291: Mason Harris — The Chutzpah Advantage

Are you thinking about how to grow your business with near and offshore staffing, but you're also wanting to make sure that it's reliable, cost effective and really well done. I think docsa talent is the way to go. Here's why. They don't just fill your jobs. They bring integrity, top talent, and a people first approach that's hard to find. I've known the people at Doxa talent for over 20 years now and I say that you can count on them. I have. Talk to Docs of Talent and you won't be disappointed. Go to docsatant.com Bill G Again, that's doxatant.com Bill G One more time. Doxatalent.com Bill G. Check it out today. We're talking today about how to, like, I don't know, I would say how to get, raise your level of foot spot, how to get a little bit out of the comfort zone, right? And chutzpah is something our guest knows a lot about, right? You could use a little maybe.

Well, the chutzpah piece is nice and as we'll discover, everybody has a different opinion on what it is. But in essence, for me and for our audience, it's about going bigger, which is one of the things that you help people with in your coaching, being bolder in their, in their moves, business and personal, and in essence doing better.

So this is so embodied. I haven't said who I am yet, what the show is. Our guest is already talking about his topic. That takes a little bit of chutzpah.

It's not even conscious.

I don't think it's natural. It flows effortlessly. You got a taste of it. Hi everyone. My name is Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast. We bring our show to you a couple times a week. Guests, authors, experts. I'm joined today by Mason Harris. Mason's got, he's an entrepreneur like y' all and an author of a new book on chutzpah. And he'll be sharing a little bit of his chutzpah with us. You already got a taste of it. We're going to get into some of it. And some of you are like, oh, I need to rein my chutzpah in, tone it down a little bit. Some of you are like, I want to get a little bit more of that, whatever it is. You'll hear about that and more in our conversation today. Stay tuned. Mason, welcome to the show. Where are you exactly today?

Well, I'm actually in Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C. and it is truly an honor to be on your show.

Bill, thanks for coming on. I was telling you beforehand, we love to hear the stories, personal and clients and others that help to bring these ideas to life. Everything to do with the world of scaling up and the leadership, things required to take your company through. So whether it's people, strategy, execution, cash, or like leveling yourself up. And I love this thing. So chutzpah is. Do you know the definition? So it's a Yiddish word that means like being a little cheeky, a little bold, putting yourself out there. Right.

Well, I was actually going to ask you how you might describe chutzpah. Put you on the spot a little bit over here. Although a lot of people are familiar with the term, particularly in regard to somebody else's behaviors, I have a feeling that our audience, whether or not they use the word chutzpah, they have it because they wouldn't be entrepreneurs, they wouldn't be looking at improving themselves, making their company more efficient, more productive, bringing better and more unique services to their clients if they didn't have a bit of chutzpah. Right.

Well, so like chutzpah, I didn't grow up speaking a lot of Yiddish, but certainly exposed to plenty. And it's not a direct equivalent. Like, cheeky is the thing that I think of most. It's not exactly guts, but it's related to it's guts in, like, personal things. So it's not. Chutzpah is not like, I'm going to jump off a roof, but that might take some guts to do that, especially if all you're holding is an umbrella.

I see you got my book.

Right. But like chutzpah is, I go to somebody and I say, I don't want. I want all your business. Right. Or like, no, I want a half, I want to pay half. Not that kind of thing. It's like asking. Getting uncomfortable with what we ask for.

Well, I did a lot of research and interviewed a great number of people as to their experience with chutzpah, what it means to them. And There are probably 40 different synonyms I've heard ranging from cheeky. Cheeky to ballsy.

Actually. Yeah.

Conference. And hopefully I'm not offending anybody. I did a conference at the American marketing association in D.C. and I asked the question and a woman in the front raised her hand and basically said, ballsy. She brought the house down.

Yeah, of course.

And she's the CEO of a good local company. Audacity or behavior?

Yes.

Boldness?

Yes.

Intestinal fortitude. Yes. So. And then there was also disagreement as to whether it was mostly good or bad. And I basically came to the conclusion that it's a skill set. Just like any skill set, we can use it for good or bad.

