VNTHOMAS: Your Next Five Moves by Patrick Bet-David

Your Next Five Moves by Patrick Bet-David

People who don’t think more than one move ahead is driven by ego, emotion, and fear.

The Path to Achieving Your Goals in Business

1. Master Knowing Yourself

2. Master the Ability to Reason

3. Master Building the Right Team

4. Master Strategy to Scale

5. Master Power Plays

MASTER KNOWING YOURSELF

For instance, if you spend $100,000, you can get something done in six months, but if you spend $200,000, you can finish it in three months. Then you can ask yourself: Is it worth spending twice the money to get the project done in half the time?

MASTER KNOWING YOURSELF

The busier you are, the more organized you’ll need to be.

A phrase I use all the time is future truth. It means to live in the present as if your future truth has already become a reality. I’m inspired by this quote from IBM founder Thomas J. Watson:

“I realized that for IBM to become a great company it would have to act like a great company long before it ever became one”.

The best leaders have the ability not only to believe in future truths but also to inspire others to believe and execute their vision.

Who do you want to be?

That’s the question we started with, and it’s the one we’ll end with. The only way to answer it is by becoming clear about the life you want to live. In doing so, you will immediately embody that person and act as if you are already there.

Study the Most Important Product: You

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom” —Aristotle

“At the center of your being, you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want” —Lao Tzu

In his insightful book Principles: Life and Work, Ray Dalio said, I learned that if you work hard and creatively, you can have just about anything you want, but not everything you want. Maturity is the ability to reject good alternatives in order to pursue even better ones.

What it all boils down to is that alignment is the key to fulfillment. Keep these things in mind:

Your vision must align with who you want to be.
Your choices must align with your vision.
Your effort must align with the size of your vision.
Your behavior must align with your values and principles.

You can start by breaking down the drive into four categories: advancement,
madness,
individuality, and
purpose.

“Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver” —Ayn Rand

One way intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs differ is that the former is typically deferential to authority while the latter is defiant.

Intrapreneurs have the respect to say, Look, I think like you, I work like you, I’m the same as you, but you put up the money. You ignited the vision, and you took all the risk. Intrapreneurs work within the system but find ways to improve themselves while also improving the company.

Google figured out how valuable insurance referrals were, so it made insurance the most expensive keyword to buy ($54.91)—far more expensive than the next three: mortgage ($47.12), attorney ($47.07), and loan ($44.28).

MASTER THE ABILITY TO REASON

“You have control over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength” —Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

1. Processing is the ability to make effective decisions based on access to information at hand with the highest odds in your favor.

2. Processing is about subjecting every difficult choice, problem, or opportunity you face to a rigorous mental analysis.

3. Processing is playing out strategies, seeing the hidden consequences, and sequencing a series of moves to permanently solve problems.

Great processors use the word I and see their role in whatever problem has occurred. They ask questions such as How did I contribute to this?

Processing Steps to Take When Someone Ticks You Off

1. Take responsibility for your role in what happened.

2. State specifically what you did to create the problem.

3. Channel your frustration into getting better and preventing future problems.

What extends or decreases the lifespan of a crisis:

1. Your strategies

2. Your level of poise

3. Your overexaggeration of a crisis: Turning a 3 into a 9

4. Your downplaying of a crisis: Turning a 9 into a 3

5. Your ability to see five moves ahead.

There’s no reason to blame yourself for an accident or a pandemic. You didn’t create the crisis. It’s your reaction to the crisis that will determine the life or death of your business.

Every master, both in chess and in business, learns more from studying the moves that led to defeat than the ones that led to victory.

The Eight Traits of a Great Processor

The people I know who are expert processors have very different personalities and business strategies, but they share the following eight traits:

1. They ask lots of questions. Having more data leads to making better assumptions. What caused this? How can we solve it? How can we prevent it from happening again?

2. They don’t care about being right or wrong. They’re interested only in the truth. Great processors want to handle the situation and move on. If someone else has a better idea, great. The ego doesn’t become an obstacle to making the right decision.

3. They don’t make excuses. Wasting time and effort on why things went wrong isn’t their style.

4. They like to be challenged. Their priority is handling a situation quickly and effectively, and if other people have a solution—even if it differs from their own—they want to hear it. They relish people who cause them to consider alternatives or defend their position.

5. They’re curious. You can’t solve problems without knowledge. Processors are always learning more about their business and how it works. They love critical details as much as big ideas.

6. They prevent more problems than they solve. People who are really good at processing issues are also really good at spotting yellow flags before they turn red.

7. They make great negotiators. Curious problem solvers use logic to find a win for all parties involved.

8. They’re more interested in permanently solving a problem than putting a Band-Aid on it.

let the team have a collaborative debate on the topic. The stronger the debate, the closer we get to the best decision. Listen instead of arguing. Remain curious.

This is the key to entrepreneurial success. Make processing best practices part of your company culture, and this ability will seep into the heads of your people, who will get better and better at using it.

