Capability Amplifier EP#82 - Favorite Historical Figures

All right, in this episode of Capability Amplifier, we're going to go back in history because this is one of Dan's very favorite topics. And I'm going to ask him three questions, which are who are his favorite historical figures? Number one is Business Builder. Number two is Leadership. Number three, woman and why. And I'm going to ask a couple sub questions. I have to give a little shout out to my good friend Darren Hardy, who asked me to ask you these things, Dan. So let's get it going. Favorite historical figures.

Yeah. Well, I've given a lot of, A lot of thought to this. And.

As soon as I learned how to read when I was six years old, my mother hooked me on history and she said, you know.

She says it's really important to know where things came from and who created things in the past. So this what I'm going to talk about here.

Some of my examples of great historical. These are role models for me. So I'm, you know, I'm going to talk about people that I gain kind of insight into my own goals because of what I think these people did. And first one is a long time ago, 300 B.C. and they don't know a lot about this person. But his name is Euclid. And Euclid lived in Alexandria, Egypt, was probably a Greek, and was at the very, very famous library of Alexandria, which at that time was, you know, really big. And it collected, you know, documents. They, these are scrolls mostly. And. But he, his specialty was everything mathematical. And it's. It's not really clear because not that not that much is known about him personally, that did he actually create this or was he an aggregator? You know, that he collected everything and kind of made sense of it and organized it and put it into systems. But if you think about the world today and you think about who had the greatest influence and what the world looks like today, a case can be made for Euclid because the thing. Things that are really permanent in the world today, architecturally, buildings, all depend totally on the elements of geometry that Euclid put together in 300 BC.

And.

I went to a college in Annapolis, Maryland, where you read the great books of the. The great books of the world. And the very first book, very first day, very first class, was Euclid's Elements. And there are 47 propositions that you. You do the first one and that becomes the foundation. And every other one depends on everything before that. And it, you know, there are 40, 47 elements, and I memorized them when I was, you know.

Had time on my hands. So I memorized them. And that whole notion of building structures influences a great deal of what I do in Strategic Coach, you know, like the thinking. I kind of look at them as my version of Euclid's. Euclid's basic elements of geometry. And I said, this is how you build up entrepreneurial thinking. So, you know, unique ability, you know, the time system and everything. These are all like my version of Euclid's geometry. But to identify the foundations of how entrepreneurs. Doesn't matter what kind of entrepreneur, doesn't matter what circumstances you are. If you have this way of thinking as an entrepreneur, you're going to do well. So that was an inspiration for me, Mike. So I'm talking about age.

Well, it was 67, so I was 23 when I. When I learned this. You know, big, big influence. I think about it a lot.

Wow. What I get out of that, which is really interesting. And just so you know, I'm back channeling Darren Hardy while I'm chat. While I'm listening to you, Darren, this is for you. Okay?

I'm doing this for you, Darren.

That's very, very kind. He's going to appreciate it. And I've been looking up Euclid's elements while I'm listening to you as well. So I'm looking at the propositions, and this does make a ton of sense, because out of all the things that I see, I admire the most that puzzles me is your ability to look at and listen to your audience of followers. Everyone in Strategic Coach see the pattern so quickly, craft the tool.

And I think the most elegant part of the experience as a participant is the fact that not only are you creating the tool, but you've always come up with a quick example to populate that as well. And that extends into the next question, which is favorite historical figure that fits into leadership. Unless you want to just talk a little bit about that simplifier mindset, how the framework evolves and develops. Because my. How brain can't help but ask, how in the hell do you do that and simplify? And is it just because you use these principles, you look for the patterns, you recognize them, and then try to craft a structure that becomes a little mini operating system.

Well, I think that one of our basic concepts, Mike, is unique ability. And so in terms of your compliment, that I do a lot of this simplification. Kind of hard to tell what's the chicken and what's the egg here. You know, that I think that my. My basic contention about human beings Is that all human beings in some way creatively deal with totally unequal circumstances. So you're born, you know, you have no memory of asking to be here. And it's not until 6 or 7 years old that you even, you know, you're. You're even conscious that, hey, there's me and there's them, and we're different and. But we did an exercise you were in. You were in the workshop a couple days ago where I asked you to take a look at.