Yeah.

For example, there are two entrepreneurs or two companies I'm thinking of right now. One is in the health club space, independent. And that's a business, multi billion dollar business where the big guys can beat you with the advertising, the marketing and the promotions, the technology. So that's a hard thing to get into if you are a local proprietor. If you think I have a better way to do this. The second business is one that is actually a drug dealing business in New York. It's no longer in operation because its founder was arrested and sentenced to seven years in jail. Now, as I think of it, the skill sets that made both of these people successful and in the case of the drug dealer, he was earning $2 million a year by the time he was in his early 20s. And the person who founded the physical fitness facility, the wellness facility, the hard workouts, the value of his company is way more than $2 million at this point. So as I think of the skills, I realized that just like computer programming as an example, we can both take courses in computer programming or anybody sitting here. And we can end up at the end creating algorithms that track Covid throughout the US and help us design a better plan for fighting it. We can create an algorithm that makes us more efficient in business, does expense reporting real time. Or we can create ransomware. Same skill set. It's how, it's, it's how it's deployed basically by the person.

So you're saying there's an amorality to chutzpah and it's really how we use it.

It really, it's, it's not an amorality, it's a skill set. There's just as, there's no, nothing moral or amoral about computer programming.

It's right. Amoral. By that I mean it's not immoral, it's not moral, it's, it's right. It's lacking in any. Yeah, it's neither good nor bad. It just is a skill that you can use. Right?

Yes. So thinking about those two businesses I mentioned, the drug dealing one in New York where I happened to grow up and I had no business in that. Just so I want to clarify for our audience. I was not involved.

You were not a drug dealer. That was not your first entrepreneurship.

Yes. It wasn't even in the top 10. And you'll be able to find details on the story that I'll be sharing with you about these two businesses by Googling it as we get to the end of this. In essence, my book identifies eight key behaviors and characteristics. Well, let's.

Hang on. Don't go into those yet. Wait, hold it. How do you even get interested in chutzpah? Where does the interest, subject, connection to chutzpah arise for you?

Well, for me, growing up, there are always people who seem to accomplish more. What I at first thought a lot of people think, well, chutzpah and being an extrovert are probably highly correlated, but yet it isn't. A lot of extroverts have chutzpah. It's just the way they do it. They're not loud and bragging about it. As a matter of fact, one of the behaviors shows that you can. Once you're successful, you can choose to let people know in different ways. But we'll get into that.

So what's your first memorable exposure to chutzpah?

Well, I'd say that people who were successful. And by the way, my parents are immigrants, so our community was comprised of other immigrants and their kids.

Eastern European.

Eastern European, actually. Holocaust survivors.

Yeah. Yeah.

So there were those who. Yeah, we were very fortunate. And luck plays a role here as well, without a doubt, as it does in all of our lives, how we leverage the luck that makes a difference. But again, maybe that'll come up later in our questioning. But there were people who were caught up, for example, in what they survived. And there are people that moved ahead and took advantage of the great opportunity that America provided. So I always grew up believing in our country as a land of opportunity. Not that, oh, it's a clear shot in any way. There are obstacles to overcome, but we could overcome them. And despite the lack of perfection in our country, as in every country, that the opportunities abound. And even if people are in our way, we can work our way around them. We can find solutions to fulfill our purpose, to move our company forward, to get everybody aligned in our company's purpose. And that's what led me into thinking.

So was it your mom, dad? Just a general exposure to it? Was there an uncle or some other person that you're like, wow, that person has some chutzpah, and I'm interested in that. I want to develop that. Or.

Sure. On a small scale. My uncle and my father worked in a bakery. My uncle founded it. My father was there and basically ran it. My uncle, by the way, developed his baking skills in A prison camp. So those skills became the basis for his baking European desserts. When he came to the States creating this bakery, my father had more of the business mind and the two of them created a business. Having come to this Amer to this country, not speaking the language, having survived terrible situation and yet put all their kids through school, created this atmosphere that you can move forward, become educated, learn how to deal with people, and also back to the community.

