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Talk to 66866 now on to

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tonight's Featured leader Nick Huber

1:20

is an entrepreneur who owns

1:22

stakes and 11 companies including

1:24

a real estate private equity

1:26

firm and several agencies his

1:28

portfolio of companies employs over

1:30

325 people living all over

1:32

the world Nick lives in

1:34

Athens, Georgia with his wife

1:36

and three children also the

1:39

author of a great new

1:41

book called the sweaty startup

1:43

how to get rich doing

1:45

boring things during our conversation

1:47

We discussed the five

1:49

attributes of winners, the

1:51

importance of changing your mind.

1:53

Nick shares how he's created

1:55

a place where the people

1:57

who work for him can

1:59

openly tell him he's wrong.

2:01

Then we go deep on

2:03

why most people get networking

2:05

wrong and Nick talks about

2:07

how you should do it.

2:09

Then we close with some

2:11

useful life and career advice

2:13

about being comfortable in your

2:15

own skin. Ladies and

2:17

gentlemen, please enjoy By Conversation

2:20

with Nick Huber. Nick,

2:26

man, it's awesome to have you here on The Learning

2:28

Leaders Show. Welcome. Ryan, I love

2:30

your work, man. I got to say, I'll

2:32

start with when we got booked together, I

2:34

got more serious about your stuff and

2:36

I signed up for Mindful Monday and

2:38

it's great, man. 668666,

2:40

baby. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate

2:42

it. I'm curious because Whenever

2:45

I see somebody was brought up by

2:47

awesome parents, I feel a kinship

2:49

because my parents are still people I

2:51

very much look up to and

2:53

talk to a lot. Tim and Susan,

2:55

you write in your acknowledgements. You

2:57

thank them for raising me around a

2:59

dinner table of positivity and curiosity. They

3:02

made me feel as if I could accomplish anything and

3:04

taught me to see the world through a lens of

3:06

opportunity. Can you share more about

3:08

that upbringing and what Tim and Susan, your

3:10

parents did for you with raising you

3:12

with positivity and

3:14

curiosity. Yeah. My dad,

3:17

my dad is like me.

3:19

He's delusionally optimistic and highly

3:21

energetic and highly ambitious. So those three

3:23

things I got from my dad and, you

3:25

know, I, I watched through, you know,

3:27

high school sports, whatever it might

3:29

be. I watched a lot of people,

3:32

my, my, you know, peers, they were

3:34

raised in households where they would get in the car

3:36

after a basketball game and their parents would berate

3:38

them and tear them down and say, hey,

3:40

look, you'd missed this play. You made a

3:42

bad decision here or if it was after

3:44

football, why didn't you get after the ball

3:46

over here? Gosh, why didn't you do this

3:48

or that? I got in the car

3:50

after every game and my dad told me that I

3:52

did my best and I was

3:54

amazing. And look, man, you're the best guy on

3:56

the court. Even if I wasn't, he would just try

3:59

to build me up and give me that

4:01

confidence. So when you

4:03

combine a little bit

4:05

of, you know, irrational optimism

4:07

and confidence with, with a, with

4:09

a culture of like, like I said,

4:11

like get after, try stuff, do

4:13

things that are not like everybody else does,

4:15

then it's kind of a great combination to send your

4:17

kid off to the world and succeed. You

4:20

write a lot about marriage as well

4:22

as being a dad. What

4:24

have you taken from your parents that now you

4:26

in the spot as being the parent? No, your

4:28

kids are young. And so they're still not in

4:30

high school or anything yet. But what have you

4:32

taken from them that you're trying to instill in

4:34

your kids? My dad

4:36

made me do uncomfortable things and he

4:38

empowered me to make decisions. I

4:41

didn't want to start that lawn care company when

4:43

I was 12. I didn't want to pick

4:45

up the phone and call to set up my

4:47

own appointments because it's just uncomfortable as a

4:49

kid. I remember, I

4:52

very vividly remember interaction in my kitchen

4:54

where the family needed to order. So

4:56

we were going to order or call

4:58

ahead to get a reservation at a

5:00

restaurant. My dad says, Nick,

5:02

you're 13, call him. And I'm like,

5:04

what do you mean? So he

5:06

made me pick up the phone dial and

5:08

talk to the lady and make our reservation for

5:10

our family of five to go sit at a

5:12

local restaurant. And I remember

5:15

just the crippling fear that I had to

5:17

pick up the phone and call. Most

5:19

kids do, by the way. And

5:21

it's just a constant, like, do

5:23

uncomfortable things, Nick. Do uncomfortable things

5:25

until they're comfortable. And then also make

5:28

decisions when they're low risk. so

5:30

that you start to practice and learn how to

5:32

make decisions. I mean, a huge concept in my book

5:35

is decision making, how to make good decisions. It's

5:37

a muscle, you have to practice it. There's no amount of

5:39

books you can read that are gonna teach you how

5:41

to make great decisions. So what my dad did when I

5:44

was a kid and what I do to my kids

5:46

is, I let them practice

5:48

making decisions instead of just putting them in a

5:50

bubble where, oh, I'm gonna

5:52

make sure my kid has no

5:54

fear, no pain, no uncomfort, no

5:56

struggle. Hey look, let's make decisions when

5:58

they're low risk so that When I'm behind the

6:00

wheel of a vehicle at 18 years old and

6:02

I've had three beers, I know that, hey, that's

6:04

a decision. I need to, I need to

6:06

make a really good decision or very bad things can

6:08

happen. I watched kids at Cornell, you know, show

6:11

up and they were, they were in a

6:13

bubble, meaning their parents made every decision

6:15

for them, wrote their essays, got them to Cornell. And when

6:17

they got to Cornell, they did not know how to live a

6:19

functional life and make their own decisions. And

6:21

it was a big problem. You mentioned

6:23

Cornell where you went to school. You

6:25

also were an all -American athlete in

6:27

track and field. I also

6:29

share that kinship with you from an

6:32

athletics background. It might happen to be

6:34

football in college and a little bit

6:36

after, and I've taken so much. from

6:39

coaches and teammates and being a part

6:41

of a team and showing up early

6:43

as you did today, like I was

6:45

trained to do as a quarterback. What

6:47

have you drawn from your experience as

6:49

an all -American athlete to now post -athletic

6:51

life? You're still in good shape. You're

6:53

still working on it. know you read

6:56

about that too. But what have you

6:58

taken from that that has helped you

7:00

as an operator, as a leader? I

7:03

did the cathalon. So it's 10 events.

7:05

And The brutally hard

7:07

thing about the Decathlon is that you're never going

7:10

to have 10 good events. You

7:12

know, first is the 100 meter dash. You might miss

7:14

your PR. Second is long jump. You can really mess

7:16

up long jump. You can lose, you know, 50

7:19

to 150 points in that event if you do poorly. And

7:21

then you just go on through the day and you're doing

7:23

things like pole vault, javelin and high jump. And there's no

7:25

way that they're all going to go well. So

7:27

you really learn how to have just that mental

7:29

toughness to. Take an L. I

7:32

can take L's. I can take L's with grace,

7:34

man. I can struggle with grace because that sport,

7:36

any sport will humble you. You know it as

7:39

a quarterback. You make one bad play. Are

7:41

you going to get rattled? And is it going to ruin your whole

7:43

game? Because a lot of people, they don't have

7:45

the strong enough head to overcome a poor play.

7:47

And that just, that makes it so you

7:49

cannot play quarterback at a high level. You can't.

