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- [00:00]
David Goggins
Coaches are important. I still have coaches. You have to believe in the end of your story.
- [00:04]
Cody Sanchez
This week's episode is a totally different format. It is going to be multiple billionaire guests that I'm lucky enough to now call friends or have had on the podcast. And we are going to have bite sized best in class information from each one of them. If you've ever wondered, how do billionaires make all their money? What secrets could I learn from them? Can I get a billionaire mentor? And what does it take to make that life like crazy level of cash? How do you explain that at a very simplistic level?
- [00:30]
Peter Thiel
First principles, thinking, you say, what are our fundamental assumptions? What are we doing here?
- [00:35]
Unknown Speaker
Running my businesses like a coach would run a team, I became a lot more effective.
- [00:40]
Cody Sanchez
Where should a young builder start today?
- [00:42]
Donald Miller
You serve, serve, serve.
- [00:43]
Cody Sanchez
Would you tell them to go take active risk.
- [00:46]
Unknown Speaker
Well, first of all, the younger you are, the easier it is to take risks and use that to your advantage.
- [00:52]
Cody Sanchez
How do you know if you're moving fast enough on the decisions you want to make in life?
- [00:55]
Unknown Speaker
What happens if you thought about that idea three years ago? What if you executed on that? Where would you be now?
- [01:02]
Cody Sanchez
Welcome back to the Big Deal Podcast. I'm Cody Sanchez. This week is for you only, the most tactical, most specific story so that you can learn from these billionaires too. And you can steal my billionaire mentors next week back to regularly scheduled programming with like, well, the fastest growing AI startup CEO out there. I'm going to save who it is. You guys could try to guess, but that episode is also amazing. And it turns out it's the. The next two weeks is only Billy's, so we're gonna make a lot of money these next two weeks on the Big Deal podcast. Let's get into it.
- [01:34]
David Goggins
Coaches are important. I still have coaches. I just. I have a swim coach. I have.
- [01:40]
Unknown Speaker
You had a baby seal with me.
- [01:41]
David Goggins
I had a memory coach. I wanted to get better at memorizing names. I wasn't great when I met people at remembering their names, so I brought a coach in to help me with that. I've had sales coaches. I've had coaches in so many areas of my life because I'm not great at everything. I want to go to people that are amazing at what they do. I live with Goggins. I lived on a monastery to get better at my spirituality. Like investing in yourself to get better is so important if you're working at an organization. Two things. One, I think you should make yourself irreplaceable. That's really important, then you have the leverage. Like, you can't even fire me. I know everybody, every customer. I'm unfirable. Now you have some leverage, which I think is really important. And you should learn network and sponge as much absorb, especially when you're young, as much as you can. Do everything, learn everything. Gandhi said it best. He said, learn like you'll live forever, live like you'll die tomorrow. So you want to learn and keep getting better, you know, in as many things as you can.
- [02:49]
Cody Sanchez
Did you. Do you have a particular way that you lead people? What do you think it is? Is it either you select these people who are going to be high performers and so you have a selection bias, or do you have a particular leadership style that you think enables other people to become something bigger?
- [03:07]
David Goggins
I think that you have to put confidence in. There are so many better. I honestly, Cody, I'm. I'm like back of the pack entrepreneur. I know. I really am. There's so many amazing entrepreneurs. Like, I don't even put myself. I'm not. That's not my strong suit. It's not. It's not. I've had wins, I've had great partners, I've had good ideas. Right time, right plate. Like a lot of things happened, but there's so many. I still go to so many entrepreneurs for advice, but I am good at. At giving people confidence and belief. And that's really important because you have to believe in the end of your story.
- [03:48]
Cody Sanchez
I think people have beat up this idea quite a bit. But first principles thinking, obviously were created by Peter Thiel. But then you talk about a lot to this day, this idea of getting back to base level. How do you explain that at a very simplistic level? First principles thinking.
- [04:03]
Peter Thiel
Yeah. And Bridgewater, by the way, was all about this as well, which is a very interesting hedge fund.
- [04:07]
Donald Miller
Right.
