Can These Habits Transform Your Life?

A better way to think of the word normal is average. Business Brain the Entrepreneurs Podcast Episode 402 for Wednesday, October 19, 2022 Greetings folks and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we use our business brains every week, not only in our business, but throughout our lives. Sponsors for this episode include shopify.comsbs where you can go to get your 14 day trial and full access to Shopify's entire suite of features. We'll talk more about them in a little bit. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire I'm Dave Hamilton.

And here in Lafayette, California, I'm Shannon Jean. Happy to be here as always. Same good, good stuff.

Same.

I'm looking forward to an interesting show today and I hope that a lot of other people are as well.

Yeah, yeah. Well you had this thing, I think you said it in the last episode. The A sale is a successful transfer of enthusiasm to the customer. Right. You said that in the last episode. I'm like, I don't, I don't know if I showed it.

Okay, I don't, did I say I don't. I think you did post it in our note. Okay. If I did say, yeah, I think so. I, I and I, I wanted to chat about it but we, you know, we ran with another topic last week but, and we're going to be talking about some habits that will transform your life in six months. Info that we want to share. But first I, I think this is a really interesting comment and it, it embodies a lot of what we talk about on the show is how you're presenting things, the message you're getting, your story you're telling. And I think it doesn't just realm of sales. I think it also lives in the customer service area. And you one of your favorite terms, you know is where all businesses are in the customer service business but that, that transfer of enthusiasm. So if your people aren't enthusiasm or don't have enthusiasm about your product, your service or they're not enthusiastic about solving problems for the customer, I think customers pick up on that pretty quick.

Yeah, I agree and I have, I need to do some research on this but I have an asterisk that I might need to add to my statement that every business is in the customer service business and it might be in the United States. I'm not as convinced that like European businesses are as dependent on providing customer service as a primary deliverable, if you will. I have a theory I need to research but I've been dealing with more European sort of culture and businesses lately. And it's like customer service doesn't have the same priority there that I do. You know what I mean? And so I don't know if it's just like, it might just be the very small subset that I've experienced. The plural of anecdote is not data. Right, but.

Right. Well, I think you could also have an asterisk as you're discussing this and thinking about it, because I've been dealing with some pretty large entities lately. The larger you are, the less important it is because I would say, I.

Would say maybe the less it's applied. I would still argue it's always important.

Yes, yes, yes, it is important. I like that. Yeah, you're right. The less it's. This whole concept is embraced because, like, you know, call somebody at Google when you have a problem with your business listing.

Customer service at Facebook is awful.

Yes. Reach out to somebody at Facebook when you have a problem with a business setup or different things like that. They just ignore you.

Google is, is eons better than Facebook, by the way. But. Yeah, but your point doesn't, that doesn't negate your point. They're both terrible compared to small businesses or even medium.

Yeah. They don't have to be. And that's your strength. And what you have to do, push, I think, over an Amazon or a huge company that you may be competing with is that, hey, you know, we're real people here on the ground and, you know, we're here to help you and solve your problems and we're not going to give you the run around and to focus on that. That is a successful transfer of enthusiasm that we're excited about, the fact that you can interact and when you call us, you'll get a human being on the phone. Yeah, that will help, will help you quickly. And just don't, don't forget that. Keep, keep pushing that story out there because it's, it's authentic.

No, I, and I love this idea because it, it frames sales for me too. I mean, this is definitely something I do naturally. I am an enthusiastic communicator and I can just sort of ooze enthusiasm naturally. And I believe that's one of the sort of cornerstones of why I don't have to live in a cardboard box, for example. Like, I really do. Like I'm aware. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's fine. But it's just, you know, there's what we'll call. I don't even want the word talent to apply. There is natural traits, you know, and I think about. This happens in the music world all the time, you say, well, that person's a natural. It's like, okay, well, yeah, they might have some predisposition to being ready to play some kind of instrument. Like, maybe their fingers are long. And that means that playing guitar or piano is helpful. Helpful. Or you know what, like. Or the way they think helps them do this. And that's great. But you still. It doesn't mean that they are just immediately an expert. Right. It's. You still need to hone your craft practice, be aware of what it is you are trying to improve so that you can improve. And this statement, a sale is a successful transfer of enthusiasm to the customer really resonated with me because I don't think about this as much as I could. It's something I do. Yes. But I've never, like, when I saw those words or heard those words, it resonated with me because it was like, oh, wait, wait, wait. I need to be more aware of how I do this and make sure that I'm doing it in the best ways. And it doesn't mean being inauthentic about it. It means honing my craft, practicing, making sure I'm not too enthusiastic, and letting my enthusiasm run away with things, all of that. So there's a lot to learn by sort of just being aware of this concept, I think.