7:52

Same with the Catholic on. So what I love about

7:54

sports is that it just trains resilience because you

7:56

fail over and over and over again. How

7:59

is it with an event like doing

8:01

10 different things? So you have to

8:03

be kind of a generalist, but

8:05

also a specialist in a way which I

8:07

feel like it's like business. Yeah,

8:10

I mean, there's not many, there's not many

8:12

things that can prepare you for that

8:14

because like my thing was like get really

8:16

good at reading a defense and owning

8:18

a huddle and get definitely responding from messing

8:20

up and throwing a pick six. Like

8:22

you're immediately right back on the field and

8:24

you got to have shoulders up ready

8:27

to go. You know how it goes. The

8:29

Catholic on those like, oh my God,

8:31

I've watched on the Olympics and I think

8:33

it's insane to see that these people

8:35

do everything. And yeah, certainly you

8:37

mess up and have to bounce back. I

8:39

can't even imagine like what what your

8:41

mindset is going in to those

8:43

events to say, how do

8:45

I get ready for each one individually and

8:47

then bounce back if it doesn't go

8:49

well, which it inevitably will at times. Yeah,

8:52

there's the mental toughness of actually being able

8:54

to execute the Decathlon well. I

8:56

never had a no height or no distance in any

8:58

event, which I'm proud of. Meaning I

9:00

always I always cleared my opening height

9:02

and pole vault. I always got a

9:04

mark and long jump. I always got

9:06

to throw out there in discus, even though,

9:09

you know, you can very easily get out

9:11

of your rhythm and, you know, the mechanics

9:13

of throwing discus. If your rhythm is off,

9:15

it's, it's very, very, very hard to do

9:17

it. Well, but I did the decathlon because

9:19

I wasn't a master at anything. And

9:21

I think that's a lesson in business because you

9:23

can try to be Elon Musk. You can

9:25

try to be Mark Zuckerberg or you

9:27

can say, Hey, look, I'm not spectacular. I'm

9:29

just an average Joe. How can I

9:31

go out here and win against people who are better athletes

9:33

than me? I can become a good

9:35

learner. I can be adaptable. I can have

9:37

a strong head and I could learn faster

9:39

than a lot of the other guys, frankly.

9:42

So I became competent. I did the

9:44

80 -20 in each event so that I could

9:46

go out there and do well. Also,

9:49

you weren't just like sitting around

9:51

training for sports. You're thinking

9:53

about businesses and you're opening and

9:55

starting businesses. What was your

9:57

mindset towards being an entrepreneur? I

9:59

know you were even before college, but while

10:01

you were a college athlete. Yeah,

10:05

I don't know how it worked

10:07

out this way, but I was very serious

10:09

about balance. Like I didn't want to have a

10:11

one dimensional college experience. I wanted to find

10:13

a wife when I was in college. That

10:15

was important to me. I wanted to explore the

10:17

academics that Cornell had to offer while I

10:19

was there. I wanted to socialize

10:21

and learn how to be around my friends

10:23

and go to the bars. And then I

10:25

also want to start a company. So yeah,

10:27

fast forward to, I've always been a guy

10:29

who gets in a little over his head

10:32

with things he takes on, but fast forward

10:34

to finals week, my senior year, I

10:36

am the weekend

10:38

before I'm in the blocks at

10:41

the Ivy League championship, trying to

10:43

win the hurdles and taking customer service

10:45

calls for my storage business

10:47

right before and right after the

10:49

event and texting. the

10:51

woman who I was trying to get to fall in love

10:53

with me. And when I got home,

10:55

I went out to the bars that night because we won. You

10:58

did all that. What a day. That's quite a day. It

11:01

was a fun day. Yeah. But

11:03

I mean, it's stressful. Can you talk

11:05

about the storage business a little bit more

11:07

and why you chose that, how that

11:09

got going? How intentional were

11:11

you versus how like you just kind of

11:13

get out in the world and bump

11:15

into people and those collisions can somehow create

11:17

business. I'm curious to how you were

11:19

able to, because I wasn't thinking about that

11:21

at all in college, dude. I didn't watch

11:24

Shark Tank. I didn't read the books about entrepreneurship.

11:26

I didn't even take the entrepreneurship courses. I

11:28

was just an excitable kid who was

11:30

excited about the prospect of making a

11:32

little bit of money. So

11:34

in finals week, I was like, holy cow, I got this

11:36

house. I can store some stuff in it. next thing

11:38

I know I'm running around town picking up boxes and

11:40

a week later I have a couple thousand dollars cash

11:43

sitting on my bed and I was excited about that.

11:46

So I think honestly it's a

11:48

blessing that I wasn't into

11:51

entrepreneurship and super obsessed with it

11:53

or I would have been thinking I needed to go

11:55

raise capital and start a tech business instead of

11:57

just go out and get scrappy and make some money.

12:00

It feels like I'm

12:02

sure you get these kind of

12:04

calls and emails all the time where

12:06

there's these like extensive business plans

12:08

which aren't entirely bad and there's a

12:11

lot of thinking happening and not

12:13

as much doing and this is a

12:15

part of what you've written in

12:17

your book too is I feel like

12:19

you're more of a let's go. Let's

12:21

do it. We're going to learn as

12:23

we go, as opposed to having like

12:25

an elaborate planning phase that's going

12:27

to take six months and then we'll

12:29

eventually launch six months after that. It's

12:32

like, let's launch. Let's go. We'll figure

12:34

it out as we go. Can you,

12:36

again, talk more about your mindset of

12:38

being a doer of getting started

12:40

before you're ready and how that could

12:42

be helpful, not only in how it's

12:44

been helpful for you, but how it

12:46

could be for other people? a

12:50

sense of urgency. In my book, I

12:52

talk about the traits that you have

12:54

to have to be successful in any area,

12:56

whether it be corporate America, whether

12:58

it be as a job

13:00

that is entrepreneurial, like wealth

13:02

management, realtors, whatever, or

13:05

small business, you have to have

13:07

a sense of urgency. You have

13:09

to. Let's do it. Let's move. Let's go. Let's

13:11

find a way to get that first customer. Let's

13:13

find the thing that needs to be done and

13:15

do it. Let's think at the whole

13:17

business, think about the big picture and think about,

13:19

hey, what's the lowest hanging fruit that we can

13:21

go and attack and make our business better today

13:23

right now? And how can I do it by

13:26

lunch? If you have

13:28

that mindset, you can be phenomenally powerful. What

13:30

happens is that anxiety creeps in

13:32

and that self doubt and it

13:36

gets scary because you're like, holy cow, am I making the

13:38

right decision? Am I doing the right thing? And that's

13:40

why it just takes practice over years. The

13:42

thing about business is it's a momentum game, meaning

13:44

you start when the stakes are low, just like the

13:46

decision making that I was talking about with kids.

13:48

You start when the stakes are low and you get

13:50

better and better and better at making decisions and you get

13:52

enough feedback that you can trust yourself. And

13:55

now I'm at a point in my career,

13:57

you know, 12 years into entrepreneurship, 15

13:59

years into entrepreneurship where I can trust myself. I

14:01

know what I know and I know what

14:03

I don't know. I mean, I have smart

14:05

people around me who can tell me when I'm messing

14:07

up, but we're not afraid to have

14:09

a meeting and make a decision.

14:11

and implement and make it happen by

14:14

launch. Was it

14:16

your CFO or one of your finance

14:18

guys, one of your partners? I remember reading, he

14:21

went on vacation and in like a five

14:23

day period, you'd bought a couple of businesses

14:25

when he was gone. And I give you

14:27

credit for this. Like, I guess he called

14:29

you after he got back and said, what

14:31

are you doing? Like, this is stupid. Can

14:33

you share more about that story and the

14:35

importance of having people around you that are

14:37

willing and able to tell you no? It's

14:40

such a powerful story and it's

14:42

like, it's that moment in my

14:44

career that was a

14:46

very pivotal moment, very pivotal

14:48

moment. It was early 2022, the

14:51

market was hot for storage still, rates

14:54

were low, my VP of

14:56

finance went on vacation for five days.

14:58

And in that time, I approved three

15:00

offers to go out, two of which

15:02

were accepted to buy storage facilities. He

15:06

gets back and he looked at the underwriting he

15:08

calls me. And I'm his boss. I'm

15:10

the owner of the business. And he calls me says, Nick, this

15:12

is dumb. That was dumb. We're paying

15:14

too much. We should not buy these buildings. And

15:16

I'm like, whoa, you remember

15:19

correctly. He said it in a respectful way,

15:21

but in a team meeting. And then he called me after and he

15:23

reiterated like, Nick, we can't buy these. We got to drop these

15:25

contracts. And we're paying too much.

