The Tragedy of Coriolanus by William Shakespeare w/John Hill and Jesan Sorrells

0:01 Hello, my name is Jesan Sorrells and this is The Leadership Lessons from the Great Books Podcast, episode number 198. If you're counting at home, that means we are 2 episodes away from our big 200th episode. And as I've been saying before, who does 200 of anything? Well, apparently me. Anyway, from our book today, Act 1, Scene 1. Actually, not our book, from our play today. Act 1, Scene 1. Enter a company of mutinous citizens with staves, clubs, and other weapons. Before we proceed any further, hear me speak.

1:14 Speak, speak. You are all resolved rather to die than to famish?

1:23 Resolved, resolved. First, you know Caius Martius is chief enemy to the people. We know it, we know it.

1:32 Let us kill him, and we'll have corn at our own price. Is it a verdict? No more talking on it. Let it be done. Away, away. One word, good citizens. We are accounted poor citizens, the patricians good. What authority sure fits on would relieve us if they would yield us but to the superfluity while it were wholesome? We might guess they relieved us humanely, but they think we are too clear and we are too dear. The leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an inventory to particularize their abundance.

2:09 Our sufferance is a gain to them. Let us revenge this with our spikes ere we become breaks. For the gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge.

2:23 Would you proceed especially against Caius Martius? All against him first. He's a very dog to the commonality.

2:33 Consider you what service he has done for this country? Very well, and could be content to give him good report for it, but

2:46 Nay, but speak not maliciously. I say unto you, what he hath done famously, he did it to that end. Though soft-conscious men can be content to say it was for his country, he did it to please his mother and to be partly proud, which he is even to the altitude of his virtue.

3:06 What he cannot help in his nature, you account a vice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous. If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations. He hath faults with surplus to tire in repetition. Shouts within. What shouts are these? The other side of the city is risen. Why stay we prating here? To the Capitol! Come, come, come, come, come!

3:39 From our book— nah, nay, our play today. A story

3:48 that weirdly enough is very timely, I think. I think it's very timely to our time. And this that I'm going to open up with today is going to be a little bit of a deep cut, but follow the bouncing ball with me for just a second. Okay. So on this show, we have discussed that one of the more destabilizing facts of our postmodern age is that we tend to absorb the news of tragic circumstances as mere content in our social media feeds. Rather than constructing stories around such circumstances to derive meaning and significance from them, we absorb them in an endless loop that also includes everything from updates about Aunt Ida to marketing outreach from advertisers.

4:30 We miss the implications of tragedies because our mental bandwidth is overloaded with banalities and propaganda.

4:40 Nowhere is that more evident. Nowhere is that phenomenon more evident than in the reporting on the Ukrainian-Russian war. No matter what you may think about the politics surrounding this war or the ongoing missile strikes into— by the United States into the Strait of Hormuz and into Iran, The challenge of both of these wars, and they are wars that are going on in our world today, the challenge is that the meaning of these acts cannot merely be pushed away or pushed down in our social media feeds, safely inoculated, of course, from further action or further thinking on our part by being buried deep in the algorithmic embrace of the social media platform.

5:24 of your choice.

5:28 Stories about warfare, wounds, and even weapons have been a staple of Western and indeed global consciousness since a man first hit another man across the head for— with a rock and took his stuff. We as a species cannot absorb the nature of these violent events without a story or a narrative structure that goes beyond the mere reporting on facts on the ground. And instead chooses to delve into the heart of the people, the circumstances, and the consequences of our material actions. There are only about 16 stories, I've heard this once said, in all of humanity, and the author that we are covering today on the show wrote plays pretty much about all 16 of them.

6:14 One of those 16 is a play About honor, sacrifice, pride, status, and place, all viewed through the emotional haze, dare I say emotional fog, of war and battle. Today on the show, we are going to try to extract some leadership lessons from a very tough play that both myself and my guests had a tough time getting through, but I think for probably different reasons. We're going to be covering Coriolanus by William Shakespeare. Leaders, the true tragedy of the warrior, I think, today is that he, the warrior, constructs a narrative about the cost of war, even though all of those folks around him

7:07 fail to buy into the narrative as well.

7:12 And back from episode number 193, where we covered Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace. And he asked me a lot of questions on that episode. So here's some deep inside baseball. I've asked him to— I'm going to ask him some better questions on this episode of the show because I really bloviated too much in that episode. So we're going to correct that now.

7:30 Where we, we, we, we have— we're going to discuss the second to the last of the 3 Shakespeare plays we're covering this month. We already talked about Macbeth with Katie Mestras, and we're going to talk about Henry V coming up. That should be very interesting with, uh, with Zach Stuckey. Uh, that should be very interesting. Also, by the way, a person in marketing and sales, interestingly enough. Um, but we're joined by my, uh, my friend, and I think he's a regular co-host now, John Hill,

8:01 AKA Small Mountain. I always say that at the end. All right, there we go. How you doing today, John? I'm good, man.

8:09 It's funny because you do have 200 coming up, which congratulations, by the way. And that's a significant amount of bloviating, to use your term just a second ago. But honestly, I was looking back over the books that we've done together and I was kind of like, oh my gosh, I kind of felt like Tom Hanks in Saturday Night Live whenever they bring him on because he's like, the 5-timer club and they give him the jacket. I don't know if you've ever even seen this skit, but it was like a big deal whenever I was a kid because there were only a handful of people that had hosted that many times, right?

8:42 So like I was counting and I was like, oh my gosh, like I think I'm, I think I might be regular co-host status on this thing. So man, I'm excited to dive into this one because yeah, I think there's some really cool stuff here. And yeah, it was, it was hard to, uh, work through, you know. Yeah. And then I got some really great advice from my wife on it. So excited to talk about the whole thing. There you go. So normally at this point, I'd go in and I'd dive back in and I'd read, you know, a different— a little bit of a piece, and then that'd be the setup for the next piece.

9:15 But I'm gonna sort of break my own mold here because I can do that. It's my show. And I'm gonna go right into sort of how I had to absorb this, this play. Let's talk about that up front. So The Tragedy of Coriolanus was written, was probably composed in 1608 and was probably staged between 1609 and 1610. It is one of Shakespeare's last plays, or one of his final plays that he, that he wrote. It's towards the end of the First Folio. And so he writes it as a much older man. Yeah. having gone through and having seen and experienced the,

9:59 the, the particular politics of the era of Queen Elizabeth I, which at that point in time in Europe were

10:11 very religious. Like, we like to say we have wars about religion now. God bless us all. We actually don't. Not at least not in the Western world. We don't, we don't have those kinds of wars. We, we We shout words at each other and we, we say nasty things on the internet, but nobody that I know is actually going to somebody else's house and killing them because they're a Roman Catholic.

10:34 Most people are like, well, I'm going to shout nasty words at you and then I'm going to leave. Like, that's, that's, that's where we've evolved to, quite frankly, because of the wars that happened in Europe where thousands of people did get killed because they were Roman Catholic.

10:50 Shakespeare also had a lifetime where he came out of Queen Elizabeth I's father, who was Henry VIII, I believe, if I remember correctly, who was the one that went around beheading people, like beheading wives looking for sons, right? And so he came out of all of that milieu. At the same time, North American colonialization was beginning to ramp up. And so the Europeans had traveled across the Atlantic and had shown up looking for, by the way, for a Northwest Passage around the Arabs and the Africans to get to the— to get to China.

11:30 And instead, what they found was a bunch of people who had no concept of land ownership, at least not a European concept of land ownership. And by the way, that's a deep inside joke from Futurama. When all the Indians go to Mars and open up casinos right off the bat. That's a deep cut. It's a very deep cut. It's one of the best jokes in that show, actually.

11:57 And so, you know, you have Roanoke that started the colony of Roanoke, the initial sort of navigating by the European powers at that point, which were England, Spain, France, and Russia. Well, no, not Russia. Sorry, not Russia. Belgium, who were just trying to— Germany, by the way, didn't exist as a nation-state at that point— who were trying to colonialize. They were, they were trying to spread out all over the world, and North America was ripe for the taking from their perspective. So Shakespeare's writing all of this, or writing and creating plays inside of this milieu.

12:39 Oh, and by the way, the Ottoman Empire was knocking on the door of Southern Europe. So there was a lot of consternation in places like Italy and Greece and Hungary and Serbia. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was kind of a— it hadn't come together yet. That would be another 300 years. But as a result of the Ottoman Empire's sort of incursions in Southern Europe, This would be a thing later on. Anyway, so Shakespeare's writing at this linchpin moment, right? And Coriolanus is a play where he comments on the riots that were going on at the time.

13:18 That's why I opened up with the riot around corn, because there were corn riots. There were, you know, people in England were hungry and they wanted to eat. They also were— there's also civil strife around class and status. Not a little bit of civil strife, not,

13:38 not the current politicians that we have running around saying eat the rich. This isn't Ro Khan or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This is, or Bernie Sanders. This was like people saying, no, no, no, we're actually gonna go get rich people in their castles and drag them out and we're gonna kill them. And they meant it, by the way, that, that wasn't a joke. And so of all these dynamics. And Shakespeare is looking for a way, I think, and we have to be careful to not to over-psychologize Shakespeare, which we tend to do in our own time with our writers, because we tend to come from a very interior-focused worldview in the last 200 years that didn't exist very much and at depth in the 17th century.

14:25 But Shakespeare is writing Coriolanus At the end of his life as an older man, looking at all of this happening and seeing the backsweep of all of this and go and probably saying, I would imagine, what do I do with all this information? How do I put all this into a play? And so the setup here, and by the way, he wrote about 3 plays on warfare. So there's Coriolanus, actually 4 or 5 plays. So there's Coriolanus, there's Henry V. Henry VI, Part 3, which has elements of war and warfare in it, and Titus Andronicus, which I think was one of either the very last play that he wrote or one of his very last plays, along with Coriolanus.

15:05 This is not a play that has a lot of popularity. I only found one movie about it. I know there's 2 out there, but I only found the one directed by Ralph Fiennes with Gerard Butler. And Vanessa Redgrave and the person who never mails it in, Brian Cox. And he was, he was freaking amazing. He never mails it in. And so I had to— I say all that to say this. I had to go watch the movie because I had a really hard time wrapping my head around this play. And it wasn't the language, it was the social commentary that's happening in that time.

15:44 and figuring out how that resonates with, with us in our time. John, I don't know if that was your experience, but I'll let you ramble for 5 minutes. So tell us about your experience about what sort of where you went with this and sort of, sort of what was going on here with you. Cause I know you had a similar challenge, not similar, but you had a challenge getting your arm around it as well. Yeah. So, um, my wife is a huge Shakespeare nut, right? Has always been a big fan of it. We've always had collections, right?

16:12 And we've, you know, bought more and sold some off and everything. And so, uh, when I first told her that we were gonna do this book together, you know, she was excited and she's like, oh, I think I have, you know, a play of that. And I was like, I'm gonna read it. And she goes, it's meant to be watched, dummy. You know, it's like, you know, because I'm like, I'm gonna go read the book, I'm gonna go do the hard thing and everything. And she's like, you could just watch it, it's probably better. And I was like, no.

16:36 And she, she said this line and You know, sometimes I'm really rigid with everybody, including my wife, but she said this thing. She was like, he was punny, right? Like he was, he was meant to be light at times and stuff like that. And I think to where if you just go in and you try to just like ingest it all, you're gonna miss so much of that. And I was like, okay, that's a fair point. And so I did the same research, right? And I saw the Ray Fine one, but I was like, nope, nope, that's, that's too much cheating, right?

17:07 Let's go find a play of it, right? And I was doing some research and apparently Apparently there's a Tom Hiddleston version that apparently gets like rave reviews, but I couldn't find it anywhere. And so then doing more research, I find a version, um, that was, uh, on a streaming channel that I'm gonna blank on. I'll find it here in a second. And, uh, watched it yesterday, like with her. And it was so helpful, right? Because— Mm-hmm. A, there were times to where it's funny because she's— she used this label that it's like a history.

17:37 Right. And so that to me, I kind of went in there almost like it was been her again, right? And I was trying to find like, okay, what's the real version of the story versus like the fabricated play part of it and everything? And for the first 30 minutes, I was very much like in this very, uh, like audit kind of mode, right? I'm trying to find the connection points. I'm trying to make sure I can remember all this. And then I was like, hey, like just enjoy the show, dummy. Like just dial it back a little bit.

18:01 And because The production on the one that we saw was phenomenal. Like the stage direction, there's all this really cool stuff. For me, it's always weird, and I'm curious as to your thoughts on this, whenever like no one's dressed in Roman garb though, right? Yeah. Everyone's in jeans and pants and like military uniforms and everything else like this. And to me, that's a jarring impact, right? Like I think it would've been easier for me to drop into the pocket of just enjoying this if they were like in the togas and the garb and everything else like that at the time.

18:36 Did you feel any of that in the movieized version that you watched? So like, pardon me. So we actually discussed this. I brought this up with, when we were talking about Macbeth with our Shakespeare expert, and she's a Shakespeare performer, Katie Mestris. Okay. So we had her on to discuss Macbeth, um, a play that she was not— she is not a magic— a massive fan of, by the way. Um, and I brought this up because I did watch a play version of Macbeth, um, that had David Tennant in it from, um, from, uh, uh, Doctor Who.

19:13 Doctor Who, right. And so, um, but it was all modern stage direction with modern garb, you know, so it wasn't 17th century Scottish, you know, whatever. And then I went and watched the movie with, uh, Maria— Marion Cotillard and, oh, what's his name? It'll come to me in a minute. Um, as Macbeth. And, um, that was shot as a period piece. So I watched both of those kind of parallel together. Mm-hmm. And it was interesting because, to your point about the modern garb being sort of jarring. Um,

19:56 the— I didn't find it to be just as distracting as I thought it was going to be. Um, I thought Michael Fassbender— that's who it was, I knew eventually it would come to me— Michael Fassbender was Macbeth. Um, I thought it was going to be more jarring in the stage version with the modern garb, and they were walking around in modern dress and all of that. But they, they integrated everything so well that it didn't take me out of it. Now, what weirdly— what took me out of it was Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard stating the Shakespearean lines in Macbeth, while I know that they're, you know, contemporary actors.

20:38 So that was a little bit jarring. Interesting. Now on the other end, when I watched Coriolanus— so Ralph Fiennes directs that, and it's still the Shakespeare, because actors still want to do the Shakespeare thing. That's what they like. They like delivering the lines and the blah blah blah. And Vanessa Redgrave, by the way, this is just a— this is just a shout out— Vanessa Redgrave as Volumnia, the, the mother, um, of, um, of Coriolanus. she lays down a monster. She loved it. You could clearly tell she was like loving saying the lines.

21:11 She was loving giving Ralph Fiennes nonsense. Like when she goes in at the, the, the, in the, the 5th act or 6th act or whatever it is, and she's begging him to save Rome. Yeah. And then she like straightens herself up and she's like doing the whole chewing scenery with Shakespearean lines, right? But it's all modern dress, so it's done as a modern And it was shot in Serbia. So, you know, it's a modern Iraq War analogy, and it was made in 2011. So it was shot 2000— probably shot in 2010, 2009, 2010.