Yeah. And one of the questions I had when I read it is what's more important, the enthusiasm you have or the skill to transfer it to your customer?

I think the skill is more important. I think transfer. You got to transfer it to your customer for sure. Yeah.

So you can teach. So if. If somebody's enthusiastic about it, they love it, but they don't have that skill set to. To get somebody else excited about it. They're not going to be as successful if somebody can maybe even fake it a little bit. Like, it's the. What was that movie? The Wolf of Wall Street? And we're like, sell me this pen, you know, And. And you get, okay, how do I pitch it? How do I, you know, try to sound as authentic as you can? And, yeah, so it's. It's an interesting statement. I. Yeah.

Well, I mean, one way to start, if you can do it authentically, you know, just to take that example, is to start by saying, I love this pen. Have I ever showed you this pen? Right now, you know, now I've expressed support for it, and now I'm engaging you. Right. Like, have I ever. Now you're gonna. You're about to give me permission To. To show you this pen. Right. So already we're working on stuff, but it starts with enthusiasm, and then we add the skill part of softening a little bit and letting the person walk in as opposed to shoving the pen in their face.

Maybe a little scarcity. I'm really not sure I can sell you this pen because it's the only one there is.

And I've already told you, it's my favorite pen. Like, this is already established. You start with that. I love this pen, man. Gosh. Hey, have I ever showed you this pen? That kind of thing. That kind of thing can work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And as long as you can deliver it authentically now, hopefully you can deliver it in a way that is both perceived to be authentic and actually authentic. There are. There are some people with a great amount of skill at delivering what appears to be authentic sales pitches, but are actually not authentic at all. And you got to be able to. As a consumer, we have to be on the lookout for those things. Uh, because that's using our business brain right there, I think.

Yes, I would agree.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Let us know what you think, folks. Feedbackusbrain show. That's where you're going to tell us your examples, your thoughts, anything. All right, so two friends are heading out and one of them says, let's go to this bar. I know they have the greatest punch. So they go to this bar, they say to the bartender, we want two glasses of your punch. And the bartender looks at them very sternly and says, if you want the punch, you're going to have to get in line like everybody else. And they looked around, but there was no punchline. You know what's not a joke is how simple it is, though, to start, run and grow your business with Shopify, the all in one e commerce platform, Shopify makes it simple to sell to anyone from anywhere. Whether your thing is vintage teas or recipes for ghee, Start selling with Shopify and join the platform. Simplifying commerce for millions of your favorite businesses worldwide. Shannon and I have used Shopify in the past because it's so easy. You just create an online store in your vibe, discover new customers and grow the following that keeps those customers coming back. Shopify has all the sales channels sorted from in person POS to all in one E commerce 24. 7 support. And this is how every minute new sellers around the world make their first sale on Shopify and you will too. Sign up for a free trial at shopify.comsbs all lowercase go to shopify.comsbs to start selling online today. Shopify.comsbs and our thanks to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. So I found this. It's going to come as no great surprise to anybody who's listening the show for more than about four minutes. I found this Twitter thread that caught my attention. It's by a guy named Ben Meer. M E E R. But what I really love is his, his Twitter handle. I actually don't know where it comes from. So I bring my own interpretation to this. It's his Twitter handle isystemsunday. I like anything that's about systems. Right. Because like you know for sure. Right? Yeah. The name, the title of this thread was is 14 rare habits that will transform your life in 6 months. So definitely clickbaity. But I read because yes, you know, the clickbait worked. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, if you can deliver on the clickbait, it's great. It's fine. So he's got 14 of these things. I think the way I'd like to do this, Shannon, is to. I'm going to read down sort of a very distilled, you know, 10 word or less description of all 14 of them. And then you and I are going to, you and I are going to pick our favorites, the ones we want to talk about, because we're not going to talk about all 14. So number one, and I'm not saying these in Ben's language, I'm saying them as the way I, the way I interpreted them. Number one, make no your default answer. Number two, block time for deep work and you'll never worry about money again. Three, write down your beautiful life memories. Four, don't regret past decisions. Number five, the gift of goodbye. Number six, normalize saying I don't know anything about that as a successful and complete answer. Number seven, don't watch bad movies or read bad books. Number eight, make decisions without your parents approval. Number nine, don't check your phone first thing in the morning. Number 10, learn to stand up for yourself without getting worked up. Number 11, make consistency your loudest statement. Number 12, take midday naps, other naps at other times of the day. Wouldn't that be just going to sleep anyway? Number 13, don't grocery shop on an empty stomach and don't believe what you think or feel unless you're in a peak mental state. And number 14, the last one, be weird. So I know I paraphrased some of those, but yeah, yeah, there is some.

