10 Brutal Business Truths Pt. 1 | Ep 166
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Hey everyone, welcome back to Build. On today's episode, I'm going to condense a decade of brutal business truths into two podcast episodes. Brutal business truth number one, going 100 miles per hour towards your goals will likely lose you many friends and many supporters. Do it anyways, you will likely find better ones at your destination.

The reality is, is that there's nothing wrong with people who aren't growing when you're growing, but it is very hard to grow quickly when the people around you are stagnant. And if anything, what I've learned over time is that it's better to have friends who expect you to grow than friends who wish you to remain as is for forever or indefinitely.

For me, the first time that this became real for me after reading books and listening to self-help podcasts and tapes when I was a teenager was when I decided to move out to California to pursue my career in fitness.

And I didn't really have a lot of money. I didn't really know anybody out there. And none of my friends were taking big risks like that at the time. You know, they were all planning to stay in my hometown, work there, build careers there, get married, have kids, the traditional path, which, by the way, there's nothing wrong with. It just wasn't the path for me. And what I realized was, as I was pursuing this path that was so different to all these people I was hanging out with,

Even just talking to them about my dreams and about my goals was slowing me down. And the reason it was slowing me down is because all they did was tell me the reasons why my dreams and goals were not realistic. They weren't going to be able to be accomplished. Why it made no sense for me to do what I was doing

And, you know, what I realized over time was that the reason that they did that is because me chasing my goals benefited them in no way because they weren't busy chasing their goals. And so all it did when I was chasing my dreams is it took me away from them. And they had lives that they wanted to fill with my time and with spending time with me and with doing extracurricular activities, as I would say. And the life that I was building was one where

pretty much all of my time was spent chasing this big dream. And I realized later on that that made a lot of sense. There's nothing wrong with those people, right? They're not doing anything bad inherently. It's just that it made it harder for me to achieve my goals, not easier when I was friends with them. And I think out of blind faith,

I let go of a lot of those friendships because I've heard a lot of people ahead of me say, you can't keep, you know, you are who you hang out with. And I was like, well, crap, you know, the people I'm hanging out with are not the people I want to be like. And I'm really grateful for that because though it was very lonely for a while and though there were times where I felt like I was never going to find better people along the way, I did.

And now I am happier than ever. I have more supporters than ever. I have more good friends than ever. And I feel really grateful for the people that are in my life because they make me better. They make it easier to achieve my goals and they make me want to be a better person. And I think the most important piece of all that is

It creates a life where you're not separating your goals that you have from your relationships that you have, but they're all one and they all feed each other. I think the second time this became real for me was the first time I joined a business mastermind. And when I joined, it was like my first business mastermind. I was really excited to make all these friends. And I did, made a lot of connections from that mastermind and would meet up in between and hang out with those people.

And I remember going to the second, I would say, like, meetup. And this was about 10, 12 months later. And our business had grown tremendously in that time. And I had grown tremendously in that time. And when I came to the meetup, you know, I met up with all these people I'd been keeping in touch with, you know, friendly, all this stuff. And we share the results of where we've gone since the last meetup. And

I realized that probably 65 to 75% of people had the same problems that they had had prior. And I was hanging out with some of those people. And I remember thinking to myself, you know, you are who you hang out with. Like what your reference group is, is very strong in terms of its pull on you. And I thought to myself, like, I don't think I want to hang out with people who are in the same place they were a year ago.

And that may sound really selfish to say, but it's not about the outcome. It's about the effort and the fact that those people had had a clear path as to what to do to overcome those things. But they weren't. And it wasn't because of lack of skill. It was lack of tenacity and lack of effort.

And that is not something that I want rubbing off on me. And so I realized, I was like, oh, Matt, wow, if I grow quickly, so does my circle need to. If I'm growing quickly and if I'm growing as a person quickly, then either on one side, I quickly get new friend groups over and over again, or I find people who also grow quickly and pray that we grow together. And so...

The funny thing is that I've probably had to do this five different times in my life where I've had to shed people from my life because I have these goals that are very large. And it's not that they are bad people. It's not that they have bad intentions. It's not that they have bad character. It's that they did not make it easier for me to achieve my goals. It's that spending time with them

It's it's honestly, if I'm being I'm being really transparent, it's like, why would I take a weekend of my life to spend time with this person who is not growing and not achieving their goals and not putting in the work when there are other people who are? And so I look at it as like I only have so much free time and I'm very particular about who I put that free time, who I spend that free time with, because I'm

If that person, if I have the choice of having a good friend here and a good friend here, but this good friend also makes it easier for me to achieve my goals, I'm going to hang out with that person. And so a lot of people, I think, are afraid of achieving their goals and going 100 miles per hour towards them because they're like, I'm going to lose people. You will lose people. And it's okay to lose people. But you're going to get better people along the way. And you're going to find better people at your destination. Because here's the thing. I've always been...

