December 6, 2020
Entrepreneurs, Mentors, and Trust with Jim Collins on the Tim Ferriss Show with Tim Ferriss
Check out the episode page and show notes
Key Takeaways
- Beauty is not hard to find, but easy to overlook
- Instincts are powerful – there are thousands of years of evolution behind them
- Ask yourself: do you want a life that others envy or that others admire?
- Never stifle a generous impulse
- Put the butter on your waffles: in other words, live your life the way you want to live it
- If you’re not having fun, find a way to make whatever you’re doing fun or do something else
- Two paths exist to develop trust
- 1. Trust someone outright – your trust is theirs to lose
- 2. Make people earn your trust
- Never confuse faith with the discipline to face the brutal facts
- If you have something to say, don’t wait too long – you might not get the chance
- Comparison is the sin of modern life – don’t do it!
- Get clarity about yourself: “If you woke up tomorrow morning and found out you had ten years to live, what would you stop doing?” –Jim Collins
Intro
Jim Collins (t: @level5leaders) is a researcher, author, speaker, and consultant specializing in business management and company sustainability and growth.
Tim Ferriss (t:@tferriss) is an entrepreneur, investor, author, and podcaster.
The Four Hour Workweek
- Expose yourself to new ideas and people, especially as you age
- Challenge yourself
- Don’t force yourself into a box
- The essence of Tim Ferris’s book The Four Hour Workweek is if you want a life of meaning and full of experience, try to squeeze down the amount of time you work
- Chase the drive to be useful vs. the drive to be successful
- Beauty is not hard to find, but easy to overlook
- Instincts are powerful – there are thousands of years of evolution behind them
- Being driven is not necessarily good; you should be pulled forward
Mentors and Father Figures
- Having a mentor is a relationship not a transaction
- Jim created his own father-figure through reading biographies
- Goodbye Darkness by William Manchester – a memoir of the Pacific War
- The Power Broker Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro- shows how dark force motivation can increase over time
- Jim was fascinated by Robert’s ability to find pockets of power to get things done and how he moves that to find power just for the sake of it
- The Master of the Senate by Robert Caro about LBJ -Jim’s takeaway on this book is never let your ambition confuse you about who you really are
- George Washington A Life by Ron Chernow– the story of a reluctant leader whose ambition was very strong when he was young, but how he became more service-oriented
- Ask yourself, do you want a life that others envy or that others admire?
- Both the lives of Washington and Moses show that people are not static; people evolve as life unfolds
How Jim Prepares for a Socratic Lab
- Jim asks himself two questions:
- 1. What are the critical topics for this conversation?
- 2. What are the key questions to ask his audience that they need to wrestle with?
- Create conditions so that people have to commit themselves to the discussion (e.g., Jim makes his clients fly to meet him instead of him going to them)
- Jim’s opening question on day one: write down the top five brutal facts you face today
- No opinions – facts only
- He also asks: where are you vulnerable and why?
Why Bill Lazier Was Important to Jim
- Bill Lazier was the greatest mentor of Jim’s life and he’s honoring him with the re-release of their book, Entrepreneurship 2.0
- Bill was a Stanford instructor who took an interest in Jim and at age 30, recommended him to teach an entrepreneur course at Stamford
- “He (Bill) believed so much in me, he was like a magnet that pulled me up. He said to me not all times in life are equal – this is your shot” – Jim Collins
Lessons from Bill Lazier
- Never stifle a generous impulse
- Great life = great relationships
- There are two approaches to life:
- You see it as a series of transactions
- You see life as a time to build relationships- and the cornerstone of that is building trust
- Put the butter on your waffles – translation: live your life the way you want to live it
- “Don’t confuse a long life with a good life” – Tim Ferris
- “Writing is like running – it doesn’t get easier, you get better” – Jim Collins
- If you’re not having fun, find a way to make whatever you’re doing fun or do something else
The Trust Wager
- Two paths exist to develop trust
- 1. Your opening bid with someone is to trust them – your trust is theirs to lose
- 2. You make people earn your trust
- The upside of mistrust – you prevent yourself from hurtful exposure
- The downside of mistrust – you will lose the company of trustworthy people
- The upside of trusting people outright – trustworthy people rise to your expectation
- Caveat: Trust but verify – trust from a smart place
What’s Impressive about West Point Cadets
- Jim spent two years teaching at West Point and was struck by how happy the cadets were
- Despite having very little free time, he found the cadets had a sense of energy some of his MBA students lacked
- He found two reasons:
- 1. The West Point culture is built on the idea that each cadet is not alone – they are responsible to help each other
- 2. They learn in the context of meaning which is service: service with people who willing to die for that service
The Stockdale Paradox
- Admiral Jim Stockdale was imprisoned for seven years at a Prisoner of War (POW) camp in North Vietnam
- In Love and War by Jim Stockdale
- Jim Collins felt a sense of depression as he read the book even as he knew the ending
- He wondered how the admiral survived when he didn’t know how it would end
- Stockton said he never wavered in his faith
- However, many of his fellow POW’s, optimists, died of broken hearts
- Never confuse faith with the discipline to face the brutal facets
- The ongoing Covid pandemic is giving many their own Stockdale moments
Jim’s Scoring Sheet
- Jim tracks two things a day – creativity and how he feels – using a scale from -2 to +2
- On -2 days, he challenges himself to make it a +1
- Tips for moving that marker:
- Comparison is the sin of modern life – don’t do it!
- Prepare for something coming up
- Creating = looking forward
Jim’s Stop-Do List
- Don’t hit send – you can never unsay something
- One half to two-thirds of the emails he writes, he never sends
- “Don’t underestimate the power of an act of kindness: the most treasured gift in the world are kind words spontaneously tendered” –Jim Collins
- If you have something to say, don’t wait too long – you might not get the chance
The Map for Entrepreneurs
- Once you have a good idea and turned it into a company, how can you turn it into a great company?
- Stage I: discipline your people
- Stage II: discipline your thoughts
- Stage III: discipline your actions
- Stage IV: build greatness to last – shift from being a time-teller to a clock-builder
- Build something that will work when you’re not there – build great mechanisms
- Purpose and profit: visionary companies are driven by purpose and therefore are more successful
- E.g. Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard believed that a company should be a tool for changing people’s behavior
- His company was the catalyst for change in the climbing community
- The purpose should be authentic and true to who you are
- Get clarity on yourself: “If you woke up tomorrow morning and found out you had ten years to live – what would you stop doing?” –Jim Collins
- You should be asking yourself this question all the time – it’s a guidance mechanism
What Would You Put on a Billboard for the World?
- How have you changed the lives of others?