Nuance to some of these that And.

I think we're talking about, we dig into that for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where do you want to start it?

I want to start at the start. I want to, I want this concept of making no your default. And if you, if you come look at the show notes at BusinessBrain show, you can click in and read some of the nuance here. And you know, we always talk about, we've done shows about saying no and how important it is, but we've also talked a lot, probably a lot more about saying yes to trying new things, taking on new challenges, you know, really kind of embracing this abundance thing. And you know, Ben's comment with this nuance, which I agree with it with this little caveat, is only say yes if you are. And he uses a little more colorful language, but only say yes if you are wildly enthusiastic about something.

Yeah.

Not just one more thing to add to your list of. Okay, yeah, I can help with that. Okay. You know, it, those should be no's. No, I'm sorry, I cannot do that. But if you're, if it really gets you excited or you think about a new thing you're going to learn or be challenged with, then I think the yes, definitely the yes is appropriate.

Yeah, I read this thinking because this also was one I wanted to talk about. I read this as saying no to things that other people were asking me to do. Right. I was more thinking about it like in my, in my, you know, world of, hey, someone, here's an idea. You want to do this? Well, unless I'm like, totally on board with it, it should, it's a no. And it's, it's just a function of time. Right. Because time, time is, is not something I can make more of. Right. I, I, I know ways of making less time. Right. So I try to keep myself as healthy as possible and like those sorts of things. But, but that's sort of how I looked at this was a time management thing and, and deciding what your priorities are and sticking with them. Now, that doesn't mean saying no to everything, but it means being careful what you add to that list. But to your point that can, you need, you need to be careful about that too because you can easily convince yourself that every opportunity is too much of a hassle or shut down.

And yeah, and it also, it can limit your network of connections. Like maybe we don't have time. I'm not, when I read this, I'm like, well, you know, six habits or 14 habits transform your life in six months. I often go now I'm good. I don't have time to read that. But because you recommended it, it was more credible. So, you know, even being on Twitter, I would sometimes question whether it's good for your productivity. But you meet, you know, or you connect with other people and follow folks like Ben that have, have, you know, unique takes on things. So, yeah, I'm a. I'm about a. I'm not wildly enthusiastic about number one.

Yeah.

But I understand it and I agree with parts of it.

I'm going to jump down to what I call number seven, which he says is. His words were normalize, not finishing the book or movie. If it sucks. I have to. This, this is something we implemented in our home probably 10 years ago, and we call it the 20 minute rule. I think I've even talked about it on the show before. If I haven't, I'm surprised. The 20 minute rule is if we're 20 minutes in to a movie and we realize that we're all just lost in our phones and paying attention, right. There's a couple of. Or if we're just talking over it and not talking about it, because some movies, it actually works to just have an ongoing conversation sort of through the movie. That's fine, if that's okay. Not in the theater, probably, but at home or whatever. But if we notice 20 minutes in that it's not, it's not happening, we turn it off and it's. This was a great way for my kids to learn about the concept of sunk costs and also a way for me to reinforce that concept with myself. And that, I think, is the valuable part here, actually, I think both parts are valuable. You just, you know, if, if you cut off a movie 20 minutes in, you just saved yourself somewhere between 70 and 90 minutes of, of, of wasted time. Like you could start another movie now, right? You know, you go to, well, that one didn't work out. Let's try the next one. Okay, that's great. And we are in a world of abundance when it comes to content. But so there's that benefit, this sort of, you know, face value benefit. But deeper down, this idea of, hey, I'm doing something, I said yes to this. I thought it was a great idea. It turns out I was wrong. I'm proving to myself that I was wrong. Let's bail on this. And that's the idea of sunk costs. And it's, it's also the idea of not believing your past self. Right. Like your past self doesn't just get carte blanche to say, I'm right. 100% of the time you made the decision you made, it was fine. You did it with all the information you had. You started moving forward that gave you more information. Oh, crap. This was wrong. All right, you know what? Let's bail. It's fine. That's all good. Yeah, yeah. It's a. I think it's a valuable skill.