Why you're a great who for other people. In other words, what do other people look to you as being uniquely good at something, and so you'd be a good collaborative partner. And what I said is look at things in the past. And many of your fellow participants in the Free Zone workshop, they went back really early. They went back to 6, 7, 8 years old. And I said, you know, it's really interesting when you think about it. And I can see it in you, Mike. I mean, I have a total clear picture of Mike Koenigs at 6 or 7 years old. You, you know, you know, I mean, physically you're a bit different, but I think energetically and personality wise, I doubt if there's much difference.

Between who you were at 6 or 7 years old and who you are right now. Great deal more experience, great deal more trial and error, Great more do this, don't do that. But I think the basic instinct, the basic. What you're attracted to, what you like doing, who you like doing it with. I think probably, you know, it's going on 50 years.

I completely agree. And I'm going to share my vision of the Dan Sullivan. I've shared this with the group before.

And I think I may have in a previous episode, um, which is I. I imagined you. Is that the happy kid in the neighborhood who knocks on the door? And I grew up in a small town where knocking on a neighbor door was common. In fact, we left our. We never locked our doors, and kids would just walk in and say hi. You know, that was just the common deal. Sit down for dinner or breakfast or whatever. But it'd be like Dan Sullivan knocking on the door. And it's like, let's go play in the sandbox and make great castles. And. And me as the receiver that. Knowing that the castle that we created would be 11 times better than the one I got to build myself. And it's like the fun playmate that always made the experience better, but also the creation and outcome was amazing too.

So that's. And that's.

I Like, I like teamwork. I like the combination of teamwork and creativity. You know, where.

Yes.

You know, that you're doing something new, but it's not something that you could have done on your own. You know, I mean, that's, you know, if you went back and talked to my mother, you know, and said, you know, what was he like? I think she'd be the description that she would give of who I was, you know, at a very young age would match up probably pretty well with how I show up today.

I love it. I love it. Well, let's move into the next one then, which is the leadership question. Who do you see as historically a leader who's mentor but also their attributes translate to right now that are most needed?

Yeah, I mean, it depends on how far you go back.

You know, and I'm convinced, pretty convinced that this, this is true, that the greatest leader in, in terms of.

Being.

Being important at a very, very crucial time was Churchill. And you know, if you look at the 20th century, that there was a period in May of 1940 and probably going forward.

At least six months in 1940, where Winston Churchill basically saved the world from bad people and the Nazis. And that when everybody around him wanted to reach a peace agreement and he says, you can't, he said, you can't do a deal with the tiger. He says, he'll just eat you. And he was so clear and enormous social pressure on him, enormous political pressure. They were getting beat up really badly. The enemy seemed invincible. The Americans had no trust that the British were going to be able to survive this. And I think he, as an individual decided, you know, I'm going to be the person who turns this around. So I mean, I think that circumstances may.

Oftentimes make great leaders.

And even if you look at US History, who are the three greatest presidents? Washington, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, great leaders during war. And I think war is just one of those situations where it makes things crystal clear whether somebody showed up or they didn't show up. So, but I think everybody has their own preferences, you know, preferences. Here I was thinking because you asked the question about women and three of the greatest leader female leaders ever are Queen Elizabeth the First, Victoria and Queen Elizabeth ii. If you look at England's greatest monarchs, all three of them are women. And together they, you know, if you put all their time, they just live a long time. I think Elizabeth was like 45, 46 years. Victoria was 62 years and the present queen is now going on 65 years. So 65, 62. You know, you're talking about 170, 180 years. And there's no men. There's no men in British history that compare to the three women. And they're the only three queens that, I mean, are actually queens. Not the, not the wife of a king. They call them queens, but these are, you know, these are three queens. And I said, you know, look at the queen now. You know, I mean, I mean, I mean, she's been.

She's been queen. I'm 70, I'll be 77 in a couple weeks. And she's been queen since I was 8 years old.

Yeah. And I wanted to throw something in here which is. And I know you haven't been watching TV for years, but I did consume the Crown, which is an excellent series, and from what I understand, reasonably historically accurate. And they go through.

Where the king dies, leaves her, she gets sworn in at a very early age, unprepared, uneducated. And you look at her evolution and the conflict that they have as people. First of all, to be a monarch isn't easy because the expectation of being a symbol versus a human is so strong. Secondly, they're technically not allowed to engage in politics. The next thing is they're educated, but not educated. In other words, she had no historical references, no skills.