15:27

Like it exposes the company too much risk. And

15:29

long story short, I trusted

15:32

him. I took the

15:34

L in public. I got on the next meeting

15:36

and I called those owners and said, Hey,

15:38

we got to withdraw these offers. which is taboo

15:40

in the real estate business because the brokers

15:42

and everybody, they don't like that. I took the

15:44

L and frankly, it saved us a lot of

15:46

stress and a lot of headache because I

15:48

know those deals now with rates higher, with

15:50

softening in the storage market. It's been

15:52

a tough three years in the real estate business as

15:54

rates have risen. My VP of

15:56

finance having the courage to stand up and tell

15:58

me no, could have

16:00

saved our company. Wow. How

16:03

do you create the

16:05

environment to where That

16:07

person knows it's

16:09

safe to do that. There's

16:13

a really, really important concept that

16:15

I live by. It's actually

16:17

on my mirror when I brush my teeth. There's a little piece

16:19

of paper up high that I look at every morning when

16:21

I wake up and it says, change your mind often. Change

16:24

your mind often. When new information comes at you, change

16:27

your mind. If you have the ability

16:29

to not get stuck in your ways

16:31

and not be, frankly, What

16:34

do you call stubborn if you can

16:36

search for what is right verse being

16:38

right as a leader? It can be

16:40

phenomenally powerful because you can take

16:42

in new information and You can

16:44

adjust your decision -making very few people can

16:46

do that so I changed my mind often

16:48

and I I move really fast it

16:50

first it frustrates my team because I get

16:52

into meetings and I'm like hey the

16:54

Why are we even talking about this? There's four other

16:57

things that are easier to do that are more important

16:59

that aren't as fun or sexy, but we need to do

17:01

them and We

17:03

should do X, Y, and Z. Let's make a plan. Let's do

17:05

this by lunch. And by the way, any

17:07

of you disagree with me? Send

17:10

me a message on Slack right after this meeting. I want to

17:12

hear why. Tell me why.

17:14

And I reward it. Kevin Wickham

17:16

is the one who saved us

17:19

those deals. I praise him in my

17:21

book. I praise him still to

17:23

this day. And it frankly creates a

17:25

lot of loyalty and a deeper bond when you

17:27

go through the trenches with somebody like that. What

17:29

do you think about ego? Having

17:33

a because I think some

17:35

of some healthy ego is necessary right

17:37

to be ambitious to set goals to

17:39

think big to get after it to

17:41

have a bias for action be a

17:43

doer right some of that you need

17:45

you gotta have some ego we the

17:47

world needs people with some egos but

17:49

you also have to be able to

17:51

have your VP of finance. publicly

17:54

tell you you're wrong and him

17:56

be right. That's a balance. How

17:58

do you balance having a bit

18:00

of an ego and also

18:02

being humble enough and secure

18:04

enough frankly and yourself to

18:06

publicly admit that you were

18:08

wrong? I

18:11

look back at myself when I was, you

18:13

know, I started that first company when

18:15

I was 22 years old. I

18:17

was wildly confident. I had a massive

18:19

ego. I was an Ivy

18:21

League champion. I had a

18:23

school, I had three school records. I was

18:25

on my way. I wasn't actually an All -American my junior

18:27

year as well. Like I thought that

18:29

I could not lose. And

18:31

I look back at a lot of cringe

18:34

moments among my friends groups and like, Nick,

18:36

goddamn, you were an idiot. Life has humbled

18:38

me. Business has humbled me since then. But

18:40

without it, I would not be where I am.

18:43

Period. So there's a

18:45

balance between having that ego, having that

18:47

confidence. To take risks to

18:49

get after it to try to lead

18:51

to lead people and to sell like

18:53

the like Leadership and delegation you have

18:55

to have that charisma that people will

18:57

trust and people want to follow You

18:59

can't have it without an ego But man

19:01

this business will also humble you and you'll

19:03

realize that you don't know nearly as much

19:05

as you think you know Well, you've probably

19:07

heard this but there are only two types

19:10

of people in the world humble people

19:12

or those who are about to be humbled. And

19:15

that's how it seems to go

19:17

all the time. But I think

19:19

to be humbled, though, it

19:21

takes, again, a level

19:24

of security in yourself, almost a

19:26

comfort in your own skin that you've

19:28

done the work. You know yourself.

19:30

You're moving. You're going forward. And you

19:32

also have messed up, probably, and

19:34

lost. You've taken Ls, but you've made

19:36

sure to invest the time to

19:38

understand. why you took an L to

19:40

understand what you could learn from

19:42

that loss and then how you can

19:45

get better moving forward. And that's

19:47

how I feel like you can balance

19:49

having a healthy ego with

19:51

also humility to progress and

19:53

learn and improve. You

19:55

are hitting the nail on the head. It is

19:57

a powerful, powerful combination.

20:00

If you have that ego

20:02

and that drive on one hand

20:04

and you have that humility and the

20:07

ability to change your mind, you

20:09

can accomplish unbelievable things. Because

20:11

so many people, they only

20:13

have the humility, they have the anxiety, they

20:16

have the fear, they're not willing to

20:18

do uncomfortable things. And then on the

20:20

other end, you find the people who make their

20:22

first million dollars and lose their first million dollars

20:24

and repeat that for 30 years because they

20:26

can't be adaptable and they can't change their mind.

20:29

But if you know what

20:31

you can do, you know you're good at what you

20:33

do, you have extreme confidence in what you do, but

20:35

you also have the humility to take an L on

20:37

a meeting with your VP of finance it's

20:39

just life gets better and you can kind

20:41

of, you know, you can accomplish great things. In

20:44

your book, you write about the attributes of winners. We've

20:46

talked about a few of them. One, a sense of

20:48

urgency, good decision making, not

20:51

afraid to stand up and call

20:53

you out, which your VP of Finance,

20:55

Kevin, did. One other one is

20:57

in that list of five is having

20:59

an abundance mindset. Again, this feels

21:01

like this tracks a little bit back

21:03

to your upbringing, but I quite frankly,

21:05

and I want you to go deeper on abundance for

21:07

a second, but I love

21:09

hanging out and bumping shoulders with people

21:11

that have an abundance mindset. They don't feel

21:13

like they have to compete with everybody.

21:15

Like there's enough out there. We're going to

21:17

go get it. We're going to help

21:19

one another. We're going to add value. Can

21:21

you go deeper on this attribute of

21:23

winners and the fact that the first one

21:25

is they have an abundance mindset? I

21:28

think there's two types of people.

21:31

The first type and the less effective type

21:33

wants to be the biggest fish. in the

21:36

small pond. They want to have the biggest

21:38

house in the neighborhood. They want to have

21:40

the nicest car at the country club. They're

21:42

constantly comparing themselves to other people. Then

21:45

there's the other side who says, Hey,

21:48

man, like, there's enough out there

21:50

for everybody. And if I can live

21:52

next to people and be around people and be in

21:54

the same circles with people who are doing better

21:56

than I am, that doesn't upset me. I

21:58

don't get jealous of that. It

22:01

rubs off on me and the

22:03

opportunities flow. So what you don't understand about your

22:05

friends making money and kicking ass is it

22:07

doesn't make you look bad, it actually makes it

22:09

more likely that you're gonna make more money

22:11

and kick more ass. A lot of

22:13

people have this crabs in a bucket

22:15

mentality where you look at crabs

22:17

in a bucket, one of them tries to get out,

22:19

the other one grabs it and pulls it back

22:21

down because, and so none of them actually end

22:23

up getting out of the bucket. There's a

22:26

lot of communities and friend

22:28

groups and cultures That's

22:31

the mindset. That's the mindset. Somebody

22:33

winning is bad for me because there's only

22:35

X amount of money. There's only X amount

22:37

of opportunity. There's only X amount of success.

22:39

So if they have it, that's something that

22:41

I don't have. I'm pissed. When

22:44

in reality, there's enough money

22:46

for everybody to get theirs. You've got out enough

22:48

value to the world. Oh, absolutely.

22:50

And part of that, that

22:52

flows, I think, with that

22:54

is something that you learned

22:57

early on from one of your

22:59

mentors. Can you talk to me

23:01

about your initial conversation with

23:03

Dan Cohen, specifically when it

23:05

relates to sales? I

23:09

took a piece of humble

23:11

pie during this conversation. I

23:14

was a senior. I

23:16

just had my first $3 ,000 successful

23:18

storage season and I was on top of the world

23:20

and I wanted to be an entrepreneur and I

23:22

was into it. I was starting to read about entrepreneurship

23:24

and study entrepreneurship. And I, I

23:26

call my mentor Dan Cohen, who's now at Wake

23:29

Forest running the entrepreneurship program there. He was

23:31

at Cornell. He had sold

23:33

a foundation repair business for, you know,

23:36

eight, almost eight figures a couple

23:38

of years earlier. So a sweaty startup,

23:40

not a tech startup. And

23:42

he's like, let's get lunch. I was like, I want to pick your brain. I want

23:44

to get lunch. So I get lunch with him. And we sit down at lunch and

23:46

he goes, Hey, Nick, I got a question for you.

