Transcript
00:00:00I'm going to give you my three favorite questions that I ask when I'm making bets in the business to make the most money.
00:00:09And I have these as almost like my treasured prized possessions because of how useful and how valuable the thinking frames they provide are.
00:00:19And so I'll give you conditions for using each of these three.
00:00:23So the first is when someone wants me to do something or they want me to approve of an action, I will almost always respond with what problem are you trying to solve?
00:00:39And what's really interesting about that question is that a lot of times people have this emotional discomfort.
00:00:44There's a problem that happens or they just don't feel good, which they determine is a problem.
00:00:49And then as a result, their actions skew all over the place.
00:00:53They're like, hey, I think we should do this employee engagement program.
00:00:56I'm like, OK, what problem are you trying to solve?
00:01:00Well, I just thought it'd be good for the employees.
00:01:02I'm like, well, do we have a retention issue?
00:01:04Do we have an attraction issue?
00:01:05Are we unable to attract talent?
00:01:07Like, let me know.
00:01:08That's very important.
00:01:10And like, no, no, we don't have any retention issues or we don't have any attraction issues.
00:01:13And it's like, OK, then why are we doing this?
00:01:16Well, I think it's good.
00:01:18What problem are we trying to solve?
00:01:22And so I would say that I've learned this problem question because there's people, people are erratic.
00:01:34They want to do stuff.
00:01:35And so what ends up happening is well-intentioned people, nothing wrong with that.
00:01:40They will just take action on things that they know how to do when they are confronted with things that they do not know how to do.
00:01:50And so a lot of lack of focus is actually intellectual laziness.
00:01:55So what I mean is I think most people in their business know on some level what needs to happen.
00:02:03But because they don't know how to solve that thing, they then just find something they can solve because that makes them feel better and more competent, even though it makes no difference.
00:02:13And so, like, I would encourage you to think if I am being distracted, it means I'm being intellectually lazy because I can't stay on this task that I don't know how to accomplish and be incompetent for an extended period in order to get what I want.
00:02:26And so it's a great suss out of the thinking diligence that the person is asking you to do something or a bet you're willing to make or they're asking you to make or take, whether they actually really thought it through.
00:02:41So, number one, someone asks me to do something, what problem are we trying to solve?
00:02:45If I'm asking someone to do something, so I want something now, I ask the question instead of giving the statement, I'll say, what would it take?
00:02:56And so I almost always wrap my questions with what would it take because it assumes success.
00:03:04And what happens is when I used to ask, and this is something I did earlier in my career, can we, could we, I would get no's from people and they would do a calculus in their mind of what they thought something was worth without complete context on my business like I have or complete context for the plans that I have long term for the business.
00:03:26And then they would basically make a decision on my behalf by saying no.
00:03:31So I actually have, I'm actually working off of incorrect data.
00:03:36Like, this is really important shit, even though I like, I'm, you know, just making a webcam version here, but like, really, really important.
00:03:43This is hot for us because we've got a conversation about this.
00:03:47If I asked what would it take, someone can then just tell me what it would take and then I can make the decision of whether I think it's worth it.
00:03:56And so that the amount of things that have been unlocked in my business of me just saying, like, someone says no, I'm like, stop, what would it take for us to do it?
00:04:05Obviously, if I had a billion dollars, can I do it?
00:04:07They're like, well, yeah.
00:04:08I'm like, okay, does it take a billion dollars?
00:04:09Like, no.
00:04:10Okay, does it take a million dollars?
00:04:11Okay, no.
00:04:12What does it actually take?
00:04:13We probably need to hire somebody.
00:04:14Okay.
00:04:15Well, it's going to make us an extra million dollars this year.
00:04:17And it's, you know, whatever, a hundred grand for this person.
00:04:20Okay, then let's do that.
00:04:22So you're just saying that we can't do with our existing infrastructure or, more specifically, that the existing infrastructure is prioritized against other things, which I can then say, let's deprioritize those and prioritize this.
