90. Bryan Cressey: Author of Be A Winner

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to episode number 90 of our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. During each episode, we interview one of the world's top authors, and as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and live better. In this episode, we have the pleasure to interview author Brian Cressy. Brian is a pioneer in the field of private equity investing and is co-founder of 4 of the largest private equity firms in the United States. He has managed billions of dollars in private capital, and with over 40 years of experience, Brian is recognized as one of the country's greatest investors, builders of companies, and leadership talent. Brian has a passion to pass on all he has learned to the next generation of entrepreneurs, leaders, and humans. Our conversation today is all about Be a Winner: Life's Handbook for Joy and Success, and we discuss everything from relationships to entrepreneurship and education. Brian is a joy to talk to, and we have a lot we can learn from him. So without further ado, please enjoy this amazing conversation with Brian Cressy.

Brian, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. How are you feeling about today's show?

Excited. I can't wait to see what you Elucidate out of me.

I'm excited as well. I think that our audience is going to learn a lot from you today. For those of us that are not familiar with you or your book or your businesses, could you please introduce yourself to everybody?

Sure.

I'm Brian Cressy. I grew up in Seattle, went to graduate school in Boston, and live in Chicago, where I was fortunate enough to start a private equity and venture capital firm in 1980 with 2 other partners. We've since co-founded several other firms. All of them are highly successful today. I've been very lucky. And our business is investing in companies, which, as you know, is investing in people. And I have learned a ton about how the world really works by investing in people, helping build great companies. And we've grown some very large ones and just been very lucky. But I've learned the most Not from all those people, not from all those companies, but from my mistakes. I have learned so much, my bet, from my best teachers— mistakes. And I've made so many of them, I've learned a lot. So I've come today to share it with you. I'm here to try and help others understand how the world really works so that each of you listening can achieve your dreams and your desires and your happiness. So, that's why I'm here.

That's an amazing introduction. Now, it leads me to ask, Seattle, Boston, Chicago, are you a Seahawks, Patriots, or Bears fan?

You know what, Nick? It depends on who's winning.

Well, that's a good answer given the title of this book.

Yeah, I love rooting for someone that's doing well and I'll root for any of those.

So I like how you said that your target for today's show, like what you want to share, is you want to teach people how the world really works. And so is that why you decided to write this book as well? How— who do you kind of define as the target reader for the book?

It is my initial target for some of the things I've learned and starting to transcribe those and share them was my 3 daughters. I wanted them to understand as you want to educate your kids, how do things really work? And then I started going broader. They liked it and said you should write down more. And it took me 10 or 12 years to write this book. I kept making notes on what I was learning and updating it. I kept learning during the 12-year process of writing it. So my target audience primarily, if I picked a narrow audience, would be young people who are finishing school or just recently finished school or just started jobs recently and go— are thinking, wow, this isn't quite what I expected. It's quite a bit different. I wonder what's going on here. The book is written for them because what I've learned is I can create and achieve so much more today than I could 20 years ago. I'm trying to give them the benefit of And here's why. Here's what you do. Here's what the things that work the opposite of what we are all taught. And that's the way the world's empirical. It's trial and error, and no one knows it when they come out of school. So I'm trying to aim it at them because if the younger people can succeed more quickly by understanding how the world actually works, then they can go farther and farther. with their knowledge and what they can create, the good things they can do, not just companies, but charities, not-for-profits, or happy families, whatever they aspire to, they can do it. So that's who I wrote it for.

I love that, Brian. And something that we can talk about a little more maybe is mistakes because I think when we look at the education system now today, we're not set up to to fail. I mean, like, even tests are written in a way that it's like, if you fail, that's very bad. And as an entrepreneur and someone who is a lifelong learner, I've learned the hard way that mistakes are just part of it and they're really, really important. How do we create a mindset or a framework in our heads that makes us okay with failing, with failure, especially from coming from a world of— Failure is bad.