23:48

First thing we hadn't even ordered yet. He's like, do

23:51

you like sales? What do you think of sales? Do you like it?

23:54

And. I knew by the way he said it that

23:56

I needed to say I love sales. But

23:58

I was I was honest with him. I said,

24:00

no, I don't like sales. It's uncomfortable. I

24:03

don't want to have uncomfortable conversations. I don't like

24:05

rejection. I'm a visionary. I'm an

24:07

entrepreneur. I'm on the whiteboard thinking about ways

24:09

to improve. I'm building

24:11

processes. I'm, you know,

24:13

execution. And I said

24:15

all this, all these entrepreneurial buzzwords.

24:19

And he looks at me and he goes, Nick,

24:21

you need to go get a job. And

24:24

I'm like, what? And he goes, if you don't

24:26

like sales, you need to go get a

24:28

job. Because not

24:30

only is every single

24:32

bit of entrepreneurship sales, life

24:35

is sales. And if you don't like sales, you're not going

24:37

to get things you want in life. From

24:40

the wife you want to marry, to the friends

24:42

you want to hang out with, to getting

24:44

your kids to do what you need them to

24:46

do, all the way to, okay,

24:48

if we zoom in on entrepreneurship, as

24:51

a beginning of a fresh entrepreneur, you

24:54

have to sell people to work for you because

24:56

they're taking a risk. You have

24:58

to sell people to sell to you because you don't

25:00

have the credit or the money. I

25:02

literally was calling box companies and warehouse

25:04

companies selling them on me because I was

25:06

a 23 year old snotty nose kid

25:08

running around with no cash trying to lease

25:10

their 25 ,000 square foot warehouse in downtown

25:12

Boston. I had to put my sales

25:14

head on and convince that owner to lease

25:17

that warehouse to me. And

25:19

then I had to sell my customers. Man,

25:21

it was sales nonstop. He

25:23

told me that. He said, look, if you don't like sales, you're

25:26

in trouble. A, but luckily

25:28

you can train yourself to love sales.

25:31

So you need to become a good

25:33

salesman. Now, tell yourself you're a good

25:35

salesperson. And the way to do it is to

25:37

practice and get used to rejection. And

25:39

so I've spent the last 15 years

25:41

going from, you know, imagine

25:44

that kid in the kitchen who's afraid

25:46

to call the restaurant to set the

25:49

reservation to having uncomfortable conversations all day, because

25:51

that's what you do. as the leader

25:53

of the business. And

25:55

one the things I read too,

25:57

as he said, to succeed, you

26:00

have to have the

26:02

cooperation of other people. And

26:05

part of that is

26:07

that sales is an element

26:09

of helping or earning

26:11

the right or earning the ability for other

26:13

people to want to cooperate with you.

26:15

Can you go deeper on this idea of

26:17

getting others to want to cooperate with

26:19

you? Yeah, there's a theme

26:21

throughout the sweaty startup book on leverage,

26:24

leverage. If I'm alone,

26:26

if I'm alone, if I'm by myself, I

26:28

can do 75

26:31

to 80 hours a week of work. There's

26:34

a finite amount of work I can get done

26:36

in 75 to 80 hours a week. But

26:40

right now we're on this podcast

26:42

and I am going to get

26:44

done about 350 hours worth of work while

26:46

you and I talk. because

26:48

there's 350 individuals working for

26:51

me right now who are on

26:53

the clock, adding value to my

26:55

business, my customers, my life

26:57

while we're talking. So I

26:59

can get done 350 hours,

27:01

you know, a week or two

27:03

weeks of work. No,

27:05

shit, that's damn near a month and my math is

27:07

all messed up. But you get what I'm saying. I

27:09

can only get done so much. I can only get

27:11

done so much. So without other people and without the

27:13

leverage of having other people do things that you need

27:16

them to do, Which you're selling, you're selling

27:18

these people to do what you need them to

27:20

do because nobody does anything they don't want to

27:22

do. It's a fact of life. If they don't

27:24

want to do it, they're not going to

27:26

do it. You can't force them. Well,

27:29

that leads to the four fundamental truths

27:31

of life. Okay. I'm going to read the

27:33

four and then have you go a

27:35

little deeper. One, you can't do it alone.

27:37

Two, you can't make people do anything.

27:39

Three, everyone in this

27:41

world is selfish. Four, it

27:44

isn't about You. So

27:46

how do we use these four fundamental truths

27:48

of life to get what we want? Sales.

27:51

We sell ourselves and our ideas. We convince

27:53

other people that their lives will be

27:55

better if they trust us, work for us,

27:57

buy from us, and more. The four

27:59

fundamental truths of life. And I appreciate

28:02

like this little framework is like, oh,

28:04

yeah, he said it in a

28:06

pretty tight, concise way. Can you go

28:08

deeper on the four fundamental truths

28:10

of life? This is the most

28:12

important section in the book. People

28:15

are selfish. You have

28:17

to accept it. My wife

28:19

is married to me because I

28:21

can provide for her. I'm fun to

28:23

be around. We can build a

28:25

life together. We can adventure. We can build

28:27

the life we want. She's selfish and

28:29

that's why she's married to me. I'm married

28:31

to her because I'm selfish because she has

28:34

everything I need in a life partner, okay?

28:37

My business partner is my business partner because

28:39

he's selfish because I add more value to

28:41

his life than he gives me in

28:43

cash to be his business partner. Period. Period.

28:46

If I didn't add more value to my

28:48

business partner's life, then what I take

28:50

in cash from the companies that we own

28:52

together, he would not feel good about our relationship.

28:57

An employee is selfish. They want to work for

28:59

your company because you provide more opportunity, more

29:01

money, a better quality of life, more fun, whatever

29:03

it might be. Everybody

29:05

in life is selfish as soon as you accept it as

29:08

fact and change your worldview on

29:10

that. Flip your worldview

29:13

away from Hey, me, me, me, me,

29:15

me. I'm walking around the world figuring out what other people

29:17

can do for me. Change

29:19

that because it's not true. Nobody cares

29:21

about you. Nobody cares about you. And

29:23

as soon as you change that and you

29:25

walk around the world thinking, hey, all

29:28

of these people are selfish, every single person.

29:31

How can I make their life better? And

29:33

we set up a win -win situation. The

29:36

great thing about life is that there's situations that

29:38

can be win -win, meaning two people

29:40

who are selfish can get together. And

29:42

they both get what they want. That's

29:44

a business partnership. That's an employment relationship. That's

29:47

anytime you interact with other people. So if

29:49

you can set up these win -win situations

29:51

with other people, you move

29:53

mountains basically. I think it's

29:55

a superpower to understand

29:57

the fact that nobody

29:59

owes you anything. The

30:02

world owes you absolutely nothing.

30:04

You have to earn it.

30:06

every single day. You have

30:08

to add more value to

30:10

your customers, to your colleagues,

30:13

to your employees every single

30:15

day. If you ever think you're

30:17

entitled or that I've earned

30:19

this, you're wrong. I

30:21

feel like this is right in your ethos with

30:23

Sweaty Startup and the way that you approach

30:25

the world. Whatever I've done in

30:28

the past, it doesn't matter. especially for my

30:30

clients, some people think like, well, you know,

30:32

we've done some good work. So we should

30:34

have the contract extended for years. No, we

30:36

should have the contract extended for the next hour.

30:38

And then I have to earn it that

30:40

hour too, just like writing a book,

30:43

you have to earn every turn of the

30:45

page, edit that thing down to make

30:47

it as good as it can possibly be

30:49

because it's all about adding value to

30:51

people's lives. And I think if people show

30:53

up every day thinking,

30:55

How can I add maximum value to

30:57

the people's lives around me, whether

30:59

that's who you work with or your

31:01

customers or whoever. I

31:03

like your chances. I like your odds of

31:05

good things happening. If that is your

31:07

mindset, as opposed to saying, well, I deserve

31:09

a lot more. I'm entitled to more

31:11

because of how hard I work. As you

31:13

said, nobody, literally not a single human

31:15

on earth cares. And you

31:17

are entitled to, yeah, go ahead.