Yeah, it is. It is. And it rolls right into another one. I really like is his normalized not regretting past decisions like you said. Fallacy of sunk cost.

Yeah.

Getting comfortable with that. It's really a great tactic to make as part of your own system is knowing that, you know what, no matter how much time you have to do it, and often no matter how much money you've invested, if things look at some point, if things don't look good and you've got to either pivot and hopefully use the resources that you acquired during all that work to maybe do something else. You know, I. I wrote a book based on content I'd created to start a business that went south. And I said, well, I have all this content now. I'll publish. Let me just publish a book. And it turned out great, and that was awesome. But it was a very expensive book for me to publish. But at least now I can say.

You got some value. You. You. Yeah.

Yes, that's right.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, so that. And we talk about that on the show a lot. And I'm fully on board with, you know, not regretting past decisions. It's really, really important.

I agree. I agree. Yeah, no, it's good. This number three, the write down your beautiful life memories. That was. That's an. That's something that I've been thinking more about recently, and it's this whole. Let me. The way he put it together was, where am I here? I got lost. Normalize. Writing down your beautiful life memories. The best tacos ever. The presentation you crushed Bonfire with friends. Save the memory, and one day, the memory might save you. I think. I don't. I don't even think it's one day. I think it's. You know, when you log something, when you write something down, when you tell someone about it, it reinforces that in you. Right. How important this was. Like, wow, these really were good tacos. Or I really enjoyed just hanging out and having lunch together. This was great. Saying that to someone without even writing it down sort of reinforces it. And to me, that really helps me say, okay, yeah, like, yes, I spend. When I'm working, I'm into it. You Know, and I definitely have to say no to some things because I'm choosing to work. But then there's the times where I can say, I can put work here. I'm finished with this. Now I'm going to go enjoy these things. And some of the memories that I write down are about work, but not all of them. And just showing that I am enjoying, and more than enjoying, appreciating the little things, the moments in life, I'm finding that important. Maybe it's just because I'm getting old. I don't know. Whatever.

Well, I do think that's a function of. Of age and looking, you know, looking back and those kinds of things when you're. You know, what I find interesting is this. It. It's kind of weird that he has this thing. Don't. Don't listen to your parents, or don't worry about what your parents think. And at the same time, he's got this other comment about beautiful life memories, which is typically kind of an older person with the parents, things like maybe in your 20s. So it's kind of. It's kind of weird. I do. I do agree with that. You do need to recognize those things and be in the moment, perhaps more.

That's. That's a good way of. Of phrasing it. Yeah, I like that.

Like, I love doing this show, but, like, I have. I have so much going on right now, it's ridiculous. And I'm in the middle of a helping on a school board campaign. I've got some other business stuff we're getting towards the end of the year, and it's just. It's. It's nuts. It's very productive, but it's. It's crazy. But once I, you know, put my earbuds in and grab the microphone and we start talking. I love it because to me, you know, we had people over my house Friday night and mom talking and a couple of business guys, a guy who used to be my attorney. I could. I told those. Both of them. There I go. You know, if we had a microphone, we could just record a show right here. Because this is what I talk about.

This is it.

And I love doing it. And I. I love the fact that it's recorded. Maybe someday my kids will listen to it and I can give it to them on a drive or, you know, some. Some kind of thing and hear me talking and. And how much I enjoy that. That thing. So I do value that. I don't know if writing them down is the way I would do it, but I Do, you know, definitely be in the moment is.

Yeah. Acknowledging them and don't just, you know, not letting them just simply pass by. Yeah, yeah.