I think 2 things, Lou, to get comfortable with how it really works. It's trial and error. Is that understand when you, when school ends, in school, you're taught to make no mistakes. As you just said, zero mistakes. The world changes 180 degrees. It changes totally when you graduate. And no one told you that. I may be the first person that's explicitly said that. to people, but it does. Once you understand that, then you look at who succeeds. Look at all the famous entrepreneurs failed so many times before they succeeded. Well, the failure, guess what? That was trial and error learning. They learned hundreds of lessons, and so naturally they could be a big success. So I think understanding the world changes 180 degrees and understanding that he or she who makes the most mistakes wins. That's the winner. The after-school, he or she makes most mistakes, as long as you learn from them, there's your winner, and there's your winners, and there's your creators and your innovators and your big successes. And someone or more people need to share that message. My kids know I talk about my mistakes every day. I try to get my family comfortable with making mistakes because I don't want them to fall victim to what so many people who never leave the school mentality and then wonder why they're not succeeding fall victim to.

You know, one of the reasons that I got into this space of personal development is because I watched a talk. It was a spoken word poem actually called Why I Hate School but Love Education. And that was all the way back when I was in the middle of my college experience. I had just started a house painting business. And I had all of my friends working with me painting houses. But then, you know, and you fail fast and you fail hard and you learn and you get up and you accelerate that way, you grow. But then I'd be in the classroom sitting there learning from a professor who's never actually run a business before, thinking, what in the world are we learning? And so there's this huge disconnect. And with all of the work that you're doing, are you trying to influence the traditional US education system in any way, shape, or form, or are you just educating people outside of it?

I'm trying to educate people within it, but not the system. I don't think the system— it's like a bureaucracy. We all know how many lifetimes that would take to change. There's a better way, and it's to educate the population that's within the school system so they start demanding more of what they want to know. Kids in college need to use common sense about what do I want to learn? And as you point out, Professors don't know what they're talking about, need to be filtered. There's a little truth, but a lot that's not. So I try, I want to educate people as they're getting educated to how the world really works so they can interpret, learn, and then go forward faster when they graduate.

Yeah. No, it makes total sense to me. Now, one of the things you said during your introduction is you invest in businesses, which means you're really investing in people. And so what are some of the qualities of a good entrepreneur from your perspective?

Good entrepreneurs, as you may have read in the book, drive fast. That's a funny one, but they switch lanes and drive fast. That's necessary, not sufficient.

Could you tell that story to everybody? Actually, I really like it. Yeah.

Well, I don't tell CEOs. I want to see how they drive first because some are not meant to be entrepreneurs. They're meant to do more meticulous activities. But I want entrepreneurs who listen really well because they won't be really successful. I was just in a meeting on Zoom the last hour with an entrepreneur who doesn't listen. Great company he's building, very detail-oriented, but he can't be CEO long-term because he doesn't listen well enough. And that's an art. I want entrepreneurs that take action. A lot of people think of ideas, but ideas are worthless. They're neurons momentarily flashing in your brain unless they become an action in the real world, then they can be meaningful. So I want entrepreneurs that aren't dreamers but are taking actions. And I like to invest in people that have succeeded previously. That's your best test of who's gonna win going forward. What's their track record? And then how well do they know the field they're in? Those 2 things, if they've been succeeding in a field already, chances are they're gonna keep on. And if someone's going into a new field, chances are they're gonna learn a lot through mistakes and we don't wanna have our money on them during their period of high learning.

It's really interesting. I was thinking through what you were saying there about listening and Something that I'm really working on getting better at is actively listening, which not listening to respond, but listening actively. And I guess the question I have around that is, do you have any tips or tricks or anything that an entrepreneur could do to become a better listener? Because maybe they aren't yet, but do you think that they can become a better listener?

Absolutely. And I think one thing to think about to become a better listener Is, well, really 2. One is you want to put yourself in the other person's shoes. And in listening, you want to understand what are their motivations, what are their values that person has. So you're listening more intensely because you need to know their motivations or values. What do you think they want from this interaction? What do you think they want from a series of interactions? Where do you think they're headed? with what they're talking about. They have a long-term game plan. And then secondly, I think you want to listen from your heart to their heart. I think you want to feel their emotions and try to sense that as you listen. If you try to sense someone's emotions as you're listening, you listen a lot deeper. And, you know, there's connections. There's the, the word that you could write down what someone said. And you could read that later and partially understand it, but there's different frequencies going on when we connect and communicate, of communications. And when you listen emotionally and from the heart, you start to pick up a better sense of that person and what they're really thinking, a kind of a 3-dimensional instead of a 1-dimensional sense.