31:19

You're entitled to nothing. Like you, you have to

31:22

earn it every second of every day. So

31:24

there's some. Folks out there in

31:26

school or in corporate America or

31:28

in any club or business environment. And

31:31

I'm about to give them some

31:33

frankly, some cold hard truth about

31:35

networking. I want to tell them how

31:37

I feel about networking and I want to shift their

31:39

mindset on networking. When I was

31:41

in college, I went to networking events

31:43

and I didn't realize this till

31:45

later. But every single person at that networking

31:48

event. they walked around with their hand out

31:50

saying help me help me help me help me help

31:52

me help me help me help me shaking hands hey

31:54

how can you help me hey hey hey how can

31:56

you help me oh oh by the way can you

31:58

help me can you help me can you help me

32:00

that's how 95 95 % of

32:02

people network. They

32:04

walk into every single interaction. Whether

32:07

they're picking the brain of a mentor

32:09

or they're talking to a career advisor

32:11

or their. trying to get a

32:14

new job or they're at a networking event

32:16

with other business professionals, Rotary, whatever club

32:18

you're in. And they walk around

32:20

thinking, how can these people help me? And

32:25

as you can imagine, college

32:28

networking events are damn near worthless because nobody

32:30

can help anybody there. They don't have any

32:32

skills yet. So

32:34

you have a bunch of people walking around

32:36

shaking each other's hands trying to help me, but nobody has

32:38

any actual skills. That's why

32:40

these networking events are damn near worthless when you're in college. Should

32:42

you still go to them? Yes, but you should change your

32:44

mindset. And when it comes to networking,

32:46

I have kind of an unfortunate truth.

32:49

And the unfortunate truth about networking is

32:51

that if you're not an expert at

32:54

something, if you haven't

32:56

done something, accomplished something, networking

33:00

is gonna be damn near impossible because

33:02

everybody's selfish. My

33:05

network exploded after

33:09

I built a self storage

33:11

facility for $2 .9 million and

33:13

it became worth $6 million

33:15

because people were like, oh, damn, Nick can help

33:17

me. If I talk to Nick about

33:19

storage, he's my guy. He can help

33:21

me. He can help me. So their

33:23

selfish attitude drew them to me because I had

33:25

something to add to the table. So

33:28

that's why everybody wants to talk to and

33:30

know successful business owners because they're good

33:32

at something. They have things to add. They

33:34

can make your life better. So step one.

33:37

The very unfortunate thing, if there's a lot of

33:39

people listening to this who maybe they don't have

33:41

skills, maybe they didn't become a real estate expert,

33:43

whatever it might be, before

33:46

you go network and get really good at something. Go

33:48

do the work, build a business, build a

33:50

career, become a master at whatever it

33:53

is you are doing, whether it's accountancy, you

33:55

know, a brokerage, management,

33:58

whatever it is. Show everybody that

34:00

you have something to add to the table

34:02

and something amazing happens, your network

34:04

explodes. But

34:07

that's not the easy way. So nobody

34:10

wants to hear that. Well, I

34:12

think shifting is like this happens virtually

34:14

on LinkedIn. And I still

34:16

feel this way. I'm like, oh, that

34:18

person connected. They want to do something

34:20

for me. It's like almost always they

34:22

want something for themselves. And so then

34:24

I'm thinking how it's weird. As I was reading

34:26

your book, I actually, this made me make

34:28

no sense. But I was like studying. Gracie Abrams

34:30

is really big right now, especially my teenage

34:32

daughter's lives. And she has good music. But

34:35

how did she become friends with Taylor Swift

34:37

or have Taylor Swift want to have her

34:39

open on the Eros tour? Do

34:41

you think she just called, emailed Taylor and

34:43

just told her how much she loved her

34:46

and that she was a big fan and

34:48

said, help me, help me, help me? No.

34:50

She went out and wrote for 10 years,

34:52

amazing music that Taylor loved. And then

34:54

Taylor called her and said, come

34:56

open for me. Well, Gracie was literally

34:58

one of the biggest fangirls ever

35:00

of Taylor Swift, but instead of just

35:02

trying to beg to say, help

35:04

me, help me, she went out and

35:06

did the work and created some

35:08

amazing music so good that it flipped

35:10

it. And I think that's, that's

35:12

what your networking stuff. Maybe think of

35:14

be a person worth someone else wanting

35:16

to contact them. That's the greatest networking

35:19

tool in the world. Do something of

35:21

value that adds value to other people's

35:23

lives, and they will then want to

35:25

be in your orbit instead of the

35:27

other way around. I'm 100 % with

35:29

you with that. And I think that

35:31

is whether you're building a career, you're

35:33

building a company, you're building a team,

35:36

do the work that makes others

35:38

want to come to you. The

35:40

tough part is that usually takes

35:42

some time. It's hard. There's

35:44

no guarantee. And that's why I think most

35:46

people don't want to do it. There's one

35:48

shortcut. There's one unique

35:50

way to add

35:53

value to people in a

35:55

non -monetary way. If

35:57

I'm a mentor, I'm an advisor, I

36:01

have a ton of people reach out. I'm right

36:03

here near a college that I'm pretty involved with,

36:05

UGA. The kids reach out all the time and

36:07

they say, Nick, can I get lunch and talk about business?

36:09

And I say, yes, and I get lunch with them. And

36:11

I tell them a ton of things to do. And

36:15

none of them do it. So

36:17

I get no value. It actually frustrates me. It takes

36:19

value from my life meeting with those people. But

36:22

I met with a girl named Caitlin Lutz

36:24

in Georgia. I talk about her in my book.

36:27

And she said, hey, I want to build

36:29

a recruiting company. My dad is in the construction

36:31

industry. He can't find workers. I think I can

36:33

go find workers for him and simply charge a

36:35

fee. It's a little agency. People already do it.

36:38

I think I can simply just do that. I was like, okay, if you

36:40

want to do that, here's what you do. You

36:42

find a way to find those workers. You go out

36:44

and you find them. You tell them that you can

36:46

get them a job. And you go ask your dad's

36:49

head of HR if he would pay you $4 ,000 for

36:51

every person who you bring in and work for, you

36:53

know, a month at the month anniversary, pay

36:55

me pay me five grand. She

36:58

had the meeting and the guy said, I'd pay you

37:00

10 grand if you can find me a worker

37:02

that can because the construction industry in 2021

37:04

was insane. So she

37:06

sends me an email six months later that she's making 30

37:08

grand a month. I

37:11

got a lot of joy from that. that

37:14

made me happy, that added value to my

37:16

life, that she went out and did

37:18

it. So there's one shortcut

37:20

and that is actually do things

37:22

and take action because then people

37:24

love mentoring you, they love helping you.

37:26

So they will help you with

37:28

no monetary gain if you take action and

37:31

you actually do it. Problem is

37:33

that's hard too. Take

37:35

action and follow

37:37

up. Like I

37:39

remember it's talking to one of my best

37:41

sales guys ever I hired him at

37:43

multiple companies named Jameson Harky former football player

37:45

Whatever, I may have a little bit

37:47

of a bias for that But the reason

37:49

I love Jameson is because he was

37:51

one of the best in the world at

37:53

being fearless of cold calling and going

37:55

after new customers And he was so good

37:57

at following up in the years later.

37:59

We don't we're friends We don't work together anymore

38:01

and I said, you know, if you just

38:04

had to distill down what your Like your

38:06

superpower of what made you so good regardless

38:08

of what you're selling or where you're selling

38:10

it or your territory didn't matter. He always

38:12

killed it. He's like, well, I just

38:14

think you got to make the calls and

38:16

then you got to follow up. And it's

38:18

amazing how many people don't follow up. And

38:20

in her case, she did the work and

38:22

then followed up with you and told you,

38:24

hey, Nick, I took some of your advice.

38:26

I did this, this, this and this. Here's

38:29

a result of what has happened and she

38:31

followed up and that then you're juiced, right?

38:33

You're like, yes, let's go. That made me

38:35

feel good about giving advice about trying to

38:37

help you because you're actually doing the work

38:39

and you're following up. Those are the types

38:41

of people you want to place bets on.

38:44

Yeah. If Caitlyn called me, I would

38:46

answer the phone. Whereas if the other

38:48

seven to 10 people for every one,

38:50

Caitlyn, if they call or text me, I'm

38:52

going to ignore it because I know that like it's

38:54

going on deaf ears to waste my time. You've

38:57

gotten really good at hiring, right?