21:42 So it's, it's all about the Iraq War, actually. That's what it's a stand-in for, and everybody knows it. Mm-hmm. But it doesn't jar you as much, weirdly enough. So maybe I'm just used to it by this point. But them running around, and they— and, you know, Corey Elanit Ray Fiennes and Gerard Butler still have a knife fight. They don't have a sword fight, they have a knife fight. And it's a pretty brutal knife fight, you know, at the beginning. Um, and that's what gives Coriolanus his wounds, and he's got to go back.

22:11 But you buy into the whole intrigue that's in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th act with the senators and the, and the, the plebeians and the patricians and all this. You buy into the intrigue of the manipulation, even though they're all in modern dress with, with, you know, suits and ties on. Yeah, the, the, the part of the thing I think that bothered me the most was like, I like— she'd use this word history, and so then I'm thinking, okay, more historical than just like theatrical and everything. And so when it opens in the, the, the tribunes are already like against them and everything, like, like even in the first like instance Right?

22:50 When he gets sent off to the war and everything, right? And they're already like, ah. I was like, I was like, man, they never even gave the guy a fair shot, right? And then I was like, wait a minute, play. It's a play. Like, stop trying to make it real, real life and everything. And so once I stopped like trying to figure out like, okay, like, because like for, for this stuff, I always go and I try to consume it with as little load as possible, right? Yeah. Right? So that way I can just kind of sit with it.

23:18 And then I try to do research afterwards, right? So like, I'm like in my head and I'm like, okay, like who are these tributes? And then I was like, play, just enjoy the show, stuff like that. And then it got better, but yeah, it still took me a little bit to drop into it. But the stage direction on the one that we saw is called the— Gah. That thing is called the National Theater. is the one that we watched it of. And man, it was so cool. Like, things are moving up, they're projecting video feeds onto the things to make it seem more like— I mean, it was, it was incredibly well done, right?

23:57 Um, and I'm excited to go watch the one that you watched now because the woman who plays the mom in the stage production

24:07 crushes it. Like, Like, I— like, gravitas. Like, just, I was, I was floored, right? And to me, the, the, like, obviously that scene is a big scene, but the scene there, there's a scene before that and everything that I was like, this— I mean, oh my— like, just the power of the woman who was putting on the performance was so stellar. So I'm, I'm now very excited to go watch this version that you watched just so I can have a comparison. Yeah. comparison point, honestly. Are you referring to when she goes and confronts the 2, the 2, um, patrician senators who like drogue?

24:44 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll love them. You'll love what Vanessa Redgrave does with that. Oh my gosh, I thought she was gonna kick— pardon me, folks— I thought she was gonna kick their asses. I did. I thought she was gonna throw them down the stairs and tell the cops the car hit them, like, go come pick them up.

25:05 I mean, disdain, like, oh, absolutely, in every fiber of the being. Like, I mean, and it is— I, like, I was blown away, right? And, um, afterwards my, my wife and I were both just like, like, she, she's the, she's the real star of this thing, right? Mm-hmm. The guy, the guy who played, uh, the lead was, was phenomenal. And I know he's famous, but I just don't— I've not seen anything else that he's done. he's in, and he did a phenomenal job. But she, I mean, she's the bringer. It's one of those, and we're going to talk about sort of what Shakespeare's saying about family here with the mother, because I think that that's the linchpin of, just like in Macbeth, everybody sort of, not everybody, in an analysis of Macbeth, people struggle, I believe, with is Macbeth the main protagonist or is Lady Macbeth, the main protagonist, and like how does that how does that work right in that play?

25:58 Because it's kind of there's a lot of different things going on, and Katie and I talked about that last episode. In Coriolanus, by comparison or by contrast, the mother Volumnia, like her character is like Shakespeare wrote her. He wrote her as a steel man. He he He, he steelmanned her

26:24 maternal instincts because I think he was trying to get at something that we moderns find to be threatening. And I think the thing he was trying to get at is the power of the mother and just how strong that drive is, because he's saw it in the royal court with King James I. I'm sure he heard about it on back end, background in the, in the, in the, um, the circles that he wrote, he, he went in when Queen Elizabeth, um, was, uh, was on the throne. Mm-hmm. And, you know, we live in a post-feminist, and I talked about this with Katie too, in Macbeth.

27:05 We live in a post-feminist environment. So there's just certain assumptions we have about women that just weren't available in the 17th century. They just weren't. And so we struggle as moderns because in the case of Lady Macbeth, we want to see her standing on the battlements like, like, um, what's-her-face at the end of Game of Thrones, you know, with the 800-ton dragon, you know, yelling, we will conquer. Like, that's what we want to see from Lady Macbeth, but we don't get that. Mm-hmm. And then on the other end, in Coriolanus, You've got the— at the other end of a woman's lifetime, you've got the older lady who's the matriarch.

27:45 And we struggle with matriarchal understanding in our culture. We used to have a place for old women, and we're going to visit this again later on. We used to have a place for old women, not necessarily old men, because old men die. We die earlier. That's just— we just die and that's it. But older, older women, they're the ones that hold together the community. They're the ones that tell— used to tell younger women what the deal was. Uh, the term Karen that we have now really only works if the woman's like over 50 or over 40.

28:15 It's not a term that we use for younger women. It's just not. Um, there's a certain image we have in our brain, and because we also live in a youth-obsessed culture, we don't really know what to do with older women. And so a character like Volumnia She belies in our time, not in Shakespeare's time. She belies all of that. Now in Shakespeare's time, you had all of that set up where the older woman was like,

28:45 she was keeping everybody in line. She was keeping people in line informally. She was using all of the informal tools that— Informal, I think is a big distinction here, right? But still there, not lacking power. just informal, right? She was using all of the informal tools that older women have had access to throughout the centuries at the point of the tip of the spear. And so Shakespeare looked at this and I think he probably said, what would this look like if this were in the state? And he didn't have feminism as a, as a sort of construct there.

29:19 So let's just move this person into here. Plus, Coriolanus is built on To your point about history, it's built on the,

29:32 it's built on the fact of Roman virtue, which is something that they were very familiar with, that English folks are very familiar with, and Europeans in general were very familiar with and were rediscovering in the, in the 17th century, which we don't, we don't put a whole lot of stock in that now.

29:51 Oh, think about the last movie you saw that was about Roman virtue, which is probably Gladiator. Oh, okay. So, okay, sorry, I was, I was, I was hearing something else, right? So, um, so you don't, uh, so you're saying that we don't hold up that example? Like, like we don't make movies about it, we don't talk about it in the way that we used to, it doesn't get passed on, right? So, so really, I guess if you're, if you're Well, I guess that makes sense, right? If you're, if you're learning about things like virtue, right, it's probably through like Stoicism or philosophy or something else like that, right?

30:27 I, like, I would say that there's pockets of leading with virtue and it done in a, in a reasonable way are, are not very frequent. I think of, and then we'll go back to the play here. I think of the, um, There was a Japanese businessman a couple of years— no, maybe about 5 years ago, maybe— that I heard about. Um, might have been an executive at Nissan. It was some large company. I'd have to go back and look at it, and I'm not in a space with a computer right now. I'm gonna go look up the details.

30:59 But I believe, if I remember correctly, he committed ritual suicide because something happened in the business that wasn't supposed to happen. Yeah. It was dishonorable. And so, like, he committed seppuku. Like, his assistant cut his head off and he, like, opened himself up from, as they would say in Macbeth, the nape to the chops. Mm-hmm. And I remember this being like— this landed like an atomic bomb on LinkedIn. People were like, why would this person commit suicide? Well, that's Japanese honor culture.

31:33 That's the code of Bushido. If you actually take that seriously. The thing is, very few of us take that seriously. Very few. And by the way, I think that's why Coriolanus actually, as a play and as a story, works in our time. Hmm. But then there's also some elements in it that actually put some— they put some frictions of sandpaper on that too, which we'll talk about that too, um, which And that goes back to Caius Martius, the, the, the, you know, how his character is portrayed. And weirdly enough, this is my last point.

32:08 When I was watching Ralph Fiennes portray him, all I could think of, all I could think of was Kevin O'Leary of Shark Tank.

32:19 Mr. Wonderful? I don't know why. I don't know why. My brain jumped right to Kevin O'Leary. I mean, here, uh, like, I don't watch a lot of Shark Tank personally. I don't either. I guess it's a loaded ground. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Um, but you know, you know, some of the, some of the monologues of him talking to the people that are supposed to be on his side and get it, I would, I would wager sound very much like, like that guy's conversations after someone comes on for a thing that he doesn't see any value in.

32:50 Look at these idiots. You know, and everything else like this. So yeah, I can see that. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't getting that. I was just, I mean, I can't wait to dive into this because coming from my lane, there's, there's so much overlap. Like there's so much of, of this that still goes on today, right? In sales and selling and— Oh yeah. Let's just promote the biggest producer into being the leader and then like not give them any coaching or training or development and then we're just expected to go well.

33:21 Right. Why? Like, but everybody does it, you know, it's, it's like, oh yeah, you know, you don't take Jordan off the court and make him the coach. That's going to be a terrible idea. And, but sales side, everyone just thinks, well, this is the highest producer. They're going to be a great leader, not without a bunch of training and development so that way they can like make the jump. Otherwise they're just going to be, well, it's just faster if I do it and look how slow these idiots are and everything else like that.

33:44 And just, it just blows up more than it usually does anything worth talking about. So let me ask you a question. Sure. That's not in the script at all because you just triggered something in my brain. Is LeBron going to be a terrible coach? Oh, are they going to make him a coach? I haven't even heard this. I don't know. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I— so, so here's what I— here's— let me set this up. He's gonna do a year, maybe 2, with the Sixers, go back to Cleveland, retire in Cleveland. 5 years from now, good coach, bad coach, based on what you know of the man and what you've seen.

34:22 I don't even ask if you're a basketball fan. Yeah, I merely— because the Jordan thing clicked over the thing in my head. So we're past Jordan now. The Last Dance is over. Yep. Kobe's dead. Kobe's gone, right? We all live in the backwash of LeBron. We just do. Uh, whether we want to or not.

34:44 Primary question, does he coach? Secondary question, is he good or bad? And by good or bad, I just mean above .500 or below .500. Let's just use that as a metric. That's fair. Um, so is he leaving the Lakers? Like, I'm like— Uh-huh. Oh yeah, he's going to the 76ers. Yeah, that was huge last week. Is his son going with him, or is his son staying on the Lakers? Shut up, leave Bronny alone. Hold on, we can't, we can't, because this, because this is going to play a major part in my, in my opinion here in a minute.

35:11 I have no idea. I haven't heard anything about Browning. I have not heard anything about the man. So here's my, here's my thinking, right? The guy who fights that hard to have his son on the same team as him is not ready to be a coach,

35:26 right? Because he's not, he's not thinking about the organization or the franchise or the team or anything else like this. He wants to play ball with his kid, right? And like, as a parent, I can, I can see a lot of value in that. And like, hey, like, you're a great player, so okay, cool. But those— that type of decision-making means that you're not ready for, for the bigger thing, hands down, right? Like, Mm-hmm. if you need to get your needs met versus the team getting their needs met, you're just categorically not at the level, right?

35:55 And Phil Jackson talks about this in all of his books, right? Like, he He's like, he's like, everyone was so impressed, but like, do you know how much effort it took to get Jordan away from just chasing shooting titles and to be the team player and to trust other people and stuff? Do you think anybody would be talking about this if we, if we'd not made that jump? No, right? No. So I think, I think as long as he is the guy who's going to go pull strings and use his platform to get his son on the team with him, then he's not ready to be a coach and do anything.

36:25 Now, here's the other part. Nobody starts off good at these things. This is true. Right? Everybody needs development, right? And the longer you spend in the doer seat, the more development you need to be in the leader seat, is my personal opinion about it, right? So I think everybody starts out bad at it. Like, you know, at 20 years old, I have not told the story on here. We could if you want to. It's one of the most stupidest things I've ever done. But I answered classified ads, and in the classifieds it said management opportunities.

37:01 I'm all of 20 years old. This is before the military, kung fu, all these things that have made me who I am. And I'm like, you know what, I'm ready to lead men. No, no, right? It was a designer imposter cologne and perfume Ponzi scheme MLM thing that they send you out of town. I lasted 3 days, and then after that, like, I came home and the military sounded like a really sweetheart of a deal after that whole thing. Yeah, I love them. Right? So it's like, like, like I say this fully admitted as a guy who was like, oh, I can lead other people.

37:30 No, I would have been good at telling people what I thought they should be doing without having enough experience to know whether or not those things actually lead to the improvements and advancements that everyone is working towards. But I would have very loud opinions and I could shout over people. And if that is what you think leadership is, then that's why all these guys think that they're really great at it. Right? But to me, it's like the same— it's the same shift that happens inside of martial arts schools, right?

37:56 Everybody walks in thinking we're here to be Billy Badass, right? Yeah. But the only people that get to the higher levels of any art are the people who stop chasing that thing and they make it about something else. They make it about an internal kind of situation. And I got to, sorry, and I'll shut up after this. There was a guy I interviewed once, his name's Jeff Risley. We're talking about like sales and he runs a thing called the Mental Sales Health Alliance. And I think about this line weekly, man.

38:27 Every, every week I think about this line. The longer a salesperson stays motivated by pure extrinsic dangles, right? Spiffs, commissions, President's Club, the harder it is and the longer it takes for them to become intrinsically motivated to do just quality work because quality work is what's called for. And there's so many examples of bad leadership, the Bobby Knights, the throwing of chairs and all of this stuff. And people love to think that, well, it's not okay when anyone does that to me, but it's going to be okay because I'm going to be right.

38:58 It's like, you're not ready, right? If getting angry is the only thing you know to do, you're not ready yet. Yeah.

39:10 Speaking of not being ready, back to the play. Back to Coriolanus. I'm gonna go Act 2, Scene 2. I'm gonna pick up where, um, the Senate meets to hear Cominius praise Coriolanus in a formal oration, and then to choose Coriolanus as its nominee for consul. Speaking of getting a position of leadership when you're not ready. By the way, this is right after Coriolanus has, uh, successfully cowed— not defeated, but successfully cowed— the, uh, the Volscics. And, um, and, uh, and had, uh, had hand-to-hand combat with, um, with Alphidius, his, uh, his sworn enemy, right?

39:58 Can we talk about that for just a second? Because I thought that was— Sure, go ahead. Like, yeah. You're the only guy inside the walls, right? So I'm glad it worked out well for you. Why are you the only guy inside the walls? Like, I mean, and maybe this is me being a product of a military time, very, very, very different and everything else like that, but like, I'm just thinking about what would really realistically happen if you're the only guy who breaks lines and insides ends up inside the gate, even if it does go well.

40:30 So why was in the Iliad— now the Odyssey is out, I'm going to bring this up— why in the Iliad did Achilles fight Hector one-on-one on the beach? Or why in the Bible was David not sent out? Why did he go out against Goliath? Why did Goliath come out every day and yell at the Israelites, right? So there's ancient not modern, but ancient ideas about one-on-one combat. Actually, I didn't have a problem with that, weirdly enough. I didn't. I thought that was fine. And in the movie, just so that you know, they actually kind of gloss past that and just sort of let that go because it actually doesn't work for our time.