Over a lifetime, success in business (whether as an entrepreneur, as an intrapreneur, or in any career choice) requires a particular mindset, an aggressive and unyielding approach to solving problems. The best strategy is to hone your ability to process issues.

Five Questions to Ask to Identify the Real Issue

1. Do I know what the real issue is, or am I looking at a symptom?

2. Does the team have the data regarding the real issue?

3. Is the issue real, or is it an assumption or someone else’s opinion?

4. Is there a tangible issue, or is it simply a hurt ego?

5. Am I thinking emotionally or logically?

Only two kinds of events will require you to make decisions:

1. Offense. The opportunity to make money or advance your business or career. The choices here often revolve around growth, expansion, marketing, and sales.

2. Defense. The opportunity to solve a problem, to stop losing money, or to stop moving backward in some way. The choices here frequently involve legal matters such as compliance and protection against competitors or market corrections.

MASTER BUILDING THE RIGHT TEAM

Think about these three questions:

1. What benefits are you currently offering to others?

2. In what way do people improve by associating with you?

3. How many lives have you changed positively in the past year?

Once you have a track record of people you have enriched, you can start attracting people to your team

A Trusted Adviser

1. Is skilled at processing issues, able to think many moves ahead

2. Has values similar to yours but a different temperament (is strong where you are weak)

3. Is calm under pressure

4. Is not afraid to challenge you and point out your blind spots

5. Is loyal, with no personal agenda

What You Must Recognize in Order to Retain Talent

People want to be compensated properly for their efforts.
Outstanding performers want to participate in the success of the company.
People want to know that they’re part of an organization that’s making an impact.
People want to be recognized in front of their peers for the work that they do.
People want to know that there’s an opportunity for them to grow within the company.

People want to be judged based on a clear set of expectations given to them without the goalposts constantly changing.

What We Stand For as a Family
Lead—because it will be necessary in every situation you face
Respect—because everyone has something to teach you
Improve—because that’s how you know everything will work out
Love—because everyone is dealing with a challenge in life

Our Core Values

Courage. Not being afraid to challenge others
Wisdom. Making the right choices
Tolerance. Knowing that we’re dealing with human beings, who change all the time
Understanding. Appreciating and respecting that everyone has different ideas and values

The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts by Gary Chapman. It’s phenomenal. The five love languages are the ways in which we give and receive love. They are:

Quality Time,
Words of Affirmation,
Gifts,
Acts of Service, and
Physical Touch.

In the above example, the man spoke the language of gifts when, all along, his wife had been telling him that she preferred quality time.

MASTER STRATEGY TO SCALE

To Improve Your Employees’ Performance, Apply Pressure to the Point of Desensitization

Seven Ways to Hold People Accountable

1. Don’t be afraid to hold people accountable and call them out when they don’t keep their word.

2. Ask why, and stay silent long enough to listen to their answers

3. Make specific quantitative statements, not blanket qualitative ones.

4. Provide clear metrics and specify clear incentives.

5. Coach your people through the workflow

6. Know the role each person plays on the team

7. Finish with heart and empathy.

Four Ways to Accelerate

Functioning speed
Processing speed
Expansion speed
Timing speed

A Seven-Step System to Compress Time Frames

Choose a process
List the steps of the process
Minimize the steps
Beta test the new process
Adapt the process
Refine

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.

—Sherlock Holmes

MASTER POWER PLAYS

A Dozen Ways to Beat Goliath
Know your weakness
Know Goliath's weakness
Master three things you do better
Don't try to be Goliath
Focus on specializing
When you are small, make yourself appear bigger
Keep a low profile initially
Move quickly
Partner with competitors that share on the enemy
Study history
Let other competitive wear your opponents down
Don't disclose every aspect of your strategy

Seven Essential Steps to Prepare for a Meeting

1. Consider the other party’s needs, desires, and frustrations. Remember that what motivates most people is fear, greed, and saving face.

2. Anticipate what the other party will say.

3. Develop a script/outline for what you want to say.

4. Role-play the meeting several times in order to be prepared for different reactions.

5. Ask trusted advisers to point out your blind spots.

6. Put yourself into the best possible frame of mind before the meeting.

7. Build a reputation for overdelivering on your product.

The key to getting in the 1 percent is continually investing in learning and growth.

The Formula for Gaining Power

Outwork. It’s critical to put in the time. But hard work alone won’t be enough.

Outimprove. This constantly gives you new ways to take your business to the next level. It gives you confidence. If there was an area I was always obsessed with competing in, it was improving faster than my peers.

Outstrategize. This means thinking five moves ahead. It means figuring out how to scale and having the patience to plan many moves ahead before they bear fruit.

Outlast. You really learn about people both when you achieve great success and when you suffer tragic failure. It’s hard to know who will keep going. To outlast, you need endurance, which comes from making choices that keep you alert and focused on the game.

VNTHOMAS

December 13, 2020

Your Next Five Moves by Patrick Bet-David

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