So the chutzpah is starting a bakery business without a formal business background, being an immigrant, having limited language skills, not being formally trained in baking, like that kind of thing. That's the like core chutzpah that for.

Them it was absolutely.

And you know, for our listeners, I think so, so many of them are entrepreneurs and founders. The thing to get is that if you started a business that you didn't really have any background that you hadn't done before, that's chutzpah, right? Like I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna take people's money to give them a product or service. And you, like you're a startup, you clearly have never done that before. Or maybe you did it for someone else. But there's a certain level of chutzpah in every launch of a business.

Absolutely. Now I use, when I ask people who can you think of somebody that epitomizes chutzpah? Aside from you, Bill, who else might it be? A lot of people say Elon Musk as an example. So Elon Musk has a history of doing new things, being a trailblazer. If he were to open a subway sub shop at this point, I would not consider that chutzpah at this point for him. Unless if he was delivering sandwiches on a space shuttle to Mars, that would be taking it to that chutzpah level the first.

Well it is, it's a great example. Very, very visible and massive. So here I did a payments company, right? Like I started a payments company, we exchanged payments for people, we did some banking transactions. It was far from perfect and it's still on the use out there. But I made some money in the exit of it. But I really think we ought to be a multi planetary spec. I think NASA and all these people that have been working this thing for 50 years have got it all wrong. And although I don't have a degree in rocketry, I think that I should start a company that does that. Or maybe like I see these other people who have it and I'm like, they kind of have the beginnings of an idea here. I'm going to make that company big and build a company around reusable rockets. That's the chutzpah, I think, right?

Yes. So what is it that separates these people in our audience? And actually, you don't have to be a company founder to have chutzpah. There are examples I provide in the book of what we might consider people from a taxi driver during the pandemic, showing some unique courage and a desire to transport people back and forth to the hospital, despite the risk to Mother Teresa, who you might not think of in terms of chutzpah, but when you look at the background, and I'll call it an organizational structure that she was in that didn't look fondly on giving money to women to build charities, yet she managed to leave truly a legacy, a lasting impact to her work. So there's chutzpah there as well.

Well, I think that's the same thing. Like when Gandhi asked the British to leave India. Right. There's. That's. That's chutzpah. I. On a smaller scale, I worked with a controller in one of my companies years ago, and she would walk up to people at professional organizations and functions, things like that. So what do you make over there at, you know, XYZ Broadcasting or whatever? Like, oh, my God, you just ask them what they make.

Yeah.

Like how much money?

Like, yeah.

She's like, I want to know. And she would do that kind of thing all the time, just like, ask things that were really not socially acceptable to talk about or bring up. She would charge right in and say, you know, I'm really curious about this thing. Tell me.

Yeah, well, chutzpah, a lot of it is about stretching social barriers.

Yes.

Being willing to step outside to differentiate oneself and to see how far can I take this?

Yes.

Now, it can also be rude.

Yes.

Arrogant. And sometimes when you get those types of questions. So tell me, Bill, how much you actually making on the show? And there's a rudeness to that question.

Yes.

But from the standpoint of the speaker, it could be about. This is curious. I like the business model. I wonder where it could go and how can we grow it? If we think towards about your clients and what they've experienced in the last 18 months, right through this pandemic, I am sure that you've worked with some clients who said, bill, I'm kind of stuck. I'm just going to wait this out.

Oh, for sure. Not most of the people who worked with me. People who work with me were looking for Something else. But there were people who were wondering about whether or not.

Right. And then there are some others who decided, I don't know how long this is going to last, but I see another opportunity and I see that I have an organization that can pivot. So we are going to try something new. If you were in the seminar business, as one of our connections in common, Verne Harnish, who wrote the book that inspired both of us and so many people in the audience, Vern went from in person, primarily in person, live summits, and he had one scheduled in May, if I Remember correctly, of 2020 that got canceled and was replaced by virtual summits. At a time when people. Virtual summits, isn't that kind of difficult to do? You don't have the interaction. But Vern more than pulled it off.

