December 6, 2020
Entrepreneurs, Mentors, and Trust with Jim Collins on the Tim Ferriss Show with Tim Ferriss
Tim Ferriss is not associated or affiliated with PodcastNotes in any way. All notes are independently created by PodcastNotes and do not imply any sponsorship or endorsement by, or affiliation with, Mr. 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?