38:59

You talk about leverage and I

39:01

know you hire from all over

39:03

the world. I'm curious for leaders

39:05

that you're hiring operators, people who

39:07

have to get after it. What

39:10

are some of the must -have qualities

39:12

in leaders that you're going to

39:14

hire to work for you? There's

39:18

something that's very, very rare, a

39:20

rare attribute even among leaders

39:22

and that's the ability to get in a meeting. make

39:27

a plan in your head

39:29

and tell people what to do and how to execute the plan in

39:31

a way that they wanna do it. There's

39:33

a lot of people, this is an

39:35

epidemic in corporate America. There's

39:38

people who just pass messages around,

39:40

they're messengers, they know

39:42

something needs solved so they're gonna have a meeting about

39:44

it and they're gonna tell the underlings how to

39:46

do it and then those underlings are gonna pass the

39:48

message to somebody else and before you know it,

39:51

it's just going around and absolutely nothing happens because nobody,

39:53

actually knows how to tell people

39:55

exactly what to do and make them

39:57

follow up and actually do it. So

39:59

it's so hard. It is so hard

40:02

to hire and find people who can

40:04

get in a meeting and tell people what

40:06

to do. One

40:08

in 30 managers that I hired today are very

40:10

good at that, even today. Really?

40:13

That seems like that's the job. You

40:17

would think. And yes, they

40:19

can look. They can effectively manage.

40:22

And they can pass down directives from above and

40:24

make sure it gets done. That's different. Yeah.

40:27

Being able to take charge and say, Hey, this process is

40:29

not right. We're going to fix it this way. And now

40:31

everybody, I want you to do it a different way. And

40:33

I want you to start right now. And here's how we're

40:35

going to go forward. That is very, very

40:37

rare. There's a

40:39

story you write about that I want

40:42

you to tell. It's a cold

40:44

night. You're in Ithaca, New York, and

40:46

you actually went to Walmart and

40:48

you saw somebody outside working at Walmart.

40:50

Can you tell me more about this guy? Yeah,

40:53

everybody thinks hiring is, you know, post

40:55

an Indeed job, post a LinkedIn job

40:57

and put ads behind it and interview a bunch

40:59

of people. It's way simpler

41:01

than that if you're running a small business. It's

41:03

way simpler than that. You make

41:05

a list of what you need as far as attributes

41:07

of a person and you go find that person in

41:09

your town in the wild where you can watch them

41:11

do what they're doing. So I

41:13

walk around life with business cards

41:16

in my pocket, to

41:18

restaurants, to bars, to grocery stores,

41:21

Everywhere because every now and then you

41:23

see people that instantly they're different And

41:25

that you want them on your

41:27

team you find them at Chick -fil -A a lot of them

41:29

work at Chick -fil -A They work at Enterprise rental car.

41:31

They work wherever and I learned this when I

41:33

was in Ithaca I was not yet

41:36

engaged. So this is probably 2013 My

41:38

girlfriend now my wife ran

41:40

in to get some groceries. I'm sitting in the parking

41:42

lots about 8 p .m I'm

41:44

sitting in the truck. It's cold. It's not

41:46

it's night got dark at 4 30 and I

41:48

just see this guy in a Walmart vest run

41:50

by the front of my car, run. And

41:53

I'm like, did I

41:56

just, did I just hallucinate? Is that a

41:58

unicorn? I've never, ever seen a Walmart employee move

42:01

fast, ever, never. I've only

42:03

seen a Walmart, a Walmart

42:05

employee like walk like this because they're getting paid by

42:07

the hour. They don't want to be there. So

42:10

this guy sprints by and I

42:12

see him just like shoveling carts.

42:14

He's 24, 25

42:16

years old, clean cut. Runs

42:18

by starts shoveling carts push him together. He

42:21

gets a he gets probably 20 carts in

42:23

a line and he's pushing them full speed I'm

42:25

watching him in the parking lot work. He's

42:27

collecting them all he's pushing them full speed back

42:29

towards the door and Then a

42:31

Walmart bag rolls on like a

42:33

tumbleweed through the icy snowy crappy

42:35

parking lot He kind of bends

42:37

down in stride and picks it up and

42:39

jams it in his back pocket and continues running

42:42

towards the front of Walmart. I

42:44

Was shocked my jaw is is is

42:46

open My mouth is open because I

42:48

have never seen this. So I got to get to

42:50

the bottom of it. I get out of the

42:52

car, I put my jacket on, and I kind of

42:54

like act like a normal customer, but my goal is

42:56

to interact with this kid and figure out what's going

42:58

on. I run, I run kind of,

43:01

like I'm going in and make sure I pass

43:03

them. Hey man, how's it going? Like, what are

43:05

you up to? Like, why

43:07

are you moving so fast? Maybe I said,

43:09

and he goes, oh man, yeah,

43:11

it's a high school basketball game

43:13

going on around the corner. And it's a

43:15

varsity game, and it's going to get out in

43:17

about 45 minutes. And we

43:19

got no carts. And when that game gets

43:22

out, there's going to be 40, 50 customers

43:24

that come here to Walmart, and

43:26

they're going to come in, and they're not going to have carts. And

43:28

that's bad. And I'm like, what happened? Why

43:30

don't they have carts? He's like, well, our

43:32

cart guy didn't show up today, and my manager's in

43:34

the back solving other problems. So I got to do

43:36

it. But he's like, this is not even my job.

43:38

I'm supposed to be working in wherever. And

43:41

right then, I pull the card out of my pocket. I

43:43

know this kid's different. Pull the card out of my pocket.

43:45

And I'm like, Hey man, like by the

43:47

way, I run a company here in

43:49

town. It's a moving and storage company. Pretty

43:51

fun. We work with the colleges. We do a

43:53

little bit of travel and we pay maybe I

43:56

said 20 bucks an hour. We pay 20

43:58

bucks an hour. It's

44:00

hard with inflation now. Maybe I said 15. I knew he

44:02

was making like 1250, right? I knew what he was

44:04

making and I knew what I needed to say that we

44:06

paid and I handed him a card and I was

44:08

like, dude, we pay 20 bucks an hour. If you know

44:10

anybody, if you have any friends, Like

44:12

you, I'd love to talk to

44:14

him because we're hiring and we got a lot going on right

44:16

now. Four hours

44:18

later, I get an email. The next day, we

44:20

have an interview. That night, I get him an offer. He

44:23

quits Walmart two weeks later, comes to work for me.

44:25

And he does four seasons with us. He travels to

44:27

Boston. He travels to Washington, DC, ends up running a

44:29

branch. And he's one of the best hires we've ever

44:31

made. That's powerful.

44:33

That's powerful. I

44:36

just saw that he didn't think that he had

44:38

no... was nothing in his job description that said,

44:40

make sure all the carts are at front of

44:42

the store when the basketball game lets out. He

44:45

just cared. He had that sense of urgency. He

44:47

had that drive to go a little

44:49

bit above and beyond. And sometimes that's all you

44:51

need in a lot of jobs. My

44:54

first sales VP at Lexus

44:57

Nexus, Rex Caswell, told me, you

44:59

are interviewing for your next

45:01

job every single day. You don't

45:03

know who's watching. You

45:05

don't know what the job's going to be. this

45:08

guy didn't realize that but he

45:10

was interviewing for his next job

45:12

that night and Did he get lucky that

45:14

you were there? Yes, but he made his

45:16

own luck because of how he chose to

45:18

behave how he chose to be a winner

45:20

have a winner's mindset how he chose to

45:22

take Ownership which is God. I love that

45:24

so much like this guy doesn't own Walmart.

45:27

He's getting paid 12 bucks an hour But

45:29

he acts like he owns the place like

45:31

how and that has had to be just

45:33

like it's so attractive to want those people

45:35

to You want to work with those people,

45:37

right? You immediately ran up to the guy,

45:39

so I give credit to both you guys.