Yeah. We reached more people with our virtual summits, and there was all kinds of leveling up in who we bring in and what we charge and how we do things and the production values. Right. We use these cameras and stuff for some of those events. With Vern, there was a lot of that innovation that went on, and we figured out how to do some things new, even though, like, we have one coming up in December that I'll be leading with Vern, and that's going to be in person. But we're drawing on and we're not stopping the virtual things that we got better at this year. Right.

Because you're providing a valuable service, an option for people who are going to be reluctant to attend live meetings, who might find that it's more efficient, it's a more efficient use of their time to attend virtually. So Vern can go with live, he can go with virtual, he can go with hybrid events. But when I think of those people I know in the industry who were too, who were reluctant to stretch the boundaries, to take the risk and go virtual, they've been somewhat left behind.

Oh, for sure. If you didn't take advantage of this time, you got left behind. Your business really suffered. If you didn't figure out what to lean into. If you're just marking time, you made a big mistake. Because things changed. Things accelerated. We did our podcast for years now. It was always audio. We started layering in a little bit of video. This year, we went all video, all of our programs, all of our coaching, all things went video zoom, online. Boom. And we worked with more people than we ever have. We made more money than we ever did. We had a bigger impact than we'd ever had. Right. We. We worked in new ways. And we were rewarded for it. Right.

So, Bill, you said you made more money. How much was that exactly?

Right. There's what's. Yeah, I'm not going to tell you on camera in a public setting.

Oh, you don't have to tell me at all.

I'm not even going to tell you over a beer. That's my business.

As it should be. And that's.

I will tell you. Our clients raised hundreds of millions of dollars. One recent client sold for a billion dollars. We bought companies, we pivoted, we grew in lots of ways. So the companies that we work with accomplished great things.

Right? Now, if we look at industries that got hurt, without a doubt, your industry was hurt. But somehow you did more than survive. You scaled up. Most of us were hoping to tread water, to scale forward. You scaled up, and I imagine many of your clients scaled up as well. And if they were willing to take certain risks, and risk taking involves failure at some points, we have to be ready to fail on occasion. But the big picture is I'd rather have a pitcher who, who. Who wins 18 games even if he loses four, than somebody who's seven and one. Okay, so that's what you were doing. What you have done in your personal growth, what your clients have done. I think the model that I worked on in the book identifies some of the very key behaviors and characteristics that are transferable and teachable to our employees. We can create a team. More importantly, I believe we can create a culture of chutzpah. And we can call it gumption. We can call it boldness. We can call it intestinal fortitude. And there are lots of names for it. And again, as I said earlier, we can use it.

You know, hoods was a colorful one. And when I think about the qualities of it, yes, it's a little uncomfortable. You ask, like, oh, what did you make? And you know, it's okay to say, well, that takes a lot of hoods, but ask that and smile and decline. Also, if I'm the one putting pressure on you, it's useful also to acknowledge that I know I'm pressing you a little bit. It's for a good reason we care about this thing, Right? Like, if you are mindful. Mindful of what you're doing and not just, like, unconsciously pushing, always. Right? Because some people like that, and I know a couple people like that. After a while, I have hard, like, boundaries with them. After a while, I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna be friendly with you. I'm not gonna be. I'm not Gonna cut you off entirely. But we're gonna stop and change the conversation, or I'm gonna go talk to those people over there after a while, because I'm like, yeah, I know. You don't know when to stop, do you? You're just always pushing and always asking. So if you're one of those people who has, like, unchecked, unconscious chutzpah, then it might be time to rein it in. But it's really brilliant when somebody is a little cheeky with me and I'm like, look at you go. I, like, admire that. The ambition and the kind of pressing on the edges of things, as long as they seem to kind of know what they are doing. And it's not just always right. Yep.