Where does your understanding of that come from? You know, the ability to sit back and try to sense somebody else's emotion. Is that something you read about? Is that something you were taught? Did you have a mentor? What happened there?

Great question. I'm not sure of the answer, Nick. I think I've always tried to figure out how can I be a better listener. And I have a lot of conversations and it's important for me to be really successful with building companies to understand what people really say and Which ones you want to trust, which ones you don't. So I think it's probably just trial and error through experience, realizing that all of life is multidimensional, and use that general precept to enrich the way I listen. And then I found it gradually working. So I'm trying to deepen my understanding of how to do that. I'm not totally there yet. Um, but I'm working on it. And that's a great thing about life. I've found you can get more and more knowledgeable about things like this, multiple levels of communication that you're doing when you talk to someone and you listen for them in different dimensions. I'm learning about that and experimenting, I suppose. Yeah.

Well, you said one of the characteristics that you look for is, is like the openness to learn, being, being coachable. So in my next question comes from chapter 2. So you list those 19 ways to become successful, and I I think we just started to touch on it, so I wanted to go a little bit deeper. Number 7 on your list was associating with great people. And I think a lot of people in my community over time have asked questions about how do you find the right mentor? What types of mentors should you look for? Those sorts of things. So, do you have any recommendations for people around surrounding themselves with better people?

Yeah, I'd say one is To be with great people, be aspirational. Ask people you really admire to be your mentor. I mentor a couple of younger folks. They weren't big successes, but they were interested and wanted to do something. And I said, sure, I'll— and they call me every 3 months or every 2 years and tell me about a problem they have. And I did it because I wasn't inundated with people asking me. And while I'm busy, I love doing that. I'm happy to do it. So I think be aspirational, ask the people you admire, and then be selective. Choose people who are successful in a way you'd like to be. Perhaps they're great speakers or, wow, they come across so well emotionally, they connect so well, or they're great thinkers. But find people that have different traits that you admire and go after them. And then the third thing is you have to cull out the people that you're spending time with that are emotional drains on you. They complain, they're victims, they waste your time. When you stand back and think about it, you actually have to kind of quit contacting them. And be jealous of your time because I have found life is so fun, so valuable, but your time is precious. There just isn't that much of it. And so use your time wisely in that field.

When you think back to your journey as a successful entrepreneur and just successful life in general, who are some of the people that inspired you? Like, who did you reach out to? Who are you aspirationally asking advice from?

Interesting. I think my first boss was a terrific human being. Great. And I certainly learned from him. And he was my first partner in a company we co-founded together. But just great values, great heart. And he had real good judgment too. But without the heart and the values, it wouldn't have meant much. So that really gave me a foundation of do what's right. First thing you do is always do what's right. And that's paid off really well in terms of my reputation and actually outcomes and things. So I'd say my first boss was a person I really, really admired. He's no longer around, but I still— He's still in my ears and in my head a little bit. And then I think great entrepreneurs in general, people that have built great companies or inventors. I love trying to create, discover, and invent and innovate. And I think all our companies need to innovate. And I promote and drive that. Just innovate, make mistakes, but learn and innovate and come up with better ways and better solutions. So I really kind of, in general, the people that have been invented, created, and built, I admire all of them and try to, I do aspire in that direction.

Well, just to wrap up that thought before Luke asks his next question, you know, books and podcasts, those are forms of mentorship too. And so I think when somebody says, wow, I want to learn more from Brian, they can go and read this book. They can also go and listen to other podcast interviews. They can Try to get to know people that you interact with. And so, yeah, it's such a fun way to learn.