But she didn't go, she didn't go to school at all. Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, the. They, they were homeschooled, you know, I mean, you. But they were mostly schooled in etiquette and, you know, ceremonies and everything. And during the Second World War, she was a mechanic. She was a. In the British Women's Army Corps. And she, she, you know, she did their equivalent of jeeps and that. And then she, she was an auto mechanic and. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, they have no, they have no formal education. I think that maybe her children were the first children of monarchs that actually went to proper school.

Well, that, that leads me to my question, which is, in your mind, what's the why that made them great leaders, even during a time when.

You know, being a woman meant something very different than it does today in terms of expectations, rights, and talk a little bit about their attributes that you feel are so powerful and strong. So let's hit each one of those, which are just the. Why were they so great and why is Queen Elizabeth so great?

Well, you know, I mean, the stories of the three queens are really radically different. But I would say in all three cases, there was no preparation for them to be the monarch. In each case, it was kind of.

A surprise. Of circumstances that they ended up and not without enemies. I mean, even talking about the latest, latest queen, you know, and you know, I mean, it's really the only important monarch in the world, you know, I mean, you know, 150 years ago there were monarchs all over the place. But really now when you talk about royalty, you're talking just about one country and you're basically just talking about one person. I mean, she may be the last, you know, person who does this in a way that has any significance at all. And, and.

There'S a joke in England that she's now the longest reigning, you know, monarch in British history. And she just has one more goal and the, it's. And they said, well, what's her one more goal? She says, I'll live. Her son.

Yeah, there may be some agreement there because he got permission, you know, to marry the love of his life. And there may be a trade off there that it goes directly to, you know, the grandson. So, you know, I mean, as you know, I don't think what happens to the monarchy or anything else really is the issue here. But I think she's a person who somewhere got really good guidance on just what her role was. And as far as I can tell, she's been single minded by what she was told that she was expected to be and she's done it for 70 years.

Yeah, I think the notes that I took down here are no preparation, surprise, the circumstances, consistency is what I see. And.

It was fascinating going through. Again, I'm making the assumption because I haven't read the books in watching the show, that there's some level of accuracy there.

But just the way she interacted and she, I'm talking about Queen Elizabeth ii. She knew when to pick her battles and when to fight and how to fight and be unexpected to win. Her case, where most of the time she just let things be, which is essentially what they're told to do, is you just gotta let this stuff play out and time will fix it.

Yeah. And the interesting I did see before I stopped watching television, by the way, I'm just doing a little test. It's not like this is a forever project, but.

In July of this year, at the end of July, it will have been three years since I watched television. And I said, you know, it's not doing me much good. It wasn't so much content. It was just that I was getting kind of an energetic sense of watching television at night that kept me awake for an hour, hour and a half. I just felt jangled, you know, I just felt jangled. And I think it's you.

Probably it's the programming and probably it's content, but there's kind of like an electronic field that I wasn't responding very well to. So I said, you know, I'm just not going to subject myself to this for a while. And I actually only did it for about six weeks. And I said, I don't feel like I'm missing anything. So one thing led to another and here I am almost three years. But back to, you know, back to the, you know, to the Queen and everything. It's very interesting. When you watch the Crown, there's only one instance in the entire Crown where.

Somebody dresses her down and lectures to her and kind of tells her, you're off track here. And it's that only once in her entire career has she made a political statement. And it was something about the welfare laws in England. And it totally contradicted Margaret Thatcher, who was the, you know, the Prime Minister. And by the way, next to Churchill, I think the greatest British Prime Minister was Margaret Thatcher. And Margaret Thatcher went to Buckingham palace and she had. She said, I want to see the Queen. She walked in the Queen and said, you don't know your role. You're the monarch. The monarch has no opinion about political matters. Start being the Queen. You don't. You don't be a critic of the government, you know. And she just took it because Margaret Thatcher was completely right. And I think that there was, you know, there was. Margaret Thatcher is predict, you know, pictured in this series as the one Prime Minister she didn't know what to do do with. She didn't have any problem with the men, but she had a problem with the, you know, and there weren't many male prime ministers of England who could stand up to Margaret Thatcher.

