True Leadership Comes From Near Death Experiences

Here's a question for you. I want to posit that true leadership actually comes from near-death experiences. And so you becoming a pusher in your early career, were you a pusher? How aggressive were you?

I was actually pretty aggressive from day one.

Really?

Yeah.

Okay.

I got more aggressive and less— I don't know if empathetic is the right word or more political.

No, you definitely don't have— I don't have empathy. I don't think you have empathy. On the personality test, we both have 1. No, no.

What I meant by that is like, Earlier on I would push, but I would try to also be empathetic at the same time and try to understand why they wouldn't move as fast and like try to help them out and be okay with it.

You couldn't understand.

I couldn't ever understand. It's just not my personality. I wish I could understand. I just can't. But I don't think I did push a lot. I did not push as hard as I do now. And what I mean by that is Before, when I pushed, I would care what people thought about me. So I would be careful in how I phrased it or found the right time to push.

Mm-hmm.

But I still wanted to, and I did overall.

Yeah.

Now I just push whenever I want and I don't care what people think.

Yeah. But I, I think this is important. So where I'm going with this is that I think leaders really become leaders once you go through a couple of near-death experiences, which we've been through. You've been through so much where you're just like, dude, enough. Like, I, I've seen this movie before. I know exactly what I want and I'm going to ask for what I want and I'm not going to wait. I don't care what you think. And as much, I think humans still care a little bit all the time, right? But I think you have to go through a couple of near-death experiences to really evolve your leadership style into what it needs to be.

You're spot on because earlier on when I was more sympathetic and I was trying to figure out how to push in a polite way, which doesn't really work out in my opinion, a lot of those companies, had near-death experiences and some of them actually did die. And in today's world, the reason I push harder and I don't care is because I know the consequences from not pushing and not pushing when you should push instead of just being like, oh, let me wait a week or a month, maybe they'll figure it out and then I'll push then. No, it doesn't work. You just lose a lot of time and money and it just crushes the business.

And this is fascinating because I've always known you to be a pusher, but you've seen me evolve over the years.

Yes.

Yeah. The near-death experiences, like they shape you. Yeah.

Eric, if— can I share how you were before?

Yeah.

So Eric used to have this philosophy. It was really admirable. I can't do it.

Noah's here. He can even validate this because Noah, yeah, it was admirable.

Eric used to have this philosophy when I started working with him. And even over, I would say over the last 5+ years ago, you had this philosophy where he would want his team to try to figure it out. And he wouldn't have the attitude of they should just figure it out on their own. He would actually try to help them. Books, knowledge, videos, conferences, coaching, like you said.

Paying for their coaching. Uh-huh.

So he would try to help them improve. And I remember you quoting me an IBM quote one time. It was something on like someone made a big mistake at IBM that cost like $100 million. And the CEO said, why would I fire him? We just went through some training or learning.

Screw that fire though. Yeah.

But, uh, and I'm not saying I'm right. I've never created a company the size of IBM. But Eric, you know, would quote that to me and he mentioned on how his team was learning a lot and they were improving. And it is actually true. Your team did improve over time and learn. I had a very different philosophy than Eric. And my philosophy, I would say, has been very similar from day one of being an entrepreneur. And I'm not saying my way is the only way that works because I know entrepreneurs who tell their teams, don't work all the time, don't work on weekends, have a work-life balance. And some of these companies are much larger than mine. Many of them are. And my philosophy has always been screw it. If someone needs to get something done, like I need a marketing campaign or ad up, I expect it up on Saturday if I have the idea on Saturday. If they can't do it, I go and find someone that Saturday. No joke, we hired a Facebook ad contractor for less than 30 days.

Yeah.

And my team's like, why? Because I had idea on Saturday and I wanted it up that Saturday within a few hours and I knew my team wouldn't get it up. So I found someone who'd get it up that weekend for me.

You know what's funny? We have a mutual friend that does exactly that. So he's, you know, they do a couple hundred million a year, right? And he can't take it anymore. He has an army of contractors under him and I'm just like, why do you have so many contractors? He's like, because I just can't take it anymore. I just need to get things done.

Yeah. And eventually we end up finding people within our organization who will get stuff done for us on the weekends. But the point I'm making here is, And Noah could attest, Eric was a really chill boss. Would you agree? He's nodding his head yes.

So do you think it was— I'm asking Noah right now. So do you think it was— how chill was it on a scale of 1 to 10? I don't think I was that chill, but 1 through 10 in the beginning and versus now, what do you think the demeanor, the difference is?

Yeah, I'd say like 6 on the chill scale. Now you're like 9.

Meaning that I'm tougher now? Yeah.

So if any of you couldn't hear Noah, he doesn't have a microphone in front of him. Noah worked for Eric as his full-time videographer. He used to follow you around.

Yeah. So Noah would know me the best over the years.

Yes. And he knew Eric on a personal level as well. He said Eric was on a tough to chill factor, chill being really chill being like a 1 and really tough being a 10. Eric was a 6 and now he's saying that Eric is a 9. I would agree with that.

