Show Notes:

Take ownership. “If I were to fail, and if everything were to go down to zero, I would much rather have that be because of my decision-making and my fault than to be as a result of everyone else’s decision-making. I think that’s one of the reasons why you start a business — because everything is your fault.”

Indecisiveness is weakness. “Decision-making, to me, is about speed. It’s not about trying to be perfect, because the people doing that are the ultimate procrastinators. They use this as a shield because they don’t think it’s perfect yet, so they hide behind it.”

Beware of the mouth-breathers. “They’re the ones who have the grandiose ideas or all of the ambition, but they don’t actually get things done. I have found that if you surround yourself with these bullsh*t artists, you will have a lifetime of frustration because nothing will get off the ground. Alternatively, if you surround yourself with people who just like to get things done, the discussions become more centered around accountability and much more productive in general.”

Success begins with you. “If you’re looking for ways to destroy your own business, one way to do it is by being an absentee owner. If you don’t want to be there and aren’t passionate about what you’re trying to do, how can you expect your people to be? I don’t understand that.”

Patience is a virtue — except when it isn’t. “Patience is important, but a lack of patience is important when it comes to daily efforts and maintaining a sense of positive energy. Putting off something for a day becomes a week, becomes a month, becomes a year. Then you look back on that year and search for your wins. Where are the areas for growth? What were the learning lessons? Are you satisfied with the progress that you’ve made?”

Decisions, decisions, decisions. “You can decide how you’re going to lead your life. You can decide what role you want to play, where you want to live, who you want to marry — you get to make all of these decisions. If the situation you find yourself in isn’t what you want, then change it. As one of our waiters in Barcelona said, ‘If you don’t like, change.’”

Learning life’s toughest lessons. “My regret is that I didn’t have a mentor sooner. I thought I knew it all and didn’t need help, and then I had failure after failure after failure. The more that I thought I knew, the less I understood, and it created this level of false confidence where it created a very painful life for me because things weren’t going my way. I wouldn’t have money, good relationships, consistency, or predictability — I just had bad things happen to me. I made the wrong decision every single time, and I had to learn that the hard way.”

Children need parents, not friends. “Either you raise your kids or the world will. How do we do that with our girls? For me, it starts with being present and the way we conduct ourselves around them. They look up to us and see how we behave. What kind of standard will we set? I’m not interested in being the friend of Mila or Misha — and that pains me, because I want them to like me — but I feel a greater responsibility of being their parent.”

No silver spoons around here. “You’ve got to be persistent and relentless. I don’t know if there’s anybody in this world who thinks that things are just going to be given to you, short of being born as a trust fund kid. People aren’t going to go out of their way to make life easy for you. You’re going to have to take the agency over yourself and your own decisions and make it happen.”

Why honesty is the best policy. “If you shed yourself of all of your secrets and anything that you’re keeping from anybody and do it right, you won’t have anything to hide. It’s amazing. So when we were building Crisp, I knew we had to do it right. Your reputation is everything, so if you use somebody the wrong way, that’s going to spread to a hundred, maybe even a thousand or more people.”

Team first. “We can’t get to where we’re going without a great team and great people within our organization.”

Take advantage of good fortune. “I’m very lucky that I had certain people come into my life at certain times. I’m lucky that I finally decided to humble myself and take advice and feedback from other people and use it to do better and improve myself. If I had continued to have that mindset of digging my heels in the sand, I’d be broke as hell and back in that apartment from 2012.”

The past, the present, and the future of Crisp. “Everything that came before, that was experience building our platform. Now we have that platform, and now we’re going to do some damage (in a good way). Now we’re going to make some lawyers really dangerous in their markets. If you work with Crisp, you will be the most competitive firm in your market — and that’s going to be terrifying to any competitor.”

What does it mean to be a game changer? “A game changer is someone who is true to their values and operates at a manner of integrity and is so committed to what they’re doing that they don’t let anything stand in their way.”

EPISODE RESOURCES & REFERENCES
Crisp
Michael Mogill
Jessica Mogill
Amazon
Jeff Bezos
Game Changers Summit
Mexico
Barcelona, Spain
Taco Bell