#196 Brent Beshore: Business Brilliance and Happiness at Home
Jun 11, 2024
auto_awesome
Brent Beshore, founder and CEO of Permanent Equity, shares his insights on balancing personal growth with business success. He discusses the evolution of his marriage and the importance of healthy relationships in promoting internal fulfillment. In the business realm, he highlights the significance of an abundance mindset, effective CEO hiring practices, and the pitfalls of debt in unpredictable markets. Beshore emphasizes the value of personal development and personality tests for fostering strong organizational culture and enhancing team dynamics.
Balancing business competition with abundance leads to sustainable success and meaningful connections.
Prioritizing daily habits for health and well-being can result in personal growth and fulfillment in life.
Creating authentic relationships requires vulnerability, open communication, and understanding individual needs for love.
Moving towards sustainable business practices rooted in care and abundance promotes long-term success and social responsibility.
Adopting healthy habits leads to personal growth and transformation in both personal and professional life.
Navigating business dynamics involves fostering trust, prioritizing win-win situations, and caring for stakeholders for sustainable success.
Deep dives
Balancing Business Success and Love in Relationships
Operating a successful business while maintaining caring and loving relationships involves finding a balance between competition and abundance. Prioritizing win-win situations for all parties leads to sustainable success over time, rather than solely focusing on short-term gains. Creating an environment of trust, care, and mutual benefit within the business framework fosters long-term positive outcomes.
Personal Growth and Transformation through Health Habits
Engaging in habits that prioritize health and well-being can lead to profound personal growth and transformation. By incorporating daily habits like reading and praying in the morning, and focusing on physical fitness, individuals can experience increased energy, improved relationships, and a sense of joy and fulfillment in life.
Navigating Relationship Dynamics and Self-Discovery
Understanding how individuals want to be loved and cared for is crucial for building deep and meaningful relationships. By being open to vulnerability and honest communication, it becomes possible to create authentic and fulfilling connections. Asking others how they feel most loved can lead to a deeper understanding of their needs and desires.
Creating Sustainable Business Practices and Long-Term Success
Moving away from traditional transactional approaches in business towards sustainable practices rooted in care and abundance can lead to greater long-term success. Prioritizing win-win outcomes for all stakeholders, including employees, customers, and communities, fosters a positive and socially responsible business environment.
Embracing Personal and Professional Growth through Healthy Habits
By adopting healthy habits and prioritizing self-care, individuals can experience personal growth and transformation in their personal and professional lives. Engaging in practices like daily reading, physical exercise, and focusing on mental well-being can lead to increased energy, better relationships, and a sense of fulfillment.
Finding Balance between Competition and Abundance in Business Relationships
Navigating the dynamics of business relationships involves striking a balance between competition and abundance. Prioritizing win-win situations, fostering trust, and caring for all stakeholders can lead to sustainable success and meaningful connections within the business ecosystem.
Understanding Transactional Interactions
The podcast delves into the dynamics of transactional interactions and the importance of recognizing and addressing them. It emphasizes the significance of acknowledging and confronting situations that come across as short-term, transactional, or extractive. By engaging in open dialogue and clarifying intentions, individuals can avoid misunderstandings and cultural norms that promote extractive behavior. The discussion highlights the need to move away from judgment and condemnation towards encouragement and showcasing a better way in interactions.
Debt as an Amplifier of Returns
The episode explores the role of debt in investment decisions, emphasizing its potential as an amplifier of returns. Debt is portrayed as a tool that can enhance profitable ventures but also magnify losses in uncertain or volatile scenarios. The optimal use of debt is contingent on the predictability of future outcomes, with high confidence in future cash flows enabling strategic leveraging. However, an overarching theme warns against excessive debt usage, cautioning against hubris and advocating for prudent risk management.
Aligning Incentives for Long-Term Success
The discussion shifts towards aligning incentives within organizations, particularly focusing on private equity models and CEO compensation structures. It contrasts traditional private equity practices with a model emphasizing long-term value creation and stewardship over ownership. By aligning incentives across stakeholders, including investors, executives, and employees, a more harmonious and sustainable approach to business management is advocated. The episode underscores the importance of empathy, personality testing, and understanding human behavior in fostering effective leadership and organizational success.
Identifying Durable Businesses with Low Capital Expenditure
One key insight from the podcast revolves around identifying durable businesses with low capital expenditure requirements. The speaker shares an example of a company that excels in marketing and logistics for pool sales while outsourcing construction, resulting in high cash flow and efficiency. This approach is often misunderstood by others who view it simply as a construction business. By recognizing the capital-light nature and innovative business model, the podcast emphasizes the importance of discerning the true essence of a business beyond surface categorizations.
Challenges and Lessons in Scaling Small Private Businesses
Another crucial theme discussed is the challenges and lessons involved in scaling small private businesses. The podcast details the complexities faced when scaling multiple acquisitions, highlighting the need for a meticulous approach to operations, personnel management, and financial reinvestment. The speaker stresses the significance of continuous learning and humility in navigating the multifaceted issues that arise during the growth of a portfolio. Success is depicted as a process of overcoming hurdles, fostering relationships, and serving both investors and acquired businesses with dedication and integrity.
Succeeding in both life and business is very difficult. The skills needed to scale a company often clash with those required to cultivate a thriving home life. Yet, Brent Beshore seems to have cracked the code—or at least he's actively working on it. In this conversation, he spills his secrets on excelling in both arenas.
This episode is split into two parts: the first 45 minutes covers life and how to be a better person. Brent opens up about the evolution of his marriage, physical health, and inner life.
The rest of the episode focuses on business. Shane and Beshore discuss private equity, how to hire (and when to fire) CEOs, incentives, why debt isn’t a good thing in an unpredictable world, stewardship versus ownership, and why personality tests are so important for a functional organization. After beginning his career as an entrepreneur, Brent Beshore founded Permanent Equity in 2007 and leads the firm as CEO. He works with investors and operators to evaluate new investment opportunities.
--
Newsletter - The Brain Food newsletter delivers actionable insights and thoughtful ideas every Sunday. It takes 5 minutes to read, and it’s completely free. Learn more and sign up at https://fs.blog/newsletter/
--
Upgrade — If you want to hear my thoughts and reflections at the end of the episode, join our membership: https://fs.blog/membership/ and get your own private feed.
Protekt: Simple solutions to support healthy routines. Enter the code "Knowledge" at checkout to receive 30% off your order. https://protekt.com/knowledge
--
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(05:08) Why Brent examined his life
(09:44) How Brent "fixed" his relationships
(20:04) How helping hurts
(32:13) How Brent was subtly controlling relationships
(40:36) Why Brent stopped drinking (mostly)
(50:29) How to run a business with love yet competitively
(01:00:34) Win-win relationships
(01:05:34) On debt
(01:19:28) On incentives
(01:29:08) How to hire and fire CEOs
(01:34:18) What most people miss about hiring
(01:44:19) Brent's playbook for taking over a company
(01:51:20) On projections
(01:55:52) Revisiting investments
(01:58:44) How "hands-off" is Brent?
(02:08:34) Where people go wrong in private equity