The School of Greatness - 517 The 4 Personality Types of Successful Entrepreneurs with John Danner and Chris Kuenne

Episode Date: July 31, 2017

"Who you are shapes how you build." - Chris Kuenne If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/517

This is episode number 517 with Princeton faculty members on entrepreneurship, John Danner and Chris Keeney. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. There's a lot of bad reasons to start a company, but there's only one good, legitimate reason, and I think you know what it is.

It's to change the world. Phil Libin, the CEO of Evernote said that. It is professor week at the School of Greatness. This week I'm bringing you some of the best professors in the world to teach right from the podcast. Now I typically bring you professors of life, the greatest athletes in the world, the greatest musicians, the greatest authors, speakers, spiritual leaders, the greatest minds in general, but I'm actually bringing you real life professors. That's right. John Danner, who's an advisor, teacher, and author and speaker brings decades of entrepreneurial and professional experience to his global work with leaders and their organizations in many settings. He teaches at both UC Berkeley and Princeton, and he's an incredible teacher on innovation, entrepreneurship, strategy, and leadership. And Chris Keeney is a successful

business builder, growth capital investor, and member of Princeton University's entrepreneurship faculty. He built Rosetta, which is a digital marketing firm, where he and his colleagues translated insights about customer motivation into personalized sales and marketing techniques designed to accelerate growth. He now teaches these techniques to his students at Princeton and applies them to drive the enterprise value of companies at Rosemark Capital, the private equity firm that he founded. These guys are both brilliant in business and brilliant at teaching and breaking down

what it means to be a great entrepreneur. And in this interview, we talk about the four personality types that successful entrepreneurs can be and how you can be one of these four in order to build and grow a successful business. We also talk about how to find partners and co-founders for a startup or a business that's already thriving that you have and how to know which one of the personality types that you need to look for based on your personality type. personality types that you need to look for based on your personality type. The big mistake most entrepreneurs make when hiring new team members, we break down how to hire team members, what you

should be looking for when you're hiring in the first place, and the best people to hire. We also talk about bringing on investors. Should you bring on investors for your business or should you invest your capital back into your brand as much as possible? We also talk about what makes the difference between entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs. This, we break it down, guys, in a very academic level with a lot of research and a lot of data based on years of experience. These guys break it down in something that I thought was fascinating. I could have talked to them for a long time.

It's all about building for growth. If you want to grow your business as an entrepreneur, you've got to learn how to create that culture and the growth-mindedness to continue to accelerate your business, your sales, your brand, et cetera. So this is going to be a fun one. Make sure to share it with your friends for these two professors. Again, lewishouse.com slash 517. And the full show notes are back there with more links to the video, to their information,

et cetera, et cetera. So make sure to share it out. lewishouse.com slash 517. And I want to give a big shout out to the review of the week. This is from Jess Ratzkaffer, who said, I've been following Lewis for three years now, and I don't plan on stopping anytime soon. His heart for learning about life and sharing his stories and the stories of his guests show that humans are capable of great things. And so are you. So sit down and listen. The School of Greatness is always in session and you're in for a real treat.

So Jess, thank you so much for being the fan and the review of the week. And if you guys want to be considered as a shout out for the review of the week, make sure to go to iTunes or your podcast app and leave a review over on the School of Greatness podcast. All right, guys, it's time to dive in. If you want to learn what's your personality type as an entrepreneur and what it's going to take for you to get to the next level, then without further ado, let me introduce to you the first episode of Professor Week with John Danner and Chris Keeney. Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast.

We've got a couple of guests on today. John Danner and Chris Keeney. Good to see you guys. Thank you for being here. Thanks, Lewis. Appreciate it. I don't know if we've had a lot of professors on. So we've got a couple of Princeton lecturers is what I heard is the correct term.

Yes. Not full-time professors. You're also a lecturer at UC Berkeley. At the business school, right. Correct. And you're both extremely successful entrepreneurs who've done incredible things with businesses over the last many decades.

And you have this book out. I do. Which I'm excited to dive in. It just came out. It's called Built for Growth. How builder personality shapes your business, your team, and your ability to win. And Chris, we were just talking about

how you're saying that entrepreneurship is the ultimate team sport. Yeah. Now, some may think that as an entrepreneur, you got to do it on your own. You're like a solo entrepreneur mindset. How is it actually the ultimate team sport in your own? You're like a solo entrepreneur mindset. How is it actually the ultimate team sport in your mind? Yeah, well, I think the best entrepreneurs who scale their businesses

are people who figure out how to take an idea, a team, and capital and create value. And so what happens in that process is who you are is present all along the way. In fact, we have this phrase that John and I developed, which is who you are shapes how you build. And so it's a deeply personal thing. And it was Socrates who said, know thyself. And John and I really built our business and built our book around that insight. Yeah. Well, I think it's awareness is the key to being a successful entrepreneur. Being aware of your talents, your personality type, isn't that right? Yeah. Yeah, and I would also suggest that, as we say to our readers and students, that ENTRE is the mantra of entrepreneurship.

That it's all about how you connect things, how you connect ideas, how you connect people, how you connect resources. And if you go in the dictionary, there is no such word as solopreneurship. So folks that think they can do it exclusively on their own are probably kidding themselves or building a very small business in the process. You obviously have to start with personal initiative. But if you haven't figured out a way to make your mission compatible with and of value to the other resources that you need, you probably ought to be looking for another pursuit in life. So in order to be a successful entrepreneur, let's say success is able to grow your business,

you must have a team, a successful team behind you. Is that what I'm hearing you say? You can't do it on your own, is that right? That's right. And what's fascinating about what we found in interviewing thousands of entrepreneurs is that there's not just one way to build a team. And so when we looked at a whole series of factors that make up one's personality, or we call it your builder personality, what we discovered is that there are actually four types.

You know, the press wants us to believe that you have to be like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk. And in fact, that personality type exists. Right. But it's only one of four. This genius savant type of like. Well, it's that and it's hard driving. And the other key aspect of it is someone who focuses more on the product than the people or the problem or perhaps the mission. In fact, John will tell you a little bit about.

So the driver is this. We like to say he's product or she's product fixated, but quite different from another type that we call. Like obsessed with the product. It's got to be their way. It's her fix. That's when you hear the stories of Steve Jobs punching people or throwing stuff in the fish tank or whatever. It's like there's air bubbles in there or whatever, right?

Exactly, exactly. But very different from the explorer. John will tell you a little bit about that. people or throwing stuff in the fish tank or whatever. It's like there's air bubbles in there or whatever, right? Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. But very different from the explorer. John, I'll tell you a little bit about the explorer. Yeah, the explorer is really the puzzle solver. The explorer is drawn to the intricacy of some challenge and almost see the entrepreneurial activity as a way of commercializing this ingenious solution that they've come up with. They have a tendency to shift their curiosity because the next new puzzle may attract them

before they've had an opportunity to fully scale the benefit. Yeah, exactly. It's hard to keep them focused on one thing for a few years or even a few moments. Or to recognize the diversity of the talents that they need to surround themselves with so that the business can actually scale based on that initial solution.

As opposed to just being the million-dollar idea guy. That's right. No, that's right. I've got this million-dollar idea. Let's do it. Yeah, that's the first one. That's the driver. Million-dollar idea.

It's all about the idea. That's not the explorer. Yeah, so that's the explorer. That's the systems. That's the systems analytic, the puzzle solver. Puzzle solver. The puzzle solver. So the third one is what we call the crusader.