That is true in the show. And she knew how to schmooze like a man and dress a man down and really use shame effectively again in the show. So I don't know how accurate it was, but the actress who played her was very, very, very good. You really, you had to respect her, but you definitely hated her as a. As a person a lot of the time, but had to respect the strength and also the fact that there were some big battles going on in England at the time that were complicated.

Well, you know, she was just telling the Queen her job, you know, I've looked at your job description and you can't do this, you know, And I mean, if there's anybody who would respond to that lecture, it would be The Queen. Oh, oh, I didn't.

Sorry, I forgot myself there for. Yeah, I mean, I mean she knew where the, you know, she knew how to get the Queen back in line and you know, and it's just really interesting, but that, you know, that the history of, you know, historically, Britain just counts very large in history and at a certain crucial point you have two women who are. The one is the symbol and the other one is the actual, you know, the actual power, you know, in England. And it's very, very interesting how the. Why the British keep coming up with not so great men, but really great, great women.

Yeah, that would be a deeper conversation to go into the culture of. And character. Because when you look at, you know, the descendants of the monarchy, man, they're just, they're very problematic. But I, I think, well, you know.

They'Ve got the, they've really got a problem of cousins marrying cousins, you know, and I mean, I mean even animals know not to do that. Yeah, yeah. You know, you can't bet on the outcome when you have cousins.

Well, there's a, there's an old saying I've heard before and I'd apply it here is it's when is a lion not a lion? It's when the lion's in a cage. And when you look at like everything about being in the monarchy and being masculine, you can't be masculine in a cage. And that's effectively what that is. Especially when you're, you have to play.

I think, I think that's really a brilliant insight actually what you're talking about, that for the Queen to be the overall symbolic head. Men don't have any problem with that.

No.

At least I'd say an evolved man, I think every evolved man I know wants to surround himself with a brilliant, strong equal and a complementary partner. It's the yin yang side of any great relationship.

And I. Yeah.

Yeah, that's interesting. So, yeah, and I think business leader, you know, you. Darren, Darren Hardy's request. I made a case. Peter, Peter Diamantes and I had a podcast two days ago and he had just done an hour long.

Interview with the Elon Musk and you know, and you know. Yeah, I mean he has so many original things to say and. But I, you know, we were just chatting about, you know, the fact that.

He, he has a quality which I really admire.

Periodically he'll just bet his entire lifetime on a big idea, you know, and I, I think, I think that the stock price for things related to Elon Musk is so high because he's probably the only person where half the value of the stock is the person. You know, whether it's SpaceX or it's Tesla, everything is that they're not really bad betting on the product, they're betting on the inventor, they're betting on the, the person who's, you know, navigating, you know, big, big risky bets. And he's navigating. But I, I have a sense that half the value of the Tesla related stock is just the person himself.

Yes. I want to hit Elon in a subsequent.

Episode. I have a perfect setup because one of our next ones that we're going to do is the best storytelling I've ever heard. We're going to go down and talk about Tom Brady storytelling and leadership and value. So let's leave the Elon for that.

Well, I just want to finish off because that jumped me to one of my other historical Roma and I was, I actually grew up two miles from where this person was born as Thomas Edison. So. Oh yeah, the home where Thomas. It's Mile in Ohio, little town in northern Ohio. And.

Everything that Elon Musk is capable of today as an entrepreneur, as an engineer, you know, as a icon, a cultural icon is because of pioneering work that Thomas, Thomas Edison did in the 1860s and 1870s. And you know, he's associated with a light bulb, he's associated with the phonograph, he's associated with movies. You know, he's the one who first showed how you can electrify whole city blocks, you know, hundred. He's got a thousand patents, you know, to his name. Third, I think, third most in history. But what he actually did was create the, the modern, what I call the, the modern framework for being a one, an inventor, being an entrepreneur, understanding the stock markets, understanding marketing, under, under understanding how you put organizations together. All that was pioneered by one man. He created what I would call the modern industrial R and D Research and Development Corporation. And you know.

You know how many electric companies across the United States are called something, Edison, something, everything. So I think that he created a framework for. He created a framework for Henry Ford, he created a framework for Goodrich, he created a framework, you know, any list of. He created the model for how you have to create industrial power and wealth within the American, within the American system. So. And I think Elon Musk is probably our greatest present day.