If you're in B2B, here's the deal. LinkedIn account-based marketing sucks, but it doesn't have to. With Karrot, it allows you to create personalized ads towards your customers and also personalized landing pages that align with the ads. So you're going to have higher conversions and influence pipeline reporting to prove that your ABM works. So if you want to learn more, just go to karrot.ai and you can join the waitlist. Again, it's karrot.ai, and we'll see you on the other side. And I think you've always been a 9+ since knowing you over these 14, 15 years.

Yes. I think I've gone chill, but more chill on the personal side. Business, I've maintained more—

The kids took the edge off.

The kids took the edge off. I also am not a pusher. What I found over the years is as your organization scales and you start adding like hundreds of employees, thousands of employees, there's people who are workaholics in your organization who just work 24/7 and can't stop. Those people actually push to have some sort of a balance. And I know they can't, but I try to push them to have something like, it's Sunday, your kid wants to go to a park, you should probably take them to the park.

Because they're so good and you want to keep them and you— this, I do, I do watch these people. I'm just like, dude, you really need to take a break right now. It's okay. The work's always going to be there, but that's only few and far between.

Few and far between. But most of my leadership is like that. So I have to, you have to push them to take breaks. What I found is if they keep working too much like that, it creates issues with their spouse and their family, which then creates a whirlwind of issues and creates issues at work. So I try to solve it before that happens. Like, dude, before this call, remember I told you someone called me and said, should I get a divorce?

Oh, that was someone on your team?

Someone who's close. I'm not going to go full in details there. But I already know if they don't figure this out, they're gonna have work problems.

Yeah.

And personal problems and they're just gonna be screwed up.

Yeah.

And I asked them on the phone the first thing, and, and I'm, I can't give someone advice if they should get a divorce or not. That's not my place in life.

Yep.

But I asked him, and, and this person's a male. I said, do you love your kids? They're like, yes, I love my kids. I'm like, do you love your wife? And they're like, I don't know. I'm like, what do you mean by that? Do you not enjoy the time with your wife? I love the time with my wife. She's like my best friend. I was like, okay. Do you still get intimate? Yes. We enjoy that part without going into details.

Okay.

So then I was like, what's the issue? Oh, we both complain about small stuff.

All right.

And then I was trying to figure out what the issues were with the small stuff. It's related to food, being prepared. Sometimes they don't have enough time for each other because of the kids and getting them ready. They don't work in an office. The kids are home more. They take care of other people within their family, like helping them out. So their time is stretched. And he doesn't have enough time because he's working all the time. I was like, and his wife doesn't want them to have a cook or a nanny or any of that all the time. And I was like, I'm going to tell you to do something. And he's like, what? I was like, go get a nanny for the weekends because weekdays are pretty covered and nighttime. And I'm like, just do it. Your wife already knows you have issues. It's okay. And I'm not saying, by the way, this person works for me or anything like that.

Yeah.

And I was like, you should just go and hire this person. Your wife will forgive you. Tell her how you want to spend more time with her. Go to lunches. And she's like, yeah, dude, when we do vacations and we have help, like we all have an amazing time. I'm like, And the examples he gave me without going into detail, it's caused by not having enough help and being stretched thin. I'm like—

Why don't you just do more of what works?

Yes. So I was like, before you decide to do anything and tarnish your life, because divorce is going to be hard on everyone. I was like, why don't you go and you just hire a person to help out? And he's like, you know what? I'm going to try that out. Because the days we have help or the hours we have help, it's great for both my wife and I. And I was like, all right, you do really well financially. Money's not an issue. She's like, no, I have a lot of cash in my bank account, home, everything's nice. I'm like, all right, try this out. But that's a problem. If you have people in your organization who are workaholics, which is fine, if they don't create a balance, Yeah. it screws up everything in their life, including work. So you got to solve that problem beforehand.

Remember also, before we move on to the next topic, you picked the next one, but we also talked about the concept of burnout. Vacations don't necessarily solve burnout. Burnout comes from not making progress or not feeling like you have momentum. And I can actually see that with my org, right? Versus like, you look at 5+ years ago when everything was crumbling, right? It's not a matter of going on vacations. It's a matter of like, hey, are we winning or not? And are we having little milestones as we're winning? People just want to feel like they're winning.

That's true. But the problem is, and this isn't a problem for you because you're single, or I think you're single, you don't have to— when you look at your goals for your growth and your revenue, your world revolves around business and your family being your dad, right? You don't have siblings from my understanding. I've known you for years.

Never.

No. Right. You have close cousins and friends. You still talk and hang out with them. You just showed me a video that one of your close friends sent you. But the point I'm getting at is you're able to focus 100+% of your time on work. If you have another person and kids, you now have to worry about, are the other people in your nucleus accomplishing their goals and feeling satisfied?

I'm not— yeah, everyone has their own goals, right? I think in this case, I'm just talking about business in itself, but yes, the personal thing is a factor for sure.