And the crusader is somebody who is fundamentally inspired by a long-term vision, sometimes not even a vision about the business per se. You might become an entrepreneur by accident almost. If you think about a couple of crusaders like Ben and Jerry's, you know, was Ben and Jerry's created to sell ice cream or was it created to sell social change using ice cream and using the social benefit and the quality of ingredients as a way of getting the message out to millions and millions of people? So those are the first three. And then the fourth one. Yeah. And the last one is the captain. And so if the first one's about product, the second is about problem, the third is about mission, the captain is really most about people.

Of course, they all have to worry about people. But just like when you played sports, the captain of the team could tap the inner productivity of the team, right? Could go to the guy who's not playing well and say the right things that get him or her to play better. So the captain taps that sense of productivity in a way that the others don't. Right. So if you're a driver, then you need a captain on your team. Such a great point. Right?

Such a great point. So you can't do it on your own without having a captain. You are an amazing dude because you just went to the very last chapter where we talk about the fact that these four actually pair quite elegantly in terms of their ability to teach one another. The driver needs to learn from the captain and vice versa. Yes. The crusader from the explorer and vice versa. Can someone be all of them or a mixture or is it kind of like – Well, it's interesting.

Let's use your – you were a decathlete earlier in your career, right? So we suggest that basically at some point, yes, you have to know yourself. We pay homage to Socrates, of course. But if we were going to amend that statement, it would really be apply yourself. Use the knowledge that you have and then put it into action. And we've suggested basically that there are two fundamental strategies that people could consider. One is what we've called the expert builder. The expert builder, I'll give you a current basketball example.

Think about Draymond Green in the Golden Gate Warriors, the master or the expert, of the defensive player on an NBA team. Somebody who hones this unique strength that they have and takes it to a nearly well, an all-star level. That's what we call the sort of expert dimension, and that makes a lot of sense, right? If you're a swimmer and the backstroke is your stroke and you're not that good at crawl or not that good at butterfly, okay, stay with your original stroke and set the records there. But there's another strategy, which is what we call the master builder strategy, and that's more like the decathlete. That's somebody who basically says, hey, I may not be as great in every one of these activities,

but I need to expand my repertoire to include a lot of different pieces of it. So you have multiple tools. Exactly. Not one tool is the best. You still are the same person that you started off being. It's just that now your repertoire is a bit more diverse. If I wanted to use the piano example, suddenly I'm not just playing jazz. I can play symphonies.

I can play improv. I can play up and down all 88 keys. That's what we're talking about with the master strategy. Who is that person? Is that the captain or is that a separate personality type? How about Roger Federer as an example out of sports? Somebody who it's pretty hard to find a weakness in Federer's game. Jordan is similar, right?

Yeah, exactly. Great defensive, great offensive. Each can be great in their own way and each can contribute to the success of a business. So we suggest that people consider which of those two approaches is the best for them to start with and then recognize whichever one they pursue, there's another one available to them. Yeah. So the person, the Federer, what personality type is he? Well, each of the types can aspire to be Federer-like.

So the way a driver becomes Federer-like is he starts to take on or she starts to take on some of the qualities of the captain. Got it. So you take on a little bit of everything. That's right. That's right. And so what we found is that you have this sort of homeroom. You have this originating sense.

So we were talking before we started here, and our guess is that you're a driver. Driver. That you're about the product. You're very driven. You want to have impact. You have very high expectations of your team. You probably hire and recruit the very best people. And if somebody isn't at your level of expertise, no, you're not pissed. They're gone. I'm pissed that I'm resenting myself, resenting them, and then yes. So our coaching to somebody like you would be, how about finding a mentor or watching the success of a captain?

There's a finesse that the captain uses. Because I can say this because I'm a fellow driver. In fact, maybe a recovering driver would be the right term. Sure. So I look and I'm inspired by captains. Yeah. No, I think there's definitely. So I look and am inspired by captains. Yeah. No, I think there's definitely a lot I could do better in every category. But I also see myself a little bit in each category as well.

Yeah. And I think, I don't know, you guys tell me if I'm wrong, I think the highest level of leadership is probably learning how to master each one of them and being able to flex in any moment. Yeah. I need to be the captain in this moment. I need to rally the troops. I need to get us back on mission. I need to be the captain in this moment. I need to rally the troops. I need to get us back on mission.

I need to put people in their place. I need to be focused on the product. I need to be focused on the systems right in this moment. Like our systems are broken. I need to make sure I'm working with the person who's doing that so that we're on board with the mission. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.

No, I think building on your point, one of the things that we examined is who are these people and then what are the core steps to building a business? So how do you go from your concept as you did with this great business to actually making it a reality? Yeah. What are those steps? How do you recruit a team? How do you bring the money in and raise the capital?

And so perhaps we could talk a little bit about how some of these guys do this differently so that there's some practical advice that your listeners can. I think a lot of my listeners want to know how do you find the right person to hire. How do you find the person that accomplishes me? Especially the solo entrepreneur who's, okay, now I've been doing everything on my own and I've only gotten to a certain point. Now I need to hire. I just got an email today of someone saying, how do I find the right project manager? What do I look for? How do I find a co-founder who can support me? I'm more of a team captain. I need someone to drive this product home.

So why don't we talk a little bit about each of those? Why don't we start with co-founder? So one of the things about finding a co-founder, I mean, it's a relationship that arguably you're as likely to spend more time with somebody you're building a business with than somebody you're living with. Exactly. So it has a different form of intimacy, but you have that exclusivity and you have the intensity of a relationship that goes on day in, day out, nights and the like. And should you have a co-founder? Well, it's a personal choice. What we've suggested in the book is that too many entrepreneurs, when they think about co-founders, you immediately jump into the land of capital N negotiation.

That somehow or another, we're automatically talking about how we're going to split the pie and immediately we're negotiating with one another in almost an adversarial way. What we suggest is start off with something much more like a conversation, because oftentimes the issues that motivate me or you are going to be quite different, and there's a way to fit them together so that we can work more effectively as team members on an equal basis, whether we share equally in the ownership of the business or not. Secondly, the issue of knowing which type you are most likely defaulting to. You know, in tennis, are you more likely to want to hit from your backstroke or your forestroke,

you know, whatever it may be. The question is, knowing which type you are gives you a choice of saying, do I want a mini me? Do I want somebody else like me because the two of us will be in sync, we'll have the same level of intensity and the like, or do I want somebody who compliments me? Do I want somebody else like me because the two of us will be in sync, we'll have the same level of intensity and the like? Or do I want somebody who compliments me? What Chris and I have called the polar compliments, like the captain driver complementarity that we talked about earlier. So understanding who you are, getting a sense of who the other person is, and seeing where those points of potential friction and compatibility are in a conversational sense may be the best way to get started down this path. Drivers have a hard time with other drivers. I mean, heck, one of the challenges of being a driver is we all like to think that we're

great to work with and work for, but... We are. But if you ask the folks who've been on our teams, you know, drivers can be pretty intense as bosses. Does this sound familiar by any chance? How does that ask them? Not so much for captains. Captains are pretty good at the whole team dynamic. Captains are much more comfortable in managing around the we first rather than the me.

They're still decisive. They're still focused on what needs to get done. But they do it in a different kind of way, and they're comfortable with having more fingerprints on the decision-making process. Sure. Whereas explorers and crusaders do it even differently still. So if you're an entrepreneur and you're making $100,000 to $1 million, let's say, and you've got a couple people on your team,

but you haven't really figured out your team yet. You're just like, I just had this idea. I started running with it. I found a need. I started solving the problem for people, and now I have something, and I'm just trying to make more money and now figure it all out.

