LMA $ > FU $

Business Brain, Episode 544 for Casual Friday, April 26 World Intellectual Property Day 2024 Greetings, folks, and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take a few ideas, we dissect them, we analyze them, we use them to. To tune our business brains so that each of us can live that charmed life that we all love. Here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave.

Hamilton, and up in the Sierra foothills, I'm Shannon Jean, coming to you from our new vacation rental, River Song retreat that I'll talk about more on a future show once I have the website built and finished. But getting this place ready for our first round of guests this weekend and glad to be here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm glad to be here, too. You know, we started the last episode sort of wandering into a conversation about how we've added the video element to this. And really, it's just a byproduct of it being easy to do. Right now, we're all set up for video stuff. The platform we use to do our voice calls, streamyard, also uses video. And so we figured, well, we're fine. But I have been thinking a lot lately about the fact that video calls are exhausting, and I. A lot of the meetings.

How are they exhausting?

Well, we've found that a lot of the meetings that we have for work stuff, especially when it's the same team getting together regularly, we have stopped turning on our cameras. We'll use. We use Zoom still because you have a subscription and, you know, whatever, and it's, it's a decent platform and everybody, you know, it's already tweaked out and all that good stuff. And certainly if we need to use video, either for our faces, which is less common, or for our. To share our screens or whatever. Yeah, it's all right there. So it's super, like, it's great. But the video thing, we. And I've found, even if it's, you know, if it's like an introduction call with a client or, you know, customer or a vendor or whatever, the video's fine. Like, it's good. You get to see each other's faces and like, that's helpful. But if once it becomes a working call, we often, I will often suggest, hey, let's turn our cameras off so that we can actually just work and not be distracted by this.

I can see that.

And I've looked and there's been a couple of studies done about this. Right. There's. There's one at Stanford that I'll link to in the show notes and they, they dug into all of this. Like, why are they exhausting? What's the thing? Well, there's four reasons they came up with. Number one, excessive amounts of close up eye contact is highly intense. And that is true. However, I find, and this is certainly just me being, you know, self focused here, but I think that's part of the issue. That number two is that seeing yourself during video chats constantly in real time is fatiguing.

I would agree with that.

You know, it and I've seen other studies that say, you know, that the number is somewhere about 80% of the time most people are looking at themselves, not, I get that at everybody else.

So what do I look like?

I look okay, everybody's doing it, you look fine. And it doesn't matter because nobody's looking at each other.

That's, they're all looking at themselves.

And then there's the fact that video chats reduce our usual mobility. Right. If I'm having a conversation with you, you and I are a little different because we've been doing these conversations for nine plus years tethered to our desks because we do them as podcasts. But if, if you and I were going to have a chat about something, I would have my AirPods in and I would be walking around my office or on my deck, I would not be at my desk at a computer sitting, I would be moving. And I find I am far more engaged in the conversation that way. I don't have the distractions of a screen just throwing crap at me.

Yeah, I get that. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. It is easier to focus because bells and whistles aren't going off.

And then the last thing that Stanford came up with was they said that the cognitive load is much higher in video chats. They say that in regular face to face interactions, the non verbal communication is natural and we make and interpret gestures subconsciously. But in video chats, our brains just have to work harder to try and intuit this on a two dimensional screen, usually with crappy cameras and all of that stuff.

That's interesting. I could see that. I mean, certainly if you're in the room, number one, face to face, you're not looking at yourself, right? Yeah. But you're also able to focus more.

We're not looking at each other the entire time. Like you and I wouldn't be staring into each other's eyes for an hour. That would just be super awkward. We don't do it.

Yeah, you'd be looking at things together, maybe have a Whiteboard. Do different stuff.

Yeah, right. We're just talking, and you wind up not look like. As I started thinking about this, I started really paying attention to my own sort of habits and mannerisms in person. And even when I'm having a heartfelt conversation with someone, it's maybe 20% of the time that we're looking each other in the eye and. And that's high. The rest of the time, we're, you know, we might be facing each other, but we're both just kind of looking off axis a little bit because we're focused on the conversation. Yes, there's the nonverbal cues, but. But I don't need to look at your eyes and your cheeks to see that necessarily.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Yeah.

That's fascinating. You know. Yeah. I'd love to get, you know, feedback at Businessbrain show. Tell us if you have, you know, zoom fatigue or, you know, we'd love to hear from you or how you handle it. You know, what do you do with your. Turn the cameras off. I like that idea of turning the cameras off.

It's great.

I think that would be. It's a good idea.

I freaking love it.

Yeah. Because then you could do other things while you're talking because you don't need to be so focused the whole time.

So exhausting, man.

Yeah, no, that's. That's great.

That's great.

I love it. Hey, so I have a guy who's, you know, he's really. He's kind of mentored to me, helped me with growth on X a lot. And I'm gonna actually have him on the show because he's launched a new or changing how his business works. And I think it's pretty interesting. I'm gonna ask him to come on the show and talk about it, but one of the things he's been advising us is to, hey, talk about strategy more, not just tactics. You know, the way tactics are. You did to get what you want. But what is the overarching strategy and thought process that you've. You. That's driven you to create those tactics?

Right. Yeah.

And so I started thinking about that in my. My business career life, which has been pretty varied and all kinds of weird, crazy, unconventional things, which I really love.

Yeah.