Well, it's like our sales teams. They're all taught basic selling techniques. Some of them are talkers. They insist on telling their client why they should move over. Others are questioners. They learn what the client is thinking, what he or she might need, and then they tailor their presentation by asking more questions to get them to understand the pain that might develop if they don't consider changing providers, vendors, or looking at a new solution. We have communication skills. We use them differently. Salespeople have all learned the same things by this point, but they still use them differently or they fall back to what they're comfortable with.

Yeah, talk to me. You shared some examples in getting ready. Let's go through these a little bit. You talked about a woman. The title is carpe diem. I didn't hear that part. But a woman named Barbara who will stay cryptic, I think, at the beginning. Right? Talk about that. Where is the chutzpah there? Talk about that.

Okay, well, the carpe diem, if we think of the word chutzpah, there are eight letters. There are eight key behaviors and characteristics to make the model memorable. I'm working off of that. So the C in chutzpah stands for carpe diem, which those of us who are can speak, are familiar with these Latin phrases, go, oh, that's seize the day. Well, we all know that that is a powerful piece of advice through history. So we think of the great advertisers. Nike, just do it. That, in essence, is carpe diem. Carpe diem says nothing starts. So we frankly get off of our rear ends and decide it is time. So if we see an opportunity and we decide, you know, that's great, I'm going to research that for the next four months, and then I'm going to speak to some advisors and Then I'm going to check on funding. By the time they get around to it, if they actually ever do get around to it, it's gone. Carpe diem basically says you have a philosophy. So the story you're referring to a woman named Barbara New York, somebody who was dyslexic, was bullied in school by her. In her bio, she talks about having 20 plus jobs by the time she was in her early 20s. She's working as a waitress, has a boyfriend, boyfriend, says, look, your favorite job was in real estate. Working in a real estate office, right? She says, yes, it actually was. She says, I'm going to give you $1,000 and we're going to start a company. I'm the financial provider, so I'm going to own 51%, you're going to own 49. But basically we'll both run the company. She immediately jumps at it. Year has passed. She's up to 14 employees. She's generating a couple million in commissions. Ten years into this, he surprises her and he says to her, barbara, I have some news. I'm in love with the receptionist and I'm going to marry her. But we can continue working together or we can split up the company. She says without hesitation, we're splitting up the company. I'm going to go on my own. He responds, well, you know you're never going to make without me. Well, she goes on her own. And this is Barbara Corcoran, by the way, a name that I'm sure many of our listeners are familiar with, either through Shark Tank or because of her real estate successes. That was carpe diem. That was the opportunity that was there. There wasn't any hesitation. There wasn't any, you know, I should probably stay with them for a little while longer, save up my money and make sure I can go out on my own. It was an immediate, I know I can do this, or I'm confident I can do this. And the current situation is no longer tenable. I can't stay in this. If we think back to your clients and the pandemic, I can no longer live with the way things are because there's no revenue coming in. My business may be shut down. I have a chain of restaurants. What can I do that's different? So in this case, her first car. Well, I don't say her first carpe diem moment, but this carpe diem moment was about, okay, I am seizing the day. I'm starting my own company. Well, she did. She sold it for $66 million. I said that it's a regular piece of her life. Sometime down the road, she gets a call from producers in Hollywood. They want to create a TV show about young entrepreneurs or people who have business ideas and they're seeking funding, obviously a shark tank. Would you like to be on the show? She responds immediately, yes, that's something I would like to do. I am in a month beforehand, she gets a call and this is in her biography, by the way. And she's told, you know, we've decided to change. We're going to go with another female shark, but we're going to use you as a backup and we'll bring you on occasionally. And she provides the best written response to this rejection following an acceptance that I've ever seen, which in essence is, hey, you are making a mistake and you shouldn't be thinking of me as a female shark, by the way, you should be thinking of me as a shark because I'm probably going to be better, more entertaining, more creative than some of your male sharks. And I'm going to come out and visit with you because I'm accustomed to something to the effect of I'm accustomed to dancing with the person who asked me to dance. Well, she does, and the rest is history. She's on the show. So this is an example of somebody we can relate to, very humble beginnings, who's shown carpe diem and the other chutzpah behaviors. By the way, she's not limited to one, because if you have it as if we can go through multiple of the multiple behaviors, I think our listeners will say, you know, I'm a little weaker on this, but I get why it's important, or, hey, this is good. I hit on six of eight. So, Barbara.