You know, that, that we know about. I mean, I get a sense that with the rapid emergence of the bit, you know, the blockchain and everything else, there's going to be a whole new variety of new kinds of entrepreneurs that actually make some of the entrepreneurs of the last 20 years.

Not as prominent as they're thought about right now.

I completely agree. My prediction is Elon will be the first trillion dollar personal brand.

And what you and I are both spending a lot of time talking about and playing around with NFTs blockchain crypto right now. I know you've taken a huge interest in it and we did a previous episode, but what I think is about to happen is you're going to see this unbelievable multiplication of wealth. And when people talk about obscene wealth, we ain't seen nothing yet because of just the multipliers that are going to be going on and new ways of looking at value of stuff or ideas or systems and processes. And we're going to be able to just turn a number of dials, especially with machine learning and AI's help to craft and create huge, huge value. So we'll do that in another episode as well. But here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to summarize some of the key things that I heard today, Dan, which are number one.

Out of the favorite historical figures. We've got business builders, our Euclid to start. But then you talked about Edison and Elon Musk. It all really comes down to frameworks, foundations and frameworks. I'd say great foundations and frameworks. Next, when we talked about leadership, you began with Churchill.

And then went down into Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt. But the key finding is Winston Churchill saved the world from bad people. And then the next ones were Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt. They're leaders during war. So it's when their total character comes into question and they stand fast and do historical things. That's my interpretation of it. And he also talked Margaret Thatcher being the second to Churchill. Then when we talked about the women, he talked about the queens, Queen Elizabeth 1, Victoria, Queen Elizabeth 2.

And the fact that for whatever reason, it seems as though women are able to hold that position of power very effectively. And in all their cases, they had no preparation, a surprise of circumstances, consistency, and they just happened to live a long time. It also seems like the men in the monarchy get themselves into bad trouble and are willing to sacrifice the position for sex or love. And women make do.

Yeah, I mean, you know, each. Each of the three queens really unique in their own way. But there are some similarities. And one of them is that.

When they were children, they weren't expected to be queen. You know, they weren't expected to be the monarch so their becoming the monarch was not fated.

That's great. All right, well, let's do this. Let's wrap up this episode. I've got a couple things for everyone to do, which is, if you enjoyed it, share it. Also, you can get a copy of a great video we put together about the transformations that take place inside Strategic Coach. So if you enjoy this, pull your mobile phone right now and text the letters CA, that stands for Capability Amplifier to 858-434-5316. And you can also hit and go to capabilityamplifier.com there. You can leave a message for Dan and me and any ideas, recommendations for episodes you'd like us to talk about, because this one really came out from. I started a dialogue earlier with Darren Hardy, and I said, hey, I'm about to interview Dan. What do you want us to talk about? And he, of course, sent me some horrible ideas. At first. I need to pick on him for that, but. But it did follow up with something very thoughtful and smart, and that came out of it in some of our subsequent episodes as well. Just, we crowdsourced a bunch of ideas. A great collaboration. We invite you to be a collaborator, too. Dan, do you have anything else you'd like to add?

No, I, you know, I love this. And, you know, you know, one of the things, Mike, is we're getting into a nice, you know, period with the Capability amplifier right now because.

We'Re, you know, we kind of have it established how we do it and, you know, how it gets produced and everything. And now you can really open up your eyes and ears to other people's say, hey, why don't you talk about this? Hey, why don't you talk about this? And that's actually in podcast land. That's a really wonderful position to be in.

Oh, yeah, that's great. Yeah, we've got some now it's easier to put meat on.

I mean, I'm sure Joe Rogan gets phenomenal leads from people to do his podcast show. And, you know.

You know, and he's, you know, he's so visible that he's in a. You know, he has to.

You know, he has to walk tightrope sometimes through certain situations because he can get canceled by, you know, he can get canceled and everything like that, you know, But I love the way that he can talk about very controversial things, and it's enjoyable and entertaining.

Yeah, he's, He's. I. He is one of the decade's most interesting people, although I think his show's gone downhill quite a bit over the Ever since Spotify took it over, I will go on record as saying I think Spotify are jackasses the way they manage content and people. And I think they cower to cancel culture and they're willing to compromise their soul in exchange for short lived temporary public opinion that will soon, once the pendulum swings back to.

Not what it is, you know. So.

There we go. Tempered, that one. So this is Capability Amplifier. We'll see in the next episode.