00:04:32Right?
00:04:34So if someone asks me, let's do this thing, I like to ask, what problem are we solving?
00:04:41If I want something, I ask other people, what would it take?
00:04:45What would it take for us to do this in half the time?
00:04:47What would it take for us to deliver this in 24 hours instead of 30 days?
00:04:50What would it take for us to buy this company?
00:04:53What would it take for us to do this deal?
00:04:55What would it take for you to get started today?
00:04:56What would it take for me to get you to believe that you should shut down one of your businesses and go all in on the other?
00:05:03What would it take for me or what would it take for you to take our content from 10 things a day to 20 things a day?
00:05:08What would it take?
00:05:09It is one of the most powerful questions in entrepreneurship.
00:05:14Now, the third question that I'll give you is related to question number one, which is when people ask me, you know, like, hey, I think we should do this thing.
00:05:26I would say my first follow-up to whatever their response is, because sometimes people don't know the problem they're trying to solve, is I just ask, so this is question three, what do you want to have happen?
00:05:39And I'm saying these questions, and I feel like my team, you know, will be listening to this and be like, oh, he says those questions a lot.
00:05:45What do you want to have happen?
00:05:47Because it just gets around all of the, like, emotional hullabaloo to just what do you want to see?
00:05:54And the reason this is important, you know, like, let's say, let's use a different example.
00:05:58Someone says, hey, I think we should make a video about whatever, or let's use a better example.
00:06:12I think we should start doing our quarterlies in person.
00:06:16Okay.
00:06:17Let's say you're a remote company.
00:06:18Someone says, I think we should start doing our quarterlies in person.
00:06:20I say, okay.
00:06:20What do you want to have happen?
00:06:23Well, I mean, I want, you know, the quarterlies to be in person.
00:06:26Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:06:26But, like, as a result of these quarterlies in person, what do you want to have happen?
00:06:31What different outcome will occur as a result of in-person versus remote quarterlies?
00:06:39Well, I think, you know, I think it'll be, it'll be more fun.
00:06:41Okay.
00:06:41So the argument would be that you think that people will be more engaged in person versus
00:06:45online.
00:06:46Okay.
00:06:46No argument there.
00:06:48Do we think that their engagement in terms of how much fun they're having has anything
00:06:51to do with their outputs afterwards?
00:06:53Again, I ask these questions, not because they're loaded or because I disagree with them.
00:06:57I'm curious because I want to hear the other person's thinking.
00:06:59And so when I'm questioning this, these lines of thinking, I will typically ask three in succession,
00:07:06which is, what does that mean?
00:07:10How do you know that?
00:07:12And so what?
00:07:14So if I say, hey, you want to get, you know, the employees to be more engaged.
00:07:18I'm like, okay, what does engaged mean?
00:07:21What is that?
00:07:22I'm like, oh, well, I just, you know, I think, I think they'll be happier at work.
00:07:25Okay.
00:07:26What does that mean?
00:07:29Okay.
00:07:29Like, tell me, like, like, what is that?
00:07:31What does that even mean?
00:07:32Like, we're going to, their subjective wellbeing scores are going to go up.
00:07:36Okay.
00:07:37Question two.
00:07:38How do you know that?
00:07:41Do we want to give them a subjective wellbeing test that they rate their happiness before?
00:07:45And then we have them rate their happiness afterwards.
00:07:47And then we see if this made a demonstrable difference.
00:07:50Yeah.
00:07:51Okay.
00:07:51I understand.
00:07:52You want them to be happier and you want this.
00:07:55Okay.
00:07:55Question three.
00:07:57So what?
00:07:58Let's say we do this.
00:07:59Then what happens?
00:08:02Do we think that it'll have, like, it'll diminish once they leave?
00:08:05Maybe.
00:08:06Do we think this is going to have something on worker output?