41:09 Yeah. So they just have him like coming out of the fog or whatever, claiming that he did a one-on-one thing. And there is a scene in there where he does have the combat and everybody sort of stands around and watches him. And then they just sort of let him, let him walk away. But that was the best gloss they could put on it because we don't, we don't run wars that way anymore. Yeah, we don't have the, the one example or let, let's spare all these lives and just have like your champion versus our champion, you know, and stuff like that.

41:38 So yeah. Okay. I can see that. Which actually, I would love to go back to that, quite frankly. Um, that would actually be a lot more pleasant for me, honestly. Um, I think we should probably have, no, really, I think we should have Zelensky and Putin In a ring, and that'll fix the problem.

41:57 That would be an interesting matchup. And Putin's an old judo guy. So, I mean, he's, he's got some skills. I mean, looking at his path up and stuff like that, you don't get there without knowing how to handle yourself. Correct. And Zelensky's just a comedian, but he's, but he's got long reach. I mean, he's kind of short, but he's got long arms. And I think he's hungrier. He's also like 30 years younger than the man. So like, there's also that. There's also that. Putin looks damn good on the back of a horse without a shirt on though.

42:27 He does. He does. He does. So it's like, you— I don't— and this is why. And by the way, I would want to do best 2 out of 3 falls. Just best 2 out of 3.

42:44 So I, I personally, like I said, that would eliminate a whole lot of nonsense. We could eliminate resource— we could save resources, you know. And then, uh, you know, then our undercard match could be a Trump versus whoever the Iranians will spit up. Just pop up somebody. I don't know, somebody can represent your country. It's fine. Like, send some Persian over. It's fine. Donald Trump will come because he's crazy. Like, literally mentally crazy. crazy. He's crazy enough to think he can do it. And yeah, there's no one better than me.

43:14 There's no one better than me. And, and much like Bruce Wayne as Batman, he's gonna cheat. So we've got that. So there's gonna be that. Um, but the Iranians, I think, will struggle with actually like pushing a person forward somewhere because— and if you can't put— and the rules would be if you can't push forward a champion You gotta surrender. You gotta say, okay, that's it, I'm done. You gotta come up with somebody.

43:43 Interesting. If I were king of the universe, that's what I would do.

43:52 Okay. And then we just— and then we— look how many lives we save. Like, all of World War I could have been decided if Pétain and, you know, any of those other General, and all those old boys would have fought. Have you seen— have you ever seen like World War I, like Pershing and all those? They were— they were— they would go. They would absolutely have been like— they would have been all about it. The French, oh my God. Well, and like, not to cut away from the thing or whatever, like, that's the thing I appreciated a lot about the book, right, is that, uh, every Everybody makes this assumption around like the military and stuff.

44:32 Like, like people look at me weird because they see the long hair and the beard and they're like, well, John, you don't, you don't actually, you don't exactly talk like someone who was prior service. And I'm like, you know, isn't it great that we're all capable of growth? You know? And so it's, it like one of the things that I think now is, um, a lot of people don't have to make military a career. You don't necessarily have to go down this lane. Right. Whereas like back in the day, Those guys, you know, uh, like it's the Hamilton line, right?

44:58 I wish there was a war so I could fly above my station, right? And when we're looking at death and war and all of these things as just like a way to like level up and everything, of course all those hardcore guys are going to be really into it and stuff like that. So I was kind of taken by that during that time, like there, there really was only one way to really do it if you weren't born to it, you know. Like, it was the easiest path to get some advancement during that time and stuff. And I think, I think now it's, it's actually like we're less likely to put a war hero in charge of things because we know how faulty they can be, right?

45:39 Or just humans in general, and that people don't come locked and loaded for these roles, you know. Well, like General Petraeus like he got dunked on by Hillary Clinton and that was the end of his— like, like, there— I mean, people forget now in 2026, but in 2007, 2006, 2007, General Petraeus was thought to be a genius. Yep. And then Hillary Clinton dunked on him. I think she called him David Petraeus or David Petraeus or something like that. She like tagged him and then that was it. Like, his— he was going to run as a Democrat, I think, and Like, his entire career blew up on the— well, that and the, the, the, what do you call it, the— there was some issue with him, like, having an affair with his ghostwriter or something like that on some book that he was writing.

46:26 Anyway, his entire political career blew up on the landing pad. And then, and now Mark Kelly, you've got Mark Kelly that people are talking about running for the president. He's the astronaut guy? He's the astronaut guy, but he's also former military. Yep. And I just, I put a pin in that. I just, I wonder, I wonder, that's a big giant question mark for me because to your point, I don't know that people, I don't know that it plays anymore. I don't know that enough people have had enough. And you and I live in Texas, so it's a little bit different for us geographically.

47:00 Mm-hmm. But you go to other parts of the country, there are people who just, there's no one in their neighborhood, much less their family. There's no one in their neighborhood that's even been in the military in like now almost 3 generations. So I don't know that it plays, right, electorally to a much larger, a much larger group of people. And then when you talk about specific parties, where does it play more? Where does it play less? Yeah, you know, I think it's helpful that J.D. Vance was in the Marines.

47:26 Whether or not he was a good Marine is irrelevant. Like, that he was in the Marines, it doesn't matter. That he was in the Marines and the Republican Party, that works a little bit better for him. I don't know how well being in the military works for Mark Kelly among— in the Democratic Party. I just, I just don't know. I don't even know if it— I don't even know if there's enough people who remember him. That's an interesting question, right? Does that work? You know. To me, I'm just, I'm glad that it's no longer like assumed that if you have a stellar war career and God knows how you got that stellar reputation, that you just automatically have a path paved to be an elected official because Being good at that doesn't mean that you're good at this, right?

48:04 Just, it doesn't, you know. And I want to give everybody the full room to change. Okay, great. You know, work with a coach, work with a consultant, work with someone who can give you a toolkit. Don't just show up assuming that the toolkit that you have is going to be what you need to get the job done, right? Right. And so I think like a guy like— I've not seen a lot of the Kelly stuff, right? I try very hard to not look at any of this stuff on social media and use my time to upskill myself and I suppose just making myself angry.

48:31 But I think, I think, I think that, I think that if you're really, I guess, practiced, maybe you can tell whenever someone, uh, is, is like open to the challenge of the next level versus, ah, this is gonna be easy because I led 7 guys through battle. You're not in battle anymore. Right. Like, like the, the rules of engagement aren't anywhere close to, to what they were when you were exceeding and And I'm glad that you found success over here, but don't think you can bring that playbook over here and it's going to work out very well.

49:02 Right, right. Yeah, it is a real challenge.

49:07 And in our time, I don't know, it remains to be seen, right? And I do think this is the last thing I'll say. I think as, as we, we further, we go further into the century, I do think that at least in the United States, other countries, who knows? But in the United States,

49:32 outside of certain geographic areas, military service will continue to not matter as a, as a chip on your resume. I agree.

49:41 And we could discuss whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. I think it's just gonna be a fact of the matter on the ground. And then how you navigate that is, is a whole other kind of, a whole other kind of I mean, it's kind of like college, I think, now at this point, right? Because I'm not even going to lie, right? I have been hired because I'm prior service. It's absolutely happened, right? Sure. And sometimes it's not like the deciding factor, but my first job when I got home, the guy was prior service.

50:08 He'd been a tanker and he was like, what are you looking for a job for? Right? And I was like, well, I just got home from the reserves. I'm trying to find a job. I'm kind of limited because I'm in the reserve, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, oh, you're prior service? I said, yeah. He's like, what's your MOS? And I told him what it was. And he was like, okay, cool. You're not lying. And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, cause no one would, no one would lie about that job. And I was like, okay, that's weird.

50:29 And he goes, yeah, absolutely. You come in tomorrow. You're going to be fine. Now this is waiting tables, right? But like in sales roles, like, oh, John, military, right? You know, and, and, you know, it's, it's been helpful to me. I'm not going to lie or obfuscate about that. And some of my conversations and some of my growth. But still, it goes back to the idea that like

50:53 anybody who brings that full persona into, into work ain't gonna make it, right? Yeah. You're gonna get ridden outta town on a rail. You become the problem child. You become the guy who's way too rigid because I've just seen this time and time and time again on teams that I've worked with, you know? And it's, you know, when you are that cog, it's a very specific place that you fit into. And if you can, if you can make your way there, more power to you. But like, to me, it's like the same thing as reading War, right?

51:22 And doing some follow-up research and hearing those guys talk about like, yeah, it's kind of hard to come home. You know, like the tightening of that screw kind of, it'll break certain people, right? Yeah. So the idea that that just automatically equips you for a great job back here, Oh, you know, especially in the— and this is going to make me very unpopular potentially, especially these days, because most people are— would rather talk about and post about, you know, maybe joining, or they would have joined if they— if blah blah blah, if situations had been different and everything else like that.

51:55 And I know some recruiters who, uh, are— they talk about it's so hard to find people who actually qualify these days because of all like the— Yeah. Neurodiversity drugs and, you know, things like that that the people take when they're trying to figure out who they are. And it kind of disqualifies you for this, right? So we've had, we have less people ever. It's still used as a way to get away from, you know, problematic situations, right? Like, right. I had a drill sergeant ask us like, okay, who is here because a judge told you you could join the military or go to jail?

52:26 And the amount of hands that rose astounded me. I'll do you one better. Russia doesn't report the numbers of dead soldiers in the Ukraine, but we do know that they have opened up the doors of the prisons

52:47 and offered people the option to go. The Russians have opened up the doors of their prisons and have opened— have offered people, prisoners, the opportunity to go to the front and fight And you'll be free, or you can stay here and rot in Russian jail.

53:04 What's the take? It's not just happening here. I have no idea. They don't report that. God, that would be a fascinating study. They do not report that. So. Well, I mean, the, the cynicism is like, it's like it ain't going that well or else they would be pumping those numbers across, right, every propaganda channel that they had access to. So. You would think, except I read something the other day. I don't want to go too far further down this road, but I read something the other day where And it was interesting analysis.

53:31 I would not have thought of it this way. The Russians are used to playing wars of attrition that are like chess, whereas the American conception of war is much more like poker. We've got to have big wins, got to have big wins, got to hit big pots, got to have big pots because we're done in 4 years, got to get in, get out. Whereas the Russians— They can play the long game. Oh yeah, they'll take grind after grind after grind after grind for decades, for years, right? Not decades, but for years.

53:59 And then they declare a win.

54:05 I like to say there is some historical, I mean, there's historical precedent for that in Russia, you know, going back to, yeah, going back to, I mean, yes, the most notorious example is World War II. But even in Afghanistan, they just took hit after hit after hit after hit after hit after hit after hit. And they, the only reason they exited that was because Gorbachev came in. And I was like, the hell are we doing? We're wasting money here. And that was the only reason they left. Otherwise they would've just stayed there another 10 years.

54:30 Yeah. So it's the Russian way of war versus the American way of war. And it's 2 different ways of looking at warfare. And, and the person that, the analysis that I was reading was, you know, poker versus chess. And I, I had never thought of it that way, but that makes sense. Yeah.

54:50 So anyway, I promised we'd go back to the play. Yeah. Let's go back to the play here. We've got watered all over the countryside here, but it's all right. Let's pick up with, like I said, the Senate meeting to hear Comenius. Scene 2. Enter 2 officers to lay cushions, as it were, in the Capitol. By the way, I love that stage direction, as it were. First officer. Come, come, they're almost here. How many stand for consulships? 3, they say, but 'tis thought of everyone Coriolanus will carry it. That's a brave fellow, but he's vengeance proud and loves not the common people.

55:28 Faith, there hath been many great men that have flattered the people who never loved them, and there be many that have loved they know not wherefore, so that if they love they know not why, they hate upon no better ground. Therefore, for Coriolanus, neither to care whether they love or hate him manifests the true knowledge he has in their disposition, And out of his noble carelessness lets them plainly see it. If he did not care whether he had their love or no, he waved indifferently twixt between them, neither good nor harm, but he seeks their hate with greater devotion than they can render it to him, than render it to him, and leaves nothing undone that may fully discover him their opposite.

56:08 Now, to seem to affect the malice and displeasure of the people is as bad as that which he dislikes, to flatter them for their love.

56:17 He hath to deserve worthily of his country, and his ascent is not by such easy degrees as those who, having been supple and courteous to the people, bonneted without any further deed to have them at all in their estimation and report. But he hath so planted his honors in their eyes and his actions in their hearts that for their tongues to be silent and not confess so much as were a kind of ungrateful injury, to report otherwise were a malice that Giving itself the lie would pluck reproof and rebuke from every ear that heard it.

56:47 No more of him. He's a worthy man. Make way, they are coming. Enter a Senate, enter the patricians, the tribunes of the people, lictors before them, Coriolanus, Menenius, Cominius the consul, the patricians, they all sit. Cinicus and Brutus, by the way, Cinicus and Brutus are your villains in this, in case you're wondering. take their place by themselves, and Coriolanus stands. Menenius, by the way, who was played by, again, the never mailing it in Brian Cox in the film version that I watched. Having determined of the Volscics and to send for Titus Laericus, it remains as the main point of this our after-meeting to gratify his noble service that hath thus stood for his country.

57:30 Therefore, please you, most reverend and grave elders, to desire the present consul and last general in our well-founded successes, to report a little of that worthy work performed by Marcius Caius Coriolanus, whom we met here both to thank and to remember with honors like himself. Speak good, Cominius. Leave nothing out for length and make us think rather our state's defective for requital, that we to stretch it out. To the tribunes. Masters of the people, we do request your kindest ears, and after your loving motion toward the common body,

58:07 We are convented upon a pleasing treaty, and have hearts inclinable to honour and advance the theme of our assembly. Which the rather we shall be blessed to do, if he remember a kinder value of the people than he hath heretofore prized them at. That's off, that's off! I would rather you had been silent. Please you to hear Cominius speak. Most willingly, but yet my caution was more pertinent than the rebuke you give it. He loves your people, but tie him not to be their bedfellow. Worthy Cominius, speak.

58:44 Cominius rises and offers to go away. Nay, keep your place. Sit, Coriolanus. Never ashamed to hear what you have nobly done.

58:54 Your honour's pardon. I had rather have my wounds to heal again than hear say how I got them. Sir, I hope my words dispense you not. No, sir. Yet oft when blows have made me stay, I fled from words. You soothe not, therefore hurt not. But your people, I love them as they weigh. Pray now sit down. I had rather— I'd rather have one scratch on my head in the sun when the alarm was struck than idly sit to hear my nothings monstered. Coriolanus exits. Masters of the people, you multiplying spawn, how he can flatter!

59:33 There's thousand to good— there's thousand to one good one. When you now see, he had rather venture all his limbs for honor than one on one's ear to hear it. Proceed, Cominius. I shall lack voice The deeds of Coriolanus should not be uttered feebly. It is held that valor is the chiefest virtue and most dignifies the haver. If it be, the man I speak of cannot in the world be singly counterpoised. At 16 years, when Tarkin made head, made a head for Rome, he fought beyond the mark of others. Our then dictator, whom with all praise I point at, saw him fight with this Amazonian shin.