Isn't it the Buddhists or something that say, like, craving is the big enemy of happiness? Right. And so, I mean, I've definitely found, maybe all of us have found that while you're doing something you're already thinking about, I got to do the next thing and I got to do the next thing and it's like maybe just chill and slow down.

Be present.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Be present. Which brings me to one that I really like especially. It's hard, but I really like is don't check your phone first thing in the morning. And I, you know, I've really started thinking about and maybe just because it rhymes, but I love the concept of no phone Friday and being able to just leave it and, you know, not worry about it. But certainly people keep their phones next to their bed now, you know, alarm all that kind of stuff, rolling over and grabbing your phone and, and ingesting the stuff that it's going to push your way. I don't think it's a good idea.

No, it's not. I had an interesting experience today that I was thinking about in the 10 minutes that I had between the last podcast I recorded and this one. And prior to that was even less time between the first podcast and the second one that I did for the day. So my afternoon has been consumed with me being effectively heads down and shut off from the world. Right. You know, because I'm, I'm doing these shows. I really do try not to check my email and such while we're recording. I sometimes fail at this. You folks who listen probably know when those failures are happening. But be that as it may, I try not to. And today I mostly succeeded because I had to. The shows that I was recording earlier today were like, as with this one, like, I have to be involved. I can't just sit there and be a fly on the wall. And it hit me, it's like, you know, I was super productive this morning because I knew I wouldn't be able to, like, do any of my project style or response style work this afternoon because here I am recording these three shows back to back to back.

Right.

I thought, you know, when I don't, when I have these shows, I feel zero, like guilt or drive to make sure I'm caught up on what's happening with, you know, in my email or with my Slack messages or what. I mean, if somebody really needs to get my Attention. The people that would need to do that know how to do that. Right? And they, they only use those methods when, you know, when it, when they realize I'm not around. But having that in place, knowing that people can find me, I don't feel like I'm working this afternoon. I'm doing these three shows and so I don't feel like, well, I'm shirking my responsibilities by not checking my email obsessively, like I would if I was at my desk. And before we recorded this episode, I thought, man, I gotta figure out how to do that when I'm not recording. You know, like, I was productive today. I don't feel like I missed out on anything today because I was, you know, involved. Like, I need to compartmentalize my day better and take advantage of what I already know to be true. That I can get the stuff done that I need to get done. And then I can spend time on project work, which is, you know, what these things are in their own way. Like, heads down, not checking in with the world, you know, for hours at a time. Like, it turns out everything's kind of okay when I do that. And I, I need to learn this lesson from myself that I already employ. I just need to do it more. I don't know, does what I'm saying make any sense?

Yeah, yeah, no, I get it.

It's.

These are very introspective comments and, and tips and questions. So it's not something that you can just kind of drill right into and go, yes, A and B, and then C is the, you know, the outcome. So definitely worth digging into and trying to figure it out. I do like Ben's comment, this Gift of goodbye. And from a business perspective, my Gift of Goodbye document is really interesting and I'd love to talk about it and, you know, get your take on it.

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Yeah, I like this concept. I mean, I've always told people if there's vampires in your life, you got to get rid of them. People that are not helping you succeed.

But we have have a song in, in the one of the bands I play in Bitter Pill called Too Many Vampires and it's exactly that.

Yes, it'll wipe you out. But on a. I, I get frequently approached with the business idea somebody wants to work, you know, quote, work with me, see if we can develop a, you know, this thing. And, and sometimes I am pretty enthusiastic about it, but I'm also very realistic about it because I've, I've seen this movie before and if, if it's someone new that I don't know and I'm not sure. My gift of goodbye is the working agreement. And I. If you haven't heard me talk about the working agreement on the show, we'll put something in the show notes at BusinessBrain Show. But the working agreement really is the start of okay, this idea is great, but how is it going to work and who's going to do what and what is your concept? And the first part of the working group, it's critically important. It's not a contract, it's not a business plan. But the first part is a test. Can you give them the blank template of the working agreement, which you can Download at the BusinessBrain show, and then have them take the time to fill it out, ask you some questions, perhaps clarification and bring it back to you. And I'm shocked that how many people don't bring it back because it's oh, wow. Actually you're not going to take it and run with this and develop everything and then I'll just kind of get to hang on like a, like a tiger. You hold a tiger by, by the tail. So, so it is a method to, you know, this gift of goodbye concept of okay, I'm interested, but here it is. Now go away. Prove to me that you want to put some effort into it and that you've thought about this and you can lay this out and if they do come back, usually you can, you know, you stand a much better chance of being successful.