I think it's a lot of people where they're at. They're like, I just made $100,000, and now what do I do? How do I systematize this? How do I know who to hire? How do I do this? Who am I? It's a good problem to have, not what do I do? Like, how do I systematize this? How do I know who's the hire? How do I do this? Who am I? You know, it's like, it's a good problem to have though. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So there are really two parts of that question. What's the role?

Do I need marketing? Do I need distribution sales? And then what's the person? Yeah, exactly. And then what's the mindset of the person that you're hiring? I think one of the things that a lot of entrepreneurs do wrong is they think what they need without thinking about what the employee or the potential employee needs. So in our book, we talk about answering three questions. The first question is, where is this person in his or her career arc? Are they already senior or experienced and an expert? So they're going to come in. They know exactly how to do the job.

Or are they at the beginning? Just kind of train them up. Exactly, because that has a profound impact on how it's going to work out. The second one is, how exactly does this person operate in the context of the work? So do they like a lot of rules, or do they like much more free form? Flexibility, yeah. Because this is a fundamental, even in a two person business, you know, are you going to tell me everything I need to do? Or are you going to

say, you know, you, you figure it out. So when you start to look at these different perspectives of the potential employee, you can actually match that much better to who you are. So here's an example. A driver tends to want a more senior expert. You're going to be responsible for this. I want you to do it. I expect you to do it really well. And tends to be a little bit more rule-bound because you have high expectations. You're not going to say, go make it up and let me know how it works out, right? So this matching, and John and I talk a lot about the fit, the fit between the founder and the team, the fit between, as we were just talking about, the co-founders or among the co-founders.

Really, really important. And it starts with who are you and then who are they and what are the dimensions of matching? The challenge of scaling, Chris and I like to boil it down, that the challenge of scale is how do you go from self to system? How do you extract the best of who you are as a builder, as a founder, as an entrepreneur, and imprint it on a culture, imprint it on an infrastructure, so that the full commercial benefit of the ideas that you've come up with, that couldn't have been done without you, where you started off doing everything all at once, what's the best of that,

the essence of that, that can be the basis of that new kind of, if you will, the DNA of a scaled enterprise? Right, right. And you've probably experienced this in building your business, right? I bet that if we would talk to any of the people who work with you, they would be able to say exactly what your expectations are, how you want them to operate, what the end goal is, how your viewers, readers, and people who consume your product actually experience it, right? Because you've worked really hard to choose them based on what motivates them. Right. You've trained and directed them very clearly.

And now they are a manifestation of what you're creating here. Yeah, absolutely. Incredibly important and doesn't happen by accident. Right? Right, exactly. Yeah. But you've got just one door into the world of entrepreneurial success. There are three other folks out there doing it in their own way and creating…

Creating a personality touch. Exactly, and creating comparable success but with a completely different pattern. Basically, when you start to look at it, and the reason we were able to do it is because of the methodology that Chris developed at his former firm, Rosetta, which was the world leader in developing this kind of personality-based clustering to decode customer behavior. We took that methodology and moved it upstream to try to uncode, to decode, if you will, the personality characteristics at the center, the who at the center of entrepreneurship. Because you know as well as anybody out, that there are a gazillion resources on the what to do and how to do it. Yeah, exactly. What we wanted to do is really acknowledge

the greatness and the helpfulness of those kinds of resources, but really focus on that central issue. Who drives this success in an entrepreneurial context? Yeah, just a quick note. You know, any of your viewers or listeners can actually find out what type they are in just a matter of seconds. We have a website out there.

It's www.builtforgrowth.com. And there are just 10 questions. We've been able to distill hundreds and hundreds of questions down to 10 simple questions. And then immediately you discover what type you are and get a lot of other information. It's a little quiz. Exactly. What are a couple of the questions? Yeah, so one of the questions is, would your friends consider you a control freak?

Agree, one, disagree, seven. So you get a perspective, a whole spectrum of answers. Sure. And it's interesting, the Explorer, that is not the driver but the one right next door in our structure, 100% of people we interviewed said, yes, everybody considers me a control freak. Explorer. Explorer. Explorer is the one that does what? Because they're the ones who are curious about the problem.

They have a kind of mechanized view of the way things work. And then they capitalize on it by building a business around it. And the people who work for them are expected to do it exactly like they- So it's like based on a system or processes? Yeah. They like build out the maps? Exactly. Yeah, exactly right.

They love to think in equations. Yeah. So we think of Jeff Bezos as an example of this, right? He looked at all of commerce before we even called it e-commerce and said, wait a minute. This system is imperfect. How about the role of the internet? How about the fact that we can actually start delivering product directly to people's households? And he is systematically basically eliminating many, many retail stores.

Crazy, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. But it takes – in fact, here's a funny story. You know Jeff Bezos actually took his crib apart as a kid? No way. that's curiosity

and tenacity. His crib apart. Isn't that unbelievable? I'm not sleeping in this thing. That's right. So talk about being hardwired. I mean, this guy was just so curious.

How everything built and so you can question why was this built this way? It's not effective. And that kind of mind is constantly rearranging the pieces of the puzzle. Yeah. Right? As things evolve.

That's right. You don't tend to fall in love with the product the way that a driver sometimes can stay too much in love for too long with the product that was his or her original brain stream. But the explorer takes it apart, puts it back together. It's almost like recombinant entrepreneurship. So in Bezos' case, just think about how many different ways he's sliced and diced the fundamental business that he starts with, how he thinks about brand, how he thinks about customer relationship, how he uses data about the full transactional flow and the start to finish of the customer experience, and then says, okay, what if I built a business around that piece,

which is a behind-the-scenes, backdoor piece of the business, and suddenly you turn around and we were able to interview the person who created Amazon Web Services. That's an example. You know, Web Services was necessary for the original business, but now it became a freestanding business of its own as part of the Amazon family that is a powerhouse globally. You know what might be kind of interesting? We talked a lot about guys. Let's talk about some women entrepreneurs because we got the chance to interview some fascinating people. Did you interview Sarah Blakely by any chance?

We did not get the chance to talk to her directly. She's unbelievable. Yeah. So we talked about – oh, you did? She's unbelievable. Yeah. So we talked about it. Oh, you did? She's amazing. Yeah. She's an explorer.

She's a great example of an explorer, right? Because she looked at pinnials and she looked at girls. She deconstructed it. It's like, this doesn't work. Exactly. That's right. But there's another pair of founders in New York that have created a company called Rent the Runway. Oh, yeah.

Fantastic idea. I have them to my class. And they're both named Jen. Jen and Jenny. And their vision was young women want that Cinderella moment. So the founding vision, they happen to be crusaders, or at least Jenny Flace, who we talked to, so she wanted to bring this incredible moment to reality for girls who

couldn't afford to buy a $1,500 dress. So the concept was, as you know, let's go out and negotiate purchasing these dresses and then rent them and then re-rent them. And the average dress is rented something like 30 or 40 times. It's a fantastic business. But it all started with this idea of the fact that what can we do for young women? How can we make them feel like Cinderella when they go to the prom? And then maybe we should talk a little bit about Marjorie Krause. Marjorie Krause is the founder of one of the largest, if not the largest, privately held PR firms in the world. She started off as a teacher, a civics teacher, and has ended up basically applying that kind of facilitated, learning-focused,

let's figure out how we can help one another approach to PR, and created a different model that was very team-based, lawyers and PR people and issue people and media people, team-based, lawyers and PR people and issue people and media people, et cetera, to help their clients solve these integrated issues of how do I get along better with a government agency or how do we position our company or how do we deal with a disaster that may have happened to us? And Marjorie's entire approach is the captain's approach. You can see it in how she positions herself. You can see it in how she leads.

