Show Notes:

4:44 – Focusing on what matters. [Jay Papasan] “If you’re doing the one thing that really drives your business forward, that’s going to create and increase reward, which should allow you to hire help.”

6:00 – Quality over quantity. [Jay Papasan] “Nobody’s going to get a raise in their law firm for having perfect attendance on every Zoom call. When they knock it out of the park doing their primary job, those are the people that get moved forward.”

6:24 – Developing good habits. [Jay Papasan] “Discipline is training yourself to do something until it’s automatic.”

8:27 – People fall in line with you. [Jay Papasan] “You train yourself, and then the world gets trained too.”

15:01 – Making time for the things that matter most. [Jay Papasan] “Understand that there’s work, and there’s your personal life. In your personal life, if you leave things unattended for too long, they may not be waiting when you get back. In business, you can focus on multiple things, but delegate some of them or let them wait until the most important thing is done.”

17:41 – Ensuring your company’s success. [Horst Schulze] “No matter what business you’re in, you have to understand what the customer expects from your product. You also have to make sure that your employee totally understands what your customer wants from you. As managers, you create systems, processes, measurements, and controls to make sure that delivery happens.”

18:44 – The secret to lifelong clients. [Horst Schulze] “The real driver of customer loyalty is the service delivery. 70 percent of the market would be willing to pay more for the same product if the service is excellent.”

19:45 – Four steps every great company does. [Horst Schulze] “1) Concentrates on keeping the customers it already has. 2) Finds new ones. 3) Gets as much money from the customers as they can without losing them. 4) Does it all efficiently.”

22:05 – The secret to pleasing customers. [Horst Schulze] “To keep guests happy, you must look them in the eye and listen attentively. Show empathy. Apologize. Make amends. Finally, delight them.”

28:13 – Separating the good from the great. [Sara Williams] “The thing that differentiates a good trial lawyer from a great trial lawyer is the willingness to do things and try cases in a way that goes against the grain of the way that we’ve been trained.”

28:45 – What law school doesn’t teach you. [Sara Williams] “Most law schools do not prepare you to be a regular person and talk to people as you were before you became a lawyer. I think people who try cases tend to talk at jurors instead of talk with jurors. Those who flip the switch from good to great really know themselves, figure out who they are, and then they are themselves in front of a jury.”

31:58 – The importance of being yourself. [Sara Williams] “If I can’t get to know the real you, then I’m hesitant to hire you. If a jury thinks that you aren’t being authentic, then they can’t connect with you.”

32:55 – Women’s greatest disservice. [Sara Williams] “I think the idea that women professionals are not confident is a myth…As girls, what we learn growing up is that the outward display of confidence is wrong. You see a confident woman walk in and think, ‘Who does she think she is?’…We’re not encouraged to brag about ourselves.”

36:28 – Seeking out your niche. [Sara Williams] “You have to find your thing, but that takes work and it takes looking within, not outside of yourself.”

45:41 – Regimes and patterns. [Jessica Mogill] “Routines are really important. Whether it’s daily routines or vacation routines, you have to set time aside for yourselves.”

47:15 – Professional and personal lives don’t mix. [Jessica Mogill] “People had no idea for months that [Michael and I] were together because that separation and that professionalism has to be there. That’s something I’ve always been wary about, having trained so many other offices. If the significant other was involved in the practice, I’ve seen it go both ways. I’ve always made a very conscious effort to not just be ‘Michael’s wife.’ [Michael is] harder on me than anyone at Crisp.”

48:51 – Always be on the same page. [Jessica Mogill] “Alignment from the very beginning could not be more important.”

50:52 – Working together while being married is not for the faint of heart. [Jessica Mogill] “When there’s feedback, there’s feedback — and it can’t be taken personally.”

53:51 – Give it your all, no matter the job. [Eric Thomas] “I worked at McDonald’s five, six days a week. We only took a break to clean up. I went in at 5 PM, and I would try to be the best burger flipper on staff, because if I wasn’t, they would give my shift to someone else. I came from a place where I learned to do everything by myself. I wanted to make sure that nobody could outwork me, nobody could flip burgers, make a filet-o-fish, or dump fries better than me. That’s where I picked up my work ethic.”