afraid to let people go. But the reality is you're not letting people go. You're making room for better people. You're not letting people go. You're making room for people that you're more aligned with. That's all. It's not like you're going to have this empty space, maybe temporarily, but you're actually just making room for things that are more aligned with the life that you want. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It also doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them. It just means that

There's opportunity cost in business, in relationships, in literally everything in life, right? In business and in relationships, right? You're spending time with this person. Well, if you spend time with this person instead, how much better would your life be? The second brutal business truth is that business is not fair. You can play fair, but do not expect others to follow suit.

I remember the first time that I realized that business was not fair, which was in gym launch. There was, you know, gym launch essentially was a licensing model for gym. So what we saw was that there was a lot of people that were franchising, but they basically get people to buy into the franchise and then not help them at all and just be like, figure the fuck out. Right. And we're like, didn't they pay you to do that? But they didn't. And so we saw this whole market of like, what if we could

have a licensing model where they don't have to commit to a franchise, but we give them all the systems they need to successfully grow their gym. And so what ended up happening is that a lot of franchisors caught on and they were like, oh, I don't want people in my franchise signing up for gym launch because they realized that we were providing more value than them. And so one franchisor reached out and he was like, I would like to do a deal with you guys. And so I got on the phone with him and he

I was like, okay, what kind of deal would you like to do? What we could do is if you want every franchisee to sign up with us, we'll give a massive discount, something like that, right? To just get them all on. And I felt compelled because I knew that most of his franchisees were failing. And so I was like, well, I really want to make sure that they get help. And I remember on the phone, the first thing he said that was shocking to me was, well, I don't want them to know how to market because if they know how to market, then they won't need me. And I was like,

dude, that's kind of fucked up. Like that was the first thing I realized, like, that's not fair to them. Like you're going to literally allow them to remain in ignorance so that you can sit here, hold all the knowledge and all the power. Like that's pretty fucked up. And then the second thing that happened was after we had the phone call, he followed up and said, like, is there room to do a deal? And basically what he wanted us to do was release all of our licensing materials except for our marketing and only give him our marketing materials that he could have all the power.

And I just, I wrote him an email and I just said, like, it's not aligned with our, my values. And so like, I value teaching people how to fish, not fishing for them. And so I don't think that this deal works as this way. And the next thing he did was he paid somebody to sign up with us to take all our materials, report all our calls, right? Find out everything we were teaching. And then he built out the exact model that we were teaching. Right. And I was like, wow.

Business is not fair. People are ruthless. People will operate without values. And just because I have values that I operate under doesn't mean other people will.

This happened again when we had our software company. There was a software that you would all know of that's a giant CRM that has taken over a lot of the business space for small businesses. And they met with us and we had our software company, Ellen. And they said, we want to do a deal where basically we integrate you with our CRM and we're partners. And I met with them. And just being completely honest, I just didn't.

feel like we were aligned values wise. I didn't feel like the way that they were running the business was something that I would want to be partnered with. And I didn't feel like the way that they did business was right. And honestly, I just didn't really like the guy when I got off the phone with them. And I was like, I can't partner with somebody that I'm not like stoked to partner with.

And so again, I sent him an email and I was like, hey, it's just not going to work to partner. But like, I wish you all the best. And, you know, we could do this affiliate relationship. I offered some alternatives. Three days later, I get sent a website link to their newest product, which was not called Alan, but it was called a very similar name. They had taken our webinar. They had taken our product. They had ripped the entire, which this means they had been ripping it off before he'd even talked to me, right? Because you can't build a software product in two days. And I was like,

Holy crap, that sucks. And you know what I did realize is that competitors pop up. It doesn't necessarily affect your business nearly as much as you think. But I realized like people are not always going to play fair. And I think that was something that's always been surprising for me because I tend to play fair and I tend, if anything, to

give people the benefit of the doubt and see the best in people. And so this has been a lesson that I've probably had to learn time and time again, because I am so aligned with my values that it's hard to conceptualize not being. And I think this has also come out because like a lot of people can relate. You know, I've had employees, you know, not quote play fair. You know, we had a guy who was running our entire product division of gym launch, invested so much time in him,

Gosh, flew him out. I don't know how many times to sit side by side with Alex, you know, pulled everything we could into him, you know, paid him incredibly well, gave him tremendous upside. And the day before a product launch, the day before we had a product launch, the guy quit. He didn't even put in a notice. He just quit. The product that he built, he wasn't even going to launch. And it was it was set to launch the next day.