Even the language that she uses is very much team-centric. The last thing she would, I think, want anybody to say in encountering her is that, hey, that's Marjorie's way of doing things. Or we do things because Marjorie told us to do it. She would much rather have a culture in which people do what they otherwise are inclined to do. And she's there to basically empower and support them with accountability. With accountability. This is not let a thousand flowers bloom and see what happens. No, I say, here's where we're going.

Exactly. Let's stay on track. And when we use the term captain, you've obviously had a very extensive sports career. The kind of captain we have in mind here is the player captain, somebody who's on the field but acting as as the captain. It's not the captain of the ship necessarily, or the coach on the sidelines. No, this is a person who's in the middle of the game. Yeah. You grew up in Columbus, isn't it? Near Columbus, Delaware, Ohio. So one of the other captains whom we met is a woman named Cindy Monroe. This is an incredible story. So she and a number of women in her church group were trying to figure out how to make a little bit more money to take some of the financial pressures off the

family. And she developed a bag, like a handbag, that was particularly successful, and she figured out how to manufacture it. And then they built other products. And it's basically 100,000 women across the country today, multi-hundred million dollars, almost billion dollars in sales. And she started in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and moved her entire company actually to Columbus, Ohio, because she wanted to tap into some of the e-commerce talent in your old backyard. And when she moved the company, she found that some of the people she had brought had not actually grown with the company in the same way. And this happens with very fast-growing companies.

Sometimes the company grows faster than the team does. And so a captain holds people accountable, is very clear in direction. And then when people fail, they honorably remove those folks. Say, this is what we expect. Exactly. If you're not hitting this or making it happen, folks. Say, this is what we expect. Exactly. If you're not hitting this or making it happen, then. Yep, yep. And they're open, honest, supporting.

But after several tries, if the person doesn't achieve that goal, then they're politely. They're not a good fit. Exactly right. And so she was in this situation. She moved her company to Columbus. Those kinds of folks would not have lasted very long in a driver-run business. Right, with jobs.

Yeah, yeah. Steve Jobs. Exactly. So what's the most effective personality type? Or is there one that's the most successful in building a business? No, there is no hierarchy here. Really? No, no.

Driver-run at the best. There are. Just ask us, we'll tell you. That's right, that's right. As much as you'd like to think you're the sort of king of the crop, no, you're just one of a quartet. Got it. And there are fabulous examples of huge businesses up and down and across the industry landscape, too. You can pick almost any industry and say, here are examples of how that particular kind of company has been built differently by four different types,

and you can turn it around and say, if I know only which builder type you are, I can pretty much predict what kinds of issues you're likely to encounter, which things are going to be easier for you, which things may be more difficult for you as you try to move from a startup to a standout organization. This is the real power of it because if you know which type you are, we can actually predict, as John just said, this pattern of success and failure. So you can actually see over the next hill. What are you going to run into?

So what am I going to need to grow, to get to the next level? You started us off in this. You may not need a co-founder, but you might want somebody who has a kind of captain's instinct and who can hold their own with you and against you in an argument where you come in saying, hey, I'm Lewis. I know what the heck we want to get done here. I think you all agree with me, don't you? No, that's not going to cut it because sooner or later, the difficulty is,

however talented the team is that you've surrounded yourself with. At some point, everybody's making a decision. How much can I challenge you? Is it still safe for my job? Is it still safe for me to be in this organization? When I know he's wrong, when I think I've got a better idea, but I'm not going to go up against the force of personality that I see coming directed at me. That's the kind of place where a captain or somebody with that kind of instinct can say, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second, wait a second. At the end of the day, you may be better off, both personally and organizationally, to have people who feel a greater sense of ownership of what you together are doing

and back off a bit, give them a little bit of room, and play listener rather than leader a little bit more. So that's just one idea. Now, you can learn also from the other folks. You can learn from the explorer. You can learn from a crusader as well. Crusaders are great.

But a driver probably needs a captain by his or her side to really make sure it's kind of balancing out the teams. Whether that's a coach, whether that's somebody in your company, whether it's a co-founder, but there's a perspective there that is probably not one that comes naturally to you. Got it, got it. I think I have that person. That's good.

I think Matt's that person, obviously. You haven't met Matt, but yeah. And he feels empowered and he can tell. Yeah, we play college football together too, so he's known me for a long time. That's good. Yeah, he can challenge and he can tell. Yeah, we play college football together too. So he's known me for a long time. That's good. Yeah, he can challenge me pretty much anything. Yeah.

I mean, ultimately, if I'm like, no, I don't like that, but I respect his judgment and his opinion, and I'm always like, yeah, you're probably right on a lot of stuff. So it's good to have that kind of balance. Do you see raising capital for your business to go further faster? You know, I've had offers for people that wanted to invest, especially this year. But I just started from literally not just sweat equity to not having – I was in three credit cards and debt and student loans.

So I didn't have this surge of money to invest in. Which creates good discipline. Yeah. And it keeps me very kind of like power of broke mindset. Like we've always got to be just resourceful in our ideas and our hustle and our energy and invest wisely the money that we do have back into the brand of the business and the growth, marketing, stuff like that. I don't know. Let me tell you a quick personal story because I built a business that reached $250 million. We brought outside capital in.

We were about $45 million. Four years later, we were $250 million in revenue and sold the business for $600 million, a little less. That's pretty good. Congrats on that. Thank you, dude. Nice. So at the right time, bringing outside capital in can allow you to go further faster. Really?

Okay. But what if you don't use it the right way? Or how do you know when are you importing? How do you know when it's the right time? That's the issue of this fit between the builder and the investor or the backer. And too many folks, when they get to a point where you need capital, regardless of whether it's right up front or after you've built something and proven it, now you want to take it to the heights. Too many people say, I need money. And wherever it comes from, I'll take it.

There's just as much alignment need and just as much of a need to feel what's the kind of fit between who I am as a builder and who you are as an investor, not just in terms of risk reward ratios and those kinds of things. But are you the kind of person from an investor point of view that I can leverage beyond the and those kinds of things, but are you the kind of person from an investor point of view that I can leverage beyond the money that I'm going to get from you? Are you the kind of person who has the same kind of tenacity that has the same ability to compliment how I would drive this business in the absence of our relationship to maybe do something better together that either of us could do on our own. So there's that same question of trying to find the type of investor, both by style, by role, by stage, and by size,

that matches what you're trying to do. And too often, talk about the shiny object in front of you. A big check with a lot of zeros and a lot of commas is a very seductive kind of thing. The difficulty is that builders sometimes move rapidly to get that only to realize that they've basically bought themselves into the wrong kind of marriage. Yeah. So a concrete example perhaps for you if we could get a little personal. Let's do it. So drivers tend to be so excited about their idea that sometimes they oversell the idea and the investor comes in at too high a valuation and then has a hard time making money. And then a friction starts to

develop because you're passionate about your idea and the investor actually wants to force you to do other things to get the return. So if you strike a fair deal, you don't oversell the idea. And I would guess, given how passionate you are about where you want to take your platform, and you shared with us you want to take it into spirituality, you want an investor who's equally passionate about your vision, right? And as John said, a lot of drivers and a lot of other of our personality types actually choose the investor for the wrong reason, the ego of a big valuation, the ego of some famous investor. The ego of a big check or whatever. Exactly. What you really want is someone who

has a shared vision. And in order to achieve that, you really have to understand what builder personality you are. And I think you have to understand where you want to go. Crucial. You know what I mean? I think I've been offered money by a few different people and, you know, other people are just like, I wish I could invest in you. And I think it's challenging for me. I'll just speak openly. And I think some people who have no listening, who have kind of like this personal brand behind their business too. It's almost why I try to separate my name from my brand more and more. I call it more the School of Greatness as opposed to the Lewis House Show or whatever.