It is. I love your podcast too, by the way, and what you guys do.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

As you were talking about success, I would, I would love to— there's actually, it's a twofold question, but first I want to talk about myself and a little bit about like me raising the amount of the people I'm around. This last year, I have really wanted to focus on that, and it's like made such a huge impact in my life, just retooling the people that I'm around and like just finding people that I aspire to be. And Nick is one of those people that I'm working with now, and he has really helped me raise the level of people I'm around. So that's really cool. So my question is twofold, and one would be, how do you define success? So like, what is success to you? And then how does somebody go about finding fulfillment and success in their own lives?

I think 2 things on that too. One is for myself, I define success is, well, my start with my mission, I guess. I think everyone has to start with their mission and defining their own success. My mission is as much as I can in the life I have, to improve our world, to make our world a better place. That's my mission. And my investing ties into that because we improve quality for patients. We invest in healthcare and we innovate toward better patient outcomes and helping their families. So that's my mission. I think everyone needs to know what's their purpose or their mission in life. What are they after before they can define what's success? And then success is multidimensional. It's not, wow, was my mission to build some great company or to have 3 children? I did that. That's not it at all. Of course, it's multidimensional. It's, did I— am I raising wonderful children? How important is that to me? And then I think allocating your time consistent with what you define success as. In other words, you want to be great professionally. a great family member, you want to serve others, a variety of things. When you kind of stack those up in importance, then look at how you're spending your time, like a pie chart. Where do I spend most of my time? If it's riding the bus to work is taking half my time, I'm probably not fulfilling my purpose or consistent acting consistent with my mission. So, you need to allocate your time. Am I spending a few hours a week directly helping other people? If you are, and that's a value, great. But you need— we need to measure that. Too many of us, and I've done it a lot, think these are what's important to me. And then I look at how much time am I spending on those, and I go, oh, then I realize, well, is the other thing more important to me actually, or do I need to reallocate my time? So I think that's a huge part of it. I don't know if that answers your question, at least Luke.

Yeah, no, absolutely it did. I think it's really important to, and I agree with you, it's really important to start with what is your purpose and why are you here? And I think like personally, I've over the years really struggled with finding that meaning and like I've wanted to have this like overarching one goal that I'm going towards and that's it. But I have found personally in my life that that hasn't really been the case. And I guess maybe a follow-up question to that would be, do you believe that people have one purpose in life, or do you think that over time it changes? Or how do you view purpose?

I think probably your purpose, if you define a single purpose, it changes during life. For sure. When you're young, you want to be successful. Typically, you want to have a great job, you know, then maybe you want to have a family and etc. When you're older, maybe you want to teach other people what you've learned, or maybe you want to high-five, do a victory lap. I don't know. That's not what I want to do, by the way. But so I think your purpose changes if you define one purpose. But I think if you have 5 purposes, say, I think they're always there. I think they were there when you were 15 years old, when you're 35, when you're 55. But I think the importance of each one changes. The priority, if you prioritized them 1 through 5, I think the ranking would change. But I think you should stay cognizant that they're all there and they're all always with you.

I love that.

Thanks, Luke.

Did you have a part 2 from your original question or did you get both parts in?

I think I got both parts in. Yeah.

Okay. Oh, so is the purpose piece.

I like it, man.

I like it. I think those are important subjects. I think that purpose and mission, you know, they can get confusing, especially for a young professional. So I think every time— Yeah. Yeah.

Sorry, if I could interject on that. Purpose, I think, is so important. I'll give an example. I started a treatment center, addiction treatment for the poor and homeless, to bring it to them free because they don't get good treatment, as I know, in healthcare. And we've created great treatment because we've innovated. But what I found is people who succeed— because they have to do a lot of work, as we all know, to overcome that addiction and transform their life into a healthy one, and they do it. The people that succeed know their purpose. They know, I'm here to help others, I'm here to help my family, whatever it is. They can tell you what their purpose is. Those who don't make it really feel shiftless, like they're standing in sand. They don't have a direction or a purpose. And so at that place, it's called Above and Beyond. What we do We help people find their purpose, write down their purpose on an index card, which we plasticize, and they take it with them when they graduate because purpose is that central to feeling good about yourself and to succeeding according to your definition in life.