And I. I think I found the. The overarching strategy that's been driving me since I started my first company in college was that I don't want anyone telling me what to do. That's my strategy, and I've created all this stuff around it. And so in order for not to have people not tell me what to do and be able to make my own decisions, I needed to get some level of success. And, you know, lots of people talk about FU money. You can do whatever you want. Nobody can. But I don't, you know, I think more important to. To me, and I'm calling. What I'm calling it is leave me alone money lma. And I think LMA is more powerful than FU money. And I'm going to share why.

Okay.

Here. And one of the. It. It's just enough money to do what you want, create really interesting businesses that, you know, experiments and see, you know, work with great people and be able to, at the same time, build this great life for your family. Because you've got enough, you know. Yeah, you're. You're still. You're still hungry, right? Because the opposite is. You get a ton of cash. It can create this crisis of complacency.

Yeah, no, we talked about. Well, I said that a couple of weeks ago. How do I put the chip back on my shoulder? Right.

Yes, exactly. So the.

It.

It's not so much that you think, okay, this is it. I've achieved it. I'm at the end of the journey, which is a big, big mistake in my. In my opinion.

You know, I. I was thinking. We talked on. On Wednesday about that friend of mine that, you know, kind of retired and then started having those hearing issues and that sort of thing. I was thinking about other people like that, you know, Steve Jobs, he retired and then, you know, like, his health went. Went downhill, and his health was going downhill already. So that might not be a great example of this.

I. But it's such a common.

But it's a common thing. I was thinking about the drummer from Rush, Neil Peart. He, you know, he worked really hard. He didn't. He always enjoyed playing. He didn't enjoy touring. Finally was able to retire from touring and doing all that. And he had been through a ton in his life. He had lost, like, his family early on. He'd built up a new family, retires within a year after retiring from, you know, playing drums. And Rush, he, you know, found out he had a brain tumor.

It's tough.

So retirement scares me, too.

Yeah, retirement sounds horrific, but being able to choose what you do, that's where the power lies. And so this concept of, you know, leave me alone money, it allowed me to do things like when I had a business that didn't need me anymore, I could take less money out of that business. And Hire somebody else maybe to replace me or. Which also happened a lot when I got bored. I could say, okay, I want to go do something else. And I wasn't so dependent on that resource, you know what I mean? So I could dip back down a little bit and then I could go experiment. And so all of these decisions that I've made, the planning, I, I really think have all been built around this concept of leave me alone money. I don't want to answer to anybody. And I think that it's just something to think about. And, and I did a post on X about it because it's, it's helped me to fine tune what am I really doing and why am I making all these decisions and taking these risks. And I, I think that's it. I just, I want to, I want to do what I want. I want to be challenged, know that I've got enough to take care of my family, build the life I want, buy assets that exponentially increase in value, and have depreciation that helps you again, further this leave me alone concept. And lots of people talk about the fire concept. Right? And saving money early and then retiring. And that sounds kind of miserable to me too. I get the living below your means and saving money, but I hate budgets. They suck. I want to earn more money. Answer has always been just earn more. Yeah, let's not do the budget. I don't like balancing my checkbook. Let's just make more money and then we'll, you know, we'll, we'll figure it out. So I'm interested to see if, if anybody else has this, you know, idea of, you know, this, this leave me alone concept and. Or is everybody really chasing this FU money, which maybe is a much higher dollar amount? I, I don't know. It's, it's, it's interesting.

Yeah, I, I don't find myself chasing the FU money thing. You and I are very similar in the sort of. The fact that our default path to solving a problem is we'll just make more money. Just. That's, that's easy. And I feel, I feel good when I am being successful at solving problems that way, solving them by reducing spending and all that stuff. That makes me sad.

Me too.

And like, to the point where I need to be careful about this because I am very fortunate that I don't suffer any sort of chronic depression. I've got a little bit of chronic anxiety, but not to the degree that it's even worth saying something about on the show. I talked to my therapist about that, but it's totally manageable. But I find myself sad and I get depressed when I have to make cuts and do things like that. It's like, no, let's just make more money.

Yeah. That's the abundant framework, right?

Yeah.

There's more out there.

There's more out there.

How do I get a piece of it? And it enriches everybody that's around me.

Yeah. How do I write? It's not about me. It's about, like, let's just make the business more, you know. Yeah. More flush with. With fuel, which is. In a business is cash, you know, and then we can. Then we can sort of relax and enjoy the things.

Yeah. That business. And if that business can't scale, find it another one. Correct. Go do something different and find a way to make it. Or do a side hustle. I mean, I've, you know, owned 10 companies like you have, and I still have side hustles along the way.

I kind of feel like every one of my businesses is a side hustle.

That's. That's an episode right there.

Bingo.

That's interesting. Every business is a side hustle. I love it.

Every one of mine is. I don't know. We'll talk about that next week. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's great. Yeah, I'll explain what I mean by that next.

Yeah, that's a good. That's a good topic. But, yeah, I mean, if you're listening, you know, help me refine this. This leave me alone money. What. What are the pieces of it that need to come together to where you don't have to answer to someone else.

Yeah.

That you can make those decisions. You know, what is it? Is it a dollar amount? Is it the way? Or is it a cash flow amount? That's more important? That may be it.

Right.

And so you're going to hear more about this LMA money over time as I develop this concept, because I think there's a lot to it, and I like to think about what's the driving force behind these decisions.

I love it. This is great. This is great. Again, like he said. Feedbackusinessbrain show. We definitely want to hear from you. We love hearing from you. We are a community here. This is not just Shannon or me. It's all of us. And we learn from you, you learn from us. The business, brain trust, that's all of us here. Think about that. Enjoy your weekend. Keep living that charmed life. We'll see you next week.