And I think it's like people who are kind of attached to this brand, their own personality, how do they separate? You know, it's like a Tony Robbins person. How does he separate and getting investors, but also not selling his name. Yep. Quote unquote. Um, so I think it's kind of interesting when, when we're in the educational space online, it's like, how do I know when it's going to be the right time when I'm not even clear if I want to exit any time in the next five to ten years, personally, just because I haven't explored it enough.

I'm like, I don't know what else I'd do. I'd love to. Some investors... I would just recreate the same thing. Not with a non-compete closure. Exactly, yeah. Some investors want to exit. Other investors may give you the capital and want to ride alongside for as long as you want to do it. And there's other partnership opportunities with them, and they're a part of it, and you're paying them out every year a certain dividend.

Lots of different ways of doing it. So you don't have to do it to exit. You don't. You don't because different investors have different investment horizons and structures and goals. But I think you're right. It starts with the key question, what the heck am I going to do with this money? And in making the compromise of bringing somebody else into my business, what's the get for the give?

Are you going to be able to go into new geographies? Are you going to be able to go into new verticals? Are you going to hire people faster? Translated into Mandarin, et cetera, et cetera. So you think it's better to bring on an investment in your business if you want to grow? Or is it okay to use the capital you already have saved and put that back in your business to grow? That's always the better way to go. The second way.

Always better way to go up to the point at which your capital constraint. In other words, your business isn't throwing off enough capital and it's actually slowing you down. So how much do you want to be bringing in every month or how much, I guess, core capital target do you want to have in the bank for- I don't think there's any real empirical number. It's really what you feel comfortable with. What you feel comfortable with and then what would you use the money for? I like John's point, would you translate it into Mandarin? What does that cost? Is that more than the money you have in the bank or go into another vertical? Do you guys believe you should be investing a lot of your money and resources back into the business as much as humanly possible? In the early days, for sure.

In the early days, for sure. Just allow for bigger growth? Yeah. It's not just to allow for bigger growth. Every business has to start with a lot of confidence and hubris, right? I mean, people wouldn't do entrepreneurship if they were of the faint of heart, right? You got to think that you've got an idea that beats the status quo at the very least because that's the biggest competitor any entrepreneur faces. So you're out there basically acting on an assertion.

You know, I know something that nobody else knows yet and I'm going to basically create a story that I can tell and sell around and a story that I can gel a team around. So telling, selling, and gelling is part of what I do, right? Sounds like a shoe sole. Magellan, did you guys see those commercials? Yeah, the gelling. So you end up sort of acting on your own assertion, your own sense of confidence, but sometimes being willing to invest back in is a matter of buying

learning. It's buying the learning that can come from saying, how can we test this? What experiments am I running right now in my business? What are the three or four assumptions that I'm making that if I could just test a little bit more, I'd be that much more confident about this strategy change or that strategy change or this tweak in my product or that person even. So it's research and development essentially. Yeah, but it's about the continued discovery of what and pushing the boundaries of what you really do know as opposed to what you act like you know and what the business can act on. Then sometimes investing in your business is a good way to invest in yourself and your own knowledge, your own learning.

There is a point where you want to start taking shekels off the table, though, right? Just paying yourself a little more. Yeah, you've worked really hard. Every business has some set of risks, some of which are imaginable, some of which are unimaginable. And you've worked so hard to create something of value, you do want to make sure that you're putting it away in some form. And this is the motivation a lot of entrepreneurs are sparked by when they think about bringing outside capital in. They think I've created a business of 100.

I'm willing to sell you 15 and I'd like to take 15 and put it in the bank so I can pay off my mortgage or I can make sure my kid's college is taken care of or whatever it is. So I think it is important once you've gotten to a certain threshold to actually start taking a few dollars off the table. What do you think? There's a great book, this one actually right here. I don't know if you guys read this one, The One Thing. Have you guys seen this yet? No. It's all about having one core thing that you focus on and making that the best thing as a product, service. I've got multiple products and services, and sometimes I feel like I've got too many ideas that I want to execute on,

and are they going to all be at a lower level because I'm working on too much, or should it just be one thing we do better than anyone else, and that's the only thing we do? All right.'ve been talking about a version of this at lunch today. I think the question here is you've got to recognize there's a completely other point of view, and both can be right. So let me just connect that idea back with something that Chris and I are familiar with. There was a guy at Harvard Business School named Fred, how does he pronounce his name? Worsima. Worsima. And he had a very famous book at the time called The Strategy of Market Leaders, right? And his approach was very much consistent with the one thing.

Only he said, basically, companies can pick one of three targets, right? You can be product excellent, you can be operationally superb, or you can be customer intimate, right? And don't try to be two of those things. Don't try to be all three. You'll water down everything. So his was very much about pick the focus. That's how you become a strategic leader. That makes a lot of sense, right? Because every entrepreneur struggles with the tension between focus and flexibility, right? You want to do this, but on the other hand, an opportunity comes in and you suddenly turn around and say, well, okay, I'll go over here. That's part of my strategy too. And somebody

over here says something else, right? So that focus flexibility is part of the entrepreneurial challenge every day. Here's my challenge on that one. Is Amazon only a one thing company? Is Southwest Airlines only a one thing company? I think increasingly the success, if you want to succeed in a globally competitive market, particularly one in which brands are setting expectations for customers across the board, when somebody buys this bottle of water, they're affected by, how could Amazon have gotten me that water, right? It colors their expectation. Could Amazon get me this tomorrow as opposed to do I have to go to a store to get it, et cetera?

So I think the way industries are now coming together and brands are being threatened, it may be that you have to be all three of those things as table stakes for success. What are the three again? Operational excellence, right? You're great in the back office. You've got very smooth business processes and that sort of thing. Systems. Product excellence. for success. What are the three again? Operational excellence, right? You're great in the back office. You've got very smooth business processes and that sort of thing. Systems.

Product excellence. Product excellence. You've got God's gift to a laptop or God's gift to publishing or whatever it may be. Or customer intimacy. I know my customers better than anybody else. You have to master them all, right?

Your product sucks. That's my... You're good at loving on your customers when they're complaining. Exactly. So I think the idea of single-mindedly focusing on one thing, if you're going to do that, you've got to make sure you are at least at a – not leadership level, but at least at a competitive level in those other dimensions of your business because that's what your customers are going to demand.

Now, are there any examples of companies that have one product that they do the product so great, it's the only thing they do, the operations is great, and what's the third thing? Customer intimacy. Customer experience is great, their intimacy. Yeah. Is there companies that you know that are just like, this is all they do is one product or one service?

Yeah, or one kind of originating idea that then gets sliced and diced a lot. Who would that be? Well, I was going to give you the example of, oh, the guys that went out of business with the iPhone. Blackberries. Oh, they had RIM. RIM, yeah, RIM.

They had one thing. One product that was pretty great. Huge for a while. Pretty great. And then they didn't innovate, right? That's right. They got caught in their own cul-de-sac. And as industries evolve and change, as the Ubers of the world and the Airbnbs and all these other companies evolve, the Amazons, we have to learn how to evolve and innovate, right?