So the carpe diem one, I think is clearly like the carpenter is clearly in the world of like our Clifton Gallup strengths that we use with our leaders. If you've done that and know that work, it's the activator relative to the deliberative, right? If you're the person who wants to think and analyze and weigh it for a long time, that's not this. That's a different. And they're both useful, right? The problem sometimes with people who just are in action, sometimes we go off in totally the wrong direction. I'm definitely one of those people. I see something, I'm like, okay, I'm going to take action on it, right? It's pretty immediate, but sometimes it's a little half baked. Sometimes I open my mouth and I haven't figured out what I'm going to say yet.

Right. Well, some of that, though, is bouncing ideas off of the wall as well, trying to get feedback from others. And that gets into those who are in the meetings or it who have good ideas but are reluctant to share them because they don't like being shot down.

Yeah.

So if they have more chutzpah, they're willing to accept that's not a great idea versus, oh, I like that. But let's see if we can enhance it because they realize in an encouraging business culture or even a personal environment that they're safe by sharing ideas. So that's where, when I think in terms of an organization's culture and a culture that includes the eight key behaviors of chutzpah, that it will encourage more interaction, more creative ideas, more movement, and it will prevent more mistakes because people feel free to contribute.

So you shared another story about a fundraiser, nonprofit, for some kind of cardiac care in Israel. Talk about that.

Yes, I interviewed a director from an organization in Israel called Save a Child's Heart. This organization was established to provide cardiac care for children from basically developing countries, third world countries, areas where without this type of care, those children would undoubtedly die at a very young age. They just could not survive. Some of the patients actually came from neighboring Arab countries that are technically, to this date, still at war or never accepted the state of Israel, but they didn't care. So this gentleman told me a story about when he was. I had asked him, what's one item of chutzpah that stands out to you? He said, I went on this call and we were trying to expand our medical facilities, and we still needed $2 million to finish off a surgical care suite, a room, but the care that would. That was necessary. So we ended up meeting with another Israeli entrepreneur, two of us. And he said, I was new. And I was told by my supervisor, look, when you're here, try not to provide too much. Just listen, don't get too excited, don't get too upset. So they present their outline of what they need, why the surgical center will make a difference, what the equipment is. The gentleman who's the entrepreneur says, okay, how much are you looking for? And the response was, well, we need $2 million to finish this operating room. Now, they really didn't expect $2 million in one shot. The gentleman thinks for a minute and says, okay, I can give you a million dollars. Well, he says internally he was so excited because they were halfway towards that goal. But he remembered we'd been told, right, instead of jumping up and down and dancing the horror. But whatever dance might have been appropriate, he holds back and he waits for his colleague to speak. And his colleague doesn't speak. And the silence is becoming a little bit uncomfortable and he doesn't know what to do. And I imagine maybe a little sweat breaking out in their brows. Did I insult this person? Did I do the wrong thing? Finally his colleague says, that's very generous, but we need $2 million. Now the silence starts, but from the other side, because there's no response from the entrepreneur, the potential benefactor. And minutes go by and I imagine the sweat's getting worse. And he now is thinking, oh, did we insult this guy? Are we going to walk away with nothing? Maybe we should have just said a million is good enough. And eventually the guy speaks. He says, you have your $2 million. Go build it. So he said to him, that was a great moment of chutzpah, a chance to see it in action, to not feel obligated to jump, to make a quick decision to open one's mouth, but rather to wait and see. Once you've asked, can I get what I ask?

The chutzpahs is going back to what you asked for. Holding there, letting the uncomfortable moment sit there for a minute. Right? That's beautiful, but we actually need two. Right.

When you say mean, two uncomfortable moments.

Two million. Right. We need the two million.

Two million, yes.

Yeah.