- [04:07]
Peter Thiel
It's the biggest hedge fund in the world. But it's really important. You've seen this in lots of areas where you go back and you say, what are our fundamental assumptions? What are we doing here? What is our firm the best at? Why is there an opportunity here? What's our core capabilities? These are really philosophical questions as well. How do you break down the frameworks for who you are and then say, given these our core capabilities, what are the juxtaposed areas? What are the areas next to it that we can go into that are similar? And, and, and, and it's, it's just, it's a really good exercise to keep coming back to because it reminds you it reminds you of things. This is why building a deck is really good for an entrepreneur, even if it's a small business, is you want to put together. Here's 10 pages on who I am, what I'm doing, what the goals are, why it's going to be successful. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs say, oh, well, I'm just so smart and fast, and why would I do this stupid thing? That's for stupid people. It's not for me, and it's actually, it's for everyone because everyone needs to get back to the core of like, exactly, like what and why and who and how. And sometimes those principles, you'll notice, have actually changed in a way you have. Maybe you intuitively realize one of them's changed, but you don't really find it until you go back and actually write it down. So it's just. It's just such a helpful thing. You know, as a founder, I really admire the founders, not just of companies, but, you know, the founders of America as well. And the founders of America were really clear about their principles.
- [05:26]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah.
- [05:26]
Peter Thiel
And we're very, very lucky about that. There's. There's all sorts of debates, there's all sorts of writings from that time. I grew up reading something called the London Magazine, which is the Founders of America. And the people, you know, writing things in Parliament and everything would write it and argue back and forth, even as you have all these primary sources of what was going on. And it was a. The light. The Enlightenment had kind of just happened over the last 100 years, and it was really a time where people were really focused on principles and society and what's correct. And so it was a great intellectual breeding ground for founding something like America. But. But I find founders in general who are the best are similar to the American founders, like, really debate. These things really come back to them, and it kind of refreshes and renews what you're doing.
- [06:04]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah.
- [06:04]
Cody Sanchez
It also seems like you have to repeat yourself very, very often as a founder.
- [06:07]
Peter Thiel
And so you do, because you need to make sure people understand the vision of what's going on. I remember early on a Palantir, we'd walk around and talk to a bunch of the engineers helping me recruit, like, and, like, what's the mission to you in your words? Why you sight about it in your words when you're talking to your smartest friends, and we're going to go over to Stanford or MIT or wherever else we're going to go and recruit, like, they tell me, as if I'm one of them. Let's talk about this practice. And, you know, that's helpful. You got. You got to do that.
- [06:34]
Unknown Speaker
I think it comes from really where I was, how I was raised. I mean, on a farm, you know, you. You are raised in that situation. You don't have any guarantees, and you figure it out, and you work hard until it's done. And I think just that tenacity really saw me through a lot. And certainly building a career from Wall street now into the cabinet from rural America, I think that just really taught me to dig in, keep going, keep learning, and keep the curiosity about how things work and keep asking questions and never accept the first. No. Yeah, yeah.
- [07:17]
Cody Sanchez
You seem like when we were talking kind of behind the scenes, you're like, I like it. I want to be in there. I want to be, like, making a difference. And I was like, wasn't it scary to run for Senate? That sounds horrifying. You were like, no, like, put me in coach. So you got a little of that inner psychopath. I'm into that, yeah. What about. So you owned an mba, a WNBA team, which seems incredibly hard in just every aspect. You know, not as much funding, lower ticket sales, sales, you know, and then there was inner turmoil in the wnba. What was the hardest moment for you running that business?
- [07:52]
Unknown Speaker
Well, I think the biggest decision came when my business partner and I, we were 50, 50 owners. But before that, we were minority owners, and there came a point where the majority owner decided to sell, and we had to look at each other and say, do we want to step up and be 50, 50 owners?
- [08:10]
And.
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And I was running a big part of our publicly traded company at the time, and I had to have confidence in the team that we brought on to really run that business day to day. And also the funding, I mean, it was. You know, it's not an inexpensive endeavor to sink money into that every single year.
- [08:28]
Cody Sanchez
Was it public how much that was?
