Speaker 3
And I said, it's not the military. It's really business people. Any entrepreneur
Speaker 1
that keeps themselves fit,
Speaker 3
they're hard to compete with because the business is that hard.
Speaker 4
So I'm getting my thrill
Speaker 1
day in business, especially still coming out
Speaker 3
But I say to people all the time,
Speaker 1
if you're going out to run 10 miles, the first 80% is easy.
Speaker 1
you're going around 100 miles, the first 80% is easy. You're going to 1000
Speaker 5
miles, the first 80% rule.
Speaker 3
get myself to the brink.
Speaker 1
I mean, doing Killington last weekend was tough.
Speaker 3
It was tough. If it was, and if it was five times that 80% of it would have been easy and the last 20% would have been tough. So there's something in your mind
Speaker 1
that gets you to 80 and then the wheels fall off.
Speaker 2
That makes sense? Yeah, what is it about that 20% do you think?
Speaker 1
When I did my first marathon many, many years ago, I got to the finish line and I collapsed 26.2 miles.
Speaker 3
And I remember thinking, why did I collapse here? Why did I collapse at 25 or 32? Like why?
Speaker 1
I ran 300 miles straight once. I ran from New York City to Vermont.
Speaker 1
applied, 80% of the way, breeze like easy. That last 20% was a nightmare. But when my brain saw my house in Vermont at mile 300, my brain saw the house, my legs exploded. I couldn't take another step. So subconsciously, the brain is looking for that finish, the brain is like, is been trying to shut down for 300 miles. Please stop doing this. You're expending too much energy. This is too dangerous, but it allows you to go like 80% and then it's begging
Speaker 3
you, it's putting brakes on it, trying to stop you.
Speaker 1
And then when it sees the finish line,
Speaker 3
it's not even a conscious decision, your brain is doing that. By the way, the brain in the morning, when you go to work out or you go to do anything, like the brain is trying to get you to not do it. Don't do it. It'd be so much easier to stay in bed.
Speaker 1
Why are you doing this? Every day
Speaker 2
for everybody. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Joe, listening to you talk about running 300 miles from New York to Vermont and the other things that you've described, what do you think it's like to work for you? Well, when you know your boss can push himself that hard and how do you think about managing people knowing that about yourself?
Speaker 1
don't like to manage people. I never have liked to manage people. The people that I've done best with in my life are self-motivated. They just get it done. I'm really good at creating a vision. I'm really good at motivating, but I don't wanna check up on you. I've got bigger things to do that'll, I leave that
Speaker 4
to other people.
Speaker 3
When I was building my first business as a kid,
Speaker 1
I burned through 50, 60 potential employees. They lasted a day, two days, including my own family. And then I stumbled upon two kids from Poland in the 80s, right? They came over before the wall was down. I didn't have to manage these kids. They showed up for work an hour before we were supposed to start work. They stayed an extra hour. There was nothing I could say that would break these guys. Nothing. They wanted eight days a week, not seven. They were so happy to have jobs.
Speaker 3
They were so easy to manage, because I didn't have to manage them.
Speaker 1
When I went to Wall Street, I built the firm Wall Street.
Speaker 3
Most of those kids I didn't have to manage. They wanted to make money. They showed up early. They did the work they had to do. They hustled. So,
Speaker 1
it's a weakness of mine. That is not
Speaker 1
I'm not interested in it. I don't wanna sit around and check on you and see that you're doing the work you're supposed to do. Now we're lucky. We're 20 something years into this. We've assembled a team that can do it on their own. They don't have
Speaker 1
So, I don't know if I answered the question well, but yeah, there are much better people than me that probably have MBAs and know how to manage people. But I'm more of a vision guy, a mission guy. I wanna change 100 million lives. I wanna get out there. I wanna add things like the extra mile.
Speaker 4
That's what I wanna do.
Speaker 2
Did you always know that about yourself in business?
Speaker 3
You know, I have a recurring dream. I've had a recurring dream for 50 years.
Speaker 1
And the dream is basically I can't move fast enough. Something is like strapping my arms down. I wanna do more, but I can't get more done.
Speaker 3
I think very early on in business, I
Speaker 1
realized I just wanna do more. And for me to be able to do more, I just need people around me that could manage themselves. By into the vision, this is what we're doing. Be accountable to yourself. Like, don't have me watch over you. Just get the job done.
Speaker 1
had a lot of negatives to it, but
Speaker 3
one of the big positives
Speaker 1
was that people that survive there, people that get hired there, you're either good at it or you're not. And if you're not, you're
Speaker 1
don't really have to manage folks. That makes
Speaker 2
Yeah, completely. So I mean, it must be slightly different now
Speaker 3
though. It's much more complex. I have a great
Speaker 1
team that survives all kinds of crap. I mean, if we wake up in the morning, we don't know what's coming at us.