Yeah. You sort of marry up the willingness to fail as a positive thing. with a purpose that motivates you sort of at the foundational level, and you can become unstoppable that way.

Yeah. At least you're moving quickly.

At least you're moving quickly.

Yeah.

And you know where you're moving, you know, you're going towards something that you value. Yeah.

Now, in chapter 8, you title it Happiness Through Helpfulness. And so, you just kind of highlighted an example of how you're being helpful, given the position that you're in. With the recovery centers. I'll, you know, a little bit of transparency here. I think with Book Thinkers, you know, we're helpful for people because we're providing free resources for them, educational resources like this podcast, book recommendations, etc. But I've had an itch to be a little bit more helpful, maybe from a revenue perspective through donations or have a charitable contribution as part of the business for a while now. And I've sort of dropped the ball on executing that. So when you're mentoring somebody in my position who is motivated by impact, it's definitely one of my core values. Same with Luke. Where should we go? What should we do? What sort of direction should we look at? Should it be a percentage of monthly revenue? Should we have team retreats where we build houses? Like, what would you recommend?

I think they're both good because I think setting aside Having a target percentage you're going to give is really helpful. But I also think hands-on helping, like building houses, meeting the people who are going to benefit, who are benefiting. When I spend time at Above and Beyond talking to the people who are homeless and changing their lives, wow, do I grow from that and get joy from that. So you will get joy, of course, from being with the people being helped. And that's why I think It takes both. Also, having the being responsible to yourself to help others by giving funds to I believe in giving it to places you know, to causes you really care about, and if to the extent you can visiting, getting to know the places you're giving your money, that'll help you determine where to give it. You want to have places you just. are thrilled by what's going on, you want your money going there. So I think a little more hands-on than I used to be when I was younger, writing checks, getting to know the places, maybe volunteering there. And as you said, building houses for Habitat or other activities, the hands-on creates real joy inside of you.

Yeah, that word joy is something that you use throughout the book, and, and especially in this area of the book. And it's a very important word for me as well. I really like Joy. I think it leads to fulfillment, and it's easy to live life when you're joyful. Hello, Book Thinkers family. A quick word from today's podcast sponsor. Today's episode is sponsored by Audible. Audible is the leading provider of spoken word entertainment and audiobooks ranging from bestsellers to celebrity memoirs, business, and my favorite, personal development. And as part of Audible's partnership with us, we're actually offering listeners a free 30-day trial. This trial includes 1 credit good for any Premium Selection titles you'd like on the whole platform. So that's pretty much any book, including the one we're talking about today. That book is yours to keep even after the trial is over. Now, this trial also includes access to Audible's Plus catalog of podcasts, audiobooks, guided wellness programs, and Audible Originals. You can listen all you want No credits needed. Now everyone on the Book Thinkers Instagram knows that I love physical paper books. There's nothing better than having a book in your hand, scribbling notes everywhere in the margins. I kind of tear those things up, but I've been completing an additional 20 to 30 books every single year using Audible by listening when I'm in the car, doing chores around the house, or while I'm on my morning walks or runs. You could take advantage of this free trial by clicking the link in today's show notes or going to www.bookthinkers.com/audibletrial. You will not regret it. Now, back to today's episode.

I agree. And one thing I've learned, Nick, probably the last 5 years I've just learned is that I get happy in business. We have a success, but that's transitory. It oscillates like a sine wave, goes up and down, up and down. And it's nice to achieve, but I find at Above and Beyond, when we're helping people, we're helping people pull themselves up, we're helping them in whatever way we're helping them, more hands-on or face-to-face, I get a real joy. And I call that more of happiness plus a little elation. And joy lasts. I have found joy It's kind of stable and steady, stays with me because I'm doing these certain things. And I don't get that from business, and perhaps I didn't get it from academics, but I do get it, and anyone can get it, I believe, from helping other people hands-on directly.

Yeah, there's, there's kind of a concept in Stoicism, which is a philosophy that I study quite a bit of, and Stoic joy, like it exists internally. It's unshakable. It's always there and it doesn't fluctuate very much. And if it can become your baseline, you know, if you can consistently feed it enough that it becomes your baseline, then that's just, it's such a cool place to operate from.