I think that's right. And you have to recognize that the traditional boundaries of your industry are probably changing before you can even recognize it. So quickly. And you can look no further than find the experiences that your customers are having that they want to talk to their friends about, regardless of what products involve, what industry is involved. And ask yourself, what I sometimes ask clients and students, I say, WWGD. People look at me and say, what's that mean?

I say, whatGD. People look at me and say, what's that mean? I said, what would Google do? Because what Google does more often than not is answer with the scariest word in the business vocabulary, free. Free. Think about it. Did you get your check from Google last week? Did I get a check? No. Really? You're kidding me. I might've actually got some commissions or something. Just imagine, all of I didn't get a check from Google. Just imagine. All of us are working for Google except for North Korea and China. They figured out a business model that uses all of us, but we're not paid anything. We're not being paid for it.

They have figured out a way to monetize how we search, how we do mashups, how we think about using Google Docs and the like. Everything. Pretty clever. Voice, video, everything. Pretty clever. Voice, video, everything. Pretty clever. Yeah. Gosh, what was I going to say here?

I had a thought. While you're thinking about that, I'm just curious as to how you read that book with respect to your business. The one thing? Yeah. I think it's more of a mindset of having one great – using your strength and like maximizing that strength. Right. Because this is how I see, I agree with a lot of what John said. I think another way to sort of address this question is what's the unifying thing that gets you up in the morning, the lens through which you think about all kinds of things in life, like your new book coming out,

right? What's that unifying thing? And then what are the many ways you can actually deliver? You've done a masterful job of taking content and figuring out all the different ways you can distribute it. Those aren't different businesses. There's this one thing or series of things that you're passionate about. The essence of it, yeah. Exactly. And for me, that one thing has been, why do people do what they do? And I went into marketing because of that. I built a business around that. I teach around that. John and I wrote a book that touches on it. So I think if you're really lucky, you stumble on this curiosity or passion around which so much of your career and professional

satisfaction can come. I mean, you started as a terrific athlete, right? You took your athletic passion into your business. So my guess is that you have a couple, one, two, or three interrelated passions that become that one thing. And then you slice and dice it and you got to do these other things. Yeah. I also get bored once I kind of like taking something to a certain level. It's like, if I want to do this every day, no,

how can I like, you know, have fun and be adventurous and try something new. Right. I remember what I was going to say. There's a lot of people in my space. Kind of when I first started this podcast four and a half years ago, I remember thinking to myself, no one is doing podcasts yet, There's a lot of people in my space. Kind of when I first started this podcast four and a half years ago,

I remember thinking to myself, no one is doing podcasts yet, but I feel like that's where everyone's going to be. It's a great medium. And I remember thinking like, gosh, I just feel like I can do this. Like if other people, my friends were doing it, they said they loved it. And I was like, I just feel like it's going to take off. When smartphones get like smarter and they're in the cars, I was just like, I just feel like it's going to take off. So I started doing the podcast. It took off. Everyone else started launching them within a few years afterwards. Serial came out and these other

big shows and it kind of brought this attention to the podcast world. And I remember thinking like, how am I going to build a business around this free interview series? And I was asking my other marketer friends, I used to create a lot of online courses before and i sold that business because i wasn't passionate about the topic anymore but i love education and teaching and packaging content and i was like i would just love to bring my community together and like do a big live event i remember asking friends who had events in the past and they were like i'll never do events anymore because it's so much work and time you lose all this money and it's like you work all year for this thing and i was like yeah but like i feel like as everyone was saying they weren't doing it i was like i want to go lean into

that then yeah and i want to do a big event and create an experience even if i lose money in the first year like i want to i wonder why people aren't doing it and maybe the driver at play right i was just like if they're not doing it or they tried it and it didn't work out, how can we make an experience that's unique upon the whole industry? That works. That works and that people are like, I have to buy a ticket for the next year, like right now. Yeah. And so we did that last year and we have another one coming up here.

What's it called? It's called the Summit of Greatness. Ah. We've got the School of Greatness podcast. Cool. The book, Summit of Greatness, the School of Greatness Academy. So we continue to build into verticals in different learning experiences from the audio to written to in-person to workshops. It's all the same message.

It's how you experience it and internalize it differently. And it's a platform where we bring the biggest speakers in the world who've been on the show to come speak in person and help promote their book and all that stuff. But I was just like, how can- The Summit of Greatness. Summit of Greatness. What a great brand name that is, too. I love that. It's clean, huh?

Yeah. Thanks, yeah. So I'm always thinking of how can we be innovative in our approach as an entrepreneur? And maybe you guys can correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe I could have done the event and it would have been a big failure. I don't know.

But I was just like, there's something here to why people – if it's too hard for them to do and they're not willing to stick it out, then there's an opportunity I felt like. Yeah. I wonder if you introduced that product form at just the right time. Maybe. Because you built this franchise. Maybe.

And they wanted to do something live with you maybe and also another example again not to try to like toot my own horn here or anything or say i have the answers because i definitely don't everyone in my space was doing like just ebooks or they were self-publishing yeah and i was like you know what like let's try to let me try to stand out let me try to like because writing an ebook or self-publishing you're not going to get a chance in your time to sell a list that's right and i just knew that would help with credibility and everything with the brand if i hit that list yeah i was like it's going to take two years at least and like using a traditional publisher you guys just went through this and

assuming you yeah yeah yeah you know you can't just release it whenever you want you've got to go through the process it's like i mean just just the butting of heads with the publisher and the ideas of everything, right? It's a lot of work. And it's like, is this worth it when the advance isn't that much and you're putting it all back into the marketing and at the end of the day, you're not making any money. But I was like, it'll be worth it because it'll give it a different level of credibility than what everyone else in the space. And it worked. It worked. It could have not worked.

Yeah. But I was willing to at least risk to go for it than be like, man, I want to come out with an e-book. You've got a lot of people in your audience who are entrepreneurs or what we sometimes call wantrepreneurs, right? There are people on the sidelines saying, hey, is this for me? What's it going to take? And I think one of the things that Chris and I have come away with

in researching and writing this book is that to some extent what separates an entrepreneur from the rest of us or the rest of those who haven't ever done it because we both have done it is being willing to take the next step to pursue an idea. And I mean it on that basic level. Take the next step. Even when others suggest you should. Oh, absolutely.

Like you just did twice over. Because too often people imagine the mountain ahead of them. And yes, there's a lot that nobody knows. And yes, there's a lot of them. And yes, there's a lot that nobody knows. And yes, there's a lot of risk. And yes, there's a lot of uncertainty. But the fundamental courage to take an idea to the next step, whatever it is. And then apropos of your summit of greatness, I'll give you an idea that you might want to consider. Because you're looking for something that is not just a great event, but also can galvanize a community even more.

Absolutely. And get them more invested in the brand. Yeah. So I attend a conference called TED every year. And I'm the guy that came up with the idea for something called TEDU, which is the nickname for TED University. The reason behind that idea was really simple. TED attracts a lot of really interesting people. Absolutely.

Both on the stage and in the audience. And I suggested to the folks that own and run TED that it might be great to not just offer the podium to the folks on stage, but give people in the audience an opportunity to share some of their stories in a perhaps more informal way, in a more kind of casual way.