1:00:10 He drove the bristled lips before him. He bestride an o'erpressed Rome, and in the consul's view slew 3 oppressors. Tarquin's self he met, and struck him on his knees. In that day's feats, when he might act the woman in the scene, he proved best man in the field, for his meed was brow-bead with the oak. His pupil age man entered thus, he waxed like a sea, and in the brunt of 17 battles since, he lurched all swords of the garland. For this last, before and in Coriolanus, Let me say, I cannot speak him home.

1:00:43 He stopped the flyers and by his rare example made the coward turn terror into sport. As weeds before a vessel under sail, so men obeyed and fell below his stem. His sword, death's stamp, where it did mark, it took from face to foot. He was a thing of blood whose every motion was timed with dying cries. Alone he entered the mortal gate of the city, which he painted with shunless destiny. Aidless came off and with a sudden reinforcement struck Coriolanus like a planet. Now all's his. When by and by the din of war gained Pierce his ready sense, then straight his double spirit requickened what in flesh was fatigued, and to the battle came he, where he did run reeking o'er the lives of men as if 'twere a perpetual spoil.

1:01:23 Until we called both field and city ours, he never stood to ease his breast with panting.

1:01:34 You crushed that, dude. If I can pay you a compliment. Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate that. It was a long, it was a long, it's tough. No, man. Like, I, I, I'm, I'm over here like listening and I'm like, man, like, this is really, I mean, if it was me, I'd be like, uh, the teacher at the beginning of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Right? Like, it's hard for me to read things and emote them if I'm reading them out loud and everything. So good for you, dude. That was rad. Well, thank you. I appreciate that.

1:02:03 That's, that's, thank you. So the entire plot of Coriolanus hinges on this, this, this piece right here, the entire plot. This is the linchpin piece.

1:02:16 And, and Caius Martius Coriolanus, this entire play hinges on his inability to perform in a way that society, represented by the Plebeians, the patricians, his mother and his wife, even his son demand of him. He just can't do the thing they want done. His inability to perform, notably in failing to display his war wounds, failing to address the citizens, the plebeians, without mocking them, and failing to even be slightly interested in the class upgrade he's due to receive from the patricians, dooms Coriolanus to being an outsider.

1:02:53 Um, there's an idea here that I tied back, interestingly enough, to the story of Doubting Thomas in the Bible. It's in John 20:24-28, where John— or Thomas says, um, because all the other apostles— sorry, apostles— disciples had seen Jesus at the resurrection, or had seen him resurrected and walking around. And Thomas says, um, I, I would put my hands in his side, right? Um, because he didn't believe. That's where the doubting piece comes from. I would put my hands in his side and I would, I would see him and in his hands and feet.

1:03:24 That's what he says, hands and feet and side, to prove to myself that he's alive. And of course, then Jesus then shows up and he says, put your hands in my side, go ahead. And Thomas falls to the ground and says, my Lord and my God. And then that's the end of that, right? You can go read that in the Book of John. That idea of the wounds, right? would have been something that a highly religious culture like the, the Elizabethan age that Shakespeare was writing to would have known. And so this idea of not showing the wounds would have been really interesting to people in 1609, 1610.

1:04:01 That would have been a real shocker to them. Oh, you're not going to show them and we're still expected to love you? Thus, I suspect that most of the people that Shakespeare audience would have been initially anyway, um, on the side of the plebeians, because how dare you not show us? And so Shakespeare writes Coriolanus as a person who— you're just gonna have to trust me. And the audience he's writing to is going, nope, we don't have to. Why would we? We haven't seen any proof. This is interesting because I have a very different take around, around this.

1:04:39 Like, like that line where he was like, I would rather go through the injuries again than sit here and just talk about them. Like, yes, like, like, first of all, that, that line just like hit me like really, really like hard, right? And then, um, there's also the, the town or the time where he's got to put on the robe and he's got to be on public display and he's got to do all of these. And like, it's so, it's so interesting to me because the, the thing that I was so struck by is like he doesn't even really want this station.

1:05:07 It seems like everyone else around him, his mother, uh, uh, Manias? Manias? Menanias. Menanias. It seems like they're more fit on him being this person than he has any real desire to be. Like, it almost seems like he's calling out, like, like, let me just be this guy. Like, Like, like, keep me in the field, keep me, like, keep me at what I'm good at, right? Like, to me, I sense this, this big, like, I don't really want to do this, but it's what, it's what's expected, right? Right. It's this, everybody wants it.

1:05:45 And it's so funny because I see this all the time in sales, right? Sales is in this very interesting age to where depending upon what lane of selling you're looking at, it's very siloed. Right? And so the very, very popular one in tech is you start off at either an SDR or BDR, and you're essentially telemarketing, trying to set appointments for people and stuff like this. And people will go do this under the angle of like, hey, just do this for like 6, 7 months, and then you get to become a closer.

1:06:11 Then you don't have to do this part anymore. You just get to do this other part. And so then people get sold on this idea when in actuality, the person who closes the business has a lot of different things to be thinking about than just the person who sets the appointment. Right. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, when you're deep into sales, people know, like, just because you're a great SDR, BDR, like becoming a closer, like someone who closes business regularly on the right terms, on the right timeline and everything, skill set in and of itself.

1:06:41 Right. And I can't tell you how many people I've met who were chasing this, this ghost, if you will, like, okay, I started out as a BDR, SDR. Because most people are here on borrowed time because most people don't want to be in sales in the first place, right? I'm going to go be in marketing or product, or I'm going to go start my own thing, or I'm going to be C-suite and all this other stuff. And then, okay, great. Now you're a closer and it's still hard, right? And, you know, in some of these situations, these guys are set up to fail because they don't actually want you going out and getting your own leads.

1:07:14 So now you're having to be fed by someone else. You're probably not able to coach or train this person and what you want in your deals, and that's gonna lead to a bunch of frustration. And then you start thinking of like, well, this is not as easy as I thought it was, and the money's better, but it's not great. I guess I got to go into leadership, right? And I know a ton of salespeople that have made the jump to leadership only to realize that it wasn't for them, right? Mm-hmm. And my favorite people to like interview for a sales role are people that have gone up and decided that that version, that next rung, was not the right rung for them, and they would rather be the person who's really good at the thing that they're good at.

1:07:53 Okay, but let me ask you a question, because this is— this goes directly to integrity. This is something that Corey Alanis— one of the first things that jumped out to me was, other than the Kevin O'Leary thing, but, uh, was that

1:08:09 he was a person Regardless of which audience he was in front of, who had ruthless integrity, even all the way to the end, even in the way that he died, he had ruthless integrity, right? Got to be right. Got to be right. Even if it means you lose. Right. Have you ever met or ever coached a BDR or even an SDR who had that level of not loyalty? Because we, we confuse, I think in our culture, loyalty and integrity. We think they're both the same thing. Oh, this is— yeah, yeah, they're not the same thing.

1:08:43 They're not the same thing. Like, and by the way, we see this in Coriolanus, right? Because so he goes and he hangs out with the Volscics, who are Rome's enemies, and Alphidius and all that. He hooks up with them. And then, you know, the mother comes in and is talking to him and trying to get him out of that because they're looking at it as a sign of disloyalty. He's, however, looking at it from the position of, I'm just having integrity all the way through. Yeah. To the ruthless end. Have you ever run across a BDR or an SDR with integrity?

1:09:17 Have you ever coached one? Oh man, this is a, this is a tough question, right? Because I think, I think most people inside of sales and revenue Until you decide to make it your craft, it's almost the same thing as the martial arts thing. Let me come in here, watch some Grant Cardone videos or some Andy Elia videos, and then watch me close all these people, right? And then there's no connection. There's no, there's no real business acumen. There's no understanding. There's none of these things. And it's just try hard, right?

1:09:48 Mm-hmm. And part of this is because sales is pushed by a lot of people of like, hey, you just gotta want it enough to just keep doing the follow-up and like, now we're putting people onto pilgrimages that don't have a high conversion rate, right? And then this person is sweating, but they're also told, well, hey, just keep sweating, just keep sweating. You're so close, you're so close. And then we're going to be able to promote you up, and then you don't got to do this crap anymore. And sometimes that's on borrowed territory, right?

1:10:18 Because if you're a closer and the person who is setting appointments for you is only setting deals that cannot win, cannot close, are not aligned, blah, blah, blah, all the numbers of reasons why deals don't die. Now you're on borrowed territory on a new role, and you don't even have any of the things around you that were leading to everyone being forced to take you seriously because the results aren't there. Right. Yeah. And, you know, that's where it takes a long time for people on the growth side total.

1:10:46 Like, this isn't just salespeople, because I know a lot of marketing people that are just chasing pure volume vanity metrics that kick up more dust and waste more time than are actually leading to growth, conversion, consistency, and stability. And so I think, I think until you decide that this is your lane and you mean to do it well and you, you find your version of ethics, you know, because all these people that I kind of railed against, they all think that they're right as well, right? Which is a whole other part of the conversation that we're probably not going to be able to dive into today, but it's, you know, nobody thinks that they're wrong, right?

1:11:23 Which is part of the problem with like sales and marketing and how it's talked about and coached. And I think we're closer to being better at it than we ever have been, but there's still a whole lot of people that just want to make it about effort and you don't want it enough. And, but they came up with a goal on the back of a napkin based upon what should happen, right? And then it all gets pushed down from there. So there's a line in some analysis that I got from the Folger Shakespeare— the Folger Library, um, which is a great resource online.

1:11:53 This is not an ad for them, but go check them out. folgershakespearelibrary.com or .edu, whatever it is, .org. Go check them out. Um, they have, um, the full analysis of each one of Shakespeare's plays. They have each one of Shakespeare's plays on there. Mm-hmm. They have a ton of good information. I use them. I buy their editions. Folger Shakespeare Library. If they sponsored the show, that would be the sponsorship thing. Go check them out. Okay. One of the pieces of analysis that I read quoted this from a guy named Lee Bliss.

1:12:26 He said, Coriolanus never asks, who am I? Or what have I become? He seems more likely to ask, have I done anything to

1:12:40 Oh, that's interesting. So now the reason I'm bringing this up is because you just said in sales, no one wants to admit they're wrong.

1:12:53 Yeah. Have I ever sold something for which— not something— have I ever sold something in a way for which I was ashamed? Ashamed. And if you— I suspect that if people— like, I wrote a blog post years ago— not years ago, feels like years ago— months ago on the psychology of selling. Actually, you liked it on, um, on Facebook, where I talked about, um, how we don't actually want to look at how selling actually works at a psychological level. Like, we don't want to write books like that. Because we write books on persuasion, which is an aspect of sales, influence, which is an aspect of sales.

1:13:35 Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini. I facilitated that book. Great book, right? Phenomenal. Um, or even Robert Greene's The 48 Laws of Power, which— very good, very good, right? Or any of the other books that Greene has written about mastery and all those types of things, right? Yeah, great books. But those are not books on the psychology of— not even the psychology, sorry, the why of why selling works. And it's real— I think I wrote in my blog post, it's real thin on that end of the shelf.

1:14:02 And it's real thin on that end of the shelf because I think we're genuinely afraid. We're afraid that if we pull it apart, it won't work anymore. But then we're also genuinely afraid, and this goes to the shame question, that we might have done something for which we should be ashamed, and we just— it's a little hole in the boat, and we just plug it over and we don't think about it because we closed the sale, we got the revenue, everybody was happy, I got my bonus, everybody shut up and move on.

1:14:36 Yeah. And if we had too much analysis there— this is the thing that's tripped over this in my head for me. Sure. Um, but if we had that analysis in sales, whether it's at the BDR level, the SDR level, the leadership level, maybe we might have to change somehow in there. And God forbid we do that. Well, I mean, if you're on any sort of fundraised version of this, there's no real room to do it because, I mean, those guys want 1,400% returns, right? And, you know, I saw a very interesting post that was talking about how the whole VC startup environment is based around getting people who have workaholic tendencies so that way they, they just become workaholics, right?

1:15:24 And they get a bunch of, you know, growth and improvements and ideas out the door and stuff like this. But at what cost, right? They all become like a little bit of Looney Tunes, right? And burned out or, you know, chasing other things that don't really need to be in the, in the lens of it. Yeah. Um, I mean, this is honestly, uh, like, I think, I think that, I think the— oh my gosh, the part of this,

1:15:53 how do I, how do I even say, if I had not been shown this idea in the way that I was shown this, I don't think I would still be able to work in sales, honestly. Because my business partner, we just started working together and I closed a couple of deals. We're doing affordable websites and we— there was a reason that we were able to do these affordably. It was because we had a different process, right? And so he pulls me to the side and he goes, hey man, we gotta talk about these deals you closed.

1:16:19 And I was like, yeah, pretty good, right? And he goes, no dude, these are garbage. What are you doing? And I said, you brought me here to close these deals. And he goes, no, I brought you here to bring in easy projects. These people don't get it. Because you're selling it on the basis of commodity. You're just going around talking about that we're cheaper than other people. And, you know, like, you know, he was such a, such an abundant guy. He was like, he's like, honestly, this is, this is a me thing, right?

1:16:46 I thought you already knew this and everything. But he goes, he goes, man, it's not enough for them to have a budget. It's not enough for them to have a need for in the form of a new website. They have to want it how we do it, or it's going to be a nightmare. Yeah. Right. And thankfully, I'd had another interaction with a coach like way back in the day whenever I was trying to play poker full-time. I quit a sales job in 2006 and played poker for 9 months professionally, right, before deciding that that wasn't my lane of greatness and I wanted to, you know, have a car and a mortgage eventually and stuff like that.

1:17:19 And so I decided to like move out of that, but I had a poker coach because it was important to me and I'm trying to get better and I'm losing a lot. I'm trying to figure this thing out. And he says this line, right? You will improve based upon the quality of the questions you ask yourself. I was like, what the hell does that mean? Because I was mad, right? I'm very much like Corey Alanis, like, like at this time, like, what? Because I'm paying this dude all of $40 an hour, which was really incredible money to me at this time.

1:17:45 And, and I was like, dude, you're here to help me win more pots. And he goes, no, I'm here to— I'm here to help you become a winning poker player. These are different levels. If you want the other thing, I can't help you. I was like, what the hell does that mean? He's like, sometimes you're gonna come ask me, how do I win this pot? And my question to you is, why are you in the pot at all? So then fast-forwarding, thankfully I've had that conversation and then lived a version as a poker player of folding a lot, right?

1:18:14 Not trying to let my ego just run wild and win every single pot whether I have it or not, but let's pick my spots, let's pick my battles. Right? And so whenever my business partner kind of shows me this idea, I, I mean, I'm a rigid person, right? I, I think I'm right when I think I'm right. And I was so mad about this thing, but just enough of hearing that of like, man, they have to want it how we do it, or can you see how bad it's going to get?

1:18:40 And that to me was like the opening of the door. Like, oh my gosh, like This was everything that had always bothered me about like being in those other sales roles where it was just try hard and push and try hard and push and try. Well, I mean, part of that is corporate and in corporate, it's a big enough organization that you can just close it and pitch it over the wall. Like, are you still gonna end up hated? Yeah, but no one's really thinking about it, you know, stuff like that. But in smaller business, and, and this is why I do the work that I do now, if you're doing work that is subjective or custom or very specific, or if you need to be seen as a partner and not just a set of hands that does a magic trick for someone else.