And we think about our business environment and people who are calling on clients, and clients naturally, I think, lean towards. You're going to have to prove to me why I should leave my comfortable, although not necessarily perfect, solution with my current vendor. Okay. So I'm going to start with a no. And let's see how you build up. Create the value that I should be interested in and then when they start, they're ready to go. You know, I know you're talking about a 12 month commitment. I don't think I can do that. I can give you six months. So somebody with chutzma might say, after a moment's pause, the six months is a big move on your part. I understand that. However, we've spoken about how much you've lost by doing A, B, C and D. You've actually put a dollar amount on it for us. I can't do what I need to do with you without a commitment that's longer. I need the 12 months.

So is this in number two, is this handling objections part of your chutzpah model?

Absolutely. So looking at that C, H, U, T, Z, pah. The second one is handling Objections. Now, I have a belief everybody's in sales, whether or not we carry a bag or have a commission and actually have to close deals. We're in sales because we persuade. We persuade colleagues. If you're a project manager and you may not have direct supervision over the development team and the marketing team and hr, but you need to get projects done. You have to be able to persuade without being involved necessarily in their annual or semiannual review. Persuasion skills, that's what handling objections are about. And objections come at us from every direction. Some are real, some aren't.

You know, it's interesting. In 2009, when our business was on the ropes, I asked my landlord for a year of free rent. I think that was chutzpah. And then he said, oh, that's unreasonable. And I said, it really is.

Did you get it?

I did.

Okay. Without.

Now. There was a bit of back and forth and a bit of like. No, I. I don't mean. I'm not meaning to be offensive. That's just what I need. I'm not negotiating. That's what I need. And I'm like, there's no legal, contractual, the reason why you need to do this. It's just what I need. So there was a lot of that, and then just kind of waiting until, like. So the alternative was we would fail and he would have to collect against us and all that. And I had to make clear, I also wasn't threatening. I was simply saying, this is what's most likely to happen, how it's likely to go down. I don't think either of us wants that. You know, I also think so. We got a deal years ago with qvc. Very exciting. Barbara Corcoran, you know, has done some deals with qvc, and it's fantastic. It was worth a lot of money. It was going to change us, but the contract also could break us. And I went to them and I said, listen, I can't sign this contract. This is very exciting, but this could break us. Most of these things I can't agree to. What could we do? Could we change it? Could we still do something without all this? They said, yeah, okay, let's do it. I learned that there's a whole bunch of things. Now, I went to Amazon with the same kind of thing. So this is very exciting, all this kind of thing, but I can't agree to these things. And they said, okay, go fuck yourself. Now, they didn't use those words, but they basically said, yeah, we don't do anything. There's no negotiating. There's no discussion. Take it or leave it. And in their case, I stood back and I said, yeah, okay, I'll take it. And I regretted it. And it made no difference for me, that particular deal. I've done other business with Amazon that was fine, but so there. Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't, but it is that, that kind of like, oh, I'm going to go way out and I'm going to ask for something that I want and then I'm going to stand there out on the limb and see what happens. Right.

That's exactly what we're talking about. When you basically ask both your landlord and Amazon, the nos were a strong possibility. In one case, you completely got what you needed, and another, you didn't get anything. But you maintained a relationship which is ongoing to this day. But you asked, you had to stretch that boundary, perhaps a social boundary or a business boundary, because there was no legal obligation on any part. And legally you were putting yourself, as you said, in jeopardy with your landlord.

Yeah, right. So this, this seems to be the second part, the trailblazing, like doing, willing to fail, stepping out of the mainstream, doing something a little different.

Well, yes, there is. The trailblazing, as I use it in the book mostly, which is the fourth of the behaviors, is about really differentiating yourself, going out on a limb and recognizing that Trailblazers are frequently criticized. Right. Because it's like when they fail, unfortunately, there's this natural human reaction for people to say, I screwed up as opposed to, wow, right. Shame that didn't happen.

Yeah.