It really is. And that's something I guess the Stoic way, and I love the Stoic philosophy. I think that the adjective is an odd one for the philosophy. And unfortunately, because a lot of people don't want to approach Stoicism, oh, but you believe this, this? Yes. Oh yeah, I love that. So, um, but I think that that joy in discovering that has been an important part of my life in my continuing happiness. It also sets my direction because I go, wow, if I get that much out of that, I'm gonna do more of it. Yeah, I love it.

Yeah, I love that too. And it's something, uh, that I've really been working on as well, is just having a more joyful life. And I think, you know, you talk about it a lot too, which is just the, the people you're around, doing the volunteer work. And something else that I, I was thinking about as you were talking is the having joy in serving. Like, I know I have 3 kids and My— one of my sons is— he, he doesn't have a lot of joy in, in serving people at this time in his life. He's only 5. But, uh, I've also noticed that my daughter, she actually gets a lot of joy from that. Do you think that's something that, like, just that we're innate born with? If, you know, some people just get joy from it? Because I know personally I get joy from serving people. One of my, like, missions and goals in life is just to help people have better days because I think If people can have better days, they can have a better week, a better month, better year, and a better life in general. So, yeah, so I guess my question is, do you think that that's something that we're born with? Or do you think that's something that we have to cultivate in life? Or how do you view that in terms of around people?

To optimize the joy we find, you have to cultivate it for sure. And Children who are not as joyful, I don't think that matters too much because, as you may have seen in my book, I learned so much from my parents. They were helpers and served others, and I would go on trips or visits with them. And perhaps I didn't get a lot out of it. I didn't dislike it, but I wanted to be playing baseball. And so it wasn't really what I wanted to be doing. But it's embedded in me, and I learned the value in the habit. And because our parents can be great role models for us, and mine were, I picked that up and carry it with me. And so I think that don't worry if your child does not seem joyful about sharing some things you're doing for others.

Yeah.

Because later on they will have adapted or adopted that as a role model.

Yeah, I love that. And I think it's, things are caught, not taught, right? That's what they say about kids. They just, when they observe, you know, they observe their parents and usually they learn from that and not what we're telling them to do on a daily basis.

Absolutely. Yeah, the role model. And that's true as a leader. In life too. And what, what you 2 gentlemen are doing, what I do when I lead companies or firms, how I behave is something they watch probably more carefully than what I tell them.

Hmm.

It's— if I'm a good role model, then they listen better because they think, wow, I respect that, so I want to know what's behind it, and I'll listen to what he or she says. So I think your behavior as a role model doesn't end when your kids grow up. I think it continues through every activity you're engaged with, with other people.

Brian, switching gears a little bit, something that we've been working on internally at BookThinkers a little bit as the team starts to grow is culture. And I know that you touch on culture maybe about halfway through the book. And so because you've been involved in so many successful businesses, I mean, what pieces of advice can you give to us as individuals growing this business, but also to anybody else out here that's looking to improve company culture?

I think I underestimated culture when I was young, and now I realize it turns out culture is the thing that allows successful enterprises to continue on past their founders. So long-term success without good culture, that won't happen. It'll dissipate people leave. So what's good culture? Some of the basics are great values and empathy, caring about each other, but teamwork. Teamwork wins. And some of the keys to teamwork are appreciating, respecting your colleagues, not being critical of them, realizing that Brian isn't very good at this and this, but he's good at that. Letting Brian spend time doing that. You can do what you do well. Each teammate has strengths and weaknesses, so let everyone work on their strengths and then applaud each other. Give your teammates the credit. When you give your teammates the credit and you speak openly with respect and admiration for each other, it's hard to stop you. And then the culture of success I think goes beyond the team. You go outside to how are we going to help the world? How is what we're doing, whether we're selling groceries or therapeutic services, how are we going to help clients and the world? And when the team, the culture is to go outside and help the world, it becomes effective and contagious. And everyone wants to work there. So those are, to me, the basics of culture and teamwork that allow an enterprise to succeed because people want to come and innovate there, and then it allows it to persist because it's a great culture. Without that great culture and teamwork, the enterprise at some point will dissipate when a few people decide to go do something else. But they won't do that when you have those things.