1:19:19 You can't be a close them all type, right? And trying to chase any of that idea or ideology or thinking, Grant Cardone or Andy Elliott, of just like push real hard and close them, it's a ticking time bomb until you become like, hey, agencies are hard. You should just become a consultant because that's what I had to do. No, you were bad at selecting who you wanted to work with because you were thinking that no matter what they wanted, when you showed it to them, they were going to get it and just roll over and do whatever you wanted.

1:19:48 It doesn't work that way, especially not in B2B. And so it was so interesting because that idea was the whole reason that I'm still working in this job as a guy who's very unaligned for it personality-wise. Right. I'm an introverted, reserved guy that wants to be right and wants to help you fix the problem. I don't want to be the guy who's trying to woo you or win you over or push something in your face if it doesn't make any sense, you know? So this idea, hyper-targeted, highly specific, and let's go do it differently and see if they appreciate how we do it, not just that we have something for them and just follow up until they block you and all this other stuff.

1:20:35 See, I, so I hear this and I think Corey Alanis would've benefited from your coaching before he went and sat with the folks in the Senate. Yeah. And the reason I say this is because I think Coriolanus represents a certain strain in,

1:20:53 I would say among men as a, as a gender, but I would also say it's evident in women. It just shows up in different ways. We're about to talk about Volumnia in a minute. And that's, I think, another way that it shows up, but this strain

1:21:08 of, um, being uncompromising, right? Having your ethics and your integrity, right? Mm-hmm. But also failing to realize that other groups around you, the patricians, the plebeians, the senators, and I wrote this down, this is why I was like thinking while you were talking, they don't want to level up. And I think this is something we struggle with in our time as well. So the internet has brought us the long tail and out on the long tail, we have all of these people. Yeah. Chris Anderson's long tail, Seth Godin, all those guys.

1:21:47 Yeah, absolutely. Out here on the long tail,

1:21:52 myself and John get to make a living.

1:21:57 The fat head of the pre-internet world, which we're old enough to remember that those of you who are listening who are under the age of 30, you you don't remember that world. We got the vague vestige ends of it and it was still bad. And in that world, the fathead world, if other people around you didn't want to level up, you were alone. You just were. That was the whole, like, thank you for saying this, dude. Because when I, when I got home from the military, right, I joined as a reservist in May of 2001, right?

1:22:28 9/11 happens. I'm learning how to do my job. And for the most part, I, I like, I realize about 4 or 5 days, days in, I made a huge mistake. This is not my space. I'm not supposed to be here, but I'm not, you know, I'm not going to wet the bed so they'll send me home or any of this other stuff that other people will do. I sign the papers, right? So I don't, I don't own my own butt cheeks for the next, you know, 8 years of this thing. I sign the paper. Yep. I've sworn the oath. We're gonna do the thing.

1:22:56 And when I came home as a reservist, you kind of like almost live this like dual life, right? Because I come back and I'm waiting tables. Like I didn't go back into like a super corporate environment or anything else. I'm waiting tables, right? Right. So the incongruence between these 2 lanes, right? So one weekend a month, I'm trying hard to like shift into this other gear of like military because we're on alert. I mean, we could be sent off anytime and, you know, there's always things to do. And then I'm waiting tables and everyone is more focused on doing drugs and like, hey, it's okay if we blow all of our money because we're just going to come in and work a double tomorrow.

1:23:37 And being the guy who's trying too hard in a situation where no one else is trying at all is my, is my never-ending nightmare. Mm-hmm. Right. My favorite thing now being out on my own and being a founder and doing this for 8 years is I call my shots, I make my goals, I do the things that I think are important and meaningful and everything. And I don't have to invent something around these things. But man, all I want to do is like try and perform at the highest caliber that I possibly can. And whenever other people don't want to do that, it sucks my, my soul and my will to, to, to show up and try and be that person.

1:24:19 And so then I become this weird apathy version that is like trying to mimic apathy, even though like it never really rests very well for me, right? It's— I've always been kind of an improver and a guy who wants to get better and stuff. And then like waiting tables, it was weird. And then moving out of waiting tables back into sales roles, I'm like, I'm like, okay, like maybe this will be more like the military and there's room to really try and to like, you know, take up space meaningfully as opposed to just punching a clock.

1:24:48 My first handful of retail sales roles, it was more about, okay, new commission structure is out. Let's get it and let's figure out how we can make the most money with the least amount of effort. And doesn't this training suck? And training is something you get punished with because you're not hitting your numbers. And I'm like, where's the high performance of this whole thing? Right. And it just largely wasn't there. It was who can talk the loudest. Who's got the most political capital? And back in the early days of this, no one was really all that concerned with like what happened after the sale.

1:25:20 And the internet has allowed you to go far enough out, just like me, far enough out to where we can be a mini version of Coriolanus and, and have our integrity and our wounds We all have cycle— these days, psychological wounds. We can have our integrity and have our wounds, and we can pick and choose how we decide we are going to level up in that, in that area. Yep. But in the 16th century, in Shakespeare's time, pre-Industrial Revolution, right, it's very much town, sometimes city. But town, like, you're generationally in your town.

1:26:08 Yeah. Like, you do what your father— like, Shakespeare's father was a leather glove maker. And there's no evidence that we could find— I found this out from Katie when we were talking about the Macbeth episode, I didn't even know this— there's no evidence of, like, there being strife between him and his father about him not being a leather glove maker. Mm-hmm. And, you know, not following on in what his father, you know, did. However, I think there's probably no evidence of that because the folks of the 17th century, all the way up in human history, all the way up until the mid-20th century, didn't think any of that was interesting.

1:26:50 That strife was interesting. It wasn't worth commenting on. Because it was merely, you're going to do— You're just being childish. You're just being childish, right? And they don't even use the term childish. They use the term— they don't use immature. That's not even the terms that they use, right? They use the term of, you're just not doing what— no, in Fiddler on the Roof, Fiddler on the Roof, there's a great scene in Fiddler on the Roof. If you've never seen the movie, you should go watch it.

1:27:19 But the father talks about his daughters getting married, and there's a whole scene at the beginning. It's even in the stage play of Fiddler on the Roof. And the— and he's— she's a Jewish person, and he talks about tradition, and that's the whole— like, that's what it was. That was the only word that people heard. Yeah. And the, the interesting thing about America in the last 8 years, in America specifically, in the West overall, is we've broken all that down Again, we could discuss whether or not that's good or bad, but the internet has been a force of disruption for a lot of that tradition.

1:27:54 Yeah, I agree with that. And has allowed people— yeah, has allowed people to go way the hell out on the long tail. So like, I think of my own life, right? Nobody in my family even tried— well, I wouldn't say even tried. There were a few people in my family who tried. I got to give credit where credit is due. They did try, and it was hard, and they didn't get very far. Nobody in my family has gotten as far as I've gotten with entrepreneurship. Same. Nobody else in my family thinks of work in the way that I think of work.

1:28:20 So I'll give you an example, right? So I'll give you an example. I once worked at a bookstore. It shall remain nameless. When we stop recording, it will not remain nameless because I want to know what bookstore you worked in. But we can— Major— We can save that. Major bookstore. Who is not a sponsor of this show for several good reasons. Okay. And I worked at the local outfit of this major bookselling brand, and my supervisor there, when he hired me— and at the time I was doing entrepreneurship stuff, but it was— it hadn't grown.

1:28:56 I had to go get money, whatever. Yeah, it's not always pretty. And he told me— no, no, not that he told me. After he hired me, he's like, oh well, we're really happy to have you here, blah blah blah blah. We have, um, we have performance evaluations coming up in name your number of months here. And I looked him dead in the face and I said— and I would have never said this 20 years ago, you couldn't even say this 20 years ago, but if you take the internet seriously and the long tail seriously, this is what you say to that— I looked at him and I said, no, actually, that's about the time I'll be leaving.

1:29:27 I'm not going to let you evaluate me. I'm going to do this work because you and I are partners. You're not my supervisor, you're my partner. I'm going to show up to work, I'm going to do the work, you're going to pay me, I'm going to learn some things, and then at the end of this period of time that you've said, I'm going to leave.

1:29:47 And he laughed and thought I was full of crap. Do you want to know what the punchline is? Here's the punchline. At the end of the period, like a week before the performance evaluations were due to come out, I handed him my resignation letter. I said, you have a good day. It's been great working here. And walked right out the door. Okay. I heard later on— now, I heard later on, I heard later on from other people who worked with me. This is the other part of it. Heard later on from other people who worked with me, the guy was like, oh, he's full of crap.

1:30:19 He'll never do it. Because he was going around telling everybody what I said. Said, oh, he's full of crap, he'll never do it. By the way, never came and told me that I was full of crap. Of course. Yeah, they never did. Of course I— right. And other people around me, other employees who had been there, by the way, some of them years had been there,

1:30:38 who had their dreams in them and they had died. I'm thinking of one guy in specific who was working there for the health insurance, had been there for 10 years. And he had bad feet. Like he was having foot surgeries like all the time. It was just, it was, it was, it was horrible. Right.

1:30:58 I showed up every day to work, behaved with integrity, did the work that I, as I was told to do it, treated customers well, did all the things I was supposed to do. But I'm not gonna, I have the long tail. I'm not going to be evaluated by you. I don't give you that permission. Instead, I evaluate my— this is a very Coriolanus way of looking at it— is that I evaluate myself and I decide when I leave. And this is where we get into the— this is where it's in the Fathead. For all you under 30, this is the Fathead levers that were used against people.

1:31:36 Our mortgage,

1:31:40 neighborhood, your wife, your kids, school district, status. What are people going to put your black— put whatever is in the block there behind that? And all of those levers, if you actually— and this is the thing I've bet my entire career on— if you take the internet seriously, none of those levers— don't say they don't matter, but those levers become levers now that you choose to be leveraged by. Mm-hmm. rather than allowing them to leverage you. And that is a fundamental thing that the long tail has brought, has opened up.

1:32:13 And I think we, we don't understand that. We're groping through that right now. Yeah. And I think we will fully get it at the end of this century, but it's gonna be a long groping because a lot of the Industrial Revolution, a lot of the Henry Ford Industrial Revolution assumptions are all still hanging around. And it's hard to get rid of them because they

1:32:33 Well, okay, I have— this is such an interesting situation for me because like hearing the story, that doesn't sound like the guy that I know you, right? Um, I've become this— I've become the guy over time. It took a lot of going through like experiences like that to become that guy. So, okay, so, okay, so let me, let me make sure that I'm hearing this the right way. You're not saying that that's the right way to be, you're saying that that's the way that you No, I'm really saying that's a step along the path to getting to this spot where I'm at now.

1:33:04 Mm-hmm. But I had to go through that. I had to test that. I had to test the theory. Can I actually engage with the industrial system that this institution, this employer represents, in a way where I will not be leveraged. Instead, I will tell the system what I'm going to do.

1:33:30 Can this happen? Can this work? And so I tested it. That was a test. Mm-hmm. And I ran a different variation of it years before that, but I had forgotten the lesson because I'm hardheaded. I had forgotten the lesson. Um, in a different sort of situation underneath different circumstances. Again, where I looked at the system and I said, no, you're not going to do this thing. Yeah. I'm instead going to do this thing. Mm-hmm.

1:34:02 And at that time underneath those situations, and that's a, that was a much more delicate one. You and I could talk about that one off the air. Much more delicate one. Um, there's still people around who like know me who were involved in that, that situation. And it was not pleasant for a whole bunch of people, but I hoisted an entire system by its own it's hard. And the system doesn't like it when you do that. Oh, yeah. And again, the internet allows you— if you actually take the internet seriously, it allows you to understand that, okay, I blew this thing up here on the launchpad.

1:34:32 And there's so many more things out there, I just have to go get them. And the internet opens up the door to the courage to do that. This is why I look at— this is why I look at people under 30. I'll use this as a perfect example. People under 30 who have 30,000 followers on Instagram and still think that it's about posting nonsense

1:34:53 and can't figure out how to make money. Oh, well, you know, yeah, that's a, that's, you know, that's the whole thing. Right. And then, you know, but like, here's the other part of it. They don't have to want for long. Right. Because, because these companies are going, you know, like Like, I'm not on TikTok. I don't think we even have any content going to TikTok because like, I don't want to— I don't want it on my phone, right? Right. And so I have this— I like, like hills I will die on, if you will.

1:35:23 If you're using AI in your social media, like, like for like commenting or DMs, it ain't gonna go very well, you know? Yeah. Um, and so for me, I'm like, great, if I don't want to be present on a social media platform, I'm not even going to try to push content on that platform. Because to me, to get success from a social media platform, you must be social on it. Right. Right. It's ridiculous to think that we can just treat these things like broadcast networks and just be able to flip the money line and just pull the bandit arm.

1:36:01 Let me— while you're thinking, let me pause here for just a moment. Okay, go ahead. And, um, I think the internet helps with this stuff. I, I, one of the things that I try to get and impress upon people, because if you don't come from sales, if you don't come from conversational selling, you really have a probably limited, uh, view on how you can run a conversation. Right. So one of my favorite things to do with people is to give them weird words and weird questions to go ask. Right. And well, John, this doesn't seem like it's going to help me sell.

1:36:41 I'm like, it's not going to help you sell, but it's going to help you take up space in your conversations and fight for what's important and ask questions. So like, I'll do things like I one time told this founder that he had to go ask people like what their favorite book was, what their favorite movie was, and what their favorite color was. And he, he was supposed to do this in a way so that way the other person did not get knocked out of the bubble and be like, well, why are you asking me that question?

1:37:04 Right? So we, so they respond with that. We're not doing a good enough job of contextualizing and looking for bridges and all these other things. Right. But it's one of my favorite things to do with people that don't come from sales because they're like, I want to come in. I want to have a brass tacks kind of conversation. I don't want to change anything at all. And then I want them to buy. And it's like, okay, great. How do you function in that kind of sales process? Well, John, this is different because this is what I want to do to other people, not what I want being done to me.

1:37:31 And I'm like, do you see how well that's going to go? Can we just talk about that for a minute? You know, like, and people just get so floored with it. And I'm like, don't overshoot the mark. Go have great conversations. Right. Because like, especially if you're founding a company, if you don't have connections, connection with the people that you're trying to serve, you're so far out of touch, you're the only person who doesn't know, period, right? So like, I love how deliciously crazy a conversation can be, right?

1:38:04 Yeah. Because we've all been in conversations with people that have like just led us around by our nose. And, you know, it might be that, that it was like a manager and you didn't know that you could push back or be like, hey, can we get back on Topic, right? Like, hey, this sounds like something we could talk about for two to three days, but we'd probably be upset with and spend the time well, right? You know, like these little bitty turns of phrase that salespeople get really good at, and it's just about pushing for what you need.

1:38:27 But most people don't know that you're allowed to push for what you want, right? And so instead, what they do—oh man, what a great tieback—is they kind of act like the mother, right? And you go around and they're and they're pushing manipulative levers, right? My least favorite thing is whenever people are like, man, I'm not trying to sell you, I'm trying to help you. You have sold yourself on the idea that you know what they need so well that you're allowed to bulldoze people into lanes that they have told you and asked you not to go into.