Well, you know, because you're already working together. Like it's. It. Like you said, it's a test, which is true, but it's. It's a practical test. You're actually seeing how you can work together. The working agreement itself is a project that you're doing together, and it's. It's a great one. Yeah. If they're not engaged, man, go pull that ripcord hard. And the beauty of the working agreement is the ripcord is built into it. You don't have to be the one to say, this isn't working. You can just look at the development of the working agreement, say, yeah, look, this. What we've built here isn't really going to, like. It's pretty clear, obvious, I think, to both of us that this isn't going to work out. You know, this project doesn't. We don't have the right mix.

That's right. And sometimes you are the one that, like, if you're pitching it to someone and you trying to get something going on, then you're in charge. Okay, let me lay out the. The basic structure of how this agreement would work and this concept. Then you give it to them. Then hopefully they're tweaking it a bit and talking about, oh, how revenue would work and who invests what and all this kind of stuff. So it's a good system to see if you can even get past that, which I think it's great.

The next one for me is this. Normalize. I don't know anything about that as a successful answer and that I actually quoted directly from his tweet. And I. I can't stress how important this has been to my life. You know, I am a nerd. I am the guy who fixes everybody's computers and everything else. People come to me, they ask for advice. You know, I'm pretty good at solving things. I'm pretty good at sussing things out. And I know a lot about. I know a little bit about a lot of things. There are a few things I know a lot about, you know, but. But I. I like to educate myself about just random things. And so I tend to know a little bit. But it's easy for me to get caught in the trap of. Well, because I know a little bit about this. Someone asked me a question. Can I. You know, I don't want to admit that I don't know more. And I've learned to stop myself. There and say, I don't. Yeah, I don't know anything about that. That's outside of my area of expertise, and that's okay. Like simply saying, I think this should be distilled down even further. And it's, I don't know. It's okay to say I don't know. That's not a sign of weakness. That's a sign of confidence because it shows that you're willing to admit that someone might know more than you, which, hey, guess what they do is out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I like the phrase you used. I don't know if you did it on air or after shows that. I've told you more than I know.

That's true.

Yeah, that's great. It's like, okay, yeah, I'd like to tell more, but that's it. I've told you more than I know.

I told you more than I know. I got that from John Martolero, who worked with us for years over at the Mac observer. And that was a catchphrase of his. But, like, but he meant it every time he said it. It's like, okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. I've told you more than I know. Like, I'm, I'm talking out of my ass here. I don't know. Like, it's. Yeah, yeah, it works. Yeah, it happens.

It, it does. It does. One of them, I really do like, and it's, it's his last one, and I'm going to tweak it a little bit. Of course, he says, normalize being weird. Yeah. And I, I, I do really like that, but I think the word for me is normalize being unique. I don't think you have to be weird, but you have to be unique. And it's all just, you know, subjective.

That's semantics. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Semantics.

But there's, you know, weird, unique. That's how you're going to be remembered. And maybe when you're younger, you're trying to fit in, it's a little bit tougher and along those. And so you, you may have a harder time, but that also kind of, that builds character and teaches you maybe you've got to strive a little harder. But as you get older, being unique, weird can really pay off because people remember you more. You're not just like everybody else. Hopefully your business isn't just like everybody else. You don't think like everyone else. That's why you're hopefully listening to the show, because you've got a business brain and, and things come to you in a little bit. Different flow. Then let's call them W2 earners, which are awesome people. And we need to hire those folks. And they have great lives and some become super wealthy, far wealthier than I am.

Yeah, but yeah.

That'S. That's awesome for them.