- [08:30]
Unknown Speaker
No, but it's. I mean, it's a couple million. And it was. You know, we'd hoped to be able to get it to break even, but to the point, you know, back then, the bigger decision was to say, is this a go or no go? And I believe that when life opens a door for you to walk through it, and life had opened a door for me as a professional sports team owner, and walking away at that time didn't seem like a good option. And I'm really glad we walked through it. We owned the team for a decade, and it was very grassroots. In fact, I was working With a reporter one time and pitching a story. I mean, I was making sure that we got the visibility. I had this vision because of what I'd seen living in Chicago during the Bulls run in the 90s. And I thought, my goodness, I see what sports do for a community. They really bring it together. And I think Atlanta can be a great sports town. And so we invested on that basis to not have this as a hobby, but to make this a business and a great community contribution. And we were so glad that we walked through that door and did that for a decade for our fans, for our community, to elevate the sport. And it turned out to be such a good. I learned so much being a sports team owner that applied to business. Cause in business, sometimes you can kick the can on a problem. In sports, you can't do that.
- [09:51]
Cody Sanchez
Why? Everybody's just yelling at you all.
- [09:52]
Unknown Speaker
Well, because in sports, the scoreboard shows the results every single day. The ticket sales show the results every single day. The coaching shows the results. And so you have to make those decisions game time. And so I started doing that in business, running my businesses like a coach would run a team. And I became a lot more effective, decisive, and not afraid about what decisions were around the next corner. It just really emboldened me to make those decisions and keep going.
- [10:20]
Cody Sanchez
Where should a young builder start today?
- [10:25]
Donald Miller
Well, I mean, the first thing that. And I just talked to our team about it this morning, a staff meeting, reminding them yet again, one of our core values here is if you help enough people, you don't have to worry about money. So too many times, when we start something, we are enamored with our own idea, our own ability, and the idea is the thing rather than the customer. And what I want to do is I want the person that is not inside the building to be blessed, to be changed, to be served, to have their mind blown. The people inside the building all get their mind blown. Not so much. Not so much. You know, that doesn't do anything. What happens is when all those people out there, all over the world, I get the opportunity to help. When I'm with their budget, I get the opportunity to help. When I'm with their marriage, I get to help one on their spiritual walk, I get to help when I'm with their small business, when they, you know, and so we don't build anything for us, we build everything for them. And when you first start, that's not natural. That's. That's paradoxical because you're. You're kind of into what you're doing, and you're like, oh, I'm kind of good at this, and this is kind of cool. And it was for me anyway. And so when I did the first cassette tapes or VHS tapes, you know, I was like, wow, look at that guy. He's. He's funny and he's good. And. And it kind of started coming to me. No one cares except your mama and your wife.
- [11:49]
Cody Sanchez
And they also don't.
- [11:50]
Donald Miller
They don't care that much. You know, it's like. But that. I think that's a thing. Serve, serve, serve. And if you can find a way to make other people's life better and let them be the hero in the story, as my friend Donald Miller says, don't you have to be the hero? You can be the guide. And you know, that kind of stuff. It just makes you have a good quality life. And you've got a good philosophical, spiritual underpinning to your business then that you can. Okay. We're about service. We're about service. And when you interact with an organization, a business that is. That is about themselves, you feel the take rather than the give. And when you interact with a company that is all about service, you. You come away with your mind blown because they're fairly rare.
- [12:34]
Cody Sanchez
How did you get comfortable with risk or how do you think about risk, especially for young people who maybe haven't had a chance to take it yet? And would you tell them to go take action? Active risk?
- [12:45]
Unknown Speaker
Well, first of all, the younger you are, the easier it is to take risk, right? And use that to your advantage. I started my first company when I was 17 and I was in college and. Or, sorry, I was just entering college.
- [13:01]
Peter Thiel
And.