00:08:08Okay.
00:08:08I have this research that suggests that worker output goes up by X, Y, and Z.
00:08:12And so it's like, okay, now the final question for me would be, like, what else could we do
00:08:17with this time and energy that would yield a higher return to the business?
00:08:21And to be clear, I obviously want my people to be happy.
00:08:23I don't think that these one-off things are actually what make people happy.
00:08:26I think that having an ongoing work environment that rewards high effort and removes people
00:08:31who suck is a much more effective way at getting people to enjoy their work than kind
00:08:36of, you know, kumbaya bullshit.
00:08:38But I say this as just to equip you, because I see questions like weapons.
00:08:45Like, it's like, it shows how sharp your thinking is on both sides.
00:08:51Like, if someone asks me these questions, it's just funny, because I've had some people on
00:08:54my team ask me, like, well, what do you mean by that?
00:08:58And they're trying to use my weapons at me.
00:09:02And I'm like, bro, I can tell you what I mean, because I thought about it.
00:09:07And so, like, these questions, though they appear difficult, allow you to suss out or determine
00:09:17the quality or depth of someone's thinking around a problem or solution set.
00:09:22And I would say that I use these on a regular basis when making bets in the business where
00:09:30I think we will get high returns.
00:09:32And if I want this to happen and then I say, what would it take for this to happen?
00:09:39I get a very different set of answers from people that tends to create more divergent thinking
00:09:44processes, as in they try to solve for success and reverse engineer it.
00:09:50And when I open up the blue ocean of like, let's say we had unlimited money and unlimited time,
00:09:54what would it take?
00:09:56And then all of a sudden you go from unlimited time to unlimited money.
00:09:58And then what it actually would take is, you know, well, unlimited is unlimited, right?
00:10:02But like small percentages in relation to that.
00:10:07And so anyways, this was top of mind because I had a handful of conversations yesterday that
00:10:09were in relation to this where people would say, we won't do this thing.
00:10:13It's like, what problem are we trying to solve?
00:10:16What do you want to have happen?
00:10:18What does that mean?
00:10:19How do you know that's going to happen when you do that?
00:10:22And even if we do, so what?
00:10:25Who cares?
00:10:26What?
00:10:27What is this effect?
00:10:28How does this connect to a business outcome?
00:10:30And what you'll find is a lot of these questions lead to maybe we shouldn't do this.
00:10:34And that's usually the right answer.
00:10:37And so one of my internal jokes that I have is the undefeated heavyweight champion of the
00:10:41world is do nothing.
00:10:42Like when I have like three doors of action, do it, you know, do A, do B, and then do nothing.
00:10:48Do nothing so commonly is the correct answer.
00:10:52As in, nope, continue to allocate resources towards the thing that are getting us the highest
00:10:57return.
00:10:57This is a thing that might get us a return, but we have this other thing that we know will
00:11:01get us a return.
00:11:02And the return that we get here might be as good, but this one certainly will be.
00:11:06And so we should just do more of that.
00:11:09So right now when you're contemplating, you know, should I, should I do this thing, this,
00:11:14you know, somebody on my team, or I'm the one who's suggesting these things, you might
00:11:18have suggested it because you are emotionally uncomfortable with your existing moment and
00:11:24just want something to do rather than the thing that you know is going to work.
00:11:29So anyways, those are a handful of questions that I use like weapons that have helped me
00:11:33make better bets.
00:11:34I hope they help you.
00:11:36Bye.
00:11:37If you like this video and your business owner who wants to break through
00:11:39your current revenue ceiling, I distilled every lesson from scaling 10 businesses past
00:11:4210 million and three businesses past a hundred million into a completely free scaling roadmap
00:11:47that I've used to go from zero to one, zero to 10 and zero to a hundred plus.
00:11:51And so you can click here and you can check it out again, absolutely free.
00:11:54And since you're a business owner, appreciate you and enjoy.
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