57:03 – The power of doing well. [Eric Thomas] “I was solving problems. I realized the world was treating me a lot [differently] as a problem-solver than someone who created problems.”

58:08 – A new kind of craving. [Eric Thomas] “Success started to taste good. I started to develop an insatiable desire to succeed and explore and discover.”

1:01:13 – Tenacity is more important than upbringing. [Eric Thomas] “It doesn’t matter if you’re poor, middle class, or rich. I truly believe that the difference between humans is how bad they want it.”

1:07:50 – Know when it’s time to cut the cord. [Brian Chase] “Hire fast and fire faster. I don’t mean that in a negative way, because I know it sounds really brutal. But you’re not doing anybody any favors by trying to make them better at a job they just aren’t good at.”

1:11:25 The thrill doesn’t stop. [Brian Chase] “Now that I’m getting older, [reaching my goals] is every bit as fun, and in some ways even more exciting, because now I have to pack it all in.”

1:12:44 – Don’t worry. Be happy. [Brian Chase] “If you’re not happy, both professionally and personally, then you’re not successful.”

1:14:45 – Control the things you can. [Ryan Holiday] “The idea of Stoicism as a philosophy is basically rooted around this idea that we don’t control what happens, but we do control how we respond. What I love about the Stoics and why I believe they remain relevant today is that they weren’t necessarily known for their brilliant writing or their beautiful writing — they were known for what they actually did in their lives.”

1:16:06 – Stay cool as a cucumber. [Ryan Holiday] “Often what happens under pressure, under difficulty, or under stress is we lock up. We lose our heads and our confidence. While this is understandable, it makes the problem worse.”

1:17:10 – Getting rid of useless emotions. [Ryan Holiday] “People think that Stoicism is the absence of emotions, because that’s basically what the word means. I think what the Stoics are really focused on is destructive emotions. Does this emotion make it better or worse?”

1:19:55 – Becoming your highest self. [Ryan Holiday] “We take action, but it’s not just action at the expense of other people to the benefit of one’s self.”

1:26:40 – Relatability is key. [Marcus Lemonis] “You can’t be in a business and sell a product or service that people don’t need or can’t relate to.”

1:28:28 – Learning major business principles from lemonade stands. [Marcus Lemonis] “If we don’t engage with a person selling lemonade, and we don’t buy off on why we’re buying it from them, or don’t have a relationship with them, we won’t buy their lemonade.”

1:31:08 – Not so different after all. [Marcus Lemonis] “The principles behind running a coffee shop and running a seven billon dollar business are ultimately the same.”

1:33:50 – Recruiting is everything. [Marcus Lemonis] “I wake up every day and wonder where I’m going to find the next great talent.”

1:37:40 – Leadership is the end and the beginning. [John Maxwell] “Everything rises and falls on leadership.”

1:38:45 – Those in charge must abide by the same rules. [John Maxwell] “The moment that leadership begins to be for me and not for you is when leaders start manipulating you. That’s moving people for personal advantage, and of course that’s always wrong.”

1:41:05 – Keeping the spark alive. [John Maxwell] “The reason I’m so excited about working is because I’m anticipating that I’m going to help people. When we begin to lose the joy of the journey, our whole leadership begins to fall.”

1:44:26 – Finding the root of the problem. [John Maxwell] “If you fix the leader, you fix the organization.”

1:50:35 – There’s value in every step. [John Maxwell] “The value of failure is to learn, and the value of learning is to improve, and the value of improving is that you get to re-enter back into the organization at a higher level than you’ve ever been, and thus the cycle continues.”

EPISODE RESOURCES & REFERENCES
Jay Papasan
Horst Schulze
Sara Williams
Jessica Mogill
Eric Thomas
Brian Chase
Ryan Holiday
Marcus Lemonis
John Maxwell
Camping World
Michigan State
Michigan University
Crisp
The Ritz-Carlton
The One Thing by Jay Papasan
Jefferson County, AL
Beyoncé
Stoicism
McDonald’s