- [13:04]
Unknown Speaker
I think I had this mindset that, like, okay, like, I have this thing college, right? And like, I could do that well. And as long as I'm doing that well, my parents will be okay. So let me go take as much risk as I can take outside of school and let me go try different things. And I had, I didn't have kids. I didn't, you know, I didn't have to. I was. I was working and paying some of my own bills at the time. But I had, you know, my parents were supporting me and I use that as an excuse to take more risk. And I think the older you get, the harder it is to take risk. And risk is like a muscle, right? It's like the younger you try new things and the younger, the earlier you sort of train your mindset to know that, like, I'm going to do something and if it works, great. And if it doesn't work, that's still okay, too, because I'm going to learn from that, and I'm going to leverage that into the next thing.
- [14:09]
Cody Sanchez
How do you think about speed and moving fast? And how do you know if you're moving fast enough on the decisions you want to make in life?
- [14:17]
Unknown Speaker
Well, first I want to say, you know, not a dream crusher. I just want to hold you accountable to your best self, right? Like you.
- [14:22]
Cody Sanchez
You.
- [14:23]
Unknown Speaker
You definitely had all the ingredients as somebody I would want to bet on. And your. Your dreams, your ideas were much bigger than that. You weren't thinking bigger. And, you know, I told you at the time, I said, the money is easy. It's having an idea that you can execute on. There's tons of money. There's tons of rich guys that don't want to work. They just want to invest in somebody and make a good return. Question is, how do we find these executors? And when we find them, they dump cash into them and they go golfing or flying or doing whatever they want to do. And so I wanted you to think big because it wouldn't be hard for you to raise money, right? Like, after you went around, you were, like, trying to cram me down because these other guys want to come in and this guy want to come in. I'm like, no, that guy can't get in, right? What happened if you thought about that idea three years ago? What if you executed on that, you know, a little bit faster? What if you, you know, thought a little bit bigger, moved a little bit faster? Where would you be next? Now, how big would this conference be? How many people would be knocking down your door to figure out how you did it? And so, you know, we're human beings. We're not institutions. We don't live that long. And there's periods in our life. And I just think that life in itself is urgent and important, and your dreams are important. And that advantage of action, you know, speed implies action. You're not just speed running around in a circle. You're moving towards your dreams. And so it's almost taking yourself serious and your dreams seriously by executing what else should you be doing right, according to your values? And so I think it's very important. And it's, you know, my willingness to take risk and my ability or my willingness to move quickly towards my goals are the only advantages I have.
- [16:07]
Cody Sanchez
I was just looking, and it looks like more than 50% of you are not subscribed to the big Deal. Podcast when you subscribe. First of all, it means we get to bring you bigger and better guests. It's also the number one way you can support this podcast. If you liked it today, subscribe on whatever channel that you're listening to. And I wanna tell you something firsthand. You become whatever you allow into your attention span. And what I hope you feel from us every single day is that I value your attention and your time more than anything else. I promise to only bring you things that are gonna make you more money. They're gonna make you more motivated to make your life better. So give me a little solid here. Subscribe to the channel. This is how we grow. Also, leave me a review on what you want better want on. I promise you will do it. Hey, if you're a business owner right now and you like the things you were hearing on this podcast, I have something that I haven't talked about publicly before that's just for you. It's called our SMB Boardroom. This is for small business owners who want to grow. It is for business owners who are on their way to making at least seven figures a year. If this is you, hit the link down below. Talk to our team. This is the place that can be your late night emergency call for the things that go bump in the night in your business. If right now you feel like you're plateauing or you feel like you don't know how to handle your growth, we got you. So click the link below. SMB Boardroom. We just built it for you. Builders kind of obsessed with it. And I think if you are a builder, there's no place you're going to want to be except here. Hey guys, if you've ever thought about buying a business, we've built what I think is the best acquisitions and business buying, community and education curriculum in the world. If you've ever thought about wanting to buy or own a business, or if you want to add more businesses to the mix, it's called the Contrarian Community. And what this is is the goal is we give you the three things that the best business buyers, your own advisory team, your own investment committee, and a deal team. We get together each week to review deals live and beat up all the deals that you're currently looking at while you simultaneously learn the best way possible, which is called modeling, by seeing other people put together deals. This is how private equity buys businesses. This is how investment teams work and we're stealing the methods from Wall street and giving them to you. If this is interesting to you, go to click the link and you can actually talk to my team direct about if this is a fit or not. We can help guide you. The link is in the show description.