Trailblazers know that they're subjecting themselves to criticism and they might fail, but they know that ultimately the rewards in the long run are going to be better. So that's the, the T rule in there. The idea of moving forward when, when everything seems to be against you. The Z is what I call zigzag. So let's take, for example, not in your case, with your landlord, but interestingly, there's a landlord story with the, the business that created that facility, the, the, the gym. That person had trouble turned down by landlord after landlord after landlord because he was actually an ex convict. But he had a system that seemed to work. He was proving it. He even won a small sum of money from a group called Defy Ventures, which is like a shark tank for ex cons, saying, show us your business plan and we'll give you some seed money. But he couldn't get anybody to give him, and he went to, I don't know how many dozens of landlords before he finally found one who said, I'll tell you what, I'll give you a shot you can open up. That's zigzagging. You find a solution to the problem. It happens. Right. You don't give up. I mean, from. As an author, I am inspired by stories of authors who. For example, do you remember the Chicken Soup for the Soul series?

That's a very famous story.

Right. Turned down by 142 publishing companies. Right before he found somebody said, okay, I'll publish it. Right now there are 200 books that have sprung out of that book. So, I mean, when does somebody give up? After the 6th?

No.

The 12th? No. That would have been J.K. rowling, by the way, if she'd given up at 12, we never would have had the Harry Potter series. 50th, the hundredth rejection. I mean, it boggles the mind to think. Kept going and going and going and finally got the publishing deal that he needed. Stories like this abound. It's in business that when we hear these, we go, you know, it could have been so easy to quit.

Yes.

Call on that client again and again. To not staying in the person's face or to abandon an industry.

That's a good place. So that's actually a good place. Let's leave them wanting more right there. Let me tell our listeners that if you want to hear more about Mason and his book, you'll find the website is thehutzpahguy.com, but you can find the book on Amazon, the Chutzpah Advantage. You can read about all the other behaviors in there and all the stories that relate to it. I think that many of our listeners will recognize that they've got a little chutzpah in them and they might want to develop more of it, have more direct access to it than accidental access to it. Be inspired to start new products, new initiatives, new divisions to buy companies without having any money. Like all of the world of chutzpah that is entrepreneurship. There's so much more to get there. Amazon, chutzpah advantage and thehutzpahguy.com right there on our crawl and of course in our show notes and so on. Thank you, Mason, for joining us today and being on the show and sharing some stories, having a great conversation about all this. There's so much more that we could get into, but of course we will lose all of our listeners. Their workout is finishing. Their commute is ending. If you want more info from us, you want to find a coach in your area or that kind of thing. You'll find us@scalingcoach.com Get a free copy of the book Scaling up right there. Just pay shipping and handling to do with us all the 400 mini shows that we have so far, show notes, author information, special offers, things like that. All that and more@scalingcoach.com send us an email to infocalingcoach.com if you've got some feedback, if you want to suggest an author, guru, expert or whatever for the show or if you want something else from us. If we can help you in any way. Big thanks to Lucy Summers producing our show there behind the scenes. I can see her off the screen but our viewers can't. Getting our guests ready and prepared, getting the show out the door. And to the folks at Podfly Productions, Alby Burge, I'm Kadina and Tim McGowan who produce the audio, edit the show notes and proofread everything. Get it out every week. And big thanks to Vern Harnish, author and creator of the Scaling Up Framework. Thanks again everyone. Keep Scaling Up. We'll talk to you again next week. Bye bye now. Are you ready to turn your goals into daily wins? You should check out our Scoreboard software. Powered by alignment, it's the official software for Scaling up. With Scoreboard, you'll get an AI driven coach for priorities and KPIs and it'll help keep your team focused on what matters most. With Align, you can track your goals in real time and you'll even see results on the go. With their mobile app you can rest easy knowing that Align has world class onboarding and support to set your team up for success. This is really more than just software, it's what I actually use to manage growth in our Scaling up client teams. Unlock clarity and results with Scoreboard by Aligned. To try it now, go to aligntoday.com Bill G One more time. Aligntoday.com Bill G that's aligntoday.com Bill G Check it out and try it now.