1:38:57 Right. A friend of mine is a very spiritual person. She knows where I sit on it. We've had multiple conversations about it, and we can have a conversation about it. But about once a year, she has to sit down and be like, hey. Right. I just got it. And I'm like, hey, you think I don't know where you are? I know where you are. Like, why? Like, why? Right? All right. Well, John, I just really want to see you there. Yeah. Okay, great. So my preferences of like, I like, I like spending time with you, but I'm tired of having this conversation because I just keep having to tell you no because this is a waste of your time, right?

1:39:32 Just aren't heard. Yeah. You know, and it's like that stuff like that, to me, that's the worst version of selling, is that you have drank so much of your own Kool-Aid, you're Lex Luthor.

1:39:46 Happens all the time. Happens with founders. It happens with all these coaches that are hitting the scene, and they're, they're not, they're not coaching on anything other than vibes, right? But they're, oh, well, I'm not trying to sell you, I'm trying to help you. Okay, cool. Who asked you? So

1:40:06 I want to get to Volumnia. Yeah, here, I want to get to the mom. Um, so okay, before we do this, who do you think is the bigger culprit for pushing Coriolanus into a lane that doesn't actually fit him or behoove him? Do you think it's mother, or do you think it's Uh, Manai— what? Manaias. Yeah, yeah.

1:40:35 So there's a— I'll answer the question this way. There's a great thing we, we tell the— we tell actually in the— both the adult jiu-jitsu class. Now I've mentioned— look at that, we're an hour, almost 2 hours in. Stop talking jiu-jitsu. Look at that. Um, so, um, in the adult class and in the kids class And it particularly sucks in the summer when it's like 100 degrees outside and the air conditioning is barely working inside. It's ridiculous, right? Um, but we tell the kids, and it's true, some days you're the hammer, some days you're the nail.

1:41:06 Yep. And you're asking which one has the most— sort of not responsibility, but the most, uh, not even culpability, the most— which one's the most of the hammer? Right? That's hammering— With good intentions. With good intentions, right? Um, always good intentions.

1:41:25 Um, so I think Menelaus, from my analysis, Menelaus is self-serving and

1:41:37 fundamentally— and, and he commits suicide, actually. So, you know, he, he removes himself from the scene before, um, Volumnia goes to, um, goes to Alphidius to— because he can't, he can't— he originally goes to, um, he originally goes to, to, um, the Volscics to bring back, um— He's the first messenger. Yeah, he's the first messenger, and he can't do it. He can't, he can't complete his mission. And so he, you know, he cuts him. He's done, right? He takes himself out. And

1:42:12 He does this because he's self-serving and he doesn't realize—

1:42:18 well, he doesn't realize who he's talking to until the end there. He doesn't realize the game he's in. Menenius does it. Hmm. Volumnia— and this is not me laying everything at her feet, however— Volumnia knows exactly what game she's in, and she knows from the beginning. She knows who her kid is. She repeatedly states that she knows who her kid is. She behaves with him as if she knows who he is, and she even manipulates, or attempts to manipulate, at the end with Alphidius. Yeah. Who he is. So who has more— who's more of the hammer there?

1:43:05 I think they're both hammers. I think it's a big, big blind, small blind, big blind, small blind. Who's the big blind? Who's the small blind, right? And I think Volumnia is the big blind. I think she is, you know.

1:43:21 Now, there's another aspect to this, which, which kind of gets glossed over, and it's the plebeians. It's the people, um, and the mob. And we don't talk about this very much, but in our time— oh my God. And I think it's, again, this is, this is the downside of the internet, specifically social media, but let's just blame the entire internet for this. It can carry the weight of it. Um, I was watching a clip in my Facebook feed of like Trevor Noah talking about him not believing in bullying online.

1:43:57 I saw this. I don't know if you've seen this clip. You've seen this clip? Yeah, I did see this clip. Yeah. And I watched it all the way through, not because I particularly care about Trevor Noah, although now I'm gonna be flooded with it, but because I was like, okay, what is he— this is a compelling enough idea. Let's just see what he has to say all the way to the end. Right. And I got to the end of the clip. And the distinction that he makes between bullying happening in a physical space because you have no escape, that's bullying, versus in an internet space where you have the option to participate or not.

1:44:31 Mm-hmm. I think that's an important distinction with a difference. I think that that's, that's, that's truly critical. I think he has— he does understand something there that I think a lot of us have forgotten. What the internet has done, however, is it has opened up the psychological, not the psychological, the social norming power of the mob. And the social norming power of the mob is what we also see here in Coriolanus. This is what he's pushing back against. He's pushing back against the social norming power of the mob.

1:45:04 And we miss that because, quite frankly, in our time, when the social norming power of the mob, and this is the appropriate response, by the way, to Trevor Noah. Yeah. When the social norming power of the mob is working for you, you love it. You're fine with it. When the social norming power of the mob is working against you, all of a sudden you're DMing individuals, DMing individuals asking, hey, what's up, bro? And then they go, oh, well, you know, I just wanted to pile on. Sorry, I think you're fine.

1:45:32 Because he did, he like DM'd, like the ultimate comedian's revenge, like showing up to somebody's work and booing them. He, he DM'd somebody. And the guy was like, I actually think you're fine. I don't know. I was just piling on, man. I don't— I mean, I mean, I think you'll fail because you're not as good as Jon Stewart, which, okay, whatever. But like, I don't have a personal problem with you. And that's the thing where Trevor Noah goes to is that personal connection. And again, I think there can be multiple perspectives on this.

1:46:03 And I think that that is a perspective that's useful and decent. And I think it's Particularly useful and decent if you are, if you have a teenager who's very online all the time. But there's a whole other cascade of challenges there that you probably should have solved before even getting to that point. But oh yeah, like with the devices and the monitoring, all of that, even before you showed up with the internet. But there, or put the, as I told my 16-year-old daughter, who we finally, she finally got a smartphone this year because she's going to be driving at the end of the next 6 months.

1:46:33 Um, because I'm sort of guiding her through that process. Uh, here's your portal to hell. Like, be careful. Like, this is it, you know? Oh my God. Yeah. Oh my God. Um, and we've prepped her. And, and so again, it's one of those things where we prepped you, you let us know. Like, you got to be on— got to be on guard, right? So we don't talk enough about the prepping part. We don't talk enough about the individual versus the mob part. And then for Coriolanus, we don't talk about the pushback against the mob.

1:47:05 And this is what Coriolanus is about. It's the pushback against the mob. And in our time, it's really hard. Like, I have people yelling, yell at me on the internet too for like things I say, like, or things I've put out there. Like, YouTube is rife with this. The number of uncommented-on YouTube comments that I have on this podcast is unbelievable. And some of the things that people have said in DMs to me on Instagram, on Facebook, on YouTube about things I've said on the show. Hmm. And my attitude has always been, and it's not a Corey Alanis attitude, it's about halfway there.

1:47:43 But, but the, the, the attitude for me has always been, if your handle is, you know, [email protected],

1:47:56 I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't care. Go listen to something else. It's harder for me to not care. I'm gonna be honest. Right. Oh, absolutely. And I understand how it's harder for some people. But I don't attach a real person to [email protected]. I don't think of there being a real mind back there versus, versus, and this is a variation of the Trevor Noah thing, but just take it to the— to a little bit more of a logical end. Versus if my sister,

1:48:24 who I know, is like, hey bro, you missed this, that I'm gonna listen to because I have a personal relationship with that person. Or if my wife is like, uh, you probably shouldn't have said that, okay, then I'm gonna have more of a personal relationship with that. Now I will say this, My cover, my cover, my, my discipline for all of that has always been I don't say anything on the podcast that I wouldn't say to anybody in real life. 100%. Whether you're, whether you're [email protected] or you're, you know, my daughter or my, my sister or my best friend, the way I show up here is the way I show up.

1:49:02 This is me. This is the thing you're getting. And I've never said anything that's indefensible here. Like I've always said, I've always said, about Twitter back when I was way more on Twitter than I am now. Way more. I have about 26,000 tweets and probably about a third of them are offensive to somebody. And I don't care. I would still back up all that stuff that I tweeted, even if it was like 10 years ago. Yeah. Fine. Yeah. Come on. Try to, try to have a problem. Try to make a problem. It's fine.

1:49:31 But where people get into, where people get into a problem is They start, and this is where Coriolanus is interesting. They start moving and Menenius is actually, Menenius is interesting for this. And the senators Brutus and, um, Cinnaeus, they try to manipulate the mob by moving this way and that way. Yeah, they do. They try to flow with the mob. And the internet has shown us that the mob is fickle. It is fickle and dangerous. Yeah, I saw a very interesting, um, guy talking about how a lot of the The big people with big audiences aren't moving away because they really have a problem with how things are.

1:50:08 They're just seeing data that indicates that their rhetoric is no longer the popular version of it and stuff like that. There you go. That's right. And like, like, this is a weird thing because like my, my wife, uh, and I will talk about this thing because like the, the question I'll ask her is like, do you want a fake apology?

1:50:26 Right? I don't, I don't want a fake apology. Right. I know that people are going to believe whatever they believe, and because of my path, and, you know, like, I know a range of, I guess, belief that I think most people would kind of like shudder at, right? If you've never been in the military, if you've never trained martial arts, if you've never been in sales, if you've never been in growth— like, I mean, my whole path is flooded with like a lot of tryhards and a lot of people that are selling themselves on whatever, on whatever they think that they need to do is totally okay because it's outcomes only, bro, right?

1:50:58 Right. Gotta hit these goals, bro, and all this other stuff. And so

1:51:04 it's, uh, just such an interesting situation because like on the other side of it is like I try to make sure that I'm speaking with discernment and distinction because I don't want to argue with anybody online, honestly, right? Like, like my— I mean, I have this one shirt, it's like I'm not gonna argue with with idiots on the internet. And it's more about a reminder for myself that, like, you're not close enough to any of these people to change their hearts and their minds on anything big. And so I like, you know, we were talking about Spider-Man before we turned on the recording.

1:51:35 I like the Tom Holland version of this, right? Mm-hmm. If, if you have a problem with something you heard me say, text me. If you don't have my cell phone number, you're not close enough to have an opinion. Hmm. And I like that line a lot. Now, where it sometimes goes a little sideways is whenever I talk about like, hey, sometimes it makes sense to like not chase that deal, to not chase that opportunity, to not just keep following them around. And then inevitably I'm going to have 4 or 5 people and like, well, I followed up with someone 715 times.

1:52:08 And it's like, I'm not trying to argue with your lived experience. I'm saying that this is not the way that anyone should do it. should be trying to do it as a regular function of business, you know. So you said 2 words there, and we'll get to Volumnia here shortly. Um, lived experience. Oh my God. Okay,

1:52:33 so— oh man, this is— this might— this might be— this might be unchristian. This might be a probably One of the more unchristian things I'm about to say on the show. Do I need to go make some popcorn? You might, you might. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how people are going to take this.

1:52:51 Lived experience is interesting,

1:52:58 ellipsis, comma.

1:53:05 Paragraph break. Paragraph break. Yeah, yeah, yeah, paragraph break. And cannot be scaled up to everybody else from you. Oh man, it just can't. Like, and the delusion of our time is that my lived experience and your lived experience, the first illusion is that your lived experience and my lived experience are just lived experience, bro. Mm-hmm. And can't be judged, bro. Well, okay, we're all walking around judging and discriminating. Let's dump that first. Okay, but this is also what happens when you're, when you're sweeping in a sea of philosophical moral relativism, which is a whole other kind of issue.

1:53:55 And There's, we may not like the standard, but if there's no standard to fight against, or if there's a floating standard, then you got a real— Then it's just whoever's loudest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's whoever shouts the loudest. Okay. So we got a real problem even there from the jump, from jump street, as a friend of mine would say. And now your second order problem there, which is what I'm talking about, is now you want to take your lived experience and scale it out to the rest of us. And this is in a lot of things.

1:54:24 I'm not even talking about the cultural stuff, which is a hot point. I'm not talking about political stuff, which is a hot point. I'm not even talking about social stuff, which is a hot point. Just in business, just in sales. Oh dude, your lived experience can't be scaled up to everybody. It doesn't work. And here's the other thing, right? Like, since we, since we pulled this band-aid, okay, here's the thing that tilts me to no in Whenever I'm talking with— oh, okay. John, why are my salespeople so lazy?

1:54:56 Okay, let's talk about it. What are you looking at that makes them seem lazy? Well, you know how hard I worked? And it's like, okay, tell me more, tell me more, tell me more, right? Let's get into this whole thing because it's almost like a white privilege conversation with, like, an older white guy who Who doesn't want anyone to tell him that his life wasn't difficult, right? Okay, right. But when you're the founder of a company

1:55:24 and you don't come from sales, you're not treating this like a sales motion. You're treating this, let's be honest, in the best way you possibly can, because this is not your lane. You don't come from this space. That's like showing up and never actually being a developer and thinking that you can just like put stuff into the right folders and this thing is going to work. Like, the idea that you're calling the shots on the folder hierarchy when you don't come from development is absurd, right? But people do this all the time.

1:55:52 And founders who were like, well, I did this thing, like, like, and half of my job is trying to figure out, okay, when I tap this glass and I tell you that I appreciate what you have done, it's a— it's hard, but it can't continue this way. And you're crazy spending 17 plates in the air, and you're doing this so badly because you don't know any better, right? You don't come from sales, you don't come from growth. So you're going around chasing everybody, making terrible referral asks, you're inconsistent as hell, you're all over the place.

1:56:24 And there's— let's look at your CRM data before you want to haul up a sales rep and put them in front of a firing Squad around. There's— let me see yours first, buddy, before you are going to make it about, well, I know this person doesn't want it enough because they're not putting CRM data in it. Where's yours? Well, John, it's different because I— It is not. It's not, right? If you want that, let's go build it. But the idea that you just think that, that people are just going to give you this thing because you worked hard on it when it was mostly a Scramble of just like scattered effort that got some— like, you learn by failure, which is totally fine and totally valid.

1:57:06 But why would we try to do this in the first sales hire? Because integrity requires discipline. Genuine integrity requires discipline. So the, the line in The Last Dance— we just talked about LeBron, we just mentioned LeBron— the line in The Last Dance, right, that Michael Jordan says

1:57:27 Um, was I a tyrant as a leader? Because they ask him, like, what did you say to people who were— you say you were a tyrant? Oh, I was a tyrant? I mean, I wanted other people to win. I'm paraphrasing here. I wanted other people to win. I wanted it as bad. I wanted it more. Basically, he's saying he wanted it more than they wanted it, and he wanted to bring them along on the journey. So, and I love this piece of it. So did I get up in them? And he uses a different term, but did I get up in them when like they didn't want to be motivated?

1:57:54 And did I push them to do things that they didn't want to do? Yeah, sure. Does that make me a tyrant? Maybe. But guess what? You're saying that because— and now this is where the ego and the thin skin pops up on Michael Jordan— you're saying that because you never won anything.

1:58:13 Well, that's about— and that's about as direct as a transfer to Coriolanus as possible, right? Because Because he's going around and he's like, you want to compare yourselves to me? Like, look at the greatness that I have done. You haven't done anything, right? And man, it was so funny because during that part I was like, I was like, yeah, that's everybody in their lane, right? Because like, I don't care what it is, right? Like, I mean, I see so much of this because sales is very egoic, right? But like, it's like this with everything.