Now, you said that you underestimated it when you were a little bit younger. So if you could go back and give your younger self one piece of culture advice, like what was the main thing you were doing wrong and what would you have tried to correct?

Well, I didn't realize how fundamental and important it was when I was in graduate school. I remember the teacher was talking about culture. And I would kind of yawn, go, okay, yeah, we got to listen to this. But I thought, because it's more academic, I suppose, I could figure anything out. I've learned marketing, I've learned mathematics and data. Things can be analyzed and figured out. So I could figure out what the situation is and how to make it go. And that, that showed no understanding of the importance of people and how the world works. I didn't understand people are complex. They make the world work. It's not your data and your mathematics and your analysis. It's motivating good people.

Yeah. Well, and for anybody listening today, the book has a lot of great actionable advice on how to engage with other people and improve communication too.

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I've learned all that and I do pay attention to it because I try to keep improving and learning from people's behavior, outcomes we have in our companies and different teams. And I get to observe a lot of different businesses and teams. So I learn a little bit from it.

That's awesome. You know, culture is something like Nick just said, you know, we're really working on here at BookThinkers and it's something that I've been Doing a little bit more research into recently and reading some books about it. And it's really interesting to see like how many like really successful companies that have built out a successful culture over the years. And one that comes to mind that started out really rough was Uber. And I think over time, like they had to kind of fix their culture problem, but you can see like the importance of it in their business because their business was, you know, doing, not doing so great when their culture wasn't doing so great. So I'm really happy that I found this, this thing. I've found that it is important to build a culture early on and as a young person. Around that, like, oh, maybe it's like actually a completely 180 from that, but something that came to mind as you were talking, I wonder, you know, you're a very, you're a super successful person. You've owned a bunch of companies. You've done a lot of great things. What is one struggle that you've had a hard time overcoming? Or what is one of your biggest struggles in life that you've just had a hard time with and you've eventually maybe overcome that or maybe you still struggle with it?

I think in my, it's a great question and I do think It was humility versus arrogance. In the middle of my career, I'd made great investments up until then, done wonderfully, big returns. And then I did a few bad deals, bad investments. And I thought going into them, they were in healthcare niches. I thought I knew all about that niche. And well, I get that. I know that. So I know we'll do well. And they didn't do well. And I started asking myself after these weren't going well, and you know, you suffer when a company isn't going well and you're responsible for it. It's years to gradually work out of it. It's not flip the switch or sell the stock. It's years of work with people. So what I figured out was, I was a little arrogant. I thought I knew this stuff. And so what I did, what I changed was I said, okay, I'm going to go forward really humbly. Next investment I look at, I'm going to keep telling myself, I know nothing. Who do I talk to? And so then I started calling people I respected who would know something about the questions I had, the opportunity, how it might look. And I put a quote together of different opinions from different people, different ideas and thoughts. And I made my decision from that, and then I did really well again. So there was quite a lesson there to be humble. I could either be arrogant and unsuccessful, or I could be humble, learning, thinking I know nothing, which is closer to the truth than not anyway, um, and learning, learning from others. And that was a major success, and I've continued doing that. But that was So important. And it wasn't just learning, like reading it in a book. I experienced it for several years. And, but I took the right approaches. Brian, you're doing something really wrong. What is it?

It's a struggle that I had to deal with for a long time. So, Brian, because you've invested so much in the healthcare space and some of your charitable contributions to the world, also exist within that space. I'm curious, do you have any routines for yourself, any healthcare suggestions for people out there? I mean, you've got a ton of energy, you're obviously really high spirits, you've been successful for a really long time, so people want to tap into that type of energy. And I'm just curious if there's a certain routine you follow or, uh, anything like that.

