | All right, awesome.

00:58:40.700 | We did some work today.

00:58:42.020 | Love it.

00:58:42.860 | So if anyone listening right now has a thing,

00:58:44.500 | whether it's a new career path, a new job, anything,

00:58:47.980 | my strong recommendation is to check out the book

00:58:50.500 | and maybe you can burn your own boat

00:58:51.820 | like I just did on this episode.

00:58:53.780 | We're all in on a membership.

00:58:55.180 | We'll see where it goes.

00:58:56.500 | Where can people find anything about what you're working on?

00:59:00.220 | I know you've got some cool bonuses on the book online.

00:59:02.900 | Where should people go?

00:59:03.940 | Yeah, I have a website, burntheboatsbook.com.

00:59:06.700 | I tend to spend a lot of time on LinkedIn.

00:59:09.180 | So find me there.

00:59:10.500 | If you read the book, I'd love to hear from you.

00:59:12.580 | Feedback is amazing.

00:59:13.740 | So Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads,

00:59:15.980 | wherever it is you spend your time, that would be great.

00:59:18.300 | Also tells me which themes I should be building upon

00:59:20.580 | and expanding upon.

00:59:21.420 | So thank you.

00:59:22.260 | So leave a review for the book,

00:59:23.620 | just like I always ask everyone

00:59:24.700 | to leave a review for the podcast.

00:59:25.980 | I know it's really important.

00:59:26.940 | I will go leave you a review after this.

00:59:29.300 | Thanks for being here.

00:59:30.140 | Thank you.

00:59:30.980 | (upbeat music)

00:59:32.460 | I really hope you enjoyed this episode.

00:59:34.260 | Thank you so much for listening.

00:59:36.020 | If you haven't already left a rating and a review

00:59:38.140 | for the show in Apple Podcasts or Spotify,

00:59:40.940 | I would really appreciate it.

00:59:42.660 | And if you have any feedback on the show,

00:59:44.100 | questions for me, or just wanna say hi,

00:59:46.460 | I'm chris@allthehacks.com or @hutchins on Twitter.

00:59:50.740 | That's it for this week.

00:59:51.820 | I'll see you next week.

00:59:53.020 | (upbeat music)

00:59:55.920 | (bubbles popping)

00:59:58.760 | (bubbles popping)

01:00:01.600 | (bubbles popping)

01:00:04.440 | you