45:41

One, because he was interviewing for his next

45:43

job, didn't even realize it. And

45:46

you, for being a professional noticer of

45:48

things, of people, of winners, and

45:50

the ownership mindset of a person

45:52

who's wrangling carts on a cold night

45:54

at Walmart. I

45:56

think hiring is a lot like hunting. Literally,

46:00

it's just hunting. I'm sitting there and I'm

46:02

observing. I'm a lion in

46:04

the safari sitting on a rock. Just

46:06

relaxing. But when the

46:09

gazelle is in the field, you

46:11

go kill the gazelle. When

46:13

I'm at a bar and I

46:15

see and I'm sitting there and I'm frustrated

46:17

because the bartender hasn't made eye contact with

46:19

me. They know I'm here. They're over in the

46:21

corner. Shit chatting with a

46:23

regular. That's 99 %

46:26

of bartenders today. But every now and

46:28

then you have somebody who just has a

46:30

full awareness of everybody at the bar. They

46:32

have that awareness where they make eye contact with

46:34

you, they give you a little finger, you

46:36

know they're gonna come your direction. They're passing, they're

46:38

like, hey, what do you want? They're putting

46:40

it in this thing, they're slinging drinks, and they

46:42

are keeping four times as many people at that

46:44

bar happy. They have

46:47

it, they have the it factor. An

46:49

unfortunate truth about life and

46:51

business is that 75

46:53

% of people in this world are totally incompetent. your

46:58

job as a business owner as somebody who's hiring

47:00

is to spot those people and get them out

47:02

of your organization. So Chris Powers, a really good

47:04

friend of mine, mentor

47:06

of mine who has done phenomenally well in real estate. He

47:08

has a podcast called The Fort. I was

47:10

complaining to him about one of my employees. This was a couple of

47:12

years ago. I was on the phone venting. Man, he's

47:14

made these mistakes. I've been trying to work with him

47:16

and he goes, Nick, you know what you

47:19

need to do? And I'm like, what? And he goes, you got to fire him. You

47:21

need to call, you need to get off the phone with me and you

47:23

to fire this person. And I'm like, Chris, I can't

47:25

afford to fire him. Like, we're busy, it's our

47:27

busy season, he's working 60 hours a week, I can't

47:29

afford it. He goes, Nick, fire him. Fire

47:32

him today, you'll feel better tomorrow. He

47:34

said, look, the general

47:36

competence of your entire organization will

47:38

fall to the level of competence

47:40

that you tolerate. If

47:43

you tolerate C players,

47:46

in five years you will have a C

47:48

level organization and your company will be failing. And

47:52

there's nothing that A players hate worse. than

47:55

interacting with C players. So

47:58

your A players, you can either, you have

48:00

two options in it. He's like, you have two

48:02

options. You can fire the poor performers or you

48:04

can watch your top performers walk away. And

48:08

that stuck with me and I live by that.

48:10

So firing people, it's uncomfortable, it's

48:12

hard, but

48:14

I do it swiftly because my A players

48:16

and my organization deserves it. The

48:19

idea of a sweaty startup, right? That

48:21

is your handle on Twitter where

48:23

I first found you years ago, the

48:25

title of your book. What is

48:27

it about that attracts you to sweaty

48:29

startups? It's

48:33

so easy to get captivated

48:37

by the idea of new

48:40

big world -changing ideas. It's

48:43

sexy. It's fun. The stories

48:45

of the underdog against all

48:47

odds making the football

48:49

team at Notre Dame or doing

48:53

whatever, starting

48:55

a billion dollar company from their dorm room at

48:57

Harvard, those stories are

48:59

captivating. You want to believe

49:01

that Russell Crowe came

49:03

in as the heir to the

49:05

king and fought his way up

49:07

against all odds against lions and

49:10

against ships and gladiator to become

49:12

the king again. You want to believe that.

49:14

You want to believe it. But

49:18

it's not practical. It's not

49:20

practical. I'm not Elon Musk.

49:22

I'm not Marcus Zuckerberg. I'm not a Stanford

49:24

computer scientist. I didn't, my dad

49:26

didn't belong to the top 10

49:28

country clubs in America and have a

49:30

trust fund for me. It's just

49:32

not, it's not practical. So

49:34

these entrepreneurs, all these people who are

49:36

interested in starting a business, they think,

49:39

man. I'm gonna read

49:41

more books about Elon Musk and Steve Jobs

49:43

and I'm gonna read zero to one

49:45

and I'm gonna study Paul Graham and I'm

49:47

gonna change the world. I'm gonna

49:49

turn business models on their head and

49:52

they do it for six

49:54

months, they fail and they get a job. All

49:59

the wealthiest people I know, all the most

50:01

successful people I know, the people who

50:03

have the nicest houses in my town,

50:05

have the private airplane and Athens, have

50:07

the big -ass beach house and just

50:09

they have what everybody wants, you

50:12

actually go look at them and talk to

50:14

them and see what they do. A, they're normal

50:16

people and B, they all started sweaty startups.

50:19

They all own businesses that are not

50:21

revolutionary. They're not flipping business models on

50:23

their head. They didn't raise venture capital. They

50:26

just did things. They did common things

50:28

uncommonly well. So I

50:30

am trying to, with my

50:33

book, with my podcast, with

50:35

my Twitter profile, I'm trying to stand on top

50:37

of a mountain and yell. What

50:40

people don't want to hear about entrepreneurship

50:42

and that is forget the goddamn

50:44

underdog stories

50:47

You're a gambler

50:49

You're a poker player. You only have

50:51

so many chips The chips is

50:53

your time It's your time and you only

50:55

have so many are you gonna put all those

50:57

chips on a roulette table where you have one

50:59

in I don't even know how to play roulette.

51:01

How many how many odds how many numbers 35?

51:03

I don't know. I'm not sure one in 35

51:07

Or are you gonna play a

51:09

game where most people who stick with

51:11

it win? Real

51:14

estate Self -storage

51:17

80 % of

51:19

the people who try to do

51:21

storage for five years and they're reasonably

51:23

competent and they work hard and

51:25

they make decent decisions get wealthy 80

51:27

fucking percent Why

51:30

would you not play those games so like

51:32

a big concept in my book started out

51:34

with it is Choose

51:36

your number. What is winning to you? Is

51:39

it a billion dollar business? If that's your goal

51:41

and you have wealthy parents and you don't have

51:43

overhead and you can go five years without a

51:45

job, do it. Go to Silicon Valley, raise venture

51:47

capital, start a job, or you're spectacular. If you

51:50

are world class or something, go do something spectacular.

51:52

I'm glad people at Elon Musk exist. But

51:54

if you're a normal person, go

51:57

start a business where most of the people who

51:59

do that thing win. Choose the game

52:01

you want to play. Do you want to

52:03

play basketball? Let's say, $30 ,000 a

52:05

month was my number. That's what I needed to

52:07

send my kids to a good school, to play golf,

52:09

to travel, to do what I needed to do,

52:11

to go to a restaurant without worrying about the price.

52:16

$30 ,000 is available to the winner. I

52:18

have two roads. I can go to

52:20

Silicon Valley or I can go to the sweaty startup route. Let's

52:23

frame this differently. I can play a basketball game. The

52:25

winner of the basketball game gets $30 ,000 a month

52:27

for the rest of their life. Do I

52:29

want to play against LeBron James or do I

52:31

want to play against a fifth grade girl? I'm

52:33

playing basketball against the fifth grade girl any day. Based

52:36

on your Twitter activities have

52:38

created some people who love

52:41

you as well as some who

52:43

probably hate you. And

52:45

it feels intentional. You troll at

52:47

times. I think it's very funny.

52:50

I try not to take life too seriously. I

52:52

want to take my work serious and work

52:54

hard, but I feel like you are very good

52:56

at it. I just like to hear overall,

52:58

because I've been following your Twitter for I

53:00

don't know how many years and I always

53:02

get a good laugh especially on the Super

53:04

Bowl or you use the same tweet multiple

53:07

Super Bowls or whatever I just want to

53:09

hear your mentality on how you approach social

53:11

media, especially Twitter. Yeah, I

53:13

think I'm First of all, I'm naturally

53:15

kind of a goof. I'm a pick. I

53:17

like to rile people up I think it's

53:19

hilarious that a grown human being can be

53:21

sitting in their house on their family with

53:23

their couch and get upset at me on

53:25

the other side of the world for

53:27

you know 240 characters that I wrote on a

53:29

Twitter. It's mind -blowing that they can get all

53:32

upset and worked up. I don't understand that level

53:34

of maturity, so I'm gonna pick on those

53:36

people. I'm gonna purposely do that because I think

53:38

it's funny. I'm sick that way.