I think for many years I'm not that dedicated and, and, uh, responsible, but I'm flexible with myself, which probably works. So I work out some, not as much as I might like, but I make sure I work out some, and that helps. I've been mostly vegan for 30 years. One of my daughters educated me about that a long time ago. And I know that's helped my health is I eat a little fish, but otherwise I'm vegan. And I know that's helped me a lot. And the other thing is I'm motivated by the opportunities in the world to discover, invent, innovate, and help other people in different ways. And I always, every day, see chances to innovate, to help others, ideas to improve things that keep me young and alive and active, knowing, wow, what's going to— what can I do today to improve the world? And not— I don't mean in a macro way, but in little ways. And it can be done. And that excites me. And the continued learning that you both mentioned, that excites me. I learn things every day. From different people.

Yeah. Well, I'm curious, as you know, the purpose of this podcast is to introduce our audience to new books, but also new mentors, new author personalities, which is why we ask some of these other miscellaneous questions that aren't necessarily in the book. But we try to get to know you a little bit more. And I'm gonna put you on the spot.

Yeah.

Based on your experience with the podcast so far, is there anything that pops to your mind in terms of Things that could be improved or innovated on just in terms of format or anything like that?

The only thing that comes to mind, I think it's terrific, by the way, but the only thing come to mind for those of us who like to skim and learn, like I like to skim books, get the highlights. If you could take from each podcast that you do, 5 key lessons that you think your audience would like to know. And a month after the podcast, because you want people to listen to it, or whenever, 6 months later, print up those key lessons from each podcast so that Brian, when he wants to skim through them, learn something from 40 people quickly, could look through those and just go, oh wow, this Is gold. These pages are golden. Then maybe later you can publish it as a book and it'll be a bestseller.

I was looking for a copy of a book that I have back here, although I think it would take a minute to find. And there's an author friend of ours who actually was a podcast host for a long time and did exactly, not exactly what you're recommending, but something very similar to it. And the book did really well. So I've always kind of, I've thought maybe we should do that. So this is the second person that sort of suggested it the first time directly anyway. So really cool suggestion, Brian. I'm happy that you brought that up.

Well, I think it would work for you because your podcasts are powerful.

Yeah. Well, thank you, Luke. Before we wrap up with Brian, any final questions for him?

Just one more. First, thank you so much for being on here with us. This has been such a joy to learn from you. So my one more question is, Have you achieved all that you wanted to in life? Or do you feel like you still have more to do?

It's a big question. Yeah.

No, I haven't. I've achieved more than I dreamed of. And yet looking forward, there's so much to be done in this world, so many opportunities to help. There's— I get a feeling of adventure. out of innovating. I love discovery. There's so much in that to be done that I haven't done what I'm going to do yet. And I'm planning my accomplishments in my future will be bigger than in my past. And so the answer is no, I haven't yet.

I love it.

Yeah, that's, that's a good question to wrap things up. So Brian, for the members of my audience that want to learn a little bit more about you, your book, everything else you have going on, where should they go? Is there a website? What social media platform?

I think you can learn a lot. I have some social media truths or thoughts I do on Instagram and Facebook. And I also have some videos that I have, Rate Your Boss in 3 Minutes, and some other pithy videos to help people with different subjects like positivity and how to be— do different things. So I'd check out some of the videos on YouTube if there's some subjects you're interested in.

Awesome.

Well, like Luke said, it was a pleasure learning from you today. Maybe that should be our outro, Luke. It was a pleasure learning from you today because that's cool. And, um, no, seriously, Brian, it's, it's always amazing to have the opportunity to spend time with people like you. And so Thank you for blocking out a little bit of time today and teaching the Book Thinkers family a little bit about what you know.

Well, thank you both, Nick and Luke. It's my pleasure. I love doing it, and I especially love what you both are doing. So, thank you for what you're doing.

That is a wrap. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. It would mean the world to us if you could write a review and share this episode with a few of your friends. I mean, these books truly have the power to change people's lives, and by reviewing or sharing our podcast, you're helping us make an impact. If you have any recommendations for future guests or any constructive feedback for us on how we can improve our show, please feel free to submit a form on our website, www.bookthinkers.com, or send us a direct message on Instagram @bookthinkers. With that, I am signing off, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Don't forget, go read something.