And I was just like, dude, this is not fair. Ironically, I was also in our quarterly meeting. And so it's like, how much can I do? I have my entire team here, right? And I remember just thinking so many of these times in business, like this is not fair. And, you know, what I realized is like, that will continue to happen. Nothing is ever going to be fair. Business is not. People will not play fair. But they win when them not playing fair changes my behavior.

Right. And so the key is that if you allow others unfairness to change your behavior, change your values and how you act, you lose because you get burned twice. Right. You get burned in the situation and then you get burned again when you say no to the next situation, to the next person, to hire the next employee. We can scroll down a little because you look at these situations and say, well, they must be the same. So I should protect myself from these new ones.

But the reality is, is you can't do that. People are going to fuck you in business. And the reality is, is that just like if you get into a relationship, right? And you have a girlfriend and maybe she cheats on you.

Does that mean you should never be with a girl who has blonde hair or is nice or lives in the state of Iowa ever again? Like when you are approached by this next same situation, does that mean you should avoid it and that you should treat it as if something bad is going to happen? Because what happens when you treat that girl like you don't trust her because the last one cheated on you? You start looking for her phone. You start looking through her phone. You start looking at her Instagram DMs. You start seeing who she follows and likes. And then what happens?

she's like, you don't trust me. And then you perpetuate the situation that you wanted to avoid. And so the same happens in business. And what I've learned is like, no matter how many times I get bent over in business, right? Which sounds terrible, but like it happens. I will continue to put myself out there because

the reality is is that you get if you avoid losing and you avoid getting screwed right you also avoid winning and you avoid making amazing partnerships and having amazing relationships

Just like if you avoid being with somebody who cheats on you, you probably also avoid finding the love of your life because you spend your time tiptoeing and checking on people. And nobody wants to be with somebody like that. Just like nobody wants to work for a boss who doesn't trust them. Nobody wants to partner with somebody who thinks they're always trying to fuck them. Like you become the person that you're trying to avoid by doing it. And so...

You have to resist the urge to protect yourself from having it happen again and just accept the fact that it probably will. But you're going to be okay and you're going to keep moving forward. The third business truth is that growth requires growing pains, right? If you don't have thick skin and a stomach for pain, business might not be for you. This sounds tough, but guys, I can't tell you how many people they lose because they quit.

Not because the cards are stacked against them, but they lose because they give up. Because it's too hard. Because they can't take the hits. Because they can't deal with the pain.

And here's the thing is that losing is painful, yes, but winning is also painful because in order to grow, you have to experience the pain of growing pains, right? And you can't have that unless you're winning. And so I think there's two times in my career where this really resonated with me, which was the first time that I scaled a company. Gym launch went from 7 million to 27 million in less than two years.

which was insanely painful. You know, I always heard people say like growth requires pain. If you want to be strong, you've got to get hit. If you want to be strong, you're going to be in pain. You hear all those things, right? And we still wish for all these attributes and we also wish to not have the pain.

That's just not the case. You know, growing the business that fast was one of the most painful things I did. It was tiring as shit. Why? The amount of problems that come up when you scale a business quickly. It's like your mind is rarely at peace. You rarely have nothing on your schedule. You rarely can sleep in. You rarely have free time, right? You have a lot of things you have to sacrifice. Now, is that forever? No, but for some period of time.

And what I've seen is a lot of people actually can't capitalize on success because they don't lean into that. They don't realize that there's no problem with everything that's happening. The problem is how you think about it, your relationship with discomfort, right? And the same can be said for a business that isn't doing well. You know, when COVID hit and I had Gym Launch and Prestige Labs and Ellen, three businesses that relied on brick and mortar locations to function. It was one of the hardest times ever

I ever went through, but I did not allow myself to go there. Because you know what I saw happening all around me was all of our customers who were business owners deciding and electing to go out of business. Most of them did not go out of business because of the restrictions put on their gyms. Most of them went out of business because they quit, because they said it was too hard, because they didn't know when the end was in sight.

And I kept saying, I was like, guys, this is going to pass. One day things will go back. This is a season. If you get through it, you're going to be stronger than all the rest of the businesses out there. This is an opportunity to make your team stronger, to make your relationship with your customers stronger. And despite that, a lot of people couldn't make it, which is sad because honestly, we pay in time and pain for the person we want to become. Hard times today are us footing the bill for the traits that we wish to have tomorrow.

And hard people don't come from easy times. And so everybody's out there saying, I want to grow a huge business. I want to scale fast. I want to do this. Well, one, it's going to be fucking painful. It's going to be fucking hard. And two is you're going to eat shit at times because things are going to happen that are beyond your control. You can't control interest rates, the government, illness, sickness, COVID, none of these things. And so to think that it's going to be easy to become this amazing person that you want to be, you're fooling yourself.