And it's become a very popular part of the TED and TED Global Conferences. You've got the same kind of opportunity here because the Summit of Greatness is going to attract a lot of people interested. It's going to attract a lot of great people, but not just the folks that are on the stage. So there may be an opportunity for you to figure out a way to, in effect, think of the audience more like popcorn of possibilities. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

And that takes an event in a different kind of direction because then I'm not just audience watching being inspired. I'm actually co-creating part of the content and creating the spirit of community. What would you recommend there? Find out more about who your audience is. Find out what motivates and they're passionate about and make it possible for them to maybe seek one another out in the course of the event itself

or even beforehand. Because what I think you're likely to find is you're going to find these little networks that you'd never imagine that are out there. And the people who are coming to your event are going to be curious about finding other people with similar interests or just, frankly, learning about something else that they'd never thought about before. Because all of us know something that's of interest to somebody else, right? But too often- Directly having like a studio set up where people can just go in and confessional style That'd be one way to do it.

There are lots of ways depending on the technology that you've got available and how big the venue is. That's cool. I like that. What else should people know about this? I'm fascinated by this topic and I'm glad you guys are in here because this is fun for me to talk about. What other,

whatever feedback would you guys give me? You guys are the seasoned pros who've built and sold multiple million dollar companies teaching at the highest academic level. You know, you've interviewed the top people in this space. What else should someone like me or my audience understand about the next steps for myself or them in their entrepreneurial journey? Yeah. Well, maybe we could just review because we've covered a lot of territory. So our first piece of advice is know thyself. Really discover what type of

builder you are. And you can go to the website buildforgrowth.com to take a 10-question test and understand. Takes less than two minutes to do. And then they're just a series, and we've talked a lot about them throughout this discussion about core decisions that you make. We talked about co-founder.

Do you need one? And if you choose one, how do you choose the best one? And what should the structure be? Exactly. Your team. How do you recruit the right team members? Your customers.

There's a great book that we reference quite a bit in our book called Crossing the Chasm by a guy named Jeffrey Moore. And there's a process by which you actually outgrow your customers. And so how do you choose the right customers at the right time in building your business? How do you raise the right customers at the right time in building your business? How do you raise the right capital? And each one of these questions, there's a nexus of who you are and how you do each of those steps. John wrote another great book, actually, before John and I got together called The Other F Word. And perhaps we could end on that point.

No, Failure. Failure. It's a book called The Other F Word, How Smart Leaders, Teams, and Entrepreneurs Put Failure to Work. And the reason why that was so interesting to me was that if you're serious about innovation, if you're serious about entrepreneurship, you've got to be willing to dance with a partner. And the partner is failure. And most of us, not naturally speaking, of course, understand failure as this inevitably regrettable event. But what makes failure so unique is that when you look at it with a bit more humility and maybe even a sense of humor, what you recognize is that it has profound ability as a strategic resource on a par with the people you hire,

with the money you're spending, with the technology you're using. Because failure is basically nature's way of saying, you've been conducting an experiment all along, and we know what you didn't know. So you've already paid the tuition. You might as well get the education that goes with it. And we're all expert at creating failure. So obviously, nobody wants failure for its own sake. But if you're committed to growth, if you're interested in building value, you've got to be willing to understand that you're in the process of experimentation and you need to learn from both sides. So the connection from my mind, the reason I was interested so much in doing this book with

Chris, is that growth is what every organization needs, whether you're a brand new startup or a big company or a nonprofit organization, because growth is what fuels opportunity. Growth is what gives people the palette upon which they can make dreams possible. How do you grow? We've answered the question about who are the people that are connected to basically building growth. Four different types, not the kind of, not only the folks that you see in the media, there are four completely different flavors of highly successful entrepreneurial builder types. The failure book is about, hey, we're all human,

we're all fallible. So let's be honest about what's going to be involved in growing because to the extent we can get comfortable with the failure side of the equation, it's going to make our ability to grow and our odds of succeeding that much better. Wow. And this question of growth isn't just growing your business, it's growing yourself, right? A lot of what you talk about is how do you become a better person. And that's where we end our book. How do you become a stronger builder? And as we talked a bit at the beginning, stronger builder, you can either be an expert or you can be a master builder.

You can either basically leverage your strengths and buffer your weaknesses or you can start to take on the strengths of others and become a master builder or a master tennis player like Roger Federer. And so our dream for this book is that we actually help entrepreneurs across the range from people who start their own companies or work in large companies in an entrepreneurial role, and they personally grow because they understand themselves better. They understand that the nexus of their personality, it's out there all the time. And by understanding how you play, you can actually play the game much better. And we've been gratified. You talked about the New York Times bestseller.

We've now become a Wall Street Journal bestseller. So we have not yet, not New York Times, but the Wall Street Journal, which is really terrific because it's sparking a conversation with the audiences that we talk with, with the clients we have, with the students we get a chance to meet with. And it's part of enhancing the conversation that all of us have in common, which is how can we do this better? How can we grow these businesses more strongly? How is it that we can learn from one another?

How can we learn about ourselves so that we can leverage the time and talents that we have to do the things that we care the most about? What was the biggest failure that both of you had over the last year career, and what was the biggest lesson you learned from that? I'll give you two. I worked for Bill Clinton in his first term as governor of Arkansas, which was a checkered experience, I would say. And I learned a couple of things about that. One is the importance of character and power together, that when you have political power, you have corporate power, it's a test of character. And character is ultimately, I think, ultimately more important than the power you may have.

So that was an opportunity to work closely with somebody of extraordinary talent. But somebody whose experience at that stage in his career gave me a very powerful lesson because he ended up not being reelected in that first term. I was off in Washington doing some other things by the time that happened. And the second was one of my businesses bombed. And I poured my heart and soul into this thing and had dozens and dozens of people working with us. And it had its moment in the sun, but just didn't work out. So I had to confront this issue personally.

And what I came away with after the depression and after the sort of what do we do wrong and all the postmortems, after they started. What would we do wrong at all the postmortems? What I came away with is, I'd do it again because it brought out a level of passion and commitment. And the things that ultimately proved to be its demise, to some extent, were beyond my control. To some extent, if I'd been smarter, I probably would have anticipated things. But it gave me the scars of failure that, in fact, have enhanced me ever since. So those are two. Wow. Yeah. My two kind of run parallel. I started my career at Johnson & Johnson. In fact, I was the guy who brought decorations to Band-Aids. So I ran the Band-Aid brand. Oh, really? That's cool. Too bad you didn't get a license for that.

Yes. Yes. As a matter of fact, Michael Jordan's agent wanted us to put Michael Jordan's face on a Band-Aid. That was cool. Did you guys do it? The problem was that he wanted $100 million for that, which was more than all the revenue of all Band-Aids combined. That's hilarious. So they did a little bit of a miscalculation. That's funny. But I'd had a successful start to my career at Johnson & Johnson, earned the right to run the largest business at Johnson & Johnson at the time,

which was the Tylenol brand. And within two weeks of being the brand manager of Tylenol, I realized I hated the job. So I worked nine years to get to this point where I really wanted this job, and the nature of the job just didn't fit what I thought was the most fun about marketing, which is to figure out what motivates people and actually change the product and the message and so on. So actually, two weeks into this job, I aspired to for a really long time. I really had to leave this company that I wanted to work for the rest of my life. And that ultimately led to the path to starting Rosetta three years later.

So it's very similar to John's lessons about failure. Inevitably, you're going to fail. If you let the lesson and the hurt and then the insight in, it can lead to some really great stuff. Sure. The other failure that I had actually was with Rosetta. As I mentioned, we sold the business for $575 million. We created 27 millionaires. $175 million.