53:41

But the other gonna mix you're gonna

53:43

mix the the the papi with Diet Coke,

53:45

right? Those tweets win every time like they're

53:47

just so good Well, I yeah, I have

53:49

a gift for pissing people I guess but

53:51

but in reality like you can't be loved

53:53

by everybody in this world And I think

53:55

a lot of people a lot of

53:57

people really try to be loved by everybody

54:00

and what what happens is

54:02

nobody feels Absolutely zero people

54:04

feel connection or passion about what

54:06

you what you're up to when you when

54:08

you're worried about what people think Did

54:10

that take you some time to get there to

54:12

be okay with the fact that you know

54:14

you're going to create some like legitimate haters because

54:16

you're going to not only you're going to

54:18

you troll a little bit with the booze and

54:20

Diet Coke or the Super Bowl post about

54:22

like I made 80 cold calls while you guys

54:24

sat on the couch and watched guys play

54:26

football, which is still still wins every time to

54:28

see the response. But you also have

54:30

other ones where you're willing to kind of

54:32

stand up for something like you really push people

54:35

to get married. You really push people to

54:37

have kids. Things I pretty much agree with you

54:39

on everything. And you have some that say, well,

54:41

who are you to tell me what to do

54:43

or that? So it feels like you've gained a

54:45

level of comfort in your own skin to be

54:47

willing to stand up for things you believe in,

54:49

even if they may be controversial. Yeah.

54:52

I've changed my mind on a lot of political

54:54

and controversial things over the last five years. I'm

54:56

proud of that. But I also have

54:58

some. pretty strong views on parenting and basically

55:00

conservative values. I'm liberal in a ton of

55:02

ways. I think everybody should do exactly what

55:04

they want to do. I love being in

55:06

a little music craft beer town here in

55:08

Athens. I love weird

55:10

people, but I also love conservative values

55:12

when it comes to business and

55:15

raising a family. So I don't think

55:17

I'm radical in any way, but

55:19

yeah, a lot of my views fire

55:21

people up. I think it fires people up because they know that

55:23

there's a lot of truth to it in one way. Yeah.

55:26

One more, Nick. Let's say you're meeting with,

55:28

and I know you used to judge

55:30

these entrepreneurship competitions, but let's say you're meeting

55:32

with a recent college grad who wants

55:34

to leave a positive dent in the world.

55:36

What are some general pieces of life

55:38

slash career advice you'd give to them? Yeah,

55:41

don't be a doctor or a lawyer because I don't

55:43

think they have a good life. If you

55:45

want to be 50 years old, divorced,

55:49

addicted to alcohol, and

55:51

overweight, but rich. and

55:55

you want to drive a Range Rover, then be a doctor

55:57

a lawyer. If you want to be happy and successful, just

56:00

be very, my point there is just be very thoughtful

56:02

about what games you play. Look down

56:04

the hall. Look down the hall at who's winning the

56:06

game you're about to play. What does

56:08

winning look like? If you're

56:10

going to go down the med school route,

56:12

what does winning look like? Who are

56:14

the top performing best doctors and what does their life

56:17

look like on a day -to -day basis? Same

56:20

thing for corporate America. If you get a job at

56:22

JP Morgan, if you get a job at Deloitte, if

56:24

you're lucky enough to get a job at McKinsey or

56:26

Bain, look down the hall. What

56:28

are the people in your shoes doing 20 years

56:30

from now who did well and

56:32

won that game? What does winning look

56:34

like? Not enough people are thoughtful enough about, Hey,

56:38

what are the odds I'm going to win? And

56:41

what does it look like to win? So

56:43

that's a really powerful way to frame like

56:45

decision making. If you're a. if you're about

56:47

to start a job in corporate America or you're about to

56:50

start a business. So

56:52

good. The book's called The Sweaty Startup

56:54

How to Get Rich Doing Boring

56:56

Things. I really

56:58

appreciate you sending me a copy.

57:00

It's an extension of your Twitter

57:02

profile, but even better in the

57:04

fact that it's super practical, thoughtful.

57:07

And to me, that's where I think it's

57:09

about doing things. And it helps you take

57:11

some ideas and most importantly, put them in

57:13

action. So I appreciate your work, man. And

57:15

this is really good. I encourage people to

57:17

buy the book, to read the book. It's

57:20

really well done. And Nick, I'd love to

57:22

continue our dialogue as we both progress, man. Ryan,

57:25

thanks a lot for having me, man. And

57:27

look, yeah, the book is, you know, came

57:29

out this week. It's been something I've been

57:31

working on for really 10 years, working hard

57:33

on actually turning it into an organized, structured book.

57:35

for the last year and a half, really. But

57:37

yeah, it's actionable. It's no bullshit. And you're not

57:39

going to agree with all of it. But if

57:41

you read it, you're going to take something away.

57:43

So I think we'll maybe get you an Amazon

57:45

link or something for the notes. But man, yeah,

57:47

really, really appreciate you having me come on and

57:50

talk about it. And I hope the message resonated

57:52

with folks. Definitely, definitely appreciate it,

57:54

man. Thank you. It

58:01

is the end of the podcast club.

58:03

Thank you for being a member

58:06

of the end of the podcast club

58:08

If you are send me a

58:10

note Ryan at learning leader calm Let

58:12

me know what you learned from

58:14

this great conversation with Nick Huber a

58:16

few takeaways from my notes the

58:19

attributes of winners They have an abundance

58:21

mindset a sense of urgency They

58:23

make good decisions and they are not

58:25

afraid to stand up and call

58:27

you out Like the story Nick shared,

58:29

this VP of finance, Kevin, after

58:32

Nick had made some decisions while

58:34

Kevin was out on vacation, they

58:36

turned out to be poor decisions.

58:39

And Nick has created a culture,

58:41

an environment where it is

58:43

safe to publicly tell him he

58:45

has messed up. And because

58:47

Kevin did that, and because

58:49

Nick has created an environment for

58:52

that to happen, it helped save

58:54

their business. We all should be

58:56

striving to create a place where

58:58

people can let us know when

59:00

we're wrong. the four

59:02

fundamental truths of life. One, you

59:04

can't do it alone. Two, you

59:06

can't make people do anything. Three,

59:08

everyone in this world is selfish.

59:10

Four, it isn't about you. So

59:12

how do we use these four

59:14

fundamental truths of life to get

59:16

what we want? Sales,

59:19

we sell ourselves and our ideas. We

59:21

convince other people that their lives

59:23

will be better if they trust us,

59:25

work for us, buy from us

59:27

and more. Sales is a fundamental element

59:29

of life. It's a part of

59:31

every single thing you do. Whether you

59:34

want to admit it or not,

59:36

it is absolutely worth it to

59:38

get good at the

59:40

profession of selling and then

59:42

networking. Don't go

59:44

to events telling others

59:47

to help you. Don't look

59:49

for handouts. Instead, become

59:51

someone worth knowing. Do something

59:53

of value that makes

59:55

others want to come to

59:57

you. That's hard. It takes

59:59

time. Like the Gracie Abrams Taylor

1:00:01

Swift story I told. Gracie sat

1:00:04

in a room by herself for

1:00:06

many years before she caught the

1:00:08

attention of her idol, right? The

1:00:10

story about the guy wrangling carts

1:00:12

on a cold night at Walmart, like

1:00:14

my mentor Rex Caswell has told

1:00:17

me for many years and told me

1:00:19

right when I got my first

1:00:21

job at Lexis Nexus, you are interviewing

1:00:23

for your next job every single

1:00:25

day. You got to earn it, act

1:00:27

like it. You're entitled to nothing.

1:00:29

And I love that story of Nick

1:00:31

hiring the guy after seeing

1:00:33

how hard he worked wrangling carts

1:00:35

and the fact that he had an

1:00:37

ownership. mentality. So good. Once

1:00:40

again, I want to say thank you so

1:00:42

much for continuing to spread the message and

1:00:44

telling a friend or two, hey, you should

1:00:46

listen to this episode of the Learning Leader

1:00:48

Show with Nick Huber. I think. He'll help

1:00:50

you become a more effective leader because you

1:00:52

continue to do that. And you also go

1:00:55

to Apple Podcast and Spotify and you subscribe

1:00:57

to the show. It's so big. And you're

1:00:59

rated, hopefully, five stars. And then you write

1:01:01

a thoughtful review by doing all of that.

1:01:03

You give me the opportunity to do what

1:01:05

I love on a daily basis. And

1:01:07

for that, I will forever be grateful.

1:01:09

Thank you so, so much. Talk to

1:01:11

you soon.