1:58:39 Let's just be honest about it, you know? Yeah. And yeah, I You know, uh, this is where, I mean, honestly, books and reading are so helpful because like 15 years ago I would have drank that like very tasty Kool-Aid, right? And I would have become a belligerent idiot and I'd have gone around and I'd been like, well, Michael Jordan says so. Yeah. It's like all these guys that go around and they're like, well, I got Mamba mentality, so like screw you, you're an idiot. And I'm like, you didn't even read this book.

1:59:08 You saw a 30-second clip, you took what you wanted to from it. And now you're going around trying to be like some hard-ass version of a low-rent person who's taking, taking a philosophy you don't even believe in. And like, like, it's like, it's like people who watch Wolf of Wall Street and they— oh yeah, I think it's like, like a developmental tale. And I'm like— It's a documentary. Are you like— no one, like, no one— like, if you finish that movie and you're like, yeah, that's who I want to be like, I don't know what movie you watched, but it happens.

1:59:41 Come on, John, go with me. No, no, sir. No, sir. Right. Because to your point, right, like being, you know, like one of the things that I have to be super careful about, right, I get meetings around the idea that I'm an ethical salesperson. We're not going to lie. We're not going to go chase the roadmap or make promises we can't deliver on. I want to sell the real thing so that way people stay and blah, blah, blah. And people will be like, whoa, John, I love this thing. And half of my process is like trying to figure out, do you only believe it when times are good?

2:00:16 Good. Yeah. Because I'm gonna believe it even when it's bad. I'm going to kill a deal if it's not aligned. I'm going to kill a deal because they're not treating us with the, like, the level of partnership necessary to get any work done. And it's, it's been one of the most probably frustrating things of my career is how people are like, yeah, John, I want to do it the right way. I want to be, you know, solution-focused. I don't want to be chasing bad fits. I don't want to be trying to run people over.

2:00:42 And then you can almost set your clock by it, right? We get to the end of a quarter, right? This reporting period we just decided on, right? Mm-hmm. And there's a goal that we have decided on, right? And where do these work? Like, do these things even actually matter? Half the time, no, right? And then all of a sudden, what can we do to close this person, John? What can we do to just like force them across the line? Like, you know, how do we get more leads in? How do we make, you know, and I'm like, what happened to the integrity, guys?

2:01:09 Like, what happened to doing this thing the right way? The cards fall where they may. We look for the meaningful improvements. We do this thing the whole, the whole right way. 'Cause like, this is what you wanted. Mm-hmm. When you thought it was gonna work out okay. But there's still a way that it works out okay, but just deciding to compromise yourself is not going to be it. And this is arguably the thing that I struggle the most trying to teach founders, right? If you get them all the way through the process and like the last sticking point is the last sticking point and you decide to capitulate versus standing your ground, especially on something meaningful, you deserve all the frustration you get trying to serve that client.

2:01:45 Yeah. You knew where the line was. You just also decided to chase the money. And this is especially apparent in all the people who were like, well, this one seems like he's going to be a A little bit of a— there's actually a word for this. I don't even know if you know this or not. It's called the PITA tax, the pain in the ass tax, right? So we're not gonna tell 'em no, we're just gonna charge 'em more because we can see that they're gonna be a nightmare to deal with. Or you could just put it down and go find someone else to work with who's not gonna be a nightmare and doesn't put you on short term.

2:02:09 And then you're still gonna be anxious the whole time because you know that they're gonna be on borrowed time. Right.

2:02:16 Oh. Sorry, man, that, that really got me riled up. Yeah. Well, I'm, um, I gotta go pick up groceries in like 15 minutes, so that's, that's my mark of integrity. I said I was gonna go pick up groceries and I gotta go pick up groceries in 15 minutes. So, um, we didn't even get into the family matters, but I would like to talk a little bit about Volumnia. Yeah. Um, If you read Coriolanus, and she swings a big stick, right? She saves Rome from Coriolanus's wrath

2:02:55 in Act 5 and Act 6 in the end. And she operates out of a very specific hierarchy, right? There are hierarchical claims that she makes upon Coriolanus in her speech to him when he's with Alphidius with the Volsics, that I think we as a postmodern society, and this kind of goes along with that whole, like, lived experience thing. If I can appeal to my lived experience, then I don't have to pay attention to the hierarchy, right? I don't have to honor it, right? I can just kind of play outside of it.

2:03:29 Yeah. Now, there are some who will, after listening to this whole episode, say, well, hey, son, that story you just told about working at the, working at the bookstore. Didn't you just— didn't you just say that? Didn't you just ignore the hierarchy? No, no, I didn't ignore the hierarchy. I looked at what the hierarchy was saying. And I said, I will play with you in this way. I didn't appeal to my lived experience. I just said, I will— this is what I will do with integrity. Yeah. And I followed through on it at the end.

2:03:57 That's a different thing than appealing to the hierarchy of my lived experience. And then demanding that the hierarchy change in a lot. In fact, this is happening a lot in our culture. Change for me to accommodate my thing so that I can scale up, right? Versus just saying I don't want to play in that. I don't need the rewards that are in there, and going off out on the long tail and finding other rewards.

2:04:26 The question I had here: leaders rarely talk honestly publicly about their mothers or their fathers for that matter. matter. And they do. Like, you very rarely— I was thinking about it— you very rarely hear a founder, you very rarely hear a business person other than the hagiography of like, like the old Steve Martin joke, I was a small Black child from Alabama. Like, you hear that, right? Once upon a time, you know? Yeah. It's stated in that sort of way, in that sort of frame. But you very rarely hear a leader or a founder or a person in sales, and we all kind of act as if, oh, well, they just sprouted up from the ground in situ, right?

2:05:10 They just— Alex Hormozi was always Alex Hormozi. Except, no. What an example. I know, terrible example. Oh, well, you said Grant Cardone twice. I got to throw somebody else in there. That's fair. Oh, that's fair. So, you know, Um,

2:05:26 we were all children. We were all incubated inside of a family. We were all incubated inside of a structure. And I have said on this show, and I've said it in trainings before, that family is the world's first organization. It's the first one. It's the very first business that you're born into, where you learn concepts of leadership. You learn concepts of structure and hierarchy. Yes, you learn lessons about function and dysfunction. You learn it all and you don't actually know what the lessons are that you've learned.

2:05:56 And then you go to kindergarten and you meet all of these other people from these other organizations who are coming around with their own structures. And now you've got to figure out how to not make war with these folks, how to make peace, how to get along, how to play, as maybe Jordan Peterson and others would say, you know, how to play with them. Well, you do. He's right about that. And you have to learn how to— That's what I think. Yeah, there you go. You have to learn how to get along. Well, you know, hey, we gotta give the clock its due.

2:06:28 So we

2:06:32 both hold up the structure of family and we seek to erode it because it does represent all of those things. And we're doing both things at the same time, which makes us weirdly schizophrenic in our culture. Not so in the 17th century. Not so in Shakespeare's time. And by the way, in the time that he's referring to, the time of Rome, even more not so. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So families had structure. The hierarchy meant something. Um, where you were in the hierarchy meant something. Um, not a lot of people know this, but, um, In a lot of ancient cultures, the oldest son gets everything, or at least gets a lot.

2:07:16 And like, if you have 8 sons, that 8th kid, good luck to them. Like, they're gonna have to go make their way, you know, in the world. And if it's girls, oh, forget it, it's a whole different kind of thing. Yep. Right? So there are structural things that Shakespeare's audience just would have known, some of which, many, much of which we have abandoned, or we just don't talk about out loud in a meaningful way. Mm-hmm. My question, of course, is should leaders talk honestly about their mothers and fathers?

2:07:45 Should they honestly talk about that incubator that they first came out of more often? Not would that make them be more human, that's not what I'm looking for, but would it actually give us understanding of who they are? Well, it's, it's interesting because you were talking earlier about something else, and I'm drawing this like interesting parallel, right? you don't really know if your parents are good at being parents or not, right? Like, like, they're, they're the only parent you have until, until you run across teachers or maybe a coach, right?

2:08:16 And someone who can show you that there's another version of parenting, right? One of the things I think about are like all the parents that like essentially kind of put all of their failures onto their kids, right? Mm-hmm. I wasn't, Like, I petered out after high school football, but not you, kiddo. Like, we're gonna put you in peewee. You're gonna do the college thing and then you're gonna go be a pro. You get to go do all these things that I didn't get to do. And it's not always just sports, right?

2:08:42 Like, I was talking with someone the other day and they were talking about how their— when they went and told their dad that they wanted to be an entrepreneur and not an engineer, the dad got sad, right? Of just like, ugh, you know? And I think, I think good intentions is what, is what all this is. Good intentions from people who were not developed enough to realize that they are deficient in a leadership capacity. Like, my, my parents were too young to have kids, right? Mm-hmm. Especially not the 3 that they had, right?

2:09:16 I've got an older brother, he's 5 years older, he's from a different father. And like, there's all this weird generational stuff, like My grandmother told my mom, like, because she divorced the first guy because it just wasn't working out. Like, good for her divorcing a guy because the relationship isn't working out. And then my grandmother shows up and tells her like, hey, you got a kid, you better find some man who's gonna take care of you and the kid. Like, pushing her just out there into almost any relationship that she can get, as opposed to like, what are some other options here, right?

2:09:44 Mm-hmm. And so, you know, this was obviously a long time ago, right? And things were just kind of different, right? But like, The coolest thing that I try to do is to like be the person that I am, but let my kid see the example of that without drowning in the things that I want for her, right? You know, so like whenever she was a toddler and I was doing kung fu like 25 to 30 hours a week, of course I wanted her to go do kung fu, but I was like, don't ruin it, don't ruin it. Right. Right, she'll come to it if she wants to and everything else like that.

2:10:18 And so that to me is like, you know, I think about, I think about like old school stuff, right? Like, uh, like being a kid of like the '50s, '60s, or '70s, right? The only examples you have are your parents, good, bad, or otherwise, right? Mm-hmm. You might not have the internet to where you can go find a pocket of community to where your nerdy thing isn't nerdy. It's the popular thing in that thing. And maybe you're not such a weirdo for liking liking the things that you like, you know. I, I shudder to think what kind of person I would be in that kind of environment because I'd probably be drinking some Kool-Aid that I had become accustomed to and become a person that was not really aligned with the things that I think are important, you know.

2:11:01 Now, being this person now doesn't always win me favors. I'm the, you know, like, like, uh, like my mom will be like, hey, Why don't you call when I answer? Well, how about you don't call it Tuesday at 11:30 in the morning when I'm in the middle of work, right? Like, just because I work for myself and I'm in sales doesn't mean I've got all this like crazy time to just like take phone calls with other people. That's how people end up not being able to stay in sales, you know. So it's, it's so interesting because like the whole thing of the, the mom specifically, like, because I go the other way, I think that the other guy is the, is the bigger because I think most parents are Lex Luthoring themselves, right?

2:11:42 I'm really great at this, right? They're shouting at their kids, they're ramrodding them into stuff that they want, they're just ignoring their, their preferences and bulldozing them and doing, doing all the bad sales stuff that has just been for a while the thing that everyone thought everyone needed to do around this idea of, I know what's best for you. Mm-hmm. Not all parents actually know what's, what's best for their kids. They're not, they're not aware enough, they're not developed enough, they're not They're not that thing.

2:12:07 But, you know, good luck telling them that.

2:12:12 Okay, so I think we're at— I might just have— I might disagree with you on this. I think we're at a crossroads here because I do think that— or maybe it's just the examples I've seen, right? So maybe this is one of those your mileage will vary kind of Kind of places, kind of spots in the conversation. Well, because I— hold on real quick, if I could. I have this conversation a lot. It's one of John's lesser popular ideas. Okay. Yeah. What is the output of being a good parent? Is it a super successful kid?

2:12:48 Is it a well-adjusted kid? Is it a happy kid? Is it like, how do you know what does successful parenting look like? What's the output? So I think that as a society and culture, I would say pre-World War II, we probably had a better idea or a more coherent idea of what that actually meant. But I can only go on what I read from the past. And the people who wrote it down were probably people who thought they were coherent anyway. So, you know, there's all these kind of, kind of places, right, that where there's fractures, right?

2:13:23 Mm-hmm. And we already pointed out Shakespeare didn't go into the thing that his father was in. Did his father think that he was a success? Yeah. We will never know. That wasn't written down because people at that time didn't, they didn't think that it was interesting enough to write that down, that observation down. Okay. We think it's interesting though, because, and this is also follow along from the rise of the novel. So with the rise of the novel in book form, we get more interiority. into human beings and more of an interest in what's going on in the interior of human beings.

2:13:54 And so that opens up the door to the question that you just asked of what is a successful— what is the successful output for parenting, right? And I think that answer, the answer to that question, is going to be one of those other things that you can't, at least at this point in society, scale up to all of society. So I'll give you my answer for what I think success is. That's all I'm That's all I'm really chasing. I know, that's what you're chasing. So for me, success as a parent is an adult who can work whatever work they want to do, whatever that may happen to be, whether it's ditch digger or entrepreneur, or if they want to be married and stay at home, whatever.

2:14:35 I don't care. There's so much work everywhere. It's not even funny. I care more about you being able to have the discipline and the integrity to do the work and to recognize where the work is and the creativity and the innovation be able to work around that. So being able to do work, that's at the lowest level, honestly. But then the second level up, the second highest level is to be a person of character, which is a word we don't actually talk about very much. Yeah. But character is creative thinking, it's innovation, it's all of the sort of psychological, secular psychological things.

2:15:08 And because I am a person of God, I believe also you have to have a belief system. that influences your character. Because one day I will be gone, and I cannot be at the top of the hierarchy. That can't, that can't be. I'm failed and flawed. I can't be at the top of the hierarchy. Okay. Now, at the highest level, I want them to be a person who follows a belief in Jesus. I do want that, right? And I want that to be the cornerstone thing. However they choose to walk that out is between them and Jesus.

2:15:38 I don't want to be involved in that. You know, that's, that's a— you, at a certain point, not when they're 9, but when they're like 20, 21, 22, 16 to 20, you, you've— I've poured enough into you. You have to make some decisions. And by the way, if you choose not to follow that, I want you to have enough information, because I do have one child who has chosen not to do that. I want you to have enough information so you know what you are moving away from. I want you to be fully informed. That's fair.

2:16:08 Because— and then, and then after you're fully informed, I don't need to inform you anymore. I need to do other things for you but not inform you because you've been informed. It's like the person you were talking about who's very Christian and in sales. I don't need to inform you about Jesus. You've already heard the thing. I have to do other things now. So now it becomes incumbent on me as an adult with fellow adult, a child who's now moved into being an adult, it becomes incumbent upon me to show the correct example of walking out the actual thing, even if you decide not to go along, because that goes back to that integrity thing.

2:16:42 Mm-hmm. So I'm going to have integrity in my conversation with you. I'm going to have it at all levels. So you should not be surprised when I have integrity with you at all levels in that conversation. You should not be shocked because I've been doing it for a while now. So work, character, belief, right? That's, that's sort of, for me, what I look at as a successful, quote unquote, you know, adult, a successful child who's moved into, into that adult space. Now, with all that being said, there's also a whole bunch of other things in there that people will throw in, right?