We created 27 millionaires. And I had a lot of partners who were really angry with me because they felt that we should have built the business to a billion dollars and they should have gotten more money. They were mad because they made millions. And that was my fault because I didn't manage their expectations correctly. I said, let's go create a billion-dollar business. And then you sold it for half that. They heard we are going to create a billion- business and were disappointed at the pay So are you upset with the expectation you built or with the not continuing to go to a billion? Well, it was the right time to sell the business. But it was incredibly valuable lesson in

leadership, which is people always want more and you have to very carefully manage expectations. And that's on my shoulders. And I carry that scar with me because it was a great success. My chief talent officer said it was the most extraordinary day. We handed out whatever it was, $48 million to people and they were pissed. I've never seen anything like that. Investors or employees? These are employees. These are people I brought in. Shut up. They were pissed. I've never seen anything like that. Investors or employees? These are employees. These are people I brought in. Shut up. They were pissed.

They were pissed because their expectation was far greater than that. Wow. Really important lesson, though, because I don't blame them. I know it sounds like a horrifying thing because they thought that we were going to a billion dollars and they thought they were going to win. They had already spent the money in their heads, right? They'd already spent what they thought was coming.

Yeah, and that's what the leader needs to do. And this is something that drivers do wrong, being a driver. I tell you. Promoting, yes. Well, exactly. Exactly. You can oversell something. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

In fact, I have once or twice. It'd be the biggest business in the world. What I love about that story, I was just thinking, Lewis, about your title, your brand here. You know, more is very seductive, but it ain't nearly as good as great. Yes. I mean, if your business was the school of more, you'd be screwed. You'd be screwed.

Yeah, yeah. That's interesting. Wow. You wrote that many checks and people are upset. I think there's a whole other topic of when you should sell. Yeah. We can talk about it another time. When should you sell your business?

That would be fun because there's a right answer to that. There is. And a lot of wrong answers. Is the bird in the hand better than two in the butt? Where's the market going and is the business flattening out

or does it have another very important question? Do you have a short answer for this or no? Not really. No. But I appreciate the question. We'll do another one, yes. Excellent. We a short answer for this or no? Not really. No. But I appreciate the question. We'll do another one, yes. Excellent. We'd love that.

John and I would love that. Let's finish with a couple of final questions. I do a question called the three truths. So I'll let you both answer. Before we get into that, I want to make sure they all know where to go. It's called Built for Growth, How builder personalities shapes your business, your team, and your ability to win by Chris and John.

So guys, make sure you guys go check this out. We'll have it linked up in the show notes. It's also builtforgrowth.com and all the links are there to where to buy it. And available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, everywhere, and bookstores around the country. Very cool. Make sure you guys get this. I highly recommend you take a look.

It's kind of like the advanced version of Good to Great, it seems like. It's kind of like what that book should have been, right? Thank you for that. It's a good little quote you can put on there. Thank you. No, but I think it's powerful for you guys. I'm going to acknowledge you both right now because I think any tools that are out there

to help people know themselves better and give them the resources and tools for breaking down what is a very complicated system, our inner world, and understanding how we work. Even though this may be like a simplified version of how everyone's actually works, it's going to help people move forward in their business with less fear, with more certainty, with more ease in a situation that is already very challenging for a lot of people. So I acknowledge you both for spending the time, decades of your time to probably fail over and over to figure this out in the first place, to make it an easy way for us to understand and apply

it for our lives. So I acknowledge you both for the effort, the energy, and the results you create in the world. So we'll finish with the three truths and then one more question after that. If this was your last day for both of you many years from now, a final day on earth that you're aware of, and all your friends and family are there, you've achieved everything you've ever want to achieve.

All your dreams, you made the money, you've made the mark, whatever. Happened. But for whatever reason, everything had been erased that you created. Your books, your businesses, information, videos, gone. No one had access to anything except for a piece of paper

and that you got to write down three things you know to be true about all of your experiences in life. Three life's truths or lessons. We'll let you start, John. Three truths. One, each of us has a limited amount of time and a developable, and a developable but ultimately limited amount of talent. The key question is, what are the issues, challenges, needs, and problems that are worth your particular time and your particular talents? Number one. Second, however you answer that first question,

make sure it doesn't start with me, that it starts with others. Because if you focus on the needs of others, you are likely to bring forth a much greater degree of surprising capability by yourself. And lastly, don't think too highly of yourself. I'm fond of, there's a phrase that Oscar Wilde quoted. He said, be yourself, everyone else is taken. And I think that's ultimately the case. So you are responsible for your own path. You're responsible for your own legacy. You decide. Yeah. That's the responsibility that I think each of us has as human beings. I like that. And what about you, Chris? Yes. So I'll start with three words and then describe each of them. So first, curiosity.

Secondly, impact. And third, love. So in terms of curiosity, and I was fortunate enough to grow up in an academic family, and curiosity was up there above athletics, above godliness. If you were curious, you got dessert. Really? That's cool. Pavlovian. That's cool. But I try to inspire my own children, my students, my friends to follow your curiosity.

my students, my friends, to follow your curiosity. The amazing thing about being a person is that we have this ability to conceptualize, to think, to create. And curiosity, I think, is the engine for creativity. What are you curious about? It could be anything. And that provides the foundation for a fascinating life. Ideally, your curiosity then leads to some level of impact.

And that impact could be to a small group. It could be a large group. It could be just to a single person. But if your curiosity can help you have an impact on others, life can be very, very satisfying. And then lastly, love. And it sounds a little bit corny, but I think particularly as I've gotten older, that human connection with others. You could call it love, you can call it appreciation, but the ability to connect with somebody else is a profound experience. And then in the best of all worlds, your curiosity, your impact, and your love all are reinforcing.

Those are great answers. I love it. Well, the final question for both of you is what's your definition of greatness? I'll let you start first. You know, I think it actually relates, the final question for both of you is what's your definition of greatness? I'll let you start first. You know, I think it actually relates to the last question. I think greatness is a question of impact, right? We're here for such a short period of time. We're all struggling through this thing called life. And if you can have an impact on something, right? You could be a great athlete. You could be a great musician. You could be an okay athlete. You could be a great coach to a little league team, right? But if you can have

impact on others, that's how I define greatness. And for me, very similarly, greatness is about the ripple effects that your life has had in the pond of reality, that if you've had the good fortune and perhaps the courage to have an impact on others that's positive, that improves whatever the state of the status quo is in their lives, so that you've made it possible for other people to live fuller and richer lives, starting with the people that you love, that you're responsible for, that you care about, but actually extending to strangers, the people you'll never see, the people you'll never know, but who nonetheless can be affected by and can benefit from your particular connection, your particular impact. I love it.

Guys, this was awesome. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having us. The book is Built for Growth. John, thank you so much. Appreciate it, Chris. Louis, thanks so much. We got to connect more. Love that. I'm inspired by this and I hope you guys get the book. So thank you. Great. Thank you. There you have it, guys. Did you figure out what your personality type is as an entrepreneur? If

not, make sure to go to lewishouse.com slash 517, where we'll have all the show notes there, the link where you can learn about your personality type, where you can take the quiz, check out their book, and really dive in, because this is some fascinating stuff for me. Again, share this with your friends on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Tag me, at Lewis House, and let me know what you thought of this episode specifically. And what did you learn about yourself? What do you need support with? All these different things. Let me know again at Lewis Howes. Again, thank you guys for being a

part of the School of Greatness journey. This was a powerful one. And the next episode, we have another professor coming on to talk about money, a finance and economic professor over at Harvard who's been teaching for 18 years and one of the top experts on this topic. So get ready on the next episode for another edition of Professor Week. And as always, you guys know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Bye.