No, it's fascinating to me because I've encountered those scenarios where, you know, you're among, let's say, a neighborhood ish type of group and people are like, oh, yeah, well, Bill works for a hedge fund or whatever, but Dave owns his own business. So Dave's the send the check to Dave. And it's like, I'm pretty sure Bill beats me in every way, shape and form when it comes to earning and wealth building and all that stuff. But people assume that the business owner is just the wealthiest person. And I agree, but it's not always wealthiest from a cash standpoint. But that's my perspective on life. I'm patently unemployable. Bill, the guy that, you know, works w2 wage for a hedge fund, he's happy being an employee and it works for him. And you know, like, I don't judge that at all. I couldn't do it. But that's. That doesn't mean I think he shouldn't, you know.

Correct.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, we all have that unique part and you need different aspects. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But. But I think the key is to. Is embrace it.

Yeah.

You want to stand out a little bit. You want to be able to do some things that other people can't talk like other people don't. And you know, one of the things I always used to do at job interviews, because we would always interview a lot of people and I think I have a pretty wide bandwidth, but my memory is not that great. And I would always ask them what is. At the end of the interview, we'd have a few people in the room and I would say, okay, hey, I'm going to interview a bunch of people. What should I remember about you? What one thing? And they would tell me something often that they had not mentioned in the rest of the interview. Oh, I'm a model trained guy and I do this. And so I can remember, I'm sure I've mentioned this on the show before, this technician and thinking, wow, this guy works on little tiny trains. He's probably a pretty good tech, does all these kind of things and other things, things that people have said over the years that I still remember because they're unique and maybe sometimes a little weird.

My way of asking that question is I set it up by saying, listen, we're all nerds here about different things. What are you a nerd about? And as long as someone is comfortable, you will always get an answer to that question. You will often have to cut them off after 10, 15, 20 minutes, because if they're a nerd about it, you know how we all are, like you and me, we're nerds about a lot of things, but one thing we have in common is business brain. Like applying our business brain. So this is why we can talk about this for hours at a time. We carve it down to about 40 minutes a week. But it wouldn't, like you were saying before, it doesn't stop us. So that is where you learn who someone is, I think. Is that part of the interview? So, yeah, no. Be weird. It's hard. You're right. It's something most of us have to work to learn to embrace. Not everybody. Some people can just comfortable with themselves, but it really is that. Get comfortable with who you are and didn't be you. And. And if that means you're weird, fine. But that's not your description. That's just right. It's just how it is. Yeah.

And I do think there's, again, like, a lot of these. There's some nuance there. You want to be weird, but I. I want you to also be productive. And maybe being weirdly productive is your thing. Who knows? Or, you know, whatever it is, it's not just like, oh, oh, I'm, you know, whatever, I'm going to shave my head or cut half my hair off or pink, whatever, you, you know, to make yourself stand out. Well, that's cool. That's fine. And I respect that. But when you're talking about being successful, which is what Ben Meir is, and being weird in the realm of being successful, that's the important thing to embrace.

I heard it. I heard something years ago that, that the difference between crazy and eccentric is the number of zeros on your net worth. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's that.

There's.

Yeah. And the. The high school, you know, when my kids went to this private high school and they always bring you and ask you for money and everything, and we're talking about grades because I'm like, you know, I was not a good student. And he goes, oh, you know what? The A students here are really important. And they. They're great and give us good reputation. And the B students, man, they just grind it out, and they're the ones that get everything done. And then he goes, but, you know, The C students are the ones that get their names on buildings.

Yeah.

Because they're different and they're ending.

Yeah. So it's good tips if you're normal. You know, normal. A better way to think of the word normal is average. Now, no one wants to be average. Most of us are because that's the definition of the word average. Right. But it does have this negative connotation for people who want to differentiate themselves, which is probably most of us here in the business brain family. So I think don't think about. Change the lang. The internal dialogue from normal to average, and you'll probably be a little more incentivized to get stuff done.

I love it.

Same great tips. There's a bunch of them we didn't get to. We'll link to. We'll link to this in the show notes, as Shannon said, because. And the reason we didn't get to them is because we picked the ones that were important to us. The ones that spoke to us. Yeah. But there are other ones that we didn't get to. We might get to them someday. I don't know anything else, my friend. We good?

No, I love it. These are great. You know, we go back and forth, super practical episodes. And then these are kind of squishier, but you can equally important. So I think it's a great mix.

I like it for listening. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you again. Feedback at BusinessBrain. Show is a great place to get in touch with us. We'd love to hear from you. Go check out shopify. Com SBS and keep living that charmed life. We'll see you next time.