2:17:18 Yeah. So people will throw in hobbies, they'll throw in skills, did, you know, health, body, you know, all these other kinds of things, right? But if you get— I think, I think personally, if you get those things correct, a lot of those other things will work out because they'll influence all of that other stuff. Hmm. And they'll even influence how that person interacts with other people and the ways in which they choose to interact with other people. So I've got 4 kids and I can see it and how they choose to interact.

2:17:49 So my youngest daughter, who just turned 16 and is getting her driver's license, and I gave her the phone and it's like, give her the warning, right? Mm-hmm. The way she interacts with her peers, and she's very much— she has a large nurturing heart. She wants to save everybody. She's that kid. And She's learned the hard way in our house that everybody can't be saved. But she's done that not floating around outside by herself with her friends. She's learned that inside of the structure of the household that we've built with the guidance from us.

2:18:29 And then we let her make the decision. I'm thinking of one friend in particular. And we didn't tell her, no, you can't go be friends. We didn't do the 1950s thing of, no, you can't go be friends with that person because they don't believe what we believe. Well, No, we were like, yeah, go ahead, see how it works. You want to go try? Sure, go ahead. Come, come back to me with how that works. Now we're going to have boundaries around that because there's certain behaviors I don't want in my household, and I get to make that decision.

2:18:53 I get, I get to decide that. Yeah. But at the end of the day, you're going to make a decision about that. And guess what? It took her 2 years and she was like, oh, that's what mom and dad were talking about. Yeah. Now I see it. Okay, I don't want to be— I don't want to be associated with that person anymore. She gradually moved away from that person, but it took her a while because she's a nurturing person. Whereas my, my younger son, who's 9, he's very black and white. So like, you know, when he sees something, he's yelling.

2:19:23 My wife is telling me a story about him the other day. I didn't know about this. He like fussed at some kid in a bounce house and got him to like leave the bounce house. because he was like making trouble for all the other kids. He was like, no, you don't do that in the bounce house. Get the hell out. And apparently the kid was like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And Jeremiah— sorry, the boy was like, no, just go. Take your shoes and go.

2:19:47 Hmm. But he's 9. Is he going to carry that all the way through to 18? No, because there's going to be a lot of different things that are going to happen in there. Testosterone still has to hit. girls are coming up. There's all these other kinds of things. These are the kinds of inputs that are going to come in. Yeah, running into someone who's more rigid than he is. And eventually he's going to run into somebody like that, correct? And then— and we'll work through that in the context of that triangle.

2:20:12 But it took me a long time to— to answer your— fully answer your question. It took me a long time to get to that triangle. That's fair. That wasn't something that I got to easily. And I'm not asking to scale it to other So my neighbor? Okay, pick something else. Yeah, that's fair. I, I— it's funny because like the way that I think about it, I, I saw, I saw a joke around this thing of like, you know, you only really know how well or bad you did, um, based upon how much therapy they need in their 20s, right?

2:20:45 And it's something— I have known to joke with my kid. I would I have known to joke with my children, all of them. They all know, like, listen, while you're crying here, cry and mow, and I'll save the money and I'll pay you when you're 30 to go to therapy. I'll pay for your therapy when you're 30. You'll have something to talk with your therapist about. It'll be interesting. It won't be boring. So go ahead and mow and cry. It's so funny because, like, I saw that and I kind of, like, chuckled and I was like, hahaha, you know, and everything.

2:21:14 But, like, You know, I largely think that there's a lot of validity in that, right? Because there's a whole lot of people putting a whole lot of pressure on their kids to be some version that they think is the right version of themselves, right? They're overshooting the mark, you know, and they're too zeroed in and stuff like that. And like, those kids are going to have a whole lot of therapy sessions to like, you know, like, I'm a failure if I didn't go to like med school. Okay, what are you? I'm an incredibly profitable like entrepreneur, right?

2:21:40 Yeah. But, you know, my parents, you know, so it's, it's interesting because that's where I, I purposefully talk about it as good intentions, right? Everybody means well, but right, it's, you know, shouting, shouting louder doesn't actually mean you're doing better. No. And

2:22:01 I will say this, and this is why we all know, we all, the most, one of the more fascinating things to me when my daughter was younger, was taking her to kindergarten, right? And watching the other parents drop off the kids and being part of the parent drop-off. Because during the time when I was working on my first business, I just— I had the capability to do that, and so I did it, right?

2:22:29 And we all as parents look at what other parents are doing. And I know you've done this with your wife. I know you have. I've done this with my wife. And we all side-eye what they're doing. And then later on in the car, when the kid can't hear— put the headphones on the kid— they were like, what the hell? That guy's gonna screw up that kid. Mm-hmm. We all have this conversation. Or, wow, those 2 people together, like, why don't they get divorced? they'd be better separate. Or, as I will sometimes say with my wife, um, those 2 people should have found mutual dislikes that weren't the kid.

2:23:09 It would have been better. It would have been better for them. Mm-hmm. Or even worse, I go— and I have said, I will admit publicly, I have said this many times when I show up to events with my wife and it's all the wives are there and all the kids are there, but there's no other husbands. Like, where are the men? I, I ask this, and I don't ask it rhetorically. There's a reason for you being there as a husband. Show up at the 5-year-old's birthday party. Oh, well, I gotta work. Yeah, I gotta work too, bud.

2:23:42 Everybody gotta work. Show up. Oh, you don't understand. You're right, I don't understand. You're exactly right. Yeah, I, I don't understand. I was out of PTO and I really needed this bone, and it's like Sure. Yeah. Okay. But we all do this as parents. We all critique other parents privately. But we all say the correct public things publicly.

2:24:05 And the correct things to say publicly are, well, you know, and actually, I just said a variation of it. Well, you know, I mean, you're in your house. So like, I don't know. And that I don't know, that statement right there leads us in weird— leads us down weird— and has for the last, I would say, 60 or 70-some-odd years. And it didn't start immediately. We kind of wound up here gradually.

2:24:33 And part of it is a function of the changing of the economy, the changing of society, the changing of culture, like all this shifting around. But we don't feel comfortable as adults critiquing other adults. Like one of the points you made earlier, this is the last thing we'll wrap up. Mm-hmm. You were talking about something, oh, with Coriolanus and sort of where he gets his, where he gets his power from. And then I came back with the plebs and talked about that. And the question that I thought of was this: by whose authority does Coriolanus act?

2:24:57 And that's never very clear in the play other than he's acting by his own authority.

2:25:05 Volumnia comes in and appeals to the authority of the Roman state, the Roman Senate specifically. to pull him back. But that's a question I think for us to end on, is by whose authority do leaders do these things? By whose authority do they act with integrity? Is it just their own, or is it the state, or is it the organization, or is it the team? And where does that finally crack up? Where does that finally— where does the weight of that be too much and then the whole thing starts to splinter? And I don't think we have a good answer to that.

2:25:37 that question in our time anyway?

2:25:46 I mean, maybe this is a product of being in sales and the whole hammer nail thing, right? But one of the great things about sales is— I mean, there's a bunch of bad stuff, let's be honest about it. But the great thing is that if we're doing it right, I have a quant-driven number that tells me if I'm having the impact that I need to have on this team or not. Right? And there's lots of people and you don't actually define the number. And so then it becomes very much, what have you sold for me lately?

2:26:11 All these other things that happen, right? But ultimately, like, and this can become a little, I mean, I'm sure there's problems with this that I just haven't thought about yet, but define the outcome that you want, right? Mm-hmm. And then work in relation to that whole thing and then check your progress, right? One of the things that, uh, that I heard very early on was this guy, and I think it was on the Tim Ferriss Show, right? And so, uh, this guy said that the most uncomfortable thing that he'd ever did was he allowed his kids and his spouse to give him a report card because that, because that, that was something that he was doing at work, right?

2:26:51 So like 360 feedback, right? You tell me how I'm doing, I'm going to tell you how you're doing and everything. And so then someone was like, hey, you should do this with like your family and everything because you're going to be so like data-oriented and everything. And it's funny because I think about this all the time, right? Like, it's great that you think you're doing everything right and you're righteous. And this is some of my pushback on the Jordan Peterson stuff, right? Yeah. All those guys think that they're right, right?

2:27:14 But based upon what? You know, like, I mean, because we can sell ourselves on literally anything. Like, I mean, it's one of the best and worst things about being human, right? So for me, it's like, what is the outcome? Like in sales, give me a number, tell me how much time I have, I'll tell you if I can do it or not, and then please like leave me alone, right? Right. Some people will hire like salespeople based upon the close rate. In certain situations, that makes a lot of sense, but in other situations, it's just a weird limitation, right?

2:27:43 And here's this other thing, right? Like I saw this last week and just talking about how people's, you know, version of what is right. Okay. A salesperson said that he got declined from a job because he asked like what the OTE looks like, on-track earnings. Mm-hmm. And they were like, well, we don't talk about money beforehand because if it's just about money, we don't really want people like you here. And it's like, no, like, I promise that that job post talks about wanting massive action takers and You know, all people that are outcome only and blah, blah, blah, and everything else like this.

2:28:18 Because like, here's where the rub is. That person is actually showing you that they're capable of doing the job because sales is about uncomfortable actions, uncomfortable questions, and pushing for what you need to determine if this is worth more of your time. So you want people that are going to ask you about the budget for the commissions because that means they're going to ask your customers about the budgets for their dreams and goals and aspirations and all these things that you're supposed to be selling them.

2:28:43 But because you got indignant because salespeople aren't allowed to ask about the money and the rate and the performance when they're coming in at a fraction of their value compared to any other role inside of an organization, and they're showing you that they can do this job and you're going to choose to get affronted about it because no one's allowed to ask you about money. Like that stuff. Oh my gosh, man. Like, like instead, this person is going to hire someone who's got a glint in the eye who doesn't ask about money.

2:29:10 And then when they flame out in 4 or 5 months because they're more focused on people pleasing than they are on taking uncomfortable action and figuring it out, you know, then you're going to come back and be like, well, I think we need to pay them less. Hmm. Right. It's such a, like, a very interesting, like, recipe. But it comes, it comes just back down to the idea that, like, some people are more focused on their, like, preferences and what's allowed versus, like, what's not versus giving like people in their lives the space to be themselves, to go do these things.

2:29:42 Right. And so if you have a super willful kid and they're pushing back on you and everything, my opinion, that's actually a good thing. Mm-hmm. You want someone who's gonna be self-contained and not just following a group and stuff like that. Like one time my daughter came in and asked me for something. I was on the phone with like one of my kung fu buddies and it, it was like a cookie or a snack. And I said no. And she said, why? And I was like, well, because we're too close to dinner. And my, my buddy who's not in this lane at all, right?

2:30:07 He was like, you let your kid talk back to you? I said, yeah, I actually encourage it. We have an agreement that if I just tell her no and I don't give her a reason, she's allowed to ask me for that reason. Oh man, I can't believe it. You're like, you're everything that's wrong with it. And I'm like, my kid is going to be able to stand up and ask why when she gets shouted down no. That's way more important than like me getting my '50s dad needs met of like, well, I worked hard and I brought home the bacon, sir.

2:30:32 What? Everyone just has to do what I want them to do, you know? Right. So it's, it's weird because like sometimes people are shutting down, I would say, uh, motivation, motion, progress towards really great elements of character because I want that, but it's not done on me. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah.

2:30:59 Yeah, I mean, that, that's— that, that leads to my close. So like one of the points I was going to make, we didn't get to this. We didn't talk about millionaires and billionaires and trillionaires, um, because I think there's a parallel to them and Coraline Coriolanus in this. So I went and looked actually at the Forbes list of, uh, billionaires, quote unquote. Um, 73%, apparently according to them, of U.S. billionaires are self-made rather than having inherited their fortunes. Now, I want to see the list.

2:31:30 Yeah, I know. We could discuss what self-made is and what that actually means. Oh yeah, we can. Um, and it's interesting, I read an article, I read an essay by Paul Graham, um, on who— the founder of Y Combinator, um, who also was there with Sam Altman back in the day. And Paul Graham's an interesting VC. I don't know if you ever read any of his stuff, but he went and did a speech he republished as a blog post. And he talked about basically how to be a startup entrepreneur with a bunch of people who are going to be prime ministers in like England somewhere.

2:32:00 And, um, he talked about the, the potential for a startup making something like 15x its money. And that moves a person from being a $100,000 to being a millionaire. Mm-hmm. He's like, being a millionaire, becoming a millionaire, if you, if you have your startup positioned correctly, which he would know after 6,500 startups and Y Combinator and all that, if you have it positioned correctly, you, you can become wealthy. It's like, how do you create wealthy people? This is how you do it right now. Paul Graham being an investor and Forbes, they don't talk about the morality of any of this.

2:32:36 They just talk about the numbers. Of course. And to John's point, the quants, right? The numbers, the The thing that gives me the authority is the numbers.

2:32:49 And because 2 things can be true at once, I think we live in a time where we confuse, like, Coriolanus's stiff-necked pride with integrity. And I think we have to be careful to not do that. And on the other side of that, I think we have to be careful to not confuse, um, venal greed or public panic or social envy with principles. Just because I'm envious of the startup founder because I see all their stuff on Instagram and I feel that spirit of, I want that for me— not I want to go get my own Ferrari, I want Sam Altman's Ferrari.

2:33:34 Mm-hmm. Right. That's a distinction with a difference. That's envy, which drives a lot of our social media interactions. Or that should not be confused with principles. Yeah, because, like, I don't even— because I saw a thing talking about that and I've done some research on it. Like, it's not even— it's not even as light as you put it. It's, well, why don't I have that Ferrari?

2:34:03 Right. And not— I mean, I have zero problem with people working jobs that are super low lift because they want to save their greatness for everything else. I'm on that train. I love that. But don't ask for more money. Don't expect more money because there are other roles, other jobs, other things you could be doing, pouring yourself into upskilling so that way you had a shot. have more money, but you're not wanting to do any of those things right now. At the same token, before anyone comes and flames me, like, I don't think anyone needs or should have to work 3 jobs either, right?

2:34:37 Right, right. There's a bunch of different things can be true at once. Yes, exactly right. But I like— I like— you can't just want it. You have to get in gear and go do it. Otherwise you are just on a one-way path of like Feeling entitled. Right. And Corey Alanis,

2:35:02 my Act 3 subheading was Eat the Rich, Sure, But You're Going to Choke on the Meal. I think Rome choked on Corey Alanis. And that was actually the larger point from Shakespeare. You're going to choke on this man with integrity. If he's actually behaving, or she is actually behaving with integrity, they're going to be a problem. Oh, absolutely. And you're never going to know. And here's the other piece, and I want us to be very clear. In our psychologized, our over-psychologized culture, our overly therapeutic language culture, which even we've used some of that language even in our show here today, because it just naturally comes.

2:35:36 We're never going to know the full interior of another human being. You're just never going to get to the bottom of it. It's too deep an abyss. And you don't have the time. The culture doesn't have the time. Yeah. And to presume that you can from just a few snippets of what you may see—

2:35:57 not wise. That is not wisdom. So let's take what we can from Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Coriolanus, which is also a history,

2:36:09 and move forward.

2:36:13 I want to thank John for coming on the show today. This was a good conversation. Thank you. I enjoyed it as well. Yeah. And well, with that, well, we're out.