And so you have to get thick skin early on because I will say the number one, I would say one of the traits that I have honed in on the most in growing my business is just being tough.

You know, like having a thick skin, understanding that most things worth having in my life have taken a long time and been very painful, but they have been more worth it than anything else in my entire life. And so what you have to do, if you want to make it, at least, if you really want to be successful, if you want to achieve your dreams, because it will be painful, is that you have to learn to reframe pain and uncertainty.

realize that it means you're getting closer to your goals, not further away. The next business lesson is that do not mistake a luxury for a requirement. Things that you do not need to get started. Motivation, vision, purpose, right? And so the reason I bring this up is a lot of people

use not having motivation, they use not having a clear vision, and they use not having a clear purpose as an excuse for not getting started. Well, when I started my first business, I had no fucking idea what I was doing. I had no motivation. I was exhausted. I was worn out. I was tired. I was unmotivated. I felt like I had no support. I felt all of the terrible things.

And I had no vision. My vision was, can I stop being broke? Like, I would like to get out of all this pain I'm in. But, you know, what everyone keeps telling me is just don't give up and you'll find it one day.

And so I started my business not out of some grandiose vision or motivation. My first business started out of not wanting to be in so much fucking pain, not wanting to be broke, not because I had this insane vision for the future, like, oh, let's create the Apple of like, no, that was not it at all. And I think a lot of people, you know, when I ask them, why haven't you gotten started yet? They're like, I'm just really trying to get my vision. Bro, just get on the path and you'll figure out the rest on the way there. That's the truth. And I think a lot of people often mistake

lack of responsibility for lack of motivation, right? When you seek out more responsibility, you tend to feel more motivated, okay? An example of that, if there's a single mom who has three kids to feed, do you think it matters that she doesn't have motivation to get up and go to work to get a paycheck to feed them? No, because she has immense responsibility.

And so I had never sought out motivation. I seek out responsibility because I know that if I have enough responsibility, I'll get the job done. Even now, people are like, how do you do everything you do? Like, look how much responsibility I have. I have a giant building that I have all these people working in. I have all these people who have moved here just to work on my company. I have millions of people that watch us on social media. I have tens of companies that we're responsible for the performance of.

So, yeah, I feel a lot of responsibility. So if I wake up tired or if I don't want to do what's on my calendar, I also just don't really care. That doesn't dictate what I'm going to do. You know, if I'm feeling a little unclear about the vision for a few weeks or a few months or a quarter, that doesn't mean I stop running my company and stop going towards some kind of goal. It means that I need to keep taking steps forward and I know I'm going to figure it out along the way.

You know, it's like people say, I just haven't started working out yet because I'm just not motivated. I'm like, me neither. It's been 13 years of working out every day, five days a week, lifting weights, right? Competing in bikini competitions. And I'm still waiting for that fucking motivation to kick in. Because like most days when it's like time to go to the gym, I'm like, I really don't want to do that right now. I really don't feel like only lifting heavy weights. I would rather keep working. I would rather lie down. I would rather watch a movie. I would rather spend time with my husband.

Our brain makes up all these other things that we could do instead of the thing, right? It's like most of the times when something that I'm supposed to do comes up, I don't feel like it. I seemingly have more important things or I feel generally apathetic and don't give a shit. And the thing is, is that I just ignore what my brain is coming up with. I'm like, thoughts are just sentences in my mind. I know that I've committed to working out this many days a week and I'm

Just because I have a thought doesn't mean I need to take it as a directive or truth, right? It's just a thought. And so a lot of people, they have these thoughts that, oh my gosh, I'm not motivated. Therefore, I can't do the thing. No, not true at all. Just like, oh, I don't have the information. You don't need that much more information. You've read three self-help books. You're fine, right? You've read a business book. You're good, right? There's been people that have done more with less. And so,

Just understand that a lot of the times the reason why your mind says you need this clear vision, you need this crazy purpose, and you need all this motivation, those things will come as you take steps forward. But they're not going to be crystal clear along the way. And the irony on the motivation piece is that the motivation will come when you have more responsibility, which you don't get unless you take steps forward.

And so instead of trying to always find this vision and this motivation to get myself to move forward, instead I just ask myself, what action is going to take me closer to a future I desire? And then I act in accordance with my values, not with my feelings, right? Motivation is a myth. Needing a super clear vision every single freaking day is a myth. Needing some grandiose purpose is a myth.

You create all of these things through your actions. And so act in accordance with your values, act in accordance with your commitments, and these things will come. But if you're using these as reasons not to get started, you are fooling yourself.